From the Minutes of the Westminster Assembly:

Mr. Calamy–I am far from universal redemption in the Arminian sense; but that that I hold is in the sense of our divines in the Synod of Dort, 2 that Christ did pay a price for all–absolute intention for the elect, conditional intention for the reprobate in case they do believe,–that all men should be salvabiles, non obstante lapsu Adami… that Jesus Christ did not only die sufficiently for all, but God did intend, in giving of Christ, and Christ in giving Himself, did intend to put all men in a state of salvation in case they do believe.

Mr. Palmer–He would distinguish from the Arminians; they say all equally redeemed, but not so the other, and

Mr. Reynolds–This opinion cannot be asserted by any that can say he is not of the Remonstrants’ opinion… upon a condition that they cannot perform, and God never intends to give them.

Mr. Calamy–The Arminians hold that Christ did pay a price for this intention only, that all men should be in an equal state of salvation. They say Christ did not purchase any impetration…. This universality of Redemption] doth neither intrude upon either doctrine of special election or special grace.

Mr. Seaman–It is nothing whether the opinion of Remonstrants or not. We must debate the truth and falsehood of it…. He doth not say a salvability quoad homines, but quoad Deum … so far reconciled Himself to the world, that He would have mercy on whom He would have mercy.

Mr. Palmer–I desire to know whether he will understand it de omni homine.

Mr. Calamy–De adultis.

Mr. Whitakers…

Mr. Young–This controversy, when first started in the Church, they used a distinction: they said it was pro natura humana…. In the application he expresseth it only electis. Some speak of the former branch as that…

Mr. Gillespie–Nothing to the thing itself; but for the state of the question, let more be looked upon than that expressed in the proposition, because there is a concatenation of the death of Christ with the decrees; therefore we must see what they hold concerning that which in order goes before and what in order follows after…. Camero[n] saith for all upon condition of believing, but Amyrauld he hath drawn it further. . . . Whether he hold an absolute reprobation of all that shall not be saved…. A parte post what follows upon that conditional redemption.

Mr. Calamy–In the point of election, I am for special election; and for reprobation, I am for massa corrupta…. Those to whom He… by virtue of Christ’s death, there is ea administratio of grace to the reprobate, that they do willfully damn themselves. I neither hold sufficient grace nor special grace.

Mr. Marshall–For order, you shall not need to know what this or that man’s opinion is; if you dispute the thesis, you will state it so as that it rejects all contrary opinions.

Mr. Reynolds–The Synod intended no more than to declare the sufficiency of the death of Christ; it is pretium in se, of sufficient value to all, nay, ten thousand worlds. There are two Adams, one a fountain of misery, and the other of mercy…. To be salvable is a benefit, and therefore belongs only to them that have interest in Christ.

Mr. Seaman–All in the first Adam were made liable to damnation, so all liable to salvation in the second Adam.

Mr. Calamy–I argue from the III. of John 16, In which words a ground of God’s intention of giving Christ, God’s love to the world, a philanthropy the world of elect and reprobate, and not of elect only; It cannot be meant of the elect, because of that ‘whosoever believes’ .  .  .  xvi. Mark, 15. ‘Go preach the gospel to every creature.’ If the covenant of grace be to be preached to all, then Christ redeemed, in some sense, all–both elect and reprobate; but it is to be preached to all; there is a warrant for it. . . . For the minor, if the universal redemption be the ground of the universal promulgation, then . . . the minor, else there is no verity in promulgation. All God’s promulgations are serious and true. . . . Faith doth not save me, but only as an instrument to apply Christ. There is no verity in the universal offer except founded in the . . .

Mr. Rutherford–All the argument comes to this: there can be no truth in this proposition except this be first granted, that Christ died in some sense. . . . I deny this connection . . . be[cause] it holds as well in election, justification, as in redemption; if he believe, he is as well elected and justified as redeemed.

Mr. Calamy–We do not speak of the application, for then It would bring it in, but we speak of the offer. It cannot be offered to Judas except he be salvable.

