By Rev. Thomas Chalmers, D.D. & LL.D.
From Congregational Sermons: Vol. II, Sermon VIII.
"And now I exhort you to be of good cheer: for
there shall be no loss of any man's life among you, but of the ship. -
Paul said to the centurion and to the soldiers, Except these abide in the
ship, ye cannot be saved." - Acts xxvii. 22, 31.
THE comparison of these two verses lands us in what may appear
to many to be a very dark and unprofitable speculation. Now, our object
in setting up this comparison, is not to foster in any of you a tendency
to meddle with matters too high for us - but to protect you against the
practical mischief of such a tendency. You have all heard of the doctrine
of predestination. It has long been a settled article of our church. And
there must be a sad deal of evasion and of unfair handling with particular
passages, to get free of the evidence which we find for it in the Bible.
And independently of Scripture altogether, the denial of this doctrine
brings a number of monstrous conceptions along with it. It supposes God
to make a world, and not to reserve in His own hand the management of its
concerns. Though it should concede to him an absolute sovereignty over
all matter, it deposes Him from His sovereignty over the region of created
minds, that far more dignified and interesting portion of His works. The
greatest events in the history of the universe, are those which are brought
about by the agency of willing and intelligent beings - and the enemies
of the doctrine invest every one of these beings with some sovereign and
independent principle of freedom, in virtue of which it may be asserted
of this whole class of events, that they happened, not because they were
ordained of God, but because the creatures of God, by their own uncontrolled
power, brought them into existence. At this rate, even He to whom we give
the attribute of omniscience, is not able to say at this moment, what shall
be the fortune or the fate of any individual - and the whole train of future
history is left to the wildness of accident. All this, carries along with
it so complete a dethronement of God - it is bringing His creation under
the dominion of so many nameless and undeterminable contingencies - it
is taking the world and the current of its history so entirely out of the
hands of Him who formed it - it is withal so opposite to what obtains in
every other field of observation, where, instead of the lawlessness of
chance, we shall find that the more we attend, the more we perceive of
a certain necessary and established order - that from these and other considerations
which might be stated, the doctrine in question, in addition to the testimonies
which we find for it in the Bible, is at this moment receiving a very general
support from the speculations of infidel as well as Christian philosophers.
Assenting, as we do, to this doctrine, we state it as our conviction,
that God could point the finger of His omniscience to every one individual
amongst us, and tell what shall be the fate of each, and the place of each,
and the state of suffering or enjoyment of each, at any one period of futurity
however distant. Well does He know those of us who are vessels of wrath
fitted for destruction, and those of us whom He has predestinated to be
conformed to the image of His dear Son, and to be rendered meet for the
inheritance. We are not saying, that we, or that any of you could so cluster
and arrange the two sets of individuals. This is one of the secret things
which belongs to God. It is not our duty to be altogether silent about
the doctrine of predestination - for the Bible is not silent about it,
and it is our duty to promulgate and to hold up our testimony for all that
we find there. But certain it is, that the doctrine has been so injudiciously
meddled with - it has tempted so many ingenious and speculative men to
transgress the limits of Scripture - it has engendered so much presumption
among some, and so much despondency among others - it has been so much
abused to the mischief of practical Christianity, that it were well for
us all, could we carefully draw the line between the secret things which
belong to God and the things which are revealed, and belong to us and to
our children.
With this view, we shall, in the first; place, lay before you
the observations which are suggested by the immediate history in the passage
now submitted to you. And in the second place, we shall attempt to evince
its application to us of the present day, and in how far it should carry
an influence over the concerns of practical godliness.
I. In the 22d verse Paul announces in absolute terms, that all
the men of the ship were to be saved. He had been favoured with this intimation
from the mouth of an angel. It was the absolute purpose of God, and no
obstacle whatever could prevent its accomplishment. To Him belongs that
knowledge which sees every thing, and that power which determines every
thing; and He could say to His prophet, "These men will certainly be saved."
