Redemption Redeemed. John Goodwin

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      REDEMPTION REDEEMED:

      A Puritan Defense of Unlimited Atonement

      Expanded Edition

      BY JOHN GOODWIN, M.A.

      Fellow of Queens College, Cambridge

      Edited by John D. Wagner

       Redemption Redeemed:

      A Puritan Defense of Unlimited Atonement

       Expanded Edition

      by John Goodwin

      Edited by John D. Wagner

      Copyright © 2001, 2004 by John D. Wagner

      ISBN: 1-59244-730-9

      ISBN (ebook): 9781532611919

      Wipf and Stock Publishers

      199 West 8th Ave, Suite 3

      Eugene, Oregon 97401

       www.wipfandstock.com

      Previously published by:

      The Wesleyan Office, London, 1846.

      Thomas Tegg, London, 1840.

      John Macock, London, 1651.

       FOREWORD

      John Goodwin (1593–1665), the eminent English pastor and Puritan divine, was a man ahead of his time.

      Educated at Cambridge University, he was raised and indoctrinated in Calvinistic absolute predestination, the dominant Christian perspective of his day. In the 1640s he began preparing for a series of lectures to refute the doctrines of Arminianism, and entered a thorough investigation of the controversy and its many aspects. The ultimate result was his rejection of Calvinism and adoption of Arminian theology.

      He completed Redemption Redeemed in 1650 and published it the following year. The original version was a multi-issue polemic against Calvinism. This edition, replacing a shorter 2001 version, offers the fuller text of the chapters devoted to a comprehensive refutation of the limited atonement doctrine. Goodwin’s writing remains to this day a superb and eloquent defense of the Biblical position of unlimited atonement that Jesus Christ “by the grace of God tasted death for every man.” Considering the heavy writing style so typical of Puritans, I have included some moderate editing to enhance clarity and readability, correct typographical errors in some scriptural references, and translate Greek words into the English-alphabet equivalent.

      Goodwin represented an Arminian strand of Puritanism and was a major figure in the decline of Calvinist influence in England. In the contemporary period as Christians enter the 21st Century and Calvinism with its disturbing implications is making a resurgence, Goodwin’s master work is a welcome and much needed contribution to those seeking to understand the truths of God’s word.

       John D. Wagner

       Editor

      CONTENTS

Foreword

Introduction by Rev. John Bates

CHAPTER I

      Four several veins or correspondences of Scriptures, propounded, holding forth the death of Christ for all men, without exception of any. The first of these argued.

CHAPTER II

      Wherein several texts of the second sort of Scriptures propounded in Chap. I, as holding forth the Universality of Redemption by Christ, are discussed.

CHAPTER III

      The third sort, or consort of Scriptures, mentioned in Chap. I, as clearly asserting the Doctrine hitherto maintained, argued, and managed to the same point.

CHAPTER IV

      Wherein the Scriptures of the fourth and last association, propounded in Chap. I, as pregnant also with that great truth hitherto maintained, are impartially weighed and considered.

      CHAPTER V

      Several other texts of Scripture (besides those formerly produced in ranks and companies) argued to the clear eviction of truth, in the same doctrine, viz. That the redemption purchased by Christ in his death, was intended for all and every man without exception.

      CHAPTER VI

      Declaring in what sense the former passages of Scripture asserting the universality of redemption by Christ, are, as to this point, to be understood; and, consequently, in what sense the said doctrine of universal redemption is maintained in the present discourse.

      CHAPTER VII

      Exhibiteth several grounds and reasons whereby the universality of redemption by Christ, or Christ’s dying for all men, without exception, is demonstratively evicted.

      CHAPTER VIII

      Wherein the sense of antiquity, touching the controversy under discussion, is truly and impartially represented

      CHAPTER IX

      Declaring the sense and judgment of modern writers from the Reformation onward; and conclusions on the redemption of Christ for the world

      Scripture Index

       INTRODUCTION

      THE following work, which is humbly presented to the public, on the most important subject of the redemption of the world by Jesus Christ, was written, or rather completed, in the year 1650; and dedicated to the reverend Dr. BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE, Provost of King’s College, and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, together with the rest of the heads of colleges, and students in divinity, in that famous university. It is not my design to enter into any panegyrics, either on the author or his work; the work will speak for itself, and the public must be their own judges of its merit; truth, I believe, was the object he had in view, and this he prosecutes and supports by almost every possible argument.

      He appears to have been well acquainted with the weak reasoning used by those of the contrary judgment to himself to support the doctrines of absolute and unconditional election and reprobation, and a limited atonement; and therefore he presents his arguments against those pernicious errors in a masterly manner. Well may those of the Calvinistic persuasion ridicule him and his work in the manner they have frequently done, because he hath so clearly exposed their errors, and made their babel to totter, and I expect no better treatment, for attempting to revive and spread his most valuable work. But let this be as it may, if I can be any ways useful to my fellow creatures, in enlarging their views of the redemption of Jesus Christ, and liberating them from that contractedness of mind which is inseparably connected with a belief of the Calvinistic decrees, my end will be answered.

      It is a question that has been frequently proposed, If there be no such doctrine as absolute and unconditional predestination and election, why did all the ancient writers teach it? To this I answer; 1. I will venture to affirm that not one in a hundred of those who propose and insist on this question, ever read any, much less all the ancient writers. What they mean by ancient writers is, such as wrote before and after the synod of Dort. But those are rather late than ancient writers. 2. All, even of those writers, do not teach such a predestination and election as are contended for by the rigid Calvinists. 3. None of those that are justly entitled to the character of the ancient writers, and who lived in the three first centuries after our Saviour’s days, ever taught any such, as is sufficiently manifest in the quotations from them in the course of this work. St. Augustine indeed did