To close the view of Calvin's opinions, I shall quote two of his most hardy decisions: "All things being at God's disposal and the decision of salvation, or death, belonging to him; He orders all things by his counsel and decree in such a manner, that some men are born, devoted from the womb to certain death, that his name may be glorified in their destruction."

And soon after he adds, "I inquire again, how it came to pass that the fall of Adam, (independent of any remedy,) should involve so many nations, with their infant children, in eternal death, but because such was the will of God. Their tongues," viz. theirs whom he ironically calls, "pious defenders of the justice of God," "so loquacious on every other point, must here be struck dumb: it is a dreadful decree," (his translator softens it into awful, but Calvin's own word is, DECRETUM HORRIBILE ;) "but no one can deny that God foreknew the future final fate of man, before He created him, and that He did foreknow it, because it was created by his own decree." The entire system of predestinarian doctrines, maintained in the Lambeth Articles as well as in the declaration of the Synod of Dort, and thus unequivocally defended by Calvin, is perhaps received and defended, in its full extent, and rigid strictness, by few writers of the present day; but so much of the system is maintained, as appears to exhibit a mistaken and revolting view of the entire scheme of revelation, and afford occasion of offence, and a temptation either to excessive despondence, or to excessive presumption, according to the different disposition of mind which it happens to encounter. It is still therefore necessary to remove, if possible, this stumbling block from the weak Christian's path.

That this necessity exists, a few extracts from some of the principal writers, who have adopted either altogether, or in its most material parts, the predestinarian scheme, will be sufficient to prove.

I would particularly call the reader to observe, how frequently the system of predestinarian doctrine leads its patrons to represent God as the author of sin. For though they disclaim this opinion with the greatest horror; when they contemplate it separately from the rest of the scheme, yet when engaged in exhibiting the consistence, and tracing the consequence of their

leading doctrines, they are insensibly and almost irresistibly led to avow and maintain it. I annex a quotation from the celebrated Bucer by Mr. Toplady, a most zealous Calvinist. After defining predestination to be "an appointment of every thing to its proper use, by which appointment God doth, before He made them, even from eternity, destine all things whatever to some certain and particular use; hence it follows that even wicked men are predestinated; for as God forms them out of nothing, so He forms them to some determinate end, for He does all things knowingly and wisely; "the Lord hath made all things for himself, even the wicked for the day of evil;" (Prov. xvi. 4.) he adds, "Divines, however, do not usually call this predestination but reprobation. 'Tis certain that God makes a good use of evil itself, and every sin we commit hath something in it of the good work of God.* Scripture does not hesitate to affirm, that there are some persons whom God delivers over to a reprobate sense, and whom He forms for destruction; why therefore should it be deemed derogatory from God to assert, that He not only does this, but resolved before hand to do it."

He also quotes the reformer, Peter Martyr, as defining reprobation," that most wise determination of God, whereby He did from all eternity immediately decree, not to have any mercy on those He loved not, but passed by; and this without any injustice on his part. He adds, "Martyr does not scruple to affirm, that since we all live and move by actuation from God, it is certain that all the deeds which we perform are of necessity, some way or other wrought under a divine impulse."†

The terrific hardihood of such determinations as these, must strike every reflecting and pious mind; and indeed Mr. Toplady himself, is not always able steadily to encounter all the formidable consequences, arising from the doctrine of predestination. On a petition presented by a Mr. Talbot, parson of St. Mary

This most rash and unwarrantable expression (to give it the gentlest name) startles even Mr. Toplady, who observes, (History of the Calvinism of the Church of England, vol. I. p. 316.) in a note" I cannot clearly understand what Bucer means by this extraordinary and seemingly harsh mode of expression; be his meaning what it may, the reader will observe, as usual, that I am not advancing the above proposition as my own, but simply quoting the words of another;" but it is of one whom he approves "as an able, valuable, courageous teacher in a word, as one of the most amiable, and unexceptionable divines that ever lived."

†Toplady's History, vol. I p. 336.

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Magdalen's, London, in common with some others, requesting protection against the severity of those who condemned them, as favourers of false religion, "because they believed that God doth only foreknow but not predestinate any evil, wickedness, or sin:" Mr. Toplady observes, "from the circumstances of this petition, among several other conclusions, I inferred, and still infer, that our Protestant bishops and clergy were in Elizabeth's reign more highly Calvinistical than perhaps the Scriptures themselves will warrant, for they roundly affirmed God to be the author of man's sin and damnation, and that such persons as did not hold this, were looked upon as differing from the rest of our Protestant church-men; that these few people who supposed God not to be any cause of man's sin and damnation, were mightily cried out against by the main body of our reformed church, as favourers of false religion; that free-will men, those who believed man had any free will to choose good and avoid evil in morals and religion, were ranked among Pela gians, Papists, Epicureans, Anabaptists, and enemies to God's holy predestination and providence; that to be called a free-willman, was looked upon as a shameful reproach and opprobrious infamy; yea, that a free willer was deemed heretical, and not only so but exposed to the corrections, punishments, and executions of the civil magistrates.'

