Election
‘ Many are called, but few are chosen.’’ — Marvt. xxii. 14. “As many as were ordained to eternal life believed.” — Acrs xiii. 48,
My pear Frienp,
You know what a very prominent place in Scripture the doctrine of election holds. It meets us everywhere, both in the Old and New Testament. Whatever may be the meaning of the word, one cannot help feeling that the truth which it expresses must, in God’s sight, be a vitally important one.
But how can this be the case, if it mean no more than God’s choosing those that choose him? If it mean no more than God’s choosing those who he foresaw would believe of their own accord and by their own power, it is not worthy of the prominent place it holds in Scripture; nay, it is not worthy of a separate name, least of all of such a name as election. If there be any election at all in such a case, it is plainly not God’s election of man, but man’s election of God. So that the question comes to be simply this, Does election mean God’s choosing man, or man’s choosing God? It cannot mean both; it must either be the one or the other. Which of the two can any reasonable being suppose it to mean ?*
* As the right understanding of this word is of great importance, I think it well to note down a few passages, which will help to shed light upon the meaning of the word.
“The man’s rod, whom J shall choose, shall blossom.” — Num. xvii. 5.
“Thou shalt set him King over thee, whom the Lord thy God shall choose.’ — Deut. xvii. 15.
“Did I choose him out of all the tribes of Israel.”- — 1 Sam. ik, 28.
“The place which the Lord hath chosen, to put his name there.” — Deut. xii. 21.
“Them the Lord thy God hath chosen to minister unto him.”- — Deut. xxi. 5.
“Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel.” — 1 Kings xi. 32.
“The Lord chose me, before all the house of my father, to be king over Israel.” — 1 Chron. xxviii. 4.
“He refused the tabernacle of Joseph, and chose not the tribe of Ephraim, but chose the tribe of Judah, the mount Zion that he loved.”’ — Ps, lxxviii. 67, 68.
“Many are called, but few are chosen. — Matt. xx. 16.
“For his elect’s sake, whom he hath chosen.” — — Mark xiii. 20.
“He is a chosen vessel unto me.” — Acts ix. 15.
“I know whom I have chosen.” — John xiii. 18.
“Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you.” — John xv. 16.
“According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world.”’ — Eph. i. 4.
“God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation.” — 2 Thess. ii. 13.
These are but a few out of the many passages that might have been chosen. But they are quite enough to show the meaning of the word. No one who wishes to take words plainly as he finds them, can find any difficulty in understanding what choosing or election means, after reading such passages as these.
I would just ask, What does the word mean in common speech? When we speak of the election of a member of parliament, does that mean that the member first chose himself, and then the people chose him, because he had chosen himself? Or when we speak of the election of a minister, do we mean that he first chose himself, and then the people chose him, because he had chosen himself? No such theory of election would be listened to for a moment in such matters. Hlection has but one meaning there. It means the people’s choosing their representative by a distinct act of their own will, or the congregation choosing their minister by an equally distinct act of their own will. And shall man have his will, and shall not God have his? Shall man have his choice, and shall not God have his?
But let us take an instance from the Bible. What does God’s choosing of Abraham mean? He is a specimen of a sinner saved by grace; a sinner called out of the world by God. Well, how did this choosing take place? Did not God think of him long before he ever thought of God? Did not God choose him long before he ever thought of choosing God? Were there not thousands more in Chaldea that God might have chosen, and called, and saved, had he pleased? Yet he chose Abraham alone. And what does the Bible call this procedure on the part of God? It calls it election. ‘*Thou art the Lord, the God who didst choose Abraham, and broughtest him forth out of Ur of the Chaldees.” — Nehem. ix. 7. Does any one say, O, but God chose Abraham, because he foresaw that Abraham would choose him. I answer, the case is precisely the reverse of this. He chose Abraham just because he saw that otherwise Abraham would not choose him. It was God’s foreseeing that Abraham would ot choose him, that made election necessary. And so it is with every sinner. So it is with us. God chooses us, not because he foresees that we would choose him, or that we would believe, but for the very opposite reason. He chooses us just because he foresees that we would neither choose him nor believe of ourselves at all. Election proceeds not upon foreseen faith in us, but upon foreseen unbelief.
