this Section teaches that all the decrees of God are unconditional.

All who believe in a divine government agree with Calvinists that the decrees of God relating to events produced by necessary causes are unconditional. The only debate relates to those decrees which are concerned with the free actions of men and of angels. The Socinians and Rationalists maintain that God cannot certainly foresee free actions, because from their very nature they are uncertain until they are performed. Arminians admit that he certainly foresees them, but

god's eternal decree. 97

deny that he determines them. Calvinists affirm that he foresees them to be certainly future because he has determined them to be so.

The truth of the Culvinistic view is proved — (1.) From the fact that, as shown above, the decrees of God determine all classes of events. If every event that comes to pass is foreordained, it is evident that there is nothing left undetermined upon which the decree can be conditioned.

(2.) Because the decrees of God are sovereign. This is evident, {a) because God is the eternal and absolute Creator of all things. All creatures exist, and are what they are, and possess the })roperties peculiar to them, and act under the very conditions in which they act, because of God's plan. (6.) It is directly affinued in Scripture. Dan. iv. 35; Isa. xl. 13, 14; Rom. ix. 1518; Eph. i. 5.

(3.) God's decree includes and determines the means and conditions upon which events depend, as well as the events themselves : "According as he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy.'' Eph. i. 4. " By grace ye are saved through faithy and that not of yourselves : it is the gift of God,'* Eph ii. 8. " God has from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth." 2 Thess. ii. 13. In the case of Paul's shipwreck, God first promised Paul absolutely that not a life should be lost. Acts xxvii. 24. But Paul said, verse 31 : " Except these men abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved."

(4.) The Scriptures declare that the salvation of individuals is conditional upon the personal act of faith,

98 Confession of faith.

and at the same time that the decree of God with regard to the salvation of individuals rests solely upon ** the counsel of his own will," " his own good pleasure." " For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God accord - ing to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth, etc." Rom. ix. 11. "Having predestinated us according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will." Eph. i. 11 ; i. 5; Matt. xi. 25, 26.

4th. The purpose of God is, with reference to all the objects embraced within it, certainly efficacious.

The decree of God is merely a purpose which he executes in his works of creation and providence. When it is said that all the decrees of God are certainly efficacious, it is not meant that they are the proximate causes of events, but that they render, under the subsequent economy of creation and providence, every event embraced in them absolutely certain. This is evident — (1) From the nature of God as an infinitely wise and powerful person and absolute sovereign.

(2.) From the fact that the decrees relate to all events without exception, and are sovereign and unconditional.

(3.) The Scriptures declare, with reference to such events, that there is a needs-he that they should happen as it was determined. Matt. xvi. 21 ; Luke xxiv. 44 ; xxii. 22.

5th. This purpose must in all things be perfectly consistent with his own most wise, benevolent and holy nature.

This is a self-eyident truth from the nature of God as an eternal, absolutely perfect and unchangeable being.

His decrees must be absolutely perfect in wisdom and righteousness.

The problem of the permission of sin is to us insoluble, because unexplained. The fact is certain, the reason beyond discovery. If God be infinitely wise and powerful, he might have prevented it. It is evident that it is consistent with absolute righteousness to permit it and to overrule it. The Arminian admits that God foresaw that sin and misery would certainly eventuate upon the conditions of creation he established. He is therefore as unable as the CaJvinist is to explain why God, notwithstanding that certain knowledge, did not change those conditions.

It remains, however, certain (1) that God is not the cause of sin, (a) because he is absolutely holy; (b) because sin is in its essence di^ofica (violation of God's will) ; (c) because man as a free agent is the responsible cause of his own actions : (2) that God has permitted sin for the purpose of overruling it in the interests of righteousness and benevolence, the highest glory of God and excellence of the moral creation.

6th. The purpose of God is in all things perfectly consistent with the nature and the mode of action of the creatures severally embraced within it.

This is certain, (1) because the one eternal, self-consistent, all-comprehensive purpose of God at the same time determines the nature of the agent, his proper mode of action and each action that shall eventuate. As God's purpose cannot be inconsistent with itself, the element of it determining the nature of the agent cannot be inconsistent with the element of it determining any particular action of the agent.

(2.) Because the decTees of God are not the proximate causes of events ; they only make a given event certainly future. It provides that free agents shall be free agents, and free actions free actions, and that a given free agent shall exist, and that he shall freely perform a certain free action under certain conditions.

