If his tender mercies are over all his works, how can this consist with fore-ordaining that the greatest part of mankind should sin and be damned for ever? Now, what loving tender heart can take any satisfaction in any such broad blasphemies?
Again: if God takes no pleasure in the death of a sinner, certainly he affords him proper means of living; but that he takes no pleasure in the death of such, we have not only his word, but his oath for it; and, as he could swear by no greater, he has sworn by himself. “As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked,” &c. Now, must he not have a large stock of impudence who can give the God of truth here the lie? What kind of brass must his brow be cased with? For me to see a poor creature hanging over a dreadful fiery furnace, and have it in my power to help him with a word, and will not help him, nay, order him secretly to be pushed in, and yet stand, and in the most solemn manner cry, “As I live, I have no pleasure in your death;” yea, passionately cry out, “Why will ye die? turn ye, turn ye;”—now I say, where would be my sincerity all the time? When I have pushed the contenders for reprobation in this manner, the cry has been, “O, that is your carnal, human reason!” Indeed I think the other is devilish, inhuman reason.
I shall now select a few witnesses from the New Testament. Hear the lip of truth expostulating with the unhappy Jerusalem, a little before it suffered: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen gathereth her brood under her wings, and ye would not!” Luke xiii. 34. “Of a truth I perceive, that God is no respecter of persons; but in every nation, he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him,” Acts x. 34, 35. “For God hath concluded them all in unbelief that he might have mercy upon all,” Rom. xi. 32. “Who will have all men to be saved, and come unto the knowledge of the truth,” 1 Tim. ii. 4. “Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time,” 1 Tim. ii. 6. “For the grace of God, that bringeth salvation, bath appeared to all men,” Titus ii. 11. “He, by the grace of God, should taste death for every man,” Heb. ii. 9.
I shall multiply no more quotations; these are sufficient. Only I would ask, Is there any meaning in language? Or are words intended to convey any fixed and determined meaning? If that is the case, then absolute predestination manifestly contradicts the plain testimony of Scripture, and therefore must spring from the father of lies; and, as such, is to be abhorred.
[IV.] It has a tendency to render all means useless.—I know it is asserted, that He who has ordained the end, has appointed the means thereunto: And this observation, understood rightly, is a great truth. But has God so ordained, that there is no liberty left for free agency? Has he appointed that one must be a preacher, and another a curser and swearer? that one must give his goods to feed the poor, and another must steal and plunder, and so live upon spoil and rapine? Or has the Lord given a power to every man either to choose or refuse? This is what the Bible maintains, or otherwise the many exhortations, reproofs, expostulations, and threatenings are in vain. Now we are exhorted to pray: “To pray! for what?” Such things as we are sensible we stand in need of. Yea, and it is said, “Ye have not:” “And why had they not? Was it because God had decreed to give them nothing?” No such thing; they have not, because they did not ask. For if God had decreed to give them nothing, then they had not been to blame; but they are charged with neglect in not asking, and that is assigned as the reason of their not receiving. This is perfectly consistent with what our Lord has said, “Ask, and it shall be given; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened.” Well, but all this asking, knocking, seeking, is all lost labour, if there be any such decree as is mentioned above. For can all this praying, and asking, and seeking, alter what is irreversibly decreed to be done? Indeed this borders upon deism; for the deists argue, “Do you think that praying will make God change his mind?” Now if we believe the Bible, we must ask God to give us the blessings we stand in need of, and cannot warrantably expect to receive without asking. The same holds good with regard to family prayer. I ask eternal life for my wife, children, or friends. How vain is all my labour! For if God has decreed to give them eternal life, they shall have it in the way, time, place, and manner it is decreed for them, whether I pray or not. And if God has not decreed to give it unto them, all my praying can never change the decree.
I find a love to poor perishing sinners in some town or village, and I go to persuade them to be reconciled to God: Many of them use me ill, not only with reviling language, but even with sticks, or stones, or clods, or rotten eggs. Why, what a fool was I to expose myself on any such account! If they are decreed to be saved, they shall be saved; or lost, they shall be lost: So that my suffering and preaching are entirely in vain.—See that pert young man, he has just left his loom or his plough, and he is going to hammer at a bit of Latin; by and by, he becomes a mighty smatterer: With his little sense, little grace, and next to no learning, he harangues famously about a decree and a covenant, and puffs and parades, and shouts out amain, “O the sweetness of God’s electing love!” Having by this time acquired a pretty good stock of assurance, he looks out for a shop, that is, in the quaint phrase, “he waits for a call;” by and by the desired object appears, the bargain is struck, and the stipend is settled, and now we have our pert youngster a Reverend Sir!—“Well, but what is he to do?” Why, we should think, call sinners to repentance, and comfort mourners, and establish believers, and help their faith. But, alas! this is all in vain. This Reverend Sir might as well have stayed at his loom or plough, as take the poor people’s money for watching over their souls, when all from first to last was settled by an unalterable decree.
