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 Sovereignty of God / 
 
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SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 F'^^vre'r r. 
 
 Bu PRESIDENT G. W. NORTHRUP, D.D., LLD. 
 
 LOUISVILIE, KY.: 
 BAPTIST BOOK CONCBBN. 
 
 ^ 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 When the articles of Dr. "Watts appeared in 
 the Western Recorder, reviewing the articles of 
 Dr. Northrup in the Standard, there was a wide 
 call for their publication in permanent form. 
 Hence it was decided to issue a volume contain- 
 ing these articles. Application was made to the 
 Standard to join in the publication that both 
 sides might appear. It was understood that this 
 was declined, and the articles of Dr. Watts, with 
 the first reply of Dr; Northrup, were then put in 
 type and an edition printed. It developed, how- 
 ever, that there was no objection to publishing 
 Dr. Northrup's articles in connection with those 
 of Dr. Watts, but only that the Standard did not 
 desire to join in bringing out the volume. Dr. 
 Northrup's articles were then printed, marked 
 Part I. It was fair that he should close the dis- 
 cussion which he had opened, and therefore he 
 wrote an elaborate reply to Dr. Watts, which 
 appears as Part III. 
 
 When the edition of Dr. Watts' articles was 
 printed, it was not known that anything else 
 would be in the volume, and so thick paper was 
 used. It was therefore necessary to use like= 
 
4 PREFACE. 
 
 paper in printing the other parts, that the book 
 might be uniform throughout. This makes the 
 volume larger than otherwise it would be, but it 
 is all the stronger and better. This also explains 
 why the book is divided into the three parts, and 
 why there has been delay in its issue. But the 
 result is to give the reader both sides of the con- 
 troversy between acknowledged masters upon 
 a subject of the greatest interest and import- 
 ance, — a result well worth all it has cost. 
 
 T. T. EATON. 
 XiOUISVILLE, KY. 
 
 December 5, 1893. 
 
SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD, 
 
 THE SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD IN PREDES- 
 TINATION. 
 
 * 
 As Held by Many Representative Cal- 
 
 viNiSTic Theologians. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 Among those conceptions of the divine sover- 
 eignty which have prevailed more or less widely 
 we notice the following: 
 
 1. The sovereignty of God is His right to gov- 
 ern the universe according to the decisions of 
 His arbitrary will. Creatures have no claims in 
 equity upon God, and He is under no obligation 
 to them, except such as He has freely assumed 
 by promise or in some other way. ' 'His absolute 
 dominion regards not any qualities or conditions 
 of its objects, but He can in virtue thereof tuflict 
 the highest torments upon the innocent and ex- 
 empt from punishment the most guilty. 
 
 2. Another representation is that God by vir- 
 tue of His absolute sovereignty decrees and 
 
6 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 effects everything which comes to pass, that His 
 will is the sole efficient cause in the universe, as 
 well in the realm of mind as in that of matter, 
 working irresistibly to will and to do both in the 
 evil and the good. Emmons — "It is as consist- 
 ent with the moral rectitude of the Deity to pro- 
 duce sinful as holy exercises in the minds of 
 men. He puts forth a positive influence to make 
 moral agents act, in every instance of their con- 
 duct, as He pleases." 
 
 3. By the sovere'ignty of God is sometimes 
 meant simply His independence and supremacy — 
 the truth that by nothing outside of Himself is 
 He limited in His authority and sway over His 
 ■creatures. 
 
 4. The term is often used to denote the fact 
 that the reasons of God's acts are unrevealed. 
 "Wardlaw — "All that I mean by the sovereignty 
 of God is that He does not see fit to reveal the 
 reasons of His acts." Cunningham — "The Ar- 
 minians virtually deny the sovereignty of God 
 by undertaking and proposing to assign the 
 reasons of all His dealings with men." 
 
 5. A very common statement is that the sov- 
 ereignty of God is ' 'His absolute right to govern 
 and dispose of all His creatures simply according 
 to His own good pleasure," or according to His 
 absolute perfection. 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 7 
 
 OTHER CONCEPTIONS OF GOD'S SOVEREIGNTY. 
 
 Setting aside the first two of the above views 
 as not worthy of consideration, we remark that 
 in neither of the others do we find clearly indi- 
 cated the element characteristic of the doctrine 
 of God's sovereignty as accepted by many repre- 
 sentative Calvinists. All theologians will admit 
 that God is supreme and independent, that He 
 often acts from reasons which are unrevealed, 
 and that His will is always exercised in harmony 
 with His nature. There is, however, a radical 
 difference of view as to the true nature of God's 
 absolute perfection, — some divines predicating 
 of Him, as an essential excellency, a principle of 
 action which others affirm to be not only no ex- 
 cellency at all, but inconsistent with any worthy 
 view of His character. The idea of the divine 
 sovereignty to which we refer may be indicated 
 in the following way : There is in God, if we may 
 so speak, a twofold principle of action, by virtue 
 of which some of His acts are morally necessary, 
 while others are optional. In requiring perfect 
 obedience of all moral agents, in exercising com- 
 placency towards the holy, in punishing the in- 
 corrigible according to their wickedness — in 
 these and similar ways God acts, not according 
 to his discretion, but under the behest of His ab- 
 solute holiness or righteousness. But in pur- 
 
8 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 posing to create the universe, to permit the fall 
 of some of the angels and of Adam, in deciding 
 to whom of the human race to extend, and from 
 whom to withhold, renewing grace — in these 
 and like matters God acts as a sovereign, being 
 absolutely free to will or not will, and to will 
 the precise opposite of that which He does will. 
 In exercising the prerogative of sovereignty 
 His acts are optional, while in meeting the de- 
 mands of holiness or righteousness His acts are 
 necessary in the sense that no other course is 
 morally possible. 
 
 Shedd — "Sovereignty denotes optional power; 
 that is, the power to act or not in a given in- 
 stance. A sovereign that has no alternative is 
 none at all. God is a sovereign and the highest 
 of all. He may create a universe or not as He 
 pleases. "Were He obliged or compelled to create 
 He would not be sovereign in creating. He may 
 arrange and order His universe as He pleases. If 
 He were confined to but one order He would not 
 be sovereign in His providence. In His election 
 of a sinner to salvation, God as supreme, inde- 
 pendent, and sovereign, acts with entire liberty 
 of decision, and not as shut up to one course." 
 
 Hill, Lectures in Divinity, (page 562) — "It 
 must be admitted upon the Calvinistic system 
 that God might have prevented this deviation 
 and this suffering; that as no dire necessity re- 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 9 
 
 strains the Almighty from communicating any 
 measure of grace to any of his creatures, the 
 unmerited favor which was shown to some might 
 have been shown to others also; and therefore, 
 that all the variety of transgression, and the 
 consequent misery of his creatures, may be 
 traced back to the unequal distribution of that 
 grace which he was not bound to impart to any, 
 but which, although He might have imparted it. 
 to all, He chose to give only to some." 
 
 Edwards, {IV. 548) — 1. "God can, without prej- 
 udice to the glory of any of His attributes, bestow 
 salvation on any of the children of men, except 
 on those who have committed the sin against 
 the Holy Ghost" — an exception which He made 
 in the exercise of His sovereign discretion. 
 2. "He may refuse salvation to any sinner what- 
 soever without prejudice to the honor of any of 
 His attributes." 
 
 WHAT SUCH CONCEPTIONS INVOLVE. 
 
 But it is needless to multiply quotations from 
 representative Calvinistic writers, expressing or 
 implying the same idea of the divine sover- 
 eignty. Edwards is one of the most penetrating, 
 logical, and luminous thinkers in the history of 
 the church, and in the sermon referred to he 
 sets forth in a full and powerful way the doc- 
 trine of God's sovereignty as a prerogative In 
 
10 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 the exercise of which He is entirely free, as we 
 have said, to will the precise opposite of that 
 which He does will in the case of any individual. 
 He remarks that, ' 'If it would in itself be prej - 
 udicial to any of his attributes to bestow or re- 
 fuse salvation, then God would not in that mat- 
 ter act as absolutely sovereign; it would then 
 cease to be a merely arbitrary thing, or a matter 
 of absolute liberty." An act of sovereignty is, 
 then, "a merely arbitrary thing," "a matter of 
 absolute liberty, " the exact opposite of which is 
 equally in His power, and would involve no prej- 
 udice to the honor of any of His attributes. 
 According to this representation God does not 
 and cannot act as a sovereign except in cases in 
 which two or more courses of action are morally 
 possible, or consistent with His perfections. If, 
 then, there are several courses of action which 
 are optional with God, they must be equally ex- 
 cellent, equally worthy of Himself. For to sup- 
 pose that He does or can adopt a less in prefer- 
 ence to a more wise and glorious mode of 
 procedure, would* impugn His absolute perfec- 
 tion. We must, then, regard the following 
 propositions as true: 
 
 1. God decreed to elect a part of mankind and 
 to reprobate the rest, and remains God, infinitely 
 blessed and glorious. 
 
 2. Had He reversed these decrees as regards 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 11 
 
 the individuals included in them, electing those 
 whom He reprobated, and reprobating those 
 whom He elected, He would have remained God, 
 infinitely blessed and glorious. 
 
 3. Had He decreed to include in either of these 
 purposes any number of individuals less than the 
 whole human race, He would have remained 
 'God, infinitely blessed and glorious. 
 
 4. Had He decreed the damnation of all, He 
 would have remained God, infinitely blessed and 
 glorious. 
 
 5. Had He decreed the salvation of all, He 
 would have remained God, infinitely blessed and 
 glorious. 
 
 WHAT THEY REQUIRE US TO ACCEPT. 
 
 Let us consider, now, what view of the char- 
 acter of God these propositions require us to ac- 
 cept. Having made an atonement sufficient for 
 the whole world, God is now able, acting in 
 complete harmony with His infinite perfections, 
 to bestow salvation on all mankind, — those only 
 excepted who have committed the unpardonable 
 sin, — which exception He was entirely free not 
 to make; and yet, notwithstanding the amplitude 
 ■of the provisions of grace. He can refuse salva- 
 tion to a part or all of mankind, acting in a man- 
 ner equally honorable and glorious. The Scrip- 
 tures teach that He will bring ' 'a great multitude 
 
12 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 which no man can number, of all nations, and 
 kindreds, and peoples, and tongues" to the sum- 
 mit of finite honor and blessedness, fitted and 
 destined to be forever with Jesus Christ, the wit- 
 nesses of His exaltation and the sharers of His 
 glory. We would inquire, now, if it would be 
 speaking of God "the thing that is right," to say 
 that it was optional with Him— morally possible 
 for Him — a procedure that would have involved 
 no violence to any principle of His nature — tO' 
 have decreed to make an atonement in Jesus 
 Christ, and yet, to consign to a state of everlast- 
 ing sin and misery this great multitude, in whose 
 regeneration, sanctification, and glorification, 
 every divine perfection is displayed in the most 
 impressive and glorious manner? The Scrip- 
 tures also teach that a part — apparently a large 
 part — of our race, "shall go away into everlast- 
 ing punishment," every one of whom is certain 
 to commit more acts of sin and to endure more 
 suffering than have been committed and endured 
 by all beings in the universe since "the angels 
 that sinned were cast down to hell." Again, we 
 would inquire if we are bound to believe that it 
 was optional with God — morally possible for 
 Him — a procedure which would have involved no 
 violence to any principle of His nature — to have 
 decreed the everlasting holiness and felicity of 
 this multitude, in which case every one of them 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 13 
 
 "would perform more holy acts, and enjoy more 
 happiness, than have been performed and en- 
 joyed in the universe since the first rational 
 spirits cried one to another, ' 'Holy, holy, holy, 
 Lord God Almighty!" 
 
 These questions, we are told, are to be an- 
 swered in the affirmative. If God had decreed 
 to consign to the inconceivable horrors of hell 
 -all those "whose names are written in the 
 Lamb's book of life," and if He had decreed to 
 bring to the ineffable glories of heaven those to 
 whom Christ will say: "Depart from me, ye 
 cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the 
 ■devil and his angels, " He would have acted, it is 
 affirmed, in a manner equally wise and worthy 
 of himself as the creator and governor of the 
 universe. But do the Scriptures warrant us in 
 ascribing to God a prerogative in the exercise of 
 which He is free — morally, absolutely free — to 
 act in the way here indicated, — to ordain to dis- 
 honor and wrath any part of our race, when able 
 to bring all to a state of eternal blessedness, 
 acting in harmony with every principle of His 
 nature? Is it credible that God, who so loved 
 the world that He gave His only begotten Son to 
 ■the shame and agony of the cross in order to 
 accomplish its redemption, would or could con- 
 sign to eternal death any whom He could ordain 
 "to eternal life, without departing one iota from 
 
14 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 the most wise and perfect method of moral gov- 
 ernment? In our judgment to suppose that He 
 has done, or could have done this would contra- 
 dict our necessary idea of his absolute perfec- 
 tion. And if God decreed the damnation of a 
 part of our race, every one of whom He could 
 have decreed to save, without prejudice to the 
 glory of any of His attributes — His power, or wis- 
 dom, or independence, or immutability, or truth, 
 or holiness, or justice, or righteousness, or be- 
 nevolence, or mercy, or patience — we challenge 
 any man to suggest a reason for His action which 
 would not involve, logically, the denial of His 
 benevolence. Observe that the question here 
 presented is not the one with which the Calvin- 
 istic system is supposed to be burdened and 
 which necessarily baffles our intelligence, why 
 of two individuals between whom there is no dif- 
 ference as regards the reasons of His action God 
 elects one and passes by the other; hut ivJiy His 
 reprobates any, seeing that He is free and able in 
 every legitimate sense of these terms — meta- 
 physically and morally free and able, on the 
 ground of the atonement, to bring to the perfec- 
 tion and glory of the heavenly world the whole 
 human race — leaving none of them "to dwell 
 with the devouring fire, " none ' 'to be cast into 
 hell, where there shall be wee.ping and gnashing 
 of teeth," none to call in vain to the mountains 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 15 
 
 and rocks, ' 'Fall on us and hide us from the face 
 of Him that sitteth on the throne and from the 
 wrath of the Lamb." If of the five propositions 
 stated above, the last were true, the salvation of 
 all men would be, in our judgment, as certain as 
 the existence of God; but the acceptance of all 
 of them as true — which the theory under consid- 
 eration requires — necessarily implies that all of 
 them are false; that is, that God is not infinitely 
 blessed and glorious in perfection, but is wholly 
 destitute of benevolence, and consequently of 
 every moral excellence — having only the meta- 
 physical properties of self-existence, independ- 
 ence, intelligence, and almighty will. 
 
 REASONS EXAMINED. 
 
 Let us examine some of the reasons which are 
 urged in vindication of the benevolence of God 
 in decreeing the damnation of a part of mankind 
 though entirely free to decree the salvation 
 of all. \ 
 
 1. It is urged that God has an absolute right 
 to exercise justice in dealing with mankind in- 
 volved in sin and guilt. But the mere right to 
 exercise justice would not render its actual ex- 
 ercise consistent with benevolence if it were 
 optional with Him, if He were entirely free, to 
 exercise His mercy in the case of every human 
 
16 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 being — as free to bring all as a part of our race 
 to the awards of the heavenly world. 
 
 2. It is held that divine justice would be more 
 clearly and impressively illustrated by the ever- 
 lasting punishment of a part of mankind than it 
 could be in case all were to be saved. But this 
 supposition contradicts the theory which affirms 
 that the honor of no one of the divine attributes 
 would be diminished or prejudiced by the decree 
 of universal salvation, but that all of them would 
 be as gloriously manifested in the salvation of 
 all men, as they would be in the salvation of a 
 part and the destruction of a part. 
 
 The atonement is an infinitely glorious illus- 
 tration of the justice of God; it is as the apostle 
 declares (Rom. iii. 25, 26), a perfect theodicy, 
 ■clearing the character of God in relation to the 
 moral scandal which our world presents, and so 
 satisfying His righteous indignation against man- 
 kind that He can "Himself be just and the justi- 
 fler of him that hath faith in Jesus." And who 
 can doubt that if God can glorify Himself equally 
 in the manifestation of wrath and of mercy in 
 •dealing with men, He will, in every instance, 
 manifest His mercy, for the exercise of mercy is, 
 while the exercise of wrath is not, congenial to 
 His nature. "As I live, saith the Lord God, I 
 have no pleasure in the death of the wicked." It 
 is of course true, that if men go on in sin and die 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 17 
 
 impenitent justice must demand that they be 
 punished according to their guilt; but this fact 
 has no bearing on the question before us, for the 
 theory declares that there was no demand of 
 justice forbidding God to regenerate and pardon 
 these same persons. 
 
 3. It is said that it is the will of God to mani- 
 fest His sovereignty and that His sovereignty 
 like His other attributes is manifested in the 
 •exercise of it (Edwards). But if God should 
 pardon all men His acts would be as truly acts of 
 sovereignty as they would be in case He should 
 pardon a part and refuse to pardon the rest. 
 Should it be urged, however, as it commonly 
 is that divine sovereignty must be manifested 
 both in the way of wrath and of mercy in order 
 that its true nature may be most clearly and im- 
 pressively revealed, we would inquire: 
 
 (1) If the reprobation of one individual, or at 
 most a few hundred, representing classes rang- 
 ing from the lowest to the highest in guilt, 
 would not be sufficient to answer the end here 
 suggested — the display of sovereignty in the 
 way of wrath? 
 
 (2) If it were necessary for God in order to 
 make the most perfect self- revelation, to exer- 
 cise His sovereignty in consigning to hell such 
 and so many of our race as are included in the 
 purpose of reprobation, how could it have been 
 
18 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 optional with Him to decree the salvation of any 
 one of this number? Is it optional with God to 
 reveal Himself otherwise than in the most per- 
 fect manner? And if it is optional with Him to 
 do this, how far would He be free to go in mak- 
 ing an imperfect self-revelation? to the extent 
 that the revelation would have no excellency 
 at all? 
 
 4. It is held by many that' the reprobation of 
 a part of mankind is not only consistent with, 
 but required by, infinite benevolence. This is 
 the view of those theologians who regard be- 
 nevolence as the fundamental ethical perfection 
 of God. According to this theory God is deter- 
 mined in all His dealings with angels and with 
 mankind, by supreme regard for the greatest 
 good of creation. He purposed to save every 
 man whom He could save consistently with this 
 end. Had He decided to save the whole world, 
 or to save one man, more or less, than He will in 
 fact save, He would have defeated the end of in- 
 finite benevolence, choosing an inferior instead 
 of a superior good, which would be a denial of 
 Himself. But it would be difficult to advance an 
 idea more profoundly repugnant to our deepest 
 moral convictions than to say that God decreed 
 the everlasting sin and anguish of a large part, 
 or even of one, of the human race, in order to 
 secure to the rest a higher degree of felicity. 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 19 
 
 And yet many have so conceived and represented 
 ' 'Him whose nature and whose name is Love. " A 
 theologian of fame in the latter part of the 
 eighteenth century (Toplady), could write: "The 
 blessing of election, somewhat like the Sibylline 
 books, rises in value, proportionately to the few- 
 ness of its objects." According to this notion, 
 it would seem that to be embraced in the infinite 
 and everlasting love of God, would be a blessing 
 hardly worth having if all men were to share in 
 it; and that, since the "great salvation" rises in 
 value, "proportionately to the fewness of its ob- 
 jects," it would reach its maximum value, in case 
 only one person should obtain the felicity and 
 glory of the heavenly world. So holy men of 
 old thought and wrote of God and "His unspeak- 
 able gift." But it is obvious that this theory, 
 based on the idea of benevolence as fundamen- 
 tal in God, is utterly inconsistent with the 
 ascription to Him of an optional power in dealing 
 with men; for the law of benevolence, which is 
 the rule of all His acts, determined the decrees 
 of election and reprobation, as regards both the 
 number and the particular individuals to be in- 
 cluded in each. 
 
 5. It is conjectured and there may be some 
 unrevealed and inconceivable principle in the 
 nature of God in virtue of which He refuses to 
 pardon a part of our race. But this unknown 
 
20 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 principle, whatever it may be, since it leaves 
 Him entirely free in relation to all men to exer- 
 cise mercy in which He infinitely delights, can- 
 not move Him to exercise wrath in which He 
 solemnly declares that He has no pleasure. 
 
 FALLACIES IN THE REASONING. 
 
 All these attempts to reconcile the action of 
 ■God, in dealing with those who perish, with His 
 infinite benevolence are necessarily rendered 
 futile by the irrational and unscriptural nature 
 of the assumption which they are designed to 
 justify — viz. : that God ordained to dishonor and 
 wrath those whom He was absolutely free to or- 
 dain to eternal life — whom He could have pur- 
 posed to renew and sanctify and glorify, acting 
 in harmony with every principle of His being. 
 
 Dr. Shedd asks: "What sovereignty has God in 
 the salvation of a sinner, if He has no alternative 
 in regard to election, regeneration and pardon? 
 if eternal justice requires that He elect, and for- 
 bids that He pass by? if eternal justice requires 
 that He regenerate, and forbids that He leave in 
 unregeneracy? if eternal justice requires that He 
 pardon, and forbids that He refuse to pardon?" 
 (Calvinism: Pure and Mixed, p. 75.) 
 
 We think Dr. Shedd in error in supposing that 
 the rejection of the notion of divine sovereignty 
 which he defends, compels, logically, the admis- 
 sion that eternal justice requires God to elect, 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 21 
 
 regenerate and pardon sinners. Suppose we 
 substitute "infinite wisdom" for "eternal jus- 
 tice" in the above quotation, it will then read: 
 "What sovereignty has God in the salvation of the 
 sinner if infinite wisdom requires that He elect, 
 and forbids that He pass by? if infinite wisdom 
 requires that He regenerate, and forbids that He 
 leave in unregeneracy? if infinite wisdom re- 
 quires that He pardon, and forbids that He re- 
 fuse to pardon?" 
 
 Is it reasonable and scriptural to believe that 
 in deciding to adopt the existing plan of creation 
 God was guided by His infinite wisdom, by His 
 absolute perfection, so that this plan, embracing 
 the universe in its whole extant and everlasting 
 duration, including all His acts in relation to 
 angelic intelligence, holy and apostate, and in 
 relation to the human race in their uufallen 
 state, and in their state of sin and guilt, and of 
 gracious probation, is the most wise and perfect 
 plan which the infinite mind of God could con- 
 ceive ? If this representation is reasonable and 
 scriptural, then it is right to say, that the in- 
 finite wisdom, the absolute perfection of God, 
 required Him to include in the purpose of elec- 
 tion such and so many men as are actually in- 
 cluded in it, and to include in the purpose of 
 reprobation such and so many men as are actual- 
 ly included in it; that had He decreed to elector 
 
22 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 reprobate one more or less, or to reprobate one 
 of those whom He elected, or to elect one of 
 those whom He reprobated, He would have acted 
 less wisely and less worthily of Himself, and, 
 therefore, inconsistently with His infinite per- 
 fection. 
 
 If this position is correct, it was not optional 
 with God, in the sense in which the term is com- 
 monly used, to elect all men, or to reprobate all 
 men, or to elect those whom He reprobated, and 
 to reprobate those whom He elected. The de- 
 cisive question here is not, what claims, in equity 
 man has upon God, or what are His rights in re- 
 lation to them, but what is most congruous with 
 God's essential being; what is His obligation to 
 Himself, as the all-perfect creator and governor 
 of the universe, to satisfy the promptings of His 
 love, so far as He can do so, acting in harmony 
 with all His other perfections. Love is an es- 
 sential and infinitely glorious attribute of God, 
 whose mighty impulses He will infallibly sat- 
 isfy — must needs satisfy — unless restrained by 
 some behest arising from His absolute holiness. 
 When we consider how profoundly opposed 
 sin is to the holy nature of God, the urgency of 
 His entreaties and expostulations with sinners, 
 crying out night and day, "O, do not that abom- 
 inable thing which I hate"; the fierceness of His 
 indignation against those who trample upon His 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 23 
 
 laws and defy His authority; His amazing self- 
 sacrifice in Jesus Christ to render the exercise 
 of mercy possible; the inconceivable dreadful 
 doom of apostate angels and of the incorrigible 
 of our race, — hell with its horrors of outer dark- 
 ness, and of everlasting fear, and shame, and 
 regret, and remorse, and despair, — we are con- 
 strained to reject the theory which finds the ex- 
 planation of this awful reality in the notion of 
 the divine sovereignty as a prerogative whose 
 exercise is optional in the sense in which it is 
 held by representative Calvinistic theologians, 
 and to believe that nothing short of some abso- 
 lute impossibility, metaphysical or moral, could 
 have prevented God from decreeing the regener- 
 ation and pardon of all mankind, and their ever- 
 lasting holiness and happiness. 
 
 STATEMENT OP THE DOCTRINE AS PREFERRED. 
 
 The sovereignty of God is His right and power 
 to constitute and govern the universe according 
 to his absolute ethical perfection; it implies su- 
 premacy, independence, and infinite moral ex- 
 cellency, but not optional power in the sense 
 that He is entirely free to will the exact opposite 
 of that which He does will. He exercised His 
 sovereignty in adopting the plan of the existing 
 universe because of its supreme excellency as 
 including those methods of action most worthy 
 
24 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 of Himself. It is an ansumption for the support 
 of which there is no evidence accessible to the 
 human mind, that there were other plans pre- 
 cisely equal to the one adopted in point of per- 
 fection as expressive of the mind and heart of 
 God; or that He has ever performed, or ever 
 will or can perform an act, the opposite of which, 
 viewed in all its relations and bearings, would 
 be equally wise and excellent, equally befitting" 
 Himself as infinitely benevolent and absolutely 
 holy. 
 
 God is a sovereign and the highest of all, not 
 because he possesses a prerogative in the exer- 
 cise of which He is free to choose any one of an 
 infinity of systems of creation, whether equal or 
 unequal, in point of excellence; but because He 
 possesses the power and the right to govern and 
 dispose of all His creatures according to the dic- 
 tates of His infinite intelligence, making Himself 
 His own highest law, and highest good, and 
 highest end. We deny that the Bible justifies 
 the ascription to God of a prerogative in virtue 
 of which He was entirely free to ordain to eter- 
 nal life those whom He will consign to the con- 
 genial companionship of the devil and his angels. 
 
 It is as self-evident as any truth in mathemat- 
 ics that a perfect human father, remaining such, 
 could not but pursue a course which would win 
 back to virtue and happiness his wayward son. 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 25 
 
 in case he knew infallibly that course to be con- 
 sistent with the best interests of the universe 
 and the highest glory of God. And it cannot 
 be less certain that our heavenly Father, of 
 whose love for His disobedient children the most 
 perfect human love is but an infinitely inade- 
 quate illustration, will save every one whom it 
 is optional with Him to save — every one whom 
 He knows He can save consistently with the 
 best interests of His universal kingdom, and 
 without prejudice to the glory of any of His at- 
 tributes. 
 
 This position does not contradict nor is it in. 
 any degree inconsistent with, the teaching of 
 Scripture, that salvation is in every instance in 
 which it is bestowed a matter of pure and un- 
 bounded grace, — the mighty constraint of divine 
 love enhancing immeasurably the graciousness 
 of its expression towards those who deserve 
 nothing but the retribution of divine justice. 
 
 According to the teaching of the Scriptures 
 there is in God a principle of absolute ethical 
 limitation or self-restraint. He cannot deny Him- 
 self; He cannot lie; He cannot be tempted with 
 evil; He cannot give His glory to another. It is 
 because of this principle or quality of the nature 
 of God which renders it impossible that He should 
 do what is unbefitting or unworthy of Himself, 
 that all agree in making affirmations- like the 
 
■26 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 following: God cannot command essential wick- 
 edness, as malevolence, ingratitude, selfishness; 
 He cannot make the wicked happy in their wick- 
 edness; He cannot punish wrong-doers more 
 than they deserve; He cannot require of un- 
 fallen beings more than He qualifies them to 
 perform, etc. This principle of morally neces- 
 sary self-restraint is not a limitation in the 
 proper sense of the term; it is not a fetter on 
 the life of God, but is essential to the highest 
 freedom; He would not be more, but infinitely 
 less, perfect if He could deny Himself. The 
 principle of God's self-limitation or self-restraint 
 is not His love or His holiness, but His absolute 
 ethical perfection of which holiness and love 
 are the essence, and which is the rule and law of 
 His will in all its acts in creation, providence, 
 and redemption. We have here, not a mere hy- 
 pothesis, nor an idea derived from theological 
 speculation, but a clear truth of revelation, a 
 principle of moral government, which the Scrip- 
 tures ascribe to God and from which they de- 
 f^clare He cannot depart. And it is on the ground 
 of this fundamental truth of inspiration that we 
 afiirm our conviction that God will do the ut- 
 most that He can do to save every member of 
 our race; the utmost that He can do having due 
 regard to the universal and everlasting interests 
 of His kingdom and the glory of His name; that 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 27 
 
 He will consign no man to hell whom He could 
 bring to heaven and remain God; no man whom 
 He could "present faultless before the pres- 
 ence of His glory," acting in accordance with 
 the most perfect system of moral government, 
 with the supreme law of His absolute ethical 
 perfection. J 
 
 The sovereignty of God is the immutable foun- 
 dation of the stability and moral order of the 
 universe, and of the security and felicity of all 
 holy beings. "And I heard as it were the 
 voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of 
 many waters, and as the voice of mighty thun- 
 ■derings, saying. Alleluia: for the Lord God om- 
 nipotent reigneth" (Rev. xix.6). The divine sov- 
 ereignty should be .the source of the greatest en- 
 couragement and hope as well as of fear to sin- 
 ners; of hope in assuring them that God is seek- 
 ing the salvation of all men with infinite wisdom 
 and love; and of fear in teaching that there are 
 limits beyond which God as all-perfect will not — 
 cannot go — even to the putting forth of one act 
 — to save men from going down to destruction. 
 
 " There is a line by us unseen, 
 
 That crosses every human path ; 
 The hidden boundary between 
 God's patience and His wrath." 
 
 "Because I have called and ye refused; I 
 iiave stretched out My hand, and no man re- 
 
28 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 garded: but ye have set at naught all My coun- 
 sel; and would none of My reproof: I also will 
 laugh in the day of your calamity; I will mock 
 when your fear cometh; when your fear cometh 
 as a storm, and your calamity cometh on as a 
 whirlwind; when distress and anguish come 
 upon you. Then they shall call upon Me but I 
 will not answer; they shall seek Me diligently, 
 but they shall not find Me" (Prov. i. 24-28). 
 
 OBJECTION CONSIDERED. 
 
 But it may be objected to the view of the di- 
 vine sovereignty here presented that we must 
 ascribe to God entire freedom to purpose, or not 
 to purpose, to provide salvation for our race, 
 His decision in either case being absolutely 
 right and perfect. 
 
 "In the case of man," says Dr. Candlish 
 (Atonement, 182,183), "had there been no rem- 
 edy provided, we must believe that the whole 
 progeny of Adam, whom, in his probation, he 
 represented, would still have been brought into 
 being. They were not in existence when he, as 
 their head and representative, was tried and fell. 
 They must have come into existence in success- 
 ive generations after him. Is it not then a fair 
 and probable presumption that all would have 
 been suffered one after another, each individual 
 for himself, to show what was in them? None 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 29 
 
 would have been taken away in infancy. None 
 would have passed from earth before opportu- 
 nity had been given them to manifest, by their 
 own wicked works, their practical acquiescence 
 and complicity in the rebellion of their first 
 father. Under such an arrangement the reality 
 and universality of imputed guilt and transmit- 
 ted taint of his original apostasy, would have 
 been proven to be inevitable." But we would 
 inquire what warrant there is in reason or reve- 
 lation for the view here presented, and which 
 rigid Calvinism necessarily implies, that it was 
 morally possible for God to purpose to create 
 our first parents, to permit the fall and the de- 
 velopment of the successive generations of their 
 posterity, and to make no provision for their 
 salvation. The hypothesis is to our mind an 
 impossible one, and the discussion of it as empty 
 and vain as it would be to seek to determine 
 what degree of swiftness would enable the grey- 
 hound to outrun his shadow. As we have said 
 above, all that is known, all that there is any 
 warrant for affirming, is that the plan of the 
 universe which God adopted because most wor- 
 thy of Himself, included, as eternal and essen- 
 tial elements, the creation of man, the permis- 
 sion or non-prevention of the fall, and redemp- 
 tion through Jesus Christ. That the plan would 
 liave been equally perfect, or that it would have 
 
30 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 been worthy of comparison with the existing- 
 plan — the element of redemption being left out — 
 is what no man knows or can know, and what 
 therefore no man has a right to affirm. 
 
 This position does not imply that as regards 
 the rights and claims of men God was under ob- 
 ligation to provide salvation, but only that the 
 present plan, embracing the certainty of the fall 
 and the purpose of redemption, is the most con- 
 gruous with His nature, expressing most per- 
 fectly His infinite perfections. The confusion,, 
 common at this point, comes from conceiving 
 the divine decrees as sustaining to each other 
 relations of logical priority or posteriority. But 
 the decrees, so called, are simply one decree, 
 viz. : that one, indivisible, eternal act of will by 
 which God determined to give reality to the ex- 
 isting plan of creation; one purpose involving- 
 an infinite number of executive acts in time and 
 space, which executive acts, not purposes, stand 
 to each other in both logical and chronological 
 relations. Logically and chronologically the 
 creation of Adam must precede his trial, and his 
 trial must precede his fall, and his fall must 
 precede his redemption as a fact. But the acts 
 of God in this affair are a part of the infinity of 
 executive acts by which He carries out His one, 
 eternal purpose to so constitute and govern the 
 universe that all things would take place pre- 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 31 
 
 cisely as they do take place. But to speak of 
 the decree to create as prior, in the logical order, 
 to the decree to permit the fall, and the decree to- 
 permit the fall, as prior to the decree to provide 
 redemption, implies a total and confusing mis- 
 conception. 
 
 NOT A SPECULATION. 
 
 If it is said that this is theological specula- 
 tion, that all who essay the transcendental 
 heights of this region are sure to be stricken 
 with intellectual vertigo, etc., we reply by afttrm- 
 ing that it is not a theological speculation that 
 God is a Being of absolute perfection, that He 
 cannot deny Himself, or that, since benevolence 
 is an essential perfection of His nature. He will 
 infallibly glorify it — must needs glorify it — in 
 the salvation of mankind, so far as He can do 
 so, without prejudice to any other principle of 
 His being more fundamental than benevolence 
 itself. We add in conclusion that though no 
 man is required, or may presume to be able, ' 'to 
 justify the ways of God" in relation to our 
 world, it may be proper for one to reject, and 
 to attempt to justify himself in rejecting, some 
 of the ways ascribed to God under the supposed 
 exigencies of logic. Infinitely more reasonable 
 would it be to deny the application to the mind 
 
32 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 of God of the fundamental laws of logic — to hold 
 that He can choose a part of the members of a 
 class without ' ' passing by " the rest, than to 
 attribute to Him ways of action self-evidently 
 inconsistent with His supreme ethical perfec- 
 tions. 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 33 
 
 THE SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD IN PREDES- 
 TINATION. 
 
 As Held by Many Representative Cal- 
 viNiSTic Theologians. 
 
 II. 
 
 In an article published in the Standard of Jan- 
 uary 14th we considered the widely prevalent 
 idea of the sovereignty of God, as an optional 
 power in virtue of which He is absolutely free 
 to will the exact opposite of that which He does 
 will in regard to the eternal destiny of every 
 human being, and af&rmed that it involved, log- 
 ically, the denial of the divine benevolence. In 
 this paper we propose to examine the view 
 which teaches that there is nothing in the way of 
 difference between men to which God has regard 
 as among the grounds, or causes, or reasons, or 
 <5onditions, of His action in deciding to whom to 
 extend, and from whom to withhold, renewing 
 and pardoning grace. This conception of di- 
 vine sovereignty differs somewhat from the one 
 previously considered, as will be apparent in 
 the course of the discussion. 
 
 THE CONCEPTION AS DEFINED. 
 
 Westminster Confession, chapter III., 5: 
 ■"Those of mankind who are predestinated unto 
 3 
 
34 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 life, God . . . hath chosen in Christ . . . with- 
 out any foresight of faith, or good works, or 
 perseverance in either of them, or any other thing 
 in the creature, as conditions, or causes moving 
 Him thereunto." 
 
 Cunningham, The Eeformers and the Theology 
 of the Reformation, 434: "The Calvinistic doc- 
 trine is, that, in making the selection of some 
 men and in resolving to save them, God was not 
 influenced by anything existing in them, or fore- 
 seen in them, by which they were distinguished 
 from other men, or by any reason known to, or 
 comprehensible by us, but only by His own good 
 pleasure." 
 
 Hodge, Outlines of Theology, 206: " The de- 
 crees of God are sovereign in the sense that 
 while they determine absolutely whatever oc- 
 curs without God, their whole reason and mo- 
 tive is within the divine nature, and they are 
 neither suggested by, nor conditioned upon, 
 anything whatever without Him. " The position 
 which we shall attempt to establish in this dis- 
 cussion is that the theory that in forming the 
 decrees of election and preterition (non-election, 
 rejection) God acted irrespective of any differ- 
 ence between those appointed to these infinitely 
 diverse destinies, necessarily implies purehj ar- 
 Mtrary and capricious action in dealing with man- 
 kind. 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 35 
 
 That the decree of individual election necessa- 
 rily involves the antithetic decree of individual 
 rejection (non- election, preterition), is affirmed 
 by the great body of representative Calvinists — 
 Calvin, Turretin, Ridgley, Owen, Gill, Dick, Cun- 
 ningham, Edwards, Hodge, Shedd, Patton. 
 Two quotations will express the view of alL 
 Dick, Lectures on Theology, 191: "Election 
 and rejection are correlative terms, and men 
 impose on themselves and imagine that they 
 conceive what it is impossible for them to con- 
 ceive, when they admit election and deny repro- 
 bation. When of several objects some are 
 chosen, the rest are rejected. It is of no pur- 
 pose to say that nothing has been done to them, 
 but that they are left in the state in which they 
 were found. In one sense this is true, and in an- 
 other sense it is not true; because, as they might 
 have been chosen, but were not, there has been 
 an act of the mind refusing to choose them." 
 
 Shedd, "Proposed Revision," etc., 41,42: 
 "Preterition is the contrary of election and one 
 of two contraries implies the other. . . . No 
 one should contend that there is an election of 
 individuals but not a preterition. ... It is impos- 
 sible to think of individual election by itself, or 
 to teach it alone by itself. To affirm in a creed 
 the decree of individual election, and to deny 
 that of preterition, is the height of absurdity," 
 
B6 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 This position would seem to be an inexorable 
 logical necessity, being demanded, as President 
 Patton remarks, by the axiom that the whole is 
 I greater than its part. 
 
 THE QUESTION TO BE CONSIDERED. 
 
 That God loves all men in the sense of having 
 a desire to save each and every one, is made 
 certain by the plainest declarations of the Bible: 
 John iii. 16 : " God so loved the world that He 
 gave His only begotten Son, that loliosoever be- 
 lieveth on Him should not perish but have eter- 
 nal life;" I. Tim. ii. 4: " God our Saviour luilleth 
 that all men should be saved and come to the 
 knowledge of the truth;" II. Peter iii. 9: "The 
 Lord is long- suffering to you-ward, not wishing 
 that any should perish, but that all should come 
 to repentance;" I. John ii. 2: "Jesus Christ is 
 the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours 
 only, but also for (the sins of) the whole world;" 
 Rom. xi. 32: "For God hath shut up all unto 
 disobedience, that He might have mercy upon 
 all. " Since Jesus Christ is ' ' the image of the 
 invisible God" (Col. i. 15), " the effulgence of 
 His glory and the very image of His substance " 
 (Heb. i. 3), since He and the Father are one in 
 nature and spirit (John xiv. 9), we must regard 
 His words recorded in Luke xiii. 34, xix. 41,42 
 as a most tender and pathetic expression of di- 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 37 
 
 vine compassion towards those whose wicked- 
 ness was rapidly rising to its culmination: " O 
 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have 
 gathered thy children together, as a hen gath- 
 ereth her chickens under her wings, and ye 
 would not." "And when He was come near. He 
 beheld the city, and wept over it, saying. If 
 thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this 
 thy day, the things which belong unto thy 
 peace!" 
 
 In view of these and numerous other passages 
 of similar import there can be no question that 
 in the work of salvation God was moved wholly 
 by causes lying in Himself — His spontaneous 
 and infinite compassion for the souls of men. 
 The question which we are to consider in this 
 paper is, whether of two individuals between 
 whom there is no difference as regards the total 
 reasons of His action, God ordains one to eter- 
 nal life, and decides ' ' to pass by " the other. 
 
 It is of course admitted by the advocates of 
 this theory that there are differences many and 
 great between men in intellectual endowments, 
 in learning, in adaptation to usefulness, in the 
 boldness with which they defy the authority 
 and trample upon the laws of God, in their atti- 
 tude toward the appointed means of grace, etc. 
 But these and all other differences are held to 
 be of no account as regards the matter in hand, — 
 
38 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 they furnish not only no ' ' moving causes " but 
 no "conditions " of those divine discriminations 
 which decide the eternal destinies of the mem- 
 bers of our race. 
 
 But if there is no difference between men 
 which God takes into account in determining 
 whom to elect and whom to reject or pass by; if 
 men are, as regards the reasons, or conditions 
 of His decisions so absolutely alike that omnis- 
 •cience can discern no difference between them, 
 then to say that He discriminates between them 
 in view of certain inscrutable reasons lying in 
 His own nature, is to use words to which no 
 possible meaning can be attached. According 
 to this representation the purpose to save cer- 
 tain individuals and to "pass by" the rest, must 
 be regarded as purely arbitrary — there being no 
 motive for electing or rejecting one man rather 
 than another. 
 
 [ It will not remove or lessen this difficulty to 
 say that there may be reasons in the universe 
 apart from men in view of which the decrees of 
 election and rejection are formed. Reasons, 
 whether lying in the nature of God, or existing 
 in the universe viewed apart from man, cannot 
 render the choice between objects which are 
 identical in His regard conceivable, much less 
 rational and wise// The only tenable position 
 which can be taken is, that it was in the highest 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 39 
 
 degree worthy of God to propose to extend sav- 
 ing grace to some and to withhold it from oth- 
 ers; but as regards the particular individuals to 
 be embraced in these respective classes it was 
 to Him a matter of absolute indifference; — a posi- 
 tion which compels us to hold that His purposes 
 would have been as wise and glorious if they 
 had been reversed, as regards the individuals 
 included in them; — those having been elected 
 who were reprobated — Pharaoh, Ahab, Herod, 
 Judas, etc., and those reprobated who were 
 elected — Abraham, David, Paul, Augustine, Ed- 
 wards, Judson, etc. 
 
 A good illustration and one sometimes used to 
 set forth this method (?) of divine procedure is 
 the following: A regiment becomes insubordi- 
 nate and it is deemed best, for public reasons, 
 that some of the men should be shot. But as 
 there is no difference between the men why 
 some should be chosen for punishment rather 
 than others, is decided to select by lot and punish 
 with death every tenth man. "The death of 
 these particular men is for reasons, but the rea- 
 sons are not in the men." The application of 
 the illustration is obvious. Men have rebelled 
 against God and certain reasons, unrevealed 
 and inscrutable, require that some should re- 
 ceive the punishment which all deserve. And 
 so disregarding all differences between men, 
 
40 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 viewing them as a mass of indistinguishable 
 units, God decides the question of the particu- 
 lar men to be ordained to dishonor and wrath 
 in a manner as arbitrary as that of casting 
 lots for the decimation of a regiment! Is it 
 credible that the infinitely wise God acts, in a 
 matter of transcendent importance, in a man- 
 ner in the slightest degree analogous to this 
 clumsy, non-moral, or rather immoral human 
 expedient? Granting, as we must grant, that 
 there are the highest reasons why the infinitely 
 wise and compassionate God purposed not to be- 
 stow eternal life upon a part of mankind; can we 
 accept a theory which necessarily implies that 
 He acted without reason in selecting rather than 
 others the particular individuals to whom he re- 
 fuses to grant the gracious help without which 
 their everlasting sin and misery is not only cer- 
 tain, but inevitable? 
 
 THE DIFFICULTY TO BE MET. 
 
 It is essential that we see clearly just what 
 the difficulty is which confronts us here. 
 
 1. It is not that God purposed to save a part 
 of our race and to leave the rest to perish in 
 their sins; "for in the case of criminals the par- 
 don of some does not originate a claim^ in jus- 
 tice, for pardon on the part of others." 
 
 2. It is not that the reasons of God's acts in 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 41 
 
 this affair are regarded as not only unrevealed, 
 but of such a nature that they cannot be made 
 known to us; "for as the heavens are higher 
 than the earth, so are His ways higher than 
 our ways, and His thoughts higher than our- 
 thoughts." 
 
 3. It is not that in all His dealings with man- 
 kind God acts from reasons lying in Himself, for 
 this would be true were He to regenerate those 
 whom He leaves in unregeneracy and to leave 
 in unregeneracy those whom He regenerates. 
 
 4. But the absolutely fatal objection is that 
 the theory under discussion excludes every pos- 
 sible reason, known, or unknown, for discrimi- 
 nating between mankind — the elect and the non- 
 elect being as regards the total reasons or con- 
 ditions of His action as absolutely alike as are 
 the points of space or the moments of duration, — 
 a position which logically implies, as we have 
 said, that though it was in the highest degree 
 worthy of God to extend saving grace to some 
 and to withhold it from others, the question of 
 the particular individuals to be embraced in 
 these respective purposes, must have been to 
 Him a matter of entire indifference. And does 
 not this compel us to believe that His decisions 
 respecting the eternal life or the eternal death 
 of the members of our race are as arbitrary as- 
 
42 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 they would be were He to determine hy lot the 
 destiny of every man? 
 
 Again, the universe, physical and moral, is one 
 system — the unfolding of one eternal plan, em- 
 bracing all things that have been, that are and 
 that shall be, all parts of which stand to each 
 other and to the whole in definite and fixed rela- 
 tions. Inductive science teaches that the phys- 
 ical creation is a system of necessarily-related 
 and inter- dependent substances and forces, all 
 ceaselessly acting and re-acting upon each other. 
 The creation or the annihilation of a world or of 
 an atom, would affect instantly and forever every 
 world and every atom to the utmost bounds of 
 the material system. The history of the human 
 race is a development in which all individuals 
 and all events sustain to each other necessary, 
 natural, and organic relations. The history of 
 our world — one person or one event being left 
 out — would present a problem which no intelli- 
 gence, finite, or infinite, could solve. 
 
 Now it is certain that men differ from each 
 other in many respects, and if God does not take 
 these differences into account in forming the de- 
 crees of election and preterition, they exist all 
 the same, and necessarily become important 
 factors in the world's history. If God had ap- 
 pointed some other man than Abraham to be the 
 founder of the Jewish nation, or some other man 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 43 
 
 than Paul to be the apostle to the Gentiles, or 
 some other man than Luther to inaugurate the 
 Reformation, the course of events in the world 
 would have differed beyond our power of concep- 
 tion from its actual course. Or if He had de- 
 -creed to regenerate those whom he decreed to 
 leave in unregeneracy, and to leave in unregen- 
 eracy those whom he decreed to regenerate, the 
 history of our race would have been infinitely 
 different from what it has been and will be. 
 
 But if there is no difference between men to 
 which, as foreseen, God had respect in deciding 
 whom to elect and whom to pass by, there can 
 be no difference in His view, in point of ex- 
 cellency or perfection, between the diverse 
 courses of events in the world's history as deter- 
 mined by these men, according as they are 
 elected or rejected. If of two individuals, A and 
 B, the election of A and the rejection of B would 
 be necessary to the most perfect plan of the 
 world's government, and the election of B and 
 the rejection of A would be inconsistent with 
 that plan, then it would not be optional with God 
 to elect B and to reject A, for it cannot be op- 
 tional with God to adopt any other than the 
 most wise and perfect plan of the world's gov- 
 ernment. Hence, whatever decrees God might 
 have formed, there could have been no difference 
 in His view, in point of perfection, as expressions 
 
44 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 of His manifold attributes, between the infinitely- 
 diverse results in history according to the infi- 
 nitely diverse ways in which He was free to exer- 
 cise His sovereignty in determining the destiny 
 of the individuals of our race. But the human 
 race is a part — perhaps the most important part 
 —of God's universal empire; a part of that hier- 
 archy of spiritual beings, rising rank above rank 
 in power and dignity, the crowning glory of all 
 His works. And as every individual must affect 
 the world's history differently according as he is 
 appointed to be a ' 'vessel of mercy, " or a ' 'vessel 
 of wrath," so every individual must make the 
 whole universe infinitely different, in some re- 
 spects, according as he is appointed to dwell 
 with the devil and his angels, or to dwell forever 
 with Jesus Christ. Hence, there must have been 
 an infinite number of diverse plans of creation, 
 precisely equal or identical in his esteem, as 
 manifestations of his perfections. 
 
 1. The plan which He adopted, including the 
 election of a certain number and the preterition 
 of a certain number, was infinitely wise and per- 
 fect. 
 
 2. Had He adopted a plan which involved the 
 reversal of these decrees as regards the individ- 
 uals embraced in them — the election of those 
 reprobated and the reprobation of those elected, 
 it would have been infinitely wise and perfect. 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 45 
 
 3. Had He adopted any one of the infinity of 
 possible plans which would have embraced the 
 ■election of one or more of those reprobated and 
 the reprobation of one or more of those elected, 
 it would have been infinitely wise and perfect. 
 And according to the idea of sovereignty con- 
 sidered in our former paper — 
 
 4. Had He adopted a plan which included the 
 reprobation of all it would have been infinitely 
 -wise and perfect. 
 
 5. Had He adopted a plan which included the 
 salvation of all it would have been infinitely 
 wise and perfect. 
 
 All these supposable plans, infinite in number 
 and diversity, were, it is affirmed, optional with 
 God, and therefore, so exactly equivalent or 
 identical in excellency as expressions of His es- 
 .sential glory, that omniscience itself could dis- 
 cern no difference between them. Hence, in 
 adopting the present plan, in preference to all 
 ■others He made a choice — or rather He per- 
 formed an act — for which He could give no rea- 
 son to His own mind, which is the very essence 
 of arbitrariness — the action of will unregulated 
 by intelligence. 
 
 It is worthy of notice in this discussion that 
 Edwards, Chalmers, Turretin and many other 
 Calvinists adopt the principle of "philosophical 
 necessity" as of universal application, as the law 
 
46 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 of the divine mind and of all finite intelligences. 
 Every rational being must choose according to 
 the last dictate of the understanding as to what 
 is best or most desirable. The idea of an alter- 
 native choice in any case is declared to be ab- 
 surd. Edwards, ii. 146— ' 'If God's will is steadily 
 and surely determined in everything by supreme 
 wisdom, then it is in everything necessarily de- 
 termined to that which is most wise. It is no 
 more to God's dishonor to be necessarily wise 
 than to be necessarily holy. And if neither of 
 them be to His dishonor, then it is not to His 
 dishonor necessarily to act holily and wisely. 
 And if it be not dishonorable to be necessarily 
 holy and wise, in the highest possible degree, 
 no more is it mean and dishonorable to act 
 holily, and wisely in the highest possible degree; 
 or, which is the same thing, to do that, in every 
 case which above all other things, is wisest and 
 best." 
 
 Edwards discusses at length the objection to 
 his view, "that in many instances we must sup- 
 pose there is absolutely no difference between 
 various possible objects of choice which God has 
 in view," and urges in reply, that "it is a thou- 
 sand to one — yea, an infinite number to one — 
 that there are no two things in the universe ex- 
 actly alike." And yet the theory that the de- 
 crees of election and pretention were formed 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 47 
 
 irrespective of any difference between men self- 
 evidently implies the existence in the mind of 
 God of an infinite number of systems, precisely^ 
 equal or identical in the only respect in which 
 he can regard them as possible objects of choice;, 
 viz.: their excellency as manifestations of his- 
 essential perfections. 
 
