Having stated and, as our time would permit, examined the arguments in favour of the sentiment we are opposing, we are prepared to urge against this doctrine, not only that its arguments are unsound and insufficient, but also that the system itself is liable to the most serious and formidable objections.
1. This doctrine of predestination makes God the author of sin. Some acknowledge this, and expressly assert, that God is the “efficient cause” of sin. Others affirm it in fact, while they deny it in word. Take for instance the words of Calvin. “I will not scruple to own,” he says, “that the will of God lays a necessity on all things, and that every thing he wills, necessarily comes to pass.” In accordance with this, Piscator, Dr. Twiss, Peter Martyr and others tell us, that “God procures adultery, cursings, and lyings”—“God is the author of that act, which is evil”—“God, by his working on the hearts of the wicked, binds them and stirs them to do evil.” They deny, however, that God is the author of sin, because they say, “God necessitates them to the act, and not to the depravity of sin:” or, that “God does not sin when he makes men sin, because he is under no law, and therefore cannot sin.” But these are miserable shifts. Has not the deformity of sin come to pass? Then God has decreed this deformity. To deny this, is to give up the doctrine. But to acknowledge it, is to own that God is as much the author of the deformity, as he is of the act. Again, God doubtless decreed that sin should be sin, and not holiness; and it came to pass as sin, because it was so decreed. Is he not then the direct procuring cause? A thousand turns of this kind, therefore, are nothing but evasions. The fiat of God brought forth sin as certainly as it made the world.
We are often told, when we quote Calvin and his contemporaries, that these are old authors; that modern Calvinists do not hold thus, and that they ought not to be accountable for these writers. But the fact is, we make them accountable only for the logical consequences of their own doctrine. The whole system turns on this hinge, “God foreordains whatsoever comes to pass.” For he that, by his will and decree, produces and causes sin, that makes sin a necessary part of his plan, and is the author of the very elements and materials of his own plan, must be the proper and sole cause of sin, or we have yet to learn the definition of common words, and the meaning of plain propositions. The distinction therefore, of ancient and modern, of rigid and moderate Calvinists, is more in word, than in reality. And it would add much to the consistency of this system, if all its advocates would acknowledge, what is evidently deducible from the premises, that God is the efficient cause of sin.
2. This doctrine of predestination destroys the free agency, and of course the accountability of man. That it destroys free will was seen and acknowledged by many predestinarians of the old school. And the opposers of Mr. Wesley and Mr. Fletcher violently assailed them on this subject. Mr. Southey informs us, in his Life of Wesley, that the Calvinists called this doctrine of free will, “a cursed doctrine”—“the most God-dishonouring and soul-destroying doctrine of the day”—“one of the prominent features of the beast”—“the enemy of God”—“the offspring of the wicked one”—“the insolent brat of hell.” Others, and the greater part of the Calvinists of the present day, endeavour to reconcile the ideas of necessity and free agency. Man, they say, sins voluntarily, because he chooses or wills to sin; therefore he is a free agent. Hence they exhort sinners to repent, and tell them they can repent if they will. By which they mean, the only impossibility of their repenting, is in their will—their cannot is their will not. This has led many to think that there is no difference, between their preachers and the Arminians. But let us look at this subject a little, and see if there is not some sophistry concealed in this dexterous coil of words. God, according to this doctrine, secures the end as well as the means, by his decree of predestination. And therefore, as Calvin says, “every action and motion of every creature is governed by the hidden counsel of God.” The will, therefore, in all its operations, is governed and irresistibly controlled by some secret impulse, some fixed and all-controlling arrangement. It is altogether futile, then, to talk about free agency under such a constitution; the very spring of motion to the whole intellectual machinery is under the influence of a secret, invincible power. And it must move as that power directs, or it is the hand of Omnipotence that urges it on. He can act as he wills, it is true, but the whole responsibility consists in the volition, and this is the result of God’s propelling power. He wills as he is made to will—he chooses as he must choose, for the immutable decree of Jehovah is upon him. And can a man, upon the known and universally acknowledged principles of responsibility, be accountable for such a volition? It is argued, I know, that man is responsible, because he feels that he acts freely, and that he might have done otherwise. To this I reply, that this is a good argument, on our principles, to prove that men are free—but on the Calvinistic ground, it only proves that God hath deceived us. He has made us feel that we might do otherwise, but he knows we cannot—he has determined we shall not. So that, in fact, this argument makes the system more objectionable. While it does not change the fact in the case, it attributes deception to the Almighty. It is logically true, therefore, from this doctrine, that man is not a free agent, and therefore not responsible. A moral agent, to be free, must be possessed of a self-determining principle. Make the will any thing short of this, and you put all the volitions, and of course the whole moral man, under foreign and irresistible influences.