The truth is, that election has no meaning, if it be not the expression of God’s will in reference to particular persons and things, — saying to each, thus and thus shalt thou be, not because thou choosest to be so, but because e I, the infinite Jehovah, see fit that thou shouldest be so. ‘I’o one creature he says, thou shalt be an angel, to another thou shalt be a man. To one order of beings, thou shalt dwell in heaven, to another, thou shalt dwell on earth. To one man, thou shalt be born in Judea, where my name is named and my temple stands; to another, thou shalt be born in Egypt, or Babylon, where utter darkness reigns. ‘J’o one he says, thou shalt be born in Britain, and hear the glad tidings; to another, thou shalt be born in Africa, where no gospel has ever come. ‘Thus he expresses his will, and who can resist it? Who can find fault, or say to him, what doest thou? Men may object at being placed thus entirely at the disposal of God, but the apostle’s answer to such is, ‘‘ Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God?” Election, then, is the distinct forthputting of God’s sovereign will, for the purpose of bringing a thing to pass, which, but for the explicit forthgoing of that will, would not have come to pass.
But does this not lead to the conclusion that sin is the direct result of God’s decree? Does it not teach us that it is God and not man that produces sin? No. God does not foreordain sin. But he decrees to allow man to sin. God is holy, and hates sin. He does not lead men into it; neither does he decree to lead men into it. But he decrees that, for infinitely wise ends, the creature should be permitted to fall, and sin be perpetuated.
Men argue, that if we contend for God’s fore-ordination at all, we must hold that he fore-ordains everything in the same way. ‘They try to reduce the question to an absurdity, by affirming, that if God pre-determine to do the good, he must also predetermine to do the evil; that if he decrees that one man shall be a saint, he must also decree that another man shall be a sinner. ‘To this I would reply as follows, in addition to what I have already observed in another place:
1. God forces no man to sin, either by what he decrees or what he does, either by commanding or constraining or alluring.
2. It is absurd to say, that if we hold that God is the author of the good, he must therefore be the author of the evil; that if he, from eternity, purposed to create what is good in man, he must therefore have purposed to create what is evil. It is absurd to say, that if I hold that it is God who sets my will right, I must hold that it was God who set it wrong’.
3. We know that there is such a thing asa particular providence which numbers the very hairs of our head, whose eye marks even the fall of a sparrow. But must we therefore maintain that this special providence is the source of all that is evil as well as all that is good? Not a sparrow falleth without our Father, it is said. Must we then hold that God caused the death of the sparrow? Not a man dies without God. Must we therefore maintain that God slew him? God fixed the time of Christ’s death beforehand, with all the circumstances and persons connected with it. Perhaps the modern opposers of predestination will not admit that Christ’s death was fixed by God from all eternity; but they will at least grant that it must have been fixed from the era of Daniel, who predicted the year. If God then fore-ordained the death of Christ, did he fore-ordain the sin, and compel men to commit it? No. He fore-ordained the event, and he fore-ordained to allow wicked men to perpetrate it. But he led no one into the sin; nor does he condemn it the less. This one illustration is enough to settle the whole matter. Here is an event acknowledged by all to be fore-ordained — the death of Christ. Did this fore-ordination make God to commit the sin, or render the murderers less guilty? No. Yet our opponents, according to their theory, must hold either that Christ’s death was not fore-ordained of God at all, or else that God, and not man, is chargeable with the sin of his crucifixion. According to them, Herod and Pilate will be unjustly condemned, for doing only what God had decreed should be done.
4. God frequently gave predictions of evil long before the time. Of course, then, if evil be predicted regarding either nations or individuals, it must-be fixed and sure. He predicted the curse on Canaan and his descendants. But does that prove that he delighted in the curse, or that he was the author of it, or that those who were the instruments of inflicting it, and so fulfilling the prophecy, were guiltless?
