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THE
DOCTRINE OF ABSOLUTE PREDESTINATION STATEDANDASSERTED
CHAPTER V.
Showing that the Scripture Doctrine of Predestination
should be openly preached and insisted on, and for what reasons.
Upon the whole , it is evident
that the doctrine of God's eternal and unchangeable predestination should
neither be wholly suppressed and laid aside, nor yet be confined to the
disquisition of the learned and speculative only; but likewise should be
publicly taught from the pulpit and the press, that even the meanest of the
people may not be ignorant of a truth which reflects such glory on God, and is
the very foundation of happiness to man. Let it, however, be preached with
judgment and discretion, i.e., delivered by the preacher as it is
delivered in Scripture, and no otherwise. By which means, it can neither be
abused to licentiousness nor misapprehended to despair, but will eminently
conduce to the knowledge, establishment, improvement and comfort of them that
hear. That predestination ought to be preached, I thus prove:--
I.--The Gospel is to be
preached, and that not partially and by piece-meal , but the whole of it. The
commission runs, "Go forth and preach the Gospel"; the Gospel
itself, even all the Gospel, without exception or limitation. So far as the
Gospel is maimed or any branch of the evangelical system is suppressed and
passed over in silence, so far the Gospel is not preached. Besides there
is scarce any other distinguishing doctrine of the Gospel can be preached, in
its purity and consistency, without this of predestination. Election is the
golden thread that runs through the whole Christian system; it is the leaven
that pervades the whole lump. Cicero says of the various parts of human
learning: "Omnes artes, quoe ad humanitatem pertinent, habent quoddam
commune vinculum, et quasi cognatione quadam inter se continentur," i. e.,
The whole circle of arts have a kind of mutual bond and con/nection, and by
a sort of reciprocal relationship are held together and interwoven with each
other. Much the same may be said of this important doctrine: it is the bond
which connects and keeps together the whole Christian system, which, without
this, is like a system of san, ever ready to fall to pieces. It is the cement
which holds the fabric together ; nay, it is the very soul that animates the
whole frame. It is so blended and interwoven with the entire scheme of Gospel
doctrine that when the former is excluded, the latter bleeds to death. An
ambassador is to deliver the whole message with which he is charged. He is to
omit no part of it, but must declare the mind of the sovereign he represents,
fully and without reserve. He is tho say neither more or less than the
instructions of his court require, else he comes under displeasure, perhaps
loses his head. Let the ministers of Christ weigh this well.
Nor is the Gospel to be
preached only, but preached to every creature, i. e., to reasonable
beings promiscuously and at large, to all who frequent the Christian ministry,
of every state and condition in life, whether high or low, young or old,
learned or illiterate. All who attend on the ministrations of Christ's
ambassadors have a right to preach it, says Christ (Mark xvi. 15),
publish it abroad, be its cryers and heralds, proclaim it aloud, tell it out,
keep back no part of it, spare not, lift up your voices like trumpets. Now, a
very considerable branch of this Gospel is the doctrine of God's eternal, free,
absolute and irreversible election of some persons in Christ to everlasting life.
The saints were singled out, in God's eternal purpose and choice, ut
crederent, to be endued with faith, and thereby fitted for their destined
salvation. By their interest in the gratuitous, unalienable love of the blessed
trinity they come to be, subjectively, saints and believers, so that their
whole salvation, from the first plan of it in the Divine mind to the
consummation of it in glory, is at once a matter of mere grace and of absolute
certainty; while they who die without faith and holiness prove thereby that
they were not included in this elect number, and were not written in the book
of life.
The justice of God's
procedure herein is unquestionable. Out of a corrupt mass, wherein not one was
better than another, He might (as was observed before) love and choose whom and
as many as He pleased. It was likewise, without any shadow of injustice, at His
option, whom and how many He would pass by. His not choosing them was the fruit
of His sovereign will, but His condemning them, after death, and in the last
day, is the fruit (not of their non-election, which was no fault of theirs,
but) of their own positive transgressions. The elect, therefore, have the
utmost reason to love and glorify God which any beings can possibly have, and
the sense of what He has done for them is the strongest motive to obedience. On
the other hand, the reprobates have nothing to complain of, since whatever God
does is just nothing to complain of, since whatever God does is just and right,
and so it will appear to be (however darkly matters may appear to us now) when
we see Him as He is and know Him even as we are known.
And now why should not
this doctrine be preached and insisted upon in public?--a doctrine which is of
express revelation, a doctrine that makes wholly for the glory of god, which
conduces, in a most peculiar manner to the conversion, comfort and
sanctification of the elect, and leaves even the ungodly themselves without
excuse. But perhaps you may still be inclined to question whether
predestination be indeed a Scripture doctrine. If so, let me by way of sample
beg you to consider the following declarations--first, of Christ; secondly, of
His apostles.
"If the mighty
works that have been done in thee had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would
have repented," etc. (Matt. xi.), whence it is evident that the Tyrians
and Sidonians, at least the majority of them, died in a state of impenitency,
but that if God had given them the same means of grace afforded to Israel they
would not have died impenitent, yet those means were not granted them. How can
this be accounted for? Only on the single principle of peremptory
predestination flowing from the sovereign will of God. No wonder, then, that
our Lord concludes that chapter with these remarkable words, "I thank
Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things
from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes: even so, Father ,
for so it seemed good in Thy sight." Where Christ thanks the Father for
doing that very thing which Arminians exclaim against as unjust and censure as
partial.
"To you it is given
to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not
given" (Matt. xiii.)
"To sit on My right
hand and on My left is not Mine to give, except to them for whom tit hath been
prepared by My Father," q.d., salvation is not a precarious thing; the
seats in glory were disposed of long ago in My Father's intention and
destination; I can only assign them to such persons as they were prepared for
in His decree" (Matt. xx. 23).
