Brown:

Now, what are the elements of this love of Christians towards all men? They are obviously not the same as in the case of brotherly kindness. This is not the love of approbation or of  complacential esteem; for a Christian cannot approve of, cannot delight in, worldly and wicked men. Its leading element is good-will–a sincere and ardent wish for their true happiness, especially in the form of cordial commiseration–deep pity, for the hazardous and miserable condition in which their guilt and depravity have placed them.

As to the appropriate manifestations of this love, I begin with remarking, that it must be manifested in abstaining from everything like injury to any man. “Love works no ill to his neighbor.” It cannot work ill to him. He who loves his neighbor cannot injure him, either in his person, or in his property, or in his relatives, or in his reputation.

But this love is not a mere negation–the absence of hatred producing the absence of injury. It is positive good-will–kind regard producing benefits. This love is manifested in thinking of, and feeling towards, all men, as kindly as possible, even though obviously not belonging to the Christian brotherhood. In human nature unchanged by divine influence, there is indeed no spiritual good; but there may be much that is amiable, much that is morally estimable in unrenewed men. Some of these qualities are perhaps, in all men. It were absurd to deny that there are candor and truthfulness, and honor, and kindness, in some men plainly irreligious; and an enlightened Christian loves these men for such qualities just as his Lord loved the  young man who had not yet entered, and would not enter, into the kingdom of God. The love which Christians should cherish to unconverted men ought to be manifested chiefly in earnest, persevering endeavors to relieve their wants and miseries, and bring them into the possession of true happiness. Their endeavors to relieve the miseries of poverty and disease are not to be confined to the brotherhood. It is enough that the victim of poverty and disease be a man, to give him a resistless claim on the kind regard of a Christian, who has added charity to brotherly kindness and godliness.

“Not to the good alone we owe good-will: In good or bad, distress demands it still.”¹

The wants and miseries of men, as guilty, depraved, wretched already, and in danger of becoming much more and irreparably wretched, are those which chiefly bulk in the eye of an enlightened Christian man, and call out his love, in the form of pity, to active exertions in order to their removal. It is love that makes him desire and endeavor to save souls from death. To provide for the ignorant the means of instruction, especially religious instruction; to seek the prevention or cure of humoral habits; to send the blessed Bible and the glorious gospel to benighted nations, that they may be turned “from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in Christ:” these are the appropriate manifestations of Christian love. For these and similar objects Christian love labors; and, sensible how little human labor can do, love prays fur all men “that they may be saved, and come to the acknowledgment of the truth.”

As to the characteristic qualities of this love, they may all be described in one word. This love to the world of mankind, should resemble God’s. It should be sincere and universal. God does not, cannot love the world, as He loves His own. Christians do not, cannot, love the world as they love the brotherhood. But God does love the world; He loves man as man; His love is philanthropy–the love of man; and so should be the Christian’s. That a man is wicked, is no reason that I should not love him: when men were sinners, Christ, God’s Son, died for them. He makes His sun to shine, and His rain to fall, on the unthankful and evil. It is no reason why I should not love a man, that he is my enemy: when men were enemies, they were reconciled to God through the death of His Son. God’s love to the world is an active love. What human being does not enjoy innumerable fruits of His love? And this is the most remarkable fruit of His love–He gave His only-begotten Son to suffer and die, that any man–every man, however guilty and depraved, believing in Him, “might not perish but have everlasting life.” Our love to man should be fruitful love, and one of its chief fruits should be the carrying to all men the soul-saving truth–that God loves the world, and that whosoever believes in His Son who died, the just in the room of the unjust, shall not perish. God’s love to the world is patient, long-suffering love. Had it been otherwise, where would our guilty race have been?–Not in the land of the living, not in the place of hope. “It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not.” Our love to a perishing world should “suffer long and be kind;” our compassions should not fail. No obstinacy nor ingratitude should induce us to relinquish, or even to abate, our labors of love among our guilty, depraved, perishing brethren. They never can try us as we have tried God–we never can bear with them as He has borne with us.

John Brown, Parting Counsels: An Exposition of the First Chapter of the Second Epistle of the Apostle Peter, (Edinburgh: William Oliphant and Sons, 1861), 116-118.

_______________________

¹Armstrong.

Woods:

Secondly. The inspired writers speak familiarly of this work of divine mercy, as actually relating to those who perish, or who may he supposed to perish. Rom. 14:15; “Destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ died.” 1 Cor. 8:11; “And through thy knowledge shall thy weak brother perish, for whom Christ died.” Peter speaks of false teachers, who deny the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. 2 Pet. 2:1. They are false teachers and bring destruction upon themselves, and a very aggravated destruction, because they denied the Lord that bought or redeemed them. Is it conceivable that the inspired writers would speak in this manner, if the death of the Redeemer had no relation whatever to those who will finally perish, and produced no effect upon their circumstances?

Leonard Woods, ‘Lectures” in The Works of Leonard Woods, (Boston: John P. Jewett & Company, 1851), 498. [Italics original and underlining mine.]

Pendleton:

Paul says, “Destroy not him with thy meat, for whom Christ died.” Rom. xiv. I5. “And through thy knowledge shall the weak brother perish, for whom Christ died?” 1 Cor. viii. 11. But there are those who say that though these passages, at first view, seem to intimate that it is possible for one for whom Christ died to perish, yet they may be explained in another way. Be it so then, for it is not needful that I be tenacious of the view presented; but there is one passage about which there can be no dispute. It reads as follows: “But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction” 2 Peter ii. 1. Here the fact is plainly stated that these “false teachers” would introduce” damnable heresies,” literally, heresies of destruction, and that, prominent among these destructive heresies, would be a denial of the Lord of whom it is said that he “bought them.” Bought them how? Evidently with his blood; he having become a propitiation for the sins of the whole world, and thus acquiring a mediatorial claim to the love and service of every human being. The special point to be emphasized is. that these “false teachers,” though “bought” by the Lord, were to “bring upon themselves swift destruction.” It is therefore possible for those to perish for whom Christ died. This is the teaching of the divine word, and I leave it, without further comment, to make its own impression.

