Sermon 110: Free Grace

03:542 An Introductory Comment

This sermon is noteworthy as the signal of a major schism in the ranks of English evangelicals, the consequences of which have outlasted the lives of the antagonists. It marks a personal breach between John Wesley and George Whitefield which was never more than partially healed (see No. 53, On the Death of George Whitefield). What we have here, however, is a total rejection of predestination in any and all its Calvinist versions, with the predictable result that terms for further doctrinal dialogue between the ‘Calvinists’ and Arminians’ were sharply constricted. That Wesley was content that this should be is plain enough in his curt response to Whitefield’s anguished protests (as in his letter of August 9, 1740) that their private differences should not be aired in public.

Whitefield and Wesley had been active allies for a brief span in 1734-35, and later it was Whitefield who had opened Wesley’s way into the Revival in 1739. He was Wesley’s junior by ten years, but already he was a bold, exciting preacher, who took for granted that the doctrine of justification by faith stood or fell with some sort of presupposition of irresistible grace. Wesley’s brusque reaction to this position suggests something of the still toplofty don’s disdain for the erstwhile Oxford servitor. He had preached against predestination within weeks of the launching of the Revival, asking for divine signs—and believing that he received them—that this kind of preaching was a necessary corollary of preaching universal redemption by faith. On April 26, 1739, he again sought divine guidance by drawing lots about restricting his attack on predestination to preaching, but received the lot, ‘preach and print’. Forthwith, at Bristol, he published this sermon, Free Grace (see Letters, 25:639-40). As a separate sermon it went through ten or eleven editions during his lifetime, but he did not include it in his collected Sermons, and in reprinting it in his Works it was inserted among his controversial writings. For a stemma illustrating its publishing history and a list of substantive variants, see Appendix, Vol. 4 (for fuller details on its publishing history, see Bibliog, No. 14).

One of the neglected problems in Wesley interpretation is a critical 03:543analysis of his inability to recognize his aggressive role in this controversy (here, or in Predestination Calmly Considered, 1752, or in his provocative ‘Minute’ of 1770, etc.). This was matched by an interesting insensitivity to the outrage of the Calvinists over what they regarded as a deliberate distortion of both the letter and the spirit of their teachings. For even though he would mellow in later years on this and other points, he would never accept any responsibility for the heat and bitterness of the conflict. In 1765, for example, he would freely grant to John Newton (then newly ordained, and curate at Olney) that ‘holding particular election and final perseverance is compatible with…a love to Christ and a work of grace,’ and reaffirm that on the point of justification, he never has differed ‘from [Mr. Calvin] an hair’s breadth’ (letter of May 14, 1765). It would seem that he had forgotten the charges levied here in Free Grace that those who hold and teach predestination are blasphemers (§§23, 25-27). If Wesley had forgotten, the Calvinists never did. If Wesley came later to share and commend a truly ‘catholic spirit’, Free Grace is a useful illustration of Wesley’s temper and methods as a polemicist.

For Whitefield’s side of this story, and his detailed refutation of Wesley’s sermon, see George Whitefield’s Journals (Banner of Truth Trust, 1960), pp. 242-43, 260-61, 289, and ‘Appendix’, pp. 564-68, but especially ‘A Letter to the Rev. Mr. John Wesley in Answer to his Sermon entitled Free Grace’ (December 24, 1740), pp. 571-88.

03:544 Free Grace

To the Reader

Nothing but the strongest conviction, not only that what is here advanced is ‘the truth as it is in Jesus’,

1

Cf. Eph. 4:21.

but also that I am indispensably obliged to declare this truth to all the world, could have induced me openly to oppose the sentiments of those whom I highly esteem for their works’ sake: at whose feet may I be found in the day of the Lord Jesus!

2

2 Cor. 1:14.

Should any believe it his duty to reply hereto I have only one request to make: let whatsoever you do be done in charity, in love, and in the spirit of meekness.

3

1 Cor. 4:21.

Let your very disputing show that you have ‘put on, as the elect of God, bowels of mercies, gentleness, long-suffering’:

4

Cf. Col. 3:12.

that even according to this time it may be said, ‘See how these Christians love one another.’

