LECTURE VI. ELECTION. OBJECTION 3.-Predestination is incompatible with the free agency and accountability of man. The argument of our opponents is as follows. If Jehovah has determined what shall be the everlasting condition of all men, and if, in addition to this, he has decreed every event which takes place, every event must be a necessary event, and it is impossible that man can be a free agent. Now the reader will not forget, and it is important to remember it here, that the preceding pages do not represent the eternal condition even of the elect as being directly determined by Divine decree. We have formed our statements upon this subject under the guiding influence of the moral axiom, "God does what he decrees, and decrees only what he does." All that is done by him, accordingly, in effecting the salvation of the elect-the exertion of that regenerating, and preserving, and confirming influence of the Holy Spirit, &c., by which they are certainly brought ultimately (though in a manner adapted to their intellectual and moral nature) to the glory of heaven-is decreed by God. But as the ungodly destroy themselves, as God does nothing to effect their destruction, there is no occasion, and, indeed, no room for any decree in reference to it. We have, accordingly, defined election to be a decree to save, and not a decree to destroy. In what respect it may be said that every event is the subject of a Divine decree, will probably be more fully unfolded in the subsequent discussion. -- Before we proceed to examine the force of the objection, it may be well to remember, that, if it really present any difficulty, we shall not rescue ourselves from its pressure by ARMINIANISM DOES NOT ESCAPE THE DIFFICULTY. 109 deserting from the Calvinistic standard; unless, indeed, we proceed to deny the foreknowledge of God; and, in that case, difficulties of yet more appalling magnitude would rise up into view. It is manifest that, with a mere change of words, the same objection may be urged against the system of those Arminians who believe in the Divine prescience. "If God foresees all future events, those events must be necessary or certain, and man is not a free agent." A free action, in the Arminian sense of the term, is one which may or may not take place,—one which depends altogether on the arbitrary decision of the will of the actor,-a decision unaffected by, or at any rate certainly not caused by, motives, for it may be at direct variance with motives. Now such an action must be an essentially contingent action. It cannot be certainly future. Contingency and certain futurition are incompatible notions. But, if an action be foreseen, it must be as certainly future as if it were decreed. Predestination does not, then, more necessarily interfere with free agency than foreknowledge. Before we can estimate the force of this objection against the doctrine of predestination, it will be necessary to ascertain in what free agency consists, and to show when any being may be said to possess it. With the meaning of the term agent, all are familiarly acquainted. An agent (limiting the application of the word to intelligent beings) is the doer or performer of an action. A free agent is one who is at liberty, i. e., free to act as he chooses. "Freedom," says Dr. Williams, 'as applied to an agent, in my conception, is properly and consistently expressive of a negative idea-not a power or a faculty, but exemption related to the will. It is, properly speaking, the property, not of the will of a moral agent, but of the moral agent himself." Every being who is not restrained by physical force from doing what he chooses, and who is not compelled by the same force to do what he does not choose, is a free agent. It is, therefore, manifest that all the moral agents of whose existence we have any knowledge, are possessed of freedom. God is a free agent; "He doeth whatsoever he pleases among the armies of heaven, and the inhabitants of the earth." Holy angels are free agents; fallen spirits are free power of willing to do evil, in opposition to motives, which must appear to him of infinite weight, to will that which is good; but that he does not choose to exert that power,-and that herein consists his virtue? Do not our opponents show that they have formed erroneous conceptions of the nature of true virtue when they talk thus? Have we been altogether wrong in supposing that a being is virtuous in proportion to the impossibility of there arising in his mind an improper volition? If it be honourable to God to be unable to do what is evil, by parity of reasoning, it must be more honourable to him to be unable to will what is evil. And yet, a power to possess and to display wrong and improper volitions, and that in direct opposition to every inducement to right ones, would seem to be the essence of Pelagian virtue. LECTURE VII. ELECTION. OBJECTION 3.-Predestination is incompatible with the free agency and accountability of man. The lengthened discussions upon which we have entered, with a view to explain the nature of free agency, are of themselves so directly adapted to show that predestination does not destroy it, that I need scarcely set myself formally to repel the objection. How can it be conceived that predestination leads to this result? Does it lay any restraint or constraint upon men? Does it oblige a Christian to act virtuously and submissively, when his will is on the side of disobedience? or an ungodly man to do evil, when he is disposed to do good? If, indeed, we maintained that, in consequence of the decree of election, Jehovah puts forth an influence upon men by which they are constrained to act in opposition to their own sacred and cherished propensities,—or if our opponents could show that the putting forth of such influence is the necessary result of this decree, the doctrine of election would be effectually overturned. But it is impossible for them to do this. The decree of election is God's purpose to save the elect; or, rather, as we have explained it, his purpose to exert that holy and gracious influence upon their minds, which disposes them to seek salvation in the way in which it is to be obtained. The elect are not, consequently, compelled to go to Christ, and to enter upon his service; in the very nature of the case, this cannot be. But, in consequence of a sanctifying energy reaching their hearts, or nature, the radical source of disposition, they joyfully go to the Saviour, and cheerfully surrender their affections to him, who is now discovered to be altogether lovely. Thus, predestination does not destroy the free agency 122 PREDESTINATION Does not desTROY FREE AGENCY. of the saved. And what is its effect, in this point of view, upon the finally lost? Does it deprive them of freedom? This, on the principles previously stated, must be seen to be altogether impossible, since they are not included in its decree. They are not elected to be saved; and there is no election, properly speaking, to damnation. It is, then, manifest that those who finally perish are not more affected by the decree of election than the fallen angels; and it has never yet, I believe, been pretended that predestination deprives the latter of free agency. As there are Calvinists, however, who imagine that a decree to save some of the race necessarily implies a decree not to save, or to pass by others, I would not dismiss this branch of the subject without attempting to show that even the views they entertain, though I do not regard them as either rational or scriptural, are by no means fatal to the admission of the free agency of man. For, supposing a decree to pass by the non-elect had existed, would it have placed them in a position different from that in which they would have stood, had it been the determination of Jehovah to pass the whole race by— or, in other words, not to magnify his grace in the salvation of any? Conceive for a moment that such had been the mournful, though, as it must be admitted, equitable (or the plan of mercy would have been a plan of justice) determination of God, would that have affected the free agency of man? Would it have subjected him to the involuntary practice of sin? Would it have rendered his disobedience certain and necessary, in spite of his efforts to prevent it? Would it not rather have conveyed to us the assurance that he would make no such efforts? For a determination to exert no influence to save a race of fallen and sinful beings, is a determination to leave them to follow out the devices of their own hearts, to act, in short, as they choose. How such a determination, even if it existed, could destroy free agency, though, in point of fact, they might choose to do evil, it is impossible to conceive. It is leaving them to their free agency, not overturning it. On the admission, then, that predestination did include a decree to pass by the finally lost, it would be impossible for Arminians to maintain that it |