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THE
DOCTRINE OF ABSOLUTE PREDESTINATION STATED AND ASSERTED
(1) His eternal
benevolence, i.e., His everlasting will, purpose and determination to
deliver, bless and save His people. Of this, no good works wrought by them are
in any sense the cause. Neither are even the merits of Christ Himself to be
considered as any way moving or exciting this good will of God to His elect,
since the gift of Christ, to be their Mediator and Redeemer, is itself an
effect of this free and eternal favour borne to them by God the Father (John
iii. 16). His love towards them arises merely from "the good pleasure of
His own will," without the least regard to anything ad extra or out
of Himself.
(2) The term implies
complacency, delight and approbation. With this love God cannot love even His
elect as considered in themselves, because in that view they are guilty,
polluted sinners, but they were, from all eternity, objects of it, as they
stood united to Christ and partakers of His righteousness.
(3) Love implies actual
beneficence, which, properly speaking, is nothing else than the effect or
accomplishment of the other two: those are the cause of this. This actual
beneficence respects all blessings, whether of a temporal, spiritual or eternal
nature. Temporal good things are indeed indiscriminately bestowed in a greater
or less degree on all, whether elect or reprobate, but they are given in a
covenant way and as blessings to the elect only, to whom also the other
benefits respecting grace and glory are peculiar. And this love of beneficence,
no less than that of benevolence and complacency, is absolutely free, and
irrespective of any worthiness in man.
II.--When hatred is
ascribed to God, it implies
(1) a negation of
benevolence, or a resolution not to have mercy on such and such men, nor to
endue them with any of those graces which stand connected with eternal life.
So, "Esau have I hated " (Rom. ix.), i.e., "I did, from
all eternity, determine within Myself not to have mercy of him." The sole
cause of which awful negation is not merely the unworthiness of the persons
hated, but the sovereignty and freedom of the Divine will.
(2) It denotes
displeasure and dislike, for sinners who are not interested in Christ cannot
but be infinitely displeasing to and loathsome in the sight of eternal purity.
(3)It signifies a
positive will to punish and destroyeth reprobate for their sins, of which will,
the infliction of misery upon them hereafter, is but the necessary effect and
actual execution.
III.--The term election,
that so very frequently occurs in Scripture, is there taken in a fourfold
sense, and most commonly signifies
(2) It sometimes and
more rarely signifies "that gracious and almighty act of the Divine Spirit,
whereby God actually and visibly separates His elect from the world by
effectual calling." This is nothing but the manifestation and partial
fulfillment of the former election, and by it the objects of predestinating
grace are sensibly led into the communion of saints, and visibly added to the
number of God's declared professing people. Of this our Lord makes mention:
"Because I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth
you" (Johnxv. 19). Where it should seem the choice spoken of does not
refer so much to God's eternal, immanent act of election as His open manifest
one, whereby He powerfully and efficaciously called the disciples forth from
the world of the unconverted, and quickened them from above in conversion.
(3) By election is
sometimes meant, "God's taking a whole nation, community or body of men
into external covenant with Himself by giving them the advantage of revelation,
or His written word, as the rule of their belief and practice, when other
nations are without it." In this sense the whole body of the Jewish nation
was indiscriminately called elect, because that "unto them were committed
the oracles of God" (Deut. vii. 6). Now all that are thus elected are not
therefore necessarily saved, but many of them may be, and are, reprobates, as
those of whom our Lord says (Matt. xiii. 20), that they "hear the word,
and anon with joy receive it," etc. And the apostle says, "They went
out from us" (i.e., being favoured with the same Gospel revelation
we were, they professed themselves true believers, no less than we), "but
they were not of us" (i.e., they were not, with us, chosen of God
unto everlasting life, nor did they ever in reality possess that faith of His
operation which He gave to us, for if they had in this sense "been of us,
they would, no doubt, have continued with us" (1 John ii. 19), they would
have manifested the sincerity of their professions and the truth of their
conversion by enduring to the end and being saved. And even this external
revelation, though it is not necessarily connected with eternal happiness, is
nevertheless productive of very many and great advantages to the people and
places where it is vouchsafed, and is made known to some nations and kept back
from others, "according to the good pleasure of Him who worketh all things
after the counsel of His own will."
(4) And, lastly,
election sometimes signifies "the temporary designation of some person or
persons to the filling up some particular station in the visible church or
office in civil life." So Judas was chosen to the apostleship (John vi.
70), and Saul to be the king of Israel (1 Sam. x. 24). Thus much for the use of
the word election.
IV.--On the contrary,
reprobation denotes either
(1) God's eternal
preterition of some men, when He chose others to glory, and His predestination
of them to fill up the measure of their iniquities and them to receive the just
punishment of their crimes, even "destruction from the presence of the
Lord, and from the glory of His power." This is the primary, most obvious
and most frequent sense in which the word is used. It may likewise signify
(2) God's forbearing to
call by His grace those whom He hath thus ordained to condemnation, but this is
only a temporary preterition, and a consequence of that which was from
eternity.
