SECTION I.
THE DOCTRINE OF ELECTION STATED AND PROVED.
IN order to secure clearness and to prevent misapprehension in regard to the issues involved, statements of the doctrine of election by the prominent Calvinistic Confessions will be furnished, and also representations of that doctrine from Evangelical Arminian sources of high authority. The Calvinistic doctrine will then be analyzed into its constituent elements, their scriptural proofs exhibited, and the questions between Calvinists and Evangelical Arminians in regard to those points will be discussed.
The statement of the doctrine of election by the Westminster Confession is as follows: "By the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, some men . . . are predestinated unto everlasting life.
"These men . . . thus predestinated . . . are particularly and unchangeably designed; and their number is so certain and definite that it cannot be either increased or diminished.
"Those of mankind that are predestinated unto life. God, before the foundation of the world was laid, according to his eternal and immutable purpose, and the secret counsel and good pleasure of his will, hath chosen in Christ, unto everlasting glory, out of his mere free grace and love, without any foresight of faith, or good works, or perseverance in either of them, or any other thing in the creature, as conditions, or causes moving him thereunto; and all to the praise of his glorious grace.
"As God hath appointed the elect unto glory, so hath he, by the eternal and most free purpose of his will, fore-ordained all the means thereunto. Wherefore they who are elected being fallen in Adam, are redeemed by Christ, are effectually called unto faith in Christ by his Spirit working in due season; are justified, adopted, sanctified, and kept by his power through faith unto salvation."1
The Westminster Larger Catechism says: "God, by an eternal and immutable decree, out of his mere love, for the praise of his glorious grace, to be manifested in due time, hath elected some angels to glory; and, in Christ, hath chosen some men to eternal life, and the means thereof.
"God doth not leave all men to perish in the estate of sin and misery, into which they fell by the breach of the first covenant, commonly called the covenant of works; but of his mere love and mercy delivereth his elect out of it, and bringeth them into an estate of salvation by the second covenant, commonly called the covenant of grace."
"The covenant of grace was made with Christ as the second Adatn, and in him with all the elect as his seed."2
The Westminster Shorter Catechism: "God, having out of his mere good pleasure, from all eternity, elected some to everlasting life, did enter into a covenant of grace, to deliver them out of the estate of sin and misery, and to bring them into an estate of salvation by a Redeemer."3
What follows is a part of the utterance of the Synod of Dort: "The cause, or fault, of this unbelief" [i. e. in Christ], "as of all other sins, is in no wise in God, but in man. But faith in Jesus Christ, and salvation through him, is the free gift of God.
"But whereas, in process of time, God bestoweth faith on some, and not on others, this proceeds from his eternal decree.
"Now, election is the unchangeable purpose of God, by which, before the foundation of the world, according to the most free pleasure of his will, and of his mere grace, out of all mankind - fallen, through their own fault, from their first integrity into sin and destruction - he hath chosen in Christ unto salvation a set number of certain men, neither better nor more worthy than others, but lying in the common misery with others; which Christ also from all eternity he appointed the Mediator, and head of all the elect, and foundation of salvation. And so he decreed to give them to him to be saved, and by his Word and Spirit effectually to call and draw them to a communion with him: that is, to give them a true faith in him, to justify, sanctify, and finally glorify them, being mightily kept in the communion of his Son, to the demonstration of his mercy, and the praise of the riches of his glorious grace.
"This said election was made, not upon foresight of faith, and the obedience of faith, holiness, or of any other good quality or disposition, as a cause or condition before required in man to be chosen; but unto faith, and the obedience of faith, holiness, etc. And therefore election is the fountain of all saving good, from whence faith, holiness, and the residue of saving gifts, lastly everlasting life itself, do flow, as the fruits and effects thereof.
"The true cause of this free election is the good pleasure of God; not consisting herein, that, from among all possible means, he chose some certain qualities, or actions, of men, as a condition of salvation; but herein, that out of the common multitude of sinners he culled out to himself, for his own peculiar" [possession] "some certain persons.
"And as God himself is most wise, unchangeable, omniscient, and omnipotent, so the election made by him can neither be interrupted nor changed, revoked or disannulled, nor the elect cast away, nor their number diminished."4
The Second Helvetic Confession says: "God hath from the beginning freely, and of his mere grace, without any respect of men, predestinated or elected the saints, whom he will save in Christ."5
The French Confession: "We believe that out of this universal corruption and damnation, wherein by nature all men are drowned, God did deliver and preserve some, whom, by his eternal and immutable counsel, of his own goodness and mercy, without any respect of their works, he did choose in Christ Jesus. . . . For some are not better than others, till such time as the Lord doth make a difference, according to that immutable counsel which he had decreed in Christ Jesus before the creation of the world: neither was any man able by his own strength to make an entrance for himself to that good, seeing that of our nature we cannot have so much as one right motion, affection, or thought, till God do freely prevent us, and fashion us to uprightness."6
The Belgic Confession: "We believe that God, after that the whole offspring of Adam was cast headlong into perdition and destruction, through the default of the first man, bath declared and shewed himself to be such an one, as he is indeed ; namely, both merciful and just: merciful, by delivering and saving those from condemnation and from death, whom, in his eternal counsel, of his own free goodness, he bath chosen in Jesus Christ our Lord, without any regard at all to their works."7
The Swiss Form of Agreement (Formula Consensus Helvetica): "Before the foundations of the world were laid, God, in Christ Jesus our Lord, formed an eternal purpose, in which, out of the mere good pleasure of his will, without any foresight of the merit of works or of faith, unto the praise of his glorious grace, he elected a certain and definite number of men, in the same mass of corruption and lying in a common blood, and so corrupt in sin, to be, in time, brought to salvation through Christ the only Sponsor and Mediator, and, through the merit of the same, by the most powerful influence of the Holy Spirit regenerating, to be effectually called, regenerated, and endued with faith and repentance. And in such wise indeed did God determine to illustrate his glory, that he decreed, first to create man in integrity, then to permit his fall, and finally to pity some from among the fallen, and so to elect the same."8
To these statements of the doctrine may be added those of British Episcopal Churches, for the reason that they are, upon this point, explicitly Calvinistic.
The Seventeenth Article of the Church of England is as follows: "Predestination to life is the everlasting purpose of God, whereby (before the foundations of the world were laid) he hath constantly decreed by his counsel, secret to us, to deliver from curse and damnation those whom he hath chosen in Christ out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ to everlasting salvation, as vessels made to honour. Wherefore they be endued with so excellent a benefit of God, be called according to God's purpose by his Spirit working in due season: they through grace obey the calling: they be made sons of God by adoption: they be made like the image of his only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ: they walk religiously in good works: and at length, by God's mercy, they attain to everlasting felicity."
The third article of the Church of Ireland has these words : "By the same eternal counsel, God bath predestinated some unto life, and reprobated some unto death: of both which there is a certain number, known only to God, which can neither be increased nor diminished.9
"Predestination to life is the everlasting purpose of God, whereby, before the foundations of the world were laid, he hath constantly decreed in his secret counsel to deliver from curse and damnation those whom he hath chosen in Christ out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ unto everlasting salvation, as vessels made to honour.10
"The cause moving God to predestinate unto life is not the foreseeing of faith, or perseverance, or good works, or of any thing which is in the person predestinated, but only the good pleasure of God himself.11 For all things being ordained for the manifestation of his glory, and his glory being to appear both in the works of his mercy and of his justice, it seemed good to his heavenly wisdom to choose out a certain number, towards whom he would extend his undeserved mercy, leaving the rest to be spectacles of his justice.
"Such as are predestinated unto life be called according unto God's purpose (his Spirit working in due season), and through grace they obey the calling, they be justified freely, they be made sons of God by adoption, they be made like the image of his only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, they walk religiously in good works, and at length, by God's mercy, they attain to everlasting felicity."12
Having thus sufficiently given the doctrine of Calvinism in regard to Election, I proceed to furnish that of Evangelical Arminianism. In the absence of any Symbolic Articles in which the views of Evangelical Arminians touching the doctrine of Election are embodied,13 reference must be had to the statements of those who are accepted by them as representative theologians.
John Wesley thus speaks: "The Scriptnre tells us plainly what predestination is: it is God's fore-appointing obedient believers to salvation, not without, but 'according to his foreknowledge' of all their works 'from the foundation of the world.' . . . We may consider this a little further. God, from the foundation of the world, foreknew all men's believing or not believing. And according to this, his foreknowledge, he chose or elected all obedient believers, as such, to salvation."
"God calleth Abraham 'a father of many nations,' though not so at that time. He calleth Christ 'the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world,' though not slain till he was a man in the flesh. Even so he calleth men 'elected from the foundation of the world,' though not elected till they were men in the flesh. Yet it is all so before God, who, knowing all things from eternity, 'calleth things that are not as though they were.'
"By all which it is clear, that as Christ was called 'the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world,' and yet not slain till some thousand years after, till the day of his death, so also men are called 'elect from the foundation of the world,' and yet not elected, perhaps, till some thousand years after, till the day of their conversion to God . . .
"If the elect are chosen through sanctification of the Spirit, then they were not chosen before they were sanctified by the Spirit. But they were not sanctified before they had a being. It is plain, then, neither were they chosen from the foundation of the world. But God 'calleth things that are not as though they were.' . . .
"If the saints are chosen to salvation, through believing of the truth . . . they were not chosen before they believed; much less before they had a being, any more than Christ was slain before he had a being. So plain is it that they were not elected till they believed, although God 'calleth things that are not as though they were.' . . .
"It is plain the act of electing is in time, though known of God before; who according to his knowledge, often speaketh of the things 'which are not as though they were.' And thus is the great stumbling block about election taken away, that men may 'make their calling and election sure.'"14
In another place, Wesley says: "But do not the Scriptures speak of election? . . . You cannot therefore deny there is such a thing as election. And if there is, what do you mean by it?
"I will tell you in all plainness and simplicity. I believe it commonly means one of these two things; first, a divine appointment of some particular men, to do some particular work in the world. And this election I believe to be not only personal, but absolute and unconditional . . .
