Whether The Will And Purpose Of God May Be Resisted, And He Be Frustrated Of His Intentions
Chapter 5
WHETHER THE WILL AND
PURPOSE OF GOD MAY BE
RESISTED, AND HE BE
FRUSTRATED OF HIS
INTENTIONS
By the former steps, the altar of Ahaz is set on the right hand of the altar of God – the Arminian idol is exalted to an equal plane with the power and will of the Most High, in direct opposition. I shall now present to you the Spirit of God once more contending with the towering imaginations of poor mortals, about a transcendent privilege of greatness, glory, and power. For having made his decrees mutable, and his prescience fallible, and having quite divested him of his providence as the sum and issue of all their endeavors, they affirm that his will may be resisted. He may fail in his intentions and be frustrated of his ends. He may and does propose such things that he either does not or cannot accomplish at any time. And all of that is because the execution of such acts of his will might by perhaps clash against the freedom of the will of men. If this is not an expression of spiritual pride above all that the devil ever attempted in heaven, then divines do not explicate that sin of his very well. Now, there may seem some difficulty in this matter, because of the several conceptions129 of the will of God – especially in regard to the affirmation that his law and
Chapter 5: WHETHER THE WILL AND PURPOSE OF GOD MAY BE RESISTED
precepts are his will, and alas! we all too often resist or transgress them.
I will unfold one distinction of the will of God, which will leave it clear what the Arminians oppose, and for which we count them worthy of so heavy a charge.
"Divinum velle est ejus esse,"130 say the schoolmen: "The will of God is nothing but God willing;" it does not differ from his essence
"secundem rem," in the thing itself, but only "secundem rationem," in a relation to the thing that is willed. The essence of God being a most absolute, pure, and simple act or substance, his will can only and simply be one; we ought to make neither division nor distinction in it.
If what signifies God's will was always taken properly and strictly for the eternal will of God, then the distinctions that are usually made about it, are distinctions about the signification of the word, rather than the thing itself.
In this regard, these distinctions are not only tolerable, but necessary, because without them it is utterly impossible to reconcile some places of Scripture that are seemingly repugnant to one another.
In the 22nd chapter of Gen, verse 2, God commands Abraham to take his only son Isaac, and offer him for a burnt-offering in the land of Moriah. Here the words of God declare some will of God to Abraham, who knew it ought to be performed, and thought little but that it should be. Yet, when he actually addressed himself to his duty, in obedience to the will of God, he received a countermand in verse 12, that he should not lay his hand upon the child to sacrifice him. The event plainly manifests that it was the will of God that Isaac should not be sacrificed; and yet notwithstanding, by reason of his command,
Abraham beforehand seemed bound to believe that it was well-pleasing to God that he should accomplish what he was enjoined to do. If the will of God in the Scripture is conceived of in only one way, then here is a plain contradiction. Thus God commands Pharaoh to let his people go. Could Pharaoh think otherwise? No. Was he not bound to believe that it was the will of God that he should dismiss the Israelites at the first hearing of the message? Yet God affirms that he would
Chapter 5: WHETHER THE WILL AND PURPOSE OF GOD MAY BE RESISTED
harden Pharaoh's heart, so that he would not allow them to depart until God had showed his signs and wonders in the land of Egypt. To reconcile these and similar places in Scripture, the ancient fathers and schoolmen, along with modern divines, affirm that the one will of God may be said to be diverse or manifold with regard to the various ways by which he wills things to be done, and in other respects. Yet, taken in its proper signification, God's will is simply one and the same. The common distinction between God's secret will, and his revealed will, is such that all the other distinctions may be reduced to these two; and therefore I have chosen to insist upon it.
