Lazarus Seaman (d.1675) on God's Common, Special and Peculiar Love

By all which there is a lively demonstration, that besides the common love of God to mankind, and his special love towards his Church and children, there is a singular and peculiar love wherein he abounds towards some according to his good pleasure.

And this serves first to manifest and magnify the exceeding riches of his grace, Eph. 2:7.

As also, secondly to quicken us unto a holy emulation amongst our selves, that each of us may strive to be better than other[s], and to do and suffer more for Christ, because God can make us more than a proportionable recompence, even in point of love.

It serves also, thirdly, to show the reason of that variety which is found in God's providence towards his own children; some rich, some poor, some noble and fitting among Princes, others are made the dung and offscouring of all things, & yet all equally chosen in Christ, called according to his purpose, justified, adopted, sanctified, and heirs of glory.

And yet further, fourthly, to reprove our slothfulness for neglecting God, as usually we do. This singularity of his love is no matter of discouragement, as some may think, but rather an invitation and incitement unto all. We have every one of us a full breast of consolation in the promises, Ask, and it shall be given you, &c. Matt. 7:7. If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it, saith Christ our advocate. And this is the confidence that we have in him, that if we aske anything according to his will he heareth us. We have also the spirit to help our infirmities. The spirit of supplication and grace. God doth every day new and strange things for his people. And which of us have not some blessing or other which we must needs acknowledge to be our own peculiar?

Lazarus Seaman, Solomons Choice (London: Printed by E. G. for J. Rothwell, and are to be sold at his shop at the signe of the Sun, in Pauls Church-yard, 1644), 5–6.

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Richard Muller's Mid-America Lectures

Dr. Richard Muller, the P.J. Zondervan Professor of Historical Theology at Calvin Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan delivered this year's annual Fall Lecture Series [at Mid-America Reformed Seminary] on November 5-6. Dr. Muller's lectures are entitled Revising the Predestination Paradigm: An Alternative to Supralapsarianism, Infralapsarianism and Hypothetical Universalism. Dr. Muller delivered three lectures on this subject. The first lecture, entitled The Problem Stated, was given Wednesday, November 5 at 1:00 pm. Thursday morning (November 6) at 8:30 am Dr. Muller delivered his second lecture entitled The Lapsarian Question. His final lecture, entitled Varieties of Hypothetical Universalism, followed at 10:30 am.

The CD of these lectures cost me $15 (this included shipping). Click HERE for contact information. I have already listened to his lecture on Varieties of Hypothetical Universalism, and it's quite good, as we should expect. The audio quality sounds like someone close in the audience recorded it using an mp3 recorder, so it is of medium quality, unfortunately.

He, in these lectures, considers the following to be "hypothetical universalists" of the non-Amyraldian variety:

W. Musculus, J. Zanchi, Z. Ursinus, J. Kimedoncius, H. Bullinger, W. Twisse, J. Ussher, J. Davenant (and others in the British delegation to Dort), E. Calamy, L. Seaman, R. Vines, R. Harris, S. Marshall, J. Arrowsmith, J. Bunyan, and others.

Edward Polhill (1622–1694) and Lazarus Seaman (c.1607–d.1675) Connection

I found this comment in Meet The Puritans:

Lazarus Seaman, who claimed to have known [Edward] Polhill from his childhood, testified to Polhill's intense, Puritan-minded piety.

Joel R. Beeke and Randall J. Pederson, Meet the Puritans (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2006), 482.

I find this interesting because both men (Polhill and Seaman) advocated a form of universal redemption. Seaman was one of the moderate men at the Westminster Assembly, along with Calamy, Vines, and Marshall. For a brief account of the debate at the Assembly from the perspective of a high Calvinist, see B. B. Warfield’s The Westminster Assembly and Its Work (Still Waters Revival Books, 1991), 138–47. As one investigates Polhill’s work The Divine Will Considered in Its Eternal Decrees (Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1998), from pages 113–211, one finds that he is familiar with the writings of the Saumur school of thought, as is Stephen Charnock (particularly in volumes 3 and 4 of Charnock’s Works).