5. When we say that God fixes beforehand the time and circumstances of a person’s birth and conversion and death, — the place and the condition which he is to oceupy, our opponents tell us that we might as well say that it is God’s decree that makes us sinners. When we say, God decreed that Gabriel should be kept from falling, and remain an angel forever, they tell us that this is just to say that God resolved that Lucifer should be a devil, and when the time came, he made him one. According to these strange inferences, God is not to be allowed to allocate heaven to angels, and earth to man as his seat; he is not to be allowed to “set the bounds of our habitations,” so that one man shall be born in England and another in Africa. He is not to be allowed to appoint the time of our birth, or our conversion, or our death; nor is he to be permitted to fix our country, or our habitation, or our circumstances; because if he is allowed to fix these things, he must fix all the rest, — the destinies of eternity as well as the affairs of time.
6. Even our opponents admit that there are some events decreed beforehand, such as the birth and the death of Christ, the judgment-day, &c. If, then, they admit that he has decreed a single event, they are in precisely the same difficulty in which they seek to fix us. If one event is decreed, why not all? Who is to draw the line and say, these are decreed, but those are not? God’s will has already fixed one or two, and is man’s will, or chance, to settle ail the rest?
In farther explanation of this point, let me quote a few paragraphs from a tract which I published some years ago. It was written before the ‘‘new light” dawned; and the present controversies have only tended to deepen the sense I then had of the importance of the truth contained in it.*
I know that the sinner must have a wed, in the matter, too. It is an absurdity to speak of a sinner loving, believing, &c., against his will, or by compulsion. The sinner must doubtless wild. He must will to refuse, and he must will to receive Christ. He must will to take the broad way, and he must will to take the narrow way. His will is essential to all these movements of his soul. But in what state do we find his will at present? We find it wholly set against the truth. Every will, since the fall, is wholly opposed to God and his word. Man needs no foreign influence, no external power, to make him reject the truth. That he does by nature. He hates it with his whole heart. When a sinner then comes to receive the truth, how is this accomplished? Does he renew himself? Does he change the enmity of his will by an unaided act of his will? Does he of himself bend back his own will into the opposite direction? Does he, by a word of his own power, cause the current
* See Note at the end of the chapter.
that had been flowing down the hill to change its course and flow upward? Does his own will originate the change in itself, and carry that change into effect? Impossible. The current would have flowed forever downward had it not been arrested in its course by something stronger than itself. The sinner’s will would have remained forever in depravity and bondage, had not another will, mightier far than itself, come into contact with it, and altered both its nature and its course, working in the sinner ‘ both to will and to do.” Was the sinner willing before this other will met his? No. Was he willing after? Yes. Then, is it not plain that it was God’s will, meeting and changing his, that made the difference? God’s will was first. It was God’s will that began the work, and made the sinner willing. He never would have willed had not God made him willing. ‘Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power.” It is the power of Jehovah applied to us that makes us willing. ‘Till that is applied, we are unwilling. It is his hand, operating directly upon the soul, that changes its nature and its bent. Were it not for that, our unwillingness would never be removed. No outward means or motives would be sufficient to effect the change; Y foal for all these means and motives are rejected by the sinner; nor does he become willing even to allow the approach or application of these means and motives till God makes him willing. To speak of his being changed by that which he rejects is as absurd as to speak of a man’s being healed by a medicine which he persists in refusing. ‘Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?”
