Edward Leigh (1602–1671) on God’s General and Special Mercy

2. He hath great mercy in him; if God be merciful at all, he must needs be merciful in great measure, yea above all measure, beyond all degrees, in all perfection; for the essence of God is infinite, and his wisdom, power, and mercy are infinite.

There is a mercy of God which extends to all his creatures, Psal. 145:9. Luke 6:35. God is merciful unto all men, but especially to some men whom he hath chosen unto himself.

The special mercy of God is offered unto all within the Church, Ezek. 16.6. Acts 13.40. but is bestowed only upon some, viz. such as receive Christ, John 1.11, 12.

This life is the time of mercy, wherein we obtain pardon for sin; after this life there is no remission or place for repentance.

All blessings Spiritual and Corporeal are the effects of God’s mercy. Common blessings of his general mercy, special blessings of his special mercy.

Edward Leigh, A Treatise of Divinity Consisting of Three Books (London: Printed by E. Griffen for William Lee, and are to be sold at his shop at the Turkes-head in Fleetstreet, neer Ram-alley, 1646), 2:88.

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Note: Richard Muller (in PRRD, 3:579) quoted the above portion from Leigh on divine mercy and said, “These effects of mercy, together with the distinction between general and special mercy, correspond closely with the effects and the formal description of God’s grace, just as they overlap somewhat with the analysis of other divine attributes and affections.” General mercy corresponds to general or common grace (Neh. 9:31).

Richard Muller on the Grace and Patience of God in Reformed Orthodoxy

There is also good ground for concluding that the modern conception of "common grace" finds its root more in the period of Reformed orthodoxy that [sic] in the era of Calvin and his contemporaries, given that many of the orthodox theologians were willing to define the gratia Dei as a bounty or graciousness extending to all creation.⁵²⁶ While God is gracious to all, his grace is particularly bestowed upon those who are his in Christ: "God's free favor is the cause of our salvation, and of all the means tending thereunto, Rom. 3:24 & 5:15, 16; Eph. 1:5, 6, & 24; Rom. 9:16; Titus 3:15, Heb. 4:16; Rom. 6:23; 1 Cor. 12:4, 9. The gospel sets forth the freeness, fulness, and the powerfulness of God's grace to his Church, therefore it is called the Gospel of the grace of God, Acts. 20:24." This grace is such that it is given freely without desert and it is "firm and unchangeable, so that those which are once beloved, can never be rejected, or utterly cast off, Psalm 77:10."⁵²⁷
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526. Cf. Maresius, Collegium theol., II.li; Wendelin, Christianae theologiae libri duo, I.i.22; Leigh, Treatise, II.xi (pp. 83-84); but note Heidanus, Corpus theol., II (p. 162), who reserves gratia for the elect and refers benignitas to all creation. For the modern debate, see Abraham Kuyper, De gemeene gratie, 3 vols. (Leiden: Donnet, 1902); Herman Kuiper, Calvin on Common Grace (Goes: Oosterbaan & Le Cointre, 1928); William Masselink, General Revelation and Common Grace: A Defense of the Historic Reformed Faith (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1953); Richard Arden Couch, "An Evaluation and Reformulation of the Doctrine of Common Grace in the Reformed Tradition" (Th. D. diss., Princeton University, 1959).
527. Leigh, Treatise, II,xi (p. 84).

Richard Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: The Rise and Development of Reformed Orthodoxy, ca. 1520 to ca. 1725 (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003), 3:572.

Related to God's grace are a series of other affections that appear variously in the Reformed orthodox theology--patience, long-suffering, compassion, condescension. Patience and longsuffering are the willingness of God to moderate "his anger toward creatures, and either defers punishment or for a moment withholds his wrath."⁵³²

God is Patient, Psalm 103.8; Job 21:7. God's patience is that whereby he bears the reproach of sinners and defers their punishments; or it is the most bountiful will of God, whereby he doth long bear with sin which he hateth, sparing sinners, not minding their destruction, but that he might bring them to repentance. See Acts 13:18.⁵³³

