Bayne:

Doct.
By nature
wrath abides
on all.

Observe again, what is the state of men by nature, they are such on whom the wrath of God abides. We are from the very conception and birth, such on whom God’s indignation is poured out, yea such on whom the full vials of God’s wrath are poured out, together with our being God’s answer towards us, as in ourselves considered. Let us take notice of the evils which do accompany us from birth, that we may understand better that we are indeed children of wrath.

1. We are born such from whom God is separated; “Your sins have separated twixt you and your God,” “we are strangers to God from the womb,” [Esai. 59.2; Psal. 58.3].

2. We are given up to Satan; children of the Devil, of darkness, under the power of the Devil the Prince of darkness, and are in all kinds of darkness, of ignorance; “none understand, none seek after God” [Psal. 14.2]:Darkness of lists and ungodliness; darkness of condition; God’s anger abides on all that doe not believe; O most dismal cloud!

3. We are subject to every curse in this life, whether spiritual or corporal.

4. To death temporal.

5. To death eternal.

How comes all this to pass? Because we are all by nature sinful, together with our beings, we are defiled, we are sinners, and so “come short of the glory of God,” [Rom. 3.24.].

We further affirm that all of us are sinners deserving wrath for the lust and proneness that is in us to do evil: This also they grant to go with original sin, and to be a consequent of it; but they will not have it sin properly, to which wrath belongs.

It rebukes such as shift off and slight over their sins; we hope we are not the worst, we live homely, neighborly, and quietly, doing as we would be done by; for the Devil, we desire him; for the curse and hell we hope God will be merciful. These men would make them be persuaded their case is worse then it is: But these persons shall know one day experimentally, our reports come far short of the matter. Who knows the power of thy wrath? None but the damned. Believe it, and so avoid the mischief.

Source:  Paul Bayne, An Entire Commentary VPon the Whole Epistle of the Apostle Paul to the Ephesians, (London: Printed by M.F. for R. Milbourne, and I. Barlet, 1643), 210. [Some spelling modernized, underlining added, some reformatting, marginal Scripture references included inline, and marginal comments not included.]

Shedd

1) It may be asked, If atonement naturally and necessarily cancels guilt, why does not the vicarious atonement of Christ save all men indiscriminately, as the Universalist contends? The substituted suffering of Christ being infinite is equal in value to the personal suffering of all mankind; why then are not all men upon the same footing and in the class of the saved, by virtue of it? The answer is, Because it is a natural impossibility. Vicarious atonement without faith in it is powerless to save. It is not the making of this atonement, but the trusting in it, that saves the sinner. “By faith are ye saved. He that believeth shall be saved,” Ephesians 2:8; Mark 16:16. The making of this atonement merely satisfies the legal claims, and this is all that it does. If it were made, but never imputed and appropriated, it would result in no salvation. A substituted satisfaction of justice without an act of trust in it, would be useless to sinners. It is as naturally impossible that Christ’s death should save from punishment one who does not confide in it, as that a loaf of bread should save from starvation a man who does not eat it. The assertion that because the atonement of Christ is sufficient for all men, therefore no men are lost, is as absurd as the assertion that because the grain produced in the year 1880 was sufficient to support the life of all men on the globe, therefore no men died of starvation during that year. The mere fact that Jesus Christ made satisfaction for human sin, alone and of itself, will save no soul. Christ, conceivably, might have died precisely as he did, and his death have been just as valuable for expiatory purposes as it is, but if his death had not been followed with the work of the Holy Ghost and the act of faith on the part of individual men, he would have died in vain. Unless his objective work is subjectively appropriated, it is useless, so far as personal salvation is concerned. Christ’s suffering is sufficient to cancel the guilt of all men, and in its own nature completely satisfies the broken law. But all men do not make it their own atonement by faith in it; by pleading the merit of it in prayer, and mentioning it as the reason and ground of their pardon. They do not regard and use it as their own possession, and blessing. It is nothing for them but a historical fact. In this state of things, the atonement of Christ is powerless to save. It remains in the possession of Christ who made it, and has not been transferred to the individual. In the scripture phrase, it has not been imputed. There may be a sum of money in the hands of a rich man that is sufficient in amount to pay the debts of a million of debtors; but unless they individually take money from his hands into their own, they cannot pay their debts with it. There must be a personal act of each debtor, in order that this suns of money on deposit may actually extinguish individual indebtedness. Should one of the debtors, when payment is demanded of him, merely say that there is an abundance of money on deposit, but take no steps himself to get it and pay it to his creditor, he would be told that an undrawn deposit is not a payment of a debt.  Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 2:440-441.