Are all, then, willing? Does not the depraved will remain in most, while the new will appears in few? What makes the difference? God’s choice. ‘Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight.” ‘ Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor?”’* ‘Except the Lord oF Hosts HAD LEFT unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah.”t
Does God then hinder sinners from believing and willing? No, — by no means. He hinders none. ‘They are their own hindrance, ‘Ye will not come to me that ye might have life”? Not one soul would be saved if left to their own will. But, in his infinite mercy,
* Rom, ix, 21, + Isa. i. 9,
God does not leave them to their own wills. He puts forth his mighty power on some to make them willing. Were it not for this, all would be lost, for all would reject the Saviour. But is not this unjust? Is God dealing fairly with his creatures in making some willing, and leaving the rest to their unwillingness? What! Are we to prohibit God from saving any, unless he saves all? Are we to accuse him of injustice, because he leaves some to reap the fruits of their unbelief, and delivers others from them? Is God unjust in saving whom he will, when all were lost? Some are given to accusing us of making God guilty of partiality. As if they were singular in their zeal for God’s honor, they exclaim, ‘We cannot bear a partial God!” Partiality means of course injustice; it means also, that the sinner has a right to favor from God. ‘They must show, then, that for God to save some when all were lost is wnjust. They must show that all sinners had a right to his favor, for if none had any right, there can be ho partiality. But if this theory be true, then God was partial in not providing a Saviour for angels. He was partial in choosing Israel, and not choosing Babylon, or Egypt, as the nation to whom he made himself known. He was partial in sending prophets to Israel, and not to Tyre and Sidon. He was partial in doing his mighty works only in the land of Judea. And Jesus was partial in commanding his disciples not to go to either Gentiles or Samaritans. In short, if sovereignty be partiality, then the Bible is full of it. And it would be just as well for these men to say at once what their theory implies, — that God is not at liberty to act as he pleases, but only as man may dictate!
But why does God save some, and not all? Because such is “‘the good pleasure of his will.” He has infinitely wise reasons for this, though we understand them not. Might we not with equal propriety ask, Why did he keep some angels from falling? and why did he allow others to fall? Or, may we not ask, Why did he not think of saving angels, why think of men alone? Is Jehovah not at liberty to do what he will with his own? Is he not at liberty to create as many worlds and as many beings as he pleases? And when these are ruined, is he not at liberty to redeem as many or as few as he pleases?
The real question in all this is just, “Are all men so depraved that they will not be saved unless God puts forth his almighty power?”
If so, then it is plain that God must put forth his power to save every one that is saved; and surely he is at liberty to choose whom he 1s to save. If indeed men are not totally depraved, then there is no need for the interposition of God’s hand, either in choosing or in saving. But admit man’s total ruin and depravity, and you must admit the direct forth-putting of the arm of Jehovah. And hence it is that many in our day are beginning to deny man’s total depravity of nature. They are smoothing down the expressions referring to it in Scripture, and claiming for man as much remaining power and goodness as will enable him in part to save himself, and do without the interposition of the hand of God.
Oh, but it is said, we do not deny election. We merely maintain that God elected those who he foresaw would believe.* I answer,
* The following remarks of Calvin will show, that in his day none but “Papist theologians” held the doctrine, that God elects men because he foresees they will believe.
“The Papist theologians have a distinction current among themselves, that God does not elect men according to works which are in them, but that he chooses those who he foresees will be believers. And therein they contradict what we have already alleged from St. Paul, for he says that we are chosen and elected in him, ‘that we might be holy and without blame.” Paul must needs have spoken otherwise, if God elected us having foreseen that we should be holy. But he
has not used such language: he says, ‘he hath elected us that we might be holy.” He infers, therefore, that the latter this is a total denial of election; and it is either dishonesty or ignorance to call this by such a name. God elected those who he foresaw would believe! And who were they? None, — absolutely none. He foresaw that none would believe, not one. And because he foresaw this, he elected some to believe. Otherwise not one would ever have believed at all.
With regard to the foreseeing who would believe, I have some difficulties to state. According to the Arminian theory, I may believe to-day and disbelieve to-morrow, according to my own will. I may thus go on believing and disbelieving alternately till the day of my death. God then one day foresees that I will believe, and he decrees to save me. But the next day he foresees me not believing, and he decrees that I should perish. How in such a case is the matter to be finally settled? Is it according to the state in which God foresees the sinner will be just at the last moment of his life? Or when? Let our opponents solve this difficulty if they are able.
(faith) depends upon the former (election.) Those who think otherwise, know not what man and human nature is.” Such is the testimony of Calvin against the Papist theologians of his day. Since that time many have joined the ranks of these theologians, and glory in their heresies.
