Redemption Redeemed. John Goodwin
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or otherwise promise him his life or a pardon upon condition he would reform his course, would this be a strain of divine perfection, or like unto one of the ways of God?
There is a sense, I confess, wherein the distinction now in consideration may be admitted. If by the signified or revealed will of God be meant nothing else but such declarations or manifestations made by God, which, when made by men, are signs of a will, purpose, or desire in them, suitable to their respective tenors and imports, (which is clearly their sense of this member of the distinction who were the first coiners of it, I mean the schoolmen)5 there is no inconvenience in granting a revealed will in God distinguished from or opposed unto a will of good pleasure or of purpose in him. This sense makes no opposition of wills in God, nor yet between things willed or purposed by him. It only showeth or supposeth that the will and good pleasure in God extendeth not to the actual procurement of obedience from men unto all those laws or commands which he judgeth meet to impose upon them; or, which is the same, that God hath not positively decreed that all men shall, or shall be necessitated by him to live in subjection to all those laws which he hath appointed unto them.
This sense is orthodox, and blameable, but holds no intelligence with that opinion which supposeth one will in God, according unto which he willeth all men to be saved; and another, according unto which he willeth the far greatest part of men to be damned, and both antecedent. For otherwise, two such wills as these are fairly and clearly enough consistent in him. God, according to the distinction of the will of God into antecedent and consequent, first set on foot by some of the fathers, Chrysostom, and Damascen by name, and since made use of by the schoolmen, may, with the former, be said to will the salvation of all men. Yet with the latter be said also, in a sense, to will the condemnation of far the greatest part of them.
His antecedent will, the distinction being admitted as it ought to be, having so clear a foundation in Scripture, respecteth men simply as men; his consequent will relateth to them as considerable under the two opposite qualifications, or immediate capacities of life and death, or of salvation and condemnation; the one of these being faith persevered in unto death, the other, final impenitency or unbelief. According to the former of these wills, God is said to will the salvation of all men, partly because he vouchsafeth a sufficiency of means unto all men whereby to be saved; partly also, because he hath passed no decree against any man which either formally, or consequentially, or in any consideration whatsoever excludeth any man, personally considered, from salvation before he voluntarily excludeth himself by such sinful miscarriages and deportments, which, according to the revealed will of God, render him utterly incapable thereof.
According to the latter of these wills, as he peremptorily willeth the salvation of all those who are faithful unto death; so doth he as peremptorily will the condemnation of all those who shall not be found in the faith of Jesus Christ at their end. The latter, through their own deplorable and voluntary carelessness and negligence, proving to be in number far the greater part of men, God, upon this supposition, and in a consequential way, may be said to will the condemnation of the greatest part of men, and the salvation only of a few, comparatively. But of these things more hereafter.
In the meantime, evident it is from the Scriptures argued, that Christ died intentionally for all men, without exception, considered as men; and that there was nothing more procured, nor intended to be procured, thereby for one man than another, personally considered, or simply as men. Only this was intended in this death of Christ, in the general, that whosoever, whether few or whether many, should with a true and persevering faith believe in him, should actually partake of the benefit and blessing of this his death in the great reward of salvation; and on the other hand, that whosoever, whether few or whether many, should not believe in him with such a faith, should, upon this account, be excluded from all participation in the great blessing of salvation purchased by his death. This notwithstanding the purchase that was made, and intended to be made for them as for those who come actually to inherit; even as the marriage feast in the parable was as much provided, prepared, and intended for those, who upon their invitation came not, as it was for those who came and actually partook of it; unless we shall say that the king who made this feast intended it not for those whom, notwithstanding, he solemnly invited to it, and with whom he was highly displeased for their refusal to come, being invited, Matt. xxii. 3, 4, &c.
And that the death of Christ, and the gracious intentions of God therein, did, and do equally and uniformly respect all men, is abundantly manifest from that declaration made by the Lord Christ himself on this behalf, formerly opened; “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John iii. 16. Those words, “that whosoever believeth on him should not perish,” &c., evidently import indifferenced and impartial intentions on God’s part towards men in the gift of his Son.
The last Scripture of the division yet in hand was this, “Therefore as by the offence of one, the judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all men unto the justification of life,” Rom. v. 18. Evident it is, that the apostle in this passage compareth the extent of the condemnation which came by the sin of Adam, with the extent of the grace of justification which came by Christ, in respect of the numbers of persons unto whom they extended respectively, and finds them in this point commensurable the one unto the other.
The persons upon whom the gift of justification cometh by Christ, are made equal in number unto those upon whom the judgment of condemnation came by Adam. For as the offence of Adam is here said to have come upon all men unto condemnation, so also is the gift of justification of life, i.e. of such a justification upon which, and by means whereof, men are saved, which comes by Jesus Christ and said to come upon all men likewise. Now to say, that all men in the former clause is to be taken properly and signifies all men, indeed, without exception of any, which all expositors grant without exception of any, but in the latter improperly and with limitation, yea, with such a limitation, which comparatively, and a few only excepted, excludes all men, there being not the least ground or reason in the context to vary the signification of the words, or to make them to signify more in the one clause and fewer in the other, is to exercise an arbitrary dominion over the expressions of the Holy Ghost, and to invent and set up significations and senses of words at pleasure.
Nor doth it at all ease the matter, to say or prove, that in other places of Scripture this phrase pantas anthrōpous, all men, signifies not all without exception, but only a great number, or all of one particular sort or kind of persons; because,
1. If it can be proved that in other places of Scripture it so signifies, I mean not all without exception, but only some greater number or numbers of men, it seems then there is a reason why it should or must so signify in these places; otherwise, it could not be proved that there it so signifies. But here is no reason at all to be given why it should be taken out of the proper and native signification, or signify any lesser number than all men simply. Now to refuse the proper signification of a word, where there is no other reason why it should be refused, but only because it is to be refused where there is a reason, and so a necessity, to refuse it, is as if one should persuade a man that is hungry to forbear meat whilst he may have it, because he must forbear it when he cannot get it. When the context or subject matter doth require a by, less proper or limited signification of a word or phrase, this signification is put upon them by God. But when there is no occasion or necessity, either in respect of the one or of the other, why such a signification should be put upon them, now if it be done, the doing of it is arbitrary, and from the lawless presumption of men. How much more when men shall do it, not only without any sufficient ground or reason, but against reason? That is the case of those, who by all men in the latter clause of the verse in hand, will needs understand only some men, and these but few comparatively. For,
2. Though one and the same word or phrase, is sometimes to be taken in a different signification in one and the same period or sentence, as elsewhere is observed, yet this is nowhere to be done, but where there is manifest and pregnant reason for the doing of it, as in these and the like eases. “Let the dead bury their dead,” Mat. viii. 22. So again, “Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again; but whosoever shall drink of