Section 5.

SECTION 5.

Inferences from the two Essays.

IF the preceding Essays on Bible Calvinism and Bible Arminianism are agreeable to Scripture and reason, I may sum up their contents m some inferences, the justness of which will, I humbly hope, recommend itself to the reader’s good understanding and candour: —

I. The doctrine of a gratuitous, partial, and personal election and reprobation is truly Scriptural. So far Calvinism is nothing but the Gospel. On the other hand, the doctrine of a judicial, impartial, and conditional election and reprobation is perfectly Scriptural also: and so far Arminianism is nothing but the Gospel. For, as light flows from the sun, so Bible Calvinism does from the first Gospel axiom, (our salvation is of God,) and as a river flows from its source, so Bible Arminianism does from the second Gospel axiom, (our destruction is of ourselves.) Confounding these two axioms and elections, or denying one of them, has greatly injured the doctrines of grace and justice, darkened all the Gospel dispensations, and bred the misunderstandings which formerly subsisted between the followers of Augustine and those of Pelagius, and now subsist between the Calvinists and the Arminians.

II. It is absurd to ridicule the doctrine of a twofold election, under pretence that it flows from what some people are pleased to call “the flights of my romantic pen;” since the full tide of Scripture evidently flows in two channels; an election of partial grace, according to which God grants or denies his primary favours, as a SOVEREIGN BENEFACTOR; and an election of impartial justice, according to which he bestows rewards or inflicts punishments, as a SUPREME JUDGE.

III. Nor does this doctrine deserve to be called new, since it is so manifestly found in the oldest book in the world. An objection drawn from the seeming novelty of these observations, would be peculiarly unreasonable in the mouth of a member of the Church of England; because she indirectly points out the distinction which I contend for. That our reformers had some insight into the doctrine of a partial election of grace in Christ, and of an impartial election of justice through Christ, appears, I think, from the standard writings of our Church. The beginning of her seventeenth article evidently countenances our unconditional election of grace in Christ, while the latter part secures the doctrines of our conditional election of justice through Christ. Few Calvinists will be so prejudiced as to deny that our Church guards the doctrines, and consequently the election of justice in this important paragraph: — “Furthermore, we must receive God’s promises in such wise as they are generally set forth in Holy Scripture.” Now the promises being generally set forth in a conditional manner in God’s word, it is evident that our Church, in giving us this caution and charge, intends to secure the conditionality of the election of justice; the conditionality of this election being inseparably connected with the conditionality of God’s promises; just as the conditionality of the reprobation of justice is inseparably connected with the conditionality of God’s threatenings.

In conformity to this doctrine our Church assures us, in her homily on good works, “If he [the elected thief] had lived, and not regarded faith and the works thereof, he would have lost his salvation again:” or, which comes to the same thing, he would have forfeited his election of partial grace, by losing the election of impartial justice. Our liturgy speaks the same language; witness that prayer in the office of baptism: “Grant that these children [or persons] now to be baptized, &c, may ever remain in the number of thy faithful and elect children, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” That is, grant that these persons, who are now admitted into thy Christian Church, according to the election of grace in Christ, may so believe and obey, as never to forfeit the privileges of this election, but may ever share in the privileges of thy faithful children who are elect in every sense of the word; the obedient being the only persons who keep their part in the election of grace, and secure a share in the election of justice. Such complete elect are the “sheep” which “hear Christ’s voice, and follow his” steps. “None shall pluck them out of his hands.” The talent of their election of grace shall never be taken from them: they shall all hear these cheering words: “Well done, thou good and faithful servant!” They shall all “enter into the joy of their Lord,” and eternally share in the double privileges of the election of grace and justice.

