Part 3
moment, to the philosophizing of Pighius: that the condition of all men is equal, except in those who deprive themselves of eternal life, who, nevertheless, were elected even as others. What would there be here obscure or difficult of solution? What would there be that common sense could not receive? What that natural judgment could not make clear? But when you hear of a mystery surpassing all human understanding, you may at once conclude that all solutions of men, derived from common natural judgment, and which might avail in a profane court of justice, are frivolous and vain. Here, however, Pighius attempts to meet us with the remark that those are never repulsed of God, nor sent away in doubt, who humbly keep their minds in subjection; that, therefore, those who thus contend against God are the refractory and haughty only; and that such contention is found in none others. To this assertion I will assent without difficulty, on condition that Pighius confess, on his part, that the apostle condemns of impious pride all who measure the justice of God by their own comprehension. But that God may obtain the praise of His justice, He must, according to the judgment of Pighius, render a plain reason for everything He does. Whereas, our rule of modesty ought to be, that where God's reason for His works lies hidden, we should nevertheless believe Him to be just.
Now the son of Sirach is not ashamed to extol God with the praise that, as a potter, He separates and distinguishes vessels according to His will; and that men are also as clay in the hands of God who forms them, and who renders to them accordingly as He has decreed. For krivsi", in this passage, if you compare it with what has preceded, cannot signify anything else than the good pleasure of the workman, or potter. Nor do we want to seek an interpreter beyond the apostle himself, who, under the same figure, openly rebukes the audacity of all who require of God a reason for His works. Shall the clay (demands the apostle) say unto the potter, Why hast thou made me thus?" He, therefore, will truly confine himself to the moderation of the apostle, who, holding the will of God, though hidden, to be the highest justice, gives to Him the free power of destroying or saving whom He will. How much soever therefore Pighius may twist himself
in twisting the words of the apostle, he cannot make this similitude apply otherwise, in the present instance, than the apostle had applied it, who introduces it to show that God fashions and forms by His own right all men to whatever destiny He pleases and wills.
If this, at first appearance, should seem to anyone out of the way or unintelligible, let him hear a farther admonition of the admirable Augustine: "If (says he) beasts could speak, and should quarrel with their Maker because He had not made them men like us, there is not one of us who would not, in a moment, fly into a rage with them. What, then, do we think of ourselves? Who or what are we that we should contend with God for having made each of us what we are? That man is most certainly mad who will not ascribe to God a far greater and higher excellency than that which he and the human race possess above the beasts of the earth. What remains, then, but that the sheep of God's flock quietly and peacefully submit themselves unto Him?" This would be far more becoming than, after the example of Pighius, to make men the potters instead of God, and to leave each one to shape out his destiny by his own virtue.
But Pighius says, "What is here obscure is elsewhere made plain. As the furnace proves the vessels of the potter, so does temptation prove the just." This is true. But from this he concludes that, therefore, if a just man shall he constant in faith and piety, he will be a vessel unto honour; but if he fail, through want of courage and constancy, he will be a vessel unto dishonour. And since, according to his account, each one by his own will, assisted by Divine grace (which is common, he says, to all men, and prepared for all men), at length perseveres, he concludes that we are made vessels unto honour by our invincible fortitude. Now, I will not stop to observe how absurdly Pighius here confounds together two entirely different things ?the forming of the vessel, and the proving of the vessel when formed ?I would merely remark that God's proving His own people by various trials and temptations does not at all alter, or interfere with, His predestination of them by His eternal will and counsel before they were born. Nor does it alter His forming them, from all eternity, such as He willed
them to be afterwards in time. Nor does that passage of Paul in any way support these views of Pighius, where the apostle says, "If a man, therefore, shall purify himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour." Paul is not here shewing in what way men, extricated and cleansed from their filth, are made vessels unto honour; but how the faithful, who are already chosen and called, become adapted for the pure uses of God. And now, observe what an exact harmony there is between the mind of Pighius and the mind of the apostle! Pighius' words are: "What is here obscure in the apostle. he elsewhere renders quite plain ?why and how it is that God makes some vessels to honour and not others. Thus, in order that Jacob might be a vessel of mercy, his soul had purified itself, on which account he was deservedly made a vessel unto honour; and it was thus that God, having a respect unto this self-purification, which He foreknew, loved and chose the patriarch before he was born."
So Pighius. Now hear Paul. He, on the contrary, when exhorting the faithful thus to purify themselves, in order to lay a "foundation" for this doctrine, prefaces it by saying, "The Lord knoweth them that are His." In the same way he elsewhere exhorts the people of God to holiness, by arguing: "For we are His workmanship, created unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." Paul, therefore, who, with all soberness of mind, glories in being a wise master-builder, lays the foundation of all salvation in the free grace of God alone. Pighius, on the contrary, begins his building from the earth's plain surface, without any foundation at all. And, in the same way, when handling that passage of Jeremiah, (chap. xix. 11), he consumes a multitude of words to no purpose whatever. The prophet is not, in that passage, describing the origin of our formation, but he is asserting and maintaining God's rightful power in breaking to pieces and destroying vessels already formed and finished. The mind and intent of the apostle, therefore, in his use of this similitude, are to be carefully observed and held fast ?that God, the Maker of men, forms out of the same lump in His hands one vessel, or man, to honour, and another to dishonour, according to His sovereign and absolute will. For He freely chooses some to life
who are not yet born, leaving others to their own destruction, which destruction all men by nature equally deserve. And when Pighius holds that God's election of grace has no reference to, or connection with, His hatred of the reprobate, I maintain that reference and connection to be a truth. Inasmuch as the just severity of God answers, in equal and common cause, to that free love with which He embraces His elect.
