e descendants of Jacob, "hath not obtained that which he seeketh but the election hath obtained it," i. e. those who are elected have obtained it; a remnant is saved, while the rest were blinded; and in place of that great body of Israelites, who thus appear by the event not to have been elected, God hath called a people which before were not his people; he is made manifest by the Gospel to them that asked not after him, and through the fall of a great part of Israel, salvation is come to the Gentiles.

To all the objections which human reason can suggest against this dispensation, the answer made by the apostle is conveyed in this question, "who art thou that repliest against God?" He represents by a striking similitude, the condition of the creatures as entirely at the disposal of him who made them: and he concludes all his reasoning in these words, Rom. xi. 33-36, "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been his counsellor? Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things; to whom be glory for ever, Amen." In these verses, the very principles which are the foundation of Calvinism are laid down by an inspired apostle, and applied by him to account for this fact, that of a nation, who are chosen by God, many individuals perish; and the account which they furnish is this, that under the declared purpose of calling the whole nation to the knowledge of the truth, there was a secret purpose respecting individuals, which secret purpose stands in the salvation of some and the destruction of others; while the declared purpose stands also respecting the whole nation. If these principles apply to the peculiar people of God under the Mosaic dispensation, they may be applied also to Christians, who, by enjoying the gospel, come in place of that peculiar people, and are so designed in Scripture: and the apostle seems to teach us by his reasoning with regard to Israel, that we have not attained his full meaning, when we interpret what he says concerning the predestination of Christians merely of those outward privileges, which being common to all are abused by many; but that with regard to them, as with regard to Israel, there is a purpose of election according to grace which shall stand, because they who are elected shall obtain the end which all profess to seek, while the rest are blinded. According to this method of interpreting these two chapters, we learn from the apostle that there is the same sovereignty, the same exercise of the good pleasure of God in the election of individuals as in the illumination of nations, that both are accounted for upon the same principles, and that with respect to both, God silences all who say that there is unrighteousness in him by that declaration, which he employed when he conferred a signal mark of his favour upon Moses, "I will have mercy upon whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion upon whom I will have compassion."

3. There are passages both in the Epistles and in other parts of Scripture, which appear to declare the election of some individuals and the reprobation of others, without any regard to the nations to which they belong. I do not mean that there are passages of this

kind, the application of which in support of the Calvinistic system has not been controverted; for upon a subject which the Scriptures have left involved in much obscurity, and upon which they have chosen rather to furnish incidental hints than a complete delineation, it is easy for ingenious men to give a plausible exposition of particular texts, so as to accommodate them to their own system. I do not consider that all the texts which are quoted in support of the Calvinistic system admit, according to the rules of sound and fair criticism, of that interpretation which is adopted by those who quote them: nor do I mean to hold forth as insignificant the objections made to the Calvinistic interpretation of the texts which I am now to mention. But I arrange them under this third head, because it appears to me that the interpretation connected with that arrangement is the most natural, and that when taken in conjunction with the other support which the Calvinistic system derives from Scripture, they contain an argument of real weight.

1. Our Lord calls the Christians ExλEXTO, Matth. xxiv. 22, 24, and Luke xviii. 7, when this name does not seem to have any reference to the purpose of calling the Gentiles, or to the election of his apostles to their office. The name is given to those Jews who had embraced the gospel before the destruction of Jerusalem. They were distinguished from their countrymen by their faith in Christ; and on account of this distinction were permitted to escape that destruction which overtook all the rest of their nation. Now the faith of these Christian Jews is represented by the name Exλra, a word which here can have no reference to the distinction between Jews and Gentiles, but seems employed on purpose to remind them that their faith flowed, not from any exertion of their own, but from the good pleasure and appointment of God, who chose them out from amongst their countrymen.