IV. The gratuitous, partial election and reprobation, which the Scriptures maintain, chiefly refer to the three grand covenants which God has made with man, and to the greater or less blessings which belong to these covenants. The first of these covenants takes in all mankind; for it was made with spared Adam after the fall, and confirmed to preserved Noah after the flood; and every body knows that Adam and Noah are the two general parents of all mankind. The second of these covenants was made with Abraham, ratified to Isaac and Jacob, ordained in the hands of Moses, and ordered in all things, and peculiarly insured to David. This covenant takes in the first peculiar people of God, or the Jewish nation; and includes more particularly David and his family, of which the Messiah was to be born. The third of these covenants was made with Christ, as “the Captain of our salvation,” and “the High Priest of our profession,” or dispensation; and takes in God’s “most peculiar people,” or the Christian Church. The first of these three covenants is general. The other two are covenants of peculiarity, the former of which is frequently called, in Scripture, the old covenant, or the Old Testament, while the latter is spoken of by the name of the new covenant, or New Testament. The two first of these covenants were sealed with the blood of sacrificed beasts or circumcised men, but the last was sealed with the blood of the Lamb of God. Hence our Lord termed it “the new covenant in my blood,” Luke 22:20, calling his blood, “my blood of the New Testament,” Matthew 26:28. Hence also the apostle observes, that “Jesus was made a surety of a better Testament,” and that “he is the Mediator of the New Testament,” which is far superior to that which “was ordained by angels in the hand of Moses,” the mediator of the Old Testament: see Hebrews 7:22; 9:15; 12:24; 2 Corinthians 3:6; Galatians 3:19.

V. These three grand covenants give birth to Gentilism, Judaism, and Christianity; three Divine religions, or dispensations of grace, from the confounding of which partial divines have formed the schemes of religion, which I beg leave to call rigid Arminianism, and rigid Calvinism. VI. The error of rigid Arminians, with respect to those three grand covenants, consists in not sufficiently distinguishing them, and in not maintaining, with sufficient plainness, that they are all covenants of redeeming grace; that Judaism is the old covenant of partial, redeeming grace; and that Christianity is the new covenant of partial, redeeming grace.

VII. The error of rigid Calvinists consists in confounding the covenants of creating and redeeming grace, and in reducing them all to two: the one a covenant of non-redemption, which they call “the law;” and the other a covenant of particular redemption, which they call “the Gospel.” To form the first of these unscriptural covenants, they jumble the Creator’s law, given to innocent man in paradise, with the Redeemer’s law, given to the Israelites on Mount Sinai. Nor do they see that these two laws, or covenants, are as different from each other, as a covenant made with sinless man, without a priest, a sacrifice, and a mediator, is different from a covenant made with sinful man, and “ordained in the hand of a Mediator,” with an interceding priest, and atoning sacrifices, Galatians 3:19. Secondly, they suppose that all men now born into the world are under this imaginary law, that is, under this unscriptural, confused mixture of the Adamic law of innocence, and of the Mosaic law of Sinai: an error this, which is so much the more glaring, as no man, except Christ, was ever placed under the covenant of innocence, since the Lord entered into a mediatorial covenant with fallen Adam: and no man has been put under the law, or covenant of Moses, from the time that covenant was “abolished, and done away in Christ,” 2 Corinthians 3:7, 14, which happened when Christ said, “It is finished,” and when “the veil of the temple,” a type of the Jewish dispensation, “was rent from top to bottom.”

So capital an error, as that of the rigid Calvinists about the law, could not but be productive of a similar error about the Gospel. And therefore when they had formed the merciless covenant which they call the law, by confounding the precept and curse of the law of innocence, with the precept and curse of the law of Moses, abstracted from all mediatorial promises; when they had done this, I say, it was natural enough for them to mistake and confound the promises of the three grand covenants, which I have just mentioned; I mean the one general covenant of grace, made with Adam and Noah; and the two particular covenants of grace, the former of which was “ordained in the hands of Moses, the servant of God;” and the latter in the hands of “Christ, the only begotten Son of God.” Hence it is, that overlooking the promises of the general covenant of grace, and considering only the promises of Judaism and Christianity, which are two grand covenants of peculiar grace, the rigid Calvinists fancy that there is but f69 one covenant of grace: that this covenant is particular; that it was made with Christ only; that it was a covenant of unchangeable favour on the part of the Father, of eternal redemption on the part of the Son, and of irresistible sanctification on the part of the Holy Ghost; that some men, called the elect, are absolutely and eternally interested in this covenant; that other men, called the reprobates, are absolutely and everlastingly excluded from it; that finished salvation, through Christ, is the unavoidable lot of the fortunate elect, who are supposed to be under the absolute blessing of a lawless Gospel; and that finished damnation, through Adam, is the unavoidable portion of the unfortunate reprobates, who are supposed to be, from their mother’s womb, under the absolute, irreversible, everlasting curse of a merciless law, and of an absolutely Christless covenant. VIII. We may say to rigid Calvinists, and rigid Arminians, what God said once to the Jewish priests: “Ye have been partial in the law,” Malachi 2:9. Nor is it possible to reduce their two partial systems to the genuine and full standard of the Gospel, otherwise than by consistently guarding the Calvinian doctrines of grace, by the Arminian doctrines of justice; and the Arminian doctrines of justice, by the Calvinian doctrines of grace: when these two partial gospels are joined in a Scriptural manner, they do not destroy, but balance and illustrate each other. Take away from them human additions, or supply their deficiencies, and you will restore them to their original importance. They will again form the spiritual “weights of the sanctuary,” which are kept for public use in the sacred records, as I humbly hope I have made appear in the Scripture Scales.

