Hickman:

Obj. The Church of England is for universal redemption the Calvinists that are anti-Arminian are against it.

Ans. Mr P. Indeed is hugely confident that if¹ we grant him universal redemption the cause is yielded to him: But I am all most as confident, that to grant him universal redemption is to grant him just nothing at all, for what though Christ did so far die for all as to procure a salvation for all, upon the conditions of faith and repentance, what’s this to the absoluteness of God’s decrees, or to the insuperability of converting grace, or to the certain infallibly perseverance of God’s elect after conversion. King James understood these controversies far bter than either Mr P or I. and yet he even at that very time when he sent his Divines to the Synod of Dort, to determine against Arminianism that was then growing in the Low Countries, gave it them in charge not to deny that Christ died for all, as I myself was told by Bishop Ussher, the first time I had the happiness to have my personal discourse with him; who also further then told me, that he gave his own judgement to Dr Davenant for universal redemption, but withal added, that there were certain number upon whom God absolutely purposed to bestow his Spirit, taking away the heart of stone and giving them a heart of flesh…

If Mr. P. cannot answer the Doctors arguments [Ussher and Davenant], and count me as much engaged to defend them, as I myself had made them. If he cant digest them, let know that I have no quarrel with him about the former, which would never have found so many adversaries among Calvinists, if the Arminians had stated it so clearly, and proved it by so good arguments, as the Rev. Professor has done. But what do I talk of agreeing with such a man as Mr P.? who rather than not fight, will content with his own shadow. Dr. P. H., a bird of the same feathers, who also took his flight from the Angel in Ivy-Lane, will needs have Bishop Ussher to differ from the Church of England in the point of universal redemption; make his proof, p. 102: “The Church of England does maintain an universal redemption of all mankind, by the death and sufferings of our Savior.” Well, and so does the deceased Primate, p., 103:

We think not that all mankind is so perfectly reconciled to Almighty God, as to be really and actually discharged from all their sins, before they believe, but that they are so far reconciled unto him, as to be capable of the remission of their sins, in case they do not want [lack] that faith in their common Savior which is required thereunto.

Well so thought the Primate too. ‘Tis a wonder that a Doctor of Divinity should so unworthily handle a Reverent person, and fasten upon him a dissent from the Church of England, in a matter wherein he does so perfectly agree with her. But he has deceived the due desert of his bitterness, his book being, as I am informed, burned by the hand of the common hangman. And now reader, thou will apply to me the speech of Diogenes concerning Mindas, but I shall easy thy patience, when I have only desired thee to resolve this most plain and easy questions:

Whether those opinions which are contrary to the judgement of the composers of our Articles, which I have been frequently recanted by the divulgers of them, opposed by our learned Professors, condemned by our civil authority, the contrary whereunto have been constantly defended in our Acts, the greatest academic solemnities, to be the Doctrine of our Church of England.

Henry Hickman, Patro-scholastiko-dikaiösis, Or A Justification of the Fathers and Schoolmen: Shewing, ‘That they are not self-condemned for denying the posivitity of Sin. Being an Answer to so much of Mr. Tho. Peirce’s Book, called Autokatakrisis as doth relate to the foresaid opinion (Oxford: Printed by A. Lichfield, for Joh. Adams, and Edw. Forrest, 1659), preface [40-45.] [No original pagination for preface, pages numbered manually.] [Some reformatting, some spelling modernized, footnote mine, extensive original Latin quotation not included, and bracketed inserts mine]

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¹Original has it.

Stephens:

As for the secret will of God in the decree of non-election, though they do believe according to the Scriptures that there are a great multitude of men that the Lord does intent to pass by, yet if you come to the singulars, neither you nor any man living can show who are they are in special. If you shall say that such and such a one is a notorious evil-doer, and therefore a reprobate. Ananias, thought but little better of Paul, “Lord, I have heard of this man how much evil he has done.” But the answer was, “go thy way I have made him a chosen vessel unto me,” Act. 9:14. If such a one has continued many years under the means of grace, and does yet stand out in impenitency and hardness of heart: this is no infallible argument of non-election, for many men come unto the vineyard at all hours. So far forth as men live wickedly we may preach hypothetically and conditionally, according to the revealed will of God, that their courses are damnable, and as long as they so continue they are in the way to damnation: yet we cannot absolutely pronounce concerning the persons themselves, it belongs only to God to judge of their final and eternal condition. And for that place which you alleged, that “God swears that he desires not the death of him that dies,” I pray you now tell us the particular man in our method and way of teaching that is not a capable hearer of this doctrine. Whatsoever God does intent in his secret decrees concerning the eternal state of men what is that to us? We must make the tenders, proposals, and offers of grace according to the terms set down in the Gospel. Indeed, as men do submit to the promise and do take Christ for their Head, so God does bring about that which he has determined in his secret will. And, therefore, when you speak concerning this sort of people, “that they should not believe his revealed will at all, if they hold his secret will to be the superior;” what good reason can you show for that? for though the secret will of God touching the salvation of his elect be the superior, yet all the tenders of grace, all faith in the promises are but the ordinary way to bring us to salvation. Here is no contrariety of will against will, but an excellent subordination. Because the Lord had many people in the city of Corinth that did belong to him in the determination of his secret will, therefore the apostle had a command to preach the Gospel in that city, and he did continue there the space of a year and six months, Acts 18, ver. 10, 11. But if it be further objected, “how can you pray for the salvation of all, seeing that the Lord does determine to pass by a great number of men?” I answer, though it be so, we are to do the duty. Paul did know that a greater part of the Jews should be hardened, and that a remnant only should be saved; yet for all this he did preach the Gospel and use all means that he might save some of them, Rom. 11:7-10. Augustine, one of the greatest asserts of the prerogative of free grace, in his book de correptione & gratia, has these words,