The Secret Will of God is his eternal, unchangeable purpose concerning all things which he has made, to be brought to their appointed ends by certain means. He himself affirms that "his counsel shall stand, and he will do all his pleasure," Isaiah 46:10. Some call this the absolute, efficacious will of God, the will of his good pleasure, which is always fulfilled. Indeed this is the only proper, eternal, constant, immutable will of God, whose order can neither be broken nor its law transgressed, so long as there is neither change nor shadow of turning with him. (Jas 1:17) The Revealed Will of God does not contain his purpose and decree, but our duty – not what he will do according to his good pleasure, but what we should do if we would please him; and this will, consisting of his word, his precepts and promises, belongs to us and our children, so that we may do the will of God. Now this, indeed, is to< qelhto>n rather than to< qe>lhma – that which God wills, rather than his will – but what we call the will of a man is what he has determined shall be done: "This is the will of him that sent me, that every one which sees the Son, and believes on him, may have everlasting life," says our
Savior, John 6:40; that is, this is what his will has appointed. Hence it is called "voluntas signi," or the sign of his will. It is only metaphorically called his will, says Aquinas;131 for inasmuch as our commands are the signs of our wills, the same is said of the precepts of God. This is the rule of our obedience, the transgression of which makes an action
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sinful; for hJ aJmarti>a ejsti<n hJ ajnomi>a, "sin is the transgression of a law;" such a law is given to the transgressor to be observed. Now,
God has not imposed on us the observation of his eternal decree and intention (his secret will); and as it is utterly impossible for us to transgress or frustrate it, we would be unblamable if we should. A master requires of his servant to do what he commands, not to accomplish what he intends, which perhaps he never revealed to him.
No, the commands of superiors are not always signs that the commander would have the things commanded actually performed, but only that those who are subject to his command are obliged to obedience, as far as the sense of that extends. "Et hoc clarum est in praeceptis divinis," says Durand,132 etc. – "And this is clear in the commands of God," by which we are obliged to do what he commands. Yet it is not always his pleasure that the thing itself, in regard to the event, should be accomplished, as we saw before in the examples of Pharaoh and Abraham.
Now, the will of God in the first conception is said to be hidden or secret, not because it is always so, for in some particulars it is revealed and made known to us two ways: – First. By his word, as where God affirms that the dead shall rise. We do not doubt that they shall rise, and that it is the absolute will of God that they shall do so. Secondly. By the effects, for when anything comes to pass, we may cast the event on the will of God as its cause, and look at it as a revelation of his purpose. Jacob's sons little imagined that it was the will of God, by them, to send their brother into Egypt. Yet afterward Joseph tells them plainly it was not them, but God that sent him there, Gen 45:5. But it is said to be secret for two causes: First.
Because for the most part it is. There is nothing in various outcomes that declare God's determination, except that the event, while it is future, is hidden from those who may have faculties to judge things past and present, but not to discern things to come. Hence St. James bids us not be too peremptory in our determinations that we will do this or that, not knowing how God will engage with us for its
Chapter 5: WHETHER THE WILL AND PURPOSE OF GOD MAY BE RESISTED
performance. (Jas 4:13)Secondly. It is said to be secret in reference to its cause, which for the most part is past our finding out: "His path is in the great waters, and his footsteps are not known." (Psa 77:19)
It appears, then, that the secret and revealed will of God are diverse in various respects, but chiefly in regard to their acts and their objects.
First, In regard to their acts, the secret will of God is his eternal decree and determination concerning anything to be done in its appointed time; his revealed will is an act whereby he declares himself to love or approve anything, whether it is ever done or not. Secondly. They are diverse in regard to their objects. The object of God's purpose and decree is what is good in any way, with reference to its actual existence
– for it must infallibly be performed. But the object of his revealed will is only what is morally good (inasmuch as his will approves or commands it), agreeing with the law and the gospel; for whether it is actually performed or not is incidental to the object of God's revealed will.
