Ball:

1. There is an absolute willingness in Christ to save some sinners, and these sinners are those whom God hath, from all eternity, chosen to life; and who thereupon do come to Christ, that they might have life, being awakened and stirred up thereunto by the inward and effectual working of God’s Spirit and Grace upon their hearts. Now there is in Christ an absolute willingness to save all such; he is fully resolved to be wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption to them, John 6:37.

2. There is a conditional willingness in Christ to save other sinners, yea all sinners, yea even those that shall never be saved; by which Christ stands ready to receive, and pardon, and embrace them, in case they come to him, and repent and believe the Gospel: which they never do, through the hardness and impenitency of their hearts, to which they are justly left, they are eternally lost, though Christ could have saved them, and would have saved them, if the Condition had been performed, Luke 13:34.

Nathanael Ball, Spiritual Bondage and Freedom: A a Treatise Containing the Substance of Several Sermons Preached on the Subject From John VIII. 36. (London: Printed for Jonathan Robinson, at the Golden Lion in St. Pauls Church-yard, 1683), 178-179.

Credit to Tony for the find.

Brown:

The earlier reformers adopted general language on the subject. They held that “the redemption procured by the death at Christ was, proposed and offered to all, but apprehended by, and applied to, only those who believe.” Melancthon says in his Loci Communes “On the promises of the gospel,” “Reconciliation is offered and promised to all mankind,” and quotes John iii. 16. Calvin, when commenting on this passage says, “He has put an universal mark both that he might invite all, men promiscuously to the participation of life, and that he might leave the unbelieving without excuse.” “He shows himself to be propitious to the whole world, since he calls all without exception to believe in Christ.” On Romans v. 18, he says, “He makes grace common to all, because it is set before all, not because it is actually extended to all, for although Christ suffered for the sins of the whole world, and through the goodness of God is offered to all indifferently, yet all do not apprehend him.” Bullinger, in his 28^th sermon, on Revelations v. says, “The Lord died for all; ‘but all are not partakers of redemption, through their own fault.” Zanchius, one of the highest of Predestinarians, says, “It is not false that Christ died for all men as it regards his conditional will, that is, if they are willing to become partaken of his death through faith; for the death of Christ is set before all in the gospel, and no one is excluded from it but it who excludes himself.” In the opinion of Davenant, who was deeply. conversant in that ‘kind of Literature,–the early reformers,–“so explained the ‘doctrine of election and reprobation, that they might not infringe the universality of the redemption accomplished by the death of Christ.’

John Brown (of Broughton), “Notes, Chiefly Historical, on the Question Respecting the Extent of the Reference of the Death of Christ,” United Secession Magazine, June (1841): 286. [Some reformatting; some spelling modernized; and underlining mine.]

Baxter:

And because it is this synod purposely called against Arminianism, that is the best discovery what is to be accounted Arminian or anti-Arminian doctrine, as I think, by consenting to it, I do clear myself from that calumny with all men of conscience and reason that know it, so I shall think that those who go as much on the other hand, and differ from the synod one way, as much as the Arminians did the other way, remain censurable as well as they; till some body shall convince me that there is but one extreme in this case, and that a man may hold what he will without danger, so he be but sure it go far enough from Arminianism. A man that holds to the moderate of Dort, need not say that Christ did not die or satisfy for all men, nor need he trouble himself with presumptuous determinations about many mysteries of the decrees of God, which many volumes are guilty of. Nor does he need to aver the necessity of immediate physical efficient predetermination of God (as the first cause) of every second cause natural and free, as without which they cannot act. Nor need he say, that God so predetermined to the act which is sin, and not to the sinfulness of the act. Nor need he subscribe to all that Dr. Twisse, or Mr. Rutherford, or such like, have written on these points. Nay, as the synod, so our own assembly gave an example of modesty in these points, to them that will follow it, not only silencing many things which others make the pillars of anti-Arminianism, but expressing that the “will is endued by God with a natural liberty, that is neither forced, nor by any absolute necessity of nature determined to do good or evil,” and, therefore, they never tell you that God as the first cause must of natural necessity determine the means will by physical immediate premotion, before it can act either good or evil. But they reserve the honor of determining man’s will to special grace, “Renewing the will, and by almighty power determining it to that which is good (c 10. Sect. 1. And c.9. Sect. 1.).

Richard Baxter, Richard Baxter’s Confession of Faith (London: Printed by R.W. for Tho. Underhil, and Fra. Tyton, and are to be sold at the Anchor and Bible in Pauls Church-yard, and at the three Daggers in Fleetstreet, 1665), 25-26. [Some reformatting, some spelling modernized; and underlining mine.]

Brown:

The question which, so far as, this subject is concerned, will come, before the Synod for determination is this:–Is the doctrine of such a generality of reference of the death of Christ, as is maintained by some among us, consistent with the holy scriptures, as their meaning is established in our symbolical books? It may be of use then to bring before the mind, in one view, what taught on this subject in these books. Our symbolical books, as to doctrine, are the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Catechisms Larger and Shorter; and the following are the passages in these which bear most directly on the question:–

They who are elected, being fallen in Adam, are redeemed by Christ, are effectually called unto faith in Christ, by his Spirit working in due season, are, justified, adopted, sanctified, and kept by his, power through faith unto salvation. Neither are any other redeemed by Christ, effectually called, justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved, but the elect only. Confess. iii. 6.

God freely offers unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ; requiring of them faith in him that they may be saved, and promising to give unto all those that are ordained unto life his Holy Spirit, to make them willing and able to believe. lb. vii. 3.

The Lord Jesus, by his perfect obedience and sacrifice of himself, which he through the eternal Spirit once offered up unto God, has fully satisfied the justice of his Father; and purchased not only reconciliation, but an everlasting inheritance in the kingdom of heaven for all those whom the Father hath given to him. lb. viii. 5.

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