A Biblical and Theological Dictionary / explanatory of the history, manners, and customs of the Jews, and neighbouring nations

by Richard Watson

3. In our Lord’s parable it will also be observed, that the persons called are not invited as separate individuals to partake of solitary blessings; but they are called to “a feast,” into a company or society, before whom the banquet is spread. The full revelation of the transfer of the visible church of Christ from Jews by birth, to believers of all nations, was not, however, then made. When this branch of the evangelic system was fully revealed to the Apostles, and taught by them to others, that part of the meaning of our Lord’s parable which was not at first developed was more particularly discovered to his inspired followers. The calling of guests to the evangelical feast, we then more fully learn, was not the mere calling of men to partake of spiritual benefits; but calling them also to form a spiritual society composed of Jews and Gentiles, the believing men of all nations; to have a common fellowship in these blessings, and to be formed into this fellowship for the purpose of increasing their number, and diffusing the benefits of salvation among the people or nation to which they respectively belonged. The invitation, “the calling,” of the first preachers was to all who heard them in Rome, in Ephesus, in Corinth, and other places; and those who embraced it, and joined themselves to the church by faith, baptism, and continued public profession, were named, especially and eminently, “the called,” because of their obedience to the invitation. They not only put in their claim to the blessings of Christianity individually, but became members of the new church, that spiritual society of believers which God now visibly owned as his people. As they were thus called into a common fellowship by the Gospel, this is sometimes termed their “vocation;” as the object of this church state was to promote “holiness,” it is termed a “holy vocation;” as sanctity was required of the members, they are said to have been “called to be saints;” as the final result was, through the mercy of God, to be eternal life, we hear of “the hope of their calling,” and of their being “called to his eternal glory by Christ Jesus.”

4. These views will abundantly explain the various passages in which the term calling occurs in the Epistles: “Even us whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles,” Rom. ix, 24; that is, whom he hath made members of his church through faith. “But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God;” the wisdom and efficacy of the Gospel being, of course, acknowledged in their very profession of Christ, in opposition to those to whom the preaching of “Christ crucified” was “a stumbling block,” and “foolishness,” 1 Cor. i, 24. “Is any man called,” (brought to acknowledge Christ, and to become a member of his church,) “being circumcised? let him not become uncircumcised. Is any called in uncircumcision? let him not be circumcised,” 1 Cor. vii, 18. “That ye walk worthy of the vocation, wherewith ye are called. There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling,” Eph. iv, 1, 4. “That ye would walk worthy of God, who hath called you to his kingdom and glory,” 1 Thess. ii, 12. “Through sanctification of the Spirit, and belief of the truth, whereunto he called you by our Gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ,” 2 Thess. ii, 13, 14. “Who hath saved us and called us with a holy calling; not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began; but is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ,” 2 Tim. i, 9, 10. On this passage we may remark, that the “calling,” and the “purpose” mentioned in it, must of necessity be interpreted to refer to the establishment of the church on the principle of faith, so that it might include men of all nations; and not, as formerly, be restricted to natural descent. For personal election, and a purpose of effectual personal calling, could not have been hidden till manifested by the “appearing of Christ;” since every instance of true conversion to God in any age prior to the appearing of Christ, would be as much a manifestation of eternal election, and an instance of personal effectual calling, according to the Calvinistic scheme, as it was after the appearance of Christ. The Apostle is speaking of a purpose of God, which was kept secret till revealed by the Christian system; and, from various other parallel passages, we learn that this secret, this “mystery,” as he often calls it, was the union of the Jews and Gentiles in “one body,” or church, by faith.

