Wardlaw:

(3.) We must repeat it, amongst our important general principles, necessary to the full clearing of our way, that predestination ought, in strict propriety, to be regarded as relating to one side only of the alternative of life or death. The sovereign right of God to bestow His favors on whom He will among the universally undeserving, we have seen to be unequivocally affirmed in the portion of God’s word already considered.¹ Predestination to life is an act of sovereignty infinitely honorable to every attribute of the divine character and every principle of the divine government. But predestination to death, if the phrase be admissible at all (and I own my dislike to it), can mean no more than the published determination of the Supreme and Righteous Governor to punish transgressors for their sins. Now sovereignty has nothing to do with this. It comes under the category of equity. It has no freedom of selection. It proceeds in every case on the principle of desert, and bears to the desert a scrupulously just proportion. Sovereignty is the supreme right to do whatever is not inconsistent with equity. It has, therefore, and can have, no application to punishment. " The punishment of the guilty is not an object of divine sovereignty. To punish the guilty is the office of equity, which gives to all their due. For mercy to punish, or justice to confer undeserved favour, is discordant in thought and language; but not more so than sovereign punishment, without assuming another meaning of the term, or disputing about words. In brief, as equity never disapproves of any creature, especially a moral agent, where there is nothing wrong or no desert, so divine sovereignty is in no case displayed but for the welfare of its objects. In proportion as any creature has no equitable claim upon God, all he is and possesses, that may be denominated good, must be the effect of sovereignty."² The Bishop of Lincoln (Tomlin) lays down the following extraordinary position: "It is not denied that God had a right, founded on the incontrovertible will of the Creator over His creatures, to consign the far greater part of men to eternal misery, and to bestow eternal happiness on a select few, although there was in themselves no ground whatever for such distinction. But the question is, whether such conduct would have been consistent with the principles of infinite justice and of infinite mercy."³ I have called this an extraordinary position; and from such a quarter most extraordinary it is ; the abhorrer and refuter of Calvinism asserting what Dr. Williams justly denominates "the most exceptionable part of hyper-Calvinism." " That must be a very anomalous and strange kind of right," observes Dr. Williams,

which is not consistent with infinite justice. If men were consigned to eternal misery without desert, and this founded in right, what is it but saying that the Creator had a right to be unjust? But if men so consigned deserved it by previous delinquency, how could it be inconsistent with justice? Is it not of the essence of justice to give every one his due ? To ascribe to the Creator, Preserver, and Benefactor of His creatures a right, an arbitrary right of conferring benefits upon them beyond their due, is infinitely worthy of Him; but to ascribe to Him the same right to render the undeserving miserable is to offer Him ‘a compliment which He must needs reject with infinite disdain; a right to be unjust, were He not infinitely just, wise, and merciful!⁴

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Alexander:

But while the Bible, throughout, ascribes the occurrence of all events, of every kind, to the will of God; yet, it as uniformly represents man as a free, accountable agent; yea, it represents him as acting most wickedly, in those very transactions which are most expressly declared to be determined by the counsel of God. It would seem from this, that the inspired writers perceived no inconsistency between a purpose of God, that a certain event should occur, and that it should be brought about by the free and accountable agency of man. And it is believed, also, that men of sound minds, who have never heard of any objections to this doctrine, are not apt to be perplexed with any apparent inconsistency between these two things. And, we are persuaded, that were it not for the ambiguity of certain words, and the artful sophistry with which truth and error are confounded by those who oppose the doctrine, very few persons would experience any difficulty on this subject. If a man of plain sense should be informed by prophecy, that he would certainly kill a fellow creature the next day or year, and that in perpetrating this act he would be actuated by malice, it would never be likely to enter his mind, that he should not be guilty of any crime, because the action was certain before it was committed. But if you change the terms, and say, that he would be under a necessity to perform this act; that it being absolutely certain, he could not possibly avoid it; immediately the subject becomes perplexed, and involved in difficulty; for every man of common sense feels that he cannot justly be accountable for what he could not possibly avoid; and that for what he does from absolute necessity he cannot, in the nature of things, be culpable. Here, the whole difficulty is produced by the use of ambiguous and improper terms. While nothing was presented to the mind, but the certainty of the event, coupled with voluntary action, no relief from responsibility was felt: but the moment we speak of the act as produced by necessity, and as being unavoidable, the judgment respecting its nature is changed. These terms include the idea of a compulsory power acting upon us, not only without, but in opposition to our own will. A necessary event is one which cannot be voluntary or free; for if it were spontaneous, it could not be necessary; these two things being diametrically opposite. So, an unavoidable action is one which takes place against our wishes and will. But a voluntary action may be as certain as any other; and by one who knows futurity, may be as certainly predicted. Even a man may often be certain beforehand, how a voluntary agent will act in a given circumstances, provided he knows the moral character of the agent. As if a being actuated by no other feeling towards another but malice, should be placed in such circumstances, that he has the choice of performing a benevolent action towards that individual or omitting it, he will most certainly neglect to do it, or, if he may with impunity injure such an one, or do him good, he will most certainly choose the former; yet is such a malignant agent perfectly free, and perfectly accountable. These things are agreeable to the common feelings of all men, and depend on no metaphysical niceties. And there can be no doubt, but that a large share of the difficulty which perplexes honest minds, in the contemplation of the divine purpose, which fixes the certainty of events, arises from the confounding of things totally distinct, by the use of ambiguous terms.

