§ 1. Orthodox Doctrine.
The Assembly’s Catechism, with its usual frankness, states this doctrine
thus:—(chap. 3).
I. “God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his
own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever cometh to pass, yet so
that neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will
of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken
away, but rather established.
II. “Although God knows whatsoever may or can come to pass upon all
supposed conditions, yet hath he not decreed anything because he foresaw
it as future, or as that which would come to pass upon such conditions.
III. “By the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, some men
and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life, and others
foreordained to everlasting death.
IV. “These angels and men, thus predestinated and foreordained, are
particularly and unchangeably designed, and their number is so certain and
definite, that it cannot be either increased or diminished.
V. “Those of mankind that are predestinated unto life, God, before the
foundation of the world was laid, according to his eternal and immutable
purpose, and the secret counsel and good pleasure of his will, hath chosen
in Christ unto everlasting glory, out of his mere free grace and love,
without any foresight of faith or good works, or perseverance in either of
them, or any other thing in the creature, as conditions or causes moving
him thereunto, and all to the praise of his glorious grace.
VI. “As God hath appointed the elect unto glory, so hath he, by the
eternal and most free purpose of his will, foreordained all the means
thereunto. Wherefore they who are elected, being fallen in Adam, are
redeemed by Christ; are effectually called unto faith in Christ, by his
Spirit working in due season; are justified, adopted, sanctified, and kept
by his power through faith unto salvation. Neither are any other redeemed
by Christ, effectually called, justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved,
but the elect only.
VII. “The rest of mankind God was pleased, according to the unsearchable
counsel of his own will, whereby he extendeth or withholdeth mercy as he
pleaseth, for the glory of his sovereign power over his creatures, to pass
by, and to ordain them to dishonor and wrath for their sin, to the praise
of his glorious justice.”
This statement is contained in the creed of more than three thousand
churches in the United States. So far as it is believed by those who
profess it, it conveys the idea of a God who is pure will—a God, in short,
who does as he pleases, saving some of his creatures and damning others,
without reason or justice. He does not reward virtue nor punish sin, but
scatters the joys of heaven and the torments of hell out of a mere
caprice, as an Eastern despot gives a man a purse of gold, or inflicts the
bastinado, without reason, simply to gratify his sense of power. The
essential character of such a Being is arbitrary will, and this creed of
Calvinism places an infinite caprice on the throne of the universe,
instead of the Being whom the Gospels call “Our Father.”
Let us see how far this view of God is mitigated by modern explanations.
The Old School Presbyterianism, or Princeton Orthodoxy, accepts it in its
entireness. They simply deny the consequences supposed to be drawn from
it. They deny that it makes God the author of sin, or that sinful
dispositions are created by God. They deny that this doctrine interferes
with freedom of will in man. But they are obliged to admit that, according
to their creed, God decrees things which he forbids; for, “inasmuch as
many things occur contrary to his commands, while yet he foreordains all
things, it must be that in these cases he purposes one thing and commands
another.”(22) In other words, God sends his prophets, and apostles, and
Son, to command men to do justly and love mercy, when he has already
determined that they shall commit sin. This school rejects the Arminian
doctrine that God’s decree is founded on his foreknowledge, and asserts
that his foreknowledge is based on his decree.
The Old School in New England do not go quite so far as Princeton. They
say, decidedly, that God foreordains sin only by permitting it. Still,
they reject, as stoutly as their sterner _confrères_, the Arminian view,
and insist that God’s decrees are not based on his foreknowledge.(23)
According to Dr. Duffield, of Detroit, the New School Presbyterians escape
the pinch of this conflict by taking refuge in their ignorance. They are
not “Ultra-Calvinists,” and they are not “Arminians,” and especially they
“do not wish to be wise above what is written.”(24) Dr. D. asserts that
the Old School makes the decree in election to be wholly arbitrary, while
the New School believes that it has a reason, though one wholly unknown.
