ELECTION and Predestination, J.H. Oliphant 1st. It is not my purpose in this article to discuss at length the subjects named. I would be glad to define, rather than defend. I am satisfied that we have been shamefully misrepresented by some popular writers, and the result is, there is a great amount of prejudice against us on this ground. As a sample of the misrepresentations that have been made against us, I will quote from “Doctrinal Tracts,” written by Wesley, page 25: “The greater part of mankind God hath ordained to death, and it (grace) is not free for them; them God hateth, and therefore, before they were born, decreed they should die eternally. * * * accordingly they are born for this, to be destroyed, body and soul, in hell.”
Who wonders that there is a vast amount of prejudice against this doctrine, when such statements as this are believed to be a fair representation of the matter? We are as far from believing the sentiments in the above quotation as Mr. Wesley was. On page 27 he tries again, “By virtue of an eternal, unchangeable, irresistible decree of God, one part of mankind are infallibly saved and the rest infallibly damned.” Again, on page 32, “How uncomfortable a thought is this, that thousands and millions of men, without any preceding offense or fault of theirs, were unchangeably doomed to everlasting burnings.” Again, on page 39, he says, “To suppose him of his own mere motion of his pure will and pleasure, happy as he is, to doom his creatures, whether they will or no, to endless misery, is to impute such cruelty to him as we can not impute even to the great enemy of God and man; it is to represent the most high God as more cruel, false and unjust than the devil.”
This last form of expression seems to be a favorite method of his to express his great dislike of the doctrine, that it makes “God worse than the devil.” He repeats it no less than three times on one page (39). I am satisfied that the sentiment he here expresses was never entertained by anybody, or at least by those he tries to fasten them on.
Page 40, “I abhor the doctrine of predestination,” and a little on he shows that according to it, “God would be meaner than the devil.” Every Bible reader knows that the words predestinate and predestination frequently occur in the Bible, and it certainly is a very unguarded expression to say, “I abhor the doctrine of predestination.” It shows that his opposition was to a fever heat.
On pages 40-41, he three times represents the doctrine as compelling men to continue in sin. Now if the people have read these statements, and believe them to be fair, we can not wonder that they have heaped hard names upon us. This little book, called Doctrinal Tracts, has many misquotations of the scripture, which is much worse than to misrepresent the views of men. On page 15, he quotes Paul to Titus, 2:11, as saying, “The grace of God that bringeth salvation to all men,’ etc. Also Heb. 2:9, “He by the grace of God tasted death for every man.”
These misquotations shamefully change the sense of the passages, which the reader can see by comparing these quotations with the texts in the Bible, and such blunders are common throughout the work.
On page 104, he closes his arguments on “final persever-ance” with the words, “Let him that standeth take heed lest he fall.” The scripture reading is, “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall!” For similar misrepresentations the reader is referred to “Porter’s History of Methodism,” pages 226, 227, 230, and 240, where you will find the doctrine of predestination and election misrepresented and the favorite charge repeated, that it “makes God worse than the devil.”
The doctrine of predestination, as we hold it, does not represent God as creating any person for hell, nor as fitting any person for hell. It does not make any man’s condition worse in any sense. It shuts heaven against no one. Those who oppose us claim that God will save all that love God, or who are born of the spirit, or who die in infancy. So do we.
“But God, thou art told, by his eternal decree fixed, before they had done good or evil, causes not only children of a span long, but the parents also, to pass through the fire of hell.” Who knows but this is where that stale charge that we preach “infants in hell not a span long” came from. I have never read after or heard a man preach who believed the sentiment.
We sincerely believe that all who hunger and thirst after righteousness, who labor and are heavy laden, and who thirst after the water of life, we think and teach that all these will be saved. We sing:
Can Jesus hear a sinner pray,
yet suffer him to die?
No, he is full of grace;
he never will permit
The soul that fain
would see his face
to perish at his feet.”
No sinner shall ever be
empty sent back
Who comes seeking
mercy for Jesus’ sake.
Instead of believing that a very small number will be saved, we believe a vast number, which no man can number, will be saved, and that God will be just in the final punishment of the wicked. They will justly perish for their sins, and realize that it is wholly their own fault.
