Chapter 21. Of the Eternal Election, Whereby God Has Predestined Some to Salvation and Others to Destruction

But now whereas the covenant of life is not equally preached to all men, and with them to whom it is preached it does not either equally or continually find like place: in this diversity the wondrous depth of the judgment of God appears. For neither is it any doubt but that this diversity also serves the free choice of God's eternal election. If it is evident that it is wrought by the will of God that salvation is freely offered to some, and other some are debarred from coming to it: here by and by arise great and hard questions which can not otherwise be discussed, than if the godly minds have that certainly established which they ought to hold concerning election and Predestination. This is (as many think) a cumbersome question: because they think nothing to be less reasonable than of the common multitude of men some to be foreordained to salvation, other some to destruction. But how they wrongfully encumber themselves, shall afterward be evident by the framing of the matter together. Beside that in the very same darkness which makes men afraid, not only the profitableness of this doctrine but also the most sweet fruit shows forth itself. We shall never be clearly persuaded as we ought to be, that our salvation flows out of the fountain of the free mercy of God, till his eternal election be known to us, which by this comparison brightly sets forth the grace of God, that he does not without difference adopt all into the hope of salvation, but gives to some that which he denies to other. Now much the ignorance of this principle diminishes of the glory of God, how much it withdraws from true humility, it is plain to see. But Paul denies that that which is so necessary to be known, is possible to be known, unless God leaving altogether the respect of works does choose them whom he has determined with himself. In this time (says he) the remnants were saved according to free election. If by Grace, then not of works: forasmuch as Grace should then not be grace. If of works, then not of Grace: forasmuch as work should now not be work. If we must be brought back to the beginning of election, that it may be certain that salvation comes to us from no elsewhere than from the mere liberality of God: they which will have this principle quenched, do niggardly so much as in them lies darken it which ought gloriously and with full mouth to have been published, and they pluck up the very root of humility. Paul, where the salvation of the remnant of the people is ascribed to free election, clearly testifies that only then it is known that God does by his mere good pleasure save whom he will, and not render reward which cannot be done. They which shut the gates, that none may be bold to come to the tasting of this doctrine, do no less wrong to men than to God: because neither shall any other thing suffice to humble us as we ought to be, neither shall we otherwise feel from our heart how much we are bound to God. Neither yet is there any elsewhere the upholding stay of sound confidence, as Christ himself teaches, which to deliver us from all fear, and to make us unvanquishable among so many dangers, ambushes, and deadly battles, promises that whatever he has received of his Father to keep, shall be safe. From which we gather that they shall with continual trembling be miserable, whoever they be that know not themselves to be the proper possession of God: and therefore that they do very ill provide both for themselves and for all the faithful, which in being blind at these three profits which we have touched, would wish the whole foundation of our salvation to be quite taken from among us. Moreover hereby the Church appears to us, which otherwise (as Bernard rightly teaches) were not possible to be found, nor to be known among creatures: because both ways in marvelous wise it lies hidden within the bosom of blessed Predestination, and within the Mass of miserable damnation. But before I enter into the matter itself, I must beforehand in two sorts speak to two sorts of men. That the entering upon predestination, whereas of itself it is somewhat cumbersome, is made very doubtful yes and dangerous, the curiosity of men is the cause: which can by no stops be restrained from wandering into forbidden compasses, and climbing up on high: which, if it may, will leave to God no secret which it will not search and turn over. Into this boldness and importunacy forasmuch as we commonly see many to run headlong, and among those that are otherwise not evil men: here is fit occasion to warn them what is in this behalf the due measure of their duty. First therefore let them remember, that when they inquire upon Predestination, they pierce into the secret closets of the wisdom of God: into which if any man does carelessly and boldly break in, he shall both not attain with which to satisfy his curiosity, and he shall enter into a maze from which he shall find no way to get out again. For neither is it fitting that man should freely search those things which God has willed to be hidden in himself, and to turn over from very eternity the height of wisdom, which he willed to be honored and not to be conceived, that by it also he might be marvelous to us. Those secrets of his will which he has determined to be opened to us, he has disclosed in his word: and he has determined, so far as he foresaw to pertain to us and to be profitable for us.

We are come (says Augustine) into the way of faith, let us steadfastly hold it. It brings into the King's chamber, in which all the treasures of knowledge and wisdom are hidden. For, the Lord himself Christ did not envy his excellent and most chosen disciples, when he said, I have many things to be said to you, but you cannot bear them now. We must walk, we must profit, we must increase, that our hearts may be able to conceive those things which now we cannot conceive. If the last day find us profiting, there we shall learn that which here we could not. If this thought be of force with us, that the word of the Lord is the only way, that may lead us to search whatever is lawful to be learned of him: that it is the only light, which may give us light to see whatever we ought to see of him: it shall easily hold back and restrain us from all rashness. For we shall know that so soon as we be gone out of the bounds of the word, we run out of the way, and in darkness, in which race we must needs oftentimes stray, slip, and stumble. First therefore let this be before our eyes, that to covet any other knowledge of Predestination than that which is set forth by the word of God, is a point of no less madness than if a man have a will to go by an impassable way, or to see in darkness. Neither let us be ashamed, to be ignorant of somewhat in it wherein there is some learned ignorance. But rather let us willingly abstain from the searching of that knowledge, whereof the excessive coveting is both foolish and perilous, indeed, and deadly. But if the wantonness of wit provoke us, it shall always be profitable to set this against it, whereby it may be beaten back, that as too much honey is not good, so the searching of glory does not turn to glory to the curious. For there is good cause why we should be frightened away from that boldness, which can do nothing but throw us down headlong into ruin.

