Section I Eternal Predestintion (part 2 of 2)

Paul then proceeds to declare that "God abounded towards us in all wisdom and prudence, according to the riches of His grace, having made known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He hath purposed in Himself." Thou hearest in these words, reader, the grace of illumination, flowing like a river from the fountain of that eternal counsel which had been before hidden. Far, very far, is this removed from the idea that God had any respect to our faith in choosing us, which faith could not possibly have existed except that God had then appointed it for us by the free grace of His adoption of us. And Paul farther confirms all this by declaring that God was moved by no external cause?by no cause out of Himself?in the choice of us; but that He Himself, in Himself, was the cause and the author of choosing His people, not yet created or born, as those on whom He would afterwards confer faith: "According to the purpose of Him (saith the apostle) who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will" (Eph. i. 11).

Who does not see that the eternal purpose of God is here set in diametrical opposition to our own purpose and will? This passage also was deeply weighed by Augustine, who, in his interpretation of it, observes "that God so works out all things, that He works also in us the very willingness by which we believe." It is thus, I think, clearly brought out and proved who they are whom God calls by the Gospel to the hope of salvation, whom He engrafts into the body of Christ, and whom He makes heirs of eternal life; that they are those whom He had adopted unto Himself by His eternal and secret counsel to be His sons; and that he was so far from being moved by any faith in them to come thus to adopt them, that this His election is the cause and the beginning of all faith in them; and that, therefore, election is, in order, before faith.

Equally plain and manifest is that which we have in the eighth chapter of the apostle's Epistle to the Romans. For after he had said that all things work together for good (or are a help) to the faithful who love God; that men might not trace the source of their happiness to themselves, or suppose that by their first loving God they had, by thus first loving Him, merited such goodness at His hands; the apostle, by way of correcting every error of that kind, immediately adds, "Who are the called according to His purpose." Whereby we see that Paul is anxious to secure to God Himself all the originating glory, for he shews that it is He Who, by His calling, causes men to love Him, who of themselves could do nothing but hate Him. For if you thoroughly examine the whole human race, what inclination will you find in any one of them by nature to love God? Nay! Paul in this very same chapter declares that all the senses of the flesh, the whole "carnal mind, is enmity against God." Now, if all men are, by nature, enemies to God and His adversaries, it is quite evident that it is by His calling alone that some are separated from the rest, and caused to lay aside their hatred, and brought to love Him. Moreover, there can exist no doubt that the apostle here designs that effectual calling, by which God regenerates those whom He had before adopted unto Himself to be His sons. For the apostle does not simply say "who are the called" (for this is sometimes applicable to the reprobate whom God calls, or invites, promiscuously, with His own children, to repentance and faith), but he says, in all fulness of explanation, "Who are the called according to His purpose;" which purpose must, from its very nature and effect, be firm and ratifying.

Now, to explain this text as applying to the purpose of man is (as Augustine argues) absurd in the extreme. Indeed, the context itself banishes every scruple, as if to render the intrusion of an interpreter wholly unnecessary. For the apostle immediately adds, "Whom He did predestinate (or definitely appoint), them He also called; and whom He called, them He also justified." Here it is evident that the apostle is speaking of a certain number whom God destined for Himself as a peculiar property and treasure. For although God calls very many?by many means, and especially by the external ministry of men?yet He justifies, and at last glorifies, no one but him whom He had ordained unto eternal life. The calling of God, therefore, is a certain special calling, which so seals and ratifies His eternal election, as to manifest openly what was before hidden in God concerning each one so called.

I know well what are the cavillings of many here. They say that when Paul affirms that those were predestinated whom God foreknew, he means that each one was chosen in respect of his future faith when he should believe. But I do not concede to these that which they falsely imagine, that we are to understand that God foresaw something in them which would move Him to confer upon them His favour and grace. For it is evident that the elect of God were foreknown when, and because, they were freely chosen. Hence, the same apostle elsewhere teaches that God knoweth them that are His, because, that is, He has them marked as it were, and holds them as numbered on His roll.