5. In none of these passages is the doctrine of the exclusive calling of a set number of men contained; and the synod of Dort, as though they felt this, only attempt to infer the doctrine from a text already quoted; but which we will now more fully notice: “Whom he did predestinate, them he also called; and whom he called, them he also justified; and whom he justified, them he also glorified,” Rom. viii, 30. This is the text on which the Calvinists chiefly rest their doctrine of effectual calling; and tracing it, as they say, through its steps and links, they conclude, that a set and determinate number of persons having been predestinated unto salvation, this set number only are called effectually, then justified, and finally glorified. But this passage was evidently nothing to the purpose, unless it had spoken of a set and determinate number of men as predestinated and called, independent of any consideration of their faith and obedience; which number as being determinate, would, by consequence exclude the rest. The context declares that those who are foreknown, and predestinated to eternal glory, are true believers, those who “love God,” as stated in a subsequent verse; for of such only the Apostle speaks; and when he adds, “Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called; and whom he called, them he also justified; and whom he justified, them he also glorified;” he shows in particular how the divine purpose to glorify believers is carried into effect, through all its stages. The great instrument of bringing men to “love God” is the Gospel; they are, therefore, called, invited by it, to this state and benefit; the calling being obeyed, they are justified; and being justified, and continuing in that state of grace, they are glorified. Nothing, however, is here said to favour the conclusion, that many others who were called by the Gospel, but refused, might not have been justified and glorified as well as they; nothing to distinguish this calling into common and effectual: and the very guilt which those are every where represented as contracting who despised the Gospel calling, shows that they reject a grace which is sufficient, and sincerely intended, to save them.

CALNEH, a city in the land of Shinar, built by Nimrod, and one of the cities mentioned Genesis x, 10, as belonging to his kingdom. It is believed to be the same with Calno, mentioned in Isa. x, 9. It is said by the Chaldee interpreters, as also by Eusebius and Jerom, to be the same with Ctesiphon, standing upon the Tigris, about three miles distant from Seleucia, and that for some time it was the capital city of the Parthians. Bochart, Wells, and Michaëlis, agree in this opinion.

CALVARY, or, as it is called in Hebrew, Golgotha, “a skull,” or “place of skulls,” supposed to be thus denominated from the similitude it bore to the figure of a skull or man’s head, or from its being a place of burial. It was a small eminence or hill to the north of Mount Sion, and to the west of old Jerusalem, upon which our Lord was crucified. The ancient summit of Calvary has been much altered, by reducing its level in some parts, and raising it in others, in order to bring it within the area of a large and irregular building, called “The Church of the Holy Sepulchre,” which now occupies its site. But in doing this, care has been taken that none of the parts connected with the crucifixion should suffer any alteration. The same building also encloses within its spacious walls several other places reputed sacred. The places which claim the chief attraction of the Christian visitant of this church, and those only perhaps which can be relied on, are, the spot on which the crucifixion took place, and the sepulchre in which our Lord was afterward laid. The first has been preserved without mutilation: being a piece of ground about ten yards square, in its original position; and so high above the common floor of the church, that there are, according to Chateaubriand, twenty-one steps to ascend up to it. Mr. Buckingham describes the present mount as a rock, the summit of which is ascended by a steep flight of eighteen or twenty steps from the common level of the church, which is equal with that of the street without; and beside this, there is a descent of thirty steps, from the level of the church, into the chapel of St. Helena, and by eleven more to the place where the cross was said to be found. On this little mount is shown the hole in which the cross was fixed; and near it the position of the crosses of the two thieves: one, the penitent, on the north; and the other on the south. Here, also, is shown a cleft in the rock, said to have been caused by the earthquake which happened at the crucifixion. The sepulchre, distant, according to Mr. Jolliffe, forty-three yards from the cross, presents rather a singular and unexpected appearance to a stranger; who, for such a place, would naturally expect to find an excavation in the ground, instead of which, he perceives it altogether raised, as if artificially, above its level. The truth is, that in the alterations which were made on Calvary, to bring all the principal places within the projected church, the earth around the sepulchre was dug away; so that, what was originally a cave in the earth has now the appearance of a closet or grotto above ground. The sepulchre itself is about six feet square and eight high. There is a solid block of the stone left in excavating the rock, about two feet and a half from the floor, and running along the whole of the inner side; on which the body of our Lord is said to have been laid. This, as well as the rest of the sepulchre, is now faced with marble: partly from the false taste which prevailed in the early ages of Christianity, in disguising with profuse and ill-suited embellishments the spots rendered memorable in the history of its Founder; and partly, perhaps, to preserve it from the depredations of the visitants. This description of the holy sepulchre will but ill accord with the notions entertained by some English readers of a grave; but a cave or grotto, thus excavated in rocky ground, on the side of a hill, was the common receptacle for the dead among the eastern nations. Such was the tomb of Christ; such that of Lazarus; and such are the sepulchres still found in Judea and the east. It may be useful farther to observe, that it was customary with Jews of property to provide a sepulchre of this kind on their own ground, as the place of their interment after death; and it appears that Calvary itself, or the ground immediately around it, was occupied with gardens; one of which belonged to Joseph of Arimathea, who had then recently caused a new sepulchre to be made for himself. It was this sepulchre, so close at hand, and so appropriate, which he resigned for the use of our Lord; little thinking perhaps, at the time, how soon it would again be left vacant for its original purpose by his glorious resurrection.

