Edmund Calamy (1600–1666) on the General and Special Love of God

Love, as attributed unto God, is not a quality; as it is in man, but an effect of free grace, and it is either more generall or more speciall: Of the more generall Love of God towards man, we read in Mar. 10.21. where it is said, of the young man that came to Christ; That Jesus beholding him, loved him. Of the more speciall Love of God towards some, we read Jerem. 31.3 2 Thes. 2.16. John 13.1.

The more generall, or common Love of God, is manifested in, and by his common gifts and dispensations, such as the young man that came to Christ was indued with (to wit) great place in the World, great possessions, morall righteousnesse, desire of, and indeavour after eternall life, with the injoyment of temporall felicity, and predominate corruption.

But the more speciall Love of God towards man, is manifested in, and by his Fatherly chastisements and scourgings, as this Text tells us, Whom the Lord loveth, he chastiseth, &c, whom the Lord loveth after a speciall manner, he sooner, or later certaily chastiseth; He scourgeth every sonne whom he receiveth unto glory.

Edmund Calamy, Evidence for Heaven (London: Printed for Simon Millerat the Star in Pauls Church-yard toward the West end, 1657), 163–64.

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Increase Mather (1639–1723) on Common and Special Grace

There is the common Grace of God, all Creatures are the subjects of that. Psal. 145.9. The Lord is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works. He does good to all: there is common Grace which all the worlds of God are the subjects of; but then there is also Special Grace that the Elect of God are the subjects of, and this is the Grace that brings Salvation. Psal. 106.4. Remember me, O Lord, with the favour that thou bearest unto thy people, O visit me with thy salvation. Thus we see what is intended by Grace: It is the free favour of God which He is pleased to manifest to His People, tho' they deserve it not.

Increase Mather, "A Dying Testimony to the Sovereign Grace of God in the Salvation of His Elect," in Five Sermons on Several Subjects (Boston: Printed by B. Greene, 1719), 37.

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Richard Muller on the Problem of TULIP

The following is an extract from Muller's paper on the question “Was Calvin a Calvinist? Or, Did Calvin (or Anyone Else in the Early Modern Era) Plant the ‘TULIP’?” He also reads this section, with a few modifications, in his recent audio lecture at Westminster Seminary.

1. The Problem of TULIP. By way of addressing these issues, we should note first and foremost the problem of TULIP itself — an acrostic that has caused much trouble for the Reformed tradition and has contributed greatly to the confusion about Calvin and Calvinism. (I don’t plan to tiptoe through this issue.) It is really quite odd and a-historical to associate a particular document written in the Netherlands in 1618-19 with the whole of Calvinism and then to reduce its meaning to TULIP. Many of you here know that the word is actually “tulp.” “Tulip” isn’t Dutch — sometimes I wonder whether Arminius was just trying to correct someone’s spelling when he was accused of omitting that “i” for irresistible grace. More seriously, there is no historical association between the acrostic TULIP and the Canons of Dort. As far as we know, both the acrostic and the associated usage of “five points of Calvinism” are of Anglo-American origin and do not date back before the nineteenth century.[15] It is remarkable how quickly bad ideas catch on. When, therefore, the question of Calvin’s relationship to Calvinism is reduced to this popular floral meditation — did Calvin teach TULIP? — any answer will be grounded on a misrepresentation. Calvin himself, certainly never thought of this model, but neither did later so-called Calvinists. Or, to make the point in another way, Calvin and his fellow Reformers held to doctrines that stand in clear continuity with the Canons of Dort, but neither Calvin nor his fellow Reformers, nor the authors of the Canons, would have reduced their confessional position to TULIP.

In fact, it is quite remarkable how little the acrostic has to do with Calvin or Calvinism, as is most evident in the cases of the “T” and the “L.” I don’t think Calvin ever uttered a phrase that easily translates as “total depravity.” He certainly never spoke of “limited atonement.” Neither term appears in the Canons of Dort, nor is either one of these terms characteristic of the language of Reformed or Calvinistic orthodoxy in the seventeenth century. Like the TULIP itself, the terms are Anglo-American creations of fairly recent vintage. “Total depravity,” at least as understood in colloquial English, is so utterly grizzly a concept as to apply only to the theology of the Lutheran, Matthias Flacius Illyricus who an almost dualistic understanding of human nature before and after the fall, arguing the utter replacement of the imago Dei with the imago Satanae and indicating that the very substance of fallen humanity was sin. Neither Calvin not later Reformed thinkers went in this direction and, to the credit of the Lutherans, they repudiated this kind of language in the Formula of Concord. What is actually at issue, hidden under the term “total depravity” is not the utter absence of any sort of goodness but the inability to save one’s self from sin.