"I believe election means, secondly, a divine appointment of some men to eternal happiness. But I believe this election to be conditional, as well as the reprobation opposite thereto. I believe the eternal decree concerning both is expressed in these words, 'He that believeth shall be saved: he that believeth not shall be damned.' And this decree without doubt God will not change, and man cannot resist. According to this all true believers are in Scripture termed elect . . .
"God calleth true believers 'elect from the foundation of the world,' although they were not actually elect or believers till many ages after, in their several generations. Then only it was that they were actually elected, when they were made the 'sons of God by faith.' . . .
"This election I as firmly believe as I believe the Scripture to be of God. But unconditional election I cannot believe; not only because I cannot find it in Scripture, but also, (to waive all other considerations,) because it necessarily implies unconditional reprobation. Find out any election which does not imply reprobation, and I will gladly agree to it. But reprobation I can never agree to, while I believe the Scripture to be of God: as being utterly irreconcilable to the whole scope of the Old and New Testament."15
"What do you mean by the word Election? . . . I mean this. God did decree from the beginning to elect or choose (in Christ) all that should believe to salvation."16
"Irresistible Grace and Infallible Perseverance are the natural consequence of the former, the uncondittional decree . . . So that, in effect, the three questions come into one, Is Predestination absolute or conditional? The Arminians believe it is conditional."17
Richard Watson thus distributes the subject of election: "Of a divine election, or choosing and separation from others, we have these three kinds mentioned in the Scriptures. The first is the election of individuals to perform some particular and special service. . . . The second kind of election which we find in Scripture is the election of nations, or bodies of people, to eminent religious privileges, and in order to accomplish, by their superior illumination, the merciful purposes of God, ill benefiting other nations or bodies of people. . . . The third kind of election is personal election; or the election of individuals to be the children of God and the heirs of eternal life."18
In regard to the last-mentioned aspect of election - that which is in dispute - he says: "What true personal election is, we shall find explained in two clear passages of Scripture. It is explained negatively by our Lord, where he says to his disciples, 'I have chosen you out of the world'; it is explained positively by St. Peter, when he addresses his first epistle to the 'elect, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus.' To be elected, therefore, is to be separated from 'the world,' and to be sanctified by the Spirit, and by the blood of Christ.
"It follows, then, that election is not only an act of God done in time; but also that it is subsequent to the administration of the means of salvation. The 'calling' goes before the 'election'; the publication of the doctrine of 'the Spirit,' and the atonement, called by Peter 'the sprinkling of the blood of Christ' before that 'sanctification,' through which they become 'the elect' of God. The doctrine of eternal election is thus brought down to its true meaning. Actual election cannot be eternal; for, from eternity, the elect were not actually chosen out of the world, and from eternity they could not be 'sanctified unto obedience.' The phrases 'eternal election,' and 'eternal decree of election,' so often in the lips of Calvinists, can, in common sense, therefore, mean only an eternal purpose to elect; or a purpose formed in eternity, to elect, or choose out of the world, and sanctify in time, by 'the Spirit and the blood of Jesus.' This is a doctrine which no one will contend with them; but when they graft upon it another, that God hath, from eternity, 'chosen in Christ unto salvation' a set number of men, 'certam quorundam hominum multitudinem' - not upon foresight of faith and the obedience of faith, holiness, or any other good quality or disposition (as a cause or condition before required in man to be chosen); but unto faith, and the obedience of faith, holiness, etc., 'non ex praevisa fide, fideique obedientia, sanctitate, aut alia aliqua bona qualitate et dispositione,' etc., (Judgment of the Synod of Dort,) it presents itself under a different aspect, and requires an appeal to the word of God."19
Without further definition of his own view, Watson proceeds to argue against the Calvinistic doctrine.
Dr. Ralston adopts Watson's threefold distribution of election - of individuals to office, of communities to religious privileges, of individuals to eternal life. In regard to the last kind he says: "That election of this personal and individual kind is frequently alluded to in the Scriptures, is admitted by Armiuians as well as Calvinists; but the great matter of dispute relates to the sense in which the subject is to be understood. Calvinists say that this election is 'from all eternity;' this Arminians deny, except so far as the foreknowledge or purpose of God to elect may be termed election.20
So far for his view as to the temporal origin of election. As to its conditionality he thus speaks: "Before the election in question can exist, there must be a real difference in the objects or persons concerning whom the choice is made. Even an intelligent creature can make no rational choice where no supposed difference exists; and can we suppose that the infinite God will act in a manner that would be justly deemed blind and irrational in man? The thought is inadmissible. . . . If God selects, or chooses, some men to eternal life and rejects others, as all admit to be the fact, there must be a good and sufficient reason for this election."
Now, what is this reason? He answers: "We arrive at the conclusion, therefore, that however different the teachings of Calvinism, if one man is elected to everlasting life and another consigned to perdition, it is not the result of an arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable partiality, but accords with reason, equity, and justice, and is a glorious display of the harmonious perfections of God. It is because the one is good and the other bad; the one is righteous and the other uurighteous; the one is a believer and the other an unbeliever; or the one is obedient and the other rebellious. These are the distinctions which reason, justice, and Scripture recognize; and we may rest assured they are the only distinctions which God regards in electing his people to glory, and sentencing the wicked to perdition."21
Dr. Miner Raymond, Professor in Garrett Biblical Institute, Illinois, in his Systematic Theology, concurs in the three-fold distribution of election already indicated, but differs with the writers who have been cited in regard to the end to which individuals are savingly elected. They make it eternal life, and he a contingent salvation. According to them, election, being conditional upon the foresight of perseverance in faith and holiness to the end of life, terminates on an assured felicity in heaven; according to him election, being conditioned upon the foresight of only a contingent perseverance in faith and holiness, terminates on only a contingent salvation. Election is not to eternal life, but to the contingent heirship of eternal life. Let us hear him speak for himself:
"A third use of the terms 'elect,' 'elected,' 'called,' 'chosen,' and other terms of similar import, is found in the Scriptures. 'Many are called, but few are chosen.' 'Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus.' Here, evidently, the choosing is after the calling - that is, it is an act done in time. The election is by and through the sanctification of the Spirit; that is, it is a selection, a choosing out of the world, a separation from the world, by regeneration, conversion, the new birth; in a word, when God justifies a sinner, regenerates his nature, adopts him as a child of God, makes him an heir of eternal life, he thereby, then and there, separates him from the sinners of the world - elects him to be his child and an heir of eternal life. The sinner, by this election, becomes a saint, an elect person, and is frequently so called in the Scriptures.
"This election is almost universally spoken of as conditioned upon repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ; and if, in any passages, the condition is not specifically mentioned, it is plainly implied. If, in any sense, this election is eternal, it is so only in the purpose of the Divine Being to elect; and as the election itself is conditioned upon faith, it follows that the eternal purpose to elect was based upon that foreseen faith. . . .
"Men may do despite unto the Spirit of grace by which they have been sanctified. Till probation terminates, final destiny is a contingency. Two opposite eternities are either of them possible, and the question is decided, never by any thing external to the man himself, but by his own free choice, aided by the grace of God."22
It is necessary to add that this writer makes regeneration a work, jointly wrought by divine and human agency, and holds that, in the order of thought, repentance precedes faith and faith precedes regeneration. The question being, What conditions salvation? his answer is - and it deserves special notice as indicative of the developments of the Evangelical Arminian theology - "That salvation is conditioned upon man's acceptance, and co-operation by faith, is implied in all the commands, precepts, exhortations, admonitions, entreaties, promises, and persuasions of the Word of God; and such passages as the following are equivalent to a direct affirmation that man determines the question of his salvation: 'He that believeth shall be saved; he that believeth not shall be damned,'" etc.23
It may be asked, why Fletcher has not been previously summoned as a witness. The reason is, that the definition which he gives of election, as pertaining to individual salvation, seems to be somewhat peculiar to himself. He represents it as of two kinds, one an election to initial salvation, conveying a temporary redemption, - which is unconditional; the other an election to eternal salvation, - which is conditioned upon the perseverance of the believer to the end of the day of initial salvation. "We believe," says he, "that Jesus Christ died for the whole human race, with an intention first, to procure absolutely and unconditionally a temporary redemption, or an initial salvation for all men universally; and secondly, to procure a particular redemption, or an eternal salvation conditionally for all men, but absolutely for all that die in their infancy, and for all the adult who obey him, and are faithful unto death."24 The statement is eccentric and somewhat confused, but agrees substantially with those which have been furnished.
These statements of the Calvinistic and Evangelical Arminian doctrines of election having been furnished, the way is open for an analysis of the Calvinistic doctrine into its component elements, and the exhibition of the scriptural proofs on which they are founded.
It is resolvable into the following elements: first, its author or efficient cause; secondly, its object, in general; thirdly, its objects, in particular; fourthly, its end or final cause; fifthly, its origin; sixthly, the love which it involves; and seventhly, its ground or reason. This order of statement is adopted, not because it is deemed most logical, but because it is desirable to consider last the features of the subject in regard to which the Calvinist and the Evangelical Arminian mainly join issue.
