IN the October issue of the Gospel Standard there is a very favourable review of “Free Grace Tracts,” by Jonathan R. Anderson. The reviewer, whom I take to be the esteemed editor of that periodical, however, reminds his readers “that the Scotch theologians from time immemorial, held to the ‘free offer’ in their preaching,” and expresses surprise that they “should use terms which can imply nothing else but creature power.” He then quotes as objectionable, from his point of view, the following statement, “To escape this awful doom, be persuaded to hearken to the voice of mercy now pleading with you. The language in which you are now addressed is that of entreaty; then it will be changed into that of condemnation. O sinners, be exhorted to seek the grace of repentance.” He then adds that “it is true that the implication of ‘free-will’ is not so definite here as in some good Scotch writers.”
We have no desire to quarrel with the editor of the Gospel Standard whose fearless testimony on the side of God’s Word we appreciate in this day of blasphemy and rebuke but we consider that faithfulness to God’s Word makes it necessary that a few words should be offered on that which is criticised by him. It is well known to us that Article XXVI. of the Articles of Faith of the Gospel Standard Societies, states, “We deny duty-faith and duty-repentance—these terms signifying that it is every man’s duty to spiritually and savingly repent and believe. We deny also that there is any capability in man by nature to any spiritual good whatever. So that we reject the doctrine that men in a state of nature should be exhorted to believe in or turn to God.” Again, Article XXIX. states, “While we believe that the Gospel is to be preached in or proclaimed to all the world as in Mark xvi. 15, we deny offers of Grace: that is to say, that the Gospel is to be offered indiscriminately to all.” These statements are very clear as to the ground on which the above criticism was made, but the question may be asked, Do they not contain what the Word of God does not warrant?
When the Saviour, after His resurrection, commissioned His disciples to go out with the Gospel, He said, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned” (Mark xvi. 15, 16. We notice in this commission that (1) The Gospel was to be preached, that is, the whole counsel of God, which embraces in it the warnings, threatenings, and invitations contained in God’s Word. (2) The Gospel was to be preached to every creature, which, if language means anything, embraces the elect and non-elect, and is confined to these classes alone as they are the only rational creatures in the world. (3) The promise of salvation on believing and the threat of damnation for disbelieving the Gospel reveals the mixed multitude that it was to be preached to. Our strict Baptist friends who are against the “free offer of the Gospel” do not find in the above commission any warrant to shut out of their chapels any rational creature from hearing the Gospel, and if they do not, where can they find in it any warrant for reserving the warnings, threatenings and invitations, which are part and parcel of the Gospel, to the elect to the exclusion of the non-elect? We have, therefore, no right to exclude any man when preaching the Gospel.
The whole human race, it is true, fell in Adam from that glorious state in which God created man, and became depraved, so that they are now God’s enemies, yet they are still free moral agents and responsible for their character and conduct, therefore, it would be unscriptural on our part to believe that God deals with us in any other way but as rational creatures. When He sends His Gospel to sinners He addresses them as sinners so plainly that every one in the congregation may know his and her standing before God. Over against the lost and ruined condition of men and women by nature is set forth Christ as a suitable and sufficient remedy to meet with that lost and ruined condition. The trumpet of the Gospel, in addressing the understanding of men and women, gives no uncertain sound in declaring the warnings, threatenings and invitations connected with it, and the result is that both elect sinners and non-elect sinners hear it with the ears of their bodies. What is the result? Such of the elect as have arrived at the moment when God purposed to call them effectually, hear the voice of the Son of God in the Gospel; they are enabled, through the work of the Holy Spirit to look on a crucified, risen and exalted Redeemer, and to embrace Him as their only hope. As Dr. Manton so beautifully puts it, “God’s drawing is teaching, it is both by the attractive force of the object, and the internal efficacy of His grace. The Spirit’s conduct is sweet, yet powerful, accomplisheth the effect but without offering violence to the liberty of man.” But what of the non-elect? Did the preaching of the Gospel leave them as it found them? By no means. They heard the warnings, threatenings and invitations which were the means of conveying life to the elect, and they despised them, heaping up wrath to themselves against the day of wrath, by wilfully rejecting the remedy, and making sure, as far as lay in their power, that God would not be glorified in their salvation. Thus their case is worse than if they had never heard the Gospel. God, however, is glorified in their condemnation. This is in accordance with what the Apostle says, “For we are unto God a sweet saviour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish: to the one we are the saviour of death unto death; and to the other the saviour of life unto life” (II. Cor. ii. 15, 16).
Those who object to the free offer of the Gospel seem to forget that the call to sinners in the Word of God is two-fold. There is the common call to all to whom the Word of God comes, inviting them to come and partake of salvation as we have it in Isaiah xlvi. 22, “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else”: or in Isaiah lv. 7, “Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him: and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.” That these exhortations to the “wicked” and to the “unrighteous” may be accompanied by the common strivings of the Spirit is abundantly proved by the fact that when God gave over the wicked men of the old world, He said, “My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh” (Genesis vi. 3). It is impossible to see how our Strict Baptist friends can deny that in these two passages in Isaiah, men in a state of nature are exhorted to believe in and turn to God. There is also the effectual call which is the work of God’s Spirit, “whereby, convincing us of our sin and misery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and renewing our wills, he doth persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ, freely offered to us in the gospel” (Shorter Catechism, Question 31).
