In this next section, we're going to be dealing with what the Confessions of the Church have written down concerning election and predestination. Remember, we've been dealing with Genesis 25, 23, which says, And the Lord said to her, Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you shall be divided. The one shall be stronger than the other. The older shall serve the younger. Remember that this meant to crush or oppress or make this stressful condition inside Rebekah's womb. Why was this the case? Well, God himself told her that Jacob had been chosen over Esau. And God's plan of loving Jacob over Esau had a purpose. It is important, even past looking at individual scriptures that you might go off and look at on your own, to demonstrate or rather see the demonstration of what historical theology has given us throughout the centuries. We never believe theology in a vacuum. We have never invented any new thing, nor are we ever going to come up with some new Bible truths. It is ludicrous for denominations to believe that until they came along, the Church has things all wrong, and God was remiss in teaching His Church providentially His promises and His doctrine. So, we're going to look back at what the Confessions of the Church taught in light of the scriptures that we've already been studying on the basics of election and reprobation. In fact, all of predestination. First, God's eternal counsel is for his own glory. God does all things according to the counsel of his will and for his own namesake and his own glory. The confessions and creeds are emphatic on this point. It is not that God was lonely and needed to create the inhabited earth for companionship. It's not that he was merely exercising his power because he could. God does all things with a set purpose, to demonstrate and reflect His glory. In fact, He has an all-consuming passion for His glory, and a demonstration of it in every way possible. The Westminster Confession states that, quote, God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass, end quote. Nothing happens that does not flow from God's counsel, He ordains everything that comes to pass. The Westminster larger and shorter catechisms ask the question this way, What are the decrees of God? The larger catechism answers, God's decrees are the wise, free, and holy acts of the counsel of His will, whereby He foreordains whatsoever comes to pass. The Westminster shorter catechism parrots this idea and asks, What are the decrees of God? And it answers with, the decrees of God are his eternal purpose. The appending document, the sum of saving knowledge to the Westminster Standard, states that, quote, God infallibly executes all his decrees, end quote. God works in such a way that it is impossible due to his infallible decrees that he could be hindered or frustrated in any of his works. This immediately answers the question, how can God desire something which he knows will never come to pass, or something he will never possess? The Westminster Confession says he cannot, since he ordains infallibly whatsoever comes to pass. Why does God ordain whatsoever comes to pass? The answer the confessions and catechisms always give as the primary reasons for God's actions, His desire and will that are executed in His decrees, is for the demonstration of His own glory. The Westminster Confession says that He decrees everything, quote, for the manifestation of His glory, end quote. God's glory is most important to Him. God's glory is more important to Him than you or I. The passion He has for His glory is the primary motive for His actions. We see that election, reprobation, providence, in fact, everything is for the glory of God. The sum of saving knowledge states that God, quote, decrees for His glory whatsoever comes to pass, end quote. The Westminster Confession says He execute His decrees, quote, for the glory of His sovereign power, end quote. Whether God saves a man, or parks the Red Sea, or attends the Sparrows, or creates the universe, He is always demonstrating His glory. God is always working for His eternal glory. Now if God is always working to his glory, what does that say about his intentions? In the eternal counsel of God, he intends to zealously seek out every means possible to increase his ultimate goal in promoting his glory. God will never be frustrated in that endeavor. He cannot will anything which he does not ordain to do. Everything he ordains to do is to promote the glory of his attributes, no matter which attribute it may be, whether holiness, whether love, whether justice. But God will never be frustrated in the attainment of promoting and enjoying his own glory. If he were to fail at that, he would not be God. This demonstrates then God's providential government over creatures. Not only has God ordained and planned everything out for His own glory according to His immutable will, but that action of His will is seen in the providential governing of all of creation. The Belgic Confession helps us to understand that by God's providence we see His invisible power. We know him by two means. First, by the creation, preservation, and government of the universe, which is before our eyes as a most elegant book, wherein all creatures, great and small, are as so many characters, leading us