Nor is even this important point omitted by Augustine: that by the term foreknowledge we are to understand the counsel of God by which He predestinates His own unto salvation. Now that it was foreknown of God who should be heirs of eternal life no one will deny. The only question that can possibly arise is this: Whether God foreknew what He would do in them, or what they would be in themselves. But it is a piece of futile cunning to lay hold on the term foreknowledge, and so to use that as to pin the eternal election of God upon the merits of men, which election the apostle everywhere ascribes to the alone purpose of God. Peter also salutes the Church as "elect according to the foreknowledge of God." Did he do this believing that some virtue in them foreseen of God gained them His favour? No! Peter is not comparing men with men, so as to make some of them better or more worthy than others, but he is placing on high, above all other causes, that decree which God determined in Himself. As if he had said, that those to whom he wrote were now numbered among the children of God, because they were chosen or elected of Him before they were born. On this same principle he afterwards teaches, in the same chapter, that Christ was "verily foreordained before the foundation of the world" to be the Saviour, Who should wash away by His blood the sins of the world; by which that apostle doubtless means that the expiation of sin. completed by Christ, was preordained by the eternal counsel of God. Nor can that be otherwise explained, which we find in the sermon of Peter, recorded by Luke in the Acts of the Apostles, that Christ was delivered to death "by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God." Peter here joins "foreknowledge" to "counsel," that we may learn that Christ was not hurried away to death by any casualty, nor by the mere violent assault of men; but because the all-good and allwise God, who knoweth all things, had thus purposely decreed it. Indeed, one passage of the Apostle Paul ought to suffice for the end of all controversy among those who have really a sound mind. He says, "God hath not cast away His people, which He foreknew." And what that foreknowledge was he shortly after explains, where he says that a "remnant according to the election of grace" were saved. And again, that Israel did not obtain by works that which they sought after, but that "the election" did obtain it. Now that which in the former passage he called foreknowledge, he here afterwards defines to be election, and that gratuitous and free.

The fiction of Pighius is puerile and absurd, when he interprets grace to be God's goodness in inviting all men to salvation, though all were lost in Adam. For Paul most clearly separates the foreknown from those on whom God deigned not to look in mercy. And the same is expressed, without any obscurity, in the memorable words of Christ: "All that the Father giveth Me shall come unto Me; and him that cometh unto Me, I will in no wise cast out.'' Here we have three things briefly indeed, but most perspicuously expressed. First, that all who come unto Christ were before given unto Him by the Father; secondly, that those who were thus given unto Him were delivered, as it were, from the hand of the Father into the hand of the Son, that they may be truly His; thirdly, that Christ is the sure keeper of all those whom the Father delivered over to His faithful custody and care, for the very end that He might not suffer one of them to perish. Now if a question be raised as to the beginning of faith, Christ here gives the answer, when He says that those who believe, therefore believe because they were given unto Him by the Father.

The unbelief of the Scribes was a great obstacle to the ignorant multitude, because they always persuaded them that no doctrine was worthy of belief but that which was received under their sanction. On the other hand, Christ declares aloud that that light by which we are guided into the way of salvation is the gift of God. And if anyone be inclined to turn his back upon the truth that all those whom the Father chose in Christ were given unto Him, it nevertheless remains fixed and a fact that that gift was not only antecedent to faith, but the cause and origin of it. Now in the remaining member of the sentence of Christ, "Shall come unto Me," there is a more marvellous weight still. For He not only declares that none ever come to Him, but those to whom the hand of God is stretched out; but He asserts that all who were given unto Him by the Father are, without exception, brought to believe in Him. And this He still more fully confirms in the context of His divine discourse: "No one," says He, "can come unto Me except My Father draw him."

