a station or encampment of the Israelites, Exod. xvii, 1. At
this station, adjoining to Mount Horeb, the people again murmured for
want of water; and they chid Moses, saying, “Give us water that we may
drink.” And “they tempted the Lord, saying, Is the Lord among us or
not?” Moses, therefore, to convince them that he was, by a more obvious
miracle than at Marah, smote the rock with his rod, by the divine
command, and brought water out of it for the people to drink: wherefore,
he called the place Meribah, “chiding,” and the rock Massah,
“temptation.” On their way to Rephidim, the Amalekites, the original
inhabitants of the country, who are noticed in Abraham’s days, Gen. xiv,
7, not having the fear of God before their eyes, nor regarding the
judgments recently inflicted on the Egyptians, attacked the rear of the
Israelites when they were faint and weary; but were defeated by a chosen
party, under the command of Joshua, the faithful lieutenant of Moses,
who is first noticed on this occasion, and even then pointed out by the
Lord as his successor. This victory was miraculous; for while Moses held
up his hand Israel prevailed, but when he let it down Amalek prevailed.
So Aaron and Hur (the husband of Miriam, according to Josephus) held up
both his hands steadily till sunset, and thereby gave a decided victory
to Israel. This unprovoked aggression of the Amalekites drew down upon
them from the Lord the sentence of “war from generation to generation,”
between them and the Israelites, and of final extermination, which was
commanded to be written or registered in a book, for a memorial to
Joshua and his successors, the judges and kings of Israel, and was
carried into execution by Saul, 1 Sam. xv, 8, by David, 1 Sam. xxx, 17,
and finally accomplished by the Simeonites in Hezekiah’s reign, Exod.
xvii, 8–13; Deut. xxv, 17; 1 Chron. iv, 43. While the Israelites were
encamped at Rephidim, on the western side of Horeb, the mount of God,
Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, who lived in that neighbourhood, and
was priest and prince of Midian, came to visit him, with his wife
Zipporah, and his two sons, Eleazar and Gershom, who had accompanied him
part of the way to Egypt, but returned home again; and they rejoiced
with him “for all the goodness which the Lord had done for Israel, whom
he had delivered out of the hand of the Egyptians;” and upon this
occasion, Jethro, as “a priest of the most high God,” of the order of
Melchizedek, “offered a burnt-offering and sacrifices of thanksgiving to
God, at which Aaron and all the elders of Israel ate bread with Jethro
before God,” by a repetition of the eucharistic feast upon a sacrifice
which Melchizedek formerly administered to Abraham, Gen. xiv, 18; Exod.
xviii, 1–12. Thus was fulfilled the prophetic sign which the Lord had
given to Moses when he first appeared to him in the burning bush: “This
shall be a token unto thee that I have sent thee: when thou hast brought
forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain,”
Exod, iii, 12. The speedy accomplishment, therefore, of this sign, at
the beginning of their journey, was well calculated to strengthen their
faith or reliance on the divine protection throughout. Jethro appears to
have been distinguished not only for his piety, but also for his
political wisdom. By his advice, which also was approved by the Lord,
Moses, to relieve himself from the fatigue of administering justice to
the people, the whole day, from morning until evening, instituted
inferior judges or magistrates over thousands, hundreds, fifties, and
tens, as his deputies, who were to relieve him from the burden of
judging the smaller causes, but to refer the greater or more difficult
to Moses, for his decision.
REPROBATION is equivalent to rejection. Rejection always implies a
cause: “Reprobate silver shall men call them, insomuch that the Lord
hath rejected them,” Jer. vi, 30; that is, they are base metal, which
will not bear the proof. Conditional reprobation, or rejecting men from
the divine mercy, because of their impenitence or refusal of salvation,
is a Scriptural doctrine; but to the unconditional, absolute reprobation
of the rigid Calvinists, the following objections may be urged:--
1. It cannot be reconciled to the love of God. “God is love.” “He is
loving to every man, and his tender mercies are over all his works.”
2. Nor to the wisdom of God; for the bringing into being a vast number
of intelligent creatures under a necessity of sinning, and of being
eternally lost, teaches no moral lesson to the world; and contradicts
all those notions of wisdom in the ends and processes of government,
which we are taught to look for, not only from natural reason, but from
the Scriptures.