5

Cf. Tertullian, Apology, 39; see No. 22, ‘Sermon on the Mount, II’, III.8 and n. In the 1740 edn. (only) Wesley added a peremptory ‘Advertisement’ here: ‘Whereas a pamphlet entitled Free Grace Indeed has been published against this sermon, this is to inform the publisher that I cannot answer his tract till he appears to be more in earnest. For I dare not speak of the deep things of God in the spirit of a prize-fighter or a stage-player.’ Free Grace Indeed, an anonymous counterblast published in London in 1740 and subsequently reprinted in Philadelphia and Boston in 1741, illustrates from the other side how unbridgeable the chasm between the two doctrines and their partisans really was—and would continue to be.

Romans 8:32

He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?

11. How freely does God love the world! While we were yet sinners,

6

Rom. 5:8.

‘Christ died for the ungodly.’

7

Rom. 5:6.

While we were ‘dead in sin’,

8

Cf. Eph. 2:5.

God ‘spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all.’ And how ‘freely with him’ does he ‘give us all things’! Verily, free grace is all in all!

22. The grace or love of God, whence cometh our salvation, is free in all, and free for all.

03:545

33. First, it is free in all to whom it is given. It does not depend on any power or merit in man; no, not in any degree, neither in whole, nor in part. It does not in any wise depend either on the good works or righteousness of the receiver; not on anything he has done, or anything he is. It does not depend on his endeavours. It does not depend on his good tempers, or good desires, or good purposes and intentions; for all these flow from the free grace of God. They are the streams only, not the fountain. They are the fruits of free grace, and not the root. They are not the cause, but the effects of it. Whatsoever good is in man, or is done by man, God is the author and doer of it. Thus is his grace free in all, that is, no way depending on any power or merit in man, but on God alone, who freely gave us his own Son, and ‘with him freely giveth us all things’.

9

Cf. Rom. 8:32.

44. But is it free for all, as well as in all? To this some have answered: ‘No: it is free only for those whom God hath ordained to life, and they are but a little flock. The greater part of mankind God hath ordained to death; and it is not free for them. Them God hateth; and therefore before they were born decreed they should die eternally. And this he absolutely decreed; because so was his good pleasure, because it was his sovereign will. Accordingly, they are born for this: to be destroyed body and soul in hell. And they grow up under the irrevocable curse of God, without any possibility of redemption. For what grace God gives he gives only for this: to increase, not prevent, their damnation.’

10

Wesley’s sources for this caricature of the High Calvinist doctrine of reprobation would have included Elisha Coles, Practical Discourse of God’s Sovereignty (1673); it was this essay that had convinced Whitefield (so Josiah Tucker, Brief History of the Principles of Methodism, p. 14). Wesley might also have known the anonymous pamphlet, A Vindication of the Doctrine of Predestination (1709), ascribed to Richard Jenks in the Dr. Williams’s Library copy. He also knew the nine quasi-official theses of The Lambeth Articles (1595) and the more complete exposition of the position in William Perkins’s Golden Chaine (1591). It is doubtful if he had read Calvin’s polemic against Pighius and Georgius, The Eternal Predestination of God (1552); cf. Predestination Calmly Considered (1752), §§8-15.

55. This is that decree of predestination. But methinks I hear one say: ‘This is not the predestination which I hold. I hold only “the election of grace”.

11

Rom. 11:5.

What I believe is no more than this, that God, before the foundation of the world, did elect a certain number of men to be justified, sanctified, and glorified. Now all these will be saved, and none else. For the rest of mankind God leaves to themselves: so they follow the imaginations of their own 03:546hearts, which are only evil continually,

12

See Jer. 23:17; Luke 1:51; Gen. 6:5.

and, waxing worse and worse, are at length justly punished with everlasting destruction.’

66. Is this all the predestination which you hold? Consider; perhaps this is not all. Do not you believe ‘God ordained them to this very thing’? If so, you believe the whole decree; you hold predestination in the full sense, which has been above described. But it may be you think you do not. Do not you then believe God hardens the hearts of them that perish? Do not you believe he (literally) hardened Pharaoh’s heart,

13

Exod. 7:13; cf. Calvin’s candid comment on this verse in his Commentaries on the Four Last Books of Moses, Arranged in the Form of a Harmony (Eng. tr. by C. W. Bingham, 1852): ‘…if God…inflicts deserved punishment upon the reprobate, he not only permits them to do what they themselves please, but actually executes a judgment which he knows to be just. Whence it follows that he not only withdraws the grace of his Spirit, but delivers over to Satan those whom he knows to be deserving of blindness of mind and obstinancy of heart.’ However, they are ‘foul calumniators who…pretend that God is made the author of sin…. The hardness of heart is the sin of man, but the hardening of the heart is the judgment of God.’

and that for this end he raised him up (or created him)? Why, this amounts to just the same thing. If you believe Pharaoh, or any one man upon the earth, was created for this end—to be damned—you hold all that has been said of predestination. And there is no need you should add that God seconds his decree, which is supposed unchangeable and irresistible, by hardening the hearts of those vessels of wrath whom that decree had before fitted for destruction.