Alex Mitchell and John Struthers, Minutes of the Sessions of the Westminster Assembly of Divines (London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1874), 152-154. C.f., Chad B. Van Dixhoorn’s new edition of the minutes, Reforming the Reformation: Theological Debate at the Westminster Assembly, 1643-1652, 6:202-204.

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Shedd

1) It may be asked, If atonement naturally and necessarily cancels guilt, why does not the vicarious atonement of Christ save all men indiscriminately, as the Universalist contends? The substituted suffering of Christ being infinite is equal in value to the personal suffering of all mankind; why then are not all men upon the same footing and in the class of the saved, by virtue of it? The answer is, Because it is a natural impossibility. Vicarious atonement without faith in it is powerless to save. It is not the making of this atonement, but the trusting in it, that saves the sinner. “By faith are ye saved. He that believeth shall be saved,” Ephesians 2:8; Mark 16:16. The making of this atonement merely satisfies the legal claims, and this is all that it does. If it were made, but never imputed and appropriated, it would result in no salvation. A substituted satisfaction of justice without an act of trust in it, would be useless to sinners. It is as naturally impossible that Christ’s death should save from punishment one who does not confide in it, as that a loaf of bread should save from starvation a man who does not eat it. The assertion that because the atonement of Christ is sufficient for all men, therefore no men are lost, is as absurd as the assertion that because the grain produced in the year 1880 was sufficient to support the life of all men on the globe, therefore no men died of starvation during that year. The mere fact that Jesus Christ made satisfaction for human sin, alone and of itself, will save no soul. Christ, conceivably, might have died precisely as he did, and his death have been just as valuable for expiatory purposes as it is, but if his death had not been followed with the work of the Holy Ghost and the act of faith on the part of individual men, he would have died in vain. Unless his objective work is subjectively appropriated, it is useless, so far as personal salvation is concerned. Christ’s suffering is sufficient to cancel the guilt of all men, and in its own nature completely satisfies the broken law. But all men do not make it their own atonement by faith in it; by pleading the merit of it in prayer, and mentioning it as the reason and ground of their pardon. They do not regard and use it as their own possession, and blessing. It is nothing for them but a historical fact. In this state of things, the atonement of Christ is powerless to save. It remains in the possession of Christ who made it, and has not been transferred to the individual. In the scripture phrase, it has not been imputed. There may be a sum of money in the hands of a rich man that is sufficient in amount to pay the debts of a million of debtors; but unless they individually take money from his hands into their own, they cannot pay their debts with it. There must be a personal act of each debtor, in order that this suns of money on deposit may actually extinguish individual indebtedness. Should one of the debtors, when payment is demanded of him, merely say that there is an abundance of money on deposit, but take no steps himself to get it and pay it to his creditor, he would be told that an undrawn deposit is not a payment of a debt.  Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 2:440-441.

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Hodge:

1) In assuming this ground, he is guilty of the same one-sidedness, the same contracted view, which he exhibits in his doctrine concerning the nature of the atonement. It is conceded that the work of Christ does lay the foundation for the offer of salvation to all men. Dr. Beman hence concludes that this was its only end; that it merely opens the way for the general offer of pardon. His theory is designed to account for one fact, and leaves all the other revealed facts out of view, and unexplained. The Bible teaches, however, a great deal more in relation to this subject, than that one fact. It teaches, 1. That Christ came in execution of a purpose; that he suffered, as Dr. Beman expresses it, by covenant, and ratified that covenant with his own blood. 2. That his mission was the result and expression of the highest conceivable love. 3. That it not merely removes obstacles out of the way, but actually secures the salvation of his people. 4. That it lays the foundation for a free, full, and unrestrained offer of salvation to all men. 5. That it renders just the condemnation of those who reject him as their Saviour ; that rejection being righteously the special ground of their condemnation. Charles Hodge, “Beman on the Atonement,” Essays and Reviews, in (New York, Robert Carter & Brothers, 1857), 175.

