Twisse:

1) And In the stating of this thesis we have a miserable confusion, as if these men delighted to fish in troubled waters. For when we say Christ dyed for us, our meaning is that Christ dyed for our good, and a benefite redoundes unto us by the deathe of Christ, now, it may be, there are diverse benefites redounding unto us by the deathe of Christ, and they of so different nature, that, in respect of some, wee spare not to professe, that Christ dyed for all, and in respect of others, the Arminians themselves are so farre from granting that he dyed to obteyn any such benefite for all, as that they utterly deny them to be any benefites at redounding to any by the deathe of Christ. Though we willingly acknowledge them to be benefites redounding to us by the death of Christ, albeit not redounding unto all, but only God’s elect. Now if this be true, is it not a proper course which this author takes in confounding things so extreamely different? And that it is so as I have sayde, I now proceede to shewe in this manner. We say, that pardon of sinne and salvation of soules are benefites purchased by the deathe of Christ, to be enjoyed by men, but how? not absolutely, but conditionally, to witt, in case they believe, and only in case they believe. For like as God doth not conferre these on any of ripe yeares vnles they believe, so Christ hath not merited that they should be conferred on any but such as believe. And accordingly professe that Christ dyed for all, that is, to obteyne pardon of sinne and salvation of soule for all, but how? not absolutely whether they believe or no, but only conditionally, to witt provided they doe believe in Christ. So that we willingly professe, that Christ had both a full intention of his owne, and commandment of his Father to make a propitiation for the sinnes of the whole world, so farre as therby to procure both pardon of sinne and salvation of soule to all that doe believe, and to none other being of ripe yeares, according to that Rom. 3:24. we are justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. v. 25. Whome God hath sett forth to be a propitiation (or reconciliation) through faith in his blood. But we further say, that there are other benefites redounding to us by the death of Christ, to witt, the grace of faith and of repentance. For like as these are the gifts of God wrought in us by his holy Spirit, so they are wrought in us for Christ his sake, according to that of the Apostle, praying for the Hebrewes, namely that God will make them perfect to every good worke, working in them that which is pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ. Now, as touching these benefites, we willingly professe, that Christ dyed not for all, that is, he dyed not to obtaine the grace of faith and repentance for all, but only for God’s elect; In as much as these graces are bestowed by God, not conditionally, least so grace should be given according to mens workes, but absolutely, And if Christ dyed to obteyne these for all absolutely, it would follow here hence that all should believe and repent and consequently all shoulde be saved.   William Twisse, The Doctrine of the Synod of Dort and Arles, Preface, pp. 15-17

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Bucanus:

Is the execution of reprobation, or the appointing of wicked means subject to the decree of God, as faith and other means of salvation as to the decree of election?

It is, and it is not: because the decree of God is said to be two-fold, simple in some respect: the decree is called simple, when God wills and approves somewhat simply, whereof himself is truly, properly, and principally the efficient cause in his own time: from whence also the decree may be called effective, of which sort is they decree of the salvation, as of creation, effectual calling, faith, justification, and sanctification. Whereupon God, Hos 13:9. Thy salvation is of me. Moreover God is the Author and cause of the substance (that I may so speak) of all the actions and qualities, both good and evil. For the action is one thing by itself, the faulty quality of the action is another.