There are others who, when they have a will to remedy this evil, command all mention of Predestination to be in a manner buried, or at least they teach men to flee from every manner of questioning thereof as from a rock. Although the moderation of these men is herein worthily to be praised, that they judge that mysteries should be tasted of with such sobriety: yet because they descend too much beneath the mean, they little prevail with the wit of man, which does not lightly suffer itself to be restrained. Therefore, that in this behalf also we may keep a right end, we must return to the word of the Lord, in which we have a sure rule of understanding. For, the Scripture is the school of the Holy Ghost, in which as nothing is left out which is both necessary and profitable to be known, so nothing is taught but that which is useful to learn. Whatever therefore is uttered in the Scripture concerning Predestination, we must beware that we do not debar the faithful from it, lest we should seem either enviously to defraud them of the benefit of their God, or to blame and accuse the Holy Ghost who has published those things, which it is in any wise profitable to be suppressed. Let us, I say, give leave to a Christian man, to open his mind and his ears to all the sayings of God which are directed to him, so that it be done with this temperance, that so soon as the Lord has closed his holy mouth, he may also foreclose to himself all the way to inquire further. This shall be the best bound of sobriety, if not only in learning we always follow the Lord going before us, but also when he makes an end of teaching, we cease to want to learn. Neither is the danger which they fear of so great importance, that we ought therefore to turn away our minds from the oracles of God. Notable is the saying of Solomon, that the glory of God is to conceal a word. But since both godliness and common reason teach that this is not generally meant of every thing, we must seek a difference, lest brutish ignorance should please us under color of modesty and sobriety. That difference is in few words plainly set out by Moses: To the Lord our God, says he, belong his secrets: but to us and to our children he has disclosed these things. For we see how he commends to the people the study of the doctrine of the law, only by reason of the decree of God, because it pleased God to publish it; and how he withholds the people within those bounds, by this only reason because it is not lawful for mortal men to thrust themselves into the secrets of God.

Profane men (I grant) do in the matter of Predestination suddenly catch hold of somewhat which they may carp, or cavil, or bark, or scoff at. But if their waywardness does drive us away from it, the chief articles of the faith must be kept secret, of which there is almost none which they or such as they be do leave untouched with blasphemy. A perverse wit will no less proudly rant when he hears that in the essence of God there are three persons, than if he hears that God foresaw what should become of man when he created him. Neither will they abstain from laughing, when they shall understand that there is little more than five thousand years passed since the creation of the world: for they will ask why the power of God was so long idle and asleep. Finally there can be nothing brought forth, which they will not scoff at. For the restraining of these sacrileges, must we hold our peace of the Godhead of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost? Or must we pass over in silence the creation of the world? Indeed, but the truth of God is both in this behalf and everywhere mightier than that it need to fear the evil speaking of the wicked: as Augustine strongly maintains in his work of the good of Perseverance. For we see that the false Apostles could not by defaming and slandering the true doctrine of Paul, make him to be ashamed of it. But whereas they say that this whole disputation is perilous also for godly minds, because it makes against exhortations, because it shakes faith, because it troubles the heart itself: this is vain. Augustine does not hesitate to confess that for these causes he was wont to be blamed, for that he did too freely preach Predestination: but, as he had in readiness with which to answer, he largely confutes them. But we, because many and diverse absurdities are thrust into this place, had rather to reserve every one to be wiped away in a place fit for it. Only this I desire generally to obtain of them, that those things which the Lord has laid up in secret, we may not search: those things which he has brought openly abroad, [reconstructed: we] may not neglect: lest either on the one part we be condemned of vain curiosity, or on the other part, of unthankfulness. For, this also is very well said of Augustine, that we may safely follow the Scripture, which as with a motherly pace goes stoopingly, lest it should forsake our weakness. But whoever are so wary and so fearful that they would have Predestination to be buried, lest it should trouble weak souls: with what color, I beseech you, will they cover their arrogance, when they indirectly accuse God of foolish unadvisedness, as though he foresaw not the danger, which they think themselves to have wisely met with? Whoever therefore travails to bring the doctrine of Predestination into disrepute, he openly speaks evil of God: as though somewhat had inadvertently slipped from him which is hurtful to the Church.