 To conclude the discussion of this point; there 
 is one, and in our judgment, but one supposable 
 way by which the divine decisions in the matter 
 of election and non-election can be vindicated 
 against the charge of pure arbitrariness, viz.; 
 the acceptcmce of the position that there is some dif- 
 ference or differences hetween men to which God has 
 respect, which a/re, if not ^'•moving coMses,'''' yet 
 '■'■conditions,^'' of His decisions. As there are, in 
 fact, differences among men, it is as certain that 
 He takes these differences into account in deter- 
 mining the diverse destinies of men in the future 
 world as that He does so in determining their 
 diverse conditions and careers in this world. 
 
 IMPLIED SOLUTIONS. 
 
 Every theological sy^em— Pelagian, Semi- 
 Pelagian, Lutheran, Arminian, Calvinistic, mod- 
 erate and strict, either explicitly assert, or take 
 positions which involve, logically, the view that 
 there is something in men which determines or 
 conditions the action of God in choosing one 
 man rather than another. 
 
48 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 We will attempt in the briefest possible man- 
 ner to justify this statement. 
 
 THE ARMINIANS. 
 
 1. Arminianism may be considered as repre- 
 senting all non-Calvinistic systems as regards 
 the point under consideration. This theory is 
 that the purpose of election is based, or condi- 
 tioned, on foreseen repentance and faith, and 
 perseverance in the same till death. The differ- 
 ence, then, between men to which God has re- 
 spect in election is the radical difference between 
 repentance and faith, impenitence and unbelief. 
 But we believe that this representation is un- 
 scriptural, that renewal — passing from death to 
 life — is not an act of will — the acceptance of Je- 
 sus Christ — but is the exclusive work of G-od, at 
 the center of the soul, changing its moral bias, 
 originating a holy disposition which abides as 
 the foundation of all holy activity. When a 
 man exercises repentance and faith he is already 
 renewed — these acts are expressions of the new 
 life. 
 
 Though man has a measure of freedom, ' ' a 
 remainder of liberty," in the exercise of which 
 his acts, under divine grace, may have a decis- 
 ively favorable bearing upon his eternal destiny, 
 it is not an ability by virtue of which he can will 
 himself from darkness into light, from death 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 49 
 
 into life, — can create himself anew in Jesus 
 Christ. He is not, of course, passive, listless, 
 inert, but is active, often intensely so, before 
 and at the time of renewal; but in the origina- 
 tion of the new life he has no agency. At times 
 the Holy Spirit flashes the illuminating and 
 burning rays of divine truth into the soul, dis- 
 pelling its darkness, starting into intense action 
 the dormant and deadly principles of sin, setting 
 the conscience on fire, awakening regret, shame, 
 fear, remorse, appealing to the higher and no- 
 bler aspirations which sin has not destroyed, 
 and which point the soul to the height from 
 which it has fallen; prompting to intense and 
 persevering efforts, to arduous and agonizing 
 struggles, to obtain eternal life. But these 
 manifold activities are not the new life, they 
 have no inherent power to produce spiritual ren- 
 ovation, they might continue forever with no 
 other result than that of intensifying the soul's 
 opposition to God. But in the midst of these 
 varied activities of reason, conscience, sensibil- 
 ity and will, — beneath them all, below con- 
 science itself, at the centre of the soul, there is 
 a divine touch opening the blind eyes, emanci- 
 pating the enslaved will, and calling into exer- 
 cise faith, and love, and hope, and every other 
 spiritual principle of our being. Thus repent- 
 ance and faith are, in the logical order, subse- 
 4 
 
50 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 quent to regeneration, which is the exclusive 
 work of God, and which necessarily presupposes 
 an eternal purpose of salvation. 
 
 SOME CALVINISTS. 
 
 2. The view somewhat prevalent among Cal- 
 viaists that benevolence is the fundamental eth- 
 ical perfection of God, necessarily implies that 
 there are differences among men which deter- 
 mine God in the formation of his decrees; fur- 
 nishing a reason or condition, one and the same, 
 in the case of all the elect, to which He had re- 
 spect in deciding to elect them rather than to 
 pass them by; and a reason, one and the same, 
 in the case of all those passed by, to which He 
 had respect in deciding to leave them in sin 
 rather than to save them. This reason or con- 
 dition is the relation of every man to the end 
 which is of paramount value in His esteem — the 
 greatest good of creation. He purposed to deal 
 with every man according to the immutable re- 
 quirement of this supreme end; to elect such 
 and so many as are necessary to secure the 
 greatest aggregate good of the universe. Had 
 He decided to save the whole -world, or to save 
 all, or even one of those whom He decided to 
 refuse to save. He would have defeated the end 
 of infinite benevolence, choosing an inferior in 
 preference to a superior good, which would be a 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 51 
 
 denial of Himself. He decides to deliver men 
 from sin, or to leave them in sin, according as 
 these diverse destinies will enhance, in the high- 
 est degree, the happiness of the universe. This 
 theory clearly implies, in the strong language 
 once widely current in our country, as express- 
 ive of the teaching of one of its most logical and 
 powerful advocates, " that we ought to be will- 
 ing to be damned for the glory of God," in case 
 our existence in misery forever were necessary 
 to the greatest aggregate good of the rational 
 creation. 
 
 As the perdition of a part of mankind is essen- 
 tial to this end, and as the divine plan, deter- 
 mined in all its parts by this end, may include 
 any member of our race, it was urged that men 
 ought to be willing and even to desire to be 
 damned for the glory of God, or for the promo- 
 tion of the end which has the first place in His 
 regard and which is identical with His glory. 
 Not a few Christians were driven to despair, in 
 the first half of the present century, because of 
 their failure to find satisfactory evidence of their 
 regenerate state by the application of this cruel 
 and absurd test.' They found in themselves not 
 only no willingness, but a most vehement un- 
 willingness, to go to hell for the greatest good 
 of the universe, or for any other reason. Is it 
 not extraordinary that a theory should have ad- 
 
52 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 vocates among Christian thinkers which finds 
 the ultimate explanation of all the sin and mis- 
 ery in the universe in the divine purpose to ad- 
 vance a part of the moral creation to the sum- 
 mit of honor and blessedness? Is it not axio- 
 matically certain that there is not a being in the 
 universe confirmed in holiness who would not 
 unhesitatingly choose to share with all mankind 
 a degree of good however low, than to enjoy a 
 degree of good however high, on condition of 
 the everlasting sin and anguish of even one hu- 
 man being? And can it be otherwise than ax- 
 iomatically certain that the infinitely holy and 
 benevolent God could not purpose to consign 
 one soul to the endless misery of hell merely in 
 order to secure to the rest a higher measure of 
 blessedness? 
 
 We reject, therefore, the idea which this the- 
 ory presents as to the nature of the difference 
 between men to which God has respect in deter- 
 mining the diverse conditions of men in the fu- 
 ture world, viz. : the necessary relation of these 
 :states to the greatest good of creation. 
 
 MOST CALVINISTS. 
 
 3. But the great body of Calvinists hold that 
 "the final end of God in creation is not the great- 
 est aggregate good of His creatures, but the 
 perfect revelation of His attributes. This is 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 53 
 
 the glory of God, the excellency of His acts as 
 determined by the law of His own absolute eth- 
 ical perfection. Whether He calls into exist- 
 ence one or innumerable orders of moral beings;: 
 whether He permits the fall of none, or of a part^ 
 or of all these beings; whether He saves all the 
 fallen, or none, or a part of them; whether He 
 annihilates the incorrigible, or keeps them in 
 existence forever; whenever, and however He 
 acts, on earth, in heaven, or in hell. His final 
 end is one and the same, to do what is most wor- 
 thy of Himself as a Being of infinite excellency. 
 Whatever He can do consistently with this su- 
 preme rule of action to promote the well-being 
 of all personal agents it is infallibly certain that 
 He will do, but He will not, because He cannot, 
 put forth one act derogatory to Himself to save 
 one order or all orders of personal agents from 
 self-ruin. 
 
 Now the execution of His eternal decrees of 
 election and reprobation is an essential part of 
 God's perfect self-revelation. Is it credible that 
 He is determined in all His acts by the purpose 
 to make the most perfect self- revelation, and 
 yet that in the matter of predestination He acts 
 irrespective of all differences between men, dif- 
 ferences, which are, in fact, great even in the case 
 of any two individuals who are the most alike, and 
 which must render the universe inflnitelydifferent 
 
M SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 according as the one or the other is ordained unto 
 life? It is said that "we cannot discover any- 
 general rule in God's dealings, unless it be this, 
 that in election God seeks to illustrate the great- 
 ness and variety of His grace — the reasons ly- 
 ing, therefore, not in men, but in God." Would 
 -the fact that a physician were moved by reasons 
 lying in himself — his benevolence or his desire 
 to display his skill — prevent him from taking 
 into account any differences between his patients 
 as "conditions " of his diverse treatment? And 
 if God in election seeks ' ' to illustrate the great- 
 ness and variety of his grace," there must be 
 something in the men chosen by virtue of which 
 they are better fitted than those passed by, to 
 the end in view. If their superior fitness for 
 ' ' illustrating the greatness and variety of his 
 grace," is not the "moving cause," it certainly 
 is the indispensable "condition" of His action in 
 •electing them. Of two men equally suited to be 
 the means of "illustrating the greatness and 
 variety of His grace" He could not, under the 
 supposed rule of action, without pure arbitrari- 
 ness, choose one and reject the other. And of 
 two men differing in fitness in relation to the end 
 in view. He could not, without contradicting the 
 principle of action suggested, elect the one of 
 inferior and reject the one of superior fitness. 
 God acts from "reasons lying in Himself" in 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 55 
 
 dealing with the regenerate, but this does not 
 prevent Him from taking into account the differ- 
 ences between them in His providential and gra- 
 cious discipline. He acts from "reasons lying 
 in Himself" — His holy displeasure against sin — 
 in punishing the incorrigible, but this fact does 
 not prevent Him from discriminating between 
 them and rendering to every one according to 
 his guilt. The differences between the regener- 
 ate and between the incorrigible, if not the im- 
 manent motives of His action, are yet among the 
 reasons of His diverse treatment. 
 
 PAUL'S TESTIMONY. 
 
 The Apostle Paul mentions one fact connected 
 with himself as a reason why he was chosen, 
 I. Tim. i. 15,16: "Faithful is the saying and 
 worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came 
 into the world to save sinners, of whom I am 
 chief. Howbeit, for this cause I obtained mercy, 
 that in me as chief might Jesus Christ show 
 forth His long suffering for an example of those 
 who should hereafter believe on Him to eternal 
 life." In this passage Paul declares that the 
 reason, or one of the reasons, why God chose 
 him was that he was the chief of sinners. We 
 have here a statement made by the apostle of a 
 reason in himself, the greatness of his sins, 
 which determined or conditioned the act of God 
 
56 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 in his election. This declaration touching the 
 point before us, giving a reason or one of the 
 reasons why he was chosen, seems to us an ex- 
 plicit contradiction of the position that there is 
 nothing in men which determines God's choice of 
 one man rather than another; a position involved 
 in the Augustino-Calvinistic theory that the de- 
 crees of God in predestination are, in the logical 
 order, antecedent to and independent of all per- 
 sonal action as foreseen. Mozley, Predestina- 
 tion, 393 — "Augustine and Calvin alike hold an 
 eternal divine decree, which, antecedently to all 
 action, separates one portion of mankind from 
 another, and ordains one to everlasting life and 
 the other to everlasting punishment. That is 
 the fundamental statement of both; and it is evi- 
 dent that while this fundamental statement is 
 the same there can be no substantial difference 
 in the two doctrines. This statement is the sum 
 and substance of the doctrine of predestination." 
 Paul's personal sins as foreseen could not, 
 therefore, have been on this hypothesis, a rea- 
 son, or condition of the bestowment of mercy 
 upon him. God bestowed mercy upon Paul 
 because He eternally purposed to do so, and 
 the reason for the actual bestowment of saving 
 grace must be the same as that which caused 
 or determined the purpose to bestow it. And 
 since the greatness of his sins was a cause. 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 57 
 
 or condition of God's act in renewing and par- 
 doning him, the greatness of his sins as fore- 
 seen must have been among the considerations 
 causing or determining God to besbow renewing- 
 and pardoning grace. But this is a demon- 
 strable logical impossibility according to the 
 theory we are examining, which teaches that 
 the foresight of the personal action of men is, in 
 the logical order, subsequent to and dependent 
 upon the decrees of election and preterition. 
 Hence, it is impossible, that Paul's sins as fore- 
 seen could have been a ground, or a condition,, 
 of God's decree to make him a vessel of mercy. 
 But the apostle declares explicitly that the rea- 
 son why God chose him was that he was so 
 great a sinner. 
 
 There is another statement of Paul respecting 
 himself equally irreconcilable with this theory; 
 I. Tim. i. 13 — "But I obtained mercy because I 
 did it ignorantly in unbelief. " In this passage 
 the apostle clearly implies that if he had blas- 
 phemed Christ and persecuted his church, know- 
 ing the truth concerning Him, he would have 
 excluded himself from the possibility of divine- 
 mercy. But the view before us teaches that 
 God's decree to bestow mercy on Paul was 
 formed in absolute independence of the foresight 
 of his personal action; that during his whole 
 career of wickedness he was acting under the 
 
■58 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 dealing of God with him as embraced in the pur- 
 pose of election from the first moment of his 
 ante-natal existence, and with sole regard to his 
 legal and moral condition as unborn; that, con- 
 sequently, the foresight of his personal sins, of 
 whatever magnitude they might have been, could 
 have had no influence in preventing the bestow- 
 ment of mercy; that it was because he had al- 
 ready been made the recipient of mercy in God's 
 purpose of election that he was kept from com- 
 mitting the sins which would have excluded him 
 from the possibility of forgiveness. These dec- 
 larations are not inconsistent with each other; 
 they teach that while the greatness of the sin- 
 ner's sin may be a reason for the bestowment of 
 mercy, his sins may be of such a nature as to 
 preclude the possibility of pardon. 
 
 It is reasonable to suppose that the greatness 
 of their sins is among the reasons or conditions 
 of God's purpose to extend saving grace to many 
 in every age. But this cannot give the general 
 rule of His action in the choice of men, for He 
 saves those whose sins are of every degree of 
 magnitude — the least as well as the greatest 
 sinners. 
 
 The question, then, remains to be answered: 
 Is there a difference between men in which we 
 can discover a general i~ale in God's dealing with 
 them in the matter of salvation; a difference not 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 59 
 
 in point of repentance, or faith, or merit, or of 
 anything "which can be pleaded as a ground of 
 acceptance with God;" still something to which 
 God, dealing with men in a state of gracious 
 probation, can wisely and properly have respect, 
 in deciding to save one man rather than another? 
 We believe that no adequate rational or Scrip- 
 tural evidence can be adduced in support of 
 either of these propositions : 
 
 1. That the sovereignty of God is a preroga- 
 tive in the exercise of which He is absolutely 
 free to will the exact opposite of that which He 
 does will in relation to the destiny of every 
 human being. 
 
 2. That there is no difference between men to 
 which God has respect as among the reasons or 
 conditions of His choice of one man rather than 
 another. 
 
 3. That the purpose to pass by — to withhold 
 renewing grace, is, in the logical order, ante- 
 cedent to and independent of the actual foresight 
 of the personal action of those included in that 
 ^purpose. 
 
 The first proposition involves, logically, the 
 •denial of the divine benevolence; both the first 
 and second necessarily imply purely arbitrary 
 and capricious action on the part of God in deal- 
 ing with mankind ; while the third requires us to 
 
60 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 believe, according to the theory of strict Cal- 
 vinism: 
 
 (1) That the perdition of a part of mankind — 
 the non- elect — is not only certain, but inevitable, 
 let them do what they can to obtain salvation,, 
 even in the way appointed in the gospel. 
 
 (2) That God has no compassion for this class, 
 and is not dealing with them in good faith. 
 
 These propositions are no part of "the gospel 
 of the grace of God," no part of "the good news 
 to all people" which Christ and His apostles 
 preached, but metaphysical speculations by 
 which Christian theology has been burdened to 
 its serious injury. 
 
 In conclusion we are moved to ask if the words 
 of Chalmers (Institutes of Theology II. 419) are 
 as applicable to our day as they were to his own: 
 "The middle age of science and civilization is 
 now terminated, but Christianity also had its 
 middle age, and this, perhaps, is not yet fully 
 terminated. There is still a remainder of the 
 old spell, even the spell of human authority, and 
 by which a certain cramp or confinement has 
 been laid on the genius of Christianity. We can- 
 not doubt that the time of its complete emanci- 
 pation is coming, when it shall break loose from 
 the imprisonment in which it is held; but mean- 
 while there is, as it were, a stricture upon it not 
 yet wholly removed, and in virtue of which the 
 
AS HEJLiD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 61 
 
 largeness and liberality of heaven's own pur- 
 poses have been made to descend in partial and 
 scanty droppings through the strainers of an 
 artificial theology, instead of falling, as they 
 ought, in a universal shower upon the world." 
 And are the cause of this "imprisonment" and 
 the way of ' 'emancipation" indicated in the fol- 
 lowing words of Dr. Bruce? Kingdom of God 127 
 (Italics our own) — "Has not Christendom been 
 slow to learn the revelation of the Father? 
 Have we not yet to learn it, by accepting the 
 Jesus of the Gospels as an absolutely true and 
 full manifestation of the divine being, and be- 
 lieving without reserve that He and God are in 
 spirit one? A thoroughly Christian idea of God is 
 still a desideratum, and when the church has reached 
 it, the Mngdorn of God shall have come in power. " 
 Morgan Park, III. 
 
62 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD IN PREDES- 
 TINATION. 
 
 As Held by Many Representative Cal- 
 viNiSTic Theologians. 
 
 III. 
 
 It is our chief aim in this article to discuss 
 the following question: Does the doctrine of 
 God's Sovereignty in Predestination, as con- 
 tained in the strict Calvinistic system, necessa- 
 rily imply that the perdition of a part of man- 
 kind — the non-elect — is not only certain, but in- 
 evitable, let them do what they can to obtain sal- 
 vation, even in the way appointed in the gospel? 
 
 THREE CALVINISTIC SYSTEMS. 
 
 There are three doctrinal systems known as 
 Calvinistic which differ from each other chiefly 
 as regards the order of the divine decrees. 
 
 1. According to one theory (supra-lapsarian- 
 ism, hyper-Calvinism), the object of the decrees 
 was man viewed, not as fallen, nor even as cre- 
 ated, but simply as creatable — as a possible ob- 
 ject of creation. God determined to glorify- 
 Himself in the manifestation of His perfections — 
 especially His mercy and justice; and as a means. 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 63 
 
 to this end He decreed to save some men and to 
 damn others, regarded as possible beings; to 
 create these possible beings, to ordain their fall, 
 to provide a Saviour for the elect, and to con- 
 sign the rest to hell. This scheme has been 
 held by a small number of Calvinistic divines- 
 distinguished for learning and logical ability, 
 e. g., Beza, Calvin's successor at Geneva, Gom- 
 arus, the chief opponent of Arminius, Twisse, 
 moderator of the Westminster Assembly. The 
 Calvinistic theologians of the present day, while- 
 many of them admit that the scheme is the most 
 logical of all, with few or no exceptions] reject 
 it, holding "that the case is too high and too 
 vast for the a priori application and enforce- 
 ment of the ordinary rules of human judgment. " 
 
 2. >The second theory — that of strict] Calvin- 
 ism — differs from the first in regarding man, 
 viewed as created and fallen, as the object of 
 the divine decrees (infra-lapsarianism). 
 
 STRICT CALVINISM AS DEFINED AND MAIN- 
 TAINED. 
 
 3. The third theory is that of moderate Cal- 
 vinism, of which there are two types, both of 
 which differ from strict Calvinism chiefly in twa 
 points: (1) In affirming that the atonement is. 
 not limited, but universal in its design (which 
 involves the question of the order of the de- 
 
'64 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 ■crees). (2) In claiming for man " natural abil- 
 ity " to comply with the conditions of salvation, 
 though admitting his utter "moral inability" to 
 •do so. The chief point of difference between 
 the two types of moderate Calvinism is, that the 
 ■one affirms and the other denies that man is un- 
 der condemnation antecedent to the age of moral 
 responsibility. 
 
 By strict Calvinism we mean the system of 
 doctrines contained in the early Reformed 
 •creeds — especially in the Westminster Stand- 
 ards; in such works as those of Turretin, Ridge- 
 ley, Cunningham, and of the American divines, 
 ■Charles and Alexander Hodge, Shedd and 
 Dabney. 
 
 I. That the question asked at the beginning 
 of this article must be answered in the affirma- 
 tive seems to us as demonstrably certain as the 
 forty-seventh proposition of the First Book of 
 Euclid, "that the square formed on the hy- 
 pothenuse of a right-angled triangle is equal to 
 the sum of the squares formed on the other two 
 sides." The steps of this demonstration are the 
 following; 
 
 1. In virtue of the natural or representative 
 relation of Adam to his posterity, his fall was, 
 in the divine judgment, really or virtually their 
 Jail. 
 
 2. Hence " God justly imp wtes Adam's aposta- 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 65 
 
 tizing act to them, treating them as legally re- 
 sponsible for Adam's sin, and obnoxious to the 
 penalty;" so that they are, at birth, uader con- 
 demnation, "subject to death, with all its mis- 
 eries, spiritual, temporal and eternal." 
 
 Westminster Shorter Catechism, question 19: 
 ' 'AH mankind by their fall lost communion with 
 ■Grod, are under His wrath and curse, and so 
 made liable to all the miseries of this life, to 
 death itself and to the pains of hell forever." 
 
 Westminster Confession, Chapter VI. 6: 
 " Every sin, both or ig'maZ and actual . . . doth, 
 in its own nature, bring guilt upon the sinner, 
 whereby he is bound over to the wrath of God 
 and curse of the law, and so made subject to 
 death, with all its miseries, spiritual, temporal 
 and eternal." 
 
 The Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of 
 England (Calvinistic) IX. : "And therefore, in 
 every person born into the world, it (original 
 sin) deserveth God's wrath and damnation." 
 
 The French Confession, XI. : ' ' We believe 
 that this evil (original sin) is truly sin, sufficient 
 for the condemnation of the whole human race, 
 even little children in their mother's womb, and 
 that God considers it such." 
 
 3. The inborn depravity of man is such that he- 
 is unable by his own strength to exercise re- 
 pentance and faith. 
 5 
 
66 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 Westminster Confession, Chapter XI. 3: "Man 
 by his fall into a state of sin hath wholly lost all 
 ability of will to any spiritual good accompany- 
 ing salvation; so as a natural man, being alto- 
 gether averse from that good and dead in sin, is 
 not able, by his own strength, to convert himself, 
 or to prepare himself thereunto." 
 
 Cunningham, The Reformers and the Theol- 
 ogy of the Reformation, 558: " Calvinists be- 
 lieve that men, in their natural state of guilt 
 and depravity, are not able, by their own 
 strength, to repent and believe; and that God 
 bestows only on the elect, and not on the repro- 
 bate, that special supernatural grace which is 
 necessary, in every instance, to the production 
 of faith, holiness and perseverance." 
 
 Hodge, Systematic Theology, II. 267: "In 
 opposition, therefore, to the Pelagian doctrine 
 of the sinner's plenary ability, to the semi -Pela- 
 gian, or Arminian doctrine of what is called 
 gracious ability, that is, an ability granted to all 
 who hear the gospel by the common and suffi- 
 cient grace of the Holy Spirit, and to the doc- 
 trine that the only inability of the sinner is his 
 disinclination to good, Augustinians have ever 
 taught that this inability is absolute and entire. 
 It is natural as well as moral. It is as complete, 
 although different in kind, as the inability of the 
 blind to see, of the deaf to hear, or the dead to 
 restore themselves to life." 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 67 
 
 Shedd, Dogmatic Theol. II. 229: "This is the 
 disability that is meant in the Westminster . 
 statement that man is utterly indisposed and 
 disabled to all that is spiritually good. And 
 this species of inability is real inability. It is 
 not a figure of speech, but an impotence asVielp- 
 less and insuperable by the subjects of it as natu- 
 ral inability. The substantive ' inability ' has 
 its full and strict meaning. The adjective 
 ' moral ' does not convert the notion of impo- 
 tence into that of power, but only denotes the 
 species of impotence. It is true that the ' can- 
 not' is a 'will not,' but it is equally true that 
 the ' will not ' is a ' cannot. ' " 
 
 Dabney, Syllabus, 597: "All man's faculties 
 and susceptibilities now have a decisive and uni- 
 form, a native and universal, a perpetual and 
 total, moral perversion, by reason of the utter 
 revolt of his will from God and holiness, to self- 
 will and sin; such that it is impossible for him in 
 his own free will, to choose the spiritually good 
 for its own sake." 
 
 But it is needless to multiply authorities in 
 proof that according to the Augustino-Calvinis- 
 tic system, the inability of the sinner is as real 
 and absolute as that of a " dead man to sit up 
 in his coffin," or that he is, at birth, obnoxious 
 to the everlasting displeasure of God. 
 
 4. Accordingly regeneration, of which re- 
 
'68 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 pentance and faith are fruits, is and must be a 
 work of God in relation to which man is ' ' alto- 
 gether passive." 
 
 Westminster Confession, Chapter X. 2 : " This 
 effectual call is of G-od's free and special grace 
 alone, not from anything at all foreseen in man; 
 who is altogether passive therein, until, being 
 quickened and renewed by the Holy Spirit, he 
 is thereby enabled to answer this call, and to 
 embrace the grace offered and conveyed in it." 
 
 Hodge, Syst. Theol. III. 31 : " Regeneration is 
 an act of God. It is not an act which, by argu- 
 ment and persuasion or by moral power. He in- 
 duces the sinner to perform. But it is an act of 
 which He is the agent. It is God who regener- 
 ates. The soul is regenerated. In this sense 
 the soul is passive in regeneration, which (sub- 
 jectively considered) is a change wrought in us 
 and not an act performed by us." 
 
 Shedd, Dogmatic Theol. II. 495,502: "Regen- 
 eration is solely the work of God. . . . Man is 
 passive in regeneration. He cannot originate 
 spiritual life. His relation to spiritual life is 
 that of a recipient." 
 
 5. The decrees of election and non-election 
 (preterition, rejection) are eternal and immu- 
 table, and the cause or reason of God's dealing 
 as He does with individual men — of the bestow- 
 ment of renewing grace upon some and of with- 
 holding it from others. 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 69' 
 
 Westminster Confession, Chapter III. 4: 
 "These angels and men, thus predestinated and 
 foreordained, are particularly and unchangeably- 
 designed; and their number is so certain and 
 definite that it cannot be either increased or di- 
 minished." 
 
 lb. 6 : ' 'As God hath appointed the elect unto 
 glory, so hath He, by the eternal and most free 
 purpose of His will, foreordained all the means 
 thereunto. " 
 
 lb. 7 : " The rest of mankind God was pleased, 
 according to the unsearchable counsel of His 
 own will, whereby He extendeth or withholdeth 
 mercy as He pleaseth . . . to pass by." 
 
 6. These decrees were formed by God: 
 
 (1) In view of reasons, unrevealed and inscru- 
 table, lying in His own nature — there being in 
 men nothing to which He had respect in decid- 
 ing to elect or not elect one man rather than an- 
 other. 
 
 Westminster Confession, Chapter III. 5: 
 ' ' Those of mankind who are predestinated unto 
 life, God . . . hath chosen in Christ . . . with- 
 out any foresight of faith or good works, or per- 
 severance in either of them, or any other thing 
 in the creature, as conditions, or causes moving 
 Him thereunto. " 
 
 Cunningham, The Eeformers and the Theol- 
 ogy of the Reformation, 434: "The Calvinistic 
 
70 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 doctrine is that in making the selection of some 
 men, and in resolving to save them rather than 
 others, God was not influenced by anything ex- 
 isting in them, or foreseen in them, by which 
 they were distinguished from other men, or by 
 anything known to or comprehensible by us, 
 but only by His own good pleasure. " 
 
 Hodge, Outlines, 206: "The decrees of God 
 are sovereign in the sense that while they deter- 
 mine absolutely whatever occurs without God, 
 their whole reason and motive is within the di- 
 vine nature, and they are neither suggested nor 
 occasioned by nor conditioned upon anything 
 whatsoever without Him." 
 
 (2) In the logical order antecedent to and irre- 
 spective of all personal action as foreseen. 
 
 Calvin, Ins. B. III., Ch. XXIII., 2, (Italics are 
 ours) : "In the first place they inquire, by what 
 right the Lord is angry with His creatures who 
 had not provoked Him by any i^revious offense: 
 for that to devote to destruction those whom He 
 pleases, is more like the caprice of a tyrant than 
 the lawful sentence of a judge; that men have 
 reason, therefore, to expostulate with God, if 
 they are predestinated to eternal death with- 
 out any demerit of their own, merely by His sov- 
 ereign will. If such thoughts ever enter the 
 minds of the pious, they will be sufficiently ena- 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 71 
 
 bled to break their violence by this one consid- 
 eration, how exceedingly presumptuous it is 
 only to inquire into the causes of the divine will; 
 which is in fact, and is justly entitled to be, the 
 cause of everything that exists." 
 
 lb. Sec. 5: "All are not created on equal terms, 
 but somie are preordained to eternal life, others 
 to eternal damnation; and accordingly as each 
 has been created for one or the other of these ends, 
 we say that he has been predestinated to life or 
 to death." 
 
 B. III. XXIV. 17: "They also amuse them- 
 selves with the cavil, that since God is the 
 Father of all, it is unjust to discard any one be- 
 fore he has by his misconduct merited such 
 punishment. As if the kindness of God does 
 not extend even to dogs and swine." 
 
 " Calvin here boldly declares that God regards 
 and treats some men as dogs and sivine, and dis- 
 cards them before they have merited such pun- 
 ishment by their misconduct." (Dr. H. J. Van 
 Dyke.) 
 
 Mozley, The Augustinian Doctrine of Predes- 
 tination, 393 : ' 'Augustine and Calvin alike hold 
 an eternal divine decree, which, antecedent to 
 all action, separates one portion of mankind 
 from another, and i ordains one to everlasting 
 life and the other to everlasting punishment. 
 That is the fundamental statement of both, and 
 
72 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 it is evident that while this fundamental state- 
 ment is the same, there can be no substantial 
 difference in the two doctrines. This statement 
 is the sum and substance of the doctrine of pre- 
 destination. " 
 
 Cunningham, The Reformers and the Theol- 
 ogy of the Reformation, 548,549: "And with re- 
 spect to the idea which might naturally suggest 
 itself, viz. : that final impenitence, or unbelief 
 foreseen might be the ground or cause, not only 
 of the positive or judicial act of foreordination 
 to punishment and misery but also of the nega- 
 tive act of preterition, this Calvinists hold to be 
 inconsistent with the Scriptural statements 
 which so plainly ascribe the production of faith 
 and regeneration, and of perseverance in faith 
 and holiness, wherever they are produced, 
 solely to the good pleasure of God and the effi- 
 cacious operation of His Spirit, viewed in con- 
 nection with the undoubted truth that He could, 
 if He had chosen, have as easily produced the 
 same results in others; and inconsistent like- 
 wise with the intimations plainly given us in 
 Scripture that there is something in God's jnir- 
 poses and procedure, even in regard to those who 
 perish, which can be resolved only into His own. 
 good pleasure." 
 
AS HELD BY MANY'CALVINISTS. 73 
 
 WHAT STRICT CALVINISM INVOLVES. 
 
 If, now, these propositions are true, (1) that 
 men are, at birth, under condemnation — "sub- 
 ject to death with all its miseries, spiritual, tem- 
 poral and eternal," (2) that their inability to re- 
 pent and believe ' 'is as complete as the inability 
 of the blind to see, or of the dead to restore 
 themselves to life, " (3) that eternal life is abso- 
 lutely dependent upon repentance and faith, 
 (4) that regeneration, of which repentance and 
 faith are fruits, is a work of God in relation to 
 which "man is altogether passive," (5) that God's 
 action in regenerating some and leaving others in 
 a state of unregeneracy, is the certain and neces- 
 sary result of the decrees of election and preteri- 
 tion, (6) that these decrees are, in the logical 
 order, antecedent to and irrespective of all per- 
 sonal action, having respect solely to pre-natal 
 depravity and guilt, (7) that these decrees are 
 eternal and immutable, and the number included 
 in each "is so certain and definite that it cannot 
 be either increased or diminished;" if these 
 propositions are true it is demonstrably certain 
 that the eternal perdition of a part of the human 
 race — all the non-elect — is not only certain, but 
 inevitable, let them do what they can to obtain 
 salvation, even in the way appointed in the gos- 
 pel. For, since the eternal and immutable de- 
 
74 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 cree not to extend to them saving grace was 
 formed antecedent to and irrespective of their 
 personal action, they can do nothing that will 
 have a favorable bearing upon their eternal des- 
 tiny; they cannot repent and believe; they can- 
 not renew themselves; God himself cannot de- 
 liver them from their state of depravity and con- 
 demnation, for He cannot reverse His irreversi- 
 ble decrees. Their perdition is, therefore, as 
 unavoidable as it would be if He had decreed to 
 send them to hell on the day of their birth. 
 
 It is urged that "if it cannot be proved that 
 any one of the non-elect ever did what he could 
 to avoid punishment, it does not follow that 
 they shall be damned, do what they can." But 
 it is a total mistake to suppose that there cannot 
 be full warrant on the theory of strict Calvinism 
 for saying that the non-elect shall be damned, 
 do what they can, unless it can be shown that 
 some one of this class did what he could to es- 
 cape punishment. With as much right might it 
 be urged that there can be no warrant for say- 
 ing that men, unsupported, will fall to the earth, 
 let them do what they can, unless it can be 
 proved that some man, being unsupported, did 
 fall to the earth in spite of all he could do. 
 These are questions to be settled, not by experi- 
 ment or observation, but by the laws of thought. 
 Given three facts, — that man is a heavy body, 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 75 
 
 that he is unsupported, that the operation of 
 gravity is universal — and it is self-evident that 
 his fall to the earth is unavoidable, do what he 
 can. So given three facts, — that man is, at 
 birth, under condemnation to eternal death, that 
 he is as impotent to save himself as " a dead 
 man to restore himself to life," that God deter- 
 mined by an unconditional and irrevocable de- 
 cree not to save him, and it is self-evident that 
 his damnation is inevitable, let him do what he 
 can. 
 
 THE CASE OF THE NON-ELECT. 
 
 From what has now been said we see how, ac- 
 cording to the theory under consideration, the 
 case of the non-elect stands: 
 
 1. Since men are, at birth, under condemna- 
 tion — "subject to death, with all its miseries, 
 spiritual, temporal, and eternal," the decree to 
 refuse to regenerate and pardon leaves those in- 
 cluded in that decree under sentence of condem- 
 nation on account of that sin, which necessarily 
 involves their everlasting punishment. As the 
 •decision of an absolute monarch to refuse par- 
 don to a rebel condemned to death is a positive 
 decision to execute him, so the decision of God 
 to refuse pardon to those who are at birth under 
 His wrath and curse, on the ground of original 
 sin, is a positive decision to ordain them to dis- 
 
76 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 honor and wrath for that sin, whether they are 
 appointed to die in infancy, or to live to the age 
 of three-score years and ten. The decree not to 
 elect and the decree to punish the non-elect for 
 original sin, are inseparable, not only in fact, 
 but in thought — they necessarily imply each 
 other — they are, strictly speaking, parts of one 
 and the same decree. If the advocates of this 
 theory hold, as they generally or universally do 
 hold at the present day, — that none of the non- 
 elect will be punished forever solely because of 
 their ante-natal guilt and depravity, it must be on 
 the ground of the purely gratuitous assumption 
 that it is the design of God to appoint all of this 
 class to live till they shall have added the guilt 
 of their owa personal sins to that of original sin. 
 
 THE POSITIVE ELEMENT IN REPROBATION. 
 
 II. Thus far in our discussion we have con- 
 sidered only the negative element, so-called, of 
 reprobation — preterition — the decree to pass by 
 a part of mankind in the bestowment of renew- 
 ing and pardoning grace. What is the relation 
 of the purpose to leave men in the state in which 
 they are born, to the purpose to punish them on 
 account of their personal sins, which is called 
 the positive element of reprobation? 
 
 1. The purpose of God to do nothing in the 
 case of the non-elect — to leave them to them- 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 77 
 
 selves — does not imply a positive agency on His 
 part in securing their continuance through life 
 in impenitence and unbelief; nor the use of 
 means designed to insure this result. The 
 proper cause of their continuance in sin, is not 
 the action, or inaction of God, but their own de- 
 pravity. 
 
 2. But the purpose of God to forsake the non- 
 elect — to withhold from them renewing grace — 
 renders their persistence in sin as certain as if 
 it were brought about by direct divine agency. 
 For the inability of the sinner, at the beginning 
 of moral action, to cease to resist the Holy Spirit, 
 is the same as his inability to repent and be- 
 lieve, or to accomplish the work of self- regener- 
 ation — an inability which is declared to be "real 
 and absolute," "an impotence as helpless and 
 insuperable by the subjects of it as natural ina- 
 bility." All that the non-elect can do, under the 
 influence of common grace, to obtain from God 
 the ability to repent and believe, is not only nec- 
 essarily vain, but will enhance their guilt and 
 punishment, — the two essential characteristics 
 of common grace being, that it never does or 
 can save, whatever be the measure of it, or the 
 duration of its action, and that it will greatly 
 enhance guilt and punishment. 
 
 The decree of preterition, therefore, necessa- 
 rily involves the positive decree of reprobation 
 
78 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 on the ground of original sin in the case of all 
 the non-elect, and of both original sin and per- 
 sonal sin in the case of those appointed to live 
 to the age of moral accountability. The dis- 
 tinction, therefore, between the decree not to 
 elect, and the decree of positive damnation is of 
 no importance. "A determination to give being 
 to a soul, and then to pass it by, when letting it 
 alone will certainly damn it, is only verbally dif- 
 ferent from a direct and deliberate assignment 
 to damnation" (Dr. Behrends). Mozley, Augus- 
 tinian. Doctrine of Predestination, 393 : ' 'There is- 
 no real distinction between abandoning men to 
 a certain state of which punishment will be th& 
 consequence, and ordaining them to that pun- 
 ishment. The only distinction which would 
 make a difference respects the nature of the sin- 
 ful state, whether it be original sin, or their 
 own personal perseverance in sin. The aban- 
 donment of a portion of mankind to a state of 
 sin in which they are born, is predestinarian 
 reprobation, whether we express it as abandon- 
 ment to sin, or as ordaining to punishment." 
 Hence the damnation of the non-elect, in case 
 they are appointed to live to the years of adult 
 life, is as unavoidable as it would be if they 
 were consigned to hell on the day of their birth,, 
 and inconceivably more terrible, since they can- 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 79- 
 
 not but ' ' treasure up wrath against the day of 
 wrath and the righteous judgment of God." 
 
 All Protestant churches — Lutheran, Calvinis- 
 tic, Arminian — reject the ' ' abhorrent dogma, 
 of infant damnation. " But is the dogma which 
 teaches that God assigns some of the non-elect 
 to hell in infancy more, or less, abhorrent than 
 that which teaches that it is His purpose to ap- 
 point to all of this class a period of life beyond 
 the age of infancy, and to punish them with in- 
 creased severity because of their action in a 
 state of inborn moral impotence as real, com- 
 plete, absolute, as that of ' ' the deaf to hear or of 
 the blind to see " — having determined by an un- 
 conditional and irreversible decree, irrespective 
 of their perseverance in sin as foreseen, to offer 
 them no effectual help? 
 
 Now we would earnestly ask whether it is "to 
 speak of God the thing that is right, " or to as- 
 cribe to him impossible ways of action — ways- 
 self-evidently irreconcilable with the genius of 
 the gospel and with a hundred of the plainest 
 declarations of the Bible — to represent him as 
 dealing with a part of the human race in such a 
 way that their damnation is inevitable, let them 
 do what they can to comply with the conditions 
 of salvation as contained in the gospel? Were 
 this representation correct the message of the 
 gospel, instead of being ' ' glad tidings " to all 
 
80 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 people, would be to multitudes who hear it — 
 apparently the majority of those who live be- 
 yond the age of infancy — the most dreadful tid- 
 ings that ever fell on the ear of man. 
 
 EFFORTS TO AVOID THESE RESULTS. 
 
 III. Let us, now, indicate in the briefest man- 
 ner possible some of the ways by which Calvin- 
 istic theologians attempt to avoid or to lessen 
 the difficulties which the theory under examina- 
 tion involves. 
 
 1. There are some — and the number seems to 
 be increasing — who hold firmly the doctrine of 
 individual election,, but reject that of preten- 
 tion. 
 
 Schaff, Creed Revision, etc., 25: "The Scrip- 
 tures clearly teach the comfortable doctrine of 
 an eternal and unchangeable election oi believ- 
 ers in Christ, but they nowhere teach an eternal 
 decree of reprobation. The latter is merely an 
 inference, but it is not a necessary inference." 
 
 Hamilton, A Bundle of Papers, 134: " Preter- 
 
 ition is no necessary part of Calvinism 
 
 That God has chosen a people for Himself is a 
 glorious truth; for, when interpreted, it simply 
 means that I, as a believer, am what I am 
 through the grace of God, dependent absolutely 
 on Him for my salvation, and therefore sure of 
 it. But to infer from this that God passes some 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 81 
 
 men by, arbitrarily leaving them to their fate, 
 never giving them a chance, is impossible to 
 any one who has caught the dimmest vision of 
 Him who is the God and Father of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ." 
 
 But Dr. Shedd, expressing the view of the 
 great body of representative Calvinistic think- 
 ers, declares that ' ' to aifirm the decree of in- 
 dividual election and to deny that of preterition 
 is the height of absurdity." And from this con- 
 clusion there seems to be but one possible way 
 of escape, viz. : by denying the application of 
 the fundamental laws of thought to the divine 
 proceeding in predestination. For, "since the 
 elect are such always, such unborn, such at 
 birth, such in infancy," we are logically com- 
 pelled to hold one or the other of two posi- 
 tions as to the standing, as infants, in the divine 
 view, of the rest of mankind — those not in- 
 cluded in the purpose of election, viz. : Either 
 God purposes to pass them by, or He has 
 no purpose whatever, concerning them. The 
 latter position, however, is irreconcilable with 
 the doctrine of decrees which is fundamen- 
 tal in every type of Calvinism. But as Presi- 
 dent Patton remarks, ' ' to take an agnostic po- 
 sition in a matter so fundamental as that the 
 whole is greater than its part, would require a 
 revision of the Westminster Confession, " and we 
 6 
 
82 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 may add of every Calvinistic Confession, ' ' more 
 •radical than has hitherto been dreamed of." 
 
 2. Another representation is that the reason 
 of God's action in leaving some men to them- 
 selves — in "withholding from them saving grace 
 — is their abuse of "common grace" — their 
 guilty rejection of offered mercy. But this is 
 demonstrably inconsistent with the Calvinistic 
 theory of predestination. For if God forsakes 
 men — refuses to renevsr them — because of their 
 guilty rejection of offered pardon, it must have 
 been on the ground of such rejection as foreseen 
 that he eternally purposed to leave them to per- 
 ish in their sins. But the action of men in de- 
 feating common grace is dependent upon their 
 reaching the age of moral accountability, and 
 their reaching the age of moral accountability 
 is dependent upon God's providential appoint- 
 ment, which providential appointment is a part 
 of His dealing with them as non-elect from 
 the first moment of their pre-natal existence. As 
 God regards the elect as such always, appoints 
 some of them to die in infancy and others to live 
 to the age of responsible action, and then regen- 
 erates .and sanctifies them, so he regards the 
 non-elect as such always, appoints some or all 
 of them to live to the age of responsible action, 
 and withholds from them renewing grace ac- 
 cording to His sovereign purpose. Since, then, 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 83 
 
 the appointment of the non-elect to reach the 
 years of accountability is, in the logical order, 
 subsequent to and dependent upon, the decree 
 of preterition, it is as certain as any conclusion 
 in logic that God's eternal purpose to withhold 
 from them His almighty and efficacious grace, 
 and consequently, His action in withholding 
 from them that grace, could have had no respect, 
 whatever, to their rejection of offered mercy as 
 foreseen. Their personal sins as foreseen were 
 the cause or reason of God's purpose to punish 
 them, but not of His purpose not to renew them. 
 
 3. Another representation is that "as God 
 decreed to impute Adam's disobedience to His 
 posterity, because He knew that every one of 
 them would, if in Adam's place, have acted as 
 he did," so He decreed to pass by a part of man- 
 kind because He knew that they would, if dealt 
 with under a system of gracious probation, re- 
 ject offered pardon in spite of the most power- 
 ful agencies which He could wisely use in their 
 case. But it is axiomatically certain that God. 
 could not act in the way and for the reasort 
 here suggested. For the decree to pass by, to. 
 reject, is an act of displeasure, and the holy 
 God could not have, and so could not express,, 
 displeasure toward moral beings simply on the. 
 ground of what He knew they would do if placed^ 
 in certain circumstances. It would not be justice^. 
 
Missing Page 
 
Missing Page 
 
86 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 as much reason might it be said that, since the 
 act of waking from sleep adds no faculties to 
 the mind, men are "naturally" able to do when 
 asleep all they can do when awake. 
 
 And still further, the changes involved in re- 
 generation as set forth in the Bible, are such 
 and so great, as to render it incredible that man 
 has the natural ability to produce them. What- 
 ever natural ability man has, in this direction, 
 must lie in his will, as the faculty of volitions or 
 of fundamental choices. But do the Scriptures 
 teach that man is able, by an act of will, to dis- 
 pel his spiritual darkness, to give himself a vis- 
 ion of Jesus Christ, to awaken godly sorrow for 
 sin and supreme love" to God, to originate a 
 spiritual, divine life? All these things he must 
 be supposed to be able to do, by his power of 
 will; for the fundamental act of faith involves 
 or presupposes all the subjective elements of 
 eternal life. 
 
 QUESTIONS IN CONCLUSION. 
 
 In concluding this article we will suggest two 
 questions which we design to discuss at some 
 future time: 
 
 1. Are mankind, at birth, under condemna- 
 tion — "liable to the pains of hell forever," qn 
 the ground of the fall of Adam? 
 
 The utter absence of any reference to the 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 87 
 
 Adaniic guilt as among the grounds of the sen- 
 tence of condemnation to be pronounced at the 
 day of judgment, the language of Christ re- 
 specting little children— Luke xviii. 15,16; Matt, 
 xviii. 10,14; and especially the teaching of Rom. 
 iv. 25 and v. 18,19 — seem to justify the position 
 that, prior to personal action, men are, through 
 the atonement, free from condemnation; that 
 the judgment which through the one offense of 
 Adam came upon all men to condemnation, was 
 removed, absolutely and forever, by the one act 
 of righteousness of Jesus Christ. 
 
 Dr. W. Lindsay Alexander, A System of Bib- 
 lical Theology, 389-392: "Nothing can be 
 clearer than this: As is the condemnation so is 
 the justification; the one is co-extensive with the 
 other; as the offense of one brought all men un- 
 der the former, so the righteousness of one has 
 brought all men under the latter. . . . As taught 
 by the apostle it (universal justification) stands 
 clear of the doctrine of baptismal regeneration 
 and the doctrine of universal pardon. It means 
 simply that through the grace of Christ the sen- 
 tence of attainder under which the sin of Adam 
 brought men has been repealed in the case of 
 every man, whether baptized or unbaptized; but 
 for the sins which men actually commit, they 
 must each one seek pardon for himself or 
 perish." 
 
Missing Page 
 
Missing Page 
 
W SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 THE SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD IN PREDES- 
 TINATION. 
 
 As Held by Many Representative Cal- 
 viNiSTic Theologians. 
 
 IV. 
 
 In an article published in The Standard, 
 March 10, we endeavored to prove that the doc- 
 trine of God's sovereignty in predestination, as 
 contained in the system of strict Calvinism, nee- 
 essarily implies that the eternal perdition of a 
 part of mankind — the non-elect — is not only cer- 
 tain but inevitcMe, do vrhat they may to obtain sal- 
 vation, even in the vray appointed in the gospel. 
 In demonstrating this proposition it was shown 
 that strict Calvinism involves the following po- 
 sitions: 1. That in virtue of the natural or repre- 
 sentative relation of Adam to his posterity, his 
 fall was, in the divine judgment, really or vir- 
 tually their fall. 2. That consequently mankind 
 are, at birth, under condemnation, "subject to 
 death with all miseries, spiritual, temporal and 
 eternal." 3. That eternal life is dependent upon 
 repentance and faith. 4. That the inborn in- 
 ability of man to repent and believe is real and 
 absolute, "as complete as the inability of the 
 blind to see, or of the dead to restore themselves 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 91 
 
 to life." 5. That regeneration of which repent- 
 ance and faith are the fruits is a work of God in 
 which man is ' 'altogether passive. " 6. That God's 
 action in regenerating a part of mankind and tn 
 leaving the rest in unregeneracy is the certain 
 and necessary result of the decrees of election 
 and pretention. 7. That these decrees are, in 
 the logical order, antecedent to and independent 
 of all personal action as foreseen. 8. That these 
 -decrees are eternal and immutable, and the 
 number included in each "is so certain and defi- 
 nite that it cannot be either increased or dimin- 
 ished. " 
 
 If these propositions are true it is demon- 
 strably evident that the eternal perdition of a 
 part of mankind, all the non-elect, is not only 
 certain, but inevitable, do what they can to ob- 
 tain salvation, even in the way appointed in the 
 gospel. 
 
 Our chief aim in this article is to demonstrate 
 that the same doctrinal system necessarily im- 
 plies that God is not moved by love and com- 
 passion for the non-elect in his offers of salva- 
 tion, entreaties, expostulations, etc., and is not, 
 therefore, dealing with them in good faith. 
 
 NOT MOVED BY LOVE AND COMPASSION. 
 
 I. There are differences of view among Cal- 
 vinists as to God's method of dealing with the 
 non-elect. 
 
92 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 1. According to one view it is by the power of 
 the truth — apart from the direct action of the 
 Holy Spirit — that He deals with the non-elect, 
 enlightens their minds, convicts them of sin, and 
 presses upon them the duty of accepting Jesus- 
 Christ as offered in the gospel. It is urged that 
 "it is highly improbable that God, who doe& 
 nothing in vain, should operate on men's minds 
 to produce effects which confessedly come to 
 nothing, which are not so continued as to end in 
 salvation," and that the word of God which is 
 declared to be ' 'quick and powerful, and sharper 
 than a two-edged sword, piercing to the dividing 
 asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and 
 marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and 
 intents of the heart," is sufficient, under God's 
 general providential agency, to produce all the 
 results of a moral and religious character which 
 are known to exist in those who are never re- 
 newed. 
 
 2. Another opinion is that the Holy Spirit, not 
 as a general rule, but in special cases, does, by 
 His direct operation upon the non-elect, render 
 the truth more effective in their illumination, 
 and in convicting them of sin and leading them 
 to avoid many sins and to practice many social 
 and civil virtues. 
 
 Calvin B. III., Chap. XXIV. 8: "For there is- 
 a universal call by which God, in the external 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 93 
 
 preaching of the "Word, invites all, indiscrimi- 
 nately, to come to Him, even those for whom He 
 intends it as a savor of death, and an occasion of 
 heavier condemnation. There is also a special 
 call with which He, for the most part, favors 
 only believers, when, by the inward illumination 
 of His Spirit, he causes the word preached to 
 sink into their hearts. Yet sometimes He also 
 communicates it to those whom He only en- 
 lightens for a season, and afterwards forsakes 
 on account of their ingratitude, and strikes with 
 greater blindness." 
 
 Westminster Assembly's Larger Catechism, 
 Q. 68: "All the elect and they only are effectu- 
 ally called, although others may be and often 
 are outwardly called by the ministry of the 
 word, and liave some common operations of the 
 Spirit. " 
 
 3. The doctrine most commonly held by Cal- 
 vinists is that the Holy Spirit operates upon the 
 minds of all men — at least of all who hear the gos- 
 pel — heightening the natural power of the truth. 
 Hodge Syst. Theol. II. 667: "The Bible teaches 
 that the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of truth, of 
 holiness and of life in all its forms, is present 
 with every human soul, enforcing truth, re- 
 straining from evil, exciting to good and impart- 
 ing wisdom or strength, when, where, and in 
 what measure seemeth to Him good. In this 
 
94 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 sphere also He divides to every man severally as 
 He will. This is what in theology is called 
 common grace." 
 
