the objection taken from justice, he replies, “They” (the objectors)
“inquire by what right the Lord is angry with his creatures who had not
provoked him by any previous offence; for that to devote to destruction
whom he pleases, is more like the caprice of a tyrant, than the lawful
sentence of a judge. If such thoughts ever enter into the minds of pious
men, they will be sufficiently enabled to break their violence by this
one consideration, how exceedingly presumptuous it is, only to inquire
into the causes of the divine _will_; which is, in fact, and is justly
entitled to be, the _cause_ of every thing that exists. For if it has
any cause, then there must be something antecedent on which it depends,
which it is impious to suppose. For the will of God is the highest rule
of justice; so that what he wills must be considered just, for this very
reason, because he wills it.” Thus he assumes the very thing in dispute,
that God has willed the destruction of any part of the human race, “for
no other cause than because he _wills it_;” of which assumption there is
not only not a word of proof in Scripture; but, on the contrary, it
ascribes the death of him that dieth to his own will, and not to the
will of God. 2. He pretends that to assign any _cause_ to the divine
will is to suppose something antecedent to, something above God, and
therefore “impious;” as if we might not suppose something IN God to be
the rule of his will, not only without any impiety, but with truth and
piety; as, for instance, his perfect wisdom, holiness, justice, and
goodness; or, in other words, to believe the exercise of his will to
flow from the perfection of his whole nature; a much more honourable and
Scriptural view of the will of God than that which subjects it to no
rule, even though it should arise from the nature of God himself. 3.
When he calls the will of God, “the highest rule of justice,” beyond
which we cannot push our inquiries, he confounds the will of God, as a
rule of justice _to us_, and as a rule to himself. This will is our
rule; yet even then, because we know that it is the will of a perfect
being: but when Calvin represents _mere will_ as constituting God’s own
rule of justice, he shuts out knowledge, discrimination of the nature of
things, and holiness; which is saying something very different from that
great truth, that God cannot will any thing but what is perfectly just.
It is to say that blind will, will which has no respect to any thing but
itself, is God’s highest rule of justice; a position which, if presented
abstractedly, many Calvinists themselves would spurn. 4. He determines
the question by the authority of his own metaphysics, and totally
forgets that one _dictum_ of inspiration overturns his whole
theory,--God “_willeth_ all men to be saved;” a declaration, which in no
part of the sacred volume is opposed or limited by any contrary
declaration.
4. Calvin was not, however, content thus to leave the matter; but
resorts to an argument, in which he has been generally followed by those
who have adopted his system with some mitigations: “As we are all
corrupted by sin, we must necessarily be odious to God, and that not
from tyrannical cruelty, but in the most _equitable estimation_ of
justice. If all whom the Lord predestinates to death are, in their
natural condition, liable to the sentence of death, what injustice do
they complain of receiving from him?” To this Calvin very fairly states
the obvious rejoinder made in his day; and which the common sense of
mankind will always make,--“They object, Were they not by the decree of
God antecedently predestinated to that corruption which is now stated as
the _cause_ of their condemnation? When they perish in their corruption,
therefore, they only suffer the punishment of that misery into which, in
consequence of his predestination, Adam fell, and precipitated his
posterity with him.” The manner in which Calvin attempts to meet this
objection, shows how truly unanswerable it is upon his system. “I
confess,” says he, “indeed, that all the descendants of Adam fell, _by
the Divine will_, into that miserable condition in which they are now
involved; and this is what I asserted from the beginning, that we must
always return at last _to the sovereign determination of God’s will_;
the cause of which is hidden in himself. But it follows not, therefore,
that God is liable to this reproach; for we will answer them in the
language of Paul, ‘O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall
the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus’”