But the Hopkinsians(25) say that “the sovereignty of God belongs to him as
the Supreme Disposer, and consists in his perfect right and perfect
ability to do us he pleases.” Of course, having made the will of God
wholly arbitrary, they proceed to deny that it is arbitrary, or that
wilfulness in God can possibly be wilful. But all this is using “words of
wind for the Almighty,” and “accepting his person.”
Methodism, on the contrary, denies that God foreordains whatsoever comes
to pass, holding foreordination to be a causative act.(26) It also denies
that man is guilty for inherited sin, or is any way responsible for his
depraved nature. He only becomes responsible when he begins to act freely.
He may suffer for inherited evil, but cannot justly be punished for it.
Thus Methodism avoids the rude injustice of the Calvinistic system. And
yet, as Schleiermacher has shown,(27) if it accepts total depravity, it
must also consistently accept the Calvinistic doctrine of election. For if
man is totally depraved, he cannot take a single step towards his own
salvation. God must, in every case, take the initiative, and begin the
conversion of each man who is converted. Therefore, if we ask why one man
is converted, and another not, the only answer possible is this—that God
chose to convert one, and not the other. Schleiermacher accepts and
defends the doctrine of election, but by connecting it with that of
universal restoration, which reduces it to the statement that God saves
all, but in a certain order, which order is determined by himself, without
regard to any foresight of merit or demerit in man.
§ 2. Scripture Basis for this Doctrine.
The principal passages relied upon for the doctrine of absolute decrees
are found in Rom. 8:30, and 9:8-24. In these passages, Paul is, no doubt,
speaking of an unconditional election. In the first, he declares that the
gift of Christianity to those who received it was no accident. God had
known them long ago as individuals, known them before they were born,
known the character they were to have. He had foreordained them to become
Christians, to be made into the likeness of Christ. He had called them to
be Christians by his providence; he had forgiven them their sins; he had
glorified them, filling them with the glory of the new life of faith and
love. In the other passage, Paul shows the Jews that God selects races and
families, not according to any merit of theirs, but for reasons of his
own, to do his work. Ishmael as well as Isaac was a child of Abraham, but
Isaac was selected. Esau as well as Jacob was a child of Isaac, but Jacob
was selected. It is no merit of the man which causes him to be chosen, no
fault which causes him to be rejected, but that one is made for the work,
and the other not. One is influenced to obey and serve; one is allowed to
resist God’s will; and yet both of them—he who obeys and he who
resists—serve the divine purpose. The Jewish Christians, therefore, may
believe that their nation, in resisting Christ, is blindly serving the
providential designs of God, and making way for the Gentiles to come in;
and then, the Gentiles, in turn, will help _them_ to come in, “and so all
Israel shall be saved.” But in neither of these passages is any reference
to final salvation or damnation. All that is spoken of is the predestined
and divinely arranged order, the providential method, in which gifts are
bestowed and opportunities offered. In fact, in Rom. 11:28, election is
formally opposed to the gospel. As regards the GOSPEL, or the reception of
Christianity, the Jews are _enemies_; that is, are left out of the circle
of God’s gifts, in order that the Gentiles may come in. But as regards the
ELECTION, they are still the chosen people, inheriting all the qualities,
powers, position, which their fathers had before them, since God never
takes back his gifts.(28) So also in Ephesians 1:5, 11, Paul says that we,
Christians, have been chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world,
and predestined to be adopted as children, and obtained an inheritance in
Christianity. But neither here is anything intended concerning final
salvation. It all refers to their having received the gift of Christian
faith, in the plan of God, by a wise providence of his, and not by
accident. So also, in Timothy (2 Tim. 1:9), Paul says that God hath saved
us out of the world, and called us to be Christians, not because of any
merit of ours, but simply according to a gracious purpose which he always
had, that the Gentiles should come into his kingdom with the Jews. In none
of these passages is any final doom or destiny hereafter intended: _all of
them_ refer to the gift of Christianity in this world. The apostle softens
the exultation of the Gentiles, and consoles the sorrow of the Jewish
Christians, by telling them that the acceptance of the Gentiles and
rejection of the majority of the Jews is part of a great plan of
Providence, which will finally redound to the good of both.
§ 3. Relation of the Divine Decree to Human Freedom.