 Shedd, Dogmatic Theol. I. 432: "Every human 
 being experiences some degree of the ordinary 
 influences of the Spirit of God. St. Paul teaches 
 that God strives with man universally. He con- 
 victs him of sin and urges him to repent of it 
 and to forsake it." 
 
 Among the additions which the Revision com- 
 mittee recommended to the General Assembly at 
 its last session is the following statement: "The 
 gospel declares the love of God for the world 
 and His desire for the salvation of all men. It 
 sets forth clearly and fully the only way of sal- 
 vation which is through Christ alone; com- 
 mands, exhorts and invites all to embrace offered 
 mercy, and urges every motive to induce men to 
 accept its gracious invitations. This free and 
 universal offer of the gospel is accomplished by 
 the Holy Spirit, striving with and entreating 
 men to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And 
 they who continue to disobey the gospel perish 
 by their own fault, and are wholly without ex- 
 cuse, because they have resisted the Holy Spirit 
 and rejected God's gracious offer of eternal life." 
 
 DIFFICULTIES. 
 
 As regards the object which we have chiefly 
 in view in this paper, — which is to prove that. 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 95- 
 
 according to the theory of strict Calvinism, in 
 inviting and urging the non-elect to accept eter- 
 nal life as offered in the gospel, God cannot be 
 regarded as moved by compassion for them, and 
 therefore that He is not dealing with them in 
 good faith, — it is not a matter of essential im- 
 portance to determine which one of the views 
 indicated above should be accepted; whether in 
 dealing with this class God employs the truth 
 alone, under the laws of His ordinary providen- 
 tial action, or whether the Holy Spirit operates 
 occasionally or universally in connection with 
 the truth, heightening its natural effect upon the 
 understanding, conscience and heart. The suppo- 
 sition that it is solely by His providential action 
 that God renders the truth effective in illumina- 
 ting, convicting and persuading the non-elect, 
 involves all the difficulties which would arise 
 from supposing that the Holy Spirit operates 
 also, occasionally, in furtherance of the same 
 end; and the supposition that the Holy Spirit 
 operates occasionally, involves all the difficulties 
 which would arise from supposing that He oper- 
 ates universally. 
 
 1. It is universally conceded that God, by His 
 providential efficiency, does use the natural light 
 of reason and conscience, and the truth revealed 
 in the gospel, in convicting the non-elect of sin 
 and in pressing upon them the duty of accepting- 
 
96 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 the mercy offered in Jesus Christ. The question 
 with which we are concerned at this point is not 
 what the non-elect do under the influence of 
 truth, — whether they ever strive to gain the 
 favor of G-od in the way of His appointing, or 
 whether their whole attitude is one of resistance 
 to His will and defiance of His authority, — but 
 why He deals with them in this way, having de- 
 termined by an irreversible decree antecedent to 
 and irrespective of their personal action as fore- 
 seen not to renew them, and knowing that, since 
 their inborn inability to repent and believe, or to 
 renew themselves, is a "bondage as terrible and 
 remorseless as any imprisonment behind iron 
 bars," their perdition is inevitable, do what they 
 can, and knowing, also, that every act on His 
 part, in pressing upon them the claims, invita- 
 tions and encouragements of the gospel, cannot 
 but enhance their guilt and damnation? Is it 
 not certain that such a mode of procedure as this 
 cannot be due to "divine mercy and love for 
 their souls?" Is it not an inexcusable abuse of 
 language to call anything bestowed upon sinners 
 "grace," an "expression of compassion," the 
 possession of which cannot but enhance their 
 guilt and punishment, do what they can to use it 
 ■aright? The fact that the inability of mankind 
 is culpable — rendering them liable "to the wrath 
 of God and the curse of the law" — does not 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 97 
 
 affect the question before us, whether the be- 
 stowment of "common grace," or "the means of 
 common grace," is, or is not, "an expression of 
 God's infinite mercy" for the non-elect. It is 
 not the character of the sinner's inability, whether 
 innocent or guilty, but its reality and absoluteness 
 which it concerns us here to keep in mind. 
 "Would it be " an expression of love " on the part 
 of a superintendent of an asylum for the blind, 
 to those under his care, to take them to a pict- 
 ure gallery with the intention of exhorting and 
 commanding them to open their eyes and to look 
 with admiration on the masterpieces of the great 
 artists, and of punishing them in case they 
 should fail to obey him? Would it be an act of 
 "mercy" on the part of a prince to spread a 
 table with all manner of delicacies, in sight of a 
 prisoner behind iron bars, with the design of 
 inviting and commanding him to come forth 
 from his imprisonment and to partake of the 
 bounty provided for him, and of adding to the 
 severity of his punishment in case he refused to 
 do so? It is self-evident that, whatever might 
 be the motive of the superintendent or of the 
 prince, in the cases supposed, the feeling of 
 love and mercy could not have been one of them. 
 And so, if the theory of strict Calvinism is true 
 in its teaching relative to (1) the absoluteness 
 of the sinner's inability to save himself, (2) the 
 7 
 
98 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 decree of preterition as prior to and irrespective 
 of the foresight of the personal action of those 
 included in it, and (3) the notion of common 
 grace as enhancing the guilt of those who re- 
 ceive it, though insufficient to enable them to 
 repent and believe, it is self-evident that God 
 cannot be moved in His dealing with the non- 
 elect by mercy and love for their souls. If the 
 facts of their case are such as this theory sup- 
 poses them to be, would not the least degree of 
 compassion, if unrestrained, determine Him to 
 send them to hell on the day of their birth, or 
 to appoint them to be born idiotic, or, at 
 least, to live and die in the* densest darkness of 
 paganism? Let us see if it is not logically nec- 
 essary to answer this question in the affirmative. 
 
 (1) All that st7-ict justice can require in the 
 case of the non-elect is that they be appointed 
 to die in infancy and to be punished forever for 
 original sin. "Every sin, both original and ac- 
 tual . . . doth, in its own nature, bring guilt 
 upon the sinner, whereby he is bound over to 
 the wrath of God and the curse of the law, and 
 so made subject to death, with all its miseries, 
 spiritual, temporal, and eternal" (West. Con.). 
 
 (2) In case the non- elect are appointed to live 
 to the age of responsible action, their guilt must 
 increase with the increase of the years of their 
 earthly existence. For their inability to cease 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 99 
 
 to sin, even for a moment, is as real and com- 
 plete as their inability to cease to exist, which 
 inability God decreed without consideration of 
 their personal action as foreseen, not to remove. 
 
 (3) Every sin, even the smallest, ' ' deserves 
 damnation." (West. Con. Chap. XV. 4.) 
 
 (4) God will render to all men according to 
 their works, adjusting in the case of every one, 
 penalty to ill-desert with infallible accuracy. 
 
 (5) The total penalty to which the sinner is 
 obnoxious at the hour of death will be, there- 
 fore, greater or less according to the light pos- 
 sessed or attainable. 
 
 Now we affirm that these positions, if true 
 (and we do not here call in question the truth of 
 any one of them), logically compel us to deny 
 that God is moved by love and mercy for the 
 non-elect in appointing them to live to the age 
 of moral accountability and in bestowing upon 
 them common grace, or the means of common 
 grace. If justice would be completely satisfied 
 in the assignment of the non-elect to hell in in- 
 fancy, what shall we call that principle in God 
 which determined Him, having decreed in the 
 exercise of His sovereignty not to renew and 
 pardon them, to appoint them to live to the 
 years of adult life, thereby rendering their sub- 
 jection to an infinitely enhanced damnation inev- 
 itable I Is it not the height of absurdity to say 
 
100 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 that such a mode of procedure as this is "an 
 expression of God's mercy and love for the non- 
 elect? " 
 
 2. But still more impressive proof of the prop- 
 osition which we set out to establish is involved 
 in the view most commonly held by strict Cal- 
 vinists on the ground of the teaching of the Bi- 
 ble and of the facts of experience and observa- 
 tion, viz. : that the Holy Spirit operates occa- 
 sionally, or universally, with the truth, render- 
 ing it more effective even in the case of those 
 who are never regenerated. 
 
 We challenge any man to suggest any valid 
 reasons for the belief that God deals with the 
 elect as a class, prior to His act regenerating 
 them, in a manner in any respect different as re- 
 gards the kind, or energy, or duration of the 
 agencies employed, from that in which He 
 deals with the non- elect as a class. There is 
 no warrant for the commonly-received notion 
 of ' ' special grace " as distinguished in kind from 
 ' ' common grace " and from ' ' regenerating 
 grace." The simple facts of the case are these: — 
 Here are two classes of persons: in the one class, 
 the elect, — there are certain so-called imme- 
 diate antecedents of regeneration, being due to 
 the action of God by His providence, truth, and 
 Spirit upon their minds, and their action in re- 
 sponse to His providential and gracious agency 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 101 
 
 as determined by the purpose of election. These 
 "antecedents " are simply the volitions, feelings, 
 etc. , divinely appointed as a fitting preparation 
 or condition of the bestowment of regenerating 
 grace; they may be few or many, continued for 
 an hour or for years, involving little or great 
 distress of mind. As we stated in a former ar- 
 ticle, "At times the Holy Spirit flashes the illu- 
 minating and burning rays of divine truth into 
 the soul, dispelling its darkness, starting into 
 intense action the dormant principles of sin, set- 
 ting the conscience on fire, awakening regret, 
 shame, fear, remorse; appealing to the higher 
 and nobler aspirations of the soul, which sin has 
 not utterly destroyed, and which point the soul 
 to the height whence it fell. Yet these mani- 
 fold activities are not the new life, nor do they 
 have any tendency to spiritual renovation. But 
 in the midst "of these various activities of reason, 
 conscience, sensibility and will, beneath them 
 all — below conscience itself — at the center of 
 the soul — there is a divine touch, restoring the 
 dead to life, opening the blind eyes, emancipa- 
 ting the enslaved will, and calling into exercise 
 faith, repentance, hope, love, and every other 
 spiritual principle of our being. " . In like man- 
 ner, with the exception of the life-giving touch, 
 the Holy Spirit, often operates upon those whom 
 the strict Calvinistic theory regards as the non- 
 
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Missing Page 
 
104 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 He has created for dishonor during life and destruc- 
 tion at death, that they may be vessels of wrath 
 and examples of severity, in bringing them, to 
 their doom. He at one time deprives them of the 
 means of hearing the word, at another by the 
 preaching of it blinds and stupefies them the 
 more." 
 
 The late Dr. Van Dyke, Dr. Shedd's successor 
 in Union Theological Seminary, declares (Vari- 
 ations of Calvinism, 44,45,) " that Calvin denies 
 that there is any mercy whatever for the non- 
 elect, holding that God has excluded them from 
 all access to salvation . . . that according to his 
 theory, the great majority of the human race 
 are predestinated by an eternal election to de- 
 struction — they are created for this very purpose 
 — and the only reason why the gospel is preached 
 to any of these reprobates, is not any real desire 
 or willingness on God's part for their salvation, 
 but His active design is to harden and fit them 
 for the destruction to which they are doomed." 
 
 Dr. Dabney remarks (Princeton Rev., July 
 1878, p. 351), "It is significant that the Reformed 
 divines of Turretin's school seem usually to con- 
 duct this debate on the assumption (sometimes 
 tacit, sometimes expressed) that as God had no 
 volition towards the salvation of the non- elect, 
 so He could not have any propension or affec- 
 tion at all towards it." 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 105- 
 
 In an article published in the Herald and Pres- 
 byter, September 25th, 1889, Dr. Van Dyke uses 
 the following language: "Now, I afftrm, and 
 challenge proof to the contrary, that our Con- 
 fession does not contain one declaration of the 
 infinite love of God for all men as it is revealed 
 in the gospel, or one declaration of the infinite 
 fullness of the gospel salvation as suitable, and 
 offered to all sinners, or one declaration which 
 comprehends, or even alludes to the teaching of 
 Scripture on these points." And the explana- 
 tion of the failure of the Westminster Confes- 
 sion and of the other early Reformed creeds, 
 to teach explicitly, or by implication, God's 
 love for all men, is found in the fact that their 
 authors were compelled by the logic of the strict 
 Calvinistic theory to deny His love for the non- 
 elect. 
 
 It is of the very essence of this theory as ex- 
 pounded by Augustine, Calvin, and its advocates 
 in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, that 
 God loves the elect and them alone, that the 
 provisions of mercy as revealed in the gospel 
 were designed for them and for them only, and 
 that these provisions are offered to mankind in- 
 discriminately because such a method is best for 
 securing the salvation of those for whom they 
 were made. And no skill in statement, and no 
 subtlety of logic can harmonize with this scheme 
 
106 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 the current Calvinistic representations, based on 
 the plainest declarations of the Bible, that God 
 loves all men in the- sense of having an infinite 
 desire for the salvation of each and every one of 
 them. ' 'To escape the irresistible force of these 
 declarations" (John iii. 16; I. Tim. ii. 4; II. Pet. 
 iii. 9; I. John iii. 2; Rom. xi. 32), says Dr. Schaff, 
 ' 'Calvinists have resorted to the distinction be- 
 tween the revealed will of God which would save 
 all men, and the secret will which would save a 
 few. But that would put an intolerable dualism 
 into the being of God and charge Him — sit venia 
 verbo — with falsehood and deceit. This is logic 
 with a vengeance, and it is irresistible from 
 Augustinian premises." 
 
 3. Thus far in our discussion we have pro- 
 ceeded on the assumption that those whom this 
 theory designates as non -elect, though the re- 
 cipients of the same grace which is bestowed 
 upon the elect prior to the act which regenerates 
 them, never seek to gain the favor of God in the 
 way appointed in the gospel, never strive to ex- 
 ercise the repentance and faith which the Bible 
 requires. "It will be time enough," says Dr. 
 Hodge, "for any man to complain when he fails 
 to experience Christ's healing power, after hav- 
 ing sought it as long, as earnestly, and as sub- 
 missively to the directions of God's word, as its 
 importance demands; or, even with the assiduity 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 107 
 
 und zeal with which men seek the perishing 
 things of this life." Syst. Theol. II. 709, 710. 
 But we challenge any man to suggest one valid 
 reason for the belief that those whom this 
 theory recognizes as the elect, ever perform, 
 under the influence of the grace bestowed upon 
 them while unregenerate, any moral or religious 
 acts which, as regards the matter or spirit of 
 them, are not performed by those whom the 
 theory designates as the non-elect; or one valid 
 reason for denying, or doubting that multitudes 
 of the latter class (the non-elect) do seek salva- 
 tion in the way of God's appointing with far 
 greater earnestness and perseverance than do 
 multitudes of the former class (the elect) whom 
 God meets with His renewing and pardoning 
 grace. It is important to see clearly the ground 
 of the position here taken. 
 
 SPECIFIC GROUNDS STATED. 
 
 (1) The decrees of election and preterition 
 ^re, in the logical order, antecedent to and in- 
 dependent of the personal action of men as fore- 
 seen. 
 
 (2) There is no evidence, Scriptural or rational, 
 that there is any difference in the influence of 
 the truth, or in the operation of the Holy Spirit 
 ■on the minds of the members of these two 
 ■classes — the non-elect, and the elect while unre- 
 generate. 
 
108 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 (3) Hence there can be no ground for believing- 
 that the action of the elect as a class differs in 
 any respect from that of the non-elect as a class, 
 under the influence of the truth and the ordinary 
 operation of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 (4) If, then, those who are included in the 
 purpose of preterition never seek eternal life in 
 the way of the gospel, in response to the influ- 
 ence of common grace, we must believe that 
 those included in the purpose of election never 
 struggle and agonize to gain eternal life in re- 
 sponse to the same influences and agencies. 
 
 (5) But that the elect do earnestly and per- 
 severingly seek to escape destruction, do strive 
 to come into right relations to God through re- 
 pentance and faith, moved by the commands and 
 invitations of the gospel and the action of the 
 Holy Spirit, is abundantly evident from the 
 statements of Scripture and from the testimony 
 of the regenerate. Bunyan is surpassed by no 
 uninspired writer in setting forth vividly and 
 truthfully the influence of divine truth upon 
 men, both the regenerate and the unregenerate, 
 and their action under these influences. And he 
 tells us that ' ' the man put his fingers in his 
 ears and. ran crying, Life! life! eterual life! So 
 he looked not behind him, but fled toward the 
 middle of the plain;" and that when he tumbled 
 into the slough of despond he ' ' endeavored to^ 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 109 
 
 struggle to the side of the slough that was fur- 
 thest from his own house and nearest to the 
 wicket gate," and when he came to the gate and 
 saw that over it was written, ' ' Knock, and it 
 shall be opened unto you," "he knocked more 
 than once or twice, saying, 
 
 " May I now enter here ? Will He within 
 Open to sorry me, though I have been 
 An undeserving rebel ? Then shall I 
 Not fail to sing his lasting praise on high." 
 
 Are not the words of Newton true to the ex- 
 perience of multitudes of the people of God? 
 
 " Once a sinner near despair 
 Sought thy mercy-seat in prayer ; 
 Mercy heard and set him free. 
 Lord, that mercy came to me." 
 
 President Davies: "It is only in the use of 
 "the means of grace that you can expect divine 
 -grace to work faith in you: never yet was it 
 produced in one soul while lying supine, lazy, 
 inactive. " 
 
 Edwards: " Though God has not bound Him- 
 self to anything that a person does while desti- 
 tute of faith, and out of Christ, there is great 
 probability that in the way of hearkening to 
 this counsel you will live, and that by pressing 
 onward and persevering you will at last, as it 
 were by violence, take the kingdom of heaven. 
 Those of you who have not only heard the di- 
 
110 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 rections given, but shall through God's merciful 
 assistance practice according to them, are those- 
 who will probably overcome." 
 
 Shedd: "Salvation is in the highest degree- 
 probable for any person who earnestly and dili- 
 gently uses common grace and the means of 
 common grace . . . There is the highest encour- 
 agement in the Bible to pray for the regenera- 
 ting grace of G-od. . . . To a person who in- 
 quires: How am I to obtain the new birth and 
 what particular thing am I to do respecting it, 
 the answer is: Find out that you need it, and 
 that your self-enslaved will cannot originate it. 
 And when you have found this out cry unto God, 
 the Holy Spirit, Create in me a clean heart, and 
 renew within me a right spirit, and this prayer- 
 must not cease till the answer comes. " This is 
 most admirable and scriptural advice; but query - 
 How long would one of the non-elect have to pray 
 before receiving the blessing of the new birth? 
 It is, however, needless to multiply these testi- 
 monies. 
 
 POUR LEGITIMATE MOTIVES. 
 
 There are four legitimate motives or princi- 
 ples of action to which the Holy Spirit appeals, 
 in the use of the truth, in persuading sinners to- 
 seek the salvation of their souls : rational self-in- 
 terest, the feeling of obligation, the natural prin- 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. Ill 
 
 ciple of gratitude, and the aspiration for some- 
 thing higher and better than the world can give. 
 
 (1) Self-interest, due regard for one's highest 
 well-being, is a legitimate and divinely-implanted 
 principle of action, and to be determined by it, 
 in due measure, is an essential characteristic of 
 rational beings in their unfallen state. It is as 
 proper and right for a sinner to seek to shun 
 eternal destruction as it is for him to seek to es- 
 cape from a burning building. " That this nat- 
 ural self-interest is not in itself sinful, God him- 
 self shows when he addresses the warnings and 
 invitations of His word both to men's hopes and 
 to men's fears." It is impossible that there 
 should be a more powerful appeal to the legiti- 
 mate principle of self-regard than the Scrip- 
 tures make in their offer of infinite good and in 
 their threatening of infinite evil. 
 
 (2) Many are powerfully moved to strive to 
 obey God by the feeling of obligation. Their 
 conscience, quickened by the operation of the 
 Holy Spirit, responds to the claims of divine 
 law; they see and feel that to repent of their 
 sins, to obey, and trust, and love God, is a most 
 sacred duty, having its ground in His character 
 and relations to them. Conscience, when en- 
 lightened, is a high and powerful principle of 
 action, and to strive to obey its behest is not to 
 act selfishly, or to act in defiance of the author- 
 ity of God. 
 
112 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 (3) The natural principle of gratitude often 
 prompts the awakened sinner to respond to the 
 gracious invitations of the gospel. The good- 
 ness of God leads, its tendency and design is to 
 lead, men to repentance. The sight of the in- 
 carnate Son of God, uttering from the cross the 
 cry of expiring love, has an immeasurable power 
 of appeal to the heart when under the illumin- 
 ating and quickening influence of the Holy 
 .Spirit. 
 
 " I saw One hanging' on a tree 
 
 In agonies and blood; 
 He fixed His languid eyes on me, 
 
 As near His cross I stood. 
 O, never, till my latest breath. 
 
 Shall I forget that look; 
 It seemed to charge me with His death. 
 
 Though not a word He spoke." 
 
 (4) Some are moved Godward by an aspira- 
 tion for something higher and better than the 
 world can give. Profoundly conscious of the 
 emptiness and vanity of all finite things, bewil- 
 dered by the mysteries and tragedies of life, the 
 heart is moved by the gracious words coming 
 •down from the height of heaven, "Come unto 
 me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I 
 will give you rest." Shedd, Sermons to the 
 Natural Man, 216, — "Through the common in- 
 fluences of the Spirit of grace, and the ordinary 
 workings of a rational nature not yet repro- 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 113 
 
 bated, man is at times the subject of internal 
 stirrings and aspirations that indicate the great- 
 ness and glory of the heights whence he fell. 
 Under the power of an awakened conscience, 
 and the feeling of the emptiness of the world, 
 and the aching void within him, man wishes for 
 something better than he has, or than he is. . . 
 The immortal, heaven-descended spirit, feeling 
 the kindling touch of truth and of the Holy 
 Ghost, thrills under it and essays to soar." 
 
 It is these principles, one or all, to which the 
 Holy Spirit appeals through the instrumentality 
 of the truth in the work of persuading men to 
 seek the salvation of their souls, to accept of 
 Jesus Christ as offered in the gospel. And we 
 affirm our conviction that no substantial reason 
 can be adduced for believing that the action as 
 a class of those whom the theory of strict Cal- 
 vinism regards as non-elect, under the influence 
 of the commands and gracious appeals of the 
 gospel and the operation of the Holy Spirit, is 
 in any respect different from the action of the 
 elect as a class, while in a state of unregen- 
 eracy; and that no substantial reason can be ad- 
 duced for doubting or denying that multitudes 
 of the former class seek God with far more ear- 
 nestness and perseverance than do multitudes 
 of the latter class, the immediate antecedents of 
 whose regeneration are determined by the de- 
 
114 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 cree of election. They use the means of grace, 
 read the Scriptures daily, consult Christian 
 friends and follow their counsel, strive to exer- 
 cise repentance and faith, supplicate the Divine 
 mercy with strong crying and tears for the 
 grace necessary to render their striving success- 
 ful, thus using all their natural powers to the 
 utmost in seeking salvation in the way appointed 
 in the gospel; yet all these efforts — due to the 
 agency of the Holy Spirit — are infallibly and 
 necessarily vain. For, since they cannot renew 
 themselves, the eternal and irreversible decree 
 not to renew them renders their eternal perdi- 
 tion as certain and unavoidable as it would be if 
 it were brought about by a direct divine effi- 
 ciency. And still further, these efforts are not 
 only necessarily vain, they infinitely enhance 
 the guilt and condemnation of the non- elect; 
 and this infinitely enhanced damnation is the 
 certain and inevitable result of God's compassion- 
 ate and merciful action in granting the non-elect 
 continuance of life and the illuminating and 
 quickening influences of the gospel and of the 
 Holy Spirit! 
 
 It needs to be carefully noted that in speaking 
 of the elect and the non-elect we have exclu- 
 sively in mind those classes as determined by 
 the purposes of God formed irrespective of the 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 115 
 
 personal action of those included in them. If 
 it were held that in forming these purposes God 
 has respect to the action of men in the use of 
 common grace and the means of common grace 
 as foreseen, then of course it would not be true 
 as stated above, that there are no valid reasons 
 for believing that the action of the non-elect as 
 a class differs, in any respect, from that of the 
 elect as a class prior to their regeneration. But 
 the theory under consideration denies such a 
 relation of foreknowledge to decrees as this 
 conception implies. 
 
 NOT IN GOOD FAITH. 
 
 II. This theory in denying virtually, if not 
 explicitly, the love of God for the non-elect, 
 necessarily impugns His sincerity and good faith 
 in dealing with them. 
 
 God commands, urges and entreats all men to 
 shun destruction and to accept of offered mercy, 
 expresses the deepest compassion for them,, 
 promises them eternal life if they will comply 
 with His requirements, and by the direct opera- 
 tion of His Spirit on their minds greatly height- 
 ens the power of appeal which these commands, 
 entreaties, promises, etc. , possess, in their own 
 nature, to every rational and right principle of 
 action. Now the good faith of God, in dealing 
 
116 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 "with men in this way, self-evidently implies two 
 things : 
 
 1. The existence in Him of such a love for 
 them, of such a desire for their salvation, as the 
 expostulations, entreaties, promises, etc., natu- 
 rally and necessarily imply. 
 
 2. The possibility of compliance with the 
 terms of salvation on the ground (1) either of 
 the purpose of election involving their regener- 
 ation, (2) or of their ability to renew themselves 
 under the iniluence of common grace, (3) or of 
 their ability so to use common grace and the 
 means of common grace, as to render the be- 
 stowment of regenerating grace, if not certain 
 or highly probable, at least ])ossible. But we 
 have shown that the logic of the theory under 
 consideration, according to the exposition of its 
 ablest defenders, denies the existence in God of 
 love for the non-elect in the sense of a desire 
 to save them. The logic of this theory de- 
 nies, also, the possibility of the salvation of 
 the non-elect. Since then God has no com- 
 passion for them, and since, also, their salva- 
 tion is impossible in every sense of the term — 
 naturally and morally impossible — impossible 
 to them and impossible to God Himself — for 
 He cannot reverse His irreversible decrees — 
 for Him to invite them to come to Him in 
 Jesus Christ, and to promise to receive them 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 117 
 
 graciously if they will come, is as manifestly ir- 
 reconcilable with His sincerity as any course of 
 action which the human mind can conceive of. 
 To speak with the greatest moderation, He can- 
 not but be regarded as tantalizing them with 
 the offer of an infinite but impossible good. 
 What should we say of the sincerity of the cap- 
 tain of a vessel who, seeing some men in the 
 water in mid-ocean, should entreat them to 
 avoid death by drowning, and to come on board 
 his vessel, while having an inflexible purpose, ■ 
 formed irrespective of any request or action on 
 their part, to withhold the aid absolutely neces- 
 sary to render compliance with his invitation^ 
 possible? What should we think of the good 
 faith of a physician who, seeing a man faint, 
 and well-nigh helpless from loss of blood from a 
 severed artery, should urge him to avoid death 
 by bleeding, and let the flow of blood be 
 stopped, while having fully determined without 
 consideration of what the sufferer- would do, or 
 would refuse to do, to let him bleed to death? 
 Wherein does the conduct of the captain and 
 the physician, in the cases supposed, fail to rep- 
 resent the action of God, according to the strict 
 Calvinistic theory, in dealing with the non-elect, 
 commanding and entreating them to flee from 
 the wrath to come, and promising that "if they 
 repent He will forgive them, if they believe He 
 
118 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 will save them," knowing that without a certain 
 kind of assistance — the bestowment of efficacious 
 grace — they are as impotent to repent and be- 
 lieve as " a dead man to sit up in his coffin," — 
 which assistance He determined by an immuta- 
 ble decree not to grant, regardless of what it 
 was foreknown they would do or would refuse 
 to do in relation to His proposals of mercy? 
 Whatever might be said of the justice of such a 
 procedure in the case of those involved in sin 
 and guilt, it certainly could not be regarded as 
 sincere and honest. God does not deal even with 
 the lost spirits in hell in this way, urging them 
 to become reconciled to Him and thus to avoid 
 His everlasting displeasure, for He knows that 
 they cannot avoid His displeasure by any method 
 of their own devising, and that He does not in- 
 tend to provide for them a way of deliverance. 
 And yet the salvation of the impenitent dead, 
 and of the non-elect among the living, are 
 equally impossible and impossible on the same 
 grounds — the immutable decree of God not to 
 save them, and their utter inability to save 
 themselves. 
 
 To conclude the discussion of this point. Ac- 
 cording to the logic of the strict Calvinistic the- 
 ory this is the condition of those of the non-elect 
 who are appointed to reach the period of responsi- 
 ble action: 1. They begin their existence under 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 119 
 
 condemnation, ' ' subject to death with all its mis- 
 eries, spiritual, temporal and eternal. " 2. Involved 
 in a moral bondage as ' 'terrible and remorseless 
 as any imprisonment behind iron bars." 3. Aban- 
 doned in the decree of God to the state of guilt 
 and depravity in which they are born. 4. As 
 impotent to cease to sin as to cease to exist. 
 5. Yet iy.uminated and convicted of sin by the 
 truth providentially enforced. 6. Their illumi- 
 nation and consequent culpability being immeas- 
 urably increased by the direct action of the Holy 
 Spirit. 7. Every sin which they commit, even 
 the smallest, rendering them "worthy of dam- 
 nation." 8. Even their efforts to escape perdi- 
 tion, however earnest and sincere they may be, 
 being not only in vain, but sinful and greatly 
 aggravating their doom. 9. Their inevitable 
 and final damnation being, therefore, infinitely 
 more dreadful than it would have been if they 
 had been sent to hell in infancy. We ask again, 
 in what respect would God treat them differently 
 if He were moved by pure, unrestrained, infinite 
 wrath ? 
 
 But it is urged frequently and with great con- 
 fidence that the doctrine of reprobation is no 
 more inconsistent with the sincerity of God in 
 His indiscriminate offers of mercy than is that 
 of His infallible foreknowledge. We deny, how- 
 ever, that the difficulty of reconciling the good 
 
120 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 faith of God in His indiscriminate proposals of 
 mercy, arising from His foreknowledge of the 
 final perdition of some of those to whom the 
 proposals are made, is of the same order as that 
 with which we are confronted on the strict Cal- 
 vinistic theory of reprobation. God put holy 
 angels on trial, knowing that its issue would be 
 disastrous in the case of some of them; but His 
 foreknowledge of this issue is -not even appar- 
 ently inconsistent with His sincerity in the use 
 of means to prevent their fall; for they possessed 
 plenary ability to stand firm in their integrity 
 and were moved to do so by the most powerful 
 influences which could be wisely brought to bear 
 upon them. God was obliged by His absolute 
 ethical perfection to deal with holy angels ac- 
 cording to the most perfect method of moral 
 trial, and if He could not prevent the apostasy 
 of some of them, acting according to this method, 
 then, their fall, and consequently His foreknowl- 
 edge of it, are clearly consistent with His good 
 faith in dealing with them. But if their fall 
 were unavoidable, if Adam's inability to remain 
 holy were as real and absolute as the inability 
 of "the dead to restore themselves to life," 
 then it would be self-evidently impossible to be- 
 lieve in the good faith of God in commanding 
 perfect obedience and in enforcing the com- 
 mand by fearful sanctions. If, then, God offers 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 121 
 
 pardon and life to men and secures to them, 
 through the truth and the operation of the Holy- 
 Spirit, full ability to accept the offer or so ta 
 strive to accept it that they may be certain or 
 may confidently expect that their striving will 
 be blessed of Him with the blessing of renewing- 
 and pardoning grace, the fact of His foreknowl- 
 edge that some would reject the proffered mercy, 
 thus rendering their final condemnation morally 
 necessary, can involve no question of His sin- 
 cerity in His dealings with them. 
 
122 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 THE SOVEEEIGNTY OP GOD IN PREDES- 
 TINATION. 
 
 As Held by Many Representative Cal- 
 viNiSTic Theologians. 
 
 V. 
 
 It is our purpose in this article to apply to the 
 case of infants dying in infancy and of the con- 
 genitally idiotic the positions of the Calvinistic 
 system already discussed. 
 
 THE calvinistic POSITION. 
 
 The question of the fate of those dying in in- 
 fancy is one of vast theologic as well as of prac- 
 tical interest. For a large proportion — prob- 
 ably a distinct majority — of the human race pass 
 out of the world before reaching the age of 
 moral accountability. As to the future condition 
 of this class there are three and only three posi- 
 tions which can be taken, viz. : 1. Either all are 
 lost. 2. Or all are saved. 3. Or some are lost 
 and some are saved. It does not seem worth 
 while to consider a fourth position which was 
 held by Dr. Watts. ' 'In pure desperation, in the 
 struggle between the necessities of his sys- 
 tem and his feelings of pity and compassion, he 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 123 
 
 embraced the theory that reprobate infants are 
 probably annihilated at death." He says: "The 
 salvation of all children . . . has no counte- 
 nance in the Bible ... no foundation in rea- 
 son. The Scripture brings down the infants of 
 wicked parents to the grave, and leaves them 
 there, and so do I. The Scripture has not pro- 
 vided any resurrection for them, neither can I do 
 it." — Ruin and Recovery of Mankind. Ques- 
 tion XVI. 
 
 Augustine held that infants dying before bap- 
 tism are lost. The Romish church always taught 
 that infants who pass out of the world without 
 baptism cannot attain to eternal life. The canons 
 of the council of Trent, which are an authorita- 
 tive declaration of the faith of the church of 
 Rome, teach: "If any one denies that newborn 
 children must be baptized, or says that they do 
 not derive from Adam anything of original sin 
 which makes the laver of regeneration necessary 
 to cleanse them for an entrance into everlasting 
 life, let them be accursed." 
 
 Roman Catechism II. chap. II. Ques. 25 : ' 'Un- 
 less they are born again by the divine grace of 
 baptism, they are brought forth by their par- 
 ents, .whether believers or unbelievers, for eter- 
 nal misery and perdition." 
 
 The Augsburg Confession, the earliest doc- 
 trinal statement of the Lutheran church, says, 
 
124 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 — Part First, Art. IX. — "Of baptism they teach 
 that it is necessary to salvation. They condemn 
 Anabaptists who allow not the baptism of chil- 
 dren, and affirm that children are saved without 
 baptism." 
 
 In his pamphlet on ' 'The Development of the 
 Doctrine of Infant Salvation" Dr. Warfield says, 
 p. 38 sq., — that the five followin-g views were 
 early current among Oalvinists: 1. "That death 
 in infancy is a sign of election, and hence that 
 all who die in infancy are the children of God 
 and enter at once into glory." 2. "That the only 
 sure sign of election is faith with its fruits, and 
 therefore, we have no real ground of knowledge 
 concerning the fate of any infant; as, however, 
 God certainly has His elect among them too, 
 each man can cherish the hope that his children 
 are of the elect." 3. "That faith and the prom- 
 ise are sure signs of election, and, accordingly, 
 all believers and their children are certainly 
 saved; but that the lack of faith and the promise 
 is an equally sure sign of reprobation, so that 
 all the children of unbelievers, dying such, are 
 equally certainly lost. " 4. ' 'That faith and the 
 promise are certain signs of election, while the 
 lack of the promise only leaves us in ignorance 
 of God's purpose; nevertheless, there is good 
 reason for asserting that both election and repro- 
 bation have place in this unknown sphere." 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 125 
 
 5. "That faith and the promise are marks by 
 ■which we may know assuredly that all those who 
 believe and their children, dying such, are elect 
 ajnd saved, while absence of sure marks of either 
 election or reprobation in infants, dying such, 
 outside the covenant, leaves us without ground 
 for inference concerning them, and they must be 
 left to the judgment of God, which, however 
 hidden from us, is assuredly just and holy and 
 good." Dr. Warfield adds, "that this cautious 
 agnostic view has the best historical right to be 
 called the general Calvinistic one." 
 
 It is certain, however, that Calvin himself and 
 many of the early Calvinists did not occupy an 
 agnostic position as to the fate of uncovenanted 
 infants dying in infancy. Institutes, Bk. III. 
 Chap. XXIII. 7 : "I inquire, again, how it comes 
 to pass that the fall of Adam, independent of 
 any remedy, should involve so many nations 
 with their infant children in eternal death, but 
 because such was the will of God. It is an awful 
 decree, I confess, but no one can deny that God 
 foreknew the future final fate of man before He 
 created him, and that He did foreknow it be- 
 cause it was appointed by His own decree." 
 
 Commentary on Bzekiel XVIII, Opera IV. 167: 
 ' 'As to infants they seem to perish not by their 
 own fault but by the fault of another; but there 
 is a double solution. Though sin does not yet 
 
126 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 appear in them, yet it is latent; for they bear 
 corruption shut up in the soul, so that before 
 God they are damnable." 
 
 Heidegger: "For original sin the penalty is 
 eternal death; it is the penalty both of loss and 
 of sense, the sense both of the worm and of the 
 fire, though in some, as for example in infants it 
 is milder, in others it is severer." 
 
 Cocceius: "Elect infants . . . are not con- 
 ceived and born as are the children of the Gen- 
 tiles, concerning whom the presumption is certain, 
 that they with their mother's milk drink in god- 
 lessness unto destruction." 
 
 Marckius: "As to the infants of unbelievers, 
 we ought utterly to reject not only their salvation, 
 but also the theory that their penalty is one of 
 privation, ivithout serisation. The terminus to- 
 which these are predestined is eternal death, de- 
 struction, damnation." The above and numer- 
 ous other similar Calvinistic testimonies are 
 given in Dr. Krauth's "Infant Baptism and In- 
 fant Salvation.' "The utterances of the divines 
 at the Synod of Dort, " says Dr. Krauth, ' 'were 
 of the most decided kind. Infant reprobation 
 and the actual damnation of infants, were as- 
 serted in manifold shapes, and in all the public 
 discussions of that body no Calvinist of any land 
 uttered a word of doubt or of mitigation." 
 
 The late Dr. Van Dyke illustrated the revolu- 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 127 
 
 tion which has taken place in the views of Cal- 
 vinists, and especially of Presbyterians, in re- 
 gard to the future condition of infants, dying 
 such, by two quotations; one from Dr. Twiss, 
 moderator of the Westminster Assembly, and 
 the other from Dr. A. A. Hodge. 
 
 Dr. Twiss : "If many thousands, even all the 
 infants of Turks and Saracens, dying in original 
 sin, are tormented by him [God] in hell-fire, is- 
 he to be accounted the father of cruelties for 
 that?" Dr. Hodge: "In the history of the 
 world since Adam, all the souls who have died 
 before birth, or between birth and moral agency, 
 have been redeemed in Christ. Through all 
 ages, — from Japan, from China, from India, 
 from Africa, from the islands of the sea, — mul- 
 titudes, flocking like birds, have gone to heaven 
 of this great company of redeemed infants of 
 the church of God." 
 
 The question of the future condition of infants, 
 dying in infancy, according to the strict Calvin- 
 istic system, must be determined by the essen- 
 tial positions of that system, viz. : 1. Mankind 
 are by nature burdened with guilt and deprav- 
 ity — exposed to the everlasting displeasure of 
 God. 2. In dealing with infants as with those 
 who reach the age of moral responsibility, God 
 acts as a sovereign, determining the destiny of 
 each and every one in the exercise of an op- 
 
128 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 tional power. 3. Regeneration is the exclusive 
 work of God and is wrought in those and in 
 those only who are embraced in the purpose of 
 election. 4. In choosing men to eternal life God 
 does not take into account as a reason or condi- 
 tion of his action any tiling foreseen in them. 
 5. The decrees of election and preterition are 
 eternal and immutable, and the number included 
 in each is ' 'so certain and definite that it cannot 
 be either increased or diminished." 
 
 TWO IMPORTANT QUESTIONS. 
 
 The universal Protestant church agrees with 
 Dr. Hodge in the view above expressed, and re- 
 jects with horror the dogma of infant damna- 
 tion. This fact suggests two important ques- 
 tions to the discussion of which we invite special 
 attention. 
 
 I. What proof, or even presumption, can the 
 Scriptures afford, on the theory of strict Calvin- 
 ism, that all infants dying in infancy are saved? 
 
 II. How can the assumption of universal infant 
 salvation be reconciled with the Calvinistic the- 
 ory of predestination? 
 
 These questions we will take up in their order. 
 
 INFANTS AS SUCH. 
 
 I. What proof, or even presumption, can the 
 Scriptures afford, on the theory of strict Calvin- 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS, 129 
 
 ism, that all infants, dying such, are saved? 
 The Calvinistic argument in support of the view 
 that all infants, dying in infancy, are saved is, 
 in substance, the following: 
 
 1. The language of Christ respecting little 
 children as a special class, Luke xviii. 15,16 — 
 ' ' They brought unto Him infants that He would 
 touch them. . . . And He said. Suffer little chil- 
 dren to come unto Me, for of such is the king- 
 dom of heaven." (Matt, xviii. 10,14.) The ar- 
 gument from this passage is thus stated by Dr. 
 Shedd — Proposed Revision, etc., 89 — "The Re- 
 deemer says this of infants as such and because 
 they are infants, and, consequently, of all in- 
 fants. When He says ' Blessed are the poor in 
 spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,' He 
 means that this kingdom belongs to them «s 
 poor in spirit, and consequently belongs to all 
 the poor in spirit. No such declaration is made 
 concerning the other classes of mankind. In- 
 fancy is the only age that is singled out by 
 which to prove a membership in the kingdom of 
 God from the very age itself. . . . With this teach- 
 ing of revelation concerning the salvation of 
 infants the Confession agrees. By positive as- 
 sertion, it declares that there are ' elect infants 
 dying in infancy;' and by total silence concern- 
 ing non-elect infants dying in infancy it implies 
 
 that there are none." 
 9 
 
130 . SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 Upon this argument of Dr. Shedd we remark: 
 (1) That the salvation of infants, as of adults, 
 depends upon their election, and election ac- 
 cording to Calvinism is, and must be, particular 
 ahd individual. ' ' Classical election is now, and 
 ever has been, an Arminian doctrine, whether 
 we think of classes of babes or classes of adults. 
 The divine election is an election of individuals 
 in both cases, according to the conception of 
 the old Calvinists and the Westminster divines. " 
 (Briggs.) 
 
 (2) That if the language of Christ proves that 
 infants as such, and, consequently, all infants 
 are members of the kingdom of heaven, it 
 proves that infants as such, and, consequently, 
 all infants are elect, for election is the funda- 
 mental condition of the possibility of member- 
 ship in the kingdom of heaven. But the theory 
 of strict Calvinism teaches that the non-elect are 
 such always, such unborn, such at birth, such 
 through infancy. It is, then, impossible that 
 Christ, according to this theory, could have 
 taught that infants as such, and consequently, cdl 
 infants are members of the kingdom of God. 
 
 (3) That if all who die in infancy are saved 
 their early death, as foreseen, was, or was not, 
 a reason or condition of their election. If it 
 was a reason or condition of their election, then 
 the Calvinistic dogma that there is nothing in 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 131 
 
 men which determined God to choose one man 
 rather than another is annihilated. If it was 
 not a reason or condition of their election, then 
 those Calvinists who regard election as classical, 
 in the case of infants dying in infancy, must 
 hold that God chose unto eternal life an enor- 
 mously large class of persons, — one-half the 
 human race, — and yet, that, in including them 
 all in the purpose of salvation, he did not take 
 into account, as a reason or condition of Jiis ac- 
 tion, the only circumstance which belongs to 
 them as a class, and which distinguishes them 
 from the rest of the world, viz. : their early death. 
 But if their early death as foreseen was not a 
 reason or condition of their election, we would 
 inquire, what possible ground there can be for 
 the presumption, either that all of this class are 
 elect, or that it contains a larger number of the 
 elect than of the non- elect. If infants are under 
 condemnation and exposed to eternal death; if 
 God determines the destiny of each and every 
 one of them in the exercise of an optional power; 
 if those and those only who are elected can be 
 saved; if nothing — not even early death — fore- 
 seen in those elected — had a place in the 
 divine mind among the reasons or conditions, 
 of their election, then it would seem morally 
 certain that some, and highly probable that one- 
 half of those dying in infancy perish. Since, 
 
132 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 then, all the non-elect are such in infancy, the 
 language of Christ which is applicable to all 
 infants, cannot furnish even the slightest pre- 
 sumption of the salvation of all infants dying 
 such. Strange as it may seem, some strict Cal- 
 vinists regard Jesus' words as including infants 
 as a class "among the number of those who 
 have a right to the blessings of the atonement. " 
 The Scriptures teach that those who believe on 
 Jesus Christ have a right to the blessings of the 
 atonement, for they have fulfilled the condition 
 upon which God has graciously promised to be- 
 stow these blessings. And so elect infants who 
 are regenerated in infancy might be said to have 
 a right to the blessings of justification and eter- 
 nal life. But what possible warrant can there 
 be for saying that infants, as such, all being bur- 
 dened with guilt and depravity on the ground of 
 which they are under condemnation to eternal 
 punishment, have a right to regeneration, par- 
 don and the felicity of the heavenly world? 
 
 2. Another argument is based on what the 
 Bible teaches of the analogy between Adam and 
 Christ in Rom. v. 18,19; — "So then, as through 
 one trespass the judgment came Unto all men to 
 condemnation; even so through one act of right- 
 eousness the free gift came unto all men to jus- 
 tification of life. For as through the one man's 
 disobedience the many were made sinners, even 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 133 
 
 SO through the obedience of the one shall the 
 many be made righteous." 
 
 If this passage were held to teach that the 
 condemnation which came upon all men through 
 the disobedience of Adam was removed through 
 the obedience of Jesus Christ, it could be urged 
 as furnishing decisive proof of the salvation of 
 all dying in infancy. But strict Calvinism de- 
 nies this to be the teaching of the passage, and 
 holds that all men are, before moral agency, in 
 the same state of condemnation in which they 
 would have been had no atonement been made; 
 that those and those only are saved who 
 are included in the purpose of election; that 
 election, in the case of every individual, is a 
 secret act of God's sovereignty as an optional 
 power, and that the only sure sign of election is 
 faith. It can find, therefore, in the analogy be- 
 tween Adam and Christ, not only no evidence 
 that all infants dying in infancy are saved; it 
 can find no evidence that any of them are saved. 
 
 8. Again, it is urged "that it is more congenial 
 with the nature of God to bless than to curse, to 
 save than to destroy." (Charles Hodge.) But 
 strict Calvinism teaches — at least a large part of 
 the ablest representatives of this theory teach — 
 that though it was optional with God to save all 
 men, though He could have saved all without 
 prejudice to the glory of any of His attributes. 
 
134 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 He nevertheless decreed, in the exercise of His 
 sovereign pleasure, notwithstanding ' 'it is more 
 congenial with His nature to bless than to curse, 
 to save than to destroy," to curse and destroy- 
 forever a large part of the human race. A sov- 
 ereignty of this kind self-evidently precludes all 
 warrant for confidence as to the salvation of 
 those who die in infancy, as based on the teach- 
 ing of Scripture respecting the compassionate 
 and merciful nature of God. 
 
 4. It is further urged that ' 'since Christ died 
 for all, we have reason to believe that provision 
 is made for the reception of Christ by infants in 
 some other way than by personal faith — this 
 being a condition which they are Incapable of 
 fulfilling." But according to the theory under 
 consideration the non-elect who reach the age of 
 responsibility are as incapable of exercising 
 faith, by their own strength, or of doing any- 
 thing that will secure the grace necessary to 
 enable them to exercise faith, as they were at 
 the age of infancy. God decreed from eternity, 
 irrespective of any action on their part, to 
 withhold from them, during the first hour, the 
 first day, the first year, — during the whole 
 period of their responsible agency, — the assist- 
 ance without which it is impossible for them 
 to escape from their inherited bondage which 
 is ' 'as terrible and remorseless as any imprison- 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 135 
 
 ment behind iron bars." If non-elect adults 
 perish, notwithstanding their utter inability to 
 repent and believe, or to do anything that will 
 render the bestowment of regenerating grace 
 certain, or probable, or even possible, — an in- 
 ability not due to personal wrong-doing, but 
 inborn, there can be no reason whatever for in- 
 ferring that those who die in infancy are saved 
 without personal faith, because such faith is im- 
 possible to them. 
 
 WITH RESPECT TO THE DOCTRINE OF PRE- 
 DESTINATION. 
 
 II. If, now, strict Calvinism assumes, as it 
 does assume in our day, — an assumption, how- 
 ever, let it be remembered, in support of which 
 it cannot, consistently with its own principles, 
 produce any Scriptural evidence — that all dying 
 in infancy are saved, the question will arise, how 
 can this assumption be reconciled with the view 
 that God elects an exceedingly large class^not 
 one of the non-elect dying in infancy — and yet, 
 excludes from among the reasons or conditions 
 of His action the only circumstance which marks 
 them as a special class — their early death? 
 There is but one conceivable or supposable 
 method of reconciliation, viz. : the death of those 
 who die in infancy must be regarded, like re- 
 generation and its immediate antecedents, as a 
 
136 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 divinely appointed result, or consequence, of their 
 election. According to this conception the pur- 
 poses of election and non-election must be viewed 
 as embracing the individuals of each class (the 
 elect and the non- elect) from the beginning of 
 their existence in the womb, — since some die the 
 very hour in which they begin to live, — and must 
 be viewed as determining all the acts of God by 
 His providence and Spirit in relation to them. Of 
 the elect it was determined: (1) That some — one- 
 half the human race — should die before or soon 
 after birth. (2) That others, numbering many 
 millions, should be born idiotic, and should live 
 beyond the age at which responsibility begins in 
 the case of those who are mentally competent at 
 birth. (3) That the rest — few as compared with 
 those who die in infancy — should live for a pe- 
 riod, longer or shorter, after reaching the age of 
 accountability. Of the non-elect, however, it was 
 determined that all should be born in a condition 
 of mental soundness, and should live beyond, or 
 up to, the commencement of moral agency. 
 
 In this conception we have a clear and ade- 
 quate solution of the problem in hand — the re- 
 conciliation of the assumption that all who die 
 before or soon after birth, are saved, with the 
 position that in decreeing to save a part only of 
 mankind God did not take into account as "con- 
 ditions," or "moving causes" of his action, "any 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 137 
 
 thing foreseen in them" — "any thing by which 
 they were distinguished from other men." This- 
 idea renders the whole subject before us lumi- 
 nous. Of the elect some die in infancy, and some 
 are congenital imbeciles — their early death and 
 congenital imbecility being due to their election, 
 which is the determining principle of all God's 
 acts in relation to them from the j&rst moment of 
 their existence; but of the non-elect none are ap- 
 pointed to die in infancy, or to be born idiotic — 
 their exemption from early death and from con- 
 genital idiocy being rendered certain and neces- 
 sary by the decree of preterition. 
 
 This view we suppose to be the one most com- 
 monly held by strict Calvinistic theologians at 
 the present time, as it is the only view which caru 
 reconcile the assumption of the universal salva- 
 tion of infants with their theory. 
 
 Dr. Warfield: "That they die in infancy is not 
 the cause, but the effect of God's mercy towards 
 them." 
 
 Dr. Candlish : ' 'It is on account of His atone- 
 ment that infants die. Their salvation is there- 
 fore sure. Christ has purchased for Himself the 
 joy of taking them, while yet unconscious of 
 guilt and corruption, to be with Him in paradise. 
 That any little children at all die, — that so 
 many little children die, — is not the least among 
 
138 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 the benefits that flow from His interposition as a 
 Saviour." 
 
 This opinion was held by Zwingli, Bishop 
 Hooper, Toplady, and many others among the 
 earlier Calvinists, and "has of late," says Dr. 
 Warfield, "become the ruling view." 
 
 This conception gives the adherents of Cal- 
 vinism, who assume that all infants dying in 
 infancy are saved, a way of escape from two 
 otherwise insuperable difficulties: 1. The hope- 
 less task of attempting to find evidence of the 
 salvation of all infants, dying in infancy, in the 
 representations of Scripture which apply to in- 
 fants as such, that is, to all infants, a vast num- 
 ber of whom are non-elect, and whose salvation 
 is, therefore, impossible. 2. The equally hope- 
 less task of rendering it conceivable, or credible, 
 that God included in the purpose of election all 
 who die at an early age, and yet, excluded from 
 the "conditions" or "causes" of His action in 
 their election, the foresight of their early death. 
 
