Preached by Rev. MALCOLM GILLIES, Stornoway.
“And he cried unto the man of God that came from Judah, saying, Thus saith the Lord, Forasmuch as thou hast disobeyed the mouth of the Lord, and hast not kept the commandment which the Lord thy God commanded thee, but camest back, and hast eaten bread and drunk water in the place, of the which the Lord did say unto thee, Eat no bread, and drink no water; thy carcase shall not come unto the sepulchre of thy fathers” (I. Kings, xiii. 21, 22).
I N considering this passage as we may be enabled, let us notice three things:—
I. The faithfulness of the prophet sent to Bethel.
II. The unfaithfulness of him who had been faithful.
III. The way taken by God to vindicate His own glory.
I. The prophet’s faithfulness. As we see, Bethel was the scene of the incidents set before us in this chapter. This place is mentioned early in the Word of God; it was called Luz at first, but came to bear the name, Bethel, signifying “the House of God,” where God made Himself known. This was the place to which Jacob came as a lonely, fleeing fugitive, with the intense feeling that heaven and earth were against him. It was his spiritual birth place. There the Lord appeared to him as the Covenant God of Abraham and Isaac and made a covenant with him. He found him in Bethel and turned Jacob’s mourning into joy and peace.
Bethel was the place also where Jacob’s espousals were renewed, after he returned from Padan-aram. Though he tarried long at Shechem and deferred the fulfilling of his vow to the God of Bethel who had directed him to return, we find him saying to his household:—“Put away the strange gods that are among you, and be clean and change your garments, and let us arise and go up to Bethel.” In going back there, the Lord revealed Himself to him and was to his soul as the latter rain upon the earth. Bethel was again made to him the House of God where he was revived and quickened, and his soul fed in communion with God. It was also the place where God’s instituted worship was set up. He had formerly set up
the stone for a pillar and had poured oil upon it. He now built an altar there and called upon the name of the Lord. We have thus in connection with this place, the substance of all that the Church is to God’s people in every generation of time.
But Scripture makes evident that purity of worship did not abide in Bethel. There are many indications given about the declension of true worship there, so that we find the name of the place changed by the Spirit of God in the prophet, from Bethel, the House of God, to Bethaven, the House of Iniquity, of Vanity. This was emphatically the case in the days of Jeroboam, who filled up the cup of its iniquity by setting up open idolatry. When the Lord gave over to Jeroboam ten of the tribes of Israel and made him king over them, He promised to make him a sure house if he would keep God’s commandments. He, however, turned his back on God’s counsel and gave himself over to a worldly policy, which was in direct opposition to the commands and will of God. The fear of losing the people if they should continue to go up to worship at Jerusalem, took possession of him, and he took steps to prevent this. Though Bethel was only a few miles from the Temple where God had put His Name, Jeroboam introduced there the calf-worship which he had probably learned from the Egyptians, and passed this counterfeit worship as the true worship of Jehovah. Did he keep the people by this carnal and God-dishonouring device? No, and neither will men in this generation keep the people by imposing on them their own will-worship in place of the worship commanded in God’s Word.
The Lord who is zealous for His glory and who would have the sinner warned to turn from his wickedness, sent this prophet from Judah to witness against this false worship. His work was to deal with this perversion and mockery which was being constituted in the name of religion. Arriving at Bethel as Jeroboam was just consecrating the altar and worship, the prophet ignored the person of the king and treated him as a mere nonentity. Instead of addressing him, he cried against
the altar, solemnly pronouncing the curse of God upon it and declaring that a king of the House of David, Josiah by name, would be raised up, who would sacrifice the priests of the altar upon it and burn the bones of those who partook of it. This prophecy was fulfilled in the spirit and in the letter by King Josiah, about three hundred and fifty years after it was spoken. The prophet also gave a sign for the certainty of its fulfilment, even that the altar would be rent immediately and the ashes thereon poured out.