Now, that a given free action is certainly future, is obviously not inconsistent with the perfect freedom of the agent in that act: (1.) Because all admit that God certainly foreknows the free actions of free agents, and if so, they must be certainly future, although free. (2.) God^s actions are certainly holy, though free, and the same is true of all glorified spirits in heaven. (3.) The actions of the devil, and finally reprobate men and angels, will for ever be certainly wicked, yet free and responsible.

By the decree of God is meant his purpose or determination with respect to future things ; or, more fully, his determinate counsel, whereby, from all eternity, he foreordained whatever he should do, or would permit to be done, in time.

This subject is one of the most abstruse and intricate in i theology, and it has been the fruitful source of a variety of controversies in the Christian Church. But whatever diversity of opinion may obtain respecting the details of the doctrine, " no man will deny that there are divine decrees, who believes that God is an intelligent being, and considers what this character implies. An intelligent being is one who knows and judges, who purposes ends and devises means, who acts from design, conceives a plan, and then proceeds to execute it. Fortune was worshipped as a goddess by the ancient heathens, and was represented as blind, to signify that she was guided by no fixed rule, and distributed her favours at random. Surely no person of common sense, not to say piety, will impute procedure so irrational to the Lord of universal nature. As he knew all things v,'liich his power could accomplish, there were, undoubtedly, reasons which determined him to do one thing, and not to do another; and his choice, which was foimded upon those reasons, was his decree." *

That God must have decreed all future things, is a conclusion which necessai'ily flows from his foreknowledge, independence, and immutability. " The foreknowledge of God will necessarily infer a decree ; for God could not foreknow that things would be, unless he had decreed they should be; and that because things would not be future, unless he had * Dick's I ectures on Tlieology, vol. ii., p. 167.

i4< CONFESSION OF FAITH. [CHAP. III.

decreed they sliould be." * If God be an independent being, all creatures must have an entire dependence upon him; but this dependence proves undeniably that all their acts must be regulated by his sovereign will. If God be of one mind, which none can change, he must have unalterably fixed everything in his purpose which he effects in his providence.

This doctrine is plainly revealed in the Scriptures. They speak of God's foreknowledge, his purpose, his will, the determinate counsel of his will, and his predestination. " Whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate." — Rom. viii. 29. " He hath made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure, which he hath purposed in himself." " He worketh all things after the counsel of his own will." — Eph. i. 9, 11. "Christ," says an apostle, "was delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God."— Acts ii. 23.

" The decrees of God relate to all future things, without exception ; whatever is done in time was foreordained before the beginning of time. His purpose was concerned with everything, whether great or small, whether good or evil ; although, in reference to the latter, it may be necessary to distinguish between appointment and permission. It was concerned with things necessary, free, and contingent ; with the movements of matter, which are necessary ; with the volitions and actions of intelligent creatures, which are free ; and with such things as we call accidents, because they take place undesignedly on our part, and without any cause which we could discover. It was concerned about our life and our death ; about our state in time and our state in eternity. In short, the decrees of God are as comprehensive as his government, which extends to all creatures, and to all events." f

The decrees of God axe free. He was not impelled to decree from any exigence of the divine nature ; this would be to deny his self-sufficiency. Neither was he under any external constraint ; this would be destructive of his independence. His decrees, therefore, must be the sovereign and free act of his will. By this it is not meant to insinuate that they are arbitrary decisions ; but merely that, in making his deci-ees, he was under no control, and acted according to his own sovereignty.

The decrees of God are most icise. They are called " the counsel of his will," to show that, though his will be free, yet

* Edwards' Miscellaneous Observations, p. 114. t Dick's Lectures on Theology, vol. ii,, p. 170.

he always acts in a manner consummately wise. He needs not to deliberate, or take counsel with others, but all his decrees are the result of unerring wisdom. " O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God ! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past-finding out !" " Wisdom is discovered in the selection of the most proper ends, and of the fittest means of accomplishing them. That this character belongs to the decrees of God is evident from what we know of them. They are disclosed to us by their execution ; and every proof of wisdom in the works of God is a proof of the wisdom of the plan in conformity to which they are performed."

The decrees of God are eternal. This our Confession explicitly affirms : — " God,/?-om all eternity ^ did ordain whatsoever comes to pass." This is asserted in opposition to the Socinians, who hold that some, at least, of the decrees of God are temporary. Those decrees which relate to things dependent on the free agency of man, they maintain, are made in time. But what saith the Scripture ? It expressly declares, that every thing which has happened, and everything which is to happen, was known to God from everlasting. " Known unto God are all his works, from the beginning of the world." — Acts xv. 18. To suppose any of the divine decrees to be made in time, is to suppose the knowledge of the Deity to be limited. If from eternity he knew all things that come to pass, then from eternity he must have ordained them ; for if they had not been determined upon, they could not have been foreknown as certain.