It is argued that the doctrine tends to wickedness and carelessness of life. We do not believe it. We feel under obligations to do right in life, and feel in duty bound to preach the gospel to every creature, and many of us are spending much time in trying to preach the gospel to sinners. I have marked the arguments to those who oppose us, and I am persuaded that they, generally, misunderstand our position.
There is no dispute about the number saved, except they believe that some fall from grace. This we deny. So our view represents God as saving more than theirs by the number they think fall from grace. There is no dispute about whose fault it is that some are lost. We, with them, believe it is the sinner’s fault; that God remains pure, and his throne as white as snow in their eternal banishment from him. We all agree that sinners of all classes are accountable; all “under the law,” and are under just obligations to love and obey God. There is a sense of this duty in all men. We all agree that it is right to preach the gospel to every creature, and this we are trying to do.
The real point of difference is, first, about the condition of men in nature. We view them as being so under the power of sin that there is no hope of their salvation, save by a plan wholly of grace; that God “makes us meet for the Master’s use;” that he begins and finishes the work in us, while they hold that it is effected partly by God’s grace and partly by their works. The real issue is as to whether it is wholly of grace that we are saved, or whether it is partly of works. We believe the experience of God’s people proves that their salvation is wholly of grace in every part.
Many Christians hate and oppose the doctrine of election who unwittingly oppose the real ground of the Christian hope. And secondly, as we differ about the condition of sinners, we differ about the plan necessary to their salvation. Where physicians differ about a disease, they will neces-sarily differ about the remedy. We should seriously consider God’s dealing with us in our own cases, how it was that we were ever led to repentance; was it my own choice, or was my mind graciously turned to that subject under my exercise of mind; was I able to do anything I thought to be good, or did I view all my works as mere filthy rags? In these things we all must agree, and I am convinced that a calm, thoughtful consideration of the matter will lead every Christian to acknowledge that grace, and grace alone, has rescued him.
If I should try to defend the doctrine, which I have not space to do at length, I would urge:
1st. That by reason of the native enmity of the human heart there could be no salvation without it; that no sinner would “ever approach the Lord, if the Lord would leave him to follow his own inclinations.” Therefore election is “the chief corner stone of the amazing fabric of human redemption.” In the previous chapters I have shown that men in nature are so depraved that they never would seek the Lord, and hence God must seek them if there is ever any salvation for them.
2nd. Christian experience invariably bears testimony that God quickens sinners into a lively sense of their lost condition, and so every saint on earth has within himself the clearest evidences of the truth of this doctrine.
3rd. The Bible abundantly teaches that our salvation is “not of works,” “not by works of righteousness which we have done, etc. This being true, then the doctrine of election must be true.
4th. The Savior taught Nicodemus that sinners must be “born again” in order to see or enter the kingdom. Again, in speaking of this birth, John tells us that it “is not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” Now, if it is not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God, then the doctrine of election must be true.
5th. The scripture in many places ascribes salvation to the previous purpose of God. Rom. 8:28, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose.” The Romans here are the called according to the purpose of God. Eph. 1:11, “In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will.” Here, as any sane mind may see, the fact that we have “obtained an inheritance” is the result of the previous purpose and predestination of God. 2 Thess. 2:13, “But we are bound to give thanks to God for you brethren, beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the spirit and belief of the truth.”
1 Tim. 1:9, “Who hath saved us and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace given us in Christ before the world began.” If the doctrine of election is not taught in this text, I confess I would not know what words would express it. “Purpose and grace” were given us in Christ “before the world began.” The late translation reads “from the ages eternal.” Our being saved is the result of God’s previous purpose, and, if so, the doctrine of election must be true. See, also, under this head, John 6:37-39.
6th. Many passages of scripture plainly teach the doctrine. John 5:21, “As the Father raiseth up the dead and quickeneth them, even so the Son quickeneth whom he will.” John 17:2, “As thou hast given him power over all flesh that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him.” These were given to him, not because they had eternal life, but that he might give them eternal life. “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you,” etc. Acts 2:39, “For the promise is to you and your children, and to all that are far off, even unto as many as the Lord our God shall call.” Here the promise of the immutable God is to the even number that are called.
