Charnock:

1)

This weakness doth not excuse from obedience to this command, because God denies no man strength to perform what he commands, if he seek it at his hands. No man can plead that he would have been regenerate, and turned to God, and could not; for though we have not power to renew ourselves, yet God is ready to confer power upon us if we seek it. Where did God ever deny any man sufficient strength, that did wait upon him in serious and humble supplications, and conscientiously used the means to procure it. A man cannot indeed merit grace, or dispose himself for it, so that it must by a natural necessity come into his soul, as a form doth into matter upon dispositions to it. But if a man will do what he can do, if he will put no obstacle to grace, by a course of sin, would not God, out of his infinite bounty to his creatures, and out of that general love whereby he would have all men saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth, give him special grace? Hath not our Saviour made a promise in his first sermon to the multitude, that God “will give good things to them that ask him,” with a much more than men give good gifts to their children, Mat. vii. 11. They were not only his disciples that he preached that sermon to, but the multitude, comparing it with Mat. v. 1, and Mat. vii. 28. Hath not God declared, that he ‘delights not in the death of a sinner,’ Ezek. xxxiii. 11, and doth he not out of his infinite goodness condescend to beseech us to be reconciled to him ? Will not the same infinite goodness bow itself down to form a new image in them that use the means to be reconciled and conformed to him, as much as they can? Has not our blessed Saviour already given a testimony of his affection to such endeavours, in loving the young man for his outward observation of the law, Mark x. 21, who wanted but one thing only to pass him into a gracious state, the refusal whereof barred him of it? And shall not he have a choicer affection to those that strive to observe the rules he hath left in his gospel? Will he not be pleased with such motions in his creatures towards their own happiness? Will he not further that wherein he delights ? Think not therefore to justify yourselves at the bar of God for your sloth, because you are too weak to renew yourselves.

Charnock, “Regeneration,” in Works, 3:233-234.

2)

“Let us not judge ourselves by a general love. As there is a general love of God to man, a general love of Christ to mankind in dying, and giving a conditional grant of salvation upon faith and repentance, and a particular love to the soul of a believer, so likewise in man there is a general assent, and a particular serious assent to the truth of God, and accordingly a general love upon the apprehensions of what Christ hath done in general. There is a common love to God, which may be so called, because the benefits enjoyed by men are owned as coming from that fountain; a love arising from the apprehensions which men commonly have of the goodness of God in himself, and a common love wrought in them to God, as to other things that are good. Again, men may have a false faith, and a false apprehension of pardon of sin, when indeed no such pardon is granted to them; so they may have proportionably a false love upon such an ungrounded belief.”

Stephen Charnock, “A Discourse of the Subjects of the Lord’s Supper” in Works, 4:464.

Charnock:

1) As the world, so the gifts and common graces of men in the world are for the good of the church, which is a great argument for providence in general; since there is nothing so considerable in government as the disposing of places to men according to their particular endowments and abilities for them. And the bestowing such gifts upon men is none of the meanest arguments for God’s providential government of the world. As, First, The gifts of good men. The gifts conferred upon Paul were deposited in him, not only to be possessed by him, but used and laid out for the good of the church: Col. i.25, ‘ Whereof I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you;’ ‘The manifestation of the Spirit to any man is given to profit withal,’ 1 Cor. xii.7. And this is the great end for which men should seek to excel, viz., for the edifying of the church: 1 Cor. xiv.12, “Forasmuch as you are zealous of spiritual gifts, seek that you may excel to the edifying of the church.”

Secondly, The gifts and common graces of bad men. There is something that is amiable in men. though they have not grace. As in stones, plants, and flowers, though they have not sense, there is something grateful in them, as colour and smell, &c. And all those things that are lovely in men are for the church’s good; the best life, and the worst death, things present, let who will be the possessor, all things between life and death, are for the good of believers, because they are Christ’s : 1 Cor. iii. 22, Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world,’ i.e., whether the gifts of the prime lights in the church, or the common gifts of the world, are all yours, and ye are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.’ God is the dispenser of them, Christ is the governor of them, and all for your sakes. As the medicinal qualities of waters are not for the good of themselves, but the accommodation of the indigencies of men. By the common works of the Spirit God doth keep men from the evil of the world. For it cannot be supposed that the Spirit, whose mission is principally for the church, should give such gifts out of love to men which hate him, and are not the objects of his eternal purpose ; but he hath some other ends in doing it, which is the advantage of his church and people ; and this God causes by the preaching of the gospel, which when it Works gracious Works in some, produces common works in others for the good of those gracious ones. Stephen Charnock, “A Discourse on Divine Providence,” in Works 1:67.