Before these points are considered, it is proper to premise, that in this discussion there is no intimation of an order of time, as obtaining in the relation to each other of the divine decrees. What is intended is that one may be in order to another, in this sense - that one may be pre-supposed by another. The decree, for instance, to permit the Fall is in order to, or pre-supposed by, the decree to provide redemption for sinners. To deny such an order as this, because it appears to conflict with the simplicity and immutability of an Infinite Being, is to reject all difference and distinction between the acts of God, and to reduce all his perfections to the absolute unity of his essence; and that would be to subvert the doctrine of the Trinity itself. We are obliged to conceive an order of thought or nature as existing in the divine decrees. "What divines," says President Edwards, "intend by prior and posterior in the affair of God's decrees, is not that one is before another in the order of time, for all are from eternity; but that we must conceive the view or consideration of one decree to be before another, inasmuch as God decrees one thing out of respect to another decree that he has made; so that one decree must be conceived of as in some sort to be the ground of another, or that God decrees one because of another; or that he would not have decreed one, had he not decreed that other."25 Then follows an argument in which Edwards powerfully supports this view. "While," observes Dr. Thornwell on the same subject, "owing to the simplicity and eternity of the divine nature, there cannot be conceived in God a succession of time, nor consequently various and successive decrees, yet we may justly speak of his decrees as prior or posterior in point of nature."26 "The question," remarks the same writer in another place, "concerning the order of the divine decrees involves something more than a question of logical method. It is really a question of the highest moral significance. The order of a thing very frequently determines its righteousness and justice. Conviction and hanging are parts of the same process, but it is something more than a question of arrangement whether a man shall be hung before he is convicted."27
Corresponding with this order in the decrees we must conceive also an order in the exercises and modes of the divine perfections - one not of time, but of thought; that is, the exercise of one divine perfection is pre-supposed by that of another, and a mode of a perfection is pre-supposed by another mode of the same perfection. The conceptions of the divine intelligence, for example, must be considered as in order to the exercises of the divine justice and love and the acts of the divine will. The view which God took of man unfallen, man fallen, and man to be redeemed, was in order to those exercises of justice and love, and those determinations of will, which were related to man in those respective conditions. So also, for instance, the intrinsic perfection of divine love is one, but it may exist in different modes, one of which is pre-supposed by another. The benevolence of God towards the creatures of his power is pre-supposed by that peculiar love which has for its objects those who are redeemed by his dear Son and united to him by the grace of his Spirit.
It is not designed to say that one mode precedes another which in an order of time did not previously exist. The modes of the divine love are co-eternal, and their appropriate objects were eternally before the divine mind. When the objects are actually brought into existence, no new modification of the love of God occurs. There is only a new manifestation of his love which existed eternally. And, although the subject is confessedly difficult, I can see no just reason for supposing that a new manifestation of love would be equivalent to a new modification of that attribute. It may be a question, whether it be not necessary to suppose a new modification of the divine will, involved in the determination to effect a manifestation of love which had not previously been made. But were that so - which I am not prepared to admit as beyond doubt - the immutability of the divine love, even as to its modes, would not be disproved, unless it could be conclusively shown that the love of God is one and the same with the will of God considered as determinative. One is apt to think that impossible, notwithstanding the fact that some eminent theologians, under the influence of the old scholastic distribution of the mental powers into intelligence and will, have expressed themselves in favor of the identity of the divine love and the divine will even in its acts. The view which denies an order of nature in the divine decrees and the exercises of the divine perfections, on the ground of the simplicity and immutability of the infinite Being, cannot be adjusted to our convictions of the distinction between intelligence and will, between justice and mercy, between benevolence and complacency. The result would be the impersonal infinite substance of the Pantheist, manifesting itself in conformity with a law of blind necessity. And yet he is compelled by the patent facts of observation to grant that this impersonal substance expresses itself diversely in the countless differences of finite existence. But the argument is not with the Pantheist: it lies within the limits of Christian Theism. It is enough to point out the fact that those theologians who merge the divine love into the acts of the divine will have no hesitation in affirming a difference between the intelligence and the will of God. Nor would they deny that the conception of ends by the divine wisdom is pre-supposed by, and is in order to, the specific determinations of the divine will. It is no derogation from the glory of the ever-blessed God to say, that one decree is in order to another, or that the exercise of one perfection is in order to the exer cise of another. With these preliminary cautions I proceed to develop the proofs of election.
1. The Author or Efficient Cause of Election - God. This answers the question, Who elects?
Eph. i. 4: "According as he hath chosen us in him" - that is, according as God the Father has chosen us in Christ. This meaning of the words is determined by the immediately preceding verse: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ." The doctrine is here taught that God the Father, as the representative of the Trinity, is the author of the electing decree. From his bosom the scheme of redemption sprang.
2 Thess. ii. 13: "But we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation."
1 Thess. v. 9: "For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ."
These passages are sufficient to prove, beyond doubt, that God, and God alone, is the author or efficient cause of election. This the Evangelical Arminian professes to acknowledge, not only with regard to the election of communities to peculiar privileges, but also to that of individuals to salvation. But if it be true that, according to his system, the will of man is the ultimate, determining cause of his choice of salvation, it follows inevitably that man and not God is the efficient cause of election. That man determines the question of his salvation, we have seen, by a citation from his Systematic Theology, that Dr. Miner Raymond expressly asserts.28 But if this be regarded as an individual opinion which cannot be considered representative of the system, I shall endeavor, in the prosecution of the argument under another head, to prove that what he candidly avows is the logical result of the principles which he holds in common with his school. And should the proof be fairly exhibited, it will be evinced that the Evangelical Armiuiau theology stumbles upon the very threshold of the scriptural doctrine of election. It is one thing to say that God is the author of a scheme of redemption, involving the accomplishment of a universal atonement and the bestowal of universal grace, and quite another to say that he is the author of the election of sinners to salvation. The former the Arminian affirms; the latter he is logically bound to deny.
2. The Object, in general, of election - man considered as fallen and ruined. This answers the question, Upon what did election terminate?
Rom. v. 8: "God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. "
Eph. i. 4: "According as he hath chosen us in him [that is, Christ], before the foundation of the world."
Ezek. xvi. 6: "And when I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live; yea, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live."
Rom. ix. 21: "Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?"
Upon this point the issue is between the Supralapsarians and the Sublapsarians. Some of the former contend that in the decree of election man was viewed simply as creatable, others, that he was contemplated as created but not fallen. The Sublapsarians hold that in that decree man was regarded as fallen and corrupt. In favor of the Sublapsarian doctrine I urge-
(1.) The Scriptural argument.
In the passage cited from the fifth chapter of Romans the apostle is treating of the security of those who are justified through faith in Christ. His argument is drawn from the love of God towards them. The electing love of God, having been eternally pitched upon them viewed as sinners and therefore ill-deserving, was not grounded in or conditioned upon any good quality or act foreknown to pertain to them, but issued freely from his bosom, and, from the nature of the case, cannot change in consequence of the changeableness of its objects. Having loved them regarded simply as ungodly sinners, he cannot fail to love them contemplated as reconciled to him by the death of his Son. It is evident that the passage teaches that the object of election was man viewed as fallen and sinful.
When, in the passage taken from the first chapter of Ephesians, the apostle declares that believers were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, he must mean that they were elected to be redeemed by Christ, appointed as their Mediator and Federal Head; and, therefore, it is necessarily implied that when elected they were conceived as ruined by sin.
In the graphic passage quoted from the sixteenth chapter of Ezekiel, God, under the figure of a polluted, deserted; helpless infant represents the object of his electing love as being in a state of sin and misery. The description cannot have reference to the execution of the electing purpose in effectual calling, for the palpable reason that that is immediately after set forth as terminating upon the same infant when it had arrived at marriageable age. It is curious that in the attempt to make this and other statements of Scripture refer to the temporal execution of the electing purpose, the great Supralapsarian Dr. Twisse and the Arminians are at one with each other. Extremes meet. The company is hardly creditable to the professed Calvinist.
In the celebrated passage from the ninth chapter of Romans, the "lump" must refer to the fallen and corrupt mass of mankind, for-
First, Divine mercy, from its very nature, cannot terminate upon any other than an ill-deserving and miserable object. Those who are chosen out of the mass are denominated "vessels of mercy." Mercy proposes to save its objects, and none can be considered susceptible of salvation but those who are sinful and ruined.
Secondly, The lump is that from which Jacob is said to have been taken; and it is evident that he belonged to the fallen and corrupt mass of mankind. That Esau and Jacob are declared to have done neither good nor evil cannot be proved to refer to their election simply as creatable men, or apart from their being contemplated as sinners. The meaning clearly is, if we judge from the analogy of the passage, that God's preference of one to the other was not conditioned upon his knowledge of a distinction between their characters. Regarding them both as belonging to a sinful race, and, consequently, both as condemned, he elected Jacob and passed by Esau. In electing one and rejecting the other, he had no regard to their "works," that is, their special conscious virtues or sins. They were both viewed as fallen and condemned in Adam. This is Calvin's view;29 and it proves him to have been a Sublapsarian.
Thirdly, Esau and other reprobate men are called "vessels of wrath." But wrath is the exercise of retributive justice towards the guilty. It pre-supposes the sinful character of the objects upon whom it is inflicted. Moreover, they are said to be "fitted for destruction." Now, either they were fitted to contract guilt in order to destruction, or they were fitted for destruction in consequence of guilt. If the former be supposed, they are not the objects of just punishment. The supposition is impossible. If the latter be true, they are regarded in God's decree as sinners worthy of punishment. This is the true view.
Another argument which may be adduced is, that the Scriptures "represent calling as the expression of election - the first articulate proof of it. But calling is from a state of sin and misery. Therefore election must refer to the same condition. We are said to be chosen out of the world."30
It deserves to be noticed, also, that Supralapsarians confound the wider and the narrower senses of Predestination, both of which are employed in Scripture. In the wider, it means the general purpose or determination of God in relation to all actual things. In the narrower, it signifies the designation of certain definite beings - men - to salvation or destruction. It is manifest that the particular decree of election or of reprobation is different from the general decree by which all things are brought into existence. The order, then, is: the decree to create or bring into existence. This grounds foreknowledge of existing beings. Now this foreknowledge which presupposes the decree to bring into existence, in turn, in the order of thought, precedes Election and Reprobation - the special decree of predestination. Then the foreknowledge of the actual salvation or destruction of men presupposes their election or reprobation. General decree of predestination - general foreknowledge; special decree of predestination - special foreknowledge: that, I conceive is the order indicated in Scripture. Supralapsarianism confounds the special with the general decree. The distinction is indispensable to a correct understanding of the Scriptures.
These special arguments are enhanced and confirmed by the general doctrine of the Scriptures that God is not the author of sin but its righteous punisher. For, the Supralapsarian fails to relieve his view of the consequence that it implies the divine efficiency in the production of sin, by the distinctions which he makes - namely, that while God is the producer of the sinful act as an entity and therefore a good thing, he does not produce the sinful quality which inheres in the act; and that God is not the efficient cause of sin, since sin itself is not a positive thing requiring an efficient, but merely the privation of a good quality and therefore supposing only a deficient, cause. However ancient may be these distinctions, and however venerable may be the names by which they are supported, they are liable to the charge of depreciating the criminal enormity of sin, and of threatening to reduce it to a mere imperfection incident to the make of the finite creature.31
(2.) The Metaphysical argument.