CALVINISM, that scheme of doctrine on predestination and grace, which was taught by Calvin, the celebrated reformer, in the early part of the sixteenth century. His opinions are largely opened in the third book of his “Institutes:” “Predestination we call the eternal decree of God; by which he hath determined in himself what he would have to become of every individual of mankind. For they are not all created with similar destiny; but eternal life is foreordained for some, and eternal damnation for others. Every man, therefore, being created for one or other of these ends, we say, he is predestinated, either to life, or to death.” After having spoken of the election of the race of Abraham, and then of particular branches of that race, he proceeds: “Though it is sufficiently clear, that God, in his secret counsel, freely chooses whom he will, and rejects others, his gratuitous election is but half displayed till we come to particular individuals, to whom God not only offers salvation, but assigns it in such a manner that the certainty of the effect is liable to no suspense or doubt.” He sums up the chapter, in which he thus generally states the doctrine, in these words: “In conformity, therefore, to the clear doctrine of the Scripture, we assert, that, by an eternal and immutable counsel, God hath once for all determined both whom he would admit to salvation, and whom he would condemn to destruction. We affirm that this counsel, as far as concerns the elect, is founded on his gratuitous mercy, totally irrespective of human merit; but that to those whom he devotes to condemnation, the gate of life is closed by a just and irreprehensible, but incomprehensible, judgment. In the elect, we consider calling as an evidence of election; and justification as another token of its manifestation, till they arrive in glory, which constitutes its completion. As God seals his elect by vocation and justification, so by excluding the reprobate from the knowledge of his name, and sanctification of his Spirit, he affords another indication of the judgment that awaits them,” chap. 21, book iii.

2. In the commencement of the following chapter he thus rejects the notion that predestination is to be understood as resulting from God’s foreknowledge of what would be the conduct of either the elect or the reprobate: “It is a notion commonly entertained, that God, foreseeing what would be the respective merits of every individual, makes a correspondent distinction between different persons; that he adopts as his children such as he foreknows will be deserving of his grace; and devotes to the damnation of death others, whose dispositions he sees will be inclined to wickedness and impiety. Thus they not only obscure election by covering it with the veil of foreknowledge, but pretend that it originates in another cause,” book iii, chap. 22. Consistently with this, he a little farther on asserts, that election does not flow from holiness, but holiness from election: “For when it is said, that the faithful are elected that they should be holy, it is fully implied, that the holiness they were in future to possess had its origin in election.” He proceeds to quote the example of Jacob and Esau, as loved and hated before they had done good or evil, to show that the only reason of election and reprobation is to be placed in God’s “secret counsel.” He will not allow the future wickedness of the reprobate to have been considered in the decree of their rejection, any more than the righteousness of the elect, as influencing their better fate: “‘God hath mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.’ You see how he (the Apostle) attributes both to the mere will of God. If, therefore, we can assign no reason why he grants mercy to his people but because such is his pleasure, neither shall we find any other cause but his will for the reprobation of others. For when God is said to harden, or show mercy to whom he pleases, men are taught, by this declaration, to seek no cause beside his will.” (Ibid.) “Many, indeed, as if they wished to avert odium from God, admit election in such a way as to deny that any one is reprobated. But this is puerile and absurd; because election itself could not exist, without being opposed to reprobation;--whom God passes by he therefore reprobates; and from no other cause than his determination to exclude them from the inheritance which he predestines for his children,” book iii, chap. xxiii.

