CHAPTER VIII.
HARD TRUTHS.
During the time that Ernest was confined in the house of Dr. Arrington, he had had several discussions with that gentleman, of doctrines which are regarded by the world as distinctive dogmas of the Presbyterian Church. They were conducted on both sides with the utmost calmness, politeness and good-will. It is a fact that generally men cannot engage in discussions of religious questions with moderation. They are often more acrimonious than politicians. But the Doctor was naturally calm and tranquil, and Ernest found that his first belief was beginning to totter on its foundation. Mildred, too, believed this “horrid doctrine of predestination,” which, in the mind of Ernest, had a tendency to strip it of its forbidding aspects. But still he was not perfectly satisfied. The discussions which he had with Dr. Arlington, were, on his part, designed more to elicit information and proof than sustain his own assumed position; in different language, Ernest took the “wrong side” in order that the Doctor might overturn it.
Two or three days before Ernest was to start to his command, he was sitting in the Doctor’s study looking over the Westminster Confession of Faith. The Doctor, glancing up presently, and seeing how the young man was employed, said pleasantly:
“You have tackled what the world calls a ‘hard book,’ Captain.”
“The world, in my opinion,” answered Ernest, with a smile, “is not much to blame for taking that view of it.”
“No doubt,” said the Doctor, “the doctrines which it proclaims are ‘hard to be understood,’ as Paul himself declared.”
“You will have it that Paul was speaking of predestination, will you, Doctor?”
“He certainly must have been. Of what else could he have been speaking? If he was discussing free agency, I am sure there is no difficulty in that. What is there in free agency to make Paul say, ‘The Lord will have mercy on whom He will have mercy’? What is there in free agency to make Peter open his eyes and wonder, and declare that it was ‘hard to be understood?’ What is there in free agency that people could ‘wrest to their own destruction?’”
“What is there in predestination that people can wrest to their destruction?” asked Ernest.
“Why just this,” replied the Doctor: “Men said, and say it to this day, ‘Well, if my destiny is fixed, I shall make no effort to be saved, for I cannot change my destiny; I intend to take my fill of sin.’ That is the way they wrest it to their destruction. Any one who really believes the doctrine of predestination never talks in that way. On the contrary, if he believes that he is one of the elect, he will be the more earnest and diligent in making that election sure.”
“But,” said Ernest, “what is the use of his diligence, if he is one of the elect? He will be saved anyhow.”
“That is the way people talked in Paul’s day,” replied the Doctor, “but I will answer you. Do you not remember that the Lord promised Gideon he should gain the victory with his three hundred men? Why did not Gideon say, ‘if that is so, I shall do nothing; I shall employ no strategy, but I shall wait for the Lord to conquer His enemies.’ When God told Paul, as he was tossed in a frail vessel on the storm-lashed sea, that he and all on board should certainly be saved, why did not the apostle tell the sailors to sit down quietly, and they should all reach the land in safety? Why, the knowledge that they should be saved inspired the crew with hope, and courage to renewed efforts to work out their salvation. This doctrine arouses the believer’s energies, instead of begetting a spirit of indolence and rebellion.”
While the Doctor was speaking, Ernest was slowly turning the pages of the Confession of Faith, as if looking for some particular passage, and at the same time as if paying strict attention to what was said. Just as the preacher closed his last remark, Ernest came to the third chapter and said:
“What does this mean, Doctor?”
“What is it?”
“‘God from all eternity did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His will freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass.’”
“Now,” continued Ernest quickly closing the book with his thumb between the leaves, “there it is—’ God ordains whatsoever comes to pass.’ It seems there is no exception, murder, sin, robberies and all. Whatever I do, then, good or bad, God ordained it. How am I responsible? If that clause does not destroy man’s free agency, I cannot understand the meaning of words. Surely, Doctor, you do not endorse this book? You do not believe that God is the author of sin?”
The Doctor looked at Ernest in astonishment, smiled, and said:
“Are you certain it says just exactly that?”
“If I can read, it says that.”
“You are like a great many other people,” said the Doctor, “who find fault with the Confession, and jump to conclusions, without really knowing what it does say. Now, if you please, open the book, and read on—read it all—that is the whole paragraph; for you paused in the middle of a sentence.”
Ernest read:
“God from all eternity did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass; yet so as thereby neither is God the author of sin; nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.”
“Now, that makes a considerable difference, does it not?” asked the Doctor.
“But it does say, Doctor, that God ordains whatsoever comes to pass. The exceptional clause does not deny this, but simply affirms that God is not the author of sin. But does it not say that God ordains whatsoever comes to pass?”
“Certainly, it does.”
“Every event?”
“Undoubtedly. There is no exception.”