"The Supralapsarian theory," says Dr. Charles Hodge, "seems to involve a contradiction. Of a Non-Ens (a thing not existent), as Turrettin says, nothing can be determined. The purpose to save or condemn, of necessity must, in the order of thought, follow the purpose to create." "The theory," observes Dr. Thornwell, "which makes the decree respect man not as fallen, nor even as existing, but only as capable of both, makes the decree terminate upon an object which in relation to it is a nonentity. It makes the decree involve a palpable contradiction."
There is first the conception in the divine mind of all possible beings. The knowledge of the futurition, the actual existence, of any of these possible beings - I speak not now of the acts of beings - must depend upon the determination of God to reduce them from the category of the possible to that of the actual. Without such a decree, low could lie know them as certain to be? And if he could not know them as existent, how could he determine anything in regard to them as existent? Not known as to be, they would be beyond the reach of any predication save that of possibility. The Supralapsarian theory confounds the conception of the possible with that of the actual. If there be such a decree as it affirms, it would, from the nature of the case, terminate on the barely possible - possible beings would be its objects. God is represented as decreeing to save or damn beings who are conceived to be in posse, not in esse, and who cannot therefore be conceived as guilty and ruined. Whatever qualities could be conceived as attaching to them must have been conceived as possible qualities, for actual qualities cannot be conceived as inhering in merely possible beings. Now there is predication of actual qualities necessarily involved in the decree to save or to condemn. It is true that the decree to create terminates on the possible, but it does not involve the contradiction of supposing actual qualities to inhere in only possible entities. Its very design is to put the possible into a condition in which it can be capable of attribution, and therefore of moral destination. Let us suppose, with the Supralapsarian, that first of all God decreed to glorify his grace and his justice. There must be beings through whom that glorification shall be effected. Now what sort of beings does God predestinate to that end? Possible beings, replies he. Are then possible beings predestinated to an actual heaven and an actual hell? Again, he contends that men are predestinated to damnation for their sin. What sort of sin? The possible sin of possible men? Is it not evident that the conception of actual men and actual sin is pre-supppsed in a decree to adjudge them to actual salvation and actual damnation? But that implies the decree to create as pre-supposed by the decree to predestinate to salvation or destruction. Furthermore, there can be no distinction of sin and holiness in beings merely possible. That distinction is rendered possible only by the decree to create. When they are created, beings may remain holy or fall into sin. As this distinction conditions the possibility of a decree to predestinate to salvation or damnation, the decree to create must in the order of thought precede the decree to elect or to reprobate.
The maxim, "What is last in execution is first in intention," which the Supralapsarian urges in favor of his scheme, cannot be proved to hold of the plan by which God develops his purposes. That plan does not appear to involve a subordinated, but a coordinated series - that is, one in which the parts are related as conditions to each other, but not as means to ends. Creation, the Fall, Redemption are coordinate parts of God's great plan, each having its own peculiar significance, resulting from its own peculiar adaptation to manifest the divine glory through the illustration of certain divine perfections. But the Supralapsarian doctrine makes, at least logically if not confessedly makes, each element in the general scheme a means to the attainment of the succeeding feature, and the whole a concatenated series of means to the accomplishment of the ultimate end. Creation is in order to the Fall, the Fall in order to salvation or damnation, and they in order to the glory of grace and justice. Upon this theory it is not conceivable that the Fall should not have happened. It was necessary, in order that men might glorify grace in their salvation and justice in their damnation. The covenant of works with a probation possible to have been fulfilled, and glorious rewards possible to have been secured, becomes unintelligible. It is not conceivable how the theory can be adjusted to the genius of the Calvinistic theology.
(3.) The Moral argument.
There are laws of rectitude at the root of the moral faculty which are regulative of our moral judgments, just as there are laws of thought and belief at the root of the intellect which control its processes. Now the fundamental laws of justice and benevolence, implanted by the divine hand in our moral constitution, rise up in revolt against the doctrine that God first determines to glorify his justice in the damnation of men, and then determines to create them and "efficaciously to procure" their fall into sin in order to execute that purpose. The Supralapsarian logically makes God the efficient producer of sin. Dr. Twisse's distinction between God's decreeing to effect, and decreeing efficaciously to procure, the fall of man into sin, is a distinction without a difference. If God shut up man to sin, it was the same as his causing him to sin. But if anything is certain, it is that God is not the efficient cause of sin. If he were, as he cannot do wrong, sin would cease to be sin and become holiness, and the distinction between right and wrong would be completely wiped out.
(4.) The argument from Calvinistic consent.
None of the Calvinistic Symbols are Supralapsarian. Some of them imply, without expressly asserting, Sublapsarianism. Others are distinctly Sublapsarian. In the last-named class are the Cauons of the Synod of Dort and the Formula Consensus Helvetica.
3. The Objects, in particular, of election - some individual men. This answers the question, Who are elected ?
Matt. xxiv. 22: "But for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened."
Matt. xxiv. 24: "Insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect."
Matt. xxiv. 31: "And he shall send forth his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other."
Lk. xviii. 7: "And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry. day and night unto him?"
Rom. viii. 33: "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?"
Rom. xvi. 13: "Salute Rufua chosen (elect) in the Lord."
Eph. i. 1, 4, 5, 7, 11: "Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus. . . . According as he hath chosen (elected) us. . . . . Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ. . . . In whom we have redemption by his blood, the forgiveness of sins. . . . . In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will."
Col. iii. 12: "Put on, therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies."
1 Thess. i. 4: "Knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God."
1 Thess. v. 9 : "For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ."
2 Thess. ii. 13: "But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hatlt from the beginning chosen (elected) you to salvation."
2 Tim. ii. 10: "Therefore I endure all things for the elect's sake."
Tit. i. 1: "Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God's elect."
1 Pet. i. 1, 2: "Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ."
These passages conclusively show, that there is not only an election of communities to peculiar privileges - which is cheerfully conceded - but that there is an election of individuals to everlasting salvation; and the conclusion from these testimonies cannot be resisted, that the latter is the highest and the most important sense which is attributed to election by the Word of God. This distinction is admitted by the Evangelical Arminian. But he holds that the election of individuals is conditioned upon the divine foresight of their faith and perseverance in holiness. Election, then, according to him, is not really the election of individuals to a certain salvation, but, if the solecism be allowable, the election of a condition upon which individuals may attain to salvation; but of this more anon. His argument in favor of a conditional election of individuals, derived from the text in Peter last cited, will be considered when his prooftexts come to be noticed.
It deserves to be considered, that the Arminian cannot object to the Calvinistic doctrine on the ground that it represents a definite number of individuals as elected to everlasting life; for the Arminian doctrine enforces precisely the same view. According to the latter doctrine, God foreknows who will believe and persevere in faith and holy obedience unto the end, that is, unto the attainment of final salvation. Those who will so persevere to the end are, of course, a definite number. Now it is they who are, by Arminians, said to be elected. The conclusion is unavoidable that a definite number of individuals are elected. The main difference between the two doctrines, that in regard to which the stress of the controversy between them takes place, is concerning the question of the conditionality or the unconditionality of election. Does God eternally elect individuals to believe, and to persevere in holiness unto the attainment of everlasting life? The Calvinist answers, Yes. The Arminian answers, No: he purposes to elect to everlasting life those who of their own free choice believe and persevere in holiness to the end. What the purpose to elect signifies, how it accomplishes any more than the individual's own perseverance to the end achieves, it is impossible to see; but such is the Arminian position. Conditional or unconditional? - These are the test-questions, the shibboleths of the contestants. The extract from Watson previously given evinces this to be the chief issue.
4. The End or Final Cause of Election proximately, the everlasting life of sinners; ultimately, the glory of God's grace. This answers the question, Unto what does God elect?
(1.) The proximate end of election is the everlasting life of sinners.
Matt. xxv. 34: "Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world."
John vi. 37, 44: "All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh I will in no wise cast out. . . . No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day."
Acts xiii. 48: "And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed."
Rom. viii. 28-3o, 33, 34, 38, 39: "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For, whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the first-born among many brethren. 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. . . . Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, and who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. . . . For I am persuaded 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."
Eph. i. 9-11: "Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: that in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him: in whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will."
1 Thess. v. 9: "For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ."
2 Thess. ii. 13, 14: "But we are bound to give thanks always to God 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: whereunto he called you by our Gospel to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ."
(2.) The ultimate end of election is the glory of God's grace.
Rom. ix. 23: "And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory."
Eph. i. 5, 6, 11, 12: "Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. . . . In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will, that we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ."
These scriptural statements in regard to the end or final cause of election are so explicit that comment is scarcely necessary, especially as there is here no issue worth noticing between the Calvinist and the Evangelical Arminian.
It is true that, as the extracts given from their writings show, Fletcher and Raymond held peculiar views upon this point, but they contravene the catholic doctrine of Arminianism. Fletcher's view, which distinguishes between an absolute election of individuals to an initial and contingent salvation, on the one hand, and a conditional election of all men and an unconditional of some to a final salvation, on the other, is liable to the following objections: first, that the distinction has no foundation in Scripture, as the passages which have been cited prove; secondly, that it is out of harmony with the general doctrine of his school of theology, as expounded by such writers as Wesley and Watson; and thirdly, that he asserted both a conditional and an unconditional election to final salvation.
