Arrowsmith

5. A third branch of divine goodness is long-suffering; whereby God hath been pleased to put a notable difference between angels that fell, and the fallen sons of Adam. Of them Peter saith, “God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment.” This was quick and speedy work. But the Lord (saith the same apostle,) “is long-suffering to us-ward.” He exercises much patience, very much, even towards all, though vessels of wrath. For so Paul, “What if God willing to shew his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much long-suffering, the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction?” How profane was the old world? How wicked a place was Jericho? yet was he one hundred and twenty years in warning those of that age, before he brought the deluge upon them: and he that made the world in six, was seven days in destroying that one city. The great doctor of the Gentiles was not much more than thirty years old, when God converted him; yet we find him looking at this as infinite patience, as all long-suffering, that he was borne with so long. “I obtained mercy (saith he) that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all long-suffering.” How sensible then ought they to be of this attribute, with whom God hath born forty, fifty, sixty years, and still continues to cry unto, as it is in Habakkuk, “Woe unto him that increases that which is not his: How long?” as in Jeremiah, “O Jerusalem, wash thine heart from wickedness, that thou mayest be saved: How long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee?” And again, “Woe unto thee, O Jerusalem, wilt thou not be made clean? When shall it once be.” All which places declare sufficiently that the long-suffering God doth in a manner long to see our conversion to him.

6. And that indeed is the most proper use we can make hereof according to Paul’s expostulation, “Despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance, and long-suffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance.” Verily, we cannot meet on this side of hell, with a worse temper of spirit than that which inclines a sinner to despise the forbearance of God, and to kick against the bowels of his goodness…”

John Arrowsmith, Armilla Catechetica: A Chain of Principles; or, An Orderly Concatenation of Theological Principles and Excercitations, Wherein the Chief Heads of Christian Religion are Asserted and Improved (Edinburgh: Thomas Turnbull, 1822), 130-132.

Credit to Tony for the find.

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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[Note: The following is part of a speech R.L. Dabney gave on the issue of union with the United Synod. The speech related to a committee declaration upon various subjects, one of which was the question of the atonement. An accusation was made that the committee’s declaration was opposed to the Westminster Confession. In this speech, Dabney responds to certain objections. The conclusion of the speech can be found in Dabney’s Works, 2:298-311. The relevant portion of Dabney’s speech where he speaks to the atonement question can be found in the Dabney file. What interests us here is Dabney’s comment regarding the Heidelberg Catechism, wherein he recognizes its explicit commitment to universal sin-bearing and his brief interpretation thereof, which actually images the very explication of this Q&A by Ursinus.]

Dabney:

On the other hand, the Southern Presbyterian says this is not enough; nor that they shall say Christ’s sufferings were vicarious, or that they were substitutionary, or that they were a satisfaction for guilt, because they may say all these in a loose sense. No; he will not be entirely pleased unless they say in express words, without the “as,” that Christ “bore the penalty” of guilt. Well, we thought that this was lifting the standard pretty high, when we remembered that good old Dr. Alexander was accustomed to say, that he who admitted the atonement to be vicarious, was substantially sound on that point. But we looked a few lines downward, and perceived that our report, in the article on justification, also used those very words, and said expressly, without the “as,” that Christ “bore the penalty” of guilt. Thus, our paper has been so happy as to satisfy both these most lynx-eyed sentinels of orthodoxy exactly, even in demands which are, in appearance, contradictory. The difference between themselves they must settle.

Once more, I am led to believe that our effort to make a brief statement of the substance of this doctrine is rather happy, by noting a remarkable conformity between its structure and the Canons of the great Synod of Dort, on the atonement, and the article in which the National French Synod at Alençon caused Amyraut and Testard to recant their rash speculations, and the Heidelberg Catechism, and indeed the standards of the Reformers generally. The Heidelberg Catechism, the symbol of the German Reformed Church, which our own Assembly embraced as the very pink of orthodoxy, uses language which goes farther than our report. So that, while we have stated the doctrine in accordance with the belief of the purest Reformed churches, we have been even more guarded than some of them. Thus, Ques. 37 : “What dost thou believe when thou sayest, ‘He suffered ?’” (in the creed). Ans. “That he bore in his body and soul the wrath of God against the sin of the universal human race, during the whole period of his life which he passed in the earth, but especially in its end; so that by his passion, as the sole propitiatory sacrifice, he might deliver our body and soul from eternal damnation, and purchase for us the grace of God, righteousness and eternal life.”

R.L. Dabney, ‘Speech on the Fusion of the United Synod,” in Discussions: Evangelical and Theological, 2:309-310.

Murray:

1) Introduction

It would appear that the real point in dispute in connection with the free offer of the gospel is whether it can properly be said that God desires the salvation of all men. The Committee elected by the Twelfth General Assembly in its report to the Thirteenth General Assembly said, “God not only delights in the penitent but is also moved by the riches of his goodness and mercy to desire the repentance and salvation of the impenitent and reprobate” (Minutes, p. 67). It should have been apparent that the aforesaid Committee, in predicating such “desire” of God, was not dealing with the decretive will of God; it was dealing with the free offer of the gospel to all without distinction and that surely respects, not the decretive or secret will of God, but the revealed will. There is no ground for the supposition that the expression was intended to refer to God’s decretive will.

It must be admitted that if the expression were intended to apply to the decretive will of God then there would be, at least, implicit contradiction. For to say that God desires the salvation of the reprobate and also that God wills the damnation of the reprobate and apply the former to the same thing as the latter, namely, the decretive will, would be contradiction; it would amount to averring of the same thing, viewed from the same aspect, God wills and God does not will. The question then is: what is implicit in, or lies back of; the full and free offer of the gospel to all without distinction? The word “desire” has come to be used in the debate, not because it is necessarily the most accurate or felicitous word but because it serves to set forth quite sharply a certain implication of the full and free offer of the gospel to all. This implication is that in the free offer there is expressed not simply the bare preceptive will of God but the disposition of lovingkindness on the part of God pointing to the salvation to be gained through compliance with the overtures of gospel grace. In other words, the gospel is not simply an offer or invitation but also implies that God delights that those to whom the offer comes would enjoy what is offered in all its fullness. And the word “desire” has been used in order to express the thought epitomized in Ezekiel 33:11, which is to the effect that God has pleasure that the wicked turn from his evil way and live. It might as well have been said, “It pleases God that the wicked repent and be saved.”

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