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Church Dogmatics Vol 2 2 Sections 32 33 The Doctrine of
God Study Edition 10 Karl Barth Digital Instant
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Author(s): Karl Barth
ISBN(s): 9780567181558, 0567181553
Edition: 1
File Details: PDF, 45.25 MB
Year: 2009
Language: english
KARL BARTH
CHURCH DOGMATICS

VOLUME II

THE DOCTRINE
OF GOD

THE ELECTION OF GOD I

EDITED BY
G. W. BROMILEY
T. F. TORRANCE

."
t&t clark
Translated by G. W. Bromiley,]. C. Campbell, lain Wilson,]. Strathearn McNab, T. H. L. Parker,
W. B.Johnston, Harold Knight,]. L. M. Haire, R. A. Stewart

Published by T&T Clark

A Continuum Imprint
The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE 1 7NX
80 Maiden Lane, Suite 704, New York, NY 10038

www.continuumbooks.com

Copyright @ T&T Clark, 2009

Authorised translation of Karl Barth, Die Kirchliche Dogmatik II

Copyright @ Theologischer Verlag Zurich, 1940-1942
All revisions to the original English translation and all translations of Greek, Latin and French
@ Princeton Theological Seminary, 2009

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or
by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Typeset by Interactive Sciences Ltd, Gloucester

Printed on acid-free paper in Great Britain by MPG Books Group

ISBN 10: 0567181553

ISBN 13: 9780567181558
 CONTENTS

S 32. THE PROBLEM OF A CORRECT DOCTRINE OF THE ELECTION OF GRACE

I. The Orientation of the Doctrine .
2. The Foundation of the Doctrine 34
3. The Place of the Doctrine in Dogmatics 81

S 33. THE ELECTION OF JESUS CHRIST

1. jesus Christ, Electing and Elected
2. The Eternal Will of God in the Election of jesus Christ

v
 [003]

THE PROBLEM OF A CORRECT DOCTRINE OF THE ELECTION OF

GRACE

The doctrine of election is the sum of the Gospel because of all words that
can be said or heard it is the best: that God elects man; that God is for man too
the One who loves in freedom. It is grounded in the knowledge of Jesus Christ
because He is both the electing God and elected man in One. It is part of the
doctrine of God because originally God's election of man is a predestination
not merely of man but of Himself. Its function is to bear basic testimony to
eternal, free and unchanging grace as the beginning of all the ways and works
of God.

1. THE ORIENTATION OF THE DOCTRINE

The time has now come to leave the doctrine of the knowledge of God and
the reality of God. We have tried to learn the lofty but simple lesson that it is by
God that God is known, and that He is the living God as the One who loves in
freedom; living both in the unity and also in the wealth of His perfections. Our
starting-point in that first part of the doctrine of God was neither an axiom of
reason nor a datum of experience. In the measure that a doctrine of God
draws on these sources, it betrays the fact that its subject is not really God but a
hypostatised reflection of man. At more than one stage in our consideration of
the earlier history of the doctrine we have had to guard steadfastly against the
temptation of this type of doctrine. We took as our starting-point what God
Himself said and still says concerning God, and concerning the knowledge
and reality of God, by way of the self-testimony which is accessible and compre-
hensible because it has been given human form in Holy Scripture, the docu-
ment which is the very essence and basis of the Church. As strictly as possible
we have confined ourselves to the appropriation and repetition of that self-
testimony as such. As strictly as possible we have let our questions be dictated
by the answers which are already present in the revelation of God attested in
Holy Scripture. In so doing we have listened gratefully to the voices of the [004]
Church as well, both old and new. But we have continually measured those
voices by the only voice which can reign in the Church. Whether we could
follow them or not, we allowed ourselves to use them only in order that we
might learn the better to hear and understand that voice which reigns in the
Church as the source and norm of all truth. It was in that way that we came to
 ~ 32. The Problem of a Correct Doctrine of the Election of Grace

perceive the lofty but simple truth concerning the knowledge and reality of
God. It was in that way that we rendered our account of what is pure and
correct doctrine in this matter.
But the voice which reigns, the voice by which we were taught by God Him-
self concerning God, was the voice of jesus Christ. Along all the path now
behind us we could not take a single step without stumbling again and again
across that name. And "across that name" does not mean across an empty title.
It does not mean across a form or figure in which God could declare Himself
to us or exist for us and yet be quite different in and by Himself. It does not
mean across a name which is only a means or medium, and which God could
ultimately discard, because ultimately it is not the real name of God, but only
of a divine arrangement which in the last analysis is quite different from God
Himself. The truth is that we continuously stumbled across that name in mat-
ter and substance. We stumbled across it necessarily. For as we proceeded
along that path, we found that that name was the very subject, the very matter,
with which we had to deal. In avoiding the different sources of error, we saw
that they had one feature in common: the negligence or arbitrariness with
which even in the Church the attempt was made to go past or to go beyond
jesus Christ in the consideration and conception and definition of God, and in
speech about God. But when theology allows itself on any pretext to be jostled
awayfrom that name, God is inevitably crowded out by a hypostatised image of
man. Theology must begin with jesus Christ, and not with general principles,
however better, or, at any rate, more relevant and illuminating, they may
appear to be: as though He were a continuation of the knowledge and Word of
God, and not its root and origin, not indeed the very Word of God itself. The-
ologymust also end with Him, and not with supposedly self-evident general
conclusions from what is particularly enclosed and disclosed in Him: as
though the fruits could be shaken from this tree; as though in the things of
God there were anything general which we could know and designate in add-
ition to and even independently of this particular. The obscurities and ambi-
guities of our way were illuminated in the measure that we held fast to that
name and in the measure that we let Him be the first and the last, according to
the testimony of Holy Scripture. Against all the imaginations and errors in
which we seem to be so hopelessly en tangled when we try to speak of God, God
[005] will indeed maintain Himself if we will only allow the name of jesus Christ to
be maintained in our thinking as the beginning and the end of all our
thoughts. We recall how in our consideration of the divine perfections every-
thing became clear and orderly when He,jesus Christ, emerged as the perfect
One, the fulness of the love and freedom of God Himself, the love and free-
dom of God in which all the divine perfections are neither more nor less than
God Himself. So long as we remained true to the witness of Holy Scripture
there was no alternative but to follow this line and to hold fast by it. For wit-
nessing to God, the Old and New Testament Scriptures also witness to this
name, and to the fulness of God which it encloses and represents, which can-

2
 1. The Orientation of the Doctrine

not be separated from it, which cannot precede or follow it, but in it begins
and continues and ends.
This is the decisive result of all our previous discussion. This is the sum and
substance of the whole doctrine of the knowledge and reality of God. But that
means that the Christian doctrine of God cannot end with the matter which we
have treated so far. In a Christian doctrine of God our concern is to define and
expound the Subject of all that the Christian Church receives and proclaims. If
it is true, then, that this Subject is disclosed only in the name of Jesus Christ,
that it is wholly and entirely enclosed in Him, then we cannot stop at this point,
defining and expounding the Subject only in and for itself. We tried to do that
on the earlier part of our way. But we should be overlooking and suppressing
something essential, and a serious gap would be left in our reflection on the
Word of God as the norm of Christian proclamation, if we now tried to pro-
ceed without treating of what the Church must receive and proclaim as the
work of this Subject, the activity of God as Creator, Reconciler and Redeemer.
We should still not have learned to say "God" correctly (i.e., as understood in
the Christian Church on the basis of Holy Scripture) if we thought it enough
simply to say "God." However well-grounded or critical our utterance, ifit has a
logical exclusiveness, ifit is only "God," it will not suffice. For ifit is true that in
Jesus Christ there dwells the fulness of the Godhead bodily (Col. 29), then in
all the perfection with which it is differentiated from everything that is not
God, and thus exists for itself, the Subject God still cannot, as it were, be envis-
aged, established and described only in and for itself. We must not be so exact,
so clever, so literal, that our doctrine of God remains only a doctrine of God.
We must demonstrate its Christian character by avoiding such abstraction. In
virtue of the truth of its specific content it must burst through the frame which
apparently-but only apparently-surrounds it. Otherwise the highest reality
can, and inevitably will, be reduced to the flattest unreality. All that we have
previously said concerning this Subject will be enveloped again in darkness.
From the very outset a new obscurity will, in fact, extend over all that we have
still to say concerning the work of this Subject. To be truly Christian, the doc-
trine of God must carry forward and complete the definition and exposition [006]
of the Subject God. It must do this in such a way that quite apart from what
must be said about the knowledge and the reality of God as such, it makes the
Subject known as One which in virtue of its innermost being, willing and
nature does not stand outside all relationships, but stands in a definite rela-
tionship ad extra to another. It is not as though the object of this relationship,
the other, constitutes a part of the reality of God outside of God. It is not as
though it is in any other way comparable with God. It is not as though God is
forced into this relationship. It is not as though He is in any way constrained or
compelled by this other. As we have often enough seen and asserted, there can
be no question of any such compulsion coming upon God from without. God
is love. But He is also perfect freedom. Even if there were no such relationship,

3
 S 32. The Problem of a Correct Doctrine of the Election of Grace

even if there were no other outside of Him, He would still be love. But posi-
tively,in the free decision of His love, God is God in the very fact, and in such a
way, that He does stand in this relation, in a definite relationship with the
other. We cannot go back on this decision if we would know God and speak
accurately of God. If we did, we should be betrayed into a false abstraction
which sought to speak only of God, not recognising that, when we speak of
God, then in consideration of His freedom, and of His free decision, we must
speak also of this relationship. This relationship belongs to the Subject God,
and to the doctrine of God in the narrower sense, to the extent that it rests
upon a definite attitude of God which, when we speak of God, we must always
and in all respects take into consideration. And that we have never so far failed
to do. For how could we have said anything about the knowledge and reality of
God had we not considered this positive attitude, learning from it how God
gives Himself to be known, and what He is both in Himself and in all His
works? But this fact, that God is God only in this way and not in any other, must
now be made explicit. We move on to solid ground when we seek to learn from
this positive attitude that which can be learned concerning the knowledge and
reality of God, considering Him and conceiving of Him in the constant light of
His revelation and all His works. For the divine attitude is not a matter of
chance. It is not revocable or transitory. God lays upon us the obligation of this
attitude because first of all He lays it upon Himself. In dealing with this atti-
tude, we have to do with His free but definitive decision. We cannot abstract
from it without falling into arbitrary speculation. But we cannot ignore it.
Once made, it belongs definitively to God Himself, not in His being in and for
Himself, but in His being within this relationship. It belongs to the reality of
God which is a reality not apart from but in this decision. It is so adjoined to
this reality that we must not allow any objectivity of logic to prevent us from
introducing the adjunct as an element in our knowledge of God. We cannot
[007J speak correctly of God in His being in and for Himself without considering
Him always in this attitude, without allowing both our questions and answers
to be dictated by it. We cannot speak accurately or confidently of the work of
God unless first we see clearly that the attitude which God has taken up, and by
which His work is determined, belongs to God Himself, and cannot in any way
be isolated from Him. For that reason, the question of this attitude must be
raised specifically and independently within the framework of the doctrine of
God. In a Christian doctrine of God, if God is to be exhaustively described and
represented as the Subject who governs and determines everything else, there
must be an advance beyond the immediate logical sense of the concept to the
actual relationship in which God has placed Himself; a relationship outside of
which God no longer wills to be and no longer is God, and within which alone
He can be truly honoured and worshipped as God. If it is true that it pleased
the fulness of God to dwell inJesus Christ (Col. 119), then in a Christian doc-
trine of God this further step is unavoidable. And it is immediately apparent in
which direction the step must be taken.