The view which is common between Fletcher and Raymond - that election is of individuals unto faith and holy obedience, is confronted by the fatal difficulty that it concedes the Calvinistic position which has always been resisted by Arminian theologians, namely, that God's decree includes the election of individuals unto faith and holy obedience as means to the attainment of everlasting life as the end. The general doctrine of Arminian writers is, that these are conditions upon which election takes place, and that individuals may or may not perform the conditions. If they do, they are elected unto everlasting life; if they do not, they are not so elected. But the Calvinist makes the performance of these conditions part of the electing decree. So far, therefore, as Fletcher and Raymond represent individuals as elected unto faith and holiness, they give up the question to their opponents. Consequently, I cannot in fairness attribute to Evangelical Arminianism views which, although asserted by Arminians, are incapable of logical adjustment to it as a system. It is evident that Dr. Raymond has, in his Systematic Theology, taken a new departure which seems to be his own. How far he is a representative of current opinions is an interesting question, but one which I have not the means of deciding. While I endeavor to show, that logically the Arminian scheme maintains an election of conditions upon which individuals may attain to everlasting life, rather than the election of individuals to everlasting life, that is quite a different thing from endeavoring to show - what is not logically true of it - that it holds an election of individuals to the use of the elected conditions.
5. The Origin of election - from eternity. This answers the question, When did God elect?
Jer. xxxi. 3: "Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee."
Matt. xxv. 34: "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world."
John vi. 37, x. 29, xvii. 2, 9: "All that the Father giveth me shall come to me." "My Father which gave them me." "That he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him." "I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou bast given me; for they are thine."
Eph. i. 4, 5, 11: "According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world. . . . . Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will. . . . Being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his will."
Eph. ii. 4, 5: "For his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us."
2 Tim. i. 9: "His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began."
Isa. ix. 6, with Isa. viii. 18 and Heb. ii. 13, 14: "His name shall be called . . . . The Everlasting Father." "Behold, I and the children whom the Lord hath given me." "Behold, I and the children which God hath given me. Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same."
These testimonies prove that election does not take place in time, but is from eternity.
By the extracts which have been already furnished from their writings it will be perceived, that Wesley, Watson, Ralston and Raymond contend that election takes place in time. It is not an eternal predestination. When men believe, they sometimes say, at others, when they are justified and sanctified, at others still, when they have persevered to the end, they are then elected; not before. But-
(1.) Their general doctrine is explicitly delivered, that election is conditioned upon the divine foresight of perseverance in faith and holy obedience to the end. A believer may, near the termination of his earthly course, totally and finally fall from grace and perish forever. In consistency with this doctrine, then, they must hold that election cannot take place in time; that it can only take place when time with all its contingencies has ceased with the believer and he has attained the end of his faith. It can only occur at or after the expiration of his last mortal breath, for up to that critical moment he may lose his religion and miss of heaven. There is here, therefore, a manifest contradiction. One position is, that election takes place in time; the other is, that it takes place after time has ceased: it occurs when the man believes, is justified and sanctified; it occurs when he has finished his course and has entered heaven! It would seem after all that they hold to election in eternity, but it is eternity a parte post, not eternity a parte ante!
(2.) If election occur in time, it must, at the time at which it occurs, fix the destiny of the believer subsequently to that time, that is, for eternity. Otherwise it is a changeable election, and that the Evangelical Arminian does not allow. If one is elected when he believes, etc., the election is then to eternal life or it means nothing. But if the believer may, as he does hold, fall from faith and holiness and finally perish, it follows that the election is unto eternal life and not unto eternal life at the same time. Here then is another instance of contradiction.
(3.) A distinction is drawn between a purpose to elect and actual election. The former is conceded to be eternal, the latter, it is contended, takes place in time. What is this, but the distinction between an eternal purpose and its temporal execution? God, for example, eternally purposed to create the world. Its actual creation occurred in time. The actual creation was the temporal execution of the eternal purpose to create. If, then, the distinction were admitted between an eternal purpose to elect and actual election, the latter would be but the temporal execution of the former. But, the execution in time of an eternal purpose must correspond with the purpose itself. As it was, so must be its temporal accomplishment. If the purpose was unconditional, so must be its execution; if conditional, the execution must correspond with it. One fails to see what is gained by this distinction, so urgently insisted upon by Evangelical Arminian theologians, even if their demand for an actual election were granted.
But the question inevitably arises, What is their actual election? Is it conversion? No, for conversion is one of its conditions; and a condition must be before that which is suspended upon it. Is it sanctification? No, for sanctification is also one of its conditions. Is it perseverance in holiness? No, for perseverance in holiness is equally one of its conditions. What, then, is it? If perseverance in faith and holiness to the end condition it, it follows that this actual election cannot precede the end. Actual election can only be the election of a man to be saved who is already saved, of one to get to heaven who has got there. If that consequence be refused, naught remains but to admit that the only election which is conceivable is God's eternal purpose of election. An election in time is rendered impossible by Arminian principles themselves.
(4.) Arminian writers make purpose and foreknowledge one and the same thing. God eternally purposes to elect in the sense of eternally foreknowing an actual election. But, in the first place, if, as has been shown, an actual election distinguished from a decree to elect be nothing, God's foreknowledge of an actual election would be his foreknowledge of nothing. In the second place, the very design of this identification of purpose and foreknowledge is to exclude divine determination from election, and reduce it to simple prescience. It must, therefore, follow that the everlasting salvation of a countless multitude of sinners is the result not of divine, but of human, determination. God, it is true, determines the existence of the means of salvation, but those who will be saved determine their employment. Heaven with its eternal felicity and glory is not decreed, it is only foreseen, by the Almighty Ruler of the universe. This cannot be admitted. The consequence refutes the doctrine.
6. The Love involved in election - a peculiar, free, inalienable, saving love of Complacency towards the elect. This answers the question, How does God regard the elect?
Ex. xxxiii. 19: "And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee: and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy."
Rom. ix. 13, 15, 16, 18: "As it is written, Jacob have I loved. . . . For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy. . . Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy."
Mal. i. 2, 3: "Was not Esau Jacob's brother? saith the Lord: yet I loved Jacob and I hated Esau."
Deut. vii. 7, 8: "The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people: but because the Lord loved you."
Deut. x. 15: "Only the Lord had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed."
Isa. xliii. 4 : "Since thou wast precious in my sight, thou hast been honorable, and I have loved thee: therefore will I give men for thee, and people for thy life."
Isa. lxiii. 9: "In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old."
Isa. lxiii. 16: "Doubtless thou art our Father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not: thou, O Lord, art our Father, our Redeemer; thy name is from everlasting."
Ps. lxxxix. 19, 20, 28, 30-35: "Then thou spakest in vision to thy holy one, and saidst, I have laid help upon one that is mighty; I have exalted one chosen out of the people. I have found David my servant; with my holy oil have I anointed him. . . . My mercy will I keep for him forevermore, and my covenant shall stand fast with him. . . . If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments; if they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments; then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes. Nevertheless my loving-kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail. My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips. Once have I sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David."
Ps. xciv. 18: "When I said, My foot slippeth; thy mercy, O Lord, held me up."
Isa. liv. 8, 10: "In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer. . . . For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee. "
Isa. xlix. 15: "Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee."
Mic. vii. 20: "Thou wilt perform the truth to Jacob, and the mercy to Abraham, which thou bast sworn unto our fathers from the days of old."
Jer. xxxi. 3: "The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee."
Zeph. iii. 17: "The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing."
John xvii. 23, 26: "I in them and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou bast sent me, and hast loved them as thou bast loved me . . . . And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it; that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them."
Rom. v. 5, 8, 9: "Hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. . . . God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him."
Rom. viii. 32, 33: "He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?"
Rom. viii. 38, 39: "For I am persuaded, 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."
Rom. ix. 13: "As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated."
Eph, ii. 4, 5: "But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. . . . That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus."
Tit. iii. 4-7: "But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost; which he shed on us abundantly, through Jesus Christ our Saviour; that being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life."
Heb. xiii. 5: "For he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee."
1 Jno. iii. 1: "Behold, what manner of love the Father bath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God."
1 Jno. iv. 9, 10, 19: "In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. . . . We love him because he first loved us."
2 Thess. ii. 16, 17: "Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God, even our Father, which hath loved us, and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts, and stablish you in every good word and work."
To some of these proof-texts it is objected, that they have exclusive reference to Israel as a community elected to national privileges. Waiving now the considerations which will hereafter be adduced in answer to this objection, it is enough to say that the passages cannot possibly be limited to the outward nation of Israel apart from the true, spiritual Israel who are in Scripture emphatically characterized as the seed of Abraham and Jacob. Take the powerful passage quoted from the thirty-first chapter of Jeremiah, as an example. The whole context in which it stands, and especially the great, evangelical promise which is connected with it, make it apparent that the electing love, which it proclaims, terminates not only on Israelitish and Jewish believers, but also on all God's true people, and is the fountain of spiritual and saving blessings: "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, which my covenant they brake, although I was a husband to them, saith the Lord: but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts, and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more."
The testimonies alleged from Scripture clearly reveal the nature of God's electing love. It is expressly declared to be eternal. It is peculiar: it is directed to the people of God. It is free, that is, sovereign and unconditioned upon any good quality or act in its objects. They are contemplated as in themselves condemned and polluted sinners. It is intense and inalienable: more so than that of a mother for the babe that sprung from her body and suckles her bosom. It is saving: it is the source of every benefit of redemption and the cause of preservation to everlasting life.
The fact that the passage in Titus declares that the kindness and love of God appeared in time can create no difficulty. That which was manifested in time must have eternally existed, for it is impossible to conceive that God began to love in time - that a divine attribute had a temporal origin.