 That all infants dying in infancy are saved, and 
 and that their early death is due to their elec- 
 tion, are of necessity pwre assnmptions, admitting, 
 on the Calvinistic hypothesis, no proof either 
 rational or biblical. But since the first assump- 
 tion is made by all Calvinists at the present 
 time, and since the second is rendered log- 
 ically necessary by the first, it will be instruct- 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 139 
 
 ive to consider, in the light of these assump- 
 tions, the doctrine of sovereign predestination 
 in its mildest form. 
 
 THE ACCEPTED VIEW EXAMINED. 
 
 God purposed to create, mediately or imme- 
 diately, the individuals of the human race, and 
 then, regarding them from the first moment of 
 their existence as burdened with guilt and de- 
 pravity, and condemnation to eternal death, on 
 the ground of their union, real or constructive, 
 with Adam, and excluding from the reasons of 
 His action all points of difference between them 
 (of moral difference there can be none, while un- 
 born, or before the age of responsible action, 
 and foresight of any difference resulting from 
 personal action being consequent to and de- 
 pendent upon the divine purposes). He decreed 
 to bring some of them to the blessedness and 
 glory of the heavenly world — which decree de- 
 termined all His acts in relation to them, before 
 and after birth, their discipline before regener- 
 ation, their regeneration, sanctification, glori- 
 :fication, etc. ; and, on the other hand, decreed to 
 reject the rest — to withhold from them that al- 
 mighty and effectual grace which is necessary in 
 every instance to the production of repentance 
 and faith, — the essential conditions of eternal 
 life, — which decree is, in like manner, the deter- 
 
140 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 mining principle of all His acts in relation to 
 them from the beginning of their existence until 
 and after death. The chief logical conclusions 
 of this doctrine have been indicated, but they 
 may be stated more fully as follows: 
 
 1. All infants are regarded by God as elect or 
 non-elect (reprobate) from the first moment of 
 their existence. 
 
 2. The decree of election rendered all included 
 in it liable to be appointed to an early death — a 
 liability which becomes a fact in the case of one- 
 half of the human race. 
 
 3. The purpose of election also rendered all 
 included in it liable to be appointed to be im- 
 beciles — a liability which also becomes a fact in 
 the case of many millions. 
 
 4. The decree of election also rendered those 
 included in it liable to be appointed to live be- 
 yond, or up to, the beginning of moral agency — 
 a liability which becomes a fact in the case of a 
 number vast, indeed, but small as compared 
 either with those who die in infancy, or with the 
 non-elect. 
 
 5. The decree of preterition necessarily frees- 
 all embraced in it from liability to an early 
 death, or necessarily involves their appointment 
 to live to the age of moral action. 
 
 6. The decree of preterition also frees all em- 
 braced in it from liability to congenital imbecil- 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 141 
 
 ity. It is true that most of those included in 
 the purpose of election are appointed to be born 
 in a condition of mental soundness; but the dif- 
 ference between the two decrees, in this particu- 
 lar, is, that while the elect may, or may not be 
 free, the non-elect must be free, from congenital 
 imbecility, that is, if all infants are to be saved. 
 
 7. The decree of pretention renders it im- 
 possible for God Himself to do anything, at any 
 period of their life, for the salvation of those 
 who are included in that decree. 
 
 8. The decree of pretention, since it presup- 
 poses original sin, and has respect to, and is 
 justij&ed solely on the ground of, original sin, 
 necessarily involves the decree to punish the non- 
 elect for that sin, ' ' which deserves eternal dam- 
 nation. " 
 
 QUESTIONS SUGGESTED. 
 
 The consideration of this scheme suggests, 
 among other questions, the following: 
 
 1. Does it not seem extraordinary, that, 
 though more than half the human race are 
 elected, all, or nearly all, the elect in heathen 
 lands, and the vast majority of the elect in 
 Christian lands, are appointed to an early death, 
 and appointed to an early death because of their 
 election; whereas if they had been appointed to 
 live to the age of adults, by far the larger part 
 
142 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 of the world's population, from the beginning of 
 history, would have consisted of regenerate 
 persons? 
 
 2. Does it not seem most extraordinary that 
 that which of all calamities is universally re- 
 garded as the most terrible — congenital imbecil- 
 ity — should be due to the blessing of election? 
 
 3. Does it not seem most extraordinary that 
 all the non-elect should be appointed to live to 
 the period of responsibility, considering the fact 
 that their damnation is not only certain, but in- 
 evitable, do what they can to secure eternal life, 
 even in the way appointed in the gospel, and 
 the further fact, that their guilt cannot but in- 
 crease with the increase of the years of their 
 life, thus rendering their final doom infinitely 
 more dreadful than it would have been if they 
 had been sent to hell on the day of their birth? 
 
 4. Is the early death of infants — of one-half 
 of the human race — due to their election, or may 
 not this result be due to the fact, infallibly 
 known to God, that He could not save them, un- 
 der the wisest method of providential and gra- 
 cious action, in case they were appointed to live 
 to the years of responsibility? According to 
 this supposition their early death would be the 
 indispensable condition of their participation in 
 the mercy of God, and not an effect of His mercy 
 already bestowed upon them in their election. 
 
AS HELD BY MANY CALVINISTS. 143' 
 
 5. Is there any Scriptural warrant for the ap- 
 plication of the doctrines of election and non- 
 election to infants? Or are infants, as such, and 
 consequently, all infants, being freed from con- 
 demnation through the atonement, embraced in 
 the infinite love of God in the sense thatjhad 
 any of those who perished in the years n of re- 
 sponsibility been appointed to die in infancy 
 they would have been saved? 
 
 There is but one passage of Scripture [Eom. 
 ix. 10-12] which affords any apparent support 
 to the dogma of infant reprobation; but the 
 great body of the most competent interpreters 
 do not teach that eternal results are involved in 
 the original prophecy concerning Jacob and 
 Esau. Dr. Hovey — Commentary on the Epistle 
 to the Romans ix. 12 — "To the question whether 
 God's elective purpose regarding Jacob and 
 Esau had reference to their temporal condition 
 or to their eternal state, we should answer that, 
 according to the apostle's representation, it had 
 primary reference to their temporal state, and 
 not so much to them as individuals as to their 
 descendants. Paul certainly does not affirm in 
 the next verse that Jacob was elected to eternal 
 salvation and that Esau was reprobated to 
 eternal death, but 'the elder shall serve the 
 younger.' .... We do not feel called upon to 
 settle the eternal state of these individuals." 
 
144 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 Godet — Commentary on Romans ix. 13 — "In 
 speaking of Jacob and Esau, either as men or 
 nations, neither Genesis nor Malachi nor St. 
 Paul has eternal salvation in view." Schaff, 
 Creed Revision, p. 26 — "What is said in the 
 same chapter about God loving Jacob and hating 
 Esau, refers to their representative places in 
 the history of Israel, but not to their eternal 
 -destination." 
 
SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 Bu Prof. ROBERT WATTS, D.D., LLD. 
 
 DR. NORTHRUP'S REJOINDER, 
 
 DR. WATTS' REPLY. 
 
SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD, 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 REALLY ARMINIANISM. 
 FIRST PAPER. 
 
 To the Editor of the Western Recorder: 
 
 Dear Sir — The copies of The (Chicago) Stand- 
 ard containiiig Dr. Northrup's criticisms on the 
 Calvinistic system have at length come to hand. 
 Prom your account of the views propounded in 
 the Doctor's critique, I had expected a formida- 
 ble arraignment of the very foundations of 
 Theism in a philosophical discussion respecting 
 "the nature of God." You may imagine my 
 surprise on finding that instead of such a dis- 
 cussion, the articles published in The Standard 
 are simply an attack on the Calvinistic system. 
 It is true these articles proceed upon the assump- 
 tion of a particular view of the divine nature, 
 and involve, ultimately, the discussion of the 
 question, "What is God?" But I certainly had 
 reason, from the account given me of the subject 
 of the President's remarks, to look for a fresh, 
 scholarly, philosophical, and logical disquisition 
 
10 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 on the being and attributes of God. This, how- 
 ever, I now discover, the author of these articles 
 has not attempted. Had he done so we should 
 be in a better position to judge of the claims of 
 the doctrinal system he espouses and of its con- 
 gruity with the essential elements of Theism as 
 set forth in the sacred Scriptures and revealed 
 in the moral constitution of man. Nevertheless, 
 as already stated, we may gather the author's 
 views of the divine attributes from the objec- 
 tions he urges against the leading features of 
 the Calvinistic system. 
 
 His chief objection to the Calvinistic doctrine 
 of Predestination is, that according to it, ' 'the 
 perdition of a part of mankind — the nonelect — 
 is not only certain but inevitable, let them do 
 what they can to obtain salvation, even in the 
 way appointed in the Gospel. " One would think 
 from the confident tone of the writer that this 
 objection had never been heard of, or properly 
 presented, prior to the publication of these 
 ■articles. As a matter of fact, however, it has 
 figured as the most potent of all the objections 
 urged by all classes of opponents against the 
 Calvinistic system throughout the history of the 
 controversy. Indeed, it is, in its substance and 
 essence, the objection which the Apostle Paul 
 felt called upon to meet as likely to suggest 
 itself in opposition to the economy of grace as 
 
REALLY ARMINIANISM. 11 
 
 elaborated in his epistle to the Romans. The 
 principle objected to is the one on which God 
 has acted in His dealings with Israel. The 
 apostle vindicates God against the charge of 
 unfaithfulness toward His people by afftrming 
 that those cast away were not His people whom 
 He foreknew. Not one of them has been cast 
 away. He assures Elijah that He had, amid the 
 all but universal apostacy of which the prophet 
 complained, reserved to Himself seven thousand 
 men who had not bowed the knee to Baal. 
 Seizing upon this historic illustration of the 
 principle of the divine procedure in the admin- 
 istration of the covenant of grace, the apostle 
 would have us know that the principle is regu- 
 lative in the economy, and not limited to the 
 days of Elijah. "Even so then," he adds, "a< 
 this present time there is a remnant according to 
 the election of grace. And if by grace, then it 
 is no more of works; otherwise grace is no more 
 grace. But if it be of works, then it is no more 
 grace; otherwise work is no more work. What 
 then? Israel hath not obtained that which he 
 seeketh for; but the election (i. e., the elect), 
 hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded 
 (according as it is written, God hath given them 
 the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not 
 see, and ears that they should not hear) unto 
 this day." (Romans 11.) 
 
12 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 The doctrine propounded in this chapter is 
 that all Israel shall be saved, and on referring 
 to chapter ix, we find that by Israel the apostle 
 does not mean the lineal descendants of Abra- 
 ham as such. He is careful to foreclose all 
 risks of misapprehension on this point. "They 
 are not all Israel," he says, "which are of Israel; 
 neither because they are the seed of Abraham 
 are they all children, but in Isaac shall thy seed 
 be called. * * The children of the promise 
 are counted for the seed." The children of the 
 promise, be it observed.' That is, children yet 
 to be, and to be brought into being by the divine 
 agency in the fulfillment of the divine promise, 
 and whose relations to the covenant were not 
 determined by their works, as the apostle points 
 out by referring to the cases of Jacob and Esau, 
 but determined by the sovereign purpose of 
 God, in order that it might be shown that the 
 choice was "not of works, but of Him that 
 calleth." In a word, the history of God's deal- 
 ings with Israel is one continuous illustration of 
 the very doctrine which President Northrup 
 sets himself to challenge and to overthrow. 
 What he calls in question God claims the right 
 to do in His word, and, as the history of His 
 •de^ilings, not only with Israel, but with the 
 entire race of man demonstrates. He does in the 
 course of His providential administration. He 
 
REALLY ARMINIANISM. 13 
 
 claims the right to have mercy on whom He will 
 have mercy, and compassion on whom He will 
 have compassion, and i^ under no obligation to 
 have mercy upon any, as is manifest from the 
 fact that salvation is not of debt, but of grace. 
 If the apostle had framed this argument for the 
 express purpose of meeting Dr. Northrup's ob- 
 jection, both as regards the sovereignty of God 
 and the claim advanced by him on behalf of 
 human works, he could not have made the refu- 
 tation more complete. It is too late in the 
 history of God's dealing with our fallen race to 
 allege that he could not, righteously, choose 
 some as the subjects of His saving grace and 
 destine others to death because of their sins. 
 All history, sacred and secular, negatives any 
 such assumption. He who challenges God's 
 right to do so should cease to speak of the 
 economy of redemption as an economy of grace. 
 Mr. Wesley, in his ' 'Predestination Calmly Consid- ] 
 ered," denies that God might have justly passed 
 by man when he fell. As an Arminian he speaks 
 consistently with his theoi-y, but having taken 
 this ground, he has no right to speak of the 
 divine interposition as an act of grace. If God 
 might not, in justice, have passed by man when 
 he fell. He would have done him an injustice to 
 have passed him by, and when, instead of pass- 
 ing him by. He visited him. He was simply per- 
 
14 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 forming toward him an act of justice. Surely 
 it was a gross misuse of language to call such 
 \ interposition an act of grace. Arminians are 
 ever claiming that they are pre-eminently the 
 advocates of "free grace" but their principles, 
 now advanced by President Northrup, prove, to 
 a demonstration, that the claim is absolutely 
 destitute of warrant either in the nature of the 
 economy or in the history of its administration. 
 In my next I shall raise and discuss the ques- 
 tion, whether the primary objections against the 
 sovereign predestinating act of God do not in- 
 volve the objector in all the difftculties urged 
 against the Calvinistic doctrine, and lead, logic- 
 ally, to blank Fatalism. 
 
 Belfast, Ireland, August, 1892. 
 
REALLY ARMINIANISM. 15 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 REALLY ARMINIANISM. 
 SECOND PAPEK. 
 
 To the Editor of the Western Recorder: 
 
 Dear Sir — In my article of last week I pointed 
 out the fact that, though President Northrup 
 does not formally discuss the subject of "the 
 nature of God," but, instead thereof, makes an 
 attack on Calvinism; he, nevertheless, is con- 
 strained to assume the Arminian theory of the 
 divine nature, which is not in harmony with the 
 teaching of the Word of God in regard to the 
 history of His dealings with Israel and the whole 
 human race. What Dr. Northrup and Mr. Wes- 
 ley say God cannot do, and be just, all history, 
 whether sacred or secular, testifies that He has 
 done and is still doing. I have given Paul's ar- 
 gument in the Epistle to the Romans, but only 
 in part. In fact, to present the argument in all 
 its fullness were simply to rewrite both Testa- 
 ments, and to make drafts upon the secular his- 
 tory of mankind for which you have not space 
 and for which I have not time. It is too late in 
 the history of redemption to challenge the sov- 
 ereignty of God in the choice of the vessels of 
 
16 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 mercy out of a race which are by nature children 
 of wrath. God claims it is His prerogative in 
 His Word, and He does it now, and ever has 
 done it, in His providence. Let one additional 
 testimony suffice. Having described the state 
 of the church at Ephesus as blessed with all 
 spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, 
 the apostle proceeds to give an account of the 
 economic reasons which led to their having been 
 raised to this estate. Their elevation was not 
 an afterthought in the divine arrangements. 
 Those spiritual blessings had been bestowed 
 upon them in pursuance of a purpose entertained 
 toward them before the foundation of the world. 
 Paul's words are as strong as any words ever 
 f^ritten or uttered by John Calvin: "According- 
 as He hath chosen us in Him before the founda- 
 tion of the world that we should be holy and 
 without blame before Him in love : having pre- 
 destinated us unto the adoption of children of 
 Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good 
 pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory 
 of His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted 
 in the Beloved." (Bphes. 1:3-6.) 
 
 Is there any room here for discussions such as 
 President Northrup has raised? Can the divine 
 sovereignty in the choice of these saints at 
 Ephesus be called in question without calling in 
 question the inspiration of the Apostle Paul? 
 
REALLY ARMINIANISM. IT 
 
 These saints were chosen before the foundation 
 of the world, and the ground of this ancient 
 choice is declared to have been simply the good 
 pleasure of the divine will, and that they, as 
 predestinated and adopted sons, should be to the 
 praise of the glory of His grace. They were 
 not chosen because of their holiness or blame- 
 lessness, but, on the contrary, they were chosen 
 that they should be holy and without blame; the 
 choice did not arise from their subjective spirit- 
 ual estate, but their subjective spiritual estate 
 was the result of the antecedent divine choice. 
 Neither were they chosen because of their free- 
 dom from guilt, but, on the contrary, they were 
 chosen in order that they should be made free 
 from guilt. It was not because of their doingj 
 what they could to obtain salvation, as Presi- 
 dent Northrup puts it, that they obtained it, but 
 it was the election, as Paul puts it, in a passage 
 cited in my last, that obtained it: "Israel hath 
 not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the- 
 election hath obtained it, and the rest were 
 blinded. " (Romans 11 :7. ) Put ' 'Israel's seeking" 
 where Dr. Northrup puts "let them do what 
 they can to obtain salvation," and you have 
 placed in vivid contrast the Pauline and the 
 Arminian theories of the economy of grace. The 
 two systems are in irreconcilable antagonism. 
 Say what they will, the Arminians cannot 
 
18 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 reconcile their views of the ground of the divine 
 choice of sinners of mankind to eternal life, with 
 the uniform testimony of the sacred Scriptures, 
 that salvation is not of works, but of grace. 
 
 But not only is this doctrine of the Divine 
 Sovereignty a doctrine which gives caste and 
 character to the economy of redemption, it is a 
 doctrine and indeed the only doctrine in harmony 
 with Christian experience. Will Dr. Northrup 
 be good enough to give his readers an analysis 
 of the experience through which a sinner passes 
 when under conviction of sin? What does such 
 conviction mean? Is it not a fact that the sub- 
 ject of the conviction is fully persuaded that he 
 is guilty before God, and justly exposed to the 
 divine wrath, and that God might justly inflict 
 upon him the dreadful penalty of the broken 
 law? Does there ever enter as an element into 
 his experience the idea that God might not 
 justly pass him by, or that because of his doing 
 what he can to obtain salvation. He is bound, in 
 justice, to visit him in mercy and bestow upon 
 him the salvation he seeks? We may stake the 
 issue of the case here in controversy upon the 
 answer which all men who have passed through 
 the spiritual pangs of genuine conviction of sin 
 will give to these questions. No man who has 
 been brought by the regenerating action of the 
 Holy Ghost to see sin in the light of God's law 
 
REALLY ARMINIANISM. 19 
 
 and justice, and to see that both the law and the 
 justice of God demand that sin be punished, and 
 that such punishment is his own personal desert, 
 will venture to say that he has claims upon God 
 to extend to him His pardoning mercy. But if 
 this be the universal experience of Christian 
 men, what becomes of the theory which chal- 
 lenges the divine sovereignty in the dispensa- 
 tion of divine grace toward sinners of mankind? 
 ■Condemned by the testimony of Scripture, it is 
 also condemned by the testimony of all men who 
 have passed from death unto life, as soon as they 
 analyze their own experience under the illumi- 
 nation of the Holy Ghost, and it is only by 
 ■overlooking or forgetting that experience that 
 the redeemed and regenerated can bring them- 
 selves to challenge the Calvinistic doctrine 
 which recognizes the sovereignty of God in re- 
 demption, and claims for Him, as His Word 
 does, the right to have mercy upon whom He 
 will have mercy, and compassion upon whom 
 He will have compassion. 
 
 Dr. Northrup's chief objection to the divine 
 sovereignty in predestination is, that it "neces- 
 sarily implies that the eternal perdition of a 
 part of mankind — the nonelect— is not only cer- 
 tain, but inevitable, do what they can to obtain 
 salvation, even in the way appointed in the 
 
20 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 Gospel. " This raises the question I promised!' 
 to discuss. The question is this: "Is the issue; 
 of the present economy less certain, or less 
 inevitable, according to the Arminian theory than 
 it is according to the Calvinistic V This question 
 admits of but one answer where the omnis- 
 cience of God is recognized. If Dr. Northrup- 
 denies that God sees the end from the begin- 
 ning, and tfiat known to Him are all His works- 
 from the beginning, with him controversy on 
 my part must end. If, however, he holds as- 
 Mr. Wesley, despite his Arminianism, did, as- 
 against Dr. Clarke, that God's knowledge em- 
 braces the future as well as the past history of 
 the universe, the question forces itself upon 
 him. Could He know that future if it were not 
 certain and inevitable? Can God know the issue- 
 of the economy of redemption, both in regard to 
 those who shall be saved and those who shall be- 
 lost, if it were not certain who are to be saved and 
 who are to be lost? What, then, does the Arminian. 
 gain by rejecting the doctrine of decree? There 
 are no degrees of certainty in regard to a matter 
 whose eventuation is certain and known by God 
 as certain. The certainty, therefore, is as great 
 according to the divine omniscience as it i& 
 according to the divine decree. The Arminian,. 
 therefore, gains nothing. 
 
REALLY ARMINIANISM. 21 
 
 In my next I shall endeavor to show that by 
 holding to the omniscience and rejecting the 
 divine decree he must land in blank Fatalism. 
 
 Belfast, Ireland, August, 1892. 
 
22 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 DIVINE DECREE OR FATALISM. 
 THIRD PAPEK. 
 
 To the Editor of the Western Eecorder: 
 
 In my last article I pointed out the fact that 
 the doctrine of the Divine Sovereignty, in the 
 choice of the vessels of mercy, was as definitely 
 stated and as emphatically affirmed in the 
 Scriptures as in the Calvinistic system now 
 assailed by Dr. Northrup. I also carried an 
 appeal in behalf of that doctrine to the bar of 
 Christian experience, raising the question, 
 whether any one who has been thoroughly 
 convinced of sin, had, while under such convic- 
 tion, the persuasion that, despite his felt ex- 
 posure to the divine wrath, he had a claim upon 
 the divine mercy? Such persuasion has no 
 place in Christian experience, and this one 
 feature of the effect of the Spirit's work upon 
 the soul in conversion, is fatal to the whole 
 Arminian scheme. It is impossible to reconcile 
 the experience of men when under conviction of 
 sin, with the Arminian doctrine, that God 
 might not, in justice, pass the sinner by; and 
 the reason is that conviction of sin is persuasion 
 
DIVINE DECREE OR FATALISM. 23^ 
 
 of guilt, and to be persuaded of guilt is, as 
 already stated, to be persuaded of just exposure 
 to the wrath of God. Surely if Christian expe- 
 rience in the transition from death to life is to 
 have a voice in the decision of this turning^ 
 point in the controversy, the verdict must be 
 the af&rmation of the sovereignty of God, who 
 instead of inflicting the merited penalty — the 
 penalty to which the sinner himself is fully 
 convinced he is justly exposed — extends the 
 golden sceptre of His grace to the self-con- 
 demned culprit. 
 
 f It was also pointed out in my last that the ob- 
 jection urged by Arminians against the Calvin- 
 istic doctrine of the sovereignty of God in 
 singling out the vessels of mercy, lies, with 
 equal force, against the Arminian theory, which, 
 while rejecting the decree of election, on the 
 ground of the certainty of the result decreed, 
 admits the omniscience and consequent fore- 
 knowledge of God. This is manifest, as the 
 result is as certain according to the foreknowl- 
 edge as it can be according to the decree. Th& 
 chief ground of the Arminian objection to the 
 divine decree is, that it renders the event cer- 
 tain and inevitable, and when an event is certain 
 to eventuate, it is alleged that the agent by 
 whom it comes to pass cannot be a free agent. 
 Of course there is nothing gained here by the 
 
.24 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 Arminian who admits that God's knowledge em- 
 braces all the future history of the universe, 
 and, beyond all peradventure, the entire issues 
 -of the economy of redemption to the minutest 
 •detail. That future history could not be known 
 unless the events it embraces we^te certain to 
 occur, and if they were certain to occur, must 
 it not follow that the Arminian, who admits the 
 foreknowledge of the event and, consequently, 
 the certainty of its occurrence, has to encounter 
 his own objection, which assumes that certainty 
 is irreconcilable with free agency? 
 
 But further, it was intimated that whereas 
 nothing is gained by denying the decree, and no 
 difficulty solved or avoided by substituting for 
 it the doctrine of the divine foreknowledge, the 
 denial of it involves the objector in a difficulty 
 immeasurably greater than that which he sought 
 to escape, and which he imagined was charge- 
 able upon the Calvinistic system alone. In a 
 word, as intimated, by rejecting the decree while 
 admitting the foreknowledge of God, he has 
 shut himself up to the dread alternative of blank 
 Fatalism, which rules God out of the empire of 
 moral agency. According to what the objector 
 to the decree teaches, the only relation which 
 God sustains to the events which are to transpire 
 in the future history of His own universe is that 
 He knows they undoubtedly shall come to pass 
 
DIVINE DECREE OR FATALISM. 25 
 
 at the times, in the places, in the order, and by 
 their respective agencies, exactly as foreknown. 
 Kegarding all that shall take place within the 
 domain of free moral agency, and especially 
 within the sphere of the kingdom of grace. He 
 simply knows what will happen. Reject the 
 doctrine of the decree, and this is the sole alter- 
 native. The question therefore arises, as the 
 whole future is known by God, and therefore 
 certain, and therefore determined, by whom, or 
 rather by what, has it been determined? The 
 objector has ruled out God, let him bring forth 
 his substitute. If by his theory he has de- 
 throned the omniscient Jehovah, surely he can- 
 not leave the throne of the universe vacant. I 
 have more faith in my Arminian friends than to 
 think that they will venture to carry out their 
 principles to their legitimate consequences and 
 proceed to place upon the august seat of the 
 Divine Majesty as a substitute for the omniscient 
 God any of the principalities or powers of the 
 celestial array. They have placed themselves 
 in a dilemma out of which their principles will 
 not permit them to escape. They have on the 
 one hand a vacant throne, and on the other an 
 absolutely determined future. That is, they 
 have to account for a determined future while 
 their principles will not admit the existence, or 
 counsel, or action of any intelligent personal 
 2 
 
26 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 determiner ! Is it not manifest that an absolutely 
 determined series of events, concatenated and 
 linked together by no supreme intelligence, 
 whether divine, angelic, or human, must be re- 
 ferred to nothing save blind, relentless Pate? 
 
 But this is not all. Denying the sovereignty 
 of God within the sphere of redemption, the 
 Arminian must refer to this blind Fate the de- 
 termination of the issues of the economy. As 
 foreknowledge embraces and has embraced from 
 all eternity the knowledge of those who shall be 
 saved and of those who shall be lost, and as the 
 Arminian denies that God has determined to 
 save the elect and to pass by the nonelect, it 
 must follow that the whole arrangements for the 
 calling, justification, and glorification of the 
 elect, including the death of Christ and the 
 office-work of the Holy Spirit in regeneration 
 and sanctification, can be ascribed to no efficient, 
 determining cause, save the soulless, passion- 
 l^less, unintelligent idol — Fate. Is it necessary 
 to point out the bearing of such a theory upon 
 the glory of the Divine Author of our salvation, 
 by whose determinate counsel and foreknowl- 
 edge Christ was betrayed and put to death ? or 
 its bearing upon the work of Christ both in His 
 life and in His death? or upon the work of the 
 Holy Ghost in quickening dead souls into 
 spiritual life and maintaining the life He imparts 
 
DIVINE DECREE OR FATALISM. 27 
 
 until it expands and matures in the presence of 
 the glorified Redeemer, without spot, or wrinkle, 
 or any such thing? Carried fairly and fully 
 out, the theory cannot admit decree, or inter- 
 vention, or anything beyond "moral suasion," at 
 any stage of the economy. It is 'irreconcilable 
 with the clearly revealed fact, that while our 
 Redeemer was put to death by wicked hands. 
 He was delivered to that death in accordance 
 with, and in pursuance of, a purpose entertained 
 before the foundation of the world. It cannot 
 be reconciled with the fact that the betrayer was 
 foreordained to betray Him, or with the fact 
 that Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles 
 and the people of Israel were gathered together 
 to do whatsoever the hand and the counsel of 
 God determined before to be done. Where then 
 is the love of God in giving His Son to die, or 
 the love of the Son in dying, or the love of the 
 Holy Spirit in applying the purchased redemp- 
 tion to the souls of men ? Is such an economy — 
 an economy that has been designed to make 
 known to the principalities and powers in heav- 
 enly places, through the church, the manifold 
 wisdom of God— is such an economy, which the 
 angels desire to look into, to be referred to any 
 moving, determining cause outside the adorable 
 Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost? Does 
 not the soul which has experienced its redemp- 
 
28 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 tive power in deliverance from the guilt and 
 bondage of sin, turn, with instinctive horror, 
 from the theory which leaves it no alternative 
 but to ascribe such an economy to an irrational, 
 impersonal entity, under whose administration 
 Arminianism places, by implication, the destiny 
 of angels and of men as well as the glory of the 
 omniscient, omnipotent God? Instead of as- 
 suming that we have capacity to look within and 
 examine the arcana of the mysteries of the 
 Divine purposes, be it ours, as it was Paul's, to 
 confess our impotence for such investigation, 
 and with him to exclaim, "0 "the depth of the 
 riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of 
 God! how unsearchable are His judgments, and 
 his ways past finding out! * * For of Him, 
 and through Him, and to Him, are all things: to 
 whom be glory forever. Amen." 
 
 Belfast, Ireland, September, 1892. 
 
FEDERAL HEADSHIP OP ADAM. 29 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 FEDERAL HEADSHIP OF ADAM. 
 FOURTH PAPER. 
 
 To the Editor of the Western Recorder: 
 
 Having shown in previous articles that Dr. 
 Northrup's objections to Calvinism are really 
 objections to the economy of grace as set forth 
 in the sacred Scriptures and that he not only 
 gains nothing by rejecting the doctrine of God's 
 sovereign decree in the salvation of men while 
 he admits the divine foreknowledge of the final 
 issue of that economy, but, by ruling out God 
 from the spheres of purpose and administration 
 must, if he will be consistent, refer the inception 
 and ultimate issue of redemption to blind, pur- 
 poseless, irrational fate, having established 
 these positions, I would be justified in claiming 
 that the attack has failed and that further de- 
 fence is unnecessary. 
 
 There are, however, three points, which are 
 really turning points in the controversy, to which 
 it may not be altogether unprofitable to call at- 
 tention. These are: The federal relation of 
 Adam, the effect of his fall upon himself and his 
 posterity, and necessity of regeneration in order 
 
30 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 to faith and repentance. These points are in 
 the inventory of Dr. Northrup's arraignment of 
 Calvinism, but there is nothing in the shape of a 
 formal statement, or systematic scriptural dis- 
 cussion of them. What we find is what we find 
 under the head of the divine predestination, a 
 set of questions and accompanying objections, 
 the object of which is to create prejudice against 
 the Calvinistic view regarding these vital sub- 
 jects. But as it has occurred in treating of the 
 divine decree, so has it occurred in his arraign- 
 ment of the Calvinistic doctrine of Adam's fed- 
 eral headship, human ability, and the doctrine of 
 regeneration. In every instance the doctrine 
 impugned is a doctrine clearly taught in Scrip- 
 ture and confirmed by the history of the race, 
 while the only alternative open to Arminianism 
 is in conflict with the Word of God and the ex- 
 perience of mankind, removes no difficulty and 
 creates difficulties ten- fold greater than those it 
 seeks to obviate. 
 
 Take, for example, the federal headship of 
 Adam, which, with its grave consequences, is 
 challenged by Dr. Northrup. The death threat- 
 ened was not, as a matter of fact, limited to our 
 first parents. Whether as regards the body, or 
 the soul, it fell upon their descendants as well as 
 upon themselves, and fell upon their descend- 
 ants, and still falls upon them, irrespective of, 
 
FEDERAL HEADSHIP OF ADAM. 31 
 
 and prior to, their having done either good or evil. 
 Describing the former estate of the Ephesians 
 the apostle afiirms, that they were spiritually- 
 dead, in bondage to the course of this world and 
 to the god of this world, and that they were, by 
 nature, children of wrath. The context shows 
 that the death and bondage in which the Ephe- 
 sians were held were not simply the result of a 
 course of immoral activity. On the contrary, 
 their conduct is traced back to their being dead 
 in trespasses and sins, and, to put the matter 
 beyond all possibility of misapprehension, it is 
 added, that they were by nature, that is prior to 
 any moral action whatever, children of wrath, 
 the just objects of the divine displeasure. Now 
 is it not manifest that Arminianism encounters 
 here a far greater difficulty than any arising out 
 of the doctrine of the headship of Adam? Here, 
 we have men pronounced children of wrath by 
 virtue of their nature, that is, prior to their own 
 personal transgressions. How is the divine ver- 
 dict in the case to be vindicated. Arminianism 
 lias no solution. If where there is no sin com- 
 mitted there can be no wrath entertained or re- 
 vealed, how is it that men, prior to their having 
 committed sin, and in virtue of their nature sim- 
 ply, are regarded and treated as fit subjects of 
 the wrath of God? Sin there must be, or there 
 can be no wrath entertained, nor can there be 
 
32 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 any penalty inflicted. But there is wrath de- 
 clared, and, therefore, there must be sin: and as 
 the wrath is coincident with the very being of 
 the objects of it, the judicial ground of it cannot, 
 as already stated, be their own personal trans- 
 gressions. Calvinism finds the judicial ground 
 in the first sin of our first father in whom all 
 have died, but Arminianism, while claiming to 
 justify the ways of God to man, must, if consist- 
 ent, hold that the penalty of sin is inflicted upon 
 the race prior to their actual enactment of sin. 
 Catechism number two of the Wesleyan Confer- 
 ence finds sin in our want of original righteous- 
 ness and the corruption of our whole nature com- 
 monly called original sin. This, however, leaves 
 the problem still unsolved, for the want of origi- 
 nal righteousness and the corruption of our 
 whole nature is, for a moral agent, death in its 
 direst form, and must therefore be looked upon 
 as a penal infliction, and therefore presumes 
 antecedent sin as the judicial ground of such in- 
 fliction. As this antecedent sin antedates all 
 actual transgression on the part of those who 
 are the subjects of the penal infliction, it must 
 be sought where Calvinism finds it, in the act of 
 our common federal head. 
 
 But further: If the federal headship of Adam 
 be rejected, what is the alternative? The 
 only possible alternative is individual, personal 
 
FEDERAL HEADSHIP OF ADAM. BS 
 
 responsibility. If the race have not had proba- 
 tion in Adam they must have it individually, 
 each one standing for himself. To this view 
 there are two serious and conclusive objections. 
 
 1. The conditions of such probation are such 
 as to render success impossible; for the proba- 
 tioner enters upon his career in a state which the 
 Scriptures describe as a state of spiritual death. 
 It is idle, and worse than idle, to speak of a 
 moral agent, under such circumstances, as placed 
 upon probation. At the very outset he is spirit- 
 ually dead, and, as we have seen, a fit object of 
 the wrath of God. Such he could not righteously 
 be, except there has been an antecedent proba- 
 tion, and that too a probation under which the 
 probationer failed, and, as Calvinism, with the 
 Word of God, holds, by his failure brought death 
 into our world and all our woe. 
 
 2. The theory of an individual personal proba- 
 tion is irreconcilable with the experience of the 
 race. The advocate of this theory may well be 
 asked, ' ' Whether he remembers a time when he 
 was not conscious that he was personally guilty 
 before God? " If he must confess that he does 
 not, the conclusion is inevitable, that at that 
 time his probation, if ever he had one, was over 
 and had proved a failure. In a word, if the pro- 
 bation accorded to the race is an individual 
 probation, they enter upon it in their infancy, 
 
34 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 and, in every instance, if we are to accept their 
 own testimony, founded on their own experience, 
 fail to win eternal life. Surely the Calvinistio 
 doctrine of the federal headship of Adam, need 
 not feel abashed when brought face to face with 
 this, the sole alternative. In the one case there 
 has been a probation given to the race in the 
 person of a man created after the image of God, 
 in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, while 
 in the other, every man is made to stand for him- 
 self in infancy, and that too in an infancy in- 
 fected with the virus of spiritual death! 
 
 3. Besides, this theory that places each indi- 
 vidual on probation for himself, instead of ac- 
 cording him a probation in Adam, is simply an 
 Arminian version of the covenant of works. It 
 is true Arminians recognize the necessity of what 
 they call common grace, that is, a grace common 
 to the whole race, enabling the probationer, if 
 he rightly use it, to repent and believe and thus 
 fulfill the conditions of this new covenant. This, 
 however, is still a covenant of woi'ks, as truly as 
 the covenant made with Adam, and the work 
 done, as Watson in his Institutes teaches, is 
 pleaded by Christ as proof of the fulfillment of 
 the conditions of the covenant by the sinner him- 
 self, and presented to the Father as the ground 
 on which he asks for his justification! 
 
FEDERAL, HEADSHIP OF ADAM. 35 
 
 The ultimate principle underlying this theory 
 of an individual, personal probation, is identical 
 with the Pelagian ultimate, viz., that responsi- 
 bility implies ability. Arminians and Pelagians 
 agree in holding that where there is no ability, 
 there is no obligation. They differ simply in 
 regard to the source of the ability, the Pelagians 
 holding that it is by nature, whereas the Armin- 
 ians hold that it is of grace. The principle holds 
 true in regard to moral agents as they come from 
 the hands of their Creator. They cannot be 
 Tinder obligation to render an obedience exceed- 
 ing their ability. In their case ability is the 
 measure of responsibility. This principle, how- 
 ever, cannot be accepted as applicable in the 
 case of moral agents who have sinned and fallen 
 from the estate wherein they were created, and 
 through their fall have lost their ability to obey. 
 Their inability is one of the consequences of 
 their sin, and, at the same time, an index to, and 
 an enhancement of, their guilt. To allege that 
 their ability to obey is restored by grace, implies 
 that apart from the gift of such restoring grace, 
 they "could not be held responsible for failure to 
 meet the demands of the law, or punished for 
 acts of disobedience. The only alternative open 
 to the Lawgiver, according to this theory, is to 
 bestow the necessary measure of grace, or to 
 release all fallen moral agents from obligation 
 
36 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 to obey. I say all fallen moral agents, for if the 
 principle be valid, it cannot be limited in its ap- 
 plication to sinners of mankind. Upon this 
 principle, obligation on the part of the fallen to 
 obey, implies obligation on the part of the Law- 
 giver to bestow the needed grace, and the obli- 
 gation to bestow it must be coextensive with the 
 need whether of fallen angels or fallen men. It 
 is unnecessary to say that the bestowal of the 
 gift, under such circumstances, cannot be re- 
 garded as an act of grace, or to point out the 
 bearing of the principle in question upon God's 
 treatment of the angels that sinned and kept not 
 their first estate. 
 
 Belfast, Ireland, September, 1892. 
 
FEDERAL HEADSHIP OP CHRIST. 37 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 FEDERAL HEADSHIP OF CHRIST. 
 FIFTH PAPEE. 
 
 To the Editor of the Western Recorder: 
 
 While rejecting the doctrine of the federal 
 headship of Adam, ' 'as contained in the system 
 of strict Calvinism," Arminianism admits that in 
 virtue of their natural relation to him, as their 
 first father, all his descendants derive from him a 
 nature which is morally corrupt and destitute of 
 original righteousness. According to this 
 theory we derive this degraded nature from 
 Adam, just as we derive it from our parents, 
 through the channel of ordinary generation. 
 On this theory it may be remarked: 
 
 1. That whereas the Scriptures represent the 
 race as dying in Adam, they never speak of 
 them as dying in their parents. Their uniform 
 representation is, that death entered through 
 the one offense of the one man — that it is "in 
 Adam that all die," and not in their immediate 
 parents. 
 
 2. The theory confounds the ground of the 
 penalty with the medium of its infliction. Instead 
 of assigning a reason for the sentence of con- 
 
38 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 demnation it tells us how the sentence has been 
 carried into execution. 
 
 3. It leaves unsolved the problem that the 
 penalty of sin is inflicted on those who, person- 
 ally, are not chargeable with any actual trans- 
 gression. It seems difficult to understand how 
 any one who believes in the justice of God and 
 the righteousness of the divine administration 
 can rest satisfied in such a theory. If the sin of 
 our first father, whereby he broke the covenant, 
 'be not recognized as the judicial ground of the 
 divine procedure in the infliction of the dread 
 penalty of death upon himself and his posterity, 
 there is no solution of this momentous problem 
 possible. 
 
 It does not help the Arminian theory to reply, 
 as Dr. Northrup does, that the Scriptures ' 'seem 
 to justify the position that, prior to personal 
 action, men are, through the atonement, free 
 from condemnation; that the judgment which, 
 through the one ofllense of Adam, came upon all 
 men to condemnation, was removed, absolutely 
 and forever, by the one act of righteousness of 
 Jesus Christ." This position is without warrant 
 either in Scripture or the history of the race. 
 The Scriptures state the conditions on which 
 men are freed from condemnation, and those 
 conditions are such as to preclude the possibility 
 of men being freed from condemnation "prior 
 
FEDERAL HEADSHIP OF CHRIST. 39 
 
 to personal action." These conditions are, re- 
 pentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus 
 Christ. None are free from condemnation save 
 those who are justified, and, so far as adults are 
 concerned, none save believers are justified. 
 There is no condemnation to them which are in 
 Christ Jesus, and, therefore, all who are not in 
 Him are under condemnation, and none are in 
 Him who have not received Him by faith. As 
 such reception implies action, it follows that 
 the atonement has not, ipso facto, freed all men 
 from condemnation. The obedience and death 
 of Christ have furnished, in law and justice, the 
 ground which justifies God in justifying those 
 in whose behalf Christ stood, obeying and suffer- 
 ing, but not until the redemption purchased is 
 applied through the agency of the Holy Ghost 
 are their relations to the law changed. We 
 must not frame theories of redemption which 
 ignore the work of the Spirit in applying it at 
 any stage in the history of the redeemed. As 
 regards infants, it is easy to show that it is only 
 on Calvinistic principles they can be made par- 
 takers of salvation. 
 
 It seems hard to imagine how one who rejects, 
 as Arminians do, the doctrine of the imputation 
 of the guilt of Adam's one offense, can speak of 
 that judgment (that guilt?) as having been re- 
 moved ' 'by the one act of righteousness of Jesus 
 
40 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 Christ." If the guilt incurred by that one 
 offense was not imputed to Adam's posterity, 
 there was no need for the removal of it from 
 them. This is another of the incongruities of the 
 Arminian position. Adam's sin is not imputed, 
 and yet the death of Christ is necessary to free 
 men from the guilt of it! 
 
 Dr. Northrup, in conformity with the Arminian 
 theory, refers the deliverance of the race from 
 the condemnation consequent on Adam's one 
 offense, to "the one act of righteousness of 
 Jesus Christ." The Arminian doctrine limits 
 Christ's work to His atoning death, and leaves 
 out of the account His life of obedience whereby 
 He met the claims of the precepts of the law. 
 It is admitted that it was necessary that He 
 should be conformed to the law in all respects, 
 and that He should satisfy its preceptive as well 
 as its penal claims, but it is held that the reason 
 was, that if He had not come up to the require- 
 ments of the law, He could not have been 
 accepted as a lamb without spot, and would not 
 have been duly qualified to take His place upon 
 the altar as an atoning sacrifice. This limitation 
 of that work whereby our Lord achieved our 
 redemption is utterly destitute of scriptural 
 foundation. From the outset He stood in His 
 people's stead. For them He was made under 
 the law that He might redeem them from its 
 
FEDERAL HEADSHIP OP CHRIST. 41 
 
 curse. That law was written in His heart, and 
 He was the end of it for righteousness to every 
 one that believeth upon Him. Being found in 
 fashion as a man, and from that moment, He 
 humbled Himself and became obedient even unto 
 death; yea, the death of the Cross. Even unto 
 death. The Revisionists so render iJ-i/pi OavdTou 
 and do so rightly, bringing out clearly the 
 force of iJ-i'/pi, which conveys the idea of 
 continuous action during the whole period re- 
 ferred to. As this period embraces the entire 
 history of His humiliation, extending from the 
 time in which our Saviour was found in fashion 
 as a man till His death on the Cross, it follows 
 that during that entire time He was engaged in 
 one continuous course of obedience — an obedi- 
 ence inseparable from suffering — which reached 
 its climax and consummation when He cried, 
 "It is finished, " and gave up the ghost. That 
 this course of obedience was redemptive, ren- 
 dered by Him as our Redeemer, is manifest from 
 the fact that it is mentioned by the Apostle as 
 embraced in the ground of the action of the 
 Father in exalting him above all things in 
 heaven and on earth. 
 
 Besides, we must remember that neither in 
 
 His humiliation nor in His exaltation, neither in 
 
 His life nor in His death, is our Saviour regarded 
 
 or treated by the Father as an isolated, unrelated 
 
 3 
 
42 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 individual, whose action or suffering had refer- 
 ence to Himself alone. It was not for Himself 
 He become incarnate. It was because the chil- 
 dren whom the Father had given Him were par- 
 takers of flesh and blood, that He Himself like- 
 wise took part of the same, and this was one of 
 the conditions of His being able to bring to 
 naught Him that had the power of death. When 
 He hung on the Cross, His whole church was 
 regarded as hanging there with Him, and when 
 He, the One, died, He is represented as dying 
 for all, and they all are represented (II. Cor. 
 V. 14) as dying in and with Him. And as it was 
 in His death, so was it in his resurrection. His 
 people are represented (Ephes. ii) as being 
 quickened and raised up together with Him, and 
 made to sit together with Him in the heavenly 
 places. That is, they were quickened when He 
 was quickened, raised when He was raised, and 
 seated in the heavenly places when He was en- 
 throned there. As neither the apostle nor the 
 members of the church at Bphesus were quick- 
 ened into spiritual life when Christ's lifeless 
 body was quickened in the tomb of Joseph, nor 
 raised from the dead when He was raised, nor 
 translated from earth to the heavenly places at 
 the time of His enthronement in heaven, it is 
 manifest that the doctrine underlying this pas- 
 sage is that of the federal headship of Christ with 
 
FEDERAL HEADSHIP OF CHRIST. 43 
 
 whom His church in the entirety of her member- 
 ship is identified both in His humiliation and 
 exaltation. 
 
 It is therefore most unwarrantable to speak 
 of the work of Christ, by which He wrought our 
 redemption, as "one act of righteousness." 
 Such reduction of His work betrays great unac- 
 quaintance with the elementary difficulties of 
 the problem which the economy of redemption 
 was designed to solve. While the economy is 
 an economy of grace — a fact which Arminianism 
 fails to appreciate, however much it speaks of 
 grace — it is, nevertheless, and none the less, an 
 economy whose object is to meet the claims of 
 the law upon those whom it seeks to save. As 
 the law consists, in its very essense, of precepts, 
 the penalty being attached to it only in case of 
 transgression, it is manifest that a work which 
 singles out' the penalty and deals with it alone, 
 cannot be regarded as satisfying the law in the 
 fullness of its requirements, as it makes no pro- 
 vision for the satisfaction of its precepts. The 
 only legal issue of such a work would be the 
 exemption of the transgressor from the infliction 
 of the penalty. It might, perhaps, furnish a 
 basis for his pardon; but certainly it would be 
 utterly inadequate as a judicial ground of his 
 justification. If, as the apostle teaches (Rom. 
 iii. 25, 26), God must be just in justifying him 
 
44 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 that believeth in Jesus, the ground on which He 
 pronounces the believer just must be such as to 
 satisfy the demands both of the precept and the 
 penalty. The reduction of Christ's work to the 
 one act of righteousness enacted on the Cross, 
 involves the reduction of its legal outcome to a 
 mere act of pardon. This is a grave reduction. 
 It leaves the pardoned one in a most anomalous 
 position. He is simply exempt from punish- 
 ment. He is pardoned, but not justified. His 
 case is that of a criminal whom his sovereign 
 has forgiven, but whom he has not restored to 
 favor or granted access to his presence. Of 
 such an one it could not be said, that being 
 justified by faith he has peace with God, or that 
 he has access by faith into the grace wherein 
 he stands and rejoices in hope of the glory of 
 God. 
 
 It is obvious, on the slightest consideration of 
 the elements which enter into the determination 
 of this great question, that the reduction of 
 Christ's work to the limits of the transaction on 
 Calvary, must involve a thorough recast of the 
 language of the New Testament, and the elimi- 
 nation from it of every term which expresses 
 the idea of a forensic procedure on the part of 
 the Father, when, through the agency of the 
 : Spirit, He applies to sinners the redemption 
 purchased by Christ. Such terms can have no 
 
FEDERAL HEADSHIP OF CHRIST. 45 
 
 place in an economy of mere condonation, and 
 the advocates of such an economy have no right 
 to claim that they hold and teach the doctrine 
 of justification by faith, as proclaimed by apos- 
 tles and prophets, and as given back to the 
 church by the men who, under God, wrought 
 her deliverance from the bondage of Rome. 
 
 Belfast, Ireland, October, 1892. 
 
46 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 PLENARY ABILITY. 
 SIXTH PAPER. 
 
 To the Editor of the Western Recorder: 
 
 Dr. Northrup objects to the Calvinistic doc- 
 trine of the absolute inability of men in regard 
 to spiritual things, specifying their inability to 
 repent and believe. In opposition to this doc- 
 trine, he states, in the form of a question, his 
 own view of the case. "Has man," he asks, 
 "every man, ability — plenary ability — under the 
 universal provisions of grace, to avoid commit- 
 ting the unpardonable sin and to escape final 
 damnation?" Full power, for a period longer or 
 shorter, moved by rational self-regard, a sense 
 of duty, the natural principle of gratitude, and 
 ' 'aspiration for something better than he has, or 
 than he is," in response to the quickening touch 
 of truth and of the Holy Spirit, "to resist the 
 evil tendencies of his nature," to strive to exer- 
 cise the repentance and faith which the Bible 
 requires, "with the certainty that his struggle 
 will be blessed of God with the blessing of re- 
 generating and forgiving grace? Who is it that 
 says. If ye then, being evil, know how to give 
 
PLENARY ABILITY. 47 
 
 good gifts to your children, how much more shall 
 your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to 
 them that ask Him? " 
 
 The italics are Dr. Northrup's, and his doctrine 
 is, that under the universal provisions of grace, 
 ''every man," i. e., if it is to serve his puz-pose, 
 every individual of the race, throughout the his- 
 tory of the race, has had "plenary power, in re- 
 sponse to the quickening touch of truth and of 
 the Holy Spirit, to resist the evil tendencies of 
 his nature and to strive to exercise the faith and 
 repentance which the Bible requires." It will be 
 observed that there is, in this statement of the 
 case, a very important concession of the chief 
 point at issue, viz. , the absolute inability of men 
 by nature. It is conceded that it is only ' 'under 
 the universal provisions of grace," that men pos- 
 sess this plenary ability. Whatever ability then 
 men possess, they possess not by nature, but by 
 grace, and therefore where the grace has not 
 been bestowed the ability is not possessed. The 
 only difference between Calvinism and what is 
 here conceded, has regard to the extent of the 
 provisional arrangement, and the measure or 
 degree of the spiritual strength imparted. Ar- 
 minianism claims that the provision is universal, 
 and that the ability is ''plenary," that the power 
 conferred by ' 'the universal provisions of grace" 
 is ' 'full power to strive to exercise the repentance 
 
48 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 and faith which the Bible requires." Calvinism, 
 in harmony with the Scriptures and the history 
 of mankind, denies that such grace as is here 
 claimed, has, as a matter of fact, been provided 
 and communicated to every individual of the 
 race or that "every man" has been afforded the 
 opportunity of exercising or of striving to exer- 
 cise the faith and repentance which the Bible 
 requires. The faith and repentance which the 
 Bible requires is repentance toward God and 
 faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is only such 
 faith and repentance that can avail to salvation. 
 Surely it cannot be said that "every man" (every 
 child of Adam) in every land and in every age 
 of the world's history, has been placed in a posi- 
 tion to exercise, or "to strive to exercise, " these 
 graces. It is a very awkward and inconvenient 
 thing to be pledged to the advocacy of a theory 
 which is contrary to the facts of the case. The 
 facts in this case are against Arminianism, and 
 demonstrate the truth of Calvinism. The econ- 
 omy of grace has been so administered as to 
 show that God is sovereign in the administration. 
 He did not communicate to all the Chaldeans 
 that saving knowledge which he vouchsafed to 
 Abraham and his seed. He chose Israel for his 
 own while he permitted the nations to walk in 
 darkness. It is only by shutting our eyes to the 
 clearly revealed historical facts of the divine 
 
PLENARY ABILITY. 4^ 
 
 administration, and ruling our theology by a 
 species of unscriptural, unphilosophical ethics, 
 that we can be brought to accept the position 
 that "the provisions of grace" are universal, be- 
 stowing upon every man, in every land and in 
 every age, "plenary ability" in regard to spiritual 
 things. But further: Suppose it were true that 
 the provisions of grace placed every human 
 being on the globe during the New Testament 
 dispensation in a position to repent and believe, 
 it is difficult to see how this would help the Ar- 
 minian theory. "Every man" in Dr. Northrup'& 
 account of the matter, cannot be limited to New 
 Testament times. If it is to serve as a factor in 
 his argument it must mean every man descended 
 from Adam, whether under the Old Testament 
 or the New. If his theology is to be harmonized 
 with his ethics, there must be no exception to 
 the universality of the provisions of grace. If 
 ethics, such as Dr. Northrup assumes, viz., that 
 responsibility implies ability, are to determine 
 our theology, it must follow that "every man" 
 from Adam to Abraham, and from Abraham to- 
 to Moses, and from Moses to Christ, and from 
 Christ to the present generation, has been in a 
 position to win eternal life through repentance 
 and faith such as the Bible requires. If, under 
 the divine administration, any age, or nation, or 
 individual, has been overlooked or left unpro- 
 
50 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 vided with the conditions without which neither 
 faith nor repentance is possible, the Arminian 
 theory is disproved. That such has been one of 
 the leading features of the dispensation of grace 
 under both Testaments is a fact which no one 
 who accepts the testimony of the Sacred Eecord, 
 or who considers the present state of the nations 
 that sit in darkness and the shadow of death, 
 will call in question. This momentous fact dis- 
 poses of Dr. Northrup's speculations regarding 
 the universality of "the provisions of grace," 
 and cannot be reconciled with the fundamental 
 principles of the Arminian view of the way of 
 life. 
 