Acts 13:48, “And when the gentiles heard this they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord, and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.” How we can believe these passages to be true and yet deny the doctrine, I can’t see. Acts 15:14, “Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the gentiles to take out of them a people for his name.” This language, fairly interpreted, is full of the doctrine. Acts 18:9,10, the Lord visits Paul in a vision and informs him that he has much people in that wicked city, and, if so, they were at that time unregenerate. Election is taught as clear as a sunbeam in this.
Read the connection, Acts 22:14, and Rom. 8:29,30, “For whom he did foreknow he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, moreover, whom he did predestinate them he also called, and whom he called, them he also justified, and whom he justified, them he also glorified.”
Strange that Wesley should say, “I abhor the doctrine of predestination.” Any sound-minded man, not prejudiced against the sovereignty of God, who will read this connection to the close, will confess that it teaches the doctrine. See Rom. 9:7,8,11; 2:15,16,18. Here the doctrine is as plainly taught as language can make it. I have often been amused to see the poor, pitiful efforts some writers have made to escape the force of these words. If we allow words in the Bible to be as meaning as they are in other books, there is no way to escape the doctrine.
Rom. 11:5, “Even then at this time there is a remnant according to the election of grace, and if by grace, then is it no more of works?” etc. What, then, Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for, but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded.” How can we doubt the truth of this doctrine, and believe our Bibles? These passages need no comment; they testify in as plain language as can be used. See Rom. 11:28,29. Here we learn that the “gifts and calling of God are without repentance,” or “without change of purpose,” as the words imply, that God does not change his purpose to call or save a sinner, but he executes or carries out his purpose.
Gal. 4:28, “Now we brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise; when we were born (again) the promise was fulfilled in the womb of that promise; we all lay until we were born (again).
Eph. 1:4,5, “According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blame before him in love,” “having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself.” How language could be plainer I can not see. Also,
Eph. 2:4,5 Phil. 1:29. In all these places the doctrine shines with a luster that can not be eclipsed.
Also, 1 Thess. 1:4,5, “Knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God,” “for our gospel came not unto you in word only, but in power and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance.” He affirms that he knows their election, and tells why; because his gospel had come to them in power and in the Holy Ghost, etc. This proved to him that they were the elect of God. Read these passages in a calm and unbiased manner, allow every word to have its fair meaning and you will have to admit the doctrine.
Also, 1 Thess. 5:9, “For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ.” Here somebody was appointed to obtain salvation, which, if true, then the doctrine of election and predestination must be true. 2 Thess. 2:10,24,25, In all these places the doctrine is taught as plain as language can teach it.
I will cite one more passage. Psa. 64:5, Blessed is the man whom thou choosest, and causeth to approach unto thee, that he may dwell in thy courts,” etc. Does God choose
anybody and them to approach unto him? David says so, and pronounces them blessed. So the doctrine of election must be true.
There is but one way to escape it, and that is, just affirm that “it makes God meaner than the devil.” This was Wesley’s way of disproving the doctrine. “Doctrinal Tracts,” page 39. But you say, “I will prove it by the scripture.” Hold! Prove what by the scripture? That “God is worse than the devil?” It can not be. If you are fond of this kind of reasoning, you will have no trouble to disbelieve the doctrine, but if you believe the Bible, you will be compelled to believe the doctrine of election and predestination.
7th. The doctrine of election is full of comfort to God’s people. What saint would be unhappy to know that God’s love to me is older than the hills? that it was as strong for me, when I was a poor sinner, as it ever will be? That his great love to me, even when I was dead in sin, was such that he saved me from sin’s power?
No wife thinks less of her husband to know that he loved her years before she did him, and so no poor, tried saint need be unhappy when it is proved to him that the eternal Jehovah saw and loved him before the glittering orbs of heaven took up their eternal march, before our earth was fashioned from nothing, or before any part of the great universe was arranged. No saint should be alarmed at this; love so old and good, is more likely to last.