to see clearly the invisible things of God, even his everlasting power and divinity, as the Apostle says, Romans 1.20." It is not that deism is right, that God made the universe and then left it to continue on like the perpetual clock, but, as the Belgic Confession states in Article 13 on Providence, quote, we believe that the same good God, after he had created all things, did not forsake them or give them up to fortune or chance, but that he rules and governs them according to his holy will, so that nothing happens in this world without his appointment, end quote. So God governs everything in the world so as to secure the very spot where you are sitting and listening to this particular lecture at this very moment. He did this before the foundation of the world. He's ordered the temperature of the room or the car or the hardness of your seat, the light that's in your room or car, the position of your hair, the wave increases in your shirt. and the multitude of all of those seemingly inconsequential items going on about you right now. God leaves nothing to chance. Even though he may use secondary causes to effectuate his will, nothing is of chance. He is as precise about governing the hearts of men as he is about tending to sparrows and counting the hairs on your head. The Heidelberg Catechism also helps us to understand God's providence graphically. It asks the question, what do you understand by the providence of God? The answer, the almighty, everywhere present, power of God, whereby, as it were, by his hand, he still upholds heaven and earth with all creatures, and so governs them that herbs and grass, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, meat and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, indeed, all things come not by chance. but by his fatherly hand. But then the Heidelberg Catechism applies the doctrine of providence and what consequences come from it. It asks, what does it profit us to know that God created and by his providence upholds all things? It answers this question with, and I quote, that we may be patient in adversity, thankful in prosperity, and for what is future, have good confidence in our faithful God and Father, that no creature shall separate us from His love, since all creatures are so in His hand, that without His will they cannot so much as move." Here we see the Heidelberg Catechism stating that nothing can even move. whether this be good or for evil, without God sovereignly governing and controlling all things. He does this by His fatherly hand to creation in general. Nothing escapes the sovereign will of the Father. He is immediately upholding all creation that His immutable and eternal plans will come to pass. Both the compound sense and the divided sense come alive in the providence of God in this way. His decrees and how those decrees work in time. the preeminent teaching on providence is the Westminster Confession of Faith, it states, God, the great creator of all things, doth uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures, actions, and things, from the greatest even to the least, by his most wise and holy providence, according to his infallible foreknowledge, and the free and immutable counsel of his own will, to the praise of the glory of his wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy. God is not an uncontrollable wave of goodness which must splash upon every soul. Rather, He governs to the praise of His glorious wisdom, as the Confession states. It is not that God governs indiscriminately according to His intratrinitarian nature ad infra, but that He governs by the right application of His knowledge, and how He can bring about the most glory to His name ad extra. God is indiscriminate with his general providence. But to each thing he governs, whether it be to a rock, a sparrow, a saint, or a reprobate, he uses his governing powers wisely, and acts according to his sovereign counsel. Though God created man upright, and all creation was deemed very good by him, man still fell. He disobeyed God and fell from the height God had placed him. In the immutable decree of the fall of man, God could have been just and abandoned man from all hope. Men deserve eternal condemnation, and the eternal wrath of God due to Adam's federal headship demonstrates that. All men are imputed with the sin of Adam. But though God could have done that, and could have left all those sinful people going to hell, He did not do this And in his immutable plan, he had decreed to save some men from the mass of perdition. The Synod of Dort states, quote, God would have done no injustice by leaving them all to perish and delivering them over to condemnation on account of sin. This brings us to the next point. That because men are fallen, the light of nature is inadequate to bring men to repentance or to save them. So election and reprobation come from God's good pleasure. It is amazing but comforting to see the many references to God's good pleasure strewn throughout the creeds and confessions. They rest heartily on the fact that God does everything that he does by his good pleasure. The importance of God's good pleasure is immediately relevant to the doctrines which the advocates of the double will problem propagate. The happy inconsistencies that