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What Saith the Scripture?
http://www.WhatSaithTheScripture.com/
Election and Reprobation
by Charles Grandison Finney
President of Oberlin College
from "The
Oberlin Evangelist" Publication of Oberlin College
Lecture XI
November 24, 1852
Public Domain Text
Reformatted by Katie Stewart
.
Text.--Jer. 6:30:
"Reprobate silver shall men call them, because the Lord hath rejected
them."
Text.--Matt. 22:14: "For many are called,
but few are chosen."
Text.--1 Pet. 1:2: "Elect according to the
foreknowledge of God the Father."
From these texts you will perceive that I have chosen for my subject ELECTION AND REPROBATION. In discussing it, I propose
I. To define the terms.
II. Show what the scripture doctrine really is.
III. State the reasons for Election and also for Reprobation
IV. Show how, as a general fact, we may determine to which class any individual belongs.
First of all, let me admonish you not to be frightened at the terms, Election and
Reprobation. They are Bible terms, and therefore need not alarm any but those who
contend against the truth. They are Bible terms, yet have been greatly abused, so
that my first business must be to define them, and then in my subsequent remarks,
to illustrate them, in order to remove the stumbling-blocks occasioned by their abuse.
I. "Elected" means chosen.
It means precisely this--neither more nor less. A "reprobate" thing is
a thing rejected or cast away. To reprobate is to reject, to disapprove, and hence
to set aside. It is the counter-part of elect. Such is the meaning of the terms.
II. What now is the Scripture doctrine?
Briefly this: God has chosen to salvation a part of mankind, and has also made up
His mind to cast off a part. The whole doctrine is embraced in this: God's mind is
made up as to what He will do in the matter of saving or not saving the individuals
of our race. His mind, I say, is made up; of course it is if it ever will be, for
He has no new mind, and cannot ever have any new views, new knowledge, or new plans.
All things are present to God from the beginning. To deny that God has made up His
mind as to what he will do in this matter is to deny the essential attributes of
God, for both the beginning and the end are both alike known to Him. With perfect
and infinite knowledge ever present to His mind from all past eternity, it is impossible
that His mind should not be made up, as to what He will do in the matter of human
salvation.
III. But God has good reasons for all He does.
He never makes up His mind without having good reasons, and never otherwise than
in accordance with those reasons.
The elect, therefore, are those whom God has, for the best of reasons, determined
to save; the reprobate, in like manner, are those whom, for infinitely good reasons,
He has made up His mind to cast off for perdition.
What are these good reasons?
The things which are always present to God, become known to creatures only as they transpire--only as they develop themselves in time. The things always known to God, become known to us only as they develop themselves in their occurrence. They were a secret from all eternity in His bosom. In the lapse of time, they come forth, boiling up before the eyes of creatures.
God's knowing future things does not make them occur. His omniscience no more controls our conduct than our knowing how men will act controls their action. The acts of free agents may be certain, in the sense that God knows with certainty what they will be, yet are they none the less free and voluntary.
Man always assumes his own liberty and freedom. He can no more deny it rationally than he can deny his own existence. the fact is, every man knows himself to be free, and in this sense a sovereign.
God puts man upon his own character and responsibility; holds him to his responsibility, and cannot righteously do otherwise. He places before him law; this the sinner rejects. Then God presents the gospel, and having exerted such influence as he wisely can, leaves him ultimately to his own responsibility. God can do no more than to place before him motives to induce right voluntary action. If God should attempt to convert him in any other way than by acting upon his free mind, by means of truth, it would avail nothing. Some suppose that God takes hold of a man and changes his nature, the very constitution of his being. But this would not convert him unless it changed the voluntary state of his mind. A change in the voluntary attitude of the mind is primarily all that is needed. This, and nothing else or other than this, is conversion. God never acts on man otherwise than upon a moral being. Hence, man's own sovereignty must determine his destiny.
IV. The destiny for men for eternity is in general very plainly indicated in
their lives.
For if men are ever saved by the gospel, they must be savingly influenced by it while
yet they live on earth. If they are ever lost, it will be because they reject the
gospel. Now, therefore, if we see that the gospel is taking effect on any mind, we
see reason to conclude that that individual will be saved, for he is being saved
already. The gospel is already renewing his soul and saving it from sin. We have
therefore the appropriate evidence that he is elected unto salvation.