Predestination, by which God adopts some into the hope of life, and judges some to eternal death, no man that would be accounted godly dare simply deny: but they wrap it up with many cavillings, especially they which make foreknowledge the cause of it. We indeed do say that they be both in God, but we say that the one is wrongfully made subject to the other. When we give foreknowledge to God, we mean that all things always have been and perpetually do remain under his eyes, so that to his knowledge there is nothing to come or past, but all things are present, and so present that he does not imagine only by conceived forms (as those things are present to us, of which our mind holds fast the remembrance) but he truly beholds and sees them as set before him. And this foreknowledge extends to the whole compass of the world and to all creatures. Predestination we call the eternal decree of God, whereby he had it determined with himself what he willed to become of every man. For all are not created to like estate: but to some, eternal life, and to some, eternal damnation is foreordained. Therefore as every man is created to the one or other end, so we say that he is predestinate either to life or to death. But this predestination God has not only testified in every several person, but has showed an example thereof in the whole issue of Abraham, whereby might plainly appear that it lies in his will what shall be the estate of every nation. When the Highest divided the nations, and severed the children of Adam, his part was the people of Israel, the cord of his inheritance. The separation is before the eyes of all men: in the person of Abraham as in a dry stock one people is peculiarly chosen, all others being refused: but the cause appears not, except that Moses, to cut off all occasion of glorying from posterity, teaches that they excel only by the free love of God. For he assigns this to be the cause of their deliverance, for that God loved the Fathers, and chose their seed after them. More plainly in another chapter: He was pleased in you to choose you, not because you surpassed other nations in number, but because he loved you. The same admonition is often repeated with him, Behold, to the Lord your God belongs the heaven, the earth, and whatever things are in it: and he has pleased himself only in your Fathers, and has loved them, and has chosen you their seed. Again in another place sanctification is commanded them, because they are chosen to be a peculiar people. And again in another place, love is affirmed to be the cause of protection. Which also the faithful do declare with one voice, saying: He has chosen for us our inheritance, the glory of Jacob, whom he has loved. For they do all impute to free love all the gifts with which they were adorned of God: not only because they knew that they themselves had obtained them by no deservings, but also that even the holy Patriarch was not endued with such virtue, that he could purchase to himself and his posterity so great a prerogative of honor. And, the more strongly to tread down all pride, he upbraided them that they have deserved no such thing, forasmuch as they are a stubborn and hard-necked people. And often the Prophets do hatefully and as by way of reproach cast the Jews in the teeth with this election, because they had foully departed from it. Whatever it be, now let them come forth which will bind the election of God either to the worthiness of men, or to the merits of works. When they see one nation to be preferred before all others, and when they hear that God was led with no respect to be more favorably bent to a few and ignoble, yea and [reconstructed: froward] and disobedient men: will they quarrel with him, because his will was to show such an example of mercy? But they shall neither with their prattling voices hinder his work, nor with throwing stones of taunts into heaven shall hit or hurt his righteousness, but rather they shall fall back upon their own heads. Moreover the Israelites are called back to this principle of the free covenant, when either thanks are to be given to God, or their hope to be raised up against the time to come. He made us, and not we ourselves (says the Prophet) his people and the sheep of his pastures. The negative is not superfluous, which is added to exclude us, that they may know that of all the good things with which they excel, God is not only the author, but fetched the cause thereof from himself, because there was nothing in them worthy of so great honor. Also he bids them to be contented with the mere good pleasure of God, in these words, The seed of Abraham are his servants: the children of Jacob, his elect. And after that he has rehearsed the continual benefits of God as fruits of the election, at length he concludes, that he dealt so liberally because he remembered his covenant. With which doctrine agrees the song of the whole Church, Your right hand and the light of your countenance gave the land to our Fathers, because you were pleased in them. But it is to be noted, that where mention is made of the land, it is a visible sign of the secret severing wherein the adoption is contained. To the same thankfulness David in another place exhorts the people, saying: Blessed is the nation whose God the Lord is, the people which he has chosen for an inheritance to himself. And Samuel encourages them to good hope, saying, The Lord will not forsake you, for his own great name's sake, because it pleased him to create you for a people to himself. Likewise David when his faith is assailed, arms himself to fight, saying, Blessed is he whom you have chosen, he shall dwell in your courts. But forasmuch as the election hidden in God was established as well by the first deliverance as by the second, and other mean benefits: in Isaiah the word of electing is transferred to this. God shall have mercy on Jacob, and he shall yet choose out of Israel: because he signifying the time to come, says that the gathering together of the remnant of the people which he seemed to have forsaken, shall be a sign of the stable and steadfast election, which once seemed to have been fallen away. When also it is said in another place, I have chosen you and have not cast you away: he sets out the continual course of the notable liberality of his fatherly goodwill. And yet more plainly the Angel says in Zechariah, God shall yet choose Jerusalem: as though in hardly chastising it, he had rejected it: or as though the exile were an interruption of the election: which yet remains inviolable, although the signs thereof do not always appear.