Arminians, Pelagians, and Semipelagians often fall into. The belief that God loves the reprobate and desires necessarily that they'll be saved if they would just come. Such a belief, in the compound sense, deters men to stray away from preaching to teach the whole counsel of God. Reprobation is never or hardly ever heard in their preaching or their teachings. It is certainly unheard of that God takes pleasure in damning men, for He takes pleasure in all His works. Finding books or sermons on the subject is difficult, if not impossible. But, though contemporary Christendom may have had a hard time finding books or tapes on the subject, the Bible and the Confessions have much to say on the subject. Election and reprobation both flow out of the good pleasure of God. God does all things by His good pleasure. He ordains, He decrees, He foreordains by the good pleasure of His will. He elects and He damns according to His good pleasure. To have good pleasure means that, one, what you are doing is good, and two, that you are pleased to do it. Ascribing this to the God of the universe heightens the meaning infinitely. God is infinitely good, and every act He accomplishes is equally good, no matter how it may seem to us. And everything He does is pleasing to Him in every way. It is a good thing to save men. It is a good thing to damn men. It is pleasing to God to save men, and pleasing to God to damn men. He delights to save, and He delights to damn, since both show forth His glory." The Synod of Dort expresses this over and over in the first head, chapter 7, They state, quote, election is the unchangeable purpose of God whereby before the foundation of the world he has out of mere grace according to the sovereign good pleasure of his own will saved some men. In 110 it states, the good pleasure of God is the sole cause of this gracious election, that he was pleased out of the common mass of sinners to adopt some certain persons as a peculiar people to himself. In Heads 3 and 4, section 11, it states, But when God accomplishes His good pleasure in the elect, So they move through their rejection of errors and demonstrate that the synod believes the good pleasure is the founding point of all that God does. In the first, in number three, first head number three rejection, they reject those who quote teach that the good pleasure and purpose of God, of which scripture makes mention in the doctrine of election, does not consist in this, that God chose certain persons rather than others, but in this, that He chose, out of all possible conditions, among which are also the works of the law, or out of the whole order of things, the act of faith, which is, very nature, undeserving, as well as its incomplete obedience as a condition of salvation, and that He would graciously consider this in itself as a complete obedience and count it worthy of the reward of eternal life. For by this injurious error the pleasure of God and the merits of Christ are made of none effect, and men are drawn away by useless questions from the truth of gracious justification, and from the simplicity of Scripture. And this declaration of the Apostle is charged as untrue, who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before times eternal." 2 Timothy 1.9. So you see that they reject those pernicious errors that pull away from the truthfulness of the scriptures and found God's choice upon His glory and His own determination. In section 1.9, Rejection, they reject those, quote, who teach that the reason why God sends the gospel to one people rather than to another is not merely and solely the good pleasure of God. So the Synod believed that no matter what aspect of God's counsel we're dealing with, election or reprobation, God does so by His good pleasure. The Westminster Confession of Faith also, and possibly more graphically, affirms the very same thing. There are two paragraphs in their sections on the decrees of God which describe God's pleasure to the elect and non-elect and the way He deals with them. To the elect it declares, quote, Those of mankind that are predestined unto life, God, before the foundation of the world was laid according to his eternal and immutable purpose, and the secret counsel and good pleasure of his will, hath chosen in Christ unto everlasting glory, out of his mere free grace and love, without any foresight of faith or good works, or perseverance in either of them, or any other thing in the creature, as conditions or causes moving him thereunto. and all to the praise of His glorious grace." God chose men to life according to the good pleasure of His will. The rest of mankind God was pleased according to the unsearchable counsel of His own will, whereby He extendeth or withholdeth mercy, as He pleases, for the glory of His sovereign power over His creatures to pass by, and to ordain them to dishonor and wrath for their sin, to the praise of His glorious justice. It pleases God to display His justice in the predation and damnation of men, as much as it pleases Him when He saves men. He has ordained the vessels of wrath to destruction, and is pleased to show His justice in them. He is pleased to fit and form them as vessels of wrath. He does not sincerely desire their salvation, and has not sent Jesus Christ to atone for their sins. He does