Samuel Rutherford (1600-1661):
[1] “But we must distinguish between two states: the state of election and everlasting, though unseen, love that they are under, as touching their persons; and a state of a sinful way that they are born in, and walk in as others do, until they be converted. As to the former state, it is true which is said, ‘I have loved thee with an everlasting love’ (Jer. 31:3). See also Rom. 9:12–13 and Eph. 1:4. God therefore never hates their persons” (The Covenant of Life Opened [Edinburgh: Andro Anderson, 1655], Book I, Chapter 4, “Whether the elect who are not yet converted are under wrath”).
[2] “The punishment of their sins and the wrath they are under is two ways considered. First, materially … they are under law-strokes and law-wrath, as others are (Eph. 2:3). Secondly, wrath is to be considered formally; and so it is denied that the punishment of the non-converted elect … is any part of the law-vengeance or curse which Christ did bear …” (Ibid.)
[3] “God’s affection ad intra of hatred and displeasure, never so passeth on the persons of the elect, as on the persons of the reprobate: he had thoughts of love and peace, in secret, from eternity, to his own elect; he did frame a heaven, a Saviour for them, before all time” (The Tryal and Triumph of Faith [London, 1645], Sermon XXIV, Proposition 2).
[4] “That it is a vain distinction of Mr. Denne, who would have a reconciliation of God to man, and of man to God; (1.) Because we read that man is reconciled to God, (Rom. 5:10; 2 Cor. 5:18-20; Col. 1:20, 21; Eph. 2:16). Man is the enemy, whereas in Adam he was a friend, and in Christ, the second Adam, he is made a friend. But that God is reconciled to man, or changed toward his own elect from an enemy, and a God that hateth their persons, into a friend and lover of them, I never read: if at any time God be said to be comforted toward his people, or eased, these are borrowed speeches” (The Tryal and Triumph of Faith [London, 1645], Sermon XXIV, Proposition 26).
[5] “Antinomians hold, that God cannot be angry at the sins of the justified, because they are done away, and abolished in Christ … It’s true of anger flowing from justice, which Christ hath fully satisfied, and removed; but not true of anger and displeasure against the sins of the justified, both to hate, rebuke, and correct their sins, though God hate not their persons” (A Survey of the Spiritual Antichrist, 1648).
Vavasor Powell (1617–1670): “Obj. But is it not said, God loved the world, κόσμον. A. Yes, God is said to love the world, and that shows that by the world is not meant all the world, for other Scriptures say that God hateth the wicked (or reprobate wicked) and that God hated Esau. God is not capable of loving and hating the same person, for that would argue both weakness and change, which far be it from us to think that either should be in God … Obj. But doth not God hate the Elect also before (and until) they believe. A. Oh no; he loved them with an everlasting love, and this love of his, was the cause of their election” (Christ and Moses Excellency; or, Sion and Sinai’s Glory [1650]).
Petrus van Mastricht (1630–1706): “God’s hatred is reprobation itself …” (Exploring God’s Decrees: Predestination and Election).
John Gill (1697-1771):
[1] “God from all eternity loved his elect with an invariable love; that he never entertained any hatred of them, or was at enmity with them; that there is no such thing as a change in God from hatred to love, any more than from love to hatred” (Truth Defended, Being an Answer to an Anonymous Pamphlet).
[2] “The love of God to his people is from everlasting to everlasting, invariably the same … There is no change in God, as not from love to hatred, so not from hatred to love” (Body of Doctrinal Divinity, Book III, chapter 11, “Of Christ, the Mediator of the Covenant”).
[3] “The reconciliation of their persons … is not to the love and affections of God, from which they were never separated” (Ibid).
[4] “He always loved his people, and never hated them; nor is there, nor can there be any change in God, from hatred to love, any more than from love to hatred” (Comm. on Rom. 3:25).
