To select one here and there out of the mass of mankind, while others, precisely like them in all respects, are left to perish, is not mercy; it is favouritism. The tyrant may have his favourites as well as others. But God is not a respecter of persons. If he selects one, as the object of his saving mercy, he will select all who stand in the like condition; otherwise, his mercy were no more mercy, but a certain capricious fondness of feeling, unworthy of an earthly monarch, and much more of the august Head and Ruler of the moral universe.
These views and feelings are not peculiar to the opponents of Calvinism. They exist in the bosom of Calvinists themselves; only they are so crushed beneath a system, that they cannot find that freedom of development, nor that fulness of utterance, which so rightfully belongs to them, and which is so essential to their entire healthfulness and beauty.
We shall give only one illustration of the justness of this remark, although we might produce a hundred. After having endeavoured to vindicate the mercy of God, as displayed in the [pg 328] scheme of predestination, Dr. Hill candidly declares: “Still, however, a cloud hangs over the subject; and there is a difficulty in reconciling the mind to a system, which, after laying this foundation, that special grace is necessary to the production of human virtue, adopts as its distinguishing tenet this position, that that grace is denied to many.”[215] Notwithstanding his most elaborate defence of predestination, he may well say, that “a cloud still hangs over the subject,” and darkens the mercy of God.
Some of the stereotyped attempts of Calvinists to escape from the cloud which hangs over their doctrine are too weak to deserve a serious refutation. We are often asked, for example, if God may not do what he pleases with his own? Most assuredly he may; but does it please him, according to the high supralapsarian notion of Calvin, to create myriads of men and angels, to the end that they may be eternally damned? Does it please him, according even to the sublapsarian scheme, to leave the great mass of mankind in the helpless and forlorn condition in which they were born, without assistance, and then subject them to eternal misery, because they would not render an obedience beyond their power? Truly, the sovereign Creator and Ruler of the world may do what he pleases with his own; but yet we insist, that it is his supremest pleasure to deal with his creatures according to the eternal principles of justice and mercy.
His power is infinite, we admit, nay, we joyfully believe; but yet it is not a power which works according to the lawless pleasure of an unmitigated despot. It moves within a sphere of light and love. God's infinite wisdom and goodness superintend and surround all its workings; otherwise its omnipotent actings would soon carry the goodly frame of the world, together with all the blessed inhabitants thereof, into a state of utter confusion and chaotic night; leaving occasion for none, save the blind idolaters of power, to exclaim, “May he not do what he pleases with his own?”
We are also told, that “God is under no obligation to his creatures.” Supposing this to be true, (though true most certainly it is not,) yet does he not owe it to himself—does he not owe it to the eternal principles of truth and goodness—does he [pg 329] not owe it to the glory of his own empire over the world—to deal with his rational and immortal creatures, otherwise than according to the dark scheme of Calvinistic predestination? Nay, is it not due to the creature himself, that he should have some little chance or opportunity to embrace the life which God has set before him? Or, in default of such opportunity, is it not due to him that he should be exempt from the wages of the second death?
Confessing the wisdom and justice of predestination, as maintained by themselves, to be above our comprehension, the Calvinists are accustomed to remind us of the littleness, the weakness, and the blindness of the human mind, and how dangerous it is for beings like ourselves to pry into mysteries. We are aware, indeed, that our faculties are limited on all sides, and that we are exceedingly prone to assume more than belongs to us. We are not sure that the human mind, so little and so assuming, appears to any very great advantage in its advocacy of the Calvinistic scheme of predestination. This scheme is not only found in the ninth chapter of Romans, by a strange misapprehension of the whole scope and design of the apostle's argument, but, after having based it upon this misinterpretation of the divine word, its advocates persist in regarding all opposition to it as an opposition against God. As often as we dispute the doctrine, they cry out, “Nay, but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God?”
This rebuke was well administered by St. Paul. He applied it to those who, understanding his doctrine, did not hesitate to arraign the equity of the divine proceeding in the election of one nation in preference to another to constitute the visible Church on earth. This was not only to reply against God's word, but also against the manifest arrangements and dispensations of his providence. But it is not well applied by Calvinists, unless they possess an infallibility which authorizes them to identify their interpretation of the word of God with the word itself. It is not well applied by them, unless they are authorized to put themselves in the place of God. If they have no right to do this, we must insist upon it that it is one thing to reply against God, and quite another to reply against Calvin and his followers.