The apostle then arrives at this conclusion: "What if God, willing to shew His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction, and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had afore prepared unto glory?" This forms no ground or reason (means the apostle) that anyone should question God, or contend with Him. Pighius here (as those like him are wont to do) seizes upon the word longsuffering. Nay, he dwells on that word with a lofty boast bordering on ferocity, as if God hardened not the elect otherwise than by parental indulgence, as it were. "God (says he) makes men vessels unto dishonour in no other way than by kindly enduring them while they are abusing His longsuffering, and treasuring up for themselves wrath against a day of wrath." What, then, becomes of the difference which God made between the two brothers before they were born? If we are to believe Pighius, this difference was made because God foresaw what the hardness of Esau's heart would be. How is it, then, that the election of grace is so distinctly manifest in the case of Jacob, when Esau stood in the same grade and position with Jacob until he excluded himself from the number of the children and family of Isaac? But this shifting and shuffling of Pighius is so utterly refuted by one very short sentence of the apostle Paul, that it is quite needless to go any farther to fetch arguments for refutation. In what sense the Hebrews use the terms "vessels" and "instruments" everyone knows who has the least acquaintance with the Scripture. Wherever we hear of "instruments," we shall also find God concerned as the Author and Overruler of the whole that is done, while His hand directs the whole. And why are men called "vessels " of wrath? but because God shews towards such
His righteous severity which He abstains from shewing towards others? And why are they made "vessels of wrath?" Paul tells us: That God might, in them, "shew forth His wrath and make His power known." The apostle says that they were "fitted to destruction." When? and how? but from their first origin and primitive nature. For the nature of the whole human race was corrupted in the person of Adam. Not that the still higher and deeper purpose of God did not precede the whole. But it was from this fountain that the curse of God commenced its operation. From this source began, in effect, the destruction of the human race. Correspondently, the apostle testifies that God had "afore prepared" the "vessels of mercy" unto glory.
Now if this being "afore prepared unto glory" is peculiar and special to the elect, it evidently follows that the rest, the non-elect, were equally "fitted to destruction," because, being left to their own nature, they were thereby devoted already to certain destruction. That they were "fitted to destruction" by their own wickedness is an idea so silly that it needs no notice. It is indeed true that the reprobate procure to themselves the wrath of God, and that they daily hasten on the falling of its weight upon their own heads. But it must be confessed by all that the apostle is here treating of that difference made between the elect and the reprobate, which proceeds from the alone secret will and purpose of God. Paul says also, that the "riches" of God's "grace" are made known on the "vessels of mercy "; while, on the contrary, the "vessels of wrath" rush on to destruction. Most certainly nothing is here heard of Pighius' absurd prating?that grace is the same towards all, but that the goodness of God is the more brightly illustrated by His enduring the vessels of wrath while He suffers them to come to their own end. But with respect to God's longsuffering, the solution of its operation is perfectly plain. It is immediately connected with His power. God does not only permit a thing to be done, or to continue, by His longsuffering, but He rules and overrules what is done by His almighty power.
Nor on any other grounds than these can that inviolable engagement of God stand, where He says, "I the Lord thy God am a jealous God; merciful to a thousand generations, but a severe avenger unto the third and fourth generation." This compact, I say, cannot stand, unless the Lord by His own will decree to whom He will show the mercy, and whom He will suffer to remain devoted to eternal death. He extends His grace (He declares) even unto a thousand generations. Now I would ask, Does God regard the children of the godly according to their own merits when He continues the grace that was shown to their fathers themselves, upon no other grounds than because He had promised that he would do so? To Abraham, who had deserved no such favour, God freely binds Himself in faithfulness that He (God), for the patriarch's sake, will be a God to his posterity. Hence that solemn appeal to God after the patriarch's death: "Remember, Lord, Thy servant Abraham" (Deut. ix. 27). Here most certainly is made a choice of men, and a distinction between them; and that, not according to the merits of each, but according to the covenant made with their fathers. Not that all the posterity of Abraham, which descends from him according to the flesh, possess this privilege; but the faith and salvation of all those only who out of the seed of Abraham are chosen unto eternal life ought to be referred to this promise.
Exactly the same is the nature of that vengeance which God takes even upon the third and fourth generation. As to what some allege, that all who sin are punished from age to age, each one in his day and order, that is a more than frivolous subterfuge. In this manner the Pelagians of old, finding that they could not disentangle themselves from the nets of those testimonies of Scripture which make it evident that all men sinned in Adam, fell a cavilling at the truth, and hatched the doctrine that all the posterity of Adam sinned by imitation of him, not through a total corruption of nature derived from him. And as godly teachers then attacked them, truly maintaining that all were actually condemned on account of the sin and guilt of Adam, from which sin and guilt the grace of Christ alone frees them; so, in the present case, that the antithesis and parallels may agree with,
and respond to, each other, it of necessity follows that God avenges in the persons of the children the sins which He condemned in their fathers. Nor can many other passages of the Scripture be otherwise explained, where God declares that He "recompenses the iniquity of the fathers into the bosom of their children after them." In vain do the opponents bring against us that passage of Ezekiel, "The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father: the soul that sinneth, it shall die;" because it forms one particular part of God's vengeance on sin, when He leaves men void and destitute of His Spirit. For being thus left destitute, each one bears the consequences of his own sin. Wherefore, the children are said to bear the sins of their forefathers, and not "undeservedly" (as the profane poet would intimate), because they are guilty on the very ground that, being (as the apostle says) the children of wrath, being thus left to their own natural will and inclination, and being from their origin the heirs of eternal death, they can do nothing but augment, in a perpetual and uninterrupted course, their own destruction.
We may here most opportunely explain that passage of Isaiah, which the Holy Ghost has been pleased to repeat with a particular application six times over in the New Testament. The Prophet Isaiah is sent forth with a commission of prodigious awfulness, as it at first appears: "Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed." The prophet being here represented as the minister of blindness, arises confessedly from the nature of the office he had to execute and from the effects by which, it was certain, it would be followed. Our great question lies in the cause of that blindness. It will be also confessed to be a deserved punishment, inflicted on that ungrateful and rebellious people, that light to them should become darkness. And there had, moreover, preceded in them a malicious and obstinate unbelief, which fully deserved to be visited with such a recompense. But as the prophet testifies that there was a certain select number on whom salvation
shone from the preaching of the Word of God, the question to be solved is, Did those favoured ones escape the horrible judgment which lay upon the rest by any virtue of their own, or were they held safe and secure in the hand of God?
And a weightier question still presses itself upon us: How it came to pass that, out of that great multitude, some repented, while the disease of others remained incurable ?
If anyone should weigh this in the balance of human judgment, he would decide that the cause of the difference was in the men themselves. But God will not suffer us to stop here. He declares that all those who do not follow the stream of the common ruin are saved by His grace. Whether or not repentance is His own work ought not to he brought into controversy. So evidently true is that which Augustine says: "Those whom the Lord wills to be converted, He converts Himself; who not only makes willing ones out of them who were unwilling, but makes also sheep out of wolves and martyrs out of persecutors, transforming them by His all-powerful grace." If the wickedness of man be still urged as the cause of the difference between the elect and the non-elect, this wickedness might indeed be made to appear more powerful than that grace of God which He shows towards His elect, if that solemn truth did not stand in the way of such an argument: "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy!" But Paul's interpretation of the passage of Isaiah before us leaves no doubt whatever remaining. For after he had said that the election of God was determined and fixed, he adds, "But the rest were blinded, that that might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet," etc.
