Page 89 - Absolute Predestination With Observations On The Divine Attributes

which chooses not its objects, but enlightens all indifferently without variation or distinction: this
were to make God of no more understanding than the sun, which shines not where it pleases, but
where it must. He is an understanding agent, and hath a sovereign right to choose His own subjects.
It would not be a supreme if it were not a voluntary goodness. It is agreeable to the nature of the
Highest Good to be absolutely free, and to dispense His goodness in what methods and measures He
pleases, according to the free determinations of His own will, guided by the wisdom of His mind
and regulated by the holiness of His nature. He will be good to whom He will be good. When He
doth act, He cannot but act well; so far it is necessary: yet He may act this good or that good, to this
or that degree; so it is free. As it is the perfection of His nature, it is necessary; as it is the
communication of His bounty, it is voluntary. The eye cannot but see if it be open, yet it may glance
on this or that colour, fix upon this or that object, as it is conducted by the will. What necessity
could there be on God to resolve to communicate His goodness [at all]? It could not be to make
Himself better by it, for he had [before] a goodness incapable of any addition. What obligation could
there be from the creature? Whatever sparks of goodness any creature hath are the free effusions of
God's bounty, the offsprings of his own inclination to do well, the simple favour of the donor. God is
as unconstrained in His liberty in all His communications as [He is] infinite in His goodness the
fountain of them."—Charnock's Works, Vol. 1, p. 583, etc. With whom agrees the excellent Dr.
Bates, surnamed, for his eloquence, the silver-tongued, and who, if he had a silver tongue, had
likewise a golden pen. "God," says he, "is a wise and free agent, and as He is infinite in goodness, so
the exercise of it is voluntary, and only so far as He pleases."—Harm, of Divine Attrib., chap. 3.

40. proswpolhyia, Personæ acceptio, quum magis huic favemus, quam illi, ob circumstantiam
aliquam, ceu qualitatem, externam, ei adhærentem; puta genus, dignitatem, opes, patriam, etc.
Scapula, in voc. So that elegant, accurate and learned Dutch divine, Laurentius: Hæc vero [i.e.,
proswpolhyia] est, quando persona personæ præfertur ex causa indebita: puta, si judex absolvat
reum, vel quia dives est, vel quia potens, vel quia magistratus est, vel quia amicus et propinquus est,
etc. "That is respect of persons, when one man is preferred to another on some sinister and undue
account, as when a judge acquits a criminal merely because he is rich, or powerful, or is his friend or
relation, etc."—Comment. in Epist. Jacob, p. 92.

Now, in the matter of election and preterition, God is influenced by no such motives, nor indeed by
any exterior inducement or any motive, extra se, out of himself. He does not, for instance, condemn
any persons on account of their poverty, but, on the reverse, hath chosen many who are poor in this
world (James 2.5). Nor does He condemn any for being rich, for some, even of the mighty and
noble, are called by His grace (1 Cor. 1.26). He does not respect any man's parentage or country, for
the elect will be "gathered together from the four winds, from under one end of heaven to the
other" (Matt. 24.31), and He hath redeemed to Himself a select number "out of every kindred and
tongue, and people, and nation" (Rev. 5.9; 7.9). So far is God from being in any sense a respecter of
persons, that in Christ Jesus, there is neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, male nor female (Gal.
3.28). He does not receive one nor reject another merely for coming or not coming under any of
these characters. His own sovereign will, and not their external or internal circumstances, was the
sole rule by which He proceeded in appointing some to salvation and decreeing to leave others in
their sins. So that God is not herein a respecter of their persons, but a respecter of Himself and His
own glory.

And as God is no respecter of persons because He chooses some as objects of His favour and omits
others, all being on a perfect equality, so neither does it follow that He is such from His actually
conferring spiritual and eternal blessings on the former and denying them to the latter, seeing these