Forbes on Article XVII: Of Predestination and Election

THE educated thought of the nineteenth century, with some notable exceptions, is content to recognise the existence of the truths of the perfect knowledge and power of God on the one hand, and of the freedom of the human wrill on the other, and to sit down <eon- tentedly under the utter impossibility of reconciling them.

“La contingcnxa, die fuor del quaderno Delia vostrn matcria non si stende, Tutta c depinta nel cospetto ctcrno. Ncccssitii pcro quindi non premie So non come dal viso, in che s-i specchia Nave, che per torrcntc giu discende ”.”

The question is nowT taken out of the region of pure intellect, and relegated into that of morals; in other words, the truths are looked upon now only in a prac tical point of view. How do their co-existence and

• Par. xvii. 4.0.

mutual modification tell upon the life? Does a dis proportionate estimate of the first of these factors deny or cripple the notion of human exertion ? Does the undue influence of the second, destroy that abiding rest in the Creator, which is one of the first principles of nature and of revealed religion?

But it was not so at the time of the Reformation. Both the good side and the bad side of that event tended to throw the thoughts of men disproportionately on the Divine side of the work in man’s salvation. If the great gain of the Reformation was that men were won from an undue trust in the external practices of religion, from the belief that doing certain acts, in them selves would secure man’s salvation ; it was natural that in reaction men. should throw themselves exclusively on the thought of God’s work in them, to the exclusion of all co-operation of man. On the other hand, if the loss at the Reformation, especially on the Continent, was the faith in the Church as an institution, as the one ordinary channel of God’s grace, as the appointed harbour of souls, it followed that a new law of mercy must be found, a new theory of salvation, and that was sought in a theory of absolute predestination.

A reasoning on the nature and attributes of God, certain texts of St. Paul, and the great authority of St. Augustine in the Western Church, combined to fami liarize men’s minds with the thought of a certain pre destination in the Divine mind, whereby those are set free who are set free. It was God’s will that all men should be saved ; yet all, as a matter of fact, are not

saved. How was such a state of things as this to be accounted for ?

The question was answered diversely. One school held that there could be no limitation to the power of God, that whatever He willed He must will effica ciously, and therefore, seeing that all men are not saved, it could not be His purpose that all men should be saved. The other school held that God willed that all men should be saved, but leaving man’s will in some sense free to choose good or evil, his final salva tion was the reward of those good deeds which God predestined him to do.

“The Church/’ says M6hlerb, speaking of the en ticing field opened to human speculation on the subject of predestination, ” has deemed it her duty to set certain limitations to this spirit. For God can be exhibited in such wise over-against man as to make him entirely disappear ; or man again may be conceived in such a position relating to God, as to subvert the notion of the Almighty as the dispenser of grace. According to the first view, God appears also to act with a cruel caprice, which cannot be conceived by man : according to the second, so to be ruled by the caprice of man, that He ceases to be He who is, and through whom all goodness flows. Accordingly the Catholic Church alike rejects an overruling of God on the part of man, to impart sanctifying and saving grace ; and an over ruling of man, on the part of God, to compel the former to become this or that. On the contraiy, she

b Symbolism, vol. i. p. 137.

teaches, in the former case, that Divine grace is un merited; in the latter, that it is offered to all men, their condemnation depending on the free rejection of redeeming aid.”

Calvin expresses himself thus : — “We assert that by an eternal and unchangeable decree God hath deter mined whom He shall one day permit to have a share in eternal felicity, and whom He shall doom to destruc tion. In respect of the elect, the decree is founded in His unmerited mercy, without any regard to human worthiness : but those whom He delivers up to dam nation, are by a just and irreprehensible judgment ex cluded from all access to eternal life.” ” It is scarcely credible to what truly blasphemous shifts Calvin re sorts in order to impart to his doctrine an air of so lidity, and to secure it against objections. As faith is by him considered a gift of the Divine mercy, and yet, as he is unable to deny, that many are represented in the Gospel to be believers, in whom Christ found no earnestness and no perseverance, and whom conse quently He did not recognise to be the elect, Calvin asserts that God intentionally produced within them an apparent faith ; that He insinuated Himself into the ’ souls of the reprobate, in order to render them less ex cusable0. Instead of acknowledging in the above facts the readiness of the Almighty to confer His grace on all who only wish it, he explains them by the suppo sition of intentional deceit, which he lays to the charge of the Almighty. Equally strange is the reason assigned c Instit., lib. iii. c. 2. n. 11.

