Extracted from a sermon by Richard Fuller in Baptist Doctrines, and edited by Rev. Charles Jenkins and published by Chancy Barns, St. Louis, 1880.
Editor’s Note: Mr. Richard Fuller, D.D., was pastor in Beaufort,
South Carolina and was nationally recognized as the foremost pulpiteer among the American Baptists.
Doctrinally, there are but two positions: the Libertarians, and the Necessarians. The Libertarians reject the doctrine of Predestination. They deny that God has fore-ordained all things.
But, now, can this negation be ever mentioned without shocking our reason and our reverence for the oracles of eternal truth?
Nothing is gained by this denial...it only removes the difficulty further back. In rejecting Predestination, it maintains God has left all men to act as they choose. By this they mean men obey the impulse of their own feelings and passions.
1.) Did not God endow men with these passions?
2.) Did God not know if certain temptations assailed the creature to whom He had given these passions, he would fall?
3.) Did He not foresee these temptations would assail him?
4.) Did He not permit these temptations to assail him?
5.) Could God have not prevented these temptations?
6.) Why did He form him with these passions?
7.) Why did lie allow him to be exposed to these temptations?
8.) Why, in short, having a perfect, fore-knowledge that such a being, so constituted, and so tempted, would sin and perish --why did He create him at all?Our Darling, Anna
Judson, two years old, was recently taken to the hospital with viral
pneumonia. In all, she spent five days there, four of which she spent in
an oxygen tent. We would ask that you would pray for us especially at
this time.
No chance has brought this ill
to me—
‘Tis God’s sweet will—so let it be;
He seeth what I cannot see:
There is a “need’s be” for each pain—
And He will make it one day
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When the Creator, of His own sovereign pleasure, calls an intelligent agent into being, fashions him with certain powers and appetites and places him amid scenes when He clearly sees that temptations will overcome him --in such a case it is self-evident that our feeble faculties cannot separate fore-knowledge from fore-appointment. The denial of pre-ordination does not, therefore, at all relieve any objection; it only conceals the difficulty from the ignorant and unthinking.
But even if the theory of the Libertarians was not a plain evasion, it would be impossible for us to accept such a solution; for it dethrones Jehovah; it surrenders the entire government of the world to mere chance, to wild caprice and disorder. According to this system...God has no control over the earth and its affairs: or, if that be too monstrous and revolting, He exercises authority over matter, but none over the minds and hearts of men. "The king’s heart is in the hands of the Lord as rivers of water. He turneth it whithersoever He will."
If, as the Libertarians maintain, God exercises no control over men’s hearts, Prophecy is an absurdity, Providence is a chimera, and Prayer is a mockery since God does not interfere in mortal events, but abandons all to the wanton humors and passions of myriads of independent agents, none of whose whims and impulses He restrains, and by whom His will is constantly defeated.
This heresy is condemned on every page of the Bible. It is deeply to be lamented that the theological partisans so often treat texts of Scripture as hired advocates in the courts treat those witnesses whose evidence damages their cause, --cross-examining, and brow-beating the clearest passages, --seeking to perplex their plain meaning --and to extort from them a testimony they will not and cannot give....
"And the patriarchs," said Stephen, "moved with envy, sold Joseph into Egypt." Yet, the result from beginning to end is ascribed to God’s purpose and decree. "And Joseph said unto his brethren, ‘Be not grieved nor angry with yourselves that ye sold me hither, for God did send me before you to preserve life. So now it was not you that sent me hither but God."
Ahab disobeys God; and the prophet is sent to warn him that as a punishment he shall be slain in battle. The monarch disguises himself so that he is not known; and "a certain man drew a bow at a venture, and smote the king of Israel between the joints of the harness, and he died." The archer aimed at no one, but discharged it "at a venture" against the confused masses. Yet it was winged and guided by God’s unerring decree.
And, "Those things which God before had showed by the mouth of all His prophets, that Christ should suffer, He hath so fulfilled."
"For of a truth against Thy holy child Jesus, whom Thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together for to do whatsoever Thy hand and Thy counsel determined before to be done."
If anything be certain, then it is that the anti-Predestination system is...practical atheism, and it contradicts the express assertions of the Bible....Reason and Scripture both condemn the heresy which leaves man a free, independent agent.
Necessarians are men who arrogate liberty of will and action holding that God not only fore-knows, but fore-determines all things: that His decree controls irresistibly all matter, all mind, all feeling, all action; and therefore, that man’s free agency is a tenet false, unscriptural, and absurd.
Controversy
Necessary
Controversy and religious strife no doubt are odious things; but there
are times when they are a positive necessity. Unity and peace are very
delightful; but they are bought too dear if they are bought at the
expense of truth. There is a vast amount of maundering, childish, weak
talk nowadays in some quarters about unity and peace, which I cannot
reconcile with the language of Paul. It is a pity, no doubt, that there
should be so much controversy; but it is also a pity that human nature
should be so bad as it is, and that the devil should be so loose in the
world. It was a pity that Arius taught error about Christ’s person, but
it would have been a greater pity if Athanasius had not opposed him. It
was a pity Tetzel went about preaching up the Pope’s indulgencies; it
would have been a far greater pity if Luther had not withstood him.
Controversy, in fact is one of the conditions under which truth in every
age has to be defended, and maintained, and it is nonsense to ignore it.
--J.C. RYLE
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April 11, 1888 --England. Charles Spurgeon withdraws from the London Baptist Association which he helped form in 1865. He has charged that in many churches and chapels, "The atonement is scouted, the Inspiration of Scripture is derided, the Holy Spirit is degraded into an influence, the punishment of sin is turned into fiction, and the resurrection into a myth...At the back of doctrinal falsehood comes a natural decline of
spiritual life evidenced by a taste for questionable amusements and a weariness of devotional meetings."