Compare this with what we have in the 31st verse. By this time the sailors
had given up all hope of the safety of the vessel. They had toiled, as
they thought, in vain - and in despair of doing any good, they ceased from
working the ship, and resolved to abandon her. With this view, they let
down the boat to try the chance of deliverance for themselves, and leave
the passengers to perish. Upon this Paul, though his mind had been previously
assured, by an intimation from the foreknowledge and predestination of
God, that there should be no loss of men's lives, put on all the appearance
of earnestness and urgency - and who can doubt, that he really felt this
earnestness at the moment of his speaking to the centurion, when he told
him, that unless these men should abide in the ship, they would not be
saved? He had before told them, in the most unrestricted terms, that they
would be saved. But this does not restrain his practical urgency now -
and the urgency of Paul gave an alarm and a promptitude to the mind of
the centurion - and the centurion ordered his soldiers to cut the ropes
which fastened the boat to the vessel, that the sailors deprived of this
mode of escape, might be forcibly detained among them - and the soldiers
obeyed - and the sailors were kept on board, and rendered the full benefit
of their seamanship and their exertions. They did what other passengers
could not do. They lightened the ship. They took up the anchors. They loosed
the rudder-bands. They hoised up the mainsail to the wind - and the upshot
of this long intermediate process, with all its steps, was, that the men
escaped safe to land, and the decree of God was accomplished.
Now, in the first instance, it was true, in the most absolute
sense of the word, that these men were to be saved. And in the second instance,
it was no less true, that unless the sailors abode in the ship, they could
not be saved. And the terms of this apparent contradiction admit of a very
obvious reconciliation on the known truth, that God worketh by instruments.
He may carry every one purpose of His into immediate accomplishment by
the direct energy of His own hands. But, in point of fact, this is not
His general way of proceeding. He chooses rather to arrive at the accomplishment
of many of His objects by a succession of steps, or by the concurrence
of one or more visible instalments, which require time for their operation.
This is a truth to which all nature and all experience lend their testimony.
It was His purpose that, at the moment I am now addressing you, there should
be light over the face of the country, and this purpose He accomplishes
by the instrumentality of the sun. There is a time coming, when light shall
be furnished out to us in another way - when there shall be no need either
of the sun or the moon to lighten the city of our habitation - but when
the glory of God shall lighten it, and the Lamb shall be the light thereof.
But this is not the way at present, and, therefore, it is both true, that
it was God's purpose there should be light over us and around us at this
moment, and that unless the sun had risen upon us this morning, there would
have been no such light. It may be the purpose of God to bless the succeeding
year with a plentiful harvest. He could accomplish this purpose in two
ways. He could make the ripened corn start into existence by a single word
of His power. But this is not the actual way in which He carries such designs
into accomplishment. He does it by the co-operation of many visible instruments.
It is true, He can pour abundance among us even in the midst of adverse
weather and unfavourable seasons. But He actually does it by means of favourable
weather and favourable seasons. It is not in spite of bad weather that
we receive from His hands the blessings of plenty - but in consequence
of weather - sunshine and shower succeeding each other in fit proportion
- calm to prevent the shaking of the corn, and wind in sufficient quantity
to winnow it and make a prosperous ingathering. Should it be the purpose
of God to give a plentiful harvest to us next year, it will certainly happen,
and yet it may be no less true, that unless such weather come, we shall
have no plentiful harvest. God, who appoints the end, orders and presides
over the whole series of means which lead to it. These visible causes are
in His hand. They are the instruments of His power. The elements are His,
and He can either restrain their violence, or let them loose in fury upon
the world.
Now, look upon human beings as the instruments of His pleasure,
and you have an equally complete explanation of the passage before us.
You will be made to understand how it is true, that it was God's absolute
purpose that the men of the vessel should be saved; and how it is equally
true, that unless the sailors abode in the ship, they could not be saved.
Why, the same God who determined the end, gave certain efficacy to the
means which He Himself had instituted and set agoing for the accomplishment
of the end. It does not at all affect the certainty of God's influence
over these means, that, in addition to wind, and water, and material elements,
there were also human beings employed as instruments for carrying His purpose
into execution. It is expressly said of God, not only that He stilleth
the waves of the sea, but that He also stilleth the tumults of the people,
and that He can turn the heart of man as the rivers of water, turning it
whithersoever He will. He appoints the end, and it does not at all lessen
the sure and absolute nature of the appointment, that He brings it about
by a long succession of means, provided that it is His power which gives
effect to every step in the progress and operation of these means. Now,
in the case before us, there was just such a progress as we pointed out
in the case of a favourable harvest. He had determined, that all the men
of the vessel should be saved; but agreeably to the method of His administration
in other cases, He brought it about by the operation of instruments. He
did not save them against the use of instruments, but He did it by the
use of instruments. The instruments He employed were men. Paul speaking
to the centurion - the centurion ordering the soldiers to cut the ropes,
and let the boat away from the vessel - the sailors obliged to work for
their own safety - these were the instruments of God, and He had as much
command over them as of any others He has created. He brought about the
saving of the men by means of those instruments, as certainly as He brings
about a good harvest by the instrumentality of favourable weather, and
congenial seasons. He is as much master of the human heart and its determinations,
as He is of the elements. He reigns in the mind of man, and can turn its
purposes in any way that suits His purposes. He made Paul speak. He made
the centurion listen and be impressed by it. He made the soldiers obey.
