Imatges de pàgina
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-First, By electing them from all eternity: and, Secondly, By preparing for them grace in this life, and glory in the world to come.

4. The means which belong to the execution of this Predestination, are (1) Christ himself:-(2) An efficacious call to faith in Christ, from which Justification takes its origin :(3) The gift of perseverance unto the end.

5. As far as we are capable of comprehending their scheme of REPROBATION, it consists of two acts,-that of preterition and that of predamnation. It is antecedent to all things, and to all causes which are either in the things themselves or which arise out of them;-that is, it has no regard whatever to any sin, and only views man in an absolute and general aspect.

6. Two means are fore-ordained for the execution of the act of PRETERITION: (1) Dereliction [or abandoning] in a state of nature, which by itself is incapable of every thing supernatural: And (2) Non-communication [or a negation] of supernatural grace, by which their nature (if in a state of integrity,) might be strengthened, and (if in a state of corruption,) might be restored.

7. PREDAMNATION is antecedent to all things, yet it does by no means exist without a fore-knowledge of the causes of damnation: It views man as a sinner, obnoxious to damnation in Adam, and as on this account perishing through the Recessity of Divine Justice.

8. The means ordained for the execution of this predamnation, are (1) Just Desertion,-which is either that of exploration, [or examination,] in which God does not confer his grace, or that of punishment when God takes away from a man all his saving gifts, and delivers him over to the power of Satan. (2) The Second means are induration or hardening, and those consequences which usually follow, even to the real damnation of the person reprobated.

3. A THIRD KIND OF PREDESTINATION.

But others among our doctors state their sentiments on this subject in the following manner:

1. Because God willed within himself from all eternity to make a decree by which he might elect certain men and reprobate the rest, He viewed and considered the human race not only as created but likewise as fallen or corrupt, and on that account obnoxious to cursing and malediction. Out of this lapsed and accursed state God determined to liberate certain individuals and freely to save them by his grace,-for

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a declaration of his mercy; but He resolved in his own just judgment to leave the rest under the curse [or malediction] for a declaration of his justice: In both these cases God acts without the least consideration of repentance and faith in those whom he elects, or of impenitence and unbelief in those whom he reprobates.

2. The special means which relate particularly to the execution both of election and reprobation, are the very same as those which we have already expounded in the first of these kinds of Predestination,-with the exception of those means which are common both to Election and Reprobation; because this [third] opinion places the fall of man, not as a means fore-ordained for the execution of the preceding decree of Predestination, but as something that might furnish a fixed purpose [proæresis] or occasion for making this decree of Predestination.

4. MY JUDGMENT RESPECTING THE TWO

LAST-DESCRIBED

SCHEMES OF PREDESTINATION. Both these opinions, as they outwardly pretend, differ from the First in this point,-that neither of them lays down the creation or the full as a mediate cause fore-ordained by God for the execution of the preceding decree of Predestination. Yet, with regard to the fall, some diversity may be perceived in the two latter opinions: For the Second kind of Predestination places election, with regard to the end, before the fall; it also places before that event preterition, [or passing by,] which is the first part of Reprobation: While the third kind does not allow any part of election and reprobation to commence till after the fall of man. But, among the causes which seem to have induced the inventors of the two latter schemes to deliver the doctrine of Predestination in this manner, and not to ascend to such a great height as the inventors of the First scheme have done, this is not the least,—that they have been desirous of using the greatest precaution, lest it might be concluded from their doctrine, that God is the author of sin, with as much show of probability as, (according to the intimation of some of those who yield their assent to both the latter kinds,) it is deducible from the First description of Predestination.

+ See the conclusion of Baro's Summary, in the preceding Appendix G, which exactly co-incides with these remarks of our author.

In the margin of this part of the Declaration, Arminius adds the following note: "The authors of these two opinions have endeavoured, not to suffer the fall of Adam to be laid down as a means subordinate and subservient to the decree of Predestination, and thus, at the same time, not to make God the author of sin."

Yet if we be willing to inspect these two latter opinions a little more closely, and in particular if we accurately examine the Second and Third kind and compare them with other sentiments of the same authors concerning some subjects of our religion, we shall discover, that the fall of Adam cannot possibly, according to their views, be considered in any other manner than as a necessary means for the execution of the preceding decree of Predestination.