I grant that this blindness in the Jews was voluntary, and I freely acknowledge their sin therein. But I perceive who they are whom Paul excepts from this blindness; they are those whom it pleased God to choose out of the rest. But why did He choose some rather than others? Let no one be offended, then, that He still chooses, from time to time, some and not others; and let as, like Paul, except these chosen ones from the general mass of those who are blinded. Nor let
us ask the reason why God makes the difference. For, as Paul says, it is not becoming man to contend with God. The same apostle, when speaking elsewhere to the Jews, from whose virulent malice he had so severely suffered, says: "Well spake the Holy Ghost by Esaias the prophet unto our fathers, saying, Go unto this people, and say, Hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and not perceive." (Acts xxviii. 25, 26). He charges their sin home upon them, accordingly as they fully deserved. Some persons will here erroneously and ignorantly conclude that the cause and beginning of this obduracy in the Jews was their malicious wickedness. Just as if there were no deeper and more occult cause of the wickedness itself, namely, the original corruption of nature! And as if they did not remain sunk in this corruption because, being reprobated by the secret counsel of God before they were born, they were left undelivered!
Now let us listen to the Evangelist John. He will be no ambiguous interpreter of this same passage of the prophet Isaiah. "But though (says John) Jesus had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on Him, that the saying of Esaias the prophet might be fulfilled which he spake, Lord, who hath believed our report? and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed? Therefore they could not believe, because that Esaias said again, He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart," etc. Now, most certainly John does not here give us to understand that the Jews were prevented from believing by their sinfulness. For though this be quite true in one sense, yet the cause of their not believing must be traced to a far higher source. The secret and eternal purpose and counsel of God must be viewed as the original cause of their blindness and unbelief. It perplexed, in no small degree, the ignorant and the weak, when they heard that there was no place for Christ among the people of God (for the Jews were such). John explains the reason by showing that none believe save those to whom it is given, and that there are few to whom God reveals His arm. This other prophecy concerning "the arm of the Lord," the Evangelist weaves into his argument to prove the same great truth. And his words have a momentous weight.
He says, "There/ore, they could not believe." Wherefore, let men torture themselves as long as they will with reasoning, the cause of the difference made?why God does not reveal His arm equally to all? lies hidden in His own eternal decree. The whole of the Evangelist's argument amounts evidently to this: that faith is a special gift, and that the wisdom of Christ is too high and too deep to come within the compass of man's understanding. The unbelief of the world, therefore, ought not to astonish us, if even the wisest and most acute of men fail to believe. Hence, unless we would elude the plain and confessed meaning of the Evangelist, that few receive the Gospel, we must fully conclude that the cause is the will of God; and that the outward sound of that Gospel strikes the ear in vain until God is pleased to touch by it the heart within.
A different occasion for citing this passage of Isaiah presents itself to the other three evangelists while they are each recording the life and ministry of our Lord. In Matthew, our Saviour separates and distinguishes His disciples from the common mass of men. He declares that it was given to them (His disciples) to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but that He spoke to others in parables, that hearing, they might hear and not understand, that the saying of Isaiah might be fulfilled. Now I am willing to confess that those to whom Christ spoke parabolically were unworthy, in themselves, of greater light. But, on the other hand, I would wish to ask, what greater merit, in themselves, had the apostles to be freely admitted into familiarity with Christ? into which familiarity Christ did freely admit them. Here the antithesis is clearly established, that grace was freely conferred on few, when it might have been with justice denied equally to all. For shall we say that the apostles procured for themselves, by their own merits, that which the Lord declares was freely "given" to them? Nor are we to pass by without particular remark that the Saviour terms the things which He taught them "mysteries." And most certainly there is nothing in the whole circle of spiritual doctrine which does not far surpass the capacity of man and confound its utmost reach. No explanation by words, therefore, however lucid, will suffice to make the mysteries of the
kingdom of God understood, unless the Holy Spirit, at the same time, teach within. But Christ would have His disciples to magnify it, as a precious pledge of the favour of God toward them, that He honoured them above the common mass of men in blessing them with the external means of teaching. Though He was, all the while, gradually leading them to that high and singular privilege which distinguishes "friends" from "servants," as John hath it (John xv. 15): "Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of My Father I have made known unto you." These friends are thus taught from above to the very end, that they might understand those things which are beyond all natural comprehension. Hence it was that Christ, on such occasions as these, so frequently uttered that loud appeal, "He that hath ears to hear let him hear." By which expression Christ not only distinguished attentive from inattentive hearers, but He implied also that all are deaf save those whose ears God is pleased to bore that they may hear, which divine blessing David magnifies in the name of the whole Church of God (Psalm xl. 6): "Sacrifice and offering Thou didst not desire; mine ears hast Thou opened."
But I will proceed no farther with discussing the several portions of God's Word relative to this divine and deep matter. Let this summary suffice: if we admit the same Spirit of God, who spoke by the apostles, to be an interpreter of the prophet Isaiah, we must also acknowledge that that secret and incomprehensible judgment of God which blinds the greater part of mankind, "that seeing, they may see and not perceive," etc., is to be adored while it does so. Here let human reasonings of every kind that can possibly present themselves to our minds cease for ever. For if we confine our, reflections to men, apart from the grace and eternal purpose of God, the first thing that will strike us is that God gives freely to those that ask Him, and that others sink and die under their need, for which they do not seek a remedy. But if we have not in our mind and understanding that which Augustine saith, "That the nature of the Divine goodness is not only to open to those that knock, but also to cause them to knock and
ask;" unless, I say, we understand this, we shall never know the real need under which we labour.
If we come to the help, universal experience proves that all do not comprehend that power of the Holy Spirit, by which everything is done that ought to be done. Let no one deceive himself by vain selfflattery. Those who come to Christ were before sons of God in His divine heart, while they were, in themselves, His enemies. And because they were pre-ordained unto eternal life, they were therefore given unto Christ. Hence the faithful admonition of Augustine: "Let those who thus come to Christ remember that they are 'vessels' of grace, not of merit. For grace is to them all merit! Nor let us delight in any other knowledge than that which begins and ends in admiration! Let those deride us who will, if God but give His nod of assent from heaven to our stupidity (as men think), and if angels do but applaud it!"
