no such thing

While I was away I got a quick read of a book containing sermons by David Dickson, the minister who was involved in one of the revivals in the 17th century which I mentioned a while back.

It included a sermon which he delivered as part of his congregation's preparation for a communion, on the verse that goes along the lines, 'the foundation of the Lord stands sure, having this seal, The Lord knows them that are his, and, Let every one that names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity.' He spoke a lot about adhering to Christ and "departing from iniquity" as two pieces of evidence that a person has been converted, which in turn is the proof that they were elect (the Lord knows them that are his).

But he also brought in another very interesting theme - having addressed the question of what constitutes a "mark of grace," or evidence of being converted (hence evidence of being among the elect), he added that people shouldn't find fault with the fact that there is such a thing as election.

What the Lord doth in the matter of election and reprobation, he doth it justly; for he says to man, Leave thy sins, and come to me, and thou shalt get heaven. Man answers, I will not leave sin. Then says the Lord, Thou shalt go to hell.
Is not this justice? From these words, no particular person can gather a mark of reprobation; but contrarily, there is here a mark of election. Why then should any quarrel with God, while he shows a possibility of election, and no mark of reprobation?

In other words, you can test to see whether you are elect by testing whether you're converted or not, and one of the tests of whether a person is converted is whether or not they're 'departing from iniquity.' But as he said, there's no such thing as a mark of reprobation. There's no way that anyone has the right to conclude that they're destined not to be saved. "It is not a mark of reprobation to be in an estate of sin," he said, "for one may come out of that estate."

It struck me as being a very encouraging thing to say - both from the point of view of an unconverted person wondering about the possibility of salvation, and from the point of view of Christians worried about unconverted people around them. Nobody has the right to conclude, "I am not one of the elect." And nobody has the right to conclude, "That person is not one of the elect." That's presumably why your lifetime is called "the ground of mercy" - as long as a person's alive on this earth, there's a reason to hope that they could still be saved.

If adherence to Jesus and departing from inquity do evidence election both to the world and a man's own soul, then the soul that [lacks] these two, can have no comfort: they who have not fled to Christ, and have not put the back of their hand to sin, [lack] the comfort of election. I dare not say, they are not elected, for God can change a filthy sinner into a washen saint. But I dare to say, while a soul is separate from Christ, and adheres to sin, that soul can have no comfort in election, nor yet say that it is elected. If thou then would be out of the black band and rank of reprobates, haste in to Christ, and from sin, as thou would be free of hell and damnation.

NB, it was definitely David Dickson who made this point (not John Colquhoun, as I said to a couple of people a few days ago. Mr Colquhoun was another bit of holiday reading, but he happened to live in a different century and it wasn't a collection of sermons either). The book was Select Practical Writings of David Dickson (Vol 1), issued by the Committee of the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland for the Publication of the Works of Scottish Reformers and Divines. Edinburgh (1845); these quotes came from p103-104.