Jerome Zanchius on Double Predestination

Now, this twofold Predestination, of some to life, and of others to death, (if it may be called twofold, both being constituent parts of the same decree) cannot be denied, without likewise denying, 1. most express and frequent declarations of Scripture, and, 2. the very existence of God: for, since God is a Being perfectly simple, free from all accident and composition; and yet, a Will to save some and punish others is often predicated of Him in Scripture; and an immovable decree, to do this; in consequence of His will, is likewise ascribed to Him; and a perfect foreknowledge of the sure and certain accomplishment of what He has thus willed and decreed, is also attributed to Him; it follows, that whoever denies this will, decree, and foreknowledge of God, does, implicitly deny God Himself: since His will, decree, and foreknowledge are no other than God Himself willing and decreeing and foreknowing...

We assert, that, as all men, universally, are not elected to salvation; so neither are all men, universally, ordained to condemnation. This follows from what has been proved already: however, I shall subjoin some farther demonstration of these two positions.

(1) All men universally are not elected to salvation.

And first, this may be evinced a posteriori: 'tis undeniable, from Scripture that God will not, in the last day, save every individual of mankind – Dan. 12:2; Mat. 25:46; John 5:29. Therefore, say we, God never designed so save every individual: since, if He had, every individual would and must be saved, for, “His counsel shall stand, and He will do all His pleasure.” … Secondly, this may be evinced, also, from God's foreknowledge. The Deity, from all eternity, and consequently, at the very time He gives life and being to a reprobate, certainly foreknew, and knows in consequence of His own decree, that such an one would fall short of salvation: now, if God foreknew this, He must have predetermined it because His own will Is the foundation of His decrees, and His decrees and the foundation of His prescience: He therefore foreknowing futurities, because by His predestination, He hath rendered their futurition certain and inevitable. Neither is it possible, in the very nature of things, that they should be elected to salvation, or ever obtain it, whom God foreknew should perish: for then the Divine act of preterition would be changeable, wavering, and precarious; the Divine foreknowledge would be deceived and the Divine will impeded, all of which are utterly impossible. Lastly, that all men are not chosen to life, nor created to that end is evident in that there were some who were hated of God before they were born (Rom. 9:11-13), are fitted for destruction (vs. 22), and made for the day of evil (Prov. 16:1).

But,

(2) All men universally are not ordained to condemnation.

There are some who are chosen (Mat. 20:16):An election, or elect number, who obtain grace and salvation, while the rest are blinded (Rom. 11:7), a little flock, to whom it is the Father's good pleasure to give the kingdom (Luke 12:32), a people whom the Lord hath reserved (Jer. 50:20), and formed for Himself (Isa. 43:21), a peculiarly favored race, to whom it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of Heaven; while, to others, it is not given (Mat. 13:11), a remnant according to the election of grace (Rom. 11:5) whom God hath not appointed to wrath, but to salvation by Jesus Christ (1 Thess. 5:9) – in a word, who are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people, that they should shew forth the praises of Him, who hath called them out of darkness into His marvelous light (1 Pet. 2:9), and whose names, for that very end, are in the book of life (Phil. 4:3) and written in Heaven (Luke 10:20; Heb. 12:23). Luther observes, that, in the 9^th, 10^th, and 11^th chapters of the Epistle to the Romans, the apostle particularly insists on the Doctrine of Predestination. “Because,” says he, “All things, whatever, arise from, and depend upon, the divine appointment; whereby it was pre-ordained, who should receive the word of life, and who should disbelieve it; who should be delivered from their sins, and who should be hardened in them; who should be justified,a d who condemned.” (Pref. to Rom.)

The decrees of election and reprobation are immutable and irreversible.

Jerome Zanchius – Absolute Predestination

Nothing Happens Apart From God's Willing It

"We assert that God did from eternity decree to make man in His own image, and also decreed to suffer him to fall from that image in which he should be created, and thereby to forfeit the happiness with which he was invested, which decree and the consequences of it were not limited to Adam only, but included and extended to all his natural posterity.
Something of this was hinted already in the preceding chapter, and we shall now proceed to the proof of it.