2. Our Lord comprehends his true disciples, all who are to be saved by him, under this general expression, John vi. 37, 39, ravi dedwxɛ or didwar por & rating. He applies, indeed, in John xvii. the phrase ous dedwxas δίδωσι μαι πατης. po to all the twelve apostles, not excluding Judas; so that their being given him by God means nothing more in that place than the phrase used John xv. 16, ουχ ύμεις με εξελέξασθε, αλλ' εγω ύμας εξελεξάμην ;their designation and election to the office of Apostles, without any respect to their personal character or to their own salvation. But when the two chapters are compared, it is instantly perceived that the same phrase is used in different senses; because it is said, John vi. 39, "this is the Father's will, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing;" whereas it is said, John xvii. 12, "those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition." Our Lord's expression in chap. vi. being thus clearly discriminated from the similar expression in chap. xvii. seems to imply that the infallible salvation of all true Christians arise, from the destination of God.

All

3. Acts viii. 48. Και επίστευσαν όσοι ήσαν τεταγμένοι εις ζωήν αιώνιον. who oppose the Calvinistic system understand Tetayμɛvo to mean nothing more than the English word disposed, i. e. persons who had prepared themselves, who were qualified by the disposition of their minds for eternal life. But this use of the word is neither agreeable to

its primary meaning, nor supported by any authority. The word properly means set in order for eternal life; and the ordering is marked, by the passive voice, as proceeding from some other being. So the powers that are, Rom. xiii. 1, by which the apostle means civil authority, ύπο του Θεον τεταγμένοι εισι. Όσοι is manifestly a partitive of the Gentiles, all of whom had heard the same discourse preached by Paul and Barnabas in the synagogue of Antioch, and all of whom had rejoiced in hearing it; and the clause appears intended to account for its producing an effect upon some, of more permanent and substantial value than the gladness which it had produced in all. The account given is the destination of God, who, having meant to bring some of them to eternal life, set them in order for that end, by giving them faith.

4. There is one passage in the epistle to the Romans, where the apostle uses the words προορίζω, εκλεκτοί, πζόθεσις, without seeming to have in his eye the difference between the Jews and Gentiles. Rom. viii. 28-33. Although the twenty-ninth verse be understood to mean nothing more than this, that God ordained that those who are the called according to his purpose should endure suffering like Jesus Christ, it requires a manifest perversion of the following verses to deprive the Calvinistic system of the support, which it obviously derives both from the particular phrase and from the train of the apostle's reasoning. It would seem, indeed, that the first part of the twentyninth verse favours the Arminian system, by making foreknowledge previous to predestination. To this the Calvinists are accustomed to give one or other of the following answers. They either understand яgy to mean not foreknowledge, but that peculiar discriminating affection of which the elect are the objects; or, answering in a manner which has a less captious and evasive appearance, they admit that a perfect foreknowledge of all that the elect are to do enters into the decree of predestination, but they deny that it is the cause of their election, because all that is done by the elect is in consequence of the strength communicated to them by the grace of God. This answer to the Arminian interpretation of Rom. viii. 29, leads me to the third head, under which I arranged that support which the Calvinistic system derives from Scripture.

SECTION III.

THE various descriptions of that change of character, by which men are prepared for eternal life, seem intended to magnify the power and to declare the efficacy of that grace by which it is produced.

All the passages usually quoted under this head furnish clear evidence of what is called in theological language grace, an influence of God upon the mind of man, and in their proper and literal meaning seem to denote that kind of influence which enters into the Calvinistic system. Yet many of them are not decisive of the controversy between the Calvinists and the Arminians, because the Arminians find it possible to give them an interpretation not inconsistent with

their account of the nature of that influence. Thus they are accustomed to quote that saying of our Lord, "without me ye can do nothing," as a proof that preventing grace is necessary to all men. They interpret that saying of the apostle, "faith is the gift of God," as only a proof that without an administration of the means of grace, and a moral suasion accompanying them, none can attain faith; and they consider this expression of our Lord, "No man can come to me except the Father draw him," as marking in the most significant manner that kind of moral suasion, of which the Almighty speaks by the prophet Hosea, "I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love." This specimen shows that upon a subject so far removed from observation and experience, it is not difficult for ingenious men to elude, in a very plausible manner, the argument drawn from those texts, which a person educated with Calvinistic ideas considers as unequivocal proofs of his system. Yet there are three kinds of passages in Scripture, which, when taken together, it appears to me almost impossible to reconcile with the Arminian account of grace.