 But let us look a little more closely at this 
 sketch of the way of life. The ' 'plenary power" 
 specified awakes into actual energy only on two 
 conditions, viz. , under ' 'the touch of truth, and 
 of the Holy Spirit." It follows, of course, that 
 where these conditions are not supplied, the 
 power, however adequate, remains dormant, and 
 the moral agent cannot exercise faith or repent- 
 ance. "The truth," here recognized as one of the 
 indispensable conditions of the exercise of these 
 graces, can be no other than the Gospel of 
 Christ. No other truth can quicken the spirit- 
 ually dead into spiritual life. Is it necessary 
 formally to prove that the vast majority of man- 
 kind in their teeming generations have never 
 
PLENARY ABILITY. 51 
 
 heard of Christ or his Gospel? It may give a 
 show of plausibility to Dr. Northrup's theory of 
 the way of life to talk grandly of the ' 'universal 
 provisions of grace," but when the theory is 
 confronted with the facts of human history, it is 
 seen to be utterly destitute of any foundation in 
 fact. Had the author of the sketch substituted 
 ior the term "truth" the phrase, "Gospel of 
 ■Christ," the fallacy of his argument and the 
 groundlessness of his theory would have become 
 so apparent to himself that his own intelligence 
 must have laid an immediate arrest upon his 
 pen. Having framed a theory demanding a con- 
 dition which, confessedly, has no such preva- 
 lence as the theory demands, and having, through 
 the use of more explicit language in the state- 
 ment of it, discovered this fatal defect, he might 
 have hesitated to array it before the Christian 
 public until he had purged it of so palpable an 
 incongruity. 
 
 Nor is this all: the author has specified another 
 condition, viz., "the quickening touch of the 
 Holy Spirit." Apart from this "quickening 
 touch, " the truth, even were it universally preva- 
 lent, would be impotent to impart the power 
 necessary to the exercise of the elementary and 
 fundamental graces of the Christian life. A 
 touch of the Holy Spirit which does not regen- 
 erate cannot impart the needed power. ' 'Except 
 
52 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 a man be born from above he cannot see the 
 kingdom of God." Even where the ''truth" is 
 present, then, the unregenerate cannot appre- 
 hend it. 
 
 Now, what is true of the extent and prevalence 
 of ' 'the truth as it is in Jesus, " is equally true of 
 the extent of the gift of the Holy Spirit, as the 
 applier of the redemption purchased by Christ. 
 Even the text with which Dr. Northrup closes 
 his sketch implies this. That text proclaims 
 the readiness of our Heavenly Father to give his 
 Holy Spirit to them that ask Him. Yes, "to 
 them that ask Him;" but how can those who have 
 never heard of the Father or of His Holy Spirit, 
 ask Him for this unspeakable gift? Here, then, 
 is another fatal defect, and when combined with 
 its conjunct condition, "i/ie truth," it completes, 
 the arraignment and impeachment of the theory, 
 and furnishes a still further warrant to chal- 
 lenge and reject it. These two conditions are 
 correlative, and, for redemptive purposes, in- 
 separable and indispensable. In so for as adults 
 are concerned, ' 'the truth" is indispensable as the 
 sword of the Spirit, and apart from the Spirit 
 the Word is but the savour of death unto death. 
 As these conjunct conditions, recognized by Dr. 
 Northrup as necessary, are not now, and never 
 have been, universally prevalent, his theory is 
 made void, and the system of which it constitutes. 
 
PLENARY ABILITY. 53 
 
 •an essential element, is not only imperiled, but 
 subverted. 
 
 Dr. Northrup does not hold that the grace 
 conferring this "plenary poiver" amounts to re- 
 generating or forgiving grace. Such grace is 
 bestowed afterwards, upon those who struggle 
 against the evil tendencies of their nature, and 
 who ' 'strive to exercise the repentance and faith 
 which the Bible requires." It will be seen at 
 once that this qualifying clause in the statement 
 of the theory does not necessitate any modifica- 
 tion of the argument now advanced in refutation 
 of it. The condition attached to this supple- 
 mentary blessing, and on which the bestowal of 
 it is hinged, is a condition which all men have 
 not been placed in a position to fulfill. How 
 can a man "strive to exercise the repentance 
 and faith which the Bible requires" who has 
 never heard of the Bible or of the Saviour it 
 reveals? It is manifest then, that Dr. Northrup 
 makes the bestowal of regenerating, forgiving 
 grace depend upon a condition which the sinner, 
 being still unregenerate, must fulfill, while it is 
 equally manifest that the overwhelming majority 
 of the human race have not been placed, either 
 subjectively or objectively, in a position to fulfill 
 it. If "faith Cometh by hearing, and hearing by 
 the Word of God" (Rom. x. 17), this theory of 
 the way of life is negatived, for "how shall men 
 
54 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 believe on Him of whom they have not heard? 
 and how shall they hear without a preacher? 
 and how shall they preach except they be sent?" 
 
 /The doctrine of the Apostle is, that the knowl- 
 edge of the Lord is indispensable to faith, and 
 faith to salvation. If Dr. Northrup believes 
 this, how can he allege that the provisions of 
 grace are universal, seeing that the requisite 
 knowledge has not been communicated to all 
 men, in all ages of the world's history? This 
 one fact is fatal to Arminianism, which requires 
 for its support that ' 'every man" — every child of 
 Adam — from the beginning of the world to the 
 end of it should be placed in a position to obtain 
 
 ^eternal life. The world's history, thus far, and 
 the testimony of the Word of God, prove that 
 the requisite conditions of the theory have no 
 existence in fact, while they proclaim and illus- 
 trate that Divine Sovereignty in Predestination 
 which Dr. Northrup has so eagerly, yet vainly, 
 assailed. 
 
 Belfast, Ireland, October, 1892. 
 
UNSCIENTIFIC METHOD. 55 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 UNSCIENTIFIC METHOD. 
 SEVENTH PAPER. 
 
 To the Editor of the Western Becorder : 
 
 In closing my review of Dr. Northrup's stric- 
 tures, there is one feature of his articles to 
 which I ask attention as a grave defect from a 
 scientific point of view. It is this : Instead of 
 examining the evidences on which Calvinists 
 rely in support of their system, he simply col- 
 lects together a number of objections, and array- 
 ing these before his readers asks them for their 
 verdict. This method of procedure is as un- 
 scientific as it is unfair. It is unscientific in the 
 study of any branch of human thought to begin 
 with the objections. It is very easy to conjure 
 up objections to some of the most clearly 
 revealed and attested facts and doctrines of the 
 Word of God. For example, the Scriptures 
 inform us that the crucifixion of our Lord was 
 in accordance with the determinate counsel and 
 foreknowledge of God, and, at the same time, 
 they tell us that the men who crucified Him did 
 it with wicked hands (Acts ii. 23). Stephen 
 (Acts vii. 52) pronounces Christ's death a mur- 
 
■56 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 der, and charges the Sanhedrin with the double 
 crime of being His betrayers and murderers. 
 There is no difficulty in framing an objection to 
 these accounts of the death of our Redeemer. 
 It is easy to call upon the advocates of the 
 •divine sovereignty in this momentous transac- 
 tion, to reconcile the avowed doctrine of the 
 determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God 
 with the freedom and responsibility of the moral 
 agents by whom it was enacted, and who were 
 foreordained to perpetrate the murderous deed. 
 Does it follow from the confessed inability of 
 the advocate of the determinate counsel and 
 foreknowledge of God, to attempt the solution 
 of this mysterious problem, that the writer of 
 the narrative, in which both the divine counsel 
 ■and the culpability of the human agents are 
 affirmed, has been guilty of a historical mistake, 
 and has thereby inculcated a serious doctrinal 
 error? The Calvinist is not the only one who 
 has to face the problem. The Arminian who 
 accepts the testimony of the sacred narrative as 
 divinely inspired, is as much bound to vindicate 
 the action of God in this matter as the Calvinist. 
 Both agree that the narrative is unimpeachable, 
 and both must agree that the solution of the 
 problem it raises surpasses the powers of the 
 intellect of man. The obvious conclusion is, 
 that in studying the mysteries of redemption we 
 
UNSCIENTIFIC METHOD. 57 
 
 have simply to accept the testimony of the 
 Becord, and having ascertained what it is to 
 ■which the Record bears witness, we are not to be 
 much moved by ingenious, or even plausible, 
 objections which may be urged against it, 
 especially when it is discovered, as in the pres- 
 ent case, that the same, and still more formid- 
 able objections may be urged against the oppos- 
 ing theory. Had Dr. Northrup observed this 
 scientific, common sense, reverent principle in 
 the prosecution of his theological inquiries, he 
 would not, on the ground of such objections as 
 he has preferred against Calvinism, have con- 
 cluded that its claims were discredited, or have 
 imagined that he had, by urging such objections, 
 not only overthrown Calvinism, but established 
 the claims of its Arminian rival. Objections to 
 one system do not, necessarily, establish the 
 claims of its opposite. 
 
 Neither Calvinism, nor any other theological 
 system, is to be judged of in this way. Each 
 system is to be tested by the Word of God, for 
 each theological system claims to be a systematic 
 exhibition of the doctrines inculcated in the 
 Word. It may form a fitting conclusion to this 
 discussion to furnish the readers with an outline 
 of the Scripture testimony on which Calvinists 
 base their doctrinal system. While they hold 
 that the theologian must, like the man of science, 
 4 
 
58 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 construct his system out of the facts presented 
 in the record with which he deals, they hold 
 also that the theologian is not left, as the 
 scientist is in dealing with the phenomena of 
 nature, 'to frame hypotheses and test his hypothe- 
 ses by multiplied and oft-repeated experiments 
 ere he can feel assured that he has discovered" 
 the law by which the phenomena are linked to- 
 gether as parts of one harmonious whole. Such 
 is not the position of the theologian in relation 
 to the phenomena of Revelation. Instead of 
 such scientific toil his task is the comparatively 
 easy one of filling up an outline given him on 
 the authority of the Author of the Revelation 
 Himself. As specimens of this outline the fol- 
 lowing are submitted: "All things work together 
 for good to them that love God, to them who 
 are the called according to His purpose. For 
 whom He did foreknow. He also did predesti- 
 nate to be conformed to the image of His Son, 
 that He might be the first born among many 
 brethren. Moreover whom He did predestinate, 
 them He also called; and whom He called, them 
 He also justified; and whom He justified, them 
 He also glorified. What shall we then say to 
 these things? If God be for us, who can be 
 against us? He that spared not His own Son, 
 but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He 
 not with Him also freely give us all things?" 
 
UNSCIENTIFIC METHOD. 59 
 
 etc., etc. (Rom. vii. 28-32). "Blessed be the 
 God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who 
 hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in 
 heavenly places in Christ: according as He 
 ■chose us in Him before the foundation of the 
 world, that we should be holy and without 
 blame before Him in love; having predestinated 
 us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ 
 unto Himself, according to the good pleasure of 
 His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, 
 which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved, 
 in whom we have redemption through His 
 blood, the forgiveness of trespasses, according 
 to the riches of His grace" (Eph. i. 3-7). "All 
 that the Father giveth me shall come unto me; 
 and him that cometh unto me I will in no wise 
 cast out. For I came down from heaven, not to 
 do mine own will, but the will of Him that sent 
 me. And this is the Father's will which hath 
 sent me, that of all which He hath given me I 
 should lose nothing, but should raise it up at 
 the last day. * * No man can come unto me, 
 except the Father which hath sent me draw 
 him; and I will raise him up at the last day" 
 (John vi. 37-44). 
 
 Now these are not isolated texts which, indi- 
 vidually, support a particular point of doctrine 
 and have no reference to any other doctrine in 
 the analogy of the faith. As stated at the out- 
 
60 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 set, they are the outlines of the plan of redemp- 
 tion, and cannot, fairly, be viewed in any other 
 light. The points embraced in these outlines 
 are as follows: 
 
 1. That all which God does in the salvation of 
 men, He does in pursuance of a purpose which 
 has its origin in the good pleasure of His will — ■ 
 a purpose which He purposed in Himself. 
 
 2. That the ultimate design of God, in the 
 ordination and prosecution of this purpose, was, 
 that the whole procedure should be to the praise 
 of the glory of His grace. 
 
 3. That, for the infallible conduct and execu- 
 tion of this purpose. He gave commission to His 
 own Son, committing to Him the subjects of the 
 purposed redemption. 
 
 4. That this commission was a definite com- 
 mission, having redemptive reference to those- 
 given Him of the Father, and to no others. 
 
 5. That the Son, under this commission, en- 
 gaged to lose nothing of all that which the 
 Father had given Him, and engaged to raise it 
 up at the last day. 
 
 6. That those embraced in this purpose of 
 grace are predestinated to be conformed to the 
 image of the Son Himself, and not merely to a 
 knowledge of the way of life, or to the privi- 
 leges of the means of grace. 
 
UNSCIENTIFIC METHOD. 61 
 
 7. That the means whereby the goal of con- 
 formity to this image is to be reached, are call- 
 ing, justification, and glorification. 
 
 8. That as men cannot, of themselves, come 
 to this commissioned Saviour, the Father Him- 
 self draws them, and draws all whom He has 
 commissioned Him to save. 
 
 9. That Christ receives all whom the Father 
 draws to Him, and having received them {oo /j-i) 
 ixiSd^m k'^w) will in no wise cast them out. 
 
 That such is the outline of the economy of 
 Redemption presented in these passages, admits 
 of no question. There is no room for discussion 
 here. The points above enumerated are the 
 outstanding facts and features of these texts. 
 The analysis now given is a fair analysis, and 
 no counter analysis is possible. The only point 
 to be settled therefore is, with which of the two 
 systems, the Calvinistic or the Arminian, does 
 it agree ? This is the sole question, and it is 
 very easily settled. There is not a single one 
 of these points that Arminianism can accept. It 
 cannot admit that the purpose to redeem arose, 
 as a matter of grace, out of the good pleasure 
 of God, for it hold, if it holds with Wesley, that 
 God might not in justice have passed by man 
 when he fell. It cannot therefore admit that 
 the ultimate design of the divine procedure was, 
 or is, that it might be to the praise of the glory 
 
62 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 of God's grace. It cannot admit that the com- 
 mission given to the Son embraced a definite 
 people given Him of the Father, and no others, 
 or that the commission embraced the resurrec- 
 tion of the bodies of every one of them. It can- 
 not admit that those given to Christ of the 
 Father have been predestinated to be conformed 
 to His image. It cannot admit that all those 
 given Him are to be called, justified, and glori- 
 fied. It cannot admit that all whom the Father 
 has given to the Son are, by the Father, drawn 
 to the Son, or that, in every instance, those 
 thus drawn are received and never afterwards 
 cast out. 
 
 Judged by the above divinely inspired outline, 
 therefore, Arminianism stands condemned, 
 whereas the analysis is neither more nor less 
 than an outline of the Calvinistic system. Nor 
 is the outline deduced from these passages de- 
 pendent upon them alone. Similar systematic 
 sketches of the plan of salvation abound in both 
 Testaments, while the plan sketched has been 
 illustrated throughout the history of the divine 
 administration of the kingdom of grace. In 
 neither Testament can a counter Arminian 
 sketch be discovered. It is not upon such 
 closely concatenated passages Arminianism 
 relies. Its sole stock in controversy consists of 
 isolated texts severed from their contexts, and 
 
UNSCIENTIFIC METHOD. 63 
 
 a series of objections, based upon a false ethical 
 philosophy, which, if valid, would dethrone 
 Jehovah and make void the Covenant of Ke- 
 demption and the work of its adorable Surety, 
 together with the office-work of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 On behalf of Calvinism it can be claimed that 
 it is the doctrinal system deduced from the 
 Scriptures by the theologians both of the 
 Lutheran and the Reformed churches, while it 
 is a historical fact that Arminianism did not ap- 
 pear upon the theatre of theological conflict 
 until the victory was won, when, instead of 
 giving succor to the defenders of the faith and 
 aiding them in strengthening its defenses, it set 
 itself to subvert the fundamental principles of 
 that system of saving truth which the Reformers 
 had so triumphantly maintained against the 
 theologians and hierarchy of Rome. Whatever 
 else Dr. Northrup may have failed to establish 
 in his strictures, he has made it clear that the 
 old antagonism abides, and that between "the 
 system of strict Calvinism" and its Arminian 
 rival, there can be no righteous alliance or com- 
 promise. 
 
 The union of the different denominations is 
 one of the most important desiderata of our age, 
 and, if effected, would contribute vastly to the 
 strength and efficiency of our various Gospel 
 agencies; but the union that is to subserve these 
 
64 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 ends must not be brought about through the 
 surrender of such doctrinal principles as Dr. 
 Northrup has called in question. The advocates 
 of union are accustomed to minimize the differ- 
 ences which separate the churches of Protestant 
 Christendom, and urge that the points of differ- 
 ence should be overlooked or held in abeyance, 
 and that the points of agreement alone should 
 have place in our brotherly intercourse. This 
 view of the situation seems plausible, but it is 
 nevertheless unscriptural and indefensible. 
 The Scriptures are decisive on this very ques- 
 tion. The rule they prescribe is, that peace is 
 not to be purchased at the sacrifice of purity, 
 and a union which is not based on purity of doc- 
 trine cannot be productive of ecclesiastical 
 peace. Instead, therefore, of overlooking our 
 differences, we should, if we are ever to arrive 
 at a union which shall confer on the churches 
 the blessing of peace, discuss, in a brotherly 
 spirit, our points of difference, testing them by 
 the infallible standard of the Divine Word, and 
 rejecting all doctrinal principles which cannot 
 abide this test. It is on this principle the arti- 
 cles now brought to a close have been written, 
 and it is hoped that they may, in some measure, 
 contribute to the attainment of this end. 
 
 Belfast, Ireland, November, 1892. 
 
DR. NORTHRUP'S REJOINDER. 65 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 DR. NORTHRUP'S REJOINDER. 
 
 In a series of five articles published in The 
 Standard, in the early part of the current year, 
 and republished in the Magazine of Christian Lit- 
 erature, we discussed the doctrine of the Sover- 
 eignty of God in Predestination as contained in 
 the system of strict Calvinism. In the discussion 
 of this doctrine we endeavored to show that: 
 
 1. It virtually involves the denial of the be- 
 nevolence of God. 
 
 2. It requires us to ascribe to God pure arbi- 
 trariness and caprice in determining the eternal 
 destiny of the members of our race. 
 
 3. It implies that the perdition of a part of 
 mankind— the nonelect — is not only certain, but 
 inevitable, do what they can to obtain eternal life, 
 even in the way appointed in the gospel. 
 
 4. It logically compels us to believe that God 
 does not have love and compassion for all men 
 in the sense of desiring to save each and every 
 one of them, and hence, that he is not dealing 
 with them in good faith. 
 
 5. It logically necessitates an agnostic position 
 touching the fate of any infant dying in infancy. 
 
€6 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 We endeavored to show, also, that these diffi- 
 culties, which are inherent in the strict Calvin- 
 istic system, cannot be removed, nor materially 
 lessened, by that type of Calvinism which, 
 though recognizing the universality of the atone- 
 ment, affirms plenary natural ability and utter 
 moral inability, but denies the removal, through 
 the atoning work of Christ, of the sentence of 
 - condemnation brought by Adam upon his pos- 
 terity. 
 
 It was our design in a second series of articles 
 to examine the alleged Biblical support of the 
 Calvinistic doctrine of God's sovereignty in pre- 
 destination, and to state our own views upon the 
 main points involved in the controversy. To 
 the positions which we took in our criticism of 
 strict Calvinism, Professor Robert Watts, D.D., 
 LL.D., of Belfast, Ireland, has replied in a series 
 of articles in the Western JReeorder, which have 
 been republished in the Magazine of Christian 
 Literature. Our design in this paper is to review 
 the reviewer, to examine the relevancy, validity 
 and weight of the considerations which he urges 
 in refutation of the views which we advanced. 
 It is worthy of remark, at the outset, that Dr. 
 Watts has shown great penetration in discover- 
 ing the object which we had in view in our dis- 
 cussion, viz: "To create prejudice against the 
 Calvinistic doctrines," that is, to lead our readers 
 
DR. NORTHRUP'S REJOINDER. 67 
 
 to form opinions adverse to Calvinism, without 
 proper grounds, or suitable knowledge. Of 
 course he knows this charge to be true, otherwise 
 he would not make it. It would be interesting 
 to learn just how he made this discovery, for we 
 are conscious of no such object; on the contrary, 
 it was our sincere belief that we desired to lead 
 our readers to form certain opinions, not witliout, 
 but in view of, adequate reasons. It would seem, 
 however, that we are totally mistaken on this 
 point. 
 
 PALPABLE MISREPRESENTATIONS — AS TO FAITH 
 AND REPENTANCE. 
 
 I. In the first place we intend to convict Dr. 
 Watts of a half-dozen palpable and inexcusable 
 misrepresentations; we say palpable and inex- 
 cusable, because the doctrinal views imputed to 
 rus are explicitly disavowed, and in some cases 
 refuted, in the articles which he set himself to 
 review. 
 
 1. Dr. Watts charges us with rejecting the 
 Calvinistic and accepting the Arminian view as 
 to the relation of regeneration to faith and re- 
 pentance. He says: "There are three really 
 turning points in the controversy; the federal 
 relation of Adam, the effect of his fall on himself 
 .and his posterity, and the necessity of regeneration 
 in order to faith and repentance. ' These points are 
 
68 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 in the inventory of Dr. Northrup's arraignment 
 of Calvinism." And yet in our second article 
 occurs the following statement: 
 
 "Though man has a measure of freedom, a re- 
 mainder of liberty, the exercise of which, under 
 divine grace, may have a decisively favorable 
 bearing upon his eternal destiny, it is not an 
 ability by virtue of which he can will himself 
 from darkness into light, from death into life, 
 can create himself anew in Jesus Christ. He is 
 not, of course, passive, listless, inert, but is 
 active, often intensely so, before and at the time 
 of renewal; but in the origination of the new life 
 he has no agency. " * * ' 'in the midst of these 
 varied activities of reason, conscience, sensibility 
 and will; beneath them all, below consciousness- 
 itself, at the centre of the soul, there is a divine 
 touch, opening the blind eyes, emancipating the 
 enslaved will and calling into exercise faith, and- 
 love, and hope, and every other spiritual prin- 
 ciple of our being. Thus repentance and faith are, 
 in the logical order, subsequent to regeneration. ■ 
 which is the exclusive work of God, and which neces- 
 sarily presuppose an eternal purpose of salvation.'' 
 With this passage before him Professor Watts 
 thinks it right to assert that "the necessity of 
 regeneration in order to repentance and faith is 
 in the inventory of Dr. Northrup's arraignment 
 of Calvinism!" 
 
BR. NORTHRUP'S REJOINDER. 69 
 
 AS TO DIVINE DECREES. 
 
 2. Again Dr. Watts charges us with denying 
 the doctrine of the divine decrees. He says: 
 "By rejecting the decree while admitting the 
 foreknowledge of God, he has shut himself up to 
 the dread alternative of blank fatalism which 
 rules God out of the sphere of moral agency;" 
 "the objector has ruled out God, let him bring 
 forth his substitute, " etc. And he proceeds to 
 paint a most frightful picture of the condition of 
 the universe as logically involved in the denial of 
 the divine decree: "The omniscient Jehovah de- 
 throned and in His place blind, relentless fate;" 
 "the whole arrangements for the calling, justi- 
 fication and glorification of the elect, involving 
 the death of Christ, etc., etc., ascribed to the 
 soulless, passionless, unintelligent idol — Fate!" 
 
 Would any reader of these representations 
 ever imagine that the articles which Dr. Watts 
 is criticising contain many statements like the 
 following: "G-od bestowed mercy upon Paul be- 
 cause He eternally purposed to do so;" "the exe- 
 cution of His eternal decrees of election and 
 reprobation is an essential part of God's perfect 
 self -revelation;" "the divine decrees, so-called, 
 are simply one decree, viz: that one indivisible, 
 eternal act by which God determined to give 
 reality to the existing plan of the universe; one 
 
70 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 purpose involving an infinite number of execu- 
 tive volitions in time and space, which executive 
 volitions — not purposes — stand to each other 
 in both logical and chronological relations." * * 
 "But the acts of God in this affair are a part of 
 the infinity of executive volitions by which He 
 carries out His one eternal picrjMse so to constitute 
 and govern the universe that all things ivould take 
 place precisely as they do take place. " What is the 
 proper characterization of the criticism which 
 imputes to a writer the denial of a doctrine 
 which he not only does not deny, but distinctly 
 and repeatedly affirms? 
 
 We are not concerned to defend the Arminian 
 theory which Dr. Watts assails, but it will be in- 
 structive to place beside his fancy sketch — "The 
 omniscient Jehovah dethroned and in His place 
 blind, relentless Fate," etc. — the strong and ju- 
 dicious words of the late Principal Cunningham, 
 one of the very ablest expounders and defenders 
 of the system of strict Calvinism — The Re- 
 formers and the Theology of the Reformation, 
 p. 511 — : "It is, we think, unwarranted and pre- 
 sumptuous to assert that even the self-determining 
 2)ower of the ivill would prevent Him in whom we 
 live, move and have our being, who is every- 
 where and at all times present in the exercise of 
 all His perfections, who searcheth the heart and 
 trieth the reins of the children of men, from 
 
DR. NORTHRUP'S REJOINDER. 71 
 
 superintending and directing all its movements 
 according to the counsel of his own will." 
 
 AS TO GOD'S SOVEREIGNTY. 
 
 3. We pass to notice a third instance in which 
 Professor Watts imputes to us the denial of a^ 
 doctrine which we distinctly and strongly- 
 affirmed, viz: the doctrine of the Divine Sover- 
 eignty. In all his articles we find language like 
 the following: "Denying the sovereignty of God 
 within the sphere of redemption;" "rejecting the 
 doctrine of God's sovereign pleasure;" "ruling 
 out God from the sphere of purpose and admin- 
 istration;" "but if this be the universal experi- 
 ence of Christian men what becomes of the 
 theory which challenges the divine sovereignty 
 in the dispensation of grace towards sinners of 
 mankind?" "Is there any room for discussions 
 such as Dr. Northrup has raised? Can the divine 
 sovereignty in the choice of these saints at. 
 Ephesus be called in question without calling in 
 question the inspiration of the Apostle Paul? " 
 
 We will now indicate, in the following state- 
 ments contained in our discussion, the nature of 
 the ground for the above charge: "The sover- 
 eignty of God is his power and right to consti- 
 tute and govern the universe according to his 
 absolute ethical perfection; it implies suprem- 
 acy, independence and infinite moral excellency;" 
 
72 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 "God is a sovereign and the highest of all be- 
 cause he possesses the power and the right to 
 govern and dispose of all creatures according to 
 the dictates of His infinite intelligence, making 
 Himself His own highest good, and highest end;" 
 "the sovereignty of God is the immutable foun- 
 dation of the stability and order of the universe, 
 and of the security and felicity of all holy be- 
 ings;" "the divine sovereignty should be the 
 source of the greatest encouragement and hope 
 as well as of fear to the sinner. " 
 
 Simple justice required the reviewer to say 
 that what we rejected is the doctrine of God's 
 sovereignty as contained in the system of strict 
 Calvinism, while we set forth a different idea of 
 the divine sovereignty and claimed for it the 
 amplest Biblical support. The term sovereignty 
 as applied to God is not found in the Scriptures, 
 and every student of theology knows that it is 
 one of the vaguest terms in theological litera- 
 ture. In our discussion we gave six definitions 
 of the divine sovereignty and could easily have 
 increased the number from works on divinity. 
 The Calvinistic doctrine of God's sovereignty in 
 predestination, which we examined and rejected, 
 may be stated thus: The sovereignty of God is 
 a prerogative in the exex-cise of which He is ab- 
 solutely free to will the exact opposite of that 
 which He does will in relation to the eternal 
 
DR. NORTHRUP'S REJOINDER. 73 
 
 •destiny of every member of our race. This is 
 the doctrine which Dr. Watts accepts, that is, he 
 liolds that in decreeing to elect a part of man- 
 kind and to reprobate a part, God acted in a 
 manner infinitely wise and glorious, and that 
 had He reversed these decrees as regards the in- 
 dividuals included in them, electing those repro- 
 bated and reprobating those elected, or had He 
 determined to include in either of these decrees 
 any number of individuals less than the whole 
 human race, or had He decreed the salvation of 
 all or the damnation of all. He would have acted 
 in a manner equally wise and glorious, — all these 
 supposable modes of procedure being, to His 
 omniscient view, absolutely equal or identical in 
 point of excellency as expressions of His being 
 and attributes. And this is confidently affirmed 
 -to be the biblical doctrine of the sovereignty of 
 God — a prerogative in the exercise of which He is 
 able to bring all, instead of a part, of our race to 
 the purity and felicity of the heavenly world, 
 ' 'without prejudice to the glory of any of His at- 
 tributes ! " Suppose an absolute monarch who 
 rfirmly believes — infallibly knows — that all the 
 demands of his own being and the highest inter- 
 ests of his empire would be as fully met by the 
 pardon of a criminal as by consigning him to soli- 
 tary confinement for life, should deliberately pur- 
 sue the latter course, we should like to know how 
 
74 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 Dr. Watts would regard the character and sov- 
 ereignty of such a monarch. Would he consider- 
 him to be a benevolent ruler, and as exercising 
 his sovereignty in a wise and honorable manner? 
 
 AS TO THE DIVINE NATURE. 
 
 4. In the fourth place Professor Watts asserts 
 that we hold the ' 'Arminian" theory of the divine 
 nature ' ' which is not in harmony with the teach- 
 ing of the word of God in regard to the history 
 of God's dealings with Israel and with the whole 
 human race." This assertion, though involved 
 in the charge considered above, demands special 
 examination. And what is the unscriptural 
 "Arminian" theory of the divine nature which 
 we hold? In the articles which Dr. Watts has- 
 taken in hand we said: "According to the teach- 
 ing of Scripture there is in God a principle of 
 absolute, ethical limitation or self-restraint. He 
 cannot deny Himself, He cannot lie, He cannot be 
 tempted of evil. He cannot give His glory to an- 
 other. The principle of God's necessary self- 
 limitation or self-restraint is not His holiness or 
 His love, but His absolute ethical ■perfection, of 
 which holiness and love are the essence, and 
 which is the rule and law of His will in all His 
 acts in creation, providence and redemption. 
 Now it is on the ground of this fundamental 
 truth of inspiration that we affirm our conviction 
 
DR. NORTHRDP'S REJOINDER. 75 
 
 that God will do the utmost that He can do to 
 save every member of our race; the utmost that 
 He can do having due regard to the universal 
 and everlasting interests of His kingdom and 
 the glory of His name; that He will consign no 
 man to hell whom He could bring to heaven, and 
 remain God, — no man whom He could present 
 faultless before the presence of His glory, act- 
 ing in accordance with the supreme law of His 
 absolute ethical perfection. " This, then, is our 
 unscriptural and "Arminian" idea of God: God 
 is a being of absolute ethical perfection, of which 
 holiness and love are the essence ; holiness, ' 'The 
 highest purity of God, excluding all fault in 
 Him, and demanding purity from the creature;" 
 and love, an eternal, infinite passion which 
 moved Him to go forth in acts of self- sacri- 
 fice for the salvation of the lost, immeasurably 
 transcending all thought, human or angelic. 
 This "Arminian" idea of God Dr. Watts rejects 
 with indignation, and holds that God is a being 
 whose fundamental procedure in relation to the 
 universe is set forth in the following language 
 •of the Westminster Confession: "By the decree 
 of God, for His own glory, some men and angels 
 are predestined unto eternal life and others fore- 
 ordained unto everlasting death. These angels 
 and men, thus predestined and foreordained, are 
 ^particularly and unchangeably designed, and 
 
76 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 their number is so certain and definite that it. 
 can neither be increased nor diminished." And 
 this is the correct representation of the ways of 
 Him " who is good to all, " " whose tender mer- 
 cies are over all his works," who solemnly de- 
 clares that ' ' He has no pleasure in the death of 
 him that dieth, but that he would turn and live;" 
 of Him who is one in nature and spirit with 
 Jesus Christ, the feelings of whose heart, even- 
 towards those whose wickedness was rapidly 
 rising to its culmination, were expressed in tears 
 and words of infinite tenderness and pathos, — 
 "O, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I 
 have gathered thy children together as a hen 
 gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye 
 would not! " As to this idea of God which Dr. 
 Watts accepts and defends we cannot express our 
 conviction better than in the following language 
 of the Examiner: "To represent God as foreor- 
 daining from all eternity the everlasting death 
 of a large part of the human race and so fixing 
 their destiny that no efforts on their part could 
 possibly alter' or increase the number of the 
 saved by a single unit is nothing short of blas- 
 phemy. It is not to describe God, a being of 
 holiness and love, but an omnqmtent devil. 
 It is to read the gospel declaration, ' God 
 so loved the world that He gave His only 
 begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him. 
 
DR. NORTHRUP'S REJOINDER. 77 
 
 shall not perish, but have everlasting life,' in 
 exactly the opposite sense, — God so hated the 
 world that He foreordained a large part of it to 
 everlasting misery. " Slanders like this against 
 the holiness and love of God go far to justify the 
 infidel in saying ' 'the God of the Orthodox is my 
 devil;" they have done, in our judgment, more 
 injury to the cause of Christian truth and to the 
 souls of men, than the assaults of all the infidels 
 from Celsus to Ingersoll. 
 
 AS TO THE ATONEMENT. 
 
 5. We pass to call attention to another in- 
 stance in which Professor Watts imputes to us, 
 without the slightest warrant, a view the exact 
 opposite of which we have held and taught for 
 a quarter of a century. In the course of our 
 discussion we used the following language: 
 "The total absence of any reference to the 
 Adamic guilt as among the grounds of the sen- 
 tence of condemnation to be pronounced at the 
 day of judgment, the language of Christ re- 
 specting little children — Luke xviii. 15, 16; 
 Matt, xviii. 10, 14; and especially Rom. ix. 25 
 and X. 18, 19, seem to justify the position that 
 prior to personal action men are, through the 
 atonement, free from condemnation; that the 
 judgment which through the one offense of 
 Adam came upon all men to condemnation, was. 
 
78 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 removed, absolutely and forever, by the one act 
 of righteousness of Jesus Christ." On the ground 
 of the last clause of the above paragraph we are 
 charged with holding the ' 'Arminian" doctrine, 
 ' 'which limits Christ's work to His atoning death 
 and leaves out of the account His life of obe- 
 dience, whereby He met the claims of the pre- 
 cepts of the law." On this wholly gratuitous 
 misrepresentation we remark: 
 
 (1) That in using the language, ' 'By one act 
 of righteousness of Jesus Christ," we followed 
 the Revised Version, which renders the second 
 clause of Rom. v. 18, thus: "Even so through 
 one act of righteousness the free gift came upon 
 all men to justification of life." Though we did 
 not indicate our view of the meaning of the 
 phrase, "one act of righteousness, " we regarded 
 it as denoting the whole work of Christ viewed 
 as one single act of obedience. 
 
 (2) That, as remarked above, the view imputed 
 to us we discarded a quarter of a century ago, 
 and have ever since taught that Christ's entire 
 life, from the time when He took the form of a 
 servant to his expiring cry upon the cross — His 
 life of perfect obedience and His life of constant 
 suffering — constituted that perfect work on the 
 ground of which God "can Himself be just and 
 the justifier of him that hath faith in Jesus." 
 
DR. NORTHRUP'S REJOINDER. 79 
 
 (3) That in holding that the "one act of 
 righteousness" refers exclusively to Christ's 
 atoning death, Dr. Watts is not supported by- 
 New Testament commentators. Meyer and 
 Godet refer "the one act" to God: "The one col- 
 lective sentence of justification which, in conse- 
 quence of the death of Christ, has been pro- 
 nounced in favor of all sinners." Dr. Riddle 
 says: "Here Christ's obedience viewed as one 
 act, as the ground of justification, seems to be 
 meant. According to Dr. Hovey, "The clause 
 should be explained by the exactly paralleled 
 obedience of the one in the following verse. It 
 seems to denote the ground of the believer's 
 justification so far as this depends on the active 
 obedience of Christ." But it is needless to mul- 
 tiply these statements; they are sufficient to 
 show how utterly gratuitous is the charge that 
 we hold the "Arminian" theory "which limits 
 the work of Christ to His atoning death, and 
 leaves out of the account His life of holy 
 obedience whereby He met the claims of the 
 precepts of the law." 
 
 We cannot leave this point without calling 
 attention to one astonishing statement of Dr. 
 Watts. The statement is this : ' 'It is, therefore, 
 most unwarrantable to speak of the work of 
 Christ by which He wrought our redemption as 
 'one act of righteousness. ' Such reduction of 
 
80 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 His work betrays great unacquaintance with the 
 elementary difficulties of the problem which the 
 economy of redemption was designed to solve. " 
 Here the Apostle Paul, held to be the chief ex- 
 pounder of the doctrines of the Calvinistic sys- 
 tem, is represented by an able and strenuous 
 defender of that system. As making ' 'a most un- 
 warrantable statement touching the work by 
 which Christ wrought our redemption," and as 
 "betraying great unacquaintance with the ele- 
 mentary difficulties of the problem which the 
 economy of redemption was designed to solve!" 
 Our memory does not recall a more remarkable 
 phenomenon in the history of theological litera- 
 ture. What a pity that the apostle had not had 
 some theologian of the nineteenth century to 
 instruct him more fully as to the "elementary 
 difficulties which the economy of redemption 
 was designed to solve," so that he would not 
 have made the "unwarrantable" statement: 
 "Even so through one act of righteousnes the 
 free gift came upon all men to justification of 
 life." 
 
 AS TO SALVATION BY GRACE. 
 
 6. We shall consider but one more misrepre- 
 sentation, which is, however, by far the most 
 serious of all, viz: the charge that we deny the 
 fundamental doctrine that salvation is of grace 
 
DR. NORTHRUP'S REJOINDER. 81 
 
 and not a debt. This charge is made implicitly 
 and explicitly, as in the following language: 
 "Mr. Wesley denies that G-od might have justly 
 passed by man when he fell. As an Arminian 
 he speaks consistently with his theory, but hav- 
 ing taken this ground he has no right to speak 
 of the Divine interposition as an act of grace. 
 If God might not in justice, have passed by man 
 when he fell, He would have done him an injus- 
 tice to have passed him by, and when, instead 
 of passing him by. He visited him. He was sim- 
 ply performing toward him an act of justice. 
 Arminians are ever claiming that they are pre- 
 eminently the advocates of free grace; but their 
 principles, now advanced by President North- 
 rup prove, to a demonstration, that the claim is 
 absolutely destitute of warrant, either in the 
 nature of the economy, or in the history of its 
 administration." And he asks, "Will Dr. 
 Northrup be good enough to give his readers an 
 analysis of the experience through which a sin- 
 ner passes when under conviction of sin?" We 
 answer: Yes, Dr. Northrup is good enough to 
 comply with this reasonable request, and in 
 order to give the desired information in the 
 briefest possible space, he would refer to two 
 pieces of literature in which his own ex- 
 periences and views in relation to the point in 
 question, are clearly and powerfully set forth. 
 
S2 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 viz: the Fifty-first Psalm, and Bunyan's "Grace 
 Abounding to the Chief of Sinners." 
 
 Now, we challenge Professor Watts to pro- 
 duce a single statement in our whole discussion 
 which affords the least measure of justification 
 for the charges made, explicitly and by implica- 
 tion, that we hold ' 'that salvation is not of grace 
 but a debt, that God could not have justly passed 
 man by when he fell, that he is bound in justice 
 to bestow salvation upon the sinner who does 
 "what he can to obtain it, that the sinner can do 
 something which can be pleaded as a just ground 
 of acceptance with God. " The Arminian theory 
 here imputed to us we disavowed and repudiated 
 in the articles under review. 
 
 The reviewer had, possibly, the following 
 paragraph in mind when making the above alle- 
 gations. Having made a quotation from Dr. 
 Candlish, we remarked: "What warrant is there 
 in reason or revelation for the view here pre- 
 sented, that it was morally possible for God to 
 purpose to create our first parents, to permit 
 the fall and the development of the successive 
 generations of their posterity, and to make no 
 provision for their salvation? All we knoio, all 
 that there is any warrant for afftrming is, that 
 the plan of the universe, which God adopted be- 
 cause most worthy of himself, included, as eter- 
 nal and essential elements, the creation of man. 
 
DR. NORTHRUP'S REJOINDER. 83 
 
 the permission, or nonprevention of the fall, 
 and redemption through Jesus Christ. That 
 the plan would have been equally perfect, or 
 that it would have been worthy of comparison 
 with the existing plan — the element of redemp- 
 tion being left out — is what no man knows or 
 can know, and what therefore no man has a 
 right to affirm. But the position here taken 
 does not imply that, as regards the rights or 
 claims of men, God was under obligation to 
 provide salvation; but only that the present plan, 
 embracing the certainty of the fall and the pur- 
 pose of redemption, is most congruous with his 
 nature, expressing most perfectly his infinite 
 perfections." But there is not in this statement 
 the least implication as to what God could have 
 done, or could not have done, in justice, or what 
 He might have proposed to do in case justice 
 were the sole ethical quality of His being. We 
 know that God is a Being of infinite love as well 
 as of absolute justice, and that the present 
 economy in which both these perfections are 
 wondrously illustrated, is more worthy of Him 
 than would have been an economy in which 
 justice should hold absolute sway; we know 
 this because he adopted the former plan in- 
 .stead of the latter, and because the Scrip- 
 tures abundantly teach that the work of re- 
 demption is the crowning glory of His ways. 
 
84 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 How could one imagine that the fact that God 
 could not satisfy the promptings of his infinitely 
 benevolent heart, except in the way of the ia- 
 carnation and the cross, would lead any sinner 
 to think, or seek to justify himself in thinking, 
 that he did not deserve the retributions of Divine 
 justice? Suppose that God had, in a supernat- 
 ural way, made it known to Bunyan in the days 
 of his agony under conviction of sin, that He- 
 could glorify Himself in a higher degree, and 
 subserve the interests of His universal kingdom 
 more perfectly by taking him to heaven than by 
 consigning him to hell; would such a revelation 
 to Bunyan have led him to think that God was 
 bound, in justice, to save him, and that he had 
 a right to demand admission to heaven? Would 
 it not rather have greatly intensified his sense- 
 of guilt and worthiness of damnation — his sins 
 appearing to be vastly aggravated as committed 
 against a Being who loved him with an infinite 
 and everlasting personal love? 
 
 But it seems that Dr. Watts firmly believes — 
 in fact, knows — that God would have acted in a 
 manner infinitely wise and glorious, had he de- 
 creed the trial and fall of our first parents, the 
 development of the successive generations of 
 their posterity, the death in infancy of one-half 
 of their descendants, and the perdition not only 
 of all adults, but of all who die before reaching- 
 
DR. NORTHRUP'S REJOINDER. 85 
 
 the period of responsible action, — the ground of 
 this stupendous conclusion being the ' ' legal fie-, 
 tion" known as the "federal theory," which has 
 no advocate of note among living divines, Amer- 
 ican or European! 
 
 AS TO THE CHARGE OF ARMINIANISM. 
 
 -But we must conclude this part of our discus- 
 sion, though we might considerably increase the 
 list of instances in which we are charged with 
 holding views which we repudiate. Dr. Watts 
 designates us, directly or indirectly, as an "Ar- 
 minian," between forty and fifty times, and has 
 shown no hesitation in imputing to us any tenet 
 of the Arminian system. It is impossible to 
 suppose that he read our articles with care, for 
 such a supposition would be an impeachment of 
 his intelligence or his honesty, which we should 
 not care to make in either case. 
 
 The question then naturally arises, how could 
 he impute to us this series of Arminian notions?' 
 The only plausible solution of this problem 
 which occurs to us is found in ascribing to Dr. 
 Watts a course of reasoning like the following: 
 Calvinism is an adamantine, logical unit; hence 
 the rejection of a part necessitates the rejection 
 of the whole system. Calvinism and Arminian- 
 ism are contradictories; consequently, the rejec- 
 
B6 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 tion of Calvinism necessitates the adoption of 
 Arminianism. Therefore, since Dr. Northrup 
 in rejecting a part must reject the whole Cal- 
 vinistic system, he is logically compelled to ac- 
 cept the contradictory system — Arminianism. 
 Hence it is right to charge him with holding all 
 the tenets of that system. We are confirmed in 
 the correctness of this solution by the fact that 
 Dr. Watts follows a similar method in criticising 
 Dr. Briggs' inaugural. Seizing upon the fol- 
 lowing sentence of the address: "The original 
 man was innocent and sinless, but not possessed 
 •of that righteousness and moral excellence that 
 comes only by discipline and heavenly training," 
 and perverting the meaning of the sentence by 
 omitting the critical word that, and regarding 
 Dr. Briggs as saying: "The original man was 
 innocent and sinless, but not possessed of right- 
 eousness and moral excellence," he finds in the 
 sentence, thus mutilated, ' ' the organific prin- 
 ciple " of the address, which ' ' principle " he 
 works with such vigor and ^kill as to convict 
 Dr. Briggs of radical error in relation to the in- 
 carnation, the depravity of man, the nature of 
 regeneration, etc., etc. 
 
 GOD'S SOVEREIGNTY IN THE NINTH OF ROMANS. 
 
 II. We propose now to examine in the briefest 
 possible manner, the alleged teaching of the 
 
DR. NORTHRUP'S REJOINDER. 87 
 
 ninth chapter of Romans in support of the doc- 
 trine of God's sovereignty as contained in the 
 system of strict Calvinism. In order that the 
 fundamental point in controversy may be clearly 
 seen we remark: 
 
 1. That men are saved — attain to the purity 
 and felicity of the heavenly world — because they 
 exercise repentance towards God and faith in 
 Jesus Christ. 
 
 2. That they exercise faith and repentance 
 because the Holy Spirit renews them — originates 
 in them a holy disposition which is the perma- 
 nent basis of all holy exercises. 
 
 3. That God regenerates them by his Spirit 
 because He purposed to do so — their renewal be- 
 ing the execution of an eternal and immutable 
 purpose of grace. 
 
 4. That He purposed to renew them because 
 it "was His good pleasure," "the counsel of His 
 will," "seemed good in His sight." But what 
 do these phrases men? Do they teach that 
 ' ' In making the selection of some men and in 
 resolving to save them, God was not influenced 
 by anything existing in them or foreseen in them 
 by which they were distinguished from other- 
 men; that the total reasons for action remain- 
 ing the same. He was entirely free to elect those 
 reprobated and to reprobate those elected — able 
 
88 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 to decree the salvation of all or the damnation 
 of all, "without prejudice to the glory of any of 
 His attributes? " This is the doctrine of God's 
 sovereignty which we call in question. The 
 ninth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans is 
 the portion of Scripture which is most frequent- 
 ly and confidently appealed to in support of this 
 doctrine. If the Calvinistic doctrine of God's 
 Sovereignty in Predestination is not in this 
 chapter, it is not in the New Testament. 
 
 Before considering the particular declarations 
 of this passage we wish to make two general 
 observations: 
 
 1. In the first eleven chapters of this great 
 ■doctrinal epistle the apostle unfolds God's meth- 
 od of grace, which may be expressed in two 
 thoughts: (1) Salvation by righteousness. (2) 
 Righteousness by faith in Jesus Christ. At the 
 conclusion of the whole discussion he declares 
 the all-comprehending purpose of God in the 
 following language: "For God hath shut up all 
 unto disobedience that He might have mercy 
 upon all." No interpretation of any passage in 
 the preceding discussion can be regarded as cor- 
 rect which contradicts the universal scope of the 
 purpose of grace as disclosed in the thirty-second 
 verse of the eleventh chapter. 
 
 2. Again, we need to keep in mind the fatal 
 idelusion of the Jews which the apostle is seek- 
 
DR. NORTHRUP'S REJOINDER. 89 
 
 ing to dissipate — their reliance upon works as 
 meritorious, as giving them a claim to the divine 
 favor. "Blinded by their prejudices and intox- 
 icated with spiritual pride, they believed them- 
 selves to be entitled to the favor of God on the 
 ground of their covenant relations with Him, 
 the practice of circumcision, the possession of a 
 spiritual revelation, and a divinely appointed 
 priesthood." Julius Mueller — "In Romans, 
 ninth chapter, the leading idea is that no man 
 can have a claim to salvation on the score of 
 justice." Meyer— "In opposition to the Jewish 
 conceit of descent and works Paul desired to 
 establish the free and -sovereign power of the 
 divine will and action, and that the more de- 
 cisively and exclusively the less he would leave 
 any ground for the arrogant illusion of the Jews 
 that God must be gracious to them." 
 
 (10-12) We pass, now, to consider some of the 
 declarations of this chapter. It is the opinion 
 of the highest authorities in New Testament in- 
 terpretation that nothing is said, in these 
 verses, of the final destiny of either brother; 
 ' 'that what is spoken of here is the position of 
 the one and not of the other as the depositary 
 of the promise to Abraham." It cannot be sup- 
 posed, however, that, in choosing Jacob instead 
 of Esau, God did not act in view of some differ- 
 ence between them — not a difference in the mat- 
 
90 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 ter of merit, for of merit there could be no 
 question — still some difference which rendered 
 the former better fitted than the latter to be 
 the depositary of the Messianic promise. 
 
 (15) The declaration of God to Moses; "I will 
 have mercy on whom I have mercy and I will 
 have compassion on whom I have compassion," 
 "is to be understood in a causal sense as the 
 reason why Moses' request was granted, namely, 
 that it was an act of unconditional grace and 
 compassion on the part of God to which no man, 
 not even Moses, could lay any just claim." (Kell 
 and Delitzch.) "No man may deal with God as 
 a debtor. ' ' (Bengel. ) 
 
 (16) The declaration: "It is not of him that 
 willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God 
 that hath mercy," teaches, not that willing and 
 running avail nothing, for this would be to con- 
 tradict the gracious promise of our Lord (Matt, 
 vii. 7, 8; John v. 40; Eev. xxii. 17), but "that 
 man by his efforts can never meritoriously acquire 
 the divine favor. " (Meyer.) 
 