Exasperated by the boldness of the prophet in his presence and the contempt cast upon his lewd religion, Jeroboam stretched out his hand to order the arrest of the prophet. By the judicial power of God, his hand became palsied and powerless and the sign given was fulfilled upon his idolatrous altar. There is nothing that will bring down the pride and pomp of man like the correcting hand of God upon him. Men will puff up and swell, when it is only their fellow mortals who withstand them. It is otherwise when the Lord lays His hand upon man with rebukes; his beauty wastes away like a moth. It was thus with Jeroboam, he becomes a suppliant, asking that his hand be restored. There was nothing in his prayer in the way of confessing his wrongdoing and of turning back to the ways of God. He now tries to win the prophet by flattery and by a promise of reward. The servant of God in obedience to his duty refused both food and present. He had the Lord’s express command for so doing. “Eat no bread, nor drink water, nor turn again by the same way that thou camest.” Would he be entertained where his God was dishonoured and His Word flouted? Would he eat their bread who were placing their abominations before the Lord? Would he turn back by the same way, when there were no signs of the people turning back by repentance and obedience to the truth? The prophet had a work from the Lord to perform and right nobly and faithfully did he act to the glory of God both, in the letter and in the spirit of his message showing how severed he was from this shameful and sinful apostacy.
II. The unfaithfulness of him that had been faithful. We are further told how the fine gold became dim and defiled; how he who at first showed himself obedient and faithful, came to perform an act of disobedience which meant his own ruin and the weakening of the cause of God. There was in Bethel an old prophet. The fact that he was named on the sons of the prophets made him a power for good or for evil. Unhappily his influence was for evil. He was like many in our day, a man of peace, of such peace as would allow king and people to trample God’s Word and worship under foot without raising a public testimony against their work. As a prophet, he was a trustee over the things of God, over His Word and worship. To him as a professed servant were committed the oracles of God. We do not know to what extent he was a trustee over the funds and property of the Church. There are times when one is called to forsake houses and lands and all temporalities for the sake of God’s cause and glory. There never will be a time when ministers, office-bearers, and members will be held guiltless in neglecting their duty as trustees for the truth in order to retain their trustee-ship over money and property. There were women in persecuting times who died as trustees of truth committed to them, while they handed over the trustee-ship of the babes sucking their breasts to the care of others and to the Lord whose witnesses they were.
The old prophet did not go to the idolatrous worship himself, but he allowed his sons to attend there. It was no grief to him that they should accustom themselves to the modern way of worshipping God which was fast becoming so very popular. Parents who are not concerned about their children frequenting places of worship where the whole truth is not honoured have become unfaithful themselves, and the fruits of such carelessness and indifference about their children’s best interests must be grief and misery in this world and if grace prevents not, in eternity. His sons told him all that happened and how the truth of God had prevailed that day over the lying inventions of men. No sooner did he grasp the meaning of the details
given him than it became his fixed purpose to do all he could to cause the faithful servant of God to become one like himself.
Ascertaining the direction taken by the prophet from Judah, he goes after him and overtakes him as he sits weary and faint for lack of food. He invited him back to Bethel to rest with him in his house and refresh himself with food. He thus tempted him to a double act of disobedience. (1) Going back to the place he had set his back upon. (2) Having his portion with those among whom he was forbidden to have his portion. He refused but not with the vehemence with which he refused the king. “I will not go,” was the form he then used; now it was:—”I may not go.” He, however, repeated the warrant once more for refusing to have friendly dealings with the truth-forsaking Bethelites. His destroyer now deals with him as Satan does when he transforms himself into an angel of light. He emphasizes his own prophetic character and maintains that there is no difference between them. Not only was he a prophet, but he had God’s Word to give him to prove that the prophet from Judah ought now to do the very thing, which he formerly said he ought not and would not do. The Word of the Lord now said:—”Bring him back with thee into thy house that he may eat bread and drink water,” but he lied unto him, and it was not long until the man came to lie unto himself and to his duty. I note two things about this temptation. 1. It was presented as the very mind and will of God. 2. It fitted in with the prophet’s present condition. (1) He was wearied out and the change presented seemed to afford gratification. (2) He hungered and thirsted after the very things held out to him. To comply with this invitation he had in it the things he desired for himself. When he set out from Judah, Self was out of sight and the glory and truth of God were everything to him. He was no longer single-eyed and the desire for self-gratification blinded him to the imposition practised upon him and thus he came to impose upon himself.