In order that God shall be the Ruler of the world, and its providence, he
must know the course of events, and determine them. In order that man
shall be responsible, and a moral being, he must be free to choose, at
every moment, between right and wrong, good and evil. In part of his
nature and life, man is a creature of destiny; in part, he is the creator
of destiny. Every man’s character is the result of three
factors—organization, education, and freedom. The character he has now has
come to him, partly from the organization with which he was born, partly
from the influences by which he has been educated, and partly from what he
has done or omitted to do at every moment of his life. Now, the two first
of these factors are out of his power. A man born in Africa, or descended
from Chinese parents, cannot, by any choice or effort, become what a man
born of French or German parents may become. A man born among the Turks or
Arabs, and educated by the circumstances surrounding him there, _must_ be
a wholly different man from one born in New England. Man’s freedom,
therefore, may be likened to the power of the helmsman to direct a vessel.
He cannot determine what sort of a vessel he shall be in, nor what sort of
weather or currents shall come: all he can do at any moment is to steer it
to the right or left. If, now, in steering, he guides himself by a compass
turning to a fixed point, and by a chart giving the true position of
continents and islands, then this power enables him, in spite of storms
and calms, to take the vessel round the world, to the harbor he seeks. But
if he has no chart and compass, but steers as he chooses from moment to
moment, he goes nowhere. His vessel will then drift before the steady
winds and constant currents. So is human freedom a great power when it
guides itself by eternal truths and fixed laws. But if it does not, then
it is not freedom, but only wilfulness, and it accomplishes nothing. Man’s
freedom is thus surrounded by divine providence. God determines the
original organization of every human being; God determines the
circumstances which educate him; and God has fixed the laws by which he
must guide himself in order to become really free. He cannot therefore
resist the divine will, except temporarily. He can postpone the _time_
when God’s kingdom shall come, and his will be done; but that is all.
§ 4. History of the Doctrine of Election and Predestination.
Before Augustine, all the Greek and Latin Fathers of the Church taught the
concurrence of free will and grace in human conversion. They taught that
man must begin the work, and that God would aid him. God and man must work
together.
Then came the controversy between Augustine and Pelagius. The latter,
being at Rome, heard this sentence read from the writings of the former:
“_Da quod jubes, et jube quod vis_”—Give what thou commandest, and command
what thou willest. Pelagius objected to this formula. He said, “Since man
ought to be without sin, he can be without sin.” “There is,” said he, “in
man, a ‘_Can Do_,’ a ‘_Will Do_,’ and a ‘_Do_.’ ” The first is from God;
in the others God and man unite.
Augustine objected that God worked in us both to will and to do. He had
first taught that God sends motives which we can obey or resist; but he
saw that if God works in us to will, he must also conquer our resistance,
and work the power by which we consent.
But to this Pelagius replied, “Then there is no freedom in man.”
Augustine answered, “God does not move us as we move a stone, but
rationally; he makes us _will_ what is good, and does not force us against
our will. He frees the will from its proclivity to evil, by ‘preparing
grace,’ and determines it to good by ‘effecting grace.’ That some do not
yield to this, is not because of their greater resistance, but because God
does not choose to conquer their resistance.”
This is the point where grace passes into predestination.
The Old Church had maintained that God predestined to life those whom he
_foresaw_ would repent and obey him. His foreknowledge did not cause this
to happen, but he foreknew it because it would happen. It did not take
place because he foresaw it, but he foresaw it because it would take
place.
Election, according to the early Fathers, was nothing arbitrary. It
depended on man to be saved or lost. So taught Justin Martyr, Origen,
Basil, Hilary.
Basil said, “God hardened Pharaoh’s heart by his judgments, which were
sent to show how hard it was, because he saw he would not repent.”
Origen adds, “Like a wise physician, God did not cure Pharaoh too soon,
for fear of a relapse. He let him drink the cup of sin to the bottom in
this life, so as to cure him more thoroughly hereafter.”
Pelagius (and Augustine at first) took the same view. They said that God
foresees and permits evil, and decrees the consequence of it.
