Page 73 - Absolute Predestination With Observations On The Divine Attributes

V.—Without the doctrine of predestination we cannot enjoy a lively sight and
experience of God's special love and mercy towards us in Christ Jesus.
Blessings, not peculiar, but conferred indiscriminately on every man, without
distinction or exception, would neither be a proof of peculiar love in the donor

nor calculated to excite peculiar wonder and gratitude in the receiver. For
instance, rain from heaven, though an invaluable benefit, is not considered as an
argument of God's special favour to some individuals above others: and why?

because it falls on all alike, as much on the rude wilderness and the barren rock
as on the cultivated garden and the fruitful field. But the blessing of election,
somewhat like the Sibylline books, rises in value, proportionably to the fewness

of its objects. So that, when we recollect that in the view of God (to whom all
things are at once present) the whole mass of mankind was considered as justly
liable to condemnation on account of original and actual iniquity, His selecting

some individuals from among the rest and graciously setting them apart in
Christ for salvation both from sin and punishment, were such acts of sovereign
goodness as exhibit the exceeding greatness and the entire freeness of His love

in the most awful, amiable and humbling light.

In order, then, that the special grace of God may shine, predestination must be
preached, even the eternal and immutable predestination of His people to faith

and everlasting life. "From those who are left under the power of guilt," says
Augustine, "the person who is delivered from it may learn what he too must
have suffered had not grace stepped in to his relief. And if it was that grace that

interposed, it could not be the reward of man's merit, but the free gift of God's
gratuitous goodness. Some, however, call it unjust for one to be delivered while
another, though no more guilty than the former, is condemned; if it be just to

punish one, it would be but justice to punish both. I grant that both might have
been justly punished. Let us therefore give thanks unto God our Saviour for not
inflicting that vengeance on us, which, from the condemnation of our fellow-
sinners, we may conclude to have been our desert, no less than theirs. Had they

as well as we been ransomed from their captivity, we could have framed but
little conception of the penal wrath due, in strictness of justice, to sin; and, on

the other hand, had none of the fallen race been ransomed and set at liberty, how
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could Divine grace have displayed the riches of its liberality?" The same
evangelical father delivers himself elsewhere to the same effect. "Hence," says

he, "appears the greatness of that grace by which so many are freed from
condemnation, and they may form some idea of the misery, due to themselves,
from the dreadfulness of the punishment that awaits the rest. Whence those who