7. It Is Not According to Works but of God’s Purpose (2)
James Foote
Now to admit fully the principle that effectual calling is of God’s sovereign grace will not only keep you from theoretical error, but will tend to strip you of all self-confidence, to humble you in the dust under a sense of your own weakness and unworthiness, to lead you to look to the right quarter for deliverance, and to make you willing – even anxious – to be saved in the way of pure mercy.
It would be an unreasonable and awful abuse if any who are refusing to obey the gospel call should pervert this truth so as to impute their ruin to God and excuse themselves. All good is from God; all evil is from the creature. To manifest His justice, the Lord sees fit not to save all transgressors, but to let the law take its course on some of them. Two circumstances indeed lead, though in very different senses, to the final punishment of sinners, namely their own obstinacy and God’s justice. But their own guilt alone is the procuring cause of their punishment and has the blame attached to it.
It is the prerogative of an earthly sovereign to pardon those who are under sentence of death; but in those cases in which a sentence is actually executed on justly-condemned criminals, who ever thinks of imputing the guilt, or even tracing the death, of these criminals to the sovereign and his prerogative? In such cases, when someone is asked why such criminals have suffered, he is content with stating, as the reason, that they have been guilty of murder or rebellion or some other crime.
So it is here. Only the King of kings can save any sinners from that eternal death to which they have exposed themselves. If God does save any, it is of free, sovereign grace; if He does not save them all, the ruin of those who perish must be traced to their own guilt. Let the speculative objector beware of charging God with sin; let him humble himself before Him; let him take shame to himself; let him confess that though the Lord were to send him off instantly to hell, it would only be what he deserves; let him give the glory that is due to God’s sovereignty by being willing to be indebted to it, and in applying to Him on that ground. So he shall experience the practical benefit and the blessed effect of the very truth at which he was so ready to stumble, in his ignorance or pride or prejudice.
Let me also put in a caution against a different abuse of this doctrine, by those who admit its truth and perhaps dwell on it more than is due to it according to the analogy of the faith – when it is, by some mistake, turned into a discouragement to obey the call to come to Christ. Sometimes an awakened person is ready to say, Effectual Calling is of God’s sovereign, gracious, eternal purpose; but I am afraid I am not included in that purpose, and therefore I shall never be able obey the call.
In the meantime, let us say that, though election is before effectual calling in the order of time, yet knowledge of one’s effectual calling must go before the knowledge of one’s election. No one therefore should inquire into their own election in the first instance, but all should first see that they obey the call.
The only thoroughly-scriptural doctrine of the method and extent of gospel salvation is one which presents at once (1) the most exalted views of the sovereignty and certainty of Jehovah’s operations, and (2) the greatest encouragement to sinners to cast themselves on His mercy by faith in the finished work of the Redeemer. Our scheme is defective if it does not easily and necessarily include both. It is when the whole counsel of God on both points is unhesitatingly received that God – the Father, Son and Holy Ghost – is duly exalted, and the sinner thoroughly humbled, yet cheered, and sanctified and saved.
How beautifully and harmoniously are these two points brought out in these words of the Saviour, “All that the Father giveth Me shall come to Me; and him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out” (Jn 6:37)! How pleasing in itself, and how encouraging both for seeking salvation personally, and for pressing it on others, is the thought that many shall certainly come to Christ, even all that the Father has given to Him! Let no one suppose that, because so many obstinately hold out, all will resist. Let no one suppose that, because so many refuse to enter in, the Church on earth will be destitute of living members or that the mansions of glory will remain empty. Whoever will despise the Saviour, His labours and sufferings will not be lost; He shall see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied; He shall possess one part of the joy set before Him in bringing many sons to glory. All whom the Father gave Him, to redeem and save, shall be redeemed and saved. They shall come to Him personally by faith; they shall obey His call and actually be converted; they shall hear and live.
In fulfillment of the divine purpose, they shall certainly come, yet without compulsion, but with their own most cordial consent. What a glorious truth is this, when rightly understood! What an encouragement for sinners to seek salvation for themselves, and for ministers to preach and pray and to exhort others to come! What an encouragement is the assurance of success, success to a great extent – even to the extent of all that are given to Christ: that is, as many as shall seem good to an infinitely wise and gracious God! What wise man would wish to take the matter out of God’s hands? What can be conceived so satisfactory and so delightful as the scriptural account of this work? If the result was left to the will and natural powers of fallen man, and if the favourable decision, the turning of the scale, depended on him, all would be uncertain. Rather, all would be hopeless, for it would be certain that not even one sinner would ever come to Christ or be saved at all. As it is, however, multitudes shall come which no man can number.
