In the preceding chapter it was seen how the Conditionalist faction of Hardshells denies that God has willed, decreed, purposed, determined, or predestined, all things, and yet this is what the scriptures and the old Baptist confessions teach and affirm. God is, in some sense, the cause, the first cause, of all that exists or that occurs. Yet, at the same time, men are responsible, acting by choice. It was further shown that these two seemingly contradictory propositions are true and that neither is to be rejected because one cannot understand how they can both be true.
The apostle John wrote:
"But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things." (I John 2: 20)
What does the apostle mean when he says that Christians, those who "have an unction" from the Lord, "know all things"? Certainly he does not mean to say that Christians are omniscient. Rather, it seems to me, that John is saying - "you see the big picture." He is saying - "you know the reason for all things," that is, you know why God created the world, and what is the purpose behind all things. You know that "of him and through him and to him are all things" (Rom. 11: 36), that everything has meaning and purpose, has a destiny. (Eccl. 3: 1; Prov. 16: 4) John is affirming that Christians have insight into the why of things.
God has good and justifiable reason for purposefully allowing the existence of moral evil. The final good that will occur from it's existence clears God of any blame for sin's existence. Those who teach that God intended good from the fall of man are often charged with believing that sin is thereby justified and not condemnable. So Paul was falsely charged. Wrote Paul:
"But if our unrighteousness brings out God’s righteousness more clearly, what shall we say? That God is unjust in bringing his wrath on us? (I am using a human argument.) Certainly not! If that were so, how could God judge the world? Someone might argue, “If my falsehood enhances God’s truthfulness and so increases his glory, why am I still condemned as a sinner?” Why not say—as some slanderously claim that we say—“Let us do evil that good may result”? Their condemnation is just!" (Rom. 3: 5-8 NIV)
Commenting upon this passage Dr. Gill wrote:
"...though God is true and faithful to his promises, notwithstanding the sins of his people, which are as a foil, to set off the lustre of his truth the more, yet their sins are nevertheless sins, and are taken notice of by him as such, and they are corrected for them; and however God may overrule, in a providential way, the sins of others for his glory, this is no excuse for their sins, nor will it be an exemption of them from punishment."
"let us do evil that good may come; a slander cast upon the apostle's doctrine of unconditional election, free justification, and of God's overruling the sins of men for good; and is the same which is cast on ours now, and is no small proof of the likeness and sameness of doctrines."
It is Christian doctrine to affirm that God has brought the greatest good out of the greatest evil. As a result of the fall of man, God is glorified in forgiveness and redemption through Christ. As a result of wicked men crucifying Christ, God has brought glorious salvation. As a result of the wicked acts of Joseph's brethren God brings Joseph to a place where he saves his family. Whether it be the sinful intention of Adam, in transgression, or the sinful intention of Joseph's brothers, or the sinful intentions of those who killed our Lord and Savior, it may be said of them all - "you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good." (Gen. 50: 20)
Paul later would say - "where sin abounded, grace did much more abound." (Rom. 5: 20) But, if grace abounds where sin abounds, does this fact not promote and justify sin? Does it not make sin to be the means for grace abounding, and therefore a good thing, rather than an evil thing?
Doubtless the apostle Paul taught that God had designed to bring good from, or by means of, evil. Yet, Paul denies that this invariably justifies anyone having a positive attitude towards sin, or legally clears any from the guilt of sin. The perpetrator of transgression cannot plead innocence because God brings some good out of his transgression. God's overruling of his transgression for good does not excuse or justify the transgressor. Though grace abounds to the glory of God in places where sin abounds, this does not justify the existence of sin, as a thing or end in itself.
From verses of scripture cited in the previous chapter, it was observed how "all things are of God," and not only from him, but "through him, and to him." Several kinds of causes are alluded to by these words of the apostle. God is the "first cause," for that is what is meant by all things being from him. God is the "efficient cause," for that is what is meant by all things being "through" him. God is the "final cause," for that is what is meant by all things being "for" or "to" him. God is therefore, as many Christians have avowed, "the first cause" and the "last great end." God himself says that he is "the first and the last," and this is true relative to "causes." He is the first and last cause of all things.
Last or final cause signifies an "end," a purpose or design, achievement of a wish. And, what is the end design, the final purpose? How are all things "to him" and "for him"?
That God is the "first cause" of all things has already been addressed. How they are "through him" I fore go a delineation, but simply restate that it signifies that God is the "efficient cause" of all things, or as Paul said elsewhere - "for in him we live and move and have our being."
"But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer." (I Peter 4: 7)
The "end" of a thing is its consummation, the fulfillment of its aim and purpose. It corresponds to the reason for existence. "End" is from the Greek word "telos," hence our word "teleology," which is the study of the ends or purposes of things, with their destinies and ultimate designs.
On this verse Dr. Gill wrote:
"end of all things...with respect to the whole universe, to the scheme and fashion of this world, which will soon be gone, though the substance will abide; when the heavens shall pass away, and the earth and all therein will be burnt up; when there will be an end of all the purposes and promises of God respecting the present state of things concerning his church and people, and of the judgments of God upon his enemies here..." (Commentary)
Thus, what Peter is affirming is not the mere ceasing of things, or of their annihilation, but of their reaching their final end and destiny, when each thing completely fulfills the reason for its creation and existence.
There are many ends, but only one final end. All ends, except the final end, are means to further ends. Ends imply purposes, and are also effects, and all effects have prior causes. But, effects are also themselves causes of other effects. Thus, a singular thing may be an effect of one thing but a cause of another thing.
The "final cause," in the biblical and Christian scheme, is God himself, and his own glory, and the means to that end are the creation and fall of man, and his redemption or condemnation by the Son of God. This naturally leads one to discuss the issue of lapsarianism (falling), and whether the scriptures support a supralapsarian or infra(sub)lapsarian scheme.
As I said in a previous chapter, most of the Absoluter faction are supralapsarians while nearly all of the Conditionalist faction are infralapsarians. The Westminster and London confessions had supporters who were both supras and infras. These confessions were so written so as to be acceptable to both sides, without fully endorsing either. Old Baptists have always had men on both sides of this question. It is interesting to note however, that all Pelagians and Arminians are infralapsarians. Those Calvinists who are infralapsarians share Pelagian and Arminian sentiments and arguments on this subject. Those Calvinists who reject supralapsarianism are "low Calvinists," while those professing it are styled "high Calvinists." These are distinct terms from "hyper Calvinist," as I stated at the outset of this book.
Supralapsarianism's motto is, "The last thing in execution is the first thing in purpose." Or, "What is first in design is the last in accomplishment."
Is it better for God to decree that all of humanity should fall into sin without any reason for it and without any thought of redemption? Sin, and the fall of man, was not an accident, and redemption was not a mere reaction on the part of God. As the Scripture says, "The LORD works out everything for his own ends – even the wicked for a day of disaster." (Proverbs 16:4)
The question at issue here is whether "creation is UNTO redemption." In commenting upon Ephesians 3: 1-12, a very long sentence of the apostle Paul, Princeton professor Charles Hodge said this about verse 9 and 10 and of the relation of God's purpose in creation to God's purpose in redemption:
"The all things here referred to are by some restricted to every thing pertaining to the Gospel dispensation. For this interpretation there is no necessity in the context; and it is contrary to the common usage and force of the terms. There must be some stringent necessity to justify making "creator of all things," mean "author of the new dispensation." Others restrict the terms to all men: ‘He who created all men now calls all.’ This however is arbitrary and uncalled for. The words are to be taken in their natural sense, as referring to the universe. It was in the bosom of the Creator of all things that this purpose of redemption so long lay hid. The reference to God as creator in this connection, may be accounted for as merely an expression of reverence. We often call God the Infinite, the Almighty, the Creator, without intending any special reference of the titles to the subject about which we may be speaking. So Paul often calls God, blessed, without any special reason for the appellation. Some however think that in the present case the apostle uses this expression in confirmation of his declaration that the plan of redemption was from ages hid in God—for he who created all things must be supposed to have included redemption in his original purpose. Others suppose the association of the ideas is—he who created, redeems—the same God who made the universe has formed the plan of redemption. None but the creator can be a redeemer.
V. 10.
2. Apart from the doctrinal objections to this theory, this connection of the clauses is unnatural, because the words ‘who created all things,’ is entirely subordinate and unessential, and therefore not the proper point of connection for the main idea in the whole context. That clause might be omitted without materially affecting the sense of the passage. 3. The apostle is speaking of his conversion and call to the apostleship. To him was the grace given to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ, and teach all men the economy of redemption, in order that through the church might be made known the manifold wisdom of God. It is only thus that the connection of this verse with the main idea of the context is preserved. It is not the design of creation, but the design of the revelation of the mystery of redemption of which he is here speaking. 4. This interpretation is further sustained by the force of the particle now as here used. Now stands opposed to ‘hid from ages.’ God sent Paul to preach the Gospel, in order that what had been so long hid might now be made known. It was the design of preaching the Gospel, and not the design of creation of which the apostle had occasion to speak.
The Bible clearly teaches not only that the angels take a deep interest in the work of redemption, but that their knowledge and blessedness are increased by the exhibition of the glory of God in the salvation of men." (Commenary)
Hodge rejects the interpretation that sees Paul affirming that God created all things in order to redemption, and yet this to me is Paul's obvious meaning. Hodge is an infralapsarian Calvinist. In his denial Hodge says that Paul's words "who created all things by Jesus Christ," is an interjection that has no connection with anything in the passage, merely a statement of praise unrelated to anything he has said in the context. This is wholly untenable. First, why not simply say, "God who is blessed" or some other statement of praise and adoration? Second, Hodge thinks that it is the calling of the apostle to preach the gospel that is the thing God has done "in order to redemption." Certainly that is included, but it is not limited to that event. Was Paul's being made into an apostle and evangelist not a creative act of God? Yes. So, Paul is saying that God made Paul in order to redemption. So, Hodge's view still is upholding the principle that he condemns, that principle which says that God created Paul to be an apostle in order to redemption! Creation unto redemption! Viewed in this light, it is not an unconnected thought for Paul to say "who created all things (not just Paul)" unto redemption. Thus, Hodge's argument about the clause being unnatural is false. It is very natural and appropriate. Hodge's view makes the clause meaningless, an interjection that does not relate to anything Paul has said! Hodge said - "the words ‘who created all things,’ is entirely subordinate and unessential." I find this view totally false. The words are pertinent and essential.
Yes, the creation of Paul into an apostle and evangelist is "unto redemption," and Paul appropriately does not limit his being made an apostle for the purpose of redemption, but includes "all things" that God has made. Hodge's statement that the - "clause might be omitted without materially affecting the sense of the passage," is an absurd position, and indicts the apostle in charging him with uttering things in a complex sentence without any relation to anything he has stated in the sentence.
Further, it is more likely that the phrase "to the intent" connects with the clause "who created all things by Jesus Christ" for this is the clause nearest the phrase.
It is also a natural and connected thought, and not unnatural and an unconnected thought. If Paul had just spoken of his being made or created, it is appropriate for him to expand his thought to the creation of all things. Why was Paul created an apostle? Well, for the same reason why all things have been created.
Further, the argument on the word "now" by Hodge carries no weight. Paul is simply saying that the purpose of his being made an apostle, like God's purpose in all things, is "now" known, in a superior way, by the new testament revelation.
Hodge is wrong to not recognize that God's "design" in gospel preaching is the same as his "design" in creation.
In talking about predestination and divine causality it is appropriate to talk about the order of God's decrees, of what relates to the supralapsarian versus infralapsarian controversy. "The last thing in execution is the first thing in purpose" or, "what is first in design is the last in accomplishment." Thus, causality relates to the controversy.
In "TRUTH DEFENDED," Dr. Gill wrote "an ANSWER to an Anonymous Pamphlet, intitled, Some Doctrines in the Supralapsarian Scheme impartially examined by the Word of God." I wish to cite some of Dr. Gill's remarks from this work. Gill defends the supralapsarian scheme.
Dr. Gill wrote:
"The examination begins with the foundation-principle of the Supralapsarians, as he calls it, that "God chose his people without considering them as "fallen creatures'." He does well to begin with their foundation-doctrine; for if he can demolish the foundation, the superstructure must fall; if he can pluck up what he supposes to be the root of many false opinions, the branches which grow from it will die in course."
"That famous Supralapsarian, Dr. Twiss, declares, that "as for the ordering of God's decrees, upon which only arise" the "different opinions touching the object of predestination, it is merely apex logicus, a point of logic." The decrees of God may be distinguished into the decree of the end, and the decree of the means, that they may the better be conceived of by our finite understandings; which are not able to consider all things at once, and together, as they lie in the divine mind; but of one thing after another; and that without dividing and separating of God's decrees, or supposing any priority or posteriority in him. Now the decree of the end must be considered before the decree of the means; and that what is first in intention, is last in execution, and so vice versa. Let then eternal life and glory, or a state of everlasting communion with God, be the end of election, as it is with respect to man, then the creation, permission of Adam's fall, and the recovery out of it, are the means in order to that end. It follows, that, in the decree of the end, man could not be considered as a fallen creature, but as yet not created; because the creation and the permission of the fall belong to the decree of the means, which is in order of nature after the decree of the end. For if God first decreed to create man, and to permit him to fall, and then decreed to bring him to a state of eternal life and happiness; according to this known rule, that what is first in intention is last in execution, this strange absurdity will follow, that man will be first brought into a state of eternal life and happiness, and then created and permitted to fall. Let the end be the manifestation of God's glory, which certainly is the supreme end of election, then the means are creation, permission of sin, redemption, sanctification, and, in a word, complete salvation; which, though they are materially many, yet make up but one formal decree, called the decree of the means. Now according to the former rule, the intention of the end must be first, and then the intention of the means-, and, consequently, man cannot be considered in the decree of the end, the manifestation of God's glory, as yet created and fallen; because the creation and permission of sin belong to the decree of the means, which order of nature is after the decree of the end. But if, on the contrary, God first decreed to create man and permit him to fall, and then decreed to manifest the glory of his grace and mercy, in his eternal salvation, according to the above rule, that what is first in intention is last in execution, and so vice versa, it will follow, that the glory of God's grace and mercy are first manifested in the eternal ialvation of man, and then he is created and suffered to fall. Likewise it is to be observed, that the several things mentioned in the decree of the means, creation, permission of sin, and salvation, are not to be considered as subordinate, but as co-ordinate means, or as making up an entire, complete medium. We are not to suppose that God decreed to create man that he might permit him to fall, or that he decreed to permit him to fall, that he might save him; but that he decreed to create him, permit him to fall, and to save him notwithstanding his fall, that he might glorify his grace and mercy. Nor are we to conceive of them after this manner, that God first decreed to create man, and then decreed to permit him to fall; for it would follow that man, in the execution of these decrees, is first permitted to fall, and then he is created: Nor thus, that God first decreed to create man, and permit him to fall, and then decreed to save him; for, according to the former rule, man would first be saved, and then created and permitted to fall."
"...the scriptural part of it (lapsarian controversy - SG) is about the sense of the ninth chapter of the epistle to the Romans, and the question is, whether the Sublapsarian, or the Supralapsarian scheme, concerning the objects of election and reprobation, is most agreeable to the sense of the apostle in that chapter; particularly, whether the Supralapsarian scheme, of God's choosing some, and leaving others, considered as unfallen, as having done neither good nor evil, does not best agree with the account the apostle gives in ver. 11-13, of the election of Jacob, and rejection of Esau; and more especially whether it does not best agree with the same apostle's account, in ver. 21, of the potter's making of the same lump one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? This author should have mentioned these scriptures, and commented upon them, and answered the arguments of the Supralapsarians from them; in particular, those of that eminent Supralapsarian, Theodore Beza, in his notes upon the last of these texts, which I shall transcribe for this man's sake; and he may try whether he is capable of answering of them. "Those who, by the mass, or lump, says this great man, understand mankind corrupted, do not satisfy me in the explanation of this place: for first, it seems to me, that the phrase (Greek - SG) of informed matter, neither sufficiently agrees with mankind, either made or corrupted. Moreover, if the apostle had considered mankind as corrupted, "he would not have said, that some vessels were made to honour, and some to dishonour; but rather, that seeing all the vessels would be fit for dishonour, "some were left in that dishonour, and others translated from that dishonour to honour. Lastly, if Paul had not rose to the highest degree, he had not satisfied "the question objected; for it would always have been queried, whether that "corruption came by chance, or whether indeed, according to the purpose of God, and therefore the same difficulty would recur. I say, therefore, Paul "using this most elegant simile, alludes to the creation of Adam, and rises up to the eternal purpose of God, who, before he created mankind, decreed of his own mere will and pleasure, to manifest his glory, both in saving of some "whom he knew, in a way of mercy," and in destroying others, whom he also "knew, in righteous judgment."
"But, admitting that these things, with respect to men, suppose them in such a case; it should be observed, that they belong to the decree of the means, and therefore fall short of proving that God, in the decree of the end, or in decreeing men to eternal life and happiness, for the glorifying of himself, considered them in such a state, since the decree of the end, in order of nature, is before the decree of the means-, unless we can suppose the all-wise being to act in such a manner as no wise man would, namely, first fix upon the means, and then appoint the end. Now if God first decreed to create man, permit his fall, and then sanctify and conform him to the image of his Son, before he decreed to glorify himself in his salvation, the consequence will be, that God is first glorified in the salvation of man; and after that, man is created, suffered to fall, is sanctified, and conformed to the image of Christ; because, what is first in intention, is last in execution."