Eternal Predestination - Section 3
We will now, in a summary way, collect those OBJECTIONS of Pighius, which seem to carry with them any kind of colour, that our readers may understand that the weapons with which our antagonist fights are quite as bad as the cause which he alleges for kindling the flame of so mighty a contest. He asserts that the whole question turns on this, to what end man was created. And, in the first place, he holds it as a great absurdity to suppose that God expected any return from the creation of man, since, being content in Himself alone, He could want no one else, nor anything else.
I also confess that God has no need of any external aid, prop, or addition; but I deny the justness of the conclusion that, therefore, He had no respect or consideration of Himself when He created man for His own glory. For what meaneth that word of Solomon, "The Lord
hath made all things for Himself; yea, even the wicked for the day of evil"? (Prov. xvi. 4.) Wherefore we evince no absurdity when we say that God, though needing nothing to be added to Himself, yet created the race of men for His own glory. And this ought to be considered, and most deservedly so, the great and essential end of man's creation. The sophism of Pighius, therefore, is the more ridiculous when he reasons that God could have no respect of Himself in the creation of man because He is, in Himself, infinitely perfect. It is quite curious to observe how our opponent wriggles himself out of the net in which the above word of Solomon entangles him. "God (he says) did indeed make all things for Himself not, however, with any reference to His own glory, but because of the infiniteness of His goodness." And that this absurd interpretation may not want abundance of weight, he asserts that no commentators agree with me, except a few detestable heretics (as he terms them). Now why should I waste time on the refutation of such futile absurdities as these? The Hebrew word LAMAAUIHU, which Solomon uses, has the same meaning as our expression, "for His own sake." One person, inflated with his half-Latin gabble, is anxious to explain to us the meaning of the adverb propter; whereas, if he had but one spark of a sound mind, the context itself would clearly demonstrate to him that "the wicked were made for the day of evil" only because it was God's will to shew forth in them His glory; just as, elsewhere, God declares that He raised up Pharaoh for the very cause that, in him, He might show forth His power and name to all the nations of the earth.
To give some colour to his absurd error Pighius introduces the testimony of Moses, where he appeals to the Jews in those words, "And now, O Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to love Him, and to worship Him?" What one of my readers is so senseless as not to see at once that we have here a man, destitute of a sound mind, blattering without the least modesty? I am sure there is not such a reader of these pages. What! does God desire to be worshipped by us more for our sakes than for His own? Is His regard for His own glory so buried out of His sight that He regards us alone? What, then, is to become of all those testimonies of the Scripture
which make the glory of God to be the highest object and ultimate end of man's salvation? Wherefore, let us hold fast this glorious truth?that the mind of God, in our salvation was such as not to forget Himself, but to set His own glory in the first and highest place; and that He made the whole world for the very end that it might he a stupendous theatre whereon to manifest His own glory. Not that He was not content in Himself, nor that He had any need to borrow addition from any other sources; but it was His good pleasure so highly to honour His creatures, as to impress on them the bright marks of His great glory.
After commencing with so much success (!), Pighius subjoins another end which God had in the creation of man. Having a respect (he says) to the nature of His own goodness, God wished to create a rational creature, capable of receiving that goodness which (he adds) could not be done without His bestowing on that creature freedom of will. This being admitted, he considers all my teaching to fall to the ground at once, when I maintain that God decreed a difference between the elect and the reprobate. Because man (he argues), being thus made by his free will the arbiter of his future state, had either event, the good or the evil (to be saved or to he lost), in his own hand.
Now, in the first place, readers are here to be admonished and exhorted ever to hold God, their Maker and Creator, in that highest of all honour which is due to Him, and never to exercise an insolent or forward eye when considering His purpose in the creation of the human race, but to view Him with reverence and soberness, and with the pure eye of faith. I know full well that no mention whatever can be made of God's eternal predestination, but, in a moment, numberless unholy and absurd thoughts rush into the mind. Hence it is that many over-modest persons are found, who wish that the glorious doctrine of predestination were never named at all, lest occasion should thereby be given to wanton minds to exalt themselves against God. I, however, passing by all such over-careful speculations and leaving them to others, consider it unjustifiable in a
Christian man thus cautiously to keep back the genuine confession of the truth, lest it should be exposed to the grin of the profane. For in the first place there is nothing more precious to God than His truth. In the next place, He will not have His justice to be protected by our dissimulation. And finally, it needs no such protection. On these points, however, we shall dwell more fully hereafter. I will now briefly reply to Pighius on the point more particularly in question.
Pighius contends that men were so immediately created unto salvation that no counsel of God concerning the contrary event, namely, his destruction, preceded his creation. As if the Lord did not foresee before man was created what his future condition would be! And as if He did not afore determine what it was His will should be done! Man, that he might be the image of God, was adorned from the first with the light of reason and with rectitude of nature. Therefore (as our opponent would reason), God being (to speak reverently) blind, foresaw not all events, but waited in doubt and suspense for the issue of those events! Such is Pighius theological reasoning! Such are the antecedents and consequents of his logic! Hence he boldly concludes, from his view of the end of man's creation, that God so disposed the creation of all men that they should all, at their creation, be made (without distinction, difference, or discrimination) partakers of His goodness and blessedness. But godly minds can by no means whatever be brought to reconcile God's election and reprobation of men thus. They cannot harmonise by such carnal reasoning the voluntary sin of man and the eternal purpose of God. They cannot see, with these human eyes, how it was that man should be placed in that condition when first created, that he himself, falling by his own will, should be the cause of his own destruction; and yet that it was so ordained by the secret and eternal purpose of God that this voluntary destruction to the human race, and to all the posterity of Adam, should be a cause for the saints humbling themselves before God, and worshipping His eternal purpose in the whole. For, although it pleased God thus to ordain the whole, yet man did not the less willingly, on his part, hurl himself into this headlong ruin, who, nevertheless, had been endued with an upright nature, and had been
made in the image of God. But I would repeat my being perfectly aware how much absurdity and irreconcilable contradiction these deep things seem to profane persons to carry with them. Nevertheless, let one conscience suffice us in the place of a thousand such witnesses. To which conscience, if we duly listen, we shall be ashamed not to confess that man perished justly, seeing that he chose rather to follow Satan than God!