 (18) In this verse the apostle sums up the 
 whole matter of God's sovereignty in mercy and 
 judgment: "So then He hath mercy on whom He 
 will and whom He will He hardeneth. " In these 
 words we have the strongest possible assertion 
 of the fact that God acts as a sovereign in de- 
 termining the final destinies of men, showing 
 
DR. NORTHRUP'S REJOINDER. 91 
 
 mercy to some, and manifesting displeasure 
 towards others, as He may determine in view of 
 all the reasons before His omniscient mind. By 
 the will of God as used here and generally in 
 Scripture is meant, not simply the power of 
 voluntary action, but the nature of God, as be- 
 nevolent, merciful, holy, in actual exercise in 
 the light of His infinite intelligence. The action 
 of His sovereign will in election and reproba- 
 tion, as in every other sphere, is an expression 
 of His absolute ethical perfection. The passage, 
 then, cannot teach the sovereignty of God in 
 the sense of His entire freedom — the total rea- 
 sons for action being the same — to will the exact 
 opposite of that which He does will in relation 
 to the salvation or perdition of men. Since 
 God's right to exercise, mercy, based on the 
 atonement, is absolute, and since His right to 
 exercise justice, on the ground of the guilt of 
 man, is, also, absolute, His action in deciding to 
 bestow salvation upon some and to withhold it 
 from others, cannot be determined by the mere 
 consideration of His rights. By what, then, 
 will He be determined in His dealing with men? 
 It is as certain as that God lives, that if He can 
 meet all the claims of His truth, justice, right- 
 eousness, holiness, etc., as fully by decreeing the 
 final salvation as by decreeing the final damnation 
 of a sinner, He will do the former; because the 
 
92 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 exercise of mercy is, while the exercise of wrath 
 is not, congenial to His nature: "As I live, saith 
 the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of him 
 that dieth." The declaration, then, "He hath 
 mercy on whom He will and whom He will He 
 hardeneth," means that, in bestowing or with- 
 holding salvation. His action is not founded upon ' 
 human desert, that He is free to act in disregard 
 •of the assumed rights and claims of men to His 
 iavor. But it does not teach that He is free in 
 ■every sense of the term — absolutely free to bring 
 to heaven those whom He consigns to Hell — ab- 
 solutely free to save or to destroy all mankind. 
 Does this involve a denial that salvation is of 
 grace? Does grace cease to be grace because 
 the infinitely merciful God cannot refrain from 
 'bestowing it in any instance in which He can do 
 ;so consistently with the claims of wisdom and 
 righteousness? 
 
 In dealing with Pharaoh God did not at first 
 Bct upon His right to exercise wrath, but made 
 ■extraordinary disclosures of light and goodness 
 which ought to have subdued the monarch's 
 proud heart, and to have caused him to obey 
 the divine command to let the children of Israel 
 go. God hardened Pharaoh, in part, by his 
 goodness, as He hardened Judas and the Jews 
 in the time of Christ, and as He hardens men 
 now under the preaching of the gospel; and, in 
 
DR. NORTHRUP'S REJOINDER. 93 
 
 part, by those retributive judgments which, 
 coming upon him in his attitude of defiance, 
 could not but increase his obduracy. ' 'It is by 
 the operation of a law of man's nature as God 
 created it, that he who will not turn, at last can- 
 not. And God, who established that law, is 
 said in Scripture to do that which occurs under it 
 or results from it. Thus 'whom He will He 
 hardens,' becomes equivalent to: He has framed 
 at His pleasure the moral constitution of man, ac- 
 cording to which the rebellious sinner is at last 
 obdurate." Vaughan, Epistle to the Komans, IX. 18. 
 (19-21) We regard verses 20 and 21 not as an 
 argument in reply to the objection urged in 
 verse 19, but rather as a challenge of the ob- 
 jector's right to call in question the ways of 
 God. The truth affirmed in verse 21, "Hath 
 not the potter a right over the clay, from the 
 same lump to make one part a vessel unto honor, 
 and another unto dishonor," is God's entire 
 freedom to deal with men involved in sin and 
 guilt wholly regardless of their assumed claim and 
 right to His favor. ' 'When man goes the length 
 of making a god whom he affects to bind by his 
 own rights, God then puts on His majesty, and 
 appears in all His reality as a free God, before 
 whom man is a mere nothing, like the clay in 
 the hand of the potter. Such was Paul's atti- 
 
94 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 tude when acting as God's advocate, in his suit 
 with Jewish Pharisaism." (Lange.) 
 
 What was said above, under verse 18, applies 
 here : God's actual -procedure in exercising mercy 
 towards some and justice towards others cannot 
 be determined by the simple considerations of 
 His rights. By what, then, will His diverse 
 courses of action be determined? To illustrate 
 divine things by human, which is the only way 
 we can apprehend them, suppose the potter had 
 spent a vast fortune and had subjected himself 
 to extraordinary hardships and sufferings to 
 gain the skill and the means to make of the clay 
 vessels unto honor; that he not only had no 
 desire, but was most unwilling, to use any of 
 the clay in making vessels unto dishonor; by 
 what principle would he be guided in the exer- 
 cise of his power and skill? Because he had 
 the right to use the clay as he pleased, would he 
 be determined by the mere fact of his right, and 
 make vessels unto dishonor as freely as unto 
 honor? Or would he use all the clay which he 
 could possibly use in making vessels unto 
 honor? The application of the illustration to 
 God's dealings with mankind is obvious. God's 
 action in making some men vessels unto honor 
 and others vessels unto dishonor, is no more 
 determined by his rights than is the action of the 
 potter in the case supposed. But, says the ob- 
 
DR. NORTHRUP'S REJOINDER. 95 
 
 jector, the clay is all alike, "it is the same lump." 
 Yes, precisely the same in every respect which 
 Paul's argument required him to consider. 
 Mankind are all alike destitute of merit, all 
 alike burdened with great demerit, all alike in 
 the bondage of sin and exposed to the divine 
 displeasure on grounds of justice. But their 
 sameness in these fundamental respects does 
 not necessarily imply their identity in every re- 
 spect in which God may see fit to regard them 
 under a system of gracious probation. The 
 next verse shows that God ordains no man to 
 eternal death merely because He has the right 
 to do so; for though "willing" — though "moved 
 by His immanent and eternal indignation" — "to 
 show His wrath and to make His power known, 
 He endured with much long-sufiEering the vessels 
 of wrath fitted — self -fitted — unto destruction." 
 The sovereignty of God, then, which the ninth 
 chapter of Romans teaches is his power and 
 right to deal with men as He pleases regardless 
 of their alleged merits or claims to his favor; to de- 
 termine their final glorification, or their final 
 perdition, as he may choose, acting in view of 
 all the reasons before His infinite mind. But it 
 is not a sovereignty of mere power, of bare will, 
 a prerogative in the exercise of which He is ab- 
 solutely free to will the exact opposite of that 
 which He does will in relation to the destinies 
 
96 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 of men; absolutely free to consign to hell those 
 whom He can bring to heaven without prejudice 
 to the glory of any of His perfections and the 
 highest interests of His universal kingdom; ab- 
 solutely free to choose one of two men and to 
 reject the other between whom there is, even to 
 His omniscient mind, no difference, or no differ- 
 ence which can furnish a reason, or cause, or 
 condition, or occasion of His infinitely diverse 
 decisions. To predicate of God such a sover- 
 eignty as this, is to deny His benevolence, and 
 to ascribe to Him pure arbitrariness and caprice 
 in dealing with mankind. 
 
DR. WATTS' REPLY. 97 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 DR. WATTS' REPLY. 
 EIGHTH PAPER. 
 
 To the Editor of the Western Recorder: 
 
 If we accept their own account of the matter^ 
 the critics of the Old Bible and the Old Faith, 
 are among the most unfortunate of theological 
 writers. They are ever being misunderstood 
 and misrepresented. None save the critical 
 elite seem able to penetrate the inner-keep of 
 their speculations. For ordinary mortals to call 
 in question their scholastic furniture, or the 
 justice of their critical, or doctrinal conclusions, 
 is put down to the account of sheer presump- 
 tion. It is surely a great pity that men of such 
 literary culture and theological renown would 
 not condescend, in their discussions of the mo- 
 mentous questions with which they are ever 
 dealing, to express themselves in language so 
 perspicuous that men of ordinary intelligence 
 could not fail to know what they mean. 
 
 It appears that Dr. Northrup, in his articles 
 on "The Sovereignty of God in Predestination, 
 as Contained in the System of Strict Calvinism," 
 has not fared any better than his critical and 
 
98 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 theological compeers. His reviewer, he tells us 
 in his rejoinder, which appears in the Chicago 
 Standard of the 29th of December, is chargeable 
 with no fewer than "a half dozen palpable and 
 inexcusable misrepresentations." In fact, if 
 his account of that review is to be accepted as 
 correct, it is made up of one continuous series 
 of misrepresentations. One of these alleged 
 misrepresentations which has made him very- 
 indignant is that his reviewer has called him an 
 Arminian, and has done so, directly or indirectly, 
 between forty and fifty times. His reviewer 
 will now venture to add another time to this 
 list, and will endeavor to justify this addition. 
 It is true he has sought to frame a theory inter- 
 medate between strict Calvinism and Arminian- 
 ism, but his attempt is simply an attempt to 
 achieve the impossible. Hence the difficulty 
 a reviewer has in criticising his original arti- 
 cles, or attempting a reply to his rejoinder. 
 
 A few specimens of this species of interme- 
 diate theorizing 'may suffice. Contrasting Prin- 
 cipal Cunningham with his reviewer, greatly to 
 the disadvantage of the latter, he pronounces 
 upon him an eulogium ' 'as one of the very ablest 
 expounders and defenders of the system of strict 
 Calvinism." Having done this, he quotes from 
 him the following words, which he describes 
 "as strong and judicious." The words are: "It 
 
DR. WATTS' REPLY. 99 
 
 is, we think, unwarranted and presumptuous to 
 assert that even the self-determining power of the 
 will (the italics are Dr. Northrup's) would pre- 
 vent Him in whom we live and move and have 
 our being, who is everywhere and at all times 
 present in the exercise of all His perfections, 
 who searcheth the heart and trieth the reins of 
 the children of men, from superintending and 
 directing all its movements according to the 
 counsel of his own will." Of course it was 
 through a mere oversight in copying that Dr. 
 Northrup wrote the self-deter-mining power of 
 the will instead of a self- determining power of 
 the will. The latter, however, is the expression 
 used by Principal Cunningham, and was, doubt- 
 less, used instead of the former to prevent his 
 readers from inferring that he held that there is 
 in the soul of man an independent entity deter- 
 mining all his volitions irrespective of any other 
 power or faculty of his nature. Dr. Cunning- 
 ham carefully avoids endorsing, even by impli- 
 cation, the theory of the self-determining power of 
 the will, and, as the context (the Reformers and 
 the Theology of the Reformation, p. 511) shows 
 that what he means in the passage in question, 
 is that even were there such a power in the soul 
 •of man it is unwarranted and presumptuous to as- 
 sert that it would prevent God from superin- 
 tending and controlling all its movements ac- 
 
100 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 cording to the counsel of His own will. That 
 is, there is nothing in the constitution of any 
 man that could prevent God from converting 
 him and presenting him faultless before His- 
 own presence without spot or wrinkle or any 
 such thing. 
 
 Such is the doctrine of Dr. Cunningham's 
 "strong and judicious words." It is simply an- 
 other way of saying what God Himself says 
 (Isa. xliii. 13), "I will work and who shall let 
 it?" Let us now see what the eulogist of these 
 "judicious words" says in the very next column 
 of the Standard: ' 'According to the teaching of 
 Scripture," he says, "there is in God a princi- 
 ple of absolute ethical limitation or self-restraint. 
 He cannot deny Himself, He cannot lie, He can- 
 not be tempted of evil, He cannot give His glory 
 to another. The principle of God's necessary 
 self- limitation or self-restraint is not His holi- 
 ness or His love, but his absolute ethical perfection, 
 of which holiness and love are the essence, and 
 which is the rule and law of His will in all His 
 acts in creation, providence, and redemption. 
 Now it is on the ground of this fundamental 
 truth of inspiration that we affirm our convic- 
 tion that God will do the utmost that He can do 
 to save every member of our race; the utmost 
 that He can do having due regard to the univer- 
 sal and everlasting interests of His kingdom and 
 
DR. WATTS' REPLY. 101 
 
 -fche glory of His name; that He will consign no 
 man to hell whom He could bring to heaven and 
 remain God, no man whom He could present 
 iaultless before the presence of His glory, act- 
 ing in accordance with the supreme law of His 
 absolute ethical perfection." 
 
 Now it will not do to say that there is no in- 
 consistency between this account of God's ability 
 in relation to the salvation of men and the doc- 
 trine of Dr. Cunningham, alleging that the latter 
 has reference to obstacles in man, whereas the 
 former has reference to an obstacle in God Him- 
 self, viz: His absolute ethical perfection, for 
 there must, according to this theory, be an ob- 
 stacle found in the man himself whom God can- 
 not save, which discriminates him from those 
 He can save. It is true the author of the theory 
 finds an additional obstacle in the interests of 
 the kingdom of God. These obstacles, how- 
 ever, whether of the one class or the other, are 
 all external to Himself, and like the one con- 
 templated by Principal Cunningham, are to be 
 found, if found at all, in the subjective state of 
 the moral agents with whom He has to do; and 
 it is in His dealings with such agents, and no 
 others, that His ethical perfection has anything 
 to do. 
 
 Here, then, we have Dr. Northrup eulogizing 
 Dr. Cunningham for teaching that there is no 
 
102 SOVEKEIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 obstacle to salvation in the soul of man — even 
 taking the extreme case of a self-determining- 
 power of the will — which God cannot overcome, 
 and immediately afterwards laying it down as an 
 ultimate fact, and a doctrine of inspiration, that 
 there are men whom God, do what he can, can- 
 not save from hell and bring to heaven, and 
 fathering the whole speculation on the ethical 
 perfection of His own nature! And wherein 
 does this ethical perfection consist which bars 
 the way to the salvation of some men, and yet 
 offers no obstacle to the rescue of others? "We 
 are informed that its essence, in other words, 
 that wherein, in its very being it consists, is not 
 holiness or love, and, in the same breath, we are 
 told that its essence is holiness and love ! Which 
 of these two definitions are we to accept? Cer- 
 tainly the latter, for, after some hesitation, the 
 author of the theory has given it as his final de- 
 cision. Ethical perfection, then, if we are to 
 accept this account of its very essence, consists 
 of the combined virtues of holiness and love! 
 The essence of ethical perfection, where ethical 
 perfection exists in infinite perfection, is a per- 
 fection in which the attribute of justice finds no 
 place! Perhaps Dr. Northrup has accepted 
 Lubnitz's idea of justice, that it is benevolence 
 guided by wisdom. Such is the doctrine which 
 is to solve the problem of the sovereignty of 
 
DR. WATTS' REPLY. 103 
 
 God in the conception and administration of the 
 economy of redemption. Such is the principle 
 laid down in this marvelous speculation by a 
 theologian who regards himself as misrepre- 
 sented because he does not get credit for teach- 
 ing that Christ's work had reference to every 
 element of the law — to the precept as well as to 
 the penalty (which one would think implied its 
 reference to justice) — a work wrought for the 
 whole race! Just a word in passing in regard 
 to this particular charge of misrepresentation, 
 before proceeding to indicate the consequences 
 of eliminating the attribute of justice from the 
 essence of the ethical perfection of God. The 
 basis on which the charge which he pronounces 
 a misrepresentation was founded was the follow- 
 ing statement: "The Scriptures seem to justify 
 the position that prior to personal action men 
 are, through the atonement, free from condem- 
 nation, that the judgment which, through the 
 one offense of Adam, came upon all men to con- 
 demnation, was removed absolutely and forever 
 by the one act of righteousness of Jesus Christ." 
 Such was the ground on which his reviewer 
 charged him with adopting the Arminian doc- 
 trine of Christ's work which omits its satisfac- 
 tion of the precept and limits it to His atoning 
 death. What is his vindication of his counter- 
 charge of misrepresentation against his re- 
 
104 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 viewer, which his readers are told is palpable 
 .and inexcusable? Well, here it is: He tells us 
 that he followed the Revised Version [of Rom. 
 V. 18], but confesses that "though we [he] did 
 not say so" or "indicate our [his] view of the 
 phrase 'one act of righteousness,' we [he] re- 
 garded it as denoting the whole work of Christ 
 viewed as one single act of obedience." This 
 latter statement subverts this attempt, at vindi- 
 cation. He confesses that he did not indicate 
 his view of the phrase, ' 'one act of righteous- 
 ness," but that he did regard it as denoting the 
 whole work of Christ viewed as one single act 
 of obedience, and yet he holds his reviewer 
 guilty of a grave, a palpable, and an inexcusa- 
 ble misrepresentation for not knowing what he 
 had not the condescension to tell him ! But he 
 has another ground for this grave impeachment 
 •of his reviewer. It is as follows: "The view 
 imputed to us we discarded a quarter of a cen- 
 tury ago, and have ever since taught that 
 Christ's entire life from the time when He took 
 the form of a servant to His expiring cry upon 
 the cross — His life of perfect obedience and His 
 life of constant suffering — constituted that per- 
 fect work on the ground of which God can Him- 
 self be just and the justifier of him that hath 
 faith in Jesus. " 
 
DR. WATTS' REPLY. 105 
 
 This is excellent. His reviewer has read it 
 with admiration and delight. He is glad that a 
 quarter of a century ago Dr. Northrup discarded 
 from his creed this element of Arminian the- 
 ology, and has ever since taught one of the 
 Calvinistic fundamentals. It is to be hoped that 
 ere another quarter of a century passes he will 
 discard all remaining elements of that system, 
 and adopt that system which he has been en- 
 deavoring to overthrow — that system of strict 
 Calvinism which, under God, achieved the dis- 
 enthralment of the churches of the Reformation, 
 both Lutheran and Reformed, from the spiritual 
 bondage of the mystery of iniquity. 
 
 But it is difficult to see how this justifies him 
 in his charge of misrepresentation. How could 
 his reviewer know this piece of personal history? 
 It may, perhaps, argue the reviewer himself 
 unknown, but the fact is that he never heard of 
 Dr. Northrup until his attention was drawn to 
 his attack on the doctrine of ' 'The Sovereignty 
 of God in Predestination as Contained in the 
 System of Strict Calvinism." Dr. Northi'up's 
 vindication of his counter-charge of misrepre- 
 sentation, therefore, is a palpable failure. His 
 reviewer had no means of unlocking the secrets 
 of his bosom and finding out that he did not 
 mean by the phrase, "one act of righteousness," 
 what the words, as unexplained by him, plainly 
 
106 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 mean, and he had no opportunity of finding out 
 the fact which he is now glad to find out, that 
 he, a quarter of a century ago, discarded that 
 element of Arminianism which reduces Christ's 
 atoning work to His death on Calvary. 
 
 But to return: What concord has this doctrine 
 of the self- limitation of God which renders it 
 impossible for Him, owing to His ethical perfec- 
 tion, to save from hell, and bring to heaven 
 those who are ultimately lost — what concord has 
 it with the doctrine, that "prior to personal 
 action men are, through the atonement, free 
 from condemnation; that the judgment which, 
 through the one offense of Adam came upon all 
 men to condemnation, was removed absolutely 
 and forever by the one act of righteousness of 
 Jesus Christ"? If the condemnation, which in 
 consequence of the sin of Adam came upon the 
 entire race — the whole and not simply a part of 
 the condemnation — was removed from all men, 
 by the work of Christ, who satisfied the claims 
 of the law of God both in regard to its precept 
 and its penalty, how comes it, that after, and 
 despite the removal of this condemnation, that 
 is, after the satisfaction of all the claims of the 
 moral law, there still remain obstacles in the 
 case of some men, yea, if the theory be true, in 
 the case of millions of the race, which forbid a 
 God of infinite ethical perfection saving them 
 
DR. WATTS' REPLY. 107 
 
 from hell and taking them to heaven? Very- 
 different is the conclusion which the above 
 premises warrant. If our Saviour did for all the 
 race of Adam what Dr. Northrup here alleges 
 He did, a God of infinite ethical perfection is 
 bound, by the very perfection of His ethical 
 nature, to save every individual of the family of 
 man. To teach that any man whose sins were 
 laid upon Christ and by Him expiated, may be 
 lost, and to father his loss upon the ethical per- 
 fection of God is to set at naught all idea of 
 ethics whether human or Divine, and to outdo 
 all that Arminianism ever dreamt. Can a God 
 of infinite ethical perfection, who with His own 
 hand laid the awful burden of the sinner's guilt 
 upon the adorable Surety, repudiate His own 
 covenant engagements and withhold from Him 
 the reward purchased at the cost of His most 
 precious blood? To say so, is tantamount to an 
 impeachment of the truth and justice of our 
 covenant-keeping God. 
 
 Belfast, Ireland, February, 1893. 
 
108 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 DR. WATTS' REPLY. 
 NINTH PAPER. 
 
 To the Editor of the Western Recorder: 
 
 In the forefront of the list of palpable' and in- 
 excusable misrepresentations wherewith Dr. 
 Northrup charges his reviewer, stands the fol- 
 lowing: "Dr. Watts charges us with rejecting 
 the Calvinistic and accepting the Arminian view 
 as to the relation of regeneration to faith and 
 repentance. He says, 'There are three really 
 turning points in the controversy; the federal 
 relation of Adam, the effect of his fall on himself 
 and his posterity, and the necessity of regener- 
 ation in order to faith and repentance. These 
 points are in the inventory of Dr. Northrup's 
 arraignment of Calvinism.' And yet in our 
 second article occurs the following statement: 
 Though man has a measure of freedom, a re- 
 mainder of liberty the exercise of which, under 
 divine grace, may have a decisively favorable 
 bearing upon his eternal destiny, it is not an 
 ability by virtue of which he can will himself 
 from darkness into life, can create himself anew 
 in Jesus Christ. He is, of course, not passive. 
 
DR. WATTS' EEPLY. 109 
 
 listless, inert, but is active, often intensely so, 
 before and at the time of renewal; but in the 
 origination of the new life he has no agency. * * 
 Thus repentance and faith are, in the logical 
 order, subsequent to regeneration, which is the 
 exclusive work of God, and which necessarily 
 presupposes an eternal purpose of salvation. " 
 
 Had the reviewer said no more there would 
 have been ground for the charge. All this is 
 true, but it is only a part of the truth. It will 
 be remembered by the readers of the Western 
 Recorder, however, that there were mentioned, 
 in the review complained of, three turning 
 points of divergence between Calvinism and 
 Arminianism, viz: the federal headship of Adam, 
 human ability, and the necessity of regeneration 
 in order to faith and repentance. In the course 
 of the review each of these points was expounded 
 so that the reader could have no doubt about 
 the nature or extent of the divergence the re- 
 viewer intended to express by them. The 
 points were not left as mere bald items of an 
 inventory, but were explained and discussed, 
 and their import and drift placed beyond all 
 likelihood of misapprehension by arguments 
 advanced in support of the Calvinistic, and in 
 opposition to the Arminian view in regard to 
 each of them. 
 
110 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 Now, what Dr. Northrup has done in order to 
 make out a charge of misrepresentation is, that 
 he has taken as the ground of it the third item 
 in the foregoing inventory just as it was baldly- 
 enumerated, without taking into account article 
 vi. , in which he not only gets credit for teaching 
 the necessity for regenerating grace, but in which 
 arguments are drawn from his recognition of 
 this necessity in opposition to the Arminian 
 position avowed by him, that the provisions 
 of grace are universal. In opposition to the 
 doctrine that the provisions of grace are uni- 
 versal, the reviewer availed himself of Dr. 
 Northrup's account of these provisions, which 
 embraced "the quickening touch of the truth 
 and of the Holy Spirit." It was contended 
 that by the "truth," if it meant one of the 
 provisions of grace, must be understood the 
 Gospel of Christ, and the utter unwarrant- 
 ableness of alleging that this element of the 
 provisions was universal, was pointed out as 
 conclusive against any such claim. This argu- 
 ment was strengthened and made absolutely 
 decisive by a reference to the conjunct provision 
 recognized by Dr. Northrup, viz: the Holy Spirit. 
 In this connection the reviewer said : "Now 
 what is true of the extent and prevalence of the 
 truth- as it is in Jesus, is equally true of the ex- 
 tent of the gift of the Holy Spirit, as the ap- 
 
DR. WATTS' REPLY. Ill 
 
 plier of the redemption purchased by Christ. 
 Even the text with which Dr. Northrup closes 
 his sketch implies this. That text proclaims 
 the readiness of the Heavenly Father to give His 
 Holy Spirit to them that ask Him; yes, to 
 them that ask Him, but how can those who 
 have never heard of the Father or of His 
 Holy Spirit, ask Him for this unspeakable 
 gift? Here, then, is another fatal defect, and 
 when combined with its conjunct addition, 'the 
 truth,' it completes the arraignment and im- 
 peachment of the theory, and furnishes a still 
 further warrant to challenge and reject it. These 
 two conditions are correlative, and for redemp- 
 tive purposes inseparable and indispensable. 
 In so far as adults are concerned, 'the truth' is 
 indispensable as the sword of the Spirit, and, 
 apart from the Spirit, the Word is but the savour 
 of death unto death. As these conjunct condi- 
 tions, recognized by Dr. Northrup as necessary, are 
 not now and never have been, universally preva- 
 lent, his theory is made void, and the system of 
 which it constitutes an essential element is not 
 only imperiled, but subverted." 
 
 How is it that Dr. Northrup in his reply, has 
 not replied to this refutation of one of the prin- 
 cipal doctrines of his system? No one who has 
 read his reply and has not read the review would 
 suspect that such a subject had formed one of 
 
112 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 the most important and determining points in 
 the discussion. Yet so it is. He has directed 
 his energies to the framing of what he is pleased 
 to entitle "palpable and inexcusable misrepre- 
 sentations," but he has allowed his doctrine of 
 the universality of the provisions of grace to 
 go by default. He has made the arraignment of 
 it by his reviewer at the bar of the divine ad- 
 ministration both in the Kingdom of Providence 
 and the Kingdom of Grace, and has heard the 
 sentence of condemnation pronounced against 
 it by both, and yet has not a word to say even 
 in mitigation of sentence. One's surprise, how- 
 ever, is somewhat abated when it is found that 
 chapter sixth, in which this subject is formally 
 discussed, sets aside the ground on which the 
 chief and most formidable of all the misrepre- 
 sentations urged by him, has been based. In 
 justification of this claim it is only necessary to 
 quote a few additional sentences from this same 
 sixth chapter. 
 
 Immediately after the passage cited above, we 
 have the following: '•'Br. Northrup does not hold- 
 that the grace conferring this 'plenary poiver' 
 amounts to regenerating or forgiving grace. He 
 says such grace is bestowed afterwards, upon those 
 ivho struggle against the evil tendencies of their 
 nature, and luho strive to exercise the faith and re- 
 pentance ivhich the Bible requires." It will be seen, 
 
DR. WATTS' REPLY. US'- 
 
 at once, that this qualifying clause in the state- 
 ment of the theory does not necessitate any 
 modification of the argument now advanced in 
 refutation of it. The condition attached to this 
 supplementary blessing, and on which the be- 
 stowal of it is hinged, is a condition which men 
 have not been placed in a position to fulfill. 
 How can a man strive "to exercise the repent- 
 ance and faith which the Bible requires" who 
 has never heard of the Bible or the Saviour it 
 reveals. It is manifest, then, that Dr. North- 
 rup makes the bestowal of regenerating, forgiv- 
 ing grace depend upon a condition which the 
 sinner, being still unregenerate, must fulfill, 
 while it is equally manifest that the overwhelm- 
 ing majority of the human race have not been 
 placed, either subjectively or objectively, in a. 
 position to fulfill it. If ' 'faith cometh by hearing, 
 and hearing by the Word of God" (Rom. 10; 17), 
 this theory of the way of life is negatived, for 
 ' 'how shall men believe on Him of whom they 
 have not heard? and how shall they hear with- 
 out a preacher? and how shall they preach ex- 
 cept they be sent?" The doctrine of the Apos- 
 tle is that the knowledge of the Lord is indis- 
 pensable to faith, and faith to salvation. If Dr. 
 Northrup believes this, how can he allege that 
 the provisions of grace are universal, seeing 
 that the requisite knowledge has not been com- 
 
114 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 municated to all men in all ages of the world's 
 history? This one fact is fatal to the theory 
 that the provisions of grace are universal, as it 
 is to "Arminianism which requires" as it does, 
 ' 'for its support, that 'every man' — every child 
 of Adam — from the beginning of the world to 
 the end of it, should be placed in a position to 
 obtain eternal life. The world's history thus 
 far, and the testimony of the Word of God, 
 prove that the requisite conditions of the theory 
 have no existence in fact, while they proclaim 
 and illustrate that Divine Sovereignty in Predes- 
 tination which Dr. Northrup has so eagerly yet 
 vainly assailed." 
 
 Now it will be seen that the account above 
 -given of Dr. Northrup's theory is, 1. That "the 
 plenary power bestowed upon every man" only en- 
 ables him, so far as faith and repentance are 
 concerned, to strive to exercise these graces. 2. 
 It is equally manifest that the sketch credits Dr. 
 Northrup with teaching, that before the sinner 
 can actually exercise these graces he must re- 
 ceive the gift of "regenerating and forgiving 
 grace." The reviewer is careful to state Dr. 
 Northrup's position on this point, both nega- 
 tively and positively. He has stated what he 
 does not hold, and he has stated what he does 
 hold. Prior to regeneration, according to the 
 reviewer's account of his creed. Dr. Northrup 
 
DR. WATTS' REPLY. 115 
 
 holds that the sinner can merely strive to exercise 
 the faith and repentance which the Bible re- 
 quires, and that it is only after he is gifted with 
 regenerating and forgiving grace he can exercise 
 these saving graces. The reviewer will not im- 
 itate Dr. Northrup in hurling against him 
 charges of misrepresentation, but surely, in 
 common justice and in all fairness, he was bound, 
 in the interpretation of the item of the general 
 inventory on which he has based so grave a 
 charge, to have taken into account the exposition 
 of that item given at such length, and with such 
 •explicitness, in the sixth chapter of the review. 
 However, in looking into that chapter again, the 
 reviewer is not surprised that Dr. Northrup did 
 not like to cultivate much acquaintance with it. 
 The chief topic of that chapter is one of the 
 Arminian fundamentals to which he has set his 
 hand and seal, viz : that the provisions of grace 
 are universal. In contravention of the claim 
 advanced, it was pointed out, that if the claim 
 meant anything serviceable to the cause in 
 whose behalf it was made, it must mean that 
 "the whole human race, in the individuality of its 
 membership, throughout its entire history, from 
 Adam to Moses, and from Moses to Christ, and 
 :from Christ to the present hour, must have 
 been furnished with the means of grace, and 
 that as the all-essential elements of these 
 
116 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 means were not simply truth, but the truth as it 
 is in Jesus, that is the Gospel, and the Holy 
 Spirit, the claim bears the stamp of its own. 
 condemnation emblazoned on its own forehead. 
 
 One can understand, in some measure, how it- 
 came to pass that a man enamoured of a theory 
 of which the universality of the means of grace 
 was one of the fundamentals, should feel an in- 
 stinctive aversion to a chapter which not only 
 placed it in peril, but proved it to be historically 
 untrue — a flat contradiction of the facts of hu- 
 man history. 
 
 Let us now enumerate the points embraced in 
 this section of Dr. Northrup's theory. These 
 are: 1. That under the universal grace every 
 man is endowed with plenary ability to strive to 
 exercise the faith and repentance which the 
 Bible requires. 2. That ability to actually exer- 
 cise these two graces is subsequently bestowed 
 by the communication of regenerating, forgiving 
 grace to those who, being as yet unregenerate, 
 fulfill the condition specified, viz: striviiig to re- 
 pent and believe, in the sense which the Bible 
 requires. 3. That the conditions specified by 
 Dr. Northrup as necessary to the transition from 
 striving to repent and believe, to positive, actual, 
 believing and repenting, are the instrumentality 
 of the Word and the agency of the Holy Spirit. 
 4. That neither of these indispensable provisions 
 
DR. WATTS' REPLY. 117 
 
 has been vouchsafed to the vast majority of the ' 
 human race. 5. That, notwithstanding, the 
 provisions of grace are universal. 
 
 Now, this is no mere incidental element of 
 Dr. Northrup's theory. He has placed it in the 
 forefront of his attack on Calvinism. It enters 
 into the very essence of his theology; and yet 
 it is negatived by the history of our race, both 
 sacred and secular. To allege that every man 
 has been endowed with plenary ability "to st7-ive 
 to exercise the faith and repentance which the Bible 
 requires, " or that he has been furnished with the 
 conditions on which the actual exercise of these 
 graces depends, is to gainsay the joint testimony 
 of the Divine Oracles and human history. How 
 its author could concoct such a theory without 
 detecting its palpable incongruities, is a problem 
 his reviewer feels himself incompetent to solve. 
 Dr. Northrup has acknowledged the logical co- 
 herence of Calvinism; his reviewer must be ex- 
 cused if he cannot reciprocate the courtesy. 
 
 N. B. — The next article will deal with his 
 treatment of the federal headship of Adam. 
 
 Belfast, Ireland, March, 189S. 
 
118 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 DR. WATTS' REPLY. 
 TENTH PAPER. 
 
 To the Editor of the Western Recorder: 
 
 As the heading of Dr. Northrup's original 
 articles shows, they were designed to disprove 
 the doctrine of "The Sovereignty of God in 
 Predestination, as Contained in the System of 
 Strict Calvinism. " The Calvinistic doctrine on 
 this subject is very clearly expressed in the 
 Westminster Assembly's Shorter Catechism in 
 answer to the question ' 'Did God leave all man- 
 kind to perish in the estate of sin and misery?" 
 Such is the question, and the following is the 
 answer given by that great Assembly: "God 
 having, out of his mere good pleasure, from all 
 eternity, elected some to everlasting life, did 
 enter into a covenant of grace, to deliver them 
 out of the estate of sin and misery, and to bring 
 theba into an estate of salvation by a Redeemer. " 
 Such, according to the System of strict Cal- 
 vinism which Dr. Northrup has undertaken to 
 overthrow, is the condition of those whom, from 
 all eternity, God, out of His mere good pleas- 
 ure, has determined, through covenant engage- 
 
DR. WATTS' REPLY. 119> 
 
 ment with His own Son, to redeem and gift 
 with eternal life; and the doctrine it teaches is, 
 that God was entirely free in selecting some 
 from among the mass of fallen men and making 
 them the subjects of His saving grace, and that 
 it was of His mere good pleasure He made pro- 
 vision for saving any of our fallen race. To this 
 doctrine Dr. Northrup objects. He cannot 
 brook the idea that God was at liberty to leave- 
 all mankind to perish in the estate of sin and 
 misery into which they were brought by the 
 fall. As has been shown in a previous article, 
 he holds that there is no warrant in reason or 
 revelation for the view that it was morally pos- 
 sible for God to purpose to create our first 
 parents, to permit the fall and the development 
 of the successive generations of their posterity, 
 and to make no provision for their salvation. 
 The previous article has dealt at large with this 
 ex cathedra utterance. As there shown it con- 
 travenes the whole history of redemption. 
 What it alleges God could not, by any moral 
 possibility, do, is the very thing He has demon- 
 strated His absolute right to do. Dr. Northrup 
 tells us that it was not morally possible for God 
 to make no provision for the salvation of fallen, 
 man, yet what is the fact? The palpable histor- 
 ical fact is, that for untold myriads of fallen men, 
 the requisite provision has not been made. Ac- 
 
120 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 ■cording to the Constitution of the Economy, the 
 provision must embrace two things; there must 
 be an atonement, and that atonement must be 
 made known. If salvation be by faith in the 
 Lord Jesus Christ as the great propitiation, how 
 •can those who have never heard of Christ or 
 His atonement be said to have been provided 
 with the means of salvation? Dr. Northrup's 
 theory, therefore, is disproved by the actual 
 procedure of the author of our salvation. His 
 theory is, in fact, a mere rationalistic specula- 
 tion evolved out of his own consciousness, and 
 advocated in the face of the entire history 
 of the race, both sacred and secular. As 
 shown already, the work of Christ was such 
 as to make it morally impossible not to make 
 it known to all for whom it was wrought. 
 The question, then, is forced upon us, how is it 
 that, under the righteous administration of 
 Jehovah, it has not, thus far, been made known 
 to millions upon millions of fallen men, whereas 
 the knowledge of it has been vouchsafed to 
 others ? The system of strict Calvinism answers 
 with our Lord, under like circumstances — "Even 
 so. Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight." 
 It resolves the problem into the mere good 
 pleasure of God. Dr. Northrup is not satisiied 
 with this decision and comes forward with a so- 
 
DR. WATTS' REPLY. 121 
 
 lution which, it is to be presumed, he thinks 
 solves the mystery. 
 
 Commenting on the terms "good pleasure," 
 "the counsel of His will," "seemed good in His 
 sight," he asks: "But what do these phrases 
 mean? Do they teach that in making the selec- 
 tion of some men and resolving to save them, 
 God was not influenced by anything existing in 
 them or foreseen in them by which they were 
 distinguished from other men; that there is no 
 difference in men to which God has respect in 
 choosing one man rather than another; that the 
 total reasons for action remaining the same He 
 was entirely free to elect those reprobated and 
 to reprobate those elected — able to decree the 
 salvation of all or the damnation of all, without 
 prejudice to the glory of any of His attributes? 
 This," he says, "is the doctrine of God's sover- 
 eignty which we call in question. The ninth 
 chapter of the Epistle to the Romans is the por- 
 tion of Scripture which is most frequently and 
 confidently appealed to in support of this doc- 
 trine. If the Calvinistic doctrine of God's Sov- 
 ereignty in Predestination is not in this chapter 
 it is not in the New Testament. 
 
 It may be difficult to believe that the writer of 
 this paragraph is the person who is so indignant 
 with his reviewer for calling him an Arminian. 
 His reviewer would ask. What is the doctrine 
 
122 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 here avowed, if it be not Arminianism? Dr. 
 Northrup has great admiration for the modera- 
 tion and judiciousness of Principal Cunningham,, 
 and may, therefore, excuse a quotation of his 
 opinion on this point. "The main questions," 
 the Principal says, "which have been usually 
 discussed among divines concerning the divine 
 decrees in general, or predestination in its widest 
 sense, have been these: 1. Are the divine de- 
 crees or purposes in regard to all the events 
 which constitute the history of the world condi- 
 tional or not? 2. Are they unchangeable or not? 
 Calvinists hold that God's decrees or purposes 
 in regard to everything that was to come to 
 pass are unconditional and unchangeable, while 
 Arminians, or anti- Calvinists deny this, and 
 maintain that they are conditional and change- 
 able." There can be no doubt that accord- 
 ing to the above account of the divine de- 
 crees the divine determinations are conditional, 
 for if we are to accept it they are, in every in- 
 stance, conditioned on something foreseen in the 
 subjects of the decree. As Dr. A. A. Hodge 
 says in his ' 'Outlines, " the only question which 
 touches the true matter in debate is. What is the 
 ground of the eternal predestination of individ- 
 uals to salvation? Is it the foreseen faith and 
 repentance of the individuals themselves, or the 
 sovereign good pleasure of God? Every Chris- 
 
DR. WATTS' REPLY. 123 
 
 tian must take one side or the other of this ques- 
 tion. If he takes the side which makes foreseen 
 faith the ground, he is an Arminian, no matter 
 what else he holds. If he takes the side which 
 makes the good pleasure of God the ground, he 
 is aCalvinist." 
 
 It is true Dr. Northrup does not specify faith 
 as the foreseen ground of the Divine choice. 
 All he alleges is, that there must be something 
 in the subjects chosen which furnishes a reason 
 of the choice. God's sovereignty is not "a pre- 
 rogative in the exercise of which He is absolutely 
 free to will the exact opposite of that which He 
 does will in relation to the destinies of men; ab- 
 solutely free to consign to hell those whom He 
 can bring to heaven without prejudice to the 
 glory of any of His perfections and the highest 
 interests of His universal kingdom; absolutely 
 free to choose one of two men and to reject the 
 other between whom there is no difference (the 
 italics are Dr. Northrup's), or no difference 
 which can furnish a reason, or cause, or condi- 
 tion, or occasion of His infinitely diverse de- 
 cisions. To predicate of God such a sovereignty 
 as this is to deny His benevolence, and to ascribe 
 to Him pure arbitrariness and caprice in dealing 
 with mankind. " 
 
 It is obvious that the position taken in this 
 paragraph is the Arminian position, viz: that 
 
124 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 the creature furnishes the "reason, or cause, or 
 condition, or occasion" of the divine decision. 
 So far as the principal is concerned, it matters 
 not what the subjective quality may be which 
 furnishes the ' 'reason, or cause, or condition, or 
 occasion" of the divine decision, the divine de- 
 cision is determined by it, and the decision 
 therefore cannot, in any proper sense of the 
 term, be said to be a free divine determination. 
 On the contrary, the divine purposes and actions 
 in the moral government of the race, are subject 
 to, and determined by, the race itself, some of 
 its members furnishing the "reason, or cause, 
 or condition, or occasion" of the decree of life, 
 while others furnish the ' 'reason, or cause, or 
 condition, or occasion" of the decree of death. 
 Such are the circumstances under which God 
 acts in determining the destinies of the two 
 classes, and Dr. Northrup informs us that if His 
 purposes are not determined by the difference 
 between these .two classes. He is chargeable 
 with ' 'pure arbitrariness and caprice in dealing 
 with mankind." Such is Dr. Northrup's account 
 of the divine decree in the matter of man's sal- 
 vation, and yet he is deeply offended with his 
 reviewer because he represents him as denying 
 the doctrine of the decrees of God! It appears 
 that he can claim the right to challenge the 
 sovereignty of God in the predestination of men 
 
DR. WATTS' REPLY. 125 
 
 to eternal life, or death, and to be at liberty to 
 place the determination in the hands of fallen 
 guilty men, and yet be regarded as an advocate 
 of the doctrine of the divine decrees! The 
 readers of the Chicago Standard may be so dis- 
 tracted by the forebodings of the theological 
 systems of Heathendom and Christendom, which 
 are to be represented in the "World's First 
 Parliament of Religions," in September next, 
 that they may overlook the incongruities of this 
 theological speculation, but the reviewer is per- 
 suaded that the readers of the Western Recorder 
 do not need any formal process of argumenta- 
 tion to satisfy them that a decree framed under 
 the circumstances hypothecated by Dr. North- 
 rup, is not a divine determination, whatever else 
 it may be ! 
 
 But now the question arises, whence the dif- 
 ferentice, or, as the apostle puts it, ' 'Who maketh 
 thee to differ? and what hast thou that thou didst 
 not receive? but if thou didst receive it why dost 
 thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?" 
 (I. Cor. iv. 7.) According to the principle un- 
 derlying this passage, all that by which one is 
 made to differ from another, all that could fur- 
 nish a basis for a divine choice, is not from man 
 but from God, for the principle holds good in 
 regard to natural as well as spiritual endow- 
 ments. It is just as true that those subjective 
 
126 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 constitutiotial qualities which men bring with 
 them into the world, and by which one man is 
 distinguished from another, are from God, as it 
 is that those gifts which the Holy Spirit distrib- 
 utes to His servants for the edifying of the body 
 of Christ, "dividing to every man severally as 
 He will," are divinely bestowed. Now, on what 
 principle are these constitutional differentice con- 
 ferred? Clearly, if Dr. Northrup will avoid 
 charging the Author of them with "pure arbi- 
 trariness and caprice," he must find in the sub- 
 jects on whom they are bestowed some "reason, 
 or cause, or condition, or occasion" for the di- 
 vine action. But as these differentice are them- 
 selves those qualities by which one man is dis- 
 tinguished from another, there cannot be assumed 
 ■any antecedent differentia', which could possibly 
 be assigned as "a reason, or cause, or condition, or 
 occasion" of the divine action in the bestowal of 
 them. Dr. Northrup's charge of "arbitrariuess" 
 and ' 'caprice" which he has preferred against the 
 system of strict Calvinism, therefore, recoils 
 upon his own head, for he can find no "reason" 
 for the bestowal of those personal, constitu- 
 tional peculiarities by which one man is distin- 
 guished from another. The reviewer is per- 
 suaded that he will not venture to carry out his 
 theory and charge the Author of these personal 
 characteristics with "arbitrariness," or "ca- 
 
DR. WATTS' REPLY. 127 
 
 price," and yet how can he avoid making the 
 charge? In a word, he has tried to solve a 
 problem from the solution of which even that 
 Apostle who had a deeper insight into the mys- 
 teries of redemption than any of his brethren, 
 shrank, exclaiming as he surveyed the history 
 of God's dealings with the race, both in their 
 fall and their recovery, "O, the depth of the 
 riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge 
 of God; how unsearchable are His judgments and 
 His ways past finding out." This problem he has 
 tried to solve, and the principle on which he has 
 proceeded has not only proved inadequate to the 
 task, but has environed him hopelessly with the 
 very same difficulties wherewith he imagined he 
 had confronted and confounded the doctrine of 
 the divine sovereignty in Predestination, as 
 contained in the system of strict Calvinism. 
 
 Nor is this all. The principle reverses the 
 relation of the divine foreknowledge to the 
 divine decree. If we are to accept the theory 
 we must hold, that it is something foreseen in the 
 subjects of the divine choice, or of the divine 
 reprobation which determines the divine decision 
 regarding them, whether for life or death. That 
 is, God foresees something by which the one class 
 is distinguished from the other, and this some- 
 thing furnishes the ' 'reason, or cause, or condi- 
 tion, or occasion" of His decree. Is this a theory 
 
128 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 that can bear inspection? Does it not justify 
 all that the reviewer alleged against the doctrine 
 of its author at the outset? Does it not virtually 
 dethrone Jehovah? Is it not manifest that it 
 takes the government of His moral agents out 
 of the hands of God? and does it not represent 
 Him as occupying the position of a mere spec- 
 tator, whose line of action is determined by the 
 creatures of His hand? 
 
 It had saved Dr. Northrup from the adoption 
 of this erroneous Arminian principle, if, instead 
 of criticising the Apostle Paul's argument for 
 the divine sovereignty in Predestination, as pre- 
 sented in the ninth chapter of the Epistle to the 
 Romans, he had read, with care, what the Apos- 
 tle says in regard to this same principle in the 
 third chapter. After bringing in both Jew and 
 Gentile guilty before God, and stopping every 
 mouth, he proceeds: "But now apart from the 
 law a righteousness of God hath been mani- 
 fested, being witnessed by the law and the 
 prophets; even the righteousness of God 
 through faith in Jesus Christ unto all them that 
 believe; for there is no distinction ; for all have 
 sinned and fallen short of the glory of God; 
 being justified freely by His grace through the 
 redemption that is in Christ Jesus." Dr. North- 
 rup says there is a difference that distinguishes 
 one man from another, which justifies God in 
 
DR. WATTS' REPLY. 129' 
 
 his choice of the one rather than the other. 
 Paul says there is no distinction which could 
 furnish a reason for God's action in the case, 
 and asserts that He acts freely in justifying, and 
 does so out of mere grace. In a word, Paul dis- 
 cards, as prejudicial to the doctrine of salvation 
 by grace, that principle which constitutes the 
 corner-stone of Dr. Northrup's theory. 
 Belfast, Ireland, March, 1893. 
 
130 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOB. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 DR. WATTS' REPLY. 
 ELEVENTH PAPER. 
 
 To the Editor of the Western Recorder: 
 
 Another of the misrepresentations which Dr. 
 Northrup charges upon his reviewer is that he 
 represents him as denying "the fundamental 
 doctrine that salvation is of grace and not of 
 debt." * * "The Arminian theory here im- 
 puted to us," he says, "we disavowed and re- 
 pudiated in the articles under review." In the 
 very next paragraph, however, we have the fol- 
 lowing confession : ' 'The reviewer had, possibly, 
 the following paragraph in mind when making 
 the above allegations. Having made a quota- 
 tion from Dr. Candlish, we remarked: What 
 warrant is there in reason or revelation for the 
 view here presented, that it was morally possi- 
 ble for God to purpose to create our first par- 
 ents, to permit the fall and the development of 
 the successive generations of their posterity, 
 and to make no provision for their salvation? 
 All we know, all that there is any warrant for 
 affirming is, that the plan of the universe which 
 
DR. WATTS' REPLY. 131 
 
 <jrod adopted because most worthy of Himself, 
 included, as eternal and essential elements, the 
 creation of man, the permission, or nonpreven- 
 tion of the fall and redemption through Jesus 
 Christ. That the plan would have been equally 
 perfect, or that it would have been worthy of com- 
 parison with the existing plan — the element of 
 redemption being left out — is what no man knows 
 or can know, and what, therefore no mah has a 
 right to af&rm. But the position here taken 
 does not imply that as regards the rights or 
 claims of men, God was under obligation to pro- 
 vide salvation; but only that the present plan, 
 embracing the certainty of the fall and the pur- 
 pose of redemption, is most congruous with His 
 nature, expressing most perfectly His infinite 
 perfections. " 
 
 In bringing this passage to the attention of 
 his readers. Dr. Northrup has simply vindicated 
 his reviewer against the charge of misrepresen- 
 tation in this particular instance. In it he de- 
 nies the warrant of any man to affirm "that it 
 was morally possible for God to purpose to create 
 our first parents, to permit the fall and the de- 
 velopment of the successive generations of their 
 posterity and to make no provision for their 
 salvation." If this be not an express and ex- 
 plicit denial of the Scripture doctrine that sal- 
 vation is of grace, it is certainly difficult to 
 
132 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 imagine what else the writer means. To assert- 
 that there is no warrant in reason or revelation 
 for the view that it was morally possible for God 
 to purpose the creation, fall, and development 
 of the human race, and make no provision for 
 their salvation, is simply another way of saying 
 that salvation is not of grace. What it is mor- 
 ally impossible for God to do He cannot do, and 
 if it was morally impossible for Him to create 
 man and permit him to fall without making 
 provision for his salvation, then He was under 
 obligation, the highest obligation under which 
 a moral being could be placed, to make that 
 provision. To allege that a provision made in 
 pursuance of a moral obligation is of grace and 
 not of debt, is just to say and unsay the same 
 thing in the same sentence. 
 
 Dr. Northrup thinks he has safe-guarded the 
 doctrine of salvation by grace by alleging that 
 "the position here taken does not imply that as 
 regards the rights or claims of men, God was 
 under obligation to provide salvation; but only 
 that the present plan, embracing the certainty 
 of the fall and the purpose of redemption, is 
 most congruous with His nature, expressing 
 most perfectly His infinite perfections." The 
 problem with which Dr. Northrup has under- 
 taken to deal will not admit of the severance he 
 has here tried to effect. Obligation on the part 
 
DR. WATTS' REPLY. 133 
 
 of God, and ' 'rights" and ' 'claims" on the part 
 of men, are morally inseparable. It is the posi- 
 tion to which, as Dr. Northrup contends, the 
 divine purpose has brought the race, that pre- 
 sents the problem, and he, himself, by using the 
 term, "morally possible" admits that the problem 
 is a moral problem. Leave out man as fallen, 
 and there is no problem to be solved. The 
 question of the morality of the divine action in 
 the case has no meaning except on the assump- 
 tion that it would have been incongruous with 
 the infinite perfections of God to have failed to 
 provide salvation for man when he fell, and any 
 such assumption is utterly irreconcilable with 
 the Scripture doctrine that salvation is of grace. 
 
 But it is only when we take into account the 
 character and extent of the provision needed to 
 meet the case of fallen man, that the weakness 
 and unprofitableness of Dr. Northrup's theory 
 become manifest. 
 