14

Rom. 9:22; cf. Poole, Annotations, on this whole passage.

77. Well, but it may be you do not believe even this. You do not hold any decree of reprobation. You do not think God decrees any man to be damned, nor hardens, irresistibly fits him for damnation. You only say, ‘God eternally decreed that, all being dead in sin, he would say to some of the dry bones, “Live”,

15

Cf. Ezek. 37:2-6.

and to others he would not; that consequently these should be made alive, and those abide in death

16

1 John 3:14.

—these should glorify God by their salvation, and those by their destruction.’

17

Cf. the quoted summaries of major reformed theologians on this point of reprobation and preterition in Heinrich Heppe, Reformed Dogmatics, ch. viii, §§22-32, pp. 178-89.

88. Is not this what you mean by ‘the election of grace’? If it be, I would ask one or two questions. Are any who are not thus elected, saved? Or were any, from the foundation of the world? Is it possible any man should be saved unless he be thus elected? If you say ‘No’, you are but where you was. You are not got one 03:547hair’s breadth further. You still believe that in consequence of an unchangeable, irresistible decree of God the greater part of mankind abide in death, without any possibility of redemption: inasmuch as none can save them but God; and he will not save them. You believe he hath absolutely decreed not to save them; and what is this but decreeing to damn them? It is, in effect, neither more nor less; it comes to the same thing. For if you are dead, and altogether unable to make yourself alive; then if God has absolutely decreed he will make others only alive, and not you, he hath absolutely decreed your everlasting death—you are absolutely consigned to damnation. So then, though you use softer words than some, you mean the selfsame thing. And God’s decree concerning the election of grace, according to your own account of it, amounts to neither more nor less than what others call, ‘God’s decree of reprobation’.

99. Call it therefore by whatever name you please—‘election’, ‘preterition’, ‘predestination’, or ‘reprobation’—it comes in the end to the same thing. The sense of all is plainly this: ‘By virtue of an eternal, unchangeable, irresistible decree of God, one part of mankind are infallibly saved, and the rest infallibly damned; it being impossible that any of the former should be damned, or that any of the latter should be saved.’

18

Cf. the pamphlet, Free Grace Indeed, p. 4, and Wesley’s footnote to the 1740, 1741, and 1754 edns. of this sermon: ‘That this is the true state of the question the anonymous author of a pamphlet lately published acknowledges (p. 4) in the following words: “You have been at some pains, sections 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8, to put the Calvinistical notion of election in a clear light.” You might have said all in less bounds, viz., “They hold an eternal, absolute, personal election of a certain number of Adam’s seed to salvation, without an antecedent respect to any qualification in them, and they leave you to conjecture how God shall deal with the rest.”’

1010. But if this be so, then is all preaching vain. It is needless to them that are elected. For they, whether with preaching or without, will infallibly be saved. Therefore the end of preaching, ‘to save souls’,

19

Cf. Jas. 5:19-20. See also Wesley’s letter to Christopher Hopper, Oct. 8, 1755: ‘You have one business on earth—to save souls.’ Also his letter to his brother Charles, Mar. 25, 1772: ‘Oh what a thing it is to have curam animarum [“the care of souls”]. You and I are called to this; to save souls from death, to watch over them as those that must give account.’ Also another letter to Charles, Apr. 26, 1772: ‘Your business as well as mine is to save souls. When we took priests’ orders, we undertook to make it our one business.’ See No. 142, ‘The Wisdom of Winning Souls’, II.

is void with regard to them. And it is useless to them that are not elected. For they cannot possibly be saved. They, whether with preaching or without, will infallibly be damned. The end of preaching is therefore void with regard to 03:548them likewise. So that in either case, our preaching is vain,

20

See 1 Cor. 15:14.

as your hearing is also vain.