It is to be presumed that Mr. Toplady rejoiced that this state of things has passed away; but that those who hold predestination in such a sense, as to believe that "God is the author of manʼs sin and damnation, go farther than the Scripture itself will warrant," ought to have been granted, without any qualifying perhaps. In this instance, however, I have pleasure in agreeing with Mr. Toplady, and have only to regret, he too often appears to forget the concession which he here so frankly makes. It is indeed lamentable to behold the strongest and most pious minds, when viewing objects through the gloomy medium of the predestinarian scheme, mistaking the most terrific and distorted phantoms, for divine realities. Of this the venerable Luther affords an example, when he assigns the following reason, amongst others, for the necessity and utility of

*Toplady's History, vol. II. p. 143.

preaching the doctrine of absolute predestination. "The nature of the Christian faith requires it; faith has to do with things not seen, and this is one of the highest degrees of faith, steadfastly to believe that God is infinitely merciful, though He saves comparatively but few, and condemns so many, and that He is strictly just, though of His own will He makes such numbers of mankind necessarily liable to damnation; now these are some of the unseen things whereof faith is the evidence, whereas, was it in my power to comprehend them, or clearly to make out how God is both inviolably just, and infinitely merciful, notwithstanding the display of wrath and seeming inequality in his dispensations respecting the reprobate, faith would have little or nothing to do; but now, since these matters cannot be adequately comprehended by us, in the present state of imperfection, there is the room for the exercise of faith. The truths therefore respecting predestination, in all its branches, should be taught and published; they no less than the other mysteries of Christian doctrine, being proper objects of faith on the part of God's people.

It would be unjust to the memory of this great reformer, not to state that more cool reflection, and more enlarged experience, convinced him of the pernicious tendency of the predestinarian system, thus followed up to its full extent. Dr. Milner, whose bias towards Calvinism renders his account, when unfavourable to it, unsuspected, though he will not admit that Luther departed from the sentiments maintained in his Treatise on the bondage of the will, and embraced others "less rigid and less offensive to common sense, and the ordinary feelings of mankind"† yet adds, "it may however, be not improbable that experience had taught Luther, in the latter part of his life, the necessity of being more careful to guard the pure doctrines of the Gospel against the abuses to which they are exposed, from curious and carnal persons lacking the spirit of Christ ;"‡ so in his commentary on Genesis, treating of the doctrine of predes

* Vide Luther, as quoted by Mr. Mathias, in his Inquiry, part 1st, p. 38. + These epithets are not mine but Milner's-whether from himself, or from his opinion that such must be the natural feelings of men respecting absolute predestination, I know not; but I must, though with regret confess, I cannot deny that they seem justly applied.

Article 17th.

tination, he makes the usual distinction between the secret and revealed will of God; and observes, "that will of God is to be followed which we have expressly declared to us by the ministry of the word of God. I am the more desirous (says Luther) to state this accurately, because I know that after my death, many will make a bad use of what I have written, and thereby establish their erroneous and wild fancies of every kind; to be brief, they will take no notice of my repeated cautions, and will lay hold only of what I may have dropped concerning the secret will of God; remember then what I now say, that with that secret will ye have nothing to do.* If you shall hear the call of Jesus Christ, and be baptized in his name, and shall love his word, you may assuredly reckon yourselves among the predestinated, and have no doubt of your salvation." Dr. Milner goes on to observe" It is abundantly evident that Luther is here pleading against the abuse of the doctrine of the divine prescience and predestination, for even persons of rank and distinction, he said, would talk in this wicked manner t—If I am predestinated to be saved, I shall be saved, whether I do good or evil; but if not, I shall be condemned, without any regard to my works; now if this be true, (Luther contended)

*Why then should it be ever brought forward as an article of faith, or as a subject of preaching? In this view, Luther certainly appears to have departed very widely from the sentiments in the quotation brought forward by Mr. Mathias. It is however a fact established by the clearest historic evidence, that though at the beginning of the reformation, Melancthon and Luther held the doctrine of philosophical necessity, yet Melancthon afterwards abandoned it, and expunged it from his Loci Theologici, in which he had at first introduced it, in the year 1535, inserting in its place, the opposite one of contingency, and in his Answer to the Bavarian Inquiry he uses this unequivocal language " I openly reject and detest the frenzy of the Stoics and Epicureans, who affirm that all actions, whether good or bad, are done necessarily, against whom I omit here any further disputations, and only implore young persons that they should fly these monstrous opinions, which are insulting to God and injurious to morals." Luther also, though he did not openly revoke any of his writings, yet bestowed the highest commendation on Melancthon's work, in which he had expunged the doctrine of necessity, and substituted that of contingency.

Vide Archbishop Laurence's Bampton Lecture, sermon ii. note 18, p. 257, 258. + Comparing this assertion with the 1st and 2nd of the Lambeth Articles, supra, p. 164, and with the 2nd of the Synod of Dort, it seems to me that Luther's censure ought to have been applied, not to this argument, but to the principle of "absolute predestination of certain persons to life, and certain others to death eternal," uninfluenced by any foresight of, or any regard to any thing in the persons so predestinated; admitting this principle, it seems impossible to avoid the consequence here drawn, and surely such a consequence, necessarily following from a principle, proves distinctly the falsehood of that principle.