4
 1. The Orientation of the Doctrine

Jesus Christ is indeed God in His movement towards man, or, more exactly,
in His movement towards the people represented in the one man Jesus of
Nazareth, in His covenant with this people, in His being and activity amongst
and towards this people. Jesus Christ is the decision of God in favour of this
attitude or relation. He is Himself the relation. It is a relation ad extra,
undoubtedly; for both the man and the people represented in Him are crea-
tures and not God. But it is a relation which is irrevocable, so that once God
has willed to enter into it, and has in fact entered into it, He could not be God
without it. It is a relation in which God is self-determined, so that the deter-
mination belongs no less to Him than all that He is in and for Himself. With-
out the Son sitting at the right hand of the Father, God would not be God. But
the Son is not only very God. He is also called Jesus of Nazareth. He is also very
man, and as such He is the Representative of the people which in Him and
through Him is united as He is with God, being with Him the object of the
divine movement. That we know God and have God only inJesus Christ means
that we can know Him and have Him only with the manJesus of Nazareth and
with the people which He represents. Apart from this man and apart from this
people God would be a different, an alien God. According to the Christian
perception He would not be God at all. According to the Christian perception
the true God is what He is only in this movement, in the movement towards
this man, and in Him and through Him towards other men in their unity as
His people.
That other to which God stands in relationship, in an actuality which can
neither be suspended nor dissolved, is not simply and directly the created
world as such. There is, too, a relationship of God to the world. There is a work
of God towards it and with it. There is a history between God and the world. [008]
But this history has no independent signification. It takes place in the interests
of the primal history which is played out between God and this one man and
His people. It is the sphere in which this primal history is played out. It attains
its goal as this primal history attains its goal. And the same is true both of man
as such and also of the human race as a whole. The partner of God which
cannot now be thought away is neither "man" as an idea, nor "humanity," nor
indeed a large or small total of individual men. It is the one manJesus and the
people represented in Him. Only secondarily, and for His sake, is it "man," and
"humanity" and the whole remaining cosmos. Even human nature and human
history in general have no independent signification. They point to the primal
history played out within them between God and the one man, and all other
men as His people. The general (the world or man) exists for the sake of the
particular. In the particular the general has its meaning and fulfilment. The
particular is that other over against God which cannot be thought away,which
is outside of God, which is the object of the divine movement, which is so
adjoined now to the reality of God that we cannot and should not say the word
"God" without at once thinking of it. We must think at once, then, of Jesus of
Nazareth and of His people. The attitude or relation for which God has once

5
 ~ 32. The Problem of a Correct Doctrine of the Election of Grace

and for all decided, to which He has committed us and wills to be committed
by us, is the relation or attitude to Jesus Christ. In the person of His eternal
Son He has united Himself with the man Jesus of Nazareth, and in Him and
through Him with this people. He is the Father of Jesus Christ. He is not only
the Father of the eternal Son, but as such He is the eternal Father of this
temporal man. He is, then, the eternal Father, the Possessor, the Lord an,d the
Saviour of the people which this man represents as King and Head. In this
determination, as carried through by His own decision, God is, therefore, the
Subject of everything that is to be received and proclaimed in the Christian
Church. All His work takes place according to this plan and under this sign. As
such it has, of course, a wider reach. The other towards which God moves in
this wider sphere is, of course, the created world as a whole. It is, of course,
"man" and "humanity." But everything which comes from God takes place
according to this plan and under this sign. Everything is from this beginning
and to this end. Everything is in this order and has this meaning. Everything
happens according to this basic and determinative pattern, model and system.
Everything which comes from God takes place "in Jesus Christ," i.e., in the
establishment of the covenant which, in the union of His Son with Jesus of
Nazareth, God has instituted and maintains and directs between Himself and
His people, the people consisting of those who belong to Him, who have
become His in this One. The primal history which underlies and is the goal of
[009J the whole history of His relationship ad extra, with the creation and man in
general, is the history of this covenant. The primal history, and with it the
covenant, are, then, the attitude and relation in which by virtue of the decision
of His free love God wills to be and is God. And this relation cannot be separ-
ated from the Christian conception of God as such. The two must go together
if this conception is to be truly Christian. For that reason, this relation must
form the subject of a second part of our doctrine of God.
But as we approach this particular subject, two aspects of the one truth must
be considered and two spheres of investigation are disclosed.
It is at once apparent that in the decision by which He institutes, maintains'
and directs this covenant, in His decision "in Jesus Christ," God on His side
does accomplish something quite definite. He executes this decision in His
movement towards man, towards the man Jesus Christ and the people which
He represents. And this movement is an act of divine sovereignty. To character-
ise it as such we must select from the fulness of His essential attributes. We
must say: This act demonstrates His mercy and righteousness, His constancy
and omnipotence. It is as the Lord who lives in the fulness of these perfections
that God acts when He institutes and directs this covenant. He constitutes
Himself the Lord of the covenant. He is, therefore, its free author. He gives it
its content and determines its order. He maintains it. He directs it to its goal.
He governs it in every respect. It is His decision that there is a covenant-
partner. It is also His decision who this partner is, and what must befall him. It
is only as He wills it that the covenant arises at all. The covenant-member is the

6
 1. The Orientation of the Doctrine

one whom He ordains. It is what He wills that takes place within the covenant.
All that we have to say concerning this aspect of the divine movement may be
summed up in the concept which is the title of this chapter: that of the election
in the sense of the election of divine grace, the choice whic~ God makes in His
grace, thus making this movement, and instituting, maintaining and directing
this covenant. In accordance with the theological tradition of the Reformed
Churches (and especially the German-speaking), what we have in mind is the
election of grace (in translation of EKAOY~ XaPLTOS, Rom. 115); and it may be
noted how the term reflects the being of God as we have hitherto sought to
understand and explain it. It is a question of grace, and that means the love of
God. It is a question of election, and that means the freedom of God.
Here, again, we must deal first with grace. The fact that God makes this
movement, the institution of the covenant, the primal decision "in Jesus
Christ," which is the basis and goal of all His works-that is grace. Speaking
generally, it is the demonstration, the overflowing of the love which is the
being of God, that He who is entirely self-sufficient, who even within Himself
cannot know isolation, willed even in all His divine glory to share His life with
another, and to have that other as the witness of His glory. This love of God is [010]
His grace. It is love in the form of the deepest condescension. It occurs even
where there is no question of claim or merit on the part of the other. It is love
which is overflowing, free, unconstrained, unconditioned. And we must add at
once: It is love which is merciful, making this movement, this act of condescen-
sion, in such a way that, in taking to itself this other, it identifies itself with its
need, and meets its plight by making it its own concern. And we must add at
once: It is love which is patient, not consuming this other, but giving it place,
willing its existence for its own sake and for the sake of the goal appointed for
it. For the moment, however, it is important to stop at the first concept, the
concept of grace. God's decision inJesus Christ is a gracious decision. In mak-
ing it, God stoops down from above. In it He does something which He has no
need to do, which He is not constrained to do. He does something which He
alone can constrain Himself, and has in fact constrained Himself, to do. In
entering into this covenant, He freely makes Himself both benefactor and
benefit. It will be seen that the whole sovereignty of this act is contained
already in the concept of grace. Because grace is here the Alpha and Omega, it
cannot be otherwise than that, in the total manner already indicated, God
should be the Lord "in Jesus Christ." But with this concept the other aspect
forces itself to the forefront, and must there remain-that "inJesus Christ" we
have to do with a divine benefit or favour. It is a matter of God's love. If in His
majesty He establishes fellowship with the other which does not partake of His
majesty, but in its otherness stands in the very depths over against Him, that
means favour. In showing His grace, God proves Himself both Saviour and
Helper. He does so freely as the Lord. But this exercise of lordship is kind as
well as good, communicating and sharing its goods. The doctrine of the divine

7
 ~ 32. The Problem of a Correct Doctrine of the Election of Grace

election of grace is the sum of the Gospel. It is the content of the good news
which isJesus Christ.
The other part of the concept cannot and should not alter this fact in the
least. Election should serve at once to emphasise and explain what we have
already said in the word grace. God in His love elects another to fellowship
with Himself. First and foremost this means that God makes a self-election in
favour of this other. He ordains that He should not be entirely self-sufficient as
He might be. He determines for Himself that overflowing, that movement,
that condescension. He constitutes Himself as benefit or favour. And in so
doing He elects another as the object of His love. He draws it upwards to Him-
self, so as never again to be without it, but to be who He is in covenant with it.
~n this concept of election there is reflected more clearly, of course, the other
element in the being of God: the freedom in which He is the One who eter-
nally loves. The concept election means that grace is truly grace. It means that
[OllJ God owes His grace to no one, and that no one can deserve it. It means that
grace cannot be the subject of a claim or a right on the part of the one upon
whom it is directed. It means that it is the determination and decision of the
will of God. Again, God elects that He shall be the covenant-God. He does so in
order not to be alone in His divine glory, but to let heaven and earth, and
between them man, be the witnesses of His glory. He elects the way in which
His love shall be shown and the witness to His glory established. He elects
creation, man, the human race, as the sphere in which He wills to be gracious.
But the existence of creation and of the human race does not constrain Him in
the future exercise of grace. He elects even within this sphere. He elects the
man of Nazareth, that He should be essentially one with Himself in His Son.
Through Him and in Him He elects His people, thus electing the whole basis
and meaning of all His works. He elects, i.e., He is free, and He remains free,
both in what He does and in what He permits. He does what He does, but
without any claim arising that He must do it, or that He must do it in this or
that way. Over against Him no claim can ever arise. Nothing can precede His
grace, whether in eternity or time, whether from the beginning or in the pro-
cess of development. In all its manifestations, in all its activity, His grace is free
grace. It is the Lord who is the Saviour and Helper. His taking to Himself of
that other is an act of unconditioned sovereignty. This is what the word "elec-
tion " tells us as the second component of the concept "election of grace." It
cannot possibly mean any restriction of the evangelical character of the con-
cept. It reminds us emphatically, however, that the good news summarised in
this concept is good news only because it proclaims to us the salvation which is
the will of the real Lord both of our life and of all life. The truth to which the
whole concept points is the specific subject to which we must address ourselves
in this seventh chapter.
The doctrine of God's covenant-relation with the people represented in the
man Jesus is the fulfilment of the doctrine of God in the narrower sense of the
term. But it is not exhausted by the doctrine of the election of grace. God acts

