June 16, 2017

Benjamin Woodbridge’s (1622–1684) View of the Extent and Effects of the Death of Christ

Harvard College’s first ever graduate said:
…I am altogether proselyted to renowned Bp. Davenant’s judgement, concerning the extent and effects of the death of Christ, (if that be Arminianisme) especially since I read Daylee’s [Daille’s] late Vindication of Amyrauld against Spanhemius. And the chief reason that inclines me to it, besides the evidence of truth, is the advantage I have thereby to give a clear and smooth answer to all the Scriptures, which the Arminians are wont to use in defense of their cause.
Benjamin Woodbridge, The Method of Grace in the Justification of Sinners (London: Printed by T. R. and E. M. for Edmund Paxton in Pauls-Chain, right over against the Castle Tavern, near Doctors Commons, 1656), A5r.

Bio:
Biographical Sketches
Woodbridge, in the words of Cotton Mather, was “the Leader of this whole Company [of Graduates of Harvard College], and . . . a Star of the first Magnitude in his Constellation.” Calamy speaks of him as “a great Man every way; … the first Graduate of the College; … the lasting Glory as well as the first Fruits of that Academy.”
John Langdon Sibley, Biographical Sketches of Graduates of Harvard University, in Cambridge Massachusetts. Volume 1. 1642–1658. (Cambridge: Charles William Sever, 1873), 20.

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