To the most famous Mr. NICHOLAS HEMMINGIUS, Professor of Divinity in Denmark, a man worthy to be held in the highest honour and esteem by me, PETER BARO.

DEAR SIR, my Reverend Father in Christ, and worthy of receiving from me proofs of the most sincere esteem,

Since I have been drawn to love and reverence you solely on account of the truth which shines with such transcendant lustre in your writings, I hope this letter, which I have now a favourable opportunity of transmitting, will not prove disagreeable to you. By it I wish in the most friendly and pleasant manner possible to congratulate you and wish you the enjoyment of health and every blessing; and at the same time earnestly to request you, that, although you have already bestowed uncommon labour in explaining and illustrating the opinion of Master Philip [Melancthon] on predestination, you will yet proceed in such a desirable employment. For since those persons who contradict that opinion are at length brought to admit things of the greatest absurdity and which had never before been heard in the Church of God, and are not ashamed to defend them; and since the eyes of some people are dazzled by the productions of such writers, we must not on any account desist from the defence of truth which we have undertaken. But the eyes of all men are turned towards you, a man of the greatest celebrity on account of your age, your piety and erudition: The matter itself also appears to require this at your hands,-to continue drawing out of the storehouse of your riches whatever your prudence may have considered to belong to the elucidation of a question of such vast importance. We also prefer the same request to you, and form the same hopes; that, being clad in your armour, we may be able in this part of the world the more easily to offer resistance to the adversaries, and to defend the truth.-Most excellent man, you are aware that all your smaller treatises were published some few years ago at Geneva, but with a preface of such a description, as, from its style, seems to be the production of Beza. In that preface, although he appears wishful of giving a favourable and just interpretation of your sentiments, yet he draws it over to his own meaning in such a way as to make it difficult to perceive what are your real opinions. By this means he has excited doubts in the minds of many persons, which you can remove if you please, and no longer allow your opinion to be thus unfairly wrested.

In this country we have hitherto been permitted to hold the same sentiments as yours on grace; but we are now scarcely allowed publicly to teach our own opinions on that subject, much less to publish them. Had the latter indulgence been granted us, we have certain works prepared, and of them the number is not small, which seem to be advantageous to this doctrine. I wish greatly that they were in your hands, and that, after revising and amending them, you would have the goodness to publish them. But since this is not practicable on account of the immense distance of your place of residence from mine, I will only send you this very small pamphlet, entitled "A Summary of three Opinions on Predestination," from which you will be able to form a judgment concerning the quality of the remainder. Dispose of this small affair according to your pleasure; you are quite at liberty to add it to any of your own works, when next you favour the world with some more of your publications. But we wait in expectation of seeing your productions; and we unite in earnest supplication to God Almighty, that he may be pleased long to protect you, reverend sir, in safety, and to preserve you for the propagation and defence of his own truth.

Your's in the bonds of the greatest sincerity and friendship, CAMBRIDGE, April 1st, 1596.

PETER BARO.

PETER BARO'S SUMMARY

OF THREE OPINIONS

CONCERNING PREDESTINATION.

"IN the Protestant Church, three principal opinions exist respecting the eternal Predestination of men: In this enumeration we omit the opinions of Pelagius and of others on this subject, which have been condemned by the Church.

"The FIRST of these opinions, which has in our days obtained great celebrity, and which has on the other hand been as greatly impugned, is the opinion of Calvin and Beza, and, as these two good men wish it to appear, it was also the more mature opinion of Luther and St. Augustine. It is to this effect: God decreed from all eternity to create mankind for this express purpose,-to choose or elect certain men (suppose PETER, JOHN, JAMES, &c.,) and to reject or reprobate all

the remainder, to illustrate and display his mercy in the former, his justice in the latter, and his glory in both of them. In making this decree of election and reprobation, he had no regard whatever either to Christ the Mediator or to faith in relation to the former, and no regard to any kind of sin either original or actual in relation to the latter; but he decreed absolutely to elect the former and to reprobate the latter, without respect to any thing out of himself, but solely because thus it pleased him to display his own glory.-But, to carry this decree of his into effect, he decreed in the second place, (though this was also from all eternity,) that the first man should fall before he begat any one, that by his sin the whole of the human race might be corrupted and rendered obnoxious to condemnation: -That by these means he might shew mercy to those whom he had formerly purposed to elect, and for whose sakes likewise he had resolved to send Christ in whom he might adopt them for sons to himself and might finally save them :-But that, by the same means, he might not only not shew mercy to the others whom he had by the same decree determined to reprobate, but that, deserted as they were in that mass of perdition and destitute of Christ the Deliverer and of every aid to salvation, he might at last also miserably destroy them on account of their sins, although those sins had been committed through his own inevitable decree.' For they wish to represent this decree as the energetic and efficient principle of all things; being that by which God resolved that all affairs and actions should certainly and necessarily be done and take place, as well as their circumstances, place, time, means,-whether they be of a good description by which the elect are saved, or of a bad kind by which the reprobate perish. For he who willeth the end, willeth also the means: So that it is utterly impossible for those who are of the former number to do otherwise than believe, lead a pious life and be saved; nor, on the other hand, is it possible for the rest to believe, lead a life of piety, or to be saved. Yet if this be laid down as a position, it is scarcely (and not even scarcely,) possible to understand how God may not be accounted the Author of that which is evil as well as of that which is good, and of men's destruction as well as of their salvation.