"The act of election does not presuppose men sinners and miserable, nor indeed can it; for should it presuppose sin, it would presuppose the decree of the permission of sin; and the permission of sin would be first in God's intention, than man's salvation of God's mercy, and consequently would be last in execution; than which, nothing can be thought of more absurd."
"...according to the Supralapsarian scheme...The decree of the means provides for the bringing about of this end, which includes creation, the permisson of sin, the mission of Christ, sanctification, and complete salvation; so that the elect of God may well be called vessels of mercy; since through such means, they are brought to eternal life and glory; though, in the decree of the end, they are considered as not yet created and fallen, than, which, nothing can more tend to advance the free grace and mercy of God." (pgs. 64-73)
"Besides, this way of stating the decrees of election and reprobation, respecting men, can no more strike at the justice of God, than the way of stating these decrees, respecting angels, does, which cannot be done in another way: for the elect angels could never be considered as fallen ; and therefore the other angels, who were pasted by, and rejected at the same time, must be rejected as creatures only, and not as sinful creatures..." (V. "Truth Defended: in Answer to a Pamphlet on the Supralapfarian Scheme," from "A collection of sermons and tracts" By John Gill)
http://books.google.com/books?id=yNwOAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA104&lpg=PA69&ots=GEHFNhh6UB&dq=supralapsarianism+fall+of+angels+john+gill&output=text#c_top
Dr. Gill, in commenting upon Proverbs 16:4 wrote:
Ver. 4. The Lord hath made all [things] for himself,....This is true of the Lord with respect to the creation of all things by him. All things are made by him, the heaven, earth, and sea; and all that are in them, angels, men, beasts, birds, fishes, and all creatures: and these are made for himself, and not another; not for the pure or good men, as Aben Ezra, though all things are for the elect's sake; but for God himself, besides whom there was no other before the creation, nor is there any other God but him, who is the first cause and last end of all things: nor were those all things made for him, through any want he had of them, being God all sufficient and blessed for evermore, but to show his greatness, and communicate his goodness; they are made for his service, which all creatures are obliged unto, and whom all in their way obey, and for his honour and glory. It is also true of his works of providence, and of his ordering and disposing of all things in the course of that, to answer ends of his own glory; his kingdom of providence rules over all; there is a general providence, which respects all creatures and things; and there is a particular providence attending the Lord's own people; and in all the glory of his wisdom, justice, truth, and goodness, is conspicuous: but this is chiefly, if not solely, to be understood of God's decrees and purposes; and of his ordering and appointing all things to bring about his own glory. Every thing is appointed of God; he has foreordained whatever comes to pass; there is a purpose for everything under the heavens, and a time fixed for the execution of it."
"...all things are appointed by the Lord, respecting the temporal estate of men; their birth, and the time of it, with all the circumstances attending it; the place of their abode, their calling, station of life, and usefulness; all adverse and prosperous dispensations; their death, with all the events leading to it: and so likewise all things respecting their spiritual and eternal estate; the choice of them to salvation; their redemption by Christ; the time of his coming, sufferings, and death, and the circumstances thereof; the conversion of God's elect, the time, place, and means; these are all according to the purpose of God; as are also all their times of affliction, temptation, desertion, and of joy and comfort. In a word, the final state of all men, good and bad, is fixed by the Lord; and all this is "for himself", which some render, "to answer to himself"; all creatures are made to answer to his original design in making them, to the laws of their creation, and to answer his ends and purposes; and which is ultimately his own glory: or for his praise, as Jarchi; for his will and pleasure, as R. Isaac; for the thing in which he is well pleased, as R. Jonah or for his own sake, as Kimchi; and all which agree, as with the sense of the words, so with Re 4:11."
"yea, even the wicked for the day of evil; this is added to illustrate the general proposition in the preceding clause, and to obviate an objection, that might be taken from the destruction of the wicked, against all things being for the glory of God; for even the destruction of the wicked, which is under a divine appointment, is for his glory. It is not the sense of this text, nor of any other passage of Scripture, that God made man to damn him; nor is this to be inferred from the doctrine of predestination: God made man, neither to damn him, nor to save him, but for his own glory; and that is secured, whether in his salvation or damnation; nor did or does God make men wicked; he made man upright, and he has made himself wicked; and, being so, God may justly appoint him to damnation for his wickedness, in doing which he glorifies his justice." (commentary)
These citations from Dr. Gill represent the historic view of the old Baptists and of the ancient Baptist confessions. The Conditionalist faction of Hardshells will not accept them, however. But, in rejecting them, they show that they are not what they claim to be, are not "primitive" or "original" Baptists.
In the next chapter I will discuss issues relative to the "permissive will of God."
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Monday, September 22, 2008
Chapter 102 - Hardshells and Predestination V
In the previous chapters it has been shown that the Absoluter faction of Hardshells in holding to the absolute predestination of all things are the real old Baptists on that topic. This was seen from the fact that it is the teaching of the oldest Baptist confessions, confessions that have historically been accepted by the oldest Hardshell churches. It was also evident from the writings of Dr. Gill and of the first great leaders in the Hardshell movement, by men such as Elders Gilbert Beebe and Samuel Trott. It was also shown that the supralapsarian scheme was held to by the above named leaders. It was further seen how some of the charges made by the Conditionalist faction against Absoluters was false. For instance, the Absoluter faction did not deny the permissive will of God. It was also shown how the scriptures are very plain in affirming that "all things" are "of God."
Permissive Will of God
Many Hardshells who object to the absolute predestination of all things think that those who embrace it do not believe in the permissive will of God. But, this is not generally true. The first Hardshells were generally believers in the absolute predestination of all things and yet they believed that some things are to be ascribed to the permissive will of God. The Conditionalist Hardshell, however, does not recognize how believing in the permissive will of God does not in any way undermine the doctrine of God's universal decrees respecting "all things."
First, the Conditionalist fails to understand that "permissive will" of God is still the will of God. The adding of the adjective "permissive" does not negate the fact that such permission is still the will of God, still part of his decrees.
Second, the Conditionalist does not know how to respond to the question - "what if God does not permit" something to occur? Will it occur any way? This is important because the Conditionalist thinks that the permission of God exonerates God of all causal responsibility in the thing permitted. But, this is illogical, especially if it is granted that nothing can occur apart from divine permission. For instance, if I hold a rock in my hand, can it fall apart from my permitting it to fall by the removing of my hand? Though the withdrawing of my hand (permission) is not the sole cause of the rock falling, gravity being another cause, yet who would say that this removal (permission) was not a cause or reason?
Third, another question the Conditionalist does not sufficiently consider is that which asks - "does God permit by choice?" Or, "does God permit willingly and knowingly?" Or, does he permit without a choice to permit, without will and knowledge? Obviously willing and knowing permission includes second causes (such as gravity in the above example).
Some will use various adjectives to differentiate the permissive will of God from his non-permissive will. The latter will often be called "absolute will," or "will of purpose." But, these adjectives may just as well be used in conjunction with his permissive will. Does God choose to permit without a purpose? Does God's permissive will exclude what is absolute and certain? Some will say God's absolute will is his "perfect will," as if his permissive will was not perfect. Some will say that his absolute will is his "sovereign will," again, as if his permissive will is not sovereign. All this is unacceptable. It would be better to come up with different adjectives than to use the foregoing, or better to use none at all. We saw this same difficulty in previous chapters in attempting to find adjectives to distinguish between two usages of God's will in scripture. I chose the adjectives "resistible" versus "irresistible" as the best. In differentiating God's permissive will from his non-permissive will, the adjectives often chosen, as I have observed, are generally not proper. Perhaps it would be best to just keep it simple, using permissive versus non-permissive.
Wrote Jonathan Edwards:
"5 1. Whether God has decreed all things that ever came to pass or not, all that own the being of a God, own that he knows all things beforehand. Now, it is self-evident, that if he knows all things beforehand, he either doth approve of them, or he doth not approve of them; that is, he either is willing they should be, or he is not willing they should be. But to will that they should be, is to decree them."
Edwards is correct. The permissive will of God is still the will of God, involves a choice and purpose on the part of God, and is still part of his "decrees" regarding the future. Edwards also shows how a belief in the absolute foreknowledge of God is a proof for his predetermination of all things.
Edwards wrote:
"17. For God certainly to know that a thing will be, that possibly may be, and possibly may not be, implies a contradiction. If possibly it may be otherwise, then how can God know certainly what it will be? If it possibly may be otherwise, then he knows it possibly may be otherwise; and that it is inconsistent with his certainly knowing that it will not be otherwise. If God certainly knows it will be, and yet it may possibly be otherwise, then it may possibly happen to be otherwise than God certainly knows it will be. If so, then it may possibly happen that God may be mistaken in his judgment, when he certainly knows: for it is supposed, that it is possible that it should be otherwise than he judges. For that it should be otherwise than he judges, and that he should be mistaken, are the same thing. How unfair therefore is it in those that hold the foreknowledge of God, to insist upon this objection from human liberty, against the decrees, when their scheme is attended with the same difficulty, exactly in the same manner!"
18. Their other objection is, that God's decree make God the author of sin. I answer, that there is no more necessity of supposing God the author of sin, on this scheme, than on the other. For if we suppose, according to my doctrine, that God has determined, from all eternity, the number and persons of those that shall perform the condition of the covenant of grace: in order to support this doctrine, there is no need of maintaining any more concerning God's decreeing sin, than this, lis. that God has decreed that he will permit all the sin that ever comes to pass, and that upon his permitting it, it will certainly come to pass. And they hold the same thing. For they hold, that God does determine beforehand to permit all the sin that does come to pass; and that he certainly knows, that if he does permit it, it will come to pass. I say, they in their scheme allow both these; they allow that God does permit all the sin to come to pass, that ever does come to pass: and those that allow the foreknowledge of God, do also allow the other thing, viz. that he knows, concerning all the sin that ever does really come to pass, that it will come to pass upon his permitting it. So that if this be making God the author of sin, they make him so in the very same way that they charge us with doing it. They own that God does permit sin, and that he knows, with respect to all sin that ever is committed, that upon his permitting it, it will come to pass; and we hold no other. God's permission of sin they allow; and yet it would be a sin in men to permit sin. We ought not to permit, or suffer it, where we have opportunity to hinder it; and we cannot permit it, without making ourselves in some measure guilty. Yet they allow, that God permitting it does not make him guilty of it."
Those Conditionalist Hardshells, as well as the Arminians, in believing in God's absolute foreknowledge and in his permissive will, nevertheless have the same difficulties with human reason as do those who believe in the absolute predestination of all things, that all things are the subject of God's decrees.
Edwards wrote against these Arminian objections by saying:
"...they lay it down for a rule, to embrace no doctrine which they, by their own reason, cannot reconcile with the moral perfections of God. But I would show the unreasonableness of this rule. For, if this be a good rule, then it always was so. Let us then see what will follow. We shall then have reason to conclude every thing to be really inconsistent with God's moral perfections, that we cannot reconcile with his moral perfections; for if we have not reason to conclude that it is inconsistent, then we have no reason to conclude that it is not true. But if this be true, that we have reason to conclude every thing is consistent with God's moral perfections, which we cannot reconcile with those perfections, then David had reason to conclude, that some things that he saw take place, in fact, were inconsistent with God's moral perfections; for he could not reconcile them with those perfections, Psalm lxxiii. And Job had cause to come to the same conclusion concerning some events in his day. If it be a good rule, that we must conclude that to be inconsistent with the divine perfections, that we cannot reconcile with, or, which is the same thing, that we cannot see how it is inconsistent with those perfections, then it must be, because we have reason to conclude that it cannot happen that our reason cannot see how it can be; and then it will follow, that we must reject the doctrine of the Trinity, the incarnation of the Son of God, &c."
Rejection of clearly expressed biblical propositions because we cannot eliminate all seeming contradictions in our minds is to make our understanding the judge about the truthfulness of scripture, and this is untenable. Further, it is ironic that those who use human rationality as the deciding factor as to which biblical propositions are true, nevertheless do not remove all seeming contradictions by their unscriptural rule.
Edwards wrote:
"The scripture itself supposes, that there are some things in the scripture that men may not be able to reconcile with God's moral perfections. See Rom, 9: 19. "Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?" And the apostle does not answer the objection, by showing us how to reconcile it with the moral perfections of God, but by representing the arrogancy of quarrelling with revealed doctrines under such a pretence, and not considering the infinite distance between God and us. "Nay, but who art thou, O man, that replies against God?" And God answered Job after the same manner. God rebuked him for darkening counsel by words without knowledge, and answered him only, by declaring and manifesting to him the infinite distance between God and him; so letting him know, that it became him humbly to submit to God, and acknowledge his justice, even in those things that were difficult to his reason; and that without solving his difficulties any other way, than by making him sensible of the weakness of his own understanding." (pgs. 420-24, CHAPTER III., "CONCERNING THE DIVINE DECREES IN GENERAL, AND ELECTION IN PARTICULAR")
See here
In the previous chapter several citations were given from Dr. Gill to show that he believed in the absolute predestination of all things, a belief stated in the London Confession of 1689. It was also seen that Dr. Gill was a supralapsarian, just as were the first Hardshell leaders. It was John Gill who in 1760 urged Toplady to publish his translation of Zanchius's great work on the absolute predestination of all things. Gill endorsed the views of Zanchius.
Jerome Zanchius wrote:
"VI.-When foreknowledge is ascribed to God, the word imports (1) that general prescience whereby He knew from all eternity both what He Himself would do, and what His creatures, in consequence of His efficacious and permissive decree, should do likewise. The Divine foreknowledge, considered in this view, is absolutely universal; it extends to all beings that did, do or ever shall exist, and to all actions that ever have been, that are or shall be done, whether good or evil, natural, civil or moral. (2) The word often denotes that special prescience which has for its objects His own elect, and them alone, whom He is in a peculiar sense said to know and foreknow (Psa. i. 6; John x. 27; 2 Tim. ii. 19; Rom. viii. 29; 1 Peter i. 2), and this knowledge is connected with, or rather the same with love, favour and approbation."
"Divine preordination has for its objects all things that are created: no creature, whether rational or irrational, animate or inanimate, is exempted from its influence. All beings whatever, from the highest angel to the meanest reptile, and from the meanest reptile to the minutest atom, are the objects of God's eternal decrees and particular providence. However, the ancient fathers only make use of the word predestination as it refers to angels or men, whether good or evil, and it is used by the apostle Paul in a more limited sense still, so as, by it, to mean only that branch of it which respects God's election and designation of His people to eternal life (Rom. viii. 30; Eph. i. 11)."
"The supreme end of this decree is the manifestation of His own infinitely glorious and amiably tremendous perfections; the inferior or subordinate end is the happiness and salvation of them who are thus freely elected." (chapter 1)
(4) That he (Adam - SG) fell in consequence of the Divine decree we prove thus: God was either willing that Adam should fall, or unwilling, or indifferent about it. If God was unwilling that Adam should transgress, how came it to pass that he did? Is man stronger and is Satan wiser than He that made them? Surely no. Again, could not God, had it so pleased Him, have hindered the tempter's access to paradise? or have created man, as He did the elect angels, with a will invariably determined to good only and incapable of being biassed to evil? or, at least, have made the grace and strength, with which He endued Adam, actually effectual to the resisting of all solicitations to sin? None but atheists would answer these questions in the negative. Surely, if God had not willed the fall, He could, and no doubt would, have prevented it; but He did not prevent it: ergo He willed it. And if He willed it, He certainly decreed it, for the decree of God is nothing else but the seal and ratification of His Will. He does nothing but what He decreed, and He decreed nothing which He did not will, and both will and decree are absolutely eternal, though the execution of both be in time. The only way to evade the force of this reasoning is to say that "God was indifferent and unconcerned whether man stood or fell." But in what a shameful, unworthy light does this represent the Deity! Is it possible for us to imagine that God could be an idle, careless spectator of one of the most important events that ever came to pass? Are not "the very hairs of our head all numbered"? or does "a sparrow fall to the ground without our heaveuly Father"? If, then, things the most trivial and worthless are subject to the appointment of His decree and the control of His providence, how much more is man, the masterpiece of this lower creation? and above all that man Adam, who when recent from his Maker's hands was the living image of God Himself, and very little inferior to angels! and on whose perseverance was suspended the welfare not of himself only, but likewise that of the whole world. But, so far was God from being indifferent in this matter, that there is nothing whatever about which He is so, for He worketh all things, without exception," after the counsel of His own will" (Eph. i. 11), consequently, if He positively wills whatever is done, He cannot be indifferent with regard to anything. On the whole, if God was not unwilling that Adam should fall, He must have been willing that he should, since between God's willing and nilling there is no medium. And is it not highly rational as well as Scriptural, nay, is it not absolutely necessary to suppose that the fall was not contrary to the will and determination of God? since, if it was, His will (which the apostle represents as being irresistible, Rom. ix. 19) was apparently frustrated and His determination rendered of worse than none effect. And how dishonourable to, how inconsistent with, and how notoriously subversive of the dignity of God such a blasphemous supposition would be, and how irreconcileable with every one of His allowed attributes is very easy to observe."
This reasoning is sound and irresistible. God, if he foreknew the fall, and permitted it, then he willed it, and had good reason and purpose for so doing.