We have here a solemn lesson for every generation and for every individual and it was never more needed than it is in our
day. We see men who were like this prophet, in zeal, in singleness of purpose, despising honours, comforts and preferments their gifts and abilities might bring them in this life, and wholly devoted to the vindication of God’s cause in a backsliding day. We see some of them turning back and taking their portion contentedly where they declared they would never be found as long as men there continued in their forward way. What has happened? These men like the prophet from Judah have been imposed upon and they have imposed upon themselves. There were two questions which, if the prophet had asked and weighed well, would have kept his feet from falling, for they kept the feet of some in many a generation from falling. (1) Have the people in Bethel, king and subjects, honestly and sincerely given up their idolatry; have they whole-heartedly turned back to the obedience of the truth? (2) Can God change His Word when men have not changed their ways? The will of God as He reveals it to his servants is like Himself, unchangeable, when His Word calls upon them to take up a certain position with relation to others with whom the Lord has a controversy. Nothing less than the ending of that controversy by repentance before God and man will afford those to whom God’s will has been revealed, a reason to alter their attitude. The prophet from Judah went back with his seducer and made himself a spectacle for friends and enemies as a man who went back on God’s Word to him. We are not told whether his feelings were sad or joyful. Feelings have little place in such matters as these. They are simply matters which concern what is right and what is wrong. Various opinions are held concerning the question:—Was the old prophet a man who truly feared God? Some think that he was, on the ground that God spoke through him, but that reason is by no means conclusive. We do not believe that any true child of grace will father a lie on the God of truth. Such a sin comes very near if it does not touch the sin against the Holy Ghost. His lie was deliberate; it was a word given as the truth of God, knowing well that God never gave it. The child of God may be left
to commit many a grievous sin through ignorance and also against light, but it is difficult to conclude that such wrongdoing as this could be committed by one in whom the Lord had placed a witness to the authoritative Word of God.
III. The way taken by God to vindicate His own glory. The prophet from Judah was not left long without being made to see that he had committed himself to a course which practically nullified his former obedience. This was a mercy to himself, that he should not remain deceived, and it was to the glory of Him who had sent him as His ambassador. (1) The lying prophet is made to tell the truth, and to denounce him for his waywardness even while the bread of disobedience is still in his mouth. “As they sat at the table, the Word of the Lord came unto the prophet that brought him back. And he cried unto the man of God that came from Judah, saying, ‘Thus saith the Lord, Forasmuch as thou hast disobeyed the mouth of the Lord and hast not kept the commandment which the Lord thy God commanded thee, but camest back and hast eaten bread and drunk water in the place of the which the Lord did say unto thee, Eat no bread and drink no water; thy carcase shall not come unto the sepulchre of thy fathers.'”
If he had no doubt before about being out of the path of duty, the disobedient prophet was given a sudden and rude awakening out of his delusion. Still it was good for him to be corrected in the act of disobedience; much better then than to have the horrors of an accusing conscience on a dying bed as many had before him and since, or to be condemned with the world at last. In all probability, he had a miniature Day of Judgment in his conscience, as he sadly mounted the ass provided by the old prophet and resumed his interrupted journey homewards.
If a prophet on whom the Lord has bestowed intelligence and grace will not carry out instructions, God will find among the most ferocious and untamable of the brute creation, an agent which will render exact and perfect obedience. God’s messenger was now, a lion, sent to meet the prophet, one that would not fail nor exceed his work. Coming upon him in the way, he
dragged him off the ass and slew him, but in such a way as to offer little indignity to the body by mutilation. We are told that the flesh of an ass is deemed a choice portion by a lion and in ordinary circumstances, the ass would become the lion’s victim. But in this case, an unseen Hand restrained the brute from going beyond its commission. Men passed by, but the lion’s business was not with them and they were allowed to go on unscathed. He had to stand guard over the body of one of God’s servants, disobedient as he had been, and over the ass that was to carry him to his burial. He remained at his post till the old prophet arrived, permitted him to handle the body in order to carry it back to the city, and, relieved by Him whose obedient servant he had been, went his way and was seen no more.
The old prophet carried the body back to Bethel and buried it in his own grave. They mourned over his violent death but there is no indication that they laid to heart the part they had in bringing this misery on him and on themselves. Whether the old prophet had the true fear of God or not, there was much of the spirit of Balaam about him. He would like to die the death of the righteous and to have his latter end to be like his. He believed that nothing which the prophet from Judah had spoken would fall to the ground and this was the reason for the directions he gave to his sons. His conscience made him fear, and not without just cause, that Josiah, in fulfilling God’s Word would count him among the idolaters, and he cunningly made provision so that his old bones should not be burned. “Bury me,” he said, “in the sepulchre where the man of God is buried; lay my bones beside his bones: for the saying which he cried by the word of the Lord against the altar in Bethel, and against all the houses of the high places which are in the cities of Samaria shall surely come to pass.” We find the prophet Hosea using words to the same purpose:—”The inhabitants of Samaria shall fear because of the calves of Bethaven; for the people thereof shall mourn over it and the priests that rejoiced on it . . . The high places also of Aven,
the sin of Israel shall be destroyed: The thorn and the thistle shall come up on their altars; and they shall say to the mountains, cover us; and to the hills, fall on us” (Hosea x. 5).