"Many are called,
but few chosen" (Matt. xxii), i.e., all who live under the sound of
the Gospel will not be saved, but those only who are elected unto life.
"For the elect's sake
those days shall be shortened" (Matt. xxiv.), and ibid, "If it were
possible, they should deceive the elect," where, it is plain, Christ
teaches two things: (1) that there is a certain number of persons who are
elected to grace and glory, and (2) that it is absolutely impossible for these
to be deceived into total or final apostacy.
"Come, ye blessed
of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the
world" (Matt. xxv.).
"Unto you it is
given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God, but to them that are
without" (i.e., out of the pale of election) "all these things
are done in parables; that seeing, they may see, and not perceive: and hearing,
they may hear, and not understand: lest at any time, they should be converted,
and their sins should be forgiven them" (Mark xi.).
"Rejoice, because
your names are written in heaven" (Luke x.).
"It is your
Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom" (Luke xii.).
"One shall be taken
and the other shall be left" (Luke xvii.).
"All that the
Father hath given Me shall come unto Me" (John vi.), as much as to say
these shall but the rest cannot.
"He that is of God,
heareth God's words; ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of
God" (John viii.), not chosen of Him.
"Ye believe not,
because ye are not of My sheep" (John xv.).
"Ye have not chosen
Me, but I have chosen you" (John xv.).
I come now, second, to
the Apostles.
"They believed not
on Him, that the saying of Esaias the prophet might have fulfilled which he
spake; Lord, who hath believed our report? and to whom hath the arm of the lord
been revealed? Therefore they could nook believe, because that Esaias said
again, He hath blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, that they should
not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and
I should heal them" (John xii., 37, 40). Without certain prescience there
could be no prophecy, and without predestination no certain prescience.
Therefore, in order to the accomplishment of prophecy, prescience and
predestination, we are expressly told that these persons could not believe;
they were not able, it was out of their power. In short, there is hardly a page
in St. John's Gospel which does not, either expressly or implicitly, make
mention of election and reprobation.
St. Peter says of Judas,
"Men and brethren, the Scriptures must needs have been fulfilled, which
the Holy Ghost, by the mouth of David, spoke before concerning Judas"
(Acts i.). So, "That he might go to his own place" (ver. xxv.), to
the place of punishment appointed for him.
"Him, being
delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken,
and with wicked hands have crucified and slain" (Acts ii.):
predestinated should come to pass.
"And as many as
were ordained to eternal life, believed" (Acts xiii.): destined or
appointed unto life.
Concerning the Apostle
Paul, what shall I say? Everyone that has read his epistles knows that they
teem with predestination from beginning to end. I shall only give one or two
passages, and begin with that famous chain: "whom He did foreknow: (or
forelove for to know often signifies in Scripture to love) "He also did
predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that he might be the
firstborn among many brethren," that, as in all things else, so in the
business of election Christ might have the pre-eminence, He being first chosen
as a Saviour, and they in Him to be saved by Him: "moreover, whom He did
predestinate, them He also called; and whom He called, them He also justified;
and whom He justified, them He also glorified" (Rom. viii.).
Chapters ix., x. and xi.
of the same epistle are professed dissertations on, and illustrations of the
doctrine of god's decrees, and contain, likewise, a solution of the principal
objections brought against that doctrine.
"Who separated me
from my mother's womb and called me by His grace" (Gal. i.).
The first chapter of
Ephesians treats of little else but election and predestination.
After observing that the
reprobates perish wilfully, the apostle, by a striking transition, addresses
himself to the elect Thessalonians, saying, "But we are bound to give
thanks unto God always for you, brethren, beloved of the lord, because God
hath, from the beginning, chosen you to salvation, through sanctification of
the Spirit and belief of the truth" (2 Thess. ii.).
"Who hath saved us
and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according
to His own purpose, and grace, which was given us in Christ before the world
began"(2 Tim.i.).
St. Jude, on the other
hand, describes the reprobate as "ungodly men, who were, of old,
foreordained to this condemnation."
Another apostle makes
this peremptory declaration, "Who stumble at the word, being disobedient,
whereunto also they were appointed: but ye are a chosen generation [an elect
race}, a royal priesthood, and holy nation, a peculiar people, a people
purchased to be His peculiar property and posession" (1 Peter ii. 8, 9);
to all which may be added, "Whose names were not written in the book of
life from the foundation of the world" (Rev. xvii.8).
All these texts are but
as an handful to the harvest, and yet are both numerous and weighty enough to
decide the point with any who pay the least deference to Scripture authority.
And let it be observed that Christ and His apostles delivered these matters,
not to some privileged persons only, but to all at large who had ears to hear
and eyes to read. therefore, it is incumbent on every faithful minister to tread
in their steps by doing likewise, nor is that minister a faithful one, faithful
to Christ, to truth and to souls, who keeps back any part of the counsel of
God, and buries those doctrines in silence which he is commanded to preach upon
the house-tops.
The great St. Augustine,
in his valuable treatise, De Bono Persever., effectually obviates the
objections of those who are burying the doctrine of predestination in silence.
He shows that it ought to be publicly taught, describes the necessity and
usefulness of preaching it, and points out the manner of doing it to
edification. And since some persons have condemned St. Augustine, by bell, book
and candle, for his stedfast attachment to and nervous, successful defences of
the decrees of God, let us hear what Luther, that great light in the Church,
thought respecting the argument before us.
Erasmus (in most other
respects a very excellent man) affected to think that it was of dangerous
consequence to propagate the doctrine of predestination either by preaching or
writing. His words are these: "What can be more useless than to publish
this paradox to the world, namely, that whatever we do is done, not by virtue
of our own free-will, but in a way of necessity, etc.? What a wide gap does the
publication of this tenet open among men for the commission of all ungodliness!