But if we see that an individual is being cursed by the gospel--if it only serves
to harden his heart and make him more obstinate, more wicked, more the child of hell
than before, we see conclusive marks of his reprobation.
Hence if we would know whether men are elected or reprobated, we must watch. We must
notice how the gospel affects them, and what attitude they take towards it. This
we may with considerable certainty foresee their destiny--and in like manner our
own.
How then may it generally be known whether or not any individual is elected to salvation?
It is not always possible for us to judge accurately in this world. Sometimes things
are working deep in the mind which we do not see. Sometimes men seem to be going
in the wrong direction with alarming certainty, but at length they turn, unexpectedly
to us, and we find the gospel asserting it's due power over their minds. So on the
other hand, some seem to be running well for a time, but by a sudden turn they take
the way of death, and crush all our fond anticipations.
Yet these are only the exceptions; the Bible teaches us that as a general rule we
may judge who are reprobates. It requires us to prove our own selves and gives us
the tests whereby we may know whether we are reprobates or not.
I therefore proceed to notice some of the indications by which men may know whether
they are or are not reprobates.
I do this for two reasons,
(1.) It is due to all the saints that they should have the consolation of knowing that they are among the chosen.
(2.) It is of great importance that saints should know the marks as they appear upon others to show whether or not they are elected. it is also well that sinners should be able to see as in a glass their own coming destiny, that being warned of their peril they may escape while yet salvation is possible. Yet let me say again, I do not imply that these marks are infallible. They are approximate indications--probable signs, sometimes amounting almost to certainty; but nothing more.
Those who are elected to be saved attend to the means of salvation. This is plain,
because if they are ever to be saved, it must be through their attention to those
means by which God saves men. Men are saved if at all by the agency of these means.
God cannot save by merely physical influence; the nature of the case forbids it.
Moral and physical government are entirely distinct and contrasted. The planets are
not moved by motives, nor free minds by gravitation. Matter requires one form of
moving power--mind another. It is simply absurd to confound the distinction between
the two.
The elect, then, will attend to the truth--will hear, and having heard will think.
They will, if they can, attend the places of religious worship and instruction I
do not assert that every man who goes to meeting will be saved, or that all who sometimes
stay away will be lost, but I speak of the general law that obtains in this matter
and of the general influences that stand connected with men's salvation or damnation.
As a general thing, the elect will go to meeting--will search for truth. They are
indicated by their attention to these means of grace, and the non-elect for the same
reason by their neglect of these means.
A personal and permanent interest in gospel truth must be awakened in the minds of
the elect, for they are to be saved through the influence of this truth.
I have preached in many hundreds of congregations. I have seen hundreds of persons
of whom observers could say as they saw their aspect in the house of God--"That
man's ears are opened; he is attentive and solemn;--pray for him--he will be converted."
Soon he is converted.
But some of you come here, all inattentive, with no serious thought or concern about
God's truth or the relation which your souls bear to that truth. Such persons are
reprobated--with almost an entire certainty,--reprobate for the very reason that
they would not attend to the truth and would not think on their ways. Have I not
touched the case of some among you? You come into the house of God, but you treat
the truth of God presented here as a reprobate would--as one whom God cannot save
because He cannot get your attention. You say, "O I hope God won't send me to
hell-- why should He"! What else can He do with you? He cannot get your attention
when He speaks to you. Of course he cannot reach your heart, for He cannot even arrest
your thoughts and put you upon noticing what He has to say.
But you say--"What is it that I have done so very bad?" What have I done,
do you say? If your professor should speak to you in the recitation--and speak again,
no answer--and speak again--ten times repeated, yet you deign not one answer, but
go on with your amusements, reading your book or otherwise diverting your mind, treating
him with the utmost contempt, could he teach you and thus do you any good? And would
it be quite proper for you to ask as if in amazement--What have I done?
So are you doing, sinner, in your abuse of God by utter inattention to what He has
to say to you.
A candid state of mind is a hopeful indication. It is both a fit state of mind in
itself, and also an essential condition of arriving at the knowledge of the truth
and of being benefited by it. Hence you may safely set this trait of mind down as
one of the marks of the elect.
But the reprobate are cavilling and captious, full of subtle reasoning and sophistry.
At least this is the fact with many of them.
And how is this with some of you? Are you candid and honest, or are you cavilling
and captious? You know in the depths of your soul how this is, and you ought to know
what these traits of mind indicate.
