§ 117. In accordance with the laws of the divine government of the world, so long as the human race continues on earth, all those living at any one time can never be uniformly taken up into the kingdom of God founded by Christ. 1. By ‘uniformly’ here is not meant an equality in the strength of faith or in the degree in which all the natural powers are put at the disposal of the common will: for in that sense the proposition would be quite obvious; it would occur to no one to desiderate such an equality. The absence of uniformity refers to the definite distinction between the inner and outer circles of the Christian fellowship. Now all other fellowships of faith are destined to pass into the Christian fellowship; and if we assume that those born within the fellowship in due time come under the influence of preparatory grace, a time can be imagined when all whose consciousness has reached the necessary point of development will belong to that outer circle. But in this there is not involved any share in the perfection and blessedness of Christ. Hence these are definitely distinguished from the spontaneously active members of the fellowship. This tallies exactly with the distinction already drawn between calling and election. Two points are involved here, both to be regarded (the one more definitely, the other also in some measure) as laws of the divine government of the world. One such law obviously is, that what proceeds from a single point spreads only gradually over the whole area. Less obvious perhaps is this, that the state of grace cannot be inborn, but that even Christian children at birth essentially resemble all other sons of Adam. Any difference would be an exception not explicable by the fundamental fact of Christianity: it would be a new, independent miracle; and, besides, it would shatter the conception of race.
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Even suppose that Christ, when He made a beginning of preaching the Kingdom of God with a reference to His own Person, had everywhere found an equal feeling of need for redemption; yet in one respect, relatively to His Person, some would have been prepared by the Baptist, others not; and in another respect, relatively to His interpretation of the Kingdom of God, some were specially wedded to the existing idea, and thus disposed to reject His, while others were not. Thus He could not but exert His influence with the most varied degrees of effectiveness: indeed, though always within definite limits,1 He at times moved about and widened the circle of His preaching, and at other times tarried in one place to consolidate His work. Nay, even where He was asked to depart,2 that fact must have worked to the unmerited disadvantages of many who would otherwise have come naturally to join Him. But all this is rooted in the divine government of the world. And we find the same absence of uniformity in connexion with the subsequent preaching of apostolic times and on to the present day. For the tendency to enlarge the Church outwardly—a tendency which dwells in the whole body but especially appears in individuals—is in itself quite uniform, proceeding as it does from the equality of all in the state of sinfulness; but in practice it is subordinated, partly to the social circumstances that must offer a point of attachment, partly to that secret attraction and repulsion3 which equally with these circumstances are subject to the divine government of the world. It could not be otherwise if the supernatural in Christ is to become natural, and the Church to take shape as a natural historical phenomenon.
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If we consider the propagation of the Church from one generation to another, here too we find that the regeneration of individuals is bound up with the natural circumstance (also rooted in the divine government of the world) that every two successive generations overlap. A similar absence of uniformity thus arises, as each person sooner or later arrives within this inner circle among different and more or less suitable surroundings and influences. Thus two things always happen. Among those living within the circle of the Church there are in every period many who do not yet belong to it; and of these it will be possible to say that they might already have been members of the Church if their path in life had been otherwise guided. Of course in any given nation a long series of generations, living on the whole in the state of sanctification, has an influence on those that follow, as natural tendencies to passion are mitigated; yet this never is more than an improved form of general sinfulness, and at some point self-knowledge and penitence must enter. Yet we grant that if an early and corresponding recognition of the Redeemer also ensues, a time can be imagined in which (although the birth of body and of spirit never coincide in time, and nature and grace never cease to be distinguishable) the development of living faith is as nearly as possible coincident with the first development of moral ideas and sentiments. Such a time is the nearest possible approximation to the human development of Christ. In such a situation, each will attain far earlier to the possession and enjoyment of his appropriate share in the higher life. Yet even so differences will remain, such that some will as yet have failed to attain to enjoyment though their companions of the same age have long possessed it.
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While we denote this ordinance by the phrase ‘divine election,’ because we hold firmly that its final ground lies in the divine good-pleasure, this does not hinder us from inquiring by what this divine good-pleasure is determined. Especially as we are not in a position to say that God makes no distinctions, but that some human wills place hindrances in the way; for at first the will itself develops gradually, not without being influenced by external relations, until it reaches a greater or smaller degree of excitability. Paul long ago broke ground in this inquiry,4 and tried to formulate the law by which the apostolic Church to begin with filled up with those who previously were heathen, while the great majority of the Jewish people remained outside. The demand for such an investigation has become still more pressing since whole peoples have accepted Christianity, of whom a considerable proportion at least attained regeneration, while on the other hand many a member of nations long Christian remained provisionally excluded from that inner circle. There is besides the fact that the end of life is appointed so differently for different people. To many born in the Christian Church who have already experienced many operations of preparatory grace, it comes before these impressions can be gathered up and intensified in regeneration so as to constitute the beginning of a spiritual life. Many are called away, their length of life divinely fixed, from places where the gospel has only just begun to be heard. Thus obviously it is the divine government of the world which appoints that many—whether many or few really make no difference, since their attitude to the proffer of divine grace is in any case the same—die unregenerate simply because the course of their life is run. We cannot say, then, that God has definitely not willed this; for it has its basis in the relation between the order of nature dependent on Him and His decree of redemption through Christ, which to us is equally matter of inward certainty. We cannot therefore resist the conclusion that if God had not willed this definitely and unconditionally, He would either have established a different order of nature for human life, or a different way of salvation for the human spirit. His ordinance being of such a nature, we are of course called upon to accept even this divine will as consciously as possible and without inward dissent.