Produce your cause, says the LORD: bring forth your strong reasons, says the King of Jacob.
— Isaiah 41:21
Woe to him that strives with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. –
— Isaiah 45:9
Oh that I knew where I might find him! that I might come even to his seat! I would order my cause before him, and fill my mouth with arguments.
— Job 23:3-4
Gird up thy loins now like a man: I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me. Wilt thou also disannul my judgment? wilt thou condemn me, that thou mayest be righteous? Hast thou an arm like God? or canst thou thunder with a voice like him?
— Job 40:7-9
Hear ye now what the LORD saith; Arise, contend thou before the mountains, and let the hills hear thy voice. Hear ye, O mountains, the LORD’S controversy, and ye strong foundations of the earth: for the LORD hath a controversy with his people, and he will plead with Israel.
— Micah 6:1-2
For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself.
— Galatians 6:3
Arminian Innovations and the Immutability of the Lord, by John Owen. The following contains Chapter One and an excerpt from Chapter Two of his work, “A Display of Arminianism.”
Produce your cause, says the LORD: bring forth your strong reasons, says the King of Jacob.
— Isaiah 41:21
Woe to him that strives with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. –
— Isaiah 45:9
CHAPTER 1.
OF THE TWO MAIN ENDS AIMED AT BY THE ARMINIANS, BY THEIR INNOVATIONS IN THE RECEIVED DOCTRINE OF THE REFORMED CHURCHES.
Because of the corruption of his nature, the soul of man is not only darkened with a mist of ignorance by which he is disabled from comprehending divine truth, but he is also armed with prejudice and opposition against some parts of it. These are either most above or most contrary to some false principles which he has framed for himself. Just as a desire for self-sufficiency was the first cause of this infirmity, so he still languishes with a conceit of it. He contends for nothing more than he contends for an independence from any supreme power which might either help, hinder, or control him in his actions. This is that bitter root from which have sprung all those heresies and wretched contentions which have troubled the church, concerning the power of man in working his own happiness, and his exemption from the over-ruling providence of Almighty God. All these wrangling disputes of carnal reason against the word of God come at last to this head: whether the first and highest part in disposing of things in this world, ought to be ascribed to God or man? Men for the most part have vindicated this pre-eminence for themselves by exclamations that it must be so, or else God is unjust, and his ways are unequal. Never did any men, “postquam Christiana gens esse caepit,” more eagerly endeavor to erect this Babel than the Arminians, the modern blinded patrons of human self-sufficiency. All their innovations in the received doctrine of the reformed churches aim at, and tend towards, is one of these two ends:
FIRST. To exempt themselves from God’s jurisdiction – to free themselves from the supreme dominion of his all- ruling providence; not to live and move in him,Act 17.28 but to have an absolute independent power in all their actions. So that the event of all things in which they have any interest, might considerably relate to nothing but chance, contingency, and their own wills – this is a most nefarious and sacrilegious attempt! To this end –
First. They deny the eternity and unchangeableness of God’s decrees; for these being established, they fear they would be kept within bounds from doing anything but what his counsel has determined should be done. If the purposes of the Strength of Israel are eternal and immutable, then their idol free-will must be limited, and their independence prejudiced. Therefore they choose rather to affirm that his decrees are temporary and changeable – indeed, they affirm that he really changes them according to the several mutations he sees in us. I will show in the second chapter how wild a conceit this is, how contrary to the pure nature of God, and how destructive to his attributes.
Secondly. They question the prescience or foreknowledge of God; for if all his works are known to God from the beginning, and if he certainly foreknew all things that would hereafter come to pass, then it seems to cast an infallibility of event upon all their actions, which encroaches upon the large territory of their new goddess, Contingency. No, it would quite dethrone the queen of heaven, and induce a kind of necessity of our doing all and nothing but what God foreknows. Now, it will be declared in the third chapter that to deny this prescience is destructive to the very essence of the Deity; and it is plain atheism.