That is, in order to escape the pinch of the objection, he assumes that
St. Paul affirms that God has “formed” a part of the human race for
eternal misery; and that, by imposing silence upon them, he intended to
declare that this proceeding in God was just. Now the passage may be
proved from its context to have no respect to the eternal state of men
at all; but, if that were less obvious, it gives no answer to the
objection; and we are brought round again, as indeed he confesses, to
his former, and indeed only, argument, that the whole matter as he
states it, is to be referred back to the divine will; which will, though
perfectly arbitrary, is, as he contends, the highest rule of justice: “I
say, with Augustine, that the Lord created those whom he certainly
foreknew would fall into destruction; and that this was actually so,
because _he willed it_; but of his will, it belongs not to us to demand
the reason, which we are incapable of comprehending; nor is it
reasonable, that the divine will should be made the subject of
controversy with us, which is only another name for the highest rule of
justice.” Thus he shuts us out from pursuing the argument. But the
evasion proves the objection unanswerable. For if all is to be resolved
into the mere will of God as to the destruction of the reprobate; if
they were created for this purpose, as Calvin expressly affirms; if they
fell into their corruption in pursuance of God’s determination; if, as
he had said before, “God passes them by, and reprobates them, _from no
other_ cause than his determination to exclude them from the inheritance
of his children,” why refer to their natural corruption at all, and
their being odious to God in that state, since the same reason is given
for their corruption as for their reprobation?--not any fault of theirs;
but the mere will of God, “the reprobation hidden in his secret
counsel,” and that not grounded on the visible and tangible fact of
their demerit. Thus the election taught by Calvin is not the choice of
some persons to peculiar grace from the whole mass, equally deserving of
punishment; (though this is a sophism;) since, in that case, the decree
of reprobation would rest upon God’s foreknowledge of those passed by as
corrupt and guilty, which notion he rejects: “For since God foresees
future events only in consequence of _his decree that they shall
happen_, it is useless to contend about foreknowledge, while it is
evident that all things come to pass rather by _ordination and decree_.”
“It is a HORRIBLE DECREE, I confess; but no one can deny that God
foreknew the future fate of man before he created him; and that he did
foreknow it, because it was _appointed_ by his own decree.” Agreeably to
this, he repudiates the distinction between will and permission: “For
what reason shall we assign for his permitting it, but because it is his
will? It is _not probable_, however, that man procured his own
destruction by the mere _permission_, and without any _appointment_, of
God.”
5. With this doctrine he again attempts to reconcile the demerit of men:
“Their perdition depends on the divine predestination in such a manner,
that the _cause_ and _matter_ of it are found _in themselves_. For the
first man fell because the Lord had determined it should so happen. The
reason of this determination is unknown to us.--Man, therefore, falls
according to the _appointment_ of divine providence; but he falls by
_his own fault_. The Lord had a little before pronounced every thing
that he had made to be ‘very good.’ Whence, then, comes the depravity of
man to revolt from his God? Lest it should be thought to come from
creation, God approved and commended what had proceeded from himself. By
his own wickedness, therefore, man corrupted the nature he had received
pure from the Lord, and by his fall he drew all his posterity with him
to destruction.” It is in this way that Calvin attempts to avoid the
charge of making God the author of sin. But how God should not merely
_permit_ the defection of the first man, but _appoint_ it, and _will_
it, and that his will should be the “necessity of things,” (all which he
had before asserted,) and yet that Deity should not be the author of
that which he _appointed_, _willed_, and _imposed a necessity upon_,
would be rather a delicate inquiry. It is enough that Calvin rejects the
impious doctrine; and even though his principles directly lead to it,
since he has put in his disclaimer, he is entitled to be exempted from
the charge;--but the logical conclusion is inevitable.