What wicked person will reform his life? Who will dare to believe himself a
favourite of heaven? Who will fight against his own corrupt inclinations?
Therefore, where is either the need or the utility of spreading these notions
from whence so many evils seem to flow?."
To which Luther replies:
"If, my Erasmus, you consider these paradoxes (as you term them) to be no
more than the inventions of men, why are you so extravagantly heated on the
occasion? In that case, your arguments affect not me, for there is no person
now living in the world who is a more avowed enemy to the doctrines of men than
myself. But if you believe the doctrines in debate between us to be (as indeed
they are) the doctrines of God, you must have bid adieu to all sense of shame
and decency thus to oppose them. I will not ask, `Whither is the modesty of
Erasmus fled?' but, which is much more important, `Where, alas! are your fear
and reverence of the Deity when you roundly declare that this branch of truth
which He has revealed from that this branch of truth which He has revealed from
heaven, is, at best, useless and unnecessary to be known?' What! shall the
glorious Creator be taught by you, His creature, what is fit to be preached and
what to be suppressed? Is the adorable God so very defective in wisdom and
prudence as not to know till you instruct Him what would be useful and what
pernicious? Or could not He, whose understanding is infinite, foresee, previous
to His revelation of this doctrine, what would be the consequences of His
revealing it until those consequences were pointed out by you? You cannot, you
dare not say this. If, then, it was the Divine pleasure to make known these
things in His Word, and to bid His messengers publish them abroad, and leave
the consequences of their so doing to the wisdom and providence of Him in whose
name they speak, and whose message they declare, who art thou, O Erasmus, that
thou shouldest reply against God and say to the Almighty, `What doest Thou?'
"St. Paul,
discoursing of God, declares peremptorily, `Whom He will He hardeneth,' and
again, `God willing to show His wrath,' etc. And the apostle did not write this
to have it stifled among a few persons and buried in a corner, but wrote it to
the Christians at Rome, which was, in effect, bringing this doctrine upon the
stage of the whole world, stamping an universal imprimatur upon it, and
publishing it to believers at large throughout the earth. What can sound
harsher in the uncircumcised earth. What can sound harsher in the uncircumcised
ears of carnal men than those words of Christ, `Many are called, but few
chosen'? And elsewhere, `I know whom I have chosen.' Now, these and similar
assertions of Christ and His apostles are the very positions which you, O
Erasmus, brand as useless and hurtful. You object, `If these things are so, who
will endeavour to amend his life?' I answer, `Without the Holy Ghost, no man
can amend his life to purpose' Reformation is but varnished hypocrisy unless it
proceed from grace. The elect and truly pious are amended by the Spirit of God,
and those of mankind who are not amended by Him will perish.
"Your ask,
moreover, `Who will dare to believe himself a favourite of heaven?' I answer, `It
is not in man's own power to believe himself such upon just grounds until he is
enabled from above.' But the elect shall be so enabled; they shall believe
themselves to be what indeed they are. As for the rest who are not endued with
faith, they shall perish, raging and blaspheming as you do now. `But,' say you,
`these doctrines open a door to ungodliness.' I answer, `Whatever door they may
open to the impious and profane, yet they open a for of righteousness to the
elect and holy, and show them the way to heaven and the path of access unto
God.' Yet you would have us abstain from the mention of these grand doctrines,
and leave our people in the dark as to their election of God; the consequence
of which would be that every man would bolster himself up with a delusive hope
of share in that salvation which is supposed to lie open to all, and thus
genuine humility and the practical fear of |God would be kicked out of doors.
This would be a pretty way indeed of stopping up the gap Erasmus complains of!
Instead of closing up the door of licentiousness, as is falsely pretended, it
would be, in fact, opening a gulf into the nethermost hell.
"Still you urge,
`Where is either the necessity or utility of preaching
"(1) For the
humiliation of our pride and the manifestation of Divine grace. God hath
assuredly promised His favour to the truly humble. By truly humble, I mean
those who are endued with repentance, and despair of saving themselves; for a
man can never be said to be really penitent and humble until he is made to know
that his salvation is not suspended in any measure whatever on his own
strength, machinations, endeavours, free-will or works, but entirely depends on
the free pleasure, purpose, determination and efficiency of another, even of
God alone. Whilst a man is persuaded that he has it in his power to contribute
anything, be it over so little, to his own salvation, he remains in carnal
confidence; he is not a self-despairer, and therefore he is not duly humbled
before God; so far from it, that he hopes some favourable juncture or
opportunity will offer when he may be able to lend a helping hand to the
business of his salvation, such a person despairs of all self-assistance, he
renounces his own will and his own strength, he waits and prays for the
operation of God, nor waits and prays in vain. For the elect's sake, therefore,
these doctrines art to be preached, that the chosen of God, being humbled by
the knowledge of His truths, self-emptied and sunk, as it were into nothing in
His presence, may be saved in Christ with eternal glory. This, then, is one
inducement to the publication of the doctrine, that the penitent may be made
acquainted with the promise of grace, plead it in prayer to God, and receive it
as their own.
"(2) The nature of
the Christian faith requires it. Faith has to do with things not seen. And this
is one of the highest degrees of faith, steadfastly to believe that God is
infinitely merciful, though He saves, comparatively, but few and condemns os
many, and that He is strictly just, though of His own will He makes such
numbers of mankind necessarily liable to damnation. Now, these are some of the
unseen things whereof faith is the evidence, whereas, was it in my power to
comprehend them or clearly to make out how God is both inviolably just and
infinitely merciful, notwithstanding the display of wrath and seeming
inequality in His dispensations respecting the reprobate, faith would have
little or nothing to do. But now, since these matters cannot be adequately
comprehended by us in the present state of imperfection, there is room for the
exercise of faith. The truths therefore, respecting predestination in all its
branches, should be taught and published, they, no less than the other
mysteries of christian doctrine, being proper objects of faith on the part of
God's people."
