Alan Dale Gross
Active Member
"...God hath from the Beginning Chosen you to Salvation..."
“According as He hath Chosen us in Him before the Foundation of the World..."
"Since this Doctrine of God Eternally Choosing an Elect people According to His Good Pleasure is so clearly Revealed in the Bible, it is presumptuous to deny it.
"Question 1. Does not the Unconditional Election of some,
imply the 'Positive Action', on God's Part, of the Eternal Reprobation of the rest ?
"Answer. Nothing is more abhorent to our best feelings and at variance with our clearest convictions of the Divine Character, than to suppose that God has Created millions of immortals, with no other Design than to Render them Eternally miserable.
"It is granted that to Choose some, is to Leave the rest;
"but there is obviously a difference between:
A. Creating men for the special purpose of making them miserable,
B. and Leaving them to reap the fruits of their voluntary corruption.[f]
Have you ever really seen where God,
through the Apostle Paul
has anticipated this objection,
in God’s Epistle to the Romans?
“Is there unrighteousness with God?
"God forbid. For He saith to Moses,
I Will have Mercy on whom I Will have Mercy,
and I Will have Compassion on whom I Will have Compassion.
"So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth,
but of God that sheweth Mercy.”[g]
"Jehovah was under no obligation to Choose any, but would have remained Eternally Just had the whole of our race descended to the gulf of interminable despair.
"This doctrine supposes the exercise of Sovereignty on the part of God, and here we acknowledge, is laid the Eternal Basis, upon which is raised the imperishable fabric of our Hope.
"Let no reasonable man object to the sovereignty of God in Election, because this would equally militate against the economy of Providence, and so God would be unjust because he has made a difference between the Plebeian aud the Prince, or because all are not rich, or possessed of talents such as have immortalized
"the names of Locke, of Newton or of Boyle.
c 2d Thess. 2. 13. d Ephes. 1. 4.5. € 1. Thess. 1. 4. Ephes. 1.3. :/,
Galatians 6. 7.8. g Romans 9. 14, 15. 16.
"We might with equal propriety object to the Sovereignty of God in Choosing David, the youngest and most unlikely of all the sons of Jesse, to sway the sceptre of Israel.[h]
"Or because Saul of Tarsus, and not Gamaliel, was Chosen, to preach amongst the Gentiles the Unsearchable Riches of Christ.
"They were, it is believed, equally just in the Sight of God, but if any difference existed, it must have been in Favor of the latter.
"No reason therefore can be assigned which better explains the Divine Sovereignty in the selection of Saul: or of thousands, who like him, were far from Righteousness, than this, “even so Father, for so it seemeth good in Thy Sight.”
"Now if the Sovereignty of God stands connected with the Harmony & Glory of His Moral Government, by parity of reasoning it must be a part of the Plan of Redemption, because Providence and Grace mutually operate for the accomplishment of the same Grand Design.
"The Election of some to Eternal Life, does no more obscure the idea of God's Justice, than the appointment of Cyrus, rather than some other, to demolish the Babylonish empire, to emancipate the captive sons of Israel, and rebuild the temple.[k]
"Question 2. Is not the Doctrine of Election contrary
to the Divine Attributes of Love and Mercy?
"Answer. If it is a disparagement to the Mercy of God
that He has Power to Save all, yet leaves some to perish;
"it must also be unmerciful in God, to behold the temporal distress of any of his creatures, without so much as alleviating their misery, while it is in His Power to banish all their sorrow and render them completely happy.
"Why are the tears of the distracted mourner permitted to flow?
Why do we hear the cries extorted by the keen pangs of disease?
"Is it because the difficulty of raising the dead, or of healing the sick is greater now, than in the Apostolic age? Or is there less reason for such a display of Mercy.
Men are the same now as then, their pains are as acute, and their cries as piercing.
"But here we discover the Sovereignty of an All Wise and Holy God.
"But it may be said, the cases are not parallel, because God has not Promised to remove the present sorrows of man, whereas the means have been appointed, to bring men to the knowledge of the Truth, to hear and be Given Faith in the Gospel and to Insure their Eternal Salvation in Heaven.
"That God has not Promised to make men completely happy in this world, does not prove that He has not Power to do so;
"now if it is admitted that God has Power to make all men equally happy & yet Permits some to be the subjects of unmitigated sorrow, it proves to be a demonstration that God is a Sovereign, and does as seemeth Him Good amongst the inhabitants of the earth.
"The Gospel is no farther a means of salvation than it is applied by the Holy Spirit.
"Did not Christ and His Apostles, with all the power of eloquence and clearness of demonstration, preach the Gospel to the Jews who perished in the ruins of Jerusalem?
"If hearing the Gospel was all that was necessary; they heard it in all its Purity and Glory, as it sounded from the Lips of the Immaculate JESUS CHRIST,
h Psalms. 78. 70, 71. 1 Sam. 16. 12. i Matt, 11. 20. l. Isaiah #4.23. 35. 1. 1.
Why were they not saved ?
"But if it is conceded, that merely hearing the Gospel is not sufficient, but an application of it to the heart is necessary to conversion, then it follows, that the Salvation of a sinner is not a human, but a Divine Work.
"Now if this is the Work of God, independent of human agency, and it appears that all who hear the Gospel are not saved; what does this prove, but that as the wind bloweth where it listeth, so the Holy Spirit works by the instrumentality of the Gospel, “to will and to do, of His Own Good Pleasure.”[l]
"One is pricked in the heart, while another equally attentive to the means of Grace, and perhaps more moral remains careless and hardened in sin.
The different success of the Gospel at various places and at different times in the same place, delivered by the same preacher and to the same audience, most clearly exhibits the Sovereignty of Divine Grace, and proves beyond contradiction, that the conversion of sinners, is, “according to His Purpose and Grace,” as to the subjects themselves, and also as to the time of their change, and the means by which it is to be accomplished.
"Now according to the Divine and Sovereign Plan of Redemption, we are informed in the Apocalyptic writings, that God has Determined to Save a great multitude, which no man can number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues: [m] it must therefore be obvious, that the Doctrine of Election is not contrary to the Scriptural idea of the Mercy of God.
"Had not some been Chosen; all must have perished, and it is undeniable, that a Doctrine which secures the Salvation of an innumerable multitude, is more compatible with the Mercy and Love of God, than a Doctrine which reduces the Salvation of all to an uncertainty."
The Doctrine of uncertainty that teaches that noone in particular has been Chosen to experience Salvation, by God, from Eternity Past, by His Sovereign Election, teaches that there was the perfectly reasonable expectation that Jesus could have Lived, Died, Been Buried, and Rose Again, with no one ever choosing Him at all, leaving all mankind lost suffering in Hell, and for Jesus to have Died, for nothing.
Try not to brag on your ignorance.
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