Oh, but some profane objector says, ‘* Does God make men to be damned?”* Let me in few words answer the miserable atheism of such an objection; and I do it not out of regard for the pride of the objector, but for the sake of those who may be perplexed by this poor catch of an argument which is so freely and flippantly bandied about, — an argument which befits a scoffer only, — an argument whose father is the father of lies. It is somewhat remarkable that this is precisely the argument of Socinians, Universalists, and Deists, against the doctrine of future punishments, and against the existence of such a place as hell. If you speak of hell or everlasting fire to such, the answer is, ‘‘ Did God make men to damn them?” And however abominable and unscriptural their notion is, it is at least consistent with their own theory. Making God to be all love and nothing else, they think it inconsistent with his love that he should allow such a place as hell in the universe. They be-
* Were it not that I have heard these words used, and know that the expression is a current one among a certain class, [would not have mentioned it. Its flippancy is revolting; its downright blasphemy still more so. It is the devil’s original suggestion translated into modern language, “Ye shall not surely die, 7. e., God would not make yoa to damn you.” Thus men, in these last days, are “foaming out their own shame.”
lieve in no hell, and ask scornfully, “* Did God make men to damn them?”’*
But let me answer the question, however profane it may be. Ged did mot make men to damn them. He did not make the angels ‘who kept not their first estate,” to damn them. He did mot make Lucifer for the purpose of casting him out of heaven. He did not make Adam for the purpose of driving him out of Paradise. He did not make Judas for the purpose of sending him to his own place. God made man, — every man, and everything
* The resemblance between the arguments of the new divines and those of Deists, &c., is by no Means so narrow or casual as some may be disposed to think. I believe that some of the former have already carried out their principles, and maintain that there is no hell but what man creates for himself; that there is no material fire kindled by God, and no material sufferings inflicted by God; that man’s conscience is his only tormentor — his own hell; that as God does nothing directly to man in saving him, so he inflicts nothing directly upon him as a punishment, but leaves him to be his own avenger. This, of course, is the consistent termination of their theory, — the natural development of their central principle, — that God does not interfere directly with the soul of man. How far this opinion prevails, I do not know; but it was maintained by one of them to myself. It is some years since one of the most noted Congregational ministers in London made the following avowal: “I do not believe in material fire in hell... it is quite enough to have this fire, the natural effects of sin in a moral nature, ke.” Rev. T. Binney, sermon in the Penny Pulpit, May 26, 1889. Another of that body has but a few months ago sent forth an octavo volume to prove that there is no such thing as eyeee pe punishments at all! Christ our Life, by Rey. E
nite, to ctoriry Him. This every creature, man and angel, must do, either actively or passively, either willingly or unwillingly, — actively and willingly in heaven, or passively and unwillingly in hell. This is God’s purpose; and it shall stand. God may have many other ends in creation; but this is the chief one, the ultimate one, — the one which is above all the rest, and to which all the rest are subordinate.
In this sense then plainly, God did not make men either to destroy or to save them. He made them for his own glory. If the question is asked, Did God make the devil and his angels only to damn them? I answer, Hie made them for his own glory. They are lost forever; but does that prove that he made them only to destroy them? He kept their companions from falling, and hence they are called the ‘elect angels,” — while he did not keep them. He could have kept them all by his power, yet he did not. But does this prove that he made them to destroy them? They fell, and were in a moment consigned to everlasting chains; he made no effort to save them — he sent no redemption to them. But does this prove that He made them only to destroy them? If ever such an accusation could be preferred against God, it must be in the case of angels, to whom no salvation was sent. It cannot be said of man, to whom a Saviour has come.
No, but it is said, you believe in election; and it is this that makes us put the question. If there be no election, then God has not made man to destroy him. On this let me make one or two remarks.
1. This is absurd, unless it can be proved that election is God’s plan for hindering men from getting to heaven, and for forcing them against their will down to death. But God hinders no man from being saved, neither does he compel any man to be lost, either by what he decrees or what he does. How then does election prove that he made men to destroy them?
2. Whatever is right for God to do, it 1s right for him to decree. If God’s casting sinners into hell be not wrong or unjust, then his purposing to do so from all eternity cannot be wrong or unjust. So that you must either deny that there is a hell, or admit God’s right to predetermine who are to dwell there forever. There is no middle way between Calvinism and Universalism.