Now, of these two differences, the first is perpetual in regard to their several acts, but not so with their objects; they are sometimes coincident in regard to their objects. For instance, God commands us to believe; here his revealed will is that we should do so – along with this, he intends we shall do so. Therefore he ingenerates faith in our hearts so that we may believe. Here his secret and his revealed will are coincident; the former 133 being his precept that we should believe, and the latter being his purpose that we shall believe. In this case, I say the object of the one and the other is the same: what we ought to do, and what he will do. And this inasmuch as he has "wrought all our works in us," Isaiah 26:12. They are our own works which he works in us; his act in us and by us is often our duty towards him. He commands us by his revealed will to walk in his statutes, and to keep his laws; upon this command he also promises that he will so effect all things, that this shall be performed by some: "A new heart I will also give you, and a new spirit I will put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my
Chapter 5: WHETHER THE WILL AND PURPOSE OF GOD MAY BE RESISTED
Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you shall keep my judgments and do them." (Ezekiel 36:2627) So the obedience of the people of God is the self-same object of his will here, taken in either conception of it. And yet the precept of God is not here, as some learned men suppose, declarative of God's intention – for then it must be declared to all to whom the precept is given.
Evidently it is not, for many are commanded to believe, on whom God never bestows faith. It is still to be looked at as a mere declaration of our duty, its engagement with God's intention being incidental to it.
There is a wide difference between "Do such a thing," and, "You shall do it." If God's command to Judas to believe meant, "It is my purpose and intention that Judas shall believe," then it must contradict that will of God whereby he determined that Judas, for his infidelity, should go to his "own place." (Act 1:25) His precepts are to be performed in all obedience by us, but they do not signify his will that we shall actually fulfill his commands. Abraham was not bound to believe that it was God's intention that Isaac should be sacrificed, but that it was his own duty. There was no obligation on Pharaoh to think it was God's purpose that the people should depart at the first summons; he had nothing to do with that. But there was one thing to believe: that if he would please God, then he must let them go. Hence diverse things of good use may be collected in these controversies:
First. That God may command many things by his word which he never decreed to actually be performed; because, in such things, his words are not a revelation of his eternal decree and purpose, but only a declaration of something which he is well-pleased with – whether it is performed by us or not. In the fore-cited case, God commanded
Pharaoh to let his people go, and then plagued him for refusing to obey his command. Hence we may not collect that God intended the obedience and conversion of Pharaoh by his precept, and was frustrated of his intention – for the Scripture is evident and clear that God purposed a far different end by Pharaoh's disobedience, which was to manifest his glory by Pharaoh's punishment. We may collect
Chapter 5: WHETHER THE WILL AND PURPOSE OF GOD MAY BE RESISTED
only that obedience to God's commands is pleasing to him, as in 1 Samuel 15:22.134
Secondly. That the will of God, to which our obedience is required, is the revealed will of God contained in his word – our compliance with his decree is such that, from this, we learn three things tending toward its execution: First. That it is the condition and dispensation of the word of God, to instantly persuade us to faith and obedience.
Secondly. That it is our duty by all means to aspire to perform all things enjoined by it, and it is our fault if we do not. Thirdly. That by these means, God will accomplish his eternal decree of saving his elect; and that he wills the salvation of others, to the extent that he calls them to perform the condition of it. Now, our obedience is to be so regulated by this revealed will of God, that we may sin either by omission against its precepts, or by commission against its prohibitions; although by our omitting or committing anything, the secret will or purpose of God is fulfilled. Had Abraham disobeyed
God's precept, when he was commanded to sacrifice his son Isaac, though God's will had been accomplished by it (who never intended it), yet Abraham had grievously sinned against the revealed will of God, the rule of his duty. The holiness of our actions consists in conformity to God's precepts, and not to his purposes. On this ground
Gregory affirms, "That many fulfill the will of God" (that is, his intentions) "when they think to change it" (by transgressing his precepts); "and by resisting imprudently, they obey God's purpose."
