Page 55 - Absolute Predestination With Observations On The Divine Attributes

indeed if we will not allow the Sovereign, the all-wise Governor of heaven and
earth, the same privilege and liberty we allow to a supreme magistrate below.

(4) Nor is God, in choosing some and rejecting others, a respecter of persons.

He only comes under that title who, on account of parentage, country, dignity,
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wealth, or for any other external consideration, shows more favour to one
person than to another. But that is not the case with God. He considers all men
as sinners by nature, and has compassion not on persons of this or that sect,
country, sex, age, or station in life, because they are so circumstanced, but on

whom, and because, He will have compassion. Pertinent to the present purpose
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is that passage of Augustine: "Forasmuch as some people imagine that they
must look on God as a respecter of persons if they believe that without any
respect had to the previous merits of men, He hath mercy on whom He will, and
calls whom it is His pleasure to call, and makes good whom He pleases. The

scrupulousness of such people arises from their not duly attending to this one
thing, namely, that damnation is rendered to the wicked as a matter of debt,
justice, and desert, whereas the grace given to those who are delivered is free

and unmerited, so that the condemned sinner cannot allege that he is unworthy
of his punishment, nor the saint vaunt or boast as if he was worthy of his
reward. Thus, in the whole course of this procedure, there is no respect of
persons. They who are condemned and they who are set at liberty constituted

originally one and the same lump, equally infected with sin and liable to
vengeance. Hence the justified may learn from the condemnation of the rest that
that would have been their own punishment had not God's free grace stepped in

to their rescue."

Before I conclude this head, I will obviate a fallacious objection very common

in the mouths of our opponents. "How," they say, "is the doctrine of reprobation
reconcilable with the doctrine of a future judgment?" To which I answer that
there need be no pains to reconcile these two, since they are so far from

interfering with each other that one follows from the other, and the former
renders the latter absolutely necessary. Before the judgment of the great day,
Christ does not so much act as the Judge of His creatures as their absolute Lord
and Sovereign. From the first creation to the final consummation of all things

He does, in consequence of His own eternal and immutable purpose (as a
Divine Person), graciously work in and on His own elect, and permissively

harden the reprobate. But when all the transactions of providence and grace are
wound up in the last day, He will then properly sit as Judge, and openly publish
and solemnly ratify, if I may so say, His everlasting decrees by receiving the