William Bates (1625–1699) on General and Special Love

2. The next general consideration is this; the glory of God is that which will bear a proportion to that love of God which he hath to his people. It shall be a noble expression of that love, and suitable to it. Now to make you a little to understand the force of this: God hath a general love to his creatures, and a special love to his children, to those who are his friends and favourites.

(1.) There is a general love that God bears to mankind in this lower world, as they have the title of his creatures: that love hath declared itself in making this world so pleasant an habitation for man as he is in his natural state. Now pray consider with yourselves; God hath made a thousand things in this world, which are not absolutely necessary for the support of our lives, but for the refreshment, and comfort, and pleasure of them; and this is from his general love to mankind. How many stars are there that adorn the firmament in the night? which are a most pleasant, spectacle, but are not so absolutely necessary for lights. And how many things are there which ate for pleasure and delight, which are not necessary for the support of life.

(2.) God hath a peculiar love to his children, and that love he hath designed to glorify in heaven: therefore you shall find, Eph. 1:6. the great work of redemption, both as to the accomplishment of it, and the actual bestowing the fruits thereof upon us; the great end of it is said to be to the praise of the glory of the grace of God; the glory of his love; that love which warmed his breast from eternity with thoughts of compassion towards man; this love he will glorify in heaven; and he hath prepared such glory and joy for them, that they shall know he will love them like a God in an infinite and inconceivable manner. Do but a little ascend in your thoughts thus; ‘Hath God made a beautiful world, so full of comforts and refreshment; hath he made this, and given it to rebellious contumacious sinners, those that live in open defiance of his laws and government? What then hath he prepared for those that love and serve him, in the kingdom above?’

William Bates, “The Everlasting Rest of the Saints in Heaven,” in The Whole Works of the Rev. William Bates, ed. W. Farmer, 4 vols. (Harrisonburg, VA: Sprinkle Publications, 1990), 3:40.

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John Owen (1616–1683) on General Love

It is well if he know what it is that he aims at in these words; I am sure what he says doth not in the least impeach the truth which he designs to oppose. The name and nature of God are everywhere in the Scripture proposed unto us as the object of, and encouragement unto, our faith, and his love in particular is therein represented unchangeable, because he himself is so; but it doth not hence follow that God loveth any one naturally, or necessarily. His love is a free act of his will; and therefore, though it be like himself, such as becomes his nature, yet it is not necessarily determined on any object, nor limited as unto the nature, degrees, and effects of it. He loves whom he pleaseth, and as unto what end he pleaseth. Jacob he loved, and Esau he hated; and those effects which, from his love or out of it, he will communicate unto them, are various, according to the counsel of his will. Some he loves only as to temporal and common mercies, some as to spiritual grace and glory; for he hath mercy on whom he will have mercy.

John Owen, “A Vindication of Some Passages in a Discourse Concerning Communion with God,” in The Works of John Owen, ed. William H. Goold (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1851), 2:344–45.

1. That God is good to all men, and bountiful, being a wise, powerful, liberal provider for the works of his hands, in and by innumerable dispensations and various communications of his goodness to them, and may in that regard be said to have a universal love for them all, is granted; but that God loveth all and every man alike, with that eternal love which is the fountain of his giving Christ for them and to them, and all good things with him, is not in the least intimated by any of those places of Scripture where they are expressed for whom Christ died, as elsewhere hath been abundantly manifested.

John Owen, “VINDICIÆ EVANGELICÆ; Or, The Mystery of the Gospel Vindicated and Socinianism Examined,” in The Works of John Owen, ed. William H. Goold (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1862), 12:552; italics original.

Love toward all mankind in general we acknowledge to be required of us, and we are debtors in the fruits of it to the whole creation of God: for he hath not only implanted the principles of it in that nature whereof we are in common partakers with the whole race and kind, whereunto all hatred and its effects were originally foreign, and introduced by the devil, nor only given us his command for it, enlarging on its grounds and reasons in the gospel; but in his design of recovering us out of our lapsed condition unto a conformity with himself, proposeth in an especial manner the example of his own love and goodness, which are extended unto all, for our imitation, Matt. 5:44, 45. His philanthropy and communicative love, from his own infinite self-fulness, wherewith all creatures, in all places, times, and seasons, are filled and satisfied, as from an immeasurable ocean of goodness, are proposed unto us to direct the exercise of that drop from the divine nature wherewith we are intrusted. “Love your enemies,” saith our Saviour, “bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.”

John Owen, “A Discourse Concerning Evangelical Love, Church Peace, and Unity,” in The Works of John Owen, ed. William H. Goold (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1862), 15:70–71; italics original.