Again, the elect are too much taken up with the plain things of a sermon and the
great duties in inculcates, to be stumbled at what they do not understand. They are
so much engrossed in what is good, that they naturally overlook what is objectionable.
But the reprobate will do the very opposite. They overlook the good and seize on
the objectionable; they overlook the plain things because they teach unwelcome duties,
and set themselves to cavil at the mysterious things. How often are they found stumbling
at the doctrine of the Trinity, wresting and misrepresenting the scriptures!
And are not such men reprobates? Of course they are--unless they speedily repent.
Of course this must be a mark of reprobation, because men are reprobated for these
very things. In time they manifest their evil captious hearts, just as God foresaw
they would.
Now how is it with you? When you hear a sermon, are you so much taken up with its
great and good thoughts and its useful things that you have no heart to think of
its defects; or does your mind fasten on the defective things, to the neglect of
all that is useful and good? There are two classes of hearers;--one class hear as
critics; the other as Christians. One class are wholly engaged in criticism and cavil;
being part scholars in grammar, their attention is all arrested by some slip of the
tongue or some inadvertent violation of syntax, so that they can think of nothing
else through the balance of the sermon. Some read the Bible just so. They will ask--not
how much of Cain's sin ought to lie on their own conscience for having hated their
own brethren, but, Where did Cain get his wife? This and a thousand other caviling
questions they ask just as reprobates naturally do, because it is for these every
things that they are reprobated. They come sometimes to the house of God, but they
take their seat far back--a great way off--perhaps in the window with their eyes
abroad, or with book in hand so that they can readily divert their mind. There they
read or play or whisper in the most perfect indifference and carelessness. Truth
preached is to them as seen sown by the way side--trodden under foot and forbidden
to vegetate.
Are not some of you not applying these things to yourselves, as already true in your
own experience? Thus far in the moral pathway of your life, you have gone in the
road of the reprobate, nor have deviated from it by one single step.
Another mark of the elect is this; they search for truth, while reprobates search
for error. They love it and therefore must search for it, it being a demand of their
hearts. This must be a distinguishing mark, for the elect must of necessity believe
the truth, else they cannot be saved; in order to believe, they must know and in
order to know they must search--search in candor and as for hid treasures. Some are
so earnest for the truth that they really dig and mine the bible in search for its
treasures. But the reprobate are uncandid when truth is presented before them, and
as for searching it out, they are much more likely to be on the scent after some
foul, long rotten error. The beauty of truth has no charms for them; but you cannot
say the same of the ugliness of error.
Again, the elect will believe the truth. Having studied and understood the truth,
they are sure to believe and embrace it. They do so because they mean to be candid.
But the reprobate may be known by the readiness with which they believe lies and
the very great difficulty they find in believing any valuable moral truth. I recollect
that I received a pamphlet some years since, full of mesmerism and its monstrous
absurdities. I could not read it without being greatly affected with the testimony
it bore to the moral state of the writer. Is it possible, said I, that such a man,
of such education, of such intelligence and good sense, can get into such a relation
to great moral truth as to believe this nonsense! Is it possible that he can believe
such fooleries as these and yet reject the gospel as not fit to be believed!
Some men will believe anything they please. In the line of lies they can believe
with great ease that Jonah could swallow a whale; but in the line of truth they cannot
even believe that the whale could swallow Jonah! They cannot believe the most simple
things in the gospel, however well sustained by evidence, but they can believe mesmerism
and all similar nonsense, or any other absurdity which men of perverse minds and
reprobate as to the truth are palming off upon our age.
Of the two classes of people morally divided on the point of being saved or not saved,
the one have no time to attend to the faults of other people;--the other class scarcely
find time for anything else; the one are too much engrossed in studying and obeying
the demands of an enlightened conscience to be easily diverted, while the other class
are tenfold more inquisitive about other people's conscience than about their own,
and commonly are quite ready to take upon themselves to keep the conscience of all
the church and of the world besides--so much taken up with picking a hole in the
hedge to peep at the weeds in a neighbor's garden that the weeds in their own grow
unmolested till they utterly swamp their owner. O how many men of this stripe help
to compose our Christian communities!
One class are so much engaged in self-improvement that they get no time to look after
other people's faults, while another class are so familiar with other's faults, that
they commonly hear sermons chiefly for the benefit and rebuke of their neighbors.
O how long their necks become while they sit and reach over and around to see how
their neighbors receive the merited castigation!