These prophecies were amply fulfilled by King Josiah when he was raised up to make a thorough reformation throughout all the land. We are told that “there was no king before him that turned to the Lord with all his heart, and with all his soul and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; neither after him arose there any like him.” While engaged in destroying all the high places along with the altar at Bethel, he gave orders that the bones in the sepulchres should be burned upon the altar to pollute it. Noticing a title on one of these sepulchres he asked whose grave was that. Learning that it was the sepulchre of the prophet from Judah who had uttered the prophecy that was being then fulfilled, he spared his sepulchre, thus making the ruse of the old prophet who is said to have come out of Samaria, completely successful.
One would think that such clear indications of the displeasure of God would have brought Jeroboam and his people to a better mind. We are told that it did not bring about the least reformation. When men are set upon their idols, neither Word nor Providence will turn them from their evil ways. God gave him and his people over to hardness of heart and they continued in their false worship and wicked ways till they were cut off, and the house of Jeroboam destroyed from off the face of the earth. We would do well to ponder over this passage of God’s truth and cognate passages and try to lay to heart the ways by which men forsake God and the awful consequences which follow a departure from Him. The call of God’s Word is everywhere a call to return by repentance.
If two angels were sent down to earth, one to rule an empire, and the other to sweep a street, they would have no choice in the matter, so long as God ordered them.—C. H. Spurgeon.
Christ in the Psalms.
I once found in an old library in Germany a Latin Bible in manuscript, which had been well thumbed long before printing was invented. I looked instantly to see which pages were most soiled and worn. They were all in the Book of Psalms. I found a Bible in a soldier’s knapsack, inscribed, “Presented to my boy the day he enlisted,” and signed by his mother’s name. The Psalms were most stained by tears. You never saw a well-used Bible in which the Book of Psalms did not show the most numerous traces of study and affection.
Why is this? Why is it that wonderful book, which was more than a thousand years growing to its present volume, keeps coming back to us when we are weary of our Gospel songs, and when even the best modern hymns leave us hungering and thirsting? I think it is because Christ is so precious in the Psalms. The books of the Bible have all been taking turns in revealing Christ. In different ages, and to varied experiences, the several books of the Bible have taken turns in lifting up the Saviour who is drawing all men to the Father. But the turn of the Psalms keeps coming all the time. It is companion book to Law, Prophets, Gospels, Epistles, and the Revelation.
There are two ways of finding Christ in the Psalms which are well known and well used by every prayerful reader, and therefore, need little illustration here. One is the devout reading of the numerous Psalms in which God is described as our Redeemer, the Saviour of Israel, the Refuge of our souls; the other is the profound study, with incessant reference to the New Testament, when they are cited and explicitly applied to Christ by Himself and the Apostles, of the seven Messianic Psalms. Three of them describe the suffering Messiah—the 16th, 22nd, and the 40th; four describe the triumphant Messiah—the 2nd, the 45th, the 72nd, and the 110th.
But there is another way to find Christ in the Psalms. Make little clusters of Psalms which have a close resemblance in their central thoughts. For example, select the 23rd Psalm as the
centre of a cluster. Associate as many as you can readily find with this as the melody to the full harmony. Then let your heart be filled with praise for the incarnation, the teaching, the miracles of love, the atonement, and the whole work of salvation which the Redeemer of sinners has accomplished.
I owe to some writer, whom I cannot now recall, the suggestion of a remarkable cluster of Psalms, which impressed my mind at the time as a surprising prophecy of Christ. They are the 1st, the 15th, the 24th, the 101st, and the 112th. None of them are quoted in the New Testament as referring to Christ. They contain no allusions to events in His life on earth. They are simply descriptions of the Good Man, such as we often apply to our fathers and ministers and benefactors when they die. They resemble, at first sight, the lyric masterpieces of all ages. The fruitful theme of song in every nation on earth, except the Hebrews, has been the beauty, the tenderness, and the winning graces of the perfect woman. Its companion picture has always been courage, the strength, and the splendid achievements of the heroic man. But all resemblance to these descriptions disappears on a closer inspection of these Psalms. This Perfect Man is radically different from the wise man of Socrates, and from the heroes of Homer and Virgil. A longing is here disclosed for the appearance of a being on earth such as the mind of man has never conceived. And the mere phenomenon of this unique description in a literature which was growing for centuries before the golden age of classic letters is one of the imperishable miracles of the Bible.
