Page 15 - Absolute Predestination With Observations On The Divine Attributes

Likewise, when He told King Hezekiah by the prophet Isaiah, "Set thine house
in order, for thou shalt die and not live," the meaning was that with respect to
second causes, and, considering the king's bad state of health and emaciated
constitution, he could not, humanly speaking, live much longer. But still the

event showed that God had immutably determined that he should live fifteen
years more, and in order to that had put it into his heart to pray for the blessing
decreed, just as, in the case of Nineveh, lately mentioned, God had resolved not

to overthrow that city then; and, in order to the accomplishment of His own
purpose in a way worthy of Himself, made the ministry of Jonah the means of
leading that people to repentance. All which, as it shows that God's absolute

predestination does not set aside the use of means, so does it likewise prove
that, however various the declarations of God may appear (to wit, when they
proceed on a regard had to natural causes), His counsels and designs stand firm

and immovable, and can neither admit of alteration in themselves, nor of
hindrance in their execution. See this farther explained by Bucer in Rom. ix.,
where you will find the certainty of the Divine appointment solidly asserted and

unanswerably vindicated.

THE OMNIPOTENCE OF GOD.

IV.—We now come to consider THE OMNIPOTENCE OF GOD.

POSITION 1.—God is, in the most unlimited and absolute sense of the word,
Almighty. "Behold Thou hast made the heaven and the earth by Thy great

power and stretched-out arm, and there is nothing too hard for Thee" (Jer.
32.17). "With God all things are possible" (Matt. 19.26). The schoolmen, very
properly, distinguish the omnipotence of God into absolute and actual: by the

former, God might do many things which He does not; by the latter, He actually
does whatever He will. For instance, God might, by virtue of His absolute
power, have made more worlds than He has. He might have eternally saved

every individual of mankind, without reprobating any; on the other hand, He
might, and that with the strictest justice, have condemned all men and saved
none. He could, had it been His pleasure, have prevented the fall of angels and

men, and thereby have hindered sin from having footing in and among His
creatures. By virtue of His actual power He made the universe; executes the
whole counsel of His will, both in heaven and earth; governs and influences
both men and things, according to His own pleasure; fixes the bounds which