Thirdly. They depose the all-governing providence of this King of nations, denying its energetic, effectual power, in turning the hearts, ruling the thoughts, determining the wills, and disposing the actions of men, by granting nothing to it but a general power and influence, to be limited and used according to the inclination and will of every particular agent. So they make Almighty God to be a desirer that many things were otherwise than they are, and an idle spectator of most things that are done in the world. The falseness of these assertions will be proved in the fourth chapter.
Fourthly. They deny the irresistibility and uncontrollable power of God’s will, asserting that oftentimes he seriously wills and intends what he cannot accomplish; and so God is deceived about his aim. Though God desires and really intends to save every man, it is wholly in their own power, they say, whether he shall save anyone or not. Otherwise their idol, free-will, would have but a poor deity if God could cross and resist their idol in his dominion, how and when God desired. Concerning this, see the fifth chapter. “His gradibus itur in coelum.” Corrupted nature is still ready, either with Adam to nefariously attempt to be like God, or to think foolishly that God is altogether like us, Psalm 50. All men run into one of these inconveniences if they have not learned to submit their frail wills to the almighty will of God, and make their understanding captive to the obedience of faith. (See chapter five.)
SECONDLY. The second end at which the new doctrine of the Arminians aims is to clear human nature from the heavy imputation of being sinful, corrupted, wise to do evil but unable to do good.Jer 4.22 And so they claim for themselves a power and ability to do all the good which God can justly require them to do in their current state – a power and ability making them differ from others who will not make such good use of the endowments of their natures; so that the first and highest part in the work of their salvation may be ascribed to themselves – this is a proud Luciferian endeavor! To this end –
First. They deny the doctrine of predestination by which God is affirmed to have chosen certain men before the foundation of the world to be holy, and to obtain everlasting life by the merit of Christ, to the praise of his glorious grace. They deny any such predestination which may be the fountain and cause of such grace or glory if, according to God’s good pleasure, it determines the persons on whom these things shall be bestowed. For this doctrine would make the special grace of God the sole cause of all the good that is in the elect, more than the reprobates; it would make faith the work and gift of God, with various other things, which would show their idol to be nothing and of no value. Therefore, they have substituted a corrupt heresy in its place; see the sixth chapter.
Secondly. They deny original sin and its demerit; if rightly understood, this would easily demonstrate that, notwithstanding all the labor of the smith, the carpenter, and the painter, their idol is by nature only an unprofitable block of wood; it will reveal not only our nature’s impotence to do good, but also where it comes from; see the seventh chapter.
Thirdly. If you charge that our human nature is repugnant to the law of God, they will maintain that this nature was also in Adam when he was first created; and so it must come from God himself: the eighth chapter.
Fourthly. They deny the efficacy of the merit of the death of Christ – both that God intended by his death to redeem his church, or to acquire for himself a holy people; and also that Christ by his death has merited and procured for us grace, faith, or righteousness, and the power to obey God in fulfilling the condition of the new covenant. No, this would plainly set up an ark to break their Dagon’s neck;1Sam 5.1-4 for, “what praise,” they say, “can be owed to us for believing, if the blood of Christ has procured God’s bestowal of faith upon us?” “Increpet to Deus, O Satan!” See chapters nine and ten.
Fifthly. If Christ would claim such a share in saving his people (those who believe in him), they will grant some to have salvation quite without him – those who never heard so much as a report of a Savior. Indeed, in nothing do they advance their idol nearer the throne of God, than in this blasphemy: chapter eleven.
Sixthly. Having thus robbed God, Christ, and his grace, they adorn their idol free-will with many glorious properties that are in no way due to it. This is discussed in chapter twelve, where you will find how, “movet cornicula risum, furtivis nudata coloribus.”
Seventhly. They not only claim a saving power for their new-made deity, but they also affirm that he is very active and operative in the great work of saving our souls –
First. In fitly preparing us for the grace of God, and so disposing us that grace becomes owed to us: chapter thirteen.