For this is not merely David’s estimate of the Good Man. The three middle Psalms only are ascribed to David. The first Psalm, which may have been venerable when David made it the preface to his book, and the 112th, which may have been born of the exultant hopes of God’s people when their captivity was turned, begin and close the delineation of the Perfect Man. Observe some of the features of the man who is thoroughly good in the sight of God. He has clean hands. The usurer’s frauds have never stained them. They have never been lifted
up in a false oath. They keep bargains which turn out unprofitable. His virtues are best in his own home.
A feature which is set in strong contrast to these homely qualities is the holy intolerance of this good man. He will have nothing to do with bad men. He will not walk in their counsels, nor stand in their way, nor sit down in their company. He contemns a vile person. He hates their works. He will not have them in his house as servants. He will cut off the wicked doers from the city of the Lord. And yet he is the meekest of men. He fears God. His delight is in the law of God. His will is wholly surrendered to the will of God. No one ever read with a devout heart these five Psalms together without two profound convictions: I ought to be such a man as this. I am not such a man as this. These must have been the reflections of those who wrote the Psalms, and of all who used to meditate upon them. They certainly never saw on earth, as we have never seen, the original of this astonishing portrait.
For the features, so prominent in nearly all of David’s Psalms, and so conspicuous by its absence here, are infirmity and sin. There are no faults ascribed to this good man in either of the five Psalms. There is no prayer, and evidently no need, for the pardon of sin. He walks before God with a perfect heart. He has clean hands and a pure heart. And yet his perfections are all wonderfully human. He is a man of affairs, managed with thrift, in conflict with the wicked. He is in a condition of subjection and obedience to God.
We are confronted, then, with the unparalleled picture of profound humility, without a consciousness of sin; of unreserved self-surrender without a previous struggle of self-will; of a fear of God springing from no offences to provoke the Divine wrath, and of undeviating obedience to laws which were made not for Himself but for transgressors. Ecce Homo! It is the Son of Man! These psalmists never saw such a man on earth. They were longing for Him. What a wistful word that is with which the first and the last Psalms in the series begin—blessed!
Oh, how blessed, and what a blessing would such a man be upon earth! These thrilling songs, which kept recurring at intervals of perhaps a thousand years, were giving unconscious utterance to the hopes which were throbbing in many hearts for the coming of the Perfect Man.—Wolcott Calkins, in The Congregationalist (1885).
The late Malcolm MacEwan, Missionary, Tain.
MALCOLM MACEWAN was born at Silvercraig, Lochgilphead, on the 11th day of April, 1865. He was privileged like Timothy to know the Holy Scriptures from childhood. The change, however, that is necessary to salvation is the work of the Holy Spirit. When yet a young man the Spirit of truth convinced him of his lost and ruined condition by nature and practice, and of his great need of being reconciled to God by Jesus Christ. It was when following his occupation as a fisherman on the Ayrshire coast, his brother informs us, that he was brought to the knowledge of the truth. We may conclude that it would be a fishing season he never forgot, as it was in the case of the disciples when Jesus shewed Himself to them at the sea of Tiberias. The Rev. William Fraser was then minister of Lochgilphead Free Church, and under his ministry Malcolm Macewan sat. He was ordained an elder in the congregation when he was only twenty-four years of age.
In the year 1893, on account of the passing of the Declaratory Act by the Free Church, the Free Presbyterian Church was formed by those who loved the truth as contained in the Word of God. It was evident to Malcolm Macewan, as it was to a large number of the Lord’s people in the then Free Church, that the path of duty was to join those who left all to maintain the Gospel pure in our land. A congregation was formed in Lochgilphead, and he did his utmost to support the cause of truth in his native parish. He continued steadfast to the end
of his days on earth to the Free Presbyterian Church. One could not but admire how faithful he proved in the midst of much unfaithfulness. It was his firm conviction that we would be guilty of a great sin as a Church if we departed in the least from the position held by us since 1893.