Even so God both endures "with much longsuffering" the sins of the reprobate and, at the same time, is patient with the elect prior to their conversion, willing their repentance rather than their immediate destruction because of sin.⁵³⁴ It is, thus, "the most bountiful will of God not suffering his displeasure suddenly to rise against his creatures offending, to be avenged of them, but he doth warn them beforehand, lightly correct and seek to turn them unto him."⁵³⁵ The divine compassion, similarly, is the disposition of God to deliver creatures from their misery. It is manifest when "the object of the divine goodness of love [is] involved in misery, such as man who is a sinner and subject to death."⁵³⁶
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532. Wendelin, Christianae theologiae libri duo, I.i.25; Brakel, Redelijke Godsdienst, I.iii.36.
533. Leigh, Body of Divinity, II. xiii (p.299), citing marginally Nahum 1:3 and Isa. 30:18; cf. Cocceius, Summa theol., III.x.67.
534. Brakel, Redelijke Godsdienst, I.iii.36.
535. Leigh, Treatise, II.xiii (p. 100).
536. Venema, Inst. theol., VIII (p. 185).

Muller, PRRD, 3:573–574.

Note: See also J. Mark Beach, "The Idea of a 'General Grace of God' in Some Sixteenth-Century Reformed Theologians Other Than Calvin," in Church and School in Early Modern Protestantism: Studies in Honor of Richard A. Muller on the Maturation of a Theological Tradition, edited by Jordan J. Ballor, David Sytsma and Jason Zuidema (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2013), 97–109; and J. Mark Beach, "Calvin's Treatment of the Offer of the Gospel and Divine Grace," MAJT 22 (2011), 55–76. The first work by Beach covers the views of Bullinger, Musculus, and Vermigli (men "in the era of Calvin") on general grace. Beach says:

...the idea of a general grace of God was a theological concept shared by mid-sixteenth-century Reformed theologians. It is clear that Bullinger, Musculus, and Vermigli (each contemporaries of Calvin), accept to varying degrees some notion of a non-saving divine favor or goodness directed toward the non-elect and unbelievers.

Beach, "The Idea of a 'General Grace of God'...," 108.

There is significant continuity between what Edward Leigh and others say (as quoted by Muller) in the seventeenth-century, and what these earlier Reformed theologians said in the sixteenth-century. The difference is mainly in the extent to which the topic of grace is covered and their willingness to use the terminology, not in their the view of the generalis gratia Dei as such. As Beach says:

The concern of these theologians is to distinguish grace, rightly understood, from synergistic misconceptions and outright Pelagian abuses. Since at that time the locution "general grace" had, for some, a specifically Pelagian aroma, Reformed theologians were guarded in how they used those words. Some, like Vermigli, were hesitant to use the term, whereas others, like Bullinger and Musculus, were careful to define it. Thus we see Bullinger and Vermigli explicitly attacking a notion of "general grace" that identifies grace with nature along Pelagian lines.

Ibid.

Beach continued:

...the idea of a general grace of God is not altogether uncommon in Reformed theology in the middle of the sixteenth century. The gifts that come to fallen humans, the blessings that bedeck their lives, and the benefits that allow the human project--even in its rebellion against God--to move forward are divine gifts, divine blessings, and divine benefits.

Last, the several portraits of grace and common grace as formulated by some of Calvin's contemporaries prove to be, not surprisingly, distinct but also not incongruous with one another. Bullinger, Musculus, and Vermigli hold in common the idea that God acts upon unregenerate persons in a manner that is gracious, being undeserved and kindly, but also non-salvific [not resulting in eternal salvation] in character. This general sort of divine grace, however, remains distinct from grace in its saving operations. All of the above shows that, among the mid-sixteenth-century Reformed theologians, Calvin was not a solitary voice sounding the idea of a general grace of God.

Ibid., 109.

Here's J. Mark Beach's profile at Mid-America Reformed Seminary (click). His doctoral dissertation was on Christ and the Covenant: Francis Turretin's Federal Theology as a Defense of the Doctrine of Grace (Ph.D. diss., Calvin Theological Seminary, 2005).