not weep over them if they don't repent. He glories in Himself as they are damned, and His justice is magnified infinitely as He avenges Himself in retributive justice against their wickedness and sin. And all of this is done as He is pleased to do it, as we've already seen, Jeremiah 9, 24. Is God's justice less glorious? Is His execution of wrath less wondrous? Is the vengeance which he promises against all his enemies something he hates to do? Does he hate to harden, but he loves to save? Was he grieved about hardening Pharaoh? Was he despondent in hating Esau? Every day God is angry with the wicked. Is that pleasing to him? The confession and the creeds affirm that doctrine openly. Election and reprobation are to whom God, whosoever wills. Imagine standing on a pier, and the ocean in front of you is heaven, and you were to take a glass, a bucket, and a 10-gallon drum, and throw them in. They would all be filled to their capacity. Though the glass is smaller than the bucket, it still is filled to its capacity, and heaven will be wonderful to the glass. The bucket has more of a capacity and experiences more. It is filled, but it enjoys heaven to its capacity. And the drum as well, the 10-gallon drum, or the 50-gallon drum, or the 100-gallon drum, whatever size the containers are, they are filled to their capacity and they are enjoying heaven as their capacity so allows them. Well, think about the fitting of those vessels for heaven. God so fits the glass a certain way, and the bucket a certain way, and the size of the drum a certain way. But now reverse it. It's easy for you to think about heaven being so wonderful, but what about hell? God so fits the glass, the bucket, and the drum. for hell as well. Throw them off the pier. Let's say that the ocean is now hell and let them fill up to their capacity and let them experience hell to that capacity. Each of those vessels is fitted in a certain way. Men are fitted for heaven and men are fitted for hell. But how does God choose who will go to heaven and who will go to hell? We've already discussed that. We don't necessarily have the answer to that question, but we do know why he does it. It's for his glory. And it is according to the will of God. The Waldensian Confession, which belongs to the Calvinistic family of confessions, is in part an abridgment of the Gallican or French Confession of 1559. It states in Article 11, quote, that God saves from this corruption and condemnation those whom he has chosen, from the foundation of the world, not for any foreseen disposition, faith, or holiness in them, but of his mercy in Jesus Christ his Son, passing by all the rest, according to the irreprehensible reason of his freedom and justice." Men are chosen to eternal life in Christ, and others are passed by according to the will of God. God effectually chooses and effectually damns. The non-elect did not receive mercy, and the elect did not receive retributive justice. The elect receive mercy in Jesus Christ, and the non-elect receive the just due or justice, God's wrath for their wickedness. And no one ever receives injustice. The Senator of Dort states, and I quote, But when God accomplishes His good pleasure in the elect, or works in them true conversion, He not only causes the gospel to be externally preached to them, and powerfully illuminates their minds by His Holy Spirit, that they may rightly understand and discern the things of the Spirit of God, But by the efficacy of the same regenerating spirit he pervades the innermost recesses of man. He opens the closed and softens the hardened heart, and circumcises that which was uncircumcised, infuses new qualities into the will, which, though heretofore dead, he quickens from being evil, disobedient, and refractory. He renders it good, obedient, and pliable. actuates and strengthens it. Like a good tree, it may bring forth the fruits of good actions." See, God doesn't do this for all men. He does not long to do something He will not do for all. He does not long after those who do not have this done to them, for if He wanted them to have this, then He would confer it upon them. The Synod of Dort declares that they reject those who quote teach that the reason why God sends the gospel to one people rather than to another is not merely and solely the good pleasure of God, but rather the fact that one people is better and worthier than another to which the gospel is not communicated, end quote. So it's solely the good pleasure of God, not because somebody is good over another one. The Synod used Matthew 11.21 as a proof of this, where Christ states, Woe unto thee, Chorazin! Woe unto thee, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works had been done in Tyre and Sidon, which were done in you, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. So, the cities would have repented, but God did not send the Gospel to them at that time. If God was truly desiring the salvation of these people, He should have sent them the means to believe, but He didn't. The synod goes so far as to say that they reject those who teach that God simply by virtue of His righteous will did not decide either to leave anyone in the fall of Adam and in the common state of sin and condemnation, or to pass anyone by in the communication of grace