We not knowing who belong to the number of the predestinate, and who not, ought so be to moved with the affection of charity that we should will all men to be saved. And so far as it does appertain to us who are not able to distinguish the predestinate from them who are not predestinate, for this very thing because we ought to will all men to be saved, we must medicinally use sharp proof to all men so saved from perishing.

Dr. Twisse also has these words, “moreover of those who are not alive, though the greater part of them should be reprobated, seeing this is not known to us, there is nothing does hinder but that we make supplications for all,” Vindic. Grat. lib. 2. Crimin. 4. Sect. 9. Page 91. Many more testimonies I might bring of that kind of people as you call them who maintain the secret will of God to be the more prevailing, yet in order to understand they show that we are to look only unto that which is revealed. They do with one heart and with one mouth that you must begin at the lower end of the ladder before you can come to the top. As for the secret and revealed will of God, though this seem to us to be contradictory, there is no contradiction. The river that in appearance seems to go another way, if you follow it by divers mazes and turnings I will bring you to the sea at least. But if you further urge, how can the sending of Christ into the world to due for the lost sons of men stand with the decree of election, where some only are chosen to salvation? Answ. This point is solidly handled by Dr. Davenant, in his answer to that book that bears the title God’s Love to Mankind; and in another treatise of the death of Christ. The scope and tenor of the whole discourse is to show that the non-elect may be partakers of many fruits of the death of Christ, though they are not partakers of that grace which will certainly and infallibly bring them to salvation; and so he does concord the general atonement made with the peculiar decree of elect. But because this point is exceedingly controverted in these times, and is as it were the very rock of offense, I will particularly show how far I can go along with you. First, I do agree that by his death the Son has removed the bar out of the way that hinders the salvation of man. For God having once made a Law, “in the day thou eat thereof thou shalt die death,” according to the rigor of the covenant of works and the strictness of divine justice there was possibility of mans’ salvation. But the Lord Christ having once satisfied the justice of God and removed the bar, there is now a possibility for all the lost sons of men to be saved, they are brought into a savable condition, notwithstanding all the strict demands of satisfaction according to the first covenant. And this I take to take to be the natural sense of that place which you and others stand so much upon,

…who will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all to be testified in due time. 1 Tim. 2:4-6.

The scope of which words is briefly this, that seeing the Lord Jesus Christ did give himself as a ransom for all men, there is a possibility of salvation for all upon terms of repentance and faith. Secondly, I do agree with you, that by the death of Christ the Lord does show patience and long-suffering to the rebellious to invite them to repentance, Rom. 2:4. And though since the fall of man the thoughts of his heart were all evil from his childhood; yet respect being had of the Mediator’s blood, typed in the sacrifice of Noah, the promise to the whole world was that “the Lord would no more curse the ground for mans’ sake, but seed time and harvest, winter and summer, day and night should continue to the world’s end.” Thirdly, I do also agree with you in this, that the Lord Jesus by the shedding of his blood has not only procured a possibility for the lost sons of men, but also at seasons he does give them some portions of spirit, enabling them to judge themselves. And for temporary believers they go so far in the participation of the fruits of the death of the Son, as “to state the good Word of God and the powers if the life to come,” Heb. 6:5. These are the general fruits of the death of Christ; and in this sense we may say , “that he tasted death for every man.” In what sense then does Christ die for the elect only? He did shed his blood not only to obtain a possibility for them, but that they may be certainly and infallibly brought to glory. Hence is it that he speaks concerning his sheep (for whom he died I a special manner). My Father that gave them me is greater than all, and none can take them out of my Father’s hands,” Joh. 10:29. And in another place, “who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? it is God that justifies, who is he that condemned? it is Christ that died,” Rom. 8:33. The death of Christ for the elect is not only to obtain salvation upon terms of repentance and faith, or other general fruits of his death, but it is certainly and infallibly to bring them to salvation. In relation to this peculiar love, the apostle says, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” Rom. 8:35. And our Savior, John 10:28, “I will give them eternal life, and that they shall never perish, neither shall any man be able to take them out of my hand.” He speaks these things of his sheep, for whom he had laid down his life in the special sense mentioned before. Having thus cleared all our objections in this chapter, we proceed the next.

Nathaniel Stephens, Vindiciæ Fundamenti: or a Threefold Defence of the Doctrine of Original Sin (London: Printed by T.R. and E.M. for Edmund Paxton in Paul’s Chain, right over against the Castle-Tavern, near Doctros Commons, 1658), 69-72. [Some reformatting, some spelling modernized; and underlining mine.]

