14-Calvinistic Election Involves Positive Refusal To Provide Saving Grace for the Lost

Calvinistic Election Involves Positive Refusal To Provide Saving Grace for the Lost

Dr. PAYNE, one of the subtlest and most accomplished of modern Calvinists, argues strongly against the notion that the decree of election involves the decree of reprobation. He says "I may determine to relieve one out of twenty destitute families in my neighbourhood, without positively determining not to relieve the others; and if any one should ask me why others are not relieved, it would be sufficient to reply that the giving of actual relief can only spring from a determination to relieve, which in reference to them does not exist. I may determine to take a book from the shelf, without a positive determination not to take the others. There may, indeed, be such a determination, but it is not necessarily implied in the determination to take, and that is all that I am obliged to prove--the other books may not even be thought of" (p. 40). Dr. Payne was a very subtle dialectician, but we fear he has here imposed upon himself in these illustrations. It is very true that when I determine to select book "A" from my library, that book "B" may not have been before my mind, and that I did not knowingly determine to reject it. But it may have been, and if it was, then the selection of "A" only, carried with it the rejection of "B." A father sees his two children perishing in the waters. He jumps into a boat, and reaches the scene of disaster. The children are sinking from sheer exhaustion. He takes one into the boat, and returns to shore. He could easily have saved the other, but did not, and he tells the people this on landing, and that he must be simply judged by his act of saving the rescued child, and that he is not to be held as passing a decree of reprobation against the other. This, we submit, is Dr. Payne’s case. And will it bear looking at? I don’t think it. Dr. Payne adds, "This reasoning applies yet with greater force to the great Eternal. There must exist in the mind of God a determination to do what He actually does, because His actions are the result of His volitions or determinations. But where God does not act, where He does nothing, He determines nothing. It is childish to suppose that because when He acts, there must be a determination to act, when he does not act, there must be a determination not to act, since a determination is necessary to a state of action, but it surely is not necessary to a state of rest. When Jehovah created the present universe, is it necessary to suppose that there existed in His mind a positive determination not to create any of the other possible universes which were present to His views? Surely not." But we should say, Surely yes. If twenty plans are presented to me, and I select one only, does not this imply the rejection of the others? To the Divine mind there must have been present the conception of many different kinds of worlds than the one we are in; but of the possibles He chose the present system as, all things considered, the best. Had there been a better world and God did not make it, it must have been, according to the optimists, either because God did not know of it, or was unable to make it, or was unwilling,--all of which suppositions are either incompatible with the omniscience, the omnipotence, or the goodness of God. When the Creator selected the present system, He rejected the "possibles" that might have been brought into being. I am surprised that Dr. Payne should say that "determination" is not necessary to a state of rest, or non-action. In thousands of instances non-action--rest--is as much the result of volition as is the most determined activity. The old divines used to divide sin into acts of commission and omission. But in every sin of omission there was action implied. If I do not help the needy when he crieth, my non-help--my rest as regards aid--carries action in it --determination. Dr. Payne again says, "When God determined to save man, did that volition necessarily imply a positive determination not to save the angels who kept not their first estate? No one, it is presumed, Will answer in the affirmative. It implies, indeed, that fallen angels were not included in the merciful purpose of God, that there was no volition to save them; but no degree of ingenuity can gather any conclusion beyond this from the facts of the case. Why, then, should a positive determination, on the part of God, to save some of the human family be supposed to imply of necessity a counter and positive determination not to save the other members of the family. Not to save men is not to act, it is just doing nothing." But this is a very partial view of the case. What God did in the case of the fallen angels we know nothing, and can affirm nothing. But one may do nothing from one side of things, and do a great deal from another. The priest and the Levite just did nothing as far as helping the man was concerned. They rested, but in this rest there was action which has covered them with obloquy for all time. And if God has special influence at His disposal, and determines to give it to some when He KNEW that others needed it as much, and yet withholds it from them, His withholding it is as much an act as the gift of it. He passed the non-elect over in applying the influence, and no ingenuity can make it otherwise. But what He does in time He determined to do in eternity--He determined to pass them over. The illustration, therefore, of the book is worthless.