But let us now hear Pighius' PROOFS of his above views, arguments and conclusions. In these he labours to shew that salvation was ordained for all men without distinction or difference. "If it were not so (he says), the Holy Spirit speaks falsely when He declares that God is the Father of all men" (Mal. ii. 10). The prophet is there treating of marriage, the faith of which many husbands, at that time, violated. Malachi is reminding such violators that God is the avenger of conjugal infidelity. Let our readers hence gather how much religion and conscience Pighius has in dealing with the holy Scripture! He then adds, from the Psalm, "The Lord is good to all" (cxlv. 9), from which he concludes that, therefore, all were ordained unto eternal life. Now, if this be true, the kingdom of heaven is open for dogs and asses! For the Psalmist is not magnifying that goodness of God only which He shews to man, but that also which He extends to all His works. But why should not Pighius thus fight for his brethren?
Then follows a third proof, that, according to Paul, "There is no difference between the Jew and the Gentile" (Rom. x. 12). Now all this I receive most fully, provided there be but added what the same apostle teaches, that the Gentiles were called to a participation of the Gospel because they were ordained thereto by the eternal counsel of God (Rom. xvi. 26). He cites also that passage in Ecclesiasticus, "God hateth nothing that He hath made." As if we had not always maintained that God hateth nothing in us that is His own, save that fallen nature only, which may be justly called a deformity of the first creation. The great question of reprobation, however, by no means turns on this hinge, whether or not God hateth anything that He hath made. For although long before the Fall of Adam God had, for secret
reasons of His own, decreed what He would do, yet we read in the Scripture that nothing was, or is, condemned by Him but sin.
There flows from these premises, therefore, the plain and solid conclusion that God had just causes for reprobating a part of mankind?causes, however, hidden from us?but that He hates and condemns nothing in man, except that which is contrary to His justice. The next Scripture which he tacks on to his argument is that of Paul, who declares (he says) that God "included all under sin, that He might have mercy upon all" (Rom. xi. 32). As if Paul in this passage were disputing about the number of men! Whereas he is abstractedly lauding the grace of God towards all of us who attain unto salvation. Most certainly nothing was less in the mind of the apostle than an extension of the mercy of God to all men. His sole object was to prostrate all glorying of the flesh, that we may clearly understand that no man will ever be saved but he whom God saves by grace alone. Behold, then, with what glorious arguments our opponent demonstrates that none are chosen unto salvation from above in preference to others! And yet this ape of Euclid puffs himself off in the titles of all his chapters as a first-rate reasoner.
The third end of man's creation which is so clearly and powerfully expressed by Solomon, "The Lord hath made all things for Himself, even the wicked for the day of evil" (Prov. xvi. 4), Pighius attacks in this way. With reference to God's condemnation of the reprobate and His punishment of sin, he argues, "If we say that God in His eternal decrees had any respect to what would happen to each person after his creation, we must necessarily confess that the discrimination between the elect and the reprobate was, in the Divine mind, antecedent to the Fall of man. Whence it will follow that the reprobate are not condemned because they were ruined in Adam, but because they were already devoted to destruction even before the Fall of Adam." To this witless argument I reply, What wonder is it that Pighius should thus (to use his own expression) indiscriminately confound all things in reference to the deep judgments of God, when he knows not how to make the least
distinction between remote and proximate CAUSES! After men have looked this way and that way, they can never, by so doing, fix upon the cause of their destruction, nor upon the fault that produced it. And why? because the proximate fault rests with themselves. And should they complain that the wound is inflicted on them from some other quarter, the internal sense of their mind will bind them fast to the conclusion that the evil arose from the voluntary defections and fall of the first man. I know full well that the insolence of the carnal mind cannot be prevented from immediately bawling, "If God foreknew the Fall of Adam, and yet was unwilling to apply a remedy, we are rather perishing in our innocence by His bare external decree than suffering the just punishment of our sin." And suppose we grant that nothing was in this way foreseen of God, or thus viewed by Him, the old complaint concerning original sin will still be made, and as loud as ever: "Why was not Adam left to sin for himself as a private individual, so as to bear the consequences alone? Why was he made to involve us, who deserved no such calamity, in a participation of the same ruin? Nay, under what colour of justice does God visit on us the punishment of another's fault?" But, after all has been said that can be said on the subject, the internal feeling of every man's heart continues to urge its conviction, nor will it suffer any child of Adam to absolve himself (even himself being his own judge) from the sin, the guilt, or the punishment consequent on the original transgression of Adam! Nor can anyone, in truth, raise a controversy on the matter. For as on account of the sin of one man a deadly wound was inflicted on all men, all men at once acknowledge the judgment of God thereon to be righteous!
If, then, nothing can prevent a man from acknowledging that the first origin of his ruin was from Adam, and if each man finds the proximate cause of his ruin in himself, what can prevent our faith from acknowledging afar off, with all sobriety, and adoring, with all humility, that remote secret counsel of God by which the Fall of man was thus pre-ordained? And what should prevent the same faith from beholding, at the same time, the proximate cause within; that the whole human race is individually bound by the guilt and desert of
eternal death, as derived from the person of Adam; and that all are in themselves, therefore, subject to death, and to death eternal? Pighius, therefore, has not sundered, shaken, or altered (as he thought he had done) that pre-eminent and most beautiful symmetry with which these proximate and remote causes divinely harmonise!
Now, our readers must bear in mind that both of the following propositions are equally condemned by Pighius He denies either that God from the beginning, before man had yet fallen, decreed what should take place after his Fall, or (in other words) that He chooses out of the fallen mass those whom He willed so to choose. He laughs at Augustine and all like him; that is, at all the godly who imagine (as he terms it) that, after God foreknew the universal ruin of the human race in the person of Adam, He ordained some to eternal life and others to eternal destruction. For since he takes it as an acknowledged fact that the counsel of God concerning the creation of all men to salvation was antecedent to the Fall of Adam he maintains without a doubt that that purpose of God still remains fixed and unaltered. Otherwise (argues he) God would not be consistent with Himself, and His immutable purpose would be subverted by the sin of man. He severely attacks that appearance of direct contradiction (as they term it) in our doctrine. He maintains that since God (as we teach) decreed, before Adam was created, what should happen to himself and to his posterity, the destruction of the reprobate ought not to be imputed to sin now, after the Fall, committed, because, he says, it would be absurd to make the effect antecedent to its cause. Now I maintain that both these propositions which Pighius combats are true. And, as to his holding before our eyes a pretended disagreement between the two sentiments, there is no such discordance at all.