But the decree in respect is when God discerns, and will permit somewhat to be done, and that also in his due time: but he does not truly effect it himself, but suffers it to be done of wicked instruments, not as though he beheld the affairs of men negligently and from a far, but as the ruler of all. For Paul affirms that God provoked Pharaoh, and whom he wills he can harden, Rom. 9. 17,18. for God is not a negligent God, neither were God omnipotent, if against this will he should suffer any thing. Whereupon also this may be called a Decree of permission, of government, or of dispensation. And of this sort is the Decree of all evil means, which tend to destruction, as of the fall of man, his hardening, and the like: for they come not to pass without the will and knowledge of God, because by this means Atheism or Epicurism must necessarily follow, but of all these man’s will is chief, purchasing God’s wrath, hereupon is that rightly said. Thy destruction is of thyself O Israel. Hos 3:9. And nevertheless they are subject to the Decree, because though not by the decree, yet for the decree, and not without the decree they come to pass, and whereof the deficient, but not the efficient cause is surely purposed in God. For as God creates faith in them that believe; so, when God left the will, sin came upon mankind. As the Sun makes the day of itself, and with his own light, when it rises and shines, and the night likewise, but by the retiring of his light and the shadow of the earth. Furthermore it is no decree of a sufferance of malice, in that it is malice, but in that it has a purpose of goodness. For if we consider the decree of God, the very evil (though bred in itself) has a purpose of good: for what God has determined to suffer, and what he permits, he does it for some good end, as for the evidence of his glory and justice. Wherefore in respect of God, who in determining to suffer and in permitting does always behold a good end, the darkness helps forward the light, and the malice which proceeds wholly from the evil instrument is converted to good, as the punishment of sin, and the mean of God’s glory, as that paradox of Augustine might be verified. That it is good also there should be evils for else God would not suffer evils to be: but he suffers them not as against his will, but as willing, and as the same father says truly and wisely: that which is contrary to the will of God, comes not to pass against his will.

William Bucanus, Institutions of Christian Religion, Framed Out of God’s Word, and the Writings of the Best Divines, Methodically Handled by Questions and Answers, Fit For All Such as Desirous to Know, or Practice the Will of God, trans., by Robert Hill (Printed in London by George Snowden, 1606), 443-444.

Charnock:

1)

This weakness doth not excuse from obedience to this command, because God denies no man strength to perform what he commands, if he seek it at his hands. No man can plead that he would have been regenerate, and turned to God, and could not; for though we have not power to renew ourselves, yet God is ready to confer power upon us if we seek it. Where did God ever deny any man sufficient strength, that did wait upon him in serious and humble supplications, and conscientiously used the means to procure it. A man cannot indeed merit grace, or dispose himself for it, so that it must by a natural necessity come into his soul, as a form doth into matter upon dispositions to it. But if a man will do what he can do, if he will put no obstacle to grace, by a course of sin, would not God, out of his infinite bounty to his creatures, and out of that general love whereby he would have all men saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth, give him special grace? Hath not our Saviour made a promise in his first sermon to the multitude, that God “will give good things to them that ask him,” with a much more than men give good gifts to their children, Mat. vii. 11. They were not only his disciples that he preached that sermon to, but the multitude, comparing it with Mat. v. 1, and Mat. vii. 28. Hath not God declared, that he ‘delights not in the death of a sinner,’ Ezek. xxxiii. 11, and doth he not out of his infinite goodness condescend to beseech us to be reconciled to him ? Will not the same infinite goodness bow itself down to form a new image in them that use the means to be reconciled and conformed to him, as much as they can? Has not our blessed Saviour already given a testimony of his affection to such endeavours, in loving the young man for his outward observation of the law, Mark x. 21, who wanted but one thing only to pass him into a gracious state, the refusal whereof barred him of it? And shall not he have a choicer affection to those that strive to observe the rules he hath left in his gospel? Will he not be pleased with such motions in his creatures towards their own happiness? Will he not further that wherein he delights ? Think not therefore to justify yourselves at the bar of God for your sloth, because you are too weak to renew yourselves.

Charnock, “Regeneration,” in Works, 3:233-234.

2)

“Let us not judge ourselves by a general love. As there is a general love of God to man, a general love of Christ to mankind in dying, and giving a conditional grant of salvation upon faith and repentance, and a particular love to the soul of a believer, so likewise in man there is a general assent, and a particular serious assent to the truth of God, and accordingly a general love upon the apprehensions of what Christ hath done in general. There is a common love to God, which may be so called, because the benefits enjoyed by men are owned as coming from that fountain; a love arising from the apprehensions which men commonly have of the goodness of God in himself, and a common love wrought in them to God, as to other things that are good. Again, men may have a false faith, and a false apprehension of pardon of sin, when indeed no such pardon is granted to them; so they may have proportionably a false love upon such an ungrounded belief.”

Stephen Charnock, “A Discourse of the Subjects of the Lord’s Supper” in Works, 4:464.

