Rev. Dr John Duncan
This extract from Rich Gleanings from “Rabbi” Duncan is part of a report of Dr Duncan’s address on truths that ought to be emphasised in preaching the gospel, delivered to the 1844 Free Church Assembly.
God should be proclaimed as the sole Creator, Christ as the entire Saviour, — not the Redeemer only, but the quickener also; not the author of faith only, but the perfecter and finisher of faith. The doctrine of man’s impotency — of his total inability to bring himself back to God, should be held up. The opposite doctrine, the doctrine of man’s ability to convert himself, countenances the absurdity that man is to return to a dependence on Jehovah by the belief of a certain independence, which is not only absurd, but also dishonourable to God.
It would not do to tell a man that he may come to Christ, but that he must come. Some, indeed, would have man to do all, though he could do nothing; and others would have him to do nothing, because all was done for him. As long as I am told that I must come to God, Dr Duncan said, and that I can come, I am left to suppose that some good thing, or some power of good remains in me, and I arrogate to myself that which belongs to Jehovah. The creature is exalted, and God is robbed of His glory. If, on the other hand, I am not responsible for my rebellion, and God Jehovah is not my God. But if we preach that sinners can’t come, and yet must come, then is the honour of God vindicated, and the sinner is shut up. Man must be so shut up that he must come to Christ, and yet know that he cannot. He must come to Christ, or he will look to another, when there is no other to whom he may come; he cannot come, or he will look to himself. This is the gospel vice, to shut up men to the faith. Some grasp at one limb of the vice and some at the other, leaving the sinner open — but when a man is shut up that he must and cannot, he is shut up to the faith- shut up to the faith, and then would he be shut up in the faith. God is declared to be Jehovah, and the sinner is made willing to be saved by Him, in His own way, as sovereign in His grace.
Many may dislike this doctrine as harsh and severe, but it is because they view God’s sovereignty apart from His grace. They speak of the sovereign God, but why not of the sovereignty of grace? For himself, said Dr Duncan, he felt comfort when shut up to this truth, that God was sovereign, and His grace sovereign; for though he was a sinner — an absolute sinner, Jehovah had said, “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy.” This doctrine came like heaven’s own thunder, and struck down all human dependence. It came upon a man as lost, as the very chief of sinners, and depending solely on God’s will; and then, oh how blessed to know the sovereignty of grace! It struck him down, he said, when he read, “The Son quickeneth whom He will.” His mind fixed on the “whom He will,” and he was undone, because it did not depend on his own will, but on the will of another. But he read again and found that it was the Son that quickeneth whom He will, and this raised him from the dust, because the Son, on whose sovereign will his salvation depended, was the same “Jesus Christ who came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.”