8
 1. The Orientation of the Doctrine

in His free grace, but He also wills and expects and demands something from
His covenant-partner. To the majesty of that activity which no claim can condi-
tion, there corresponds the unconditional nature of the very definite claim
which He Himself must advance. Encountering man in His free love, God
becomes the companion of man. That is what He determined to do "in Jesus
Christ." That is the foundation-plan and sign of all His works. But in virtue of
His absolute ascendancy, in virtue of the fact that in this relationship He must
have both the first and the last word concerning His partner, He is of necessity
theJudge. We use the expression here in its most comprehensive sense. God is
for His covenant-partner both the One by whom he will be judged and also the [012]
One according to whom he must judge himself. God is for him the criterion,
the standard, the question of the good or the evil, the rightness or the wrong-
ness, of his being and activity. God ordained and created him as partner in this
covenant; God elected and called him to that position; and in that position He
makes him responsible. How could God draw him to Himself, as He does,
without making him responsible? God constitutes this "being responsible" the
whole meaning of his existence. He shows him His own way as the only one
which he can tread. He calls him to order and keeps him in order, revealing, to
him His own order and seeing that he keeps to it. Even this He does in genuine
fulfilment of His love and grace. Here too, then, we have to do with the Gos-
pel. But we have to do with the Gospel in so far as it has always the form of the
Law. The practical significance of the freedom of grace, of the sovereignty in
which God elects, is this: that in his very election the one elected finds a Master
and Lord. Grace does not will only to be received and known. As it is truly
received and known, as it works itself out as the favour which it is, it wills also to
rule. But it rules by offering God to His covenant-partner as Lord of the coven-
ant. That is the second basic point which we must make concerning the life of
God "in Jesus Christ," in and with His people. We must be constantly aware of
this point as we consider all the divine work grounded upon the grace of God
and the divine election of grace. There is no grace without the lordship and
claim of grace. There is no dogmatics which is not also and necessarily ethics.
The basic points in the inter-relationship between divine grace and the divine
claim will occupy us in the next chapter (which will also serve as a foundation
for "theological ethics") under the title "The Command of God." The theme
which first confronts us (and it is most intimately connected with the second)
is the divine election of grace.
As we take up this theme, we enter the field of theology which is known in
the history of dogma as the doctrine of predestination. Before we do anything
more, it is essential that we should make emphatically the first affirmation
inscribed in the synopsis at the head of this section. The truth which must now
occupy us, the truth of the doctrine of predestination, is first and last and in all
circumstances the sum of the Gospel, no matter how it may be understood in
detail, no matter what apparently contradictory aspects or moments it may
present to us. It is itself evangel: glad tidings; news which uplifts and comforts

9
 S 32. The Problem of a Correct Doctrine of the Election of Grace

and sustains. Once and for all, then, it is not a truth which is neutral in face of
the antithesis of fear and terror, of need and danger, which the term itself
suggests. It is not a mere theorem whose content does not amount to anything
more than instruction in, or the elucidation of, something which is quite
unaffected by the distinction between right and wrong or good and evil. Its
content is instruction and elucidation, but instruction and elucidation which
[013] are to us a proclamation of joy. It is not a mixed message of joy and terror,
salvation and damnation. Originally and finally it is not dialectical but non-
dialectical. It does not proclaim in the same breath both good and evil, both
help and destruction, both life and death. It does, of course, throw a shadow.
We cannot overlook or ignore this aspect of the matter. In itself, however, it is
light and not darkness. We cannot, therefore, speak of the latter aspect in the
same breath. In any case, even under this aspect, the final word is never that of
warning, of judgment, of punishment, ofa barrier erected, ofa grave opened.
We cannot speak of it without mentioning all these things. The Yes cannot be
heard unless the No is also heard. But the No is said for the sake of the Yesand
not for its own sake. In substance, therefore, the first and last word is Yes and
not No.
We must establish this at the outset because, as the "doctrine of predestination," the doc-
trine of the divine election of grace has fallen under something of a shadow during the
course of its history. The shadow has become so pronounced that when one mentions the
terms "election of grace" or "predestination" one must expect to awaken in one's hearers or
readers associations which necessarily confuse and thus make impossible the necessary rec-
ognition of the great truth with which we have to do at this point. The association may be
resentment against the "pathetic inhumanity" of the doctrine (as in Max Weber, Ges. Aufs. z.
Rel. Soz. I, 1922, 93), or perhaps against the danger of dialectical ambiguity, or worse than
both these, against what we mentioned earlier: the idea that in this matter we are dealing
only with an abstract and neutral theorem. Ifwe glance at the history of the doctrine, even as
presented by its greatest and profoundest exponents, we cannot simply dismiss these associ-
ations as completely without foundation. Everywhere this shadow is in the ascendancy. A
good deal has, in fact, been said in such a wayas to give rise to confusion, to savage hostility,
to well-meant but fatal misrepresentations of what ought to be received, ind<:;edto a whole
mass of misunderstanding and indifference with regard to the doctrine. "I may go to hell,
but such a God (as that of the Calvinistic teaching) will never command my respect"-that
was the cry ofJohn Milton (according to M. Weber, op. cit., p. 91) , and openly or secretly how
many others have made some similar utterance. For that reason it cannot be our present task
simply to take one of the classical forms of the traditional doctrine and to present it as
integrally as possible-as, in the case of the Calvinistic form, Loraine Boettner has recently
attempted to do in his book, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination, 1932. The task which
confronts us is rather a critical one, even in face of the very best tradition. The task is
imposed by the nature of the matter, as was the case, although rather differently, in the first
part of our doctrine of God. If the doctrine is to shed forth its light, then the shadow must be
dispersed. The dispersing of this shadow will be our definite objective in the polemical dis-
cussions throughout this whole chapter. We cannot be too soon, or too radical, in the oppos-
ition which we must offer to the classical tradition, or rather in the attempt to do justice to
the particular and justifiable and necessary intention which underlies that tradition. And we
introduce the first and most radical point with our thesis that the doctrine of election must

10
 1. The Orientation of the Doctrine

be understood quite definitely and unequivocally as Gospel; that it is not something neutral
on the yonder side of Yesand No; that it is not No but Yes;that it is not Yesand No, but in its
substance, in the origin and scope of its utterance, it is altogether Yes.

The election of grace is the sum of the Gospel-we must put it as pointedly
as that. But more, the election of grace is the whole of the Gospel, the Gospel [014]
in nuceEN1• It is the very essence of all good news. It is as such that it must be
understood and evaluated in the Christian Church. God is God in His being as
the One who loves in freedom. This is revealed as a benefit conferred upon us
in the fact which corresponds to the truth of God's being, the fact that God
elects in His grace, that He moves towards man, in his dealings within this
covenant with the one manJesus, and the people represented by Him. All the
joy and the benefit of His whole work as Creator, Reconciler and Redeemer, all
the blessings which are divine and therefore real blessings, all the promise of
the Gospel which has been declared: all these are grounded and determined
in the fact that God is the God of the eternal election of His grace. In the light
of this election the whole of the Gospel is light. Yes is said here, and all the
promises of God are Yea and Amen (2 Cor. 120). Confirmation and comfort
and help are promised us at this point, and they are promised us at every
point. Whatever problems or contradictions we may encounter elsewhere,
they all cease to be such, they become the very opposite, when we see them in
their connexion with the real truth which we must receive and proclaim here.
On the other hand, if it is the shadow which really predominates, if we must
still fear, or if we can only half rejoice and half fear, if we have no truth at all to
receive or proclaim but only the neutral elucidation of a neutral subject, then
it is quite certain that we can never again receive or proclaim as such the Gos-
pel previously declared. In this sphere, too, the shadow will necessarily pre-
dominate.
Many of the great exponents of the doctrine of predestination in the history of the
Church have clearly expressed the basic character of the doctrine of the divine election of
grace even from the positive standpoint, at any rate in some leading passages. We may note
the definition of Augustine: Haec est praedestinatio sanctorum, nihil aliud: praescientia sc. et
praeparatio beneficiorum Dei, quibus certissime liberantur quicumque liberanturEN2 (De dono persev.
14, 35)' Predestination, according to Luther, is voluntas Dei ordinantis suo consilio, quos et
quales praedicatae et oblatae misericordiae capaces et participes esse velitEN3 (De servo arb. WA. 18,
684, 35)' Even Calvin assures us that here it is not a question of an arguta vel spinosa
speculatio, quae absque jructa ingenia jatigetEN4, but of a disputatio solida et ad pietatis usum
maxime accommoda; nempe, quae et fidem probe aedificet et nos ad humilitatem erudiat et in
admirationem extollat immensae erga nos Dei bonitatis et ad hanc celebrandam excitet. Nulla
aedifieandae fidei aptior est ratio, quam dum audimus electionem illam, quam spiritus Dei cordibus

EN I in a nutshell
EN~ This is the predestination of the saints, and nothing else: the foreknowledge, that is to say, the
preparation of the benefits of God, by which whoever is freed is most certainly freed
EN,~ the will of God who ordains in his counsel whom and in what manner he wills to be the right
participants in the proclaimed mercy he has offered
EN4 disputed or thorny speculation, which wearies minds without benefit

11
 ~ 32. The Problem of a Correct Doctrine of the Election of Grace

nostris obsignat, in aeterno et injlexibili Dei beneplacito consistere, ut nullis mundi procellis, nullis
satanae insultibus, nulli carnis vacillationi sit obnoxia. Turic enim demum nobis certa est nostra salus,
quum in Dei pectore causam reperimus. Sic enim vitam in Christo manifestatam fide apprehendimus, ut
eadem fide duce procul intueri liceat, ex quo fonte vita prodieritEN5 (De aet. Dei praed., 1552, C.R. 8,
260). even if they do also make specific mention of a decretum horribileEN6 (Instit. III. 23, 7): In
ipsa quae terret caligine non modo utilitas huius doctrinae, sed suavissimus quoque fructus se profert.
Nunquam liquido ut decet persuasi erimus salutem nostram ex fonte gratuitae misericordiae Dei jluere,
donec innotuerit nobis aeterna eius electioEN7 (Instit. III, 21, 1). Intentionally, I have quoted only
[015] what these passages say positively about the doctrine of election as such. In the same context
all of them do speak of the non-election or rejection which accompanies election. But in
face and in spite of this second and accompanYing aspect, they ascribe to the doctrine as
such and in its entirety this redemptive and evangelical character. "The godlike consider-
ation of Predestination, and our Election in Christ, is full of sweet, pleasant and unspeakable
comfort to godly persons" (The Irish Articles of 1615, cf. E. F. Karl Muller, 528). Always and in
all circumstances the doctrine must be understood according to this character, even in the
detailed exposition of the second aspect. The Lutheran Formula of Concord is undoubtedly
right when it finds in such understanding a criterion of correctness of doctrine in this mat-
ter: Haec nequaquam erit vera et sana sententia aut legitimus usus doctrinae de aeterna
praedestinatione Dei quibus vel impoenitentia vel desperatio in hominum mentibus excitatur aut
confirmatur. Neque vero nobis scriptura hanc doctrinam aliter quam hoc modo proponit, ut nos ad
verbum Dei revelatum fide amplectendum ableget, ad poenitentiam agendam hortetur, ad pie vivendum
invitetEN8 (Sol. declo XI, 12). Doctrina illa amplissimam consolationis verae materiam nobis
suppeditabitEN9 (43). If the preaching of the Gospel brings with it instead of consolation
either despair or a false assurance, then it is certain quod articulus de electione non ad normam et
iuxta voluntatem Dei sed secundum humanae rationis caecae indicium et ex impulsu atque instinctu
diaboli male et perverse doceatur (91). Quodsi nobis per scripturam consolatio illa vel enervatur vel
eripitur, certo certius est scripturam contra sententiam et mentem Spiritus Sancti explicari et
intelligiENIO (92). This could not be said against Calvin and the Calvinists except through
misunderstanding, or with reference to certain inferences which seriously embarrass their