1. In reference to the SECOND of the three, this is apparent from two reasons comprised in it:

The First of these reasons is that which states God to have determined by the decree of reprobation to deny to man that grace which was necessary for the confirmation and strengthening of his nature, that it might not be corrupted by sin; which amounts to this, that God decreed not to bestow that grace which was necessary to avoid sin; and from this must necessarily follow the transgression of man, as proceeding from a law imposed on him. The fall of man is therefore a means ordained for the execution of the decree of Reprobation.

The Second of these reasons is that which states the two parts of Reprobation to be preterition and predamnation. These two parts, according to that decree, are connected together by a necessary and mutual bond, and are equally extensive. For, all those whom God passed by in conferring Divine grace, are likewise damned: Indeed no others are damned, except those who are the subjects of this act of preterition. From this therefore it may be concluded, that "sin must necessarily follow from the decree of reprobation or preterition." Because, if it were otherwise, it might pos sibly happen, that a person who had been passed by, might not commit sin, and from that circumstance might not become liable to damnation; since sin is the sole meritorious cause of damnation: And thus certain of those individuals who had been passed by, might neither be saved nor damned,-which is a great absurdity.

This Second opinion on Predestination, therefore, falls into the same inconvenience as the First. For it not only does not avoid that [conclusion of making God the author of sin,] but while those who profess it make the attempt, they fall into a palpable and absurd self-contradiction,-while, in reference to this point, the First of these opinions is alike throughout and consistent with itself. *

*This is the boast of that clever man and celebrated Supra-lapsarian, Dr. Twisse, who on account of his eminent Calvinistic qualifications was appointed

2. The Third of these schemes of Predestination would escape this rock to much better effect, did not the patrons of

in 1643 Prolocutor or President of the famous Assembly of Divines at Westminster, part of whose labour it was, to attempt, like the framers of the Lambeth Articles, (page 90,) to make the Articles of the Church of England assume a regular and decided Calvinistic aspect: This circumstance is very galling to all the modern assertors of the Calvinism of our Church, and is never mentioned without evident tokens of regret. For it is thus proved, that her reputed Calvinism was not sufficiently explicit and strong for those great men who framed the Lambeth Articles, and for those who constituted the Westminster Assembly,--and to whom the high Predestinarian doctrines, in their foundations and bearings, were much better known than to any of the modern defenders of Calvinism. The improvements made by the latter Assembly upon the first Fifteen of our excellent Articles, may be safely recommended, as an interesting study, to all those rigid Predestinarian clergymen who glory in what they call the Calvinism of our Church.

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Dr. Twisse wrote a reply to our author's Examination of Perkins on Predestination, and entitled it A Vindication of the Grace, Power, and Providence of God, &c., in which he arrives at the very same conclusion as Arminius, respecting the equally objectionable nature of Sublapsarianism,—that, whatever subterfuges it may employ, it can repel to no better effect than Supralapsarianism does, the charge of making God the author of sin. He is particularly severe against Peter Molinæus, Du Moulin, who, in that vile production, the Anatomy of Arminianism, had endeavoured, like many theological pretenders in these days, to invent a Predestinarian scheme, in which absolute Election should claim for itself all the necessity that had formerly been divided between it and Reprobation. Du Moulin adopted the same plan with it, as the Armiuians do both with it and Election, he made it to proceed from a foresight of sins actually committed, and of a final perseverance in them: And to manifest the cruelty and injustice of unconditional Reprobation, he employs this appropriate interrogation: "Who does not "abominate a king that can talk in the following manner?: I adjudge this "man to be hanged. But, in order that his sentence may be JUST, it is my pleasure that he commit murder, or steal some of the national property!" He likewise reasons thus in another most orthodox passage: "It cannot "be denied, that the reprobation or rejection of a creature is the greatest "punishment which it is possible for God to inflict on a rational being, "because the necessary consequences of it are eternal torments. It is not "therefore the part of Infinite Goodness and Supreme Justice to desert his own "creature, not indeed because it had sinned but because such desertion was "God's pleasure, and that he might obtain matter for glory from the desertion "of a poor spirit created by himself? If a father knows that on him depends "the happiness of his son, can he, without incurring the charge of cruelty "and want of affection, desert that son,-inuocent as the child is and not "convicted of any crime,-especially if by this desertion his son should fall "into eternal wretchedness, and, solely on account of it, become at once most "miserable and wicked?-Indeed if God should withdraw what he had "bestowed, and should reduce his creature to a non-entity, there would "exist no cause of complaining. But, to give an infinite evil to a creature on "whom he had bestowed a finite good,—and to create man for the sole purpose "of destroying him, that he may acquire glory to himself by such destruc❝tion,-how abhorrent is this from the benignity and the justice of God!" For this amiable weakness, Moulin is reprehended by Dr. Twisse in eight long chapters. In the commencement of them, he says, "I undertake this "task with the greater cheerfulness, because, I see this divine [Moulin] who "is in other respects singularly learned, and who attempers his Philosophy "with his Theology in a manner sufficiently laudable and accurate,--I see him "committing shameful mistakes in the article of Reprobation, and thus