He loved the house of God, and when engaged at the fishing he would hold a prayer meeting on the Sabbath if there were no services in the place to which his calling brought him. In this way he was known to quite a number of our congregations on the west coast of Scotland. It was his delight, however, to listen to the Word preached from the lips of those whom he knew to be the true servants of Christ. He was appointed a missionary by the authority of the Synod over twenty years ago. For a number of years he laboured in Stratherrick, and used to speak afterwards about the happy years of Gospel fellowship he had with the people there. During the War years his services for a time were extended as far as our mission in London. In 1922 he was appointed missionary at Tain, where he continued to labour, except for a short period at Dornoch, until he finished his course in this world. During the time he was at Tain he was expected to supply Fearn every third Sabbath. He carried on this arrangement for a time; but latterly his services were confined to Tain. The Northern Presbytery arranged that Mr. Macewan would supply Dornoch and Rogart during the time the minister was in Canada. That was his last year on earth, and he seemed to have more than usual liberty in preaching the Gospel. He returned to Tain at the end of April, 1930, and continued to preach every Sabbath, although he was, especially during the summer months far from well. We did not think, however, that there was anything serious about his trouble until the doctor ordered him to the Inverness Northern Infirmary.
He was visited while in the infirmary by Mr. Matheson, Lairg, and another minister to whom he said that he would desire to live longer that he might preach the Gospel yet to sinners. He was praying for this; but it was not the Lord’s
will in his case. He was sent home and was tenderly nursed by his devoted wife until the end came on the 16th day of December, 1930. The last Sabbath he had on earth, he seemed very happy and asked that the 45th psalm be sung at worship, from the words: “Behold, the daughter of the King all glorious is within,” to the end of the psalm. Thus passed away Malcolm Macewan to appear spotless among those who have been washed from their sins through the blood of the Lamb and who sing the new song before the throne.
We wish to express our deepest sympathy with the widow and their daughter of tender years, and, also, with the other relations. May the promise be made good in their case—”He relievethe the fatherless and widow.” The funeral was largely attended, and the remains were laid to rest in Tain Cemetery, there to lie until the Lord shall descend from heaven at the last day.—F. M.
The Bondage of the Will.*
II.
(Continued from page 245.)
IN our last issue we saw that a considerable amount of confusion in connection with the theological controversy on the Will arose from the want of clear and definite definitions of the terms used. Erasmus cannot be blamed for any obscurity in his definition for he says: “I consider Free-will in this light: that it is a power in the human will, by which, a man may apply himself to those things which lead unto eternal salvation, or turn away from the same.” The issue here is clear and distinct and Luther delivers shattering and well-merited blows to this doctrine which we consider quite unscriptural. But it will be at once observed that the question at issue is
*The Bondage of the Will by Martin Luther, the Celebrated Reformer: Being his Reply to Erasmus. Translated by Henry Cole, M.A., with slight alteration from Edward Thomas Vaughan, M.A. Corrected by Henry Atherton. London: Sovereign Grace Union, 98 Camberwell Grove. Price, 10/6.
really “liberty” and “ability.” “The controversy,” says Dr. Hodge, “between Luther and Erasmus was really about ability, nominally it was about free-will. Luther’s book is entitled De Servo Arbitrio, that of Erasmus, De Libero Arbitrio. During the sixteenth century “free-will” was used in the sense defined by Erasmus and it is in this sense the term is used in the Reformation symbols. Now, if the combatants had confined themselves to this aspect of the question all would have been simple as the issue could be clearly settled by the unmistakable evidence of Scripture but it so happened that in the discussion of “ability” and “inability” other questions came into the discussion. In their argument the question of God’s decree came in. Does this not imply necessity? Luther answers it does though he is careful to draw a distinction between the “necessity of compulsion” and the “necessity of immutability.” The former he rejects but supports the latter and in doing so is careful to point out that this kind of necessity does not imply that violence is done to the will but nevertheless the will was carried along by the natural operation of God. By this latter statement and others made by Luther which are of a much stronger kind we discover that his doctrine of “necessity” leads us to positions which are untenable and inconsistent with the Confessional doctrine. The Westminster Divines, conscious of the objections made against the doctrine of the divine decrees forestall criticism by certain statements they make in the III. Chapter of the Confession—”God from all eternity did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass: yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.” That is, they deny that the doctrine of the divine decrees as stated by them, whatever necessity (or “certainty” as Dr. C. Hodge prefers to term it) it implies, does not imply that (1) violence is done to the will of the creatures (2) that liberty or contingency of second causes is taken away. Again,