There is to be added a second degree more narrowly restrained, or in which was seen a more special grace of God: when of the same kindred of Abraham God refused some, and others by nourishing them in the Church he showed that he retained among his children. Ishmael had at the beginning obtained equal degree with his brother Isaac, because the spiritual covenant had been no less sealed in him by the sign of Circumcision. He is cut off: and then, Esau: at the last an innumerable multitude and almost Israel. In Isaac was the seed called: the same calling endured in Jacob. A like example God showed in rejecting Saul: which thing is also gloriously set forth in the Psalm, He has put back the tribe of Joseph, and the tribe of Ephraim he has not chosen, but he has chosen the tribe of Judah (Psalm 78:69). Which the holy history diverse times repeats, that the wonderful secret of the grace may the better appear in this change. Ishmael, Esau, and such others, (I grant) fell from the adoption by their own fault and guiltiness: because there was a condition adjoined, that they should faithfully keep the covenant of God, which they falsely broke. But this was yet a singular benefit of God, that he vouchsafed to prefer them above the other Gentiles: as it is said in the Psalm, He has not so done to other nations, nor has opened his judgments to them (Psalm 47:20). But here I have not without cause said that there be two degrees to be noted: because now in the choosing of the whole nation God showed that he is in his own mere liberality bound to no laws: but he is free, so that equal portion of grace is not to be required at his hand: the inequality of which shows that it is truly of free gift. Therefore Malachi amplifies the unthankfulness of Israel, because they being not only chosen out of all mankind, but also severed out of a holy house to be a peculiar people, do unfaithfully and wickedly despise God so beneficial a Father. Was not Esau the brother of Jacob? (says he) and yet Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated (Malachi 1:2). For, God takes it for confessed, that when either of them was born of a holy Father, and successor of the covenant, finally a branch of the holy root: now the children of Jacob were more than commonly bound, which were taken into that dignity. But when Esau the firstborn being refused, their Father which was by nature inferior was made the heir, he proves them doubly unthankful, and complains that they were not held with that double bond.

Although it be already sufficiently evident, that God does by his secret counsel freely choose whom he will, rejecting others, yet his free election is hitherto but half shown, till we come to all particular persons, to whom God not only offers salvation, but so assigns it, that the certainty of the effect thereof is not in suspense or doubtful. For, these are accounted in that only seed, whereof Paul makes mention. For although the adoption was left in the hand of Abraham, yet because many of his posterity were cut off as rotten members: that the election may be effectual and truly steadfast, we must needs ascend to the head, in whom the heavenly Father has bound together his elect one with another, and has knit them to himself with a knot impossible to be loosed. So in the adoption of the kindred of Abraham, shone the liberal favor of God, which he denied to other men: yet in the members of Christ, appears a much more excellent strength of grace, because they being grafted into their head do never fall away from salvation. Therefore Paul does fitly reason out of the place of Malachi which I even now alleged: that where God with making a covenant of eternal life calls any people to himself, there is in part a special manner of election, that he does not choose all effectually with common grace. Whereas it is said, I have loved Jacob, this pertains to the whole issue of the patriarch, which the prophet there sets in comparison against the posterity of Esau. Yet this withstands not but that in the person of one man was set forth to us an example of the election which can not slip away but must come to the mark that it tends to. These Paul does not vainly note to be called remnants: because experience teaches that of a great multitude many slide and vanish away, so that oftentimes there remains but a small portion. But why the general election of a people is not always firm and steadfast, there is a reason offering itself in readiness: because with whom God covenants, he does not by and by give to them the Spirit of regeneration, by the power whereof they may continue in the covenant to the end: but the outward changing without the inward effectualness of grace, which might be of force to hold them in, is a certain mean thing between the forsaking of whole mankind, and the election of a small number of the godly. The whole people of Israel was called the inheritance of God, of whom yet there were many strangers. But because God had not for nothing made covenant with them that he would be their father and redeemer, he rather has respect to his own free favor than to the unfaithful falling away of many: by whom also his truth was not abolished: because where he reserved any remnant, it appeared that his calling was without repentance. For whereas God did from time to time choose to himself a church rather out of the children of Abraham, than out of the profane nations, he had regard to his covenant, which being broken of the whole multitude he restrained to a few, that it should not utterly fall away. Finally the common adoption of the seed of Abraham was a certain visible image of a greater benefit, which God has vouchsafed to grant to few out of many. This is the reason why Paul so diligently puts difference between the children of Abraham according to the flesh, and his spiritual children which were called after the example of Isaac. Not that it was a vain and unfruitful thing simply to be the child of Abraham (which might not be said without dishonor of the covenant) but because the unchangeable counsel of God, whereby he has predestinated whom he would, is by itself effectual only to this later sort to salvation. But I warn the readers that they bring not a preconceived judgment on either side, till it appears by the places of Scripture brought forth what is to be thought. That therefore which the Scripture clearly shows, we say that God by eternal and unchangeable counsel has once appointed whom in time to come he would take to salvation, and on the other side whom he would condemn to destruction. This counsel as touching the elect, we say to be grounded upon his free mercy without any respect of the worthiness of man: but whom he appoints to damnation, to them by his judgment which is indeed just and irreprehensible but also incomprehensible, the entry of life is foreclosed. Now in the elect we set vocation, to be the testimony of election: and then justification to be another sign of the manifest showing of it, till they come to glory wherein is the fulfilling of it. But as by vocation and election God makes his elect: so by shutting out the reprobate either from the knowledge of his name or from the sanctification of his Spirit, he does as it were by these marks open what judgment awaits for them. I will here pass over many feigned inventions, which foolish men have forged to overthrow predestination. For they need no confutation, which so soon as they are brought forth do largely reveal their own falseness. I will tarry only upon those, which either are in controversy among the learned, or which may bring any hardiness to the simple, or which ungodliness with fair seeming show pretends, to scoff at the righteousness of God.