which is necessary for faith and conversion. They reject the teaching of those who disregard God's will in the reprobation of men. They know God only elects some and only gives the means by which His will shall be accomplished in some. so they couldn't agree with Pelagian, Semi-Pelagian, or Arminian teaching. The Westminster Larger Catechism also teaches the same truths and states in question 59, Who are made partakers of redemption through Christ? It answers it in this way, Redemption is certainly applied and effectually communicated to all those for whom Christ hath purchased it, who are in time by the Holy Ghost and able to believe in Christ according to the gospel. The French Confession heartily agrees with Dort and Westminster. Article 12 states, we believe, that from this corruption and general condemnation in which all men are plunged, God, according to His eternal and immutable counsel, calls those whom He has chosen by His goodness and mercy alone in our Lord Jesus Christ, without consideration of their works, to display in them the riches of His mercy. leaving the rest in the same corruption and condemnation to show in them his justice. For the ones are no better than the others, until God discerns them according to his immutable purpose which is determined in Jesus Christ before the foundation of the world. Neither can any man gain such as a reward by his own virtue, as by nature we cannot have a single good feeling, affection, or thought except God has first put it into our hearts." It's true that men are no better than other men. They are all alike in the mass of perdition. But until God chooses whom He desires to save, it is only in Christ that the elect are changed and given new robes and new names. It is only in Christ that this plan is effectuated. The Synod uses certain terms that are fitting when explaining the decree. In 1.6, Head 1, paragraph 6, they say that, quote, some receive the gift of faith from God and others do not receive it. This proceeds from God's eternal decree, end quote. They continue in that section stating, quote, he leaves the non-elect in his just judgment to their own wickedness and obduracy. and herein is especially displayed the profound, the merciful, and at the same time the righteous discrimination between men equally involved in ruin, or that decree of election and reprobation revealed in the word of God." Yet even after explaining this, they're sure to let the reader know that, quote, men of perverse, impure, and unstable minds rest it to their own destruction, yet to holy and pious souls affords unspeakable consolation, end quote. In other words, terrible teachers, bad theologians. Men wrest this doctrine because they choke when trying to swallow the idea that God does not intend to save all, and does not desire to save all, in this sense. The Synod of Dort states, quote, Or this was the sovereign counsel and most gracious will and purpose of God the Father, that the quickening and saving efficacy of the most precious death of His Son should extend to all the elect, for bestowing upon them alone the gift of justifying faith, thereby to bring them infallibly to salvation." So, salvation is only for those in Christ, the elect. God's love is for His Son, and to those who are in the Son as a result of the decree of God and the election of them in Christ Jesus. Dort rejects the idea that Christ is for, quote, all. Christ is not for all, but only for some. those purposed by God's pleasure to be saved. The Synod rejects those who, quote, who use the difference between meriting and appropriating to the end that they may instill into the minds of the imprudent and inexperienced this teaching that God, as far as He is concerned, has been minded to apply all equally the benefits gained by the death of Christ. But that, while some obtain the pardon of sin and eternal life and others do not, This difference depends on their own free will, which joins itself to the grace that is offered without exception, and that it is not dependent on the special gift of mercy, which powerfully works in them, that they rather than others should appropriate under themselves this grace. For these, while they feign that they present this distinction in a sound sense, seek to instill into the people the destructive poison of the Pelagian errors." In other words, the Synod of Dort coming together to demonstrate and look at the realities and theological understandings of what Arminianism is all about, they call Arminianism the Pelagian error. It is destructive poison. The Belgic Confession, in Article 16, speaks about election and reprobation as God's way of demonstrating mercy and justice. It states, quote, We believe that, all the posterity of Adam, being thus fallen into perdition and ruined by the sin of our first parents, God then did manifest himself such as he is, that is to say, merciful and just. Merciful, since he delivers and preserves from this perdition all whom he in his eternal and unchangeable counsel of mere goodness has elected in Christ Jesus our Lord, without any respect to their works, just in leaving others in the fall and perditioned wherein they have involved themselves." God is not only merciful to some, but he is just to others. His wrath is poured out on all the workers