Pighius will himself confess that there is need of illumination to bring unto Christ those who were adversaries to God; but he, at the same time, holds fast the fiction that grace is offered equally to all, but that it is ultimately rendered effectual by the will of man, just as each one is willing to receive it. Christ, however, testifies that the meaning of His worlds is very different from this. For He adds immediately afterwards, "There are some among you who believe not. Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto Me except it were given unto him of My Father." You see here that Christ excludes those that "believer not" from the number of them who are "drawn." Now Christ would have uttered all this in vain, and out of place, if faith were not an especial gift of God. But that is the clearest of all which He conclusively adds in continuation of His discourse. After having cited the prophecy of Isaiah, "All thy children shall be taught of the Lord;" He subjoins, by way of interpretation, "Every one therefore that hath heard and learned of the Father cometh unto Me." Herein He shews that the prophecy of Isaiah is then fulfilled when God, by His Spirit, speaks to His children and disciples within, in order that He may deliver them into the hands and possession of Christ. Isaiah defines this to be the manner in which God renews and increases His Church, by teaching His children from above: "And they shall be all taught of God." The prophet, therefore, is recording a peculiar favour of God, of which none are deemed worthy but His own children. Christ also here declares, by this His doctrine, that those are effectually drawn to Him whose minds and hearts God "compels."

Thus does God (saith Augustine) teach those within who are 'the called according to His purpose,' at the same time giving them to know what they ought to do, and giving them the power to do what they know. He, therefore, who knows what he ought to do, and does it not, has not yet learned of God according to grace, but according to the law only; not according to the spirit, but only according to the letter." And again a little afterwards, "If as 'the Truth' saith, 'Every one that hath learned cometh,' he that cometh not most certainly hath not learned." At length the holy father arrives at this conclusion: "It does not follow (saith he) that he who can come, therefore does come. The sacred matter is not perfected unless he is willing to come, and does come. Now every one that hath learned of the Father has not only the power to come, but does come." Here, therefore, we have the forward movement of the power, the affection of the will, and the effect of the act.

Nor do I thus adduce Augustine as a witness on this occasion, that I may fight my enemies under cover of his authority; but because I cannot find words more appropriate than his wherewith to express the mind of Christ in the Evangelist. If there be any not yet quieted, he discusses the matter more fully elsewhere thus: "What doth Christ mean (argues he) when He says, 'Every one that hath learned of the Father cometh unto Me' (John vi. 45.) What is it, but as if He had said,: 'There is no one who heareth and learneth of the Father that cometh not unto Me.' For if everyone who hath heard and learned of the Father cometh (unto Christ), most certainly whoso cometh not unto Him hath never heard or learned. For if he had heard and learned he would certainly come. This school of God is very far removed from all carnal sense and understanding. In it the Father teaches, and is heard, that 'those who hear and learn may come to the Son."

A little farther on Augustine observes, " This grace. which is secretly communicated to the hearts of men, is received by no heart that is hardened. Indeed, it is given for the very end that the hardness of the heart may be first taken away. When, therefore, the Father is heard within, He takes away the stony heart ' and gives ' a heart of flesh.' For it is thus that He makes His own the children of promise and vessels of mercy. which He had before prepared unto glory. If it be asked, Why He does not thus teach all men, in order that they may come to Christ F the answer is, Because those whom He does teach, He teaches in mercy; but those whom He does not teach, in judgment He teaches them not. For 'He hath mercy on whom He will have mercy, and whom He will He hardeneth'" (Rom. ix. 18).

The sum of this sacred matter, however, may be compressed into a smaller compass still. Christ does not say that those are drawn by the Father who have a flexible heart given them to render them able to come to Him; but that those who do come to Him are they whom God by His Spirit touches within, and who, under the efficacy of that touch, actually come. Now that this privilege is not given to all promiscuously is a fact which universal experience makes manifest. even to the blind.