EN 5 solid consideration, extremely fitting and useful for piety, indeed which rightly builds up faith
and teaches us humility. It lifts us to admiration of the immeasurable goodness of God to us
and awakens us to celebrate it. No means is more appropriate for building up faith than as we
hear of that election which the Spirit of God seals in our hearts, that it consists in the eternal
and inflexible decree of God, such that it is not subject to any storms of the world, to any of
the accusations of Satan, nor to any doubting of the flesh. For then at last our salvation is
certain to us, since we have found its origin in the heart of God. For thus we apprehend by
faith our life manifested in Christ, so that with that same faith as our guide we are permitted
to regard him from afar - him, the fount from which our life has proceeded
EN 6 terrible decree

EN 7 In frightening gloom, not only the usefulness of this doctrine, but also very sweet enjoyment
is offered. For we will never be persuaded as we should that our salvation flows from the fount
of the free mercy of God, until our eternal election has come to our attention
EN 8 It would by no means be a true and sound opinion or a legitimate use of the doctrine of the
eternal predestination of God if either impenitence or desperation in the minds of men were
aroused or confirmed. Indeed, Scripture does not advance this doctrine to us except to send
us to the revealed word of God, to be embraced by faith. It exhorts us to repent, and invites us
to godly living
EN 9 That doctrine furnishes us with a most abundant basis for true consolation
ENIO the article of election is being wickedly and perversely taught according to the judgment of
blind human reason and by the impulse and instinct of the devil (91). But if that consolation
is either weakened or disrupted by Scripture, then it is quite certain that Scripture is being
explained and understood against the opinion and mind of the Holy Spirit

12
 1. The Orientation of the Doctrine

teaching. The Calvinists themselves might well have spoken, and did in fact speak, in the
very same way. One can only wish that they had done so more emphatically in order that
misunderstanding might have been avoided.
In this matter the real source and goal of all thought and utterance must be the Gospel
itself, and that in a comprehensive, and to a certain extent compendious, sense. This will at
once be apparent when we cast a first and general glance at the part played by the concept of
election in the testimony of Holy Scripture. In the Old Testament it is the basic category
used to describe the relationship between Yahweh and His people Israel. From its election,
and as a result of the elections which constitute its history, there follow all the blessings
visited upon this people by its God. In some degree the election is the fundamental blessing
with which it has been and in detail continues to be visited. It is true that the rejection of
Israel was determined when it stubbornly resisted the Gospel. Yetin face and in spite of that
rejection, the fundamental blessing, the election, is still confirmed. Its confirmation is both
the starting-point and the goal even of the crooked path of the chief New Testament passage
in this matter: Rom. 9-11. In these chapters there are many apparent hesitations and contra-
dictions which we shall have to consider and reckon with; and yet we cannot overlook the
fact that their final word is one of testimony to the divine Yesto Israel (to the Israel which
had crucified Christ). Only when they are understood in the light of this final word can they
be understood aright. So, too, the content and purpose of the other New Testament pas-
sages which touch on the election is always testimony to divine favour; or, more exactly, to
the one ultimate and decisive presupposition of all divine favour. The fact that they are
elected should make clear to Christians the fact that they are the new and the true Israel, the
people of God partaking of all the promises (1 Pet. 29). It should make clear to them the fact
that they are called unto salvation in sanctification (2 Thess. 213); that they are called of God,
justified and already glorified (Rom. 830); that unto them is given the mystery of the king-
dom of God (Mk. 411); that they are blessed by God, the Father ofJesus Christ (Eph. 13f.). It
is grace itself which visits them, and it does so because they have been appointed thereto by
the divine election of grace-by grace to grace. In the New Testament election is the divine [016]
ordination to discipleship, to the apostolate, to the community: to the apostolate in so far as
this constitutes the community and to the community in so far as this is constituted by the
apostolate; but either one way or the other, the divine ordination to participation in the
salvation of the Messianic future. The "book" spoken of by God in Ex. 3232 has always,and
quite rightly, been connected with the election of grace. In Ps. 6929 it is called unequivocally
the "book of the living" (Prayer Book Version), * and it is described as the "book of life" in
the New Testament (Phil. 43; Rev. 35,178,2012,15). One's name may not be in this book. It
can be blotted out from it. And yet there are not two columns, but only one. Similarly, the
concept of the divine 7Tp6(}€aL~ EN 11 used in Rom. 828 and 911 and Eph. III etc. relates to the
divine election to salvation, but only to that election as such, and not to the accompanYing
non-election, or rejection. The problem began to be obscured when the "book of life" came
to be spoken of as though it had in it a death-eolumn; when the divine election and the
divine rejection came to be spoken of as inter-connected divine acts similar in .character and
determination; when they came to be regarded and understood as though they could both
be grouped under the one over-ruling concept.
When we look at the matter, it is here that there is a movement away from the biblical
testimony even in Augustine. Augustine wanted to know why some believe and are saved,
and others do not believe and are damned. He found the answer (supposedly in relation to

* In the A.V. and R.V. "the book of life,"Ps. 6928 (R.V. margin "the living").Trans.
EN I 1 fore-ordination
 S 32. The Problem of a Correct Doctrine of the Election of Grace

certaih texts in Rom. 9) in the fact of a double divine decision from all eternity, i.e., a decis-
ion with two parallel sides: Multi audiunt verbum veritatis; sed alii credunt, alii contradicunt.
Volunt ergo isti credere, nolunt autem illi. Quis hoc ignoret? Quis hoc neget? Sed cum aliis praeparetur,
aliis non praeparetur voluntas a Domino; discernendum est utique, quid veniat de misericordia eius,
quid de iudicio (De praed. sanct. 6, 11). Cur ergo non omnes docet, ut veniant ad Christum, nisi quia
omnes quos docet, misericordia docet, quos autem non docet, iudicio non docet? (ib., 8, 14). Scimus iis
quibus datur misericordia Dei gratuita dari. Scimus iis, quibus non datur, iusto iudicio non dariEN12
(Ep. 217,5, 16). It is certainly true that God's mercy and righteousness are both active in
God's dealings with believers and unbelievers. But in view of the unity of the divine essence,
we must at once ask whether it is possible to allocate the two attributes to different dealings
of God, as though only His mercy were at work in the one case and only His righteousness in
the other. Above all, we must ask what biblical or inherent authority Augustine has for relat-
ing God's dealings in this way, as though we had only to look at God's work here and His
work there and to understand them as a unity in order to find the premiss for this inter-
relationship. At any rate, in Holy Scripture there is no parallelism of this kind in the treat-
ment and proclamation of the divine election and rejection.
Augustine himself did receive here a salutary check, as is shown by the fact that on the
whole he avoided reducing God's twofold dealings to one common denominator, even in
concept. By praedestinatioEN13 he always (or almost always) understood praedestinatio ad
gratiamEN14 (a definition taken over by Peter Lombard, Sent. I, dist. 40 A) and therefore
praedestinatio ad vitamEN15• Predestination consists positively in electioEN16, and does not
include reprobatioEN17• Thomas Aquinas held a similar concept. For him predestination was
ratio transmissionis vitae aeternae praeexistens in DeoEN18 (S. tho I, quo 23, art. 1 c), or, according
to a later definition: quaedam praeordinatio ab aeterno de his quae per gratiam Dei sunt fienda in
temporeEN19 (S. tho III, quo 24, art. 1 c). Thomas, like Augustine, does set the two alongside:
voluit Deus in hominibus quantum ad aliquos, quos praedestinavit, suam bonitatem repraesentare per
modum misericordiae, parcendo - et quantum ad aliquos, quos reprobat, per modum iustitiae,
[017] puniendoEN20 (qu. 23, art. 5 ad. 3). But more clearly than Augustine he regards reprobatioEN21
as in fact a separate genus, quite apart from and standing to some extent only in the shadow
of praedestinatioEN22• A similar view was held in the 14th cen tury even by such strong "predes-
tinarians" as Gregory of Rimini and John Wyclif.

EN12 Many hear the word of truth; but some believe, and some deny it. So, the former will to
believe, the latter will not to believe. Who can escape this? Who can deny it? For some, the will
is prepared by God, for others the will is not prepared. It must particularly be noted how it he
treats some with mercy, and others with judgment (6,11). Why then does he not teach all to
come to Christ, except because all whom he teaches he teaches with mercy, but those whom
he does not teach, injudgment he does not teach (8,14)' We know that for those to whom it is
given, the mercy of God is given freely. And we know that for those to whom it is not given, it is
in righteous judgment that it is not given
EN13 predestination
EN14 predestination to grace
EN15 predestination to life
EN16 election
EN17 reprobation
EN18 means, pre-existing in God, of the transmission of eternal life
EN19 a predestination from. eternity for those things which are to exist, by the grace of God,
in time
EN20 God willed among men a number whom he predestined, to be given his goodness according
to the manner of his mercy by which they are spared; and a number whom he reprobated, by
the manner of his justice, by which they are punished
EN21 reprobation
EN22 predestination
 1. The Orientation of the Doctrine

