Edwards:

Of the Distinction of Natural and Moral Necessity and Inability.

THAT Necessity which has been explained, consisting in an infallible connection of the things signified by the subject and predicate of a proposition, as intelligent beings are the subjects of it, is distinguished into moral and natural Necessity.

I shall not now stand to inquire whether this distinction be a proper and perfect distinction; but shall only explain how these two sorts of Necessity are understood, as the terms are sometimes used, and as they are used in the following discourse.

The phrase, Moral Necessity, is used variously: sometimes it is used for a Necessity of moral obligation. So we say, a man is under Necessity, when he is under bonds of duty and conscience, from which he cannot be discharged. So the word Necessity is often used for great obligation in point of interest. Sometimes by moral Necessity is meant that apparent connection of things, which is the ground of moral evidence; and so is distinguished from absolute Necessity, or that sure connection of things, that is a foundation for infallible certainty. In this sense, moral Necessity signifies much the same as that high degree of probability, which is ordinarily sufficient to satisfy mankind, in their conduct and behavior in the world, as they would consult their own safety and interest, and treat others properly as members of society. And sometimes by moral Necessity is meant that Necessity of connection and consequence, which arises from such moral causes, as the strength of inclination, or motives, and the connection which there is in many cases between these and such certain volitions and actions. And it is in this sense, that I use the phrase, Moral Necessity, in the following discourse.

By Natural Necessity, as applied to men, I mean such Necessity as men are under through the force of natural causes; as distinguished from what are called moral causes, such as habits and dispositions of the heart, and moral motives and inducements. Thus men, placed in certain circumstances, are the subjects of particular sensations by Necessity: they feel pain when their bodies are wounded; they see the objects presented before them in a clear light, when their eyes are opened: so they assent to the truth of certain propositions, as soon as the terms are understood; as that two and two make four, that black is not white, that two parallel lines can never cross one another; so by a natural Necessity men’s bodies move downwards, when there is nothing to support them.

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Woodbridge:

The like answer I give to Rom. 5:10, “We were reconciled unto God by the death of his Son,” to wit, that Christ’s death was the price of our reconciliation, and so it is through the death of Christ that we are reconciled, be it when it will be that we are reconciled. Here then we must distinguish, as it were of three periods of the will of God. 1. As it may be conceived immediately after sin committed, before the consideration of the death of Christ. And now is the Lord at enmity with the sinner, though not averse from all ways and means, by which he may return to friendship with him again. 2. As it may be conceived after the consideration of the death of Christ, and now is the Lord not only appeasable, but also does promise that he will be reconciled with sinners, upon such terms as he himself shall propose. 3. As the same will of God may be considered after the intercession of Christ’s part, and faith on the sinner’s part, and now is God actually reconciled and in friendship with the sinner, when then the Apostle says, “We are reconciled through the death of Christ,” he does not mean, that immediately upon the death of Christ we are actually reconciled unto God (for in the very next verse he says, that through Christ “we have now,” (not before), “received the atonement,” or reconciliation, which in plainer terms is this, that now, that is, since we are believers, we are actually reconciled unto God. But his meaning is, that through the death of Christ it is, that the promise of reconciliation is made, by and according to which we are actually reconciled unto God after we believe, suitable to that of the Lord Jesus, “This is the New Testament in my blood,” (obtained and sealed in my blood), “which was shed for the remission of the sins of many,” Matt. 26:28.

The ground of all this, because the death of Christ was not a solutio ejusdem, but tantidem, not the payment of the which was in the obligation, but of the equivalent, being not the payment of the debtor, but of the surety, and, therefore, it does not deliver us ipso facto, but according to the compact and agreement between the Father and him, when he undertook to be our surety. If a debtor bring me what he owes me, it discharges him presently, but the payment of a surety, is a payment refusable of itself, and therefore effects not the discharge of the principal debtor, but at the time, and according to the conditions agreed upon between the surety and the creditor.

If then our adversaries could prove, either that it was the will of God in giving up Christ to the death, or the will of Christ in giving himself to the death, that this death of his should be available to the immediate and actual reconciliation and justification of the sinner, without any condition performed on the sinner’s part, it were something to the purpose. But till this be done (which, indeed, can never be done) they were as good as say nothing,: When Christ gives us an account both of his own and his Father’s will in this matter, he tells us. “That it is the will of him, ‘That whosoever sees the Son and believes on him, may have everlasting life,’” John 6:40, without which faith, Christ “shall profit us nothing,” Gal. 5:4; I John 5:11,12: “He that has not seen the Son has not life.” So much for that objection.