(1) That God did make man in His own image is evident from Scripture (Gen. 1. 27).

(2) That He decreed from eternity so to make man is as evident, since for God to do anything without having decreed it, or fixed a previous plan in His own mind, would be a manifest imputation on His wisdom, and if He decreed that now, or at any time, which He did not always decree, He could not be unchangeable.

(3) That man actually did fall from the Divine image and his original happiness is the undoubted voice of Scripture (Gen. 3), and

(4) That he fell in consequence of the Divine decree we prove thus: God was either willing that Adam should fall, or unwilling, or indifferent about it. If God was unwilling that Adam should transgress, how came it to pass that he did? Is man stronger and is Satan wiser than He that made them? Surely no. Again, could not God, had it so pleased Him, have hindered the tempter's access to paradise? or have created man, as He did the elect angels, with a will invariably determined to good only and incapable of being biased to evil? or, at least have made the grace and strength, with which He endued Adam, actually effectual to the resisting of all solicitations to sin? None but atheists would answer these questions in the negative. Surely, if God had not willed the fall, He could, and no doubt would, have prevented it; but He did not prevent it: ergo, He willed it. And if He willed it, He certainly decreed it, for the decree of God is nothing else but the seal and ratification of His will. He does nothing but what He decreed, and He decreed nothing which He did not will, and both will and decree are absolutely eternal, though the execution of both be in time. The only way to evade the force of this reasoning is to say that 'God was indifferent and unconcerned whether man stood or fell.' But in what a shameful, unworthy light does this represent the Deity! Is it possible for us to imagine that God could be an idle, careless spectator of one of the most important events that ever came to pass? Are not 'the very hairs of our head all numbered'? or does 'a sparrow fall to the ground without our heavenly Father'? If, then, things the most trivial and worthless are subject to the appointment of His decree and the control of His providence, how much more is man, the masterpiece of this lower creation? and above all that man Adam, who when recent from his Maker's hands was the living image of God Himself, and very little inferior to the angels! and on whose perseverance was suspended the welfare not of himself only, but likewise that of the whole world. But, so far was God from being indifferent in this matter, that there is nothing whatever about which He is so, for He worketh all things, without exception, 'after the counsel of His own will' (Eph. 1. 11), consequently, if He positively wills whatever is done, He cannot be indifferent with regard to anything. On the whole, if God was not unwilling that Adam should fall, he must have been willing that he should, since between God's willing and nilling there is no medium. And is it not highly rational as well as Scriptural, nay, is it not absolutely necessary to suppose that the fall was not contrary to the will and determination of God? since, if it was, His will (which the apostle represents as being irresistible, Rom 9. 19) was apparently frustrated and His determination rendered of worse than none effect. And how dishonourable to, how inconsistent with, and how notoriously subversive of the dignity of God such a blasphemous supposition would be, and how irreconcileable with every one of His allowed attributes is very easy to observe." 

Jerome Zanchius, Absolute Predestination

Ezekiel Hopkins on Providence

“A sparrow, whose price is but mean, two of them valued at a farthing (which some make to be the 10th part of a Roman penny, and was certainly one of their least coins), and whose life, therefore, is but contemptible, and whose flight seems giddy and at random; yet it falls not to the ground, neither lights anywhere, without your Father. His all-wise Providence hath before appointed what bough it shall pitch on; what grains it shall pick up; where is shall lodge, and where it shall build; on what it shall live, and when it shall die. And, if your Father's Providence be so critical about the small concernments even of sparrows, 'fear not ye, for ye are of more value than many sparrows;' yea, of more value than many men. 

"Our Saviour adds, 'The very hairs of you head are all numbered.' God keeps an account, even of that stringy excrescence. He knows how many fall off, and the precise number of those that remain; and no wonder, since he knows the number of our sins, which are far more.