Secondly. In effectually working our conversion with this power: chapter fourteen. And so at length, with much toil and labor, they have placed an altar for their idol in the holy temple, on the right hand of the altar of God; and on it they offer sacrifice to their own net and drag; at least, “nec Deo, nec libero arbitrio, sed dividatur,” – not all to God, nor all to free-will, but let the sacrifice of praise, for all good things, be divided between them.
CHAPTER 2.
OF THE ETERNITY AND IMMUTABILITY OF THE DECREES OF ALMIGHTY GOD, DENIED AND OVERTHROWN BY THE ARMINIANS.
It has always been believed among Christians, on infallible grounds (as I will show hereafter), that all the decrees of God, as they are internal acts of his will, so they are eternal acts of his will; and therefore they are unchangeable and irrevocable. Mutable decrees and occasional resolutions are most contrary to the pure nature of Almighty God. Such principles as these, evident and clear by their own light, were never questioned by anyone before the Arminians began to profess themselves to delight in opposing common notions of reason concerning God and his essence so that they might exalt themselves into his throne. To ascribe the least mutability to the divine essence, with which all the attributes and internal free acts of God are one and the same, was always accounted uJperbolhthtov, “transcendent atheism,” in the highest degree. Now, of whatever nature this crime may be, it is not an unjust imputation to charge the Arminians with it, because they confess themselves guilty, and glory in the crime.
First. They undermine and overthrow the eternity of God’s purposes by affirming that, in the order of the divine decrees, there are some which precede every act of the creature, and some again that follow them: so says Corvinus, the most famous of that sect. Now, all the acts of every creature, being but of yesterday and temporary, like themselves, surely those decrees of God cannot be eternal which follow them in order of time. And yet they press this, especially in respect to human actions, as a certain and unquestionable truth. “It is certain that God wills or determines many things which he would not will or determine, unless some act of man’s own will preceded it,” says their great master, Arminius. The same thing is affirmed, with a little addition (as such men always become worse and worse) by his genuine scholar, Nic. Grevinchovius. I suppose,” he says, “that God wills many things which he neither would nor justly could will and purpose, unless some action of the creature preceded it.” And here observe that in these places they do not speak of God’s external works – of his outward actions– such as inflicting punishments, bestowing rewards, and other such outward acts of his providence. We admit that the administration of these is various, and diversely applied to several occasions. Rather, they speak of the internal purposes of God’s will, his decrees and intentions, which have no present influence upon or respect to any action of the creature. Indeed, they deny that God has any determinate resolution at all concerning many things, or any purpose further than a natural affection towards them. “God does or omits that towards which, in his own nature and in his proper inclination, he is affected – as he finds man complying with or not complying with that order which God has appointed,” says Corvinus. Surely these men do not care what indignities they cast upon the God of heaven, so that they may maintain the pretended endowments of their own wills. For here they ascribe to their wills such an absolute power that God himself cannot determine a thing to which he is well- affected (as they strangely phrase it), before he is sure of their compliance by an actual concurrence. Now, this imputation they cast upon the decrees of God, that in general they are temporary, they press home upon that particular decree which lies most in their way, the decree of election. Concerning this, they tell us roundly that it is false that election is confirmed from eternity. The Remonstrants say so in their Apology, notwithstanding that St. Paul tells us that it is the “purpose of God,” Rom 9:11, and that we were “chosen before the foundation of the world,” Eph 1:4. Nor do the Arminians grant anything material there – namely, that there is a decree preceding this, which may be said to be from everlasting. Seeing that St. Paul teaches us that election is nothing but God’s purpose of saving us, to then affirm that God eternally decreed that he would elect us, is the same as saying that God purposed that in time he would purpose to save us. Such resolutions may be fit for their own wild heads, but they must not be ascribed to God only-wise.