for the doctrine of predestination. That God wishes to manifest His mere}- towards the elect, His justice towards the condemned ; as if the two Divine qualities were separated from each other, and mutually ignored each other. God will be at once just and merciful to all without exception; not just merely to these, and mer ciful only to those, as prejudiced judges in this world are wont to be. We must also bear in mind that even the notion of justice, considered in itself, cannot be up held where no fault exists ; and no fault can be charged to the reprobate, if without possessing the use of free dom they are condemned from all eternity. Equally baseless would be the notion of mercy, as it has neces sarily for its object sinners who, by free determination of their own will, and accordingly not by extraneous compulsion, have transgressed the Divine moral law,, in order thereupon to receive pardon ; for in this case the whole process would be a mere absurd farce11.”

Now the moderation and cautiousness of the Article is a remarkable contrast to this language0. As a matter of history we know that the Article never contented the Puritans. The very fact of the attempt to ingraft the Lambeth Articles in the present code, during the time of the dominance of the Calvinistic party at the

d Mohler, Symb., vol. i. p. 140.

e The very history of the process of the construction of the present Article is significant. In the earlier Articles of Edward VI. we find the formula, “licet praedestinationis decreta sint nobis iirnota;” and in the curious documents preserved in C.C.C., Cambridge, and published by Dr. Lamb, we find these words, as they occur in the latter part of the draft copy of the Article, actually erased by the minium pencil ot Matthew Parker.

beginning of the seventeenth century, is a proof of this. In fact, the Article is Augustinian, and not Calvinistic. In treating of this tremendous mystery, the Article keeps itself closely to the word of Scripture. It first states the fact of a predestination in the divine mind, very much in the language of St. Paul : “According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we may be holy and without blame before Him in love : having predestinated us unto the adop tion by Jesus Christ Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise and glory of His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the be loved f.” It then goes on, still in Biblical language, to describe the processes which attend on this predesti nation : 1. vocation, 2. obedience to vocation through grace, 3. free justification, 4. sonship by adoption, 5. conformity to the image of our Lord, 6. a religious life, and 7. finally eternal felicity. ” For whom He did foreknow, He did also predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the First-born among many brethren. Moreover, whom He did pre destinate, them He also called : and whom He called, them He also justified: and whom He justified, them He also glorified-”.” Having done its duty to Biblical truth by stating almost in its own words the doctrine and its way of working, the Article goes on through the rest of its clauses to guard men against its abuse. “While all God’s truth, and this among others, tends to comfort, there is the double danger of desperation and

f Epli. i. 4. s Rom. viii. 20.

recklessness, to be guarded against in the case of bad men. As a matter of fact, we know that, at the time of the Reformation, when men’s minds ran in an undue degree upon these abstract subjects, these two op posite results actually did occur ; and the immoral con dition of the peasantry in Scotland, where notions of predestination are much exaggerated, may be adduced in confirmation of the necessity of the caution expressed in the Article. The Article concludes with two canons of interpretation of Holy Writ, also with a view to cor recting the abuses of this mystery; 1. that God’s pro mises are to be received (jcncraltfcr, that is, as applying to all11; and 2. the will of God that is expressly de dared in Holy Scripture is to be followed: and that will is ” that all men should be saved, and come unto the knowledge of the truth1 ;” ” that the Gospel should be preached to every creature j ;” “that God sent His Son, that the world through Him might be saved k;” and ” that all who are weary and heavy laden, should come to the Lord Christ for rest V

11 0 Predestination, quanto rcniota E la radice tua de quegli aspetti :

[…]

b See Church Catechism, “generally necessary;” also in the au thorized Version, 2 Sam. xvii. 11, and Jer. xlvii. 48.