With Luther the
excellent Bucer agrees, particularly on Eph. i., where his words are:
"There are some who affirm that election is not to be mentioned publicly
to the people. But they judge wrongly. The blessings which God bestows on man
are not to be suppressed, but insisted and enlarged upon, and, if so, surely
the blessing of predestination unto life, which is the greatest blessing of
all, should not be passed over." And a little after he adds: "Take
away the remembrance and consideration of our election, and then, good God!
what weapons have we left us wherewith to resist the temptations of Satan? As
often as he assaults our faith (which he is frequently doing) we must
constantly and without delay have recourse to our election in Christ as to a
city of refuge. Meditation upon the Father's appointment of us to eternal life
is the best antidote against the evil surmisings of doubtfulness and remaining
unbelief. If we are entirely void of all hope and assurance, respecting our
interest in this capital privilege, what solid and comfortable expectation can
we entertain of future blessedness? How can we look upon God as our gracious
Father and upon Christ as our unchangeable Redeemer? without which I see not
how we can ever truly love God; and if we have no true love towards Him, how
can we yield acceptable obedience to Him? Therefore, those persons are not to
be heard who would have the doctrine of election laid(as it were) asleep, and
seldom or never make its appearance in the congregations of the faithful."
To what these great men
have so nervously advanced permit me to add, that the doctrine of
predestination is not only useful, but absolutely necessary to be taught and
known.
(1) For without it we
cannot form just and becoming ideas of God. Thus, unless He certainly foreknows
and foreknew from everlasting all things that should come to pass, His
understanding would not be infinite, and a Deity of limited understanding is no
Deity at all. Again, we cannot suppose Him to have foreknown anything which He
had not previously decreed, without setting up a series of causes, extra
Deum, and making the Deity dependent for a great part of the knowledge He
has upon the will and works of His creatures, and upon a combination of
circumstances exterior to Himself. Therefore, His determinate plan, counsel and
purpose (i.e., His own predestination of causes and effects) is the only
basis of His foreknowledge, which foreknowledge could neither be certain nor
independent but as founded on His own antecedent decree.
(2) He alone is entitled
to the name of true God who governs all things, and without whose will (either
efficient or permissive) nothing is or can be done. And such is the God of the
Scriptures, against whose will not a sparrow can die nor an hair fall from our
heads (Matt. x.) Now what is predestination but the determining will of
God? I defy the subtlest semi-piligan in the world to form or convey a just and
worthy notion of the Supreme Being without admitting Him to be the great cause
of all causes else, Himself dependent on none, who willed from eternity how He
would act in time, and settled a regular, determinate scheme of what He would
do and permit to be done from the beginning to the consummation of the world. A
contrary view of the Deity is as inconsistent with reason itself, and with the
very religion of nature, as it is with the decisions of revelation.
(3) Nor can we
rationally conceive of an independent, all-perfect first cause without allowing
Him to be unchangeable in His purposes. His decrees and His essence coincide,
consequently a change in those would infer an alteration in this. Nor can that
being be the true God whose will is variable, fluctuating and indeterminate,
for His will is Himself willing. A Deity without decrees and decrees without
immutability are, of all inventions that ever entered the heart of man, the most
absurd.
(4) Without
predestination to plan, and without providence to put that plan in execution,
what becomes of God's omnipotence? It vanishes into air. It becomes a mere
nonentity. For what sort of omnipotence is that which may be baffled and
defeated by the very creatures it has made? Very different is the idea of this
attribute suggested by the Psalmist, "Whatsoever the Lord willed, that did
He, in heaven and in earth, in the sea and in all deep places" (Psalm
cxiii.),i.e., He not only made them when He would, but orders them when
made.
(5) He alone is the true
God, according to Scripture representation, who saves by His mere mercy and
voluntary grace those whom He hath chosen, and righteously condemns (for their sins)
those whom He thought fit to pass by. But without predestination there could be
no such thing either as sovereign mercy or voluntary grace. For, after all,
what is predestination but His decree to save some of His mere goodness, and to
condemn others in His just judgment? Now it is most evident that the Scripture
doctrine of pre-determination is the clearest mirror wherein to see and
contemplate these essential attributes of God. Here they all shine forth in
their fullness of harmony and lustre. Deny predestination and you deny (though,
perhaps, not intentionally, yet by necessary consequence) the adorable
perfections of the Godhead: in concealing that, you throw a veil over these;
and in preaching that, you hold up these to the comfort, the establishment and
the admiration of the believing world.
II.--Predestination is
to be preached because the grace of God (which stands opposed to all
human worthiness) cannot be maintained without it. The excellent St. Augustine
makes use of this very argument. "If," says he, "these two
privileges (namely, faith itself and final perseverance in faith) are the gifts
of God, and if God foreknew on whom He would bestow these gifts (and who can
doubt of so evident a truth?), it is necessary for predestination to be preached
as the sure and invincible bulwark of that true grace of God, which is given to
men without any consideration of merit." Thus argued St. Augustine against
the Pelagians, who taught that grace is offered to all men alike; that God, for
His part, equally wills the salvation of all, and that it is in the power of
man's free-will to accept or reject the grace and salvation so offered. Which
string of errors do, as Augustine justly observes, center in this grand point, gratiam
secundum nostra merita dari: that God's grace is not free, but the fruit of
man's desert.