“Well,” said Ernest with a triumphant air, “last week Mr. Jones killed Tom Smith in cold blood. It was deliberate assassination—murder in the first degree. Now, did God ordain that or not?”
“God ordained it in this way: He did not decree that Jones should kill Smith without any connection with other events. But He fore-saw that certain causes would operate so as to culminate in the murder; yet He permitted those causes to operate, for the accomplishment of some wise purpose. The difficulty is, we cannot see things as God does. We consider it as an awful calamity that Jones should kill Smith, when we have no idea what the divine purpose is. The murder was not an isolated circumstance, but it was the legitimate result of certain other causes which the two men themselves might have controlled, so far as their own free agency was concerned. But Jones had murder in his heart, and the Lord permitted him to follow his own inclinations. Now, God fore-saw, from all eternity, that this murder would grow out of other events, yet He determined to permit those events to occur, and in that sense He ordained it. But you, surely, cannot infer that God is the author of the murder. God is not the author of men’s actions. He did not force Jones to kill Smith. But let me ask you a question. Suppose lightning had killed Mr. Smith, instead of Jones’ knife, would you say that God had anything to do with it, or was it a pure accident?”
“It was not an accident,” said Ernest, “in the usual acceptation of the word.”
“You are correct, because with God there is no accident. Well, if the Lord chose to destroy Smith by a knife in the hands of a wicked man, instead of lightning, what right have we to cry out, ‘horrible! horrible!’ God sends diseases upon men, and innocent babes and women, and good men are swept off by thousands; shall we accuse the Lord of cruelty and injustice?”
“No; He has the right to do that.”
“And so He has the right to remove His creatures in whatever way He may please,” said the Doctor. “I firmly believe that God ordained the present war—not arbitrarily, though,—not as an isolated circumstance; but it has legitimately grown out of causes that have been working together for years. Men, goaded on to desperation by their own evil passions, meet upon the field and destroy each other. They are conscious that they are acting as free agents. We have no more right then, to impeach divine goodness for permitting this wholesale butchery, than we have for allowing Jones to kill Smith, or some disease to destroy the innocent babe. We make a great mistake by supposing that there ought not to be violent deaths; they are the necessary concomitants of sin, and must ever result from the inexorable law of cause and effect.”
“Well,” said Ernest, “if it was ordained that Jones should kill Smith, Jones ought not to be punished for the deed.”
“My dear Captain,” said the Doctor good humoredly, “a lawyer like you, ought not to quibble in that way. The mere fact that God permits crime does not destroy human responsibility. You might just as well say that Judas ought not to have been punished for betraying the Savior. Undoubtedly it was ordained that he should perform that deed of shame; because it was foretold centuries before our Lord’s advent.”
Ernest knew not what reply to make. The Doctor had answered his objections. So he turned the leaves of the book, and said:
“Here is another passage which seems to me to need explanation.”
“What is it?”
Ernest read as follows:
“By the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life, and others fore-ordained to everlasting death.
“These men and angels, thus predestinated and fore-ordained, are particularly and unchangeably designed and their number is so certain that it cannot be either increased or diminished.”
“That reads rather harsh, does it not?” asked the Doctor.
“Yes, sir; it does.”
“And yet it is what the Bible says.”
“Where will I find that?”
“Turn to Romans 9:22-25: ‘What if God, willing to show His wrath, and to make His power known, endured with much long suffering, the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction; and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had afore prepared unto glory?’”
“That does seem to teach that there are two classes,” said Ernest.
“Undoubtedly, it does.”
“But it says,” continued Ernest, “that this number is so fixed and certain that it can neither be increased nor diminished.”
“There is surely no difficulty in that,” said the Doctor. “It is a mathematical fact, and would be true, if the Scriptures said nothing about it. Leaving predestination entirely out of the question, that would be true. For on the Day of Judgment, when the destiny of every human being is settled, there will be a certain number saved, and a certain number lost. Now, can the number be increased or diminished? I never could see why anybody should object to that clause, when it is true according to the doctrine of every religious denomination in the world.”
“Well,” said Ernest laughing, “here is more of this hard doctrine.”
“Let us hear it,” said the Doctor.
Ernest read as follows:
“Those of mankind that are predestinated unto life, God, before the foundation of the world was laid, according to His eternal and immutable purpose, and the secret counsel and good pleasure of His will, out of His mere free grace and love, without any foresight of faith or good works—”
“Yes,” exclaimed Ernest, breaking off suddenly, “there it is—without any foresight of faith or good works—saved arbitrarily.”
Again the Doctor gazed at Ernest in surprise. “My young friend,” said the Doctor, with an amused expression, “you do not pause, for a moment, to reflect what the paragraph does really mean, but you at once jump to unauthorized conclusions.”
“I have read it verbatim,” replied Ernest.