Edward Leigh (1602–1671) on God's Common and Special Grace

So much in general of God's virtues. Secondly, in special, the virtues which imply not imperfection in the reasonable creature, are attributed to God. The principle of which are:

1. Bounty or Graciousness, by which God shows favor to the creatures freely, and that either commonly or specially; 1. Commonly, when he exercises beneficence and liberality toward all creatures, powering upon them plentifully all goods of nature, body, mind and fortune, so that there is nothing which tastes not of the inexhausted fountain of his blessings and goodness. Matt. 5:44, 45. Psal. 36:5, 6. God's bounty is a will in him to bestow [a] store of comfortable and beneficial things on the creature in his kind. This bounty he showed to all things in the creation, even to all Spirits, all men and all creatures, and does in great part show still, for he opens his hand and fills every living thing with his bounty, he gives all things richly to enjoy.

2. Specially toward the Church, by which he bestows eternal life on certain men fallen by sin, and redeemed in Christ, Titus 2:11 & 3:4. As this is exercised toward the whole Church, so in a special manner toward some members of it, as toward Enoch, Moses, Jacob, David, Paul, and especially Abraham, who is therefore often called the Friend of God; he made with him and his seed a perpetual league of friendship, and he constantly kept his Laws and Statutes, John 15:14, 15.

God's Graciousness is an essential property, whereby he is in and of himself most gracious and amiable, Psa. 145:8. God is only gracious in and of himself, and whatsoever is amiable and gracious, is so from him.

God's Graciousness is that whereby he is truly amiable in himself, and freely bountiful unto his creatures, cherishing them tenderly without any desert of theirs, Psa. 86:15, 111:5. Gen. 43:29.

God is gracious to all, Psa. 145:8, 9, 10. but especially to such whom he does respect in his well-beloved Son, Jesus Christ. Exod. 33:19. Isa. 30:19. Luke 1:30. Gen. 6:8. 1 Cor. 15:10. God's free favor is the cause of our salvation, and of all the means tending thereunto, Rom. 3:24 & 5:15, 16. Eph. 1:5, 6 & 2:4. Rom. 9:16. Titus 3:5. Heb. 4:16. Rom. 6:23. 1 Cor. 12:4, 9. The gospel sets forth the freeness, fulness, and the powerfulness of God's grace to his Church, therefore it is called the Gospel of the grace of God, Acts 20:24.

God's Graciousness is firm and unchangeable, so that those which are once beloved can never be rejected, or utterly cast off, Psa. 77:10.

God bestows, 1. Good things. 2. Freely. 3. Plentifully. Psa. 111:4. 4. In a special manner He is gracious towards the godly.

Love is 1. grounded often on something which may deserve it; the grace of God is that love of his which is altogether free. 2. Grace is such a kind of love as flows from a superior to an inferior; love may be in inferiors toward their superiors.

Edward Leigh, A Treatise of Divinity Consisting of Three Books (London: Printed by E. Griffen for William Lee, and are to be sold at his shop at the Turkes-head in Fleetstreet, neer Ram-alley, 1646), 2:83–84.

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Edward Leigh (1602–1671) on God’s Patience and Long-Suffering

"God is Patient, Psalm 103:8. Job 2:17 [?]. God's patience is that whereby he bears the reproach of sinners and defers their punishments; or it is the most bountiful will of God, whereby he doth long bear with sin which he hates, sparing sinners, not minding their destruction, but that he might bring them to repentance.

This is aggravated:

1. In that sin is an infinite injury offered to him, therefore in the Lord's Prayer it is called a Trespass.

2. He is infinitely affected with this; hence in the Scripture he is said to be grieved with our sins, to be wearied, as a cart full of sheaves; he is said to hate sin, for although he be such a perfect God that none of our sins can hurt him, yet because he is a holy and just God, he cannot but infinitely distaste sinners.

3. He can be revenged immediately if he please; men many times are patient perforce, they would be revenged, but they know not how to compass it. He apprehends at the same time what he has done for us, and withal our unthankfulness, unkindness, and yet he endured Cain, Saul, Judas a long time.

4. He beholds the universality of sin, all men injure him, the heathens are given to idolatry, blasphemy among Christians, the profane sort are full of oaths, adulteries, the better negligent, lazy, cold.

5. God not only [does] not punish, but still continues his benefits; the old drunkard is still alive.

6. He sets up a Ministry to invite us to come in, and we have that many years; Forty years long was I grieved with this generation.