Continues Zanchius:
"The Deity from all eternity, and consequently at the very time He gives life and being to a reprobate, certainly foreknew, and knows, in consequence of His own decree, that such a one would fall short of salvation. Now, if God foreknew this, He must have predetermined it, because His own will is the foundation of His decrees, and His decrees are the foundation of His prescience; He therefore foreknowing futurities, because by His predestination He hath rendered their futurition certain and inevitable. Neither is it possible, in the very nature of the thing, that they should be elected to salvation, or ever obtain it, whom God foreknew should perish, for then the Divine act of preterition would be changeable, wavering and precarious, the Divine foreknowledge would be deceived, and the Divine will impeded. All which are utterly impossible. Lastly, that all men are not chosen to life, nor created to that end is evident in that there are some who were hated of God before they were born (Rom. ix. 11-13), are "fitted for destruction" (ver. 22), and "made for the day of evil" (Prov. xvi. 1)."
"Luther observes that in Rom. ix., x. and xi. the apostle particularly insists on the doctrine of predestination, "Because," says he, "all things whatever arise from and depend upon the Divine appointment, whereby it was preordained who should receive the word of life and who should disbelieve it, who should he delivered from their sins and who should be hardened in them, who should be justified and who condemned."
The London Confession of 1689 stated the same, saying the "command given unto them (Adam and Eve), in eating the forbidden fruit, which God was pleased, according to his wise and holy counsel to permit, having purposed to order it to his own glory." (Chapter 6, section 1) The confession also stated - "Although God knoweth 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." (Chapter 3, section 2) God's predetermination is the cause of his foreknowledge, and not vice versa.
In Chapter IV, in that section titled "Of Reprobation or Predestination as it respects the ungodly," Zanchius wrote:
"The actions of God being thus fruits of His eternal purpose, we may safely, and without any danger of mistake, argue from them to that and infer that God therefore does such and such things, because He decreed to do them, His own will being the sole cause of all His works. So that, from His actually leaving some men in final impenitency and unbelief, we assuredly gather that it was His everlasting determination so to do, and consequently that He reprobated some from before the foundation of the world. And as this inference is strictly rational, so is it perfectly Scriptural. Thus the Judge will in the last day declare to those on the left hand, "I never knew you" (Matt. vii. 23), i.e., "I never, no, not from eternity, loved, approved or acknowledged you for Mine," or, in other words, "I always hated you."
Anyone who believes in the absolute foreknowledge of God respecting all things must also, in some sense, believe what they condemn respecting absolute predestination and supralapsarianism. If God foreknows that John Doe, in being brought into the world (created) will die in unbelief, having rejected all God's offers of pardon, and YET, creates him any way, has he not, in some sense, created such a man for destruction?
Zanchius continues:
"POSITION 2. -Some men were, from all eternity, not only negatively excepted from a participation of Christ and His salvation, but positively ordained to continue in their natural blindness, hardness of heart, etc., and that the just judgment of God. (See Exod. ix.; 1 Sam. ii. 25; 2 Sam. xvii. 14; Isa. vi. 9-11; 2 Thess. ii. 11, 12.) Nor can these places of Scripture, with many others of like import, be understood of an involuntary permission on the part of God, as if God barely suffered it to be so, quasi invitus, as it were by constraint, and against His will, for He permits nothing which He did not resolve and determine to permit. His permission is a positive, determinate act of His will, as Augustine, Luther and Bucer justly observe. Therefore, if it be the will of God in time to permit such and such men to continue in their natural state of ignorance and corruption, the natural consequence of which is their falling into such and such sins (observe God does not force them into sin, their actual disobedience being only the consequence of their not having that grace which God is not obliged to grant them)-I say, if it be the will of God thus to leave them in time (and we must deny demonstration itself, even known absolute matter of fact, if we deny that some are so left), then it must have been the Divine intention from all eternity so to leave them, since, as we have already had occasion to observe, no new will can possibly arise in the mind of God. We see that evil men actually are suffered to go on adding sin to sin, and if it be not inconsistent with the sacred attributes actually to permit this, it could not possibly be inconsistent with them to decree that permission before the foundations of the world were laid."
This is simply saying that if God permits, then he chooses to permit, and a choice to permit is the same as saying he willed, decreed, purposed, or determined to permit, and that reason and justice were behind his deliberate choice.
Zanchius wrote:
"Thus God efficaciously permitted (having so decreed) the Jews to be, in effect, the crucifiers of Christ, and Judas to betray Him (Acts iv. 27, 28; Matt. xxvi. 23, 24). Hence we find St. Augustine speaking thus: "Judas was chosen, but it was to do a most execrable deed, that thereby the death of Christ, and the adorable work of redemption by Him, might be accomplished. When therefore we hear our Lord say, 'Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?' we must understand it thus, that the eleven were chosen in mercy, but Judas in judgment; they were chosen to partake of Christ's kingdom; he was chosen and pitched upon to betray Him and be the means of shedding His blood."
The London confession, the writings of Dr Gill, and of Zanchius, all affirm that the scriptures know of no meaningless or purposeless permitting by God. It is not a "mere" or "bare" permission.
Zanchius wrote:
"POSITION 5. -God is the creator of the wicked, but not of their wickedness; He is the author of their being, but not the infuser of their sin.
It is most certainly His will (for adorable and unsearchable reasons) to permit sin, but, with all possible reverence be it spoken, it should seem that He cannot, consistently with the purity of His nature, the glory of His attributes, and the truth of His declaration, be Himself the author of it. "Sin," says the apostle, "entered into the world by one man," meaning by Adam, consequently it was not introduced by the Deity Himself. Though without the permission of His will and the concurrence of His providence, its introduction had been impossible, yet is He not hereby the Author of sin so introduced.
It is a known and very just maxim of the schools, Effectus sequitur causam proximam: "An effect follows from, and is to be inscribed to, the last immediate cause that produced it." Thus, for instance, if I hold a book or a stone in my hand, my holding it is the immediate cause of its not falling; but if I let it go, my letting it go is not the immediate cause of its falling: it is carried downwards by its own gravity, which is therefore the causa proxima effectus, the proper and immediate cause of its descent. It is true, if I had kept my hold of it, it would not have fallen, yet still the immediate, direct cause of its fall is its own weight, not my quitting my hold. The application of this to the providence of God, as concerned in sinful events, is easy. Without God, there could have been no creation; without creation, no creatures; without creatures, no sin. Yet is not sin chargeable on God for effectus sequitur causam proximam."
This logic is undeniable and rests upon express scriptural statements. Even learned Arminians are forced to own this much, as I shall show in future postings. How can today's Hardshells think it a great error to affirm that God is, in some sense, the cause of all things? Is there position not an extreme? Have the Conditionalist Hardshells not gone to an extreme in fighting an extreme?
Zanchius wrote:
"POSITION 7. -The punishment of the non-elect was not the ultimate end of their creation, but the glory of God. It is frequently objected to us that, according to our view of predestination, "God makes some persons on purpose to damn them," but this we never advanced; nay, we utterly reject it as equally unworthy of God to do and of a rational being to suppose. The grand, principal end, proposed by the Deity to Himself in His formation of all things, and of mankind in particular, was the manifestation and display of His own glorious attributes. His ultimate scope in the creation of the elect is to evidence and make known by their salvation the unsearchable riches of His power and wisdom, mercy and love, and the creation of the non-elect is for the display of His justice, power, sovereignty, holiness and truth. So that nothing can be more certain than the declaration of the text we have frequently had occasion to cite, "The Lord bath made all things for Himself, even the wicked for the day of evil" (Prov. xvi.). On one hand, the vessels of wrath are fitted for destruction," in order that God may "show His wrath and make His power known," and manifest the greatness of His patience and longsuffering (Rom. ix. 32). On the other hand, He afore prepared the elect to salvation, that on them He might demonstrate "the riches of His glory and mercy" (ver 23). As, therefore, God Himself is the sole Author and efficient of all His own actions, so is He likewise the supreme end to which they lead and in which they terminate.
"So Bucer somewhere observes that the punishment of the reprobate "is useful to the elect, inasmuch as it influences them to a greater fear and abhorrence of sin, and to a firmer reliance on the goodness of God."
Here Zanchius shows that the good to come from the willing of sin justifies God in its allowance. Even the Armianians argue the same way, saying that the good that is created by God's giving men free will justifies his allowance of evil. The disagreement is over the precise nature of that good that is brought about by the sufferance of sin.
Zanchius wrote:
"POSITION 8. -Notwithstanding God did from all eternity irreversibly choose out and fix upon some to be partakers of salvation by Christ and rejected the rest (who are therefore termed by the apostle, the refuse, or those that remained and were left out), acting in both according to the good pleasure of His own sovereign will, yet He did not herein act an unjust, tyrannical or cruel part, nor yet show Himself a respecter of persons.
(1) He is not unjust in reprobating some, neither can He be so, for "the Lord is holy in all His ways and righteous in all His works" (Psa. cxlv.). But salvation and damnation are works of His, consequently neither of them is unrighteous or unholy...And, surely, if the apostle's illustration be allowed to have any propriety, or to carry any authority, it can no more be unjust in God to set apart some for communion with Himself in this life and the next, and to set aside others according to His own free pleasure, than for a potter to make out of the same mass of clay some vessels for honourable and others for inferior uses. The Deity, being absolute Lord of all His creatures, is accountable to none for His doings, and cannot be chargeable with injustice for disposing of His own as He will.
(2) Nor is the decree of reprobation a tyrannical one. It is, indeed, strictly sovereign; but lawful sovereignty and lawless tyranny are as really distinct and different as any two opposites can be. He is a tyrant, in the common acceptation of that word, who (a) either usurps the sovereign authority and arrogates to himself a dominion to which he has no right, or (b) who, being originally a lawful prince, abuses his power and governs contrary to law. But who dares to lay either of these accusations to the Divine charge? God as Creator has a most unquestionable and unlimited right over the souls and bodies of men, unless it can be supposed, contrary to all Scripture and common sense, that in making of man He made a set of beings superior to Himself and exempt from His jurisdiction. Taking it for granted, therefore, that God has an absolute right of sovereignty over His creatures, if He should be pleased (as the Scriptures repeatedly assure us that He is) to manifest and display that right by graciously saving some and justly punishing others for their sins, who are we that we should reply against God?
Neither does the ever-blessed Deity fall under the second notion of a tyrant, namely, as one who abuses his power by acting contrary to law, for by what exterior law is HE bound, who is the supreme Law-giver of the universe? The laws promulgated by Him are designed for the rule of our conduct, not of His. Should it be objected that "His own attributes of goodness and justice, holiness and truth, are a law to Himself," I answer that, admitting this to be the case, there is nothing in the decree of reprobation as represented in Scripture, and by us from thence, which clashes with any of those perfections.
POSITION 9. -Notwithstanding God's predestination is most certain and unalterable, so that no elect person can perish nor any reprobate be saved, yet it does not follow from thence that all precepts, reproofs and exhortations on the part of God, or prayers on the part of man, are useless, vain and insignificant.
(1) These are not useless with regard to the elect, for they are necessary means of bringing them to the knowledge of the truth at first, afterwards of stirring up their pure minds by way of remembrance, and of edifying and establishing them in faith, love and holiness.
(2) Nor are these vain with regard to the reprobate, for precept, reproof and exhortation may, if duly attended to, be a means of making them careful to adjust their moral, external conduct according to the rules of decency, justice and regularity, and thereby prevent much inconvenience to themselves and injury to society. And as for prayer, it is the duty of all without exception. Every created being (whether elect or reprobate matters not as to this point) is, as such, dependent on the Creator for all things, and, if dependent, ought to have recourse to Him, both in a way of supplication and thanksgiving.
(3) But to come closer still. That absolute predestination does not set aside, nor render superfluous the use of preaching, exhortation, etc., we prove from the examples of Christ Himself and His apostles, who all taught and insisted upon the article of predestination, and yet took every opportunity of preaching to sinners and enforced their ministry with proper rebukes, invitations and exhortations as occasion required. Though they showed unanswerably that salvation is the free gift of God and lies entirely at His sovereign disposal, that men can of themselves do nothing spiritually good, and that it is God who of His own pleasure works in them both to Will and to do, yet they did not neglect to address their auditors as beings possessed of reason and conscience, nor omitted to remind them of their duties as such; but showed them their sin and danger by nature, and laid before them the appointed way and method of salvation as exhibited in the Gospel."
"So, then, all these being means whereby the elect are frequently enlightened into the knowledge of Christ, and by which they are, after they have believed through grace, built up in Him, and are means of their perseverance in grace to the end; these are so far from being vain and insignificant that they are highly useful and necessary, and answer many valuable and important ends, without in the least shaking the doctrine of predestination in particular or the analogy of faith in general." (chapt. 4, "THE DOCTRINE OF ABSOLUTE PREDESTINATION" by Jerome Zancius, 1516-1590, Translated from the Latin of by AUGUSTUS MONTAGUE TOPLADY, A.B.)
Permissive Will of God
Many Hardshells who object to the absolute predestination of all things think that those who embrace it do not believe in the permissive will of God. But, this is not generally true. The first Hardshells were generally believers in the absolute predestination of all things and yet they believed that some things are to be ascribed to the permissive will of God. The Conditionalist Hardshell, however, does not recognize how believing in the permissive will of God does not in any way undermine the doctrine of God's universal decrees respecting "all things."
First, the Conditionalist fails to understand that "permissive will" of God is still the will of God. The adding of the adjective "permissive" does not negate the fact that such permission is still the will of God, still part of his decrees.
Second, the Conditionalist does not know how to respond to the question - "what if God does not permit" something to occur? Will it occur any way? This is important because the Conditionalist thinks that the permission of God exonerates God of all causal responsibility in the thing permitted. But, this is illogical, especially if it is granted that nothing can occur apart from divine permission. For instance, if I hold a rock in my hand, can it fall apart from my permitting it to fall by the removing of my hand? Though the withdrawing of my hand (permission) is not the sole cause of the rock falling, gravity being another cause, yet who would say that this removal (permission) was not a cause or reason?
Third, another question the Conditionalist does not sufficiently consider is that which asks - "does God permit by choice?" Or, "does God permit willingly and knowingly?" Or, does he permit without a choice to permit, without will and knowledge? Obviously willing and knowing permission includes second causes (such as gravity in the above example).
Some will use various adjectives to differentiate the permissive will of God from his non-permissive will. The latter will often be called "absolute will," or "will of purpose." But, these adjectives may just as well be used in conjunction with his permissive will. Does God choose to permit without a purpose? Does God's permissive will exclude what is absolute and certain? Some will say God's absolute will is his "perfect will," as if his permissive will was not perfect. Some will say that his absolute will is his "sovereign will," again, as if his permissive will is not sovereign. All this is unacceptable. It would be better to come up with different adjectives than to use the foregoing, or better to use none at all. We saw this same difficulty in previous chapters in attempting to find adjectives to distinguish between two usages of God's will in scripture. I chose the adjectives "resistible" versus "irresistible" as the best. In differentiating God's permissive will from his non-permissive will, the adjectives often chosen, as I have observed, are generally not proper. Perhaps it would be best to just keep it simple, using permissive versus non-permissive.
Wrote Jonathan Edwards:
"5 1. Whether God has decreed all things that ever came to pass or not, all that own the being of a God, own that he knows all things beforehand. Now, it is self-evident, that if he knows all things beforehand, he either doth approve of them, or he doth not approve of them; that is, he either is willing they should be, or he is not willing they should be. But to will that they should be, is to decree them."
Edwards is correct. The permissive will of God is still the will of God, involves a choice and purpose on the part of God, and is still part of his "decrees" regarding the future. Edwards also shows how a belief in the absolute foreknowledge of God is a proof for his predetermination of all things.
Edwards wrote:
"17. For God certainly to know that a thing will be, that possibly may be, and possibly may not be, implies a contradiction. If possibly it may be otherwise, then how can God know certainly what it will be? If it possibly may be otherwise, then he knows it possibly may be otherwise; and that it is inconsistent with his certainly knowing that it will not be otherwise. If God certainly knows it will be, and yet it may possibly be otherwise, then it may possibly happen to be otherwise than God certainly knows it will be. If so, then it may possibly happen that God may be mistaken in his judgment, when he certainly knows: for it is supposed, that it is possible that it should be otherwise than he judges. For that it should be otherwise than he judges, and that he should be mistaken, are the same thing. How unfair therefore is it in those that hold the foreknowledge of God, to insist upon this objection from human liberty, against the decrees, when their scheme is attended with the same difficulty, exactly in the same manner!"
18. Their other objection is, that God's decree make God the author of sin. I answer, that there is no more necessity of supposing God the author of sin, on this scheme, than on the other. For if we suppose, according to my doctrine, that God has determined, from all eternity, the number and persons of those that shall perform the condition of the covenant of grace: in order to support this doctrine, there is no need of maintaining any more concerning God's decreeing sin, than this, lis. that God has decreed that he will permit all the sin that ever comes to pass, and that upon his permitting it, it will certainly come to pass. And they hold the same thing. For they hold, that God does determine beforehand to permit all the sin that does come to pass; and that he certainly knows, that if he does permit it, it will come to pass. I say, they in their scheme allow both these; they allow that God does permit all the sin to come to pass, that ever does come to pass: and those that allow the foreknowledge of God, do also allow the other thing, viz. that he knows, concerning all the sin that ever does really come to pass, that it will come to pass upon his permitting it. So that if this be making God the author of sin, they make him so in the very same way that they charge us with doing it. They own that God does permit sin, and that he knows, with respect to all sin that ever is committed, that upon his permitting it, it will come to pass; and we hold no other. God's permission of sin they allow; and yet it would be a sin in men to permit sin. We ought not to permit, or suffer it, where we have opportunity to hinder it; and we cannot permit it, without making ourselves in some measure guilty. Yet they allow, that God permitting it does not make him guilty of it."