IX. To guard the Gospel against the errors of the rigid Calvinists, and the rigid Arminians, we need then only show that God, as Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, has a right to be, and actually is partial in the distribution of grace; but that as Lawgiver, Governor, and Judge, he is, and ever will be, impartial in the distribution of justice: or, which comes to the same thing, we need only restore the doctrine of God’s various laws, or covenants of grace, to their Scripture lustre. Rigid Calvinism will be lost in Bible Arminianism, and rigid Arminianism will be lost in Bible Calvinism, as soon as Protestants will pay a due regard to the following truths:

(1.) God, for Christ’s sake, dissolved, with respect to us, the covenant of paradisiacal innocence, when he turned man out of a forfeited paradise into this cursed world, for having broken that covenant. Then it was that man’s Creator first became his Redeemer; then mankind were placed under the first mediatorial covenant of promise. Then our Maker gave to Adam, and to all the human species, which was in Adam’s loins, a Saviour, who is called “the seed of the woman, — the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world,” who was to make the paradisiacal covenant honourable by his sinless obedience.

(2.) Accordingly, “Christ, by the grace of God, tasted death for every man;” purchasing for all men the privileges of the general covenant of grace, which God made with Adam, and ratified to Noah, the second general parent of mankind.

(3.) Christ, according to the peculiar predestination and election of God, peculiarly tasted death for the Jews, his first chosen nation and peculiar people; purchasing for them all the privileges of the peculiar covenant of grace, which the Scriptures call the old covenant of peculiarity.

(4.) That Christ, according to the most peculiar predestination and election of God, most peculiarly tasted death for the Christians, his second chosen nation and most peculiar people; procuring for them the invaluable privileges of his own most precious Gospel, “by which he has brought life and immortality to meridian light;” and has richly supplied the defects of the Noahic and Mosaic dispensations; the first of which is noted for its darkness; and the second for its veils and shadows. And lastly, that with respect to these peculiar privileges, Christ is said to have peculiarly “given himself for the Christian Church, that he might cleanse it with the baptismal washing of water by the word,” Ephesians 5:26; peculiarly “purchasing it by his own blood,” Acts 20:28; and delivering it from heathenish darkness, and Jewish shadows, that it might be “redeemed from all iniquity,” and that his Christian people might be a “peculiar people to himself, zealous of good works,” even above the Jews who “fear God,” and the Gentiles who “work righteousness,” Titus 2:14. X. As soon as we understand the nature of “the covenants of promise,” and the doctrine of the dispensations of Divine grace, we have a key to open the mystery of God’s gratuitous election and reprobation. We can easily understand, that when a man is elected only to the general blessings of Gentilism, he is reprobated from the blessings peculiar to Judaism and Christianity; and that when he is elected to the blessings of Christianity, he is elected to inherit the substance of all the covenanted blessings of God, because the highest dispensation takes in the inferior ones; as the authority of a colonel includes that of a lieutenant and a captain; or as meridian light takes in the dawn of day and the morning light.

XI. Our election from Gentilism or Judaism to the blessings of Christianity, is an election of peculiar grace. It is to be hoped, that few Arminians are so unreasonable as to think that God might not have deprived us of New Testament blessings, as he did Moses; and of Old Testament blessings, as he did Noah; leaving us under the general covenant of Gentilism, as he did that patriarch.