The covenant of life is not preached equally to all people, and even among those who hear it, it does not find equal or lasting reception. In this diversity the wonderful depth of God's judgment appears. There is no doubt that this diversity also serves the free choice of God's eternal election. It is plain that by God's will salvation is freely offered to some while others are prevented from coming to it. From this arise great and difficult questions that can only be rightly handled if godly minds are firmly grounded in what they should hold concerning election and predestination. Many consider this a troublesome question, thinking nothing more unreasonable than that some people are foreordained to salvation and others to destruction. But it will become clear afterward that they are entangling themselves needlessly. Moreover, in the very darkness that makes people afraid, there shines forth not only the usefulness of this doctrine but also its most sweet fruit. We will never be clearly and firmly persuaded — as we ought to be — that our salvation flows from the fountain of God's free mercy, until we know His eternal election. It is election that vividly displays God's grace by the contrast it creates: that He does not adopt all people without distinction into hope of salvation, but gives to some what He withholds from others. How much ignorance of this principle diminishes God's glory and withdraws from true humility is plain to see. But Paul insists that what is so necessary to know cannot be known except when God, setting aside all regard for works, chooses those He has predetermined within Himself. 'At the present time,' he says, 'there has also come to be a remnant according to God's gracious choice. But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it is by works, it is no longer on the basis of grace, otherwise work is no longer work.' If we are to be brought back to the source of election — so that it may be certain that salvation comes to us from nowhere but God's sheer generosity — then those who would suppress this principle are doing their utmost to dim what ought to be proclaimed gloriously and openly, and they are tearing up the very root of humility. Paul, in ascribing the salvation of the remnant of Israel to free election, plainly testifies that God saves only those He wills by His sheer good pleasure — not as a reward — and that this is only truly known when the doctrine of election is known. Those who close the door so no one may dare approach this doctrine wrong both humanity and God alike. Nothing else will humble us as we ought to be humbled, and nothing else will make us feel from our heart how much we owe to God. There is also no other solid foundation for genuine confidence. As Christ Himself teaches — to deliver us from all fear and make us unconquerable amid so many dangers, ambushes, and deadly battles — He promises that whatever His Father has given Him to keep will remain safe. From this we gather that all who do not know themselves to be God's own possession will live in continual trembling and misery. Therefore those who, by refusing to see these three benefits we have touched on, would wish the whole foundation of our salvation to be removed, are doing a terrible disservice to themselves and to all the faithful. Furthermore, the church becomes visible to us through this doctrine — which, as Bernard rightly teaches, could not otherwise be found or known among created things. For in a wonderful way it lies hidden both within the embrace of blessed predestination and within the mass of those destined for condemnation. But before entering the subject itself, I must first address two different kinds of people. Human curiosity — which cannot be restrained from wandering into forbidden territory and climbing where it has no business — has made the doctrine of predestination, which is already somewhat complex by nature, dangerously confused and contentious. Many rush headlong into this presumption, including people who are otherwise not wicked. There is therefore good reason to warn them of the proper limits of their duty here. Let them first remember that when they inquire into predestination, they are entering the hidden chambers of God's wisdom. Anyone who breaks into those chambers carelessly and boldly will not only fail to satisfy his curiosity but will plunge into a maze from which he cannot find his way out. It is not fitting for human beings to freely search out the things God has chosen to keep hidden within Himself — to overturn from eternity the deep heights of His wisdom, which He willed to be honored and not comprehended, so that it might inspire wonder toward Him. Those secrets of His will that He determined to open to us He has disclosed in His Word — precisely as far as He saw it would concern us and benefit us.