And next, when Christ declares that He will by no means cast out one of those who do come unto Him; nay, that the life of all such is hidden and kept in security, in Himself, until He shall raise them up at the last day; who does not see here that the final perseverance of the saints (as it is commonly termed) is in like manner ascribed to the election of God? It may be, and has been, that some fall from the faith; but those who are given to Christ by the Father are, as Christ Himself declares, placed beyond the peril of destruction. In the same manner also, when, in another place, Christ had said that some of the Jews did not believe "because they were not of His sheep," He places, as it were, the sheep themselves in a sure haven of safety. "They shall never perish (saith He), neither shall any one pluck them out of My hand. My Father who gave them Me is greater than all, and none is able to pluck them out of My Father's hand." Now Pighius will not, surely, dare to rest the safe state of the salvation of these sheep on their present faith. Yet he would suspend it all upon the free will of man!

Nor are we to consider it a point for ambiguous discussion when Christ here sets Himself alone as a sufficient protection against all the machinations of Satan, and when He declares that we shall be safe even unto the end, because it is His will to save us. But that there might remain no doubt upon the subject in any one's mind as to the persons whom He does undertake in His faithfulness to protect and preserve, He calls our attention a second time to the gift of the Father, declaring both the gift of the Father and the teaching of the Father. Nor should we pass, without especial notice, Christ's making the Father greater than all adversaries that can possibly oppose His people. Our Lord does it, that our confidence in the security of our salvation might be as great as our reverence for the power of God. For our security and God's omnipotence are equal; the former not being less than the latter. Wherefore, amidst all the violent assaults, all the various dangers, all the mighty storms, and all the shakings convulsions and agitations, with which we have to contend, the continuance and perpetuity of our standing lie in this: that God will constantly defend that which He hath decreed in Himself concerning our salvation by the omnipotent power of His arm. If any one of us but look into himself, what can he do but tremble? For all things shake to their centre around us, and there is nothing more weak and tottering than ourselves. But since our heavenly Father suffers not one of those whom He gave to His Son to perish, as great as is His power, so certain is our confidence, and so great our glorying. And His omnipotence is such that He stands the invincible vindicator of His own gift.

Hence, Augustine advisedly observes, "If any one of these should perish God would be deceived. But no one of them ever does perish, because God never is, or can be, deceived. If any one of these should perish. God is overcome and outdone by the sin of man. But no one of them ever does perish, because God can be conquered or outdone by nothing. The elect of God are chosen that they may reign with Christ for ever. They are not like Judas, who was chosen to a temporary office only, for which he was naturally fitted." Again, "Of these not one perishes, because they are all chosen according to a purpose; not their own purpose, but God's. Seeing that there is not conferred upon them such a gift of perseverance, by which they may persevere if they will; but a gift by which they cannot but persevere." Augustine then confirms this by the following excellent argument: "If, in the great weakness of this life (in the midst of which weakness there is nevertheless need of mighty power to keep down human vanity and pride), men were left to their own will, whether they would persevere or not, so that, under the helping power of God (without which they could not persevere at all), they might stand still if they pleased; and if God did not work in them that will, man's own will itself would, amid such and so great temptations, sink under its own infirmity. And thus men could not persevere at all, because, sinking under their own weaknesses, they would not be willing to persevere, or, being willing, would not have the power. A remedy, therefore, is provided for the infirmity of human will by its being caused to act, unceasingly and inseparably, under Divine grace. Thus, the human will, though infirm in itself, cannot fail, nor be overcome by any infirmity of its own."

