ARTICLE V.

ELECTION AND FOREORDINATION.

BY THE REV. C. WALKER, D. D., THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, ALEXANDRIA, VA.

THESE topics, and the difficulties connected with them, can never be entirely eliminated from human speculation. Some of the difficulties, in certain respects, may indeed be greatly alleviated. Such alleviation, for instance, may come in the spirit and temper in which the subject is approached and dealt with,-in which conclusions reached, are held and asserted. Similar relief may follow the clear and distinct recognition, and confession, of the real difficulties of the case, intellectually and morally, the necessity, therefore, of great moderation as to one's own conclusions, of great forbearance as to those of others. So, again, such alleviation may come in the distinct cognizance of what is the central difficulty, where is really the pinch, speculatively or practically, to the full comprehension of the issues involved. And, last of all, there may be relief, or disentanglement, in the limitation of the inquiry to some specific sphere of investigation. There is, we will say, a philosophical election and predestination. There is a Scripture doctrine of the same subject. And, then again, there may be theological systems, usually attempted combinations of Scripture and philosophy. The distinct limitation of the discussion to one of these fields, and the keeping it there, will remove at least some of the entanglements with which it has been connected.

As to the first two of these alleviating influences, we may well rejoice that we have come into the inheritance of them. The bitterness and intolerance with which these

questions were discussed, at earlier periods, in the days of Augustine and Gottschalk or even of those of the Reformation, by men who a few days after died together, at the stake, as martyrs for Christ; the ferocity which drove such men as Grotius and Episcopius into exile; the harshness of spirit and of language, in its discussion, by such men as Wesley and Toplady, these are now recognized, almost universally, as entirely out of place. Earnestness is not necessarily bitterness or ferociousness. Nor is it likely that these questions will ever again be discussed in that manner. Whatever the system held or the position defended, its manifested and unavoidable difficulties will enforce moderation.

It will additionally help us, moreover, to keep in view the two other alleviating agencies already alluded to, in any such investigation: 1st. Upon what field shall it be investigated? 2d. Shall we confine it to that field?

It is a question of philosophy. philosophy, is it to be investigated?

How, in the domain of

It is a doctrine of

Scripture. What does Scripture say in regard to it? Where, with the former, is the central difficulty? Where is it, with the latter? Are they diverse or identical?

First, then, we direct and confine our examination to the domain of Scripture. Such a Scripture doctrine there is undoubtedly. What is it? Is it collective or individual? Is it simply to blessing and its opposite, or is it also to character? Is it conditional or unconditional? If a combination of these, say of blessing and of character, of the conditional and the unconditional, how far?

Confining our view, therefore, to the facts of scriptural teaching, both in the way of divine declaration and divine dealing, it is clear that there was a collective foreordination and election to certain divine favors and advantages, both temporal and spiritual, as to corresponding obligations. The former of these, the blessings and advantages, are incipiently

unconditional. Their full results are conditional, upon the manner in which the obligations of the election are honored or disregarded. These obligations, as the blessings preceding and following, with which they are in correlation, are all included in the election. Nor can they, in any anticipation of results, be properly separated. The selection, for instance, of the Jewish people; that, again, of one tribe from that people as the ruling tribe, from whom Messiah should come; of another, for the priesthood; of particular families, out of these two tribes, one for the Royal, and the other for the priestly honors; so again of the prophet class,-these clearly make manifest such principle in the Old Testament. So, in the New Testament, the rejection of Israel and the bringing in of the Gentiles; the selection, out of Jews and Gentiles, of a new community and collective organization, the visible church, to the blessings of the new dispensation,—this is no less clear, to the most cursory reader of the inspired record. However explained, the fact of collective election-sometimes of a family, of a tribe, of a nation, or of a churchmeets us everywhere.

Nor can it be said, as it sometimes is, that this was merely to outward advantages. It was not only to these, but to all others. The elect member of any such community came to the full enjoyment of these two forms of blessing in a very different way; but his election included both. If they were not both actually secured and enjoyed, it was because they were not properly encountered. In other words, through individual delinquency, the election to obligation was separated from the election of blessing; and there was failure, therefore, as to the full benefits of either. The ideal election was not realized in the actual.

And thus we are able to see how such election was unconditional and at the same time conditional. It was unconditional, as to times, places, persons, actual circumstances, and the advantages and obligations therewith

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connected, temporal and spiritual. It was conditional as to the mode in which the community or its individual components bore themselves with reference to the fact of such election and its moral accompaniments. In the wilderness, for example, the whole camp of Israel, in time, place, and actual arrangement, was the election. But, in point of fact, when Moses came down from the Mount, a large portion were in shameless apostasy and idolatry,-the loyal tribe of Levi retaining its allegiance. Ideally, it was the whole elect people of the twelve tribes; actually, only this one loyal tribe. So again, in the time of Elijah. Out of the ten tribes, there were only seven thousand-the actual election, out of the whole against the ideal-who had not bowed the knee to Baal, in open apostasy. So also in the election of the Gentiles, and the casting away of the Jews, as the one accepted and the other rejected the new dispensation. Side by side with the fact of unconditional, divine, and gracious arrangement, by which blessing came to the Gentiles collectively, and deprivation to the Jew, runs the conditional fact, as under the Old Testament dispensation, of the actual enjoyment of the full blessing of such election, and the actual suffering of such deprivation, depending upon the manner in which they were personally met and treated by the two classes. The individual Jew, in spite of the collective reprobation of his people, personally accepting the rejected Messiah of this people, came into the full blessing of Gentile election. So the individual Gentile, failing to secure and improve the benefits of his new election, relapsed into the rejection of Israel. The ideal election, collectively and individually, is identical. Both of these elements, the blessing and obligation, the unconditional divine bestowal and the conditional appropriation and enjoyment, are included. So too is it, ideally, with each one of the elect during his whole course. But, in the actual, we find these diversities; the elect some

times making their election void, the non-elect coming in, and changing positions with them.

Nor is there any essential difference, if we circumscribe this election of Gentilism to the visible church of professed believers. The same elements of the unconditional as to the organic whole, and the conditional as to the individual; of the ideal and the actual, of the election of blessing and that of obligation, are no less here to be recognized. Whether that community existed, or whether a man was in it, was in the unconditional divine arrangement. Whether any such man was properly in that community, or ought to remain there, was conditional upon his personal character and action. Ideally, all that were of this elect body of Christ were Christ-like in spirit and life, making their calling and election sure. Actually, there were, in many cases, great inconsistencies and failures. How different, for instance, in the Epistles of Paul and Peter and John, the ideal church and the actual churches!

But is there not, it is sometimes asked, and additionally, an inner election within any such collection, an inner election of individuals, one to which, in the divine purpose, all the blessings are unconditionally secured and actually enjoyed? And reference is made to individual cases,-those of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob, of Jeremiah, of John the Baptist, and of Paul, as those of Esau and Pharaoh, of an opposite class. Three of these are referred to in the argument of the ninth chapter of Romans, as illustrations of the divine sovereignty; and the figure of the clay in the hand of the potter, used by the Apostle, is made use of to enforce the conclusion. Here, it has been said, we find everything unconditional,-the election and its full result,-with one blessing, with another doom. Would it not be better to say that the ordinary conditions and limitations, elsewhere clearly stated and insisted upon, are not here specifically mentioned, but are to be understood and implied? The