Augustine said, “God has chosen some men in Christ, not because he foresaw
they would be good, but because he determined to make them so.” The reason
of this choice, therefore, lay not in man, but in God’s arbitrary will.
Pelagius said, “This is fatalism, under the name of grace, and is saying
that God accepts the persons of men.”
Augustine answered, “All men in Adam are in ruin. God saves some of them.
If he let _all_ die, we could not blame him: how much less for saving
some!”
But why does he _not_ save all? The answer is,—
Because the elect see in the fate of the non-elect what they have escaped,
and God’s justice is revealed with his goodness.
None of the elect perish, though they may die unbaptized, and be ever so
bad in their lives; but they will be all converted before they die.
The non-elect may be often better men than the elect; but they will not be
saved.
The only place where Augustine allows freedom is in Adam, who might have
turned either way.
Semi-Pelagianism consists essentially in saying, “Man begins the work; God
aids him.”
Augustine’s view was carried out afterwards thus: “If God does all, it is
no use to preach, exhort, or read Scripture, or use any means of grace.”
Augustine had said that reprobation was not a decree to sin, but to
punishment.
But Gottschalk, his follower, said it was a decree to _sin_. The Church
rejected this statement, and softened the doctrine. Thomas Aquinas revived
it again.
Luther and Calvin both maintained that there is no good in man after the
fall. Flacius said that original sin is the substance of human nature, and
human nature now bears the image of the devil.
Luther made freedom of the will to consist in doing evil with pleasure,
and not by constraint.
Calvin denied that there is any free will. “Why give it such a lofty
title?” he said. He seemed to think that all the power left to men is so
much taken from God.
When God says, “Do this and live,” it is, says Luther, merely irony on his
part, as though he had said, “See if you can do it! Try it.”
Luther actually taught that God’s will in revealed Scripture was, that all
should be saved, but his real and secret will was, that _not all_ should
be saved.
Melancthon said, “Man has no power by himself to do right; but when grace
is offered, he can receive it or reject it.”
Calvin went beyond Augustine. He taught that,—
1. The decree of predestination was not merely a decree to punishment, but
to sin. He rejects with scorn the distinction between permitting and
causing, between foreknowledge and predestination. He says it is improper
to have God’s decree waiting on men’s choice.
2. He taught that Adam’s sin was decreed by God. The Infralapsarian taught
that God foresaw that Adam would sin, and so decreed some men to life, and
others to death. The Supralapsarian taught that God determined to reveal
his majesty, and mercy, and justice. He created men, and made them
miserable to show his mercy, and made them sinful to show his justice.
3. If men complain that God has so created them, Calvin answers, God has
the same right that the potter has over the clay. If they complain that
God has chosen some, and not others, to life, he replies, that so oxen,
horses, and sheep might complain that they were not men.
4. God causes the sin which he forbids. This is not a contradiction in
him, for his nature is different from ours.
God created all for his own glory, and sinners to glorify his justice.
Finally, Calvin himself admits that this is “a horrible decree.”
§ 5. Election is to Work and Opportunity here, not to Heaven hereafter.
How Jacob was elected, and how the Jews were a Chosen People.
This _reductio ad absurdum_ disproves the common idea of election. If a
man were elected by God to heaven, and so could not help going to heaven,
it would not be worth his while to give diligence to make his calling and
election sure. It is sure already, without any diligence.
The common Orthodox idea of election is, therefore, a false one. God does
not elect, or choose us, for passive enjoyment, but for active duty. He
elects us to opportunities. He elects, or, as we may say, selects, us for
certain special work, gives us certain special privileges, and holds us to
an accountability for the use of them.
In the parable of the talents, God elected, or selected, one man to the
possession of five talents, another to the possession of two, and another
one. Each was elected; but each was elected to opportunities, and each to
a different opportunity; but they all had to give diligence to make their
calling and election sure.
The word “elect” was first applied to the Jews. They were an elect or
chosen people. They were selected from among all nations for a great duty
and opportunity. They were taught the _unity of God_ and his _holiness_.