135 And to show how merely in our actions we are tied to this rule of our duty, St. Austin shows how a man may do good in something that crosses God's secret will, and do evil in something which complies with it. He illustrates this by the example of a sick parent who has children, the one wicked, who desires his father's death, and the other godly, who prays for his life. But the will of God is that he shall die, which agrees with the desire of the wicked child; yet it is the other who performed his duty, and did what is pleasing to God.136
Chapter 5: WHETHER THE WILL AND PURPOSE OF GOD MAY BE RESISTED
Thirdly. What we are now agitated about is the secret will of God, which we unfolded before. And this is what we charge the Arminians: for affirming that God's secret will may be resisted – that is, that God may fail in his purposes, come short of what he earnestly intends, or be frustrated of his aim and end. It is as if God were to determinately resolve the faith and salvation of a man, and it is in the power of that man to void God's determination, and not believe, and not be saved.
Now, it is only in cases of this nature, in which our own free wills have an interest, that they thus limit and circumscribe the power of the Most High. In other things they grant that his omnipotence is of no lesser extent than others claim; but in this case they are peremptory and resolute, without any coloring or equivocation. For although there is a question proposed by the apostle in Rom 9:19, "Who has resisted his will?" none has or can resist it. Paul grants in the following verses,
Corvinus asserts, "It is only an objection of the Jews that is rejected by the apostle."137 This is much like an answer that young scholars give to some difficult passsage in Aristotle, when they cannot think of a better one: "Loquitur ex aliorum sententia;"138 for there is no sign of any such rejection of it by the apostle in the entire discourse which follows.
Indeed, it is not the Jews that St. Paul disputes with here, but weaker brothers concerning the Jews. This is manifest from the first verse of the next chapter, where he distinguishes between "brothers" to whom, and "Israel" of whom he spoke. Secondly. He speaks of the Jews in the whole treatise in the third person, but of the disputer in the second person. Thirdly. It is taken for a confessed principle between St. Paul and the disputer (as he calls him) that the Jews were rejected, which surely they would not readily acknowledge themselves. So that Corvinus rejects, as an objection of the Jews, a granted principle of St.
Paul and the other Christians of his time. With similar confidence, the same author affirms that, "They doubt nothing but that many things are not done which God would have done."139 Vorstius goes further, teaching that "not only are many things not done which God would have done, but also many things are done which God would not have
Chapter 5: WHETHER THE WILL AND PURPOSE OF GOD MAY BE RESISTED
done."140 He does not mean our transgressing of God's law, but God's failing in his purpose, as Corvinus clarifies it, acknowledging that the execution of God's will is suspended or hindered by man, to which Episcopius subscribes.141 As for example, God purposes and intends the conversion of a sinner – suppose it were Mary Magdalene – can this intention of his be crossed and his will resisted? "Indeed," say the Arminians, "for God converts sinners by his grace." "But we can resist
God when he would convert us by his grace," 142 said six of them jointly in their meeting at the Hague. "But some may object," they say,
"that thus God fails of his intention, and does not attain the end at which he aims. We answer, 'This we grant.'" Or if it is the salvation of men, they say, "they are certain that God intends for many what they never obtain;" God cannot compass that end.143
And here, I think, they place God in a most unhappy condition, by affirming that some are damned whom God would have saved, even though he desires their salvation with a most vehement desire and natural affection,144 such as crows, I think, have a natural affection for the good of their young ones.145 They plainly affirm that in God, there are such desires that are never fulfilled, because they are not regulated by wisdom and justice;146 for although God might accomplish them by his infinite power, perhaps, yet it would not become him to do so.
