Steps of Atheism

"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 on any desert or fitness in man, seen or foreseen, grace is at an end.

One of the controversies of the present day is respecting the will of God as to whether His will or man's is the regulating power in the universe, and the procuring cause of salvation to souls. The supremacy of God's will over individual persons and events is questioned. Things are made to turn on man's will, not on God's. Conversion is made to turn on man's will, not on God's. Man's will, not God's, is to decide what individuals are to enter heaven. Man's pen, and not God's, is to write the names of the saved ones in the Lamb's Book of Life! Much zeal is shown for the freedom of man's will, little jealousy seems to be left for the freedom of God's will. Men insist that it is unjust and tyrannical in God to control their wills, yet see nothing unjust, nothing proud, nothing Satanic in attempting to fetter and direct the will of God. Man, it seems, cannot have his own foolish will gratified, unless the all-wise God will consent to relinquish His!

Such are some of the steps in the march of Atheism. Such are the preparations making in these last days by the wily usurper for dethroning the Eternal Jehovah.

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 no such a Being as a Supreme predetermining Jehovah, then the universe will soon be chaos; and if there be no such thing as free electing love. Every minister of Christ may close his lips, and every sinner upon earth sit down in mute despair." —Horatius Bonar (1808-1889)

Excerpt taken from "Grace Reigning In Election" by Horatius Bonar