beforehand, such as the birth and death of Christ, the Judgment Day,
individuals, then it must be fixed and sure. He predicted the curse on Canaan and his descendants. But does that prove that He was delighted in the curse, or that He was the author of it, or that those who were the instruments of inflicting it, and so fulfilling the prophecy, were guiltless?
4. Even our opponents admit that there are some events decreed beforehand, such as the birth and death of Christ, the Judgment Day, etc. If, then, they admit that He has decreed a single event they are in precisely the same difficulty in which they seek to fix us. If one event is decreed, why not all? Who is to draw the line and say, These are decreed, but these are not? God's will has already fixed one or two, and is man's will, or chance, to settle the rest?
In further explanation of this point, let me quote a few paragraphs from a tract which I published some years ago:
I know that the sinner must have a will in the matter too. It is absurdity to speak of a sinner loving, believing, etc., against his will, or by compulsion. The sinner must will, beyond doubt. He must will to take the broad way, and he must will to take the narrow way. His will is essential to all these movements of his soul. But in what state do we find his will at present? We find it is wholly set against the truth. Every will since the fall is wholly opposed to God and His Word. Man needs no foreign influence, no external power to make him reject the truth. That he does by nature. He hates it with his whole heart. When a sinner then comes to receive the truth, how is this accomplished? Does he renew himself? Does he change the enmity of his will by the unaided act of his will? Does he of himself bend back his own will into the opposite direction? Does he, by a word of his own power, cause the current that had been flowing downhill to change its course and flow upward? Does his own will
originate the change in itself, and carry the change into effect? Impossible! The current would have flowed forever downward had it not been arrested in its course by something stronger than itself. The sinner's will would have remained forever in depravity and bondage, had not another Will, far mightier than itself, coming into contact with it, and altered both its nature and course, working in the sinner "both to will and to do." Was the sinner willing before this other Will met his? No! Was he willing after? Yes! Then, is it not plain that it was God's will meeting and changing the sinner's will that made the difference? God's will was first.
It was God's will that began the work and made the sinner willing. He never would have willed had not God made him willing. "Thy people shall be willing in the day of Thy power." It is the power of Jehovah applied to us that makes us willing. Till that is applied, we are unwilling. It is His hand, operating directly upon the soul, that changes its nature and its bent. Were it not for that our unwillingness would never be removed. No outward means or motives would be sufficient to effect the change, for all these means and motives are rejected by the sinner. Nor does he become willing even to allow the approach or application of these means or motives till God makes him willing. To speak of his being changed by that which he rejects as is absurd as to speak of a man's being healed by a medicine which he persists in refusing. "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?" (Jer. 13:23).
Then are all willing? Doesn't the depraved will remain in most, while the new will appears in few? What makes the difference? God's choice! "Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Thy sight." "Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor and another unto dishonor?" (Rom. 9:21). "Except the Lord of Hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should
have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah" (Isa. 1:9).
Does God then hinder sinners from believing and willing? No, by no means. He hinders none. They are their own hindrance. "Ye will not come to Me, that ye might have life." Not one soul would be saved if left to his own will. But, in His infinite mercy, God does not leave them to their own wills. He puts forth His mighty power on some to make them willing. Were it not for this, all would be lost, for all would reject the Savior.
But is this not unjust? Is God dealing fairly with His creatures in making some willing and leaving the rest to their unwillingness? What! Are we to prohibit God from saving any unless He saves all? Are we to accuse Him of injustice because He leaves some to reap the fruits of their unbelief and delivers others from it? Is God unjust in saving whom He will, when all were lost?
Some are given to accusing us of making God guilty of partiality. As if they were singular in their zeal for God's honor, they exclaim, We cannot bear a partial God. Partiality means, of course, injustice. It means also that the sinner has a right to favor from God. They must show, then, that for God to save some when all were lost is unjust. They must show that all sinners had a right to His favor, for if none had any right, there can be no partiality. But if this theory is true, then God was partial in not providing a Savior for fallen angels. He was partial in choosing Israel, and not choosing Egypt or Babylon, as the nation to whom He made Himself known. He was partial in sending prophets to Israel and not to Tyre and Sidon. He was partial in doing His mighty works in the land of Judea. And Jesus was partial in commanding His disciples not to go to either Gentiles or Samaritans. In short, if sovereignty is partial, then the Bible is full of
it. And it would be just as well for these men to say at once what their theory implies — that God is not at liberty to act as He pleases, but can do only what man dictates.
But why does God save some and not all? Because such is "the good pleasure of His will." He has infinitely wise reasons for this, though we do not understand them. Might we not with equal propriety ask, Why did He keep some angels from falling? And, Why did He allow others to fall? Or, may we not ask, Why did He not think of saving angels, why think of saving men alone? Is Jehovah not at liberty to do what He will with His own? Is He not at liberty to create as many worlds and as many beings as He pleases? And when these are ruined, is He not at liberty to redeem as many or as few as He pleases?