2) The distinction is laid either in the common grace, bounding and suppressing it; or in special grace, killing and crucifying it. Charnock, “Practical Atheism,” in Works 1:184.

3) Man is to be considered as respited from the present suffering this sentence by the intervention of Christ; whereby he is put into another way of probation. So those common notions in our understandings, and common motions in our wills and affections, so far as they have anything of moral goodness, are a new gift to our natures by virtue of the mediation of Christ. In which sense he may be said to ‘ taste death for every man,’ Heb. ii. 9, and be * a propitiation for the sins of the whole world.’ By virtue of which promised death, some sparks of moral goodness are preserved in man. Thus his ‘life was the light of men;’ and he is ‘the light that lightens every man that comes into the world,’ which sets the candle of the Lord in the spirit of man a-burning and sparkling, John i. 9, and upholds all things by his mediatory as well as divine power, Heb. i. 3, which else would have sunk into the abyss. By virtue of this mediation, some power is given back to man, as a new donation, yet not so much as that he is able by it to regenerate himself ; and whatsoever power man hath, is originally from this cause, and grows not up from the stock of nature, but from common grace.

Which common grace is either,

[1.] More general, to all men. Whereby those divine sparks in their under standings, and whatsoever is morally praiseworthy in them, is kept up by the grace of God, which was the cause that Christ tasted death for every man : Heb. ii.9, ‘That he by the grace of God should taste death for every man ;’ whereby the apostle seems to intimate, that by this grace, and this death of Christ, any remainders of that honour and glory wherewith God crowned man at first are kept upon his head ; as will appear, if you consider the eighth Psalm, whence the apostle cites the words which are the ground of his discourse of the death of Christ.

[2.] More particular common grace, to men under the preaching of the gospel. Which grace men “turn into wantonness” or lasciviousness, Jude 4. Grace they had, or the gospel of grace, but the wantonness of their nature prevailed against the intimations of grace to them. Besides this common grace, there is a more special grace to the regenerate, the more peculiar fruit of Christ’s mediation and death for them. All this, and whatsoever else you can conceive that hath but a face of comeliness in man, is not the birth of fallen nature abstracted from this mediation. Therefore when the Gentiles are said to “do by nature the things contained in the law,” it is not to be understood of nature merely as fallen, for that could do no such thing ; but of nature in this new state of probation, by the interposition of Christ the mediator, whose powerful word upheld all things, and kept up those broken fragments of the two tables of law, though dark and obscure. And considering God’s design of setting forth the gospel to the world, there was a necessity of those relics, both in the understanding, and affections, and desire for happiness, to render men capable of receiving the gospel, and those inexcusable that would reject it. So that by this mediation of Christ, the state of mankind is different since the fall from that of the evil angels or devils. For man hath, first, a power of doing that which is in its own nature good; secondly, a power of doing good with a good intention ; not indeed supremely for the glory of God, but for the good of his country, the good of his neighbors, the good of the world, which was necessary for the soldering together human societies, so that sometimes even in sins man hath good intentions. Whereas the devil doth always that which in its own nature is evil, and always sins with evil intentions. Without this mediation, every man had been as very a slave to sin as the devil ; though he be naturally a slave to sin, yet not in that full measure the devil is, unless left in. a judicial manner by God upon high provocations. Charnock, “Regeneration,” in Works, 3:210-211.