One class receive what condemns as well as what justifies; with equal readiness what
exposes their own wrong as what commends the right. Not so with the other--the class
of reprobates, for they receive of a sermon what seems to them to commend, but set
aside promptly what does not.
The elect are often found condemning themselves even more severely than anyone else
condemns them; often they are more searching, severe and straight-forward in applying
the truth to themselves than others in giving it such application. The reason of
this often is that they are honest and know their own faults and defects better than
anybody else does. You will find them peculiarly unwilling to take credit to themselves.
They say--"O my soul, come forward to this light--come up to this strong and
clear light and let all thy sins be set in order before thine eyes." O how his
soul sweats with agony! He is determined to be thorough and searching in his application
of the truth. He sees so much more to condemn in himself than in others that he wonders
at the favorable estimate which others are wont to make of him.
Exactly the opposite is true of reprobates. They have an excuse for every offence.
When they cannot actually make out anything in real defence, they yet toil hard for
apologies. Instead of coming down to their knees and pleading there for mercy, they
resort to special pleading in self-vindication and thus ruin their own souls.
The elect give themselves thoroughly and with great jealousy to understand the spirit
of God's requirements, fearful lest they shall not admit the claims of God fully
to their hearts. It by no means satisfies them that the external is blameless;--they
must go deep to the heart and know that all is right there, asking continually at
the door of the heart--What is thy motive?
Right over against these are the reprobates--reprobated because they take the opposite
course. Their self-application of truth never goes beyond its letter. They say--"If
I do about what is honest, God will accept me and I can rest on His justice"--albeit
they take this term honest in a very loose and superficial sense. Hence though the
outside of cup and platter are make to look decent, yet within are dead men's bones
and all uncleanness.
The elect renounce and abhor their own righteousness as any ground of acceptance
with God whatever. "What!" their hearts exclaim, "am I to be saved
upon my own righteousness? I have no righteousness to be saved upon! Impossible that
such a mode of salvation should ever reach my case!"
In truth nothing can be more abhorrent to their deep convictions. They would not
trust their salvation on the goodness of the best hour of their lives.
But the reprobate are always blind--perversely and madly blind to the true spirit
of God's requirements. They don't want to see their own hearts, nor would they like
by any means to understand too well the spirituality of God's law.
You will see the elect most earnest and sincere to renounce themselves and their
spirit of self-seeking--all their own will and their own way. They will not depend
at all on their own repentance, their own righteousness, or their own faith; most
utterly do they renounce self and all that pertains to it.
The reprobate cleave to their own self-interest as if it were the only possible good
and this the only wise way to win it.
The elect will seize the present moment and not put off duty forever, or indeed,
at all; but procrastination is the everlasting law of the reprobate.
I ought to have paused on each one of these many points, to ask you solemnly how
the count stands in your own souls. Will you answer it now in the silence of your
own reflection, and let conscience render an honest verdict!
The elect become honest with themselves, with God and with all men. Else they could
not be saved. Without this, they must be reprobated.
The elect cry out--"Search me, O God, search me all out most thoroughly";
but do you ever find the non-elect doing this? Notice that elect child. The scaling
tears flow down his cheeks; his heart is tender and full of many fears lest in the
hour of temptation he should sin against his God. But here is another man; long and
in vain has the Lord sought and labored to draw his soul into an honest state and
bring him to self-searching.
You will find that if the elect at any time fall into mistakes and errors they are
ready to renounce them. At once when they suspect they may be in the wrong they pause
and say--"I will surely aim to look at the truth and search it all out. I have
no fear of truth--nor dread of seeing my duty."
But the reprobate are distinguished by their pride and self-committal. You may know
them by their fear of being laughed at for doing right after having done wrong. You
will see them persist in their errors and evil ways and never give them up till they
go down to the depths of hell.
The elect are duly actuated by fear of God--not a servile but a filial fear, well
aware that it is rational to stand in awe before the great and holy God. They do
not think it becomes them to be above acknowledging that they are afraid of God's
judgments and terrors.
But the reprobate lift up their heads on high and disdain to be influenced by fear
of punishment or fear of God in any form.
The elect are duly affected by the mercy of God. It has a deep and melting influence
on their hearts. On the other hand the reprobate are for the most part unmoved by
this influence. You will recollect I said some Sabbaths since that some are so hardened
that the mercy of God has no power on them. Instead of bowing under God's mercy,
affected to penitence and tenderness thereby, they become only the more bold and
presumptuous.