3. If there be no election, then everything must be left to chance, or to man’s own will.
Hither God must settle everything great and small; or man must settle everything; or chance must settle everything. We are told, that for God to settle everything is an intolerable hardship, and is just ‘creating men in order to damn them.” Now we maintain, that for God to settle everything is the only right, as well as the only blessed condition in which our world can be. But let us ask, what better would it make matters were God not to settle everything beforehand? This appears to us unspeakably worse. For an infinitely wise, holy, gracious Being to arrange everything according to his own wisdom, holiness, and grace, appears to us the very perfection of things. For him not to do so, but to leave all things either to chance, or to the will of foolish, unholy, wicked beings, seems to us the very height of cruelty and folly. How cruel to leave a multitude of sinful, foolish, blind, perverse creatures to do whatever they please; so that by means of their wills this world is moving on without a specific plan for its motions, or to a certain end in which all its disorder is to issue ; — so that not one, not even God, can tell what is to be the result of all this confusion, and sin, and darkness, or whether it is ever to come to a termination at all, for life or for death to man, for glory or for shame to God! Yet we are told, that unless we admit of this infinite cruelty and hardship, we are making God a tyrant, who has created men to damn them! Unless we admit of a universe without an eternal plan to which all its motions are subject and subservient, a world of blind tumult and unmitigated chaos; a world where the only directly moving or energizing power is a sinful will, or rather a multitude of erring struggling wills; a world regarding which nothing is fixed as to who shall be born, and who shall die, as to who shall get the gospel, and who shall not, who shall be saved, or who shall be lost, or whether any shall be saved or any lost; unless we admit all this, we are told that we are making man a mere piece of inert irresponsible clay, and God the mere oppressor, not the loving Father of the creatures which he has made!
With these remarks I leave this point; and in doing so I would merely call your attention to one or two passages of Scripture, which it would be well for those to ponder who put such a question as that to which I have been adverting. ‘‘’The Lord hath made all things for himself; yea, even the wicked for the day of evil,” Prov. xvi. 4. ‘As many as were ordained to eternal life believed,” Acts xiii. 48, “The Scripture saith unto Pharaoh, even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might show my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth ... what if God, willing to show his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction,’ Rom. ix. 17, 22.
Texts like these are not to be explained away or overlooked. ‘They are part of God’s holy word, just as much as ‘‘God is love.” And if one class of texts is to be twisted or turned away from, why not another? Let us fearlessly look both in the face; and let us believe them both, whatever difficulty we may find in reconciling them. Our first duty is to believe, not to reconcile. ‘There are many things which in this life we shall not be able to reconcile; but there is nothing in the Bible which we need to shrink from believing. Notwithstanding all that I have said regarding election, I believe most firmly that ‘“God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked.” I believe that ‘‘ God so loved the worup that he gave his only begotten Son.” I believe that God is in earnestness and honesty making
g* proposals of friendship to sinners, and beseeching all to be reconciled to him. I believe that the invitations of the Gospel are to atu without exception. Yet, while I believe all this, I believe in election too. ‘‘ Many are called, but few are chosen.” If I am asked, How can you reconcile these things? I answer, I am not careful to reconcile them. I am satisfied that God has told me that doth are true. Therefore I believe them both. The day is coming when he will make all things plain. ‘‘ He that believeth doth not make haste.” J would not fret myself, nor be impatient at the difficulty. He will solve it in his own time and way. Who am I that I should say to God, ‘‘I cannot believe both of these doctrines, for, to my mind, they are inconsistent with each other.” Is my inability to comprehend their consistency a reason for my rejecting either the one or the other? In that case the infidel alone is consistent, for he rejects both. — I am yours, Xe.
THUS SAITH THE LORD:
“The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because you were more in number than any people, for ye were the fewest of all people, but because the Lord loved you.” — Deut. vii. 7.
“Was not Esau Jacob’s brother? saith the Lord, yet I loved Jacob and I hated Esau.” — — Mal i. 2.
“J 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.” — Matt. xi. 25.
“It is given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.” — Matt. xiii. 11.
“To sit on my right hand, or on my left, is not mine to give, save to them for whom it is prepared of my Father.” — Matt. xx. 23.