7. In Christ patience was visible, there was living patience.

8. He afflicts lightly and mercifully to win us; he makes thee sick and poor, to see if it will make thee leave thy sinning.

9. God is Long-suffering, Exod. 34:6.

It is that whereby he expects and waits a long time for repentance; or it is the most bountiful will of God not suffering his displeasure suddenly to rise against his creatures offending, to be avenged of them, but he does warn them beforehand, lightly correct and seek to turn them unto him. Christ endured Judas till the last."

Edward Leigh, A Treatise of Divinity Consisting of Three Books (London: Printed by E. Griffen for William Lee, and are to be sold at his shop at the Turkes-head in Fleetstreet, neer Ram-alley, 1646), 2:99-100.

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Richard Muller on God’s Universal and Special Love in Early Reformed Thought

The second kind of divine love [in distinction from the love of God ad intra] that Musculus identifies is the love of the creator for all his creatures, resting on his creation of all things as good in the beginning. It would be impossible, Musculus notes, given the nature of God, for God to “make evil things and love them after they were made” or to “make good things and not love them when they were made.” Nor could it be that God loved his creation in the beginning and subsequently ceased to love it—for God’s love is immutable. Nor, again, is God’s love hindered by the subjection of the created order to corruption after the fall, for the creation not only remains God’s work despite this corruption, but also it was God’s own “most wise and unsearchable purpose” that has subjected the entire creation to this bondage and vanity, as the apostle Paul teaches in Romans 8, or indeed as is written in the Wisdom of Solomon, “thou lovest all things that are, and hatest none of the things which thou hast made.”⁴⁷⁵

Third, above his love for all creation, God loves humanity in general. This love, Musculus notes, ought to be a source of wonder on our part: we would not be surprised if Scripture were to tell us that God loves his angels, inasmuch as they have a heavenly nature and purity and have been chosen as God’s “special ministers.” Yet Scripture speaks instead of the surpassing love of God for human beings, made in the image of God and accorded a special dignity “above all other creatures.” God has not, moreover, forsaken us after the Fall but continues to care for us with his special providence. Beyond this, God so loves human beings that in the incarnation “God was made man, to the end that man should be advanced into the fellowship of God’s nature.” There could be no greater indication of the love of God for humanity than this personal union of human nature with the divine nature. So, too, the love of God for all humanity is seen in the death of his Son for our redemption. And finally, the general love of God for humanity is manifest in the universal calling of the gospel.⁴⁷⁶ This divine love for the world and specifically for humanity, Calvin writes, is the “first cause … and source of our salvation.”⁴⁷⁷

The fourth species of divine love, according to Musculus, is the “special” love of God for those human beings chosen “to the adoption of children, before the foundation of the world,” a love not extended to the entire human race, as indicated by the text in Romans, “Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated.” Reflecting definitions from the older scholastic tradition, Musculus indicates that this love “comprehends” all of the other elements of the salvation of the elect, namely, “predestination, calling, the gift of faith and of the Spirit, justification, regeneration, and the renewal of mind and life”: all of these things are referred to the goodness and love of God by the apostle in Titus 3:4–8.⁴⁷⁸ Calvin also identifies the special, saving love of God as a sign of God’s utter mercy, apart from all human works, to save some by grace: “this love was founded on the purpose of his will (Eph. 1:5).”⁴⁷⁹

Fifth, there is in God a love of the good, simply because it is good. This love is directed particularly toward all that is “just, honest, gentle, meek, mild, and merciful” and evidences a love of true goodness in human conduct.⁴⁸⁰ Musculus enquires how this can be so if we are saved according to God’s mercy and not according to our works. The solution to the problem is that “we must consider the love of God toward us in two respects”: first, God loves us merely on account of his own goodness. Our salvation has “no cause in us” but arises only out of the goodness of God. By this love we are made good despite our sinful condition. Second, God also loves “good, faithful, and obedient persons: this second form of divine love toward believers, argues Musculus, is in no way hindered or prevented by the former, prior, love, “for he who of his infinite goodness loves us without cause” can love us still more “when we are godly.” This divine love of the good in us, Musculus concludes, ought to inspire believers to be “studious in goodness, godliness, and righteousness” and to be thankful toward God for his kindness.⁴⁸¹
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475. Musculus, Loci communes, XLVIII (Commonplaces, pp. 960–961), citing Wisdom, 11:25.
476. Musculus, Loci communes, XLVIII (Commonplaces, pp. 961–963).
477. Calvin, Commentary on John, 3:16 (CTS John, I, p. 122).
478. Musculus, Loci communes, XLVIII (Commonplaces, p. 963, cols. 1–2).
479. Calvin, Commentary on John, 3:16 (CTS John, I, p. 123).
480. Musculus, Loci communes, XLVIII (Commonplaces, p. 964, col. 1), citing 2 Cor. 9:7.
481. Musculus, Loci communes, XLVIII (Commonplaces, pp. 964–965). Musculus develops the practical implications of his teaching at length (pp. 965–977).