The question of the “L” in TULIP, of “limited” versus “universal atonement,” also looms large in the debate over whether or not Calvin was a Calvinist. This question, too, arises out of a series of modern confusions, rooted, it seems to me, in the application of a highly vague and anachronistic language to a sixteenth- and seventeenth-century issue. Simply stated, neither Calvin, nor Beza, nor the Canons of Dort, nor any of the orthodox Reformed thinkers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries mention limited atonement — and insofar as they did not mention it, they hardly could have taught the doctrine. (Atonement, after all is an English term, and nearly all of this older theology was written in Latin.) To make the point a bit less bluntly and with more attention to the historical materials, the question debated in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, concerned the meaning of those biblical passages in which Christ is said to have paid a ransom for all or God is said to will the salvation of all or of the whole world, given the large number of biblical passages that indicate a limitation of salvation to some, namely, to the elect or believers. This is an old question, belonging to the patristic and medieval church as well as to the early modern Reformed and, since the time of Peter Lombard, had been discussed in terms of the sufficiency and efficiency of Christ’s satisfaction in relation to the universality of the preaching of redemption.

The question at issue between Calvin and the later Reformed does not entail any debate over the value or merit of Christ’s death: virtually all were agreed that it was sufficient to pay the price for the sins of the whole world. Neither was the question at issue whether all human beings would actually be saved: all (including Arminius) were agreed that this was not to be the case. To make the point another way, if “atonement” is taken to mean the value or sufficiency of Christ’s death, no one taught limited atonement — and if atonement is taken to mean the actual salvation accomplished in particular persons, then no one taught unlimited atonement (except perhaps the much-reviled Samuel Huber).

Historically, framed in language understandable in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, there were two questions to be answered. First, the question posed by Arminius and answered at Dort: given the sufficiency of Christ’s death to pay the price for all sin, how ought one to understand the limitation of its efficacy to some? In Arminius’ view, the efficacy was limited by the choice of some persons to believe, others not to believe, and predestination was grounded in a divine foreknowledge of the choice. In the view of the Synod of Dort, the efficacy was limited according to the assumption of salvation by grace alone, to God’s elect. Calvin was quite clear on the point: the application or efficacy of Christ’s death was limited to the elect. And in this conclusion there was also accord among the later Reformed theologians.

Second, there was the question implied in variations of formulation among sixteenth-century Reformed writers and explicitly argued in a series of seventeenth century debates following the Synod of Dort, namely, whether the value of Christ’s death was hypothetically universal in efficacy. More simply put, was the value of Christ’s death such that, it would be sufficient for all sin if God had so intended — or was the value of Christ’s death such that if all would believe all would be saved. On this very specific question Calvin is, arguably, silent. He did not often mention the traditional sufficiency-efficiency formula; and he did not address the issue, posed by Amyraut, of a hypothetical or conditional decree of salvation for all who would believe, prior to the absolute decree to save the elect. He did frequently state, without further modification, that Christ expiated the sins of the world and that this “favor” is extended “indiscriminately to the whole human race.” Various of the later Reformed appealed to Calvin on both sides of the debate. (Only a very few writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth century argued that Christ’s death was sufficient payment only for the sins of the elect.) Later Reformed theology, then, is more specific on this particular point than Calvin had been — and arguably, his somewhat vague formulations point (or could be pointed) in several directions, as in fact can the formulae from the Synod of Dort.
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15. See Ken Stewart, “The Points of Calvinism: Retrospect and Prospect,” in Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology, 26/2 (2008), pp. 187-203. There are, of course, many early references to the “five points” or “five articles” in controversy between Reformed and Arminian: e.g., Peter Heylin, Historia quinqu-articularis: or, A declaration of the judgement of the Western Churches, and more particularly of the Church of England, in the five controverted points, reproched in these last times by the name of Arminianism (London: E.C. for Thomas Johnson, 1660); and Daniel Whitby, A Discourse concerning I. The true Import of the Words Election and Reprobation … II. The Extent of Christ’s Redemption. III. The Grace of God … IV. The Liberty of the Will … V. The Perseverance or Defectibility of the Saints. London, 1710; second edition, corrected, London: Aaron Ward, 1735), often referenced as “Whitby on the Five Points” or “Five Arminian Points”: note George Hill, Heads of Lectures in Divinity (St. Andrews: at the University Press, 1796), p. 78. Occurrences of phrases like “five distinguishing points of Calvinism” also occur earlier, referencing the Canons of Dort without, however, specification of the points themselves: see, e.g. Daniel Neal, The History of the Puritans and Non-conformists ... with an account of their principles (London: for J. Buckland, et al., 1754), I, p. 502; Ferdinando Warner, The Ecclesiastical History of England, to the Eighteenth Century (London: s.n., 1756-57), II, p. 509; note also that the editor of Daniel Waterland’s sermons identified justification by faith alone as one of the “five points of Calvinism”: see Waterland, Sermons on Several Important Subjects of Religion and Morality, preface by Joseph Clarke, 2 vols. (London: for W. Innys, 1742), p. xviii.

