see at present how they are compatible with each other yet if, in the interests of logical consistency, we are led to deny either one of them, we shall find ourselves involved in errors and difficulties from which there is no escape. For the present we must be content to hold both as parts of the truth, remembering that we know but "in part," and leaving their complete reconciliation to the time when we "shall know, even as we are known."

Some words of Dr. Liddon's may serve to conclude this section. In speaking of the" old controversy between the defenders of the sovereignty of God on the one side, and the advocates of the freewill of man on the other," he says

"The very idea of God as it occurs to the human mind, and the distinct statements of revelation, alike represent the Divine will as exerting sovereign and resistless sway. If it were otherwise, God would not be Almighty, that is, He would not be God. On the other hand, our daily experience and the language of Scripture both assure us that man is literally a free agent; his freedom is the very ground of his moral and religious responsibility. Are these two truths hopelessly incompatible with each other? So it may

seem at first sight; and if we escape the danger of denying the one in the supposed interests of the other, if we shrink from sacrificing God's sovereignty to man's freewill, with Arminius, and from sacrificing man's freedom to God's sovereignty, with Calvin, we can only express a wise ignorance by saying, that to us they seem like parallel lines which must meet at a point in eternity, far beyond our present range of view. We do know, however, that being both true, they cannot really contradict each other; and that in some manner, which we cannot formulate, the Divine sovereignty must

not merely be compatible with, but must even imply, the perfect freedom of created wills.” 1

II. The Steps which accompany Predestination.

After having described in scriptural terms what is meant by predestination to life, the Article proceeds, still in close dependence upon Scripture, to describe the several steps or processes which accompany it.

They which be endued with so excellent a benefit of God be called according to God's purpose by His Spirit working in due season: they through grace obey the calling: they be justified freely: they be made sons of God by adoption: they be made like the image of His only-begotten Son Jesus Christ: they walk religiously in good works, and at length, by God's mercy, they attain to everlasting felicity.

These several processes, thus described, have been summed up as follows:-(1) Vocation, (2) obedience to vocation through grace, (3) free justification, (4) sonship by adoption, (5) conformity to the image of our Lord, (6) a religious life, and (7) eternal felicity.

It is right that these various steps by which God's eternal decree is carried out should be thus enumerated in the Article, because they form a most important safeguard against Antinomian perversions of the doctrine, showing how much is really involved in predestination to life. Though we cannot, with Arminius, say that foreseen good works are the ground of such predestination, yet we can say that they are involved in it; and that where there is predestination to eternal felicity,

1 Liddon's Elements of Religion, p. 191. Cf. Sanday and Headlam On the Romans, p. 348.

2 Bishop Forbes On the Articles, p. 252

there is also predestination to obedience and to conformity to the image of our Lord. This was fully brought out by Bishop Bancroft at the Hampton Court Conference, as the subjoined extract will show,

"The Bishop of London took occasion to signifie to His Majesty, how very many in these daies, neglecting holinesse of life, presumed too much of persisting of grace, laying all their religion upon predestination, If I shall be saved, I shall be saved; which he termed a desperate doctrine, showing it to be contrary to good divinity and the true doctrine of predestination, wherein we should reason rather ascendendo than descendendoe, thus, 'I live in obedience to God, in love with my neighbour, I follow my vocation, etc.; therefore I trus t that God hath elected me, and predestinated me taro salvation'; not thus, which is the usual course ckef argument, 'God hath predestinated and chosen me tado life, therefore though I sin never so grievously, yet ot shall not be damned; for whom He once loveth, Hhee loveth to the end.” ” 1

"

III. The practical Effect of the Doctrine.

As the godly consideration of Predestination, and our election in Christ, is full of sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort to godly persons, and such as feel in themselves the working of the Spirit of Christ, mortifying the works of the flesh, and their earthly members, and drawing up their mind to high and heavenly things, as well because it doth greatly establish and confirm their faith of eternal salvation to be enjoyed through Christ, as

1 Dean Barlow's account of "the sum and substance of the Conference" at Hampton Court. Cardwell's Conferences, p. 180.

because it doth fervently kindle their love towards God: so, for curious and carnal persons, lacking the Spirit of Christ, to have continually before their eyes the sentence of God's Predestination, is a most dangerous downfall, whereby the devil doth thrust them either into desperation, or into wretchlessness of most unclean living (impurissimæ vitæ securitatem), no less perilous than desperation.

Briefly, this rather wordy paragraph amounts to this

"

(a) For " godly persons the doctrine is full of

comfort, as tending to establish and confirm their faith, as well as to kindle their love towards God. It acts upon them as the sense of a lofty destiny often acts upon men, encouraging them to do and dare all things, secure that the difficulties and dangers which lie before them cannot really hinder the accomplishment of their designs. In this lay the real strength of the Calvinistic creed, and of the Puritan character which it trained and developed. On the other hand, in systems where there is little or no sense of God's power carrying out His purposes with resistless force through His chosen instruments, there the character trained under them is likely to be deficient in fibre and tenacity of purpose. So Dean Milman has, in a striking passage, pointed out the weakness of Pelagianism: "No Pelagian ever has, or ever will, work a religious revolution. He who is destined for such a work must have a full conviction that God is acting directly, immediately, consciously, and therefore with irresistible power, upon him and through him. It is because he believes himself, and others believe him to be, thus acted upon, that he has the burning courage to undertake, the indomitable perseverance to maintain. the inflexible resolution to

destined, who does not declare, who does not believe, himself predestined as the author of a great religious movement, he in whom God is not manifestly, sensibly, avowedly, working out His pre-established designs, will never be saint or reformer." 1

(b) For those whom the Article calls "curious (i.e. inquisitive) and carnal persons" it is most dangerous and perilous to dwell on the mystery, as it exposes them to a twofold danger, since (1) if they believe that they are not predestined to life it urges them to despair, while (2) if they believe that they are so predestined it leads them into recklessness and Antinomianism.

Both dangers were terribly apparent during the period of the Reformation, when this subject exercised so strong a fascination over men's minds. Many were taking up the desperate" doctrine referred to by Bancroft, and saying, "If I shall be saved, I shall be saved," and thus became utterly reckless of their actions and conduct; while others were driven to despair by the conviction that they were "reprobate."2 Of this Foxe, the martyrologist, gives a remarkable instance, in his account of the death of John Randall, of Christ's College, Cambridge, who destroyed himself in a fit of religious desperation: "He was found in his study hanging by his girdle, before an open Bible, with his dead arm and finger stretched pitifully towards 8

1 Milman's Latin Christianity, vol. i. p. 150.

2 It was evidently because of this danger that the clergy were exhorted in the "Injunctions" of 1559 to "have always in a readiness such comfortable places and sentences of Scripture as do set forth the mercy, benefits, and goodness of Almighty God towards all penitent and believing persons," in order that "the vice of damnable despair may be clearly taken away." Cardwell's Documentary Annals, vol. ii. p. 218.