Yet the pleasure would be greatly damped if the certainty of the salvation of those who are given to Christ implied that there could be any who, having become convinced of sin and earnest about salvation, should apply to Christ and persevere in crying to Him for mercy, and after all be rejected. No such case can possibly occur. The supposition is a pure fiction of the imagination, for the purpose of making the truth and grace of God appear hateful, or arising from the wayward workings of a disturbed mind.
If any soul is exercised in the hopeful way just mentioned, there is a presumption that the Holy Spirit is already dealing with that soul. The secret will of God as to the persons He is to save, and His revealed will as to His acceptance of all who actually believe, will be found perfectly consistent, for none are willing till He makes them willing, and what He actually does He already intends to do. So far even this deep subject is sufficiently intelligible; yet it is impracticable to explain every difficulty so as to satisfy everyone. You will do well to remember that similar difficulties attend every view of divine grace and the human will in reference to salvation, and even every view of providence and moral agency in general.
See that you receive the whole truth in these two respects, that you may be at once humbled and encouraged. The conversion of multitudes is certain; why should you not be of the number? You must be indebted to sovereign grace, if you are to succeed; why should you not acquiesce in that view and proceed upon it? If you are indeed coming, then grace is drawing you. If you do come, Jesus will in no wise cast you out; He will most certainly receive you. Proceed in the full belief, and the right use, of this property of effectual calling – that it is not of works, but of God’s sovereign, gracious and eternal purpose in Christ. Thus you shall assuredly find acceptance with God and in due time be prepared, without having any inconsistent and self-confident notions to renounce, to bring out the headstone of your spiritual building, “with shoutings, crying, Grace, grace unto it”; and to join with the redeemed on high, who “cast their crowns before the throne” and whose humble, grateful and blissful language is, “Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy name give glory”.
1Taken, with editing, from Foote’s Treatise on Effectual Calling. Foote (1781-1856) was a minister in Aberdeen, latterly in the Free Church. Last month’s article was the first of two on effectual calling as “not according to works but of God’s purpose”.
Famous Books and their Authors1
3. Jonathan Edwards’ Religious Affections
Rev Donald Beaton
The author of this well-known religious classic was born in 1703 at Windsor, in Connecticut, where his father was minister. His mother was a daughter of the celebrated Solomon Stoddard of Northampton. He entered college at the age of 12 and showed more than ordinary aptitude in acquiring knowledge. It was during his second year at college that he came across a copy of Locke on The Human Understanding; the reading of this book awakened those philosophical powers that were yet to produce such remarkable fruit. In 1720 he took his BA degree but remained two years longer at college studying theology; at the end of his course was licensed to preach the gospel.
He was invited to New York and preached there for eight months with great acceptance, to a small congregation of English Presbyterians. But owing to certain difficulties in the way he did not see his way to accept a call from them. Three years after taking his first degree he graduated MA and was appointed a tutor at Yale College, where he remained for two years. At the end of this period he was called to Northampton, where his grandfather was minister. This call he accepted and was ordained colleague and successor to his grandfather on 15 February 1727, when he was 23. And so began a blessed and fruitful ministry in Northampton that was to end sadly enough.
The religious experience of those whom the Lord has blessed, and used as instruments in the advancement of His kingdom, is always interesting to pious minds. It must be admitted that the religious experience of Jonathan Edwards, as recorded in his diary, is specially so. He tells us that he had concerns about his soul from childhood. During an awakening in his father’s congregation he was very much impressed. He used to pray five times a day and spend much of his time in religious exercises and conversation. He and his schoolmates met together for prayer. He often went to secret prayer; he tells how lively his affections were and what delight he had in it. But these feelings passed away and, as a warning to others, he adds, “I am ready to think that many are deceived with such affections and such a kind of delight as I then had in religion, and mistake it for grace”.
Thoughts of eternity again came back to him during a severe attack of pleurisy which he had at college. It had a sobering effect for some time, for he acknowledges that God brought him near the brink of the grave and shook him over the pit of hell. But in the vigour of renewed health, the grave and what was beyond were soon forgotten. For a time, this spirit of indifference took possession of him, but it soon gave place to a spirit of unrest. He could not get himself away from the thought of the great realities of eternity and vainly tried to pacify his conscience with vows and resolutions to depart from all outward forms of sin. The salvation of his soul was now the great question, as he himself confesses: “I was indeed brought to seek salvation in a manner that I never was before; I felt a spirit to part with all things in the world for an interest in Christ. My concern continued and prevailed, with many exercising thoughts and inward struggles; but yet it never seemed to be proper to express that concern by the name of terror.”