Now the doctrine of
predestination batters down this delusive Babel of free-will and merit. It
teaches us that, if we do indeed will and desire to lay hold on Christ and
salvation by him, this will and desire are the effect of God's secret purpose
and effectual operation, for He it is who worketh in us both to will and
to do of His own good pleasure, that he that glorieth should glory in the Lord.
There neither is nor can be any medium between predestinating grace and
salvation by human merit. We must believe and preach one or the other, for they
can never stand together. No attempts to mingle and reconcile these two
incompatible opposites can ever succeed, the apostle himself being judge. "If
(says he) it (namely, election) be by grace, then is it no more of works,
otherwise grace is no more grace: but, if it be of works, then is it no more
grace; otherwise work is no more work" (Rom. xi. 6). Exactly agreeable to
which is that of St. augustine: "Either predestination is to be preached
as expressly as the Scriptures deliver it, namely, that with regard to those
whom He hath chosen, `the gifts and calling of God are without repentance,' or
we must roundly declare, as the Pelagians do, that grace is given according to
merit." Most certain it is that the doctrine of gratuitous justification through
Christ can only be supported on that of our gratuitous predestination in
Christ, since the latter is the cause and foundation of the former.
III.--By the preaching
of predestination man is duly humbled, and God alone is exalted; human pride is
levelled, and the Divine glory shines untarnished because unrivalled. This the
sacred writers positively declare. Let St. Paul be spokesman for the rest,
"Having predestinated us--to the praise of the glory of His grace"
(Eph. i. 5,6). But how is it possible for us to render unto God the praises
due to the glory of His grace without laying this threefold foundation?
(1) That whosoever are or
shall be saved are saved by His alone grace in Christ in consequence of His
eternal purpose passed before they had done any one good thing.
(2) That what good thing
soever is begun to be wrought in out souls (whether it be illumination of the
understanding, rectitude of will or purity of affections) was begun altogether
of God alone, by whose invincible agency grace is at first conferred,
afterwards maintained, and finally crowned.
(3) That the work of
internal salvation (the sweet and certain prelude to eternal glory) was not
only begun in us of His mere grace alone, but that its continuance, its
progress and increase are no less free and totally unmerited than its first
original donation. Grace alone makes the elect gracious, grace alone keeps them
gracious, and the same grace alone will render them everlastingly glorious in
the heaven of heavens.
Conversion and salvation
must, in the very nature of things, be wrought and effected either by ourselves
alone, or by ourselves and God together, or solely by God Himself. The
Pelagians were fore the first. The Arminians are for the second. True believers
are for the last, because the last hypotheses, and that only, is built on the
strongest evidence of Scripture, reason and experience: it most effectually
hides pride from man, and sets the crown of undivided praise upon the head, or
rather casts it at the feet, of that glorious Triune God, who worketh
all in all. But this is a crown which no sinners ever yet cast before the
throne of God who were not first led into the transporting views of His
gracious decree led into the transporting views of His gracious decree to save,
freely and of His own will, the people of His eternal love. Exclude, therefore,
O Christian, the article of sovereign predestination from thy ministry
or from thy faith, and acquit thyself if thou art able from the charge of
robbing God.
When God does, by the
omnipotent exertion of His Spirit, effectually call any of mankind in time to
the actual knowledge of Himself in Christ; when He, likewise, goes on to
sanctify the sinners He has called, making them to excel in all good works, and
to persevere in the love and resemblance of God to their lives' end, the
observing part of the unawakened world may be apt to conclude that these converted
persons might receive such qualifications, good dispositions, or pious desires
and internal preparations, discovered in them by the all-seeing eye, which, if
true, would indeed transfer the praise from the Creator and consign it to the
creature. But the doctrine of predestination, absolute, free,
unconditional predestination, here steps in and gives God His own. It
lays the axe to the root of human boasting, and cuts down (for which reason the
natural man hates it) every legal, every independent, every self-righteous
imagination that would exalt itself against the grace of God and the glory of
Christ. It tells us that God hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in
His Son, "according as He hath chosen us in Him before the
foundation of the world," in order to our being afterwards made "holy
and blameless before him in love" (Eph. i.).
Of course, whatever
truly and spiritually good thing is found in any person, it is the especial
gift and work of God, given and wrought in consequence of eternal unmerited
election to grace and glory. Whence the greatest saint cannot triumph over the
most abandoned sinner, but is led to refer the entire praise of his salvation,
both from sin and hell, to the mere goodwill and sovereign purpose of God, who
hath graciously made him to differ from that world which lieth in wickedness.
Such being the tendency of this blessed doctrine, how injurious both to God and
man would the suppression of it be! Well does St. Augustine argue: "As the
duties of piety ought to be preached up, that he who hath ears to hear
may be instructed how to worship God aright; and as chastity should be
publicly recommended and enforced, that he who hath ears to hear may know how
to possess himself in sanctification; and as charity, moreover, should
be inculcated from the pulpit, that he who hath ears to hear may be excited to
the ardent love of God and his neighbour, in like manner should God's predestination
of His favours be openly preached, that he who hath ears to hear may learn to
glory not in himself, but in the Lord."
IV.--Predestination
should be publicly taught and insisted upon, in order to confirm and strengthen
true believers in the certainty and confidence of their salvation. For when
regenerate persons are told, and are enabled to believe,that the glorification
of the elect is so assuredly fixed in God's eternal purpose that it is
impossible for any of them to perish, and when the regenerate are led to
consider themselves as actually belonging to this elect body of christ, what
can establish, strengthen and settle their faith like this? Nor is such a faith
presumptuous, for every converted man may and ought to conclude himself
elected, since God the Spirit renews those only who were chosen
by God the Father and redeemed by God the Son. This is a "hope
which maketh no ashamed," nor can possibly issue in disappointment if
entertained by those into whose hearts the love of God is poured forth by the
Holy Ghost given unto them (Rom. v. 5).