1111. This then is a plain proof that the doctrine of predestination is not a doctrine of God, because it makes void the ordinance of God; and God is not divided against himself. A second is that it directly tends to destroy that holiness which is the end of all the ordinances of God. I do not say, ‘None who hold it are holy’ (for God is of tender mercy to those who are unavoidably entangled in errors of any kind), but that the doctrine itself—that every man is either elected or not elected from eternity, and that the one must inevitably be saved, and the other inevitably damned—has a manifest tendency to destroy holiness in general, for it wholly takes away those first motives to follow after it, so frequently proposed in Scripture: the hope of future reward and fear of punishment, the hope of heaven and fear of hell. That ‘these shall go away into everlasting punishment, and those into life eternal’

21

Cf. Matt. 25:46.

is no motive to him to struggle for life who believes his lot is cast already: it is not reasonable for him so to do if he thinks he is unalterably adjudged either to life or death. You will say, ‘But he knows not whether it is life or death.’ What then? This helps not the matter. For if a sick man knows that he must unavoidably die or unavoidably recover, though he knows not which, it is not reasonable for him to take any physic at all. He might justly say (and so I have heard some speak, both in bodily sickness and in spiritual), ‘If I am ordained to life, I shall live; if to death, I shall die. So I need not trouble myself about it.’ So directly does this doctrine tend to shut the very gate of holiness in general, to hinder unholy men from ever approaching thereto, or striving to enter in thereat.

1212. As directly does this doctrine tend to destroy several particular branches of holiness. Such are meekness and love: love, I mean, of our enemies, of the evil and unthankful. I say not that none who hold it have meekness and love (for as is the power of God, so is his mercy), but that it naturally tends to inspire or increase a sharpness or eagerness of temper which is quite contrary to the meekness of Christ

22

2 Cor. 10:1.

—as then especially appears, when they are opposed on this head. And it as naturally inspires contempt or coldness toward those whom we suppose outcasts 03:549from God. ‘Oh, (but you say) I suppose no particular man a reprobate.’ You mean, you would not, if you could help it. You can’t help sometimes applying your general doctrine to particular persons. The enemy of souls will apply it for you. You know how often he has done so. But you ‘rejected the thought with abhorrence’. True; as soon as you could. But how did it sour and sharpen your spirit in the meantime! You well know it was not the spirit of love which you then felt towards that poor sinner, whom you supposed or suspected, whether you would or no, to have been hated of God from eternity.

1313. Thirdly, this doctrine tends to destroy the comfort of religion, the happiness of Christianity. This is evident as to all those who believe themselves to be reprobated, or who only suspect or fear it. All the great and precious promises are lost to them. They afford them no ray of comfort. ‘For they are not the elect of God; therefore they have neither lot nor portion in them.’ This is an effectual bar to their finding any comfort or happiness, even in that religion whose ‘ways’ were designed to be ‘ways of pleasantness, and all her paths peace’.

23

Prov. 3:17.

1414. And as to you who believe yourselves the elect of God, what is your happiness? I hope, not a notion, a speculative belief, a bare opinion of any kind; but a feeling possession of God in your heart, wrought in you by the Holy Ghost; or, ‘the witness of God’s Spirit with your spirit, that you are a child of God’.

24

Cf. Rom. 8:16, and Wesley’s later sermons on this text: Nos. 10,‘The Witness of the Spirit, I’ (1746); and 11, The Witness of the Spirit, II (Apr. 4, 1767).

This, otherwise termed ‘the full assurance of faith’,

25

Heb. 10:22; cf. also Nos. 117, ‘On the Discoveries of Faith’, §15 and n.; and 3, ‘Awake, Thou That Steepest’, III.6 and n.

is the true ground of a Christian’s happiness. And it does indeed imply a full assurance that all your past sins are forgiven, and that you are now a child of God. But it does not necessarily imply a full assurance of our future perseverance. I do not say, ‘This is never joined to it,’ but that it is not necessarily implied therein; for many have the one who have not the other.

1515. Now, this witness of the Spirit experience shows to be much obstructed by this doctrine; and not only in those who, believing themselves reprobated, by this belief thrust it far from them, but even in them that have ‘tasted of that good gift’,

26

Cf. Heb. 6:4, 5.

who 03:550yet have soon lost it again, and fallen back into doubts, and fears, and darkness—‘horrible darkness that might be felt’.

27

Cf. Exod. 10:21.