Already, however, Isidore of Seville in the 7th and Gottschalk in the 9th century had
taught a doctrine which differed formally from that of Augustine: Gemina est praedestinatio,
sive electorum ad requiem, sive reproborum ad mortem EN23 (Isidore, sent. 2, 6, 1). Sicut electosomnes
(Deus) praedestinavit ad vitam per gratuitum solius gratiae suae beneficium ... sic omnino et reprobos
quosque ad aeternae mortis praedestinavit supplicium per iustissimum videlicet iustitiae suae
iudicium EN24 (Gottschalk, according to Hinkmar, De praed. 5). In this case predestination is
an over-ruling concept, including both election and rejection. This was the usage adopted
by the Reformers. In Luther's De servo arbitrio, in Zwingli's De providentia and in the writings
of Calvin, predestination means quite unequivocally double predestination: double in the
sense that election and rejection are now two species within the one genus designated by the
term predestination. It is true that not only in Luther but in Calvin too there are passages in
which the matter is expounded with the same disproportion, the same overemphasis upon
the positively evangelical element, as had obviously appeared necessary to Thomas. Yet of
Calvin it must be said that at any rate in his stricter teaching he did not think it possible to
dispense with this fatal parallelism of the concepts election and rejection: Fateri necesseest,
Deum aeterno suo beneplacito, cuius aliunde causa non pendet, quos illi visum est, destinasse ad
salutem, aliis relictiset quos gratuita adoptione dignatus est, spiritu suo illuminare, ut vitam in Christo
oblatam recipiant, alios ita sponte esse incredulos, ut fidei luce destituti in tenebris maneantEN25 (De
aet. Dei praed. C.R. 8, 261 f.). So, too, in the famous definition in the Institutio (III, 21, 5):
Praedestinationem vocamus aeternum Dei decretum, quo apud se constitutum habuit, quid de
unoquoque homine fieri veuet. Non enim pari conditione creantur omnes: sed aliis vita aeterna, aliis
damnatio aeterna praeordinatur. Itaque prout in alterutrum finem quisque conditus est, ita vel ad
vitam vel ad mortem praedestinatum dicimusEN26• It was quite in the spirit of Calvin, and yet quite
fatal, when many of the older Reformed dogmaticians thought that they ought to balance
against the concept of the election of grace that of an election of wrath. Although they
attempted to amend the doctrine, it is noteworthy that even the Arminians could not escape
the concept of a "double" predestination in this sense: Est praedestinatio Dei decretum divinum,
quo pro voluntatis suae beneplacito constituit ante tempora saeculariq,fideles in jesum Christum Filium
suum eligere,in filios adoptare, iustijicare, et, si in fide perseverent, aeternurrtglorificare- infideles vero
ac contumaces reprobare, excoecare, indurare, et, si in contumacia sua perseverent, in aeternum
damnareEN27 (P. a Limborch, Theol. chr., 1686, IV, 1,5).
As against that, it is one of the merits of the Canones of the Synod of Dort (1619) that a
definition of predestination was there given (I, 7) which, although it did not, of course,
exclude the divine reprobation, did not include or append it as an autonomous truth, being

EN2:\ Predestination is twofold: either of the elect for rest, or of the reprobate for death
EN24 Just as God has predestined all the elect to life by the free gift of his grace alone ... so he has
also predestined every reprobate to the punishment of eternal death, by what is most evi-
dently the most just judgment of his righteousness
EN2!l It is necessary to say that God, by his eternal decree, of which the cause depends on nothing
else, has destined for salvation those whom he pleased, and whom - leaving others out - he
graced with his free adoption to enlighten them by his own Spirit, that they might receive the
life offered to them in Christ. But he decreed also that others should be freely unbelieving, so
that destitute of the light of faith, they should remain in the darkness
EN2fi We call the eternal predestination of God that decree in which he has it established in himself
what he wills to become of each man. For all were not created in a like state. Rather, eternal
life is foreordained for some, and eternal damnation for others. Therefore, just as each per-
son is made for one or other of these ends, so we can say that they are predestined either for
life or for death
EN27 The predestination of God is that divine decree by which he established in the decree of his
will before all temporal ages to choose those who believe in his Son Jesus Christ, to adopt
them as his sons, to justify them, and if they persevere in the faith, to glorify them eternally.
 ~ 32. The Problem of a Correct Doctrine of the Election of Grace

content rather to state positively what electioEN28 is: the immutabile Dei proposition, quo ante iacta
mundi fundamenta e universo genere humano, ex primaeva integritate in peccatum et exitium sua
culpa prplapso, secundum liberrimum voluntatis suae beneplacitum, ex mera gratia, certam
quorundam hominum multitudinem, aliis nec meliorum, nec digniorum, sed in communi miseria cum
aliis iacentium, ad salutem elegit in Christo, quem etiam ab aeterno mediatorem et omnium electorum
caput, salutisque fundamentum constituit, atque ita eos ipsi salvandos dare, et ad eius communionem
per verbum et spiritum suum efficaciter vocare ac trahere seu vera in ipsum fide don are, ius tiji care,
sanctijicare et potenter in Filii sui communione custoditos tandem glorificare decrevit, ac
demonstrationem suae misericordiae et laudem divitiarum gloriosae suae gratiaeEN29• Whatever else
[018] one may think of the formula, in this form the doctrine of predestination certainly did take
on again the character of evangelical proclamation which it had lost in the definitions in
which it referred simultaneously and equally to grace and non-grace, salvation and repro-
bation.
While they could not evade the importance of the content of his doctrine, some of
Calvin's more timid contemporaries were much exercised about the danger of misunder-
standing. They expressed the view that the doctrine of predestination ought to be reserved
as a kind of secret wisdom for theologians of sobriety and discretion, and not published
abroad amongst the people. Calvin made the forceful answer that true discretion cannot
consist in burYing away a truth to which all true servants of God testify, but only in the sober
and reverent yet quite open confession of what is learned in the school of the heavenly
Teacher (De aet. Dei praed. C.R. 8, 347). It would not be a true Christian simplicity, eorum, quae
Deus ostendit scientiam noxiam refugereEN30 (ib., 264). What is revealed to us in Scripture is as
such necessary and useful and worthy to be known by all. On no account, then, must the
doctrine of predestination be withheld from believers (Instit. III, 21, 3). Sicut enim
praedicanda est pietas ut rite colatur Deus, ita et praedestinatio, ut, qui habet aures audiendi, de gratia
Dei, inDeo, non in se glorieturEN31 (De aet, Dei praed. ib., 327). Calvin was right. But although his
point was right, he could have made it more emphatically and impressively ifhis understand-
ing of predestination had been less speculative and mpre in accordance with the biblical
testimony; if it had been a strictly evangelical understanding. And with its parallelismus
membrorumEN32, with that balanced assertion of the twofold dealings of God, as a doctrine of
double predestination, this is precisely what it is not. The balance gives to the doctrine a
neutrality which is almost scientific. It does not differentiate between the divine Yes and the
divine No. It does not come down on the side of the divine Yes. On the very same level as the

But he chooses to reprobate/reject, to blind and to harden those hard-hearted unbelievers,

and if they persist in their hard-heartedness, to condemn them in eternity
EN28 election
EN29 the immutable decree of God in which, before the foundations of the world were laid, accord-
ing to the most free decree of his will, out of his undiluted grace, he elected in Christ unto
salvation a definite multitude of certain men (out of the whole human race which had fallen
from its original wholeness into sin and death by its own fault) neither better nor more worthy
than others, but laid up in the same wretched state as those others. He established Christ as
the mediator from eternity, the head of all the elect, the basis of salvation, and decreed to give
to him those who are to be saved, and effectually to call and bring them to communion with
him through his own Word and Spirit, to give them true faith in him, to justify, to sanctify, and
in the end to glorify those he had powerfully kept in communion with his Son, as a demon-
stration of his mercy and for the praise of the glorious riches of his grace
EN30 to flee from the 'harmful knowledge' of the things which God has revealed
EN31 For just as holiness is to be preached so that God might be correctly worshipped, so also
should predestination, so that those who have ears to hear may, by the grace of God, glory in
God and not in themselves
EN32 parallel lines

16
Other documents randomly have
different content
[Contents]
CHAPTER XI
 THE GIBRALTAR OF THE BUCCANEERS
One must search far and wide to find a more beautiful stretch of water than the
Bay of Samana. Blue as the azure dome above it, the vast, lake-like expanse
cuts into the very heart of the wondrous island for over thirty miles. From the
lofty, richly forested mountains that hem it in on the north, to the low, rolling
green hills on the south, it stretches for ten miles, and dotting its placid surface
are verdant wooded isles. Sheltered by the land from all hard winds, deep
enough for the largest ships, protected from the seas and with an area sufficient
to afford anchorage for all the navies of the world and to spare, Samana Bay
has no equal as a natural harbor in all the Antilles, if, indeed, in the entire world.

Its strategic value is enormous; as a coaling-station and naval base it is without

a peer in the West Indies, and once our Government, alive to these facts, came
very near purchasing it from the Dominicans. But long before that time the sea-
rovers appreciated the manifold advantages [196]of the bay, and here they came
to find a retreat wherein they could and did hold their own in safety, though
surrounded on every hand by their arch-enemies the Spaniards. Here, almost
midway between the shores, a charmingly beautiful islet, about three miles in
length and a mile wide, juts, a mass of emerald and ivory, above the blue
waters; and here the buccaneers made their headquarters, transforming this
Cayo Levantado, as it is called, into a veritable miniature Gibraltar of their own.
And toward this one-time stronghold of the pirates the Vigilant rippled, through
the waters of the bay that once sheltered many a buccaneer ship, and upon
whose shores the first battle between the Europeans and the Indians took place.

It was on the borders of a tiny bay that this memorable but insignificant
skirmish occurred which sealed the doom of the red man—a quiet little cove at
the edge of the jungle under the towering green hills, and still called by the
name Columbus bestowed upon it, Golfo de las Flechas (Bay of the Arrows), in
memory of the shower of darts that the Indians poured upon a landing party of
Spaniards. The arrows, however, rattled harmlessly upon the invaders’ coats of
mail, while, with the answering volley from the armored men, a number of the
naked savages were killed. To-day [197]it is very peaceful, and as wild, as
uninhabited as when Columbus first entered the great bay. Indeed, it is even
more deserted, for the last of the aborigines of the island have been dead two
centuries and more, the Spaniards having waged upon them a relentless war of
extermination, as a penalty for daring to protect their homes from the white
invaders.

Deserted, too, is the little islet The Upraised Cay, to give it a literal equivalent for
its Spanish name, though to the corsairs it was ever known as Trade Wind Cay.
And off its gleaming coral beach the Vigilant came to rest.

From the schooner’s decks the isle appeared a single rounded hill sloping gently
to east and west, with a stretch of abrupt gray limestone cliffs along the
northern shore and covered with a wealth of luxuriant vegetation. Before our
anchorage a dazzling crescent of white sand swept from a rocky point to a low
cape, and just off the spot where the snowy beach ended at the headland a bit
of detached rock rose from the sea, a curiously formed islet supporting a mass
of tangled shrubbery and vines and worn by the waves to a remarkable
semblance of a gigantic turtle. Upon the beach the lazy swell curled in
translucent turquoise, and everywhere upon the sand, upon the sea, winging
[198]overhead and perching upon the trees, were countless clumsy pelicans and
fork-tailed frigate-birds.

Here, undisturbed by man,—for the natives have a superstitious fear of the spot,
although they occasionally come here to kill the wild cattle and goats,—the sea-
birds breed by thousands and wheel in endless circles above the ruins of the
buccaneers’ old stronghold. And what a stronghold it must have been! As I
wandered through the thickets and clambered over the old fortifications I no
longer marveled that, from this vantage-point, the pirates defied the powers of
the world and held it for years despite the efforts of Spain, Britain, France, and
Holland to dislodge them.

Everywhere amid the tangled vines and thorny scrub are great cisterns,
foundations of buildings, water-sheds, and vaults. Along the cliffs are
battlements, embrasures, walls, and loopholes; and leading up the slopes from
the landing-place are long flights of stairs, all hewn and carved from the solid
rock. What herculean labor is here represented! What unremitting toil of
tortured prisoners and slaves! What toll of blood and suffering and death! Here,
side by side with the naked blacks, grandees and hidalgos cut and hewed the
rock to form their captors’ lair; toiling beneath the blazing sun from dawn to
dark; sweating, [199]half-starved, their backs raw and covered with great welts
from their brutal driver’s lash, their fingers torn and bleeding from the jagged
stone, their faces wan and drawn, their eyes bloodshot and furtive, their bones
aching from fever, and their only hope of deliverance the death which would be
meted out to them as soon as exhausted muscles and sinews gave way or their
work was done.

