I cannot thinke but your Age has forgot me,
It could not else be, I should proue so bace,
To sue and be deny'de such common Grace.
My wounds ake at you.
-Alcibiades in Timon of Athens (1606), William Shakespeare
It is no secret, or at least I hope it isn’t, that I am thoroughly disinterested in the “contributions” of nineteenth and twentieth century Dutch theologians. As a rule, I shun entirely the “theology” of the twentieth century. History ended in the seventeenth century, as I’ve said before.
Yet, the Neo-Calvinists are a swarm. They keep asserting common grace as some kind of theological lynchpin. It’s caught on, in my view, because it’s a way for evangelicals to talk about natural law without talking about natural law. As to the term itself, all I am providing below is a rough survey—no way to be exhaustive and no time to be anything other than sloppy—of historical use of the phrase from back when history was still going. (Below is simply what I’ve come across and stockpiled.) Do with it what you will.
Jumping right in…
Discussing effectual calling and election, Calvin designates God’s grace to be special and particular:
“Paule doth fittly reason out of the place of Malachie which I euen nowe alleged: that where God with making a couenant of eternal life calleth any people to hymselfe, there is in parte a speciall manner of election, that he doth not choose all effectually with common grace. Whereas it is sayed, I haue loued Iacob, this perteineth to the whole issue of the Patriarch, which the Prophete there setteth in comparison against the posteritie of Esau.” [1561 English version]
In his Commentary on Acts, Calvin refers to the “common grace of the spirit, whereby God doth regenerate us, that we may be his children,” contrasting the term with the “singular gifts” given by God for particular use at a particular time “to bewtifie Christes kingdome.”
In A commentarie on the whole Epistle to the Hebrews, Calvin refers to “the common grace of election.”
Peter Martyr Vermigli, from his Commentary on Romans: “The grace which the Pelagians taught was set forth to be common unto all men was nature. Grace is geven unto some,, and is not geven unto other some.”
Observe, his employment of the term to refute Pelagianism:
“The same Augustine de Predestinatione sanctorum in his 5. chapiter reproueth Pelagius, for that he had fayned that common grace vnto all the saints: which he would haue to be nothing els but nature: which selfe thing our aduersaries also at this day do, when as they cry out that that grace is set forth as it were openly vnto all men, and that it lieth in euery mans power to receaue it so that he will.”
Elsewhere in the same text:
“[W]e can not glory of this liberty of will, for that we haue it not of our owne. For it is God which hath endued vs with this faculty, and gaue vs frée will when he created vs. But this is not sufficient to take away boasting. [Marginal note: The Pelagians fled unto the common grace of creation.”].”
(This is, as far as I can tell, the only way that Vermigli employs the term throughout his Commonplaces and Romans commentary).
William Perkins (The reformation of couetousnesse (1603) (i.e. short commentary on Matthew 6:19-20)) equates common with universal grace.
“All the Nations of the world before Christ, besides the Iewes, knew not God: onely heere and there some one man that was a Prophet, excepted. All the rest knew not God, no prouidence, nor any other life but this: now if the Gentiles did thus because they knew not God, it followeth, that vniuersall grace is but a phansie, and a meere device of mans braine: for the Gentiles before Christs incarnation, knew not the true God, but were without God: How then could they haue grace, which is a gift to be able to beleeue, if they would. If they failed in the knowledge of life eternall, and Gods prouidence, how was it possible yᵗ they should haue this gift? Indeed in diuers Countries that were neare the Iewes, some liued as the Iewes did, and got some knowledge of God: But the countries that werefarre off, had no knowledge of God, therefore there was no common grace giuen them all.”
In his exposition of Jude, Perkins describes apostasy as a falling away from religion, the church, and common grace (citing Hebrews 6:4). Again, Perkin’s A C[hristian] and [plain]e treatise of the manner and order of predestination and of the largenes of Gods grace (1606) refers to common grace in the context of calling Gentiles to “give assent unto God” and this either by “extraordinary instinct, or by the ministry of the word preached,” with the result being that they will enter the church and “the special covenant of the Gospel.” (In the section, Perkins is refuting the idea of universal grace because grace produces faith and faith is “not common to all. Perkins elsewhere seems to equate common grace with the free offer of the Gospel to which not all will respond.)
And yet, in his Cases of Conscience, Perkins refers to the chastity of Joseph as a special grace of God’s spirit (“renewing of the heart”), but the chastity of Xenocrates (396-314 BC), the Platonist, as a “common grace, seruing onely to curbe and restraine the corruption of his heart. And the like may be saide of the iustice of Abraham; a Christian, and of Aristides, a Heathen.” Does this contradict the prior representation? No. The point: “those vertues of the Heathen be graces of God, yet they are but generall and common to all.”
Common grace is natural virtue, which is real virtue that nevertheless does not flow from a sanctified heart. Andrew Wilet (1562-1621) is of the same opinion: common grace is non-salvific natural light as grasped by the exceptional, learned pagan.
We might say, the dichotomy is between that of Romans 2 and Jeremiah 31 albeit this depends on the majority interpretation of the former and not the minority position of Thomas Aquinas (i.e., converted Gentiles).