And I appeal to any of you who hold this doctrine to say, between God and your own hearts, whether you have not often a return of doubts and fears concerning your election or perseverance? If you ask, ‘Who has not?’ I answer, ‘Very few of those that hold this doctrine.’ But many, very many of those that hold it not, in all parts of the earth; many of those who know and feel they are in Christ today, and ‘take no thought for the morrow’;

28

Matt. 6:34.

who ‘abide in him’

29

1 John 2:27, 28.

by faith from hour to hour, or rather from moment to moment. Many of these have enjoyed the uninterrupted witness of his Spirit, the continual light of his countenance,

30

See Ps. 4:6.

from the moment wherein they first believed, for many months or years to this day.

1616. That assurance of faith which these enjoy excludes all doubt and fear. It excludes all kind of doubt and fear concerning their future perseverance; though it is not properly (as was said before) an assurance of what is future, but only of what now is. And this needs not for its support a speculative belief that whoever is once ordained to live, must live. For it is wrought from hour to hour by the mighty power of God, ‘by the Holy Ghost which is given unto them’.

31

Rom. 5:5.

And therefore that doctrine is not of God, because it tends to obstruct, if not destroy, this great work of the Holy Ghost, whence flows the chief comfort of religion, the happiness of Christianity.

1717. Again, how uncomfortable a thought is this, that thousands and millions of men, without any preceding offence or fault of theirs, were unchangeably doomed to everlasting burnings!

32

Isa. 33:14.

How peculiarly uncomfortable must it be to those who have put on Christ!

33

Gal. 3:27.

To those who being filled with ‘bowels of mercy, tenderness, and compassion’,

34

Cf. Col. 3:12.

could even ‘wish themselves accursed for their brethren’s sake’.

35

Cf. Rom. 9:3.

1818. Fourthly, this uncomfortable doctrine directly tends to destroy our zeal for good works. And this it does, first, as it 03:551naturally tends (according to what was observed before) to destroy our love to the greater part of mankind, namely, the evil and unthankful. For whatever lessens our love must so far lessen our desire to do them good. This it does, secondly, as it cuts off one of the strongest motives to all acts of bodily mercy, such as feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and the like, viz., the hope of saving their souls from death. For what avails it to relieve their temporal wants who are just dropping into eternal fire?

36

Jude 7.

‘Well; but run and snatch them as brands out of the fire.’

37

See Zech. 3:2; cf. No. 4, Scriptural Christianity, II.2 and n.

Nay, this you suppose impossible. They were appointed thereunto, you say, from eternity, before they had done either good or evil. You believe it is the will of God they should die. And ‘who hath resisted his will?’

38

Rom. 9:19.

But you say you ‘do not know whether these are elected or not.’ What then? If you know they are one or the other, that they are either elected or not elected, all your labour is void and vain. In either case your advice, reproof, or exhortation, is as needless and useless as our preaching. It is needless to them that are elected; for they will infallibly be saved without it. It is useless to them that are not elected; for with or without it they will infallibly be damned. Therefore you cannot, consistently with your principles, take any pains about their salvation. Consequently those principles directly tend to destroy your zeal for good works—for all good works, but particularly for the greatest of all, the saving of souls from death.

39

See Jas. 5:20.

1919. But, fifthly, this doctrine not only tends to destroy Christian holiness, happiness, and good works, but hath also a direct and manifest tendency to overthrow the whole Christian revelation. The point which the wisest of the modern unbelievers most industriously labour to prove is that the Christian revelation is not necessary. They well know, could they once show this, the conclusion would be too plain to be denied. ‘If it be not necessary, it is not true.’ Now this fundamental point you give up. For supposing that eternal, unchangeable decree, one part of mankind must be saved, though the Christian revelation were not in being, and the other part of mankind must be damned, notwithstanding that revelation. And what would an infidel desire more? You allow him all he asks. In making the gospel thus unnecessary to all sorts of men you give up the whole Christian 03:552cause. ‘O tell it not in Gath! Publish it not in the streets of Askelon! Lest the daughters of the uncircumcised rejoice, lest the sons of unbelief triumph!’

40

Cf. 2 Sam. 1:20.