They were a city set on a hill, a light shining in the darkness of the
world, to proclaim these truths. That was their opportunity. It was not
happiness, or heaven, or even goodness, that they were chosen for, but
WORK. As long as they continued to do this work, they continued to be
God’s chosen or selected people. But when they hardened into the bigotry
of Phariseeism, and froze into the scepticism of Sadduceeism, when they
ceased to do the work, then they ceased to be the elect people. While they
were diligent to make their election sure, they were the elect, but no
longer.
God selected Jacob and rejected Esau. “Jacob have I loved, and Esau have I
hated.” But how did God love Jacob? He loved him by giving him
opportunity. And why? Not because he was better than Esau, but because he
was different. Jacob was selected to be father of the chosen people
because he had the qualities required for his work. Esau was wild,
reckless, martial. Jacob was industrious, money-making, fond of small
trade; pastoral, rather than warlike; tenacious of his ideas even to
obstinacy. These were the qualities required in a people who were so few
that if they had been warlike they would have been swept from the earth.
They never fought for the pleasure of fighting, but only when they could
not help it, or when a political necessity compelled it. Though surrounded
by nations much more powerful than themselves,—the Assyrians on the
north-east at Nineveh, the Egyptians on the south-west, the Babylonians on
the east, the Tyrians on the west, and the Greeks on the north-west,—they
saw the fall of all these great nations and empires, but they continued.
Many waves of war swept over their Syrian hills, and left them still
there, peaceful, industrious, worshipping Jehovah in their sacred city,
offering no motive for conquest, too poor to tempt invasion, too far from
the sea to grow rich by commerce, like the Phœnicians. Their obscurity,
poverty, and unheroic qualities were their salvation, and these they
derived apparently from Jacob, their ancestor.
Thus we see that the Jews were a chosen people, and we see what they were
chosen for, and also that they were chosen not because of superior virtue,
but for superior capacity.
§ 6. How other Nations were elected and called.
Other nations were chosen, too, for other purposes. The Greeks also were a
chosen people—chosen to develop the idea of beauty, as the Jews that of
religion. Their mission was beauty in art and in literature. It was no
accident that they came as they did from confluent races, flowing together
from India and Phœnicia, and settling in that sweet climate and romantic
land, where the lovely Ægean, tossing its soft blue waters on the
resounding shore, tempted them to navigation, and awakened their intellect
by the sight of many lands. There they did their work. They made their
calling and election sure. Greek architecture—one birth of beauty after
another—was born. Athens was crowned with marvellous temples, whose
exquisite proportions amaze and charm us to-day—inimitable creations of
beauty. Homer came, and then epic poetry was born. Æschylus and tragedy
came; Pindar and the lyric song; Theophrastus and pastoral music; Anacreon
and the strain which bears his special name. And so Phidias and his
companions created sculpture, Herodotus history, Demosthenes oratory,
Plato and Aristotle philosophy, Zeuxis painting, and Pericles
statesmanship. This was their election, and they made it sure.
The Romans also had their chosen work. They were elected to develop the
idea of LAW. A prosaic people, but filled with notions of justice, they
developed jurisprudence. To show that a nation can be governed not by
despotic will, nor by popular will, but by law,—this was the office of
Rome. As long as it did this work it prospered; when it ceased to do it,
it fell. All other races, no doubt, have their special calling too. Some
make it sure; others seem to fail of making it sure, and so disappear.
Thus the election of the Jews shows a principle of God’s government, and
is not an exceptional case.
That which is true of nations and races is also true of religions and of
Christian denominations. All Christians are a chosen people. They are
chosen for the work of teaching to the human race the great doctrines of
the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. Other religions were
sent to men too. Mohammed had his mission—to convert the idolatrous Arabs
to Monotheism. The religions of Asia were intended to prepare the way for
Christianity by teaching the elementary ideas of religion and morality.
§ 7. How different Denominations are elected.
Every great denomination, and small ones, too, are chosen to unfold some
one Christian idea. The Catholic Church was chosen to carry forward the
great central idea of unity—one Lord, one faith, one baptism. But the
Catholic Church is not catholic enough: it has turned itself into a sect
by excluding those who could not accept all its statements and methods,
though they accepted Christ. The Jewish Church committed the same mistake.