Centuries have passed since their racked bodies were cast like carrion into the
sea or dumped in a common grave in the sand, but their work has endured. To-
day, flowering vines trail from the loopholes in the massive battlements the
captives chiseled, and great forest trees have sprung up from crevices among
the rocks and slowly but surely have riven the walls that defied shot and shell.
The houses wherein the buccaneers made merry are roofless and tenanted by
land-crabs and lizards, and the hewn water-tanks from which they filled their
casks ere starting on their forays are choked with fallen leaves, rotting
vegetation, and the gnarled roots of the jungle.

Weird tales the natives of the mainland tell of sights witnessed at dead of night
upon this little isle. With fear-widened eyes, they whisper of ghostly mail-clad
sentinels pacing the old walls, of [200]phantom ships riding upon the waves off
the cay, of blood-curdling shouts, songs, and curses coming from no mortal
throat but echoing across the bay from this ancient stronghold. Also, fervently
crossing themselves the while, they tell of piercing screams, as of lost souls,
heard by the humble fishermen plying their trade at night upon the bay, and of
mysterious lights, like the flare of torches, that dance and move and flit among
the trees of the cay.

Of course there is many a tale of treasure hidden on the island; of vast stores of
pirate loot secreted in the subterranean caverns and hewn underground
recesses; and one hair-raising story they relate of a treasure-chest in the sea
close to the island’s shores, which is plainly visible through the transparent
water. Many times, if we are to believe the natives, some unusually brave and
covetous man has grappled for this chest, only to find, when he tediously hauled
it to the surface, that a hideous demon was seated upon it, who grimaced and
leered, and, throwing his slimy, misshapen body upon the terrified man, carried
him to the depths of the sea along with the chest of gold he guards so well.

And after all, who can say what treasures may not be concealed upon this
Gibraltar of the buccaneers? [201]Countless chests of loot have been carried from
triumphant pirate ships to the strip of white sand upon the cay. Many a bale of
wondrous silk and cloth of gold and velvet damask has been slashed open with
blood-stained cutlasses and flung to the pirates’ mistresses who swarmed about
the incoming ships’ cargoes. Here, in the shade of the gnarled sea-grape
thickets, scores of the most notorious rascals have lounged and plotted and
yarned while quaffing priceless wines from the holy golden chalices snatched
from profaned altars. Under the very trees that still rear their green crowns
above the ruins the groans of tortured men, the screams of ravished women,
and the drunken shouts of rum-crazed rioters have rent the air.

As far as is known, no one has ever salvaged any treasure from Trade Wind Cay.
The limestone rock is honeycombed with cavities and caverns wherein whole
ships’ cargoes might be stored and none the wiser. But if the pirates hid it here,
they hid it well indeed, although so superstitiously afraid of the place are the
natives that they would never dare to search.

But probably the buccaneers never secreted loot upon the isle. Indeed, from
what we know of the lives and characters of these men, it is pretty safe [202]to
assume that they never hid their treasure, but no sooner put foot on dry land
than they spent their gold in drinking and debauchery. Of course many of the
leaders put away tidy sums for a rainy day, for, as we have seen, more than one
of them retired from the wild life and settled down in the islands or in their
native land well provided with the wherewithal to live as gentlemen to the end
of their days. But it is far more likely that these canny pirate chiefs placed their
loot in the keeping of some trusted merchant ashore than that they buried it on
wave-washed bits of land, and all our searching among the ruins of Cayo
Levantado resulted in the finding of but three corroded pieces of the quaint
cross money of the old Spanish padres.

Joseph, who made the discovery, was as pleased as though he had unearthed a
chest of pieces of eight, and Trouble and the others of the crew, including even
Sam, delved and dug like navvies in the hopes of finding more. No doubt, by
going carefully over all the ruins and sifting the earth and mold, one might find
many relics of the buccaneers, but aside from a few gun flints, some broken clay
pipes curiously ornamented with high-pooped ships upon their bowls, some bits
of old crockery and a lead button, the labors of my men resulted in little.

This is scarcely to be wondered at. Unless [203]made of precious metal, bronze,

lead, or brass, any small weapons, ornaments, or appurtenances of the pirates
would long since have disappeared, for steel and iron corrode and go to pieces
in a few years near salt water in a tropical climate, and even the three big
cannon that I found below the embrasures of the pirates’ fort were little more
than flakes and scales of rust, and were so thoroughly rotten that they could be
kicked to pieces.

Moreover, for many years after the buccaneers were at last driven from the
island, the place was occupied by the Spanish, then by the French, then by the
Haitians, and even by the British (for Samana Bay has belonged to all of these in
turn), and no doubt the soldiers, and civilians as well, passed many an hour
searching for any treasures or keepsakes they might find. Certain it is that they
carried off the old guns, at any rate those of bronze, which the pirates left
behind, as well as the stores of shot, for such is a matter of historical record.
Some of the very cannon that roared defiance from the buccaneers’ fort—bell-
muzzled, highly decorated affairs, with handles on their barrels and elaborate
scrollwork over their breeches, are still scattered over Santo Domingo, clumsily
mounted on the toy forts or used as posts at street corners in the cities. [204]

And what of the pirates who built this impregnable fastness and fortified this isle
in Samana Bay? Were they British, French, or Dutch? And who were the leaders
who made their headquarters here? Mainly they were French, members of that
great buccaneer colony at Tortuga; for in the days when Cayo Levantado
became a buccaneer lair the majority of the British pirates had parted company
with their former French associates and had made their headquarters at Port
Royal, Jamaica. Unquestionably Samana Bay knew the ships and the ensigns of
nearly all the most notorious pirate chieftains, both French and British, and the
great Morgan himself, Bartholomew Sharp of Most Blessed Trinity fame, Sawkins
and Wafer, Red Legs and Watling, Ringrose and Esquemelling, Bartholomew
Portugues, Rock Brasiliano, and even that most execrable and bloodthirsty fiend
of all, Francis Lolonais, made Samana Bay their rendezvous and spent many a
day at Trade Wind Cay.

We know from Esquemelling’s chronicles that in 1673 this isle was a stronghold
of the French pirates, for, as we have seen, Monsieur Ogeron also landed here
after escaping from his captivity in Porto Rico and recruited a large body of
pirates to join him in a second attack on that island. A [205]few years later, too,
Le Sieur Maintenon and his corsairs set sail from Samana Bay for Trinidad, which
they sacked, afterward accepting for it a ransom of ten thousand pieces of
eight; and hence they went forth on their ill-starred attempt to pillage the city of
Caracas.
Unfortunately, the history of the buccaneers is very incomplete, and such
accounts as were left by Esquemelling, Dampier, Ringrose, and others are
mainly concerned with the pirates’ deeds and defeats, rather than with their
home life, and dates are woefully lacking. Moreover, the writers were so familiar
with the comparatively uninteresting life and doings in the corsairs’ haunts that
it never occurred to them that such matters might interest others, while, in
addition, few had any fixed abode, but were quite equally at home in Tortuga,
Jamaica, Samana Bay, or the Virgin Islands. They were a restless lot, veritable
gipsies of the sea; and while certain islands were associated with certain pirate
leaders, as Jamaica with Morgan, St. Barts with Montbars, and Tortuga with
Ogeron, most of their refuges welcomed any or all of them, and the common
run of those who thronged these places owed allegiance to no particular leader,
but gladly threw in their lot with any one who proposed an undertaking that
promised loot and adventure. [206]Hence we cannot say definitely what great
pirate conceived the idea of fortifying Trade Wind Cay, but the chances are that
several united to make it what it was, and it certainly was the den of many
during the heyday of the freebooters.

In addition to this fortress of the buccaneers, Samana Bay has much in the way
of beauty and attraction; and having roamed and delved and dug over the little
isle to our hearts’ content we hoisted anchor and cruised about the shores of
this great lake-like arm of the sea.

A few miles beyond Cayo Levantado, and nestling at the foot of the green hills
on the bay’s northern shores, is the town of Samana, or, to give it its full name,
Santa Barbara de Samana; which is charmingly pretty—from a distance. As a
town there is little to it, once one steps ashore. It is neither over-clean nor
attractive, and it can boast of nothing in the way of old or impressive buildings.
It is, however, unique, inasmuch as the negroes who dwell therein and in the
vicinity nearly all speak English, being, to use their own quaint phrase, “of
American abstraction,” descendants of blacks from the Southern States brought
out as laborers when Samana was leased to an American company many years
ago. While far more ambitious and industrious than the other natives, they
[207]do not by any means make the most of the rich and fertile land whereon
they dwell. Never in any part of the tropics have I seen or tasted such enormous
and delicious pineapples as are grown here; and wonderful navel oranges, that
equal and even excel the much-praised California fruit, go begging at a few
cents a hundred.
Farther up the bay—at the very head of it, in fact—and bounded at its western
end by a vast mangrove swamp, is the ramshackle, dirty little town of Sanchez,
a miserable hole, which, withal, is of vast importance, as it is the tide-water
terminus of the railway to the great interior table-land or Vega Real and the
cities of La Vega and Santiago.

On the southern side of the bay is wild, uninhabited, heavily forested land, rising
in hills and ridges to the mighty bulwarks of the mountains, with their summits
nearly two miles above the sea, and sloping eastward to the grassy savannas of
the Seybo district. Here at the borders of the low land is Caña Honda Bay (a
lovely landlocked body of water surrounded by vast mangrove swamps that are
the haunt of countless water-fowl and manatees), whence a road, so called,
leads inland toward the savannas and the southern coast of Santo Domingo. All
about the entrance to Caña Honda Bay are odd conical limestone hills,
resembling [208]strikingly the conventional mountains on ancient maps, and in
each and every one there is a cavern. Some of these caves are enormous,
penetrating the hills for miles and wondrously hung with stalactites and paved
with stalagmites; others are small. Some have entrances high and dry on land,
others can be entered only by means of boats, and the mouths of many of them
are completely submerged.
 TRADE WIND CAY

The Gibraltar of the Buccaneers

 PORTO RICO

A “piragua,” the craft in which the buccaneers first captured

Spanish ships

In ages past, these caverns were the dwelling-places, or at least the stopping-
places, of Indians, and in many of them are vast quantities of sea-shells, among
which one finds stone implements and prehistoric pottery. Here, too, the natives
declare, is buried treasure, and while even the imaginative Dominicans do not
contend that any has ever been found, yet, if the buccaneers ever did hide loot
in Santo Domingo, here among these myriad caves was the ideal spot.
Beyond these hills and opposite Trade Wind Cay is a long, sandy point covered
with a vast growth of coconut-palms, self-planted from the cargo of a wrecked
vessel which went to pieces in the bay years ago; and along the beach
quantities of amber may be found. To be sure, no perfect specimens and no
large masses have been secured, but the natives gather it, when they are not
too [209]lazy to take the trouble, and sell it to the padres, who use it for incense
in the churches.

