ject, "it has been said they shall be executed, whatever may happen, and, consequently, exhortations to duty, are preposterous, and the use of means to avoid one thing, and to obtain another, is idle labour. The objection has a specious appearance, which dazzles superficial thinkers; but it is founded on mistake, or in intentional misrepresentation. It proceeds upon the idea, that the decrees of God are determinations respecting certain ends or events, without a reference to the means, which is to attribute a procedure to Him who is wonderful in council, which would be unworthy of any of his creatures, endowed with only a small portion of reason. The objection first separates things, which cannot, in fact, be disjoined, the means and the end, and then holding up the doctrine of the Divine decrees, in this mangled and distorted light, pronounces it to be absurd. With whatever parade and confidence, therefore, it has been brought forward, it has no relation to the subject, and is only of use to destroy an extravagant and senseless theory, which has been substituted in the room of the doctrine of scripture.

"When God decreed an event, he, at the same time, decreed that it should take place, in consequence of a train of other events, or as the result of certain previous circumstances. Thus he did not purpose to save Paul, and his companions, unconditionally, but by means of the seamen remaining on board, to manage the ship, till it should be driven on the coast of Melita. In the same manuer, he has not determined to save sinners, let them live as they will, but he has chosen them to salvation, 'through sanctification of the spirit, and belief of the truth.' To say, therefore, that unless the means be employed, the ends cannot be accomplished, is to assert a very simple and self-evident truth, that the purposes of

God cannot be fulfilled, unless they be fulfilled. Had Paul and his company been preserved without the aid of the sailors, the decree of God would not have been executed, nor would it be executed, if it were possible for a sinner, to escape eternal perdition, without faith and repentance. The same event is supposed in both cases, but it is brought to pass in a different way from what God had ordained. Let us always remember that the means make a part of the Divine decrees, as well as the end. The system of things is like a chain, composed of many links, on each of which the union and consistence of the whole depend. If one link were broken, the chain would be destroyed. None of his purposes, therefore, can be defeated, because the means of carrying them into effect are provided, and shall be brought into action at the proper season."*

The doctrine of absolute decrees is charged with being at variance with the tender expostulations of the Gospel with sinners, and with those invitations of grace by which they are entreated to be reconciled to God, and with such declarations as show, that he has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Calvinists generally reply, that they believe the sincerity of those invitations, expostulations, and declarations, as readily and firmly, as they do in absolute decrees, and for the same reason, because they find them both in the word of God; and that they believe the latter to be perfectly consistent with the former, although they are not able to show that they are so. They affirm that it is not their business to clear up those difficulties which, in several instances, attend both the doctrines of natural

Mr. Dick's Lectures on some Passages of the Acts, Lect. 29.

religion, and the truths of Christianity. They can, they say, easily show that the doctrine of absolute decrees, is contained in the word of God, and having done this, they contend that they have nothing more to do.

With respect to the decrees of God, Calvinists have been divided into two opinions. We shall give the statement of these from a writer who was himself a Calvinist, and who possessed talents of the most respectable kind. "Calvinists are divided upon this subject into two sorts, commonly called Supralapsarians and Sublapsarians. The reasons of the names are, from the one being of opinion that God in ordaining the elect and reprobate, considered man as before the fall; and the other as fallen, and in a state of guilt.

"The first say, that in laying down a plan, what is last in the execution is first in the intention; that God purposed to glorify his mercy and justice in the everlasting felicity of some, called vessels of mercy; and in the everlasting perdition of others, called vessels of wrath. That to accomplish this purpose he resolved to create the world, to put man into a condition in which he would certainly fall. To send the Redeemer in the fulness of time to carry on the whole plan of salvation, as we now find it in the oracles of truth.

"The Sublapsarians say that the order of purposing, should be the same as the order of execution. That the decrees of God being eternal, there can no order of time be applied to them, but that which takes place in the execution. Therefore they say, that God proposed to make man innocent and holy, with powers to preserve his innocence, but liable to fall: that he foresaw the fall, and permitted it, and from the corrupted mass freely chose some as the objects of mercy, and left others to perish in the

ruins of their apostacy, and that to accomplish this purpose he resolved to send the Saviour, &c."*

Mr. Evans, in his Sketch, makes the Supralapsarians maintain, "that God had, from all eternity decreed the transgression of Adam, in such a manner, that our first parents could not possibly avoid this fatal event." If these are the words of any Calvinist, it will be impossible to vindicate him from the charge of making God the author of sin; a supposition in itself horrible. The Westminster Confession, by making the fall of man the subject of a decree, seems to fall in with the doctrine of the Supralapsarians, in one point of view; though of such nice distinction, it very properly takes no notice whatsoever. Its language is very different, indeed, from the words we have quoted from Mr. Evans. "God, from all eternity

did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass; yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established."-3. In the shorter Catechism the answer to the thirteenth question is thus:-" Our first parents being left to the freedom of their own will, fell from the estate wherein they were created, by sinning against God."

Whatever opinion we form of the doctrines of Calvinism, few men who are able impartially to review the conduct of many Calvinists, will deny, that they have been too much addicted to nice and subtle speculations; and of this kind, we fear, the distinction between Supralapsarians,

Dr. Witherspoon's Lectures on Divinity, Lect. 12.

and Sublapsarians, will be found to be one striking instance. To those modern Calvinists, who adopt no more of the system of Calvin, than particular election, all such distinctions are utterly unknown. Indeed, these distinctions are now seldom mentioned, even by Calvinists of the highest form. Such speculations seem to be too high for the limited capacities of the human mind. Some Calvinists have speculated upon the decrees of God, till they have brought themselves to deny the propriety of all addresses and exhortations to sinners; though the use of such addresses and exhortations is sanctioned by the universal practice of the Apostles, and first preachers of Christianity.

The texts of Scripture from which the Calvinists conclude that the doctrine of particular election is taught in the word of God, are in general so many, and so well known, that we shall not swell this article with an account of them. They may be found in every controversial performance on that side of the question.

The second subject of dispute between the Calvinists and Arminians was about Redemption. The former contended for particular, and the latter for general or universal Redemption. Many Calvinists have maintained, that the Father's Election and the Son's Redemption are of precisely the same extent, and that Christ paid the price of Redemption by his blood for none but those whom he saves by the efficacious grace of his Holy Spirit. They consider such declarations of our Saviour as follow, decisive upon this subject. "I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep."-John x. 11. "That he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him.”—xvii. 2. "This is the Father's will who hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me, I should