by Horatius Bonar
"Vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory." ROM. 9:23.
ELECTION means choice, and to elect means to choose. The sovereign right of choosing belongs to God alone. Hence He said himself to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy." His will is the law of the universe. We are the clay, and he is the potter.2 All things take place according to "the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God." Every thing in this world happens according to God's eternal arrangements. Nothing takes place except what God causes to be or permits to be; and whatever happens in time is decreed from eternity.4
All that God does, he arranges beforehand in his eternal counsels with infinite wisdom. He does not leave any thing to chance, or to the direction of beings less perfect in wisdom than himself. If he were to do so, every thing would go wrong. And what he intends to do is not left undetermined till the moment, or the day, or the year before doing it, for then He would be a changeable being like man; but it is settled from all eternity. Hence it is said, "Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world." Thus God decreed from all eternity to make the world, and when his appointed time came, he made it. So God decreed from all eternity to create man, and when the fixed time came, he was created. It was not Adam who chose to be made; but it was God who chose to make Adam.
Now, what is true of the making of man, is far more true of the saving of man. Adam was made, not because he chose to be made, but because God chose to make him; and Adam was saved, not because he chose to be saved, but because God chose to save him. Adam's salvation depended wholly upon God's having chosen him to salvation, that is, upon God's having elected him. Had God not chosen him, he never would have chosen God, and so would never have been saved. So it was with Cain and Abel. Both were equally lost by nature, yet Abel was saved, and Cain was not. Why was Abel saved? It was not because he chose God any more than his brother Cain, but because God chose him. Therefore it is written, "He hath mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth." What is true of Abel is true of all that ever have been, or ever shall be saved. It is God's electing love that saves them. It is God's choice, not their own, that makes them to differ from those who are consigned to wrath.
What shall we say then? is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid! God cannot be unrighteous in saving whom He pleases, or in passing by whom he pleases. Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?3 Shall worms of the dust say, What doest thou? His decreeing to save man, did not make it unjust or cruel to pass by the angels. It could not be so unless they had deserved to be saved, which they did not. He decreed to save none of the angels, but he decreed to save some from among men. He needed not have saved any. He might have left them all to perish, just as he left the angels. But he determined to save some. He did not determine to save all, else all would have been saved, just as all the angels were kept from falling whom he decreed to keep. It would have been infinite love to have saved one single soul; but it was far greater love to save so many. And then how wonderfully was this love shown forth in his determining to do so from all eternity? O what unfathomable love is displayed in God's eternal decree of electing love! To be thinking of us from all eternity! To leave nothing to chance, but to fix every thing beforehand! To leave nothing to our own wretched choice, but to arrange every thing from all eternity according to his own glorious choice, his infinitely perfect and unerring plans! O what a universe is this, where nothing, not even the falling of a sparrow, is left to any thing short of infinitely perfect wisdom, infinitely pure and perfect love! O, if there were no eternal and unchangeable decree of the God only wise ordering every thing aright, what a mass of inextricable confusion would this world be! How unutterably consoling to think that every thing that occurs is ordered by the eternal will and wisdom of the blessed God!
By nature man chooses nothing but sin. No man would choose God, or ever think of God, if God did not first choose him. If men then were left to their own choice, all would be lost. If there were no decree of God, no man could be saved. How fearful then the doctrine of those who say there is no eternal decree! To take away God's electing grace, is to take away a poor sinner's only hope of salvation. It must be plain then to all, that God's decree does not hinder any man from being saved. Those that are lost, are lost not because God wanted them to perish, but because they would not be saved. They would have been lost even had there been no decree, because they were sinners. God's decree did not make them sinners; it did not force them to be lost. It found them sinners, and it left them so. It found them lost, and it left them so. It did nothing more. It did not compel them to sin; it did not drive them to ruin. No. It simply passed them by. And was the sovereign God not entitled to do this?
Man could not create himself, and far less can he save himself. When God made him, he brought him out of nothing; when God saves him, he brings him out of a state far lower and worse than nothing. If in the one case, then, every thing depended upon God's will and decree, much more in the other. There can be no injustice here. Had God pleased he might have saved the whole world. But he did not; and thousands are now in hell, and shall be to all eternity. Who will say that God is unjust, because he has left them to perish for ever, while he has saved others as vile as they? If there be any cruelty at all in the matter, it must be in his allowing any to perish when he might have saved all. The opposers of election say, there cannot be such a thing as a decree fixing every thing, or God would not be sincere in saying that he willeth all men to be saved. But they might far more plausibly argue, that God cannot be almighty, for he says he wills all to be saved, and yet does not save all!
If there be any injustice in the case, it must be, not in decreeing the thing, but in doing it. And yet the thing is done! Whether decreed or not, the thing is done! To remove the decree will not extinguish the flames of wrath. Hell is peopled already with millions of immortal souls, doomed to fiery wrath; while heaven is filled with millions of ransomed sinners, as vile, yea, perhaps viler far than they! What has made the difference? Man's will or God's?—man's choice or God's? Those that deny God's electing love may say, "Man's will:" but they who own a sovereign God, will say at once, "God's will, not man's." Yes! God's eternal will, for Jehovah changes not, but his plans and purposes are, like himself, from everlasting. "Who hath made us to differ?" is the wondering exclamation of earth. "Who hath made us to differ?" is the rapturous song of heaven!
If in the valley of dry bones which Ezekiel saw, some bones only had come together, while others remained as they were lying, what would have made the difference? Would it have been that some bones chose to rise, and others to lie still; and that God waited till he saw what bones chose to rise, before he made up his mind regarding them? or would it not have been wholly of God? So it is with regard to dead souls. They do not choose to rise, nor does God wait till he sees some inclination to move amongst some of them, before he fixes his plans. No; they rise because God chose them from all eternity. They did not raise themselves, nor did they even desire to rise of themselves. Take away God's decree, and you take away a sinner's only hope of being saved. Had there been no electing love, there could have been no salvation. And nothing can be more foolish than the idea that God's decree interferes with man's liberty. The only point at which it does interfere, is in saving souls. Those that are lost, are lost because God does not interfere with them, but leaves them alone to enjoy their miserable liberty—that is, to remain in the bondage of sin. It is God's electing love that takes off the fetters with which the sinner is bound, that he may draw them to himself with the bands of love. Election draws some to God, but keeps none away. It is a help, not a hindrance.
God's choice is an eternal one. Who but a heathen would say, that God changes his mind or his plans, so that he resolves to do a thing to-day, which he did not intend to do yesterday, or that he must wait to see how men will act, before he can arrange his counsels? Is this like the unchangeable God, to change his plans according to the changes which take place in man—to make the variations of man's will the rule by which his purposes are regulated? O miserable uncertainty! How could the universe hold together for a day with such a government as this! No! God's choice is the choice of eternal love—the calm, deliberate, eternal purpose of love! O blessed choice of the blessed God! No changes of man can change thee! No fluctuations of time can affect thee! No storms of earth can sweep across thy path, or mar thy glorious certainty!
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From Kelso Tracts, by Horatius Bonar