Richard Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: The Rise and Development of Reformed Orthodoxy, ca. 1520 to ca. 1725, 4 vols. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003), 3:563–64.

Richard Baxter (1615–1691) on God Kneeling to Entreat

The torments of the damned must needs be extreme, because they are the effect of Divine Revenge: Wrath is terrible, but Revenge is implacable: When the great God shall say; I will now be righted for all the wrongs that I have born from rebellious creatures; I will let out my wrath, and it shall be stayed no more, you shall now pay for all the abuse of my Patience! Remember now how I waited your leisure in vain, how I stooped to persuade you; how I, as it were, kneeled to entreat you: did you think I would always be slighted by such miscreants as you? O, who can look up when God shall thus plead with them in the heat of Revenge? Then will he be revenged for every mercy abused, for his creatures consumed in luxury and excess; for every hours time misspent; for the neglect of his word, for the vilifying of his messengers, for the hating of his people, for the prophanation of his ordinances, and neglect of his worship, for the breaking of his Sabbaths, and the grieving of his Spirit, for the taking of his Name in vain, for unmerciful neglect of his servants in distress. O the numberless bills that will be brought in! And the charge that will overcharge the soul of the sinner! And how hotly Revenge will pursue them all to the highest! How God will stand over them with the rod in his hand (not the rod of fatherly chastisements, but that Iron rod wherewith he bruiseth the rebellious) and lay it on for all their neglects of Christ and grace! O that men would foresee this! And not put themselves under the hammer of revenging fury, when they may have the treasure of happiness at so easy rates! And please God better in preventing their woe!

Richard Baxter, The Saints Everlasting Rest, 10th edition (London: Printed by R. W. for Francis Tyton, and are to be sold at the sign of the three Daggers in Fleet-street, 1650), 334–335.

Direct. xxvi. 'Conclude not the worse of the effects of a discovery of your bad condition, than there is cause.' Remember that if you should find that you are unjustified, it followeth not that you must continue so: you search not after your disease or misery as incurable, but as one that hath a sufficient remedy at hand, even brought to your doors, and cometh a begging for your acceptance, and is freely offered and urged on you: and therefore if you find that you are unregenerate, thank God that hath shewed you your case; for if you had not seen it, you had perished in it: and presently give up yourselves to God in Jesus Christ, and then you may boldly judge better of yourselves; it is not for despair, but for recovery that you are called to try and judge. Nay, if you do but find it too hard a question for you, whether you have all this while been sincere or not, turn from it, and resolvedly give up yourselves to God by Christ, and place your hopes in the life to come, and turn from this deceitful world and flesh, and then the case will be plain for time to come. If you doubt of your former repentance, repent now, and put it out of doubt from this time forward.

Richard Baxter, "Christian Politics," in A Christian Directory: Or, A Sum of Practical Theology, and Cases of Conscience (London: Printed for Richard Edwards; and Sold by James Duncan, Paternoster Row, and by All Other Booksellers, 1825), 6:534.