Charnock on Common Restraining Grace:

1) “Prop. 7. The holiness of God is not blemished by withdrawing his grace from a sinful creature, whereby he falls into more sin. That God withdraws his grace from men, and gives them up sometimes to the fury of their lusts, is as clear in Scripture as anything (Deut. xxix. 4): “Yet the Lord hath not given you a heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear,” &c. Judas was delivered to Satan after the sop, and put into his power, for despising former admonitions. He often leaves the reins to the devil, that he may use what efficacy he can in those that have offended the Majesty of God; he withholds further influences of grace, or withdraws what before he had granted them. Thus he withheld that grace from the sons of Eli, that might have made their father’s pious admonitions effectual to them (I Sam. ii. 25): “They hearkened not to the voice of their father, because the Lord would slay them.” He gave grace to Eli to reprove them, and withheld that grace from them, which might have enabled them against their natural corruption and obstinacy to receive that reproof.

But the holiness of God is not blemished by this.

1. Because the act of God in this is only negative.* Thus God is said to “harden” men: not by positive hardening or working anything in the creature, but by not working, not softening, leaving a man to the hardness of his own heart, whereby it is unavoidable by the depravation of man’s nature, and the fury of his passions, but that he should be further hardened, and “increase unto more ungodliness,” as the expression is (2 Tim. ii. 19). As a man is said to give another his life, when he doth not take it away when it lay at his mercy; so God is said to “harden” a man, when he doth not mollify him when it was in his power, and inwardly quicken him with that grace whereby he might infallibly avoid any further provoking of him. God is said to harden men when he removes not from them the incentives to sin, curbs not those principles which are ready to comply with those incentives, withdraws the common assistances of his grace, concurs not with counsels and admonitions to make them effectual; flashes not in the convincing light which he darted upon them before. If hardness follows upon God’s withholding his softening grace, it is not by any positive act of God, but from the natural hardness of man. If you put fire near to wax or rosin, both will melt; but when that fire is removed, they return to their natural quality of hardness and brittleness; the positive act of the fire is to melt and soften, and the softness of the rosin is to be ascribed to that; but the hardness is from the rosin itself, wherein the fire hath no influence, but only a negative act by a removal of it: so, when God hardens a man, he only leaves him to that stony heart which he derived from Adam, and brought with him into the world. All men’s understandings being blinded, and their wills perverted in Adam, God’s withdrawing his grace is but a leaving them to their natural pravity, which is the cause of their further sinning, and not God’s removal of that special light he before afforded them, or restraint he held over them. As when God withdraws his preserving power from the creature, he is not the efficient, but deficient cause of the creature’s destruction; so, in this case, God only ceases to bind and dam up that sin which else would break out.”

[*]Testard. de natur. et grat., Thes. 150, 151. Amyr. on divers texts, p. 311.

Charnock, “On The Holiness of God,” in Works, 2:238-239. [Footnote values and content original.]

Manton:

1) “The cause why so few are won to believe in Jesus Christ is because they have not the Spirit’s revelation.

This I shall prove to you by these reasons:

1. Because without the Spirit’s revelation all the outward tenders and reports of Jesus Christ will be to no purpose. The efficacy of the word lieth in the Spirit’s assistance. I told you in the former point how powerful the word of God is, but withal I told you it was when the Spirit sets it home upon the heart. God may knock at the door and yet no man open to him; and, therefore, he speaketh by way of supposition, if he doth but barely knock: Rev. iii. 20, ‘Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him and sup with him, and he with me.’ It is put upon an if: it is a great peradventure whether any man will open the door or no, when it is but a bare knock of the word. The spouse pleadeth excuses when Christ stood and knocked, saying, ‘Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled,’ Cant. v. 2; but in the 4th verse it is said, ‘My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels were moved for him; ‘that signifieth the working of his Spirit, and then she opened. Men would fain take one nap more in sin when they are roused by the ministry; but when God puts his fingers upon the handles of the lock, Christ hath an admittance and the door then flieth open: Acts xi. 19-21, ‘The hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed and turned to the Lord.’ God’s hand was upon the lock. If the word be anywhere spoken of as powerful, it is in reference to the Spirit, as 1 Thes. i. 5, ‘Our word came unto you not in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Ghost;’ therefore in power, because in the Holy Ghost.