He made the sailors exert themselves. The conditional assertion of the
31st verse was true - but He made the assertion serve the purpose for which
it was uttered. He over-ruled the condition, and brought about the fulfilment
of the absolute prophecy in the 22d verse. The whole of this process was
as completely overruled by Him as any other process in nature - and in
virtue too of the very same power by which He can cause the wind of heaven
to fly loose upon the world, make the rain descend, the corn ripen into
harvest, and all the blessings of plenty sit in profusion over a happy
and a favoured land.
There is no inconsistency then between these verses. God says
in one of them, by the mouth of Paul, that these men were certainly to
be saved. And Paul says in the other of these verses, that unless the centurion
and soldiers were to do so and so they should not be saved. In one of the
verses, it is made to be the certain and unfailing appointment of God.
In the other it is made to depend on the centurion. There is no difficulty
in all this, if you would just consider, that God, who made the end certain,
made the means certain also. It is true, that the end was certainly to
happen, and it is as true that the end would not have happened without
the means - but God secured the happening of both, and so gave sureness
and consistency to the passage before us.
Now, it is worth while to attend here both to the conduct of Paul
who gave the directions, and to the conduct of the centurion who obeyed
them. Paul, who gave the directions, knew, in virtue of the revelation
that was made to him some time before, that the men were certainly to be
saved; and yet this does not prevent him from urging them to the practical
adoption of means for saving themselves. He knew that their being saved
was a thing predestinated, and as sure as the decree of heaven could make
it; but he must likewise have known, that while it was God's counsel they
should be saved, it was also God's will that they should be saved by the
exertions of the sailors - that they were the instruments He made choice
of - that this was the way in which He wished it to be brought about -
and Paul had too high a reverence for the will of God, to decline the use
of those practical expedients, which formed the likeliest way of carrying
this will into effect. It is a very striking circumstance, that the same
Paul who knew absolutely and unequivocally that the men were to be saved,
could also say and say with truth, that unless the sailors were detained
in the ship, they should not be saved. Both were true, and both were actually
brought about. The thing was done by the appointment of God, and it was
also done by a voluntary act on the part of the centurion and his soldiers.
Paul knew of the appointment; but he did not feel himself exempted by this
knowledge, from the work of practically influencing the will of the people
who were around him; and the way in which he got them to act, was by bringing
the urgency of a prevailing argument to bear upon them. He told them that
their lives depended upon it. God put it into Paul's heart to make use
of the argument; and he gave it that influence over the hearts of those
to whom it was addressed, that by the instrumentality of men, His purpose,
conceived from eternity, and revealed beforehand to the Apostle, was carried
forward to its accomplishment.
And again, as the knowledge that they were to be saved, did not
prevent Paul from giving directions to the centurion and soldiers for saving
themselves - neither did it prevent them from a practical obedience to
these directions. It does not appear whether they actually at this time
believed Paul to be a messenger of God - though it is likely, from the
previous history of the voyage, that they did. If they did not, then they
acted as the great majority of men do, they acted as unconscious instruments
for the execution of the divine purposes. But if they did believe Paul
to be a prophet, it is highly striking to observe, that the knowledge they
had gotten from his mouth of their really and absolutely escaping with
their lives, did not slacken their utmost degree of activity in the business
of working for the preservation of their lives, at a bidding from the mouth
of the same prophet. He is a prophet from God - and whatever he says must
be true. He tells us we are to escape with our lives - let us believe this
and rejoice in it. But he also tells us, that unless we do certain things,
we shall not escape with our lives - let us believe this also, and do these
things. A fine example, on the one hand, of their faithful dependence on
his declarations, and, on the other, of their practical obedience to his
requirements. If one were to judge by the prosperous result of the whole
business, the way in which the centurion and soldiers were affected by
the different revelations of Paul, was the very way which satisfied God
- for it was rewarded with success, and issued both in the fulfilment of
His decree, and the completion of their deliverance.