The first are those which represent the natural powers of the human mind, attainments in knowledge, and the most distinguished advantages in respect of religion, as of none avail in producing faith without the action of the Spirit of God; while his teaching is represented as infallibly producing that effect. Of this kind are the following: 1 Cor. ii. 14; i. 22, 23, 24; iii. 5, 6, 7. John vi. 45.

The second are those which derive the account of this inefficacy of all the other means that seem fitted to produce faith, from the corruption of human nature. This corruption is chiefly described in epistles addressed to Christian churches, composed of those who had formerly been heathens; and the descriptions have a particular reference to the vices which abounded amongst them before they were converted to the Christian faith. But the history of the world and the experience of all ages may satisfy us that these descriptions, with some allowance for local manners, for the progress of civilization, and for the influence of Christianity, are applicable to the general state of mankind. The apostle begins his epistle to the Romans with a formal proof that all men, both Jews and Gentiles, are under sin; and this universal corruption of the posterity of Adam, although the foundation of the Gospel, is by no means a peculiar doctrine of revelation, but, independently of that authority, is established by various incontrovertible evidence. Now all the Scripture statements of this corruption imply a moral inability to attain that character which is necessary to salvation. Of this kind are the following: Eph. ii. 1. Eph. iv. 18, 19. Rom. viii. 7, 8.

The third are those which represent the action of the Spirit of God in removing this inability, by phrases exactly corresponding to these descriptions of the corruption. Of this kind are the following: Ezek. xxxvi. 26. John iii. 5. 2 Cor. v. 17. Eph. ii. 10. Eph. i. 19; where the power exerted in quickening those who are dead in sins is compared to the power which was exerted in raising Christ from the dead. Phil. ii. 13.

The Arminians, considering the literal sense of these passages as subversive of moral agency, attempt to give such an explication of them as is consistent with the Arminian account of grace. But if the

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Calvinists are able to show that a renovation of the powers of human nature leaves a man as much a moral agent as he was at the beginning-that his liberty is not destroyed by the action of God mind, then there is no occasion for having recourse to that Arminian commentary, which takes away the propriety and significancy of the upon his figures used in these phrases; but we may preserve the consistency of Scripture and the analogy of faith, by admitting that kind of influence which corresponds to the corruption of human nature, which, although resisted at first in consequence of that corruption, is in the end efficacious, and which owes its efficacy not to any quality that the recipient possesses independently of divine grace, but to the good pleasure and the power of that Being, who is as able to quicken a soul dead in sin, as to raise a body from the dust, and who declares in Scripture the sovereignty of his grace, by teaching us that all other means are insignificant, till he is pleased to renew the soul which he made.

SECTION IV.

In order to complete the view of that support which the Calvinistic system derives from Scripture, it only remains to state the answer which the Calvinists give to that objection against their system, which has been drawn from the commands, the counsels and the expostulations of Scripture. This objection, with which all Arminian books are filled, I shall present in the words of Dr. Whitby, taken from different parts of his discourses on the Five Points.

"If conversion be wrought only by the unfrustrable operation of God, then vain are all the commands and exhortations addressed to wicked men to turn from their evil ways: for it is no more in their power to do this than to create a world. Vain are all the threatenings denounced in Scripture against those who go on without amendment, because such threatenings can only move the elect by the fear of their perishing, which is a false and an impossible supposition; and can only move those who are not elected by suggesting the possibility of their avoiding the death and ruin threatened, although it is to them inevitable. Vain are all the promises of pardon to those who repent, because these are promises made upon a condition which to the nonelect is impossible."" All the commands and exhortations directed by God to the faithful to persevere in well-doing, all cautions to take heed lest they fall away, all expressions which suspend our future happiness on this condition, that we continue steadfast to the end, are plain indications that God hath made no absolute decree that good men shall not fall away. For as when motives are used to induce men to embrace Christianity, or to perform any Christian duty, these motives contain an evidence that it is possible for men to do otherwise, so also when motives are used to induce men to persevere in the profession which they have undertaken, they necessarily contain an evidence, that any man who is induced by them to persevere in the course of a Christian, had it in his power not to persevere.”"Can God be serious and in good earnest in calling men to faith and