When it became narrow, bigoted, exclusive, it left its first love; it then
ceased to enlarge itself, and was obliged to disappear. The Jewish
religion, and all positive religions, are like vases in which a plant is
growing. While the plants are young, they hold them easily; but as the
plants grow, the vases, incapable of expansion, are shivered by the
enlarging roots. So that, unless the Roman Catholic Church can be
liberalized and enlarged, it must break to pieces.
Whatever is said of Jews as the chosen and elect people is intended to
show us a principle which must be applied to others. It is a principle
very visible in their case, but not confined to them. It is the law of
divine Providence. By what we see of its working in their case, we are
able to see it in other cases, where it is less distinct and less
apparent.
§ 8. How Individuals are elected.
And now let us apply the doctrine of election to individuals. When one is
elected he is always elected to some special opportunity, which he can
improve or not, and for which he is held accountable.
When God sends into the world a great and original genius, like Columbus,
Sir Isaac Newton, Dante, Shakespeare, Mozart, Michael Angelo, Franklin,
Washington, Byron, Napoleon, it is very plain that they are sent, provided
with certain qualities, to do a certain work. It is evident that God meant
Columbus to discover America, and Dante to write a poem. If Columbus had
tried to write the “Inferno,” and Dante had devoted himself to inventing a
steam-engine, if Franklin had written sonnets and pastorals, and Isaac
Newton had gone into trade, if Washington had composed symphonies, and
Beethoven had travelled to discover the source of the Nile, they would not
have made their calling and election sure. But such men (with an
occasional exception, like that of Napoleon and Byron) were all faithful
to their own inspiration, and each chose to abide in the calling in which
he was called; and so each did the work God gave him to do in the world.
Napoleon and Byron did their work only partially, for they allowed their
egotism to blind them, so as to lose sight of their mission after a while.
God sent Napoleon to bind together and organize the institutions of a new
time—to organize liberty. He did it for a season, and then sought,
egotistically, only to build up himself and his dynasty; then his work
came to a sudden end. For it is vanity and egotism which make us fail. We
wish for some calling finer or nobler than the calling God gives us; so we
come to nothing.
In these great and shining examples we are taught how God elects men, how
he elects all men, and how he elects all to work. These are not the
exceptional cases, as we are apt to suppose, but they are the
illustrations of a universal rule.
Every human being has his own gift and opportunity from God; some after
this fashion, and others after that. If faithful, he can see what it is.
If his eye is single, his whole body is full of light. If he is true to
the light within his soul, it grows more and more clear to him what God
wants him to do. Not every man’s business is to do great works in the
world; but every one is sent to do something and to be something—something
which shall bring him nearer to God—something which shall make him more
useful to man. At first he is confused; he cannot tell what his calling
is. But each day, if he be faithful to each day’s call, causes the whole
calling of his life to become more luminous and clear. So we see that
conscientious and faithful people, as they continue to live, grow more and
more into specialty of work, and have more and more of a special place and
duty. Thus we see that all God’s callings are special, and none vague or
general. “Every man has his proper gift from the Lord; one after this
fashion, and another after that.” Perhaps it is not a shining gift, it
will not make him famous, but it is always a good one—always useful and
noble. If we follow God’s leadings, we shall always come out right. “Let
every man,” says the apostle, “abide in the calling in which he is
called.” Let him not be impatient of his own gift, nor covetous of
another’s; let him not be uneasy in his place, nor straining for something
beyond his reach. But if faithful every day to his own gift, he may be
sure that it will grow at last into something truly good, satisfactory,
and sufficient.
§ 9. How Jesus was elected to be the Christ.
Perhaps we can now better understand how Christ was “the chosen one of
God.” If Columbus was chosen and sent to discover a world, if Dante was
sent to be a great poet, if Mozart, Rafaelle, had each his mission, can we
doubt that Jesus also was specially selected and endowed for the work
which he has actually done, to be the leader of the human race in religion
and goodness—to lead it up to God? Yet those who will admit the mission in
all other cases, question it in his case. But what was true in them was
much more so in him. He was conscious from the first that he was selected.
“Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?” “To this end I
was born, that I might bear witness to the truth.” “God sent not his Son
into the world to condemn the world, but that the world, through him,
might be saved.” “For this cause came I to this hour.” “I have finished
the work given me to do.”
Jesus, by his nature and organization, by his education, by the very time
of his birth, by the inspiration and influence of the Holy Spirit, was
elected and called. And he fulfilled his part perfectly; and so, the two
conditions being met, he became Saviour of the world, and perpetual Ruler
of the moral and spiritual nature of man.
§ 10. Other Illustrations of Individual Calling and Election.
But it is not merely great men, and men of genius, who are thus
providentially chosen and sent. _Every_ man is chosen for something, and
that something not vague and general, but special and distinct.
You go into some country village of New England. You find there some plain
farmer, of no great education, perhaps, but endowed with admirable insight
and sagacity, and of a kind and benevolent nature. He has come to be the
counsellor and adviser of the whole community. He has no title; he is not
even a “squire.” He has no office; he is not even a justice of the peace.
But he fulfils the mission of peace-maker and of sagacious counsellor. He
is judge without a seat on the bench; he is spiritual guide without being
called “reverend;” he is the stay, the centre, the most essential person
in the place. He has had an evident calling from God, not from man, and he
has made it sure by his diligence and fidelity in his work.
And perhaps in the same village is a woman, poor, old, and uneducated. But
she, too, has a calling from God. She is always sent for in the hour of
trial. If any accident happens, she is there. Her sagacity and experience
help her to do what is needed. She has no medical diploma, but she is the
good physician of the place. God gave to her native sagacity, gave to her
benevolence, gave her acute observation and a good memory, and she has
made her election sure by her own fidelity.
Some persons are called to love and teach little children: that is _their_
work. They are happy with children, and children are happy with them. Some
are called to sympathize; their natures overflow with sympathy; they enter
readily into all trials and into the troubles of every soul, and they pour
oil and wine into the wounds of the heart. God called them to be his good
Samaritans, and they hear the call and obey.
“A place for everything, and everything in its place,” says the prudent
housekeeper. “A place for every man, and every man in his place,” says the
divine Housekeeper, who has so many mansions in his house, and whose Son
said he went to prepare a place for us there in the other world—a working
place, probably, and a sphere of labor there as here. But in this world,
too, what a delight it is to see any one in his right place!
There are different ways in which God calls us, and different kinds of
callings. But every calling of God is good and noble. He calls us to work;
he calls us to Christian goodness; he calls us to heavenly joy, to glory,
honor, and immortality. These are the three great callings of
man—Christian work first, Christian goodness next, Christian glory last.
Since God made every one of us, he made every one of us for something; he
has appointed a destiny for each one, and he calls us to it. If we do not
hear the gentle call, the whisper of his grace, he calls us by trial, by
disaster, by disappointment. He chastens us for our profit. He prunes our
too luxuriant branches that we may bring forth more fruit.
So this doctrine of election, in its other form, as usually taught by
Orthodoxy, so harsh and terrible,—“_horrible decretum_,”—so dishonorable
to God, so destructive to morality, so palsying to effort, grows lovely
and encouraging when looked at aright.
As one grows old, and looks back over his past life, he sees the working
of this divine decree—working where he concurred with it, working where he
resisted it. He sees more and more clearly what his election was, and how
he has fulfilled it, how far failed. He sees himself as a youth, fiery and
ardent, striving for one thing, educated by God for another. He sees how
he was partly led and partly driven into his true work; how he has been
made an instrument by God for good he never dreamed of to God’s other
children. He says, “It is no doing of mine. It is the Lord’s doing. He
chose me for it before the foundation of the world. I builded better than
I knew. I have failed in a thousand plans of my own, but I have ignorantly
fulfilled God’s plans. I am like Saul, the son of Kish, who went out to
seek his father’s asses, and found a kingdom. I am like Schiller’s
explorer, who went to sea with a thousand vessels, and came to shore saved
in a single boat, yet having in that boat the best result of the whole
voyage.”