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Davenant:

1) But here it is proper to advise by the way. That when we assert that Christ our Lord is to be extolled in hymns, we do not exclude the Father or the Holy Spirit, nay, we call them into a participation of the same honor: for he who extols Christ the Redeemer, at the same time extols both the Father, who sent him to redeem the world; and the Holy Spirit, who renders this redemption efficacious to all the elect and believers. John Davenant, An Exposition of the Epistle of St. Paul to the Colossians (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2005), 2:143. [Italics original, some reformatting, underlining mine.]

2) In many other places the work of reconciliation is ascribed to God the Father: But that remarkable one, 2 Cor. v. 18, 19, contains the sum of them all, God hath reconciled us himself: God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself. Although, therefore, (as we shall presently shew) the work of reconciliation is attributed to Christ, as the proximate and immediate agent; yet it is proper to ascribe it to God the Father; and, by consequence, to the whole Trinity, as the primary cause: For the whole Trinity, which foresaw from eternity the fall of the human race, pre-ordained this way of effecting reconciliation by Christ, and inspired the man Christ Jesus with the will to suffer for the redemption of mankind. So it is said in Isaiah xlii. 6, I, the Lord, have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, &c. In which place the prophet teaches us, that Jehovah himself had ordained and called Christ to this work of reconciliation, and strengthened and upheld him during his whole accomplishment of human salvation. It is evident, therefore, that God was the primary author of this reconciliation, and was induced to devise this plan of our redemption entirely from his own good pleasure, and from free love. The Apostle here employs this particular term ‘eudokese. It pleased him well. And in Jeremiah xxxi. 3, we read, I have loved thee with an everlasting love. And in all parts of Scripture, this gratuitous love of God is declared to be the cause why the Father sent his Son into the world to obtain salvation for us, John iii. 16, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son. And in Ephes. ii. 4, 5, For his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, he hath quickened us, &c.  John Davenant, An Exposition of the Epistle of St. Paul to the Colossians (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2005), 1:235-236. [Italics original, underlining mine.]

[Note: It has always seemed strange why someone would insist that if the moderate and classic Calvinist position be true, it must be true that the persons of the Trinity are in a state of conflict or division, as if, for example, the Father elects and so desires the salvation of the elect alone, yet the Son seeks and obtains a sufficient redemption for all, and desires the salvation of all. Sometimes this argument expresses itself by asserting that the classic Calvinist position posits conflicting intentions within the Godhead.  We see these sorts of objections time and time again. The problem is, on the terms of the moderate and classic Calvinist, such a set of conditions or states of affairs would never apply.  For example, I do not know of any one, even within the broadest scope of the Reformed tradition, who has argued that the Son desired the salvation of any one, or sought the salvation of any one, contrary to the wishes of the Father.  Rather, then, the argument is a caricature, having only argumentative force if undergirded by the theological assumptions and constructions of the opposing paradigm. It is never wise to posit a rebuttal (unless your aim is only to speak to the choir), which can only be sustained on your terms, and never on the assumed terms of your opponent.

What it also interesting is that these objections are also proposed by opponents of common grace and general love, by positing the same idea of internal Trinitarian conflict, such as the Son loves men, whom the Father does not love, and so forth. The answer to this would be, and is the same answer to the previous set of objections. This should all be common sense: see for example Daniel’s response to this proposed dilemma.]

Leigh:

And were by nature the Children of wrath, even as others] To be by nature the children of wrath signifies these things. 1. Wrath is our proper due, as we are born to it. 2. It belongs to us a soon as we are ever we have a living soul, damnati priusquam nati Aug. 3. We are irrecoverably the Children of wrath, Adam might have helped it. 4. It is universally so, as we say a man is by nature mortal, because all are so.

Edward Leigh, Annotations Upon All the New Testament (London: Printed by W.W. and EG. for William Lee, and are to be sold at his shop at the Turks-head in Fleet Street next to the Miter and Phoenix, 1650), 281.