Before we get to Adam, let's read some more from Pink:
""Predestination we call the decree of God, by which He has determined in Himself, what He would have to become of every individual of mankind. For they are not all created with a similar destiny: but eternal life is foreordained for some, and eternal damnation for others. Every man, therefore, being created for one or the other of these ends, we say, he is predestinated either to life or to death"-
from John Calvin's "Institutes" (1536 A. D.) Book III, Chapter XXI entitled "Eternal Election, or God's Predestination of Some to Salvation and of Others to Destruction."
We ask our readers to mark well the above language. A perusal of it should show that what the present writer has advanced in this chapter is not "hyper-Calvinism" but real Calvinism, pure and simple. Our purpose in making this remark is to show that those who, not acquainted with Calvin's writings, in their ignorance condemn as ultra-Calvinism that which is simply a reiteration of what Calvin himself taught-a reiteration because that prince of theologians as well as his humble debtor have both found this doctrine in the Word of God itself.
Martin Luther in his most excellent work "De Servo Arbitrio" (Free Will a Slave), wrote: "All things whatsoever arise from, and depend upon, the Divine appointments, whereby it was preordained 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 and who should be condemned. This is the very truth which razes the doctrine of freewill from its foundations, to wit, that God's eternal love of some men and hatred of others is immutable and cannot be reversed."
John Fox, whose Book of Martyrs was once the best known work in the English language (alas that is not so today, when Roman Catholicism is sweeping upon us like a great destructive tidal wave!), wrote: "Predestination is the eternal decreement of God, purposed before in Himself, what should befall all men, either to salvation, or damnation."
The "
Larger Westminster Catechism" (1688)-adopted by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church-declares, "God, by an eternal and immutable decree, out of His mere love, for the praise of His glorious grace, to be manifested in due time, hath elected some angels to glory, and in Christ hath chosen some men to eternal life, and the means thereof; and also, according to His own will (whereby He extendeth or withholdeth favor as He pleases), hath passed by, and foredained the rest to dishonour and wrath, to be for their sin inflicted, to the praise of the glory of His justice."
John Bunyan, author of "The Pilgrim's Progress," wrote a whole volume on "Reprobation." From it we make one brief extract:
"Reprobation is before the person cometh into the world, or hath done good or evil. This is evidenced by Romans 9:11. Here you find twain in their mother's womb, and both receiving their destiny, not only before they had-done good or evil, but before they were in a capacity to do it, they being yet unborn-their destiny, I say, the one unto, the other not unto the blessing of eternal life; the one elect, the other reprobate; the one chosen, the other refused." In his "Sighs from Hell," John Bunyan also wrote: "They that do continue to reject and slight the Word of God are such, for the most part, as are ordained to be damned."
Commenting upon Romans 9:22, "What is God willing to shew His wrath, and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction," Jonathan Edwards (Vol. 4, p. 306 - 1743 A.D.) says, "How awful doth the majesty of God appear in the dreadfulness of His anger! This we may learn to be one end of the damnation of the wicked."
Augustus Toplady, author of "Rock of Ages" and other sublime hymns, wrote: "God, from all eternity decreed to leave some of Adam's fallen posterity in their sins, and to exclude them from the participation of Christ and His benefits." And again, "We, with the Scriptures, assert: That there is a predestination of some particular persons to life, for the praise of the glory of Divine grace; and also a predestination of other particular persons to death for the glory of Divine justice-which death of punishment they shall inevitably undergo, and that justly, on account of their sins."
George Whitefield, that stalwart of the eighteenth century, used by God in blessing to so many, wrote: "'Without doubt, the doctrine of election and reprobation must stand or fall together... I frankly acknowledge I believe the doctrine of Reprobation, that God intends to give saving grace, through Jesus Christ, only to a certain number; and that the rest of mankind, after the fall of Adam, being justly left to God to continue in sin, will at last suffer that eternal death which is its proper wages."
"Fitted to destruction" (Rom. 9:22). After declaring this phrase admits of two interpretations,
Dr. Hodge-perhaps the best known and most widely read commentator on Romans-says, "The other interpretation assumes that the reference is to God and that the Greek word for 'fitted' has its full participle force; prepared (by God) for destruction." This, says Dr. Hodge, "Is adopted not only by the majority of Augustinians, but also by many Lutherans."
Were it necessary we are prepared to give quotations from the writings of Wycliffe, Huss, Ridley, Hooper, Cranmer, Ussher, John Trapp, Thomas Goodwin, Thomas Manton (Chaplain to Cromwell), John Owen, Witsius, John Gill (predecessor of Spurgeon), and a host of others. We mention this simply to show that many of the most eminent saints in bye-gone days, the men most widely used of God, held and taught this doctrine which is so bitterly hated in these last days, when men will no longer "endure sound doctrine"; hated by men of lofty pretentions, but who, notwithstanding their boasted orthodoxy and much advertised piety, are not worthy to unfasten the shoes of the faithful and fearless servants of God of other days." -
A.W. Pink from
SoG Chapter Five with a partial commentary of Romans Chapter 9