But we upon the Vigilant could spare no time to search for the bits of fossil gum,
and so, having made the circuit of the bay, we stood once more to sea and
swinging northward heeled to a thrashing wind upon our beam and sped on
toward Puerto Plata. [210]
[Contents]
CHAPTER XII
 THE BIRTHPLACE OF THE BUCCANEERS
Sailing along the shores of Santo Domingo, one realizes the aptness of the
graphic illustration of the island’s appearance with which, tradition says,
Columbus answered Queen Isabella’s queries. The great discoverer, according to
the story, seized a sheet of parchment, crumpled it in his hands, and, dropping
it on the table before his queen, exclaimed, “That is like Hispaniola!”

And nothing could be more like a crumpled piece of parchment than the
tumbled, serrated mass of ridges, hills, mountains, and peaks of this great
island. Wild, forest-covered, sublime in their grandeur, the mountains of Santo
Domingo rise in endless succession, and one marvels that the old Dons, a mere
handful of men, could ever have penetrated its fastnesses and subdued and
exterminated the Indians. But the Spaniards with all their faults were made of
stern stuff,—real “he men,”—and fired with the zeal of conquest, the fanatical
determination to spread their faith among the heathen, [211]and an insatiable
lust for gold, they accomplished marvels and performed deeds which seem well-
nigh impossible. Let anyone to-day, equipped with every device and convenience
and in the lightest clothing, step ashore on the coast of Santo Domingo and
penetrate to the interior through the unbroken jungle, and he will feel, when he
reaches his journey’s end,—if, indeed, he ever does,—that he has performed a
mighty feat. Climbing precipitous mountain sides, swimming rivers, fording
streams, crawling up dry watercourses, hewing his way an inch at a time
through the tangled vegetation; beset by biting insects, drenched with rain, torn
by thorns and razor-grass, and exhausted with the steaming heat, he finds such
a trip enough to try the stoutest nerves and the strongest muscles. But imagine
undertaking such an expedition when clad in armor! Think of attempting the
journey weighted down with mail, carrying a clumsy match-lock or a massive
cross-bow, a heavy sword, a pike or halberd, and harassed by hostile Indians at
every step. But the old Dons did it, did it and won out, though literally living off
the country, knowing not what might meet them at their journey’s end, and
completely cut off from civilization and their fellows.

Of course they achieved their object at the cost [212]of a tremendous loss of life.
If one hundred men set forth and a dozen won safely through, it was doing well,
and rarely did more than ten per cent. of their number return in safety from
their expeditions into the untrod jungles of the New World. But to them the lives
of men-at-arms, of the common soldier or adventurer, were nothing; and the
more that fell by the way, the more loot there would be to divide among the
survivors. We must bear this in mind when thinking of the early days of the
West Indies and the Spanish Main, for it was this utter disregard of life that
enabled both Dons and buccaneers to perform deeds which, were they not
incontrovertible historical facts, we should consider absolutely impossible.

Here, on the northern shores of Hispaniola, the Spaniards landed and marched
inland to the vast interior Vega Real or Royal Plain and the Cibao district with its
golden sands; and there on the high interior plains they founded and built the
cities of La Vega, Moca, and Santiago de los Caballeros, cities which still stand.
In these cities are many lineal descendants of the conquistadors, and in their
dwellings one may still find weapons and pieces of armor which have been
handed down through the centuries. Indeed, in the ruins of La Vega la Antigua,
which was destroyed by an earthquake in [213]1564, one may yet dig up ancient
Spanish coins, old Toledo blades, and other relics; and throughout the island
one sees the natives armed with home-made machetes fashioned from old
swords they have salvaged from the ruins of this once rich and famous town.

To-day, however, one travels from the coast to the Cibao by railway, and takes
the train at Puerto Plata, a delightfully situated port which the Vigilant passed
the second day after leaving the Mona Passage and heading westward along the
coast. Puerto Plata is beautiful from the sea, with its red-roofed buildings half
hidden by palms at the base of the towering green cone of Plata Mountain; and
in reality the town is by far the cleanest and most attractive in the republic. Its
harbor is excellent, being almost landlocked, but the water shoals so gradually
that despite a long pier jutting from the waterfront of the town into the bay the
drays and trucks are compelled to drive out until the mules and horses are belly-
deep in the water, in order to load or unload the boats.

It was off Puerto Plata that a vast treasure in bullion was recovered many years
ago—one of the few authentic cases of the actual finding of ancient treasure in
the West Indies. This happened in the latter part of the eighteenth century
when Captain [214]William Phipps of Salem,—a worthy mariner with a love of
romance and one-time governor of Massachusetts,—became imbued with the
idea of recovering treasure-trove from a galleon which, in endeavoring to escape
from the buccaneers, had been sunk off Puerto Plata. In those days, even as to-
day, sunken treasure appealed to many otherwise hard-headed and practical
men, and Captain Phipps found backers who provided the ships and wherewithal
for his expedition. Apparently his information as to the location of the old wreck
was somewhat hazy, and after a deal of search he had about given up in despair
when one of his divers brought up a lump of coral growing upon an oddly
squarish and heavy object. Knocking off the incrustation, the captain found an
ingot of silver, and ere tempestuous weather came on several tons of bullion,
together with gold and jewels,—in all amounting to over one and a half million
dollars,—had been dragged from the depths of the sea and safely stowed under
hatches.

Had the worthy Phipps been content with a comfortable fortune, he could have
spent his declining years in a snug little home in Salem, where, surrounded by
his grandchildren, he might have spun many a yarn of his treasure-hunt. But he
was too avaricious, and, anxious to secure the last bit of [215]treasure that might
still lie among the corals of Silver Shoals, he spent his share of the salvaged
bullion in outfitting another expedition. Unfortunately a storm came up, his ship
was wrecked, and Phipps barely escaped with his life and came home as poor as
when he had first started treasure-seeking.

A few miles beyond Puerto Plata, completely hidden in the interminable green
jungle and with nothing to distinguish it from any other of the thousands of little
coves that indent the coast, is the site of the first European settlement in the
New World. Isabella, Columbus named it in honor of the queen who made his
discoveries possible, and here in December, 1493, he built, on his second
voyage to the New World, a tiny fort, erected a few houses, and left a handful of
men. Near here the Dons found the first gold they had seen in a natural state in
the lands they had discovered, the flakes of precious metal adhering with sand
to the water-casks which the sailors filled at a near-by stream. This, with the
Indians’ information that they obtained all their gold from inland, convinced
Columbus that untold wealth was to be had for the asking, so to speak; and,
planting his little town of Isabella, he sailed away, expecting to return the
following year to find the settlers surrounded with chests and bags [216]full of
the yellow metal. Instead, when he returned, he found most of them dead and
buried, the settlement destroyed, and no gold. Maltreatment of the natives had
brought swift vengeance upon the Spaniards; fever and the climate had aided
the red men, and Isabella had passed out of existence. It was never rebuilt, and
all that remains of this first town in America are a few crumbling, jungle-grown
walls.
Beyond Isabella the green and luxuriant verdure gives way to barren hills and
cactus-covered plains, until the frowning, red-cliffed headland of El Morro is
passed, with the miserable, mosquito-infested mud-hole of a town known as
Monte Cristo. Just beyond this God-forsaken spot we left the waters of the
Dominican Republic behind, and, entering the territorial waters of Haiti, rushed
westward toward the great bulk of Tortuga, the birthplace of the buccaneers.

Larger than any of the Lesser Antilles, Tortuga stretches its mass of wooded hills
and mountains for nearly twenty-five miles, with a width of three miles. It is an
impenetrable jungle for the most part, almost uninhabited, but it was once the
greatest of all the resorts of the buccaneers and the home of the most notorious
pirates of history.

ST. BARTS

Mending nets where the buccaneers divided loot

 CARIB CANOES

It was in such craft that the first buccaneers voyaged from St. Kitts to
Hispaniola
 TORTUGA

The birthplace of the buccaneers

Separated from the mainland of Santo Domingo [217]by only a narrow strait,
Tortuga was an ideal spot for the sea-rovers, and for many a year they held it,
having their own governors, their own laws, their own forts, and brazenly
defying the world to dislodge them. Here their ships rode to anchor under the
protecting guns of their fort; from here they fitted out fleets of heavily armed
vessels manned by thousands of the most reckless, daring, ruthless men who
ever lived; and from this stronghold—right in the Dons’ dooryard, as we might
say—the buccaneers ravaged Spanish cities and destroyed Spanish ships
throughout the length and breadth of the Caribbean and beyond.

In the well-protected harbor where once the fleets of Lolonais, Morgan,

Montbars, and many another corsair had swung to their moorings, the little
Vigilant dropped her anchor. Although to-day the port is scarcely worthy the
name of town, yet in the heyday of the buccaneers Cayona, as it was called, had
a teeming population. It was divided into four sections, known as the Lowland
or Basseterre, comprising the coastal land and the port proper; the Middle
Plantation, which was a district mainly devoted to tobacco-culture; the Ringot,
and Le Mont or The Mountain, which consisted of the oldest settlement on the
slopes of the towering hills behind the port. Beyond these the island was
uninhabited, [218]as it is to-day. It is extremely mountainous and rocky, although
heavily wooded, a fact which aroused the interest of Esquemelling and caused
him to comment upon it. He says:

Yet notwithstanding hugely thick of lofty trees that cease not to grow upon the hardest
of these rocks without partaking of softer soil. Hence it comes that their roots for the
greatest part, are seen all over, entangled among the rocks, not unlike the branching
of ivy against our walls.

This is an excellent description, and one which will give a vivid idea of the
difficulties to be encountered in penetrating the interior of the island. Moreover,
the northern coast is forbidding, with precipitous cliffs along the shore and with
no harbors or landing-places, so that the island was virtually inaccessible except
on the southwestern end where the port was established. This natural formation
of the island, which rendered it very easy to fortify, was no doubt one of the
chief reasons why it was selected by the buccaneers as their headquarters. But
there were other reasons, of perhaps even greater importance, to understand
which we must look into the origin and history of the sea-rovers.

Tortuga had its beginning in a handful of refugees from St. Kitts, Frenchmen
who had settled on that isle and had been driven off by the Spaniards [219]in
1629. Fleeing from the Dons, they made their way in little dugout canoes to
Hispaniola. To their wave-weary eyes this vast, heavily wooded, luxuriant land
must have seemed a veritable paradise, and when, upon landing and
penetrating a short distance into the interior, they found it teeming with wild
cattle, wild hogs, and wild horses, they realized that fortune had indeed favored
them. But the herds of wild cattle, horses, and swine were not the only denizens
of Hispaniola, for the Spaniards had long been established there, and the
refugees from St. Kitts knew that as soon as they were discovered by the Dons
they would meet with a summary end. Near at hand, however, was the
promising island of Tortuga, with barely a dozen Spaniards dwelling upon it,
and, again taking to the miniature craft which had served them so well, the
Frenchmen sailed across the strait, determined to do or die.

