Saveable

The following are links to Reformed and Puritan theologians who taught, in a sense, the saveability of all men.

• Henry Scudder’s Dualistic View of Christ’s Death
• Mitchell and Struthers on the Westminster Debates on Redemption
• Edmund Calamy as Recorded in the Minutes of the Westminster Assembly
• More from Jonathan Edwards on Redemption
• Experience Mayhew’s Dualism and Appeal to Twisse
• Stephen Lobb on Christ’s Sufferings
• Edward Pearse on Christ’s Offers of Grace and Loving Invitations
• Richard Vines on God’s Drawing and Christ’s Atonement
• Robert Jenison on the Death of Christ and God’s Will
• Nathaniel Vincent on the Possible Salvation of the Reprobate Drawn from the Son’s Incarnation
• Nathanael Homes on Christ’s Universal Satisfaction
• Charles Hodge on John 3:16 and the Design of God to Render the Salvation of All Men Possible
• Benjamin Andrews Atkinson on God’s Good-Will for All Men
• John Preston on Christ’s Sufficiency
• William Burkitt on Christ’s Sufficient Propitiation
• John Davenant and William Twisse on the Salvability of the Non-Elect
• John Corbet on the Salvability of All Men
• William Fenner on the Salvability of Mankind
• Thomas Watson on the Possibility of Salvation
• Nicolas Bernard Describing James Ussher’s View on Universal Redemption
• Samuel Willard on the Conscience of the Damned Remembering the Day of Grace
• Richard Maden’s Moderate Calvinism
• Richard Maden on the Will of God Touching Man’s Salvation
• Jonathan Edwards on Christ Seeking the Salvation of the Wicked
• Thomas Ball on the Discussion Between John Preston and Francis White on Redemption
• Nathanael Ball on Despising Christ’s Offers and Messages of Love
• Nathanael Ball Referencing 2 Peter 3:9
• William Whittaker on Slighting God’s Glorious Inheritance
• William Strong on the Motions of the Spirit, Offers of Grace, and Kneeling Mercy
• Richard Alleine on the Lord’s Wish for the Salvation of the Lost
• Jonathan Edwards on the Possibility of Salvation
• Joseph Hacon on the Extent and Intent of Christ’s Death
• George Newton on the Sin of Unbelief, the Father Begging, and the Son’s Death for Mankind
• Daniel Rogers on God’s Well-Meaning and Loving Offer of Grace
• Ezekiel Hopkins on the Saveability of All Men by the All-Sufficient Death of Christ

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Notes:

1. Feb. 20, 2019: Because of what the Puritan John Flavel (c.1630–1691) said about the impossibility of salvation in The Method of Grace (London: Printed by M. White, for Francis Tyton, 1681) on pages 78, 144, 82, 393, 394, and 444, one might think that he denied that the unregenerate (or the unregenerate non-elect) in this world are saveable. However, when one examines the context, he is talking about a moral impossibility in the sinner, or in all of the unregenerate as such (including the elect unregenerate), due to the hostility of their own hearts considered apart from the Father’s efficacious drawing power. This is standard Puritan teaching. When Flavel spoke of the “natural impossibility” of the salvation of some on page 82 in The Method of Grace, he is clearly referring to the Satanic impediments in the sense of “our own carnal reason as it is armed and managed by the subtilty of Satan.” By “natural,” then, in this instance, he’s referring to our own natures, in a moral sense, as they are cooperating with Satanic influence, not “natural” in the sense of physical or ontological barriers. Moreover, Flavel clearly taught the saveability of all men while they live in this world (based on the all-sufficiency of Christ) in the following works: The Method of Grace (London: Printed by M. White, for Francis Tyton, 1681), 307 (“There is yet a possibility of escaping the wrath to come: a door of hope opened to the worst of sinners: a day of grace is afforded to the Children of men, Heb. 3:15. God declares himself unwilling that any should perish, 2 Pet. 3:9. O what a mercy is this!”); The Fountain of Life Opened (London: Printed for Rob. White, for Francis Tyton, 1673), 350; The Reasonableness of Personal Reformation, and the Necessity of Conversion (London: printed for Thomas Cockerill, 1691), 122, 123, 126, 128, 129; Navigation spiritualiz'd (London: Printed for M. Fabian in Mercers Chappel at the lower end of Cheapside, 1698), 71, 72, and 75.

2. October 31, 2022: “While the value of the atonement was sufficient to save all mankind, it was efficient to save only the elect. It is indifferently well adapted to the salvation of one man to that of another, thus making the salvation of every man objectively possible; yet because of subjective difficulties, arising on account of the sinners own inability either to see or appreciate the things of God, only those are saved who are regenerated and sanctified by the Holy Spirit. The reason why God does not apply this grace to all men has not been fully revealed.”—Loraine Boettner, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1936), 152.

3. “It is said, Jude vers. 5. that the Lord having saved the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not: there was a land of Canaan, a land of promise, and of rest offered to them, and the Lord had made way for them to enter in and possess it; he had saved them out of the land of Egypt, and brought them near the borders of Canaan; but this did no whit avail those among them that were unbelieving and disobedient; they were destroyed, their Carcasses fell in the wilderness, they perished in their sins: this I take to be a Type of the condition of secure, unbelieving, impenitent persons under the Gospel: there is salvation wrought; Jesus Christ came into the world to save; a way is open to the Heavenly Canaan, to that eternal rest prepared for the people of God: the fiery pillar, the light of the Gospel is in sight, shewing the way to the Kingdom of Heaven; but when men and women do carelessly neglect it, this their condition is worse than if there had never been any possibility of salvation; Better it had been they had died in Egypt, than at the borders of Canaan: better, never in any degree to be saved, than to be once saved, and afterward to be destroyed; utter destruction after some beginnings of salvation, is worse than no kind of salvation at all…”—William Gearing, A PROSPECT OF HEAVEN: OR, A TREATISE OF THE Happiness of the Saints in Glory […] (London, Printed for Tho. Passenger , and Benj. Hurlock at the three Bibles on London-Bridge, and over against St. Magnus Church, 1673), 363.