The preceding views are, in brief, those which I hold respecting this novel doctrine of Predestination. I have propounded it with all good faith from the very expressions of the authors themselves, that I might not seem to invent and attribute to them any thing which I was not able clearly to prove from their writings.

2. A SECOND KIND OF PREDESTINATION.

But some other of our doctors state the subject of God's Predestination in a manner somewhat different. We will cursorily touch upon the two modes which they employ.

Among some of them the following opinion is prevalent : 1. God determined within himself, by an eternal and immutable decree, to make (according to his own good pleasure,) the smaller portion out of the general mass of mankind partakers of his grace and glory,-to the praise of his own glorious grace. But according to his pleasure he also passed by the greater portion of men, and left them in their own nature, which is incapable of every thing supernatural, [or beyond itself,] and did not communicate to them that saving and supernatural grace by which their nature, (if it still retained its integrity,) might be strengthened, or by which, if it were corrupted, it might be restored,-for a demonstration of his own liberty: Yet after God had made these men sinners and guilty of death, he punished them with death eternal-for a demonstration of his own justice.

2. Predestination is to be considered in respect to its end and to the means which tend to it. But these persons employ the word "Predestination" in its special acceptation for election, and oppose it to reprobation.-(1) In respect to its end, (which is salvation, and an illustration of the glorious grace of God,) man is considered in common and absolutely, such as he is in his own nature.—(2) But in respect to the means, man is considered as perishing from himself and in himself, and as guilty in Adam.

3. In the decree concerning the end, the following gradations are to be regarded: (1) The prescience of God, by which he foreknew those whom he had predestinated. Then (2) the Divine prefinition, [or predetermination,] by which he foreordained the salvation of those persons whom he had foreknown:

* In the animadversions on the preceding scheme of Predestination, 1 have often called it Supra-lapsarian; but it is more properly styled, in the language of that age, "the Creabilitarian opinion," and that which follows in the text, as the "second kind of Predestination," is a modified Supra-lapsarianism, and the "third kind" is Sub-lapsarianism.

-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 necessity 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

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 [proaresis] 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 fall 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 full 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.

note :

In the margin of this part of the Declaration, Arminius adds the following "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 siu."

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 possibly 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.

Dr. Twisse wrote a reply to our author's Examination of Perkins on Predestinatim, 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 Supralapsariauism 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 Arminians 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 66 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,-innocent 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