An Apology for the True Christian Divinity. Robert Barclay
to that End, who, I pray, is the first Author and Cause thereof but God, who so willed and decreed? This is as natural a Consequence as can be: And therefore, although many of the Preachers of this Doctrine have sought out various, strange, strained and intricate Distinctions to defend their Opinion, and avoid this horrid Consequence; yet some, and that of the most eminent of them, have been so plain in the Matter, as they have put it beyond all Doubt; of which I shall instance a few among many Passages. [57]I say, That by the Ordination and Will of God Adamfell. God would have Man to fall. Man is blinded by the Will and Commandment of God. We refer the Causes of hardening us to God. The highest or remote Cause of hardening is the Will of God. It followeth that the hidden Counsel of God is the Cause of hardening. These are Calvin’s Expressions. [58]God (saith Beza) hath predestinated not only unto Damnation, but also unto the Causes of it, whomsoever he saw meet. [59]The Decree of God cannot be excluded from the Causes of Corruption. [60]It is certain (saith Zanchius) that God is the first Cause of Obduration. Reprobates are held so fast under God’s Almighty Decree, that they cannot but sin and perish. [61]It is the Opinion (saith Paræus) of our Doctors, That God did inevitably decree the Temptation and Fall of Man. The Creature sinneth indeed necessarily, by the most just Judgment of God. Our Men do most rightly affirm, That the Fall of Man was necessary and inevitable, by Accident, because of God’s Decree. [62]God (saith Martyr) doth incline and force the Wills of wicked Men into great Sins. [63]God (saith Zuinglius) moveth the Robber to kill. He killeth, God forcing him thereunto. But thou wilt say, He is forced to sin; I permit truly that he is forced. [64]Reprobate Persons (saith Piscator) are absolutely ordained to this twofold End; to undergo everlasting Punishment, and necessarily to sin, and therefore to sin, that they may be justly punished.
[57] Calvin in cap. 3. Gen. Id. 1. Inst. c. 18, S. 1. Id. lib. de Præd. Idem lib. de Provid. Id. Inst. c. 23. S. 1.
[58] Beza lib. de Præd.
[59] Id. de Præd. ad Art. 1.
[60] Zanch. de Excæcat. q. 5. Id. lib. 5. de Nat. Dei cap. 2. de Præd.
[61] Paræus lib. 3. de Amis. gratiæ c. 2. ibid. c. 1.
[62] Martyr in Rom.
[63] Zuing. lib. de Prov. c. 5.
[64] Resp. ad Vorst. part. 1. p. 120.
If these Sayings do not plainly and evidently import, that God is the Author of Sin, we must not then seek these Men’s Opinions from their Words, but some Way else. It seems as if they had assumed to themselves that monstrous and twofold Will they feigned of God; one by which they declare their Minds openly, and another more secret and hidden, which is quite contrary to the other. Nor doth it at all help them to say, That Man sins willingly, since that Willingness, Proclivity, and Propensity to Evil is, according to their Judgment, so necessarily imposed upon him, that he cannot but be willing, because God hath willed and decreed him to be so. Which shift is just as if I should take a Child uncapable to resist me, and throw it down from a great Precipice; the Weight of the Child’s Body indeed makes it go readily down, and the Violence of the Fall upon some Rock or Stone beats out its Brains and kills it. Now then, I pray, though the Body of the Child goes willingly down (for I suppose it as to its Mind uncapable of any Will) and the Weight of its Body, and not any immediate Stroke of my Hand, who perhaps am at a great Distance, makes it die, whether is the Child or I the proper Cause of its Death? Let any Man of Reason judge, if God’s Part be, with them, as great, yea, more immediate, in the Sins of Men, as by the Testimonies above brought doth appear, whether doth not this make him not only the Author of Sin, but more unjust than the unjustest of Men?
§. III.
2. It makes God delight in the Death of a Sinner.Secondly, This Doctrine is injurious to God, because it makes him delight in the Death of Sinners; yea, and to will many to die in their Sins, contrary to these Scriptures, Ezek. xxxiii. 11. 1 Tim. ii. 3. 2 Pet. iii. 9. For if he hath created Men only for this very End, that he might shew forth his Justice and Power in them, as these Men affirm, and for effecting thereof hath not only with-held from them the Means of doing Good, but also predestinated the Evil, that they might fall into it; and that he inclines and forces them into great Sins; certainly he must necessarily delight in their Death, and will them to Die; seeing against his own Will he neither doth, nor can do any Thing.
§. IV.
3. It renders Christ’s Mediation Ineffectual.Thirdly, It is highly injurious to Christ our Mediator, and to the Efficacy and Excellency of his Gospel; for it renders his Mediation ineffectual, as if he had not by his Sufferings throughly broken down the middle Wall, nor yet removed the Wrath of God, or purchased the Love of God towards all Mankind, if it was afore-decreed that it should be of no Service to the far greater Part of Mankind. It is to no Purpose to allege, that the Death of Christ was of Efficacy enough to have saved all Mankind, if in effect its Virtue be not so far extended as to put all Mankind into a Capacity of Salvation.
4. It makes the Gospel a Mock.Fourthly, It makes the Preaching of the Gospel a mere Mock and Illusion, if many of these, to whom it is preached, be by any irrevocable Decree excluded from being benefited by it; it wholly makes useless the Preaching of Faith and Repentance, and the whole Tenor of the Gospel-promises and Threatenings, as being all relative to a former Decree and Means before appointed to such; which, because they cannot fail, Man needs do nothing but wait for that irresistible Juncture, which will come, though it be but at the last Hour of his Life, if he be in the Decree of Election; and be his Diligence and Waiting what it can, he shall never attain it, if he belong to the Decree of Reprobation.
5. It makes the Coming of Christ an Act of Wrath.Fifthly, It makes the Coming of Christ, and his Propitiatory Sacrifice, which the Scripture affirms to have been the Fruit of God’s Love to the World, and transacted for the Sins and Salvation of all Men, to have been rather a Testimony of God’s Wrath to the World, and one of the greatest Judgments, and severest Acts of God’s Indignation towards Mankind, it being only ordained to save a very few, and for the hardening, and augmenting the Condemnation of the far greater Number of Men, because they believe not truly in it; the Cause of which Unbelief again, as the Divines [so called] above assert, is the hidden Counsel of God: Certainly the Coming of Christ was never to them a Testimony of God’s Love, but rather of his implacable Wrath: And if the World may be taken for the far greater Number of such as live in it, God never loved the World, according to this Doctrine, but rather hated it greatly, in sending his Son to be crucified in it.
§. V.