GENERAL SUMMARY OF THE DOCTRINE.
We have thus endeavoured to show that the doctrine of universal predestination—the foundation of the Calvinistic theology—is not based upon the principle of the Divine wisdom, nor upon Divine power, nor upon Divine foreknowledge, nor proved by the Scripture texts advanced on its behalf. It is closely allied to Pantheism and the fate of the Stoics. It shakes hands with Socialism, which maintains that man can have no merit or demerit, that he could not be otherwise than he has been and is (Socialism, by Owen). It is the creed of the Mahometans. According to them every action in a man’s life has been written down in the preserved tablets, which have been kept in the seventh heaven from all eternity. “No accident,” saith the Koran, “happeneth on the earth, or on your persons, but the same was entered into the book of our decrees before we created it. Verily this is easy with God: and this is written lest ye immoderately grieve for the good which escapeth you, or rejoice for that which happeneth unto you.” They might fall in battle, but it was so decreed, and at the resurrection they would appear with their “wounds brilliant as vermilion, and odorous as musk.” Since the primary principle of Calvinism is a foundation principle of Pantheism, Socialism, Stoicism, and Mahometanism, Calvinists may well question whether they have not been building upon the sand, instead of the eternal rock of immutable truth.
In view of the doctrine we have advocated, viz., that God has not ordained whatsoever comes to pass, but has left each man to be the arbiter of his own fate, we can see the propriety of the exhortation, “I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live” (Deut. xxx. 19). It is the same still. God has provided a Saviour for all, and, therefore, for each. It is the province of the Holy Spirit to testify respecting Christ,—that He is able to save the very worst, and as willing as He is able. Each may choose to neglect this Saviour, or reject Him by choosing some other ground; or may choose Him as his only refuge. This choice has to be made by each man himself. No man can choose for another any more than he can eat or drink for another. It belongs entirely to each to do this. To choose Him is to choose life. To neglect or reject Him is to choose—death. Which will it be? The principle—viz., of choice, runs through life. Your happiness here depends on it in numberless instances. It is recognised everywhere in the Bible. Its exhortations summed up are expressed thus—“Turn ye, turn ye, why will you die?” It thus rests with you, and with you only—after what God has done for you—whether you shall live or die.
THE CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE OF REPROBATION STATED.
The subjects of reprobation and election are so closely connected that they might be considered in one chapter. Indeed, so close is the connection, that certain verses supposed to prove one of them, are also adduced to prove the other, as—“Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.” It is, however, stoutly maintained that election is scriptural, whilst reprobation is repudiated. It is important to have clear ideas on the subject.
What, then, are we to understand by the doctrine of reprobation? The question is not whether those dying in impenitency shall be subjected to suffering; for this is held by the opponents of Calvinism as well as by Calvinists themselves. The question is this, Is it true that God in a past eternity foreordained millions of men to endless misery, that to this end they were born, and to this end they must go? [John Calvin] held that it was so. He says, “All are not created on equal terms, but some are foreordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation; and accordingly as each has been created for one or other of these ends, we say that he has been predestinated to life or to death.” He says, again, “If we cannot assign any reason for God’s bestowing mercy on His people, but just that it so pleases Him, neither can we have any reason for His reprobating others; but His will. When God is said to visit in mercy, or to harden whom He will, men are reminded that they are not to seek for any cause beyond His will.” He says, again, “The human mind, when it hears this doctrine, cannot restrain its petulance, but boils and rages, as if aroused by the sound of a trumpet. Many, professing a desire to defend the Deity from an invidious charge, admit the doctrine of election, but deny that any one is reprobated. This they do ignorantly and childishly, since there could be no election without its opposite—reprobation. Those, therefore, whom God passes by He reprobates, and that for no other cause but because He is pleased to exclude them from the inheritance which He predestines to His children”. (Inst., b. iii.). Zanchius held—“It was therefore the first thing which God determined concerning them from eternity—namely, the ordination of certain men to everlasting destruction” (Thesis de Reprob.). Elnathan Parr maintained, “If a man be reprobated he shall certainly be damned, do what he can” (Grounds of Divinity). Maccovius says that “God has indeed decreed to damn some men eternally, and on this account He has ordained them to sin but each sins on his own account, and freely.” To like purpose we might quote Maloratus, Amandus Pollanus, John Norton, John Brown of Wamphray, Piscator, &c. (Vide Old Gospel, &c., Young, Edin.) Calvin and his followers did not mince the matter, as these extracts clearly show.