3. This is the scheme of predestination as exhibited by Calvin; and to the objection taken from justice, he replies, “They” (the objectors) “inquire by what right the Lord is angry with his creatures who had not provoked him by any previous offence; for that to devote to destruction whom he pleases, is more like the caprice of a tyrant, than the lawful sentence of a judge. If such thoughts ever enter into the minds of pious men, they will be sufficiently enabled to break their violence by this one consideration, how exceedingly presumptuous it is, only to inquire into the causes of the divine will; which is, in fact, and is justly entitled to be, the cause of every thing that exists. For if it has any cause, then there must be something antecedent on which it depends, which it is impious to suppose. For the will of God is the highest rule of justice; so that what he wills must be considered just, for this very reason, because he wills it.” Thus he assumes the very thing in dispute, that God has willed the destruction of any part of the human race, “for no other cause than because he wills it;” of which assumption there is not only not a word of proof in Scripture; but, on the contrary, it ascribes the death of him that dieth to his own will, and not to the will of God. 2. He pretends that to assign any cause to the divine will is to suppose something antecedent to, something above God, and therefore “impious;” as if we might not suppose something IN God to be the rule of his will, not only without any impiety, but with truth and piety; as, for instance, his perfect wisdom, holiness, justice, and goodness; or, in other words, to believe the exercise of his will to flow from the perfection of his whole nature; a much more honourable and Scriptural view of the will of God than that which subjects it to no rule, even though it should arise from the nature of God himself. 3. When he calls the will of God, “the highest rule of justice,” beyond which we cannot push our inquiries, he confounds the will of God, as a rule of justice to us, and as a rule to himself. This will is our rule; yet even then, because we know that it is the will of a perfect being: but when Calvin represents mere will as constituting God’s own rule of justice, he shuts out knowledge, discrimination of the nature of things, and holiness; which is saying something very different from that great truth, that God cannot will any thing but what is perfectly just. It is to say that blind will, will which has no respect to any thing but itself, is God’s highest rule of justice; a position which, if presented abstractedly, many Calvinists themselves would spurn. 4. He determines the question by the authority of his own metaphysics, and totally forgets that one dictum of inspiration overturns his whole theory,--God “willeth all men to be saved;” a declaration, which in no part of the sacred volume is opposed or limited by any contrary declaration.

