Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors

by James Freeman Clarke

§ 10. Other Illustrations of Individual Calling and Election.

But it is not merely great men, and men of genius, who are thus providentially chosen and sent. Every man is chosen for something, and that something not vague and general, but special and distinct.

You go into some country village of New England. You find there some plain farmer, of no great education, perhaps, but endowed with admirable insight and sagacity, and of a kind and benevolent nature. He has come to be the counsellor and adviser of the whole community. He has no title; he is not even a “squire.” He has no office; he is not even a justice of the peace. But he fulfils the mission of peace-maker and of sagacious counsellor. He is judge without a seat on the bench; he is spiritual guide without being called “reverend;” he is the stay, the centre, the most essential person in the place. He has had an evident calling from God, not from man, and he has made it sure by his diligence and fidelity in his work.

And perhaps in the same village is a woman, poor, old, [pg 283] and uneducated. But she, too, has a calling from God. She is always sent for in the hour of trial. If any accident happens, she is there. Her sagacity and experience help her to do what is needed. She has no medical diploma, but she is the good physician of the place. God gave to her native sagacity, gave to her benevolence, gave her acute observation and a good memory, and she has made her election sure by her own fidelity.

Some persons are called to love and teach little children: that is their work. They are happy with children, and children are happy with them. Some are called to sympathize; their natures overflow with sympathy; they enter readily into all trials and into the troubles of every soul, and they pour oil and wine into the wounds of the heart. God called them to be his good Samaritans, and they hear the call and obey.

“A place for everything, and everything in its place,” says the prudent housekeeper. “A place for every man, and every man in his place,” says the divine Housekeeper, who has so many mansions in his house, and whose Son said he went to prepare a place for us there in the other world—a working place, probably, and a sphere of labor there as here. But in this world, too, what a delight it is to see any one in his right place!

There are different ways in which God calls us, and different kinds of callings. But every calling of God is good and noble. He calls us to work; he calls us to Christian goodness; he calls us to heavenly joy, to glory, honor, and immortality. These are the three great callings of man—Christian work first, Christian goodness next, Christian glory last. Since God made every one of us, he made every one of us for something; he has appointed a destiny for each one, and he calls us to it. If we do not hear the gentle call, the whisper of his grace, he calls us by trial, by disaster, by disappointment. He chastens us for our profit. He prunes [pg 284] our too luxuriant branches that we may bring forth more fruit.

So this doctrine of election, in its other form, as usually taught by Orthodoxy, so harsh and terrible,—“horrible decretum,”—so dishonorable to God, so destructive to morality, so palsying to effort, grows lovely and encouraging when looked at aright.

As one grows old, and looks back over his past life, he sees the working of this divine decree—working where he concurred with it, working where he resisted it. He sees more and more clearly what his election was, and how he has fulfilled it, how far failed. He sees himself as a youth, fiery and ardent, striving for one thing, educated by God for another. He sees how he was partly led and partly driven into his true work; how he has been made an instrument by God for good he never dreamed of to God's other children. He says, “It is no doing of mine. It is the Lord's doing. He chose me for it before the foundation of the world. I builded better than I knew. I have failed in a thousand plans of my own, but I have ignorantly fulfilled God's plans. I am like Saul, the son of Kish, who went out to seek his father's asses, and found a kingdom. I am like Schiller's explorer, who went to sea with a thousand vessels, and came to shore saved in a single boat, yet having in that boat the best result of the whole voyage.”