The 'Free Offer of the Gospel' and the Calvin vs.
Pighius Debate
A. Quotes from John Murray, "The Free Offer of
the Gospel," in Collected Writings of John Murray, vol. 4
(Banner of Truth: Great Britain, 1982)
"… the real point in dispute in connection
with the free offer of the gospel is whether it can properly be said
that God desires the salvation of all men" (p. 113).
"… the expression ‘God desires,’ in the
formula that crystallizes the crux of the question, is intended to
notify not at all the ‘seeming’ attitude of God but a real
attitude, a real disposition …" (p. 114).
"If it is proper to say that God desires the
salvation of the reprobate, then he desires such by their repentance.
And so it a mounts to the same thing to say ‘God desires their
salvation’ as to say ‘He desires their repentance.’ This is the
same as saying that he desires them to comply with the indispensable
conditions of salvation. It would be impossible to say the one without
implying the other" (p. 114).
"… God himself expresses an ardent desire for
the fulfilment of certain things which he has not decreed in his
inscrutable counsel to come to pass. This means that there is a will to
the realization of what he has not decretively willed, a pleasure
towards that which he has not been pleased to decree. This is indeed
mysterious …" (p. 131).
B. Quotes from John Calvin, "A Treatise on the
Doctrine of Predestination," in Calvin’s Calvinism (RFPA:
Grand Rapids, USA, 1987)
"… I have learned that every separate heresy
introduces into the Church its peculiar questions, which call for a more
diligent defence of the Holy Scripture, than if no such necessity of
defence had arisen" (p. 37; quoting Augustine with approval).
"… God is so far from being variable, that no
shadow of such variableness appertains to Him, even in the most remote
degree" (p. 99).
"God is not like a mortal man, who is ever
flexible and variable, and changes his mind and purposes every hour!
Why, the very thing against which the monk so violently fights is that the
adorable God is ever of one mind and consistent with himself!"
(p. 178).
"We, however, with greater reverence and
sobriety, say ‘that God always wills the same thing; and that this
is the very praise of His immutability.’ Whatever He decrees,
therefore, He effects; and this is in Divine consistency with His
omnipotence. And the will of God, being thus inseparably united with
His power, constitutes an exalted harmony of His attributes …"
(p. 179).
"In his ‘Manual’ to [Laurentius],
[Augustine] more freely and fully explains whatever of doubt might yet
remain. ‘When Christ shall appear (says he) to judge the world at the
last day, that shall be seen, in the clearest light of knowledge, which
the faith of the godly now holds fast, though not yet made manifest to
their comprehension; how sure, how immutable, how all-efficacious is
the will of God; how many things He could do, or has power to do,
which He wills not to do (but that He wills nothing which he has not
power to do); and how true that is which the Psalmist sings,
"The Lord has done in heaven whatsoever pleased Him." [cf. Ps.
115:3; 135:6]. This, however, is not true, if He willed some things
and did them not … [God] can do that which He wills to be done.
Unless we fully believe this the very beginning of our faith is perilled,
by which we profess to believe in God ALMIGHTY!" (p. 43).
"God [has] the right and the power to have
mercy on whom He will, and to harden whom He will, according to His own
pleasure and purpose. The apostle therefore maintains that the
right of hardening and of showing mercy is in the power of God alone,
and that no law can be imposed on Him as a rule for His works, because
no law or rule can be thought of better, greater, or more just, than His
own will!" (p. 68).
"… where [God] giveth [grace] not, it is
because He willeth not to give it …" (p. 110; quoting
Augustine with approval).
"… when Pighius holds that God’s election of
grace has no reference to, or connection with, His hatred of the
reprobate, I maintain that reference and connection to be a truth.
Inasmuch as the just severity of God answers, in equal and common
cause, to that free love with which He embraces His elect" (p.
75).
"… let Pighius boast, if he can, that God willeth
all men to be saved! The above arguments, founded on the Scriptures,
prove that even the external preaching of the doctrine of salvation,
which is very far inferior to the illumination of the Spirit, was not
made of God common to all men" (p. 104).
"‘But Paul teaches us (continues Georgius)
that God `would have all men to be saved.`’ It follows,
therefore, according to his understanding of that passage, either that
God is disappointed in His wishes, or that all men without exception
must be saved … why, if such be the case, God did not command the
Gospel to be preached to all men indiscriminately from the beginning of
the world? why [did] He [suffer] so many generations of men to wander
for so many ages in all the darkness of death?" (p. 166).
"Pighius, like a wild beast escaped from his
cage, rushes forth, bounding all fences in his way, uttering such
sentiments as these:
‘The mercy of God is extended to everyone, for God
wishes all men to be saved; and for that end He stands and knocks
at the door of our heart, desiring to enter. Therefore, those
were elected from before the foundation of the world, by whom He
foreknew He should be received. But God hardens no one, excepting by
His forebearance, in the same manner as too fond parents ruin their
children by excessive indulgence.’
Just as if anyone, by such puerile dreams as
these, could escape the force of all those things which the apostle
plainly declares in direct contradiction to such sentiments!
[1. Argument from election and reprobation]
And just as if it were nothing at all to his readers, when Paul
positively asserts that, out of the twins, while they were yet in the
womb of their mother, the one was chosen and the other rejected!
and that, too, without any respect to the works of either, present or
future (of the former of which there could be none), but solely by the
good pleasure of God that calleth!
[2. Argument from the hardening of the
reprobate] As if it were nothing, when the apostle testifies that
‘it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God
that showeth mercy,’ who hardeneth whom He will, and hath mercy
on whom He will!
[3. Argument from the reprobate being ‘vessels
of wrath’] As if it were nothing when the same apostle avers,
‘that God sheweth forth His power in the vessels of wrath,’
in order that He might make known the riches of His grace on the vessels
of mercy!’ Paul undeniably here testifies that all those of Israel who
were saved were saved according to God’s free election; and that,
therefore, "the election obtained it, and the rest were blinded’
(Rom. 11:7)" (pp. 152-153).