What we maintain is this: that man was so created, and placed in such a condition, that he could have no cause whatever of complaint against his Maker. God foresaw the Fall of Adam, and most certainly His suffering him to fall was not contrary to, but according to, His divine will. What room is there for quibbling or shuffling here? And
what does such quibbling profit or effect? Yet Pighius denies the truth of this position, because (he argues) the before conceived counsel of God concerning the salvation of all men still stands unaltered. As if no solution of his pretended difficulty could be found. The truth of the matter is, that salvation was not offered to all men on any other ground than on the condition of their remaining in their original innocence. For, that the decree of God concerning the salvation of all men was decisive and absolute, no one of a sound mind will hold or concede. For when man was placed in a way of salvation, his having willingly fallen therefrom was a sufficient ground for his just condemnation. But it could not be otherwise. Adam could not but fall, according to the foreknowledge and will of God. What then? Is Adam on that account freed from fault? Certainly not. He fell by his own full free will, and by his own willing act.
Now, if Augustine had said that it was once (or on one occasion) purposed of God to save all men, the wily argument of Pighius might have some weight in refutation of such an opinion. But when he declares his mind to be that Adam was so constituted, at his first creation, that his proximate, or his own, rejection of life was well known to God; nay, that his rejection of it was, as it were, already included in the secret counsel of God; Augustine truly and justly concludes from such grounds that the reprobate are so involved and bound up in the universal original guilt that, being left thus in death, they righteously suffer that judgment of God. The same I also hold. And I maintain that, as all men are lost in Adam, those who perish, perish by the just judgment of God; and yet I, at the same time, witness as my solemn confession that whatever happened to, or befel, Adam was so ordained of God.
And now, as I proceed, it will be my object, not so much to consider what Pighius says, nor in what order he says it, as to take care that this worthless fellow be prostrated and buried under the ruins of his own desperate impudence. And my great concern shall be to satisfy godly consciences, which we very frequently find to be disturbed by such fellows by reason of their simplicity and inexperience. To
accomplish these ends I will select, out of the flowing stream of our opponent's interminable loquacity, those parts of it which appear to be the most taking and prominent, or the most specious and plausible, that all may witness how much such a fellow can "say, without saying anything"! One reason (he says) why he cannot believe in particular and special election is because Christ, the Redeemer of the whole world, commanded the Gospel to be preached to all men, promiscuously, generally, and without distinction. But the Gospel is an embassy of peace, by which the world is reconciled to God, as Paul teaches. And, according to the same holy witness, it is preached that those who hear it might be saved. To this pretended difficulty of Pighius, therefore, I would briefly reply that Christ was so ordained the Saviour of the whole world, as that He might save those that were given unto Him by the Father out of the whole world, that He might be the eternal life of them of whom He is the Head; that He might receive into a participation of all the "blessings in Him" all those whom God adopted to Himself by His own unmerited good pleasure to be His heirs. Now which one of these solemn things can our opponent deny?
Hence, the Apostle Paul declares this prophecy of Isaiah to be fulfilled in Christ: "Behold, I and the children whom the Lord hath given Me," etc. Accordingly, Christ Himself declares aloud, "All that the Father giveth Me shall come to Me; and him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out (John vi. 37). And again, "Those that Thou gavest Me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition" (John xvii. 12). Hence we read everywhere that Christ diffuses life into none but the members of His own body. And he that will not confess that it is a special gift and a special mercy to be engrafted into the body of Christ, has never read with spiritual attention Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. Hereupon follows also a third important fact, that the virtue and benefits of Christ are extended unto, and belong to, none but the children of God. Now, that the universality of the grace of Christ cannot be better judged of than from the nature of the preaching of the Gospel there is no one who will not immediately grant. Yet, on this hinge the whole
question turns. If we see and acknowledge, therefore, the principle on which the doctrine of the Gospel offers salvation to all, the whole sacred matter is settled at once. That the Gospel is, in its nature, able to save all I by no means deny. But the great question lies here: Did the Lord by His eternal counsel ordain salvation for all men? It is quite manifest that all men, without difference or distinction, are outwardly called or invited to repentance and faith. It is equally evident that the same Mediator is set forth before all, as He who alone can reconcile them to the Father. But it is as fully well known that none of these things can be understood or perceived but by faith, in fulfilment of the apostle Paul's declaration that "the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth;" then what can it be to others but the "savour of death unto death?" as the same apostle elsewhere powerfully expresses himself.
And farther, as it is undeniably manifest that out of the multitudes whom God calls by His outward voice in the Gospel very few believe, if I prove that the greater part of these multitudes remain unbelieving (for God deems none worthy His illumination but whom He will), I obtain thereby the next conclusion, that the mercy of God is offered equally to those who believe and to those who believe not, so that those who are not divinely taught within are only rendered inexcusable, not saved. Some make a distinction here, holding that the Gospel is saving to all as it regards its power to save, but not in its effect of saving. But they by no means untie the knot by this halfway argument. We are still rolled back to the same great question point, whether the same power to believe is conferred upon all men! Now Paul assigns the reason why all do not obey the Gospel. He refers us to the prophet Isaiah: "Lord, who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?" (Rom. x. 16.) The prophet here, astonished at the fewness of those who believe, seems to cry aloud, 'That it was a thing of the highest shame and reproach that, while the Word of God was sounding in the ears of all men, there were scarcely any hearts inwardly touched by it!' But that so awful a depravity in man might not terrify the contemplators of it, the apostle Paul afterwards intimates that it is not given to all thus to
believe, but to those only to whom God manifests Himself (verse 20). In a word, the apostle in this chapter intimates that any effort or sound of the human voice will be ineffectual, unless the secret power of God work in the hearts of the hearers. Of this fact Luke places before our eyes a memorable proof, who, after he had recorded the sermon preached by Paul (Acts xiii. 48), says, "And as many as were ordained to eternal life believed." Now, why was not this same doctrine of Paul received with the same mind and heart by all who heard it? Luke assigns the reason and defines the number of the receivers: "As many as were ordained to eternal life believed." The rest did not believe because they were not" ordained to eternal life." And who is the giver of this disposition of heart but God alone?