2. Because the Spirit’s revelation is the token of God’s special love; and that is not given to every one: God has appointed his special love but for a few. The outward revelation is to leave men without excuse; it is but a token of God’s common love: 2 Cor. iv. 3, ‘If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost’–hidden from their hearts, though it be revealed to their ears. Those that are lost have not the inward discoveries–that is, the effectual discovery and special effect of God’s peculiar love: Acts xiii. 48, ‘As many as were ordained to eternal life believed;’ such have God’s special love. Those that have least have many times an outward revelation: Acts xiv. 17, ‘God left not himself without a witness, in that he did good;’ yet, ver. 16, ‘he suffered them to walk in their own ways.’ They had a revelation, but they had not an efficacious revelation. And in this sense it is said, that ‘many are called but few are chosen, many are invited and few wrought upon. They have the doctrine of life propounded to them, but they have not the Spirit of life setting it home upon their hearts; few taste of God’s special love.” Thomas Manton, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1873), 3:210-211.

2) “First, What is this love of God in Christ? Here I take it actively for the love wherewith he loveth us. Love may be considered–First, As an attribute or a perfection in God; so it is said, 1 John iv. 8, ‘God is love.’ Which noteth his readiness, self-propension, or inclination to do good. Secondly, As it relateth and passeth out to the creature; so there is a common love and a special love. His common love is set forth: Ps. cxlv. 4, ‘ The Lord is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works.’ This love floweth in the channel of common providence. But then there is a special love, which is called his love in Christ: Eph. i. 3, ‘Who hath blessed us with spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ.’ This love may be considered as purposed or expressed. As purposed: 2 Tim. i. 9, ‘According to his purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.’ His gracious purposes were from everlasting; he determined within himself that we should receive these fruits of his love through Jesus Christ. As expressed, and that two ways; as revealed in the gospel, and as applied to our hearts.” Thomas Manton, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1873), 12:413.

3) “Second case is about the actual persuasion of God’s love to us. For since this love of gratitude ariseth from a sense or apprehension of God’s love to us in Christ; therefore God’s children are troubled when they cannot make particular application, as Paul, and say, ‘He loved me, and gave himself for me,’ Gal. ii. 20.

Ans. 1. A particular persuasion of God’s love to us is very comfortable. Things that do most concern us do most affect us; as a man is more pleased with legacies bequeathed to him by name, than left indefinitely to those who can make friends. If I can discern my name in God’s testament, it is unquestionably more satisfactory and more engaging than when with much ado I must make out my title, and enter myself an heir: Eph. i. 13, ‘After that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation.’ It is not sufficient to know that the gospel is a doctrine of salvation in general, or to others only, but every one should labour, by a due application of the promises of the gospel unto themselves, to find it a doctrine of salvation unto themselves. Salvation by Christ is a benefit which we need as much as others, and therefore should give all diligence to understand our part and interest in it. God’s love to us is the great reason of our love to God; ours a reflection; the more direct the beam, the stronger the reflection. It is the quickening motive to the spiritual life, Gal. ii. 20. Certainly they are much to blame who can so contentedly sit down with the want thereof, so they may be well in the world; if God will love them with a common love, so as they may live in peace, and credit, and mirth, and wealth among men. Our joy, comfort, and peace, much dependeth on the sense of our particular interest: Luke i. 46, ‘My soul doth rejoice in God my saviour;’ and Rom. v. 11, ‘We rejoice in God, as those that have received the atonement.’ It is uncomfortable to live in doubts and fears, or else to live by guess and uncertain conjectures. Well then, if we would maintain the joy of faith, the vigour of holiness, we should get our interest more clear.” Thomas Manton, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1873), 13:154.

4) “[1.] If you interpret it of his divine love, the difficulty will not be great; for there is a general and common love, and a special love. With the first, God loves all his creatures, especially mankind, and amongst them those that have any strictures of his image in them more than others. But then there is a special love, and so all those are saved whom God thus loveth. So God loveth his own people, either with a love of good-will when they are uncalled: Jer. xxxi. 3, ‘Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love;’ or else with a love of complacency, when called and converted: Zeph. iii. 17, ‘He will rejoice over thee with joy, he will rest in his love.’ Now this will easily salve the matter; there was a general love, or a liking and approbation of those moral virtues and good things which he saw in him [the rich young ruler], but not that special love which brings grace and salvation along with it.”  Thomas Manton, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1873), 16:457.