II. We now come to the second thing proposed, which was to evince
the application of the passage to us of the present day - and, how far
it should carry an influence over the concerns of practical godliness.
We shall rejoice in the first instance, if the explanation we
have now given, have the effect of clearing away any of those perplexities
which throw a darkening cloud over the absolute and universal sovereignty
of God. We are ready enough to concede to the Supreme Being the administration
of the material world, and to put into His hand all the force of its mighty
elements. But let us carry the commanding influence of piety into the higher
world of moral and intelligent beings. Let us not erect the will of the
creature into an independent principle. Let us not conceive that the agency
of man can bring about one single iota of deviation from the plans and
the purposes of God - or that He can be thwarted and compelled to vary
in a single case, by the movement of any of those subordinate beings whom
He Himself has created. There may be a diversity of operations, but it
is God who worketh all in all. Look at the resolute and independent man;
and you there see the purposes of the human mind entered upon with decision,
and followed up by a vigorous and successful exertion. But these only make
up one diversity of God's operations. The will of man, active, and spontaneous,
and fluctuating as it appears to be, is an instrument in His hand - and
He turns it at His pleasure - and he brings other instruments to act upon
it - and He plies it with all its excitements - and He measures the force
and proportion of each of them - and every step of every individual receives
as determinate a character from the hand of God, as every mile of a planet's
orbit, or every gust of wind, or every wave of the sea, or every particle
of flying dust, or every rivulet of flowing water. This power of God knows
no exceptions. It is absolute and unlimited; and while it embraces the
vast, it carries its resistless influence to all the minute and unnoticed
diversities of existence. It reigns and operates through all the secrecies
of the inner man. It gives birth to every purpose. It gives impulse to
every desire. It gives shape and colour to every conception. It wields
an entire ascendancy over every attribute of the mind; and the will, and
the fancy, and the understanding, with all the countless variety of their
hidden and fugitive operations, are submitted to it. It gives movement
and direction through every one point in the line of our pilgrimage. At
no one moment of time does it abandon us. It follows us to the hour of
death, and it carries us to our place and our everlasting destiny in the
region beyond it. It is true, that no one gets to heaven, but he, who by
holiness, is meet for it. But the same power which carries us there, works
in us the meetness. And if we are conformed to the image of the Saviour,
it is by the energy of the same predestinating God, whose good pleasure
it is to give unto us the kingdom prepared for us before the foundation
of the world.
Thus it is that some are elected to everlasting life. This is
an obvious doctrine of Scripture. The Bible brings it forward; and it is
not for us, the interpreters of the Bible, to keep it back from you. God
could, if it pleased Him, read out at this moment, the names of those in
this congregation, who are ordained to eternal life, and are written in
his book. In reference to their deliverance from shipwreck, He enabled
Paul to say of the whole ship's company, that they were to be saved. In
reference to your deliverance from wrath and from punishment, He could
reveal to us the names of the elect among you, and enable us to say of
them that they are certainly to be saved.
But again, the same God who ordains the end, ordains also the
means which go before it. In virtue of the end being ordained and made
known to him, Paul could say that all the men's lives were to be saved.
And in virtue of the means being ordained and made known to him, he could
also say, that unless the sailors abode in the ship, they should not be
saved. In the same manner, if the ordained end were made known to us, we
could, perhaps, say of some individual among you, that you are certainly
to be saved. And if the ordained means were made known to us, we could
say, that unless you are rendered meet for the inheritance of the saints
in light, you shall not be saved. Now the ordination of the end God has
not been pleased to reveal to us. He has not told us who among you are
to be saved, as He told Paul of the deliverance of his ship's company.
This is one of the secret things which belong to Him, and we dare not meddle
with it. But He has told us about the ordained means; and we know, through
the medium of the Bible, that unless you do such and such things, you shall
not be saved. This is one of the revealed things which belongs to us; and
with as great truth and practical urgency as Paul made use of, when he
said to the centurion and soldiers, that unless these men abide in the
ship, ye shall not be saved, do we say to one and to all of you, unless
ye repent ye shall not be saved - unless ye do works meet for repentance,
ye shall not be saved - unless ye believe the Gospel of our Lord Jesus
Christ, ye shall not be saved - unless ye are born again, ye shall not
be saved - unless the deeds done in your body be good deeds, and ye bring
forth those fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ to the praise
and glory of God, ye shall not be saved.