2020. And as this doctrine manifestly and directly tends to overthrow the whole Christian revelation, so it does the same thing, by plain consequence, in making that revelation contradict itself. For it is grounded on such an interpretation of some texts (more or fewer it matters not) as flatly contradicts all the other texts, and indeed the whole scope and tenor of Scripture. For instance: the asserters of this doctrine interpret that text of Scripture, ‘Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated,’

41

Rom. 9:13. One might, therefore, expect such an interpretation in Luther’s Lectures on Romans, Calvin’s Commentary, Poole’s Annotations (or even Karl Barth); nothing of the sort appears in any of them. Matthew Henry, himself a moderate Calvinist, knows of those who interpret this text as meaning God’s love to Jacob and hatred of Esau, ‘from eternity’. But, says he, ‘the Apostle speaks of Jacob and Esau not in their own persons but as ancestors…’ (see his Exposition).

as implying that God in a literal sense hated Esau and all the reprobated from eternity. Now what can possibly be a more flat contradiction than this, not only to the whole scope and tenor of Scripture, but also to all those particular texts which expressly declare, ‘God is love’?

42

1 John 4:16.

Again, they infer from that text, ‘I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy,’

Rom. 9:15.

that God is love only to some men, viz., the elect, and that he hath mercy for those only: flatly contrary to which is the whole tenor of Scripture, as is that express declaration in particular, ‘The Lord is loving unto every man, and his mercy is over all his works.’

Ps. 145:9 [(BCP); note the implied hermeneutical rule here which contrasts with Wesley’s typical emphasis upon literal interpretation; see No. 21, ‘Sermon on the Mount, I’, §6 and n.].

Again, they infer from that and the like texts, ‘It is not of him that willeth, neither of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy,’

43

Cf. Rom. 9:16.

that he showeth mercy only to those to whom he had respect from all eternity. ‘Nay, but who replieth against God’ now?

44

Cf. Rom. 9:20.

You now contradict the whole oracles of God, which declare throughout, ‘God is no respecter of persons;’

Acts 10:34.

‘There is no respect of persons with him.’

Rom. 2:11.

Again, from that text, ‘The children being not yet born, neither 03:553having done good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth, it was said unto her (unto Rebecca), ‘The elder shall serve the younger’

45

Rom. 9:11-12.

—you infer that our being predestinated or elect no way depends on the foreknowledge of God. Flatly contrary to this are all the Scriptures; and those in particular, ‘elect according to the foreknowledge of God’,

1 Pet. 1:2.

[and] ‘Whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate.’

Rom. 8:29.

2121. And, ‘The same Lord over all is rich in mercy to all that call upon him.’

Rom. 10:12.

But you say, ‘No: he is such only to those for whom Christ died. And those are not all, but only a few, “whom God hath chosen out of the world”; for he died not for all, but only for those who were “chosen in him before the foundation of the world”.’

Eph. 1:4.

Flatly contrary to your interpretation of these Scriptures also is the whole tenor of the New Testament; as are in particular those texts: ‘Destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ died’

Rom. 14:15.

—a clear proof that Christ died, not only for those that are saved, but also for them that perish; He is ‘the Saviour of the world’;

John 4:42.

He is ‘the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world’;

John 1:29.

‘He is the propitiation, not for our sins only, but also for the sins of the whole world;’

1 John 2:2.

‘He (the living God) is the Saviour of all men;’

1 Tim. 4:10.

‘He gave himself a ransom for all;’

1 Tim. 2:6.

‘He tasted death for every man.’

Heb. 2:9.

2222. If you ask, ‘Why then are not all men saved?’ the whole law and the testimony answer: first, not because of any decree of God, not because it is his pleasure they should die. For, ‘as I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth.’

Whatever be the cause of their perishing it cannot be his will, if the oracles of God are true; for they declare, ‘He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.’

2 Pet. 3:9.

He ‘willeth that all men should be saved’. And they, secondly, declare what is the cause why all men are not saved: namely, that they will not be saved. So our Lord expressly: ‘They will not come 03:554unto me that they may have life;’

John 5:40.

‘The power of the Lord is present to heal them,’ but they will not be healed. They ‘reject the counsel’, the merciful counsel ‘of God against themselves’, as did their stiff-necked forefathers. And therefore are they without excuse, because God would save them, but they will not be saved. This is the condemnation, ‘How often would I have gathered you together, and ye would not.’

Matt. 23:37.

