THE DOCTRINE OF PREDESTINATION CONSIDERED WITH REFERENCE TO ALMIGHTY
POWER.
THE POWER OF GOD is held as supporting universal foreordination. As
in the case of wisdom, God's power must be recognised as infinite.
It is true, indeed, that creation does not prove this, since it is
limited, and no conclusion can be more extensive than the premises.
But looking at the nature and multitude of His works, we cannot
resist the conviction that there is nothing (which does not imply a
contradiction) that is "too hard for the Lord." He is infinite in
power. But the power of God is guided by His wisdom and His love,
just as is the power of a good and a wise king. In governing His
creation, it stands to reason that He will govern each creature
according to its nature--brute matter by physical law, animals by
instinct, and man in harmony with his rational constitution. God
does not reason with a stone, or plead with a brute; but He does so
with man. "Come, now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord"
(Isa. i. 18). It would be absurd to punish a block of granite
because it was not marble, or to condemn the horse because he could
not understand a problem in Euclid. To do so would be to treat the
creatures by a law not germane to their nature. It is, indeed, a
radical vice in Calvinistic reasoning that, because God is
omnipotent, He can as easily therefore create virtue in a free being
as He can waft the down of the thistle on the breeze. It is quite
true that "whatsoever the Lord pleased that did He in heaven and in
earth" (Ps. cxxxv. 6). But the question is--What is His pleasure in
regard to the production of virtue? Is it a forced or free thing?
Every good man will cheerfully ascribe to God the praise of his (the
good, man's) virtue. God gave him his constitution; God's Spirit
brought to bear on him the motives of a holy life. Had there been no
Spirit, there would have been no holy life. Yet there is a sense in
which the personal righteousness of the good man is his own
righteousness. It consists in right acts, in right acts as regards
God and as regards man. God told him what to do, and when he did it
the acts became his acts, and were not the acts of God, nor of any
other. When he does the thing that was right, he is commended--when
he does not, he is blamed. Conversing one day with a Calvinistic
clergyman, he intimated that a certain person had declared that the
only thing stronger than God in the world was the human will. We
remarked that we did not approve of such a mode of expression. And
rightly so. It implies a confusion of ideas, confounding physical
power which is almighty, and moral power, which is suasory and
resistible. Stephen charged the Jews with resisting the Spirit. "Ye
stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always
resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye" (Acts vii.
51). Because they resisted him, would it be right to say that they
were physically stronger than God? We replied to the clergyman that
we supposed that the person who used the expression meant that God
did not get people to do what He wished. The reply was that we were
equally wrong. We then asked, "Do you think that God wishes people
to keep His law?" He refused to answer the question. But why would
he not? Aye, why? He was in this dilemma: If he said that He did
wish them to keep His law, he would have been met by the question,
Why then does He not make them do so? Everywhere the law is broken.
If he said that God did not wish them to keep His law, would not
this have been to put the Holy One on a level with the great enemy
of man? This brings out the idea that whilst God is possessed of
infinite power, in the exercise of that power He has respect to the
constitution of man in the production of virtue. He does not
override the constitution, and treat it as if it were a nullity. To
do so would be absurd, for forced virtue is not virtue at all. God
is all-powerful, but He is also ALL-WISE.