"Hence we learn, that God governs the meanest, the most inconsiderable and contemptible occurrences in the world, by an exact and particular Providence. Do you see a thousand little motes and atoms wandering up and down in a sunbeam? It is God that so peoples it; and He guides their innumerable and irregular strayings. Not a dust flies in a beaten road; but God raiseth it, conducts its uncertain motion, and, by his particular care, conveys it to the certain place He had before appointed for it; nor shall the most fierce and tempestuous wind hurry it any farther. Nothing comes to pass, but God hath His ends in it, and will certainly make His own ends out of it. Though the world seem to run at random, and affairs to be huddled together in blind confusion and rude disorder; ye, God sees and knows the concatenation of all causes and effects, and so governs them, that He makes a perfect harmony out of all those seeming jarrings and discords. It is most necessary, that we should have our hearts established in the firm and unwavering belief of this truth; that whatsoever comes to pass, be it good or evil, we may look up to the Hand and Disposal of All, to God. In respect of God, there is nothing casual, nor contingent in the world. If a master should send a servant to a certain place, and command him to stay there till such a time; and presently after, should send another servant to the same place; the meeting of these two is wholly casual in respect of themselves, but ordained and foreseen by the master who sent them. So it is in all fortuitous events here below. They fall out unexpectedly, as to us; but not so as to God. He foresees and appoints all the vicissitudes of things.”

Ezekiel Hopkins, Sermon Upon Providence: From Matthew 10:29, 30 (Works, Volume 4, page 233-234, 1809 

Joseph as a Type of the Suffering Savior (part 3)

THE SUFFERING SAVIOUR— THE SAVED AND LOST.

Genesis 40.

This child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against; that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed. Luke 2:34, 35.

Then were there two thieves crucified with him; one on the right hand and another on the left. — Matthew 27:38.

Did it depend on our remembering him — had it depended even on that penitent and pardoned thief remembering him — to fix and determine how soon Jesus should come to his kingdom, — who can tell but that he might have been left dying, or dead, — as Joseph was left languishing in the prison, — aye! to this very hour. Thanks be to God, it was the Father's remembrance of him, and not ours that was to bring our Joseph out of his dungeon to his royal court; — to bring Jesus from his cross to his crown. It is ours to ask him to remember us in his kingdom. Nor will he ever fail to do so.

He will not forget his having shared our imprisonment, our condemnation, our guilt and doom. All that he endured with us and for us, when he took his place beside us, and accepted as his own our criminality and our curse, must ever be fresh in his mind and heart. Joseph's fellow-sufferer might cease to think, in his prosperity, of the pains of their common distress; but our fellow-sufferer is ever mindful of the agony of the time when he made common cause with us, and bore instead of us our sin and sorrow. Therefore we may ask our fellow-sufferer to remember us with somewhat more of confidence than Joseph may have felt when he asked his fellow-sufferer to remember him. For have we not his own gracious words, — "Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me" (Is. 49:15, 16).

II. The case of the chief baker stands out in sad contrast to that of his companion in tribulation (ver. 16-19). He had not been so ready to place his trust in Joseph, and to own him as entitled to speak for God. Rather, as we may too probably gather from the whole scope of the narrative, he had continued incredulous, perhaps contemptuous. When Joseph spoke so simply, — "Do not interpretations belong to God? Tell me the dreams I pray you," — he may have been inclined to rail at him, saying: If thou be such a favourite of heaven, save thyself. Wouldst thou be where thou art, if God were so with thee as to warrant thine assumption of being his mouthpiece? So this unbeliever may have derided Joseph's claim at first. But now his comrade's good fortune, as he perhaps accounts it, tempts and encourages him to try his chance. He may have the luck to get as favourable a response from the oracle; and, at all events, it can do no harm to make the experiment. He, too, will now tell his dream, and abide the issue.

Alas! it is only ominous of evil. The servant of the Lord can speak of nothing but judgment. And if the doomed man should still affect to be skeptical, and set coming wrath at defiance, three short days are enough to dispel his miserable delusion, and prove Joseph a true prophet, alike of death and of deliverance. "It came to pass the third day, which was Pharaoh's birthday, that he made a feast unto all his servants: and he lifted up the head of the chief butler and of the chief baker among his servants. And he restored the chief butler to his butlership again; and he gave the cup into Pharaoh's hand; but he hanged the chief baker, as Joseph had interpreted to them" (ver.20-22).