 In the first place, instead of there being, on 
 the part of God, a moral impossibility in the way 
 of His not making provision for man's salvation, 
 there was a moral obstacle in the way of His in- 
 terposing for man's deliverance, the removal of 
 which is represented in the Scriptures as re- 
 vealing the manifold wisdom of God. The jus- 
 tice of Jehovah barred the way of the efflux of 
 His love. Before His love could flow forth to 
 
134 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 pardon, and justify, and restore, the claims of 
 justice must be met. The provision for meeting 
 these claims furnishes a subject into which the 
 angels desire to look, and one which will task 
 their mightiest intellects throughout eternity, 
 as it will be the theme of the church whether 
 militant or triumphant. No member of that re- 
 deemed host, whether bowing on the footstool 
 or prostrate before the throne, will be likely to 
 adopt Dr. Northrup's theory, and moderate the 
 fervor of his devotion by calling to remem- 
 brance, as that theory suggests, that it was not 
 ''morally possible" for God to make no provision 
 for his salvation. As the redeemed in glory 
 gaze in adoring gratitude upon the enthroned 
 Lamb, they will not be likely to introduce into 
 the universal song the note of discord which 
 that theory implies, that God might not have 
 spared His own Son, and was under obligation 
 to deliver Him up for us all. 
 
 2. The nature of the work by which the bar- 
 rier, presented in the justice of God, has been 
 removed, must be taken into account. That 
 work had reference, as the reviewer is happy to 
 learn from Dr. Northrup's reply, to the precep- 
 tive as well as the penal claims of the law. The 
 all-important, all-determining questions hence 
 emerging are: What was the nature of this ref- 
 erence? and what were its effects? Did the 
 
DR. WATTS' REPLY. 135- 
 
 work of Christ meet, and exhaust by meeting 
 them, all the claims of the law preceptive and 
 penal? If so, if He did, did He thereby estab- 
 lish any legal claim on behalf of those for whom 
 He obeyed and suffered and died? As the law 
 whose entire claims He met was not a self-exist- 
 ent, objective, self-administering entity, but, on 
 the contrary, the law of a Divine Lawgiver who, 
 with His own hand, carried into execution its 
 penal sanctions, thereby expiating the guilt of 
 the sins which in the exercise'of His own sover- 
 eign good pleasure He had laid on His Son as 
 His people's Substitute, and moreover, through 
 His most perfect obedience, meeting all the re- 
 quirements of its most holy precepts, surely it. 
 must follow that for all whom He represented 
 in that august transaction. He won, in law and 
 justice, deliverance from the curse of the law, 
 justification, and eternal life. It is impossible 
 that such a work to which He was set apart and 
 commissioned by the Father, should be wrought 
 by such a worker, and accepted as satisfactory, 
 as His resurrection and enthronement prove, 
 without securing, in justice, all that He obeyed 
 and died to win. 
 
 3. Equally manifest must it be, that this en- 
 tire work was necessary in order to the salva- 
 tion of men. When, therefore. Dr. Northrup 
 speaks of it not being morally possible for God 
 
136 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 not to make provision for man's salvation, he 
 must mean, if lie means anything to help his 
 "theory, that it was not morally possible for Him 
 not to require at the hands of His own Son the 
 ■sore travail of His early life, the agony of Geth- 
 semane, and the death pangs, and spiritual, 
 poignant anguish of Calvary. 
 
 But this is not all. If we are to accept the 
 testimony of Scripture something more than this 
 was needed to complete the provision requisite 
 ior the salvation of men. Obligation to provide 
 the ransom carries with it additional obliga- 
 tions to make it known. These obligations 
 thicken and multiply and gather ever- increasing 
 moral force, at every step and stage of Christ's 
 humiliation. To require at the hands of Christ 
 such a work and make no provision for the an- 
 nouncement of it to all for whom He ivr ought it, 
 were to violate the most sacred principles of the 
 Divine administration. We may rest assured 
 that there is no claim which Christ has estab- 
 lished by the fulfillment of the stipulations 
 of the Covenant of Grace, which will not be 
 met by Him who assigned Him such momentous 
 task. While justice occupies the throne that 
 work shall have its full reward. Merit in heaven 
 is not an empty name. It is correlative to justice 
 and shall meet with its full and righteous re- 
 ward. 
 
DR. WATTS' REPLY. 137 
 
 5. Now surely it must be due to Christ, as the 
 very first item in His reward, that provision be 
 made for the annunciation of His work to all 
 whose sins he bore. A universal provision — 
 and Dr. Northrup's fundamental is that the pro- 
 visions of grace are universal — a universal pro- 
 vision, hemmed in and restricted by a limited 
 proclamation, is certainly an anomaly which 
 requires readjustment if this theory of "the 
 universal provisions of grace" is ever to gain 
 currency among intelligent men. How men are 
 to acquire "plenary aMlity," under "the universal 
 provisions of grace,'' even "to strive to exercise 
 the faith and repentance which the Bible re- 
 quires," who never heard of these provisions, or 
 of the Bible, is a problem Dr. Northrup has not 
 attempted to solve in his reply, although it was 
 presented for his consideration as one of the 
 most formidable of all the criticisms urged 
 against his theory by his reviewer. He has 
 offered no solution, for the simple reason that 
 there is no solution of the anomaly possible. 
 The provisions of grace are not universal, and 
 yet Dr. Northrup would have us believe that it 
 was not "morally possible" for God not to make 
 provision for the salvation of men. It is respect- 
 fully submitted that if he cannot reconcile these 
 two discordant, antagonistic positions, his theory 
 is discredited and is on the verge of dissolution. 
 9 
 
138 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 6. The justice of the foregoing criticisms will 
 be all the more manifest when we take intO' 
 account what the Scriptures and all Christian 
 experience attest, viz: that the proclamation of 
 the work of Christ, so far as adults are con- 
 cerned, is indispensable to salvation. Now if 
 salvation be by faith, and if faith cometh by 
 hearing, and hearing by the Word of God, what 
 are we to think of this theory of Dr. Northrup's 
 which assumes that God is under moral obliga- 
 tion to make provision for the salvation of men, 
 and actually affirms that He has done so, while 
 the fact is notorious that the vast majority of 
 the human race have never heard of any such 
 provisions? In his original articles he admitted, 
 as elements of the provisions of grace, which he 
 alleged were universal, "the touch of truth and 
 of the Holy Spirit." His reviewer replied that 
 the only "truth" admissible in the case, must be 
 the truth of the Gospel, and that this, apart 
 from the agency of the 'Spirit, could not awaken 
 the sinner from spiritual death to spiritual life. 
 Dr. Northrup had wound up this sketch of "the 
 provisions of grace," by a reference to the readi- 
 ness of the Father to give the Holy Spirit to 
 them that ask Him. The stricture of his reviewer 
 on this reference was: "Yes; to them that ask 
 Him; but how shall those ask who have never 
 heard of either the Father or the Holy Spirit?" 
 
DR. WATTS' REPLY. 139 
 
 Here was certainly a very pertinent criticism, 
 and as scriptural as it was pertinent. Surely 
 Dr.Northrup was bound to believe it, and to prove 
 that these two elements — the Gospel and the 
 Holy Spirit — recognized by himself as indispen- 
 sable elements of the provisions of grace, have 
 been made known to the whole human race, in 
 ail its generations, from the beginning of its his- 
 tory till the present moment. The criticism not 
 only imperils, but subverts his whole theory, 
 and yet his reply has not a word to say on its 
 behalf! His idea of universality seems to be 
 something like Dr. Martensen's idea of ubiquity. 
 The ubiquity of Christ's body, Dr. Martensen 
 alleges, is not an actual ieing, but an essential 
 becoming; and Dr. Northrup's provisions of grace 
 are not, at present, universal, and have not been 
 universal in the past, but while their universality 
 is not in actual being, their universality is in 
 essential becoming/ 
 
 7. The feature of the economy with which 
 Dr. Northrup's theory is in conflict, is the one 
 wherein, if we are to accept the testimony of 
 Scripture, its chief glory consists. As we have 
 already seen, an economy whose provisions God 
 was under the most sacred obligation to furnish 
 cannot, with any regard to the right use of lan- 
 guage, be called an economy of grace. How- 
 ever, when we consult the sacred Record on 
 
140 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 this point, we find that the chief design of the 
 ■economy is to illustrate and glorify the. grace of 
 God. Let a few testimonials suffice. ' 'Blessed 
 be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
 who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings 
 in heavenly places in Christ; according as He 
 hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of 
 the world, that we should be holy and without 
 blame before Him in love: having predestinated 
 us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ 
 to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His 
 will, to the praise of the glory of His grace 
 wherein He has made us accepted in the Be- 
 loved. In whom we have redemption through 
 His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to 
 the riches of His grace. Having made known unto 
 us the mystery of His will, according to His good 
 pleasure which He purposed in Himself. In whom 
 also we have obtained an inheritance, being pre- 
 destinated according to the purpose of Him who 
 worketh all things after the counsel of His own 
 will." (Bph. 1:3-11.) "But God w7io is ric7t m 
 mercy for his great love wherewith He loved us, 
 even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened 
 us together with Christ (py grace ye have been 
 saved); and hath raised us up together, and 
 made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ 
 Jesus: that in the ages to come He might show 
 ■the exceeding richness of His grace in His kindness 
 
DR. WATTS' REPLY. 141 
 
 toward us through Christ Jesus. For iy grace 
 have ye heen saved through fadth,' and that not of 
 yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of worJcs 
 that no m.an should glory. For we are Sis worh- 
 manship created in Christ Jesus for good worJcs, 
 which God afore prepared that we should walk 
 in them." (Eph. 2:4-10.) 
 
 Such is the account of the design of the econ- 
 omy of Redemption given by the Holy Ghost 
 through His servant Paul. Does it require any 
 exposition or argument to show that it justifies 
 the statement made above, "that the chief de- 
 sign of the economy is to illustrate and glorify 
 the grace of God?" Dr. Northrup asks: "What 
 warrant is there in reason or revelation for the 
 view here presented [by Dr. Candlish] that it 
 was morally possible for God to purpose to create 
 our first parents, to permit the fall and develop- 
 ment of the successive generations of their 
 posterity, and make no provision for their sal- 
 vation?" Such is the question, and such is the 
 answer given by the Spirit of God. He affirms, 
 again and again, that God was under no obliga- 
 tion, moral or otherwise, to make provision for 
 the salvation of fallen men. He teUs us this in 
 terms evidently intended to place the absolute 
 freedom of God in making the provision beyond 
 all question. He tells us that He did it of His 
 good pleasure, of the good pleasure of His will; 
 
142 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 that He did it that the doing of it might be to 
 the praise of the glory of His grace; and lest 
 the Ephesians might not catch the drift of His 
 testimony, He throws in a clause reminding 
 them that it was by grace they had been 
 saved, and that the ultimate design of His 
 making such provision was, that in the ages to 
 come He might show the exceeding riches of His 
 grace in His kindness toward us by Christ Jesus. 
 The reader has now before him, on the one 
 hand, what Dr. Northrup says, and, on the 
 other, what the Apostle Paul says, on the point 
 at issue, and he must choose for himself under 
 whose guidance he is to study the economy of 
 grace. Let him remember, however, that what 
 Dr. Northrup alleges God was morally bound to 
 do for the race, as a matter of fact, God has not 
 done, as the reviewer has shown, over and over 
 again, in discussing the question regarding the 
 universality of the provisions of grace. The 
 logical goal of the theory is absolute Universal- 
 ism. 
 Belfast, Ireland, March, 1893. 
 
DR. WATTS' REPLY. 143 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 DR. WATTS' REPLY. 
 TWELFTH PAPER. 
 
 To the Editor of the Western Recorder: 
 
 Dr. Northrup has undertaken to prove that 
 the doctrine of God's sovereignty in Predestina- 
 tion, as contained in the system of strict Calvin- 
 ism, has no support in the ninth chapter of the 
 Epistle to the Romans. Having such an object 
 in view, he is rather unfortunate in his prefatory 
 remarks. At the outset he gives such a sketch 
 of the way of salvation and the scope of the 
 •epistle, as, if fairly interpreted and applied, 
 must, in the estimate of all intelligent men, 
 completely frustrate his design. He proceeds 
 as follows: "In order that the fundamental 
 point in controversy may be clearly seen, we 
 remark: 1. That men are saved — attain to the 
 purity and felicity of the heavenly world — 
 because they exercise repentance towards God 
 and faith in Jesus Christ. 2. That they exercise 
 faith and repentance because the Holy Spirit re- 
 news them — originates in them a holy disposition 
 which is the permanent basis of all holy exer- 
 
144 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 cises. 3. That God regenerates them by His 
 Spirit because He purposed to do so — their re- 
 newal being the execution of an eternal immuta- 
 ble purpose of grace. 4. That He purposed to 
 renew them because' it was 'His good pleasure,' 
 'the counsel of His will,' 'seemed good in His 
 sight.' " Having given this sketch, which as far 
 as it goes is Calvinistic, Dr. Northrup immedi- 
 ately proceeds to give an exposition of the 
 phrases, "counsel of His will" and "seemed good 
 in His sight," the first of which is, that we are 
 not to regard them as implying that "in making 
 the selection of some men and resolving to save 
 them, God was not influenced by anything ex- 
 isting in them or foreseen in them by which they 
 were distinguished from other men; that there 
 is no difference (the italics are Dr. Northrup's) in 
 men to which God has respect in choosing one 
 man rather than another; that the total reasons 
 for action remaining the same. He was entirely 
 free to elect those reprobated, and to reprobate 
 those elected — able to decree the salvation of all 
 or the damnation of all without prejudice to the 
 glory of any of His attributes. This is the doc- 
 trine of God's sovereignty, which we call in. 
 question. The ninth chapter of the Epistle to 
 the Romans is the portion of Scripture which is 
 most frequently and confidently appealed to in 
 support of this doctrine. If the Calvinistic doc- 
 
DR. WATTS' REPLY. 145 
 
 trine of God's sovereignty in predestination is. 
 not in this chapter, it is not in the New Testa- 
 ment"!!! 
 
 On this interpretation of these all- determining- 
 phrases enough has been said in the preceding 
 article. One word in addition may, however, be 
 allowed. Sir William Thompson (now Lord 
 Kelvin) proposed, some years ago, as a solution 
 of the origin of life on our planet, that it may 
 have been imported through the advent of a 
 fragment of another planet in which life pre- 
 viously existed. The criticism on Sir William's 
 solution was, that it was no solution at all of the 
 problem of the origin of life, as it merely re- 
 moved the question from our planet to some 
 neighboring orb. Dr. Northrup's solution of the 
 problem of the sovereignty of God in predesti- 
 nation is manifestly open to the same criticism: 
 it simply removes the question to a stage farther- 
 back. He tells us that the divine reason for 
 choosing one man rather than another is some- 
 thing foreseen as existing in the one by which 
 he is distinguished from the other. Will any in- 
 telligent man accept this as a solution of the 
 mystery of the divine choice? Does not the ques- 
 tion force itself upon us and demand an answer 
 how came it to pass that the one chosen hap- 
 pened to possess those qualities which distin- 
 guished him from the one passed by and supplied 
 
146 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 the requisite "reason," "condition," etc., for his 
 selection? The basal distinction cannot be re- 
 garded as moral, for all have sinned and come 
 short of the glory of God, and Dr. Northrup ad- 
 mits that the foreseen something is not some- 
 thing meritorious. The ground of the divine 
 action, therefore, must be something in the men- 
 tal constitution of the subjects of the divine 
 choice which determines the divine purpose in 
 their case. This brings us to the root of the whole 
 controversy on the line laid down by Dr. North- 
 rup. As both classes — those elected and those 
 rejected — received their whole being from God — 
 their whole being whether mental or phys- 
 ical — does it not follow, that the foreseen quality 
 in which Dr. Northrup finds the "reason," or 
 "condition, "of the divine decree, is a "condition" 
 furnished by God Himself in their creation? Let 
 us take, as an illustration, the case of Jacob and 
 Esau in this ninth chapter of Eomans, on which 
 Dr. Northrup makes the following comment: 
 "It cannot be supposed, however, that in choos- 
 ing Jacob instead of Esau, God did not act in 
 view of some difference (the italics are Dr. North- 
 rup' s) between them — not a difference in the 
 matter of merit, for of merit there could be no 
 ■question — still some difference which rendered 
 the former better fitted than the latter to be the 
 ■depositary of the Messianic promise. " No doubt, 
 
DR. WATTS' REPLY. 147 
 
 as Dr. Northrup says, there was a difference be- 
 tween these two men, but the question at issue 
 goes back of the ''existing diflEerence, " to the 
 creative action originating that difference. Did 
 not that creative act make Jacob to differ from 
 Esau and constitute him ' 'a fitter depositary of 
 the Messianic promise"? Now as there was no 
 anterior quality foreseen in either case, which 
 could have furnished a reason for conferring on 
 these two sons of Isaac their distinctive personal 
 -characteristics, it must follow, that Dr. North- 
 rup's solution is negatived by this test case. 
 The decree to constitute Jacob diverse from 
 Esau, must be resolved into the mere good 
 pleasure of God, as it has no existing foreseen 
 quality to rest on which could furnish "a 
 reason," or "cause," or "condition" of the divine 
 determination to bring these two men into ex- 
 istence. 
 
 Dr. Northrup adopts the opinion of some, who 
 he alleges ' 'are of the highest authority in New 
 Testament interpretation," who hold "that noth- 
 ing is said in these verses of the final destiny of 
 either brother; that what is spoken of here is 
 the position of the one and not of the other as 
 the depositary of the promise to Abraham." It 
 is much safer, however, to accept the higher 
 authority of God's "Word on this point. The 
 iipistle to the Hebrews, chapter 12:16, refers to 
 
148 SOVEREIGNTYOP GOD. 
 
 the case of Esau, and settles it in a very differ- 
 ent way from that of these highest authorities. 
 The writer of that epistle admonishes those ad- 
 dressed, by a reference to the case of Esau, 
 exhorting them "to look carefully lest there be 
 any man that falleth short of the grace of God; 
 lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble 
 you, and thereby the many be defiled; lest there 
 be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, 
 who for one mess of meat sold his own birth- 
 right. For ye know that even when he after- 
 ward desired to inherit the blessing, he was re- 
 jected (for he found no place of repentance), 
 though he sought it diligently with tears. " 
 
 If we are to credit the testimony of this Scrip- 
 ture we must reject the opinion of Dr. Northrup's 
 New Testament exegetes. According to this 
 passage Esau's bartering away of his own birth- 
 right for a mess of pottage was a profane act, 
 involving the surrender of the Messianic prom- 
 ise and the heritage of blessing it was designed 
 to convey; and from the use made of his act in 
 doing so in this admonition to the Hebrews, it is 
 manifest that his whole admonitory force de- 
 pends upon the assumption that the blessing lost 
 was a spiritual blessing. 
 
 Belfast, Ireland, April, 189S. 
 
DR. WATTS' REPLY. 149 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 DR. WATTS' REPLY. 
 THIRTEENTH PAPER. 
 
 To the Editor of the Western Recorder: 
 
 The view of the case of Esau given in the pre- 
 vious article is further justified and confirmed 
 hy what the Apostle says (Ephes. 2:12,13) about 
 the former state of those gathered into the 
 church from among the Gentiles. "Wherefore," 
 he says, "remember, that aforetime, ye, the 
 Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircum- 
 cision by that which is called Circumcision, 
 in the flesh, made by hands; that ye were 
 at that time separate from Christ." Mark the 
 proof he gives of their being separate from, or 
 without Christ. The proof is, that they ' 'were 
 aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel, and 
 strangers from the covenants of promise, having 
 no hope and without God in the world. " It is 
 true there was a difference between the case of 
 Esau and the case of these Ephesian converts. 
 The difference, however, is such as to show that, 
 bad as their case was, his was still worse. They 
 cannot be said to have bartered away, in a pro- 
 fane transaction, any divine birthright as he 
 
150 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 did. Viewed in the light of Scripture, there - 
 fore, it is manifest that the loss incurred by Esau 
 was a truly spiritual loss, and that what Jacob- 
 gained was a truly spiritual gain, and, there- 
 fore, we must conclude, that the two cases are- 
 adduced by the Apostle to illustrate the very 
 doctrine of the sovereignty of God in predesti- 
 nation for which Calvinists contend, and which 
 Dr. Northrup endeavors to eliminate from a- 
 chapter through which it runs, as a golden 
 thread, from beginning to end. It is needless to 
 refer in confirmation to the history of the de- 
 scendants of these two men. Is it not a notorious 
 fact, that all Paul says of the state and relations 
 of the Ephesians, prior to their conversion, 
 would apply equally to the descendants of Esau, 
 both as regards their spiritual estate and their- 
 relation to the Commonwealth of Israel? They 
 were not only aliens from that Commonwealth, 
 but were its bitter foes. Dr. Northrup's New 
 Testament authorities may be very learned men, 
 but learning which leads men to conclusions 
 which are not in harmony with inspired history, 
 and which gainsay express apostolic testimony, 
 is a dangerous guide. 
 
 So much for prefatory remark number 4. Let- 
 us now turn to the preceding remarks, 1, 2, 3, in 
 which we have a truly Calvinistic account of the 
 way of salvation, as actually applied to, and ex- 
 
DR. WATTS' REPLY. 151 
 
 perienced, by men. Salvation involves the ex- 
 ercise of faith and repentance — repentance to- 
 ward God and faith in Jesus Christ. Men 
 exercise this faith and repentance because the 
 Holy Spirit renews them — originates in them a. 
 holy disposition, which is the permanent basis 
 of all holy exercises. This renewal God executes 
 because of an eternal immutable purpose of 
 grace. 
 
 This is sound doctrine, but, as already re- 
 marked, it furnishes a very unsuitable exordium 
 to an argument whose object is the elimination 
 of the doctrine of the sovereignty of God in pre- 
 destination, not only from the ninth chapter of 
 the Epistle to the Romans, but from the whole 
 New Testament. If the way of salvation, as 
 actually applied and experienced, be such as is 
 here described by Dr. Northrup, and it undoubt- 
 edly is, the doctrine of the sovereignty of God 
 in predestination follows as a matter of logical 
 necessity. This becomes manifest as soon as 
 the question is raised, has God furnished to all 
 men the conditions necessary to faith and re- 
 pentance? Dr. Northrup alleges He has, for he 
 asserts and contends, that the provisions of 
 grace are universal, and are such as to endow 
 every man with "plenary ability to strive to ex- 
 ercise the faith and repentance which the Bible 
 requires, " when stirred into action by ' 'the touch 
 
152 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 ■of truth and of the Holy Spirit." As the re- 
 viewer examined this claim in his criticism of 
 Dr. Northrup's original articles, it is unneces- 
 sary to dwell at length upon the utter absence 
 of argument to support it, or to point out the 
 fact, that neither in the Word of God, nor in 
 secular history, is there one iota of proof that 
 the indispensable conditions of faith and repent- 
 ance have been furnished to the whole posterity 
 of Adam. Attention was called to the term 
 "truth" used by Dr. Northrup as a designation 
 of one of the necessary provisions of grace, and 
 "the criticism was, that to be one of the conditions 
 of faith and repentance, the "truth" must be the 
 truth as it is in Jesus. It was also shown that 
 apart from the agency of the Holy Spirit, even 
 the truth as it was in Jesus could not avail to the 
 generation of faith and repentance, but, on the 
 contrary, must prove the savour of death unto 
 death. Dr. Northrup had cited in support of 
 the doctrine he was advocating — the doctrine of 
 the universality of the provisions of grace— the 
 testimony of our Lord regarding the readiness 
 •of the Father to give the Holy Spirit to them 
 that ask Him, and on this the Criticism was: 
 how can those ask Him who have never heard 
 ■either of the Father or of the Holy Spirit? 
 
 Now this one fact, a fact patent on the face of 
 the inspired page, and illustrated throughout 
 
DR. WATTS' REPLY. 153 
 
 the history of the administration of the economy 
 of grace, neutralizes and negatives this commen- 
 tary on the Epistle to the Romans. What this 
 commentary tries to eliminate from this epistle, 
 and from the whole New Testament, is a doc- 
 trine which cannot be eliminated, except on the 
 assumption that the provisions of grace are uni- 
 versal endowing ' 'every man with plenary ability 
 to strive to exercise the faith and repentance 
 which the Bible requires, " under the quickening 
 touch of truth and of the Holy Spirit. As the 
 necessary conditions — the conditions necessary 
 to the exercise of these graces — have not been 
 furnished to the whole race, and certainly not, 
 as Dr. Northrup claims, to "every man" of the 
 race, the question forces itself upon us, to what 
 are we to refer the limitation? Limitation, a 
 momentous limitation of the provisions of grace, 
 exists and has existed throughout the history of 
 mankind, to what are we to ascribe it? Are we 
 to accept the solution proposed by Dr. Northrup, 
 that the limitation was determined by something 
 foreseen which distinguished those from whom 
 the provisions of grace have been withheld, 
 from those to whom they have been vouchsafed? 
 or are we to ascribe the limitation as the Scrip- 
 tures do, to the good pleasure of Him who 
 worketh aU things after the counsel of His own 
 will? In a word, the apparatus of an applied 
 10 
 
154 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 redemption recognized by Dr. Northrup in his 
 exordium, furnishes a complete refutation — a 
 refutation based on the unquestionable fact of its 
 limitation — not only of bis commentary upon the 
 ninth of Romans, but of his entire theory pro- 
 pounded in these remarkable articles on the 
 sovereignty of God in predestination as con- 
 tained in the system of strict Calvinism. 
 
 It is unnecessary to enter into detail, or to 
 point out the instances in which the commentary 
 sets aside the plain teaching of the Apostle in 
 that marvellous epistle, and especially in the 
 chapter of which it formally treats. There is, 
 however, one omission which cannot be passed 
 over. Is it not remarkable that one who under- 
 takes a commentary on Romans should omit the 
 fifth chapter? Perhaps his former reference to 
 Adam's relation to his posterity, as a "legal 
 fiction," determined him in this matter. A fair 
 interpretation of that fifth chapter, in which the 
 Apostle institutes both a comparison and a con- 
 trast between Adam and Him who was to come, 
 of whom Adam was a figure, or type, establishes, 
 beyond successful challenge, the divine sover- 
 eignty in Predestination. That sovereignty is 
 revealed in the appointment of both these fed- 
 eral heads. It is revealed in the covenant of 
 works into which God entered with our first 
 father, and in the covenant into which He entered 
 
DR. WATTS' REPLY. 155 
 
 with His Son in the covenant of grace. It was 
 in the exercise of His free, unfettered sover- 
 eignty, that He made the standing of Adam's 
 posterity depend upon the conduct of Adam as 
 their federal head, and, in like manner, it was in 
 the exercise of that same sovereignty. He gave 
 to His Son, in the eternal covenant of Redemp- 
 tion, a seed whose eternal destiny was made to 
 depend upon His work as their Representative 
 and Surety. 
 
 The commentator who would eliminate from 
 this marvellous epistle, the doctrine of God's 
 free, unconditioned sovereignty in predestina- 
 tion, has undertaken a hopeless task, a task on 
 which the science of a truly genuine exegesis 
 has stamped the word impossible. 
 
 Belfast, Ireland, May, 1893. 
 
SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 r="-Aur«'r iii. 
 
 DR. NORTflRUP'S SECOND REJOINDER. 
 
SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD, 
 
 DR. NORTHRUP'S SECOND REJOINDER. 
 
 PART III. 
 
 Dr. Watts' reply to our rejoinder is largely a 
 repetition of matter contained in his first series 
 of articles. Jt is also characterized by the same 
 carelessness and inaccuracy of statement which 
 rendered those articles untrustworthy as repre- 
 senting the views criticised. It will be proper 
 to give in support of this statement a few illus- 
 trations which, however, might be indefinitely 
 multiplied. 
 
 1. "Is it not remarkable," says the reviewer, 
 ' 'that one who undertakes a commentary on the 
 Romans should omit the fifth chapter? Perhaps 
 his former reference to Adam's relation to his 
 posterity, as a ' legal fiction', determined him in 
 this matter." But it was not Adam's relation to 
 his posterity, but the federal theory of that rela- 
 tion, which we designated as a "legal fiction." 
 The following is our statement: "But it seems 
 that Dr. Watts firmly believes — in .fact knows — 
 that God would have acted in a manner infinitely 
 
4 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 wise and glorious had He decreed the trial and 
 fall of our lirst parents, the development of the 
 successive generations of their posterity, the 
 death in infancy of one half of their descendants, 
 and the perdition, not only of all adults, but of 
 all who die before reaching the age of respon- 
 sible action, — the ground of this stupendous 
 conclusion being the legal fiction known as the 
 federal theory which has no advocate of note 
 among living divines, American or European!" 
 According to the theory which we called a ' 'legal 
 fiction" Adam stood for his posterity, his act of 
 disobedience was imputed to them, and on the 
 ground of this imputation they are condemned, 
 and being condemned they are regarded as such 
 and so treated as to become necessarily corrupt. 
 All the acts in this extraordinary transaction, 
 with the single exception of the sin of Adam, are 
 divine acts. The appointment of Adam was a 
 divine act, the imputation of his guilt was a 
 divine act, the condemnation of his posterity was 
 a divine act, and their consequent corruption is 
 the necessary result of a divine act. Here we 
 have guilt without sin, exposure to divine wrath 
 without ill-desert, — God regarding and treating 
 men as being not what they are, but what they 
 are not, punishing them on the ground of a sin 
 committed before they existed, visiting them 
 with gratuitous condemnation, and gratuitous 
 
DR. NORTHRUP'S SECOND REJOINDER. & 
 
 reprobation, and, in case of non-elect infants 
 dying in infancy, with gratuitous damnation! It 
 would not be easy to imagine anything more 
 obviously in conflict with the ethical character 
 of God than this theory with its artificial dis- 
 tinctions — arbitrary representation, fictitious 
 imputation, constructive guilt, limited atone- 
 ment. 
 
 2. Another instance of Dr. Watts' carelessness 
 and inaccuracy of statement is given in the fol- 
 lowing quotation; "Ethical perfection, if we are 
 to accept this account of its very essence, con- 
 sists of the combined virtues of holiness and 
 love! The essence of ethical perfection, whert 
 ethical perfection exists in infinite perfection, is 
 a perfection in which the attribute of justice 
 finds no place! Perhaps Dr. Northrup has ac- 
 cepted Leibnitz' idea of justice that it is benev- 
 olence guided by wisdom. Such is the doctrine 
 which is to solve the problem of the sovereignty 
 of God in the conception and administration of 
 the economy of redemption." Having made this 
 statement he proceeds to show at length, ' 'the 
 consequences of eliminating the attribute of 
 justice from the essence of the ethical perfection 
 of God." Here it is suggested and then affirmed 
 that we adopt the view that "justice is benev- 
 olence guided by wisdom." But there is nothing 
 in our whole discussion which furnishes the least 
 
■t) SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 ground for this charge. We hold firmly that 
 justice is, not benevolence, but justice; it con- 
 sists in rendering to every one that which is due 
 him on grounds of good or ill desert; it is the 
 holiness of God expressing itself towards moral 
 beings according to their character — according 
 to their moral likeness or unlikeness to Himself. 
 As holy God loves the pure with a love of com- 
 placency and abhors the impure, and as just he 
 expresses His love by bestowing blessings upon 
 the former and His abhorrence by inflicting pun- 
 ishment upon the latter. The essence of all 
 punishment, under the divine government, is 
 the necessary reaction of the immanent and 
 eternal holiness of God against wrong-doing and 
 wrong-doers. 
 
 3. We pass to notice a third instance of the 
 reviewer's culpable carelessness. We quote from 
 his reply to our rejoinder: "The question, then, 
 is forced upon us, how is it that, under the 
 righteous administration of Jehovah, it (the 
 work of Christ) has not, thus far, been made 
 known to millions upon millions of fallen men, 
 whereas the knowledge of it has been vouch- 
 safed to others? The system of strict Calvinism 
 answers with our Lord, under like circum- 
 stances — 'Even so, Father, for so it seemed good 
 in Thy sight. ' It resolves the problem into the 
 mere good pleasure of God. Dr. Northrup is 
 
DR. NORTHRUP'S SECOND REJOINDER. 7 
 
 not satisfied with this decision and comes for- 
 ward with a solution which, it is presumed, he 
 thinks solves the mystery. " What is the proper 
 characterization of this statement in which we 
 are charged with not being satisfied with resolv- 
 ing the problem of the condition of the heathen 
 world, or any other similar problem, "into the 
 mere good pleasure of God, " or as bringing for- 
 ward a solution of these problems different from 
 that given in the words of our Lord? It is, of 
 course, needless to say to those who have read 
 -our articles that we strongly emphasise the 
 biblical truth that "God is a sovereign and the 
 highest of all, because He possesses the power 
 and the right to govern and dispose of all His 
 creatures according to His good pleasure, ac- 
 cording to the dictates of His infinite intelli- 
 gence, making Himself His own highest law and 
 highest end." 
 
 4. We mention another of the reviewer's ran- 
 dom statements the logical consequences of 
 which are fearful to contemplate. He says: "To 
 require at the hands of Christ such a work and 
 make no provision for the announcement of it, to 
 all for ivhom it tuas wrought (the italics are the 
 reviewer's), were to violate the most sacred 
 principles of the Divine administration;" and, 
 again, ' 'The work of Christ was such as to make 
 it morally impossible not to make it known to all 
 
8 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 for whom it was wrought. " We have here posi- 
 tive statements which consign to perdition all 
 infants dying in infancy — one-half the human 
 race. As the atonement must be announced to 
 all for whom it luas wrought, and as it cannot be 
 announced to infants, it follows that no atone- 
 ment has been made for those who die in infancy, 
 or for those who are afflicted with congenital im- 
 becility, and, as ''original sin," according to the^ 
 strict Calvinistic theory, "Doth, in its own na- 
 ture, bring guilt upon the sinner, whereby he is 
 bound over to the wrath of God and curse of the 
 law, and so made subject to death with all its 
 miseries, spiritual, temporal and eternal," the 
 immutable justice of God must require Him to 
 visit these infants and idiots with His everlast- 
 ing displeasure ! 
 
 5. Dr. "Watts is mistaken in his interpretation 
 of the following statement which we quoted 
 from Principal Cunningham, placing it beside 
 the reviewer's fancy sketch: "The omniscient 
 Jehovah dethroned and in his place blind, relent- 
 less Fate," etc. — "It is, we think, mucarranted 
 and presumptuous to assert that even the self- 
 determining power of the will would prevent Him 
 in whom we live, move and have our being, who 
 is everywhere and at all times present in the 
 exercise of all His perfections, who searcheth 
 the heart and trieth the reins of the children of 
 
DR. NORTHRUP'S SECOND REJOINDER. 9 
 
 Tnen, from superintending all its movements ac- 
 cording to the counsel of His own will." Dr. 
 Watts thinks there is a profound difference in 
 meaning between the phrase of Cunningham, 
 "a self-determining power of the will," and the 
 phrase, as quoted by us, "the self- determining 
 power of the will. " But on the same page (The 
 ^Reformers and the Theology of the Reformation, 
 p. 511), we have the following statement, identical 
 in thought with the one quoted by us: "But it 
 cannot be proved that either the certainty or the 
 immutability of the event, or the agency of God 
 in providence in regulating and controlling 
 Tnen's volitions, would be certainly precluded by 
 a liberty of indifference, or the self- determining 
 power of the will." It is certain that these three 
 phrases, used on the same page, "a liberty of 
 indifference," "the self -determining power of the 
 will," "a self -determining power of the will," 
 mean one and the same thing, viz. : the current 
 Arminian notion of free will. 
 
 In the further discussion of the criticisms of 
 Dr. Watts we shall restrict ourselves to the con- 
 sideration of four questions: 
 
 I. Are the provisions of grace universal? 
 
 II. Do the views advanced by us imply that 
 ;salvation is not of grace, but a debt? 
 
 III. Is there any difference between men to 
 which, as eternally foreseen, God had respect in 
 
10 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 determining upon whom to bestow, and from 
 whom to withhold, renewing grace ? 
 
 IV. What support do the Scripture testimo- 
 nies adduced by the reviewer give to the several 
 propositions which are of the essence of the- 
 theory of strict Calvinism? 
 
 I. The universality of the provisions of grace. 
 
 In one of our articles we used the following- 
 language: "Has man, every man, ability — plen- 
 ary ability — under the universal provisions of 
 grace, to avoid committing the unpardonable sin 
 and to escape final damnation? Full power, for 
 a period longer or shorter, moved by rational 
 self-regard, a sense of duty, the natural principle 
 of gratitude, and "aspiration for something bet- 
 ter than he has, or than he is," in response to- 
 the quickening touch of truth and of the Holy- 
 Spirit, "to resist the evil tendencies of his 
 nature," to strive to exercise the repentance and 
 faith which the Bible requires, "with the cer- 
 tainty that his struggle will be blessed of God" 
 with the blessing of regenerating and forgiving 
 grace? Who is it that says, "If ye then being 
 evil, know how to give good gifts to your chil- 
 dren, how much more shall your heavenly 
 Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask 
 Him?" 
 
 In saying that the provisions of grace are 
 universal we mean that God's purpose of mercy 
 
DR. NORTHRUP'S SECOND REJOINDER. 11 
 
 positively and sincerely extends to and includes 
 all mankind; that the work of Christ was uni- 
 versal in scope and design, that it placed the 
 whole world under a dispensation of grace, 
 thereby rendering possible the salvation of all . 
 who reach the age of moral action, and render- 
 ing certain the salvation of a large part of this 
 class, and of all who die in infancy. The idea 
 here advanced of the universality of the provis- 
 ions of grace Dr. Watts considers to be an error 
 of exceptional enormity which he attempts to 
 refute in the sixth paper in his reply. This 
 paper he evidently regards as a masterpiece of 
 reasoning and confesses that, at first, he was 
 greatly astonished that we made no reference to 
 it in our rejoinder. His astonishment, however, 
 quickly disappeared upon re-reading the paper. 
 He remarks : ' 'In looking into that chapter again,, 
 the reviewer is not surprised that Dr. Northrup 
 •did not like to cultivate much acquaintance with 
 it," inasmuch as it shows that "the claim" of the 
 universality of the provisions of grace "bears 
 the stamp of its own condemnation emblazoned 
 on its own forehead." What is the position of 
 the reviewer? It is that the provisions of grace 
 are exceedingly restricted; that in the case of 
 inconceivable millions of the race — all without 
 exception who have no knowledge of the gos- 
 pel — salvation is an absolute impossibility; by 
 
12 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 nothing which they can purpose or do, by no 
 possible measure of fidelity in living up to the 
 light which they have, can they secure the be- 
 stowment of renewing grace, or avoid the sen- 
 tence of final damnation. 
 
 1. Faith in Christ is absolutely essential to 
 salvation, but faith in Christ implies a knowl- 
 edge of Him as revealed in the gospel, of which 
 the vast majority of the human race have been 
 destitute. 
 
 2. Again, the Holy Spirit, the author of re- 
 generation of which saving faith is the fruit, is 
 bestowed only upon those who have a knowl- 
 edge of Christian truth. 
 
 3. And, still further, the atonement is limited 
 it its design; it was made for those and for those 
 only to whom the way of life in the gospel is 
 made known. 
 
 Hence the perdition of the vast majority of 
 the adult population of the world is unavoid- 
 able — a matter of rigid necessity. For they are 
 destitute of the knowledge without which faith 
 is impossible; they are deprived of the gift of 
 the Holy Spirit to whose exclusive agency re- 
 generation is due, and they were excluded from 
 the number of those for whom the atonement 
 was made — a fact which, of itself, renders it as 
 impossible for them, as it is for the apostate 
 angels, to be saved through Christ. Such are 
 
DR. NORTHRUP'S SECOND REJOINDER. 13 
 
 the steps of the argument of Dr. Watts in proof 
 that the provisions of grace are not universal, 
 that the everlasting destruction of the incon- 
 ceivable millions of the race who have no knowl- 
 edge of the historic Christ is not only certain, 
 but inevitable, let them do what they can in seek- 
 ing the favor of God. What reply could he make 
 to the charge that he teaches the infinitely ab- 
 horrent dogma that God creates these multitudes 
 of mankind in order to damn them? If it could 
 be shown that one single individual in the course 
 of the world's history had been made a member 
 of the kingdom of God without a knowledge of " 
 Christ as revealed in the gospel, it would involve 
 the total destruction of the argument which the 
 reviewer regards as a masterpiece of reasoning, 
 and the development of which, in several ar- 
 ticles, constitutes a very considerable part of his 
 whole discussion. 
 
 No truth of revelation is more certain than 
 that the provisions of grace are universal. That 
 the atonement is universal in its scope and de- 
 sign is made certain by the plainest declarations 
 of the Bible. John iii. 16 — "God so loved the 
 ivorld that He gave His only begotten Son, that 
 whosoever believeth on Him should not perish 
 but have eternal life;" I. John ii. 2 — "Jesus 
 Christ is the propitiation for our sins; and not 
 for ours only, but also for (the sins of) the whole 
 11 
 
14 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 tvorld:" I. Tim. ii. 16 — "Who gave himself a ran- 
 som for all;" Heb. ii. 9 — "That He by the grace 
 of God should taste death for every man;" II. Cor. 
 V. 14 — "For the love of Christ constraineth us, 
 because we thus judge that if one died for all, 
 then all died;" II. Cor. v. 19— "That God was in 
 Christ, reconciling the .world unto himself, not 
 reckoning unto them their trespasses. " 
 
 And the same love which moved God to give 
 His only begotten Son for all men, moves Him 
 to seek the salvation of each and every one of 
 them. Rom. xi. 9 — "For God hath shut up all 
 unto disobedience, that He might have mercy 
 upon all;" 1. Tim. ii. 4 — "God, our Savior, luilleth 
 that all should be saved and come to the knowl- 
 edge of the truth;" II. Pet. iii. 9 — "The Lord is 
 long-suffering to you-ward, not wishing that any 
 should perish, but that all should come to re- 
 pentance." Since Jesus Christ is "the image of 
 the invisible God" (Col. i. 15), the effulgence of 
 His glory and the very image of His substance 
 (Heb. i. 3), since He and the Father are one in 
 nature and spirit (John xiv. 9) we must regard 
 His words recorded in Luke xiii. 34; xix. 41,42, 
 as a most tender and pathetic expression of the 
 compassion of God towards those whose wicked- 
 ness was rapidly rising to its culmination. 
 
 These considerations — the universal design of 
 the atonement, the numerous declarations of 
 
DR. NORTHRUP'S SECOND REJOINDER. 15 
 
 Scripture that God loves all men in the sense of 
 desiring to save each and every one of them, and 
 the Ghristly character of God, render incredible 
 the dogma of the necessary damnation of any 
 man — not to speak of the necessary damnation of 
 the vast majority of our race, all of whom were 
 embraced from everlasting in the infinite heart 
 of God, and for all of whom Christ wrought His 
 redemptive work. And yet this is the dogma 
 which Dr. Watts affirms on the ground of his 
 understanding of a single passage of Scripture ! 
 There is no evidence whatever ' 'that the race 
 is divided into two great sections, one of which 
 is dealt with on the basis of the gospel and the 
 other on the basis of law — one on a basis of 
 justice, the other on a basis of grace." The atti- 
 tude of God towards the whole world is one and 
 the same in all ages; it is an attitude of mercy, 
 of grace, based on the work of Jesus Christ; it 
 does not change in relation to individuals or 
 races as they pass from the darkness of pagan- 
 ism into the light of the gospel, but is ' 'without 
 variableness or shadow of turning." The pur- 
 pose of redemption is the guiding principle in 
 the mind of God in His government of individ- 
 uals, of nations and of the world, as well before 
 as since the coming of Christ. Before Christ 
 came, but in view of his coming, God exercised 
 patience and forbearance in dealing with man- 
 
16 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 kind, allowing their sins to pass by without full 
 punishment. (Eom. iii. 24.) Since the work of 
 Christ was wrought for all mankind it is certain 
 that it will secure to all whatever provisions are 
 essential to salvation — light, the gift of the Holy 
 Spirit, etc. Supernatural revelation is not indis- 
 pensable to salvation, the light of nature is suffi- 
 cient if men would use it aright. The whole 
 universe is a divine revelation — it is ablaze with 
 God. The worlds were made through Christ 
 and through Christ they consist. Creation is 
 replete with truths whose eternal home is the 
 mind of the incarnate Son of God. Nature is full 
 of saving agencies and is co -working with the 
 church and the Holy Spirit to bring man to 
 God, "In Him — in the pre-incarnate, immanent 
 Word — was life and the life was the light of 
 men;" "He was the true light which lighteth 
 every man that cometh into the world." (John 
 i. 4,9.) On this last expression Dr. Hovey re- 
 marks as follows (Commentary on John, p. 63) : 
 ' 'We understand it as a description of the normal 
 relation of the Word to the world of mankind, 
 as an affirmation that if any one fails of true and 
 saving knowledge, it is because he closes the eye 
 of his soul to it, and not because the Word has 
 failed to offer it to him." 
 
 The words of Peter to Cornelius imply the 
 possible salvation of the heathen: "Of a truth I 
 
DR. NORTHRUP'S SECOND REJOINDER. 17 
 
 perceive that God is no respecter of persons; but 
 in every nation, he that feareth Him and worketh 
 righteousness, is acceptable to Him." (Acts x. 
 34,35.) The goodness of God leads — its design 
 and normal tendency is to lead — men to repent- 
 ance (Rom. ii. 4), and the goodness of God is 
 universal; God has never at any time left him- 
 self without a witness in this respect, doing good 
 unto all men, giving them rain from heaven and 
 fruitful seasons, filling their hearts with food 
 and gladness. (Acts xiv. 17.) And in dealing 
 with the people of all nations He has had their 
 salvation in view, ' 'determining the times before 
 appointed, and the bounds of their habitation, 
 that they should seek after the Lord, if haply 
 they might feel after Him and find him, though 
 He be not far from any one of us. " (Acts xvii. 
 26,27.) If it were true that the knowledge of 
 Christ is indispensable to salvation, it would not 
 follow, as Dr. Watts teaches, that the perdition 
 of the heathen world would be necessary; that we 
 are to regard the atonement as not made for 
 those to whom it is not, in fact, announced. We 
 heartily endorse the strong language of Dr. 
 Shedd (Sermons to the Natural Man, p. 114): 
 "Should the pagan himself, actually obey the 
 dictates of his own conscience, he would find the 
 light that was in him growing still clearer and 
 brighter. God himself, the author of his rational 
 
18 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 mind, and the light that lighteth every man that 
 Cometh into the world, would reward him for 
 his obedience by granting him yet more knowl- 
 edge. We cannot say in what particular mode 
 the Divine providence would bring it about, but it 
 is as certain as that God lives, that if the pagan 
 world should act up to the degree of light which 
 they enjoy, they would be conducted ultimately 
 to the truth as it is in Jesus and would be saved 
 by the Redeemer of the world. " 
 
 The dogma of Dr. Watts that the Holy Spirit 
 is granted only to those who have a knowledge 
 of the truths of the gospel is without warrant of 
 Scripture and is contrary to the judgment of the 
 chief representatives of the strict Calvinistic 
 school. Hodge, Syst.TheoL, II., 667— "The Bible 
 teaches that the Holy Spirit, as the spirit of 
 truth, of holiness, and of life in all its forms, is 
 present with every human mind, enforcing truth, 
 restraining from evil, exciting to good, and im- 
 parting wisdom or strength, when, where, and 
 in what manner seemeth to Him good. " Shedd, 
 Dogmatic Theol. , I. , 432— ' 'Every human being 
 experiences some degree of the ordinary influ- 
 ences of the Spirit of God. St. Paul teaches 
 that God strives with man universally. He con- 
 victs him of sin and urges him to repent of it and 
 forsake it. " 
 
 The teaching of our Lord in Matt. xxv. 31-46, 
 
DR. NORTHRUP'S SECOND REJOINDER. 19 
 
 in whicli he sets forth the programme of the 
 judgment day justifies the view of the possible 
 salvation of those who have no knowledge of 
 Him as revealed in the gospel. "Come, ye 
 blessed of my Father." "Inasmuch as ye did it 
 unto one of these my brethren, even these least, 
 ye did it unto me." Who are the brethren of 
 Christ in this judgment programme? His dis- 
 ciples? Yes, but not these alone. For the event 
 which He describes is that of the general judg- 
 ment, where all nations, all the generations 
 which shall have thronged the globe, shall stand 
 before his judgment seat, among whom there 
 will be countless millions who never saw or heard 
 of His disciples. "The 'brethren' must receive 
 as comprehensive a designation as is given to 
 'neighbor' in the parable of the Good Samaritan, 
 and be made co-extensive with all in every land 
 who need the offices of love. The brethren of 
 the Son of Man are the poor, suffering, sorrow- 
 laden sons of men, and the principle on which 
 the judgment proceeds is that as men treat those 
 they would have treated the Judge had they had 
 the opportunity." (Bruce.) The teaching of 
 this great passage is not inconsistent with the 
 doctrine of salvation through faith, for these 
 deeds of love and mercy are expressions of an 
 implicit faith — a virtual acceptance of the historic 
 Christ. 
 
20 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 We will conclude the discussion of this point 
 by giving the views of some Calvinistic writers 
 of high standing in relation to the salvation of 
 the heathen, all of whom Dr. Watts consigns to 
 hell. 
 
 Dr. Hovey (Biblical Eschatology, 172, 173): 
 ' 'We have no right to deny that the sacrifice of 
 Christ will avail for the salvation of many who 
 do not know Him as Jesus of Nazareth. The 
 words of Peter to Cornelius, 'Of a truth, I per- 
 ceive that God is no respecter of persons, but in 
 every nation, he that feareth Him and worketh 
 righteousness is acceptable to him' (Acts x. 
 34,35), suggest a very different conclusion. 
 Wherever the essentials of a Christian spirit are 
 found there must be a person saved by grace. 
 Read the list of ancient worthies in the eleventh 
 chapter of Hebrews. How many of them knew 
 anything of. Jesus Christ as he lived and died in 
 Palestine? It is absurd to call in question the 
 new birth of such men as are named in that list, 
 and equally absurd to assume that the Holy 
 Spirit revealed to them the historic Christ, in 
 order thereby to renew their hearts. But if 
 Abraham and Melchisedeck, if Joseph and Moses, 
 if Rahab and Cornelius, if a great number of the 
 chosen people of God in every age, have been 
 penitent for sin and accepted by the Father of 
 mercies, through the atonement yet to be made, 
 
DR. NORTHRUP'S SECOND REJOINDER. 21 
 
 or an atonement already made without their 
 knowledge, surely no one can deny the possi- 
 bility of salvation to the heathen who know not 
 the name of Jesus. " 
 
 "Christ," says Dr. Strong, "is the Word of 
 God and the truth of God; He may, therefore, 
 be received, even by those who have not heard 
 of His manifestation in the flesh. We may hope 
 that many shall come from the east and the west 
 and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and 
 Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. A penitent 
 and humble reliance upon God as a Savior from 
 sin and a guide of conduct is an implicit faith in 
 Christ, for such reliance casts itself upon God 
 so far as God has revealed Himself (Philosophy 
 and Religion, p. 177). 
 
 Says Dr. Shedd: "It does not follow, however, 
 that because God is not obliged to offer pardon 
 to the unevangelized heathen, either here or 
 hereafter, therefore no unevangelized heathen 
 are pardoned. The electing mercy of God may 
 reach to the heathen" * * * "That some 
 unevangelized men are saved in the present life 
 by an extraordinary exercise of redeeming grace 
 in Christ has been the hope and belief of Chris- 
 tendom. * * * 'The habit of faith' in- 
 volves penitence for sin, and the longing for its 
 forgiveness and removal. 'The habit of faith' 
 is the broken and contrite heart, which express- 
 
■22 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 es itself in the prayer, 'God be merciful to me a 
 sinner!' It is certain that the Holy Spirit can 
 produce, if He please, such a disposition and 
 frame of mind, without employing, as He com- 
 monly does, the written word." (Doctrine of 
 Endless Punishment, pp. 109, 110.) 
 
 Dr. Briggs, Whither, p. 221 — "If the divine 
 grace may be applied to the millions of infants 
 dying in infancy, why not also to millions of 
 adult heathen?" 
 