of iniquity and all the works of iniquity. The Heidelberg Catechism in Question 20 asks this question. Are all men then saved by Christ as they have perished in Adam? The answer according to God's design, His good pleasure and His will, is simply this. No. And then they use John 1, 12-13, 1 Corinthians 15.22, Psalm 2.12, Romans 11.20, Hebrews 4.2-3, and Hebrews 10.39 to scripturally prove their answer. No. The Westminster Larger Catechism, Question Thirteen states, What hath God especially decreed concerning angels and men? The answer is, 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 sovereign power and the unsearchable counsel of His own will, whereby he extends or withholds favour as he pleases, hath passed by and foreordained the rest to dishonour and wrath, to be for their sin inflicted, to the praise of the glory of his justice. The question stresses the love of God to the elect, and that they were the recipients of Christ's work. That is the meaning of the phrase, the means thereof. But they also distinguish that God passed over the rest, being pleased to do so, according to his own will. The decree to do this to men is unchangeably designed and their number so certain and definite. So, again, God does this, why? For the manifestation of His glory. Let's look a little bit now then at what the confessions say concerning the reprobate and what they understood the scriptural reasons behind. God desires to make friends. He truly does. He desires the relationship with some men, as he had with Moses, face-to-face. Sinners are called of God to come into this relationship through Jesus Christ. It is only in Jesus Christ that men may be made friends to God, and to be at peace with Him instead of enmity. In Warrants to Believe, the Westminster Assembly said that God has a special interest in, quote, the elect world. term they repeatedly use in this section. They say, quote, that in all time by past, since the fall of Adam, Christ Jesus, the eternal Son of God, as mediator, and the Father in him, hath been about making friendships by his Word and Spirit, betwixt himself and the elect world. God, saith he, was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself. End quote. God is certainly gracious to his elect world. and he desires to befriend it. God will have his desire and the elect world will have God as their Father and Christ as their Savior. This has immediate hints of John 3.16 about it and how that works. However, God loves savingly only in Christ. The Westminster Confession of Faith in chapter 16 of Good Works says, quote, notwithstanding The persons of believers being accepted through Christ, their good works also are accepted in Him, not as though they were in this life wholly unblameable. and unreprovable in God's sight, but that He, looking upon them and His Son, is pleased to accept and reward that which is sincere, although accompanied with many weaknesses and imperfections." So in Christ, in Him alone, is the believer accepted and loved. And it is only through the glasses of His beloved Son that the good works of believers are received. They're still tainted, but they're received. The Father is certainly well pleased in the faint reflections of His Son in us. So who does God love? The Synod of Dort states, quote, The sense and certainty of the selection afforded to the children of God, additional matter for daily humiliation before Him, for adoring the depths of His mercies, for cleansing themselves, and rendering grateful returns of ardent love to Him who first manifested so great love towards them. End quote. This echoes Romans 5.8, which is directed to the elect. But God demonstrates his love for us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. In the Synod of Dort section 2, paragraph 9, it states that God's love proceeds, quote, from everlasting love towards the elect, and to them alone. God does not love the reprobate. In fact, it's exactly the opposite. God hates the reprobate and leaves them in their sin without an excuse before Him in His decree. The reprobate are never loved by God in that way. God leaves the reprobate without excuse before Him. Creation was given to show His invisible attributes and divine power as the gospel is preached to show the publication of the grace of God in Christ. When the reprobate rejects this, since God has not chosen them to salvation, they are further hardened and left inexcusable before Him. The creeds and confessions agree with this. In the Third Head of the Sum of Saving Knowledge, the Westminster Assembly explain that God does in fact leave men inexcusable before Him, justly. The title of the chapter is this, quote, the outward means appointed to make the elect partakers of this covenant and all the rest that are called to be inexcusable, end quote. They show that God is the only one who can grant repentance. But in the outward ordinances of the preached word and sacraments, he's doing something far different to the reprobate in granting them repentance to life. Quote, By these outward ordinances, as our Lord makes them inexcusable, so, by the power of His Spirit, He applies unto the elect, effectually, all saving graces purchased to them in the covenant of redemption, and maketh a change in their persons, end quote. So to the