During this period the doctrine of God’s sovereignty was a source of great trouble to him, but a time came when he was enabled to acquiesce in it – the Holy Spirit showing him the reasonableness and justice of this great and profound truth. From that day he says, “I scarce ever have found so much as the rising of an objection against it in the most absolute sense, in God’s showing mercy to whom He will show mercy and hardening whom He will. . . . This doctrine has very often appeared exceedingly pleasant, bright and sweet. Absolute sovereignty is what I love to ascribe to God. But my first conviction was not so.” And now comes what he himself regarded as the great crisis in his life. It is best told in his own words.
“The first instance,” he says, “that I remember of that inward, sweet delight in God and divine things that I have lived much in since, was on reading 1 Timothy 1:17, ‘Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.’ As I read the words, there came into my soul and was, as it were, diffused through it a sense of the glory of the divine Being; a new sense, quite different from anything I ever experienced before. Never any words of Scripture seemed as these words did. I thought with myself, how excellent a Being that was, how happy I should be if I might enjoy that God, and be rapt up to Him in heaven and be, as it were, swallowed up in Him for ever. I kept saying and, as it were, singing over these words of Scripture to myself, and went to pray to God that I might enjoy Him, and prayed in a manner quite different from what I used to do, with a new sort of affection. But it never came into my thought that there was anything spiritual, or of a saving nature, in this.”
After this there followed a period in which his heart found its chiefest joy in contemplating the glory of the Person of Christ and the suitability of the way of salvation. It was the joy of a soul finding heaven’s Pearl of unspeakable price, but it was not incompatible with a painful realisation of the seething mass of iniquity in his heart. Scarcely could any words be found to express with greater force what he felt than the words he uses: “I know not how to express better what my sins appear to me to be than by heaping infinite upon infinite and multiplying infinite by infinite. Very often for these many years these expressions are in my mind and in my mouth: ‘Infinite upon infinite, infinite upon infinite’.
“When I look into my heart and take a view of my wickedness, it looks like an abyss infinitely deeper than hell. And it appears to me that were it not for free grace, exalted and raised up to the infinite height of all the fullness and glory of the great Jehovah, and the arm of His power and grace stretched forth in all the majesty of His power and in all the glory of His sovereignty, I should appear sunk down in my sins below hell itself, far beyond the sight of everything but the eye of sovereign grace, that can pierce even down to such a depth. And yet it appears to me that my conviction of sin is exceeding small and faint; it is enough to amaze me that I have no more sense of my sin.” Such is the confession of one who had discovered some of the dark recesses of his heart.
We turn now to another chapter in his life – a sadder one, it is true, but not without its lessons for us. For him in the eventide of his life, the clouds gathered and darkened his pathway for a season. The whole affair is a painful enough business even to read of, and casts a lurid light on the fickleness of the multitude once their prejudices are aroused.
The history of this affair is as follows. In 1744 it had been reported to him that some of the young people of his congregation, who were also communicants, were reading obscene books. He informed his congregation of the matter and asked some of the leading men to lend him their aid in stamping out influences that were so degrading in their tendencies. This was readily agreed to. A day and place were appointed for the meeting when the culprits were to be examined. The names of the witnesses and the guilty were published beforehand, when it was discovered that many of the youths belonged to the most influential families in the town.
Immediately the whole town was in a state of feverish excitement, which gave place to anger, not against the dissolute youths, but against the conscientious minister. The result of this worse-than-foolish behaviour, on the part of the parents, was that some of the youths defied the jurisdiction of the church and ignored its discipline, while those who submitted to examination did so in a most insolent and unbecoming manner. From that day the influence of Jonathan Edwards over the young people of his congregation was gone, simply through the paternal folly that shielded vice at the expense of a wholesome discipline.
Shortly after this another incident occurred that helped to make the breach wider. In New England very lax views had prevailed as to admission to the Lord’s table. Stoddard, Jonathan Edwards’ grandfather, held that the Lord’s Supper was a converting ordinance, and therefore sanctification was not a necessary qualification in communicants. For 20 years Edwards held the same view, but on fuller study of the question he regarded it as most unscriptural. This change of view gave great offence to his people, and so exasperated were they that they would not even listen to an explanation of his new view; their first thought was to have him dismissed. Edwards, to vindicate his position, published his convincing Humble Inquiry as to the Qualifications of Church Members, but few of his people read it.