Now let that memorable passage of Paul (Rom. ix. 10-13) come forth before us. This passage alone should abundantly suffice to put an end to all controversy among the sober-minded and obedient children of God. And although it is no wonder that that eyeless monster, Pighius, should mock with contempt the words of the apostle himself, yet I hope I shall bring all readers of a sound mind to abhor such barbarous audacity in profaning the Scripture as this monster evinces. As the Jews, priding themselves on the name of the Church, rejected under this pretext the Gospel of Christ, because it had been condemned by the consent of the (so-called) Church, the apostle, to prevent the majesty of the Gospel from being overshadowed by such shameless pride, tears from the faces of these enemies of Christ the mask, under cover of which they falsely boasted. It was, indeed, a very great difficulty, and a formidable obstacle, in the way of the weak when they saw the doctrine of Christ rejected by nearly all these very persons whom God had appointed the heirs of His everlasting covenant. The apostles had all along preached that Jesus was the Messiah of God. But the whole of this nation, to whom the Messiah had been promised, opposed and rejected Him. And what wonder! when at this very day we see thousands totter, fail and faint, frightened by this very Church mask which the Papists hold before their eyes, boasting themselves to be the Church!

The apostle, therefore, enters into the battle with the Jews in this manner: He by no means makes the fleshly seed the legitimate children of Abraham, but counts the children of promise alone for the seed. Now he might have counted the seed according to their faith. And that indeed would have been consistent, when, in reference to the promise, he was stating the difference between the genuine and the spurious offspring; and that, indeed, he had before done. But now he ascends higher into the mind of God, and declares that those were the children of promise whom God chose before they were born. In proof of which he cites that promise which was given by the angel to Abraham, "At this time will I come, and Sarah shall have a son (as if the apostle had added, before Isaac was conceived in the womb, he was chosen of God). And not only this (saith the apostle), but when Rebecca also had conceived by one (embrace), even by our father Isaac (for the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of Him that calleth), it was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. As it is written. Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated" (Rom. ix. 10).

Pighius would slide away under the excuse that this is one of the most difficult places of Scripture. And suppose I concede this; I do not thereby acknowledge that his impious barking is to be endured, when he boastingly asserts that it is a labyrinth in which no straight way can be found. What! are we to suppose that the Holy Spirit, speaking by the mouth of the apostle, went out of His way or lost Himself, so as to lead us aside and beyond what it is useful or proper for us to know? It would have been very easy (as I have just said) for the apostle to distinguish the true children of Abraham from the spurious ones by the mark of faith alone. But he on purpose introduces the question of election, far higher and much farther removed. And most certainly as, according to his own record of himself, he had been carried up into the third heaven, and those secrets of God had been revealed to him which it is not lawful for a man to utter, it must be evident that he well knew how far it was expedient, and how far it was lawful, for him to go in publishing the secret things of the Most High. When, therefore, he purposely carries the question to so great a height, and brings it down to so important a point, when it might have been settled in so general, brief and compendious a manner, what godly person will hesitate to lend an attentive and teachable ear to what he testifies? Unless we are to entertain a supposition that this furious, blind monster would restrain, by his great moderation (!), the Spirit of God Himself, wantoning (in his own opinion) beyond due bounds! Our very modest (!) opponent adds, "This is one of the portions of Scripture which unlearned and unstable persons corrupt to their own destruction." Now this is the very fact which, by the plainest proof, he forces us to declare concerning himself, so lawlessly does he twist and pervert the whole context of the Apostle Paul. And when he exhorts his readers to hold themselves obedient to the Church, in the interpretation of all such difficult passages of Scripture, he should have me a seconder of his grave admonition, if he would shew to his readers, as the Church, a sheepfold of Christ, and not a stinking sty of swine! For which is Pighius' Church but that vortex, formed of the congregated mass of all iniquities, and ever filling, but not yet full, of every kind of error?

Pighius' last admonition is, that his readers would admit nothing that is inconsistent with the infinite goodness of God, nor anything by which they might be incited to hate God rather than to love Him. And yet he runs full sail directly against God, because He predestines some to destruction from their very creation. But suppose the whole of this doctrine were suppressed, the reprobate would ever find occasion for hating God, and for assailing Him with their impious reasonings and arguments. What real reason they have for their noisy opposition shall be duly considered, in its place, when we shall have fully explained the mind of the apostle. At the present moment, let all those who are willing to be taught in the school of God hear what the apostle plainly, and without any ambiguity, really says and means.