Secondly. Because they assert that God’s decrees are temporary and had a beginning, so also his decrees will expire and have an ending, subject to change and variableness. “Some acts of God’s will cease at a certain time,” says Episcopius. What? Does anything come into his mind that changes his will? “Yes,” says Arminius, He would have all men to be saved; but compelled by the stubborn and incorrigible malice of some, he would have them miss it.” However, this is some recompense – denying God a power to do what he will, they let him be content to do what he may, and not to repine much at his hard condition. Certainly, if not for this favor, God would be a debtor to the Arminians. Thieves give what they do not take. Having robbed God of his power, they would leave him just enough goodness that he will not be troubled by it, though he is sometimes compelled to what he is very loath to do. How they and their fellows, the Jesuits, denounced poor Calvin for sometimes using the hard word compulsion to describe the effectual, powerful working of the providence of God in the actions of men; but they can fasten the same term on the will of God, and no harm done! Surely he will one day plead his own cause against them. Yet do not blame them, “si violandum est jus, regnandi causa violandum est.” It is to make themselves absolute that they cast off the yoke of the Almighty in this way, and they do that both in things concerning this life, and the life to come. They are greatly troubled if it were said that every one of us brings along with us into the world an unchangeable pre-ordination to life and death eternal; for such a supposal would quite overthrow the main foundation of their heresy – namely, that men can make their election void and frustrated (as they jointly lay down in their Apology). No, it is a dream, says Dr Jackson, to think of God’s decrees concerning things to come as irrevocably finished acts; this would hinder what Welsingius lays down as truth, “that the elect may become reprobates, and the reprobates may become elect.” Now, added to these particular sayings is their whole doctrine concerning the decrees of God, as they refer to the actions of men being exactly comformable to them;such as,
First. They distinguish God’s decrees as either peremptory or not peremptory. These are terms used in the citations of courts of litigation, rather than as expressions of God’s purpose in sacred Scripture. This distinction is not, as applied by them, compatible with the unchangeableness of God’s eternal purposes. Pro>skairoi, they say, or temporary believers, are elected (though not peremptorily) with such an act of God’s will (in its origin, continuance, and end) as to co-exist in every way commensurate with their fading faith. Sometimes, like Jonah’s gourd, this election is but “filia unius noctis” – in the morning it flourishes, in the evening it is cut down, dried up, and withers. In their opinion, a man who is in Christ by faith, or who actually believes (which is, as they say, in everyone’s own power to do), is the proper object of election – of election, I say, not peremptory; election is a pendent act, expecting the final perseverance and consummation of a man’s faith; and therefore it is immutable – because man having fulfilled his course, God has no cause to change his purpose of crowning him with reward. Also (as they teach), a man is the object of reprobation only according to his infidelity, whether it is present and removable, or obdurate and final; if obdurate, reprobation is peremptory and absolute; if removable, it is conditional and alterable. Thus their election and reprobation hang on the qualities of faith and unbelief.
Now, this lets a faithful man, elected by God according to his present righteousness, apostatize totally from grace (with them, affirming that there is any promise of God implying a man’s perseverance is to overthrow all religion); and it lets the unbelieving reprobate leave his incredulity and turn to the Lord – and corresponding to this mutation of their conditions, are the changings of the purpose of the Almighty concerning their everlasting state.
Again, suppose these two men, by alternate courses, should each return to their former estate (as the doctrine of apostasy which they maintain allows), the decrees of God concerning them must again be changed; for it is unjust for God either not to elect the one that believes, if only for an hour, or not to elect reprobate unbelievers. Now, what unchangeableness can we fix to these decrees, if it lies in the power of man to make them as inconstant as Euripus? Besides this, it makes it possible that all the members of Christ’s church, whose names are written in heaven, should within one hour be enrolled in the black book of damnation.