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Other advocates within the Augustinian tradition who use the metaphor of God begging are the following men:

Augustine, Hugh Latimer [Early English Reformer], Samuel Rutherford [Westminster divine], Thomas Manton [Puritan], Jeremiah Burroughs [Westminster divine], John Trapp [Puritan], Sydrach Simpson [Westminster divine], Joseph Caryl [Westminster divine], Robert Harris [Westminster divine], Theophilus Gale [Puritan], William Gearing [Puritan], Isaac Ambrose [Puritan], Stephen Charnock [Puritan], John Richardson [Puritan], John Flavel [Puritan], Thomas Watson [Puritan], Thomas Case [Puritan], Richard Sibbes [Puritan], John Shower [Puritan], John Collinges [Puritan], William Gurnall [Puritan], George Swinnock [Puritan], Ralph Venning [Puritan], Daniel Burgess [Puritan], Samuel Willard, George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, Solomon Stoddard, Samuel Davies, Andrew Gray, Ralph Erskine, Charles Spurgeon, Thomas Chalmers, Walter Chantry, Erroll Hulse, John MacArthur and Fred Zaspel.

Richard Baxter (1615-1691) on Moral Power as Distinct from Natural Faculties

"3. I easily acknowledge that grace giveth such a power as is commonly called Moral, distinct from the natural faculties, as our corrupt estate contains an opposite impotency. But this is but an applying of the terms [Can] and [Cannot] [Power] and [Impotency] to Dispositions and Undisposedness, to Habits and their Privations. 

4. A new heart and spirit, I easily confess necessary. But those words do commonly signify in Scripture, only new Inclinations, Dispositions, Qualifications. It is a new heart, though only the old faculties and substance. I hope you will not follow Illyricus.

5. Where you say that [without faith a man can no more Receive Christ, nor do ought towards it, than a dead man can walk or speak.] I Reply 1. That proves not faith to be equivalent to a Potentia vel facultas, any otherwise then that it is of as absolute necessity, but not that it is of the same nature. If you show an illiterate man a Greek or Hebrew book, he can no more read in it then a dead man, that is, both are truly in sensu composito impossible: But yet it is but a habit that is wanting  to one, and a power or faculty natural, to the other. And so it may truly be said that a sinner cannot do well that hath accustomed to do evil, no more than a Leopard can change his spots, or a Blackmoore his skin. Yet if you mean that such are equally distant from actual change as a dead man, it is but a dead comparison. A dead man wants both natural faculties, and an inclination or moral power. An unbeliever wants but one."

Richard Baxter, The Reduction of a Digressor (London: Printed by A. M. for Thomas Underhill, at the Anchor and Bible in Pauls Church-yard near the little North-door, and Francis Tyton, at the three Daggers in Fleetstreet near Dunstans Church, 1654), 131.

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Douglas Groothuis and Kierkegaard on Silence and Truth

Diversions and the omnipresent noise and clutter of contemporary culture erect barriers to the serious and disciplined pursuit of truth. Although I do not believe it is included in any apology for the Christian worldview (it is scarcely mentioned anywhere at all), one of the key elements in considering Christian truth claims is not an argument at all, but a condition in which arguments may be understood and appreciated. That condition is silence. No one has stated it better than Kierkegaard, who wrote before the onset of electrification and its manifold mind-numbing media.

In observing the present state of affairs and of life in general, from a Christian point of view one would have to say: It is a disease. And if I were a physician and someone asked me, "What do you think should be done?" I would answer, "Create silence, bring about silence." God's Word cannot be heard, and if in order to be heard in the hullabaloo it must be shouted deafeningly with noisy means, then it is not God's Word; create silence!

And we humans, we clever fellows, seem to have become sleepless in order to invent every new means to increase noise, to spread noise and insignificance with the greatest possible ease and on the greatest possible scale. Yes, everything has been turned upside down. The means of communication have been perfected, but what is publicized with such hot haste is rubbish. Oh, create silence!⁴⁵

In the silence of rational reflection, truth may disclose itself to the receptive soul.⁴⁶
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45. Kierkegaard, in Provocations, p. 372. For an absorbing treatment of the meaning of silence, see Max Picard, The World of Silence, trans. Stanley Goodman (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1952).
46. On the dangers of diversion in our technological society see Douglas Groothuis, The Soul in Cyberspace (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1997).

Doug Groothuis, Christian Apologetics: A Comprehensive Case for Biblical Faith (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2011), 153–154.

Groothuis also posted the Kierkegaard quote on his old blog here (click).

Thanks to Carrie Hunter for bringing this quote in Groothuis' book to my attention.