But the elect have the utmost fear to sin. It is not merely or chiefly the fear of
being punished; they are afraid to grieve their Heavenly Father--just as a dutiful
child fears to add one pang to the griefs of a mother's heart.
The reprobate, however, if they are compelled to admit the truth of the gospel, only
abuse it and make the utmost use of it as an occasion for more and bolder sin.
The elect you will be likely to find in the way and use of special means of grace
and favored seasons of divine influence. How many times have I seen persons who in
seasons of revival, when the clouds grow big with promised rain, must be off. Away
the go on some hastily projected journey, or some newly got up plan for business.
In the hours of ingathering, they will not be there. Publicans and harlots will crown
into the kingdom, but not they. They are out of its way. Or if they stay at home
you will mark that when a mighty shower of divine effusions descends on the congregation,
the sermon that was blest to scores and hundreds will be unblest to them. They do
not hear as for their lives. They hear after a sort, but they go their way, and it
is as if they had heard nothing at all.
It is in view of all these facts, foreseen in the divine eye, that His mind is made
up. He sees that He can do nothing with them but give them over to a reprobate mind
and to its inevitable results.
The elect can never be made to rest in an unsanctifying hope. They know and feel
that they must have a self-purifying hope, like that of John as he describes it in
his epistle--"He that hath this hope purifieth himself even as Christ is pure."
If they find they have a hope that does not induce them to purify themselves, they
say at once--"This is not the hope for me"!
But the reprobate will be satisfied with the least possible evidence. The least that
will suffice to allay their fears of hell will answer all their purpose. they live
with little self-examination;--know that their hope is not one that purifies the
heart--knows it does not lead them to break off from sin--yet since so many are seen
or supposed to be in the same condition, they make up their minds to it with little
difficulty.
The elect are greatly afraid of delusion; they dread it exceedingly as a real and
a great evil. The Bible says of some delusions, they are so subtle that if it were
possible they would deceive the very elect, assuming that this is not possible. If
so it must be because through grace they can be kept watching and prayerful against
every delusion. but the reprobate court it. mark how they rush into every new form
of self-delusion. Averse to the truth through hatred of heart against it, they almost
pray for delusion. O how greedily they hail whatever new light in the shape of mesmerism
and rappings afford a place of retreat from the unwelcome blaze of Bible truth.
The elect will be on their guard against bad company. This is one of the dangers
against which they must be willing to watch, or they cannot be saved and could not
have been elected. I think now of the case of a young man who began to form acquaintance
with another--an acquaintance at first hopeful, but ere long something occurred which
aroused his fears and soon something else of the same indication, yet more startling.
Suddenly my young friend paused and said--I must cut your acquaintance at once, for
how can I trust myself in your society! Such a step required moral courage. It also
indicated that that young man was in the way of saving his own soul, and therefore
might be presumed to be one of the elect.
Right over against this I remember the case of a young man traveling with his father
and other friends. I could not but notice how the father watched that son. "I
must do so, said he, for I know that he is continually rushing into bad company.
The moment he sees any of that class of society, their attraction becomes to him
almost resistless.. He seems to love the society of young men who will debauch his
principles and deprave his morals. It seems to me often that he will ruin his own
soul in spite of the utmost care I can take of him."
The elect will be afraid of bad habits, and ever on their guard against them. If
at any time they have fallen under the power of temptation in this direction, they
will try to recover themselves at once from the snare.
Right over against this stands the case of the reprobate, easily known by the fact
that they are not afraid of bad habits, but are easily led into them, as God knew
they would be, and therefore was compelled to give them over to a reprobate mind.
The elect are afraid of bad books, but the reprobate are not, but rather relish them
and indulge in their perusal.
You see one class, betaking themselves to a prayer meeting, while another class wonder
why anybody should go there. The latter will say, "If I have not religion enough
to seek my own gratification, what's my religion good for?" About as reasonable
as if the drunkard should say, "If I can't get drunk, and get safely out of
it again, what's my religion good for?"
The reprobate walk evermore in a worldly way, and not in God's ways and God's counsels.
The ways of the world are the ways of their choice. The elect are not satisfied with
merely amiable qualities, they must have the deep fountains of the heart broken up,
and it's augean stables cleansed. The reprobate satisfy themselves with the smoothest
and most plausible forms--anything that will prepare them to slide down on a glass
rail road to the depths of hell.