wicked, they're made inexcusable, and to the elect, He grants them repentance unto life, or makes a change in their person. God does not make changes to all men indiscriminately. though the published word is given to all those he sees fit to give it indiscriminately. But those who hear the gospel and reject it shall be more liable and rendered more inexcusable on the day of judgment, which is a very scary thought. The Synod of Dort explains this inexcusableness in their section The Light of Nature. In Heads 3 and 4, section 4, we read, There remain, however, in man since the fall, the glimmerings of natural light, whereby he retains some knowledge of God, of natural things, and of the difference between good and evil, and shows some regard for virtue and for good outward behavior. But so far is this understanding of nature from being sufficient to bring them to a saving knowledge of God, and to true conversion, that he is incapable of using it aright even in things natural and civil. Nay, further, this understanding, such as it is, man in various ways renders wholly polluted, and hinders in unrighteousness, by doing which he becomes inexcusable before God." The Light of Nature and the publishing of the Word make men inexcusable if God's Spirit doesn't change them. Men will either be further to heaven or further to hell. The Westminster Confession of Faith is even more graphic than the Synod of Dort when they say, As for those wicked and ungodly men whom God, as a righteous judge for former sins, doth blind and harden, from them he not only withholdeth his grace, whereby they might have been enlightened in their understandings, and wrought upon their hearts, but sometimes also withdraweth the gifts which they had, and exposes them to such objects as their corruption makes occasions of sin, and withal gives them over to their lusts, and the temptations of the world, and the power of Satan, whereby it comes to pass that they harden themselves, even under those means which God uses for the softening of others. Not only does God render them inexcusable, but He may even make their life harder by withholding the gifts which they had. He takes things away. The Confession states that God does give gifts, but if we've seen this far, the gifts are not given with the intention to bless, but to harden them. And here, the Westminster Confession of Faith shows us that God's intention in His work among the reprobate is to allow them to be further hardened by the form of the preaching. He would have otherwise used this preaching to initiate the sovereign work of the Spirit to soften their hearts, but instead He leaves them in their unbelief under the curse of God. The Belgic Confession affirms this when it states in Article 2 that though God furnishes the means by which men may hear of the grace of God, He leaves the reprobate, quote, without excuse. The Westminster Larger Catechism shows us in Question 96 that God uses the law to leave men without excuse. What particular use is there of the moral law to unregenerate men? The answer? The moral law is of use to unregenerate men, to awaken their consciences, to flee from wrath to come, and drive them to Christ, or, upon their continuance in the estate and way of sin, to leave them inexcusable and under the curse thereof. The curse of God is then and now. It can be said that men are without excuse before God and left in their sin. Therefore God does not love them in His decree. This is a necessary conclusion based on understanding God's decree. They have not been regenerated, they have not been saved by the redemption wrought in Christ alone, which is necessary for salvation. Rather, they are left under the curse of God by His will. The curse of God is the beginning of the promise of damnation in this life, which will go into the next. The lost are unaware that God's curse is on them, even in their prosperity. They believe all is well. But all is not well. In fact, the curse is upon them. The Synod of Dort begins to show us this in Head 3 and 4, Section 5, where it teaches, quote, Neither can the Decalogue, delivered by God to his peculiar people, the Jews, by the hand of Moses, save men. For though it reveals the greatness of sin, and more and more convinces man thereof, yet, as it neither points out a remedy nor imparts strength to extricate him from this misery, but being weak to the flesh, leaves the transgressor under the curse, man cannot by this law obtain saving grace." Thus they are teaching that men who are not saved are under the curse. The Westminster Larger Catechism is striking on this point. It asks this question. What are the punishments of sin in this world? The Assembly answered the question this way, quote, The punishments of sin in this world are either inward, as blindness of mind, a reprobate sense, strong delusions, hardness of heart, horror of conscience, and vile affections, or outward, as the curse of God upon the creatures for our sakes, and all other evils that befall us in our bodies, names, estate, relations, and employments, together with death itself." Everything is a curse to the wicked. Famous names, healthy bodies, enjoyments, relations, property, employment and the like, are all attached with the curse of God. They cannot escape the curse of God except in