'We have come,' says Augustine, 'into the way of faith — let us hold it steadfastly. It leads into the King's chamber, in which all the treasures of knowledge and wisdom are hidden. For the Lord Christ Himself did not withhold from His excellent and most chosen disciples when He said, "I have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now." We must walk forward, we must grow, we must increase, that our hearts may be able to grasp what now we cannot. If the last day finds us still making progress, there we shall learn what here we could not.' If this truth has any power over us — that the Word of the Lord is the only path that can lead us to seek what is lawful to learn of Him, and the only light that can reveal what we ought to see of Him — it will easily hold us back and restrain us from all rashness. For we will know that the moment we step outside the bounds of the Word, we go off the path and into darkness, where we are bound to stray, slip, and stumble. Therefore let this be kept before our eyes: to desire any other knowledge of predestination than what the Word of God sets forth is no less foolish than wanting to walk an impassable road or to see in total darkness. Let us not be ashamed to remain ignorant in a matter where learned ignorance is the wisest posture. Rather, let us willingly hold back from searching for knowledge that in its excessive craving is foolish, perilous, and even deadly. If the restlessness of our minds provokes us, it will always help to remind ourselves of this: just as too much honey is not good, so the endless searching for glory does not bring glory to the curious. There is good reason to be turned away from a boldness that can do nothing but hurl us headlong into ruin.

Others, wanting to correct this excess, command that all mention of predestination be more or less buried — or at least teach people to avoid every question about it as one avoids a dangerous reef. Their moderation is rightly praised to this extent: they judge that these mysteries should be approached with sobriety. But because they go too far in the other direction, they accomplish little with the human mind, which does not easily allow itself to be restrained. To keep to the right course here as well, we must return to the Word of God, where we have a sure rule of understanding. For Scripture is the school of the Holy Spirit, in which nothing that is necessary and profitable to know has been left out, and nothing is taught except what is useful to learn. Whatever Scripture says about predestination, we must not block the faithful from it — lest we appear either to spitefully deprive them of the benefit of knowing their God, or to find fault with the Holy Spirit, who has made public what it would in any way be profitable to suppress. Let a Christian person, I say, open his mind and his ears to everything God addresses to him — only with this restraint: that as soon as the Lord has closed His holy mouth, he must also close off the path to further inquiry. The best boundary of sobriety is this: not only in learning to always follow the Lord as He leads, but also when He stops teaching, to stop wanting to know more. The danger these people fear is not so serious that it should make us turn our minds away from the oracles of God. Solomon's saying is notable: 'It is the glory of God to conceal a matter.' But since both godliness and common sense teach that this does not apply to absolutely everything, we must find a proper distinction — lest a crude ignorance please us under the guise of modesty and sobriety. That distinction is plainly stated in a few words by Moses: 'The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever.' He commends the study of the law's teaching to the people for this reason alone: God was pleased to make it public. And he restrains the people within those bounds for this reason alone: it is not lawful for mortal people to force themselves into the secret things of God.

I grant that irreverent people quickly seize on something in the matter of predestination to mock, cavil, or scoff at. But if their mockery is allowed to drive us away from the topic, the central articles of the faith would have to be kept secret — and there is almost no article of faith that such people do not touch with blasphemy. A perverse mind will rant just as proudly when hearing that in God's essence there are three persons as when hearing that God foresaw the fate of humanity when He created them. Nor will they refrain from laughing when told that the world was created only about five thousand years ago — they will ask why God's power was idle and dormant for so long before that. In the end there is nothing that cannot be mocked. Must we then stay silent about the deity of the Son and the Holy Spirit in order to restrain these sacrileges? Must we pass over in silence the creation of the world? Not at all. God's truth is more than strong enough, here and everywhere, to withstand the slanders of the wicked — as Augustine firmly maintains in his work on the gift of perseverance. We see that the false apostles could not, by defaming and attacking Paul's true doctrine, make him ashamed of it. As for the claim that this whole discussion is also dangerous for godly minds — because it works against exhortation, shakes faith, and disturbs the heart — this is empty. Augustine does not hesitate to admit that he was often blamed for preaching predestination too freely. But he had answers ready and thoroughly refuted those objections. We, because so many different objections are pressed here, prefer to address each one in a fitting place. One thing only I ask in general: that what the Lord has kept secret we may not search into, and what He has openly disclosed we may not neglect — lest on the one hand we be condemned for idle curiosity, or on the other for ingratitude. Augustine was right to say that we may safely follow Scripture, which walks at a gentle pace, stooping low so as not to leave our weakness behind. But as for those who are so cautious they would have predestination buried, lest it trouble weak souls — with what justification, I ask, will they cover their own arrogance? They are indirectly accusing God of foolish carelessness, as though He had not foreseen the danger they imagine themselves to have wisely anticipated. Whoever therefore works to bring the doctrine of predestination into disrepute is openly speaking evil of God — as though something had carelessly slipped from God that is harmful to the church.

