Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors Part 27

The non-elect may be often better men than the elect; but they will not be saved.

The only place where Augustine allows freedom is in Adam, who might have turned either way.

Semi-Pelagianism consists essentially in saying, "Man begins the work; G.o.d aids him."

Augustine's view was carried out afterwards thus: "If G.o.d does all, it is no use to preach, exhort, or read Scripture, or use any means of grace."

Augustine had said that reprobation was not a decree to sin, but to punishment.

But Gottschalk, his follower, said it was a decree to _sin_. The Church rejected this statement, and softened the doctrine. Thomas Aquinas revived it again.

Luther and Calvin both maintained that there is no good in man after the fall. Flacius said that original sin is the substance of human nature, and human nature now bears the image of the devil.

Luther made freedom of the will to consist in doing evil with pleasure, and not by constraint.

Calvin denied that there is any free will. "Why give it such a lofty t.i.tle?" he said. He seemed to think that all the power left to men is so much taken from G.o.d.

When G.o.d says, "Do this and live," it is, says Luther, merely irony on his part, as though he had said, "See if you can do it! Try it."

Luther actually taught that G.o.d's will in revealed Scripture was, that all should be saved, but his real and secret will was, that _not all_ should be saved.

Melancthon said, "Man has no power by himself to do right; but when grace is offered, he can receive it or reject it."

Calvin went beyond Augustine. He taught that,-

1. The decree of predestination was not merely a decree to punishment, but to sin. He rejects with scorn the distinction between permitting and causing, between foreknowledge and predestination. He says it is improper to have G.o.d's decree waiting on men's choice.

2. He taught that Adam's sin was decreed by G.o.d. The Infralapsarian taught that G.o.d foresaw that Adam would sin, and so decreed some men to life, and others to death. The Supralapsarian taught that G.o.d determined to reveal his majesty, and mercy, and justice. He created men, and made them miserable to show his mercy, and made them sinful to show his justice.

3. If men complain that G.o.d has so created them, Calvin answers, G.o.d has the same right that the potter has over the clay. If they complain that G.o.d has chosen some, and not others, to life, he replies, that so oxen, horses, and sheep might complain that they were not men.

4. G.o.d causes the sin which he forbids. This is not a contradiction in him, for his nature is different from ours.

G.o.d created all for his own glory, and sinners to glorify his justice.

Finally, Calvin himself admits that this is "a horrible decree."

-- 5. Election is to Work and Opportunity here, not to Heaven hereafter.

How Jacob was elected, and how the Jews were a Chosen People.

This _reductio ad absurdum_ disproves the common idea of election. If a man were elected by G.o.d to heaven, and so could not help going to heaven, it would not be worth his while to give diligence to make his calling and election sure. It is sure already, without any diligence.

The common Orthodox idea of election is, therefore, a false one. G.o.d does not elect, or choose us, for pa.s.sive enjoyment, but for active duty. He elects us to opportunities. He elects, or, as we may say, selects, us for certain special work, gives us certain special privileges, and holds us to an accountability for the use of them.

In the parable of the talents, G.o.d elected, or selected, one man to the possession of five talents, another to the possession of two, and another one. Each was elected; but each was elected to opportunities, and each to a different opportunity; but they all had to give diligence to make their calling and election sure.

The word "elect" was first applied to the Jews. They were an elect or chosen people. They were selected from among all nations for a great duty and opportunity. They were taught the _unity of G.o.d_ and his _holiness_.

They were a city set on a hill, a light s.h.i.+ning in the darkness of the world, to proclaim these truths. That was their opportunity. It was not happiness, or heaven, or even goodness, that they were chosen for, but WORK. As long as they continued to do this work, they continued to be G.o.d's chosen or selected people. But when they hardened into the bigotry of Phariseeism, and froze into the scepticism of Sadduceeism, when they ceased to do the work, then they ceased to be the elect people. While they were diligent to make their election sure, they were the elect, but no longer.

G.o.d selected Jacob and rejected Esau. "Jacob have I loved, and Esau have I hated." But how did G.o.d love Jacob? He loved him by giving him opportunity. And why? Not because he was better than Esau, but because he was different. Jacob was selected to be father of the chosen people because he had the qualities required for his work. Esau was wild, reckless, martial. Jacob was industrious, money-making, fond of small trade; pastoral, rather than warlike; tenacious of his ideas even to obstinacy. These were the qualities required in a people who were so few that if they had been warlike they would have been swept from the earth.

They never fought for the pleasure of fighting, but only when they could not help it, or when a political necessity compelled it. Though surrounded by nations much more powerful than themselves,-the a.s.syrians on the north-east at Nineveh, the Egyptians on the south-west, the Babylonians on the east, the Tyrians on the west, and the Greeks on the north-west,-they saw the fall of all these great nations and empires, but they continued.

Many waves of war swept over their Syrian hills, and left them still there, peaceful, industrious, wors.h.i.+pping Jehovah in their sacred city, offering no motive for conquest, too poor to tempt invasion, too far from the sea to grow rich by commerce, like the Phnicians. Their obscurity, poverty, and unheroic qualities were their salvation, and these they derived apparently from Jacob, their ancestor.