"The SECOND Opinion on predestination is that which St. Augustine, and Sohnius, Professor of Divinity in the University of Heidelbergh, held in the latter part of their lives. It is likewise the sentiment of Zanchius and of certain other Protestants, as well as of Cardinal Bellarmine; all of whom unite

in disapproving of the first opinion, and agree together in representing this as a Predestination to be computed only from the fall of Adam. St. Augustine bears his testimony in favour of it when he thus writes: From the condemned origin or stock of Adam, as from a single mass delivered to merited damnation, of some God made vessels of wrath to dishonour, and of ' others vessels of mercy to honour,-rendering to the former in punishment that which was their due, and to the latter in ⚫ grace what was their due.'-This kind of Predestination is thus defined by Sohnius: The Predestination of men is an ⚫ eternal and immutable decree of God, by which, according to his own good pleasure, he has fore-ordained to eternal life <or eternal death the whole of the human race foreknown by him, and considered in the state and circumstances in which they would be after the creation and the fall, that is, as corrupt and called to Christ by the gospel,-for an eternaldeclaration and expression of his transcendant mercy and. 'justice, and, therefore, of his glory.'-Bellarmine wishes it to be understood, that the following statement is from the doctrine of St. Augustine: Predestination is the Providence of "God, by which certain men who have been mercifully selected 'from the mass of perdition, are directed by infallible means. to life eternal.'-(1) But this second opinion agrees in one point with the first,-both of them desire to exhibit God as having 'decreed from all eternity to elect a certain number of certain men and to reprobate the rest, for a declaration of his mercy in the former, and in the latter of his justice.'-(2) They also concur in another particular,-for the sake of the former, the Father sent Christ in whom he might adopt them as sons. to himself, and might save them; but, by the counsel of God. himself and according to the mind of Christ, his benefits had no more reference to the redemption of the rest, than to the redemption of brute creatures or of stones, because they did not belong to that certain number,—although he daily invites ALL to repentance, and, as Bellarmine expresses himself, he offers grace to each of them, and to some of them even in his word and sacraments, to all of them indeed he makes an offer of sufficient grace but not of efficacious.'-(3) The last point of their agreement is,-that, according to both of them, those certain individuals can by no means avoid believing or fail of being saved, while the rest are not able to believe or to be saved in him. And, by this means, not only are the ends of both certain and defined, but the means also by which those ends are attained.-From these premises it is manifest, that

both these opinions impose on men an inevitable necessity,→ on the one description of men the necessity of being saved, en the other the necessity of perishing. Numberless absurdities arise from these sentiments.

mass.

"But there are likewise some points of difference between them: (1) The first opinion states, that men are created and formed by God, out of an entire or pure mass, purposely for these very ends. But the second states, that out of a corrupt mass some of them are mercifully elected by God, but that the rest are justly deserted and rejected in the same corrupt St. Paul says, Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? (Rom. ix, 21.) Now according to Calvin and Beza, this passage is to be understood of the creation of men; but, according to Sohnius and Bellarmine, we must understand it partly of the retrieving and recovery of the human race after the fall, and partly of their perdition.→→→ (2) They also differ in this respect,-The first of these two opinions is desirous of having no other cause assigned for election and reprobation than the will of God alone, by which he has been pleased to illustrate and display his mercy and justice in electing the former and in reprobating the latter; that Christ may be not the cause of election but of salvation, he being subordinate to the execution of that decree of God. But it is a definition of the patrons of the second opinion, that the cause of election, at least its material cause, must be sought în Christ the Saviour, and that of reprobation in sin; predestination therefore has, according to their scheme, its commencement from the fail, in order to avoid the inconveniences of the preceding opinion. In this view they would display more equity than their predecessors, if they could in reality perform what in words they promise. But if they be much pressed, they must of necessity have recourse to that absolute will which it is their study to avoid. For since all men are equally included in the mass of perdition, and are all on that account sinners, why does God desert in that mass some of them rather than others? Sin cannot possibly be the cause of this difference, because it is no less in those who are delivered than in those who are deserted. They are forced therefore to confess, that this difference depends on the absolute will of God, whose pleasure it is to apply the merits of Christ to the elect but not to the reprobate. From these premises it is evident, even according to this milder opinion, that God had determined within himself thus to act before the fall