No one who wants to be considered godly will flatly deny predestination — by which God adopts some into hope of life and condemns others to eternal death. But they bury it in objections, especially those who make foreknowledge the cause of predestination. We say that both foreknowledge and predestination belong to God, but that it is wrong to make one subordinate to the other. When we speak of God's foreknowledge, we mean that all things have always been and continually remain before His eyes — that to His knowledge nothing is future or past, but all things are present. And so present that He does not merely picture them through mental images, as we recall the past, but truly and directly beholds them as set before Him. This foreknowledge extends over the whole of creation and all creatures. By predestination we mean the eternal decree of God, by which He determined within Himself what He willed to become of every person. For not all are created to the same end: eternal life is foreordained for some, and eternal condemnation for others. Therefore, as each person is created for one end or the other, we say that he is predestined either to life or to death. God has testified this predestination not only in the case of individuals but has demonstrated it in the entire lineage of Abraham — making plain that the fate of every nation rests in His will. 'When the Most High divided the nations, when He separated the sons of man, the people of Israel were His portion, Jacob His allotted inheritance.' This separation stands before the eyes of all: in the person of Abraham, as from a common stock, one people was specially chosen while all others were passed over. But the cause does not lie in the people themselves — Moses, to cut off all grounds for boasting, teaches that they excelled only because of God's free love. He assigns this as the reason for their deliverance: that God loved the fathers and chose their descendants after them. More plainly in another passage: 'The Lord set His love on you and chose you, not because you were more numerous than any of the peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples; but because the Lord loved you.' Moses often repeats the same warning: 'Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the highest heavens, the earth and all that is in it. Yet on your fathers the Lord set His affection to love them, and He chose their descendants after them — you above all peoples.' And again, holiness is commanded of them because they are chosen to be a special people. And love is declared to be the reason for their protection. The faithful declare this in one voice: 'He chose our inheritance for us, the glory of Jacob whom He loved.' They attributed all the gifts God had adorned them with entirely to His free love — not only because they knew they had earned none of them, but also because even the holy patriarch Abraham had not possessed such virtue as could purchase for himself and his descendants so great an honor. And to press down all pride more firmly, God rebuked them for deserving no such thing — for they were a stubborn and stiff-necked people. Often the prophets threw Israel's election in their face as a reproach, because they had so shamefully turned away from it. Now let those come forward who want to tie God's election to the worthiness of people or the merit of works. When they see one nation preferred above all others, and when they hear that God was moved by no merit to show greater favor to a small, common, even rebellious and disobedient people — will they quarrel with Him for choosing to display such an example of mercy? Their protests will neither hinder His work nor harm His righteousness by hurling insults at heaven — those insults will only fall back upon their own heads. The Israelites are also called back to this principle of the free covenant whenever they give thanks to God or look for hope in what is to come. 'He made us, and we are His; we are His people and the sheep of His pasture.' The negative added here — 'not we ourselves' — is not superfluous. It excludes the Israelites themselves from taking any credit, so that they would know that God was not only the source of all their blessings but drew the cause from within Himself — because there was nothing in them worthy of such great honor. He also tells them to be content with God's sheer good pleasure, in these words: 'The descendants of Abraham are His servants, the children of Jacob, His chosen ones.' After recounting God's continued benefits as the fruit of election, the text concludes that He acted so generously 'because He remembered His covenant.' This teaching agrees with the song of the whole church: 'Your hand drove out the nations and planted them; You afflicted the peoples and spread them abroad — for by Your own sword they did not possess the land, and their own arm did not save them, but Your right hand and Your arm and the light of Your presence, for You favored them.' It must be noted that where the land is mentioned, it is a visible sign of the hidden separation in which adoption is contained. David also urges the people to thanksgiving: 'Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom He has chosen as His heritage.' And Samuel encourages them to hope: 'The Lord will not abandon His people, for the sake of His great name, because the Lord has been pleased to make you a people for Himself.' Likewise David, when his faith is assailed, arms himself: 'Blessed is the one You choose and bring near, to dwell in Your courts.' Since the election hidden in God was confirmed both by the first deliverance and the second, and by other intervening benefits, in Isaiah the word of election is applied to the future restoration: 'The Lord will have compassion on Jacob and will again choose Israel' — because by speaking of a future time, Isaiah shows that the gathering of the remnant whom God seemed to have abandoned will be a sign of the stable and steadfast election that once seemed to have collapsed. When God says in another place, 'I have chosen you and have not rejected you,' He sets forth the continuing course of His remarkable fatherly goodness. And still more plainly the angel says in Zechariah: 'The Lord will again choose Jerusalem' — as though in severely disciplining it He had rejected it, or as though exile were an interruption of election. Yet election remains inviolable, even when its signs are not always visible.

