Junius Max-ing here, from his preface in the Mosaic Polity. He does a great job detailing the place for magistrates and ministers, each in their own callings, to address the general nature of the moral law: "For my part, I am not ignorant of those boundaries that God has placed around my office as a theologian, or of the examples that the orthodox fathers supplied to the church of God, or of the authority that God has granted in this matter to prudent jurists and just magistrates, and I am thus free from audacious and gladiatorial feelings. Yet on this question, in my opinion, anyone who would judge with a just balance its nature, mode, and goal would judge that even some parts of this task are ours. As a matter of fact, the nature of this question has both a common part and a particular part. Its mode is such that a theologian describes part of its rules, and the magistrate applies his authority and force to his part of the rules. Finally, the theologian sets forth the goal for
It is important to understand from Scripture that God's sovereignty works through His ordained means, which include His promises and our prayers. Yes, the Lord has predestined who shall be saved from before the world began. But He did not merely predestine the eternal destinies of each person, but has ordained that we arrive at our predestined ends through the means of everything that happens in this life. Some hold to a fatalistic view of predestination -- which is heretical and grossly unbiblical. It is as if we are not to plead with God, especially in line with His promises, to us and our children, for our nation and land, for His kingdom to come and will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. No Christian should hold to such wickedness. While that is often straw-manned as the "Calvinistic doctrine of predestination", neither Calvin nor any other Reformer, Puritan, etc., held to such a position. Rather, along with Scripture, we recognize that we are to keep seeking,