“But you did not read it all. You have read just as our opposers do who give garbled extracts from the Confession, and then draw the most absurd inferences. You stopped in the middle of the sentence. Read it all.”
Ernest read:
“Without any foresight of faith or good works, or perseverance in either of them, or any other thing in the creature, as conditions, or causes moving Him thereunto.”
“The meaning,” said the Doctor, “is that God did not choose His people on account of their faith and good works. Faith itself is the gift of God. All men are in a state of guilt by nature. How, then, could the Lord fore-see faith and good works in any of them, growing out of their evil natures? How could they possibly perform good works without a regenerated heart?”
“For what did He choose them, then?”
“I can answer you only in the language of His own Word, which says, it was ‘according to the good pleasure of His will.’ Certainly, the Lord has some good reason for saving a portion of the human race and rejecting, or rather passing by the rest, but He has nowhere acquainted us with that reason. If election is such a ‘hard’ doctrine, what would have been the result, if God had not made any choice at all, but left men to follow the bent of their own wills, how many do you suppose would have been saved? The carnal heart is enmity against God. Could men, then have chosen God? Verily not. Christ Himself declares, ‘No man can come unto me, except the Father, which sent me, draw him.’ Do you not see clearly, then, that, without this much-abused doctrine of election, no human being could possibly be saved? It is a doctrine which the Church cannot afford to give up, and it is a doctrine to which every denomination holds in some form. We differ only as to the principle upon which the election is based. We Presbyterians, adhere rigidly to the Bible, and say that God’s choice grows out of His own will and pleasure, while our opposers affirm that it is founded upon the good works of the creature, and thus make salvation a matter of debt, and not of pure, free grace. That is the difference between us, and I leave it to you, with the Bible as your guide, to determine which view is the more Scriptural.”
“There is another thing I should like to ask you about,” said Ernest, feeling that he could produce no further objections.
“What is it? I will answer to the best of my knowledge and ability.”
“I have heard it said that some Presbyterian preachers hold to the view that there are infants in hell ‘not a span long.’”
“Did you ever hear one say such a thing?” asked the Doctor.
“No sir; I never did.”
“And did you ever see anybody that heard a Presbyterian minister preach it?”
“No, sir.”
“No; and you never will,” said the Doctor with emphasis. “That is an old slander without the slightest foundation. We would instantly depose any Presbyterian minister who would dare to make such an assertion. The truth is, we believe that all infants that die are saved.”
“Your Confession says something about infants, does it not, Doctor?”
“O, yes. Give me the book, and I will find it for you. Here it is. Chapter X: ‘Elect infants, dying in infancy, are regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit, who worketh when, and where, and how He pleaseth.”
“Elect infants, Doctor? Does not that imply that there are non-elect infants?”
“You can put that construction upon it, if you wish,” said the Doctor; “but the term is explained in several ways. I really do not know which view the framers of the Confession intended we should take. So we are at liberty to construe it in that way which appears most consistent to us.”
“What is your construction?”
“It is this: all mankind are evidently divided into two classes—the elect and the non-elect—the saved and the lost. You believe that, do you not?”
“O, yes; that is true.”
“Well, of course, the non-elect are sinners in their infancy as well as in after life. In that sense there are non-elect infants; but we do not believe that any of them die in infancy.”
“But how do you know that they do not?”
“Because Christ says, that ‘of such is the kingdom of heaven.’”
“According to your view, then,” said Ernest, “there are non-elect infants, but they do not die in infancy?”
“Exactly,” replied the Doctor. “But there is another explanation. Some say the framers of the Confession put in the word ‘elect’ not to divide infants into two classes, but to show upon what principle they are saved; they are elected to salvation. You know, John uses the expression, ‘the elect lady’ and her sister. This certainly would not mean that there was a non-elect lady. Again, in the form for the baptism of infants in the Methodist Discipline, the minister prays that ‘this child may be numbered among the elect children of God.’ We would not, of course, insist that the Methodists believe that there are non-elect children. Some say that the Confession means by ‘elect infants,’ just what the Methodists do in their form of baptism. But after all, the Presbyterian Church is the only one probably whose doctrine does consistently save infants. We declare they are saved by election. If not, tell me how they can be saved? They cannot repent and believe as adults do. Then do you not see, if they are not elected by a merciful Father, they must be lost forever?”
“Upon my word,” quickly and honestly exclaimed Ernest, “I had never looked at the subject in that light. You have taught me something I never knew before.”
“I am glad,” replied the Doctor, “if I have helped you out of any difficulty.”
“I candidly acknowledge, Doctor, that the more I study this deep subject, the more reasonable and Scriptural it seems.”
And here the discussion ended for that day. Ernest, seeing Mildred walking in the yard and clipping flowers, vacated his seat and joined her. The Doctor looked at him, as he left, and a perceptible smile stole over his benevolent face.