Those Conditionalist Hardshells, as well as the Arminians, in believing in God's absolute foreknowledge and in his permissive will, nevertheless have the same difficulties with human reason as do those who believe in the absolute predestination of all things, that all things are the subject of God's decrees.
Edwards wrote against these Arminian objections by saying:
"...they lay it down for a rule, to embrace no doctrine which they, by their own reason, cannot reconcile with the moral perfections of God. But I would show the unreasonableness of this rule. For, if this be a good rule, then it always was so. Let us then see what will follow. We shall then have reason to conclude every thing to be really inconsistent with God's moral perfections, that we cannot reconcile with his moral perfections; for if we have not reason to conclude that it is inconsistent, then we have no reason to conclude that it is not true. But if this be true, that we have reason to conclude every thing is consistent with God's moral perfections, which we cannot reconcile with those perfections, then David had reason to conclude, that some things that he saw take place, in fact, were inconsistent with God's moral perfections; for he could not reconcile them with those perfections, Psalm lxxiii. And Job had cause to come to the same conclusion concerning some events in his day. If it be a good rule, that we must conclude that to be inconsistent with the divine perfections, that we cannot reconcile with, or, which is the same thing, that we cannot see how it is inconsistent with those perfections, then it must be, because we have reason to conclude that it cannot happen that our reason cannot see how it can be; and then it will follow, that we must reject the doctrine of the Trinity, the incarnation of the Son of God, &c."
Rejection of clearly expressed biblical propositions because we cannot eliminate all seeming contradictions in our minds is to make our understanding the judge about the truthfulness of scripture, and this is untenable. Further, it is ironic that those who use human rationality as the deciding factor as to which biblical propositions are true, nevertheless do not remove all seeming contradictions by their unscriptural rule.
Edwards wrote:
"The scripture itself supposes, that there are some things in the scripture that men may not be able to reconcile with God's moral perfections. See Rom, 9: 19. "Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?" And the apostle does not answer the objection, by showing us how to reconcile it with the moral perfections of God, but by representing the arrogancy of quarrelling with revealed doctrines under such a pretence, and not considering the infinite distance between God and us. "Nay, but who art thou, O man, that replies against God?" And God answered Job after the same manner. God rebuked him for darkening counsel by words without knowledge, and answered him only, by declaring and manifesting to him the infinite distance between God and him; so letting him know, that it became him humbly to submit to God, and acknowledge his justice, even in those things that were difficult to his reason; and that without solving his difficulties any other way, than by making him sensible of the weakness of his own understanding." (pgs. 420-24, CHAPTER III., "CONCERNING THE DIVINE DECREES IN GENERAL, AND ELECTION IN PARTICULAR")
See here
In the previous chapter several citations were given from Dr. Gill to show that he believed in the absolute predestination of all things, a belief stated in the London Confession of 1689. It was also seen that Dr. Gill was a supralapsarian, just as were the first Hardshell leaders. It was John Gill who in 1760 urged Toplady to publish his translation of Zanchius's great work on the absolute predestination of all things. Gill endorsed the views of Zanchius.
Jerome Zanchius wrote:
"VI.-When foreknowledge is ascribed to God, the word imports (1) that general prescience whereby He knew from all eternity both what He Himself would do, and what His creatures, in consequence of His efficacious and permissive decree, should do likewise. The Divine foreknowledge, considered in this view, is absolutely universal; it extends to all beings that did, do or ever shall exist, and to all actions that ever have been, that are or shall be done, whether good or evil, natural, civil or moral. (2) The word often denotes that special prescience which has for its objects His own elect, and them alone, whom He is in a peculiar sense said to know and foreknow (Psa. i. 6; John x. 27; 2 Tim. ii. 19; Rom. viii. 29; 1 Peter i. 2), and this knowledge is connected with, or rather the same with love, favour and approbation."
"Divine preordination has for its objects all things that are created: no creature, whether rational or irrational, animate or inanimate, is exempted from its influence. All beings whatever, from the highest angel to the meanest reptile, and from the meanest reptile to the minutest atom, are the objects of God's eternal decrees and particular providence. However, the ancient fathers only make use of the word predestination as it refers to angels or men, whether good or evil, and it is used by the apostle Paul in a more limited sense still, so as, by it, to mean only that branch of it which respects God's election and designation of His people to eternal life (Rom. viii. 30; Eph. i. 11)."
"The supreme end of this decree is the manifestation of His own infinitely glorious and amiably tremendous perfections; the inferior or subordinate end is the happiness and salvation of them who are thus freely elected." (chapter 1)
(4) That he (Adam - SG) fell in consequence of the Divine decree we prove thus: God was either willing that Adam should fall, or unwilling, or indifferent about it. If God was unwilling that Adam should transgress, how came it to pass that he did? Is man stronger and is Satan wiser than He that made them? Surely no. Again, could not God, had it so pleased Him, have hindered the tempter's access to paradise? or have created man, as He did the elect angels, with a will invariably determined to good only and incapable of being biassed to evil? or, at least, have made the grace and strength, with which He endued Adam, actually effectual to the resisting of all solicitations to sin? None but atheists would answer these questions in the negative. Surely, if God had not willed the fall, He could, and no doubt would, have prevented it; but He did not prevent it: ergo He willed it. And if He willed it, He certainly decreed it, for the decree of God is nothing else but the seal and ratification of His Will. He does nothing but what He decreed, and He decreed nothing which He did not will, and both will and decree are absolutely eternal, though the execution of both be in time. The only way to evade the force of this reasoning is to say that "God was indifferent and unconcerned whether man stood or fell." But in what a shameful, unworthy light does this represent the Deity! Is it possible for us to imagine that God could be an idle, careless spectator of one of the most important events that ever came to pass? Are not "the very hairs of our head all numbered"? or does "a sparrow fall to the ground without our heaveuly Father"? If, then, things the most trivial and worthless are subject to the appointment of His decree and the control of His providence, how much more is man, the masterpiece of this lower creation? and above all that man Adam, who when recent from his Maker's hands was the living image of God Himself, and very little inferior to angels! and on whose perseverance was suspended the welfare not of himself only, but likewise that of the whole world. But, so far was God from being indifferent in this matter, that there is nothing whatever about which He is so, for He worketh all things, without exception," after the counsel of His own will" (Eph. i. 11), consequently, if He positively wills whatever is done, He cannot be indifferent with regard to anything. On the whole, if God was not unwilling that Adam should fall, He must have been willing that he should, since between God's willing and nilling there is no medium. And is it not highly rational as well as Scriptural, nay, is it not absolutely necessary to suppose that the fall was not contrary to the will and determination of God? since, if it was, His will (which the apostle represents as being irresistible, Rom. ix. 19) was apparently frustrated and His determination rendered of worse than none effect. And how dishonourable to, how inconsistent with, and how notoriously subversive of the dignity of God such a blasphemous supposition would be, and how irreconcileable with every one of His allowed attributes is very easy to observe."
This reasoning is sound and irresistible. God, if he foreknew the fall, and permitted it, then he willed it, and had good reason and purpose for so doing.
Continues Zanchius:
"The Deity from all eternity, and consequently at the very time He gives life and being to a reprobate, certainly foreknew, and knows, in consequence of His own decree, that such a one would fall short of salvation. Now, if God foreknew this, He must have predetermined it, because His own will is the foundation of His decrees, and His decrees are the foundation of His prescience; He therefore foreknowing futurities, because by His predestination He hath rendered their futurition certain and inevitable. Neither is it possible, in the very nature of the thing, that they should be elected to salvation, or ever obtain it, whom God foreknew should perish, for then the Divine act of preterition would be changeable, wavering and precarious, the Divine foreknowledge would be deceived, and the Divine will impeded. All which are utterly impossible. Lastly, that all men are not chosen to life, nor created to that end is evident in that there are some who were hated of God before they were born (Rom. ix. 11-13), are "fitted for destruction" (ver. 22), and "made for the day of evil" (Prov. xvi. 1)."
"Luther observes that in Rom. ix., x. and xi. the apostle particularly insists on the doctrine of predestination, "Because," says he, "all things whatever arise from and depend upon the Divine appointment, whereby it was preordained who should receive the word of life and who should disbelieve it, who should he delivered from their sins and who should be hardened in them, who should be justified and who condemned."
The London Confession of 1689 stated the same, saying the "command given unto them (Adam and Eve), in eating the forbidden fruit, which God was pleased, according to his wise and holy counsel to permit, having purposed to order it to his own glory." (Chapter 6, section 1) The confession also stated - "Although God knoweth 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." (Chapter 3, section 2) God's predetermination is the cause of his foreknowledge, and not vice versa.
In Chapter IV, in that section titled "Of Reprobation or Predestination as it respects the ungodly," Zanchius wrote:
"The actions of God being thus fruits of His eternal purpose, we may safely, and without any danger of mistake, argue from them to that and infer that God therefore does such and such things, because He decreed to do them, His own will being the sole cause of all His works. So that, from His actually leaving some men in final impenitency and unbelief, we assuredly gather that it was His everlasting determination so to do, and consequently that He reprobated some from before the foundation of the world. And as this inference is strictly rational, so is it perfectly Scriptural. Thus the Judge will in the last day declare to those on the left hand, "I never knew you" (Matt. vii. 23), i.e., "I never, no, not from eternity, loved, approved or acknowledged you for Mine," or, in other words, "I always hated you."
Anyone who believes in the absolute foreknowledge of God respecting all things must also, in some sense, believe what they condemn respecting absolute predestination and supralapsarianism. If God foreknows that John Doe, in being brought into the world (created) will die in unbelief, having rejected all God's offers of pardon, and YET, creates him any way, has he not, in some sense, created such a man for destruction?
Zanchius continues:
"POSITION 2. -Some men were, from all eternity, not only negatively excepted from a participation of Christ and His salvation, but positively ordained to continue in their natural blindness, hardness of heart, etc., and that the just judgment of God. (See Exod. ix.; 1 Sam. ii. 25; 2 Sam. xvii. 14; Isa. vi. 9-11; 2 Thess. ii. 11, 12.) Nor can these places of Scripture, with many others of like import, be understood of an involuntary permission on the part of God, as if God barely suffered it to be so, quasi invitus, as it were by constraint, and against His will, for He permits nothing which He did not resolve and determine to permit. His permission is a positive, determinate act of His will, as Augustine, Luther and Bucer justly observe. Therefore, if it be the will of God in time to permit such and such men to continue in their natural state of ignorance and corruption, the natural consequence of which is their falling into such and such sins (observe God does not force them into sin, their actual disobedience being only the consequence of their not having that grace which God is not obliged to grant them)-I say, if it be the will of God thus to leave them in time (and we must deny demonstration itself, even known absolute matter of fact, if we deny that some are so left), then it must have been the Divine intention from all eternity so to leave them, since, as we have already had occasion to observe, no new will can possibly arise in the mind of God. We see that evil men actually are suffered to go on adding sin to sin, and if it be not inconsistent with the sacred attributes actually to permit this, it could not possibly be inconsistent with them to decree that permission before the foundations of the world were laid."
This is simply saying that if God permits, then he chooses to permit, and a choice to permit is the same as saying he willed, decreed, purposed, or determined to permit, and that reason and justice were behind his deliberate choice.
Zanchius wrote:
"Thus God efficaciously permitted (having so decreed) the Jews to be, in effect, the crucifiers of Christ, and Judas to betray Him (Acts iv. 27, 28; Matt. xxvi. 23, 24). Hence we find St. Augustine speaking thus: "Judas was chosen, but it was to do a most execrable deed, that thereby the death of Christ, and the adorable work of redemption by Him, might be accomplished. When therefore we hear our Lord say, 'Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?' we must understand it thus, that the eleven were chosen in mercy, but Judas in judgment; they were chosen to partake of Christ's kingdom; he was chosen and pitched upon to betray Him and be the means of shedding His blood."
The London confession, the writings of Dr Gill, and of Zanchius, all affirm that the scriptures know of no meaningless or purposeless permitting by God. It is not a "mere" or "bare" permission.
Zanchius wrote:
"POSITION 5. -God is the creator of the wicked, but not of their wickedness; He is the author of their being, but not the infuser of their sin.
It is most certainly His will (for adorable and unsearchable reasons) to permit sin, but, with all possible reverence be it spoken, it should seem that He cannot, consistently with the purity of His nature, the glory of His attributes, and the truth of His declaration, be Himself the author of it. "Sin," says the apostle, "entered into the world by one man," meaning by Adam, consequently it was not introduced by the Deity Himself. Though without the permission of His will and the concurrence of His providence, its introduction had been impossible, yet is He not hereby the Author of sin so introduced.
It is a known and very just maxim of the schools, Effectus sequitur causam proximam: "An effect follows from, and is to be inscribed to, the last immediate cause that produced it." Thus, for instance, if I hold a book or a stone in my hand, my holding it is the immediate cause of its not falling; but if I let it go, my letting it go is not the immediate cause of its falling: it is carried downwards by its own gravity, which is therefore the causa proxima effectus, the proper and immediate cause of its descent. It is true, if I had kept my hold of it, it would not have fallen, yet still the immediate, direct cause of its fall is its own weight, not my quitting my hold. The application of this to the providence of God, as concerned in sinful events, is easy. Without God, there could have been no creation; without creation, no creatures; without creatures, no sin. Yet is not sin chargeable on God for effectus sequitur causam proximam."
This logic is undeniable and rests upon express scriptural statements. Even learned Arminians are forced to own this much, as I shall show in future postings. How can today's Hardshells think it a great error to affirm that God is, in some sense, the cause of all things? Is there position not an extreme? Have the Conditionalist Hardshells not gone to an extreme in fighting an extreme?
Zanchius wrote:
"POSITION 7. -The punishment of the non-elect was not the ultimate end of their creation, but the glory of God. It is frequently objected to us that, according to our view of predestination, "God makes some persons on purpose to damn them," but this we never advanced; nay, we utterly reject it as equally unworthy of God to do and of a rational being to suppose. The grand, principal end, proposed by the Deity to Himself in His formation of all things, and of mankind in particular, was the manifestation and display of His own glorious attributes. His ultimate scope in the creation of the elect is to evidence and make known by their salvation the unsearchable riches of His power and wisdom, mercy and love, and the creation of the non-elect is for the display of His justice, power, sovereignty, holiness and truth. So that nothing can be more certain than the declaration of the text we have frequently had occasion to cite, "The Lord bath made all things for Himself, even the wicked for the day of evil" (Prov. xvi.). On one hand, the vessels of wrath are fitted for destruction," in order that God may "show His wrath and make His power known," and manifest the greatness of His patience and longsuffering (Rom. ix. 32). On the other hand, He afore prepared the elect to salvation, that on them He might demonstrate "the riches of His glory and mercy" (ver 23). As, therefore, God Himself is the sole Author and efficient of all His own actions, so is He likewise the supreme end to which they lead and in which they terminate.
"So Bucer somewhere observes that the punishment of the reprobate "is useful to the elect, inasmuch as it influences them to a greater fear and abhorrence of sin, and to a firmer reliance on the goodness of God."
Here Zanchius shows that the good to come from the willing of sin justifies God in its allowance. Even the Armianians argue the same way, saying that the good that is created by God's giving men free will justifies his allowance of evil. The disagreement is over the precise nature of that good that is brought about by the sufferance of sin.
Zanchius wrote:
"POSITION 8. -Notwithstanding God did from all eternity irreversibly choose out and fix upon some to be partakers of salvation by Christ and rejected the rest (who are therefore termed by the apostle, the refuse, or those that remained and were left out), acting in both according to the good pleasure of His own sovereign will, yet He did not herein act an unjust, tyrannical or cruel part, nor yet show Himself a respecter of persons.
(1) He is not unjust in reprobating some, neither can He be so, for "the Lord is holy in all His ways and righteous in all His works" (Psa. cxlv.). But salvation and damnation are works of His, consequently neither of them is unrighteous or unholy...And, surely, if the apostle's illustration be allowed to have any propriety, or to carry any authority, it can no more be unjust in God to set apart some for communion with Himself in this life and the next, and to set aside others according to His own free pleasure, than for a potter to make out of the same mass of clay some vessels for honourable and others for inferior uses. The Deity, being absolute Lord of all His creatures, is accountable to none for His doings, and cannot be chargeable with injustice for disposing of His own as He will.
(2) Nor is the decree of reprobation a tyrannical one. It is, indeed, strictly sovereign; but lawful sovereignty and lawless tyranny are as really distinct and different as any two opposites can be. He is a tyrant, in the common acceptation of that word, who (a) either usurps the sovereign authority and arrogates to himself a dominion to which he has no right, or (b) who, being originally a lawful prince, abuses his power and governs contrary to law. But who dares to lay either of these accusations to the Divine charge? God as Creator has a most unquestionable and unlimited right over the souls and bodies of men, unless it can be supposed, contrary to all Scripture and common sense, that in making of man He made a set of beings superior to Himself and exempt from His jurisdiction. Taking it for granted, therefore, that God has an absolute right of sovereignty over His creatures, if He should be pleased (as the Scriptures repeatedly assure us that He is) to manifest and display that right by graciously saving some and justly punishing others for their sins, who are we that we should reply against God?
