J. H. Merle d'Aubigné (1794–1872) on Calvin and the Will of God

People suppose that he [Calvin] put forward gloomy doctrines, which shut man out from salvation instead of leading him to it, and that he concerned himself with predestination alone. This opinion is at once so widely diffused and so untrue that it is the indispensable duty of the historian in this place to establish the truth. Let us hear him on I Timothy, ii., 3, 4, 5. Calvin declares that it is the will of God that all men should be saved.

'The Gospel,' he says, 'is offered to all, and this is the means of drawing us to salvation. Nevertheless, are all benefited by it? Certainly not, as we see at a glance. When once God's truth has fallen upon our ears, if we are rebels to is, it is for our greater condemnation. God, therefore, must go further, in order to bring us to salvation, and must not only appoint and send men to teach us faithfully, but must himself be master in our hearts, must touch us to the quick and draw us to himself. Then, adapting himself to our weakness, he lisps to us in his Word, just as a nurse does to little children. If God spoke according to his majesty, his language would be too high and too difficult; we should be confounded, and all our senses would be blinded. For if our eyes cannot bear the brightness of the sun, is it possible, I ask you, for our minds to comprehend the divine majesty? We say what every one sees: It is God's will that we should all be saved, when he commands that his Gospel shall be preached. The gate of Paradise is opened for us; when we are thus invited, and when he exhorts us to repentance, he is ready to receive us as soon as we come to him.'

Calvin goes further and rebukes those who by their neglect set limits to the extent of God's dominion.

'It is not in Judea alone and in a corner of the country that the grace of God is shed abroad,' he says, 'but up and down through all the earth. It is God's will that this grace should be known to all the world. We ought, therefore, as far as lies in our power, to seek the salvation of those who are to-day strangers to the faith, and endeavor to bring them to the goodness of God. Why so? Because Jesus Christ is not the Saviour of three or four, but offers himself to all. At the time when he drew us to himself were we not enemies? Why are we now his children? It is because he has gathered us to himself. Now, is he not as truly the Saviour of all the world? Jesus Christ did not come to be mediator between two or three men, but between God and men; not to reconcile a small number of people to God, but to extend his grace to the whole world. Since Jesus invites us all to himself, since he is ready to give us loving access to his Father, is it not our duty to stretch out our hand to those who do not know what this union is in order that we may induce them to draw nigh? God, in the person of Jesus Christ, has his arms as it were stretched out to welcome to himself those who seemed to be separated from him. We must take care that it be not our fault that they do not return to the flock. Those who make no endeavor to bring back their neighbor into the way of salvation diminish the power of God's empire, as far as in them lies, and are willing to set limits to it, so that he may not be Lord over all the world. They obscure the virtue of the passion and death of Jesus Christ, and they lessen the dignity which was conferred on him by God his father; to wit, that to-day for his sake the gate of heaven is opened, and that God will be favorable to us when we come to seek him.'

But Calvin asks how are we to bring a soul to God, and how are we to come to him ourselves?

'We are but worms of the earth, and yet we must go out of the world and pass beyond the heavens. This, then, is impossible unless Jesus Christ appear, unless he stretch out his hand and promise to give us access to the throne of God, who in himself cannot but be to us awful and terrible, but now is gracious, to us in the person of our Lord. If when we come before God, we contemplate only his high and incomprehensible majesty, every one of us must shrink back and even wish that the mountains may cover and overwhelm us. But when our Lord Jesus comes forward and makes himself our mediator, then there is nothing to terrify us, we can come with our heads no longer cast down, we can call upon God as our Father, in such wise that we may come to him in secret and pour out all our griefs in order to be comforted. But such a glory must be given to Jesus Christ that angels and other dignities may be assigned to their own rank, and that Jesus Christ may appear above all and in all things have the pre-eminence. This dignity must always be preserved for him, in that he shed his blood for us and reconciled us with God, discharging out debts.

'In every age the world has deceived itself with trifles and trash as means of appeasing God, just as we might try to pacify the anger of a little child with toys. Christ must needs devote himself, at the cost of his passion and death, in order to reconcile us (nous appointer) with God his Father, so that our sins may no longer be reckoned against us. We cannot gain favor in the sight of God by ceremonies or parade; but Christ has given himself a ransom for us. We have the blood of Jesus Christ and the sacrifice which he offered for us of his own body and his own life. In this lies our confidence, and by this means we are forgiven.'*

This, then, is what Calvin says--'The gate of paradise is open to us; the Lord is willing to receive us.' What! some will say, does he give up the doctrine of the election of God, and of the necessity of the operation of the Holy Spirit for the regeneration of man? Certainly not. Calvin believed, in its full import, this saying of the Saviour--'You have not chosen me, I have chosen you.' ...

... Calvin said to Christians, in conformity with the Scriptures, that it is God who seeks them and saves them; and that this goodwill of God ought to make them rejoice, deliver them from fears in the midst of so many perils, and render them invincible in the midst of so many snares and deadly assaults. But he makes a distinction. There are the hidden things of God, which are a mystery, and of these he says--'Those who enter into the eternal council of God thrust themselves into a deadly abyss.' Then there are the things which are known, which are seen in man, and are plain. 'Let us contemplate the cause of the condemnation of man in his depraved nature, in which it is manifest, rather than search for it in the predestination of God, in which it is hidden and altogether incomprehensible.'†  He is even angry with those who want to know 'things which it is neither lawful nor possible to know (predestination). 'Ignorance,' says he, 'of these things is learning, but craving to know them is a kind of madness.'‡ It is a singular fact that what Calvin indignantly calls a madness should afterwards be named Calvinism. The reformer sets himself against this craving as a raging madness, and yet it is of this very madness that he is accused.

In Calvin there is the theologian, sometimes indeed the philosopher, although before all there is the Christian. He desires that every thing which may do men good should be offered to them. 'But with regard to this dispute about predestination,' he says, 'by the inquisitiveness of men it is made perplexing and even perilous. They enter into the sanctuary of divine wisdom, into which if any one thrusts himself with too much audacity, he will get into a labyrinth from which he will find no exit, and in which nothing is possible to him but to rush headlong to destruction.'* We are not sure that Calvin did not allow himself to be drawn a step too far into the labyrinth. But we have seen the deep conviction with which he declares that the gate of heaven is opened, that the will of God is that his grace should be known to all the world. This is enough."
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* Sermons de J. Calvin sur les Epítres de saint Paul à Timothé et à Tite, 1561, p. 67, &c.
† Institution Chrétienne, book III. ch. xxiii. § 8.
‡ Ibid.
* Institution Chrétienne, ch. 21, § 1, 2.

J. H. Merle d'Aubigné, History of the Reformation in Europe in the Time of Calvin, trans. by William L. B Cates, 8 vols. (New York: Robert Carter & Brothers, 1877), 7:90–94.

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