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Benedict Pictet (1655–1724) on God’s General Goodness and Love

With regard to what are called affection, although they do not properly exist in God, seeing they are connected with the ideas of passion or emotion, which argues weakness and mutability, and therefore would be contrary to the supreme happiness of God, yet are they attributed to him in the scripture, which speaks to men in their own style; but they do not designate, any passions or emotions, nor are to be understood as different wills or inclinations in the Deity, (for this would imply a changeableness in him,) but as acts of the same will, and denoting different relations of it. We will speak of the principal affections; and, first, of goodness. Now we call goodness that affection in God, by which he is inclined to communicate himself to his creatures. The scripture every where declares it, (Psalm xxxvi:6, 7; lxxiii.1; Acts xiv. 17); and even the heathen called their Jupiter Optimus Maximus, (very good and great); and, as Cicero observes, he is called optimus before maximus, because it is a greater and more acceptable thing, to do good to all, than to possess the greatest power. The first act of God’s goodness in time is creation; and because what is produced always depends on what produces it, the second act of goodness is preservation. This goodness, moreover, is either general, which embraces all creatures, or special, which regards human creatures, and most special, which regards the elect. Nor should it seem strange that God is not equally good towards his creatures, for in this inequality is displayed his sovereign freedom and dominion.

From the goodness springs the love of God, by which God is inclined towards the creature, and delights to do it good, and, as it were, to unite himself with it. There are three kinds of this love usually ascribed to God. The love of benevolence is that by which God is moved to will some good to his creature as a creature, without any regard to the excellence which may be in it. This kind of love is the same as his goodness, and by it God, from eternity, willed good to the creature, even though unworthy, and deserving of hatred. The love of beneficence is that by which God does good in time; this expression in time must be noted, so that this love may be distinguished from the love of benevolence which is from eternity. The love of complacency is that by which God is inclined towards the creature that is just and holy. By the first kind of love, God elects us; by the second, he redeems and sanctifies us; by the third, he rewards us being holy. Of this last Christ speaks, (John xiv. 21,)” He that hath my commandments, and keeps them, he it is that loves me; and he that loves me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him.” With this love of God is connected his grace, by which he is induced to communicate himself to the creature, freely and of his own accord; not from desert or debt, or any other cause out of himself and not to add any thing to himself, but for the benefit of the object of this grace. For grace is nothing else but unmerited favour; it is always opposed to merit; “If it be of grace, then it is no more of works; otherwise grace is no more grace.” (Rom. xi. 6.) Now this word grace is taken in scripture, sometimes for God’s favour, by which he chose us from eternity unto life, sometimes for the favour, by which he receives us in time, and accepts us in the Son of his love, some times for the effects of grace, or the ordinary gifts bestowed by God on believers, such as faith, hope, and charity, or for the extraordinary gifts which were miraculously bestowed in the first ages, for the edification of the church. This grace is accompanied by mercy or pity, concerning which the Psalmist speaks, (Psalm ciii. 8; cxlv. 2; also Lament, iii. 22, 23,) which, as existing in God, is not a sorrow or sadness of mind arising from the miseries or evils of others, but a ready disposition to succor the miserable. It does not spring from any external cause, such as usually stirs up this emotion in human beings, but from the sole goodness of God. The greatness of this pity is shewn by the extreme unworthiness of those who are the objects of it, compared with his majesty, by the number of the sins they have committed, and the greatness of their misery—by the severity of divine justice—by the eternal duration of this pity—and by its innumerable effects.

Benedict Pictet, Christian Theology, trans. Frederick Reyroux (Fleet Street London: R. B. Seeley and W. Burnside, 1834), 84–86; italics original, underlining mine.

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Henry Ainsworth (1571–1622) on God’s General and Special Love

3 Bounty.

God’s virtues in respect of his will are bounty, and justice: Bounty is that, by which out of love, God procures to every creature the good thereof, and it is common, and particular. Common bounty is towards all creatures, even such as offend him, directing them to their natural good, and sustaining them therein, so long as justice suffers, Luke 6:36. God cannot hate his creatures, as his works, for so they carry a similitude of God, the first cause [Eze. 33:11]: and none can hate himself, or his similitude, for a similitude is something of himself. God’s bounty to his creatures presupposes not any debt or duty, which implies imperfection; and if God were bound to his creatures, he should depend on them, and be imperfect.

God’s bounty which is infinite, gives creatures good things, of nature, of sour, and body, and of outward things.

Such is God’s bounty, as the creatures suffer no evil, unless God’s justice require it, or a greater good confirm it; of this virtue God is called patient, and long-suffering.

Particular, or special bounty, is that whereby God loved some men (in Christ) fallen into sin, and furnishes them to eternal salvation [Eph. 2:4–5]. God’s special bounty, is the first beginning, both of salvation, and of the means thereto. This bounty is no inherent quality in us, but we are the object of it, it is a grace making us grateful, not finding us so.

Henry Ainsworth, The Old Orthodox Foundation of Religion: Left for a Patterne To a New Reformation (London: Printed by E. Cotes, and are to be sold by Michael Spark at the Blue Bible in Green Arbour, 1653), 16–17. [Some spelling modernized; some reformatting; italics original; and underlining mine.]

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