The holy triumph and assurance
resulting from this blessed view are expressly warranted by the apostle, where
he deduces effectual calling from a prior predestination, and infers the
certainty of final salvation from effectual calling: "Whom He did
predestinate, them He also called; and whom He called, them He also justified;
and whom He justified, them He also glorified" (Rom. viii.). How
naturally from such premises does the apostle add, "Who shall lay anything
to the charge of god's elect?" Who and where is he that condemneth them?
Who and what "shall separate us form the love of Christ? In all these
things we are," and shall be, "more than conquerors through Him
that hath loved us, for I am persuade [I am most clearly and assuredly
confident] that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor
powers,nor things present, nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any
other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in
Christ Jesus our Lord." So elsewhere the foundation of the Lord, i.e.,
His decree or purpose, according to election, "standeth sure, having this
seal, the Lord knoweth them that are His," which is particularly
noted by the apostle, lest true believers might be discouraged and begin to
doubt of their own certain perseverance to salvation, either from a sense of
their remaining imperfections or from observing the open apostacy of
unregenerate professors (2 Tim. ii.). How little obliged, therefore, are the
flock of Christ to those persons who would, by stifling the mention of
predestination, expunge the sense and certainty of everlasting blessedness from
the list of Christian privileges!
V.--Without the doctrine
of predestination we cannot enjoy a lively sight and experience of God's
special love and mercy towards us in christ Jesus. Blessings, not peculiar, but
conferred indiscriminately on every man, without distinction or exception,
would neither be a proof of peculiar love in the donor nor calculated to excite
peculiar wonder and gratitude in the receiver. For instance, rain from heaven,
though an invaluable benefit, is not considered as an argument of God's special
favour to some individuals above others: and why? because it falls on all
alike, as much on the rude wilderness and the barren rock as on the cultivated
garden and the fruitful field. But the blessing of election, somewhat like the
Sibylline books, rises in value, proportionably to the fewness of its objects.
So that, when we recollect that in the view of God (to whom all things are at
once present) the whole mass of mankind was considered as justly liable to
condemnation on account of original and actual iniquity, His selecting some
individuals from among the rest and graciously setting them apart in Christ for
salvation both from sin and punishment, were such acts of sovereign goodness as
exhibit the exceeding greatness and the entire freeness of His love in the most
awful, amiable and humbling light.
In order, then, that the
special grace of God may shine, predestination must be preached, even
the eternal and immutable predestination of His people to faith and everlasting
life. "From those who are left under the power of guilt," says
Augustine, "the person who is delivered from it may learn what he too must
have suffered had not grace stepped in to his relief. And if it was that
grace that interposed, it could not be the reward of man's merit, but the free
gift of God's gratuitous goodness. Some, however, call it unjust for one to be
delivered while another, though no more guilty than the former, is condemned; if
it be just to punish one, it would be but justice to punish both. I grant that
both might have been justly punished. Let us therefore give thanks unto God our
Saviour for not inflicting that vengeance on us, which, from the condemnation
of our fellow-sinners, we may conclude to have been our desert, no less than
theirs. Had they as well as we been ransomed from their captivity, we could
have framed but little conception of the penal wrath due, in strictness of
justice, to sin; and, on the other hand, had none of the fallen race been
ransomed and set at liberty, how could Divine grace have displayed the
riches of its liberality?" The same evangelical father delivers himself
elsewhere to the same effect. "Hence," says he, "appears the
greatness of that grace by which so many are freed from condemnation, and they
may form some idea of the misery, due to themselves, from the dreadfulness of
the punishment that awaits the rest. Whence those who rejoice are taught to
rejoice not in their own merits (quoe paria esse vident damnatis, for
they see that they have no more merit than the damned), but in the Lord."
VI.--Hence results
another reason nearly connected with the former for the unreserved publication
of this doctrine, namely, that, from a sense of God's peculiar, eternal and
unalterable love to His people, their hearts may be inflamed to love Him in
return. Slender indeed will be my motives to the love of God on the supposition
that my love to Him is beforehand with His to me, and that the very continuance
of His favour is suspended on the weathercock of my variable will or the flimsy
thread of my imperfect affection. Such a precarious, dependent love were
unworthy of God, and calculated to produce but a scanty and cold reciprocation
of love from man. At the happiest of times, and in the best of frames below,
our love to God is but a spark (though small and quivering, yet inestimably
precious, because Divinely kindled, fanned and maintained in the soul, and an
earnest of better to come), whereas love, as it glows in God, is an immense sun,
which shone without beginning, and shall shine without end. Is it probable,
then, that the spark of human love should give being to the sun of divine, and
that the lustre and warmth of this should depend on the glimmering of that? Yet
so it must be if predestination is not true, and so it must be
represented if predestination is not taught. Would you, therefore, know what it
is not taught. Would you, therefore, know what it is to love God as your
Father, Friend, and Saviour, you must fall down before His electing mercy.
Until then you are only hovering about in quest of true felicity. But you will
never find the door, much less can you enter into rest, until you are enabled
to "love Him because He hath first loved you" (1 John iv.
19).
This being the case, it
is evident that, without taking predestination into the account, genuine
morality and the performance of truly good works will suffer, starve
and die away. Love to God is the very fuel of acceptable obedience. Withdraw the
fuel, and the flame expires. But the fuel of holy affection (if Scripture,
experience and observation are allowed to carry any conviction) can only be
cherished, maintained and increased in the heart by the sense and apprehension
of God's predestinating love to us in Christ Jesus. Now, our obedience to God
will always hold proportion to our love. If the one be relaxed and feeble, the
other cannot be alert and vigorous, and, electing goodness being the very life
and soul of the former, the latter, even good works, must flourish or
decline in proportion as election is glorified or obscured.