Following the instructions of the Scriptures, we are constrained to admit that there are two distinct aspects of the divine love or goodness. One of these, in the form of benevolence, terminates on men indiscriminately, the just and the unjust, the evil and the good; and, when it is directed to them as ill-deserving and miserable, it assumes the special form of mercy. The other, the love of complacency, is a peculiar affection, supposing the existence in its sinful objects of a saving relation to Christ as Mediator, Federal Head and Redeemer. Now let it be supposed that the infinite benevolence of God, in the form of mercy contemplating the lost and wretched condition of man, into which he was conceived as having plunged himself by his sin and folly, suggested his salvation: "Deliver him from going down to the pit." That suggestion was checked by the demands of infinite justice, which could not be denied without a sacrifice of the divine glory: "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them." For, although the attributes of God are all infinite, and cohere in his essence in perfect harmony with each other, the exercise of one may be limited by another. The exercise of mercy towards the fallen angels was checked by wisdom and by justice. It pleased God, in the case of human sinners, by a sovereign act of his will, to open a way for the outgoing and exercise of his mercy in the salvation of a part of them, and to leave the way open for the exercise of his justice in the punishment of the remaining part. The Father, as the representative of the Godhead, "according to the good pleasure of his will," elected some of mankind to be redeemed. This, while it was a sovereign act of his will, involved the exercise of infinite love and mercy; and as the objects upon which the choice terminated were regarded simply as sinners, condemned and unholy, the love and mercy were free, mere love and mercy. "God commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us," and, of course, the unmerited love which so illustriously expressed itself on earth was eternal. Those thus designated became the Father's elect ones, his sheep, whose redemption he had sovereignly determined to effect. Appointing, in infinite wisdom and love, the eternal Son as their Mediator and Redeemer, the Father entered into covenant with him as Federal Head and Representative, and gave his elect sheep to him, that as their good Shepherd, he might, when incarnate, lay down his life for their redemption. "Thine they were," says the Saviour, "and thou gavest them me." The Son, on his part, freely accepted the momentous trust, and engaged to lay down his life for them, to lose none of them, to give every one of them everlasting life and raise him up at the last day. "I am the good Shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. . . . My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all." "I came down from heaven not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day." Thus conceived as in Christ the elect became the objects of a complacential love, measured only by the regard of the Father for his well-beloved Son. "Since thou wast precious in my sight, thou bast been honorable, and I have loved thee." "I," says the Lord Jesus, "have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them."
This love of complacency towards the elect is not to be confounded with God's love of benevolence towards all men. It includes the love of benevolence, but is inconceivably more. It differs from it in important respects. In the first place, it supposes a peculiar relation of the elect to God's only-begotten Son, and is, according to scriptural representations, analogous to the love the Father bears to him. In the second place, the gift of Christ which it specially makes to the elect, and in which it expresses its measure, is infinitely more costly and precious than that of sunshine, rain and other mere providential blessings which benevolence indiscriminately confers upon the general mass of men. In the third place, the elect, although in themselves unlovely, are conceived as in Christ intrinsically possessed of the graces of the Holy Spirit, which render them appropriate objects of complacential regard. It is this love, this peculiar, intense, unutterable love, which the Scriptures declare to be manifested towards the elect in the actual execution of God's eternal purpose of salvation.
It is manifested in the gift of his Son for their redemption: "He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?" Who these "all" are is to be collected from the next sentence: "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?" "Beloved, let us love one another. . . . In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only-begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another." "And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life; and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son hath not life."
It is manifested in their attraction to Christ. "No man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me draw him." "Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love; therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee."
It is manifested in their regeneration. "But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus; that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness towards us through Christ Jesus." "But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost."
It is manifested in their justification and covenant union to God in Christ. "God commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. Much more then being justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him." "After that the kindness and love of God toward man appeared. . . . that being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life." "And when I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live; yea, I said unto tlree when thou wast in thy blood, Live." Here was free, mere, eternal, electing love. "Now when I passed by thee and looked upon thee, behold thy time was the time of love; and I spread my skirt over thee and covered thy nakedness: yea, I sware unto thee, saith the Lord God, and thou becamest mine." Here was the manifestation of electing love.
It is manifested in their adoption. "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not because it knew him not."
It is manifested in their sanctification. "The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously and godly, in this present world; looking for that blessed hope, and the appearance of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works."
And it is manifested in their comfort and preservation to eternal glory. "Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee." "For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee. In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy oil thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer . . . For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee." "But we are bound to give thanks always to God 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. . . . Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God even our Father, which hath loved us, and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and stablish you in every good word and work."
In connection with this aspect of the subject of election, the Arminian doctrine is open to the charge of being entirely unscriptural.
First, it destroys the difference which, it has been incontestably shown by the explicit testimony of Scripture, exists between God's love of benevolence for mankind in general and his love of complacency for his elect people in particular. This is proved by the fact that it represents God as having furnished the very highest expression of his love to all men indiscriminately: he gave his Son to die for all. The point here urged is, not that the Arminian is unscriptural in holding this doctrine, though that is true, but that in maintaining it he reduces the intense, inexpressible, unchangeable affection which God from eternity entertained for his own people to a general regard for all sinners of the human race - his love for his sheep to a love for goats. If God gave his dear Son to die equally for all, he loved all with an equal love. The consequence is irresistible, but it is in the face of the plainest declarations of the divine Word.
The Arminian will, of course, reply, that there is no plainer declaration of that Word than that God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. To this the rejoinder is inevitable, that if his construction of that passage be correct, the Word of God would contradict itself. For it would be a contradiction, if the gift of Christ were affirmed at one and the same time to be and not to be the expression of a peculiar love of complacency. We are shut up to a choice between these contradictories, one of which must be true, the other false. The weight of testimony is overwhelmingly in favor of the first alternative, and by that a regard for evidence compels us to abide.
The same remarks will apply to other and less forcible passages, which are ordinarily pleaded in support of the love of God, and a consequent atonement, for every individual of the human race. They are all capable of being debated; but to dispute about the assertions of Scripture touching the eternal, peculiar and inalienable love of God for his chosen people, is not to inquire into their meaning but to deny their authority. More at present will not be said upon this particular aspect of the subject. A fuller discussion of it is reserved to a consideration of the objections to the Calvinistic doctrine which are derived from the moral attributes of God.
Secondly, the unscriptural character of the Arminian's denial of electing love is made apparent by his denial of the fruits which spring from it. The Scriptures represent it as a cause which produces very definite results. We have seen, by a direct reference to their testimony, that the drawing of the sinner to Christ, his regeneration and justification, adoption, sanctification and preservation to everlasting felicity, are attributed to it. These inestimable benefits the Arminian ascribes to the general love of God for mankind, but his system compels him to deny that they flow with certainty from it. They are contingent results. Why? Because that love does not of itself ensure their production: the will of the sinner is their real, efficient cause, and as that acts contingently, the results may or may not be effected. The love of God gives him the opportunity, furnishes him what is called sufficient grace, provides for him a ground of acceptance in the atoning merit of Christ; but he must improve the opportunity, he must use the grace, he must accept the offered atonement. He may not do any of these things; and consequently in innumerable instance; no saving results follow from the love of God to men. The mere statement of the doctrine is sufficient to evince its contrariety to scriptural truth. The fact is, that as the Arminian denies electing love, he is obliged to deny that it produces any fruit: no cause, no effect. The denial of the latter proves the unscriptural character of the denial of the former. If anything be clearly revealed in the Word of God it is that saving results are produced with certainty by the love of God for sinners: it is a saving love. If, therefore, in the case of some men those results are not produced, it follows irresistibly that the saving love of God does not terminate on all, and that, as it takes effect on some only, it is electing love.
Should the Arminian contend that he is not correctly represented, and that he admits a special love of God for his saints, the answer must be rendered, that whatever his view may be of that love, he does not regard it as saving. It is conceded that he holds the gift of Christ for the world to have been the fruit of love and mercy. But for what end did God send his Son into the world? He answers: to die for all men. His doctrine, however, is that the Son did not die to save all men. If he did, he failed to attain that end, for the Arminian allows that many are lost. For what, then, did Christ die? He replies: to make the salvation of all men possible. How possible? In this way, he says: if men believe in Christ and continue in faith to the end, they will be saved. The atonement secures for them that possibility. But on the supposition that some believe, become saints, and are especially dear to God, they may cease to be saints and perish forever. Whatever, then, may be, according to the Arminian view, the love of God towards his saints, it is a love which does not secure their salvation: it is not a saving love. It is not equal to the love which a mother cherishes for her child. She would save him if she could. This reputed divine love may be called a special love, but it is not the love for his saints which the Scriptures assign to God. The idea of it was not born of inspiration: God never claimed such love as his own.
Thirdly, the determination to save those who, God foresees, will believe and persevere in faith and holiness to the end - the Arminian election - is not the fruit of mere, free love: it is partly the suggestion of justice. As their salvation is suspended upon their faith and perseverance, it is due to them, upon their fulfilment of the condition, that they should receive the end. Justice recognizes this foreknown fulfilment of the condition precedent, and adjudges to them the salvation which God himself made to depend upon it. Mercy makes the condition possible, it is true; but justice demands the rewarding of its performance. This conclusion could only be avoided by making faith and perseverance in holy obedience the products of efficacious grace. But that would be the doctrine of Hypothetical Redemption, not of Arminianism. The advocate of the former scheme concurs with the Arminian in holding the universality of the atonement, but he differs from him in asserting the predestinated efficacy of grace. That the Arminian denies. In the last analysis, then, as Dr. Miller Raymond coolly but honestly puts it, "man determines the question of his salvation;" and if so, it is but right and just that God should acknowledge the fact. God appoints the condition: believe and persevere; but he cannot make the sinner believe and persevere. "Our human system," says Dr. Whedon,32 "is a system of free agents upon whose will and determination it depends whether they attain eternal bliss or eternal woe. . . . In the sinner's act of acceptance of God's saving grace we promptly deny any 'make-willing' on the part of God which excludes man's power of not-willing or refusing. God demands a free acceptance. He does not make a farce of our probation by first requiring our free-willing, and then imposing upon us a 'make-willing.' The free-willing and the 'make-willing' are incompatible." The sinner, then, must himself, by his own improvement of assisting grace, believe and persevere. Well, he does it. What then? Why, he has performed the condition, won the reward, and justice, assisted by grace, places the crown upon his head! It is perfectly plain that the Arminian doctrine does not refer the determination to save sinners to the mere love of God: it ascribes it in part to God's sense of justice. Whatever the Arminian's reason may say about this doctrine, it is certainly the poles apart from scriptural truth.
7. The Ground or Reason of election - positively, the mere good pleasure of God's sovereign will; negatively, nothing in the elect themselves. This answers the question, Why did God elect?
(1.) The ground or reason of election is, positively, the mere good pleasure of God's sovereign will.
Deut. vii. 7, 8: "The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people: but because the Lord loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the Lord brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt."
