In his A Brief Treatise Concerning Predestination and Its Dependent Principles (1634), when discussing God’s decree, Moïse Amyraut wrote the following:
And truly enough
there are perhaps many nations to which the clear preaching of the gospel has
not yet come by the mouth of the Apostles, nor of their descendants, and who do
not have any distinct knowledge of the Savior of the world, it is not necessary
to think however that there is either any people, nor even a single man
excluded by the will of God, from the salvation that He has acquired for the human
race, provided that he takes advantage of the testimonies of mercy that God has
given to him. Though again HE does not make known distinctly to all who this Redeemer
is by whom they have been saved, such as the Providence by which He preserves
them, the temporal blessings through which He arouses them and fills them
continually, and the long-suffering and incredible patience which He exercises
toward them as to be sufficient preaching for them if they are attentive, in
order to make them understand that there is mercy in HIs presence toward him,
for those who respond in faith and repentance. Accordingly, the Apostle taught
that “the riches of His goodness and patience and of this longsuffering lead
men to repentance” (Romans 2:4). Would God, therefore, lead men to repentance
for nothing, and by intention, if they came to obey the invitation and repented,
to exclude them from His grace? God is too good, and, if one must use the
term, too serious, to present to men vain hopes. That is why it is foolish
to doubt that if in some nation of the world where even the name of Christ
is not known, if it happened that He had come across someone who, touched by
the testimonies of God’s mercy which He presents to all parts of men in the
administration of the things within the universe, and was truly converted to Him
as to obtain the salvation of his grace (and we will see below what faculties
or power there is in man to convert himself in this way), it would only give Him
joy. (Amyraut on Predestination [trans. Matthew Harding; Charenton Reformed
Publishing, 2017], 101-3, emphasis in bold added)
In a footnote to the text quoted in bold,
Matthew Harding, the translator into English of this work, wrote:
Amyraut
posits in the following paragraphs what appears to be his contention for the
salvation of the heathen who have never heard of Christ. However, as will soon
become clear, Amyraut is here stressing (in confusing terms to be sure) his
belief that God’s incredible mercy and universal desire for all mankind to be
saved such that, although there is no biblical warrant or reason to believe it
could be possible, that Amyraut would not be surprised if God made salvation
possible through another yet undiscovered means for the heathen who had no opportunity
to hear or respond to the gospel. In a sense, Amyraut is declaring that God’s
mercy toward the lost is unpredictable once the reality that anyone is saved at
all is a testament to God’s goodness and mercy and that in a reality of
possibility outside of biblical knowledge, God would still be just to redeem
man in any way He saw fit—though Scripture is clear that no man can be saved
outside of Jesus Christ (John 14:6). However, Amyraut clearly demonstrates
below that there is no salvation outside of Christ (Acts 4:12) and here
accentuates that the God of salvation is a God of universal mercy and love and
truly desires to save all, even if it were possible that men could come
to faith from general revelation. The stress here is God’s loving nature and
infinite mercy, not man’s natural capacity for salvation within nature or
within himself. The next sentence underlines the very nature of God Himself as
true to HIs own mercy, love, and desire for mankind’s salvation whether one
sees or not the workings of God’s salvific plan on the earth among all nations.
(Ibid., 102 n. 3)