The elect seek to mortify their pride, and often do things for this very purpose,
just to crush down the hatred thing, saying--I will not bear it nor spare it; I put
my heal on the very head of the serpent and it shall live no longer.
But the reprobate abhor such a course, and even cultivate their pride.
In times of revival, an elect man will say--Now is my time, I must not delay a moment
longer. I must seize my opportunity while yet it is called today. But the reprobate
contrive ten thousand excuses, often self-contradictory and always senseless and
vain. In point is the case of a young man in Rochester many years since, who, when
the revival commenced, and he was pressed with the claims of the gospel, replied--"Shall
I make myself a laughing stock among the youth of this city? Do you expect me to
be so singular as to set off for the Celestial City all alone?" Ere long the
masses were melted and moved. Then, pressed again with the claims of the gospel,
he replied--"What! shall I go with the rabble? Do you expect me to connect myself
with the masses of merely common people?" Soon the dreadful cholera came--it
smote him, and in three short but dreadful hours, took him from the earth, and hurried
him before that God, whose claims he had so frivolously and lightly set aside!
So with the reprobate, when the great gospel trumpet is blown, waxing louder and
louder, they will not hear. Their hearts are sealed against the truth, and their
doom, for this very reason, sealed for the awful judgment. They are reprobates, because
they would play the fool, and, because no wisdom could be welcome to their souls.
The elect, moreover, are striving for sanctification. The reprobate, let their profession
of piety be as it may, have no heart to become holy as God is holy.
The elect will persevere. Not so with the reprobate, for they are distinguished by
a short-lived piety, that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away. Like
a boat in the Niagara, above the mighty cataract, the elect will strike firmly, and
ply their oars with their might, and bear away in safety; but the reprobate, give
a few feeble strokes, and then give way to the furious current, and are borne along
with dashing speed, over the dreadful precipice, down, down, to ruin. Perhaps they
set out in their religion, only to make a little experiment, and see how they liked
it. Need I tell you, these experimenters are shortly stumbled, and when the sun is
up and waxes hot, they wither away.
The elect will have more and more conscience. Mark them when and where you will,
they are becoming daily and yearly in their moral course, more and more conscientious,
pure-minded, strict, upright, kind and generous. In their early stages, the natural
qualities of character may predominate and chiefly obscure the spiritual, but as
time rolls on, and the appliances of providence and grace have time to do their work,
you see them more and more ripe for God's service, till at last they melt away into
heaven.
But in the reprobate, you will see less and less that is hopeful. The blossoms that
in early times seemed to promise fruit, will sicken, fade and drop, and soon the
tree itself grows pale and sickly, and ripens for the burning.
The elect, will show sooner or later, that they are saved. You will see that the
power of sin in their hearts is broken, and that every grace is thriving and flourishing
exceedingly.
"Great is the work, my neighbors cried,
and owned the power divine."
They will not be stumbling about the doctrines of the Bible, but on the contrary
will see more and more of beauty and fitness in all those great things which God
has revealed of Himself and His plan of salvation. To the reprobate it falls to stumble
forever at the plain truths of God's word, and the plainer and the more precious
the truth, the more grievous and fatal is their stumbling. What could be a more decisive
mark of a reprobate than this?
REMARKS.
1. Men truly decide in time their own election or reprobation. Now do not misapprehend
me. Mistakes on this subject are far too common. Some suppose that God has decided
man's destiny, as absolutely, and fatally, as if He had nailed it down with iron
nails, and man had no power to determine or change it. Whereas, the fact is, that
man as really decides his own destiny, as if God had known nothing about it.
2. It is simply absurd to say--"A man elected, will be saved, do what he may,"
for he never can be saved but by doing his duty.
3. It is a mere absurdity to make election a stumbling block, as many do. Suppose
that God and yourself were to commence existence today, together. There is no past
with either, and no actions done in the past, therefore, which can in the least affect
the future. Now, God determines your destiny, according to your actual conduct, and
your entire voluntary activities. Would it not be absurd for you to complain of His
election as interfering with your final destiny, or rather, with your power to determine
it by your own free choices?
If so on this supposition, then is it so as the case actually stands, for God really
determines your destiny solely upon your voluntary conduct,--solely and actually
as if He had never thought of it before you began to live and to act.
4. Ministers whose hearts are set on doing their work, cannot help watching the course
of things, to see the indications that show who are the elect, and who the reprobate.