VII.--Hence arises a
seventh argument for the preaching of predestination, namely, that by it we may
be excited to the practice of universal godliness. The knowledge of God's love
to you will make you an ardent lover of God, and the more love you have to God,
the more will you excel in all the duties and offices of love. Add to this that
the Scripture view of predestination includes the means as we as the end.
Christian predestinarians are for keeping together what God hath joined. He who
is for attaining the end without going to it through the means is a
self-deluding enthusiast. He, on the other hand, who carefully and
conscientiously uses the means of salvation as steps to the end is the true
Calvinist.
Now, eternal life being
that to which the elect are ultimately destined, faith (the effect of saving
grace) and sanctification (the effect of faith) are blessings to which the
elect are intermediately appointed. "According as He hath chosen us in
Him, before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and
without blame before Him in love" (Eph. i. 4). "We are His
workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath
before ordained that we should walk in them" (Eph. ii. 10). "Knowing,
brethren beloved, your election of God... and ye became followers of us and of
the Lord" (1 Thess. i. 4, 6). "God hath chosen you to salvation through
sanctification of the spirit and belief of the truth" (2 Thess. ii.
13). "Elect, according to the foreknowledge [or ancient love] of God the
Father through sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience" (1
Peter i. 2). Nor is salvation (the appointed end of election) at all the less
secure in itself (but the more so) for standing necessarily connected with the
intervening means, seeing both these and that are inseparably joined, in order
to the certain accomplishment of that through these. It only demonstrates that
without regeneration of the heart and purity of life, the elect themselves are
not led to heaven. But, then, it is incontestible from the whole current of
Scripture that these intermediate blessings shall most infallibly be vouchsafed
to every elect person, in virtue of God's absolute covenant and through the effectual
agency of His Almighty Spirit. Internal sanctification constitutes our meetness
for the kingdom to which we were predestinated, and a course of external
righteousness is one of the grand evidences by which we make our election sure
to our own present comfort and apprehension of it.
VIII.--Unless
predestination be preached, we shall want one great inducement to the exercise
of brotherly kindness and charity. When a converted person is assured, on one hand,
that all whom God hath predestinated to eternal life shall infallibly enjoy
that eternal life to which they are chosen, and, on the other hand, when he
discerns the signs of election, not only in himself, but also in the rest of
his fellow-believers, and concludes from thence (as in a judgment of charity he
ought) that they are as really elected as himself, how must his heart glow with
love to his Christians brethren! How feelingly will he sympathise with them in
their distresses! How tenderly will he bear with their infirmities! How
tenderly will he bear with infirmities How readily will he relieve the former,
and how easily overlook the latter Nothing will so effectually knit together
the hearts of God's people in time as the belief of their having been written
by name in one book of life from everlasting, and the unshaken confidence of
their future exaltation to one and the same state of glory above will occasion
the strongest cement of affection below.
This was, possibly, one
end of our Saviour's so frequently reminding His apostles of their election,
namely, that from the sense of such an unspeakable blessing, in which they were
all equally interested, they might learn to love one another with pure hearts
fervently, and cultivate on earth that holy friendship which they well knew,
from the immutability of God's decrees, would be eternally matured to the
highest perfection and refinement in heaven. St. Paul, likewise, might have
some respect to the same amiable inference when treating of the saints collectively,
for he uses those sweet and endearing expressions, "He hath chosen us,"
"He hath predestinated us," etc., that believers, considering
themselves as co-elect in Christ, might be led to love each other with peculiar
intenseness as the spiritual children of on electing Father, brethren in grace
and joint-heirs of glory. Did the regenerate of the present age but practically
advert to each other. How happy would be the effect!
Hence it appears that,
since the preaching of predestination is thus evidently calculated to kindle
and keep alive the twofold congenial flame of love to man, it must, by
necessary consequence, conduce to the advancement of universal obedience and to
the performance of every social and religious duty, which alone, was there
nothing else to recommend it, would be a sufficient motive to the public
delivery of that important doctrine.
IX.--Lastly, without a
due sense of predestination, we shall want the surest and the most powerful
inducement to patience, resignation and dependence on God under every spiritual
and temporal affliction.
How sweet must the
following considerations be to a distressed believer! (1) There most certainly
exists an almighty, all-wise and infinitely gracious God. (2) He has given me
in times past, and is giving me at present (if I had but eyes to see it), many
and signal intimations of His love to me, both in a way of providence and
grace. (3) This love of His is immutable; He never repents of it nor withdraws
it. (4) Whatever comes to pass in time is the result of His will from
everlasting, consequently (5) my afflictions were a part of His original plan,
and are all ordered in number, weight and measure. (6) The very hairs of my
head are (every one) counted by Him, nor can a single hair fall to the ground
but in consequence of His determination. Hence (7) my distresses are not the
result of chance, accident or a fortuitous combination of circumstances, but
(8) the providential accomplishment of God's purpose, and (9) designed to
answer some wise and gracious ends, nor (10) shall my affliction continue a
moment longer than God sees meet. (11) He who brought me to it has promised to
support me under it and to carry me through it. (12) All shall, most assuredly,
work together for His glory and my good, therefore (13) "The cup which my
heavenly Gather hath given me to drink, shall I not drink it?" Yes, I
will, in the strength He imparts, even rejoice in tribulation; and using the
means of possible redress, which He hath or may hereafter put into my hands, I
will commit myself and the event to Him, whose purpose cannot be overthrown,
whose plan cannot be disconcerted, and who, whether I am resigned or not, will
still go on to work all things after the counsel of His own will.