(3) And, lastly, the
word may be taken in another sense as denoting God's refusal to grant to some
nations the light of the Gospel revelation. This may be considered as a kind of
national reprobation, which yet does not imply that every individual person who
lives in such a country must therefore unavoidably perish for ever, any more
than that every individual who lives in a land called Christian is therefore in
a state of salvation. There are, no doubt, elect persons among the former as well
as reprobate ones among the latter. By a very little attention to the context
any reader may easily discover in which of these several senses the words elect
and reprobate are used whenever they occur in Scripture.
V.--Mention is
frequently made in Scripture of the purpose of God, which is no other than His
gracious intention from eternity of making His elect everlastingly happy in
Christ.
VI.--When foreknowledge
is ascribed to God, the word imports
(1) that general
prescience whereby He knew from all eternity both what He Himself would do, and
what His creatures, in consequence of His efficacious and permissive decree,
should do likewise. The Divine foreknowledge, considered in this view, is
absolutely universal; it extends to all beings that did, do or ever shall
exist, and to all actions that ever have been, that are or shall be done,
whether good or evil, natural, civil or moral.
(2) The word often
denotes that special prescience which has for its objects His own elect, and
them alone, whom He is in a peculiar sense said to know and foreknow (Psa. i.
6; John x. 27; 2 Tim. ii. 19; Rom. viii. 29; 1 peter i. 2), and this knowledge
is connected with, or rather the same with love, favour and approbation.
VII.--We come now to
consider the meaning of the word predestination, and how it is taken in
Scripture. The verb predestinate is of Latin original, and signifies, in that
tongue, to deliberate before hand with one's self how one shall act; and in
consequence of such deliberation to constitute, fore-ordain and determine
where, when, how and by whom anything shall be done, and to what end it shall
be done. So the Greek verb, which exactly answers to the English word
predestinate, and is rendered by it, signifies to resolve beforehand within
one's self what to do; and, before the thing resolved on is actually effected,
to appoint it to some certain use, and direct it to some determinate end. The
Hebrew verb Habhdel has likewise much the same signification.
Now, none but wise men
are capable (especially in matters of great importance) of rightly determining
what to do, and how to accomplish a proper end by just, suitable and effectual
means; and if this is, confessedly, a very material part of true wisdom, who so
fit to dispose of men and assign each individual his sphere of action in this
world, and his place in the world to come, as the all-wise God? And yet, alas!
how many are there who cavil at those eternal decrees which, were we capable of
fully and clearly understanding them, would appear to be as just as they are
sovereign and as wise as they are incomprehensible! Divine preordination has
for its objects all things that are created: no creature, whether rational or
irrational, animate or inanimate, is exempted from its influence. All beings whatever,
from the highest angel to the meanest reptile, and from the meanest reptile to
the minutest atom, are the objects of God's eternal decrees and particular
providence. However, the ancient fathers only make use of the word
predestination as it refers to angels or men, whether good or evil, and it is
used by the apostle Paul in a more limited sense still, so as, by it, to mean
only that branch of it which respects God's election and designation of His
people to eternal life (Rom. viii. 30; Eph. i. 11).
(1) "that eternal,
most wise and immutable decree of God, whereby He did from before all time
determine and ordain to create, dispose of and direct to some particular end
every person and thing to which He has given, or is yet to give, being, and to
make the whole creation subservient to and declarative of His own glory."
Of this decree actual providence is the execution.
(2)
Predestination may be considered as relating generally to mankind, and them
only; and in this view we define it to be "the everlasting, sovereign and
invariable purpose of God, whereby He did determine within Himself to create
Adam in His own image and likeness, and then to permit his fall; and to suffer
him thereby to plunge himself and his whole posterity" (inasmuch as they
all sinned in him, not only virtually, but also federally and representatively)
"into the dreadful abyss of sin, misery and death."
(3) Consider
predestination as relating to the elect only, and it is "that eternal,
unconditional, particular and irreversible act of the Divine will whereby, in
matchless love and adorable sovereignty, God determined with Himself to deliver
a certain number of Adam's degenerate offspring out of that sinful and
miserable estate into which, by his primitive transgression, thy were to
fall," and in which sad condition they were equally involves, with those
who were not chosen, but, being pitched upon and singled out by God the Father
to be vessels of grace and salvation (not for anything in them that could
recommend them to His favour or entitle them to His notice, but merely because
He would show Himself gracious to them:, they were, in time, actually redeemed
by Christ, are effectually called by His Spirit, justified, adopted,
sanctified, and preserved safe to His heavenly kingdom. The supreme end of this
decree is the manifestation of His own infinitely glorious and amiably
tremendous perfections; the inferior or subordinate end is the happiness and
salvation of them who are thus freely elected.