There was no occasion for bloodshed, however, for the handful of settlers upon
Tortuga were peaceable and friendly folk, and instead of resisting the
Kittefonians they welcomed them, and aided them in every way. Thus for six
months the French and Spanish dwelt together on the best of terms in Tortuga.
But this state of affairs did not endure for long. The French, finding Tortuga an
[220]agreeable spot, well stocked with game as well as wild hogs and cattle,
crossed and recrossed the sea to French settlements and brought scores of their
countrymen to the new land, until the Dons, feeling that the place would soon
become wholly French, repented of their former friendliness and sent word of
the newcomers’ presence to the Spanish at Santo Domingo.

As a result, a strong force of Spanish troops was despatched to Tortuga, and the
French, realizing the futility of resistance, promptly took to the woods and later
secretly made their way in their canoes to the neighboring island of Hispaniola.
Here they lived in the jungle and carried on a guerrilla warfare against the Dons,
who were ever seeking to eliminate their unwelcome guests. Finding no French
at Tortuga, the Spanish soon withdrew the bulk of the troops, to use them to
better advantage on the larger island, whereupon the tactful French hied
themselves once more to Tortuga, massacred the few Spaniards left there, and,
taking possession, threw up hastily constructed fortifications. Then, aware that
they could not hope to resist the mighty power of Spain for long, they
despatched a boat to St. Kitts, begging the French governor of that island to
send aid.

Being only too glad to add to the possessions of [221]France, the governor
immediately responded by sending over a good-sized ship with a large
complement of men, a plentiful store of arms, cannon and ammunition, and a
quantity of supplies. The new arrivals at once began constructing a fort upon
the summit of a rocky hill which overlooked the harbor, and which was so
situated that it could be reached only by means of a defile barely wide enough
to permit the passage of two persons abreast. Here a battery of two guns was
erected, a house was built, and a natural cavern was transformed into a
magazine, and, as a finishing touch, the natural passway was destroyed and the
fort rendered accessible only by means of ladders.

Feeling that they were now quite secure, the French colonists set diligently to
work, cultivating tobacco and other crops, fishing, hunting the wild cattle and
swine, and, most lucrative of all, robbing the Spanish settlements on the coasts
of the near-by Spanish islands.

At that time one of the principal articles of food and of export was the smoke-
dried flesh of cattle and hogs, a product peculiar to Hispaniola and the
neighboring islands and known by the Carib name of boucan or bucan. Tortuga,
with limited agricultural resources but innumerable wild animals, was particularly
well adapted to the bucanning industry, [222]and a very large proportion of the
settlers devoted virtually all their time to hunting and curing meat. As a result,
the inhabitants soon became known as boucaniers, bucaneers or buccaneers, a
name which was to become famed throughout the world. The original
significance of “buccaneer” was wholly lost and, becoming synonymous with
“pirate,” it was destined to carry terror to the hearts of the Spaniards far and
near. To Tortuga, the home of the buccaneers, flocked malcontents,
adventurers, real pirates, seamen, and all sorts of wild rovers of the sea and
land, until the island became headquarters for the most lawless of French and
British wanderers and outlaws. But all were bound together by a common
hatred of the Spaniards; all were willing to enter into any wild enterprise that
promised loot; all were absolutely fearless, unprincipled, ruthless, and daring;
and all took unto themselves the common name of buccaneers.

Do not imagine, however, that the Dons upon the neighboring island stood idly
by and saw Tortuga fall into the buccaneers’ hands without making any effort to
prevent it. On the contrary, they did their best to recover the island, though
without success. Upon a hill overlooking the French fort they established a
battery of their own, and were [223]about to make matters very uncomfortable
for the buccaneers when the latter surprised them at midnight and took their
fort by storm, slaughtering the defenders without mercy and throwing the
survivors over the beetling cliffs. After this the buccaneers had it pretty much
their own way for about thirty years, or until 1664, when the French West India
Company was granted a royal charter to Tortuga, by the French crown.

But the West India Company soon found that to be granted a charter to the
headquarters of the buccaneers was one thing and to secure their rights and
privileges and bend the lawless rascals to their will was quite a different matter.
Sending out their own factors and employees, the company established stores
and plantations, but this effort was a failure; for no nation dared trade with
Tortuga, so close to Spanish territory, and even the company’s own ships were
often seized and lost. Then the company sought to carry on trade with the
buccaneers themselves, agreeing to supply them with goods and necessities on
credit, the buccaneers to pay as they could from the fruits of their forays. But
the company’s factors soon discovered that the buccaneers were as inclined to
questionable methods when dealing with their own country as when dealing
with the Dons; and they received [224]merely rude jests and laughter, or even
blows at times, in place of money, when they sought to collect their accounts.
Even when armed men were sent out to enforce a settlement, the buccaneers
flatly refused to pay; and those of the guards who did not desert and throw in
their lot with the freebooters cast aside their weapons and left the company at
the first opportunity.

At last, convinced that these were far from desirable customers or neighbors,
the French West India Company made the best of a bad bargain and, disposing
of their few remaining possessions for what they would bring, withdrew from
Tortuga and left it in undisputed control of the buccaneers.

This, then, was the beginning of that vast, all but unconquerable, incredibly
valiant, and unspeakably cruel and unprincipled organization known as the
“Brethren of the Main.” Here in Tortuga the buccaneers came into existence;
from a handful of despoiled Frenchmen from St. Kitts the band grew to
thousands; from robbing Spanish corrals and chicken roosts along the shores of
Hispaniola they progressed to the destruction of Spanish fleets, the sacking of
towns, the capture of fortresses, and to unparalleled feats of bravery. From
Tortuga they spread far and near, and the dugouts in which they were wont to
make their first raids gave [225]place to swift ships bristling with cannon and
manned by hundreds of well-armed men; while from the harmless and peaceful
occupation of drying meat, which gave them their name, they turned to
bloodshed and piracy. [226]
[Contents]
CHAPTER XIII
 THE BRETHREN OF THE MAIN
Although from the time that handful of refugees took Tortuga from
the Spaniards the island was nominally French, yet it was ever, to all
intents and purposes, buccaneer. Even the governors, appointed by
France, were in hearty sympathy with the freebooters and were no
better than their fellows. Moreover, the inhabitants of the isle were
not by any means all French. Attracted by the freedom of the place,
the opportunities for the semi-wild life of buccanning, in its original
sense, and the chances of “emprizing,” as they put it, against the
Dons, adventurous souls from far and near flocked to Tortuga.

Principally they were English or French, but there were not a few
Dutch, a number of Portuguese, a sprinkling of Spanish, and an
endless number of mixed breeds and men without any definite
country. But, once in Tortuga, all differences of blood, religion, and
profession, as well as of social status, were cast aside and forgotten,
and they became [227]once and for all buccaneers, 1 bound together
as “Brethren of the Main.” And, curious as it may seem, these men,
although absolutely unprincipled and ruthless where others were
concerned, were marvelously honest and square among themselves,
and with the Indians with whom they came in contact. Of course this
was a case of necessity rather than of choice, for they realized that
only by faithfulness and integrity with one another could they
succeed, and that the Indians were essential to them, as pilots,
hunters, fishermen, and guides. It is also a fact, although lurid
fiction and stories by those who know little or nothing of buccaneer
history would have us believe otherwise, that as a rule these pirates
were far more humane in their treatment of prisoners than the
regular soldiery and naval forces of their day. But, like their dealings
with the Indians, this consideration for their enemies and captives
was to the buccaneers’ advantage. They well [228]knew, “by divers
experiences,” that unless they gave quarter to their prisoners and
released captives upon payment of ransom their own fellows would
be put to torture and the sword when captured by the Spaniards.
Moreover, through the gratitude of prisoners whom they spared, or
even aided, the pirates gained much valuable information,—far
more, in fact, than through torture,—and on more than one occasion
the buccaneers who fell into the Dons’ hands were treated
courteously and were even helped on their way by those who had
received similar treatment from the freebooters.
FRANCIS LOLONOIS.
 LOLONOIS

The Cruelty of Lolonois

Of course there were exceptions to this. Such men as Montbars,

Morgan, Lolonais, and a few others seemed to glory in torture and
murder, and proved themselves fiends incarnate; and it was the
deeds committed by such men that gave the reputation for
bloodthirstiness to all. In addition, after the buccaneers had
scattered and were no longer an organized body, but carried on their
piratical ventures as individuals and were hunted by all nations, they
deteriorated and became mere pirates, who robbed and killed friend
and foe with equal impartiality. When the buccaneers first came into
being, and for many years thereafter, France and England were at
war with Spain, and so raids and attacks upon the Dons were
considered legal warfare, [229]and even long after peace was
established between the powers the buccaneers preyed only upon
their hereditary enemies the Spaniards. But as time passed and the
authorities, in order to preserve peace, were compelled to
apprehend and hang the most notorious of the buccaneers, the
remainder looked upon every peaceful man as their enemy and
considered legitimate prey every ship they could overpower. They
burned, sacked, and destroyed whenever opportunity offered,
regardless of flag or nationality.

At first the buccaneers were compelled to make their raids in small

boats,—bateaux and pirogues, or dugout canoes,—for they had no
ships of their own. But this handicap did not deter them in the least.
The fact that a contemplated prize was a great galleon bristling with
guns and swarming with armed men did not discourage them, but
rather made them the more keen to take her. Manning their little
craft, the buccaneers pulled or paddled or sailed toward their prey,
steering in such a way as to avoid the heaviest fire of the enemy’s
guns (and it must be remembered that with the clumsy, short-range,
far from accurate cannon of those days a moving small boat was a
difficult mark to hit), and meantime keeping up a steady fusillade of
small arms. Literally walking arsenals, trained [230]marksmen, and
accustomed to hunting wild cattle, the pirates usually succeeded in
killing the helmsman of the enemy’s ship, as well as many of the
gunners. Running under the vessel’s stern, they would make fast,
wedge the rudder of their prize, and with knives in teeth swarm up
chains and rigging and pour over the rail like a pack of fiends.
Nothing could withstand the onslaught of this savage crew, who,
yelling and cursing, poured over the bulwarks, cutlass in one hand,
pistol in the other, and shooting, slashing, and thrusting like
madmen, oblivious of wounds, regardless of death, hacked and slew
and seemed to be everywhere at once.

It was thus that Sharp and his men took the Spanish fleet and came
into possession of The Most Blessed Trinity in the harbor of Panama,
and the annals of the buccaneers are filled with similar deeds. The
ship in their hands, as a rule they either put the ordinary survivors of
the battle ashore or set them adrift in a boat, retained the captain
and his officers as prisoners for ransom, and took possession of any
women who might be aboard.

Having by such means secured seaworthy sailing-vessels, the

buccaneers were able to extend operations, and after eliminating the
fancy gilt-work and lofty stern castles, the luxuriant fittings, and all
unnecessary gear of their prizes, they would [231]man them with
crews of several hundred each and set forth on their forays.

They seldom built ships of their own, but by selecting the handiest
and swiftest of their prizes and rerigging and refitting them to suit
their own special needs, they gradually accumulated a fleet of ships
which were noted for speed and stanchness. Moreover, the larger
vessels were seldom used. The pirates required craft which could
dodge among reefs and slip through shoal waters where the big
men-of-war could not follow, and it was only now and then that a
buccaneer ship carried more than eight guns, the usual number
being four or six. The pirates depended more upon seamanship and
marksmanship than mere weight of metal or thundering broadsides,
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