2323. Thus manifestly does this doctrine tend to overthrow the whole Christian revelation, by making it contradict itself; by giving such an interpretation of some texts as flatly contradicts all the other texts, and indeed the whole scope and tenor of Scripture—an abundant proof that it is not of God. But neither is this all. For, seventhly, it is a doctrine full of blasphemy; of such blasphemy as I should dread to mention but that the honour of our gracious God and the cause of his truth will not suffer me to be silent. In the cause of God, then, and from a sincere concern for the glory of his great name, I will mention a few of the horrible blasphemies contained in this horrible doctrine. But first, I must warn every one of you that hears, as ye will answer it at the great day, not to charge me (as some have done) with blaspheming because I mention the blasphemy of others.

And the more you are grieved with them that do thus blaspheme, see that ye ‘confirm your love towards them’ the more, and that your heart’s desire and continual prayer to God be, ‘Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.’

2424. This premised, let it be observed that this doctrine represents our Blessed Lord—‘Jesus Christ the righteous’,

‘the only-begotten Son of the Father, full of grace and truth’—as an hypocrite, a deceiver of the people, a man void of common sincerity. For it cannot be denied that he everywhere speaks as if 03:555he was willing that all men should be saved. Therefore, to say he was not willing that all men should be saved is to represent him as a mere hypocrite and dissembler. It can’t be denied that the gracious words which came out of his mouth are full of invitations to all sinners. To say, then, he did not intend to save all sinners is to represent him as a gross deceiver of the people. You cannot deny that he says, ‘Come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden.’ If then you say he calls those that cannot come, those whom he knows to be unable to come, those whom he can make able to come but will not, how is it possible to describe greater insincerity? You represent him as mocking his helpless creatures by offering what he never intends to give. You describe him as saying one thing and meaning another; as pretending the love which he had not. Him ‘in whose mouth was no guile’ you make full of deceit, void of common sincerity. Then especially, when, drawing nigh the city, ‘he wept over it’, and said, ‘O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together…and ye would not:’ (ἠθέλησα…καὶ ούκ ἠθελήσατε). Now if you say, ‘They would’, but ‘he would not,’ you represent him (which who could hear?) as weeping crocodile’s tears, weeping over the prey which himself had doomed to destruction.

2525. Such blasphemy this, as one would think might make the ears of a Christian tingle. But there is yet more behind; for just as it honours the Son, so doth this doctrine honour the Father.

It destroys all his attributes at once. It overturns both his justice, mercy, and truth. Yea, it represents the most Holy God as worse than the devil; as both more false, more cruel, and more unjust. More false; because the devil, liar as he is, hath never said he ‘willeth all men to be saved’. More unjust; because the devil cannot, if he would, be guilty of such injustice as you ascribe to God when you say that God condemned millions of souls to everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels for continuing in sin, which for want of that grace he will not give them, they cannot avoid. And more cruel; because that unhappy 03:556spirit ‘seeketh rest and findeth none’; so that his own restless misery is a kind of temptation to him to tempt others. But God ‘resteth in his high and holy place’; so that to suppose him of his own mere motion, of his pure will and pleasure, happy as he is, to doom his creatures, whether they will or no, to endless misery, is to impute such cruelty to him as we cannot impute even to the great enemy of God and man. It is to represent the most high God (he that hath ears to hear, let him hear!) as more cruel, false, and unjust than the devil.

2626. This is the blasphemy clearly contained in ‘the horrible decree’

of predestination. And here I fix my foot. On this I join issue with every asserter of it. You represent God as worse than the devil—more false, more cruel, more unjust. But you say you will ‘prove it by Scripture’. Hold! What will you prove by Scripture? That God is worse than the devil? It cannot be. Whatever that Scripture proves, it never can prove this. Whatever its true meaning be, this cannot be its true meaning. Do you ask, ‘What is its true meaning, then?’ If I say, ‘I know not,’ you have gained nothing. For there are many Scriptures the true sense whereof neither you nor I shall know till death is swallowed up in victory. But this I know, better it were to say it had no sense at all than to say it had such a sense as this. It cannot mean, whatever it mean besides, that the God of truth is a liar. Let it mean what it will, it cannot mean that the Judge of all the world is unjust. No Scripture can mean that God is not love, or that his mercy is not over all his works. That is, whatever it prove beside, no Scripture can prove predestination.