Thus we see that the Jews were a chosen people, and we see what they were chosen for, and also that they were chosen not because of superior virtue, but for superior capacity.

-- 6. How other Nations were elected and called.

Other nations were chosen, too, for other purposes. The Greeks also were a chosen people-chosen to develop the idea of beauty, as the Jews that of religion. Their mission was beauty in art and in literature. It was no accident that they came as they did from confluent races, flowing together from India and Phnicia, and settling in that sweet climate and romantic land, where the lovely aegean, tossing its soft blue waters on the resounding sh.o.r.e, tempted them to navigation, and awakened their intellect by the sight of many lands. There they did their work. They made their calling and election sure. Greek architecture-one birth of beauty after another-was born. Athens was crowned with marvellous temples, whose exquisite proportions amaze and charm us to-day-inimitable creations of beauty. Homer came, and then epic poetry was born. aeschylus and tragedy came; Pindar and the lyric song; Theophrastus and pastoral music; Anacreon and the strain which bears his special name. And so Phidias and his companions created sculpture, Herodotus history, Demosthenes oratory, Plato and Aristotle philosophy, Zeuxis painting, and Pericles statesmans.h.i.+p. This was their election, and they made it sure.

The Romans also had their chosen work. They were elected to develop the idea of LAW. A prosaic people, but filled with notions of justice, they developed jurisprudence. To show that a nation can be governed not by despotic will, nor by popular will, but by law,-this was the office of Rome. As long as it did this work it prospered; when it ceased to do it, it fell. All other races, no doubt, have their special calling too. Some make it sure; others seem to fail of making it sure, and so disappear.

Thus the election of the Jews shows a principle of G.o.d's government, and is not an exceptional case.

That which is true of nations and races is also true of religions and of Christian denominations. All Christians are a chosen people. They are chosen for the work of teaching to the human race the great doctrines of the fatherhood of G.o.d and the brotherhood of man. Other religions were sent to men too. Mohammed had his mission-to convert the idolatrous Arabs to Monotheism. The religions of Asia were intended to prepare the way for Christianity by teaching the elementary ideas of religion and morality.

-- 7. How different Denominations are elected.

Every great denomination, and small ones, too, are chosen to unfold some one Christian idea. The Catholic Church was chosen to carry forward the great central idea of unity-one Lord, one faith, one baptism. But the Catholic Church is not catholic enough: it has turned itself into a sect by excluding those who could not accept all its statements and methods, though they accepted Christ. The Jewish Church committed the same mistake.

When it became narrow, bigoted, exclusive, it left its first love; it then ceased to enlarge itself, and was obliged to disappear. The Jewish religion, and all positive religions, are like vases in which a plant is growing. While the plants are young, they hold them easily; but as the plants grow, the vases, incapable of expansion, are s.h.i.+vered by the enlarging roots. So that, unless the Roman Catholic Church can be liberalized and enlarged, it must break to pieces.

Whatever is said of Jews as the chosen and elect people is intended to show us a principle which must be applied to others. It is a principle very visible in their case, but not confined to them. It is the law of divine Providence. By what we see of its working in their case, we are able to see it in other cases, where it is less distinct and less apparent.

-- 8. How Individuals are elected.

And now let us apply the doctrine of election to individuals. When one is elected he is always elected to some special opportunity, which he can improve or not, and for which he is held accountable.

When G.o.d sends into the world a great and original genius, like Columbus, Sir Isaac Newton, Dante, Shakespeare, Mozart, Michael Angelo, Franklin, Was.h.i.+ngton, Byron, Napoleon, it is very plain that they are sent, provided with certain qualities, to do a certain work. It is evident that G.o.d meant Columbus to discover America, and Dante to write a poem. If Columbus had tried to write the "Inferno," and Dante had devoted himself to inventing a steam-engine, if Franklin had written sonnets and pastorals, and Isaac Newton had gone into trade, if Was.h.i.+ngton had composed symphonies, and Beethoven had travelled to discover the source of the Nile, they would not have made their calling and election sure. But such men (with an occasional exception, like that of Napoleon and Byron) were all faithful to their own inspiration, and each chose to abide in the calling in which he was called; and so each did the work G.o.d gave him to do in the world.

Napoleon and Byron did their work only partially, for they allowed their egotism to blind them, so as to lose sight of their mission after a while.

G.o.d sent Napoleon to bind together and organize the inst.i.tutions of a new time-to organize liberty. He did it for a season, and then sought, egotistically, only to build up himself and his dynasty; then his work came to a sudden end. For it is vanity and egotism which make us fail. We wish for some calling finer or n.o.bler than the calling G.o.d gives us; so we come to nothing.

In these great and s.h.i.+ning examples we are taught how G.o.d elects men, how he elects all men, and how he elects all to work. These are not the exceptional cases, as we are apt to suppose, but they are the ill.u.s.trations of a universal rule.

Every human being has his own gift and opportunity from G.o.d; some after this fas.h.i.+on, and others after that. If faithful, he can see what it is.