 II. Salvation of grace, not a debt. In his first 
 series of papers Dr. Watts urged against our 
 views an objection which, if valid, would be 
 fatal, viz. : That we deny the fundamental doc- 
 trine of the gospel that salvation is of grace, and 
 not a debt. And in his reply to our rejoinder he 
 repeats the charge and attempts to justify it in 
 an article which fills nearly five columns of The 
 Western Recorder. The chief, if not exclusive, 
 ground for this charge is contained in the fol- 
 lowing paragraph of our first article: "But we 
 would inquire what warrant there is in reason or 
 revelation for the view here presented by Dr. 
 Candlish, and which rigid Calvinism necessarily 
 implies, that it was morally possible for God to 
 purpose to create our first parents, to permit the 
 fall and the development of the successive gen- 
 erations of their posterity, and to make no pro- 
 vision for their salvation? The hypothesis is to 
 
DR. NORTHRUP'S SECOND REJOINDER. 23 
 
 ■our mind an impossible one, and the discussion 
 of it as empty and vain as it would be to seek to 
 determine what degree of swiftness would enable 
 the greyhound to outrun his shadow. As we 
 "have said above, all that is known, all that there 
 is any warrant for affirming, is, that the plan of 
 the universe which God adopted because most 
 worthy of Himself, included, as eternal and es- 
 ;sential elements, the creation of man, the per- 
 mission or non-prevention of the fall, and re- 
 •demption through Jesus Christ. That the plan 
 would have been equally perfect, or that it would 
 have been worthy of comparison with the exist- 
 ing plan, the element of redemption being left 
 out — is what no man knows or can know, and 
 what therefore no man has a right to afiirm. This 
 position does not imply that, as regards the 
 rights and claims of men, God was under obliga- 
 tion to provide salvation, but only that the 
 present plan, embracing the certainty of the fall 
 and the purpose of redemption, is the most con- 
 gruous with His nature, expressing most per- 
 fectly His infinite perfections." 
 
 Upon this paragraph the reviewer remai-ks: 
 "If this be not an express and explicit denial of 
 the Scripture doctrine that salvation is of grace, 
 it is certainly difficult to imagine what else the 
 writer means. To assert that there is no war- 
 rant in reason or revelation for the view that it 
 
24 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 was morally possible for God to purpose the crea- 
 tion, fall and development of the human race, 
 and make no provision for their salvation, is 
 simply another way of saying that salvation is^ 
 not of grace. What it is morally impossible for 
 God to do he cannot do, and if it was morally im- 
 possible for him to create man and to permit him. 
 to fall without making provision for his salva- 
 tion, then he was under obligation — the highest 
 obligation under which a moral being could be 
 placed — to make that provision. To allege that 
 a provision made in pursuance of a moral obli- 
 gation is of grace and not a debt is just to say 
 and unsay the same thing in the same sentence." 
 But these assertions, one and all, are baseless, 
 having no justification in the representation upon, 
 which they claim to rest; they are due (1) to a. 
 misconception of the nature of the freedom of 
 God in relation to creation; (2) to the failure to 
 discriminate between the obligation under which 
 God placed Himself to execute the plan which 
 He adopted and His freedom in the adoption of 
 that plan; and (3) to the assumption that "obli- 
 gation" on the part of God, and "rights" and 
 "claims" on the part of men are "morally in- 
 separable." 
 
 1. We assume as an axiom that God is a Being 
 of absolute ethical perfection. 
 
 2. In adopting the existing plan, embracing, 
 
DR. NORTHRUP'S SECOND REJOINDER. 25 
 
 ihe universe in its whole extent and everlasting 
 duration, God was necessarily determined by the 
 behests of His absolute ethical perfection. To 
 quote our language in a former article: "In creat- 
 ing moral beings and governing them, in the be- 
 stowment of happiness and the infliction of pun- 
 ishment, in all His acts on earth, in heaven, and 
 in hell, the law and end of God's action is one 
 and the same — it knows no variableness, neither 
 shadow of turning — it is to meet the require- 
 ments of His absolute moral worthiness. He 
 has no attribute, no will, no sovereignty, above 
 this law of His being. " 
 
 3. It is an assumption for which there is no 
 -evidence accessible to the human mind that 
 there were other plans precisely equal to the one 
 adopted in point of excellency as an expression 
 in the mind and heart of God, or that He ever 
 has purposed, or that He ever will, or can, pur- 
 pose an act, the opposite of which, viewed in all 
 its relations and bearings, would be equally 
 wise and excellent, equally befitting himself 
 as infinitely benevolent and absolutely holy. 
 Says Principal Fairbaim (The Place of Christ 
 in Modern This iigblj) p. 446): "God wills as he 
 was. The idea of;me election of one from among 
 an infinite mujtttude of possible worlds is a 
 philosophical myth; the only possible world was 
 4he one reamed. The divine will is not contin- 
 
26 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 gent, or arbitrary, because it is free; the free- 
 action is spontaneous, an action into which the 
 whole nature as a whole, as it were, involun- 
 tarily and harmoniously blossoms. God might, 
 or might not have acted; but if He did act, the 
 way he took was the only way possible to Him. " 
 This is the only worthy or tenable view of God. 
 He is the eternal home and source of law. The 
 universe is a realm of universal and immutable 
 laws, physical, rational and spiritual, because it 
 is an expression of Him Whose will is guided by 
 the principles of absolute perfection. What 
 Principal Pair bairn calls a "philosophical myth" 
 has played a very conspicuous, but very mis- 
 chievious part in theological speculation, imply- 
 ing action on the part of the Divine Being which 
 cannot be vindicated from the charge of arbitra- 
 riness and caprice. 
 
 4. Since God is a Being of absolute perfection 
 it is self-evident that the fullest and most per- 
 fect revelation of Himself must include a man- 
 ifestation of His love as well as His justice, of 
 His wisdom as well as of His power. Possessing 
 infinite perfections it would not be optional for 
 Him to limit His external action to the creation 
 of a universe of inanimate and irrational things; 
 it was not optional because it was infinitely more 
 befitting and worthy of Himself as God to create 
 a universe of personal agents over whom He 
 
DR. NORTHRUP'S SECOND REJOINDER. 27 
 
 could reign by love rather than by force, whom 
 He could bring into conscious fellowship with 
 Himself, and to whom He could impart, in a 
 measure, -of His own purity and blessedness. It. 
 is the belief of all schools of theologians, based 
 on the uniform representation of Scripture, that 
 the work of redemption infinitely enhances the- 
 glory of God's self-revelation. 
 
 5. If then the plan of the universe, including, 
 as essential elements, the creation of man, the 
 permission or non-prevention of the fall, and re- 
 demption through Jesus Christ, was most con- 
 gruous with the nature of God, meeting most 
 fully the requirements of His whole ethical per- 
 sonality, it was morally impossible for Him to- 
 adopt this plan — the element of redemption be- 
 ing left out — in which case there would have 
 been, in His dealing with the race, no manifesta- 
 tion of mercy and compassion, but only that of 
 righteous wrath, of retributive justice. As we 
 have remarked, "That the plan adopted was in- 
 finitely worthy of God we know from the fact of 
 its adoption, but that there was any other plan 
 equally excellent, or even worthy of comparison 
 with it as an expression of the mind and heart of 
 God, is what no man knows or can know, and 
 what, therefore, no man has a right to affirm. " 
 God is not free to deny Himself. Freedom of 
 will in Him does not imply the moral power of a. 
 
28 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 ■contrary choice. In Him the highest freedom 
 and the highest necessity are identical. The free- 
 dom of the divine will is the freedom of perfect 
 wisdom to act most wisely, of infinite benevolence 
 io act most benevolently, of absolute holiness to 
 act most holily. A higher freedom than such 
 moral necessity is inconceivable and impossible. 
 It is not to speak unworthily, but worthily of 
 God to say, that, since the quality of mercy and 
 compassion is as deep in His nature as that of 
 justice, it is morally impossible for Him to act as if 
 Justice were the sole ethical quality of His being. 
 The representation here made touching the 
 moral, necessity of the divine action' in relation 
 to the plan of creation does not furnish the least 
 ground for the charge that we teach that salva- 
 tion is not of grace, but a debt. On the contrary, 
 our view emphasizes and glorifies the grace of 
 ■God. The act of God adopting the plan involving 
 his own incarnation and redemptive ivork in Jesus 
 Christ was itself the fundamental act of grace, in- 
 volving all His manifestations of love, mercy, 
 compassion, from the beginning to the end of 
 the world's history. It is impossible to have a 
 higher conception of divine grace than that 
 which arises from regarding God as a Being so 
 great in love and compassion that He was con- 
 strained to choose, in preference to all others, a 
 plan which involved an infinite sacrifice — the 
 
DR. NORTHRUP'S SECOND REJOINDER. 29 
 
 sacrifice of Himself in Jesus Christ — in order to 
 deliver men from sin and guilt. How strange 
 that any one should imagine that to say that God 
 could not satisfy the promptings of His infinitely 
 benevolent heart, except in the way of the in- 
 carnation and the cross, is to affirm that salva- 
 tion is not of grace, but a debt, that man can 
 claim the divine favor on the ground of right and 
 justice! 
 
 The assumption of Dr. Watts that "obligation" 
 on the part of God and "rights" and "claims" on 
 the part of men, "are morally inseparable," is 
 not of universal validity. In case man had re- 
 mained holy we must suppose that he would 
 have had the right to claim to be regarded and 
 treated as holy, and that God would have been 
 under obligation to regard and treat him as such; 
 or if men believe on Jesus Christ it may be said 
 that they have a right to the rewards promised, 
 and that God is bound to bring them to the 
 felicity of the heavenly world. But the assump- 
 tion has no basis in relation to the case which is 
 before us in this discussion. Let us illustrate 
 our position, comparing divine things with 
 human, — which is the only way we can under- 
 stand them. Would the feeling of a rich creditor 
 that it would be the most excellent and honor- 
 able thing on his part, and, therefore, obligatory, 
 to cancel a debtor's debt, give the latter a right 
 12 
 
30 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 to claim, on grounds of equity, release from his 
 obligation? Suppose a father — a man of highest 
 excellence, profoundly benevolent and conscien- 
 tious — should feel bound to do all in his power 
 to regain the confidence and affection of his chil- 
 dren who had become alienated from him; that 
 he should regard the course suggested of such 
 excellence that he could not but purpose to pur- 
 sue it, to use his vast wealth, and to make all 
 sacrifices, even that of life itself, to bring his 
 alienated children into right relations to himself, 
 thereby securing to them the highest good in 
 his power to bestow. Would "obligation" on the 
 part of the father, and "rights" and "claims" on 
 the part of the children, be, in this case, "morally 
 inseparable?" Would the fact that his love and 
 compassion was so great that, not to labor and 
 make the greatest possible sacrifices for his chil- 
 dren's good, would do violence to his nature, 
 give them a right to demand these labors and 
 sacrifices in their behalf? It is self-evident that 
 this question admits of but one answer; that the 
 feeling of obligation on the part of the father 
 would afford no ground whatever for any claim, 
 in equity, to his favor on the part of the 
 children. 
 
 The application of these illustrations is obvious. 
 We cannot make it more clear than by re-stat- 
 ing the positions already indicated. It is morally 
 
DR. NORTHRUP'S SECOND REJOINDER. 31 
 
 impossible for God to act otherwise than in a 
 manner most befitting Himself as God. His 
 absolute ethical perfection is the law of His will, 
 determining the final end of creation, the orders 
 of personal agents to be created, the methods of 
 their probationary discipline — determining the 
 whole plan of the universe in its limitless extent 
 and everlasting duration. Whatever manifesta- 
 tions of His infinite perfections — of His power, 
 wisdom, compassion, justice — are most worthy of 
 Himself, it behooves Him to make, and in this 
 law we find that which underlies and shapes His 
 eternal plan. And since the plan most befitting 
 HimseK — involving the most glorious manifes- 
 tation of His attributes — included, as essential 
 elements, the creation of man, the certainty of 
 the fall, and redemption through Jesus Christ, 
 it was morally impossible for Him not to adopt 
 this plan in preference to one which should in- 
 clude the creation of man, and the certainty of 
 the fall, but no redemptive provisions. Is it not 
 self-evident that the view that God is a Being so 
 great in love that he cannot but express it in re- 
 demptive acts, implies no right on the part of 
 man to claim salvation as a debt? 
 
 III. As to the difference between men to which 
 God has respect in choosing one man rather than 
 another. In our second article we said: "There 
 is but one supposable way by which the divtue 
 
82 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 decisions in the matter of election and non- 
 election can be vindicated against the charge of 
 pure arbitrariness, viz.: the acceptance of the 
 position that there is some difference or differences 
 between men to which God has respect which 
 are, if not 'moving causes,' yet 'conditions,' of 
 his decisions. As there are, in fact, differences 
 among men, it is as certain that he takes these 
 differences into account in determining the di- 
 verse destinies of men in the fature world as 
 that he does so in determining their diverse con- 
 ditions and careers in this world. " The truth of 
 this position seems to us as certain as any prin- 
 ciple of mathematics. Self-evidently the alter- 
 natives are: pure arbitrariness on the part of 
 Ood, or some difference to which he has respect in 
 determining the diverse destinies of men. How 
 should we characterize the act of a man, who, 
 having before him twelve marble balls between 
 ■which he knew there was no difference, should 
 select six and reject six? Should we not say 
 "that his action was arbitrary and capricious — 
 there being no reason whatever for his decision 
 in selecting or rejecting one ball rather than 
 another? This illustration is, according to the 
 current theory, strictly applicable to the divine 
 procedure in predestination. The fact that God 
 is a Being of infinite intelligence is wholly im- 
 material as respects the point in hand; for infin- 
 
DR. NORTHRUP'S SECOND REJOINDER. 33 
 
 ite intelligence no more than finite intelligence 
 can rationally and wisely discriminate between 
 objects which are known to be identical. As 
 then it is impossible for God to act in the way 
 suggested by this illustration, there must be some 
 difference between men in view of which He acts 
 in determining their diverse destinies — some dif- 
 ference in their physical, mental, or moral con- 
 dition, in their adaptation to usefulness, in their 
 capacity to illustrate the divine perfections, etc. 
 In criticising this position Dr. Watts writes as 
 follows: "Will any intelligent man accept this as 
 a solution of the mystery of the divine choice? 
 Does not the question force itself upon us and 
 demand an answer how came it to pass that the 
 one chosen happened to possess those qualities 
 which distinguished him from the one passed by 
 and supplied the requisite 'reason,' 'condition,' 
 etc., for his selection? The basal distinction 
 cannot be regarded as moral, for all have sinned 
 and come short of the glory of God, and Dr. 
 Northrup admits that the foreseen something is 
 not something meritorious. The ground of the 
 divine action, therefore, must be something in 
 the mental constitution of the subjects of the 
 divine choice which determines the divine pur- 
 pose in their case. This brings us to the root of 
 the whole controversy on the line laid down by 
 Dr. Northrup. As both classes — those elected 
 
34 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 and those rejected^ — received their whole being 
 from God — their whole being whether mental or 
 physical — does it not follow, that the foreseen 
 quality in which Dr. Northrup finds the 'reason, ' 
 or 'condition,' of the divine decree, is a 'condi- 
 tion' furnished by God Himself in their crea- 
 tion?" 
 
 1. But the view advanced by us is not open to 
 the charge that any difference between men to 
 which God has respect in dealing with them 
 must be referred to His creative agency. Man- 
 kind are placed under a system of gracious pro- 
 bation based on the redemptive work of Jesus 
 Christ. Legal probation — probation under law — 
 which was that of holy Adam and of angels — dif- 
 fers from gracious probation in three fundamen- 
 tal respects. The former (1) requires perfect 
 obedience as the condition of eternal life; (2) im- 
 plies plenary ability to fulfill this condition; 
 (3) is terminated by the first act of disobedience. 
 The latter (1) requires, as the condition of eter- 
 nal life, not perfect obedience, but repentance 
 and faith; (2) implies plenary ability to secure 
 from God the grace necessary to compliance 
 with this condition; (3) continues, notwithstand- 
 ing persistence in impenitence, through years 
 and decades of years. 
 
 Dr. Watts repudiates the idea of a gracious 
 probation, holding that the only probation of 
 
DR. NORTHRUP'S SECOND REJOINDER. 35 
 
 t her ace is that which it had in Adam, and that 
 the fundamental purpose of God in relation to 
 mankind is that of predestination in its two 
 forms of election and reprobation — decrees which 
 are formed irrespective of the foresight of the 
 personal action of those included in them. He 
 urges against the view of a gracious probation 
 two objections which he regards as ' 'serious and 
 conclusive" — objections which are, however, of 
 no weight as brought against the true idea of the 
 system of gracious probation as stated above. 
 We cannot go into a full discussion of this sub- 
 ject — a paragraph or two must suffice. The uni- 
 form representation of the Bible — made often in 
 language the most urgent, solemn, and pathetic — 
 implies a state of probation — the ability on the 
 part of man to determine his eternal destiny. 
 The incarnate Son of God, as He looked upon 
 the doomed city of His native land, uttered in 
 five words, "I would, ye would not," the funda- 
 mental truth which is expressed or implied on 
 every page of the inspired Record. Probation 
 necessarily implies a measure of freedom. With- 
 out a degree of freedom there can be no respon- 
 sibility. The two are inseparable. The West- 
 minster Standards make nothing of free will 
 except to affirm that it was lost in the fall. 
 "Man, by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly 
 lost all ability of will to any spiritual good ac- 
 
36 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 companying salvation." The statement is an 
 exaggeration. Man though fallen possesses a 
 measure of liberty, a remainder of freedom, by 
 virtue of which he is fully able — naturally and 
 morally able — not to renew himself, but so to use 
 common grace and the means of common grace 
 as to render the bestowment of renewing grace 
 . certain. The good faith of God in commanding 
 and entreating all men to shun destruction and 
 to accept of offered mercy self- evidently implies 
 the possibility of compliance with the terms of 
 salvation; God cannot tantalize creatures with 
 the offer of an infinite good which it is impossible 
 for them to secure. The Scriptures clearly teach 
 that God will bestow saving grace upon men if 
 they will seek it with the light and strength 
 which he gives, or is willing to give. "Thou, 
 Lord, art plenteous in mercy unto all that call 
 upon Thee," Ps. Ixxxvi. 5; "Whosoever shall 
 call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved, " 
 Rom. X. 13; "If ye then being evil know how to 
 give good gifts unto your children, how much 
 more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy 
 Spirit to them that ask Him," Luke xi. 14; "Ask 
 and it shall be given you; seek and ye shall find; 
 knock and it shall be opened unto you," Matt, 
 vii. 7; "Come unto me all ye that labor and are 
 heavy-laden, and I will give you rest," Matt, 
 xiii. 28; "Seek ye the Lord while He may be 
 
DR. NORTHRUP'S SECOND REJOINDER. 37 
 
 found, call ye upon Him while He is near," Isa. 
 Iv. 6. Is it certain that the request of a sick 
 child, made to a most wise, tender, and loving- 
 father, will be granted in case he is fully per- 
 suaded that the favor asked is essential to the 
 child's highest good, and is it only possible, or 
 probable, but not certain that our heavenly 
 Father, Who is infinitely wise, tender and lov- 
 ing, will grant the petition of those who suppli- 
 cate Him, with the measure of liberty which 
 they possess, for the grace which is essential to 
 their eternal welfare? Is it certain, or only 
 probable, that those who call upon the Lord shall 
 be saved, that those who ask shall receive, and 
 those who seek shall find? Is it said that these 
 promises are made, not to the unregenerate, but 
 to the regenerate? We reply that the language, 
 in numerous passages, excludes the restriction 
 suggested. 
 
 What then is the difference between men to 
 which we refer — which God takes into account 
 in determining to bestow or to withhold saving 
 grace? Not a difference in their "mental or 
 physical condition, " ' 'furnished by God Himself 
 in their creation;" not a difference in merit, for 
 of merit there can be no question in the case of 
 any man; but a difference in the use of the free- 
 dom which they actually possess, in' yielding or 
 refusing to yield to the influence of the provi- 
 
88 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 dence, truth and spirit of God, moving them to 
 seek from Him the grace necessary to enable 
 them to comply with the conditions of salvation. 
 God requires men to exercise repentance and 
 faith, not in their own strength, but in the 
 strength which they can obtain from him. ' 'Men 
 are responsible not only for what they can do 
 themselves, but for all they can secure from 
 Grod" (Dr.Strong). Says Principal Cunningham: 
 ' 'Another statement of Augustine's, which Calvin 
 repeatedly quotes with approbation, and which 
 was applied by them, both to renewed and un- 
 renewed men, is, 'Jubet Deus quae nonpossumus ut 
 noverimus quid ab ipso petere debemus' — God re- 
 quires of us what we cannot perform, in order 
 that we may know what we ought to ask from 
 him. " (The Eeformers and the Theology of the 
 Reformation, p. 487.) These "unregenerate do- 
 ings," so-called, are not "good works" in the 
 scriptural sense of these words, they are not re- 
 pentance and faith, nor are they a substitute for 
 these exercises of the new life; they have no 
 merit and involve no claim, in equity, to the 
 favor of God. They are simply efforts to do His 
 will which render it consistent for Him as a wise 
 and holy governor to bestow his pardoning 
 grace. 
 
 Whatever the difficulty which burdens the 
 view here presented burdens equally the Cal- 
 
DR.NORTHRUP'S SECOND REJOINDER. 39 
 
 vinistic theory. We will attempt, in a few words, 
 to justify this statement. According to the Cal- 
 vinistic theory, though the purpose of election 
 is formed irrespective of the action of those 
 ■elected, the execution of this purpose in regen- 
 eration is generally, if not universally, imme- 
 diately preceded by certain acts, feelings, con- 
 victions, — serious attention to divine truth, a 
 sense of sin and guUt, fear of retribution, desire 
 to be saved, etc. — in relation to which the sinner 
 has a direct and responsible agency. We sup- 
 pose every CalvLaist would endorse the state- 
 ment of President Davies: "It is only in. the use 
 of the means of grace that the sinner can expect 
 divine grace to work faith in him; never yet was 
 it produced in one soul while lying supine, lazy, 
 inactive. " We may then confidently affirm that 
 certain acts, feelings, states of mtad — not neces- 
 sarily the same in the case of all, or even of any 
 two individuals — are immediate antecedents of 
 the exercise of God's renewing grace in the case 
 of those who have reached the period of moral 
 responsibility. Since this is God's uniform 
 method of procedure we must regard it as most 
 wise and congruous with His nature, and, there- 
 fore, morally necessary on His part in order to 
 the execution of the purpose of election in the 
 work of renewal. 
 According to the view which we present the 
 
40 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 fundamental purpose of God in relation to man- 
 kind was to put them under a system of gracious- 
 probation based on the redemptive work of 
 Jesus Christ, and, as a method most worthy of 
 Himself, to bestow, or to withhold, special and 
 renewing grace, according to His eternal fore- 
 knowledge of the use that would be made of 
 common grace and the means of common grace. 
 This conception requires us to regard the action, 
 of men in seeking salvation — the so-called, 
 "immediate antecedents of regeneration" — as- 
 necessary in order to render morally possible, 
 on the part of God, not the execution of the purpose- 
 of election, hut the formation of that purpose itself. 
 
 Granting, then, that the efforts of men to ob- 
 tain eternal life, to exercise repentance and faith, 
 in response bo the gracious action of the Holy 
 Spirit, are not only destitute of merit but sinful;, 
 still, according to either view before us, they are 
 facts without which it would not be wise or be- 
 fitting God to bring the sinner from death to 
 life. Which now, we ask, is the more satisfac- 
 tory explanation of the necessity of the so-called 
 "antecedents of regeneration?" 
 
 1. Did God form the purpose of election in 
 view of reasons wholly in Himself, but, acting 
 under some moral behest, condition its execu- 
 tion in regeneration upon the existence of cer- 
 tain actions which are not only not meritorious,. 
 
DR. NORTHRUP'S SECOND REJOINDER. 41 
 
 but sinful? 2. Or did He purpose, in view of 
 reasons wholly in Himself, to put mankind under 
 a, system of gracious probation, but, acting from 
 -the same moral behest, to bestow renewing 
 grace upon those and those only in whom He 
 eternally foresaw the same actions of the sinner, 
 which, though not only without merit but sin- 
 ful, are due to his seeking salvation, in response 
 to the invitations of the gospel and the gracious 
 work of the Holy Spirit? We submit that the 
 difficulty, whatever it may be, which arises from 
 the view that God in predestination has respect 
 to the action of man rests with equal weight 
 upon the Calvinistic theory. 
 /^It seems to some incredible that unregenerate 
 men can do anything which can be a reason or 
 "condition" of the action of God in the bestow- 
 ment of salvation; they are, it is urged, under 
 the wrath of God, all their acts — even their most 
 -earnest prayers for divine mercy — are selfish, 
 ungodly, etc. While it is true unrenewed men 
 are the objects of the holy displeasure of God, 
 it is also true, that they are the objects of His 
 infinite love, the very love which moved Him to 
 give His only begotten Son, and which moved 
 the Son to humble Himself and become obedient 
 unto death, even the death of the cross. Do the 
 -Scriptures teach that prayers must be morally 
 perfect, sinless, in order to reach the ear and 
 
42 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 heart of the Father of mercies? The prayers of 
 believers are not free from moral defect; are 
 none of them heard? Dr. Archibald Alexander 
 wrote some years before his death, — "I am 
 deeply convinced that I might justly be con- 
 demned for the most fervent prayer I ever 
 offered. "J Were none of his prayers answered? 
 The prayer of the regenerate man and the pray- 
 er of the convicted sinner for mercy are alike in 
 the following particulars, (1) they are prompted 
 by the Holy Spirit; (2) are the free expression 
 of the will; (3) possess no merit; (4) are not free 
 from moral fault; (5) put God under no obliga- 
 tion except in the sense that they furnish a rea- 
 son or condition in view of which He has prom- 
 ised to act graciously. Is it said that the be- 
 liever is in Christ, and that his prayers are 
 heard for Christ's sake? And is not the con- 
 victed sinner in Christ, — in his heart of love, in 
 his purpose of grace, embraced in the scope of 
 his redemptive work, and are not his prayers an- 
 swered for Christ's sake ? Does he not believe 
 "that God is and that he is a rewarder of them 
 that diligently seek Him?" (Heb. xi. 6.) Says 
 Dr. Shedd (Sermons to the Natural Man, p. 414) : 
 ' 'Whoever asks in prayer for any of the benefits 
 of Christ's redemption, ia so far exercises faith 
 in this redemption. Whoever, for example, 
 lifts up the supplication, 'O, Lamb of God Who 
 
DR. NORTHRUP'S SECOND REJOINDER. 43 
 
 taketh away the sins of the world, grant me Thy 
 peace', in this prayer puts faith in the atone- 
 ment. He trusts in the atonement by pleading 
 the atonement. * * * In like manner he who 
 asks for the renewing and sanctifying influences 
 of the Holy Ghost, exercises faith in these influ- 
 ences. This is the mode in which he expresses 
 his confidence in the power of God to accom- 
 plish a work in his heart that is beyond his own 
 power. " 
 
 Do the Scriptures teach that the purposes of 
 God in predestination, are, in the logical order, 
 antecedent to, and irrespective of, the moral 
 action of men as foreseen? In proof that such 
 is the nature of the purpose of election the fol- 
 lowing and other similar passages are appealed 
 to: Eom. viii. 28-30; ix. 11,15,16,18,21; Actsxiii. 
 48; Eph. i. 4,5,9,11,18; 2 Tim. i. 9; James i. 18; 
 Phil. iii. 14; Matt. xxii. 1-14; John xv. 16. It 
 is impossible for us, in this reply, to enter with 
 any fullness into the exegesis of these passages, 
 but we express our confident belief, after care- 
 ful examination, that they do not justify the 
 view which they are adduced to support. We 
 have examined at some length the passages 
 referred to in Kom. ix. In Eom. viii. 29, 30, it 
 is declared that God glorified whom He justified, 
 and justified whom He called, and called whom 
 He predestinated, and predestinated whom He 
 
44 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 foreknew. Of these live acts the first only in 
 the order of the divine procedure is of special 
 importance as regards this discussion, — the act 
 of foreknowledge which is not to be confounded 
 with that of predestination, for it is the logical 
 ground of predestination. What is meant by 
 "foreknow?" — elected beforehand, or foreknew 
 as certain to believe? Meyer, Commentary on 
 Eom. viii. 28, 29 — ' 'The meaning of foreknowledge 
 is not to be decided by dogmatic presupposi- 
 tions, but simply by the usage of the language, 
 in accordance with which it never in the New 
 Testament means anything else than to know be- 
 forehand." Godet — "There is but one answer: 
 foreknown as certain to fulfil the condition of 
 salvation, viz. , faith. " But since faith is a fruit 
 of renewal, and renewal is the exclusive work of 
 God, the foreknowledge of faith presupposes the 
 purpose of election which involves the new 
 birth. According to the view which we advance 
 God's foreknowledge is His eternal foresight of 
 those who would so use common grace and the 
 means of common grace as to fulfill the condition 
 which, under the system of gracious probation, 
 rendered it wise and proper for Him to include 
 them in the purpose of election. 
 
 Acts xiii. 48 — "As many as were ordaiaed unto 
 eternal life believed." Alford remarks: "That 
 to find in this passage predestination to life as- 
 
DR. NORTHRUP'S SECOND REJOINDER. 45 
 
 serted is to force both the word and the context 
 to a meaning which they do not contain." If, 
 however, the passage should be understood as 
 teaching that the reason why some believe is 
 their fore- ordination to eternal life, it would give 
 no certain support to the theory under examina- 
 tion. Men believe because they are renewed, 
 and they are renewed because they are foreor- 
 dained to eternal life. But it is not said that in 
 foreordaining these persons unto eternal life God 
 acted irrespective of their personal action as 
 foreseen. We cannot, however, examine these 
 passages further in detail, but will add two or 
 three general remarks. The theory that the 
 purpose of election is irrespective of the moral 
 action of man is not established: 
 
 (1) By those passages which teach that G-od 
 is the Author of regeneration. (Rom. viii. 28,29; 
 James i. 18; I. Pet. i. 3; I. Cor. i. 24.) The fact 
 that God is the author of regeneration, and that 
 he renews men according to His purpose, deter- 
 mines nothing as to the reasons or conditions in 
 view of which His purpose was formed. 
 
 (2) By those passages which teach that He 
 chose or foreordained men "according to the 
 good pleasure of His will," "after the counsel of 
 His own will, " ' 'because it seemed good in His 
 sight," etc. (Bph. i. 5,11; Matt. xi. 26.) In our 
 judgment the doctrine taught in this language, 
 
 13 
 
46 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD.- 
 
 is simply that, in choosing men God acts accord- 
 ing to the dictates of His own intelligence, in 
 view of reasons congruous with His nature — in- 
 finitely worthy of Himself as God. If it had 
 seemed a wise and fitting procedure on His part 
 to determine to give men the requisite ability, 
 and to choose them on condition of repentance 
 and faith as foreseen, or in view of their seeking 
 salvation from Him with the measure of freedom 
 which they possessed, it could have been said 
 that He acted "according to His good pleasure," 
 "after the counsel of His own will." There is no 
 evidence that these phrases teach that, ' 'In mak- 
 ing the selection of some men and in resolving 
 to save them, God was not influenced by any- 
 thing existing in them or foreseen in them, by 
 which they were distinguished from other men; 
 that there is no difference in men to which He had 
 respect in choosing one man rather than an- 
 other. " 
 
 (3) By those passages which teach that the 
 "calling of God is not according to our works" 
 (II. Tim. i. 9) ; that salvation is of grace, not of 
 works (Eph. ii. 8,9); that "it is not of Him that 
 willeth, nor of Him that runneth, but of God that 
 showeth mercy" (Eom. ix. 16). When the apos- 
 tle speaks of "works" as inconsistent with grace 
 he means by "works," not mere human action, 
 but such action regarded, according to the cur- 
 
DR. NORTHRUP'S SECOND REJOINDER. 47 
 
 rent Jewish error, as meritorious, as furnishing a 
 valid claim to the favor of God, according to the 
 principle, ' 'To him that worketh is the reward 
 not reckoned of grace, but of debt." But the 
 view that God, in choosing men has resj)ect to 
 their moral action, does not imply that such 
 action is meritorious, that the prayer, "God be 
 merciful to me, a sinner," "Lord, I believe, 
 help Thou my unbelief, " detracts from the gra- 
 ciousness of the divine act of renewal and par- 
 don. 
 
 2. Dr. Watts urges still further against our 
 view that, ' 'It reverses the relation of the divine 
 foreknowledge to the divine decrees, " thus virtu- 
 ally "dethroning Jehovah," "reducing Him to the 
 position of a spectator whose line of action is 
 determined by the creatures of His hand," re- 
 quiring the believer, in answer to the question. 
 Who made thee to differ? to say, "I myself did." 
 
 Calvinists assert that the decrees of God pre- 
 cede His foreknowledge of the free acts of per- 
 sonal agents; the Arminians reverse the order. 
 Neither position is correct. The purpose and 
 foreknowledge of God are mutually conditioning 
 factors of His whole course of dealing with moral 
 agents. If God is determined, in His dealings 
 with free beings by their action, it is because, in 
 the exercise of His sovereign pleasure, He willed- 
 to be so determined. "Sovereignty implies the 
 
48 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 power of self-limitation, and this is necessary to 
 leave room for the free action of the creature. " 
 (Schaff.) Says Dr. Bruce (Apologetics, p. 69): 
 "It involves no injury to the sovereignty of God 
 to ascribe to man the power of resisting His will. 
 God freely imposed on Himself the limitation 
 arising out of the existence of human wills, that 
 he might have a realm in which He could reign 
 by love and not by mere omnipotent force, as in 
 the animate and inanimate spheres of being. " The 
 purpose to inflict punishment upon the angels 
 who fell was determined or conditioned by their 
 fall as eternally foreseen. The purpose of re- 
 demption — fundamentally related to the whole 
 creation — was dependent or conditioned on the 
 free, contingent act of Adam. There is nothing 
 in this view to suggest the idea that it virtually 
 "dethrones Jehovah, reducing Him to the posi- 
 tion of a mere spectator," etc. It does not imply 
 that His dealings with personal agents are deter- 
 mined by their action in any sense inconsistent 
 with His absolute sovereignty. If they remain 
 holy He deals with them in a manner honorable 
 and glorious, by advancing them to the summit of 
 finite honor and blessedness in everlasting fellow- 
 ship with Himself; but if they sin He deals with 
 them in a manner equally honorable and glorious 
 by banishing them from His presence and visiting 
 them with the retribution which they deserve. 
 
DR. NORTHRUP'S SECOND REJOINDER. 49 
 
 It is not in the power of creatures to defeat or 
 disturb God's sovereign purpose to govern the 
 universe according to the requirements of His 
 absolute ethical perfection. The adoption of 
 the existing plan rendered it certain that all 
 things would take place precisely as they do 
 take place. The acts of God put forth in accord- 
 ance with His purpose were eternally certain, 
 and equally certain to His mind were the free 
 acts of moral agents in all the conditions in 
 which he willed to place them. And certamty, 
 whatever be the ground of it, is the most sure 
 and rational basis of action conceivable, whether 
 for man or God. Whoever undertakes to find a 
 more solid ground for action than this enters 
 upon a search which is necessarily and self- 
 evidently fruitless. 
 
 The view here presented which regards God 
 as conditioning His action in purposing to be- 
 stow or to withhold saving grace on the action 
 of men as foreseen, accords with His method of 
 procedure in every sphere — physical, intellectual 
 and spiritual. Man cannot cause a blade of 
 grass to grow, but he can fulfill certain condi- 
 tions and thereby secure, under the action of the 
 will of God in the laws of nature, an abundant 
 harvest. He cannot, by direct act of will, im- 
 part to his mind, one iota of power or knowledge, 
 but he can fulfill conditions in virtue of which he 
 
50 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 can obtain, under the action of the will of God 
 in the laws of his intelligence, mental power and 
 amplitude of knowledge. The Christian cannot 
 advance himself in the divine life — purifying his 
 heart, clarifying his vision of divine things, pro- 
 ducing the peace of God which passeth knowl- 
 edge — but he can use the grace which he pos- 
 sesses, with such fidelity, as to secure, through 
 the operation of the Holy Spirit, all spiritual 
 blessings. The people of God cannot convert a 
 heathen, but they can so use the gifts of His 
 providence and grace, as to render certain the 
 triumph of His kingdom in all pagan lands. 
 "Who is it that says, ' 'Bring ye all the tithes into 
 the storehouse, and prove me now herewith, if I 
 will not open to you the windows of heaven, and 
 pour you out a blessing,, that there shall not be 
 room enough to receive it?" 
 
 The same principle is illustrated in the mira- 
 cles of healing recorded in the Bible, e. g. , the 
 case of Naaman, of the ten lepers who came to 
 Christ, of the man with a withered hand, etc. 
 All or nearly all of these miracles were wrought 
 on condition of some act performed by those to 
 be benefited. The case of Naaman will repre- 
 sent the whole class. In obedience to the divine 
 command he washed in the Jordan and was 
 healed. Would he have said, in answer to the 
 question. Who made thee to differ from other 
 
DR. NORTHRUP'S SECOND REJOINDER. 51 
 
 lepers? "I myself did?" No amount of washing 
 in the Jordan would have cured him of his fatal 
 disease, and his act of obedience, though the 
 essential condition of God's interposition in his 
 behalf, did not detract one iota from the miracu- 
 lousness and graciousness of that interposition. 
 Let us apply the principle of this illustration to 
 the subject in hand: Suppose it had seemed good 
 to God to require that men should use the meas- 
 ure of liberty which they possess, in seeking 
 from Him saving grace, as the indispensable 
 condition of its bestowment; would the fact that 
 a man was renewed upon the fulfillment of this 
 condition, enable him to say, in truth, in answer 
 to the question. Who made thee to differ from 
 unregenerate men? "I myself did?" No degree 
 of earnestness and fidelity in seeking salvation, 
 in the way appointed, would have brought him 
 from death to life — opening his blind eyes, eman- 
 cipating his enslaved will, and awakening in his 
 heart supreme love to God. Salvation — in its 
 beginning, progress and consummation — is 
 wholly of God and wholly of grace. It was of 
 grace that He determined to provide an atone- 
 ment, of grace that He fixed the conditions of 
 participation in its benefits, of grace that He in- 
 duces compliance with those conditions, of grace 
 that He accomplishes the work of renewal and 
 
52 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 sanctifioation, of grace that He bestows the 
 awards of the heavenly world. 
 
 IV. Examination of the Scripture testimony- 
 adduced by Dr. Watts in support of the system 
 of strict Calvinism. In closing his review Dr. 
 Watts calls attention to what he designates a 
 "grave defect" in our discussion, viz., its "un- 
 scientific method." He says: "Instead of ex- 
 amining the evidence on which Calvinists rely in 
 support of their system, he simply collects to- 
 gether a number of objections and arraying them 
 before his readers asks them for their verdict. 
 This method of procedure is as unscientific as it 
 is unfair." It may be proper to say that, in our 
 rejoinder, after indicating the chief difficulties 
 in the theory of strict Calvinism as set forth in 
 our articles, we remarked, that it was our design 
 in a second series of articles to examine the 
 alleged biblical support of the Calvinistic doc- 
 trine of God's sovereignty in predestination, and 
 to give our views on the questions involved in 
 the controversy. It is wholly immaterial, from 
 a logical point of view, whether one considers 
 the objections to a system of thought, and then 
 examines, the grounds on which it is alleged to 
 rest, or proceeds in the reverse order. 
 
 We propose to notice briefly the outline of 
 Scripture testimony which Dr. Watts indicates 
 in justification of the strict Calvinistic theory. 
 
DR. NORTHRUP'S SECOND REJOINDER. 53. 
 
 In order to judge of his success at this point — of 
 the relevancy and weight of his Scripture testi- 
 monies — we need to have distinctly before our 
 minds the propositions which are of the essence 
 of the theory under consideration. Of these 
 propositions which have been discussed at 
 length we will mention four: 
 
 1. The sovereignty of God is a prerogative in 
 the exercise of which He is absolutely free to 
 will the exact opposite of that which He does 
 will, in relation to the eternal destiny of every 
 member of the race; able to bring all mankind 
 to the everlasting felicity of heaven, or to con- 
 sign all mankind to the everlasting misery of 
 hell, "without prejudice to the glory of any of 
 His attributes." 
 
 2. There is no difference of any kind between 
 men to which God has respect in determining" 
 upon whom to bestow, and from whom to with- 
 hold renewing grace, so that His decisions, in 
 this matter of transcendent importance, are as 
 arbitrary as they would be if He should deter- 
 mine by lot the eternal life or the eternal death 
 of each and every man. 
 
 3. The decrees of election and reprobation (pre- 
 terition, non-election) are, in the logical order, 
 antecedent to, and irrespective of, all personal 
 action as foreseen — having sole reference to 
 pre-natal depravity and guilt. 
 
M SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 4. The eternal perdition of a large portion of 
 mankind — all the non-elect — embracing appar- 
 ently the vast majority of the adult population 
 of the nominally Christian world, and, according 
 to Dr. Watts, the whole adult population of the 
 pagan world through all time — is inevitable, let 
 them do what they may to secure the renewing 
 and pardoning grace of God. 
 
 These propositions are of the essence of strict 
 ■Calvinism; every one of them is indispensable to 
 the logical coherency of the scheme, and is 
 avowed and defended, implicitly or explicitly, 
 by. Professor Watts. And what are the passages 
 ■of Scripture to which he appeals in support of 
 the theory which involves these extraordinary 
 propositions? In concluding his discussion he 
 thinks it fitting to submit to the readers the fol- 
 lowing, as "An outline of the Scripture testimony 
 on which Calvinists base their doctrinal system. ' ' 
 He submits the following as ' 'specimens" of this 
 outline: "All things work together for good to 
 them that love God, to those who are the called 
 according to His purpose. For whom he did fore- 
 know, he also did predestinate to be conformed 
 to the image of His Son, that he might be the 
 first born among many brethren. Moreover 
 whom He did predestinate, them He also called ; 
 -and whom He called, them He also justifie d; and 
 Tvhom He justified, them He also glorified. What 
 
DR. NORTHRUP'S SECOND REJOINDER. 55 
 
 ■stall we then say to these things? If God be 
 ior us, who can be against us?" "He that spared 
 not His own Son, but delivered him up for us 
 all, how shall He not with him also freely give us 
 all things?" etc., etc. (Kom.viii. 28-32). "Blessed 
 be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
 who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings 
 in heavenly places in Christ; according as He 
 ■chose us in Him before the foundation of the 
 world, that we should be holy and without blame 
 before Him in love; having predestinated us 
 Tinto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto 
 iimself ; according to the good pleasure of His 
 will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, 
 "which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved; 
 in whom we have redemption through His blood, 
 -the forgiveness of trespasses, according to the 
 riches of His grace." (Bph. i. 3-7.) "All that 
 the Father giveth me shall come unto me; and 
 him that cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast 
 •out. For I came down from heaven, not to do 
 mine own will, but the will of Him that sent me. 
 And this is the Father's will which hath sent 
 me, that of all which He hath given me I should 
 lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last 
 day. * * * No man can come unto me, ex- 
 cept the Father which hath sent me draw him: 
 and I will raise him up at the last day." (John 
 vi. 87-44). We have in these passages, according 
 
56 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 to Dr. Watts, "Specimens of the outline of the- 
 Scripture testimony upon which Calvinists bas& 
 their doctrinal system;" they are, of course, se- 
 lected, as being among the most clear and de- 
 cisive in their teaching in support of that sys- 
 tem. But of what weight or relevancy are they 
 in proof of the propositions, or of any one of the 
 propositions, which we have indicated as of the 
 essence of the theory which he seeks to justify? 
 Do they teach that God is able, in the exercise 
 of His sovereignty, to bring all mankind to 
 heaven, or to consign them all to hell, "without 
 prejudice to the glory of any of His perfections;" 
 or that there is no difference of any kind to which 
 God has respect in determining whom to elect 
 and whom to reject; or that the decrees of elec- 
 tion and reprobation are, in the order of logic, 
 antecedent to and independent of, all moral 
 action as foreseen; or that hell is the necessary 
 doom of a large part of mankind, let them do 
 what they can to escape it? 
 
 It would be, in our judgment, an insult to the 
 intelligence of the reader, to attempt to show 
 that these questions, one and all, must be an- 
 swered in the negative. The first passage quoted 
 positively negatives, as we have shown, the 
 Calvinistic theory, since it represents the fund- 
 amental act of God in the procedure of man's 
 salvation as an act of foreknoivledge. The teach- 
 
DR. NORTHRUP'S SECOND REJOINDER. 57 
 
 ing in Ephesians and elsewhere that God acts as 
 a sovereign, choosing men "according to the 
 good pleasure of His will," gives no support to 
 the Calvinistic dogma of God's sovereignty. No 
 competent student of the Bible can deny or 
 doubt that it teaches the doctrine of God's sov- 
 ereignty. In no evangelical school of theologi- 
 ans is this doctrine called in question, but in all 
 of them it is recognized and emphasized. Not 
 the fact, but the nature of God's sovereignty is 
 the vital question in dispute. The difficulties 
 which confront the advocates of the Calvinistic 
 dogma of the divine sovereignty are like those 
 which would confront the mathematician in -his 
 investigations, in case he should adopt it as an 
 axiom that things which are equal to the same 
 things are not equal to one another. From time 
 to time he would be compelled to accept conclu- 
 sions baffling his intelligence and contradicting 
 the fundamental laws of thought — a result which 
 he would, of course, regard as due to the mys- 
 terious and transcendental nature of mathe- 
 matics ! 
 
 But we have said enough of Dr. Watts' proof 
 texts. The propositions stated above, with which 
 the theory of strict Calvinism stands or falls, 
 are, as we have said, no part of "the gospel of 
 the grace of God," no part of "the good news to 
 Ml people" which Christ and His apostles preach- 
 
58 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 ed, but Augustino-Calvino-Edwardean specula- 
 tions with which Christian Theology has been 
 burdened to its great injury. 
 
 We may be permitted to say, in conclusion, 
 that our chief interest in this discussion is its- 
 bearing, not upon the theory of strict Calvinism 
 which has but comparatively few advocates at 
 the present time, but upon modified Calvinism 
 of which there are several schemes more or less 
 widely prevalent, which depart from strict Cal- 
 vinism in adopting one or more of the following 
 propositions: (1) That the atonement is universal 
 in its design; (2) That man possesses natural 
 but not moral ability to exercise repentance and 
 faith; (3) that our inborn evil nature is not sin- 
 ful in the proper sense of the term; (4) that the 
 atonement removed the sentence of condemna- 
 tion which came upon the race through the 
 apostasy of Adam. But they all retain one of 
 the most objectionable dogmas of the strict Cal- 
 vinistic theory, viz. , the dogma that the decree 
 of election is irrespective of the moral action of 
 men as foreseen, which involves, of logical ne- 
 cessity, the dogma that the decree of non-elec- 
 tion (preterition, rejection) is irrespective of the 
 moral action of men as foreseen. If the elect 
 are "such always, such before birth, such at 
 birth, such through infancy," it is as certain that 
 the non-elect are "such always, such before birth. 
 
DR. NORTHRUP'S SECOND REJOINDER. SO' 
 
 such at birth, such through infancy, " as it is that 
 the whole of a thing is greater than its part. But 
 non-election — preterition — is virtually identical 
 with reprobation; the non-elect become, not only 
 certainly, but unavoidably, the reprobate. For 
 their alleged "natural ability" to regenerate 
 themselves, being rendered "null and void" by 
 their inborn ' 'moral inability" should be regard- 
 ed as a fiction — a nonentity. It follows, then, 
 according to modified Calvinism, that the eternal 
 perdition of a vast number of mankind is inev- 
 itable, let them do what they can to obtain sal- 
 vation, even in the way appointed in the gospel. 
 But it is as certain as that God lives that th& 
 dogma of the inevitable perdition of men is false. 
 Hence modified Calvinism must be still further 
 modified in order to be . in harmony with the 
 word of Grod. 
 
 In order to prevent misapprehension of our 
 views as stated or implied in the preceding dis- 
 cussion, we subjoin the following propositions 
 which were published in The Standard, February 
 16. 
 
 1. God is a being of absolute ethical perfec- 
 tion of which holiness and love are the essence. 
 
 2. The sovereignty of God is a prerogative in 
 the exercise of which He constitutes and governs 
 the universe according to His absolute ethical 
 perfection. 
 
60 SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD. 
 
 3. The purposes of God, so-called, are one 
 purpose; the one eternal act by which He adopted 
 the existing plan of the universe, involving 
 an infinity of executive volitions, which execu- 
 tive volitions — not purposes — sustain to each 
 other relations both logical and chronological. 
 
 4. The purpose and foreknowledge of God are 
 mutually conditioning factors of His whole 
 course of dealing with personal agents. 
 
 5. God does all that He can do, consistently 
 with the self -limitation, or self-restraint required 
 by His absolute ethical perfection, to prevent 
 apostasy in the case of all holy beings on pro- 
 bation. 
 
 6. Adam's probation, under law, having been 
 terminated by his disobedience, he and his pos- 
 terity were placed under a system of gracious 
 probation based on the redemptive work of 
 Jesus Christ. 
 
 7. The nature of the relation of Adam to his 
 posterity by virtue of which his fall involved 
 them in moral ruin is not revealed in the Scrip- 
 tures. 
 
 8. By virtue of what he became, and did, and 
 suffered, Jesus Christ rendered the salvation of 
 all men possible and the salvation of a part cer- 
 tain. 
 
 9. The atonement availed to remove, abso- 
 lutely and forever, the sentence of condemna- 
 
DR. NORTHRUP'S SECOND REJOINDER. 61 
 
 tion which came upon all men through the apos- 
 tasy of Adam. 
 
 10. There are not two classes of infants, — 
 elect and non-elect, or reprobate, — but infants 
 (IS such, and consequently, all infants, stand in 
 the same relationship to God. 
 
 11. The disability of man is such that regen- 
 eration, of which repentance and faith are fruits, 
 must be the exclusive work of God. 
 
 12. Mankind possess plenary ability so to use 
 common grace and the means of common grace 
 as to render the bestowment of renewing and 
 forgiving grace certain. 
 
 13. God deals with all men in good faith; does 
 all that He can wisely do to induce them so to 
 seek salvation that He can bestow it consistently 
 with the perfect system of gracious probation 
 which it behooved Him to adopt. 
 
 14. There are four legitimate motives or prin- 
 ciples of action to which the Holy Spirit appeals, 
 in the use of the truth, to persuade men to seek 
 salvation, viz. , rational self-interest, the feeling 
 of obligation, the natural principle of gratitude, 
 and aspiration for something higher and better 
 than they are or have. 
 
 15. The action of God in electing some men, 
 and in rejecting others, is determined or condi- 
 tioned by some foreseen difference between the 
 members of these respective classes in the use 
 
62 SOVEREIGNTY OP GOD. 
 
 of common grace and the means of common 
 grace. 
 
 16. The immediate antecedents of regeneration 
 are the result of God's gracious dealing with 
 men and of their response to that dealing, and 
 are, as foreseen, among the reasons or conditions 
 of His action in including them in the purpose 
 of election. 
 
 17. There is no evidence that the immediate 
 antecedents of regeneration are determined by 
 what is called special grace, efinentially different 
 from that which is bestowed upon those who re- 
 main in unregeneracy. 
 
 18. The purpose of election is eternal and im- 
 mutable, and infallibly secures the regeneration, 
 justification, and final salvation of all included 
 in it. 
 
 19. In advancing His kingdom on earth God 
 acts, as in every other sphere, according to the 
 law of His absolute ethical perfection; does all 
 that He can do consisteiitly with the system of 
 gracious probation which involves due regard to 
 the use made by His people of the manifold gifts 
 of His providence and grace. 
 
 20. Consequently, the progress of the king- 
 dom of God upon earth will be more or less rapid 
 according to the measure of fidelity with which 
 His people discharge the obligations of good 
 stewardship. 
 
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