in the V. Chapter on Providence it is stated: “Although, in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the first cause, all things come to pass immutably and infallibly; yet, by the same providence, He ordereth them to fall out according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely or contingently” (sec. ii.). That is, God has ordained whatsoever comes to pass and He has made provision that all that He has ordained should be actually brought about. This might appear, and has been alleged, to involve an absolute, universal necessity on all agents and all events. The Westminster Divines protested against such an inference of the doctrine stated in Chap. V. of the Confession by asserting that their doctrine does not imply the taking away of the liberty of second causes. When God created man at the beginning he had freedom of will and this freedom of will was not ruled out of question by what Luther would call the necessity of immutability—the one was not antagonistic to the other—but as this would naturally lead us into another field which we do not purpose to enter meantime we refrain from pursuing this line of thought. It has been made clear, we trust, in the course of this article that the Westminster Divines were extremely careful to forestall any argument that would ascribe to their doctrines of the divine decrees and providence that God was the author of sin or that His foreordination implied a necessity that robbed the agent of his free agency. In the IX. Chapter of the Confession the first section asserts that “God hath endued the will of man with that natural liberty, that it is neither forced nor by any absolute necessity of nature determined to good or evil.” This is a general statement on the will and in the following sections the Divines set forth what they believe true concerning the will of man (1) in a state of innocence—”he had freedom and power to will and to do that which is good and wellpleasing to God; but yet mutably, so that he might fall from it;” (2) in a sinful state—he “lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation; so as a natural man, being altogether averse from that good, and dead in sin, is not able,
by his own strength, to convert himself, or prepare himself thereunto;” (3) in a regenerate state—he is freed from his natural bondage under sin and God by “His grace alone enables him freely to will and to do that which is spiritually good; yet so as that, by reason of his remaining corruption, he doth not perfectly nor only will that which is good, but doth also will that which is evil;” (4) in a state of glory—”the will of man is made perfectly and immutably free to do good alone in the state of glory only.” In these sections—at least in sections ii. to v.—it will be seen that the Westminster Divines are dealing with the question of man’s ability in what Boston termed his “fourfold state.” In his state of innocence they assert he had ability to do God’s will; in his fallen state he has totally lost this ability; in his regenerate state he is enabled by God’s grace alone to do that which is spiritually good; and, in the state of glory the bondage under which he was brought by sin is completely taken away and he is made perfectly and immutably free to do good alone. Dr. Cunningham who has discussed these questions in his Historical Theology and Reformers and Theology of the Reformation—works which every one who values clear thinking, massive learning and scriptural treatment ought to study—sums up the Westminster position in these words: “The Reformers and the older Calvinistic divines ascribed to man before his fall a freedom or liberty of will which they denied to man as he is, and the only necessity or bondage which they ascribed to man as he is, was an inability to will what is spiritually good and acceptable to God, as a result or consequence simply of the entire depravity of his moral nature, i.e., of his actual dispositions and tendencies. This was the only necessity they advocated as having anything like direct and explicit sanction from Scripture, or as indispensably necessary to the exposition and defence of their system of theology—not a necessity deduced from anything in God’s purposes and providence, or from anything in man’s mental constitution applicable to men, as men, or simply as creatures, but from a special feature in
men’s character as fallen and depraved. This necessity or bondage under which they held man fallen, as distinguished from man unfallen, to lie, resolved itself into the entire absence in fallen man of holy and good dispositions or tendencies, and the prevalence in his moral nature of what is ungodly and depraved” (Hist. Theology, I. 585). Had Luther confined his attention to the doctrine of the bondage of the will without bringing into his argument certain views on necessity inconsistent with the above quoted statement of Dr. Cunningham it would not have been necessary for us to call attention to the matter. As it is Luther has produced one of the ablest books ever written on the bondage of the will. Man’s total inability is maintained and proved from Scripture notwithstanding all the subtle arguments of Erasmus. In relation to this doctrine he discusses also why commands and exhortations were addressed to man by God though he was unable to obey them.
In again commending this notable work to our readers we conclude with Dr. Cunningham’s estimate of Luther’s book “which,” he says, “is perhaps, upon the whole, the finest specimen he has left of his talents as a theologian, and which is thoroughly Calvinistic in its doctrinal views” (Historical Theology, I. 591).