XII. When God gratuitously elected and called the Jews to be his peculiar people, and chosen nation, he reprobated all the other nations, that is, all the Gentiles, from that honour; an unspeakable honour this, which the Jews thought God had appropriated to them for ever. But when Christ formed his Church, he elected to its privileges the Gentiles as well as the Jews; insomuch that, to enter into actual possession of all the blessings of Christianity, when a Jew or Gentile is called by the preaching of the Gospel of Christ, nothing more is required of him, than to “make his free calling and election sure,” by “the obedience of faith.” That God had a right to extend his election of peculiar grace to the believing Gentiles, and to reprobate the unbelieving Jews, is the point which St. Paul chiefly labours in Romans 9. And that the privileges of this election, which God has extended to the Gentiles, are immensely great, is what the apostle informs us of in the three first chapters of his Epistle to the Ephesians. XIII. Our election to Christianity, and its peculiar blessings, being entirely gratuitous, and preceding every work of Christian obedience; nothing can be more absurd and unevangelical, than to rest it upon works of any sort. Hence it is, that when St. Paul maintains the partial election of richest grace, he says, speaking of the Jews, “There is [among them] a remnant according to the election of grace.” That is, “There is a considerable number of Jews, who, like myself, make their gratuitous calling and election to the blessings of Christianity sure through faith.” For wherever there were Jews and Gentiles, the Jews had the honour of the first call: so far was God from absolutely reprobating them from his Christian “covenant of promise!” If you ask, why the apostle calls this election to the blessings of Christianity “the election of grace,” I answer, that it peculiarly deserves this name, because it is both peculiarly gracious, and amazingly gratuitous. And therefore, adds the apostle, “if this election is by mere grace, then it is no more of works; otherwise grace is no more mere grace. But if it be of works, then it is no more of mere grace: otherwise work is no more work,” Romans 11:5, 6. f70

XIV. If the rigid Arminians are culpable for being ashamed of God’s evangelical partiality, for overlooking his distinguishing love, and for casting a veil over his election of grace; the rigid Calvinists are not less blamable, for turning that holy election into an unscriptural and absolute election, which leaves no room for the propriety of making our “election sure,” and is attended with an unscriptural and absolute reprobation, as odious as free wrath, and as dreadful as insured damnation. This merciless and absolute reprobation is the fundamental error of the rigid Papists, as well as of the rigid Calvinists. Take away this popish principle, “There is no salvation out of the Church: a damning reprobation rests upon all who die out of her pale;” and down comes persecuting popery. There is no pretext left to force popish errors upon men by fire, faggots, or massacres; and the burning of heretics gives place to the charity which hopeth all things. Again: take away this principle of the rigid Calvinists, “There is absolutely no redemption, no salvation, but for a remnant according to the new covenant, and the election of God’s partial grace; an absolute reprobation, and an unavoidable damnation, rest upon all mankind beside;” take away, I say, this principle of the rigid Calvinists, and down comes unscriptural Calvinism, with all the contentions which it perpetually begets.

XV. The rigid Papists, who set up themselves as defenders of the doctrines of justice, and yet hold popish reprobation, are full as inconsistent as the rigid Calvinists, who come forward as defenders of the doctrines of grace, and yet hold Calvinian reprobation: for popish and Calvinian reprobation equally confound the Gospel dispensations, and leave Divine justice and grace neither root nor branch, with respect to all those who die unacquainted with Christianity, that is, with respect to far the greatest part of mankind.

XVI. To conclude: Milton says somewhere, “There is a certain scale of duties, a certain hierarchy of upper and lower commands, which for want of studying in right order, all the world is in confusion.” What that great man said of the scale of duties and commands, may with equal propriety be affirmed of the scale of evangelical truths, and the hierarchy of upper and lower Gospel dispensations. For want of studying them in right order, all the Church is in confusion. The most effectual, not to say the only way of ending these theological disputes of Christians, and destroying the errors of levelling Pelagianism, Antinomian Calvinism, confused Arminianism, and reprobating popery, is to restore primitive harmony and fulness to the partial gospels of the day; which can be done with ease, among candid and judicious inquirers after truth, by placing the doctrine of the dispensations in its Scripture light; and by holding forth the doctrines of grace and justice in all their evangelical brightness. This has been attempted in the two Essays from which these inferences are drawn. Whether the well-meant attempt shall be successful with respect to one, is a question, which thy reason and candour, gentle reader, are called upon to decide.