The decrees of God are absolute and unconditional. He has not decreed anything, because he foresaw it as future; and the execution of his decrees is not suspended upon any condition which may or may not be performed. This is the explicit doctrine of our Confession, and it is this principle which chiefly distinguishes Calvin ists from Arminians, who maintain that God's decrees are not absolute but conditional.

" It is granted, that some of the decrees of God are conditional, in this sense, that something is supposed to go before the event which is the object of the decree, and that, this order being established, the one will not take place without the other. He decreed, for example, to save Paul and the companions of his voyage to Italy ; but he decreed to save them only on condition that the sailors should remain in the ship. — Acts xxvii. He has decreed to save many from the wrath to come ; but he has decreed to save them only if they believe in Christ, and turn by him from the error of

46 CONFESSION OF FATTTI. [CIIAP III

their "ways. But these decrees are conditional only in appearance. They merely state the order in which the events should be accomplished ; they establish a connection between the means and the end, but do not leave the means uncertain. When God decreed to save Paul and his companions, he decreed that the sailors should be prevented from leaving the ship ; and accordingly gave Paul previous notice of the preservation of every person on board. When he decreed to save those who should believe, he decreed to give them faith ; and, accordingly, we are informed, that those whom he predestinated he also calls into the fellowship of his Son. — Rom. viii, 30. That any deci-ee is conditional in the sense " of Arminians, " that it depends upon the will of man, of which he is sovereign master, so that he may will or not will as he pleases, — we deny. 'My counsel,' says God, ' shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure.' — Isa. xlvi. 10. But he could not speak so, if his counsel depended upon a condition which might not be performed.'** Conditional decrees are inconsistent with the infinite wisdom of God, and are in men the effects of weakness. They are also inconsistent Avith the independence of God, making them to depend upon the free will or agency of his creatures. The accomplishment of them, too, would be altogether uncertain ; but the Scripture assures us, that " the counsel of the Lord standeth for ever, and the thoughts of his heart to all generations." — Ps. xxxiii. 11. All his purposes are unalterably determined, and their execution infallibly certain. " There are many devices in a man's heart," which he is unable to accomplish, " nevertheless the counsel of the Lord, that shall stand." — Prov. xix. 21.

It has been often objected to the doctrine respecting the diAdne decrees taught in our Confession, that it represents God as the author of sin. But the Confession expressly g-uards against this inference, by declaring that God has so ordained whatsoever comes to pass as that he is not thereby the author of sin. The decree of God is either effective oipermissive. His effective decree respects all the good that comes to pass ; his permissive decree respects the evil that is in sinful actions. We must also disting-uish betwixt an action 'purely as such, and the sinfulness of the action. The decree of God is effective with respect to the action abstractly considered ; it is permissive with respect to the sinfulness of the action as a moral evil.

It has also been objected, that if God has foreordained whatsoever comes to pass, human liberty is taken away. To * Dick's Lectures on Theology, vol, ii., pp. 175, 176, Sec.

this it has been commonly replied, that it is siifficient to human liberty, that a man acts without any constraint, and according to liis own free choice ; that the divine decree is extrinsic to the human mind ; and, while it secures the futurition of events, it leaves rational agents to act as freely as if there had been no decree. This answer, it must be acknowledged, merely amounts to an assertion that, notwithstanding the decree of God, man retains his liberty of action. AVe still wish to know how the divine pre-ordination of the event is consistent with human libei-ty. " Upon such a siibject," says Dr Dick, " no man should be ashamed to acknowledge his ignorance. We are not required to reconcile the divine decrees and human liberty. It is enough to know that God has decreed all things which come to pass, and that men are answerable for their actions. Of both these truths we are assured by the Scriptures ; and the latter is confirmed by the testimony of conscience. We feel that, although not independent upon God, we are free ; so that we excuse ourselves when we have done our duty, and accuse ourselves when we have neglected it. Sentiments of approbation and disapprobation, in reference to our own conduct or that of other men, would have no existence in our minds if we believed that men are necessary agents. But the tie which connects the divine decrees and human liberty is in-\asible. ' Such knowledge is too wonderful for us ; it is high, we cannot attain unto it.' " — Ps. cxxxix. 6.

It may be further observed, that, although God has unchangeably ordained whatsoever comes to pass, yet this does not take away the contingency of second causes, either in themselves or as to us. Nothing can be more contingent than the decision of the lot, — yet " the lot is cast into the lap ; but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord." — Prov. xvi. 33.