Christ. The assembly knew, in formulating this question, that God does not intend good to come from the wicked receiving and enjoying the things of God in creation and works at home, etc. It's all a curse to them. They are vessels of wrath being fitted for future destruction. The Westminster Shorter Catechism parrots the larger catechism with this question and answer. What is the misery of that estate whereinto man fell? The answer? All mankind, by their fall, lost communion with God, are under His wrath and curse, and so made liable to all miseries in this life, to death itself, and to the pains of hell forever. The practical use of saving knowledge and the sum of saving knowledge says, quote, Now to be under the curse comprehendeth all the displeasure of God with the danger of breaking forth more and more of his wrath upon soul and body, both in this life and after death perpetually, if grace does not prevent the full execution thereof, end quote. So God begins to use the good things of the earth and of his general providence over men to fill up the measure of their sins and execute more wrath upon them beginning here in this life. This is the consensus of the creeds and confessions. But we ought not to despair. It's with a tender heart and compassionate hand that pastors and theologians must instruct those who oppose themselves, those who may despair. Such a hard teaching on God's eternal displeasure with the wicked would be difficult for the weak soul to hear. Yet we know that in them that have a glimmer of grace, however small it may be and however many doubtings they may have, Christ will not break the bruised green or quench the smoking flax. Though the Synod of Dort had taken up a most serious and grave task in being champions of orthodoxy and banishing The Arminians, with their twisted doctrines, they, at the same time, were tender-hearted towards those who may find cause to despair. The Synod of Dort and Head I, Section 16, they show that men ought never to fall into despair, since reprobation and everything said thus far is true about the doctrine. They exhorted men that, quote, much less caused to be terrified by the doctrine of reprobation have they who, though they seriously desire to be turned to God, To please Him only, and to be delivered from the body of death, cannot yet reach that measure of holiness and faith to which they aspire, since a merciful God has promised that He will not quench the smoking flax, nor break the ruse-reed." Men ought never to doubt that they can be saved, though they may not be saved. They ought never to think themselves as holy without the possibility of being redeemed. since they cannot know that they're reprobate, even though they are lost. Lost men don't know they're lost. As a matter of fact, no one, Christians included, knows who is reprobated until they witness when an infidel actually dies in their sin. Men have no excuse to despair because Christ is willing to take on all those who thirst after Him. Men should then beg God for His mercy. and fall before him repenting in dust and ashes until God answers. They have no excuse to stop asking and hope that God, who does whatsoever He pleases, will not cast them out into outer darkness, but receive them in Christ by grace. The publication of the gospel alone ought to be enough to compel the sinner to think heartily about his despair. He ought to fear and repent, but never give in to the idea that he cannot be saved. Neither do the Scriptures give us a warrant to teach that or to believe it. One cannot appeal to the creeds and confessions throughout the history of the church against election and reprobation. The confessions rightly answer Jesus Christ when he says in Matthew 20, 15, Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things? In the Synod of Dort, Head 1, Section 18, quotes this as a proper attitude to have when coming to the canons they presented in understanding election. God has every right to do whatsoever He wishes with the creatures He has made. The mass of perdition sits upon the potter's wheel, and He is entirely free to choose to do whatsoever His good pleasure deems as fit and right to the execution of His mercy or of His justice. All that He does is glorious and promotes His glory. He is the Master Craftsman who is pleased to make vessels of wrath fitted and prepared for destruction, and pleased to make vessels of mercy in His Son, Jesus Christ. God blesses the elect in Christ, as He lavishes upon His Son all the power and authority of the universe, and He curses and brings misery to the wicked by leaving them in their sin. He deals with the elect through Christ, which affords them the blessing of God, but deals with the wicked in their sin. He renders impenitent men inexcusable, and saves others by divine appointment, through the same word preached where and when He wills. He is the All-Sovereign, All-Providential God, who reigns victoriously and is never frustrated in any moment, in any time, in any place, for any purpose. All He has decreed from everlasting shall stand, and He will do all His pleasures to the full extent of His will. He is pleased to save some and is pleased to damn others. The creeds and confessions of the Reformed faith believe and teach this all through church history.