Taken from Spurgeon v. Hyper-Calvinism: The Battle for Gospel Preaching by Iain H. Murray (The Banner of Truth Trust, Edinburgh, 1997).

Chapter Ten

Free-Agency and God's Desire for the Salvation of All -- T. J. Crawford

Thus much, indeed, must in candour be admitted, that we are unable to comprehend how an action that was certainly known to God before it was done should, notwithstanding, be free in the performance of it. But then our inability to comprehend how a thing should come to be, is no sufficient ground for affirming that it cannot be. In the works and ways of God, in the operations of our own minds, and in the processes of our own bodies, there are many things which we know to be actually taking place, without being able fully to account for them, or to reconcile them with other things of the reality of which we are equally well assured. We have no cause to wonder, then, that this should be the case with the divine foreknowledge of human actions on the one hand, and the free agency of man in the performance of them on the other hand. The seeming conflict between them is not direct, but inferential; and we do not sufficiently comprehend them to be perfectly sure that our inference in regard to their mutual antagonism is a sound one. The utmost that can be said is, that they appear to be tending in opposite directions. But if we knew more about them we might possibly see that, though moving in opposite directions, they are not moving along the same line, and hence they cannot come at any time into actual collision.

But, in the second place, the contradiction in the case before us not only may be but must be merely apparent, because we have full and satisfactory evidence that the two things between which it appears to subsist are both of them true, and hence that they cannot be really contradictory.

As for our free agency, we know it from our consciousness -- then highest evidence which we can possibly have of any truth. We have the same proof of our free agency that we have of our own existence. And utterly vain is the attempt by metaphysical arguments to reason any sane man out of his conviction of it. Moreover, the whole tenor of the Word of God assumes it -- the precepts, warnings, and admonitions of Holy Scripture being all addressed to us on no other footing than that we are the free, voluntary and responsible originators of our own conduct, which we perfectly well know and feel ourselves to be.

With respect, again, to God's foreknowledge of human actions, we have the most profuse and decisive evidence that could be wished. For not to speak of those reasonable grounds on which sound theists have been led to the belief of it, or of those general statements of Holy Scripture in which it is broadly and articulately affirmed, we can point to a vast assemblage of prophecies relating to the conduct of moral and accountable agents, in which the divine prescience is actually exemplified. Notably we can point to the predictions relative to the conduct of our Lord's enemies when they crucified Him; for of them -- not the less that they are charged as responsible agents with the awful crime of having slain with wicked hands the Lord of glory -- it is expressly said that 'they did to Him whatsoever things the hand and counsel of God had before determined to be done.'

Here, then, we have two truths -- (1) that man is a free agent, and (2) that his actions were foreknown by the omniscient God -- each supported by evidence that is suited to the nature of it, and calculated to produce a full and unwavering belief. And mark this, moreover -- there is no conflict between the evidences of them, whatever there may seem to be between the truths which these evidences substantiate. The proofs of our free agency do not in any way invalidate or even touch the proofs of the divine prescience; and as little, on the other hand, do the proofs of the divine prescience; and as little, on the other hand, do the proofs of the divine prescience invalidate or even touch the proofs of our free agency. If we look, then at each of these truths by itself, and candidly weigh its evidence, we have no alternative but to believe it. And if we believe each on its own proper and sufficient grounds, then must we believe both, unable though we many be to perceive the connection or harmony with one another. Nay, more. If we believe both of these things to be true, there is one thing more that we must needs believe concerning them, and that is, that they are consistent or compatible, and that any appearance of their being otherwise must be fallacious. For it is unquestionable that anything that is true must necessarily be consistent with every other thing that is true. We, indeed , may not be able to see their consistency, but we may be very sure that God sees it. And we also should see it if we had the same perfect knowledge which He possesses of the whole assemblage of truths in all their relations and dependencies.

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It may be alleged, however, that the invitations of the Gospel, besides being expressive of the undisputed fact that whosoever complies with them shall obtain the offered blessings, are also indicative of a desire on the part of God that all sinners to whom they are held out should comply with them; and how, it may be asked, can such a desire be sincere, if it be the purpose of God to confer only on some sinners that grace by which their compliance will be secured?

Now, without pretending that we are able to give a satisfactory answer to this question, we are not prepared to admit, what the question evidently assumes, that God can have no sincere desire with reference to the conduct of all His creatures, if it be His purpose to secure on the part of some, and not on the part of all of them, the fulfilment of this desire. For how does the case stand in this respect with His commandments? These, no less than His invitations, are addressed to all. Both are alike to be considered as indications of what He desires and requires to be done by all. Nor are there wanting, with reference to His commandments, testimonies quite as significant as any which are to be found with reference to His invitations, of the earnestness and intensity of His desire that the course which they prescribe should be adopted by all who hear them. Take, for example, these tender expostulations: 'O that there were such a heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children for ever!' 'Oh that my people had hearkened unto me, and Israel had walked in my ways!' "O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments; then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea!'

But while the commandments of God are thus indicative of what God desires, approves of, and delights in as congenial to the goodness and holiness of His moral nature, they are certainly not declarative, at the same time, of what He has fixedly purposed or determined in His government of the universe to carry into effect. For if they were so, it is certain that they would be unfailingly and universally violated, without any interference on His part to secure their observance. Doubtless it is an inscrutable mystery that things should thus be done under the government of the Almighty which are in the highest degree displeasing and offensive to Him. It is just the old mystery of the existence of moral evil, which no one has ever been able to explain.

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Finally, however unable we may be to reconcile the calls and invitations addressed to all sinners with God's purpose of electing grace, we may be assured that to the eye of God they are reconcilable like many other things in His unsearchable works and ways which seem to our limited minds to be equally mysterious. For our part, we find ourselves necessitated to believe both the one and the other (although we cannot discern on what principle they are to be harmonized) on the clear Scriptural grounds that may severally be assigned for them. We do well to be exceedingly diffident in our judgments respecting matters so unsearchable as the secret purposes of God. Whatever the Scriptures may have expressly affirmed regarding the fact that God has such purposes, we are bound in a humble and teachable spirit to believe. But when we proceed to draw inferences from such affirmations, to the effect of weakening our confidence in other statements -- emanating from the same source and equally explicit -- with reference to things that are more level to our comprehension, we are certainly going beyond our proper province. And therefore, convinced though we be, on the authority of Scripture, that it is God's purpose to bring an elect people to a willing and hearty reception of the great salvation, we cannot, and never will, thence deduce any conclusions tending to obscure the brightness of that manifestation which God has made of His love to a sinful world in the mediatorial work and sufferings of His beloved Son, or to cast a shadow of doubt on the earnestness of His desire, as indicated in the calls and offers of the Gospel, that all sinners should come to the Saviour that they may have life.

T. J. Crawford (1812-1875) was Professor of Divinity in the University of Edinburgh. Material from his Baird Lecture for 1874, The Mysteries of Christianity, pp. 120-4, 351-2, 356-7.