2727. This is the blasphemy for which (however I love the persons who assert it) I abhor the doctrine of predestination: a doctrine upon the supposition of which, if one could possibly 03:557suppose it for a moment (call it election, reprobation, or what you please, for all comes to the same thing) one might say to our adversary the devil:

‘Thou fool, why dost thou roar about any longer? Thy lying in wait for souls is as needless and useless as our preaching. Hearest thou not that God hath taken thy work out of thy hands? And that he doth it much more effectually? Thou, with all thy principalities and powers, canst only so assault that we may resist thee; but he can irresistibly destroy both body and soul in hell! Thou canst only entice; but his unchangeable decree to leave thousands of souls in death compels them to continue in sin till they drop into everlasting burnings. Thou temptest; he forceth us to be damned; for we cannot resist his will. Thou fool, why goest thou about any longer seeking whom thou mayest devour? Hearest thou not that God is the devouring lion, the destroyer of souls, the murderer of men? Moloch caused only children to pass through the fire; and that fire was soon quenched; or, the corruptible body being consumed, its torment was at an end. But God, thou art told, by his eternal decree, fixed before they had done good or evil, causes not only “children of a span long” but the parents also to pass through the fire of hell—that “fire which never shall be quenched”; and the body which is cast thereinto, being now incorruptible and immortal, will be ever consuming, and never consumed, but “the smoke of their torment”, because it is God’s good pleasure, “ascendeth up for ever and ever”.’

2828. O how would the enemy of God and man rejoice to hear these things were so! How would he cry aloud and spare not! How would he lift up his voice and say: ‘To your tents, O Israel!

Flee from the face of this God, or ye shall utterly perish. But whither will ye flee? Into heaven? He is there. Down to hell? He is there also. Ye cannot flee from an omnipresent, almighty tyrant. And whether ye flee or stay, I call heaven his throne, and earth his footstool to witness against you, ye shall perish, ye shall die eternally. Sing, O hell, and rejoice ye that are under the earth! For God, even the mighty God, hath spoken, and devoted to death 03:558thousands of souls, from the rising up of the sun unto the going down thereof. Here, O death, is thy sting! They shall not, cannot escape; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. Here, O grave, is thy victory! Nations yet unborn, or ever they have done good or evil, are doomed never to see the light of life, but thou shalt gnaw upon them for ever and ever. Let all those morning stars sing together who fell with Lucifer, son of the morning. Let all the sons of hell shout for joy! For the decree is past, and who shall disannul it?’

2929. Yea, the decree is past. And so it was before the foundation of the world.

But what decree? Even this: ‘“I will set before” the sons of men “life and death, blessing and cursing”; and the soul that chooseth life shall live, as the soul that chooseth death shall die.’ This decree, whereby ‘whom God did foreknow, he did predestinate,’ was indeed from everlasting. This, whereby all who suffer Christ to make them alive are ‘elect, according to the foreknowledge of God’, now ‘standeth fast, even as the moon, and as the faithful witness in heaven’. And when heaven and earth shall pass away, yet this shall not pass away; for it is as unchangeable and eternal as is the being of God that gave it. This decree yields the strongest encouragement to abound in all good works, and in all holiness; and it is a well-spring of joy, of happiness also, to our great and endless comfort. This is worthy of God. It is every way consistent with all the perfections of his nature. It gives us the noblest view both of his justice, mercy, and truth. To this agrees the whole scope of the Christian revelation, as well as all the parts thereof. To this Moses and all the prophets bear witness, and our blessed Lord and all his apostles. Thus Moses, in the name of his Lord: ‘I call heaven and earth to record against you this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that thou and thy seed may live.’ Thus Ezekiel (to cite one prophet for all): ‘The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear (eternally) the 03:559iniquity of the father. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.’

[Ezek.] 18:20.

Thus our blessed Lord: ‘If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink.’

John 7:37.

Thus his great Apostle, St. Paul: ‘God commandeth all men everywhere to repent.’

Acts 17:30.

‘All men, everywhere’—every man in every place, without any exception, either of place or person. Thus St. James: ‘If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him.’

Jas. 1:5.

Thus St. Peter: ‘The Lord is…not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.’

2 Pet. 3:9.

And thus St. John: ‘If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, …and he is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world.’

1 John 2:1-2.

3030. O hear ye this, ye that forget God! Ye cannot charge your death upon him. ‘Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die, saith the Lord God? Repent, and turn from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin. Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; …for why will ye die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God. Wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye.’

‘As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, … Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?’

Ezek. 33:11.

Universal Redemption