Neither does the ever-blessed Deity fall under the second notion of a tyrant, namely, as one who abuses his power by acting contrary to law, for by what exterior law is HE bound, who is the supreme Law-giver of the universe? The laws promulgated by Him are designed for the rule of our conduct, not of His. Should it be objected that "His own attributes of goodness and justice, holiness and truth, are a law to Himself," I answer that, admitting this to be the case, there is nothing in the decree of reprobation as represented in Scripture, and by us from thence, which clashes with any of those perfections.
POSITION 9. -Notwithstanding God's predestination is most certain and unalterable, so that no elect person can perish nor any reprobate be saved, yet it does not follow from thence that all precepts, reproofs and exhortations on the part of God, or prayers on the part of man, are useless, vain and insignificant.
(1) These are not useless with regard to the elect, for they are necessary means of bringing them to the knowledge of the truth at first, afterwards of stirring up their pure minds by way of remembrance, and of edifying and establishing them in faith, love and holiness.
(2) Nor are these vain with regard to the reprobate, for precept, reproof and exhortation may, if duly attended to, be a means of making them careful to adjust their moral, external conduct according to the rules of decency, justice and regularity, and thereby prevent much inconvenience to themselves and injury to society. And as for prayer, it is the duty of all without exception. Every created being (whether elect or reprobate matters not as to this point) is, as such, dependent on the Creator for all things, and, if dependent, ought to have recourse to Him, both in a way of supplication and thanksgiving.
(3) But to come closer still. That absolute predestination does not set aside, nor render superfluous the use of preaching, exhortation, etc., we prove from the examples of Christ Himself and His apostles, who all taught and insisted upon the article of predestination, and yet took every opportunity of preaching to sinners and enforced their ministry with proper rebukes, invitations and exhortations as occasion required. Though they showed unanswerably that salvation is the free gift of God and lies entirely at His sovereign disposal, that men can of themselves do nothing spiritually good, and that it is God who of His own pleasure works in them both to Will and to do, yet they did not neglect to address their auditors as beings possessed of reason and conscience, nor omitted to remind them of their duties as such; but showed them their sin and danger by nature, and laid before them the appointed way and method of salvation as exhibited in the Gospel."
"So, then, all these being means whereby the elect are frequently enlightened into the knowledge of Christ, and by which they are, after they have believed through grace, built up in Him, and are means of their perseverance in grace to the end; these are so far from being vain and insignificant that they are highly useful and necessary, and answer many valuable and important ends, without in the least shaking the doctrine of predestination in particular or the analogy of faith in general." (chapt. 4, "THE DOCTRINE OF ABSOLUTE PREDESTINATION" by Jerome Zancius, 1516-1590, Translated from the Latin of by AUGUSTUS MONTAGUE TOPLADY, A.B.)
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Chapter 103 - Hardshells and Predestination VI
Elder Gilbert Beebe, as has been stated, was the foremost leader of the new denomination who called themselves first "Reformed Baptists," then "Old School Baptists," and then "Primitive Baptists." He was appointed by the signers of the "Black Rock Address" to begin the denomination's first periodical, "The Signs of the Times." What was taught in that periodical by Beebe and other leaders of the new denomination represented the general views of the denomination at the first. As was stated earlier, the doctrine of the absolute predestination of all things was the known view of Beebe and the Signs of the Times. Here are some things that Beebe wrote on the doctrine of "Predestination."
Wrote Beebe:
"But there are those who while they admit what is called the foreknowledge of God, deny that his knowledge is based upon his own purpose and determinate counsel."
This is what today's Conditionalist Hardshells deny. They deny, as Elder Beebe believed, and as the London Confession affirmed, that God's foreknowledge is "based upon his own purpose and determinate counsel." Further, when Beebe says "there are those," he does not mean "there are some Old School Baptists," but "there are some Christians, i.e., the Arminians and Free Willers." The view that foreknowledge and providence are the results of God's eternal purpose, or predestination, and not the causes of it, is the teaching of the London Baptist Confession of 1689. It clearly stated in section three on the "Decrees of God," - "hath he not decreed anything, because he foresaw it as future." They refer to these passages: Acts 15:18; Romans 9:11, 13, 16, 18. Today's Conditionalist Hardshell, who represents the overwhelming majority of today's "Primitive Baptists," do not accept this as the truth, but like the Arminians, believe that predestination often follows foreknowledge. Acts 2: 23 mentions "the determinate counsel (predestination) and foreknowledge of God." Which is first in this passage?
Wrote Beebe:
"They urge the following objections to predestination. It is fatalism, it destroys man’s free-agency, and his accountability, and makes God the author of sin; and some there are who go still farther and say if the doctrine of predestination be true, God in predestinating the events of time, etc., has transcended his right and is unjust. Our friend R.S., we think, will agree with us, that it very easily becomes poor sinful dying mortals thus irreverently, not to say blasphemously, to question the eternal right of God to do what seemeth to him good, in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of earth, or to set up their standards of justice and denounce their creator if he does not abide by their decisions. Let all such first meet the searching interrogative of the inspired apostle, “Hath not the potter power over the clay, to form one vessel to honor” etc.? The holy prophet of Jehovah, by inspiration, has informed us that God is the potter, and we are the clay. Hence we must acknowledge his eternal right to dispose of all things, all events, and of all worlds according to his own pleasure. Let this be admitted and all murmuring against his predestination will cease. It is not our purpose to meet the objections urged by men to the doctrine of divine revelation, and by logical argument to put them to silence; nor do we design to attempt to make the doctrine palatable to the natural mind of man which is enmity against God, for all such attempts are without the least prospects of success. The enmity of the carnal mind is fully demonstrated in the objections which they bring, but we design rather to search out and call the attention of our inquiring friend to what God has revealed in the scriptures on the subject, and this we will do, if God permit, whether men will hear, or whether they forbear. The term predestination, as we have intimated, has reference to the order and succession of events in time, by which the eternal designs of God are brought to pass. And, so far as pass, predestination simply signifies that God had purposed, God’s providence is concerned in bringing his designs to decreed, ordained, or destined the accomplishment of those things before they were, in order of time brought to pass.— Hence to us, it is predestination, with God it is destination, because his infinity connects and comprehends the end with the beginning, for he is himself the First and the Last, the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the Ending."
Beebe denied that he believed in "fatalism," or that God was the "author of sin." He denied the affirmation that says that predestination is not compatible with the fact of man's accountability. These are the charges that the Arminian and Pelagian have charged against predestinarians and old Baptists, and are the same charges brought by most of today's Hardshells. They will still agree, like many Arminians, that God foreknows all things, and that what God foreknows will certainly and must come to pass, and that nothing can come to pass if God do not willingly allow it. Beebe did not deny that man was not a free moral agent.
What Beebe affirms is what John Calvin also affirmed. Wrote Calvin:
"By predestination we mean the eternal decree of God, by which he determined with himself whatever he wished to happen with regard to every man. All are not created on equal terms, but some are preordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation; and, accordingly, as each has been created for one or other of these ends, we say that he has been predestinated to life or to death." (Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 3, Chapter 21, Section 5)
But, neither Calvin or Beebe believed that predestination was fatalism or that it made null and void human choice and responsibility. Neither believed that God was the blameworthy cause of sin, or that God was accountable to his creature's for his actions, nor denied that God gave Adam free choice as respects his obeying or disobeying the law of his Maker. It is unjust for the Conditionalist Hardshells to say that Absoluters, like Beebe, "believed" that God was the author of sin. They did not believe it. Conditionalists may say that they believe that the doctrine of the absolute predestination of all things logically makes God the author of sin, but they have no right to say that they actually avow such. But, like Beebe said, some men think that if two propositions seem incompatible and contradictory, in scripture, then one or both is to be rejected, or altered to conform with each other. But, faith would accept both propositions, and would not allow human ability to comprehend the harmony of both to force one into disbelieving or altering either proposition. Such believe that they are compatible though we cannot confidently know how. The Conditionalists want to divorce all mystery from the doctrine of the divine decrees.
Beebe wrote:
"Having, as clearly as we are able, defined predestination, we pass to enquire whether it be a Bible doctrine. If it be a Bible doctrine, we must admit it, or reject the Bible as a record of infallible and eternal truth, and take the open ground of infidelity. And who can trace the sacred pages of the holy book and say that it contains no testimony in support of the doctrine? In the absence of predestination how was it that the prophets of Jehovah foretold the events of ages, thousands of years before those events were actually fulfilled?"
Were the doctrine of the predestination of all things not clearly taught in numerous passages of holy scripture, and was rather confined to one or two obscure passages, then it might be justifiable not to believe the doctrine. But, it is plainly taught. In an earlier chapter, many verses were cited where "all things" are said to be "from God." God is specifically said to "work all things after the counsel of his own will." (Eph. 1: 11) God controls all things. But his control or government of all things necessarily infers a prior divine choice as to this control, and thus connects with the divine decrees or with predestination. Providence is but the actual working out of God's prior purpose(s).
Beebe wrote:
"There are those who admit the doctrine of predestination, so far as it applies to the coming of the Savior, the work which he was to perform, the sufferings which he was to endure, and the glory which was to follow; and also in relation to the good works which God before ordained that his people should walk in; but reject the idea that his purpose and foreknowledge extends to the wicked acts of men and devils. But for ourself, it is our firm conviction that if a single event could possibly transpire from the creation of the world to the end of time, from the rise and fall of empires, to the falling of a sparrow, or a hair of our head to the ground, that such unforeseen and consequently unprovided for events would unavoidably endanger and render uncertain the execution of what is admitted to be ordained and decreed of God."
Beebe is simply affirming what is historic old Baptist doctrine, what was taught by Zanchius and Gill. The saying, "if he is not Lord of all, then he is not lord at all," is appropriate. They knew that God's providence and government of all things was in fulfillment of God's eternal purpose. Neo-Hardshells deny God's decrees involve "all things," thinking that the "wicked acts of men and devils" can be no part of those "all things," for they think that it makes God to be the creator of sin. They think that such a belief in predestination destroys God's holiness, justice, and goodness. But, here again, they use their own ability to comprehend this doctrine as the criterion for judging its veracity. But, this is typical of their hermenuetics, as I intend to show in a series on "Hardshell Hermenuetics." What ever happened to the criterion that says - "God said, I believe it, and that settles it"?
Beebe wrote:
"But aside from all human reasoning, or vain speculation on the subject, God has informed us, by his inspired apostles, that Jesus was delivered by his determinate counsel, and foreknowledge, and put to death by wicked hands. And again, the inspired apostles break forth in praise to God, in devout acknowledgement both of the decree and of its accomplishment, that, “And when they had heard that, they lifted up their voice to God with one accord and said, Lord, thou art God, which hast made heaven and earth, and the sea, and all that in them is; who by the mouth of the servant David hast said, Why did the heathen rage, and the people imagine vain things? The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against his Christ. For of a truth, against thy holy child Jesus whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontious Pilate, with the gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together, for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done.” (Acts iv. 24-28). Here let it be observed the holy apostles of the Lamb did not start back with horror, and exclaim, fatalism! this makes God the author of sin! or this destroys the accountability of man! They saw nothing in all this reflecting unfavorably on the character or purity of the supreme God; but they saw such harmony in the purpose, decrees, and actual accomplishment of the designs of God, as led them simultaneously and with one accord to lift up their voice in devout adoration and praise to the Most High God, whose providential government was so clearly manifested in controlling all events."
Acts 2: 23 and 4: 27, 28 clearly show that the wicked acts of men in the murdering of Christ was eternally purposed and ordained by God. Even Conditionalists must confess that these wicked acts could not have been performed had God not giving his willing permission. Why cannot "willing permission" be equated with "pre-determination"? The wicked intended evil by their murder, but God intended good by it. (See Gen. 50: 20) Both "intentions" were necessary for the acts, both human and divine. But, Conditionalist Hardshells will want to affirm that only human intention was necessary, in the case of Joseph and Christ, but then will, on the other hand, want to affirm that nothing can come to pass apart from his willing permission. Thus, they contradict themselves, and ironically, seeing they use their ability to make compatible the decrees of God with human guilt, they nevertheless still embrace contradictory (incompatible) propositions!
Beebe wrote:
"The case also of Joseph and his brethren is a very clear and striking illustration of the overruling government of God, as embracing all events. And who shall dare to charge God with unrighteousness, because he retains in his own hand a supreme control of all beings and of all events; because he worketh all things after the counsel of his own will. Who has a right to infer that God is the fountain of sin or unholiness; when we are informed that men with wicked hands, do whatsoever his hand and counsel before determined should be done? Paul when declaring what God had said of Pharaoh, that for this purpose he had raised him up to make his power known in him, etc., anticipated the blasphemous out breakings of the human mind in opposition to the predestination of God. “Thou wilt surely say unto me, Why doth he yet find fault,” or hold man as a responsible being, “for who has resisted his will?” But the apostle did not forbear to declare this doctrine because men resisted and blasphemed it; but says the apostle, “Nay, but who art thou, O man, that repliest against God?” etc. When the enmity of the human heart is subdued by the quickening power and grace of God in regeneration, then the heaven-born child is reconciled to God, and loves to contemplate the power and glory of Jehovah."
Beebe defends the doctrine of the divine decrees, respecting all things, against the charge that it makes God to be "the fountain of sin" and judges that those who make such false statements against the doctrine are "the blasphemous out breakings of the human mind" in opposition to God's sovereignty and to the plain declarations of scripture. A truthful analysis!
Beebe wrote:
"One reason we have thought why some of the children of God have seemed to be unreconciled (in their minds - SG) to this doctrine is that they have failed to discriminate between the overruling power and providence of God and the effusions of his Spirit. “Let no man say when he is tempted, that he is tempted of God; for God cannot be tempted, neither tempteth he any man.” When men are tempted to sin they are tempted of their own lusts, and by the devil. But how hopeless and desperate would be the condition of all who are tempted, if God had not the power and providence to control the temptation, and overrule its effect according to his eternal purpose and pleasure for the good of his tried and tempted children, and for the glory of his own great name. Our every temptation, though they flow not from (directly - SG) God, are directed, and restricted and made serviceable to his saints, by him, is absolutely certain. Hence Peter assured the saints that God would control this matter. He will not suffer you to be tempted beyond that which ye are able; but will also with the temptation make a way for your escape. That glorious High Priest which becometh us, was himself tempted in all points as his children are, and knows how to succour them that are tempted. Soon after he was baptized, he was led up by the Spirit, unto the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. He was not led there by the devil; but by the Holy Spirit of the Lord God which was upon him. Neither was he tempted of the Spirit of God which led him into the wilderness; but he was tempted of the devil. The devil could neither afflict poor old Job, nor even drown the herd of swine, until he received permission of the Lord, and it is hard for us to think that any of the saints, however shy they may seem to be of the doctrine of predestination, really would wish or be willing that God should have less, or that sin or Satan should have more power." (Editorials of Gilbert Beebe, Volume III - pgs. 18-25, Feb. 1, 1854
http://www.pristinegrace.org/media.php?id=365
In a work titled "The Works of Gilbert Beebe," Beebe wrote the following concerning Romans 9:11-13
(From Signs of the Times—July 15, 1869).
Beebe continues to deny that sin is "from God" directly, or that God is the immediate cause of sin, or culpable in any way for sin, but he also shows that nothing can occur apart from the will of God, by his sovereign permission, as the case of Job clearly shows. Beebe acknowledged, as the scriptures teach, that "all things are of (from) God." (Rom. 11: 36, etc.) He shows that the temptations of Christ were of the devil, but were nevertheless that temptation which was in accordance with the will of God. He also shows how the willing permission of God, in the story of Job, showed that the permissive will of God was the determining factor in the occurrence of the events brought about by the devil in the life of Job.
Beebe wrote:
"In the purpose of God according to election, the discrimination set forth by the apostle in our context, in the family of Abraham, between the children of the flesh, and the children of promise, and between the twin sons of Isaac, clearly shows the sovereignty of God in election, and rejection or reprobation. “For the children” [namely, Jacob and Esau] “being not yet born,” [that is, they were not born when God told Rebecca that] “the elder of them should serve the younger.” God’s decision therefore was not influenced either by the good or bad works of the children, but upon his own unbiased decree. “That the purpose of God according to election might stand.” If we admit then that God had a purpose in the matter, and that his purpose was not influenced by the good or bad works of either the elected or the rejected, we cannot avoid the inevitable conclusion that God’s purpose was a sovereign purpose. But here arises the enmity of the carnal mind of man. If God had rested the destiny of these two children on the purpose of their own will, Arminians would have been satisfied; but in resting his decision on the counsel of his own will, they rage and blaspheme."
Beebe taught what was called "double predestination," that God had not only elected some to salvation, but had destined others to condemnation. Again, this was the general view of the first Hardshells, and has a long tradition in the ranks of all Predestinarian and Particular Baptists. Of course, all supralapsarians believe in "reprobation," or in God's eternal purpose to damn some. Supralapsarians and other High Calvinists believe the "clay" to represent humanity before it's becoming evil by the fall, and does not, as the Low Calvinists and Infralapsarians affirm, represent "fallen humanity," or humanity after it has become corrupt clay. Beebe argues as did Calvin, Beza, Twisse, Zanchius, and Gill, that the vessels are "fitted for destruction" by the Potter, and that their creation by God is "unto dishonor." If the clay, however, is already destroyed (by sin), and already in a state of "dishonor" (by sin), then how could it be formed for such by God?
