Page 87 - Absolute Predestination With Observations On The Divine Attributes

19. De Grat. and lib. Arb. a c. 1. usque ad c. 20.

20. Vid. Augustin. de Grat. and lib. Arbitr. c. 20 and 21, and Bucer in Rom. 1 sect. 7.

21. De Serv. Arb. c. 8 and 146 and 147, usq. ad c. 165. [s. 94, 82, 84 usq. ad. s. 96.]

22. De Serv. Arb. c. 160. [s. 93, 94.]

23. De Serv. Arb. c. 161. [s. 94.]

24. Compare also Exod. 3.22. with Exod. 20.15.

25. See Psalm 147.19,20.

26. The purpose of God does not seem to differ at all from predestination, that being, as well as this,

an eternal, free and unchangeable act of His will. Besides, the word "purpose," when predicated of
God in the New Testament, always denotes His design of saving His elect, and that only (Rom. 8.28,
9.11; Eph. 1.11, 3.11; 2 Tim. 1.9). As does the term "predestination," which throughout the whole
New Testament never signifies the appointment of the non-elect to wrath, but singly and solely the
fore-appointment of the elect to grace and glory, though, in common theological writings,
predestination is spoken of as extending to whatever God does, both in a way of permission and
efficiency, as, in the utmost sense of the term, it does. It is worthy of the reader's notice that the
original word, proqesiV which we render purpose, signifies not only an appointment, but a fore-
appointment, and such a fore-appointment as is efficacious and cannot be obstructed, but shall most
assuredly issue in a full accomplishment, which gave occasion to the following judicious remark of
a late learned writer: "proqesiVa Paulo sæpe usurpatur in electionis negotio, ad designandum
consilium hoc Dei non esse inanem quandam et inefficacem velleitatem; sed constans,
determinatum, et immutabile Dei propositum. Vox enim est efficaciæ summæ, ut notant grammatici
veteres; et signate vocatur a Paulo, proqesiV tou ta panta energentoV consilium illius, qui
efficaciter orania operatur ex beneplacito suo."—Turretin. Institut. Tom. 1, loc. 4, quæst. 7. s. 12.

27. When we say that the decree of predestination to life and death respects man as fallen, we do not
mean that the fall was actually antecedent to that decree, for the decree is truly and properly eternal,
as all God's immanent acts undoubtedly are, whereas the fall took place in time. What we intend,
then, is only this, viz., that God (for reasons, without doubt, worthy of Himself, and of which we are
by no means in this life competent judges), having, from everlasting, peremptorily ordained to suffer
the fall of Adam, did likewise, from everlasting, consider the human race as fallen; and out of the
whole mass of mankind, thus viewed and foreknown as impure and obnoxious to condemnation,
vouchsafed to select some particular persons (who collectively make up a very great though
precisely determinate number) in and on whom He would make known the ineffable riches of His
mercy.

28. See this article judiciously stated and asserted by Witsius in his Œcon. l. 1, cap. 8, s. 10-25.