Later in the paper and lecture, Muller says:

The term “Calvinism,” like the acrostic TULIP, has been, in short, a cause of a series of problems concerning the identity of the Reformed tradition and of Calvin’s relationship to the tradition. Both identifiers are anachronistic and reductionistic. Each of the several meanings of “Calvinism” results in mistaken understandings of the thought of John Calvin and its relation to the Reformed tradition of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Use of the acrostic TULIP has resulted in a narrow, if not erroneous, reading of the Canons of Dort that has led to confused understandings of the Reformed tradition and of Calvin’s theology.

....if you must, “gather ye rosebuds while ye may,” but don’t plant TULIP in your Reformed garden.

This paper was later incorporated into Muller’s book Calvin and the Reformed Tradition: On the Work of Christ and the Order of Salvation (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2012), 51–69, see esp. 58ff.

Some Important Moderate Calvinist Writings

First there is James Ussher. One should first read his The True Intent and Extent of Christ’s Death and Satisfaction Upon the Cross, and then his An Answer of the Archbishop of Armagh to Some Exceptions Taken Against His Aforesaid Letter. The student would do well to start here.

Then there is John Davenant’s very important work A Dissertation on the Death of Christ, As To Its Extent and Special Benefits. It’s contained in volume 2 of his exposition on the book of Colossians. See also Michael Lynch’s excellent and improved translation of this work (John Davenant, On the Death of Christ and Other Atonement Writings, trans. Michael J. Lynch [Landrum, SC: Davenant Institute, 2024]) and his important doctoral dissertation on John Davenant’s Hypothetical Universalism: A Defense of Catholic and Reformed Orthodoxy.

Edward Polhill’s Essay on the Extent of the Death of Christ (extracted from his treatise on The Divine Will Considered in It’s Eternal Decrees, and Holy Execution of Them [2]) is also important reading. It counts as both a reaction against Owenism and against Arminianism.

Richard Baxter’s work on the Universal Redemption of Mankind by the Lord Jesus Christ (or here for a recent edition) should be read as well. His work does have some problems, though, and it’s not organized very well. It doesn’t surprise me that it has not been reprinted. Nevertheless, it is important, even as a response to John Owen’s Death of Death from a moderate Calvinistic perspective. In addition to his above work, one could also read this brief extract from his Catholick Theologie on “Of Universal Redemption.” For more from a Baxterian perspective, these extracts from John Humfrey’s Peace at Pinners-Hall Wish’d and Attempted in a Pacifick Paper Touching The Universality of Redemption, the Conditionality of the Covenant of Grace, and our Freedom from the Law of Works and The Middle-Way in One Paper of Election & Redemption, as well as from his Free Thoughts are worthwhile. William Lorimer is an example of another Baxterian.

Note: The above writings by Ussher, Davenant, Polhill, and Baxter should not be considered “Amyraldism,” as they did not depend upon Amyraut, though there are definite conceptual similarities and shared historical reliance on earlier thinkers (i.e., early church fathers and early Reformers). Modern Reformed historiography, such as in Richard Muller’s recent lectures and writings (as well as Jonathan Moore’s work on John Preston), has shown that the moderate English variety of so-called Hypothetical Universalism (originally a pejorative label) is distinct from the Saumur variety, and existed prior to Amyraut, even going back to early Reformers such as Musculus, Bullinger, Ursinus, and others. With that said, if one wants to learn about the Amyraldian variety of moderate Calvinism, see the writings listed here (click).