3. Nor to the grace of God, which is so often magnified in the
Scriptures; for doth it argue any sovereign or high strain, any
superabounding richness of grace or mercy in any man, when ten thousand
have equally offended him, only to pardon one or two of them? Or in what
sense has “the grace of God appeared unto all men,” or even to
one-millionth part of them?
4. Nor can this merciless reprobation be reconciled to any of those
numerous passages in which almighty God is represented as tenderly
compassionate and pitiful to the worst and most unworthy of his
creatures, even them who finally perish. “I have no pleasure in the
death of him that dieth.” “Being grieved at the hardness of their
hearts.” “How often would I have gathered thy children together, as a
hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!” “The Lord
is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish.” “Or
despisest thou the riches of his goodness, and forbearance, and
long-suffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to
repentance?”
5. It is as manifestly contrary to his justice. Here, indeed, we would
not assume to measure this attribute of God by unauthorized human
conceptions; but when God himself has appealed to those established
notions of justice and equity which have been received among all
enlightened persons, in all ages, as the measure and rule of his own, we
cannot be charged with this presumption. “Shall not the Judge of all the
earth do right?” “Are not my ways equal? saith the Lord.” We may then be
bold to affirm that justice and equity in God are what they are taken to
be among reasonable men; and if all men every where would condemn it, as
most contrary to justice and right, that a sovereign should condemn to
death one or more of his subjects for not obeying laws which it is
absolutely impossible for them, under any circumstances which they can
possibly avail themselves of, to obey, and much more the greater part of
his subjects; and to require them, on pain of aggravated punishment, to
do something in order to the pardon and remission of their offences,
which he knows they cannot do, say to stop the tide or to remove a
mountain; it implies a charge as obviously unjust against God, who is
“just in the judgments which he executeth,” to suppose him to act
precisely in the same manner in regard to those whom he has passed by
and rejected, without any avoidable fault of their own; to destroy them
by the simple rule of his own sovereignty, or, in other words, to show
that he has power to do it. In whatever light the subject be viewed, no
fault, in any right construction, can be chargeable upon the persons so
punished, or, as we may rather say, destroyed, since punishment supposes
a judicial proceeding, which this act shuts out. For either the
reprobates are destroyed for a pure reason of sovereignty without any
reference to their sinfulness, and thus all criminality is left out of
the consideration; or they are destroyed for the sin of Adam, to which
they were not consenting; or for personal faults resulting from a
corruption of nature which they brought into the world with them, and
which God wills not to correct, and which they have no power to correct
themselves. Every received notion of justice is thus violated. We grant,
indeed, that some proceedings of the Almighty may appear at first
irreconcilable with justice, which are not so; as that we should suffer
pain and death, and be infected with a morally corrupt nature, in
consequence of the transgression of our first progenitors; that children
should suffer for their parents’ faults in the ordinary course of
providence; and that in general calamities the comparatively innocent
should suffer the same evils as the guilty. But none of these are
parallel cases. For the “free gift” has come upon all men, “to
justification of life,” through “the righteousness” of the second Adam,
so that the terms of our probation are but changed. None are doomed to
inevitable ruin, or the above words of the Apostle would have no
meaning; and pain and death, as to all who avail themselves of the
remedy, are made the instruments of a higher life, and of a
superabounding of grace through Christ. The same observation may be made
as to children who suffer evils for their parents’ faults. This
circumstance alters the terms of their probation; but if every condition
of probation leaves to men the possibility and the hope of eternal life,
and the circumstances of all are balanced and weighed by Him who
administers the affairs of individuals on principles, the end of which
is to turn all the evils of life into spiritual and higher blessings,
there is, obviously, no impeachment of justice in the circumstances of
the probation assigned to any person whatever. As to the innocent
suffering equally with the guilty in general calamities, the persons so
suffering are but comparatively innocent, and their personal
transgressions against God deserve a higher punishment than any which
this life witnesses; this may also as to them be overruled for merciful
purposes, and a future life presents its manifold compensations. But as
to the non-elect, the whole case, in this scheme of sovereign
reprobation, or sovereign preterition, is supposed to be before us.