Such is the consistency of predestinarian teachers. Poor simple souls, who are thus led, do not you see that if such a decree is gone forth, you are supporting an idle man in vain?[1] —What end is preaching to answer? Let him lecture with ever such state and assurance, if the time, the place, the manner be all fixed: I say he is an ignorant, lazy drone, who is picking his poor people’s pockets; but, perhaps, it was decreed that it should be so.[2]
[V.] It makes promises and threatenings useless.—I apprehend promises are intended to encourage the fainthearted, and such as are ready to be discouraged in their way; and the Lord who has made them, no doubt, designs to fulfil the same. They are not mere baubles, but the firm and never-failing words of God. Yet they are conditional. I know no promise made to us, in the way of experience, but there is a condition either expressed or implied. The only promises which can in any measure be said to be unconditional, are such as respect Christ’s coming into the world, the pouring out of the Spirit, or the preaching of the Gospel. But as for such as respect the forgiveness of sins, consolation, sanctification, or glorification, they are all conditional, and, as such, are intended to encourage all who are travelling to Mount Zion.
So with regard to the threatenings; they are intended to warn the unruly, and put a check upon the disobedient; so that no sinner may rush upon his own damnation, without being duly apprised of the same. “And why is he apprised? Barely to torment him before the time?” No, verily; but, like the citizen’s hearing the sound of the trumpet, that he may take the warning, and escape the danger. But if there is an irrevocable decree, if all things are so ordered and fixed from eternity, then are the threatenings mere scare-crows; they can answer no valuable end at all, and might as well be given to stocks and stones as to human beings, if they have no power to take the awful warning. And does not this make the word of God of none effect? Certainly; if promises have no power to allure and encourage, that is, if the human race are not to be moved by them, and if their power of obeying is wholly taken from them, it is in vain for God to call out, “How long, ye simple ones, will you love simplicity? Turn ye at my reproof. Unto you, O men, I call! and my voice is unto the sons of men.” It is in vain for him to say, “Come, let us reason together; though your sins be like scarlet, they shall be white as wool: And though they be red like crimson, they shall be as snow. Come, let us reason together!” “Reason! with what?” Brutes, nay stocks and stones! How absurd! Would a wise man make such a proposal? How does this inconsistent scheme reflect upon the infinitely wise and gracious God? Shall vain man throw such an odium upon his Maker? God forbid! But such an odium does this decree throw upon unerring wisdom; and all the quibbles in the world cannot clear it of the same. Again: let God speak like thunder, “The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the people that forget God!” yet if the sinner is incapable of taking the warning, what empty bombast does it make of the awful threatening! But let God be true, and every man a liar who can cast such vile reflections upon his righteous proceedings.
[VI.] It is contrary to every attribute in the Deity.—Now his justice is the severest attribute of the blessed God; that is manifest when its sword awaked against the Man who was his fellow, when the great Mediator bled for human crimes. Yet even this attribute must be consistent with mercy and goodness; nay, the very term itself implies there is no wrong in it. But how can we clear the justice of God, if he has ordained that man shall sin; nay, is made for that very end, and then to be damned for it? There is nothing equal to this in the whole compass of history. That which bears the nearest resemblance is the well-known instance of Tiberius; when determined to destroy a noble family root and branch, finding a young virgin who could not, by the Roman laws, be put to death, he ordered the hangman to ravish the poor innocent, young and helpless creature, and then to strangle her. Such a horrid picture do these low advocates draw of the justice of the Supreme Being!—And what shall we say of his love? Nay, hear what David said of it, namely, that “He is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works.” Hear what the lip of truth himself hath said, “God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” “God so loved the world;” “that is,” say they, the “elect world.” And what proof do they bring for such an interpretation? None; nay, that is a circumstance which is often forgotten. But we need go no farther than the text itself, to confute that rugged interpretation; only let the grammatical sense of the words be attended unto,—“God so loved the elect world, that whosoever of the elect world believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.” Then what is become of the elect world which do not believe in him? According to this scheme, there are some of the elect world which will not believe in him, and so perish. See what consequences follow such absurdities! St. John says, “Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God.” But the poor reprobates may argue, “Behold what manner of hate and destruction the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should thus by his decree be called reprobates, children of darkness, enemies to God, strangers to the commonwealth of Israel, and enemies to the cross of Christ.”