As to those who absurdly argue that these characters were ordained to believe by the natural impulse of their own hearts, such silly persons are no more worthy of refutation than those would be who should affirm that the world was made by itself. The secret of the whole lies in the hidden wisdom of the Gospel, which is deeper than can be penetrated by any acuteness of human intellect. "The natural man (saith the apostle) receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God." Is it because he will not? That indeed is quite true; for all are rebellious against God who are not subdued and humbled by His Spirit. But the apostle carries the matter much deeper and higher than this, both as to man and as to God, showing that there is that "foolishness" and ignorance in man that he cannot understand the things of the Spirit, and that the wisdom and counsel of God decreed the whole. For (saith the apostle), "Who hath known the mind of the Lord, and who hath been His counsellor?" No one (argues he) can know the secrets of God, but by His Spirit only. Whence, he fully concludes, that those alone are the scholars of God who are gifted, not with the spirit of this world, but with His own heavenly Spirit, "that they may know the things that are freely given them of God" (1 Cor. ii. 12).
Now, what does the apostle mean by drawing this comparison between "the spirit of the world" and "the Spirit which is of God" but
this, that men while unregenerate can only be wise in their own way,. and can only cleave unto the earth, but that God as a heavenly Father illuminates His own children in an especial manner? And yet, Pighius would here thrust upon us the absurd notion that where it pleases God, each one may prepare himself by his own voluntary will and endeavour. As if Paul were not speaking to the Corinthians, whom he shortly afterwards describes as having been thieves, drunkards, slanderers, dissolute, and laden with every monstrous iniquity, until they were cleansed by the Sanctification of the Spirit. Now what could there be in these characters whom God had dragged out of hell itself? what could there be in these awful sinners, I say, that could help them to meet God half-way, as it were, or to deserve the illumination of His Spirit? But why should I employ a wide circle of words? The Spirit of God, who reveals to us the "mysteries of the kingdom of heaven," is the Spirit of adoption; and divine adoption is wholly gratuitous, the free gift of God. Therefore, the Spirit Himself is freely given on whomsoever He is bestowed. Now, that the Spirit is not thus freely bestowed on all men universal experience undeniably proves. Wherefore, faith is the special gift of God, and by that gift election is manifested to, and ratified in, the soul that receives it.
This is what Paul means when he says that Christ, who is a "stumbling-block to the Jews" and "foolishness to the Greeks," is "to them that are called, the wisdom of God and the power of God." But the next question is, where does calling come from? Whence but from God, who calleth according to His purpose those whom He hath chosen? From this state of things flows the conclusion (and this we hold fast) that the Gospel, which is, in its essential nature, "a savour of life unto life," and ought to be so to all that hear it, becomes "a savour of death unto death in them that perish," who thus remain in their darkness and unbelief because "the arm of the Lord" is not revealed to them. If, then, amidst so universal a corruption and depravity of our nature some few do believe the Gospel, to ascribe the faith of such to their own goodness would be perfectly impious. No! Let thanks, on the contrary, be given to God continually (according to the admonition of the apostle), "because He hath from
the beginning chosen such believers unto salvation, through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth," in which words the apostle traces faith and sanctification to the eternal election of God as its source and cause. What shall we say then? Were these chosen because they had sanctified themselves and rendered themselves meet or worthy to be chosen? The apostle asserts most expressly that this sanctification was the work of the Spirit of God. And as the nature of faith is the same, and equally the gift of God and the work of His Spirit, it incontrovertibly follows that those who are illuminated unto faith are thus illuminated and gifted with faith, that their election of God may be manifested and ratified by these its very effects. And most certainly, when we hear that no one cometh unto Christ but he that is drawn by the Father, we may safely adopt the language and argument of Augustine: "Who can be said to be drawn who is already willing to go? And yet no one comes to Christ but he who is willing. Wherefore, every comer to Christ is drawn in a wonderful way, that he may be willing, by Him who knows how to work inwardly on the very hearts of men; and so to work in them, not that they may believe against their wills (which would be impossible), but that they may be made willing to believe who were before unwilling to believe."
All this Pighius loudly denies, adducing that passage of the apostle (1 Tim. ii. 4): "Who will have all men to be saved;" and, referring also to Ezek xviii. 23, he argues thus, "That God willeth not the death of a sinner," may be taken upon His own oath, where He says by that prophet, "As I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the wicked that dieth; but rather that he should return from his ways and live." Now we reply, that as the language of the prophet here is an exhortation to repentance, it is not at all marvellous in him to declare that God willeth all men to be saved. For the mutual relation between threats and promises shows that such forms of speaking are conditional. In this same manner God declared to the Ninevites; and to the kings of Gerar and Egypt, that He would do that which, in reality, He did not intend to do, for their repentance averted the punishment which He had threatened to inflict upon them. Whence
it is evident that the punishment was denounced on condition of their remaining obstinate and impenitent. And yet, the denunciation of the punishment was positive, as if it had been an irrevocable decree. But after God had terrified them with the apprehension of His wrath, and had duly humbled them as not being utterly desperate, He encourages them with the hope of pardon, that they might feel that there was yet left open a space for remedy. Just so it is with respect to the conditional promises of God, which invite all men to salvation. They do not positively prove that which God has decreed in His secret counsel, but declare only what God is ready to do to all those who are brought to faith and repentance.
But men untaught of God, not understanding these things, allege that we hereby attribute to God a twofold or double will. Whereas God is so far from being variable, that no shadow of such variableness appertains to Him, even in the most remote degree. Hence Pighius, ignorant of the Divine nature of these deep things, thus argues: "What else is this but making God a mocker of men, if God is represented as really not willing that which He professes to will, and as not having pleasure in that in which He in reality has pleasure?" But if these two members of the sentence be read in conjunction, as they ever ought to be? "I have no pleasure in the death of the' wicked;"and, "But that the wicked turn from his way and live"? read these two propositions in connection with each other, and the calumny is washed off at once. God requires of us this conversion, or "turning away from our iniquity," and in whomsoever He finds it He disappoints not such an one of the promised reward of eternal life. Wherefore, God is as much said to have pleasure in, and to will, this eternal life, as to have pleasure in the repentance; and He has pleasure in the latter, because He invites all men to it by His Word. Now all this is in perfect harmony with His secret and eternal counsel, by which He decreed to convert none but His own elect. None but God's elect, therefore, ever do turn from their wickedness. And yet, the adorable God is not, on these accounts, to be considered variable or capable of change, because, as a Law-giver, He enlightens all men with the external doctrine of conditional life. In this primary
manner He calls, or invites, all men unto eternal life. But, in the latter ease, He brings unto eternal life those whom He willed according to His eternal purpose, regenerating by His Spirit, as an eternal Father, His own children only.