3. Another strong objection to the doctrine we oppose, is, it arrays God’s secret decrees against his revealed word. God commands men not to sin, and yet ordains that they shall sin, In his word, he sets before them, in striking relief, motives of fear and of hope, for the express purpose, as he informs us, “that they sin not;” but by his predestination and secret counsel, he irresistibly impels them in an opposite course, for the express purpose, as this doctrine informs us, to secure their transgression. His rule of action is in direct opposition to our rule of duty. And yet he is the author of both! Is God at war with himself, or is he sporting and trifling with his creatures? Or is it not more probable than either, that the premises are false? When or where has God ever taught us, that he has two opposing wills? A character so suspicious, to say the least of it, ought not, without the most unequivocal evidence, to be attributed to the adorable Jehovah. In his word, we are taught, that he is “of one mind”—that his “ways are equal;” and who can doubt it? We are told, it is true, to relieve the difficulty, that this seeming contradiction is one of the mysteries of God’s incomprehensible nature. But it is not a seeming contradiction, it is a real one; not an insolvable mystery, but a palpable absurdity. God prohibits the sinful act—God ordains and procures the sinful act—God wills the salvation of the reprobate, whom he has from all eternity irreversibly ordained to eternal death! When I can embrace such opposite propositions by calling them mysteries, I can believe that two and two are more than four, that all the parts are less than the whole, and that a thing may be made to exist and not exist at the same time and explain them by a reference to the mystery of God’s incomprehensible nature.
4. In close connection with the foregoing objection, it may be added, that this system mars, if it does not destroy, the moral attributes of God. If he holds men responsible for what is unavoidable—if he makes laws and then impels men to break them, and finally punishes them for their transgressions—if he mourns over the evils of the world, and expostulates with sinners, saying, “How can I give thee up—my heart is melted within me, my repentings are kindled together,”—“O Jerusalem! Jerusalem! how oft would I have gathered you, and ye would not,”—and still he himself “impels the will of men,” to all this wickedness—if I say God does all this, where is his veracity? Where is his mercy? Where is his justice? What more could be said of the most merciless tyrant? What, of the most arrant hypocrite? What, of Satan himself? What does this doctrine make of our heavenly Father? I shudder to follow it out into its legitimate bearings. It seems to me, a belief of it is enough to drive one to infidelity, to madness, and to death. If the supporters of this system must adhere to it, I rejoice that they can close their eyes against its logical consequences, otherwise it would make them wretched in the extreme, or drive them into other dangerous theoretical and practical errors. Indeed, in many instances it has done this—which leads to another objection to this doctrine.
5. It puts a plea into the mouth of sinners to justify themselves in their sins, and leads to Universalism and infidelity. They reason thus: Whatever God decrees is according to his will, and therefore right. And God will not punish his creatures for doing right. Whatever God decrees is unavoidable, and God will not punish his creatures for what is unavoidable. But “every action and motion of every creature is governed by the hidden counsel of God.” Therefore God will not punish any of his creatures for any of their acts. Now, who can point out any fallacy in this reasoning? If therefore predestination be true, Universalism is true, according to the universally acknowledged principles of justice. And it is a notorious fact, that modern Universalism, which is prevailing so generally through the country, rests for its chief support on the doctrine of predestination. Others having seen, as they thought, that the Scriptures would not support the doctrine of Universalism, and that matter of fact seemed to contradict the above reasoning, inasmuch as men are made to suffer, even in this life, for their sins, have leaped over all Scriptural bounds into infidelity and philosophical necessity. I have personally known numbers who have been driven, by the doctrine we object to, into open infidelity. And it is well known, that the doctrine of fate, which is closely allied to Calvinian predestination, is the element in which infidelity “lives and moves and has its being.” And can this be the doctrine of the Bible? How much is it to be regretted, that our worthy pilgrim fathers should have sowed this Geneva seed in our happy country! The evils done to the Church are incalculable.
These, candid hearers, are some of the objections we have to this doctrine—objections so serious, and, as we think, so obvious, that you may well ask, What has induced good men to advocate it so long? It is, doubtless, because it stands connected intimately with the doctrine of unconditional election, and what have been called by Calvinists “the doctrines of grace.” But for unconditional election, predestination would not be desired, even by those who now hold to it; and but for predestination, unconditional election could not be maintained. Hence these have very properly been called “twin doctrines,” and must stand or fall together. Let us pass then to the next proposition.
II. We come to examine predestination in its particular relation to election.
Several kinds of election are spoken of in the Scriptures. There is an election of individuals, to perform certain duties appointed by God:—thus Christ was God’s elect, for the redemption of the world; and Cyrus was elected by him to rebuild the temple. There is an election of whole communities and nations to the enjoyment of certain peculiar privileges, political and ecclesiastical, relating of course to this life:—thus Jacob and his descendants were God’s chosen people, to the enjoyment of religious and national privileges, from which Esau and his descendants, together with the whole Gentile world, were excluded; and thus, too, subsequently, the middle wall of partition, made by the former decree of election between Jew and Gentile, being broken down, the Gentiles became equal sharers with the Jews in the privileges of the new covenant, called the “election of grace.” This election is unconditional, and is believed to be the one spoken of in our text, and many other passages of Scripture. Of these, however, I shall speak more particularly in another place.