Above all, when the
suffering Christian takes his election into the account, and knows that he was
by an eternal and immutable act of God appointed to obtain salvation through
our Lord Jesus Christ; that, of course, he hath a city prepared for him above,
an building of God, a house not made with hands, but eternal in the heavens;
and that the heaviest sufferings of the present life are not worthy to be
compared with the glory which shall be revealed in the saints, what adversity
can possibly befall us which the assured hope of blessings like these will not
infinitely overbalance?
"A comfort so
divine, May trial well endure."
Such, therefore, among
others, being the uses that arise from the faithful preaching and the
cordial reception of predestination, may we not venture to affirm. with Luther,
hac ignorata doctrina, neque fidem, neque ullum Dei cultum, consistere
posse? that "our faith and all right worship of God, depend in no
small degree upon our knowledge of that doctrine"?
The excellent
Melancthon, in his first Common Places (which received the sanction of Luther's
express approbation), does, in the first chapter, which treats professedly of
free-will and predestination, set out with clearing and establishing the
doctrine of God's decrees, and then proceeds to point out the necessity and
manifold usefulness of asserting and believing it. He even goes so far as to
affirm roundly that "a right fear of God and a true confidence in Him can
be learned more assuredly from no other source than from the doctrine of
predestination." But Melancthon's judgment of these matters will best
appear from the whole passage, which the reader will find in the book and
chapter just referred to.
"Divina
predestinatio," says he, "Libetatem himini adimit";
Divine predestination quite strips man of his boasted liberty, for all things
come to pass according to God's fore-appointment, even the internal thoughts of
all creatures, no less than the external works. Therefore the apostle gives us
to understand that God "performeth all things according to the counsel of
His own will" (Eph. i.), and our Lord Himself asks, "Are not two
sparrows sold for a farthing? yet one of them falleth not to the ground without
your Father" (Matt. x.). Pray what can be more full to the point than such
a declaration? So Solomon, "The Lord hath made all things for Himself;
yea, even the wicked for the day of evil" (Prov. xvi.), and in chap. xx.,
"Man's goings are of the Lord: how then can a man understand his own way?"
To which the prophet Jeremiah does also set his seal, saying (chapter x.),
"O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself; it is not in man
that walketh to direct his steps." The historical part of Scripture
teaches us the same great truth. So (Gen. xv.) we read that the iniquity of the
Amorites was not yet full. In 1 Sam. ii. we are told that Eli's sons hearkened
not to his reproof, because the Lord would slay them. What could bear a
stronger resemblance to chance and accident than Saul's calling upon Samuel,
only with a view to seek out his father's asses?(1 Sam. ix.). Yet the visit was
fore-ordained of God, and designed to answer a purpose little thought of by
Saul (1 Sam. ix. 15,16). See also a most remarkable chain of predestinated
events in reference to Saul, and foretold by the prophet (1 Sam. x. 2,8).
In pursuance of the
Divine pre-ordination, there went with Saul a band of men, whose hearts God had
touched (1 Sam. x. 26). The harshness of king Rehoboam's answer to the ten
tribes, and the subsequent revolt of those tribes from his dominion, are by the
sacred historian expressly ascribed to God's decree: "Wherefore the king
hearkened not unto the people; for the cause was from the Lord, that He might
perform His saying, which the Lord spake by Abijah the Shilonite unto Jeroboam
the son of Nebat" (1 Kings xii. 15). What is the drift of the Apostle Paul
(Rom. ix. and xi.), quam ut omnia, quoe fiunt, in destinationem divinam
referat, but to resolve all things that come to pass into God's
destination? The judgment of the flesh, or of mere unregenerate reason, usually
starts back from this truth with horror; embrace it with affection. Neque
enim vel timorem Dei vel fiduciam in Deum, certius aliunde disces, quam ubi
imbueris animum hac de predestinatione sententia: you will not learn either
the fear of God or affiance in Him from a surer source than from getting your
mind deeply tinctured and seasoned with this doctrine of predestination.
Does not solomon, in the
Book of Proverbs, inculcate it throughout, and justly, for how else could he
direct men to fear God and trust in Him? The same he does in the Book of
Ecclesiastes, nor had anything so powerful a tendency to repress the pride of
man's encroaching discretion, as the firm belief, quod a Deo fiunt omnia,
that all things are from God. What invincible comfort did Christ impart to His
disciples in assuring them that their very hairs were all numbered by the
Creator? Is there, then (may an objector say), no such thing as contingency, no
such thing as chance or fortune? No. Omnia necessario evenire scripturoe
docent; the doctrine of Scripture is, that all things come to pass
necessarily. Be it so that to you some events seem to happen contingently, you
nevertheless must not be run away with by the suggestions of your own narrow-sighted
reason. Solomon himself, the wisest of men, was so deeply versed in the
doctrine of inscrutable predestination as to leave this humbling maxim o
record: "When I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to see the business
that is done upon the earth, then I beheld all the work of God, that a man
cannot find out the work that is done under the sun, because though a man
labour to seek it out, yet he shall not find it yea, farther, though a wise man
think to know it, yet shall he not be able to find it" (Eccles. viii. 16,
17).
Melancthon prosecutes
the argument much further, but this may suffice for a specimen; and it is not
unworthy of notice that Luther so highly approved of Melancthon's performance,
and especially of the first chapter (from whence the above extract is given),
that he (Luther) thus writes of it in his epistle to Erasmus, prefixed to his
book "De Serv. Arb.," "That it was worthy of everlasting
duration, and to be received into the ecclesiastical canon." Let it likewise
be observed that Melancthon never, to the very last, retracted a word of what
he there delivers, which a person of his piety and integrity would most
certainly have done had he afterwards (as some have artfully and falsely
insinuated) found reason to change his judgement on these heads.