I know it is not particularly comforting to the unregenerate, but we are not to comfort those that never mourn; we are not to bind hearts that were never broken, nor to feed those that were never hungry, nor give drink to those that were never thirsty. Therefore, I am not concerned to comfort impenitent sinners; but to every mourner on earth, to every heavy laden soul on God’s footstool, I can say that election will never wound nor bruise you; it will bind your wounds, heal your broken heart, wipe every tear from your poor, penitent eyes; it will one day chase away the gloomy cloud that now shuts out the light of God’s countenance, and speak peace to your poor troubled mind.
Your Savior, yes, your Savior, says “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” Why blessed? Because God has chosen you to approach unto him. ‘Twas he that made your eyes overflow. Your burden of sin proves that God is now in mercy dealing with you, neither the world, the flesh, nor Satan ever taught you to know how vile you are. You are now receiving his richest mercy. Others have no heart to grieve for sin; others are now pursuing sin with delight without a tear or sigh. This change in your case is from the Lord.
This is comforting, I know, to poor mourners to be assured time and again by those who love them, and whom they love and regard, as able to instruct them, that God does love them; that his immutable love embraces them, and that their awful sins have no power to shut them out of heaven.
8th. But it is urged that the doctrine of election tends to impiety. To this I might reply that the end of election is piety. We are chosen “that we should be holy and without blame before God in love,” etc. No person dare scripturally claim to be elected without he be disposed to serve the Lord. There is, therefore, now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit.”
Election is not to be used for a “cloak of maliciousness.” We are not to use our “liberty for an occasion to the flesh,” but “by well doing” we are to put to silence the “ignorance of foolish men.” “Shall we continue in sin?” God forbid, how can they that are dead to sin live any longer therein? We have, if we can lay claim to the election of grace, been killed to the love of sin.
George Whitfield was a man of great piety and godliness, but a firm, uncompromising advocate of election and predestination. John Bunyan, whose writings will go down to the last generation, and who for piety was unexcelled by any of his day, was a strong believer in the doctrine and taught it in all his writings. Dr. Gill, the great commentator, most ably defended it. McHenry, who wrote the “Comprehensive Commentary,” taught it. Scott, who wrote a commentary on every verse in the Bible, believed it. The humble John Flavel, whose writings are as sweet as honey, was a firm believer in it.
And I will mention the name of Andrew Fuller, whose works present it. Newton, Toplady, Milton, Booth, all believed and taught it. Spurgeon, whose writings have comforted millions of the people of God, glories in the doctrine of election and predestination. The men, who, under God, effected the great reformation, Calvin, Luther, and their contemporaries, almost universally believed it. It was the sentiment that animated their hearts and urged them on from victory to victory until religious liberty was established.
Take from our world the books written by predestinarians, and we would find the best and richest part destroyed. Let shame and confusion cover the face of that man who intimates that the doctrine tends to impiety.
The regular Baptists in all ages have believed it. The London Confession of Faith and the Philadelphia Confession have been regarded by the Baptists as sound. They who claim to be old Baptists and yet oppose these sentiments, do shamefully expose their own ignorance.
Mr. Wesley, Porter, and many others insist that the doctrine makes God meaner than the devil. We all believe God will be just in the final condemnation of the wicked. It is not election that has separated them from God, but “your sins and your iniquities have separated between you and your God.” It seems that these men must think that if election were true, that, as a consequence God would be the cause of all the sin in the world; that it would necessarily follow that “infants not a span long, and parents, too,” would be by the decree of God appointed first, to sin, and second, to hell for that sin. When the sun is withdrawn, ice and snow cover the earth,” and yet the sun is not the cause of ice; and darkness pervades all parts excluded from the sun’s rays, and yet the sun is not the cause of darkness. And so where men are allowed to pursue their own course and follow their own desires, sin and death is their overthrow; but God is not the cause of their misfortune. It is their own sin.
If we would know the grounds upon which Wesley thinks God will be just in the condemnation of sinners, we can find it on page 68, Doctrinal Tracts, “As it makes the whole salvation of man to depend on God, so it makes his condemnation to be wholly of himself, in that he resisted the grace of God, and when he might have been saved, would not.” His whole condemnation rests on the grounds of resisted grace. If there had been no grace, there would have been no resisting; and if no resisting, then no condemnation.
