Annesley:

From all which is thus explained, arises this proposition.

It is the Duty of every Child of God, to keep themselves in the Love of God.

This proposition is grounded upon a threefold supposition.
1. That some men are in the love of God really, and eternally.
2. That this love wherewith God loves his Chosen, is a special love, a peculiar and distinguishing love.
3. That it is a duty, as well as a privilege to keep our selves in this love of God: our activity, as well as Gods act. Which will be hereafter more explained.

Before we come to the main question, we will answer this question: How love can be said to be in God? for love is a passion in the creature, and passions are imperfections, which are contrary to God’s perfection.

A. 1. It is true: Nothing of imperfection is in God; but love is in God as a perfection: because love is in God in the abstract, that is essentially; for abstracts speak essences. God is Love. 1 John 4.8.

The love of God is either natural or voluntary, thus divines distinguish, and that well.

Mat. 3:17.
Joh. 3:25.
Joh. 5:2c.
Joh. 17:24.

1. The natural love of God is that wherewith God loves himself.
That is, the reciprocal love whereby the three persons love each other.
This essential natural love of God is therefore necessary. God cannot but love himself.
2. The love of God is voluntary: thus he loves his Creatures with a general Love.

Gen. 1:31.

1. Because he made them, and made them good, therefore he preserves them: for though sin be really evil, and none of Gods making, but contrary to God, and hated of God; yet God loves the creatures as his creatures, although sinful, with a general love.

Mat. 5:44-45.

2. He loves some creatures with a special love, and by this he loves Jesus Christ as Mediator.

Joh. 3:35.
Eph. 1:6.
1 Joh. 4:9.
Rom. 8. ult.

1. This love of God to Christ as mediator, is the foundation of God’s love to his elect.
2. By a special love God loves his elect. John 13.1. Of this love it’s said that it is inseparable.

Eph. 1:3,
5,5.
Deut. 7:6,
7,8.
Eph. 2:3,4,
&c. to 10.

Now this is the peculiar love which God bears to some above others. Not because they were more lovely than others, nor because God foresaw they would believe and love him; but because God loved them first antecedently to all those things: and because he loved them therefore Christ shall come and die, and therefore they shall believe in him and love him. The sum is this: Our love to God is the effect, and not the cause of Gods love to us: yea Christ himself as mediator is the effect of God’s eternal love. This is primitive doctrine.

Samuel Annesley, A Continuation of Morning-Exercise Questions and Cases of Conscience, Practically Resolved by Sundry Ministers, in October 1682 (London: Printed by J. A. for John Dunton at the Sign of the Black Raven in the Poultry over against the Stocks-Market, 1683), 127-128. [Some reformatting; marginal references cited as side-headers; some spelling modernized; and underlining mine.]

[Credit to Tony for the find.]

Wollebius:

XXIII. While Christ’s passion is minimized by the foregoing errors, those who teach that he died for all human beings [pro omnibus et singulis] broaden the object of his passion more than is allowable.

Of course, if we take into consideration the magnitude and worthiness of the merit, we admit that it would suffice for the redemption of ten worlds; but if we take the plan of God and the intention of Christ into consideration, then it is false to say that Christ died for every person. For this reason others say that his death was sufficient for all, but not effective for all;¹ that is, the merit of Christ, because of his worthiness, is sufficient for all, but it is not effective for all in its application, because Christ did not die with the intention that his. death be applied to all. Why should he die for those for whom he would not pray? But he told us that he did not pray for the world On. 17 :9). Those who oppose us argue from passages in which there is reference to the whole world, or to all men, [ Timothy 2:4 and 1 John 2:2, in which all men in general are named. But in I John 2:2 the meaning of "the whole world" is, by metonymy, "the elect scattered throughout the whole world," and in 1 Timothy 2: 4 "all men" means men of every sort, whether gentiles or Jews, kings or private citizens, and so not individuals in a class, but classes of individuals, as the words that follow make plain. The word "all" is used in the same sense in Genesis 6: 19 and Joel 2:28.5

1. The other aspect of Christ’s satisfaction is the perfect righteousness which, by his conformity to the law and the perfect obedience which he performed, acquired for us the status of heirs of eternal life. 2. This righteousness is partly original and partly actual. 3. The original righteousness of Christ is the conformity to the law in which he was conceived and born.

Johannes Wollebius, Compendium Theolgiae Christianae trans. John W. Beardslee in Reformed Dogmatics (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1965), 105-106.

[Underlining mine.]

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Edwards:

Of the Distinction of Natural and Moral Necessity and Inability.

THAT Necessity which has been explained, consisting in an infallible connection of the things signified by the subject and predicate of a proposition, as intelligent beings are the subjects of it, is distinguished into moral and natural Necessity.

I shall not now stand to inquire whether this distinction be a proper and perfect distinction; but shall only explain how these two sorts of Necessity are understood, as the terms are sometimes used, and as they are used in the following discourse.

The phrase, Moral Necessity, is used variously: sometimes it is used for a Necessity of moral obligation. So we say, a man is under Necessity, when he is under bonds of duty and conscience, from which he cannot be discharged. So the word Necessity is often used for great obligation in point of interest. Sometimes by moral Necessity is meant that apparent connection of things, which is the ground of moral evidence; and so is distinguished from absolute Necessity, or that sure connection of things, that is a foundation for infallible certainty. In this sense, moral Necessity signifies much the same as that high degree of probability, which is ordinarily sufficient to satisfy mankind, in their conduct and behavior in the world, as they would consult their own safety and interest, and treat others properly as members of society. And sometimes by moral Necessity is meant that Necessity of connection and consequence, which arises from such moral causes, as the strength of inclination, or motives, and the connection which there is in many cases between these and such certain volitions and actions. And it is in this sense, that I use the phrase, Moral Necessity, in the following discourse.

By Natural Necessity, as applied to men, I mean such Necessity as men are under through the force of natural causes; as distinguished from what are called moral causes, such as habits and dispositions of the heart, and moral motives and inducements. Thus men, placed in certain circumstances, are the subjects of particular sensations by Necessity: they feel pain when their bodies are wounded; they see the objects presented before them in a clear light, when their eyes are opened: so they assent to the truth of certain propositions, as soon as the terms are understood; as that two and two make four, that black is not white, that two parallel lines can never cross one another; so by a natural Necessity men’s bodies move downwards, when there is nothing to support them.

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