Mark the difference between the situation of Paul urging upon
the people of the ship the immediate adoption of the only way by which
their lives could be saved, and the situation of an ordinary minister urging
it upon the people of his church, to take to that way of faith and repentance,
by which alone they can save their souls from the wrath that is now abiding
on them. Paul did know that the people were certainly to escape with their
lives, and that did not prevent him from pressing upon them the measures
which they ought to adopt for their preservation. Even then, though a minister
did know those of his people whose names are written in the book of life,
that ought not to hinder him from pressing it upon them to lay hold of
eternal life - to lay up their treasure in heaven - to labour for the meat
that endureth - to follow after that holiness, without which no man shall
see the Lord - to be strong in the faith, and such a faith too as availeth,
even faith which worketh by love; and of which we may say, even to those
whom we assuredly know to be the chosen heirs of immortality, that unless
this faith abideth in them, they shall not be saved. But it so happens,
that we do not know who are, and who are not, the children of election.
This is a secret thing belonging to God, and which is not imparted to us.
Even though it were imparted to us, still it would be our part to say to
those of whose final salvation we were assured, believe the Gospel, or
you shall not be saved - repent, or you shall not be saved - purify yourselves
even as God is pure, or you shall not be saved. But we are not in possession
of the secret - and how much more then does it lie upon us to ply with
earnestness the fears and the consciences of our hearers, by those revealed
things which God hath been pleased to make known to us? What! if Paul,
though assured by an angel from heaven of the final deliverance of his
ship's company, still persists in telling them, that if they leave certain
things undone, their deliverance will be impossible - shall we, utterly
in the dark about the final state of a single hearer we are addressing,
let down for a single instant the practical urgency of the New Testament?
The predestination of God respecting the final escape of Paul and his fellow-travellers
from shipwreck, though made known to the Apostle, did not betray him into
the indolence which is ascribed, and falsely ascribed, to the belief of
this doctrine; nor did it restrain Him from spiriting on the people to
the most strenuous and fatiguing exertions. And shall we, who only know
in general that God does predestinate, but cannot carry it home with assurance
to a single individual, convert this doctrine into a plea for indolence
and security? Even should we see the mark of God upon their foreheads,
it would be our duty to urge on them the necessity of doings those things,
which, if left undone, will exclude from the kingdom of God. But, we make
no such pretensions. We see no mark upon any of your foreheads. We possess
no more than the Bible, and access through the Mediator to Him, who, by
His Spirit, can open our understandings to understand it. The revealed
things which we find there belong to us, and we press them upon you - "
Unless ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish." "If ye believe not in
the Son of God, the wrath of God abideth in you." "Be not deceived, neither
covetous, nor thieves, nor extortioners, nor drunkards, shall inherit the
kingdom of God." "He who forsaketh not all, shall not be a disciple of
Christ." "The fearful, and the unbelieving, and the abominable, and all
liars shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone."
These are plain declarations, and apart from the doctrine of predestination
altogether, they ought, and if they are believed and listened to, they
will have a practical influence upon you. We call upon you not to resist
this influence but to cherish it. If any of you are the children of election,
it is by the right influence of revealed things upon your understandings
and your consciences, that this secret thing will be brought to pass. Paul
said as much to the centurion and the soldiers, as that if you do the things
I call upon you to do, you will certainly be saved. They did what he bade
them; and the decree of God respecting their deliverance from shipwreck,
a decree which Paul had the previous knowledge of, was accomplished. We
also feel ourselves warranted to say to one and to all of you, "Believe
in the Lord Jesus Christ, and ye shall be saved." "Repent and be converted,
and your sins shall be forgiven you." Return unto God, and He will be reconciled.
If you do as we bid you, God's decree respecting your deliverance from
hell, a decree which we have not the previous knowledge of, will be made
knows by its accomplishment.
