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"...The church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth."
I Timothy 3:15
What Spurgeon Believed About Election and
Preaching the Gospel to Every Creature
C. H. Spurgeon
From Chapter 16 of Spurgeon's Autobiography
I do not think I differ from any of my Hyper-Calvinistic brethren in what I do believe; but I differ from them in what I do not believe. I do not hold any less than they do, but I hold a little more, and think, a little more of the truth revealed in the Scriptures.
Not only are there a few cardinal doctrines, by which we can steer our ship North,
South, East, or West but as we study the Word, we shall begin to learn something
about the North-west and North-east, and all else that lies between the four cardinal
points.
The system of truth revealed in the Scriptures is not simply one straight line, but
two, and no man will ever get a right view of the gospel until he knows how to look
at the two lines at once.
For instance, I read in one Book of the Bible, "The Spirit and the bride say, Come.
And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life
freely."
Yet I am taught in another part of the same Word, that "it is not of him that willeth,
nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy." I see, in one place, God
in providence presiding over all; and yet I see, and cannot help seeing, that man
acts as he pleases, and that God has left his actions in a great measure, to his
own free will.
Now, if I were to decree that man was so free to act that there was no control of
God over his actions, I should be driven very near to atheism; and if, on the other
hand, I should declare that God so overrules all things that man is not free enough
to be responsible, I should be driven at once into Antinomianism or fatalism.
That God predestines, and yet that man is responsible, are two facts that few can
see clearly. They are believed to be inconsistent and contradictory; but they are
not. The fault is in our weak judgment. Two truths cannot be contradictory to each
other.
If, then, I find taught in one part of the Bible that everything is foreordained,
that is true; and it is only my folly that leads me to imagine that these two truths
can ever contradict each other.
I do not believe they can ever be welded into one upon any earthly anvil, but they certainly shall be one in eternity. They are two lines that are so nearly parallel, that the human mind which pursues them farthest will never discover that they converge; but they do converge, and will meet somewhere in eternity, close to the spring.