1 1 Tim. ii. 4. J St. Mark xvi. 15.

k St. John iii. 17. ! St. Matt. xi. 28.

Et enne dolce cosi fatto sccmo, Pcrche ‘1 ben nostro in questo ben s’affina Che quel, che vuole Bio c noi volemo.”

In order to avoid inconsistency, no interpretation of this Article can be the right one which is at variance with the statements in Article XXXI., ’ ’ that the offer ing of Christ is that perfect redemption, propitiation, and satisfaction for all sins of the whole world, both original and actual;” and in Article V., “that eternal life is offered to mankind in Christ ;” and in Article XI., ” that Christ is the Lamb who, by the sacrifice of Him self, should take away the sins of the world.” We are therefore compelled to reconcile what is here said of predestination with the truth taught elsewhere of the universality of the effect of the death of Christ. Hence the Calvinistic notion, which confines the benefit of our Lord’s death to certain individuals, is not the right interpretation of the Article. God’s predestination is bestowed on every baptized Christian. ” It is the good will of our heavenly Father declared towards” each such baptized. The fact of God bringing men to baptism is synonymous with His choosing them in Christ out of mankind — with his calling them ac cording to His purpose by His special working in due season. In baptism they become ” His own chil dren by adoption,” in the very words of the Article m. Thus God’s predestination is in one sense His pledge

m The Church prays for the child about to be baptized, that it may Vever ” remain in the number of ” His ” faithful and elect children.” — (Public Baptism of Infants.)

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of the gift of sufficient grace, and so the considera tion of such a predestination is full of most pleasant and unspeakable comfort to those who are conscien tiously using that grace. It says, in exact opposition to Calvinism, that God will not act in a tyrannical, arbitrary way, but according to His mingled justice and mercy ; that we may comfort ourselves in the thought of His predestination for us, His preparation of good things in store for us, with full assurance and trust, only never leaving out of sight, that, as a result of our free-will, we may make vain all that He has put in our power.

And so with regard to the salvation of others, we are not called on to judge any. ” God’s ways are not as our ways,” and ” many shall come from the East and from the West, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob ; and the children of the king dom shall be shut out.”

Of the practical effect of Calvinism, it remains for me to speak; its power as a dominant idea cannot, be gainsayed. If the value of a religion be the mea sure of assurance which it can bestow, we have here that assurance held out to us in its most positive form. According to the Westminster Confession, man, by the hearing of preaching, receives the soul-saving faith, that he from all eternity is one of the elect; and that God will impute to him, as if himself had rendered it, the obedience of Christ. This unfading assurance of salvation is never lost, though transitory doubts and obscurities may for a time arise. He

believes that he is under the power of irresistible grace, the consistent result of which is, that, where insoever he fails, it is God’s fault, not his. If he sin,. he is still one of the elect, and irrevocably in a state of grace, just as happened to David. By such sins the certainty of salvation may be shaken and obscured,. but the life of faith and seed of God is never entirely lost to the believer. Man being the passive instru ment of God’s will, the measure of which is the free- agency of man, whereby he admits it, a very deep sense of the awful sinfulness of sin, and its terrible con sequences, in itself, comes necessarily to be weakened.

Again, it tends to destroy all belief in Sacramental Grace. Without pushing the doctrine to its fatalistic- consequences, which would destroy belief in all grace whatsoever save itself, this teaching, though held in consistently together with other truths, tends to hurt the belief in the Sacraments ; for with it there is no place for Sacraments in the divine order of the Church. A Calvinist cannot look upon Baptism as of any vital importance, if man’s salvation depends on an irrespective- election ; for he will not grant that grace reaches any but the elect, and as all are not elect, there are many who are baptized who never receive grace. Grace may be given, but, according to this view, grace is not necessarily linked to the Sacrament, even when (as in the case of infants) there can be no hindrance to the reception of that grace on the part of the receiver. If there is an inner circle of election within the great body of the baptized, baptism can be of no