Their state is fixed, their afflictions in this life will not in any
instance be overruled for ends of edification and salvation; they are
left under a necessity of sinning in every condition; and a future life
presents no compensation, but a fearful looking for of fiery and
quenchless indignation. It is surely not possible for the ingenuity of
man to reconcile this to any notion of just government which has ever
obtained; and by the established notions of justice and equity in human
affairs, we are taught by the Scriptures themselves to judge of the
divine proceedings in all completely stated and comprehensible cases.
6. Equally impossible is it to reconcile this notion to the sincerity of
God in offering salvation by Christ to all who hear the Gospel, of whom
this scheme supposes the majority, or at least great numbers to be
among, the reprobate. The Gospel, as we have seen, is commanded to be
preached to every creature; which publication of good news to every
creature is an offer of salvation to every creature, accompanied with
earnest invitations to embrace it, and admonitory comminations lest any
should neglect and despise it. But does it not involve a serious
reflection upon the truth and sincerity of God which men ought to
shudder at, to assume, that at the very time the Gospel is thus
preached, no part of this good news was ever designed to benefit the
majority, or any great part, of those to whom it is addressed? that they
to whom this love of God in Christ is proclaimed were never loved by
God? that he has decreed that many to whom he offers salvation, and whom
he invites to receive it, shall never be saved? and that he will
consider their sins aggravated by rejecting that which they never could
receive, and which he never designed them to receive? It is no answer to
this to say that we also admit that the offers of mercy are made by God
to many whom he, by virtue of his prescience, knows will never receive
them. We grant this; but it is enough to reply, that in this case there
is no insincerity. On the Calvinian scheme the offer of salvation is
made to those for whose sins Christ made no atonement; on the other, he
made atonement for the sins of all. On the former, the offer is made to
those whom God never designed to embrace it; on the latter to none but
those whom God seriously and in truth wills that they should avail
themselves of it; on one theory, the bar to the salvation of the
nonelect lies in the want of a provided sacrifice for sin; on the other,
it rests solely in men themselves; one consists, therefore, with a
perfect sincerity of offer, the other cannot be maintained without
bringing the sincerity of God into question, and fixing a stigma upon
his moral truth.
7. Unconditional reprobation cannot be reconciled with that frequent
declaration of Scripture, that “God is no respecter of persons.” This
phrase, we grant, is not to be interpreted as though the bounties of the
Almighty were dispensed in equal measures to his creatures. In the
administration of favour, there is place for the exercise of that
prerogative which, in a just sense, is called the sovereignty of God;
but justice knows but of one rule; it is, in its nature, settled and
fixed, and looks not at the _person_, but the _case_. To have respect of
persons is a phrase, therefore, in Scripture, which sometimes refers to
judicial proceedings, and signifies to judge from partiality and
affection, and not upon the merits of the question. It is also used by
St. Peter with reference to the acceptance of Cornelius: “Of a truth I
perceive that God is no respecter of persons; but in every nation he
that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.” Here
it is clear, that to respect persons, would be to reject or accept them
without regard to their moral qualities, and on some national and other
prejudice or partiality which forms no moral rule of any kind. But, if
the doctrine of absolute election and reprobation be true; if we are to
understand that men like Jacob and Esau, in the Calvinistic construction
of the passage, while in the womb of their mother, nay, from eternity,
are loved and hated, elected or reprobated, before they have done “good
or evil,” then it necessarily follows, that there is precisely this kind
of respect of persons with God; for his acceptance or rejection of men
stands on some ground of aversion or dislike, which cannot be resolved
into any moral rule, and has no respect to the merits of the case
itself; and if the Scripture affirms that there is no such respect of
persons with God, then the doctrine which implies it is contradicted by
inspired authority.
8. The doctrine of which we are showing the difficulties, brings with it
the repulsive and shocking opinion of the eternal punishment of infants.
