The Reign of Grace

"Man's entire apostasy and death in sin, so that he cannot save himself, and God's entire supremacy, so that He saves whom He will, are doctrines exceedingly distasteful to human-pride. But they are Scriptural....

None have deserved salvation. No man is more fit for it than another. God was not bound to save any. God might have saved all. Yet He has only saved some. Is He, then, unjust in only saving some when He could have saved all? Objectors say, Oh, those who are lost, are lost because they rejected Christ. But unbelief of some give way? Was it because they willed it, or because God put forth His power in them? Surely the latter. Might He not, then, have put forth His power in all, and prevented any from rejecting the Saviour? Yet He did not. Why? Because so it seemed good in His sight.

Is it unjust of God to save only a few when all are equally doomed to die? If not, is there any injustice in His determining aforehand to save these few, and leave the rest unsaved? They could not save themselves, and was it unjust in Him to resolve, in His infinite wisdom to save them? Or, was it unjust in Him not to resolve to save all? Had all perished there would have been no injustice with Him. How is it possible that there can be injustice in His resolving to save some?

There can be no grace when there is no sovereignty. Deny God's right to choose whom He will and you deny His right to save whom He will. Deny His right to save whom He will, and you deny that salvation is of grace. If salvation is made to hinge upon any desert or fitness in man, seen or foreseen, grace is at an end....

Men may call these speculations. They may condemn them as unprofitable. To the law and to the testimony! Of such speculations, the Bible is full. There man is a helpless worm, and salvation from first to last, is of the Lord. God's will, and not man's, is the law of the universe. If we are to maintain the gospel—if we are to hold fast grace—if we are to preserve Jehovah's honour—we must grasp these truths with no feeble hand. For if there be not such a Being as a Supreme, pre—determining Jehovah, then the universe will soon be chaos: and if there be no such thing as a free electing love, every minister of Christ may close his lips, and every sinner upon earth sit down in mute despair." —Abraham Booth (1734-1806)

Excerpt taken from the preface to The Reign of Grace, by Abraham Booth (Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson, 1844 edition).