I will ask of what use the grace, when there could be no condemnation without it? It would be far better for there to be no grace, than for grace to be the cause of men’s eternal ruin; but if God would be unjust to condemn men without first offering them the gospel, they are not under the law until the gospel is preached to them, for if without the gospel the right of condemnation does not exist, they are not under the law of God until the gospel is sent to them, and if not under the law, they are exposed to no curse, “for where there is no law, there is no condemnation,” and if exposed to no curse, it would be hard to tell what they need to be saved from on his plan; not from condemnation, for God has no right to condemn them until the gospel is preached to them. Hence, if it is never preached to them, there could be no condemnation to them.
I should think Mr. Wesley did not intend what he said in this quotation, if he had not in other places committed the same blunder. On page 69, “We do not intend by this day of visitation to understand the whole time of a man’s life , though in some it may be extended to the very hour of death, but such a season at least as sufficiently clears God of every man’s condemnation, which to some may be sooner and to others later, as the Lord in his wisdom sees meet.”
The words I have emphasized were emphasized by him. In these words he tells us just why God gives a day of grace to the finally impenitent, to sufficiently clear himself of their condemnation. He would not be just without it.
Neither does he thus visit them with any view of saving them. On pages 8 and 9, he says, “We may consider this a little further. God from the foundation of the world foreknew all men’s believing or not believing, and according to this, his foreknowledge, he chose or elected all obedient believers as such to salvation, and refused or reprobated all disobedient unbelievers as such to damnation. Thus the scriptures teach us to consider election and reprobation.”
According to this, all disobedient unbelievers are foreknown, and as such he reprobated them to damnation; and yet he tells us that the Spirit strives with them. Certainly God does not strive with them with any design of saving them, for they, Mr. Wesley tells us, were reprobated from the beginning. Well, for what does he give them a day of grace? To sufficiently clear himself in their condemnation.”
Now, I ask the reader to decide whether this view of the subject does not make God’s proceeding in reference to the finally impenitent appear in a worse light than the one we give. They boast about the Spirit striving, and wooing, and beseeching sinners that God “knew from the beginning would be lost, and then Mr. Wesley tells us that all this wooing is to “sufficiently clear God in their condemnation.
On page 37, “It can not be denied that the gracious words which came out of his mouth are full of invitations to all sinners; to say, then, he did not intend to save all sinners, is to represent him as a gross deceiver of the people.” He then pretends to quote the language of Jesus, Matt. 11:28, “Come unto me all ye that are weary and heavy laden.” First, he does not quote the text right, and secondly, I ask any sensible reader if it proves what he quoted it to prove. Does it invite all sinners? It does invite all of a certain class, but does it invite all sinners?
But in this quotation Mr. Wesley tells us that God intended to save all sinners, and on page 8, he tells us that some were reprobated to damnation, and that he knew that some never would be saved. Is it true that Christ “intended to save all sinners” when he knew that all sinners would not be saved? Do you, or any intelligent being, intend to do anything that you know never will be done?
And again, did Christ intend to save all sinners when he had from the beginning reprobated some to damnation? To save all when he had from the beginning determined not to save some? And why do our Arminian friends boast about the Spirit striving with sinners? Wesley’s hank is badly tangled, and his followers will never be able to untangle it.
I have never understood the gospel to furnish the grounds of the condemnation of sinners. Sinners “are condemned already.” Paul says, Rom. 1:16, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power (authority) of God unto salvation (Wesley thinks it is his power to damnation) to every one that believeth, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”
The right of condemnation exists without any gospel or any wooing and beseeching and striving.” If not, it were a great pity that there was ever a gospel given. Verse 17, “For therein is the righteousness of God revealed.” It is this revealed righteousness that makes God’s power or authority to be in the gospel. The gospel contains a description of that righteousness, and in this God’s authority or power to save lost, guilty sinners lies; it is his warrant for taking them from under the law’s tremendous curse and giving them a place at his own right hand in heaven, from faith to faith.
It is not revealed to the faithless sinner, but to faith. It is the man of faith that discovers that the gospel is not a modified law, or bundle of conditions. It is the man of faith that discovers that the gospel reveals a righteousness equal to the law’s demand. The blind, unregenerate sinner will have it that the gospel requires a righteousness of man, but the man of faith will see that it reveals one to the poor, enlightened sinner, who is laboring to satisfy the law’s claims, who is thirsting for righteousness; and when faith discovers that the gospel is not a law, that it reveals in Christ how God can be just in saving sinners, he “ceases from his own works and enters into rest,” Heb. 4:10; he “worketh not, but believeth,” Rom. 4:5.