Deut. iv. 37: "And because he loved thy fathers, therefore he chose their seed after them, and brought thee out in his sight with his mighty power out of Egypt."
Dan. iv. 35: "He doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou?" - a confession wrung from even a heathen monarch.
Matt. xi. 25, 26: "At that time Jesus answered and said, 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."
Ex. xxxiii. 19: "And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee: and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will shew mercy to whom I will shew mercy."
Mal. i. 2, 3: "Was not Esau Jacob's brother? saith the Lord: yet I loved Jacob and I hated Esau."
Rom. ix. 11-16: "For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth; it was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid. For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy."
1 Cor. i. 21: "For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe."
Eph. i. 5, 9-11: "Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will. . . . Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: that in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth; even in him: in whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will."
Phil. ii. 13: "For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure."
The Scripture testimonies which have thus been collected clearly and powerfully prove, that the God, who, even according to Nebuchadnezzar's confession, doeth according to his will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, whose hand none can stay and to whom none can say, What doest thou? has decreed the salvation of some of the human race, according to his mere, sole, sovereign pleasure. The statements of this fact are express and unequivocal. Nothing but adherence to a system could lead one who reverences God's word to deny their force. The objects of the divine decree are declared to be predestinated unto the adoption of children and to an inheritance in Christ, according to the good pleasure of God's will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself, according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will. In one short passage the assertion is made again and again, with impressive reiteration, as if to preclude all shadow of doubt, that the ground of election is alone the sovereign pleasure of the divine will. There can be no question as to the objects of the decree: they are those who are adopted as the children of God in Christ, those who obtain an inheritance in Christ. Nor can there be any question as to the existence of the decree: it is termed a predestinating purpose. Nor can there be any question as to the seat of this predestinating decree: it is affirmed to be the will of God. Nor, finally, can there be any question as to its absoluteness: it is precisely described as purposed in himself, according to his good pleasure. There is no place for supposing any reference to an extrinsic ground, reason, or condition. The purpose, as to its origination and ground, is intrinsic to God, purely sovereign and absolutely unconditioned by anything ab extra. The objects upon whom it terminated were extraneous to God; but the purpose itself was as free as it was subjective to him. Every individual human being to whom it was directed might have been justly consigned with the revolted angels to hell.
The passage in Philippians discharges, in relation to this question, a twofold office. In the first place, it shows, positively, that the whole application of redemption springs from the good pleasure of God's will; and, in the second place, negatively, as with a devouring edge it cuts away the supposition that anything in the creature can condition the purpose of God to save. It declares that the willing and the doing - the whole of the obedience of the Christian mail - is determined by the will of God working according to his good pleasure. In few but pregnant words, a conclusive testimony is rendered to the efficacious grace of God as the expression and realization of the eternal purpose of his will.
Our blessed Lord and Saviour spoke very definitely in regard to this subject. After mentioning the sovereign distinction which God in his providence had made between the cities of Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum on the one hand, and Tyre, Sidon and Sodom on the other, in giving the gospel to the former and withholding it from the latter, he answers objections which might be rendered to this divine procedure and all others like it by saying, "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." He solemnly expresses his acquiescence in the divine sovereignty which refuses a saving knowledge of redemption to some and grants it to others. To say that the proud debar themselves from it is futile, for God could, if he so willed, in a moment overcome their pride, as he did in the case of Saul of Tarsus, a typical representative of the very class who were cavilling at the Saviour's doctrine and rejecting his offer of the gospel. Nor can the Arminian consistently urge this construction of the language of our Lord, since he admits that Tyre, Sidon and Sodom would have accepted the gospel had it been tendered to them, supported by miraculous proofs. Why, then, did God deny it to them? What answer can be given by the Arminian himself to this question, but that so it seemed good in God's sight? He admits, I say, that the cities specified would have repented if the gospel had been preached to them, for this is one of the passages which he adduces to support his doctrine of a scientia media - a conditional foreknowledge of God.33 He foreknew that if the gospel were furnished to those cities they would repent. Why then did God not furnish them the gospel? It is hard to see how one who denies the sovereignty of election, and affirms the indiscriminate love of God for all mankind, can answer that question.
It is objected that the proofs derived from the passages in Exodus, Deuteronomy, Malachi and the ninth chapter of Romans are irrelevant, because they refer not to the election of individuals to salvation, but of a nation to peculiar privileges. This question has long been discussed by commentators and theologians, but it has a fresh interest for every generation. Arguments in answer to the above-mentioned objection are here briefly presented.
First, the objection concedes the principle of a sovereign and unconditional election. Why, argues God with Israel, did I swear unto your fathers and bring them into covenant relation to me? Because, he answers, I loved them. Why did he love them? The reply is, that it was not because of any qualities he saw in them which distinguished them favorably from other peoples, but because such was his sovereign pleasure. If, therefore, it be admitted that God chose Israel from among the nations with whom they had been equally immersed in idolatry, and without any reference to pre-disposing conditions in them elevated them to a special relation to himself and the enjoyment of peculiar blessings, the principle of an unconditional election is clearly conceded. The objection to a specific application of the principle, namely, to individuals in regard to salvation, proceeds upon the acknowledgment of the principle itself. It is confessed that a nation was unconditionally elected to peculiar privileges.
Secondly, the election of a nation to peculiar privileges of a religious nature, involving a knowledge of redemption, was the election of individuals to those religious privileges, for they were the components of the nation. The election of a nation, considered abstractly and apart from the individuals forming it, would be unintelligible. The individuals constituting the nation were, by the election of the nation, brought into contact with these peculiar religious privileges. Those who were not connected with the nation elected were divinely excluded from contact with them. It follows that the principle of a sovereign, unconditional election was exhibited in relation to individuals. The individuals of one nation were discriminated from the individuals of another.
Thirdly, the individuals of the nation elected were brought into relation to the conditions of salvation - the only conditions upon which salvation could be attained. Their election to national privileges of a religious and redemptive character conditioned their attainment of eternal salvation. Here then was a sovereign, unconditional election of individuals to conditions without which their salvation would have been unattainable. The objector admits that this election rendered their salvation more probable, than it would otherwise have been; but he denies that it necessarily conditioned salvation, that without it salvation would have been impossible. This question will be argued at length when the objections to unconditional election from the moral attributes of God come to be examined. At present a few considerations drawn immediately from Scripture are submitted. They are conclusive upon the point.
In the first place, the great argument of Paul in Romans proves that no individual of the human race can be justified and saved except through faith in the vicarious merits of Christ. This cannot be successfully gainsaid.
In the second place, Paul, in the tenth chapter of the same epistle, declares that no individual of the race can exercise faith in Christ, except he has heard of him. Faith in Christ conditions salvation, and the knowledge of Christ conditions faith in him. "How shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard?"
In the third place, God's Word explicitly asserts that no man under heaven can be saved except through the name of Christ, that is, of course, through the knowledge of that saving name. "Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved."
In the fourth place, Paul, in the second chapter of Ephesians, closes the case by furnishing the concrete proof. The Ephesian Christians had been heathen, that is, they at one time did not know the gospel of Christ. Now the apostle tells them that at that time they were in a hopeless condition: their salvation would have been impossible had that state of ignorance continued. The argument is plain and overwhelming. "At that time ye were without Christ." Why? "Ye were aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise." Because they were not connected with the nation of Israel they did not know the gospel; and because they did not know the gospel they could not know Christ. Hence, they had "no hope and were without God in the world." Without connection with the visible church, they had no knowledge of the gospel; therefore they were without Christ, without God and without hope.
These arguments from Scripture are sufficient to prove, that the unconditional election of a nation to peculiar privileges, of a religious and redemptive character, is the unconditional election of the individuals composing it to conditions, upon which alone eternal salvation is attainable. Now it is manifest, that other nations were not excluded from access to the means of salvation because they were morally worse than the Israelites, and that the Israelites were not elected to the enjoyment of those means because they were morally better than other peoples. It was then by virtue of God's sovereign, unconditional election, that the nations rejected were left in an idolatrous and heathenish state in which they were not salvable, and that the Israelites were introduced into a state in which they possessed the means of salvation. If the operation of the principle of sovereignty in election went thus far, why should it not be admitted that it went farther - that it also manifested itself in producing actual salvation? Some of the Israelites themselves were not actually saved; some of them were. The presumption afforded by the analogy of the case would lie in favor of the unconditional election to salvation of such as were actually saved. All were, by reason of a sinful nature, equally indisposed to make a profitable use of the means of grace, to employ the conditions of salvation. None were more worthy than others of the grace which would enable and determine them to look through a sacrificial ritual and typical ordinances to the only true sacrifice for sin, and believe in him to salvation. The presumption, I say, is in favor of the conclusion that a divine election made the difference between the two classes - the unsaved and the saved. The principle of sovereign election would, in its application, have proceeded but a step farther. A long step! it will be said. Yes, but the Almighty God can take long steps. He treads upon the mountains and the stormy seas, and he can triumphantly march over all difficulties raised by sin and hell to the eternal salvation of the soul.
This powerful presumption is confirmed by all those testimonies of Scripture already quoted which unquestionably prove, that the proximate end of the election of individuals is everlasting life, and by all those yet to be cited which as unquestionably prove, that the conditions of final salvation are not the conditions of election - that faith and perseverance in holy obedience are themselves the fruits of election: that, indeed, they are parts of salvation begun on earth and completed in heaven.