Beebe wrote:
"It is also infallibly provided as to how God’s purpose in the election of his people shall stand, both negatively and positively. Negatively, “not of works.” Neither the willing of Isaac, nor the vigorous running of Esau could shake or disturb the standing of God’s purpose concerning them; and as the infallible standing of his purpose in their case is “according to election,” so the election of grace shall stand unaffected by the will or works of men. “So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth; but of God that sheweth mercy.”
That which was done before the world began, could not have been induced by anything done by us after the world began. Then let earth rebel, and hell despair, the purpose of God in and according to election stands firmly as stands the throne and government of the eternal God, nor can the gates of hell prevail against it."
Beebe also refers the reader to the fact that Paul expressly says that the choice of Jacob, and the rejection of Esau, was not based upon the good or evil acts of either, but that God's eternal purpose was the sole basis. Beebe also has mentioned how Paul plainly says "so then it is not of him who wills or runs, but of God..."
http://www.pbministries.org/Theology/Beebe,%20Gilbert/romans9.htm
Elder Samuel Trott was also a leader of the newly formed denomination and he wrote the following on "Predestination."
Trott wrote:
"This sentiment, “The absolute predestination of all things” as expressed in the Prospectus of The Signs Of The Times, has called forth so much invective from some, and so much ridicule from others of the popular Baptists of this region that one would conclude some strange and absurd idea had been advocated; some whim daringly promulgated as a part of the secret things of God (Deuteronomy 29:29)."
Notice that Trott says that the opposition to the old Baptist doctrine of the absolute predestination of all things was coming from the "popular Baptists," not from the Hardshell Old Schoolers. But, now, the same opposition comes from most of today's Hardshells. Trott would consider today's Hardshells to be "popular Baptists"!
Trott wrote:
"It therefore, may not be amiss, to re-examine the subject, and inquire whether it be a revealed truth of God, or a visionary notion of man, which is calling forth such malicious sneers from those who profess to be the servants of God.
Predestination is the same in meaning, with fore-ordination or fore-appointment; and is with God, one with pre-determination; for as God declares, so He determines, “the end from the beginning; saying My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure” (Isaiah 46:10). Thus the pre-determination of God, to admit sin into the world embraced in it the decreeing of the time, manner, results &c. of that event. And His pre-determination to bruise His Son in the place of sinners included in it the instruments, time, place and manner of His death. (Compare Acts 2:23 and 4:25-28, and John 17:1, and Hebrews 13:11,12). The doctrine of predestination, then, is this, that God has so predetermined every event, as to fix with such precision its limits and bounds, its causes and effects, that with Him it is divested of all contingency. This, Brother Beebe, is the monstrous doctrine, that you engage to maintain, in your paper, and which we Old Fashioned Baptists, some of us, profess to believe, and which is drawing down upon you and us the reproaches and contempt of all the learned gentry among Baptists. 318 The term “absolute” has been prefixed to the word “predestination” by yourself and others, to distinguish the doctrine you hold from the idea of a conditional predestination. Strictly speaking, however, this is an unnecessary appendage. A conditional predestination, is no predestination at all; for the predestination of an event conditionally, is but a pre-determination to leave the event undetermined, and therefore excludes predestination altogether."
These words of Trott are cogent and irresistible. They are what the Baptists, up till the time of Trott, had taught.
Trott Continues:
Thus we see that predestination of God in this case not only secures the leading purpose that the elect shall be conformed to the glorious image of His Son, but also fixes the limits and determines the end of all things that transpire in relation to them."
"If all persons with whom we have to do were disposed, cheerfully, to submit to the decision of Divine revelation, there would be but one question more to decide in order to determine whether all things, absolutely, or things in a limited sense, are predestinated, or worked according to the decision of the counsel of God’s own will, and that question is: How far does the government of God extend? If His government extends universally over matter and mind, then there is no movement either of matter or mind but what God “works after the counsel of His own will,” or determines the result thereof according to the “good pleasure of His will.” King Nebuchadnezzar evidently thought that God’s dominion was universal over both heaven and earth for he said of Him, “He doeth according to His will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay His hand, or say unto Him, what doest Thou?”" (Daniel 4:35).
"Still, however, many persons are unwilling to believe that the predestination of God has anything to do with the wicked actions of men or devils. They, in order to be consistent with themselves, ought to believe that wickedness is under the control of an opposite power, and that God exercises no control over wicked actions or thoughts, to limit their extent, or to overrule their results in accordance with His purposes; lest thereby He should be charged with being the author of sin.
I think, however, I shall be able to bring from the Scriptures of truth several facts which go to prove that the predestination of God determines the results, fixes the limits and so controls the actions and devices of both good and wicked men and devils, so as to cause them to terminate in the furtherance of His own glorious purposes.
The first proof I shall bring in support of this position is the declaration of the apostle, relative to the crucifixion of Christ as recorded in Acts 2:23, “Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, YE have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and slain.” I know there are those who say that the event accomplished by the death of Christ was so glorious and of so great magnitude as to justify the making use of wicked men or predestinating their acts relative to it. But this is measuring the Mind of God by our little contracted views. We are apt to be so dazzled by splendid events as to overlook the necessary means by which the event may have been accomplished; whereas if the event had been less splendid, we should have condemned those means. But let us beware of attaching such imperfections to God. As great as was the benefit accomplished by the death of Christ, it did not lead God to overlook the perpetrators of the act...Indeed it is altogether idle to attempt to separate the foreknowledge of God from His predestination...It is said by the apostle relative to what Herod and Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, did to Christ, that they did “whatsoever Thy hand and Thy counsel determined before to be done” (Acts 4:27,28).
How today's Conditionalists can disagree with this and still claim to be biblical and primitive is astounding.
Trott wrote:
"If the above is not sufficient to establish the fact that God predestinates and controls the evil acts of men, we have additional proof from the history of Joseph and his brethren. Joseph says to his brethren, “Be not grieved nor angry with yourselves that ye sold me hither, for God did send me before you to preserved life;” and again, “God sent me before you to preserve a posterity in the earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So it was not you that sent me hither, but God” (Genesis 45: 5-7,8). And in Genesis 50:20, “But as for you, ye thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass as it is this day, to save much people alive.” Thus we see that while Joseph’s brethren thought evil against him and wickedly devised means to put him out of the way, in order to disappoint his prophetic dreams, God had determined that this very wickedness of theirs should be the means of bringing about the fulfillment of those dreams, and to terminate in His and their good. So also He employed the wickedness of Potipher’s wife, to bring about the ultimate exaltation of Joseph, and consequently to fulfill the purpose for which God sent him into Egypt. So full was Joseph in the belief of the predestination of God in that thing from the manifestation he had received that he said plainly to his brethren: “It was not you that sent me hither, but GOD.”"
Why would today's Hardshells deny such things?
Trott continued:
"These several proofs that I have brought forward are not to be considered as so many peculiar instances in which God’s government is exerted over the wicked actions of men; but rather as special illustrations of the universal government of God. They show how “surely He will cause the wrath of man to praise Him, and the remainder of wrath He will restrain” (Psalm 76:10)."
"The objection most frequently made to this doctrine is that it represents God as the author of sin. Most of those who make this objection will allow that God governs the world and that no event takes place but by His permission. Where is the difference between them and us?"
This is the same point that I have argued thus far. To affirm that nothing comes to pass without God's willing permission is to affirm God's predestination of all things.
Trott wrote:
"They, if I can comprehend their views, believe that God has not beforehand determined the wicked actions of men, that merely as a spectator He suffers the wicked to go on according to their own “free wills.” Of course, if God has had no previous determination relative to their acts, He can have no design in permitting them unless it be simply the general design of leaving those persons to aggravate their condemnation. Now it would seem to me that if either of these systems makes God the author of sin it is their view, for it makes God to be, in a most wanton manner, accessory to the vices of men. But why is such a system preferred? Surely, only, because it takes the government of God from Him and gives it to the will of man."
This is the dilemma that today's Conditionalists must deal with. Is God a mere spectator as to what he observes? Is his permitting with purpose?
Trott wrote:
"If any can find comfort in believing that men’s lives are thus left to the sport of chance, I envy them not that comfort.
"I do not see that this view of the subject any more makes God the author of sin than any other system would short of that of the Magi which supposed the existence of two gods, the one good and the other evil [Zoroastrianism]. Not any more than the Lord’s having appointed Peter the death by which he should glorify God made Him the author of the sin of his persecutors (See John 21:18-19)."
"What I have said upon this subject is probably not sufficient to satisfy the minds of some who may think they are honest inquirers after the truth. But it is not dependent upon me to vindicate the revelation and ways of God from the charge of sin. Let those who charge that doctrine which God has revealed, with sinful tendency, answer to Him for it."
"I will offer a few remarks for the consideration of those who think that God has too great affairs to manage to concern Himself with the smaller particles of matter, such as are seen floating in the air; for such professors there are. I would ask them whether they believe in the resurrection of the body? If so, whether they believe that God will raise the bodies of all or only such bodies He can find on the resurrection morn? We know that the bodies of many have been burned to ashes, and those ashes scattered towards the four winds of heaven; the bodies of others have been left to molder to dust on the surface of the earth; the graves of many have been opened and the dust that once composed the bodies mingled with other particles of earth, not to insist upon the continual process through which matter is passing of decomposition and new organization, by which that which was once the component part of an animal body becomes incorporated in a vegetable substance, etc. How can any person with these facts in view believe that God will or can raise the bodies of all persons unless they believe that He exercises infinite knowledge and that universal disposal of all things, that every particle of matter is present to His notice, passing through what process it may, filling by His direction the very place and accomplishing the very object He designed? Is this knowledge too wonderful for your comprehension? So it is for mine. But is it too extensive for our God whose understanding is infinite?"
"Another objection urged against the doctrine of predestination is that it would involve the notion of the Fatalist and destroy the “free-agency” of man and consequently his accountability. These notions must arise from ignorance of the true character of God who, as an efficient Intelligence, governs the world in wisdom and righteousness, causing everything to result in the greatest good. But in answer to the objection, suffice it to say that the universal experience of man and the sure word of prophecy both unite in establishing the fact that man in all his sinful transactions acts freely, and is accountable there for. I will notice a few instances in which the consciousness of guilt was manifested in persons, relative to transactions manifestly predestinated of God."
Thus Trott affirmed the exact thing as Beebe. Their view did not involve fatalism and the denial of human choice or "free agency." They did believe that God purposely permitted and overruled the choices of men towards the fulfillment of his will. They believed that man was responsible and that God's decrees determine all things.
Trott wrote:
"Thus it is that men and devils, instead of frustrating or retarding the righteous government of God by the acting out of their enmity, are, in their very acts of sinning against Him, made by His wise government to bring about His holy and eternal purposes. This view of the holiness and majesty of God, manifested in His overruling the sins of men to the promotion of His purpose of grace while it fills His enemies with wrath, constrains the true believer to “exalt Him and to worship at His footstool” (Psalm 99:5) under a feeling sense that “He is holy.”"
"I now pass to the consideration of an objection made by the popular Baptists, more particularly against this doctrine as held by the Old School Baptists. Even those who profess to believe the doctrine of predestination make it, when professed by an Old School Baptist to be a very Pandora’s Box from whence springs Antinomianism and everything which they are accustomed to consider as evil in us. It is, according to their representation, our belief in the Absolute Predestination of all things that keeps us from engaging in the Benevolent Enterprises [Modern missionary and social gospel movement – Editor] of the day and prevents us from preaching repentance and faith as conditions of salvation, and from making any efforts to convert sinners, and in a word that it makes us very idle and wicked professors. This is the most unhallowed of all the objections made against this doctrine!"
Notice again that Trott would identify the "popular Baptists" as not being "Old School"! He denies the charge that believers in the predestination of all things are "Antinomians," or that they do not believe in preaching repentance and faith as conditions for salvation, or that they do not make efforts to convert sinners!
Trott wrote:
"It is not in one solitary instance, or two that we are reproached for holding this doctrine. There appears for a few months past to have been a general concert on the subject. Preachers while professing to preach the doctrine of predestination, have in the very same discourses, represented it to be Antinomianism and to have the most deadening influence when held by certain “Baptists,” meaning the Old School brethren. Others have given the same views on the subject in their publications in the religious papers: witness the letter of a certain celebrated preacher in Virginia published in the Religious Herald of December 20th, 1833. But it is perhaps proper to answer the objection, however unprincipled it is. The objection seems to imply that the whole sum of our faith is the doctrine of predestination; that all our religious course is determined by our belief in this one point of revelation."
Trott is against making a "hobby horse" out of the doctrine of predestination, which is what the "Absoluter" faction would later do, as I shall show in a future posting.
Trott wrote:
"Thus the predestination of God has secured that belief in the Absolute Predestination of all things will not make His servants idle, but on the contrary, it becomes an incentive to active obedience."
(Absolute Predestination in Signs of the Times, 1833)
In 1880 Elder Beebe wrote:
"The Old School or Primitive Baptists in former years have been very definitely identified and distinguished from all other religious or ecclesiastical organizations as Predestinarian Baptists, and as such have borne reproach and vituperation from those who hold more limited views of what we regard as the absolute and all pervading government of God over all beings, all events, and all worlds. With deep solicitude and painful concern we have witnessed in the preaching and writings of some of our brethren a disposition to so yield or modify the doctrine as to limit its application to such things as the carnal mind of man can comprehend or the wisdom of this world can approve. While some will concede that all things that they regard as pure and holy are ordained or predestinated of God, they deny that the absolute government of God does dictate by absolute decree the wicked works of wicked men and devils, for that, they say, would make God the author of sin. They therefore set up their judgment, and set bounds for Infinite Wisdom to be restricted to, and beyond which limitation He must not extend His government, without subjecting Himself to their censure as an unjust God and the author of sin."
In 1880 Beebe mentions the first objections against the historic belief in predestination by the Conditionalist faction, the faction that would later take over the denomination.
Beebe wrote:
"The standard of infinite purity and holiness is the will of God. There can be no higher law than the will of God, for only to the standard or counsel of His own will and pleasure does He Himself conform.
But, say some to whose minds the doctrine of the universal government is obscure, "We admit that God has predestinated some things, but do not admit that He has predestinated all things which come to pass." Let us see how this partial or limited government would accord with the Divine record.
Even the wickedness of ungodly men is restricted by predestination, so that "the wrath of man shall praise God, and the remainder of wrath He will restrain."
For death and hell can do no more than His hand and counsel have determined shall be done. Does this make God the author of sin? or, in other words, does this make Him a sinner, or charge on Him an imputation of impurity? By no means. Against whom is it possible for God to sin? Is He amenable to any law above Himself? If so, by what law can He be indicted, in what court can He be tried or convicted? How preposterous! It is His eternal right to do all His pleasure, "Nor give to mortals an account, or of His actions or decrees."
But there are many who admit the foreknowledge of God, and yet deny His determinate counsel, on which the certainty of all the events of time depends. Men may have a limited foreknowledge of things which God has made certain by His determinate counsel and irrevocable decrees, as it is said, "The living know that they must die;" but God’s foreknowledge depends on nothing outside of Himself, for He has challenged the universe to tell with whom He has taken counsel, or who has instructed Him. To us it seems perfectly clear that nothing could be foreknown that was undetermined, and that the foreknowledge and determinate counsel of God are inseparable.
It has been said by some that these great events which God has overruled for good were ordered of the Lord, but that the smaller matters, and the wickedness of men, were not predestinated. Our Savior has informed us that the determinate counsel of God in His all-pervading providence numbers the hairs of our head, so that not a hair can fall to the ground without Him; even the little sparrows are protected, and the ravens are provided with food by His determinate counsel. And Paul assures us that, "We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose."
It seems to us unreasonable, as well as unscriptural, to say that the government of God directs and controls some things, and that other things are left to the control of men or devils. If God’s government extends only to the good deeds of men, then is His absolute government totally excluded...We would not limit the government of our God, nor, because we cannot comprehend His designs, dare to say He has no designs.
Men act voluntarily when they commit sin; they have no more knowledge of or respect for the purpose of God, than Joseph’s brethren or Potiphar’s wife had in his case, for there is no fear of God before their eyes. It is even so with the princes of this world; if they had known Jesus, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But it was needful that Joseph should be cast into prison, and it was expedient that Christ should suffer, therefore that knowledge was withheld from the persecutors of Joseph and of Jesus, until they should fill up the cup of their wickedness. And it is thus in the wisdom of God that the world by wisdom shall not know Him. Yet such is the wisdom, power and righteous government of our God that He can and does set the exact bounds by which the wickedness of men and devils is limited, and beyond which they cannot go."
Beebe wrote:
"If it had been His pleasure to have prevented sin from entering into the world, can we doubt His power or wisdom or ability to have done so? If sin has entered this world in opposition to His will, or because He had not the wisdom and power to prevent its entrance, what assurance have we that it will not also enter the world to come? But it is to our mind far more consistent with what God has graciously made known to us of His being and attributes to believe that God had a purpose worthy of Himself, however inscrutable to us, in regard to the entrance of sin, as well as in regard to all things else. He bids us "Be still, and know that He is God." To our feeble mind the conclusion is unavoidable, that the predestination of God either controls all things or nothing.