1. Thus "one is taken and another left." For that, in the first place, is a lesson to be learned from this prison-scene. It is as it was in the days of Noah; and as it shall be also in the days of the Son of Man: "I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken and the other shall be left. Two women shall be grinding together; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left" (Luke 17:34-36). Even so it seems good in God's sight. Any two of us may be together in the same prison or in the same palace, — in the same trial or in the same triumph, — in the same sorrow or in the same joy, — sleeping together in the same bed, — grinding together at the same mill, — working or walking together in the same field; both apparently alike good, — both destined surely to be alike safe. But how long can we reckon on our companionship lasting? How soon and how suddenly may that saying come true; "One shall be taken, the other left?" How does it concern every one of us, in the view of that separating and sifting day, to be looking out for himself individually. Whoever I may be with in bed, at the mill, in the field, my being with him then will avail me nothing. Let me give earnest heed myself to the things which belong to my peace, before they be forever hid from my eyes. And let mo remember the Lord's own solemn and emphatic warning: “Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it (Luke 17:33).

2. If Joseph was "set for the fall" of one and "the rising again" of another, and "for a sign that should be spoken against that the thoughts" — if not of many yet of some—"hearts should be revealed" (Luke 2:34, 35), — behold a greater than Joseph is here. Jesus is still set forth before our eyes, crucified between two malefactors. His cross draws the line sharply between them. Both alike are sinners, breakers of the law. Both alike are guilty, justly condemned. Both alike are utterly helpless in their condemnation. But that central cross discriminates between them! It sets them, near as they are, at infinite distance apart!

On one side is the man of broken spirit, of contrite heart, accepting the punishment of his sin, consenting to lose his life that he may preserve it, — to have no life of his own, that he may owe all his life to Christ. On the other side is he who still seeks to save his life, — who even in the jaws of inevitable death will not give in, — who will not renounce his own poor conceit of innocence, goodness, and security, and agree to accept life in Christ, as the free gift of God.

On which of these sides art thou my brother? To which of these two crosses, on the right and on the left of Christ's cross, art thou billing to be nailed? Wilt thou be crucified with Christ,— trusting in him, praying to him, looking to him, believing his sure word, " To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise?" Or wilt thou be crucified without Christ, — near him, but yet without him, — setting him at naught, and thyself alone braving the terror of the Lord, of which his crucifixion is so sure and sad a presage and pledge?

3. If Joseph said to the man whose sentence of release he had pronounced, Think of me — and if he had some good ground for thinking that his friend ought to think of him, and would think of him — how much more may he who is greater than Joseph, and who procures for us — not by the interpretation of a dream merely but by what costs him something more than that — a sentence of release from doom and restoration to favour infinitely more valuable than the butler got — how much more may he, I say, prefer such a request to us — Remember me. Surely it is a sad thing if our hearts have not a better memory for Jesus than this man had for Joseph. And yet what need of constant watchfulness and prayer that such ingratitude may not be ours! And what reason to bless God have we in the fact, that so many means and appliances are provided for helping us always to remember him — his blessed word ever in our hands ; his gracious gospel preached to us; the holy sacrament of communion; his Spirit taking of what is his and showing it to us.

4. If it had been Joseph who had been asked to remember his fellow-sufferer, that asking would not have been in vain. Jesus at all events will not suffer any one of us to say to him in vain, "Lord, remember me, now that thou art come to thy kingdom!" "We have not an high priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities."

When we appeal to him, by his remembrance of all his own sufferings to remember us in our sufferings, the appeal touches his heart. Remember, Lord, thy loving-kindnesses. Call to mind all thy dealings with the sick, the sorrowful, the poor, in the days of thy flesh. Call to mind all thine own trials and afflictions manifold. Remember us. Lord; and show in thy remembrance of us that thou art "the same yesterday, to-day, and forever."

(This and the previous two posts are from Chapter 54 of Robert Candlish's Studies in Genesis, published in 1868.)