Again, we call upon you, our hearers, to compare your situation
with that of the centurion and the soldiers. They were told by a prophet
that they were to be saved; and when that prophet told them what they were
to do for the purpose of saving themselves, they obeyed him. They did not
say, "O it is all predestinated, and we may give up our anxieties, and
do nothing." They were just as strenuous and as active, as if there had
been no predestination in the matter. Paul's previous assurance, that all
was to end well, had no effect in lulling them to indolence. It did end
well, not however without their exertions, but by their exertions. How
much more does it lie upon you to enter with earnestness upon the business
of doing! We can give you no assurance of its being the decree of God,
that any of you shall be saved. But we can give you the assurance, that
you will be saved, if you do such and such things. Surely, if the people
whom Paul addressed, did not feel themselves exempted by their knowledge
of God's decree, from practically entering upon those measures which carried
forward its accomplishment, you, who have no such knowledge, must feel
doubly impelled by the uncertainty which hangs over you, to the work of
making your calling and your election sure. You know in general, that predestination
is a doctrine of the Bible; but there is not one of you who can say of
himself, that God has made known his decrees to me, and given me directly
to understand, that I am the object of a blessed predestination. This is
one point of which you know nothing; but there is another point of which
you know something - and that is, if I believe, if I repent, if I be made
like unto Christ, if I obtain the Holy Spirit to work in me a conformity
to His image, and I am told, that I shall obtain it if I ask it - then
by this I become an heir of life; and the decree of which I know nothing
at the outset of my concern about salvation, will become more and more
apparent to me as I advance in a meetness for heaven, and will, at length,
become fully, and finally, and conclusively made known by its accomplishment.
I may suffer my curiosity to expatiate on the question, "Am I, or am I
not, of the election of God?" But my wisdom tells me that this is not the
business on hand. It is not the matter which I am called on to do with
at present. After Paul said to his companions, that it was quite indispensable
to their safety that the sailors should be kept in the vessel, what did
the centurion and his men do? Did they fall a-speculating about the decrees?
Did they hug themselves in the confidence, that as their safety was a point
sure and determined upon, they need to take no trouble at all in the concern?
O no! No sooner did Paul give the word, than they acted upon it. They gave
themselves up with all the promptitude of men whose lives were at stake,
to the business on hand. They cut the ropes - they let go the boat - they
kept in the sailors - and from the very first moment of Paul's address
to them on the subject, all was bustling, and strenuous, and unremitting
activity; till, by the unwearied perseverance of these living and operative
instruments, the decree of God was accomplished. Now, they were much better
acquainted with the decree which respected them, than you are with the
decree respecting you. They had the beforehand knowledge of it, and will
you be less active, or less strenuous, than they? Do, therefore, betake
yourselves to the business on hand. Let our exhortations to embrace the
free offer of the Gospel - to rely on Christ as your Saviour - to resolve
against all your iniquities, and turn unto Him - to ply the throne of glace
for the strengthening influence of that Spirit, by which alone you are
enabled to die unto all sin, and live unto all righteousness - let this
have an immediate, and a stirring, and a practical influence upon you.
If you put this influence away from you, you are in a direct way now of
proving what we tremble to think may be rendered clear and indisputable
at last, on the great day of the revelation of hidden things, that you
have neither part nor lot in the matter. Whatever the employment be which
takes you up, and hinders you from entering immediately on the work of
faith and repentance, it is an alarming symptom of your soul, that you
are so taken up - and should the employment be an idle dreaming, and amusing
of yourselves with the decrees and counsels of heaven, it is not the less
alarming. Some will spend their time in inquiries about the number of the
saved, when they ought to be striving for themselves, that they might obtain
an entrance into the strait gate; and some will waste those precious moments
in speculating about the secrets of the book of life, which they should
fill up by supporting themselves, and making progress through the narrowness
of the way that leads to it. The plain business we lay upon you, is to
put away from you the evil of your doings - to submit yourselves to Christ
as He is offered to you - to fly to His atoning sacrifice for the forgiveness
of your offences - to place yourselves under the guidance of His word,
and a dependence on the influences of His Spirit - to live no longer to
yourselves, but to Him - and to fill up your weeks and your days with those
fruits of righteousness, by which God is glorified. We stand here by the
decree of heaven, and it is by the same decree that you are now sitting
round and listening to us. We feel the importance of the situation we occupy;
and though we believe in the sovereignty of God, and the unfailingness
of all His appointments, this, instead of restraining, impels us to bring
the message of the Gospel, with all the practical urgency of its invitations,
and its warnings, to bear upon you. We feel, with all our belief in predestination,
that our business is not to forbear this urgency, but to ply you with it
most anxiously, and earnestly, and. unceasingly - ;and you should feel
with the same belief in your mind, that your business is not to resist
this urgency, but to be guided by its impulse. Who knows but we may be
the humble instrument, and you the undeserved subjects of some high and
heavenly ordination? The cuttings of the ropes was the turning point on
which the deliverance of Paul's company from shipwreck was suspended. Who
knows but the urgency we now ply you with, telling upon you, and carrying
your purposes along with it, may be the very step in the wonderful progress
of God's operations, on which your conversion hinges? We, therefore, press
the Gospel with all its duties, and all its promises, and all its privileges
upon you. O listen, and resolve, and, manfully forsaking all that keeps
you from the Saviour, we call upon you, from this moment, to give yourselves
up unto Him; and be assured, it is only by acting in obedience to such
calls laid before you in the Bible, and sounded in your ear from the pulpit,
that your election unto life can ever be made known in this world, or reach
its positive consummation in eternity.