Fourthly, let it be admitted that Jacob and Esau were the respective heads of different nations, and it cannot be denied that they were also individuals. The language of Scripture in regard to them cannot, without violence, be confined to them as national heads. It refers to them chiefly as persons in relation to the divine purpose. Meyer, whose commentaries are held in high repute for critical ability and exegetical fairness, and who certainly was not influenced by a partisan zeal for Calvinism, says: "Paul, however, has in view, as the entire context, vv. 10, 11, 13 evinces, in 'the elder and the younger' (the greater and the lesser) Esau and Jacob themselves, not their nations."34 He meets the difficulty urged against this interpretation from the declaration, that "the elder shall serve the younger," which, it is contended, was only fulfilled in the national subjection of the Edomites, the descendants of Esau, to the Israelites, the descendants of Jacob, in this way: "The fulfillment of the 'serving' is to be found in the theocratic subjection into which Esau was reduced through the loss of his birthright and of the paternal blessing, whereby the theocratic lordship passed to Jacob. But inasmuch as in Genesis the two brothers are set forth as representatives of the nations, and their persons and their destiny are not consequently excluded, - as, indeed, the relation indicated in the divine utterance took its beginning with the brothers themselves, by virtue of the preference of Jacob through the paternal blessing, - the apostle's apprehension of the passage, as he adapts it to his connection, has its ground and its warrant, especially in view of similar hermeueutic freedom in the use of Old Testament expressions."35 We would not tie ourselves to the opinions of commentators on the Bible, remembering the frailty which made possible the biting sarcasm of Werenfels:
"This is the Book where each his dogmas
seeks,
And this the Book where each his dogmas finds;"
but this impartial witness is true. His appeal to the immediate context is conclusive enough, and the appeal, along with it, to the whole drift of the argument in Romans, and the whole analogy of Scripture is absolutely decisive.
Let us for the nonce part these twins, and look at Jacob by himself. It is very certain that the Holy Ghost speaking through Paul declares him to have been, in some sense, elected. The Arminian objects to an unconditional election to eternal life. Now he must admit that Jacob's election, whatever may have been its end, was unconditional. The apostle expressly teaches that it was not because God regarded him as a doer of good that he elected him. He could not have so taught, if it were true that his election was conditioned upon the divine foresight of his good works. He might have employed as illustrative of his argument the instances of Isaac and Ishmael, the children of Abraham, the father of believers; but those of Jacob and Esau were evidently more to his purpose; for there was in themselves no possible ground of difference between these two brothers. They were not only the children of the same father, but, as was not the case with Isaac and Ishmael, the children of the same mother; and they were twins. What could have made the difference between their persons and their destinies but the mere unconditioned purpose of God? But it is needless further to press a point which can only be resisted by denying the truth of the inspired Word. The Arminian concedes it.
But he admits, as has been shown by a reference to representative theologians, the election of some individuals to eternal life. He must also, upon his principles, admit that Jacob was elected to eternal salvation. He was in life the exemplar of urgent and successful prayer, a prince that had power with God and prevailed, and in Hebrews he is said to have died by faith. Having believed in Christ, and done good works, and persevered in them to the end, he was, of course, elected to eternal life. Now why not put the two things together: the unconditional election of Jacob, which is conceded to be stated by Paul in Romans, and his election to eternal life, which is also granted? Why not admit the teaching of Scripture to be, that Jacob was unconditionally elected to eternal life? The only possible answer is, Because Paul in Romans speaks only of Jacob's election to temporal blessings. The point then to be proved is that Paul speaks of Jacob's election not only to temporal blessings, but also to salvation.
The first proof is, that the whole tenor and strain of the apostle's argument in Romans has chief reference to the justification and salvation of individual sinners. Consequently, to divert his discourse concerning election, which is a constituent element of that argument, into another direction, is to wrench it from its track.
The second proof is, that in the immediate context Paul treats of the promise made by God to Abraham's children, and he shows that Jacob was constituted an heir of that promise by divine election. To say that this illustrious promise guaranteed, exclusively or even chiefly, temporal blessings, is to eviscerate the Scriptures of their meaning. Paul's argument concerning the promise in Galatians as well as in Romans would be contradicted. The promise conveyed spiritual and saving blessings. To take any other view is to strip the Old Testament of its evangelical element and reduce the New Testament exposition of it to absurdity. Jacob, therefore, was elected to share in the promise of salvation; that is, as a promised salvation is not an earned salvation he was elected to salvation.
The third proof is, that the apostle expressly distinguishes between the natural and the spiritual seed of Abraham. It is only the latter, argues he, who are the children of God. In immediate connection with this he introduces the cases of Jacob and Esau as illustrative of that distinction. Both were the carnal descendants of Abraham, but only Jacob, of the two, was one of his spiritual children, and therefore one of the children of God. How was he constituted such? Not by natural descent, but by God's election of him irrespectively of his works. Jacob's election was therefore to adoption into God's family, and, as God never loses any of his adopted children, to eternal life.
The fourth proof is, that God's saints are explicitly said in Scripture to be elected unto faith, holy obedience and perseverance in the same to the end. Jacob was an eminent saint of God. In calling himself the God of Jacob, Deity himself pays a tribute to the exemplary sanctity of his servant. Jacob therefore was elected to faith, holiness and perseverance in them to the end - that is, he was elected to salvation. If this be not the election which Paul treats of in the ninth of Romans, the principal election of Jacob is left out of account, and the less is signalized.
These proofs establish the fact that the election of Jacob was not merely to temporal blessings, and that consequently it was an unconditional election, grounded in the sovereign will of God, to eternal salvation. What is the difficulty that opposes the admission of these proofs? It is two-fold:
In the first place, the freedom and sovereignty of the human will would be impugned. God, it is argued, having endowed the will with these prerogatives cannot, consistently with himself, determine it by his agency. To admit unconditional election is to admit this divine determination of the will. It will hereafter, in the progress of the discussion, be shown that unless unconditional election along with this admitted inference be received, one must hold the only other alternative, namely, that the human will, and the human will of the natural man, determines the question of salvation; which is unscriptural, impossible and absurd. If Jacob was not determined to salvation by God's grace, he determined himself to it; and if anything is certain, it is, that Paul never taught such a view.
In the second place, it is contended that if the sovereign, unconditional election of Jacob to salvation be admitted, one must also concede the sovereign, unconditional reprobation of Esau; but that, it is contended, cannot possibly be allowed. Here a distinction, which has been already stated, must be observed - between Jacob and Esau as both possessed of original sin, and lying together under condemnation as members of a fallen and corrupt race, on the one hand, and Jacob and Esau as the conscious doers of actual good or evil, on the other. Regarded as in the former condition, they were equally damnable. God might justly have left both to the doom which was assigned to Esau. But without regard to the conscious, special good works of Jacob, as conditions, he was sovereignly pleased to confer on him peculiar religious privileges and his saving grace; and without regard to the conscious, special bad works of Esau, as conditions, he was sovereignly pleased to deny him peculiar religious privileges and his saving grace. It is certain that the peculiar religious privileges were denied to Esau, but the denial to him of saving grace is the stumbling-block.
Now let it be noticed that God did not infuse a wicked disposition into Esau, as he infused a gracious disposition into Jacob. Finding Esau wicked, he sovereignly left him in that condition, and judicially condemned him to suffer its punishment. Finding Jacob, like his brother, wicked, he sovereignly lifted him out of that condition by his unmerited grace, and in Christ his representative and substitute delivered him from condemnation and destined him to glory.
Let it be noticed further, that God's exclusion of Esau from connection with the Theocracy, containing the visible Church of Christ with its ordinances, which is admitted, was equivalent to God's exclusion of him from his favor which is life and his dooming him to reprobacy. If it be said, that Esau's exclusion from the fellowship of God's people was in consequence of his sins, the apostle answers that it was not in consequence of his sins. Before he had done any evil he was hated of God. It will still be said: that is true; but while the purpose of exclusion was before Esau's actual sins, it was not before God's foreknowledge of them, and that foreknowledge conditioned the purpose: this must have been Paul's meaning. But, it must be replied, this could not have been Paul's meaning. He could not have intended to distinguish between Esau's actual evildoing and God's foreknowledge of it. He could not have meant to imply, that in some cases God forms a purpose to punish an evil-doer after he has done the evil, but that in this case of Esau he purposed, before he actually did evil, to punish him, because he foresaw that he would do the evil. Such a conception never was suggested by inspiration as that God ever postpones the formation of a purpose to punish sin until the sin has been committed. All his purposes are eternal. The only supposition possible is, that Paul meant to say that it was not because God foreknew that Esau would do evil that he purposed to reject him. This being the only possible supposition, the conclusion is that Paul meant to affirm that God's purpose as to Esau's rejection was grounded alone in his own sovereign pleasure.
God's decree to reject Esau was not, then, without his foreknowledge of Esau's guilty state as a sinner, but was not conditioned upon his foreknowledge of Esau's conscious, actual sins. So God's decree to save Jacob was not without his foreknowledge of Jacob's guilty state as a sinner, but was not conditioned upon his foreknowledge of Jacob's conscious, actual good works. If this statetnent of the case is not in accord with Paul's, nothing would remain but to adopt the rigid Supralapsarian view. The Arminian position cannot be harmonized with that of the inspired apostle.
It has thus been shown that the account of Jacob and Esau in the ninth chapter of Romans so far from invalidating, actually confirms, the proofs of the sovereignty and unconditionality of God's electing purpose. The subject of reprobation will meet further consideration in the sequel. Let us resume the thread of the main argument which goes to show that the passages cited, to prove that the ground or reason of election is the mere good pleasure of God's will, from Exodus, Deuteronomy, Malachi and Romans, do not refer only to a national election to peculiar privileges, but chiefly to an individual election to eternal life.
Fifthly, Paul in Romans and Galatians explicitly distinguishes between those whom, on the one hand, he designates as Israel according to the flesh, outward Jews, the natural descendants of Abraham, and those whom, on the other, he characterizes as Israel according to the Spirit, inward Jews, the true, spiritual children of Abraham and heirs of the promise. Both these classes had been elected to the enjoyment of peculiar privileges, but it is remarkable that he terms the latter "a remnant according to the election of grace." Here then is a palpable distinction between a national election to privileges and an individual election to salvation. Without it the apostle's language is unintelligible.
Sixthly, the consideration which is perhaps the most conclusive is, that these passages cannot be wrested from their place in the analogy of Scripture. They must be construed in harmony with such clear and powerful testimonies as that which has been adduced from the Epistle to the Ephesians. To pursue any other course is to mutilate the integrity of God's Word. What is gained by it on the part of those who admit an election of individuals to everlasting life, it is difficult to imagine.
Lastly, the objections which have nearly always been offered to Paul's doctrine in Romans have not been urged against an election to national privileges, but to an unconditional election of