Lectures on the Doctrine of Election
281
Alexander C. Rutherford
be taken from you.” God the Father pleads with you; God the Son pleads with you; God the Spirit pleads with you. The interests of eternity are set against the selfish and mistaken interests of time; and you are asked by God himself to say, “What is a man profited, though he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” And you have the power to decide for God and for happiness in opposition to every allurement which seeks to enchant you, and which beckons you downward to destruction. You have the power to will or to choose the good rather than the evil, even now while the current of evil is bearing you impetuously along on its dark and troubled bosom. You have not yet reached the farthest verge over which many a deluded soul is carried, and plunged into the deep unfathomable abyss beneath, from which there is no escape. You have the power to choose, as we have endeavoured in former addresses to demonstrate in your hearing. It is for you to consider the freeness of that salvation which is announced to you, and to look well at its nature as a salvation from condemnation this very moment, in order to subsequent and entire consecration of all that you are, and all that you have, to the service of your God. You have the power to make it this very moment entirely and everlastingly your own, in fullest and most blissful possession; but you have the power to decide against it and to rush upon perdition. There cannot be any other alternative; FOR it or AGAINST it, you must this night, every soul of you decide. Hesitancy and doubt, and procrastination till some more convenient season—these are present determinations of your will against salvation. Before you is the blessing and the curse!—both are before you. The claims of God and the sinful allurements of the flesh!—both are before you. An open heaven and a gaping hell!—both are before you. Heavenly truth exhibited by the Holy Spirit as the guide-mark to glory, and hellish error exhibited by Satan, in the shape of an angel of light, to allure you to everlasting woe—both are before you. No power in the universe can constrain your choice. God himself cannot FORCE you to choose—the decision is in your own hands. “Choose ye this day whom ye will serve. If Jehovah be God, serve him; but if Baal be God, serve him.”
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APPENDIX. WE have quoted, in pages 100 and 112, from the work of Zanchius in defence of Calvinism, translated by Toplady, in order to establish what many blind and ignorant Calvinists of the present day endeavour to deny—the identity of Calvinism with the FATALISM of the ancients. We here subjoin what Toplady himself published, and what the late Dr. Pringle of Perth republished, in the way, not of DENYING (for it cannot truthfully be denied), but of explaining and defending, after pleading guilty to the charge. Our readers will be pleased to mark the absence of all reference to the Word of God, and the barefaced appeal made by CHRISTIAN MEN to HEATHEN AND ANTICHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHERS in support of this theology! If the supporters of this system could discover in the Bible any foundation for their creed, would they be foolish enough to make
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