Annotations:

Verse. 1. Exhort] Or, desire.
Supplications, prayers] Either these words are synonymous, all signifying the public devotion of the Church in her service and Liturgy; or they may be thus distinguished: by demseis: and meant prayers as we make in our necessities and distresses, to prevent and avoid evils that may befall, or are come upon us, by proseuchas, such prayers wherein we sue for good things at God’s hand, namely spiritual and temporal blessings; by enteuxeis, such prayers wherein we entreat for the good of others.

For all men] That is, all kinds of men, Jew and Gentiles, bond, free, faithful, infidels, friends, enemies, great men and mean ones, public and private; or, as the word is often taken in Scriptures, as Matthew 4:23, pasan noson, all diseases, that is, all sorts of diseases, Luke 11:42, pan lachanon, all manner of herbs.

V. 2. For Kings] He mentions Kings particularly, either because the Kings and Magistrates were then enemies to the Church, and persecutors of the Saints of God, and some might peradventure make scruple whether they ought to pray for such; the Apostle therefore resolves they ought; and yields a double reason for it, the former in this verse, that through God’s blessing upon their Government we may enjoy peace (Jer. 29:7). The latter in the fourth verse, because God excludes no sorts or conditions of men from the means of salvation. Or he names Kings in the first place, because they are highest in dignity, and upon the good use of their power very much depends the safety of the Church and Common-wealth.

authority] Or, eminent place.
honesty] Or, comeliness.

V.4. all men to be saved] By as much as appeared unto us by the will revealed in the Gospel, he excluding none by name, neither nation or condition whatsoever, Matthew 28:19. Mark 16:15. Or all, may be taken, not pro singulus generium, but pro geniribus singulorum. Verse. 1.

V. 5. Between] Gr. of. the man Christ Jesus] The Apostle does not add man to exclude the divine nature from his Mediatorship: for he is God revealed in the flesh, 1 Tim. 3:16. And God has purchased his Church by his blood, which through the eternal Spirit he offered without spot unto God, Heb. 9:14, but to express that nature in which he paid the ransom for us, mentioned in the verse following; and to show that our Mediator being a man, all sorts of men have by faith free access unto him and his offering, Heb. 2:10.

V. 6. a ransom for all] All that do believe in him, Matthew 20:28. John 3:16 and 10:15, Rom. 1:16 and 3:22.
to be testified in due time] Or a testimony. Gr. Tec. For all in due time. The word marturion, is left out in the Greek copy by Tecla, and the sense is full without it, “Who gave himself a ransom for all in due time;” but if retain the word because most copies have it, the meaning is, “That the ransom he paid was a real testimony of his Mediatorship betwixt God and man, whereby he reconciled both.” Or the meaning is, “That though their ransom were paid at one time, yet it is testified to several nations, kairois idois, at several seasons appointed by God for their conversion.

Annotations Upon all the Books of the Old and New Testament: This Second Edition so enlarged, As they make an entire Commentary on the Sacred Scripture: The like never before published in English. Wherein The Text is Explained, Doubts Resolved, Scriptures Paralleled (London: Printed by John Legat, 1651). [Some reformatting; some spelling modernized; italics original; and underlining mine.]

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Rex:

The year 1618 is one of the historic dates of Calvinism. It was then that in Holland the famous Synod of Dordrecht was convoked to combat the greatest crisis in dogma since the age of the first reformers. From Germany, the United Provinces, Geneva, Switzerland and England the delegates assembled (France, by order of the king, could send no delegates) to deal with the Arminians, or “Remonstrants” as they were often called, who had challenged some of the fundamental orthodox doctrines, threatening to split the Calvinist world in two.⁷

It was the pious conviction of the Arminians that the insistence of traditional Calvinism upon God’s omnipotence and man’s helplessness (as expressed in the absolute decrees of election and reprobation and other doctrines concerning the nature of grace and the Divine Satisfaction) led immediately and necessarily to the conclusion that God Himself was responsible for man’s sins and was the cause of his damnation.⁸ To avoid a conclusion so monstrous in itself, and which made them so vulnerable to accusations by their Catholic adversaries, they remonstrated to the orthodox with five points of doctrine carefully phrased to coincide as closely as possible with the usual orthodox formulae, but which in reality–as the orthodox were quick to see–affected the very foundations of the Calvinist theological system. In order to make it clear that it was man, rather than God, who was responsible for his own damnation the Arminians suggested (1) that the decrees of predestination and reprobation were not always absolute, (2) that Christ had proffered remission of sins to all mankind by His death, (3) that Christ had died for each and every person, (4) that a sinner might resist grace, and (5) that the saints did not always persevere in their faith. These points if adopted would have broken the absolute nature of the divine decrees; they would have implied the existence of a kind of universal grace offered to all (as opposed to the traditional “particular” grace offered only to the elect), and they would have meant that man’s will was partially independent–independent enough to refuse the grace offered in Christ’s death, or even to lose it, if in the wickedness of his heart man chose to do so.