Some Calvinists have, indeed, to get rid of the difficulty, or rather to
put it out of sight, consigned them to annihilation; but of the
annihilation of any human being there is no intimation in the word of
God. In order, therefore, to avoid the fearful consequence of admitting
the punishment of beings innocent as to all actual sin, there is no
other way than to suppose all children, dying in infancy, to be an
elected portion of mankind, which, however, would be a mere hypothesis
brought in to serve a theory without any evidence. That some of those
who, as they suppose, are under this sentence of reprobation, die in
their infancy, is, probably, what most Calvinists allow; and, if their
doctrine be received, cannot be denied; and it follows, therefore, that
all such infants are eternally lost. Now, we know that infants are not
lost, because our Lord gave it as a reason why little children ought not
to be hindered from coming unto him, that “of such is the kingdom of
heaven.” On which Calvin himself remarks, “In this word, ‘for of such is
the kingdom of heaven,’ Christ comprehends as well little children
themselves, as those who in disposition resemble them. _Hac voce, tam
parvulos, quam eorum similes, comprehendit._” We are assured of the
salvation of infants, also, because “the free gift has come upon all men
to,” in order to, “justification of life,” and because children are not
capable of rejecting that blessing, and must, therefore, derive benefit
from it. The point, also, on which we have just now touched, that “there
is no respect of persons with God,” demonstrates it. For, as it will be
acknowledged, that some children, dying in infancy, are saved, it must
follow, from this principle and axiom in the divine government, that all
infants are saved; for the case of all infants, as to innocence or
guilt, sin or righteousness, being the same, and God as a judge, being
“no respecter of persons,” but regarding only the merits of the case, he
cannot make this awful distinction as to them, that one part shall be
eternally saved and the other eternally lost. That doctrine, therefore,
which implies the perdition of infants, cannot be congruous to the
Scriptures of truth, but is utterly abhorrent to them.
Finally, not to multiply these instances of the difficulties which
accompany the doctrine of absolute reprobation, or of preterition, (to
use the milder term, though the argument is not in the least changed by
it,) it destroys the end of punitive justice. That end can only be, to
deter men from offence, and to add strength to the law of God. But if
the whole body of the reprobate are left to the influence of their
fallen nature without remedy, they cannot be deterred from sin by
threats of inevitable punishment; nor can they ever submit to the
dominion of the law of God: their doom is fixed, and threats and
examples can avail nothing.
this station, adjoining to Mount Horeb, the people again murmured for
want of water; and they chid Moses, saying, “Give us water that we may
drink.” And “they tempted the Lord, saying, Is the Lord among us or
not?” Moses, therefore, to convince them that he was, by a more obvious
miracle than at Marah, smote the rock with his rod, by the divine
command, and brought water out of it for the people to drink: wherefore,
he called the place Meribah, “chiding,” and the rock Massah,
“temptation.” On their way to Rephidim, the Amalekites, the original
inhabitants of the country, who are noticed in Abraham’s days, Gen. xiv,
7, not having the fear of God before their eyes, nor regarding the
judgments recently inflicted on the Egyptians, attacked the rear of the
Israelites when they were faint and weary; but were defeated by a chosen
party, under the command of Joshua, the faithful lieutenant of Moses,
who is first noticed on this occasion, and even then pointed out by the
Lord as his successor. This victory was miraculous; for while Moses held
up his hand Israel prevailed, but when he let it down Amalek prevailed.
So Aaron and Hur (the husband of Miriam, according to Josephus) held up
both his hands steadily till sunset, and thereby gave a decided victory
to Israel. This unprovoked aggression of the Amalekites drew down upon
them from the Lord the sentence of “war from generation to generation,”
between them and the Israelites, and of final extermination, which was
commanded to be written or registered in a book, for a memorial to
Joshua and his successors, the judges and kings of Israel, and was
carried into execution by Saul, 1 Sam. xv, 8, by David, 1 Sam. xxx, 17,
and finally accomplished by the Simeonites in Hezekiah’s reign, Exod.