Charnock:

1) As the world, so the gifts and common graces of men in the world are for the good of the church, which is a great argument for providence in general; since there is nothing so considerable in government as the disposing of places to men according to their particular endowments and abilities for them. And the bestowing such gifts upon men is none of the meanest arguments for God’s providential government of the world. As, First, The gifts of good men. The gifts conferred upon Paul were deposited in him, not only to be possessed by him, but used and laid out for the good of the church: Col. i.25, ‘ Whereof I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you;’ ‘The manifestation of the Spirit to any man is given to profit withal,’ 1 Cor. xii.7. And this is the great end for which men should seek to excel, viz., for the edifying of the church: 1 Cor. xiv.12, “Forasmuch as you are zealous of spiritual gifts, seek that you may excel to the edifying of the church.”

Secondly, The gifts and common graces of bad men. There is something that is amiable in men. though they have not grace. As in stones, plants, and flowers, though they have not sense, there is something grateful in them, as colour and smell, &c. And all those things that are lovely in men are for the church’s good; the best life, and the worst death, things present, let who will be the possessor, all things between life and death, are for the good of believers, because they are Christ’s : 1 Cor. iii. 22, Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world,’ i.e., whether the gifts of the prime lights in the church, or the common gifts of the world, are all yours, and ye are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.’ God is the dispenser of them, Christ is the governor of them, and all for your sakes. As the medicinal qualities of waters are not for the good of themselves, but the accommodation of the indigencies of men. By the common works of the Spirit God doth keep men from the evil of the world. For it cannot be supposed that the Spirit, whose mission is principally for the church, should give such gifts out of love to men which hate him, and are not the objects of his eternal purpose ; but he hath some other ends in doing it, which is the advantage of his church and people ; and this God causes by the preaching of the gospel, which when it Works gracious Works in some, produces common works in others for the good of those gracious ones. Stephen Charnock, “A Discourse on Divine Providence,” in Works 1:67.

2) The distinction is laid either in the common grace, bounding and suppressing it; or in special grace, killing and crucifying it. Charnock, “Practical Atheism,” in Works 1:184.

3) Man is to be considered as respited from the present suffering this sentence by the intervention of Christ; whereby he is put into another way of probation. So those common notions in our understandings, and common motions in our wills and affections, so far as they have anything of moral goodness, are a new gift to our natures by virtue of the mediation of Christ. In which sense he may be said to ‘ taste death for every man,’ Heb. ii. 9, and be * a propitiation for the sins of the whole world.’ By virtue of which promised death, some sparks of moral goodness are preserved in man. Thus his ‘life was the light of men;’ and he is ‘the light that lightens every man that comes into the world,’ which sets the candle of the Lord in the spirit of man a-burning and sparkling, John i. 9, and upholds all things by his mediatory as well as divine power, Heb. i. 3, which else would have sunk into the abyss. By virtue of this mediation, some power is given back to man, as a new donation, yet not so much as that he is able by it to regenerate himself ; and whatsoever power man hath, is originally from this cause, and grows not up from the stock of nature, but from common grace.

Which common grace is either,

[1.] More general, to all men. Whereby those divine sparks in their under standings, and whatsoever is morally praiseworthy in them, is kept up by the grace of God, which was the cause that Christ tasted death for every man : Heb. ii.9, ‘That he by the grace of God should taste death for every man ;’ whereby the apostle seems to intimate, that by this grace, and this death of Christ, any remainders of that honour and glory wherewith God crowned man at first are kept upon his head ; as will appear, if you consider the eighth Psalm, whence the apostle cites the words which are the ground of his discourse of the death of Christ.