6. In much the same manner he contends that the necessity of sinning is
laid upon the reprobate by the ordination of God, and yet denies God to
be the author of their sinful acts, since the corruption of men was
derived from Adam, by his own fault, and not from God. He exhorts us
“rather to contemplate the evident cause of condemnation, which is
nearer to us, in the corrupt nature of mankind, than search after a
hidden and altogether incomprehensible one, in the predestination of
God.” “For though, by the eternal providence of God, man was _created_
to that misery to which he is subject, yet the _ground_ of it he has
derived from himself, not God; since he is thus ruined, solely in
consequence of his having degenerated from the pure creation of God to
vicious and impure depravity.” Thus, almost in the same breath, he
affirms that men became reprobate from no other cause than “the will of
God,” and his “sovereign determination;” that men have no reason “to
expostulate with God, if they are predestinated to eternal death,
without _any demerit_ of their own, merely by his sovereign will;”--and
then, that the corrupt nature of mankind is the _evident_ and _nearer_
cause of condemnation; (which cause, however, was still a matter of
“appointment,” and “ordination,” not “permission;”) and that man is
“ruined solely in consequence of his having degenerated from the pure
state in which God created him.” These propositions manifestly fight
with each other; for if the reason of reprobation be laid in man’s
corruption, it cannot be laid in the mere will and sovereign
determination of God, unless we suppose him to be the author of sin. It
is this offensive doctrine only, which can reconcile them. For if God so
wills, and appoints, and necessitates the depravity of man, as to be the
author of it, then there is no inconsistency in saying that the ruin of
the reprobate is both from the mere will of God, and from the corruption
of their nature, which is but the result of that will. The one is then,
as Calvin states, the “evident and nearer cause,” the other the more
remote and hidden one; yet they have the same source, and are
substantially acts of the same will. But if it be denied that God is, in
any sense, the author of evil, and if sin is from man alone, then is the
“corruption of nature” the effect of an independent will; and if this
corruption be the “real source,” as he says, of men’s condemnation, then
the decree of reprobation rests not upon the sovereign will of God, as
its sole cause, which he affirms; but upon a cause dependent on the will
of the first man: but as this is denied, then the other must follow.
Calvin himself, indeed, contends for the perfect concurrence of these
proximate and remote causes, although in point of fact, to have been
perfectly consistent with himself, he ought rather to have called the
_mere will of God_ THE CAUSE of the decree of reprobation, and the
corruption of man THE MEANS by which it is carried into
effect:--language which he sanctions, and which many of his followers
have not scrupled to adopt.
7. So certainly does this opinion involve in it the consequences, that
in sin man is the instrument, and God the actor, that it cannot be
maintained, as stated by Calvin, without this conclusion. For as two
causes of reprobation are expressly laid down, they must be either
opposed to each other, or be consenting. If they are opposed, the scheme
is given up; if consenting, then are both reprobation and human
corruption the results of the same will, the same decree, and necessity.
It would be trifling to say that the decree does not influence; for if
so, it is no decree in Calvin’s sense, who understands the decree of
God, as the foregoing extracts and the whole third book of his
“Institutes” plainly show, as _appointing_ what shall be, and by that
appointment making it _necessary_. Otherwise, he could not reject the
distinction between will and permission, and avow the sentiment of St.
Augustine, “that the will of God is the necessity of things; and that
what he has willed will necessarily come to pass,” book iii, chap. 23,
sec. 8. So, in writing to Castellio, he makes the sin of Adam the result
of an act of God: “You say Adam fell by his free will. I except against
it. That he might not fall, he stood in need of that strength and
constancy with which God armeth all the elect, as long as he will keep
them blameless. Whom God has elected, he props up with an invincible
power unto perseverance. Why did he not afford this to Adam, if he would
have had him stand in his integrity?” And with this view of necessity,
as resulting from the decree of God, the immediate followers of Calvin
coincided; the end and the means, as to the elect, and as to the
reprobate, are equally fixed by the decree, and are both to be traced to
the _appointing_ and _ordaining_ will of God. On such a scheme it is
therefore worse than trifling to attempt to make out a case of justice
in favour of this assumed divine procedure, by alleging the corruption
and guilt of man: a point which, indeed, Calvin himself, in fact, gives
up when he says, “That the reprobate obey not the word of God, when made
known to them, is justly imputed to the wickedness and depravity of
their hearts, _provided it be at the same time stated_, that they are
abandoned to this depravity, because they have been raised up by a just
but _inscrutable_ judgment of God, to display his glory in their
condemnation.”