“Many are called, but few are chosen.” — -Matt. xxii. 14.
“Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit?’ — John xy. 16.
“According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world.” — Eph. i. 4.
“When it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me.” — — Gal. i. 15.
“All that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world.” — Rey. xvii. 8.
NOTES.
Election means choice, and to elect means to choose. The sovereign right of choosing belongs to God alone. Hence He said himself to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy.” (Rom. ix. 15.) His will is the law of the universe. We are the clay and he is the potter. (Is. lxiv. 8.) All things take place according to “the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God.” (Acts ii. 23.) He has made his choice or election from all eternity. (Eph. i. 4.) Everything in this world happens according to God’s eternal arrangements. Nothing takes place except what God causes to be, or permits to be ; — and whatever happens in time, is decreed from eternity. (Is. xlvi. 10.) Even the wicked deed of those who crucified the Lord of glory is said by the Apostle to be determined before by the hand and counsel of God. (Acts iv. 27, 28; also ii. 28.)
All that God does, he arranges beforehand in his eternal counsels with infinite wisdom. He does not leave anything to chance, or to the direction of beings less perfect in wisdom than himself. If he were to do so, everything would
o wrong. And what he intends to do is not left undetermined till the moment, or the day, or the year, before doing it, for then he would be a changeable being like man; but it is settled from all eternity. Hence it is said, “Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world.” Acts xv.18. Thus God decreed from all eternity to make the world, and when his appointed time came, he made it. So God decreed from all eternity to create man, and when the fixed time came, he was created. It was not Adam who chose to be made; but it was God who chose to make Adam.
Now, what is true of the making of man, is far more true of the saving of man, Adam was made, not because he chose to be made, but because God chose to make him; and Adam was saved, not because he chose to be saved, but because God chose to save him. Adam’s salvation depended wholly upon God’s having chosen him to salvation, that is, upon God’s having elected him. Had God not chosen him, he never would have chosen God, and so would never have been saved. So it was with Cain and Abel. Both were equally lost by nature, yet Abel was saved, and Cain was not. Why was Abel saved? It was not because he chose God any more than his brother Cain, but because God chose him. Therefore it is written, “He hath mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.” (Rom, ix. 18.) What is true of Abel is true of all that ever have been, or ever shall be saved.
What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid!” (Rom. ix. 14.) God cannot be unrighteous in saving whom He pleases, or in passing by whom He pleases. Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor? (Rom. ix. 21.) Shall worms of the dust say, What doest thou? His decreeing to’save man, did not make it unjust or cruel to pass by the angels. It could not be so unless they had deserved to be saved, which they did not. He decreed to save none of the angels, but he decreed to save some from among men. He needed not have saved any. He might have left them all to perish just as he left the angels. But he determined to save some. He did not determine to save all, or all would have been saved, just as all the angels were kept from falling whom he decreed to keep. It would have been infinite love to have saved one single soul; but it was far greater love to save so many. And then how wonderfully was this love shown forth in determining to do so from all eternity! O what unfathomable love is displayed in God’s eternal decree of electing love! To be thinking of us from all eternity! To leave nothing to chance, but to fix everything beforehand! To leave nothing to our own wretched choice, but to arrange everything from all eternity according to his own glorious choice, his infinitely perfect and unerring plans! Oh, what & universe is this, where nothing, not even the falling of a sparrow, is left to anything short of infinitely perfect wisdom, infinitely pure and perfect love! Oh, if there were no eternal and unchangeable decree of the God only wise, ordering everything aright, what a mass of unutterable confusion would this world be! How unutterably consoling to think that everything that occurs is ordered by the eternal will and wisdom of the blessed God!
By nature man chooses nothing but sin. No man would choose God, or ever think of God, if God did not first choose him. If men, then, were left to their own choice, all would be lost. If there were no decree of God, no man could be saved. What an awful doctrine is that of those who say there is no eternal decree! To take away God’s electing apace, is to take away a poor sinner’s only hope of salvation.
must be plain then to all, that God’s decree does not hinder any man from being saved. Those that are lost, are lost not because God wanted them to perish, but because they would not be saved. They would have been lost even hud there been no decree, because they were sinners. God’s decree did not make them sinners; it did not force them to be lost. It fownd them sinners, and it left them so; it found them lost, and it left them so. It did nothing more. It did not compel them to sin; it did not drive them to ruin. No, It simply passed them by. And was the sovereign God not entitled to do this?