xvii, 8–13; Deut. xxv, 17; 1 Chron. iv, 43. While the Israelites were
encamped at Rephidim, on the western side of Horeb, the mount of God,
Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, who lived in that neighbourhood, and
was priest and prince of Midian, came to visit him, with his wife
Zipporah, and his two sons, Eleazar and Gershom, who had accompanied him
part of the way to Egypt, but returned home again; and they rejoiced
with him “for all the goodness which the Lord had done for Israel, whom
he had delivered out of the hand of the Egyptians;” and upon this
occasion, Jethro, as “a priest of the most high God,” of the order of
Melchizedek, “offered a burnt-offering and sacrifices of thanksgiving to
God, at which Aaron and all the elders of Israel ate bread with Jethro
before God,” by a repetition of the eucharistic feast upon a sacrifice
which Melchizedek formerly administered to Abraham, Gen. xiv, 18; Exod.
xviii, 1–12. Thus was fulfilled the prophetic sign which the Lord had
given to Moses when he first appeared to him in the burning bush: “This
shall be a token unto thee that I have sent thee: when thou hast brought
forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain,”
Exod, iii, 12. The speedy accomplishment, therefore, of this sign, at
the beginning of their journey, was well calculated to strengthen their
faith or reliance on the divine protection throughout. Jethro appears to
have been distinguished not only for his piety, but also for his
political wisdom. By his advice, which also was approved by the Lord,
Moses, to relieve himself from the fatigue of administering justice to
the people, the whole day, from morning until evening, instituted
inferior judges or magistrates over thousands, hundreds, fifties, and
tens, as his deputies, who were to relieve him from the burden of
judging the smaller causes, but to refer the greater or more difficult
to Moses, for his decision.
REPROBATION is equivalent to rejection. Rejection always implies a
cause: “Reprobate silver shall men call them, insomuch that the Lord
hath rejected them,” Jer. vi, 30; that is, they are base metal, which
will not bear the proof. Conditional reprobation, or rejecting men from
the divine mercy, because of their impenitence or refusal of salvation,
is a Scriptural doctrine; but to the unconditional, absolute reprobation
of the rigid Calvinists, the following objections may be urged:--
1. It cannot be reconciled to the love of God. “God is love.” “He is
loving to every man, and his tender mercies are over all his works.”
2. Nor to the wisdom of God; for the bringing into being a vast number
of intelligent creatures under a necessity of sinning, and of being
eternally lost, teaches no moral lesson to the world; and contradicts
all those notions of wisdom in the ends and processes of government,
which we are taught to look for, not only from natural reason, but from
the Scriptures.
3. Nor to the grace of God, which is so often magnified in the
Scriptures; for doth it argue any sovereign or high strain, any
superabounding richness of grace or mercy in any man, when ten thousand
have equally offended him, only to pardon one or two of them? Or in what
sense has “the grace of God appeared unto all men,” or even to
one-millionth part of them?
4. Nor can this merciless reprobation be reconciled to any of those
numerous passages in which almighty God is represented as tenderly
compassionate and pitiful to the worst and most unworthy of his
creatures, even them who finally perish. “I have no pleasure in the
death of him that dieth.” “Being grieved at the hardness of their
hearts.” “How often would I have gathered thy children together, as a
hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!” “The Lord
is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish.” “Or
despisest thou the riches of his goodness, and forbearance, and
long-suffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to
repentance?”