8. It was by availing themselves of the ineffectual struggles of Calvin
to give some colour of justice to his reprobating decree by fixing upon
the corruption of man as a cause of reprobation, that some of his
followers endeavoured, in the very teeth of his own express words, to
reduce his system to sublapsarianism. This was attempted by Amyraldus;
who was answered by Curcellæus, in his tract “_De Jure Dei in
Creaturas_.” This last writer, partly by several of the same passages we
have given above from Calvin’s Institutes, and by extracts from his
other writings, proves that Calvin did by no means consider man, as
fallen, to be the object of reprobation; but man not yet created; man as
to be created, and so reprobated, under no consideration in the divine
mind of his fall or actual guilt, except as _consequences_ of an eternal
preterition of the _persons_ of the reprobate, resolvable only into the
sovereign pleasure of God. The references he makes to men as corrupt,
and to their corrupt state as the proximate cause of their rejection,
are all manifestly used to parry off rather than to answer objections,
and somewhat to moderate and soften, as Curcellæus observes, the harsher
parts of his system. And, indeed, for what reason are we so often
brought back to that unfailing refuge of Calvin, “the presumption and
wickedness of replying against God?” For if reprobation be a matter of
human _desert_, it cannot be a mystery; if it be adequate punishment for
an adequate fault, there is no need to urge it upon us to bow with
submission to an unexplained sovereignty. We may add, there is no need
to speak of a remote or first cause of reprobation, if the _proximate_
cause will explain the whole case; and that Calvin’s continual reference
to God’s _secret counsel_, and _will_, and _inscrutable judgment_, could
have no aptness to his argument. Among English divines, Dr. Twisse has
sufficiently defended Calvin from the _charge_, as he esteems it, of
sublapsarianism; and, whatever merit Twisse’s own supralapsarian creed
may have, his argument on this point is unanswerable.
9. As it is not intended here to enter into this controversy, on which
multitudes of books have been written, and the leading authors are known
almost to every one, the above may be sufficient to convey a just notion
of Calvin’s own opinions. After these subjects had long agitated the
reformed churches, and given rise to several modifications of Calvin’s
original scheme, and to numerous writings in refutation of it, the synod
of Dort digested the whole into five articles from which arose the
celebrated controversy on the _five points_. These articles, as being
the standard of what is generally called strict Calvinism, are, in
substance, as follows:--
(1.) “_Of Predestination._ As all men have sinned in Adam, and have
become exposed to the curse and eternal death, God would have done no
injustice to any one, if he had determined to leave the whole human race
under sin and the curse, and to condemn them on account of sin;
according to those words of the Apostle, ‘All the world is become guilty
before God,’ Rom. iii, 19, 23; vi, 23. That some, _in time_, have faith
given them by God, and others have it not given, proceeds from his
eternal decree; for ‘known unto God are all his works from the
beginning,’ &c, Acts xv, 18; Eph. i, 11. According to which decree, he
graciously softens the hearts of the elect, however hard, and he bends
them to believe; but the non-elect he leaves, in his judgment, to their
own perversity and hardness. And here, especially, a deep
discrimination, at the same time both merciful and just; a
discrimination of men equally lost, opens itself to us; or that decree
of election and reprobation which is revealed in the word of God; which,
as perverse, impure, and unstable persons do wrest to their own
destruction, so it affords ineffable consolation to holy and pious
souls. But election is the immutable purpose of God; by which, before
the foundations of the world were laid, he chose, out of the whole human
race, fallen by their own fault from their primeval integrity into sin
and destruction, according to the most free _good pleasure_ of his own
will, and of _mere grace_, a certain number of men, neither better nor
worthier than others, but lying in the same misery with the rest, to
salvation in Christ; whom he had, even from eternity, constituted
Mediator and head of all the elect, and the foundation of salvation; and
therefore he decreed to give them unto him to be saved, and effectually
to call and draw them into communion with him, by his word and Spirit;
or he decreed himself to give unto them true faith, to justify, to
sanctify, and at length powerfully to glorify them, &c, Eph. i, 4–6;
Rom. viii, 30. This same election is not made from any _foreseen_ faith,
obedience of faith, holiness, or any other good quality and disposition,
as a _pre-requisite_ cause or condition in the man who should be
elected, &c. ‘He hath chosen us,’ not because we _were_, but ‘that we
_might_ be, holy,’ &c, Eph. i, 4; Rom. ix, 11–13; Acts xiii, 48.