Confirming this reading of Perkins: back in the Christian and plaine treatise, Perkins lays out a twofold grace: common or natural and special or supernatural. But common grace is not a super added restraining grace. It is nature itself:
“The grace of nature corrupted is a natural inlightning (whereof Iohn speaketh: He enlightneth euery man that commeth into the world)yea and euery naturall gift. And these gifts truly by that order which God hath made in nature, are due and belonging vnto nature. But that Grace which is supernaturall, is not due vnto nature, especially vnto nature corrupted, but is bestowed by speciall grace, and therefore is speciall. This the100100 ancient writers affirme. Augustine saith: Nature is common to al, but not grace:and he only acknowledgeth a twofold grace; namely that common grace of nature, whereby we are made men: and Christian grace, whereby in Christ we are againe borne new men.”
Common or general grace is just nature. Insofar as Perkins is referring to lapsarian nature it is only in the sense that the Logos of John’s prologue is responsible for the publication of natural light (or natural law) to all men. (See also Perkin’s commentary on the Sermon on the Mount critiquing popish writers for espousing “universal common grace or help sufficient by which they may be saved if they will.”)
Common grace here is not some comprehensive historical theory; it is an assertion of exactly what someone like Van Til would deny. No concern over opposing epistemologies or opposing philosophies of fact or law are detectable. Perkins does not appeal to a super added “restraining of the heart.” It’s just nature which did not begin with Genesis 9. Nature, like society and government, didn’t slide to earth on the rainbow.
(I fully recognize that Kuyper denies my super added characterization, but he should have endeavored to be more intelligible and less innovative. What on earth does it mean that common grace is not added but “proceeds from” nature “as a result of the constraint of sin and corruption”? Even Van Til… VAN TIL!... said he wasn’t clear.)
Moving on. Richard Sibbes (1577-1635) describes common grace as “outward conformity to Religion.”
Richard Rogers (1550-1618), discussing the armor of God, defines common grace as that in which all Christians partake (after conversion), i.e., “things pertaining to life and godliness.” Even weak or new Christians are not “destitute of any common grace of a true Christian.” For Robert Rollock (1555-1599), common grace is just salvation. Hence, Paul was given “that common grace, to be a Christian, and to get an assurance of the remission of his owne sinnes” but also was given the special grace of apostolic ministry.
Henry Burton (1578-1648) has an interesting application. Common grace (or “common illumination”) is that “temporary faith” spoken of in Hebrews 6 and from which “men may fall away totally and finally, as Judas.” Anthony Burgess (d. 1664) does something similar:
“Now the notes and marks of this common grace are easie and plain, and it may fall out that a visible number of people may have these, so that they are to be accounted a visible Church, and the Ordinances not denied to them, yet be without those signs that do indeed accompany Salvation.”
William Prynne (1600-1669) uses the term disparagingly to critique Arminians in The Church of England’s old antithesis to new Arminianisme (1629). (I had to list him with Burton since they both got their ears cropped but kept on pamphleteering anyway.)
John Downame (1571-1652) introduces a somewhat convoluted use. Considering how Satan temps and entraps us, Downame says that in presenting himself as an angel of light, Satan does not “often move us to commit those sins which nature (restrained by God’s common grace, or sanctified by his spirit) doth abhor and tremble to think of.” Unlike Vermigli, Downame does not appear to equate nature with common grace. What is unclear (on my reading) is whether common grace and a sanctified spirit are the same and, therefore, whether this referent of this grace is the Christian exclusively. Maybe there’s something here more approximate to the Kuyperian-Vantillian use but it’s not obvious. Jeremiah Burroughs (1599-1646) might get close too with a restraint emphasis: common grace or natural ability can “stop the streame of corrupt nature.”
Thomas Gataker (1574-1654) referred to common grace as “civil honesty,” but he does not appear to mean the civil righteousness that was often applied to pagans to represent their natural virtue. He means minimalist sanctification, or something like that. Men tire of pursuing godliness and are satisfied with “superficial sprinkling of common grace, or civil honesty, that commeth as far short of sound sanctification and sincerity, as the shadow doth the substance.” Again, the context is all wrong for a Neo-Calvinist usage.
Richard Baxter (1615-1691) went the calling route as well: “Is there not a common Grace of the Spirit, drawing men towards Christ that were farre from him, which goes before the special Grace (at least sometimes) whereby they are drawn to Christ?” In Thomas Goodwin (1600-1680), there is common mercy, and a common mediation of Christ by which all men receive natural light (common notions), but there is no common grace because grace, by its nature, is salvific. (Turretin employs “common mercy” similarly.)
I’m sure there are more. I seem to remember John Cotton or John Norton using the phrase. But we are already hearing the end of history, so we will stop for now. In sum, I simply do not see historical precedence for the grand Kuyperian usage and I am not sure what that usage supplies that was previously lacking. Cards on the table, all I’m really saying is that the term is superfluous, and I don’t like it. I can’t say that any of my best friends are Kuyperians, but I know some. There are good people on both sides.