A second degree must be added — one more narrowly focused — in which God's grace appears in a still more particular way: when, from within the same family of Abraham, God passed over some while nurturing others in the church and showing them to be His children. Ishmael had at the beginning the same standing as his brother Isaac, for the spiritual covenant had been sealed in him no less by the sign of circumcision. He was cut off. Then Esau was cut off. And eventually an innumerable multitude — nearly all of Israel — was cut off as well. In Isaac the promised line was called; the same calling continued through Jacob. God showed a similar example in rejecting Saul. And it is gloriously described in the psalm: 'He rejected the tent of Joseph; He did not choose the tribe of Ephraim, but He chose the tribe of Judah' (Psalm 78:67-68). The sacred history repeats this pattern several times, so that the wonderful secret of grace may appear more clearly through these changes. Ishmael, Esau, and others like them, I grant, fell away from adoption by their own fault and guilt — because a condition was attached, that they faithfully keep God's covenant, which they falsely broke. Yet it was still a singular benefit of God that He deigned to elevate them above the other nations — as the psalm says: 'He has not dealt thus with any other nation; they have not known His ordinances' (Psalm 147:20). But I have not without reason mentioned two degrees here. In the choosing of the whole nation, God showed that His free generosity is bound by no laws — He is free, and equal portions of grace cannot be demanded from Him. The inequality of what He gives shows that it is truly a free gift. Therefore Malachi magnifies Israel's ingratitude: not only were they chosen from all humanity, but they were also set apart from a holy family to be a special people — and yet they faithlessly and wickedly despise God their generous Father. 'Was not Esau Jacob's brother?' he says. 'Yet I have loved Jacob, but I have hated Esau' (Malachi 1:2-3). God takes it as settled that since both were born of a holy father and were heirs of the covenant — branches of a holy root — the children of Jacob were more than ordinarily obligated, having been taken into that special dignity. But when the firstborn Esau was passed over and their father — by nature the lesser son — became the heir, God proved them doubly ungrateful and complained that they were not held by this double bond.

It is already sufficiently clear that God by His secret counsel freely chooses whom He will and rejects others. But His free election is only half revealed until we come to individual persons — to whom God not only offers salvation but assigns it in such a way that the certainty of its fulfillment is not in suspense or doubt. For these are counted among that one seed of which Paul speaks. Although adoption was given into Abraham's keeping, many of his descendants were cut off as rotten branches. For election to be effectual and truly steadfast, we must therefore ascend to the Head — in whom the heavenly Father has bound His elect together with one another and knit them to Himself with a bond that cannot be broken. So in the adoption of Abraham's family, God's generous favor shone — the favor He denied to other peoples. But among the members of Christ, a far more excellent measure of grace appears — because being grafted into their Head, they never fall away from salvation. Therefore Paul rightly argues from the passage in Malachi I just cited: where God calls any people to Himself through a covenant of eternal life, there is within that a special manner of election — He does not effectually choose all with that common grace. When it is said 'I have loved Jacob,' this applies to the entire lineage of the patriarch, which the prophet sets in contrast to the descendants of Esau. Yet this does not prevent the person of that one man from being set before us as an example of an election that cannot go astray but must accomplish its purpose. Paul pointedly calls these elect people 'a remnant' — because experience shows that out of a large multitude many slip away and disappear, so that often only a small portion remains. But why the general election of a people is not always firm and steadfast has a ready answer: when God covenants with people, He does not immediately give them all the Spirit of regeneration, by whose power they would continue in the covenant to the end. The outward change without the inward working of grace — which alone can hold them fast — is a kind of middle state between the abandonment of all humanity and the election of the small number of the godly. The whole people of Israel was called God's inheritance, yet many among them were strangers to true faith. But because God had not made His covenant with them for nothing — promising to be their Father and Redeemer — He looked rather to His own free favor than to the faithless defection of many. Through them His truth was not destroyed, for whenever He preserved a remnant, it was clear that His calling was without repentance. When God chose to gather His church from the children of Abraham rather than from pagan nations, He had regard to His covenant. When the whole multitude broke it, He restricted it to a few, so that it would not utterly fail. In short, the general adoption of Abraham's descendants was a visible image of a greater benefit, which God granted to a few out of many. This is why Paul so carefully distinguishes between the physical children of Abraham and his spiritual children — those who were called after the pattern of Isaac. Not that being a physical child of Abraham was worthless — that could not be said without dishonoring the covenant — but because God's unchangeable counsel, by which He predestined whom He would, leads effectively to salvation only for this latter group. I warn readers not to bring a preconceived conclusion on either side, until they have seen what Scripture's own passages teach. What Scripture clearly teaches, then, is this: God by eternal and unchangeable counsel has once for all appointed whom He would bring to salvation in time, and on the other side, whom He would condemn to destruction. This counsel toward the elect is grounded in His free mercy, without any regard to human worthiness. But to those He appoints to condemnation, the entry to life is barred by His judgment — a judgment that is just and without reproach, though also incomprehensible. Among the elect, we understand calling as the testimony of election, and justification as another clear sign of it, until they come to the glory in which it is fulfilled. Just as God by calling and justification makes known His elect, so by shutting out the reprobate — either from the knowledge of His name or from the sanctifying work of His Spirit — He as it were marks out by these signs what judgment awaits them. I will pass over here the many invented objections that foolish people have constructed to overthrow predestination. They need no refutation — they expose their own falsehood as soon as they are brought forward. I will deal only with those objections that are disputed among the learned, that may cause difficulty for simple people, or that ungodliness — with a plausible appearance — uses to mock the righteousness of God.