Redemption Redeemed. John Goodwin
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all men, without exception, (viz., as they are men, and whilst they are yet capable of repentance) to be saved, and in order thereunto to come to the knowledge of the saving truth, i.e. the gospel.
Nor doth it follow, that the will of God is changeable, in case he should will the same man as this day to be saved, and so on the morrow to perish, but only that such a man is changeable, as we shall further show, God willing, in due time. Now then, if it be the will of God to have all men, without exception, saved, &c., most certain it is that Christ died, and intentionally on God’s part, for all men, without exception. That because it is not imaginable that God should be willing to have those saved for whom he was unwilling that salvation should be procured.
The latter of the two Scriptures lately brought upon the theatre of our present discourse, acts the same part with the former. There it is said of the Lord (Christ) that he is not “willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” If so, then certainly there neither was, nor is, nor ever shall be any, for whom Christ was not willing, did not intend, to die, and to purchase repentance. So that his death was intentionally for all men, as well in respect of himself, as of God the Father. Besides those slimy evasions and shifts of making bondmen of Christ’s freemen, I mean of an arbitrary and importunate confining the expressions importing a simple and absolute universality, in such Scriptures as these, to petty universalities, as of the elect, of species, sorts, or kinds of men, &c., (the nakedness whereof hath been detected over and over) our adversaries in the cause in hand are wont to take sanctuary from such Scriptures as the two now in debate, under the wing of this distinction. “It is true,” say they, “God wills that all men should be saved, and so that all should come to repentance, voluntate signi, with his signified or revealed will; but this doth not prove but that voluntate beneplaciti, with the will of his pleasure, or purpose, he may be willing that many, even far the greatest part of men, should perish.” But to show the vanity, or at least the impertinency of this distinction to the business in hand:
1. I would demand of those who lean upon the broken reed of this distinction, in opposition to the clear and distinct sense given of the two Scriptures last mentioned, what they mean by their voluntas signi, the signified or revealed will of God. And wherein doth the opposition or difference lieth between this and that other will of God, which they term the will of his good pleasure or purpose? If by his signified or revealed will, they mean only the precepts or commandments of God concerning such and such duties, which God would have practised and done by men, (which is all the account that some of the greatest opposers in the point in hand give of it) I do not understand how, or in what respect, God can be said to will the salvation of all men, and that none should perish. For,
(a.) Salvation actively taken, is an act of God himself, not of men; and consequently cannot be said to be a duty enjoined by him unto men, and therefore not to be willed neither by him, by way of precept or command.
(b.) Salvation, passively taken, is not an act, but a state or condition; and consequently is no matter of duty; and so cannot be said to be willed by God in such a sense.
If by the signified or revealed will of God, in the distinction now under canvass, be meant the declaration which he hath made in his word concerning the final or eventual salvation or condemnation of men, evident it is, that neither in this sense can be said to will the salvation of all men; because he hath declared and signified unto the world that few comparatively will or shall in time be saved.
If it be pleaded, that in this sense God may be said to will the salvation of all men with his signified or revealed will, because he enjoins faith and repentance unto all men, which are the means of salvation; and he that enjoins the means, may, in a consequential way, be said to enjoin the end in the same injunction, I answer,
If God enjoins faith and repentance unto all men, it argues that he preacheth the gospel unto all men; and consequently, that they who have not the letter of the gospel preached unto them by books or men, as many heathen nations have not at this day, yet have the spirit, substance, and effect of the gospel preached to them otherwise, as, viz. by God’s creation and gracious government of the world, which is, as I have shown elsewhere,2 purely evangelical and corresponding with the Scriptures. But how this will stand with our adversaries’ judgment in the case depending, I understand not.
2. It is the sense of one of the greatest patrons of the adverse cause, that “the precept or injunction of God3 is not properly the will of God because,” saith be, “he doth not hereby so much signify what himself willeth to be done, as what is our duty to do.” I confess that no signification whatsoever, whether of what a man willeth or decreeth to be done, or of what is the duty of another to do, can properly be said to be the will of the signifier; but yet that will, wherewith or out of which God willeth or commandeth us to do that which is our duty to do, is as properly his will as that whereby he willeth or decreeth things to be done.
My will or desire that my child should obey me, or that he should prosper in the world, is as properly my will as that whereby I will or purpose to show the respects of a father unto him in providing for him; being as proper, natural, and direct an act of that principle or faculty of willing within me whereby I will the former, as that act itself of this faculty wherein I will the latter is. For the principle or faculty within me of willing, how numerous or different soever the acts of willing which I exert by virtue of this faculty may be, is but one and the same; and this faculty being natural, there can be no such difference between the acts proceeding from it which should make some to be more proper and others less, though some may be better and others worse.
But this difference can have no place in the acts of the will of God; therefore, if the precept or preceptive will of God be not properly his will, neither can any other will of his, or any other act of his will, be properly such. If so, then that will of God, or act of will in God, whereby he willeth or enjoineth faith and repentance, and consequently salvation, unto all men, is as properly his will as that whereby he willeth the salvation of any man. Therefore, if there be any secret or unrevealed will in God, whereby he willeth the destruction of any man at the same time when he willeth the salvation of all men, (be it with what kind of will soever) these two wills must needs interfere and contradict the one the other.
Nor will that distinction of the late-mentioned author salve a consistency between them, wherein he distinguisheth between the decree of God and the thing decreed by him, affirming that “the thing which God decreeth may be repugnant to or inconsistent with the thing which he commandeth, though the decree itself cannot be repugnant to the command.”4 The vanity of this distinction clearly appeareth upon this common ground, viz. that acts are differenced and distinguished by their objects: therefore, if the object of God’s decreeing will, or the thing decreed by him, be contrary to the thing preceptively willed or commanded by him, impossible it is but that the two acts of his will, by the one of which he is supposed to will the one, and by the other the other, should digladiate and one fight against the other. Therefore, certainly, there is no such pair or combination of wills in God as the distinction of voluntas signi and beneplaciti (as applied in the question in hand) doth suppose. It is impossible that I should inwardly and seriously will or desire the death of my child, and yet at the same time seriously also will and enjoin the physician to do his best to recover him.
Again, if God enjoin faith and repentance unto all men, with a declaration that he enjoineth them in order to their salvation, or with a promise that, upon their obedience to this injunction of his, they shall be actually saved, then can he not at the same time will with a secret will the condemnation of any? But most evident it is, that unto whomsoever he enjoineth faith or repentance, he enjoineth them in order to their salvation, and with promise of actual salvation upon their obedience to this injunction, Mark 1. 15; Acts iii. 19; John xx. 31, &c. Therefore, impossible it is, that he should secretly intend, will, or purpose the destruction of any to whom he enjoins faith and repentance.
The consequence in this argument is so rich in evidence, that it needs no proof. If a prince should inwardly and resolvedly determine to put such or such a malefactor to