Benjamin Woodbridge, Justification by Faith: Or a Confutation of that Antinomian Error, That Justification is before Faith; Being the Sum and Substance of a Sermon Preached at Sarum, by Benjamin Woodbridge, Minister of Newberry in Barkshire (London: Printed by John Field for Edmund Paxton, and are to be sold at his Shop in Pauls Chain, over against the Castle-Tavern, near to the Doctors Commons, 1653), 22-23. [Some reformatting; some spelling modernized; and underlining mine.]

[Notes: 1) What Woodbridge says here stands in direct denial of Owen’s claims regarding the exact identity and irrefusability of Christ’s satisfaction (contra Baxter). 2) Woodbridge’s sentiments are solidly echoed by Charles Hodge relative to the same point. 3) The theological implications are clear: When understood correctly, the satisfaction of Christ does not entail any notion of an actual pre-faith justification. For as long as the sinner declines to comply with any conditions proposed by the Father and the Son, that sinner remains under the wrath of God wherein he stands before God in an unjustified state. 4) The view that the satisfaction of Christ was a strict and proper payment to the idem of the law laid the foundation for the more basic distortion that the imputation of sin involved a literal transference of the debtor’s obligation to the surety. However, construed in this way (as a strict and literal payment to the idem of the law’s demands), forgiveness of the debtor is no longer an act of grace, but an act of justice; contra Owen, who for the same reason reasons pushed “grace” back into election, displacing it from the act of forgiveness and pardon (c.f., Dabney’s lectures 42 and 43 in his Lectures of Systematic Theology. 5) What is unfortunate is that in modern times, this conception of the relationship between the Father and the Son in the death of Christ has been eclipsed by the rush to reaffirm Owen’s theological conclusions, all the while being ignorant of the defective theological assumptions which under-gird those conclusions. The net result is that the theological waters regarding the death of Christ have been muddied and distorted.]

Alexander:

But while the Bible, throughout, ascribes the occurrence of all events, of every kind, to the will of God; yet, it as uniformly represents man as a free, accountable agent; yea, it represents him as acting most wickedly, in those very transactions which are most expressly declared to be determined by the counsel of God. It would seem from this, that the inspired writers perceived no inconsistency between a purpose of God, that a certain event should occur, and that it should be brought about by the free and accountable agency of man. And it is believed, also, that men of sound minds, who have never heard of any objections to this doctrine, are not apt to be perplexed with any apparent inconsistency between these two things. And, we are persuaded, that were it not for the ambiguity of certain words, and the artful sophistry with which truth and error are confounded by those who oppose the doctrine, very few persons would experience any difficulty on this subject. If a man of plain sense should be informed by prophecy, that he would certainly kill a fellow creature the next day or year, and that in perpetrating this act he would be actuated by malice, it would never be likely to enter his mind, that he should not be guilty of any crime, because the action was certain before it was committed. But if you change the terms, and say, that he would be under a necessity to perform this act; that it being absolutely certain, he could not possibly avoid it; immediately the subject becomes perplexed, and involved in difficulty; for every man of common sense feels that he cannot justly be accountable for what he could not possibly avoid; and that for what he does from absolute necessity he cannot, in the nature of things, be culpable. Here, the whole difficulty is produced by the use of ambiguous and improper terms. While nothing was presented to the mind, but the certainty of the event, coupled with voluntary action, no relief from responsibility was felt: but the moment we speak of the act as produced by necessity, and as being unavoidable, the judgment respecting its nature is changed. These terms include the idea of a compulsory power acting upon us, not only without, but in opposition to our own will. A necessary event is one which cannot be voluntary or free; for if it were spontaneous, it could not be necessary; these two things being diametrically opposite. So, an unavoidable action is one which takes place against our wishes and will. But a voluntary action may be as certain as any other; and by one who knows futurity, may be as certainly predicted. Even a man may often be certain beforehand, how a voluntary agent will act in a given circumstances, provided he knows the moral character of the agent. As if a being actuated by no other feeling towards another but malice, should be placed in such circumstances, that he has the choice of performing a benevolent action towards that individual or omitting it, he will most certainly neglect to do it, or, if he may with impunity injure such an one, or do him good, he will most certainly choose the former; yet is such a malignant agent perfectly free, and perfectly accountable. These things are agreeable to the common feelings of all men, and depend on no metaphysical niceties. And there can be no doubt, but that a large share of the difficulty which perplexes honest minds, in the contemplation of the divine purpose, which fixes the certainty of events, arises from the confounding of things totally distinct, by the use of ambiguous terms.

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Stock:

Psal. 5:5¹ Thou hates all the workers of iniquity.

The next thing is, the Hatred of God: and to hold the same course we have held before, our first question is this:

Quest. What is the hated of God?