The apostle places before us the two sons of Isaac, who, when begotten together in the secret and sacred womb of nature, as in a temple of God, as it were, were nevertheless, while in the womb together, separated by the oracular word of God to an entirely different destiny. Now the apostle assigns the cause of this difference (which otherwise might have been sought in the merits of the lives of these two children) to the hidden counsel of God: "That the counsel of God might stand." We here distinctly learn that it was determined of God to choose one only out of these two children. And yet Pighius, by a senseless cavil, as by a hog's snout, tries to root up these words of the apostle with all their positive plainness of meaning. He replies that the election of grace here means that Jacob had merited no such thing beforehand. But since the apostle commends this electing grace of God on the very ground that while the one was elected, the other was rejected, the vain fiction of Pighius concerning universal grace falls to the ground at once. The apostle does not here simply say that Jacob was appointed heir of life, that the election of God might stand, but that his brother being rejected, his brother's birthright was conferred on him. I am fully aware of what some other dogs here bark out, and what are the murmurings of many ignorant persons, that the testimonies of the apostle which we have cited do not treat of eternal life, nor of eternal destruction, at all. But if such objectors held the true principles of theology in any degree (which ought to be well known by all Christian men), they would express their sentiments with a little less confidence and insolence. For the answer of God to Rebecca's complaint was designed to shew her that the issue of the struggling which she felt in her womb would be that the blessing of God and the covenant of eternal life would rest with the younger. And what did the struggling itself signify, but that both the children could not be heirs of the covenant at the same time, which covenant had already, by the secret council of God, been decreed for the one?

Objectors here allege that this covenant and its decree referred to Canaan, on which the Prophet Malachi dwells (Mal. i. 1~3). And, indeed, this objection might be worthy of notice if God had designed merely to fatten the Jews in Canaan as pigs in a sty. But the mind of the prophet is very different from this. God had promised that land to Abraham as an outward symbol or figure of a better inheritance, and had given it to Abraham's posterity for a possession, that He might there collect them together as a peculiar people unto Himself, and might there erect a sanctuary of His presence and grace. These great ends and objects are those which the prophet is revolving in his deep and reflective mind. In a word, the prophet is holding Canaan to be the sacred habitation of God. And as Esau was deprived of this habitation, the prophet sacredly gathers that he was hated of God, because he had been thus rejected from the holy and elect family, on which the love of God perpetually rests. We also with the prophet, must carefully consider the particular nature of that land, and the peculiar quality which God assigns to it, that it might he a certain earnest or pledge of that spiritual covenant which God entered into with the seed of Abraham. It is in full sacred point, therefore, that the apostle records that the free election of God fell upon Jacob, because, being yet unborn, he was appointed to enjoy the inheritance, while his brother was, at the same time, rejected. But Paul is proceeding much farther still in his sacred argument, and maintaining that this inheritance was not obtained by works, nor conferred on Jacob from any respect to works which he should in his after life perform. Nor is even this all. The apostle expressly declares that the brothers were thus separated, and this difference made between them, before either of them had done any one thing good or evil. From these facts the apostle solemnly settles it, that the difference made between the children was not from any works whatever, but from the will of Him that called.

Here Pighius thrusts upon us that rancid distinction of his: that works performed were not indeed taken into the Divine consideration (for no works as yet existed), but that the election of God was ratified in the person of Jacob, because God foresaw what his faith and obedience would be. And he philosophises, in a most ingenious way, on the name Israel? that Jacob was so named from seeing God, that we may know that those are true Israelites (not who are blind from their own malice and wickedness, but blind only with respect to God), and who, when God presents Himself to be seen by them, open their eyes. But is it not a most ridiculous circumstance that, while this being is anxious to make others so clear-sighted, he should himself be blinder than a mole? An utterly different etymology is that which is given us by Moses! He says the name Israel was given to Jacob by the angel with whom he wrestled, and came off victorious. For ISRAEL signifies "having power with God." or "prevailing over God."