Joseph as a Type of the Suffering Savior (part 2)

THE SUFFERING SAVIOUR— THE SAVED AND LOST.

Genesis 40.

This child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against; that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed. Luke 2:34, 35.

Then were there two thieves crucified with him; one on the right hand and another on the left. — Matthew 27:38.

In that position he was "charged with them and served them" (ver. 1). It was a double function. He waited upon them and was their attendant, — responsible doubtless in that capacity for their safe custody, — but not authorized to act as their superior, — only entitled to officiate as their servant. For they were evidently persons of some rank and consideration in Pharaoh's court, — although the precise position of each is about as hard to be ascertained as his offence;— and as unimportant and irrelevant, for any practical purpose, if it could be ascertained. They were chiefs in their respective departments. They may have been guilty of fraud, — of what in meaner men would be called theft. Under some such accusation probably they were suffering, having Joseph between them, ready to serve and be of use to them. Thus "they continued a season in ward."

The day, however, now dawns that is to decide their respective fates. In the morning, Joseph visits them, as usual; and finding them discomposed, he naturally asks the reason, "wherefore look ye so sadly to-day?” Carelessly perhaps, and as a mere matter of civility, they inform him, — "We have dreamed a dream, and there is no interpreter of it." And they are somewhat startled, we may be sure, by Joseph's reply: — "Do not interpretations belong to God] tell me them, I pray you " (ver. 6-8).

For it might well be deemed a strange reply from such a one as Joseph must have appeared to them to be. Who was he that he should dare to speak in so high a tone, and undertake so confidently what he avows to be a divine office? A servant, — one who ministered to them in humble guise, — a prisoner, — a convict, — one whom they may have been disposed to treat with supercilious indifference or despiteful indignity, — a poor degraded Israelite, — in their proud eyes contemptible. What wonder if both of these more reputable victims of the frowns of power should have laughed to scorn the lofty pretentions of one who was more a victim than themselves?

They may have done so, both of them, at first. But if so, one of them at least speedily relents. For we begin here to recognize a distinction between them. And the distinction is vital and fatal.

I. The chief butler, at once and unhesitatingly, told his dream (ver. 9-15). His doing so, and the result of his doing so, are in several views not a little remarkable.

1. He acted in faith. He believed Joseph's own assurance, — for it was virtually an assurance on Joseph's part, — of his having a commission from God to interpret the dream. And it was this faith that made him tell it. It was no child's play, or holiday-sport, between Joseph and these men — no mere trick of ingenious riddle-reading and guess-work. It was not an affair of magic, or legerdemain, or vulgar fortune-telling — a conjuror practicing his sleight-of-hand maneuvers and manipulations — an oneiromantist, or dream-prophet, with his jargon of symbols and occult senses, affecting to weave the idle thoughts of a tossing bed into a plausible web of fate. Joseph at least is in earnest. His trumpet gives no uncertain sound. He assumes the prophetic character, as decidedly as Daniel did when he stood before Nebuchadnezzar — or Christ when he comforted the dying thief. He undertakes to speak for God — to speak as the oracle of God. It is avowedly on that footing that he invites his companions to tell him their dreams; he would not on any other footing encourage them to expect any satisfaction from him. And therefore, when the chief butler proceeded to act upon the invitation, it must have been from a decided persuasion, on his part, of the reality of Joseph's claim. But for some such conviction, we cannot imagine that he would have received Joseph's proposal otherwise than with ridicule and abuse. There was that, however, about Joseph which inspired confidence in his divine mission. "He spake as one having authority," and not as the soothsayers — "not as the scribes."

2. The faith thus exercised meets with an immediate recompense; as well it may, for it is of no ordinary sort. In opening his mind to Joseph, the chief butler virtually acknowledges him as a chosen servant of God, entitled to declare his will, and on his behalf to show things to come. He does so, in spite of outward appearances and outward circumstances.

He sees through the veil of suffering and shame a divine grace and glory shining forth in this seeming culprit. The truth being its own witness — the divine Spirit in Joseph's soul making his presence there even outwardly manifest — the man perceives that he is a prophet, one whom God has sent and sealed. And he makes known to him his dream accordingly.

