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The Great Controversy 1888
for ministers to exhort the people to obedience of its precepts, since
those whom God had elected to salvation would, “by the irresistible
impulse of divine grace, be led to the practice of piety and virtue,”
while those who were doomed to eternal reprobation “did not have it
in their power to obey the divine law.”
Others, also holding that “the elect cannot fall from grace or forfeit
the divine favor,” arrived at the still more hideous conclusion that “the
wicked actions they commit are not really sinful, nor to be considered
as instances of the violation of the divine law, and that consequently
they have no occasion either to confess their sins or to break them off
by repentance.” Therefore, they declared that even one of the vilest
of sins, “considered universally an enormous violation of the divine
law, is not a sin in the sight of God,” if committed by one of the
elect,“because it is one of the essential and distinctive characteristics
of the elect, that they cannot do anything which is either displeasing
to God or prohibited by the law.”
This monstrous doctrine is essentially the same as the Romish
claim that “the pope can dispense above the law, and of wrong make
right, by correcting and changing laws;” that “he can pronounce sen-
tences and judgments in contradiction ... to the law of God and man.”
Both reveal the inspiration of the same master-spirit,—of him who,
even among the sinless inhabitants of Heaven, began his work of
seeking to break down the righteous restraints of the law of God.
The doctrine of the divine decrees, unalterably fixing the character
of men, had led many to a virtual rejection of the law of God. Wesley
steadfastly opposed the errors of the Antinomian teachers, and showed
that this doctrine which led to Antinomianism was contrary to the
Scriptures. “The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to
[262]
all men.” “This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour,
who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of
the truth. For there is one God, and one mediator between God and
men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all.” [
Titus
2:11
;
1 Timothy 2:3-6
.] The Spirit of God is freely bestowed, to enable
every man to lay hold upon the means of salvation. Thus Christ, “the
true light,” “lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” [
John 1:9
.]
Men fail of salvation only through their own willful refusal of the gift
of life.