Man could not create himself, and far less can he save himself. When God made him, he brought him out of nothing; when God saves him, he brings him out of a state far lower and worse than nothing. If in the one case, then, everything depended upon God’s will and decree, much more in the other. There can be no injustice here. Had God pleased, He might have saved the whole world. But He did not; and thousands are now in hell, and shall be to all eternity. Who will say that God is unjust, because He has left them to perish forever, while he has saved others as vile as they? If there be any cruelty at all in the matter, it must be in his allowing any to perish when he might have saved all. The opposers of election say, there cannot be such a thing as a decree fixing everything, or God would not be sincere in saying that he willeth all men to be saved. But they might far more plausibly argue, that God cannot be almighty, for he says he wills all to be saved, and yet does not save all.
If there be any injustice in the case, it must be, not in decreeing the thing, but in doing it. And yet the thing is done! Whether decreed or not, the thing is done! To remove the decree will not extinguish the flames of wrath, Hell is peopled already with millions of immortal souls, doomed to fiery wrath; while heaven is filled with millions of ransomed sinners, as vile, yea, perhaps viler far than they! What has made the difference? Man’s will or God’s ! — man’s choice or God’s? Those that deny God’s electing love may say, “Man’s will;” but they who own a sovereign God, will say at once, “God’s will, not man’s.” Yes! God’s eternal will; for Jehovah changes not, but his plays and purposes are, like himself, from everlasting. “Who hath made us to differ?” is the wondering exclamation of earth. “Who hath made us to differ?” is the rapturous song of heaven!
Even Mr. Thomas Erskine, in his work on Universal Pardon, is very decided upon the point of God’s will entering into everything, great and small, that takes place on the earth. He speaks on this wise. “The laws of nature are the continual actings of God. There is no power in the universe but his, and where his power is, there is he. He made the clay, and sustains it with all its qualities, and in whatever form it may be; and the cessation of his will that it should exist, would be the cessation of its existence. The uninterrupted actings of that will are the laws of nature, and in every one of these actings is the entire Godhead. The course of nature, the elements, the order of events, the existence and movements of all matter, are the direct actings of God. And are not the existence and movement of mind, too, his actings? Surely it is so, and it must be so; but yet I feel that my will works contrary to his! My will is the sustained creature of his will from moment to moment, incapable of a single act without power communicated from him, and yet I am conscious that it works contrary to him, and is morally responsible for so doing. This is too wonderful for me. I cannot attain unto it. With what feelings ought [ to regard him to whose infinite mind my individual existence, with every particular of my history, through the future eternity, has been from all eternity a distinct and familiar idea ....I am sure that I have never formed a thought, nor uttered a word, nor done a deed, to which he has not been most intimately present, and in which he has not been himself the acting power, enabling me to speak, and think, and do. And here is a great marvel. I am conscious that these thoughts, and words, and deeds, have been full of sin, yet my conscience acquits him, and lays the undivided blame upon myself.”’ — On the Unconditional Freeness of the Gospel, pp. 81-83. Another writer of the same school, Mr. Scott of Woolwich, brings out the same truth with considerable power and beauty. I can only quote a sentence, “Whatever is done, even when that is committed which is in extremest contrariety to the will of God, still, but by the power of God, it could not be done. When the murderer conceiyes malignity in his breast, He in whom he is living, and moving, and having his being, is at that instant sustaining the capacities of afiection, so turned to evil.... the very will of the murderer himself is also more than a gift once given by God; by God it is at the moment given, for by the act of God alone could it also continue to subsist. Is anything in the whole process the murderer’s own? That is his own exclusively in which the moral character — the evil of the act resides. God enables him to think, but it is himself that thinks; God sustains his faculty of will, his electing power; but it is himself that wills, that chooses evil.”” — Three Discourses, p. 24.