it, while declaring their sentiments on Predestination and Providence, employ certain expressions, from which the neces"importing into the Reformed Churches pure and unsophisticated Arminian"ism. Tais, alas, he has done without any tergiversation, in a manner at "once too spirited and luminous. By this deed he not only professedly agrees "in that particular with the Arminians, but, by a just consequence be entirely "destroys all the arguments in favour of election, which he had previously "urged against the Arminians." In commenting upon some of Moulin's arguments, the Doctor exclaims, "In these expressions Moulin delineates to "us the spectres of reasons, rather than their true representations. These “words are spoken much too improvidently. In this argument, therefore, "he is chargeable with far more errors than Arminius.-This is to act the "part of a Rhetorician, and not that of a Philosopher."

Several epithets, more rancorous than these, has this Supra-lapsarian Doctor bestowed on his offending brother.-What is the reason of all this bad humour towards Moulin and other Sublapsarians? Dr. Twisse shall give his own account of the matter: "Do you wish me freely to explain the only "advantage which accrues from this moderate method of softening our opinion "respecting the object of Predestination? I will declare what my thoughts "are: The sole effect of it is, that we [our doctrine] may be freed from the "fall of our first parents, by making the decree to be subject and subordinate "to that act. It appears to me more than probahle and very likely, that this "was the only thing which engaged the foresight of those who asserted this "middle and apparently temperate opinion,-lest otherwise it should be esta"blished, that sin was committed in consequence of God's decree, as a means "accommodated to the purposes which had been previously prescribed to it by "God in Predestination. It seems impossible, by any solid reason, to explain "from these premises, how God may not be constituted the author of sin. Let "it be granted, that the fall of our first parents is removed from the decree of "Predestination. If, in the mean time, it must only be subjected to a Divine "decree of another kind, what advantage do we ultimately gain from this our "anxious desire to avoid that rock? We have in reality not avoided it; but "while we have with sufficient solicitude wished, by one course, to shun this "rock, we have, on steering another course, unhappily struck upon it. If this had been the order of things in the Divine intention,-that the first place "should be occupied by the creation, the second by the permission of the fall, " and the third by predestination to life and death.—then it would have been "necessary, that in the act of execution the order of all of them should be "reversed: The consequences of which would be, that God ought first to have "saved some men and damned others, he ought afterwards to have permitted "their fall, and, last of all, he ought to have produced them from nothing by "means of creation. Such are the monstrous and portentous opinions with "which this [Sublapsarian] scheme is charged, and which it produces,"opinions that are far more worthy to proceed from the schools of the Jesuits "or the Arminians, than from ours!" (Vind. Grat. 1. i, pt. 1. dig. iv. sec. 4.) To understand the logic contained in the close of this quotation, it is necessary to state, that one grand argument on which as a foundation the Doctor's scheme rests, and which he considers to be his best weapon of defence, is this fallacious postulate, Whatever is first in the Divine Intention, must be last in execution! His own curious reasons for adopting it, are too diffuse to be here transcribed; they may be seen in his preface. Though the Calvinists generally knit their brows and thunder out anathemas against any man "who is so presumptuous as to pry into the Divine Counsels," yet, in every Predestinarian controversy which I have examined, the Fatalists have in this respect been themselves the first offenders, and their adversaries have been compelled either to follow them through all their labyrinths, or to sit down in bitterness of soul and hear the saving purposes and the glorious attributes of the Divine Being traduced and virtually blasphemed. In this instance, the Doctor and

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