If their hearts are really on saving souls, of course they will watch with most intense
solicitude. Like a faithful physician who sees his patient in peril, he nerves are
on the rock, his lips quiver and turn white, for his soul is full of unutterable
sympathy and anxiety; or as the lawyer with a case on hand in which life trembles
in the balance, and his sympathies are wrought up to agony: so the honest man of
God, who labors for souls as one who must give account, has the sympathies of his
heart taxed to their utmost depth, and cannot but watch every indication, that at
last his account for each or any soul will be with joy and not with grief. As he
sees the evidences of election developing themselves here, or of reprobation there,
his soul swells with the varied emotions of hope and of fear; and as those evidences
ripen to their maturity, and he stands by the bedside of the dying Christian conqueror,
why should he not shout, "Glory to God in the highest!"? The destiny of
one more soul for heaven, always known to God, is now made manifest before his eyes,
and why should he not give utterance to his devout thanksgivings to all conquering
grace?
5. The evidences on both sides are oftentimes so manifestly clear that the wickedest
man must confess to their sufficiency as evidence. "That man," they will
say, "is certainly fitting for heaven." "That other man is surely
on his way down to the depths of hell."
6. The more thorough the application of means, the more decisive will these developments
become. When Christ traveled with His own gospel among the people of His time, working
miracles and pouring the light of truth in mighty floods up on all the land, how
rapidly did some develop their character as reprobates! And on the other hand, how
readily did some come to the truth, to the saving of their souls. So in these days,
when the means employed are full of power, and the influences are strong and earnestly
applied, and men are compelled to decide one way or the other, the work of sealing
destiny and of developing its evidences, goes on with utmost terrific rapidity. There
is a young woman. She scarcely sets her foot down in Oberlin before she says, "This
is a holy place, and God has sent me here to secure the salvation of my soul. It
must be done!" But another shall come in at the same time, and come under the
same influences but sets herself against the truth from the very first, and only
becomes the more rapidly and terribly hardened in her sins.
7. We see what an inquisitive world this ought to be, to know, not who is first in
office or foremost in wealth, but to see who develops the character of the elect
and who the reprobate. With what amazing interest would angels study these indications,
if human character and conduct were as open to their inspection as to ours! These
thing may be more patent to their eyes than they can be to our own.
We see why Peter said, "Give all diligence to make your calling and election
sure." How reasonable that all men should! For consider, you have the same to
do, and as much to do, in determining the eternal destiny of your own soul, as if
God knew nothing about it.
Again, you see the meaning of that portion of my text--"For many are called
but few are chosen." The many, God calls, but few will answer. Long and loudly
does He call, and they will not hear. Of course, God could not choose them to salvation.
How does the case stand with you, my hearers? You have some new evidence developed
to your view this day, showing, one way or the other, what shall be your final destiny.
Do you take warning, and apply the truth to yourselves? Do you find that the gospel
is saving you in the sense of saving your hearts from the power of sin?
Generally the early years of life give the cast to moral character and determine
final eternal destiny. The masses who are converted at all are converted early, so
that you do not need to wait long for developments which are in the main decisive.
Early they strike into the path which, followed through after years, lands them at
their journey's end in paradise or in perdition. Mark that young man, that mere boy.
Has he a conscience? Is it becoming more and more an element of power in his character?
Does he fear God and hate evil? Is he attentive to the great questions of religious
duty and truth? Then you may predict, almost with certainty, his future manhood and
his final destiny.
But on the other hand, if you see him indisposed towards religious truth and its
claims, and only waxing more and more hardened and fixed in his aversion, you cannot
help saying, "Reprobate silver shall men call them because the Lord hath rejected
them." The Lord rejected them because he saw that they would turn away coldly
and scornfully from every appeal He could make to either their conscience or their
sensibilities. Yes, even when Jesus Christ came down to throw His arms of lovingkindness
all round about you, you evaded Him and would not be embraced in His loving arms.
Then you sealed your final doom as a lost sinner.
Another said, "I must bid Jesus welcome to my heart--I must and will rush to
the wide arms of His offered embrace, crying "Life, Life, ETERNAL LIFE!"
and so doing, he "made his calling and election sure." And did he, think
you, pay too dearly for his soul's salvation? Will he regret it when, in the light
of the judgment, he shall come to see what such a salvation is actually worth?
GLOSSARY
of easily misunderstood terms as defined by Mr. Finney himself.
Compiled by Katie Stewart
Next "Oberlin
Evangelist" 1853
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