Burkitt::

8 But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, (as some men count slackness,) but his long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

Our apostle here answers the cavil and objection of the fore-mentioned scoffers, namely. That if Christ intends to come to judgment, why does he so long defer his coming? To this our apostle replies, 1. By assuring Them that this delay ought not to be judged according to our sense and apprehension of things, tor God does not measure time as we do; but a thousand years, which seem so long to us, are but a day, yea, but a moment, to him who is eternal, and inhabits eternity. To the eternity of God no finite duration bears any proportion, to eternity all time is equally short; God does not measure time by our pole, nor cast up years by our arithmetic. 2. He assures them farther, that God’s delay of judgment did not proceed from slackness, but from divine patience and goodness. He delays his coming, on purpose to give men time to repent, and by repentance to prevent their own eternal ruin. Learn hence, 1. That God’s delay of judgment is no ground for sinners to conclude that he will not come to judgment, for our Savior has no where fixed and determined the time of it. We can neither be sure when our Lord will come, nor certain when he will not come. Learn, 2. That the true reason why God defers judgment, is to give sinners opportunity for repentance; if this be not complied with, he reserves those who are incorrigibly bad to a more remarkable ruin, condemning them that will not be saved, but obstinately destroy themselves.

William Burkitt, Expository Notes With Practical Observations on the New Testament (Philadelphia: Published by Thomas Wardle, 1835), 2:749-750. [Some spelling modernized; underlining mine.]

The Witness of Men…:

49. Calvin, who died AD. 1564, writes:–

“But if we respond not to the call, the supper shall not be lost, which was prepared for us, but God will furnish himself with other guests.” Harm. P., 188.

‘For although in the world nothing is found worthy of God, yet he shows himself propitious to the whole world, when without exception he calls all to the faith of Christ, which is nothing else than the entrance into life.”–In John 3:15,16.

“For although Christ suffered for the sins of the whole world, and is offered equally to all in the benignity of God, yet all do not lay hold of him.”–Ad Rom. 5:18.

“But the fuller and richer sense will be, that God was in Christ, then that by his intercession he reconciled the world to himself.”–Ad 2 Cor. 5:19.

“When therefore he wished the benefit of his death to be common, they do him injury who, by any opinion of their own, keep any man from the hope of salvation.”–Ad 1 Tim. 2:5.

‘This therefore is a marvelous love to the human race, that he wished all to be saved, and is prepared to gather into salvation those perishing of their own accord. And the order here is to be noted, that God is prepared to receive all to repentance, lest any one should perish.”–Ad 2 Pet. 3:9.

‘He is to be considered as an expiatory victim, by which God is pacified to the world.” Opusc. P., 872.

“And both are hear [in John 3:15, 16] distinctly delivered to us–viz, that faith in Christ is saving to all, and that Christ therefore brought life, because the celestial Father did not wish the human race, whom he loved, to perish.”–Ad John 3:15,16.

“He uses a note of universality both that he may invited all to a participation of life, and that he may cut off excuse from unbelievers. To the same pertains the term world, which he uses before.”–Idem.

“In wounding a weak conscience the price of the blood of Christ is dissipated.”–Ad Rom. 14:15.

“Not only let the general reflection come into the mind that the world was redeemed by the blood of Christ, but let each, for himself think that his own sins were expiated.”–Ad Mark 14:24.

“When John says ‘the sin of the world,’ he extends this favor [of sin being taken away by the Lamb of God] to the WHOLE HUMAN RACE.”–Ad John 1:29.

“Redemption was acquired by the blood of Christ; for, by the sacrifice of his death all the sins of the world were expiated.”–Ad Col. 1:14.

In his last “Will,” written a few days before his death, he most distinctly and unequivocally declared that “the blood of the Great Redeemer was shed for the sins of the WHOLE HUMAN RACE.” 278. [Italics original; content in brackets original.]

“The Atonement of Christ,” in Biblical Notes and Queries, (Edinburgh: George Adam Young & Co., 1869), 278. [Note: As far as I can determine, I see no named author for this article.]

Burkitt:

3 For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; 4 Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.

Our apostle subjoins his reasons for our praying for all men, because Christ came into the world to save all men, chap. i. 15. Because it is the desire of God, us well as the design of Christ, that all men should be saved, and because such prayers are good and acceptable in the sight of God. Learn hence, 1. That to pray for all men, as well enemies as friends, especially and particularly for rulers and magistrates, magistrates, is good, acceptable, and agreeable to Almighty God, as all acts of obedience to his commanding will are: This is good and acceptable in the sight of God. Learn, 2. That it is not only all sorts of men that God and Christ desire should be saved, but our Lord willed, together with his Father, the salvation of all men in general, so far as to make a sacrifice sufficient for all, if they repent and believe, and to other a general pardon to all on condition of acceptance, and to send his ministers amongst all with the word of reconciliation, accompanying it with an hearty desire that all would accept of it; in short, what Christ offered to all, he undoubtedly purchased for all; but he offers to all pardon and life upon condition of acceptance, therefore he is so far willing that all men should be saved. Learn, 3. The means and method by which and in which God would have all men to be saved, namely, by coming to the knowledge of the truth; it is evidently false then, which some confidently affirm, that a man may be saved in any religion: no, he cannot come to salvation but by the knowledge of the truth ; without the knowledge of God, without faith in Christ, where he has been revealed, and without obedience to the gospel, where it has been made known, there is no possibility of salvation; God would have all men to be saved, by coming to the knowledge of the truth.