One can consult sections from books that can be found here:

http://theologicalmeditations.blogspot.com/p/the-atonement.html

And here:

http://calvinandcalvinism.com/?page_id=8466

If one wants a modern book written from a classic-moderate perspective on the extent of the atonement, then I would recommend the following:

Norman F. Douty, Did Christ Die Only for the Elect? A Treatise on the Extent of Christ’s Atonement (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1998). 

Jeremiah Burroughs (c.1600–1646) on God Begging

This Westminster divine wrote:

Sixth encouragement may be, He sends his Ambassadors to woo you to come in, and tells them they shall not take a denial at your hands, 2 Cor. 5. 20. They entreat and beg as in his Name, nay it is the beseechings and entreatings of God himself, as if a King should send one of the Attendants on him to a poor condemned Prisoner, and say, Go tell such a one that he must come for his pardon, and tell him, I beseech him, and take no denial of him, I beseech him to come in; would not this manifest the great willingness of the King to pardon; God does so, he sends his Ministers and beseeches you to come in and take a pardon; 'tis as certain God speaks thus by his Ministers, as if you heard God speaking by himself, this should move you to come in, Christ begs and entreats you to be reconciled, that his blood might not be shed in vain: seeing it is so, that God begs of thee to come in, why shouldest not thou come in, and take pardon of thy sin, Why cans't not thou come in and give up thy self and all thou hast and are to him?

Jeremiah Burroughs, Gospel Remission, Or a Treatise shewing that True Blessedness Consists in Parton of Sin (London: Printed for Dor. Newman, and are to be sold at his Shop at the Kings Arms in the Poultry, 1674), 216-217. [Some of the spelling has been updated]

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Burroughs is one among many sovereign grace advocates that I have documented who have used this begging metaphor. The other names include Augustine, Hugh Latimer, Samuel Rutherford [Westminster divine], Thomas Manton, John Trapp, Sydrach Simpson [Westminster divine], Robert Harris [Westminster divine], Theophilus Gale, Isaac Ambrose, Stephen Charnock, John Flavel, Richard Sibbes, John Shower, William Gurnall, George Swinnock, Ralph Venning, Daniel Burgess, Samuel Willard, George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, Solomon Stoddard, Samuel Davies, Andrew Gray, Ralph Erskine, Charles Spurgeon, Thomas Chalmers, Walter Chantry, Erroll Hulse and John MacArthur.

Anthony Hoekema on “Irresistible Grace” and a Criticism of TULIP

It is commonly said that Calvinists believe in "irresistible grace." This expression is, in fact, part of the "TULIP" acronym, which stands for the so-called "Five Points of Calvinism": Total depravity, Unconditional election, Limited atonement, Irresistible grace, and Perseverance of the saints.²² The term "irresistible grace" conveys an important biblical truth. As we saw, regeneration is monergistic and not synergistic. It is not a work in which God and man cooperate, but it is the work of God alone. All that was said about the natural state of fallen human beings, about effectual calling, and about the way in which God regenerates his people supports the affirmation that the grace which regenerates us is indeed irresistible.

Objections, however, have been raised against the use of the expression "irresistible grace." The first objection is that this term suggests a kind of overpowering domination on God's part, giving the impression that God violates our wills and deals with us as if we were things instead of persons. A second objection is the contention that God's grace may indeed sometimes be resisted--does not the Bible speak of those who resisted the Holy Spirit (Acts 7:51)?

These objections, however, can be answered. I dealt with the first objection earlier, in connection with effectual calling.²³ In reply to the contention that God violates our wills in regeneration, we may say that since we are by nature dead in sin, our wills need to be renewed so that we may again serve God as we should. God's action in regenerating us, therefore, is no more a violation of our wills than is the artificial respiration applied to a person whose breathing has stopped. Herman Bavinck has put it well: God's [effectual] calling "is so powerful that it cannot be conquered, and yet so loving that it excludes all force."²⁴ Or listen to C. S. Lewis: "The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and his compulsion is our liberation."²⁵