Secondly. Because these not-peremptory decrees are mutable, they make the peremptory decrees of God temporal. “Final impenitency,” they say, “is the only cause of reprobation; and the finally unrepenting sinner is the only object of reprobation – peremptory and irrevocable.” As the poet thought none were happy, so they think that no man is to be elected, or be a reprobate, before his death. Now, he receives that denomination from the decrees of God concerning his eternal estate, which must necessarily, then, be enacted first. The relation that exists between the act of reprobation and the person who is reprobated imports a co-existing denomination of “reprobate.” When God reprobates a man, the man then becomes a reprobate. If this does not occur before the man has actually fulfilled the measure of his iniquity, and sealed it with the quality of his final impenitency upon his death, then the decree of God must be temporal. The just Judge of all the world has suspended his determination until then, awaiting the last resolution of this changeable Proteus. It is plain from the whole course of their doctrine, that God’s decrees concerning men’s eternal estates are temporal in their judgment, and do not begin until their death. This is especially plain where they strive to prove that if there were any such determination, God could not threaten punishments or promise rewards. “Who,” they ask, “can threaten punishment to someone that, by a peremptory decree, he wants to be free from punishment?” It seems God cannot have determined to save anyone whom he threatens to punish if they sin. It is evident, however, that he does threaten all so long as they live in this world; this makes God not only mutable, but it quite deprives him of his foreknowledge. And it makes the form of his decree run this way: “If man will believe, then I will determine that he shall be saved; if he will not believe, then I will determine that he shall be damned,” – that is, “I must leave him in the meantime to do what he will, so that I may meet with him in the end.”
Thirdly. They assert that no decree of Almighty God concerning men is so unalterable that all those who are now in rest or misery might have had contrary lots – that those who are damned, such as Pharaoh, Judas, etc., might have been saved; and that those who are saved, such as the blessed Virgin, Peter, John, etc., might have been damned. This must reflect a strong charge of mutability on Almighty God, who knows who are his. I could produce various other instances of this nature, by which it would be further evident that these innovators in Christian religion overthrow the eternity and unchangeableness of God’s decrees; but these are sufficient for any discerning man. I will add in closing, an antidote against this poison, briefly showing what the Scripture and right reason teach us concerning these secrets of the Most High.
First. “Known to God,” says St. James, “are all his works from the beginning,” Acts 15:18; Up to now it has been concluded from this that whatever God brings to pass in time, he decreed from all eternity. All his works were known to him from the beginning. Consider it particularly in the decree of election, that fountain of all spiritual blessings. Obtaining a saving sense and assurance of it, 2Peter 1:10, might effect a spiritual rejoicing in the Lord, 1Cor 15:31. Such things are taught everywhere in Scripture in such a way as may raise us to consider it as an eternal act, irrevocably and immutably established: “He has chosen us before the foundation of the world,” Eph 1:4: his “purpose according to election” – before we were born – must “stand,” Rom 9:11; for to the irreversible stability of this act of his will, he has set the seal of his infallible knowledge, 2Tim 2:19. His purpose of our salvation by grace, not according to works, was “before the world began,” 2Tim 1:9. An eternal purpose, proceeding from such a will that none can resist it, joined with such a knowledge of all things past, present, and to come – open and evident to him – means his purpose must be like the laws of the Medes and Persians: permanent and unalterable.
Secondly. The decrees of God being conformable to his nature and essence, they require eternity and immutability as their inseparable properties. God, and only him, never was, nor ever can be, what now he is not. Passive possibility to anything, which is the fountain of all change, can have no place in the one who is “actus simplex,” and purely free from all composition. For this reason, St. James affirms that “with him there is no variableness, nor shadow of turning,” James 1:17; “with him,” that is, in his will and purposes. And by his prophet he affirms, “I am the LORD, I do not change; therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed,” Malachi 3:6 – where he proves that his gracious purposes do not change, because he is the LORD. The eternal acts of his will, not really differing from his unchangeable essence, his will must be immutable.
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