James M. Pendleton, The Atonement, (Philadelphia: American Baptists Publications Society, 1885),  99-100. [Underlining mine.]

Breckinridge:

IV.–1. Grace, Mercy and Peace, say the Scriptures, from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord.¹ So that peace flows from mercy, and mercy from grace. And in another place, they carry us further still: thus, after that the kindness and love of God our Savior to men appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost.² So that God’s Goodness is the cause of his Love–his love the cause of his mercy; his mercy the cause of our salvation: and thus salvation is the effect of them all.

2. As the Goodness of God when manifested toward objects considered in their unworthiness, is called grace; and when manifested toward objects considered in their desirableness to God is called Love: so when that Goodness is manifested toward objects considered in their misery, it is called mercy: and finally, when manifested toward objects considered in their guiltiness, it is called long-suffering. Mercy, therefore, is that divine propension which leads God to succor the miserable; and is attributed to him throughout the Scriptures³ as an eternal, unalterable, necessary, active, and free attribute of his being.

3. Amongst these Perfections of God which bear upon us in the most obvious manner–and of which the evidences are most constant and conclusive, his mercy stands conspicuous. For human misery is an inheritance of the whole race, and of every individual of it–as broad as the sin which produced it at first, and which is continually increasing its bitterness. By disobedience came sin, and by sin death; and the sin and the death have passed together–through all generations and with unfaltering steps, around the circuit of the whole race. For the sin, the grace of God provides the remedy: for the misery his mercy offers the consolation and the deliverance. And in some shape or other, that mercy is exhibited to every creature that suffers–so long as the creature has not passed out of the state in which mercy is possible. But the mercy of God flows, not only from the same Goodness from which his grace flows; but, also, from the Grace itself; and Grace and Mercy, both alike have reference to sin–one regarding the unworthiness of the creature, and the other regarding the misery which that unworthiness produces. When, therefore the Grace of God is clean taken away, his mercy also is clean taken away: for it is only in proportion as sin is removed through grace, that the misery produced by sin, can be solaced by mercy. Even the infinite mercy of God, could avail nothing in removing misery without removing the cause of it: and when the cause of it, is not only given over as irremediable forever–but falls under the Justice of God, under the other aspect of sin, which we call guilt–and that even beyond the Long-suffering of God: then it is not only, so to speak, essentially impossible for the mercy of God to avail any thing for the sinning sufferer; but any attempt to do so, would involve a direct conflict of the divine Attributes.

4. For us to object that the mercy of God is not manifested in an equal degree to all his creatures, is wholly absurd. That would be of itself impossible unless the miseries of all were precisely equal, and the destinies of all not only uniform, but exactly similar; both of which suppositions are not only inconsistent with the frame of the present universe–but with that of any universe, that could fully exhibit the perfections of God. Moreover, when we consider that whatever mercy any of us receives is, in its very nature, just so much goodness which we did not deserve: and, further, that the mercy of God, of whatever kind and to whomsoever extended, must be exercised with relation to the chief end of his work of creation, of providence and of grace, and must be put forth in accordance with all the perfections of his infinite being : the folly of such repinings is shown to be surpassed only by their presumption.

5. To urge that the mercy of God ought to have led him to prevent the introduction of any suffering into the universe, or to its total extirpation after it had found an entrance, is only saying, on the first point, that God’s mercy ought to deprive itself of all possibility of making itself manifest in the universe, and that this ought to be done in subordination to the sins of men: and, on the second point, it is only saying, that God having failed in his grand design of such a universe as he proposed, but could not accomplish, ought now by an irregular and miraculous interposition to subvert the order, and the event of all things, and cure such defects of his plan and operation, as he had not, at first, foreseen and provided for: and that all things ought to be done, by God, to prevent sin from being followed by misery: the whole of which is impious.

6. If it be still further alleged–that God ought to have prevented the introduction of sin itself into the universe–and thereby excluded the possibility of suffering: in addition to what has been said before, it is obvious to reply, that this cavil of infidelity is leveled more directly at natural Religion than at Christianity; since sin and misery are actually in God’s world, and Christianity only proposes to redress them. As a blasphemous cavil against God for having acted as he has done in the matter of creation, providence and grace–perhaps before we are fully satisfied of our right to make it–and thus to assail him in his being, and all his attributes, we ought to reflect that God is at least as wise, as Powerful, and as Good, as an infidel: that he is at least as much bent on the preservation of his essential glory, and the manifestation of his declarative glory, as any infidel is; that being such a God, and working to such an end, he is as likely to be right, in the means as any infidel. Especially we ought to reflect, that what things are possible–what things are best amongst those that are possible –and amongst the best possible, which are they that on the whole God ought to prefer, are matters he may as well be trusted with as any infidel: and that–as for us–the undeniable facts of the universe,–as for example–God, creation, and salvation on one side–and sin, misery, and perdition on the other, had as well be accepted as they assuredly exist ; as that we should revolt against God because they do exist; and accomplish by that revolt, nothing, except one more proof of the things we impiously reject, and one more ground of the certainty and justice of our perdition–along with every infidel.

Robert J. Breckinridge, The Knowledge of God, (New York: Robert Carter & Brothers, 1859), 299-301. [Some spelling modernized; footnote values modified; and underlining mine.]

______________________

¹1 Tim., i. 2.

²Titus, iii. 4, 5.

³2 Cor., i. 3; Eph., ii. 4; James, i. 13.