Inevitably the orthodox rejected the five points. They were far from admitting that their traditional doctrines led to such impious consequences as the Arminians claimed; they saw no necessity to revise the whole structure of their theology, especially since their traditional doctrines were so “evidently” supported by the authority of the Scripture, and since Arminianism was clearly another revival of the semi-Pelagian heresy, whose dangers were already well known to the true Church. For months they labored, and at last brought forth the famous “Canons” which redefined the essential doctrines of their belief, and rejected the errors of the heretics.⁹ All the delegates to the Synod signed their names to each of the articles of the Canons, and at the conclusion of the Synod there were tears of rejoicing and prayers of thanksgiving; medals were struck to commemorate the happy issue of the crisis. A considerable number of Arminians were denied the right to exercise their pastoral functions; many also were placed under surveillance or sent into exile; for political reasons the worthy Oldenbarneveldt was decapitated.

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Venema:

III. Let us now inquire what place this general purpose holds in the order of the divine decrees–whether the first or the third. On this point two different opinions are held–the one by the Supralapsarians and the other by the Sublapsarians.

The Supralapsarians maintain that God in forming his decree first consulted the manifestation of his justice and mercy in saving some and condemning others of the human race, that all his decrees were designed to promote this end and are to be regarded as means to its accomplishment, and that the last of these means was the gift of his Son as Redeemer to some, i.e. to the elect, all the others being absolutely destined to destruction and therefore reprobate. But in order that man might be in a condition to illustrate the mercy and justice of God in his salvation or in his final ruin, in other words, in order that his decree to manifest these perfections might thus take effect, they say that God decreed that he should fall, and that by the fall he should become miserable, and that in order to bring this about he decreed to call him into being, so that his creation might prepare the way for his fall, and his creation and fall afford an opportunity for the manifestation of his mercy in saving some and of his justice in condemning others of his posterity.

Such according to them was the order of thought in the mind of God in forming his decree–the first, namely, being the manifestation not of his perfections in general, but of his mercy and justice in particular–the second, the permission of the fall–the third, the creation of man. They thus hold that man was regarded by God in the decree of predestination not as created and fallen, but as destined to be created and to be created in order to fall. This is the reason why they are called Supralapsarians. Among the most eminent of them were Beza, Gomarus, Macovius, and Piscator. Calvin, although regarded by many as entertaining their sentiments, was in reality a Sublapsarian.

The Sublapsarian view of the doctrine of predestination is this. God, it is said, proposed as the end of his decree the manifestation of his own glory. He then purposed to create man in order to afford an illustration of his goodness, wisdom, and power, to permit him to fall, and to magnify his mercy and justice in delivering some and in leaving others to perish. They thus assign to predestination the third place–after the creation and the fall, namely, and hold that man was viewed by God in the decree as destined to fall, or as already created and fallen. On this account they are called Sublapsarians or Infralapsarians.

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Venema:

(4.) We come now to the fourth question–the question namely as to the manner in which the decree was formed in the mind of God.

A decree is not a natural act on the part of God, but an act of his will freely determining itself. It proceeds indeed from a natural self determining power in him, hut it is not in itself an essential act. The power to decree is essential but not the decree itself. The decree accordingly is not of the essence of God, because it is a free act of his will and must not consequently be confounded with his nature. They speak inaccurately therefore or do not understand what they say or deny the freedom of the decree who affirm that the decree is God himself. Those who hold that the decree is freely made cannot , confound it with God; because that which may or may not be does not belong to his nature. Now he forms his purpose because he wills to do so; but it cannot be said that he exists because he wills to exist and consequently the decree is not natural–it cannot be said to belong to his nature, for it exists because he wills it,–it cannot be said to be God himself. From this it will appear how incorrect it is to say what is in every one’s mouth that God is a pure act, that he is every thing that may be. This is a contradiction in terms, for that which has a possible has not an actual existence.

God who is possessed of all power can produce more than he does, because his omnipotence is not exhausted. His decree is a free act and does not therefore belong to his nature, and although he maybe in the state of decreeing, he is not naturally and of necessity so. It is not correct, moreover, to deny that those actions are free which proceed from the natural power of God, as if the act and the power to act were in him two separate and distinct things. Those who say that as a pure act he is every thing that exists have done so chiefly for the purpose of avoiding the error of those who ascribe to him accidental qualities–qualities, i.e. which are superinduced from another quarter and which contribute to make up the perfection of which he is possessed. But a free action is not of this description. It is the result of an inherent power and, although in common with an accidental property it may or may not be, it has yet no effect in making him the perfect being he is. No addition is made by it to his excellence which is already infinite; it is only the effect of an exercise of the power which originally and naturally belongs to him.

A decree is an act which occupies the whole mind of God, the understanding and the will. In regard to the understanding it is an idea of possible things and a perception of ends and of means. It passes thence to the judgment by which its proportion and form, its end and means, are settled, and which combines, disposes, and arranges the ideas of these, and is at length completed by the will in the exercise of which God determines to give them being for these ends and by these means. The decree has thus its full form, inasmuch as it is the determination of the divine will.

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