The right of condemnation exists independent of, and prior to the gospel, in the order of nature, and he that thinks the preached gospel is the ground on which God is just in condemning sinners, would far better suppress his gospel, if he would be consistent. We repeat, that God is just in condemning sinners without a gospel, a Christ, or a sent Spirit; if not, far better withhold all these. All men by nature are under the law of God; it requires pure and unvarying love and obedience to God; every man feels in himself that he owes this to God.
The law does not require this of all men on the ground that Christ died, or that there is a gospel, or a merciful Spirit, for had there never been a crucified Savior these duties would have been required. Man feels and knows that his Creator has a just right to his heart; that he should love and obey God, but he willingly pursues sin, rebels against God, and lives on terms of peace with the great enemy of God. While his Maker sustains his being, he is physically able, and mentally he is able, to do the things God requires, but he still persists in sin, and finally for his own sins, and not the sins of others, he is shut out from God and heaven forever; he is responsible for the manner in which he treats the word as well as the works of God, as the law of God requires perpetual obedience, in all times and in all places, and at all seasons, and in all companies. He is adding to the list of his sins. His unbelief—may be the root sin—not his unbelief that Jesus is his Savior, but his unbelief of God’s word, his threats, his promises, what he has said the end of sin shall be.
If we are to judge a tree by its fruit, he does not believe these. His view of God is such that he does not love him. Christ to him is “a root out of dry ground” without any comeliness, the law is a scarecrow, the gospel foolishness; he views God as approachable at any time, and so he procrastinates until almighty, all-glorious grace “opens his heart,” works in him to will and to do, etc., or till death ends his mortal career.
God is not under obligations to make his creatures willing to obey him, for this is universalism at once; it claims salvation as a debt and destroys the very idea of grace. Now, if he is not thus under obligation to all his creatures, he may act sovereignly in the matter. There were many widows in the prophet’s day, but he was sent to but one. There were also many lepers, yet but one was healed.
When our Savior referred to these facts it filled the people with rage. The Savior taught his right to do as he will with his own by the laborers in his vineyard, to each of whom he gave a penny, whether he had labored long or short. We see his sovereignty in everything he has created, from the lowest worm to the tallest angel, from the atom in the sunbeam to the massive planet that rolls with splendor through its orbit, and in his works among the children of men.
Death, like lightning, respects no man’s person; some live long, others die soon, some are born rich, others poor. In everything we see sovereignty, and so he will have mercy on whom he will have mercy, and shall mortal man call in question his acts? Shall the guilty criminal turn judge and decide his rights, and call in question the acts of the court? If criminals were allowed this liberty they would have an easy time.
And shall fallen man, who is declared to be the enemy of God, mark out God’s rights in his case? We say no. God has a right to do as he will in the case, and he will do all his pleasure and none can stay his hand or justly criticize his action. I feel this moment that he has a sovereign right to dispose of me as he will. I have no claims upon him. I have forfeited all.
If my soul is sent to hell.
His righteous law approves it well.
But I have a humble hope that God for Christ’s sake has delivered me from the curse of that law, but all I ever get better than hell is the mere mercy of God.
Thy mercy, my God,
is the theme of my song,
The joy of my heart
and the boast of my tongue.
Dear reader, may it be your lot and mine to realize God’s sovereignty in the salvation of sinners.
Note.—We think the doctrine of the two seeds, as taught by Parker, and also the doctrine of eternal vital union, as held by others, are opposed to the doctrine of election as taught by the Bible, and that they are equally as objectionable as the doctrine of election as taught by Wesley. Each of these views finds the reasons of one’s election in himself. Wesley ascribes our election to our obedience, which is at war with grace. Parker and others find a difference in the origin of men that accounts for the election of some and the reprobation of others, while the Bible puts it upon the sovereignty of God. (J.H. Oliphant, The Principles and Practices of the Regular Baptists 1885)