The Arminian Conditionalist Hardshells have to affirm that God permitted sin without any purpose regarding it!
Beebe wrote:
"If we admit that God absolutely governs all things according to the counsel of His own will, and that He is immutable, then we must admit that He has determined what shall and what shall not transpire in time or in eternity. But to deny His universal control of all things, including all principalities and powers, thrones and dominions, things present or to come, whether they be visible or invisible, is to deny that He is the God of the whole earth, and virtually deny His eternal power and Godhead. If He has not the power and wisdom to determine all events, how can He cause all things to work together for good to them that love Him?
But while we hold that He is supreme in power, and that He works all things after the counsel of His own will, we are certain that He reigns in righteousness, and that there is no unrighteousness with Him. To admit the universal government of God is to admit the predestination of all things, from the falling of a sparrow to the dissolution of a world. In the absence of predestination, with what certainty could the Holy Ghost inspire the holy prophets and Apostles to foretell all that should ever come to pass?"
An old Hardshell writer of the 19th century, wrote:
"Since 'total depravity' in fallen humanity and devils is the entire real and sufficient cause of all sin being committed as often as God does not restrain and hinder them from it. For instead of causing creatures to sin, He hinders, prevents, and restrains them from sin, except that what sin it is His will to suffer the wicked to do. What he suffers of sin enacted is disagreeable, hateful, and offensive to Himself—hence must be disagreeable to His positive will, as His attribute. But by permissive will He decides to suffer (not hinder) sins committed. But to overrule them for good afterward, so it may later redound to His glory." (J. T. Oliphant, Primitive Baptist Principles)
http://www.the-remnant.com/absolute%20predestination.htm
Wrote Beebe:
"But there are those who while they admit what is called the foreknowledge of God, deny that his knowledge is based upon his own purpose and determinate counsel."
This is what today's Conditionalist Hardshells deny. They deny, as Elder Beebe believed, and as the London Confession affirmed, that God's foreknowledge is "based upon his own purpose and determinate counsel." Further, when Beebe says "there are those," he does not mean "there are some Old School Baptists," but "there are some Christians, i.e., the Arminians and Free Willers." The view that foreknowledge and providence are the results of God's eternal purpose, or predestination, and not the causes of it, is the teaching of the London Baptist Confession of 1689. It clearly stated in section three on the "Decrees of God," - "hath he not decreed anything, because he foresaw it as future." They refer to these passages: Acts 15:18; Romans 9:11, 13, 16, 18. Today's Conditionalist Hardshell, who represents the overwhelming majority of today's "Primitive Baptists," do not accept this as the truth, but like the Arminians, believe that predestination often follows foreknowledge. Acts 2: 23 mentions "the determinate counsel (predestination) and foreknowledge of God." Which is first in this passage?
Wrote Beebe:
"They urge the following objections to predestination. It is fatalism, it destroys man’s free-agency, and his accountability, and makes God the author of sin; and some there are who go still farther and say if the doctrine of predestination be true, God in predestinating the events of time, etc., has transcended his right and is unjust. Our friend R.S., we think, will agree with us, that it very easily becomes poor sinful dying mortals thus irreverently, not to say blasphemously, to question the eternal right of God to do what seemeth to him good, in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of earth, or to set up their standards of justice and denounce their creator if he does not abide by their decisions. Let all such first meet the searching interrogative of the inspired apostle, “Hath not the potter power over the clay, to form one vessel to honor” etc.? The holy prophet of Jehovah, by inspiration, has informed us that God is the potter, and we are the clay. Hence we must acknowledge his eternal right to dispose of all things, all events, and of all worlds according to his own pleasure. Let this be admitted and all murmuring against his predestination will cease. It is not our purpose to meet the objections urged by men to the doctrine of divine revelation, and by logical argument to put them to silence; nor do we design to attempt to make the doctrine palatable to the natural mind of man which is enmity against God, for all such attempts are without the least prospects of success. The enmity of the carnal mind is fully demonstrated in the objections which they bring, but we design rather to search out and call the attention of our inquiring friend to what God has revealed in the scriptures on the subject, and this we will do, if God permit, whether men will hear, or whether they forbear. The term predestination, as we have intimated, has reference to the order and succession of events in time, by which the eternal designs of God are brought to pass. And, so far as pass, predestination simply signifies that God had purposed, God’s providence is concerned in bringing his designs to decreed, ordained, or destined the accomplishment of those things before they were, in order of time brought to pass.— Hence to us, it is predestination, with God it is destination, because his infinity connects and comprehends the end with the beginning, for he is himself the First and the Last, the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the Ending."
Beebe denied that he believed in "fatalism," or that God was the "author of sin." He denied the affirmation that says that predestination is not compatible with the fact of man's accountability. These are the charges that the Arminian and Pelagian have charged against predestinarians and old Baptists, and are the same charges brought by most of today's Hardshells. They will still agree, like many Arminians, that God foreknows all things, and that what God foreknows will certainly and must come to pass, and that nothing can come to pass if God do not willingly allow it. Beebe did not deny that man was not a free moral agent.
What Beebe affirms is what John Calvin also affirmed. Wrote Calvin:
"By predestination we mean the eternal decree of God, by which he determined with himself whatever he wished to happen with regard to every man. All are not created on equal terms, but some are preordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation; and, accordingly, as each has been created for one or other of these ends, we say that he has been predestinated to life or to death." (Institutes of Christian Religion, Book 3, Chapter 21, Section 5)
But, neither Calvin or Beebe believed that predestination was fatalism or that it made null and void human choice and responsibility. Neither believed that God was the blameworthy cause of sin, or that God was accountable to his creature's for his actions, nor denied that God gave Adam free choice as respects his obeying or disobeying the law of his Maker. It is unjust for the Conditionalist Hardshells to say that Absoluters, like Beebe, "believed" that God was the author of sin. They did not believe it. Conditionalists may say that they believe that the doctrine of the absolute predestination of all things logically makes God the author of sin, but they have no right to say that they actually avow such. But, like Beebe said, some men think that if two propositions seem incompatible and contradictory, in scripture, then one or both is to be rejected, or altered to conform with each other. But, faith would accept both propositions, and would not allow human ability to comprehend the harmony of both to force one into disbelieving or altering either proposition. Such believe that they are compatible though we cannot confidently know how. The Conditionalists want to divorce all mystery from the doctrine of the divine decrees.
Beebe wrote:
"Having, as clearly as we are able, defined predestination, we pass to enquire whether it be a Bible doctrine. If it be a Bible doctrine, we must admit it, or reject the Bible as a record of infallible and eternal truth, and take the open ground of infidelity. And who can trace the sacred pages of the holy book and say that it contains no testimony in support of the doctrine? In the absence of predestination how was it that the prophets of Jehovah foretold the events of ages, thousands of years before those events were actually fulfilled?"
Were the doctrine of the predestination of all things not clearly taught in numerous passages of holy scripture, and was rather confined to one or two obscure passages, then it might be justifiable not to believe the doctrine. But, it is plainly taught. In an earlier chapter, many verses were cited where "all things" are said to be "from God." God is specifically said to "work all things after the counsel of his own will." (Eph. 1: 11) God controls all things. But his control or government of all things necessarily infers a prior divine choice as to this control, and thus connects with the divine decrees or with predestination. Providence is but the actual working out of God's prior purpose(s).
Beebe wrote:
"There are those who admit the doctrine of predestination, so far as it applies to the coming of the Savior, the work which he was to perform, the sufferings which he was to endure, and the glory which was to follow; and also in relation to the good works which God before ordained that his people should walk in; but reject the idea that his purpose and foreknowledge extends to the wicked acts of men and devils. But for ourself, it is our firm conviction that if a single event could possibly transpire from the creation of the world to the end of time, from the rise and fall of empires, to the falling of a sparrow, or a hair of our head to the ground, that such unforeseen and consequently unprovided for events would unavoidably endanger and render uncertain the execution of what is admitted to be ordained and decreed of God."
Beebe is simply affirming what is historic old Baptist doctrine, what was taught by Zanchius and Gill. The saying, "if he is not Lord of all, then he is not lord at all," is appropriate. They knew that God's providence and government of all things was in fulfillment of God's eternal purpose. Neo-Hardshells deny God's decrees involve "all things," thinking that the "wicked acts of men and devils" can be no part of those "all things," for they think that it makes God to be the creator of sin. They think that such a belief in predestination destroys God's holiness, justice, and goodness. But, here again, they use their own ability to comprehend this doctrine as the criterion for judging its veracity. But, this is typical of their hermenuetics, as I intend to show in a series on "Hardshell Hermenuetics." What ever happened to the criterion that says - "God said, I believe it, and that settles it"?
Beebe wrote:
"But aside from all human reasoning, or vain speculation on the subject, God has informed us, by his inspired apostles, that Jesus was delivered by his determinate counsel, and foreknowledge, and put to death by wicked hands. And again, the inspired apostles break forth in praise to God, in devout acknowledgement both of the decree and of its accomplishment, that, “And when they had heard that, they lifted up their voice to God with one accord and said, Lord, thou art God, which hast made heaven and earth, and the sea, and all that in them is; who by the mouth of the servant David hast said, Why did the heathen rage, and the people imagine vain things? The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against his Christ. For of a truth, against thy holy child Jesus whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontious Pilate, with the gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together, for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done.” (Acts iv. 24-28). Here let it be observed the holy apostles of the Lamb did not start back with horror, and exclaim, fatalism! this makes God the author of sin! or this destroys the accountability of man! They saw nothing in all this reflecting unfavorably on the character or purity of the supreme God; but they saw such harmony in the purpose, decrees, and actual accomplishment of the designs of God, as led them simultaneously and with one accord to lift up their voice in devout adoration and praise to the Most High God, whose providential government was so clearly manifested in controlling all events."
Acts 2: 23 and 4: 27, 28 clearly show that the wicked acts of men in the murdering of Christ was eternally purposed and ordained by God. Even Conditionalists must confess that these wicked acts could not have been performed had God not giving his willing permission. Why cannot "willing permission" be equated with "pre-determination"? The wicked intended evil by their murder, but God intended good by it. (See Gen. 50: 20) Both "intentions" were necessary for the acts, both human and divine. But, Conditionalist Hardshells will want to affirm that only human intention was necessary, in the case of Joseph and Christ, but then will, on the other hand, want to affirm that nothing can come to pass apart from his willing permission. Thus, they contradict themselves, and ironically, seeing they use their ability to make compatible the decrees of God with human guilt, they nevertheless still embrace contradictory (incompatible) propositions!
Beebe wrote:
"The case also of Joseph and his brethren is a very clear and striking illustration of the overruling government of God, as embracing all events. And who shall dare to charge God with unrighteousness, because he retains in his own hand a supreme control of all beings and of all events; because he worketh all things after the counsel of his own will. Who has a right to infer that God is the fountain of sin or unholiness; when we are informed that men with wicked hands, do whatsoever his hand and counsel before determined should be done? Paul when declaring what God had said of Pharaoh, that for this purpose he had raised him up to make his power known in him, etc., anticipated the blasphemous out breakings of the human mind in opposition to the predestination of God. “Thou wilt surely say unto me, Why doth he yet find fault,” or hold man as a responsible being, “for who has resisted his will?” But the apostle did not forbear to declare this doctrine because men resisted and blasphemed it; but says the apostle, “Nay, but who art thou, O man, that repliest against God?” etc. When the enmity of the human heart is subdued by the quickening power and grace of God in regeneration, then the heaven-born child is reconciled to God, and loves to contemplate the power and glory of Jehovah."
Beebe defends the doctrine of the divine decrees, respecting all things, against the charge that it makes God to be "the fountain of sin" and judges that those who make such false statements against the doctrine are "the blasphemous out breakings of the human mind" in opposition to God's sovereignty and to the plain declarations of scripture. A truthful analysis!
Beebe wrote:
"One reason we have thought why some of the children of God have seemed to be unreconciled (in their minds - SG) to this doctrine is that they have failed to discriminate between the overruling power and providence of God and the effusions of his Spirit. “Let no man say when he is tempted, that he is tempted of God; for God cannot be tempted, neither tempteth he any man.” When men are tempted to sin they are tempted of their own lusts, and by the devil. But how hopeless and desperate would be the condition of all who are tempted, if God had not the power and providence to control the temptation, and overrule its effect according to his eternal purpose and pleasure for the good of his tried and tempted children, and for the glory of his own great name. Our every temptation, though they flow not from (directly - SG) God, are directed, and restricted and made serviceable to his saints, by him, is absolutely certain. Hence Peter assured the saints that God would control this matter. He will not suffer you to be tempted beyond that which ye are able; but will also with the temptation make a way for your escape. That glorious High Priest which becometh us, was himself tempted in all points as his children are, and knows how to succour them that are tempted. Soon after he was baptized, he was led up by the Spirit, unto the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. He was not led there by the devil; but by the Holy Spirit of the Lord God which was upon him. Neither was he tempted of the Spirit of God which led him into the wilderness; but he was tempted of the devil. The devil could neither afflict poor old Job, nor even drown the herd of swine, until he received permission of the Lord, and it is hard for us to think that any of the saints, however shy they may seem to be of the doctrine of predestination, really would wish or be willing that God should have less, or that sin or Satan should have more power." (Editorials of Gilbert Beebe, Volume III - pgs. 18-25, Feb. 1, 1854
http://www.pristinegrace.org/media.php?id=365
In a work titled "The Works of Gilbert Beebe," Beebe wrote the following concerning Romans 9:11-13
(From Signs of the Times—July 15, 1869).
Beebe continues to deny that sin is "from God" directly, or that God is the immediate cause of sin, or culpable in any way for sin, but he also shows that nothing can occur apart from the will of God, by his sovereign permission, as the case of Job clearly shows. Beebe acknowledged, as the scriptures teach, that "all things are of (from) God." (Rom. 11: 36, etc.) He shows that the temptations of Christ were of the devil, but were nevertheless that temptation which was in accordance with the will of God. He also shows how the willing permission of God, in the story of Job, showed that the permissive will of God was the determining factor in the occurrence of the events brought about by the devil in the life of Job.
Beebe wrote:
"In the purpose of God according to election, the discrimination set forth by the apostle in our context, in the family of Abraham, between the children of the flesh, and the children of promise, and between the twin sons of Isaac, clearly shows the sovereignty of God in election, and rejection or reprobation. “For the children” [namely, Jacob and Esau] “being not yet born,” [that is, they were not born when God told Rebecca that] “the elder of them should serve the younger.” God’s decision therefore was not influenced either by the good or bad works of the children, but upon his own unbiased decree. “That the purpose of God according to election might stand.” If we admit then that God had a purpose in the matter, and that his purpose was not influenced by the good or bad works of either the elected or the rejected, we cannot avoid the inevitable conclusion that God’s purpose was a sovereign purpose. But here arises the enmity of the carnal mind of man. If God had rested the destiny of these two children on the purpose of their own will, Arminians would have been satisfied; but in resting his decision on the counsel of his own will, they rage and blaspheme."
Beebe taught what was called "double predestination," that God had not only elected some to salvation, but had destined others to condemnation. Again, this was the general view of the first Hardshells, and has a long tradition in the ranks of all Predestinarian and Particular Baptists. Of course, all supralapsarians believe in "reprobation," or in God's eternal purpose to damn some. Supralapsarians and other High Calvinists believe the "clay" to represent humanity before it's becoming evil by the fall, and does not, as the Low Calvinists and Infralapsarians affirm, represent "fallen humanity," or humanity after it has become corrupt clay. Beebe argues as did Calvin, Beza, Twisse, Zanchius, and Gill, that the vessels are "fitted for destruction" by the Potter, and that their creation by God is "unto dishonor." If the clay, however, is already destroyed (by sin), and already in a state of "dishonor" (by sin), then how could it be formed for such by God?
Beebe wrote:
"It is also infallibly provided as to how God’s purpose in the election of his people shall stand, both negatively and positively. Negatively, “not of works.” Neither the willing of Isaac, nor the vigorous running of Esau could shake or disturb the standing of God’s purpose concerning them; and as the infallible standing of his purpose in their case is “according to election,” so the election of grace shall stand unaffected by the will or works of men. “So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth; but of God that sheweth mercy.”
That which was done before the world began, could not have been induced by anything done by us after the world began. Then let earth rebel, and hell despair, the purpose of God in and according to election stands firmly as stands the throne and government of the eternal God, nor can the gates of hell prevail against it."
Beebe also refers the reader to the fact that Paul expressly says that the choice of Jacob, and the rejection of Esau, was not based upon the good or evil acts of either, but that God's eternal purpose was the sole basis. Beebe also has mentioned how Paul plainly says "so then it is not of him who wills or runs, but of God..."
http://www.pbministries.org/Theology/Beebe,%20Gilbert/romans9.htm
Elder Samuel Trott was also a leader of the newly formed denomination and he wrote the following on "Predestination."
Trott wrote:
"This sentiment, “The absolute predestination of all things” as expressed in the Prospectus of The Signs Of The Times, has called forth so much invective from some, and so much ridicule from others of the popular Baptists of this region that one would conclude some strange and absurd idea had been advocated; some whim daringly promulgated as a part of the secret things of God (Deuteronomy 29:29)."