5. It is as manifestly contrary to his justice. Here, indeed, we would
not assume to measure this attribute of God by unauthorized human
conceptions; but when God himself has appealed to those established
notions of justice and equity which have been received among all
enlightened persons, in all ages, as the measure and rule of his own, we
cannot be charged with this presumption. “Shall not the Judge of all the
earth do right?” “Are not my ways equal? saith the Lord.” We may then be
bold to affirm that justice and equity in God are what they are taken to
be among reasonable men; and if all men every where would condemn it, as
most contrary to justice and right, that a sovereign should condemn to
death one or more of his subjects for not obeying laws which it is
absolutely impossible for them, under any circumstances which they can
possibly avail themselves of, to obey, and much more the greater part of
his subjects; and to require them, on pain of aggravated punishment, to
do something in order to the pardon and remission of their offences,
which he knows they cannot do, say to stop the tide or to remove a
mountain; it implies a charge as obviously unjust against God, who is
“just in the judgments which he executeth,” to suppose him to act
precisely in the same manner in regard to those whom he has passed by
and rejected, without any avoidable fault of their own; to destroy them
by the simple rule of his own sovereignty, or, in other words, to show
that he has power to do it. In whatever light the subject be viewed, no
fault, in any right construction, can be chargeable upon the persons so
punished, or, as we may rather say, destroyed, since punishment supposes
a judicial proceeding, which this act shuts out. For either the
reprobates are destroyed for a pure reason of sovereignty without any
reference to their sinfulness, and thus all criminality is left out of
the consideration; or they are destroyed for the sin of Adam, to which
they were not consenting; or for personal faults resulting from a
corruption of nature which they brought into the world with them, and
which God wills not to correct, and which they have no power to correct
themselves. Every received notion of justice is thus violated. We grant,
indeed, that some proceedings of the Almighty may appear at first
irreconcilable with justice, which are not so; as that we should suffer
pain and death, and be infected with a morally corrupt nature, in
consequence of the transgression of our first progenitors; that children
should suffer for their parents’ faults in the ordinary course of
providence; and that in general calamities the comparatively innocent
should suffer the same evils as the guilty. But none of these are
parallel cases. For the “free gift” has come upon all men, “to
justification of life,” through “the righteousness” of the second Adam,
so that the terms of our probation are but changed. None are doomed to
inevitable ruin, or the above words of the Apostle would have no
meaning; and pain and death, as to all who avail themselves of the
remedy, are made the instruments of a higher life, and of a
superabounding of grace through Christ. The same observation may be made
as to children who suffer evils for their parents’ faults. This
circumstance alters the terms of their probation; but if every condition
of probation leaves to men the possibility and the hope of eternal life,
and the circumstances of all are balanced and weighed by Him who
administers the affairs of individuals on principles, the end of which
is to turn all the evils of life into spiritual and higher blessings,
there is, obviously, no impeachment of justice in the circumstances of
the probation assigned to any person whatever. As to the innocent
suffering equally with the guilty in general calamities, the persons so
suffering are but comparatively innocent, and their personal
transgressions against God deserve a higher punishment than any which
this life witnesses; this may also as to them be overruled for merciful
purposes, and a future life presents its manifold compensations. But as
to the non-elect, the whole case, in this scheme of sovereign
reprobation, or sovereign preterition, is supposed to be before us.
Their state is fixed, their afflictions in this life will not in any
instance be overruled for ends of edification and salvation; they are
left under a necessity of sinning in every condition; and a future life
presents no compensation, but a fearful looking for of fiery and
quenchless indignation. It is surely not possible for the ingenuity of
man to reconcile this to any notion of just government which has ever
obtained; and by the established notions of justice and equity in human
affairs, we are taught by the Scriptures themselves to judge of the
divine proceedings in all completely stated and comprehensible cases.
6. Equally impossible is it to reconcile this notion to the sincerity of
God in offering salvation by Christ to all who hear the Gospel, of whom
this scheme supposes the majority, or at least great numbers to be
among, the reprobate. The Gospel, as we have seen, is commanded to be
preached to every creature; which publication of good news to every
creature is an offer of salvation to every creature, accompanied with
earnest invitations to embrace it, and admonitory comminations lest any
should neglect and despise it. But does it not involve a serious
reflection upon the truth and sincerity of God which men ought to
shudder at, to assume, that at the very time the Gospel is thus
preached, no part of this good news was ever designed to benefit the
majority, or any great part, of those to whom it is addressed? that they
to whom this love of God in Christ is proclaimed were never loved by
God? that he has decreed that many to whom he offers salvation, and whom
he invites to receive it, shall never be saved? and that he will
consider their sins aggravated by rejecting that which they never could
receive, and which he never designed them to receive? It is no answer to
this to say that we also admit that the offers of mercy are made by God
to many whom he, by virtue of his prescience, knows will never receive
them. We grant this; but it is enough to reply, that in this case there
is no insincerity. On the Calvinian scheme the offer of salvation is
made to those for whose sins Christ made no atonement; on the other, he
made atonement for the sins of all. On the former, the offer is made to
those whom God never designed to embrace it; on the latter to none but
those whom God seriously and in truth wills that they should avail
themselves of it; on one theory, the bar to the salvation of the
nonelect lies in the want of a provided sacrifice for sin; on the other,
it rests solely in men themselves; one consists, therefore, with a
perfect sincerity of offer, the other cannot be maintained without
bringing the sincerity of God into question, and fixing a stigma upon
his moral truth.