Mason:

EXTENT OF THE ATONEMENT.

“And he is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.”–First Epistle of St. John. ii. 2.

THE amplitude and all-sufficiency of God’s provision for the lost, is a no less important article of the Christian faith, than the fact itself, that such a provision has “been made. Everyone must feel, the moment the subject is laid before him clearly, that the value of the atonement, to anyone, is inseparable from its sufficiency for all. To tell me in my sorrows, under a sin-oppressed conscience, that provision is made for forgiveness, and yet to east suspicion upon its fullness, is but to awaken a hope, the warrant of which is uncertain, because it leaves me entirely in the dark upon the question, whether that provision is within my reach. There is nothing here to relieve my straitened spirit, nothing to authorize my confidence; so far as all practical effects are concerned, I am in very much the same condition as before the announcement of pardon, through the atonement, was made. Better not say anything of forgiveness of sin, if in the same breath you must suggest a doubt as to the possibility of my forgiveness. You do but make my case the more wretched, as you awaken a hope only for the purpose of destroying it.

The great question which throws its overwhelming burden upon the mind, in view of its spiritual relations, is, after all, a personal question–it relates to my own individual circumstances and hopes. The value of the gospel, therefore, to me as a sinner, grows out of the answer which it furnishes to this question. The mere fact that God can forgive sin, is nothing, except as it is brought home to my own personal interests. The pages upon which that fact is announced, may beam with the bright and the beautiful, but if they do not bring home to me, as an individual, this truth as a certainty, that God can be just and forgive my sin, they have no brightness and beauty for me; they do but put me in the condition of the famishing wretch, who is told of abundance, but not that he may touch it, or the victim of some dreadful disease, who is told of a certain remedy, but not how he may reach it.

The question, then, as to the extent of the atonement, is not a question, as some men would have us believe, of mere speculative theology, but one of vast practical interest. Every man can understand its importance, if he will but observe how the whole aspect of the gospel will vary; how its power over his own spirit will be increased or diminished, according to the views which he may take of this single question; and I cannot, therefore, think that I am giving myself up to a useless task, or one without its interest to all my hearers, when I undertake to agitate, for the purpose of reaching a satisfactory conclusion, the inquiry as to the extent of the atonement of Jesus Christ.

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Rous:

But the same men that are so hard against the Saints, yet they are very kind to the Reprobates, and they that will not allow a particular grace to give unto the Saints a sure salvation, will allow a general grace to give unto all, (Reprobates and all) an uncertain salvation; Yea, to speak the truth under the show of a general salvation, they give no salvation at all. For man fallen will not stand, by that grace wherein man perfect did fall: so that if effectual grace be taken away, salvation is taken away. But what say they? Christ dyed for all. True, but what of that? Therefore all men have grace to be saved by Christ’s death. A miserable inconsequence. There can be nothing follow but this, Therefore Christ gave himself a sufficient ransom for all. The ransom is sufficient for all, it is offered to all, but all men doe not receive it. Man by his fall hath deprived himself of grace, by which he may accept the promises of grace, so that his own incapacity, hinders him from accepting this general remedy. A King at his Coronation gives a general pardon; yet this doth not prove that all men are able particularly to apply this general pardon. There are some that think themselves rectos in Curia, and that they need it not, some are negligent and careless of their estates; and a third sort are ignorant of it, and a fourth is poor and cannot sue it out. So in the general pardon offered in Christ Jesus, there are some justificiaries, as the Scribes and Pharisees that think they need it not, there are some that with Esau despise it for carnal profanity, there are some that are hardened and blinded being ignorant of Gods Righteousness in Christ Jesus, though they have it Preached, yea though they have a zeal of God and such are Jews; and they cannot sue out a pardon by believing in him of whom they have not heard. But this is the sum of the truth: Man being wholly fallen by free-will though assisted with a general and sufficient grace, lost his free-will, grace and life eternal. God in his mercy gives a Savior with a sufficient ransom for all the sinners of the world, that of all the world he may take whom he pleases, and by effectual grace join them to Christ in an eternal union of blessed felicity. If Christ had not dyed for all, God could not of all have saved whom he pleased. If he had given effectual grace to all, all would be saved; and then God had been all Mercy, and no Justice; if he had given effectual grace to none, none would be saved, and then God would have been all Justice, and no Mercy. But God purposed to show, both Mercy and Justice, leaves some in the state of the fall, to which man voluntarily cast himself, and by effectual grace join others to Christ unto eternal salvation. His Justice cannot be accused, but his Mercy ought to be magnified: And wee are infinitely more bound to God for his sure Mercies in that Effectual Grace, by which he certainly saves millions, then to Arminians for their general grace, by which they go about certainly to damn all.

Francis Rous, The Truth of Three Things, Viz, the Doctrine of Predestination, Free-Will, and Certainty of Salvation, as It is Maintained by the Church of England, Wherein the Grounds of Arminianism is Discovered and Confuted ([London]: no.pub., 1633), 70–72. [Some spelling modernized; some reformatting; and underlining mine.]

[Credit to Tony for the find.]

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