from God's predestinating purpo.se ' according to the good pleasure of his will ' and without any foresight of merit on their |iart : the issue of destruction for the wicked proceeds from the rejection of ollcred grace and their persistence in transgressiou and sin. The distinction is that set forth by St. Paul wlien he says: 'The wages of sin is death ; but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (Ko 6°^).
That God's sovereignty in predestination is exer- cised consistently with man's perfect liberty to choose is an antinomy which it is iinpossil>le for us to reconcile, but wliich, nevertheless, stands out clear in the teaching of St. Paul. In Ro U-"- -' St. Paul appeals to one side of the antinomy and affirms the Divine sovereignty by reference to the figure of the potter ; and in Ro 10"''° he exhibits the other side when he allirins the universality and freeuessof the gospel offer, saying, 'Wlujsoever shall call ujion the name of the Lord sliall be saved. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed ? and how shall they believe in him whom they have not heard V and how shall they hear without a preacher?' Whilst St. Paul, as we have seen, affirms the doctrine of absolute predestination to life, he asserts no less clearly the truth of himian responsibility. Underlying all his exhortations to holiness, and all his presentations of gospel privilege and blessing, there is the assumption of the freedom of the human will to avail itself of offered grace or to refuse it, to put forth etibrt or to remain inactive. Whilst the kindling of the Divine life in the soul through the exerci.se of faith in Christ is, of sovereign grace (Eph 2*), the increase and fruitfulness of the Divine life through prayer and service depends upon the same grace, as St. Paul exliorts : ' Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling ; for it is God which worketh in you both to ^^'ill and to work, for his good pleasure' (Ph 2''-- '*).
5. Predestination in Christian experience. — The doctrine of predestination has the analogy of Christian experience to support it. Every Cliris- tian man is ready to acknowledge that there was some power at work for his salvation before his own freewill. ' We love,' says St. John, ' because he first loved us ' (1 Jn 4'^). It is He wlio, through the Holy Spirit, by the use of the means of grace, quickens into spiritual life men who are dead in trespasses and sins. And there are multitudes who acknowledge their experience to have been that of Lydia, ' whose heart the Lord ojtened, to give heed unto the things which were spoken by Paul ' (Ac 16"). In Christian experience there is the conviction of this gracious influence which has been beforehand with us in showing us the guilt of sin and leading us to Christ for salvation, but there is also tlie consciousness of moral responsibilitj-, requiring from us the constant exercise of faith and the diligent use of all the means of grace. ' I could no more,' says Erskine of Linlathen, writing to Thomas Chalmers from Herrnhut {Letters, 1800- 1S40, ed. Hanna, 1877), ' separate tlie belief of pre- destination from my idea of God, than I could separate the conviction of moral responsibility from my own consciousness. I do not, to be sure, see how these two things coincide, but I am pre- pared for my own ignorance on these points. We know things, not absolutely as they are in them- selves, but relatively as they are to us and to our practical necessities.' There we must be content to leave the antinomy, believing that though it is beyond our limited powers to reconcile, it is recon- ciled in the mind of the All-knowing and Eternal God.
6. Practical applications. — The doctrine of pre- destination has practical ap]ilications full of com- fort and encouragement. A reasonable assurance
264 PEE-EXISTENCE OF CHRIST
PRE-EXISTENCE OF CHRIST
of salvation finds in tlie eternal decree, whose sole cause is the good pleasure and eternal will of God, its most certain and abidiiij; grouiul. 'I'o have a well-grounded persuasion, through the fruit of the Spirit and the evidences of the new life, that one is of the number of those whom God foreknew and foreordained to be conformed to the inuifje of His Son, cannot fail on the one hand to till one with gratitude and humility, and on the other to stimu- late one to the pursuit of holiness and all the graces of the Christian life. The belief that God in His predestinating purpose has His elect — known to Him when unknown to man — in every community and every congregation where Christ is preached, is an encouragement to faithful ministry, as it was to St. Paul when in a vision of the night the Lord said to him : ' I have much people in this city' (Ac 18'"). 'The doctrine of this high mystery of predestination,' says the Westminster Confession (ch. iii. 8), 'is to be handled with special prudence and care, that men attending to the will of God revealed in His word, and yielding obedience thereunto, may, from the certainty of their effectual vocation, be assured of their eternal election. So shall this doctrine allbrd matter of praise, reverence, and admiration of God, and of humility, diligence, and abundant consolation to all that sincerely obey the Gospel.'