Moreover, Holy Scripture doth illustrate and commend to us this eternal
and free grace of our election, in this more especially, that it doth
testify all men not to be elected; but that some are non-elect, or
_passed by_, in the eternal election of God, whom truly God, from most
free, just, irreprehensible, and immutable good pleasure, decreed to
leave in the _common misery_ into which they had, by _their own fault_,
cast themselves; and not to bestow on them living faith, and the grace
of conversion; but having been left in their own ways, and under just
judgment, at length, not only on account of their unbelief, but also of
all their other sins, to condemn and eternally punish them, to the
manifestation of his own justice. And this is the decree of
_reprobation_, which determines that God is, in no wise, the author of
sin, (which, to be thought of, is blasphemy,) but a tremendous,
incomprehensible, just judge, and avenger.“
(2.) “_Of the Death of Christ._” Passing over, for brevity’s sake, what
is said of the necessity of atonement, in order to pardon, and of Christ
having offered that atonement and satisfaction, it is added, “This death
of the Son of God is a single and most perfect sacrifice and
satisfaction for sins; of infinite value and price, abundantly
sufficient to expiate the sins of the whole world; but because many who
are called by the Gospel do not repent, nor believe in Christ, but
perish in unbelief; this doth not arise from defect or insufficiency of
the sacrifice offered by Christ upon the cross, but from their own
fault. God willed that Christ, through the blood of the cross, should,
out of every people, tribe, nation, and language, _efficaciously_ redeem
all those, and those _only_, who were from eternity chosen to salvation,
and given to him by the Father; that he should confer on them the gift
of faith,” &c.
(3.) “_Of Man’s Corruption, &c._ All men are conceived in sin, and born
the children of wrath, indisposed (_inepti_) to all saving good,
propense to evil, dead in sin, and the slaves of sin; and without the
regenerating grace of the Holy Spirit, they neither are willing nor able
to return to God, to correct their depraved nature, or to dispose
themselves to the correction of it.“
(4.) “_Of Grace and Free will._ But in like manner as, by the fall, man
does not cease to be man, endowed with intellect and will; neither hath
sin, which hath pervaded the whole human race, taken away the nature of
the human species, but it hath depraved and spiritually stained it; so
that even this divine grace of regeneration does not act upon men like
stocks and trees, nor take away the properties of his will; or violently
compel it, while unwilling; but it spiritually quickens, heals,
corrects, and sweetly, and at the same time powerfully, inclines it; so
that whereas before it was wholly governed by the rebellion and
resistance of the _flesh_, now prompt and sincere obedience of the
Spirit may begin to reign; in which the renewal of our spiritual will,
and our liberty, truly consist; in which manner, (or for which reason,)
unless the admirable Author of all good should work in us, there could
be no hope to man of rising from the fall by that _free will_, by which,
when standing, he fell into ruin.”
(5.) “_On Perseverance._ God, who is rich in mercy, from his immutable
purpose of election, does not wholly take away his Holy Spirit from his
own, even in lamentable falls; nor does he so permit them to glide down,
(_prolabi_,) that they should fall from the grace of adoption, and the
state of justification; or commit the ‘sin unto death,’ or against the
Holy Spirit; that, being deserted by him, they should cast themselves
headlong into eternal destruction. So that not by their own merits or
strength, but by the gratuitous mercy of God, they obtain it, that they
neither _totally fall_ from faith and grace, nor _finally continue_ in
their falls and perish.”