2) Dr. Beman’s theory, therefore, which denies that the death of Christ had a special reference to his own people, is inconsistent with the plainly revealed facts : 1. That he died in execution of a covenant in which his people were promised to him as his reward, to secure which reward is declared to be his specific and immediate design in laying down his life. 2. That the motive which led to the gift of the Son, and of the Son in dying, was not general benevolence, but the highest conceivable love, love for his sheep and for his friends. 3. That the design of his death was not simply to remove obstacles out of the way of mercy, but actually to secure the salvation of those given to him by the Father ; and that it does in fact secure for them the gift of the Holy Ghost, and consequently justification and eternal life…

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Dabney:

1) Scriptures Ascribe to
God Pity Towards
Lost.

The great advantage of this view is, that it enables us to receive, in their obvious sense, those precious declarations of Scripture, which declare the pity of God towards even lost sinners. The glory of these representations is, that they show us God’s benevolence as an infinite attribute, like all His other perfections. Even where it is rationally restrained, it exists. The fact that there is a lost order of angels, and that there are persons in our guilty race, who are objects of God’s decree of preterition, does not arise from any stint or failure of this infinite benevolence. It is as infinite, viewed as it qualifies God’s nature only, as though He had given expression to it in the salvation of all the devils and lost men. We can now receive, without any abatement, such blessed declarations as Ps. Ixxxi: 13; Ezek. xviii: 32 ; Luke xix: 41, 42. We have no occasion for such questionable, and even perilous exegesis, as even Calvin and Turrettin feel themselves constrained to apply to the last. Afraid lest God’s principle of compassion (not purpose of rescue), towards sinners non-elect, should find any expression, and thus mar the symmetry of their logic, they say that it was not Messiah the God-man and Mediator, who wept over reprobate Jerusalem; but only the humanity of Jesus, our pattern. I ask: Is it competent to a mere humanity to say: “How often would I have gathered your children ?” And to pronounce a final doom, “Your house is left unto you desolate?” The Calvinist should have paused, when he found himself wresting these Scriptures from the same point of view adopted by the ultra-Arminian. But this is not the first time we have seen “extremes meet.” Thus argues the Arminian: “Since God is sovereign and omnipotent, if He has a propension, He indulges it, of course, in volition and action. Therefore, as He declares He had a propension of pity towards contumacious Israel, I conclude that He also had a volition to redeem them, and that He did whatever omnipotence could do, against the obstinate contingency of their wills. Here then, I find the bulwark of my doctrine, that even omnipotence cannot certainly determine a free will.” And thus argues the ultra-Calvinist: ” Since God is sovereign and omnipotent, if He has any propension. He indulges it, of course, in volition and action. But if He had willed to convert reprobate Israel, He would infallibly have succeeded. Therefore He never had any propension of pity at all towards them.” And so this reasoner sets himself to explain away, by unscrupulous exegesis, the most precious revelations of God’s nature! Should not this fact, that two opposite conclusions are thus drawn from the same premises, have suggested error in the premises? And the error of both extremists is just here. It is not true that if God has an active principle looking towards a given object, He will always express it in volition and action. This, as I have shown, is no more true of God, than of a righteous and wise man. And as the good man, who was touched with a case of destitution, and yet determined that it was his duty not to use the money he had in giving alms, might consistently express what he truly felt of pity, by a kind word; so God consistently reveals the principle of compassion as to those whom, for wise reasons. He is determined not to save. We know that God’s omnipotence surely accomplishes every purpose of His grace. Hence, we know that He did not purposely design Christ’s sacrifice to effect the redemption of any others than the elect. But we hold it perfectly consistent with this truth, that the expiation of Christ for sin–expiation of infinite value and universal fitness–should be held forth to the whole world, elect and non-elect, as a manifestation of the benevolence of God’s nature. God here exhibits a provision, which is so related to the sin of the race, that by it, all those obstacles to every sinner’s return to his love, which his guilt and the law presents, are ready to be taken out of the way. But in every sinner, another class of obstacles exists; those, namely, arising out of the sinner’s own depraved will. As to the elect, God takes these obstacles also out of the way, by His omnipotent calling, in pursuance of the covenant of redemption made with, and fulfilled for them by, their Mediator. As to the non-elect, God has judged it best not to take this class of obstacles out of the way ; the men therefore go on to indulge their own will in neglecting or rejecting Christ. Dabney, Lectures in Systematic Theology, 532-533.

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