Nothing would appease them but his dismissal, and on 1 July 1744 Jonathan Edwards preached his farewell sermon to them. The text was 2 Corinthians 1:14: “As also ye have acknowledged us in part, that we are your rejoicing, even as ye also are ours in the day of the Lord Jesus”. The doctrine insisted on was that ministers and the people who have been under their care must meet each other before Christ’s tribunal at the day of judgement. The solemn and impressive sentences must have moved the congregation to the deepest awe as he who once was their beloved pastor, and whom many of them acknowledged as their spiritual father, bade them farewell in such painful circumstances. He weathered this terrible storm with all the heroism born of Christian fortitude. To show the beautiful spirit of the man, he offered his services to them any Sabbath they had no preacher, but at last their enmity became so inveterate that they would not listen to him.
The following year he left Northampton and laboured for six years among the Indians at Stockport, with notable results. In 1757 he received an invitation to become President of Princeton College and, after some hesitation, he accepted it. But his career was now near its close, for in the following year he died of a fever, when he was 55. His last words, as he passed over, were, “Trust in God, and ye need not fear”. So ended the career of one of the greatest thinkers, and the foremost theologian, of the New World.
A word must be said of Edwards as a preacher. His sermons must have had a tremendous effect on his audience; even yet some of them make one tremble in the very reading. His sense of the absolute sovereignty of God, and the dark, abysmal depths of sin in the human heart, made him preach the awful terrors of the Lord, as occasion called – as well as the unsearchable riches of Christ. His most notable sermon is said to be the one entitled, “Sinners in the hands of an angry God”. Under his ministry there were two notable revivals. To guard against extravagances that were likely to accompany these movements, he preached a notable sermon, “The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God”. It was to counteract the same tendencies that he published his Religious Affections.
It was first given to the public in 1746, but had been preached to his own congregation during 1742 and 1743. Its great theme is the marks which distinguish a true work of grace from a false, and in its own line it is one of the most remarkable works dealing with Christian experience. Its even balance, careful and scriptural statement, and even the rigid standard it holds up to the believer, appeal to the earnest seeker who is feeling that the way of life is a narrow way, and that the battle is against fearful odds. The whole work may be said to be a commentary on the words, that the righteous scarcely are saved.
It consists of three parts. Part 1 deals with “the nature of the affections and their importance in religion”; Part 2 shows “what are no certain signs that religious affections are truly gracious, or that they are not”; and Part 3 shows “what are distinguishing signs of truly gracious and holy affections”. It is not a book which the hypocrite or the self-righteous Pharisee will find very entertaining. But notwithstanding its searching analysis of Christian experience, it is a work that everyone professing faith should read. In dealing with his great theme Jonathan Edwards touches on such subjects as people seeing visions; for instance, seeing Christ on the cross, hearing Him speaking to them, and resting on this as a ground for their salvation. This delusion he characterises in no measured terms.
He also enters a caveat against the careless and indiscriminate use some people make of passages of Scripture coming to their mind. When the Holy Spirit sends a passage of Scripture to the mind it has a spiritually enlightening and sanctifying influence. Whereas, if it is only the memory that is responsible, no such influence will be felt. He also touches on the subject of judging, and has some very wise remarks on it:
“The true saints have not such a spirit of discerning that they can certainly determine who are godly and who are not. For, though they know experimentally what true religion is in the internal exercises of it, yet these are what they can neither feel nor see in the heart of another. There is nothing in others that comes within their view, but outward manifestations and appearances, at best uncertain and liable to deceit. ‘The Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.’ They commonly are but poor judges and dangerous counsellors in soul cases who are quick and peremptory in determining persons’ states, vaunting themselves in their extraordinary faculty of discerning and distinguishing in these great affairs; as though all was open and clear to them. They betray one of these three things: either that they have had but little experience, or are persons of a weak judgement, or have a great degree of pride and self-confidence and so ignorance of themselves. Wise and experienced men will proceed with great caution in such an affair.”
The work, however, by which Edwards is best known is that on Free Will. This was his great masterpiece, and is regarded as one of the classics of philosophy. The work is a defence of the Calvinist doctrine as to the bondage of man’s will, and is a criticism of the Arminian doctrine. It is so powerful and logical that it has received no convincing answer. Edwards had one of the most remarkable of minds, which enabled him to move among the dim and hazy abstractions of metaphysics with all the ease of one who is perfectly at home. He was one of God’s greatest gifts to the Church, and he occupied a high position in the philosophical world.
1Taken, with editing, from the November 1902 issue of this Magazine.