5)     “If they are committed against love.” It is sad to sin against God’s laws, it is more to sin against God’s love. Suppose it be but against common love, against God that giveth us food and raiment, rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons. The apostle calls this a ‘ despising the goodness of God,’ Rom. 2:4, either by employing it to vile uses, or else by a careless slighting and not taking notice of it. You that slight the kindness of God do as it were say, God shall not gain me to his ways for all this. Every sin is not committed against knowledge, but every sin is against love and bowels. Christ may say to every sinner, as he said to the Jews, John 10:32, ‘Many good works have I showed you from my Father; for which of those works do you stone me?’ Thus the Lord may plead, I have given you protection and provision, and food and raiment, for which of these do you violate my law and put such an affront upon me? It is I that have been so liberal to you, in giving you the fruits of the earth, the fish of the sea, the fowls of the air; it is I that have caused your sheep to bring forth thousands, and your fields to yield meat; and will you return upon me with my own weapons? Malefactors are punished in the same things in which they offend, and you seek to do me despite by my own blessings, as if I did you wrong when I did you good. But much more if you sin against special love. You that are Christ’s favorites, every sin of yours is as a stab at the heart of mercy; as when the multitude forsook him, says Christ to his disciples, John 6:61, ‘Will ye also go away?’ That went to his heart. God reckons upon you that he shall have much service and obedience from you, and disappointment is the worst kind of vexation: Gen. 18:19, ‘ I know Abraham, that he will command his children, and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord;’ Isa. 63:8,’ Surely they are my people, children that will not lie.’ That which in others is but single fornication in you is adultery; others sin against common mercies, but you against the bowels of Christ; they are not thankful for a piece of bread, nor you for the bread of life. As Absalom said to Hushai, 2 Sam. 16:17, ‘ Is this thy kindness to thy friend? ‘ so is this the fruit of all those tender loves and mercies which God hath meted out to you ? It is unnatural, as if a hen should bring forth the egg of a crow.”   Thomas Manton, “Sermons Upon Genesis 24:63,” in The Complete Works of Thomas Manton (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1873), Sermon 8, 17:329.

6) “3. When men have received many mercies. Men cannot endure to have their kindness despised. Joseph thought it ingratitude to wrong his master, who had committed all things to him, Gen. xxxix. 9; and shall we wrong God? Every sin is not a sin against knowledge, but every sin is a sin against mercies. There is a common love which all receive, food and raiment. It is their charge, Rom. ii. 4, that they despise not his kindness and the riches of his goodness. But his people have tasted his love in Christ. Every sin of yours is a stab at the heart: John vi. 67, ‘Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away? ‘Is this the fruit of all his tender love sealed to you by the Spirit? Ps. Iv. 12, 13, ‘It was not an enemy that reproached me, then I could have borne it. But it was thou, a man, mine equal, my guide, and mine acquaintance.’ David took it ill from Achitophel, and Christ from Judas. From a professed enemy we could expect no better; but from a friend, it is grievous; you have tasted of his bread, and been fed with hidden manna.” Thomas Manton, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1873), 21:393.

Dabney:

Nor would we attach any force to the argument, that if Christ made penal satisfaction for the sins of all, justice would forbid any to be punished. To urge this argument surrenders virtually the very ground on which the first Socinian objection was refuted, and is incompatible with the facts that God chastises justified believers, and holds elect unbelievers subject to wrath till they believe. Christ’s satisfaction is not a pecuniary equivalent, but only such a one as enables the Father, consistently with His attributes, to pardon, if in His mercy He sees fit. The whole avails of the satisfaction to a given man is suspended on His belief. There would be no injustice to the man, if he remaining an unbeliever, his guilt were punished twice over first in his Savior, and then in Him. See Hodge on Atonement, page 369.

Dabney, Lectures, p., 521