It is quite certain that men do not "turn from their evil ways" to the Lord of their own accord, nor by any instinct of nature. Equally certain is it that the gift of conversion is not common to all men; because this is that one of the two covenants which Cod promises that He will not make with any but with His own children and His own elect people, concerning whom He has recorded His promise that "He will write His law in their hearts" (Jer. xxxi. 33). Now, a man must be utterly beside himself to assert that this promise is made to all men generally and indiscriminately. God says expressly by Paul, who refers to the prophet Jeremiah, "For this is the covenant that I will make with them. Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers: but I will put My laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts" (Heb. viii. 9, 10). Surely, to apply this promise to those who were worthy of this new covenant, or to such as had prepared themselves by their own merits or endeavours to receive it must be worse than the grossest ignorance and folly; and the more so, as the Lord is speaking by the prophet to those who had before "stony hearts." All this is plainly stated also, and fully explained, by the prophet Ezekiel (chap. xxxvi. 26).
That obstinacy and enmity are common to all men I fully admit, and I also maintain that the heart of no man is softened and made flexible and obedient to the will of God until God gives him the will and power to do what He commands. For why are we called "new creatures," but because "we are His workmanship, created unto good works"? But, I pray you, what kind of a division, and how iniquitous a division, of all praise and glory would it be to make God the Creator of us mortal men, and yet to make each one of us his own creator unto righteousness and eternal life? In this way God would only have for Himself the praise of ineffectual and failing grace. That portion of the glory which is the far more excellent would fall to our lot. But the
Scripture positively affirms that to circumcise the hearts of men is the work of God alone, nor is regeneration ascribed to any other than God Himself. Hence it is that whatever in man is created anew, in the image of God, is called "spirit." "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit" (John iii. 6). God does, indeed, frequently invite us to repentance, but He Himself is everywhere declared to be the Author of conversion; His "law" is said "to convert souls." The intermediate agency of this conversion, however, is frequently transferred to the ministers of the Word. But as, while they labour by praying, by sowing, by watering, it is God alone that "giveth the increase," it is not at all to be wondered at that it should be declared to be His work alone to open the heart of His own to "attend to the things spoken" by His ministers.
Hence it is that Augustine, after having treated of the elect, and having shown that their salvation is safely secured under the faithful custody of God, so that no one of them can perish, makes these solemn and blessed observations: "All the rest of mankind, who are nor of this number (says he), but are of the same fallen mass, being ordained vessels of wrath, are born for the use and service of these elect ones. For God created no one, even of them, at random, or by chance, or for nought. Nor does He work ignorantly whatever of good He works in, or by, them. For His creating in them a human nature is itself a good thing. And His adorning by them the order of this present life is a good thing. But God brings no one of these to spiritual repentance and to reconciliation with Himself! Although, therefore, these are born out of the same lump of perdition as the elect of God, yet by their hardness and impenitency of heart they all, as far as in them lies, 'treasure up unto themselves wrath against the day of wrath.' While out of this same fallen mass God calls some to repentance by His goodness and mercy, leaving these, the rest, in just judgment, to their own destruction." Thus, Augustine.
But that no one might imagine that there is here any discrepancy, variance, or conflict between divine grace and our industry, these sentiments of the holy father everywhere meet us in his works. "Men
toil (says he) to find in our own free will what good thing there is that is our own, and which we have not received from God. I, for my part, know not what good things of the kind can be discovered in us at all." In another place, arguing on the same deep subject, he draws this conclusion "Wherefore, unless we hold fast these two positions, not only that that power of will which is free to turn this way and that, and which is one of those natural good things which a bad man may badly use, is the gift of God; but that that good will which is one of those spiritual good things of which there cannot be made a bad use, is of God also; unless, I say, we hold fast these two propositions, I know not on what grounds we are to defend the sacred position of the apostle, involved in his memorable question, 'What hast thou that thou didst not receive?' But if there be in us a certain kind of free will, received from God, which may yet be either good or evil; and if there be in us also a good will, rendered so by ourselves; that which proceeds from ourselves is better than that which we receive from God." Augustine arrives at this final inference from the above premises: "Where God (says he) is pleased to give this will to obey Him and to come unto Christ, it is an act of His free mercy, not according to the merits of those on whom He bestows the gift and to whom He shows the mercy. Where God is notwilling to bestow the gift, nor to show the mercy, it is a display of His wrath which declares that none can come to Christ to whom the will to come is not given. And though He has the power to draw them, He draws them not; but they are left to perish, and thus to manifest the truth of His Word, that 'no one can come unto Christ, except the Father draw him.'"
The difficulty which, according to Pighius, lies in that other place of Paul, where the apostle affirms that "God will have all men to be saved, and come unto the knowledge of the truth" (1 Tim. ii. 4), is solved in one moment, and by one question, namely, How does God wish all men to come to the knowledge of the truth? For Paul couples this salvation and this coming tothe knowledge of the truth together. Now, I would ask, did the same will of God stand the same from the beginning of the world or not? For if God willed, or wished,
that His truth should be known unto all men, how was it that He did not proclaim and make known His law to the Gentiles also? Why did He confine the light of life within the narrow limits of Judaea? And what does Moses mean when he says, "For what nation is there so great who hath God so nigh unto them, as the Lord our God is in all things that we call upon Him for? And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day?" (Deut. iv. 7, 8.) The Divine lawgiver surely here means that there was no other nation which had statutes and laws, by which it was ruled, like unto that nation. And what does Moses here but extol the peculiar privilege of the race of Abraham? To this responds the high encomium of David, pronounced on the same nation, "He hath not dealt so with any nation: and as for His judgments, they have not known them" (Ps. cxlvii. 20). Nor must we disregard the express reason assigned by the Psalmist "Because the Lord loved thy fathers, therefore He chose their seed after them" (Deut. iv. 37). And why did God thus choose them? Not because they were, in themselves, more excellent than others, but because it pleased God to choose them "for His peculiar people." What? Are we to suppose that the apostle did not know that he himself was prohibited by the Holy Spirit from "preaching the word" in Asia, and from passing over into Bithynia? But as the continuance of this argument would render us too prolix, we will he content with taking one position more: that God, after having thus lighted the candle of eternal life to the Jews alone, suffered the Gentiles to wander for many ages in the darkness of ignorance; and that, at length, this special gift and blessing were promised to the Church: "But the Lord shall arise upon thee; and His glory shall be seen upon thee" (Isa. lx. 2). Now let Pighius boast, if he can, that God willeth all men to be saved! The above arguments, founded on the Scriptures, prove that even the external preaching of the doctrine of salvation, which is very far inferior to the illumination of the Spirit, was not made of God common to all men.