Now, let any good-natured man, who has been a little troubled for poor Jupiter in Homer, mourning for the death of his son Sarpedon, which he could not prevent; or who has been grieved for the sorrow of a distressed father who is not able to remove the wickedness and inevitable ruin of an only son; let such a man drop one tear for the restrained condition of the God of heaven. When he would have each and every man in the world come to heaven to escape the torments of hell, and he has a serious purpose and intention that it shall be so, and a vehement affection and fervent natural desire that it should be so, yet not being able to save even one by himself alone, God is forced to lose his desire, lay down his affection, change his purpose, and see the greater part of them perish everlastingly – indeed, notwithstanding
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that he had provided a sufficient means for them all to escape, with a purpose and intention that they should so do.147
In brief, their whole doctrine on this point is laid down by Corvinus, in chapter 3, Against Moulin, and in the third section where, first, he allows the distinction of the will of God into that whereby he will have us do something, and that whereby he will do anything himself. The first is nothing but his law and precepts; which we affirm with him that it may be said to be resisted, inasmuch as it is transgressed. The latter, he says, if it respects any act of man's, may be considered as preceding that act, or following that act. If it precedes that act, then it may be resisted, if man will not cooperate. Now, this is the will of God, whereby God himself intends to do anything. The sum of this distinction is this, "The will of God concerning the future being of anything, may be considered as going before the actual existence of the thing itself. In this regard, it may be hindered or resisted. But when it is considered to follow any act of man, it is always fulfilled." By this latter phrase, in striving to mollify the harshness of the former, Corvinus runs himself into inexplicable nonsense. He is affirming that any act of the will of God, by which he intends men to do anything, cannot be hindered after they have done it. That is, God has irresistibly purposed that they shall do it, provided they do it! In his following discourse, also, Corvinus plainly asserts that there is no act of God's will concerning the salvation of men, that may not be made void and of no effect, except for the general decree by which God has established an inseparable connection between faith and salvation; or by which he has appointed faith in Christ as the means of attaining blessedness. This is only an immanent act of God's will, producing no outward effect; so that every act of God's will that issues from human co-operation, is frustrable and may fall to the ground. Let the following instances declare how this stands in direct opposition to the word of God:
First, "Our God is in the heavens," says the psalmist: "he has done whatever he has pleased," Psalm 115:3. Not only part, but all –
Chapter 5: WHETHER THE WILL AND PURPOSE OF GOD MAY BE RESISTED
whatever he pleased should come to pass, by any means. "He rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whomever he will," Daniel 4:17.
The transposition of kingdoms148 is not accomplished without the mixture of various free and voluntary actions of men; and yet in that great work, God does all that he pleases. Indeed, before him "all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and he does according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand, or say to him, What are you doing?" verse 35. "My counsel," he says, "shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure," Isaiah 46:10; "I have purposed; I will also do it," verse 11. So certain is God of accomplishing all his purposes, that he confirms it with an oath: "The LORD of hosts has sworn, Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand," Isaiah 14:24. And indeed it would be a very strange thing if God intended what he foresees will never come to pass. But I confess this argument will not be pressing against the Arminians, who question that prescience of God. Yet, they should also observe from the Scripture that the failing of wicked men's counsels and intentions is a thing that God is said to "deride in heaven," as in Psalm 2:4. He threatens them with it. "Take counsel together," he says, "and it shall come to nothing; speak the word, and it shall not stand," Isaiah 8:10.
See also chapter 29:7-8. And shall they be enabled to recriminate, and cast a similar aspersion on the God of heaven? No, surely. Says St.
Austin, "Let us take heed that we are not compelled to believe that Almighty God would have anything done which does not come to pass."149 The schoolmen have universally consented to this truth, also, as shown by Alvarez, Disput. 32, pro. 3.150 These few instances will manifest the Arminian opposition to the word of God in this particular:
S.S.
Lib. Arbit.
Chapter 5: WHETHER THE WILL AND PURPOSE OF GOD MAY BE RESISTED
"Our God is in the heavens: he has done whatever he has pleased," Psalm 115:3.
"We do not doubt but that many things which God wills, or that it pleases him to have done, yet never come to pass," Corvinus. "We grant that some of God's desires are never fulfilled," Idem.
"I will do all my pleasure."
Isaiah 46:10. "None can stay his hand, or say to him, What are you doing?" Daniel 4:35.
"It is in the power of man to hinder the execution of God's will," Idem.
"I have purposed, I will also do it," Isaiah 46:11.
"It is ridiculous to imagine that God does not seriously will any thing but what takes effect,"
Episcopius.
"As I have purposed, so shall it stand," Isaiah 14:24.
"It may be objected that God fails of his end: this we readily grant," Rem. Synod.