Sivut kuvina
PDF
ePub

What means God himself speaking by Ezekiel? Thus saith the Lord to the house of Israel, I know the thoughts that come into your mind every one of them, chap. xi. 5. And again by Isaiah? I know that thou wouldst deal very treacherously, chap. xlviii. 8. What did St. Peter mean? Speaking of his own thoughts, he said, Lord thou knowest all things, John xxi. 17. What does the wise man mean, who assures us, not only that God knows the hearts of kings, but that he hath them in his hand, and turneth them whithersoever he pleaseth as rivers of water? Prov. xxi. 1.

Above all, how can this principle be reconciled to many express prophecies of events, which being closely connected with the volitions of men, could not have been certamly foretold, unless God at the time had a certain knowledge of these determinations? "The prescience of God, saith Turtulian, hath as many witnesses as there are prophets and prophecies." Had not God foreseen that Jesus Christ would preach the gospel in Judea, that the Jews would hate him, that they would deliver him to Pilate, that they would solicit his death, that Pilate would have the meanness and pusillanimity to yield to their entreaties; had not God known all these things, how could he have predicted them?

But the men who oppose do not much respect the decisions of scripture. The principle, to which all this system tends, is, that reason is to decide on the doctrines of scripture, and not that the doctrines of scripture are to direct reason. This principle once granted, all the doctrines of our faith are subverted, as experience proves. See into what rash declarations this principle hath conducted Socinus and his followers. What decision of scripture, what doctrine of faith, what truth however èstablished, repeated and enforced, hath it not allured

them to deny? The bondage of the human will seems to destroy the nature of man: this bondage must be denied. But the doctrine of absolute decrees seems to disagree with the liberty of man : these absolute decrees must be denied. But the foreknowledge of God cannot be allowed without the doctrine of decrees: the foreknowledge of God must be denied. But a thousand prophesies prove this prescience: the mystical sense of these prophesies must be denied. But Jesus Christ hath verified them then Jesus Christ must be denied, his titles, his attributes, his works, his worship, his satisfaction, his divinity, his union to God, his incarnation, must all be denied: he must be made a mere man, a prophet, a teacher distinguished from others only by some extraordinary talents: the whole system of the gospel, of salvation, and of redemption, must be denied. To follow these ideas, my brethren, is to tumble from precipice to precipice, without knowing where we shall stop.

We propose in the second place the system of our brethren of the confession of Augsburgh, and that of Arminius; for though they differ in other articles, yet they both agree pretty nearly in this point. Their system is this. They grant foreknowledge: but they deny foreappointment. They allow indeed that God always foresaw who would be happy in heaven, and who victims in hell: but they tremble at the thesis, which affirms that God predestinated the first to felicity, and the last to misery. According to them, God made no other decree than to save believers, and to condemn infidels: he gave all men assistance sufficient to enable them to believe, and having only foreseen who would believe, and who would not believe, he made no decree to secure the faith of some, and the unbelief of the rest.

Although it is never our custom to envenom controversy, and to tax people with heresy for not being of our opinion; although we would rather reconcile opposite opinions than triumph in refuting them; yet we cannot help making three reflections. First, this system doth not agree with itself-secondly, it is directly opposite to many decisions of the holy Spirit, and particularly to the doctrine of the three chapters before us-and thirdly, should we grant the whole, a thousand difficulties would remain in the doctrine of the decrees of God, and we should always be obliged to exclaim, as these brethren must on this article, O the depth !

1. We affirm, that this system is inconsistent With itself, that the doctrine of prescience supposes that of predestination, and that unless we deny that God foresaw our salvation, we are obliged by our own thesis to affirm that he predestinated us to it. I grant there is a sense, in which it is true that to foresee a thing is different from determining to bring it to pass; but there is another sense, in which to foresee and fore-appoint is one and the same thing. If I foresee that a prince sending armed troops into the house of the widow and orphan, will expose that house to pillage, it is certain my foresight hath no influence in the fate of that house; and in this case to foresee the act of plundering is not a determination to plunder. But if the prince foresee this event, if he knew the rage and fury with which his soldiers are animated, if he knew by experience that in such conjunctures they have committed such crimes, if, in spite of this prescience he send his madmen into this house, if he allow them their armor, if he lay them under no restsaint, if he do not appoint any superior officer to bridle their fury, do you not think, my

brethren, that to foresee and to resolve this case are in him one and the same thing?

Apply these reflections to our subject. Let us suppose that before the creation of this world, God had subsisted alone, with one other spirit, such as you please to imagine. Suppose, when God had formed the plan of the world, he had communicated it to this spirit that subsisted with him. Suppose, that God, who formed the plan, and the intelligence to whom he had communicated it, had both foreseen that some men of this world would be saved, and others lost, do you not perceive that there would have been an essential difference between the prescience of God and the prescience of the spirit we have imagined? The foreknowledge of this last would not have had any influence either over the salvation or destruction of mankind, because this spirit would have foreknown, and that would have been all: but is not the foreknowledge of God of another kind? Is that a speculative, idle, and uninfluential knowledge? He not only foresaw, but he created. He not only foresaw that man being free, would make a good or ill use of his liberty, but he gave him that liberty. foresee and to fore-appoint in God is only one and the same thing, If indeed you only mean to affirm, by saying that these are two different acts, that God doth no violence to his creatures, but that notwithstanding his prescience, the one hardens himself freely, and the other believes freely : if this be all you mean, give us the right hand of fellowship, for this is exactly our system, and we have no need to asperse one another, as both hold the same doctrine.

To

There is a second inconvenience in the system of bare prescience, that is, that it doth not square with scripture, which clearly establishes the doc

trine of predestination. We omit many passages usually quoted in this controversy; as that Jesus Christ said to his Father, I thank thee, O Father, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hath reveal d them unto babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight, Matt. xi. 25. And this of St. Paul, God hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, having predestinated us to the adoption of sons, Eph. i. 4. As this famous passage, whom he did foreknow them he did predestinate, and whom he did predestinate them he also called, Rom. viii. 28. 29.

We omit all these passages, because our opponents dispute the sense we give of them, and because it is but justice either to hear and answer their objections (which the limits of these exercises will not allow) or not to make use of them, for that would be taking for granted what is not allowed, that is, that these passages speak of predestination in our sense of the term. Let us content ourselves to oppose against the doctrine of prescience without predestination, these three chap ters in Romans, of which the text is the close.

I am aware of what is objected. It is said that we make phantoms to combat; that the meaning of St. Paul is clear, that the end he had in view puts the matter out of doubt, and that his end hath no relation to absolute decrees, much less did he design to establish them. The apostle had laid down this position, that the gospel would hereafter be the only economy of salvation, and consequently that an adherence to the levitical institution would be fatal. The Jews object to this, for they could not comprehend how an adherence to a divine institution could lead to perdition. St. Paul answers these complaints, by tel

« EdellinenJatka »