7. Unconditional reprobation cannot be reconciled with that frequent
declaration of Scripture, that “God is no respecter of persons.” This
phrase, we grant, is not to be interpreted as though the bounties of the
Almighty were dispensed in equal measures to his creatures. In the
administration of favour, there is place for the exercise of that
prerogative which, in a just sense, is called the sovereignty of God;
but justice knows but of one rule; it is, in its nature, settled and
fixed, and looks not at the _person_, but the _case_. To have respect of
persons is a phrase, therefore, in Scripture, which sometimes refers to
judicial proceedings, and signifies to judge from partiality and
affection, and not upon the merits of the question. It is also used by
St. Peter with reference to the acceptance of Cornelius: “Of a truth I
perceive that God is no respecter of persons; but in every nation he
that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.” Here
it is clear, that to respect persons, would be to reject or accept them
without regard to their moral qualities, and on some national and other
prejudice or partiality which forms no moral rule of any kind. But, if
the doctrine of absolute election and reprobation be true; if we are to
understand that men like Jacob and Esau, in the Calvinistic construction
of the passage, while in the womb of their mother, nay, from eternity,
are loved and hated, elected or reprobated, before they have done “good
or evil,” then it necessarily follows, that there is precisely this kind
of respect of persons with God; for his acceptance or rejection of men
stands on some ground of aversion or dislike, which cannot be resolved
into any moral rule, and has no respect to the merits of the case
itself; and if the Scripture affirms that there is no such respect of
persons with God, then the doctrine which implies it is contradicted by
inspired authority.
8. The doctrine of which we are showing the difficulties, brings with it
the repulsive and shocking opinion of the eternal punishment of infants.
Some Calvinists have, indeed, to get rid of the difficulty, or rather to
put it out of sight, consigned them to annihilation; but of the
annihilation of any human being there is no intimation in the word of
God. In order, therefore, to avoid the fearful consequence of admitting
the punishment of beings innocent as to all actual sin, there is no
other way than to suppose all children, dying in infancy, to be an
elected portion of mankind, which, however, would be a mere hypothesis
brought in to serve a theory without any evidence. That some of those
who, as they suppose, are under this sentence of reprobation, die in
their infancy, is, probably, what most Calvinists allow; and, if their
doctrine be received, cannot be denied; and it follows, therefore, that
all such infants are eternally lost. Now, we know that infants are not
lost, because our Lord gave it as a reason why little children ought not
to be hindered from coming unto him, that “of such is the kingdom of
heaven.” On which Calvin himself remarks, “In this word, ‘for of such is
the kingdom of heaven,’ Christ comprehends as well little children
themselves, as those who in disposition resemble them. _Hac voce, tam
parvulos, quam eorum similes, comprehendit._” We are assured of the
salvation of infants, also, because “the free gift has come upon all men
to,” in order to, “justification of life,” and because children are not
capable of rejecting that blessing, and must, therefore, derive benefit
from it. The point, also, on which we have just now touched, that “there
is no respect of persons with God,” demonstrates it. For, as it will be
acknowledged, that some children, dying in infancy, are saved, it must
follow, from this principle and axiom in the divine government, that all
infants are saved; for the case of all infants, as to innocence or
guilt, sin or righteousness, being the same, and God as a judge, being
“no respecter of persons,” but regarding only the merits of the case, he
cannot make this awful distinction as to them, that one part shall be
eternally saved and the other eternally lost. That doctrine, therefore,
which implies the perdition of infants, cannot be congruous to the
Scriptures of truth, but is utterly abhorrent to them.
Finally, not to multiply these instances of the difficulties which
accompany the doctrine of absolute reprobation, or of preterition, (to
use the milder term, though the argument is not in the least changed by
it,) it destroys the end of punitive justice. That end can only be, to
deter men from offence, and to add strength to the law of God. But if
the whole body of the reprobate are left to the influence of their
fallen nature without remedy, they cannot be deterred from sin by
threats of inevitable punishment; nor can they ever submit to the
dominion of the law of God: their doom is fixed, and threats and
examples can avail nothing.