Answ. The is thus much, the hatred of God is a communicable attribute, whereby he freely decrees not to show mercy, but to deny to most the grace of election, destining them to destruction, exactly punishing them when they are wicked, and so hating all iniquity.

This description has a great deal of matter in it, therefore, we will explain it. Hatred, say some, is not to be attributed to God, we do not contend against them if they understand hatred to be a passion of the mind, which is seldom without corruption, but when they take hatred, as the Scriptures speak of it, then as God loves that which is good, so he hates that which is nought and evil: for as God is said to love, so he is said to hate. Again, I say it is a communicable attribute, because that there is the like in man.

Next, it is that by which he freely decrees not to show mercy to the wicked, to deny them the grace of election. To open this, hatred in the Scriptures does many times signify to refuse, to give and deny favors, to put behind, and make less account of than another, as our Savior Christ says, Luke 14:26, “He that hates not his father and his mother,” &c., that is, he does not deny his father, by putting him behind him, and neglecting him, when he commands anything, and God another. God say that Leah was hated, so that is, was not so dearly loved as Rachel, so this hatred of God is to neglect to show favor, and to deny the grace of election to the wicked. This is apparent, Rom. 9:13, “I have hated Esau, and loved Jacob,” This is not put down but with opposition: “I have loved Jacob, and hated Esau,” that is to say, I have not decreed nor offered this grace and favor of election to Esau, which I have allowed Jacob. It is that which is further manifest in the 18^th verse of the same chapter, “I will have mercy on whom I will, and whom I will harden,” &c. This God does freely from his own will. His will is the solitary cause of denying the grace of election. The cause of why he chose Jacob, and hated Esau, was nothing but his will. It is manifest, Rom. 9:11, 12, before they had done anything good or evil, God said, that the elder should serve the younger, that it might be of grace. If you ask the Apostle a proof of this, he alleges a place out of Exodus: if any man should wrangle with God and say, God is unjust, that he should love one, and hate another, the Apostle answers, “There is no unrighteousness with God,” verse 14, and for this he gives a proof, Exod. 23:19, “I will mercy on whom I will have mercy, and whom I will,” &c. As God does absolutely love whom he will, so he does absolutely hate whom he will, he denies the grace of election to the most, there are but a few that have favor, Matt. 20:16, “Many are called.” The thing is, that he destines them to destruction, as punishment of sin, Jude 4, “men were before of old ordained to this condemnation”: “he has prepared tophet² of old,” Esa 30[:33] ult, not that God does delight in torment of the creature, or created anything that he might destroy it, but out of his hatred to sin, and love of justice, did decree and prepare to punish all, and only such as should live and die in sin, without repentance. That negative act of reprobation, or preterition finds all men alike, in the same condition, this positive act of predamnation, respects men as sinners, without repentance. That first act is grounded only in his absolute will of God, “I will have mercy on whom I will,” &c., “and whom I will harden,” but this latter act is an act not so much of power as of justice, and always has respect to sin.

The third thing, That he actually punishes them when they are wicked: it is manifest, that they that be born in sin, live in sin, knowing it to be sin, be enemies of God, and to the grace of God, and them he actually hates when they are wicked. This is apparent, “Thou hates all those that work wickedness,” and that hatred carries the punishment, as appears by the next words of my text, “and thou destroys all those that tell lies,” and, therefore, he does not hate them as they are men, and his creatures, but as they are wicked. Bernard says, that man could not endure after God’s making, but he would be better. Therefore, he was cast out of Paradise: God hating all iniquity in whomsoever it was, elect or reprobate, Psal. 45:7, “Thou loves righteousness, and hates iniquity.” And this I might show unto you, that there is no sin almost, but I can bring you a plain text of God’s hatred of it, sometimes hating idolatry, sometimes hating blood, sometimes false weights, sometimes contempt of his Word, sometimes wicked thoughts, all which show that he hates iniquity: two ways he manifests he hates it, in some, because he destroys them for it, in others, because he took it away by justice, in is own Son. And thus much for this description.

Richard Stock, A Stock of Divine Knowledge. Being a Lively Description of the Divine Nature. Or, the Divine Essence, Attributes, and Trinity Particularly Explained and Profitably Applied. The First showing Us What God is: The Second, what We Ought to be (London: Printed by T.H. for Philip Nevil, and are to be sold at his Shop in Ivie Lane, at the Signe of the Gun, 1641), 224-226. [Some spelling modernized; some sentence restructuring; contents in brackets mine; footnotes mine; and underlining mine.]

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¹The original incorrectly cites Psalm 6:6.

²Hebrew, Tophteh, a place of fire.