We think that no clearer proof of the Scripturalness of the free offer of the gospel could be given than the teaching of Christ in the parable of the marriage feast as recorded in Matthew xxii. and in the words of the Saviour there, “For many are called, but few are chosen” Matt. xxii. 14. It is on this principle that Christ’s ambassadors have gone out with the everlasting Gospel in every age of time. The burden of their message was, “We pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God” (II. Cor. v. 20). Lest, however, any should be ready to say that this message of reconciliation should be preached only to the elect, the Holy Ghost through the Apostle Paul says, “And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent” (Acts xvii. 30). What Paul preached at Athens concerning repentance he witnesses to it again in his address to the elders at Ephesus; “And how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you, but I have shewed you, and have taught you publicly, and from house to house, testifying both to the Jews, and also the Greeks repentance towards God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts xxi 20, 21). Further, in his address before King Agrippa, Paul is equally clear as to what he was preaching; “Whereupon O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision: but showed first unto them of Damascus, and at Jerusalem, and throughout all the coasts of Judæa, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance” (Acts xxvi. 19, 20). The Apostle, in these passages, clearly teaches that God “commandeth all men everywhere to repent,” and that it was his invariable practice to preach repentance and faith to all who came within the range of his preaching. In this he was going according to the principle that one of the ends of preaching the Gospel is the conversion of souls. ” . . . Delivering thee from the people, and from the Gentiles unto whom now I send thee, to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me” (Acts xxvi. 17, 18).
In the Articles of Faith of the Gospel Standard Societies, the Scripture proofs annexed to Article XXVI. are as follows:—Gen. vi. 5; viii. 21; Matt. xv. 19; Jer. xvii. 9; John vi. 44, 65; John xii. 39, 40; Eph. ii. 8; Rom. viii. 7, 8; I. Cor. iv. 7: and to Article XXIX. II. Cor. iv. 3, 4. A casual glance at these truths will reveal that they point clearly to man’s wickedness and inability to come to God but one will search in vain for any warrant which they give not to offer salvation “indiscriminately to all.” Thus we must conclude in the light of the portions of truth which have been already quoted, and many others which could be quoted did space permit, that what our friends look upon as a doctrinal error on our part, is fully in accordance with the Word of God, and that the opposite to it, that is, preaching to the elect only, has not a shred of Scripture evidence to support it, and, therefore, is the invention of men. Those who reject, as unscriptural, the free offer of the gospel seem to deny that men can be held responsible for neglecting to use the means of grace, or for rejecting Christ, for, if a free offer of Christ is to be withheld from the non-elect, the only logical conclusion that one can come to is that they cannot be held accountable for rejecting Him. The Word of God clearly states concerning Christ that “He is despised and rejected of men” (Isaiah liii. 3); and as clearly indicates that all who reject Him shall receive according to their work. “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.” Thus the free offer of the gospel will cause men to have a closed mouth on the Day of Judgment, for their rejection of what was freely offered to them will fix them down as “the true authors and causes of their own destruction.” The mere fact that “by the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life, and others fore-ordained to everlasting death,” ought not to dispense with the free offer of the gospel, apart altogether from it being so expressly enjoined in the Scriptures, and there is certainly nothing in the doctrine of predestination to withhold it. As Principal Cunningham says, “We admit, nay, we contend, that this doctrine has no immediate practical bearing upon the process of setting before sinners, and urging upon them, the commands and invitations addressed to them in connection with the scheme of salvation, or on the right regulation of their conduct in dealing with these commands and invitations. This arises manifestly from the very nature of the case. Preachers of the gospel are not only warranted but bound to address the offers and invitations of God’s Word to men indiscriminately, without distinction and exception; and having God’s sanction and command for this, they should do it without hesitation and without restriction. God does this, in order that He may thereby execute the purpose which he formed from eternity concerning the everlasting destinies of men; and that He may do so in accordance with the principles of man’s moral constitution, and with all his capacities and responsibilities; and ministers are bound to do this in God’s name, just because He requires it at their hands” (Reformers and Theology of Reformation, page 574).
This extreme attitude of our friends of the Strict Baptist persuasion is but the swing of the pendulum from Arminianism, which holds that man is able to save himself, to Hyper-Calvinism. They failed to realise in their recoil from this soul-ruining system, that the Word of God holds a middle course between the two without countenancing the errors of either, and do not see that while Arminianism has led thousands to hell deceiving themselves, Hyper-Calvinism has also led thousands to the same destination by another way—fatalism, for Satan has made a lever of it to cause miserable creatures to say, “If I am elected I shall be saved, whether I use the means of salvation or not, and if I am not elected what is the use of doing anything, so ‘Let us eat and drink for to-morrow we die.’”
In leaving this matter meantime, we may be permitted to give the following quotation from that prince of theologians, Dr. John Owen, on the subject. “Preachers of the gospel and others have sufficient warrant to press upon all men the duties of faith, repentance, and obedience, although they know that in themselves they have not a sufficiency of ability for their due performance; for,—(1) It is the will and command of God that so they should do, and that is the rule of all our duties. They are not to consider what man can do or will do, but what God requires. To make a judgment of men’s ability, and to accommodate the commands of God unto them accordingly, is not committed unto any of the sons of men. (2) They have a double end in pressing on men the observance of duties, with a supposition of the state of impotency described:—(a) To prevent them from such courses of sin as would harden them and so render their conversion more difficult, if not desperate. (b) To exercise a means appointed of God for their conversion or the communication of saving grace unto them. Such are God’s commands, and such are the duties required in them. In and by them God doth use to communicate of His grace unto the souls of men; not with respect unto them as their duties, but as they are ways appointed and sanctified by Him unto such ends. And hence it follows that even such duties are vitiated in their performance, yet are of advantage unto them by whom they are performed; for,—(1st) By attendance unto them they are preserved from many sins. (2nd) In an especial manner from the great sin of despising God, which ends commonly in that which is unpardonable. (3rd) They are hereby made useful unto others, and many ends of God’s glory in the world. (4th) They are kept in God’s way, wherein they may gradually be brought over unto a real conversion unto Him.” (Owen’s Works vol. III. page 295).