In connection with the second objection, it should be noted that the expression "irresistible grace" did not originate with the Calvinists. It was the Remonstrants (or Arminians) at the Synod of Dort (1618–19) who used this expression, which they had gotten from the Jesuits, to characterize the Reformed position on regeneration.²⁶ Bavinck goes on to say that Reformed theologians did not wish to deny that God's grace was often resisted. Therefore they preferred to speak of "invincible" or "unconquerable" grace, or to say that God's saving grace was "finally irresistible."²⁷ The grace of God may indeed be resisted, but it will not be successfully resisted by those whom God has chosen in Christ to salvation from before the creation of the world. As Cornelius Plantinga aptly says, "Nobody can finally hold out against God's grace. Nobody can outlast Him. Every elect person comes . . . to 'give in and admit that God is God.'"²⁸
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22. For helpful discussions of these five points, together with Scriptural proof, see Edwin H. Palmer, The Five Points of Calvinism (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1972); also David N. Steele and Curtis C. Thomas, The Five Points of Calvinism (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1965).
23. See above, pp. 89–91.
24. Roeping en Wedergeboorte (Kampen: Zalsman, 1903), p. 224.
25. Surprised by Joy (London: Collins, Fontana Books, 1960), p. 183.
26. Bavinck, Dogmatiek, 4:65.
27. Ibid., pp. 65-66.
28. Cornelius Plantinga, Jr., A Place to Stand (Grand Rapids: CRC Publications, 1979), p. 151.

Anthony A. Hoekema, Saved by Grace (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1989), 104–105.

Commenting on this section in Hoekema, particularly the last paragraph, Kenneth Stewart writes:

A fine scholar from this branch of the Reformed family pointed out, for example, in 1989, that the I in TULIP was actually a caricature of the position championed in the Synod of Dordt. Those who derided the Reformed idea of effectual calling or prevailing grace branded it "irresistible."⁵³ This is the kind of inside information that needs circulating. It should change popular Calvinism's use of TULIP.
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53. The "I" of the acronym T-U-L-I-P, far from encapsulating Dordt's intended emphasis, actually relays the protest of the Dutch Remonstrants against early seventeenth-century Calvinism in a way dependent on Jesuit writers of that time. How is it possible that irresistible, a term intended to besmirch and caricature the concept of a grace that eventually prevails over all opposition, has been taken up and championed by those it was meant to portray unfavorably? See Anthony Hoekema, Saved by Grace (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), pp. 104–105.

Kenneth J. Stewart, Ten Myths About Calvinism: Recovering the Breadth of the Reformed Tradition (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2011), 91.

See also A. A. Hodge's criticism of the term.

Joseph Seiss on "the Sorry Fault of the Church of Ephesus"

I immediately thought of some "discernment ministries," apologists, and many others when I read these words by Seiss, due to the way they treat people:

There is such a thing as having and exercising a sharp penetration into the true and the false, a correctness of judgment in sacred things, a zealous and self-sacrificing devotion to the right and true, and an earnest-minded severance from false apostles and all evildoers, and yet being without that warmth and purity of love which is the first impulse in the breast of young disciples, and without which, well cherished and kept in vigorous life, there is unfitness to meet the judgment or to stand in it. And this was the sorry fault of the Church of Ephesus.

Joseph A. Seiss, The Apocalypse: Exposition of the Book of Revelation (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, 1987), 70.

A Brief Comment on God’s Love of Benevolence and Love of Complacency

A friend of mine on Facebook recently posted a picture that included these words:

God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn’t do.

I left this comment:

While this quote says something that is true, it is too simple. As far as God’s “love of benevolence” which He has for all mankind made in His image, no matter what they do or don’t do, the quote is true. However, theologians rightly distinguish this sense of love from God’s “love of complacency,” which concerns God’s love for and delight in those who are obedient. The following passages speak to this second sense of God’s love, such that we may or may not abide in this love:

NKJ John 14:21 “He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.”

NKJ John 14:23 Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.”

NKJ John 15:9–10 9 “As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. 10 If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.”

One can see that this sense of God’s love is conditional, and depends on what we do or don’t do. We can liken these two senses of God’s love to human parents who love all their children no matter what they do or don’t do (“love of benevolence”), but take delight in and have a growing affection (“love of complacency”) for children who are obedient. Considering these two aspects of God’s love allows us to account for the above passages which are conditional, as well as for others that differ, and are unconditional in nature. The distinction is important.

Mark Jones noted:

This view [on love of benevolence and love of complacency, and God loving obedient Christians more and more] is by far the majority position among Reformed divines from the time of the Reformation onward, but today it is hardly ever discussed or preached on in Reformed circles.

Mark Jones, Antinomianism: Reformed Theology’s Unwelcome Guest? (Phillipsburg: NJ: P&R Publishing, 2013), 86.