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Davenant:

1) Before we come to answer particular objections, we must put this author¹ in remembrance of these few things which he has not well considered.

1. First, where as he troubles himself with distinguishing the supralapsarian and the sublapsarian doctrine, calling them supralapsarians, who in ordering the eternal decrees of God concerning election and preterition or reprobation place them before the consideration of the fall, and of those sublapsarians, who place them after; this pains might well have been spared. For priorities and posteriorities in the eternal immanent decrees of God are but imaginations of man’s weak reason, and framed diversely (nay contrarily) as well by Schoolmen and Papists, as by Protestants, or those which are termed Calvinists; and finally they have little or no use in this controversy. Aquinas thought it no such matter of moment, whether predestination be considered before man’s fall and state of misery or after: Motus non accepit speciem a termino a quo, sed a termino ad quem. Nihil enim refert quantum ad rationen dealbationis, utrum ille qui dealbatur fuerit niger, aut pallidus, aut rubeus: & simileter nihil refert ad rationem prædestinationis, utrum aliquis prædistinetur in vitiam æternam a statumiseriæ vel non.² And for Reprobation, he seems rather to incline to their opinion, who place it in order of consideration before the fall in making it such a part of the divine providence as permits some men, deficere a fine.³ So that this distinction of supralapsarians and sublapsarians, as served this author to no other purpose but to the inculcating of the same objections again and again. John Davenant, Animadversions Written by the Right Reverend Father in God, John Lord Bishop of Sarisbury, upon the Treatise intitled, Gods love to Mankinde (London: Printed for Iohn Partridge, 1641), 160-161. [Some spelling modernized; some reformatting; italics original; side references to Scripture cited inline; references to external works cited as footnote; [bracketed footnote content mine; and underlining mine.]