[2.] More particular common grace, to men under the preaching of the gospel. Which grace men “turn into wantonness” or lasciviousness, Jude 4. Grace they had, or the gospel of grace, but the wantonness of their nature prevailed against the intimations of grace to them. Besides this common grace, there is a more special grace to the regenerate, the more peculiar fruit of Christ’s mediation and death for them. All this, and whatsoever else you can conceive that hath but a face of comeliness in man, is not the birth of fallen nature abstracted from this mediation. Therefore when the Gentiles are said to “do by nature the things contained in the law,” it is not to be understood of nature merely as fallen, for that could do no such thing ; but of nature in this new state of probation, by the interposition of Christ the mediator, whose powerful word upheld all things, and kept up those broken fragments of the two tables of law, though dark and obscure. And considering God’s design of setting forth the gospel to the world, there was a necessity of those relics, both in the understanding, and affections, and desire for happiness, to render men capable of receiving the gospel, and those inexcusable that would reject it. So that by this mediation of Christ, the state of mankind is different since the fall from that of the evil angels or devils. For man hath, first, a power of doing that which is in its own nature good; secondly, a power of doing good with a good intention ; not indeed supremely for the glory of God, but for the good of his country, the good of his neighbors, the good of the world, which was necessary for the soldering together human societies, so that sometimes even in sins man hath good intentions. Whereas the devil doth always that which in its own nature is evil, and always sins with evil intentions. Without this mediation, every man had been as very a slave to sin as the devil ; though he be naturally a slave to sin, yet not in that full measure the devil is, unless left in. a judicial manner by God upon high provocations. Charnock, “Regeneration,” in Works, 3:210-211.

Charnock on Common Restraining Grace:

1) “Prop. 7. The holiness of God is not blemished by withdrawing his grace from a sinful creature, whereby he falls into more sin. That God withdraws his grace from men, and gives them up sometimes to the fury of their lusts, is as clear in Scripture as anything (Deut. xxix. 4): “Yet the Lord hath not given you a heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear,” &c. Judas was delivered to Satan after the sop, and put into his power, for despising former admonitions. He often leaves the reins to the devil, that he may use what efficacy he can in those that have offended the Majesty of God; he withholds further influences of grace, or withdraws what before he had granted them. Thus he withheld that grace from the sons of Eli, that might have made their father’s pious admonitions effectual to them (I Sam. ii. 25): “They hearkened not to the voice of their father, because the Lord would slay them.” He gave grace to Eli to reprove them, and withheld that grace from them, which might have enabled them against their natural corruption and obstinacy to receive that reproof.

But the holiness of God is not blemished by this.

1. Because the act of God in this is only negative.* Thus God is said to “harden” men: not by positive hardening or working anything in the creature, but by not working, not softening, leaving a man to the hardness of his own heart, whereby it is unavoidable by the depravation of man’s nature, and the fury of his passions, but that he should be further hardened, and “increase unto more ungodliness,” as the expression is (2 Tim. ii. 19). As a man is said to give another his life, when he doth not take it away when it lay at his mercy; so God is said to “harden” a man, when he doth not mollify him when it was in his power, and inwardly quicken him with that grace whereby he might infallibly avoid any further provoking of him. God is said to harden men when he removes not from them the incentives to sin, curbs not those principles which are ready to comply with those incentives, withdraws the common assistances of his grace, concurs not with counsels and admonitions to make them effectual; flashes not in the convincing light which he darted upon them before. If hardness follows upon God’s withholding his softening grace, it is not by any positive act of God, but from the natural hardness of man. If you put fire near to wax or rosin, both will melt; but when that fire is removed, they return to their natural quality of hardness and brittleness; the positive act of the fire is to melt and soften, and the softness of the rosin is to be ascribed to that; but the hardness is from the rosin itself, wherein the fire hath no influence, but only a negative act by a removal of it: so, when God hardens a man, he only leaves him to that stony heart which he derived from Adam, and brought with him into the world. All men’s understandings being blinded, and their wills perverted in Adam, God’s withdrawing his grace is but a leaving them to their natural pravity, which is the cause of their further sinning, and not God’s removal of that special light he before afforded them, or restraint he held over them. As when God withdraws his preserving power from the creature, he is not the efficient, but deficient cause of the creature’s destruction; so, in this case, God only ceases to bind and dam up that sin which else would break out.”

[*]Testard. de natur. et grat., Thes. 150, 151. Amyr. on divers texts, p. 311.

Charnock, “On The Holiness of God,” in Works, 2:238-239. [Footnote values and content original.]