And now you can have no difficulty in understanding how it is
that we make our calling and our election sure. It is not in the power
of the elect to make their election surer in itself than it really is -
for this is a sureness which is not capable of receiving any addition.
It is not in the power of the elect to make it surer to God - for all futurity
is submitted to His all-seeing eye; and His absolute knowledge stands in
need of no confirmation. But there is such a thing as the elect being ignorant
for a time of their own election, and their being made sure of it in the
progress of evidence and discovery. And therefore it is that they are called
to make their election sure to themselves, or to make themselves sure of
their election. And how is this to be done? Not by reading it in the book
of God's decrees - not by obtaining from Him any direct information about
his counsels - not by conferring with prophet or angel, gifted with the
revelation of hidden things. But the same God who elects some unto everlasting
life, and keeps back from them all direct information about it, tells them
that he who believeth, and he who repenteth, and he who obeyeth the Gospel,
shall obtain everlasting life. We shall never in this world have an immediate
communication from Him, whether we are of the elect or not - but let us
believe - let us repent - let us obey the Saviour - and from the first
moment of our setting ourselves to these things in good earnest, we may
conceive the hope of a place among the heirs of immortality. In the progress
and success of our endeavours, this hope may advance and grow brighter
within us. As we grow in the exercises of faith and obedience, the light
of a cheering manifestation is more sensibly felt, and our hope ripens
into assurance. "Hereby do we know that we know him, by our keeping his
commandments," is an evidence which every year becomes clearer and more
encouraging; and thus, by a well-sustained perseverance in the exercises
of the Christian life, do we labour with all diligence to make our calling
and election sure. We call upon you, in the language of the Apostle, to
have faith, and to this faith add virtue, and knowledge, and temperance,
and patience, and godliness, and brotherly kindness, and charity. It is
by the doing of these things, that you are made sure of your calling and
election, "for if ye do these things," says Peter, " ye shall never fail,
and an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting
kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ."
If there be any of you who have not followed this train of observation
- if it still remain one of those things of Paul which are hard to be understood
- let us beseech you, at least, that you wrest. it not to your own destruction,
by remitting your activity, and your diligence, and your painstaking in
the service of Christ. Why, the doctrine of election leaves our duty to
exhort, and your duty to obey, on the same footing on which it found them.
We are commissioned to lay before you the free offer of the Gospel - to
press it on the acceptance of one and all of you - to assure every individual
amongst you of a hearty welcome from the Lord God merciful and gracious
- to call you to the service of Christ, that great Master of the household
of faith - to urge it upon you, that you must renounce every other master,
and, casting all your idols, and vanities, and iniquities away from you,
to close with the invitation, and be diligent in all the duties and performances
of the Gospel. If you resist, or put off - if, blind to the goodness of
God in Christ Jesus, you suffer it not to lead you to repentance - if the
call of "awake to righteousness, and sin not," make no practical impression
on you - if the assurance of pardon for the sins of the past, do not fill
your heart with the desire of sanctification for the future - if the word
of Christ be not so received by you as to lead to the doing of it - then
you are just leaving undone those things, of which we say in the words
of the text, "Except these things be done, ye cannot be saved" - and to
all the guilt of your past disobedience, you add the aggravation of putting
away from you both the offered atonement and the commanded repentance of
the Gospel, and "how can you escape if you neglect so great a salvation?"
Thanks go to list member James H. Grant, Jr. and the
PCEA for making this sermon available.