4. Calvin was not, however, content thus to leave the matter; but resorts to an argument, in which he has been generally followed by those who have adopted his system with some mitigations: “As we are all corrupted by sin, we must necessarily be odious to God, and that not from tyrannical cruelty, but in the most equitable estimation of justice. If all whom the Lord predestinates to death are, in their natural condition, liable to the sentence of death, what injustice do they complain of receiving from him?” To this Calvin very fairly states the obvious rejoinder made in his day; and which the common sense of mankind will always make,--“They object, Were they not by the decree of God antecedently predestinated to that corruption which is now stated as the cause of their condemnation? When they perish in their corruption, therefore, they only suffer the punishment of that misery into which, in consequence of his predestination, Adam fell, and precipitated his posterity with him.” The manner in which Calvin attempts to meet this objection, shows how truly unanswerable it is upon his system. “I confess,” says he, “indeed, that all the descendants of Adam fell, by the Divine will, into that miserable condition in which they are now involved; and this is what I asserted from the beginning, that we must always return at last to the sovereign determination of God’s will; the cause of which is hidden in himself. But it follows not, therefore, that God is liable to this reproach; for we will answer them in the language of Paul, ‘O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus’” That is, in order to escape the pinch of the objection, he assumes that St. Paul affirms that God has “formed” a part of the human race for eternal misery; and that, by imposing silence upon them, he intended to declare that this proceeding in God was just. Now the passage may be proved from its context to have no respect to the eternal state of men at all; but, if that were less obvious, it gives no answer to the objection; and we are brought round again, as indeed he confesses, to his former, and indeed only, argument, that the whole matter as he states it, is to be referred back to the divine will; which will, though perfectly arbitrary, is, as he contends, the highest rule of justice: “I say, with Augustine, that the Lord created those whom he certainly foreknew would fall into destruction; and that this was actually so, because he willed it; but of his will, it belongs not to us to demand the reason, which we are incapable of comprehending; nor is it reasonable, that the divine will should be made the subject of controversy with us, which is only another name for the highest rule of justice.” Thus he shuts us out from pursuing the argument. But the evasion proves the objection unanswerable. For if all is to be resolved into the mere will of God as to the destruction of the reprobate; if they were created for this purpose, as Calvin expressly affirms; if they fell into their corruption in pursuance of God’s determination; if, as he had said before, “God passes them by, and reprobates them, from no other cause than his determination to exclude them from the inheritance of his children,” why refer to their natural corruption at all, and their being odious to God in that state, since the same reason is given for their corruption as for their reprobation?--not any fault of theirs; but the mere will of God, “the reprobation hidden in his secret counsel,” and that not grounded on the visible and tangible fact of their demerit. Thus the election taught by Calvin is not the choice of some persons to peculiar grace from the whole mass, equally deserving of punishment; (though this is a sophism;) since, in that case, the decree of reprobation would rest upon God’s foreknowledge of those passed by as corrupt and guilty, which notion he rejects: “For since God foresees future events only in consequence of his decree that they shall happen, it is useless to contend about foreknowledge, while it is evident that all things come to pass rather by ordination and decree.” “It is a HORRIBLE DECREE, I confess; but no one can deny that God foreknew the future fate of man before he created him; and that he did foreknow it, because it was appointed by his own decree.” Agreeably to this, he repudiates the distinction between will and permission: “For what reason shall we assign for his permitting it, but because it is his will? It is not probable, however, that man procured his own destruction by the mere permission, and without any appointment, of God.”

5. With this doctrine he again attempts to reconcile the demerit of men: “Their perdition depends on the divine predestination in such a manner, that the cause and matter of it are found in themselves. For the first man fell because the Lord had determined it should so happen. The reason of this determination is unknown to us.--Man, therefore, falls according to the appointment of divine providence; but he falls by his own fault. The Lord had a little before pronounced every thing that he had made to be ‘very good.’ Whence, then, comes the depravity of man to revolt from his God? Lest it should be thought to come from creation, God approved and commended what had proceeded from himself. By his own wickedness, therefore, man corrupted the nature he had received pure from the Lord, and by his fall he drew all his posterity with him to destruction.” It is in this way that Calvin attempts to avoid the charge of making God the author of sin. But how God should not merely permit the defection of the first man, but appoint it, and will it, and that his will should be the “necessity of things,” (all which he had before asserted,) and yet that Deity should not be the author of that which he appointed, willed, and imposed a necessity upon, would be rather a delicate inquiry. It is enough that Calvin rejects the impious doctrine; and even though his principles directly lead to it, since he has put in his disclaimer, he is entitled to be exempted from the charge;--but the logical conclusion is inevitable.