3. The dream and its interpretation are both of God; being God's method of revelation — the method of revelation which he saw fit on this, as on other occasions, to adopt. It is idle to be speculating about the principles and laws of this sort of divine communication; estimating the probability of the dream beforehand, or laying down the supposed rules of its subsequent explanation. To dream about a vine, with its buds, and blossoms, and clusters, and ripe grapes, and to connect all the particulars of the dream with a scene in Pharaoh's palace — the dreamer himself doing his office as cup-bearer, pressing the grapes into the cup, and giving the cup into the monarch's hands — all that may seem natural enough, and well fitted to suggest sage remarks as to the working of the mind in sleep. Any shrewd deceiver, we may be apt to think, might take the hint and gratify the credulous dupe consulting him, with a flattering prediction in the line of what was obviously running in his head. But nothing of that sort will suit the parties here, or fit into their relation to one another. There is no room for the supposition of this being anything like an ordinary case of dream-telling and dream-interpreting, after the fashion of what has sometimes been reduced almost to a system or a science — the art of turning to account man's inveterate superstitious proneness to pry into futurity. The whole must be accepted as altogether the Lord's doing.

4. It is so accepted by the chief butler himself. If it was in faith, believing Joseph to be what he professed to be, that he told him his dream at first, much more now, in faith, he must have received the interpretation of his dream as from heaven. Joseph had not said, Tell me the dream, and I will see if I can find a possible or likely meaning in it. He had appealed to God, and announced himself as able and authorised to put God's own infallible meaning on it. It was on that understanding that the man had placed his case in Joseph's hands. Clearly, therefore, Joseph's word must have been to him as God's. "Within three days" thou shalt be, as it were, "in paradise," — taken from the prison to the king's palace and the king's presence — no longer languishing in the torture of condemnation, but safe from wrath and high in favour. Such salvation does Joseph announce to his fellow-sufferer.

5. Is it too much for Joseph to couple with the announcement of this salvation, so simple and touching a request as this: — " But think on me when it shall be well with thee, and show kindness, I pray thee, unto me, and make mention of me unto Pharaoh, and bring me out of this house: for indeed I was stolen away out of the land of the Hebrews: and here also have I done nothing that they should put me into the dungeon"? Can anything be more reasonable? Can anything be more pathetic?

It is not here, as it was in the instance of one greater than Joseph, when he spoke peace to the poor criminal hanging on a cross beside him. Then the petition to be remembered in the kingdom came from the malefactor to the Saviour; here it comes from the saviour to the malefactor. The situation is simply reversed. It is his fellow-sufferer who says to Jesus, "Lord, remember me when thou comest unto thy kingdom;" — it is Joseph who for himself makes virtually this same request of his fellow-sufferer, — "Think on me when it shall be well with thee." There is no risk whatever, in the case of the one petition, of its being forgotten or overlooked. Alas! there is but too much risk in the case of the other. When it is the deliverer, the saviour — for such, to all intents and purposes was Joseph's position here — who begs a favour of the party delivered, there is but too great a likelihood of his finding that he has begged it in vain. What ground for thankfulness is ours when we reflect, that the party needing deliverance, when he begs a favour of his deliverer, can never incur the hazard of any such sad disappointment!

Joseph might doubt whether the man who owed so much to him would indeed think of him when he was once himself out of the fellowship of suffering which had made them so much akin. We may be very sure that Jesus in his exaltation will remember us. It is not that we can make out a better case, or show more cause why we should be remembered. Joseph's plea is stronger far, upon the merits, than any plea of ours can possibly be. He can appeal to his blameless innocency, his spotless righteousness. He has done nothing to deserve the dungeon; he is well worthy of a better destiny. And the man to whom he appeals is surely bound to him by most affecting ties, of communion in disgrace and sorrow, and communion also in sympathy and kindness, given and received. What, in comparison, is our plea? We have well merited the worst that can befall us. And the Man to whom we appeal is he whom we have pierced! But he will not neglect our appeal to him, as we, like Joseph's friend the butler, might be found but too apt to neglect his appeal to us.