2) For the positive act, which this author describes to be a pre-ordination unto hell-torments; those who comprise them both under this one word reprobation, do notwithstanding make this act or decree respective unto sin, as we have already shown. As for those of our Church in this controversy, whether predestination and non-predestination be grounded upon the prime absolute will of God, or upon his prescience of good and bad acts to be performed by men, they do and must understand by the word reprobation, not the decree of damnation of any particular persons, but only the absolute decree of non-preparing for them that effectual grace, qua certissum liberarentur, and of leaving them to such means of grace under which by their own default infallibiliter ruunt ad interitum voluntarium. Thus our English divines in their suffrage have described it, and thus the reverent and judicious Bishop of Norwich conceived it, when he made both Remonstrants and Puritans (as the term calls them) to err out of the true middle way which the Church of England holds in opposition to them both. In election, he makes this the error of the Remonstrants, “That they ground the absolute decree of men’s particular election upon the prescience of their faith and perseverance (as this author does) whereas that reverent Prelate holds with the Church of England, and Saint Augustine, Electio non invenit fideles, sed facit. As for the errors of the Puritans about Predestination or election, he reduces them to these heads, the excluding of the conditional decree or evangelical promise, the disordering of the decree of predestination by bringing it in before the fall, and the decree of Christ’s incarnation. As for the preparation and donation of such special grace per quam non solium possint credere aut obediant, he makes it the proper fruit of election: whereas he grants unto the non-elect only salutem gratiamque communem & sufficientem in mediis Divinutus ordinatis, si verbo Dei spirituque sancto deese noluerint. Unto which add that wherein all divines of all sides agree, “That God administers this common grace with an eternal and infallibly prescience that it will be rejected or abused by the non-elect, and with an absolute decree of permitting it so to be; and then it is clear, the English divines with the Church of England nec divertisse ad dextram in illorum sententiam qui ex præscita fida & perseverantia per liberam cooperationem arbitrii humani gratiæ prævenientis deducunt, nec ad finistram declinasse & gratiam sufficientem tollunt, &c. They are the words of that reverent Prelate Doctor Overall. John Davenant, Animadversions Written by the Right Reverend Father in God, John Lord Bishop of Sarisbury, upon the Treatise intitled, Gods love to Mankinde (London: Printed for Iohn Partridge, 1641), 199-201. [Some spelling modernized; some reformatting; italics original; side references to Scripture cited inline; references to external works cited as footnote; [bracketed footnote content mine; and underlining mine.]

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Davenant:

And last of all, absolute predestination, and absolute reprobation or non-election, do not exclude or deny the eternal intuition of faith and perseverance in the elect, nor the eternal consideration of infidelity and impenitency in the non-elect, but they deny such a consideration of good or bad acts foreseen in men as causes or precedes the different decrees of God in electing some men mercifully unto salvation, and leaving others through their own default to plunge themselves into eternal damnation.

If by casting off men for ever, you¹ mean the eternal exclusion of the damned from the blessed presence of God, and their eternal tormenting in hell, no side will deny but this is grounded upon the foresight of final continuance in sin: yet so, that as the final continuance of Peter in faith was not a cause, condition or motive foreseen, and so determining the divine will to elect him, but the divine election was the cause which afterwards produced in him that foreseen faith. So the foreseen final continuance of Judas in sin and infidelity was not it which determined the divine will to pass by him in his decree of electing singular persons unto the infallibly attainment of eternal life, but being thus passed by, God foresees that through the voluntary obstinacy of his own will (not by any necessitating violence of God’s decree) he will live and die in sin and impenitency, for his voluntary sin and impenitency deserve and undergo eternal torments.

Those who in ordering the eternal decrees, place predestination and negative reprobation before the consideration of the fall, are not few for number, nor men of any late sect. Scotus with the whole army of Scotists,² the greater number of the late School-Divines,are of this opinion: And Suarez by name, whose words are these, Probabiliorem existimo communem sententiam Theologorum asserentium electionem hominem prædestinatorum antecessisse permissionem originalis peccati.³

As for Calvin, he never troubled himself with these imaginary priorities and posteriorities in the eternal immanent operations of God: but all that he aimed at, was to prove, “That the fall foreseen could not be the cause or motive unto God of some men’s election and others’ reprobation.” As for the intuition or divine considertion of all mankind in statu lapso, Calvin in plain terms avouches it: Postquam Paulus, Deum ex perdita massa eligere & reprobare quos illi visim est docuit, quare & quomodo id fiat adeo non expedit ut potius expavescens, &c.

And this presupposition of sin considered in persons, whether elected or not elected, whether to be saved or to be damned, is most convenient for helping our understanding in this deep mystery. But if any shall thereby conceive that the eternal volitions or intuitions of God have any real posteriority or priority in the divine will and understanding, he deceives himself, and troubles others with vain jangling. Utilitas distinguendi hæc instantia rationis, non est, ut ille modus intelligendi retineater, sed ut viam aperiat veritati, quæ aperta relinquatur.

John Davenant, Animadversions Written by the Right Reverend Father in God, John Lord Bishop of Sarisbury, upon the Treatise intitled, Gods love to Mankinde (London: Printed for Iohn Partridge, 1641), 20-22.

[Some spelling modernized; italics original; and underlining mine.]

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¹Davenant’s opponent.

²Lib. 1. dist. 41. Lib. 3. dist. 19.

³In 3. disp. 5. p. 103.