5 For there is one God, and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus: 6 Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.

The apostle’s argument runs thus: We ought to pray for all, because there is one God who is good to all, and one Mediator between God and mankind, who took upon him the common nature of all men, and gave himself a satisfactory and sufficient ransom for all, which was in due time testified and borne witness to by us his apostles. Learn hence, 1. That the only way of friendly intercourse between God and fallen man, is by and through a Mediator, God cannot look upon fallen men out of a Mediator, but as rebels, traitors, and objects of his vindictive wrath; nor can fallen man, without a Mediator, look up to God, but as a provoked majesty, an angry judge, and a consuming fire. Learn, 2. That there is no other Mediator between God and man, but Jesus Christ, who was both God and man; for though the apostle calls him the Jesus Christ Jesus, this is not added to exclude the divine nature from the Mediatorship, but emphatically to declare that nature in which he gave himself a ransom for us; the human nature is the matter of our ransom; the divine nature gave worth and value to it; Christ suffered being man, and satisfied being God. Learn, 3. That this one Mediator, Jesus Christ, gave himself a ransom for all; whoever perishes under the gospel, it is not because no ransom was paid for him, nor because it was not sufficient for him, for it is most notorious that God has issued forth an universal act of grace, offering pardon of sin and eternal salvation to all men without exception, living under the gospel, upon condition of their believing acceptance; if they reject and refuse it, ’tis to their unutterable and inevitable condemnation. Learn, 4. That Christ’s mediation and intercession is founded upon redemption; because he gave himself a ransom for all, therefore is he, and he only, qualified to intercede for all, in virtue of that sacrifice which he offered for the salvation of mankind: therefore the distinction of the church of Rome, between a mediator of redemption, and a mediator of intercession, is groundless; for who dares plead with an offended God as an intercessor on the behalf of sinners, that has not first, as a redeemer, satisfied the justice of God for sin? As there was no redemption wrought by any, so there is no intercession to be made by any, but by Christ ; as there is but one God, so but one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.

William Burkitt, Expository Notes With Practical Observations on the New Testament (Philadelphia: Published by Thomas Wardle, 1835), 2:519-520. [Underlining mine.]

Warfield:

The Amyraldians “point with pride” to the purity of their confession of the doctrine of election, and wish to focus attention upon it as constituting them good Calvinists. But the real hinge of their system turns on their altered doctrine of the atonement, and here they strike at the very heart of Calvinism. A conditional substitution being an absurdity, because the condition is no condition to God, if you grant him even so much as the poor attribute of foreknowledge, they necessarily turn away from a substitutive atonement altogether. Christ did not die in the sinner’s stead, it seems, to bear his penalties and purchase for him eternal life; he died rather to make the salvation of sinners possible, to open the way of salvation to sinners, to remove all the obstacles in the way of salvation of sinners. But what obstacle stands in the way of the salvation of sinners, except just their sin? And if this obstacle (their sin) is removed, are they not saved? Some other obstacles must be invented, therefore, which Christ may be said to have removed (since he cannot be said to have removed the obstacle of sin) that some function may be left to him and some kind of effect be attributed to his sacrificial death. He did not remove the obstacle of sin, for then all those for whom he died must be saved, and he cannot be allowed to have saved anyone. He removed, then, let us say, all that prevented God from saving men, except sin; and so he prepared the way for God to step in and with safety to his moral government to save men. The atonement lays no foundation for this saving of men: it merely opens the way for God safely to save them on other grounds.

We are now fairly on the basis of the Governmental Theory of the Atonement; and this is in very truth the highest form of doctrine of atonement to which we can on these premises attain. In other words, all the substance of the atonement is evaporated, that it may be given a universal reference. And, indeed, we may at once recognize it as an unavoidable effect of universalizing the atonement that it is by that very act eviscerated. If it does nothing for any man that it does not do for all men why, then, it is obvious that it saves no man; for clearly not all men are saved. The things that we have to choose between, are an atonement of high value, or an atonement of wide extension. The two cannot go together. And this is the real objection of Calvinism to this compromise scheme which presents itself as an improvement on its system: it universalizes the atonement at the cost of its intrinsic value, and Calvinism demands a really substitutive atonement which actually saves. And as a really substitutive atonement which actually saves cannot be universal because obviously all men are not saved, in the interests of the integrity of the atonement it insists that particularism has entered into the saving process prior, in the order of thought, to the atonement.  B.B. Warfield, The Plan of Salvation (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publications, 1915), 121-122.

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