Are all men so depraved that they will not be saved unless God puts forth His mighty power? That is the real question in all this.
If so, then, it is plain that God must put forth His power to save everyone that is saved. And surely He is at liberty to choose whom He is to save. If indeed men are not totally depraved, then there is no need for the interposition of God's hand either in choosing or in saving. But admit man's total depravity and ruin, and you must admit the direct forth-putting of the arm of Jehovah. And so it is that many in our day are beginning to deny man's total depravity of nature. They are smoothing down the expressions which do refer to it in Scripture, and claiming for man as much remaining power and goodness as will enable him in part to save himself, to do it without the interposition of God.
The following remarks of Calvin will show that in his day none but "Papist theologians" held the doctrine that God elects men because He foresaw they would believe. "The Papist theologians have a
distinction current among themselves, that God does not elect men according to the works which are in them, but that He chooses those who He foresees will be believers. And therein they contradict what we have already alleged from St. Paul, for he says that we are chosen and elected in Him, 'that we might be holy and without blame.' Paul must have spoken otherwise if God elected us having foreseen that we should be holy. But he has not used such language. He says, 'He has elected us that we might be holy.' He infers, therefore, that the latter (faith) depends upon the former (election). Those who think otherwise know not what man and human is." Such is the witness of Calvin against the Papal theologians; since that time many have joined the ranks of these theologians and glory in their heresies.
Oh, but it is said, we do not deny election. We merely maintain that God elected those whom He foresaw would believe. I answer, this is a total denial of election. And it is dishonesty or ignorance to call this by such a name. God elects those who He foresaw would believe, you say? And who were they? None! Absolutely none! He foresaw that none would believe, not one. And because He foresaw this, He elected some to believe. Otherwise not one would have!
With regard to the foreseeing who would believe, I have some difficulties to state: According to the Arminian theory, I may believe today and disbelieve tomorrow, according to my own will. I may thus go on believing and disbelieving alternately until the day of my death. God then one day foresees that I will believe, and He decrees to save me. But the next day He foresees me not believing, and He decrees that I should perish. How, in such a case, is the matter to be finally settled? Is it according to the state in which God foresees the sinner will be at the last moment of life? Or when? Let our opponents solve the difficulty, if they are able.
Oh, but some profane objector says, Does God make men to be damned? Let me in a few words answer the miserable atheism of such an objection.... It is somewhat remarkable that this is precisely the argument of Socinians, Universalists and Deists against the existence of such a place as hell. If you speak of hell or everlasting fire to such, their answer is, Did God make men to damn them? And however abominable and unscriptural their notion is, it is at least consistent with their own theory. Making God to be all love and nothing else, they think it inconsistent with His love that He should allow such a place as hell in the universe. They do not believe in a hell, so they ask, Did God make men to damn them?
But let me answer the question, however profane it may be. God did not make men to damn them! He did not make the angels who "kept not their first estate," to damn them. He did not make Lucifer for the purpose of casting him out of Paradise. He did not make Judas for the purpose of sending him to his own place. God made man — every man and every thing — to glorify Himself. This every creature, man and angel must do, either actively or passively, either willingly or unwillingly; actively and willingly in Heaven, or passively and unwillingly in hell. This is God's purpose and it shall stand. God may have many other ends in creation, but this is the chief one, the ultimate one — the one which is above all the others, and to which all the rest are subordinate.
In this sense then plainly, God did not make men either to destroy them or to save them. He made them for His own glory. If the question is asked, Did God make the devil and his angels only to damn them, I answer, He made them for His own glory. They are lost forever, but does that prove that He made them to destroy them? He kept their companions from falling, and so they are called the "elect angels," while He did not keep them. But does this prove that He
made them to destroy them? They fell, and in a moment they were consigned to everlasting chains. He made no effort to save them, He sent no redemption to them. But does this prove that He made them only to destroy them? If ever such an accusation could be preferred against God, it must be in the case of the angels, to whom no salvation was sent. It cannot be said of man, to whom a salvation has come.
Whatever is right for God to do, it is right for Him to decree. If God's casting sinners into hell is not wrong or unjust, then His purposing to do so from all eternity cannot be wrong or unjust. So that you must either deny that there is a hell, or admit God's right to predestinate who are to dwell there forever. There is no middle way between Calvinism and Universalism.
With these remarks I leave this point, and in doing so I would merely call your attention to one or two passages of Scripture which it would be well for those to ponder who put such a question as that to which I have given an answer:
"The Lord hath made all things for Himself; yea, even the wicked for the day of evil" (Prov. 16:4).
"As many as were ordained to eternal life believed" (Acts 13:48).
"For the Scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew My power in thee, and that My name might be declared throughout all the earth.... What if God, willing to shew His wrath, and to make His power known, endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction" (Rom. 9:17, 22).