Notice that Trott says that the opposition to the old Baptist doctrine of the absolute predestination of all things was coming from the "popular Baptists," not from the Hardshell Old Schoolers. But, now, the same opposition comes from most of today's Hardshells. Trott would consider today's Hardshells to be "popular Baptists"!
Trott wrote:
"It therefore, may not be amiss, to re-examine the subject, and inquire whether it be a revealed truth of God, or a visionary notion of man, which is calling forth such malicious sneers from those who profess to be the servants of God.
Predestination is the same in meaning, with fore-ordination or fore-appointment; and is with God, one with pre-determination; for as God declares, so He determines, “the end from the beginning; saying My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure” (Isaiah 46:10). Thus the pre-determination of God, to admit sin into the world embraced in it the decreeing of the time, manner, results &c. of that event. And His pre-determination to bruise His Son in the place of sinners included in it the instruments, time, place and manner of His death. (Compare Acts 2:23 and 4:25-28, and John 17:1, and Hebrews 13:11,12). The doctrine of predestination, then, is this, that God has so predetermined every event, as to fix with such precision its limits and bounds, its causes and effects, that with Him it is divested of all contingency. This, Brother Beebe, is the monstrous doctrine, that you engage to maintain, in your paper, and which we Old Fashioned Baptists, some of us, profess to believe, and which is drawing down upon you and us the reproaches and contempt of all the learned gentry among Baptists. 318 The term “absolute” has been prefixed to the word “predestination” by yourself and others, to distinguish the doctrine you hold from the idea of a conditional predestination. Strictly speaking, however, this is an unnecessary appendage. A conditional predestination, is no predestination at all; for the predestination of an event conditionally, is but a pre-determination to leave the event undetermined, and therefore excludes predestination altogether."
These words of Trott are cogent and irresistible. They are what the Baptists, up till the time of Trott, had taught.
Trott Continues:
Thus we see that predestination of God in this case not only secures the leading purpose that the elect shall be conformed to the glorious image of His Son, but also fixes the limits and determines the end of all things that transpire in relation to them."
"If all persons with whom we have to do were disposed, cheerfully, to submit to the decision of Divine revelation, there would be but one question more to decide in order to determine whether all things, absolutely, or things in a limited sense, are predestinated, or worked according to the decision of the counsel of God’s own will, and that question is: How far does the government of God extend? If His government extends universally over matter and mind, then there is no movement either of matter or mind but what God “works after the counsel of His own will,” or determines the result thereof according to the “good pleasure of His will.” King Nebuchadnezzar evidently thought that God’s dominion was universal over both heaven and earth for he said of Him, “He doeth according to His will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay His hand, or say unto Him, what doest Thou?”" (Daniel 4:35).
"Still, however, many persons are unwilling to believe that the predestination of God has anything to do with the wicked actions of men or devils. They, in order to be consistent with themselves, ought to believe that wickedness is under the control of an opposite power, and that God exercises no control over wicked actions or thoughts, to limit their extent, or to overrule their results in accordance with His purposes; lest thereby He should be charged with being the author of sin.
I think, however, I shall be able to bring from the Scriptures of truth several facts which go to prove that the predestination of God determines the results, fixes the limits and so controls the actions and devices of both good and wicked men and devils, so as to cause them to terminate in the furtherance of His own glorious purposes.
The first proof I shall bring in support of this position is the declaration of the apostle, relative to the crucifixion of Christ as recorded in Acts 2:23, “Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, YE have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and slain.” I know there are those who say that the event accomplished by the death of Christ was so glorious and of so great magnitude as to justify the making use of wicked men or predestinating their acts relative to it. But this is measuring the Mind of God by our little contracted views. We are apt to be so dazzled by splendid events as to overlook the necessary means by which the event may have been accomplished; whereas if the event had been less splendid, we should have condemned those means. But let us beware of attaching such imperfections to God. As great as was the benefit accomplished by the death of Christ, it did not lead God to overlook the perpetrators of the act...Indeed it is altogether idle to attempt to separate the foreknowledge of God from His predestination...It is said by the apostle relative to what Herod and Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, did to Christ, that they did “whatsoever Thy hand and Thy counsel determined before to be done” (Acts 4:27,28).
How today's Conditionalists can disagree with this and still claim to be biblical and primitive is astounding.
Trott wrote:
"If the above is not sufficient to establish the fact that God predestinates and controls the evil acts of men, we have additional proof from the history of Joseph and his brethren. Joseph says to his brethren, “Be not grieved nor angry with yourselves that ye sold me hither, for God did send me before you to preserved life;” and again, “God sent me before you to preserve a posterity in the earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So it was not you that sent me hither, but God” (Genesis 45: 5-7,8). And in Genesis 50:20, “But as for you, ye thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass as it is this day, to save much people alive.” Thus we see that while Joseph’s brethren thought evil against him and wickedly devised means to put him out of the way, in order to disappoint his prophetic dreams, God had determined that this very wickedness of theirs should be the means of bringing about the fulfillment of those dreams, and to terminate in His and their good. So also He employed the wickedness of Potipher’s wife, to bring about the ultimate exaltation of Joseph, and consequently to fulfill the purpose for which God sent him into Egypt. So full was Joseph in the belief of the predestination of God in that thing from the manifestation he had received that he said plainly to his brethren: “It was not you that sent me hither, but GOD.”"
Why would today's Hardshells deny such things?
Trott continued:
"These several proofs that I have brought forward are not to be considered as so many peculiar instances in which God’s government is exerted over the wicked actions of men; but rather as special illustrations of the universal government of God. They show how “surely He will cause the wrath of man to praise Him, and the remainder of wrath He will restrain” (Psalm 76:10)."
"The objection most frequently made to this doctrine is that it represents God as the author of sin. Most of those who make this objection will allow that God governs the world and that no event takes place but by His permission. Where is the difference between them and us?"
This is the same point that I have argued thus far. To affirm that nothing comes to pass without God's willing permission is to affirm God's predestination of all things.
Trott wrote:
"They, if I can comprehend their views, believe that God has not beforehand determined the wicked actions of men, that merely as a spectator He suffers the wicked to go on according to their own “free wills.” Of course, if God has had no previous determination relative to their acts, He can have no design in permitting them unless it be simply the general design of leaving those persons to aggravate their condemnation. Now it would seem to me that if either of these systems makes God the author of sin it is their view, for it makes God to be, in a most wanton manner, accessory to the vices of men. But why is such a system preferred? Surely, only, because it takes the government of God from Him and gives it to the will of man."
This is the dilemma that today's Conditionalists must deal with. Is God a mere spectator as to what he observes? Is his permitting with purpose?
Trott wrote:
"If any can find comfort in believing that men’s lives are thus left to the sport of chance, I envy them not that comfort.
"I do not see that this view of the subject any more makes God the author of sin than any other system would short of that of the Magi which supposed the existence of two gods, the one good and the other evil [Zoroastrianism]. Not any more than the Lord’s having appointed Peter the death by which he should glorify God made Him the author of the sin of his persecutors (See John 21:18-19)."
"What I have said upon this subject is probably not sufficient to satisfy the minds of some who may think they are honest inquirers after the truth. But it is not dependent upon me to vindicate the revelation and ways of God from the charge of sin. Let those who charge that doctrine which God has revealed, with sinful tendency, answer to Him for it."
"I will offer a few remarks for the consideration of those who think that God has too great affairs to manage to concern Himself with the smaller particles of matter, such as are seen floating in the air; for such professors there are. I would ask them whether they believe in the resurrection of the body? If so, whether they believe that God will raise the bodies of all or only such bodies He can find on the resurrection morn? We know that the bodies of many have been burned to ashes, and those ashes scattered towards the four winds of heaven; the bodies of others have been left to molder to dust on the surface of the earth; the graves of many have been opened and the dust that once composed the bodies mingled with other particles of earth, not to insist upon the continual process through which matter is passing of decomposition and new organization, by which that which was once the component part of an animal body becomes incorporated in a vegetable substance, etc. How can any person with these facts in view believe that God will or can raise the bodies of all persons unless they believe that He exercises infinite knowledge and that universal disposal of all things, that every particle of matter is present to His notice, passing through what process it may, filling by His direction the very place and accomplishing the very object He designed? Is this knowledge too wonderful for your comprehension? So it is for mine. But is it too extensive for our God whose understanding is infinite?"
"Another objection urged against the doctrine of predestination is that it would involve the notion of the Fatalist and destroy the “free-agency” of man and consequently his accountability. These notions must arise from ignorance of the true character of God who, as an efficient Intelligence, governs the world in wisdom and righteousness, causing everything to result in the greatest good. But in answer to the objection, suffice it to say that the universal experience of man and the sure word of prophecy both unite in establishing the fact that man in all his sinful transactions acts freely, and is accountable there for. I will notice a few instances in which the consciousness of guilt was manifested in persons, relative to transactions manifestly predestinated of God."
Thus Trott affirmed the exact thing as Beebe. Their view did not involve fatalism and the denial of human choice or "free agency." They did believe that God purposely permitted and overruled the choices of men towards the fulfillment of his will. They believed that man was responsible and that God's decrees determine all things.
Trott wrote:
"Thus it is that men and devils, instead of frustrating or retarding the righteous government of God by the acting out of their enmity, are, in their very acts of sinning against Him, made by His wise government to bring about His holy and eternal purposes. This view of the holiness and majesty of God, manifested in His overruling the sins of men to the promotion of His purpose of grace while it fills His enemies with wrath, constrains the true believer to “exalt Him and to worship at His footstool” (Psalm 99:5) under a feeling sense that “He is holy.”"
"I now pass to the consideration of an objection made by the popular Baptists, more particularly against this doctrine as held by the Old School Baptists. Even those who profess to believe the doctrine of predestination make it, when professed by an Old School Baptist to be a very Pandora’s Box from whence springs Antinomianism and everything which they are accustomed to consider as evil in us. It is, according to their representation, our belief in the Absolute Predestination of all things that keeps us from engaging in the Benevolent Enterprises [Modern missionary and social gospel movement – Editor] of the day and prevents us from preaching repentance and faith as conditions of salvation, and from making any efforts to convert sinners, and in a word that it makes us very idle and wicked professors. This is the most unhallowed of all the objections made against this doctrine!"
Notice again that Trott would identify the "popular Baptists" as not being "Old School"! He denies the charge that believers in the predestination of all things are "Antinomians," or that they do not believe in preaching repentance and faith as conditions for salvation, or that they do not make efforts to convert sinners!
Trott wrote:
"It is not in one solitary instance, or two that we are reproached for holding this doctrine. There appears for a few months past to have been a general concert on the subject. Preachers while professing to preach the doctrine of predestination, have in the very same discourses, represented it to be Antinomianism and to have the most deadening influence when held by certain “Baptists,” meaning the Old School brethren. Others have given the same views on the subject in their publications in the religious papers: witness the letter of a certain celebrated preacher in Virginia published in the Religious Herald of December 20th, 1833. But it is perhaps proper to answer the objection, however unprincipled it is. The objection seems to imply that the whole sum of our faith is the doctrine of predestination; that all our religious course is determined by our belief in this one point of revelation."
Trott is against making a "hobby horse" out of the doctrine of predestination, which is what the "Absoluter" faction would later do, as I shall show in a future posting.
Trott wrote:
"Thus the predestination of God has secured that belief in the Absolute Predestination of all things will not make His servants idle, but on the contrary, it becomes an incentive to active obedience."
(Absolute Predestination in Signs of the Times, 1833)
In 1880 Elder Beebe wrote:
"The Old School or Primitive Baptists in former years have been very definitely identified and distinguished from all other religious or ecclesiastical organizations as Predestinarian Baptists, and as such have borne reproach and vituperation from those who hold more limited views of what we regard as the absolute and all pervading government of God over all beings, all events, and all worlds. With deep solicitude and painful concern we have witnessed in the preaching and writings of some of our brethren a disposition to so yield or modify the doctrine as to limit its application to such things as the carnal mind of man can comprehend or the wisdom of this world can approve. While some will concede that all things that they regard as pure and holy are ordained or predestinated of God, they deny that the absolute government of God does dictate by absolute decree the wicked works of wicked men and devils, for that, they say, would make God the author of sin. They therefore set up their judgment, and set bounds for Infinite Wisdom to be restricted to, and beyond which limitation He must not extend His government, without subjecting Himself to their censure as an unjust God and the author of sin."
In 1880 Beebe mentions the first objections against the historic belief in predestination by the Conditionalist faction, the faction that would later take over the denomination.
Beebe wrote:
"The standard of infinite purity and holiness is the will of God. There can be no higher law than the will of God, for only to the standard or counsel of His own will and pleasure does He Himself conform.
But, say some to whose minds the doctrine of the universal government is obscure, "We admit that God has predestinated some things, but do not admit that He has predestinated all things which come to pass." Let us see how this partial or limited government would accord with the Divine record.
Even the wickedness of ungodly men is restricted by predestination, so that "the wrath of man shall praise God, and the remainder of wrath He will restrain."
For death and hell can do no more than His hand and counsel have determined shall be done. Does this make God the author of sin? or, in other words, does this make Him a sinner, or charge on Him an imputation of impurity? By no means. Against whom is it possible for God to sin? Is He amenable to any law above Himself? If so, by what law can He be indicted, in what court can He be tried or convicted? How preposterous! It is His eternal right to do all His pleasure, "Nor give to mortals an account, or of His actions or decrees."
But there are many who admit the foreknowledge of God, and yet deny His determinate counsel, on which the certainty of all the events of time depends. Men may have a limited foreknowledge of things which God has made certain by His determinate counsel and irrevocable decrees, as it is said, "The living know that they must die;" but God’s foreknowledge depends on nothing outside of Himself, for He has challenged the universe to tell with whom He has taken counsel, or who has instructed Him. To us it seems perfectly clear that nothing could be foreknown that was undetermined, and that the foreknowledge and determinate counsel of God are inseparable.
It has been said by some that these great events which God has overruled for good were ordered of the Lord, but that the smaller matters, and the wickedness of men, were not predestinated. Our Savior has informed us that the determinate counsel of God in His all-pervading providence numbers the hairs of our head, so that not a hair can fall to the ground without Him; even the little sparrows are protected, and the ravens are provided with food by His determinate counsel. And Paul assures us that, "We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose."
It seems to us unreasonable, as well as unscriptural, to say that the government of God directs and controls some things, and that other things are left to the control of men or devils. If God’s government extends only to the good deeds of men, then is His absolute government totally excluded...We would not limit the government of our God, nor, because we cannot comprehend His designs, dare to say He has no designs.
Men act voluntarily when they commit sin; they have no more knowledge of or respect for the purpose of God, than Joseph’s brethren or Potiphar’s wife had in his case, for there is no fear of God before their eyes. It is even so with the princes of this world; if they had known Jesus, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But it was needful that Joseph should be cast into prison, and it was expedient that Christ should suffer, therefore that knowledge was withheld from the persecutors of Joseph and of Jesus, until they should fill up the cup of their wickedness. And it is thus in the wisdom of God that the world by wisdom shall not know Him. Yet such is the wisdom, power and righteous government of our God that He can and does set the exact bounds by which the wickedness of men and devils is limited, and beyond which they cannot go."
Beebe wrote:
"If it had been His pleasure to have prevented sin from entering into the world, can we doubt His power or wisdom or ability to have done so? If sin has entered this world in opposition to His will, or because He had not the wisdom and power to prevent its entrance, what assurance have we that it will not also enter the world to come? But it is to our mind far more consistent with what God has graciously made known to us of His being and attributes to believe that God had a purpose worthy of Himself, however inscrutable to us, in regard to the entrance of sin, as well as in regard to all things else. He bids us "Be still, and know that He is God." To our feeble mind the conclusion is unavoidable, that the predestination of God either controls all things or nothing.
The Arminian Conditionalist Hardshells have to affirm that God permitted sin without any purpose regarding it!
Beebe wrote:
"If we admit that God absolutely governs all things according to the counsel of His own will, and that He is immutable, then we must admit that He has determined what shall and what shall not transpire in time or in eternity. But to deny His universal control of all things, including all principalities and powers, thrones and dominions, things present or to come, whether they be visible or invisible, is to deny that He is the God of the whole earth, and virtually deny His eternal power and Godhead. If He has not the power and wisdom to determine all events, how can He cause all things to work together for good to them that love Him?
But while we hold that He is supreme in power, and that He works all things after the counsel of His own will, we are certain that He reigns in righteousness, and that there is no unrighteousness with Him. To admit the universal government of God is to admit the predestination of all things, from the falling of a sparrow to the dissolution of a world. In the absence of predestination, with what certainty could the Holy Ghost inspire the holy prophets and Apostles to foretell all that should ever come to pass?"
An old Hardshell writer of the 19th century, wrote:
"Since 'total depravity' in fallen humanity and devils is the entire real and sufficient cause of all sin being committed as often as God does not restrain and hinder them from it. For instead of causing creatures to sin, He hinders, prevents, and restrains them from sin, except that what sin it is His will to suffer the wicked to do. What he suffers of sin enacted is disagreeable, hateful, and offensive to Himself—hence must be disagreeable to His positive will, as His attribute. But by permissive will He decides to suffer (not hinder) sins committed. But to overrule them for good afterward, so it may later redound to His glory." (J. T. Oliphant, Primitive Baptist Principles)
http://www.the-remnant.com/absolute%20predestination.htm
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