decreed generally, that those who should believe and obey the gospel, should be saved, and that those who should live and die in sin, should be damned. But those who believe that God has been actually the author of predictions, comprehending all the most important changes of human history, and consequently all the future fortunes, not only of nations, but also of the individuals, of which they are composed, must admit his foreknowledge, as extending to every action of his creatures; and if we are indeed possessed of freedom, as not only our own intimate consciousness, but also the very language of scripture, in which we are addressed as accountable beings, leads us irresistibly to believe, we must conclude that the two are really reconciled, though our very limited faculties, incapable as they must be, of forming any judgment of the mind and knowledge of God, are unable to conceive the manner. We know however that they have been expressly pronounced by our Saviour to have been combined in regard to that event, on which the salvation of mankind depends. "The son of man," says he, says he, "goeth as it is written of him: but woe unto that man, by whom the son of man is betrayed!" The denunciation of woe against the betrayer implies, as surely as God is just, that the offence was the act of a being accountable, because he was free; and yet the occasion of that denunciation is represented by

our Saviour himself to have been written in the divine predictions, and consequently to have been anticipated by the divine foreknowledge. To reject on account of such a difficulty the doctrine, which has been stated, is therefore to reject all prophecy, and to deprive of every reasonable interpretation the declaration of our Saviour.

Burnet, though he has represented the seventeenth of the articles of the established church, as admitting either this interpretation, or one agreeable to the doctrine of Calvin, has declared that he considered the latter as the more natural construction. Enquiry has however been recently* directed to the history of our articles, and it has been ascertained, that the eminent persons, by whom they were framed, abstained cautiously from every expression which might countenance a calvinistical interpretation, taking for their model in other particulars the lutheran confession of Augsburgh, which omitted the doctrine of predestination, and in their statement of this doctrine, which the contention of the calvinists had rendered unavoidable, adhering as closely, as was possible, to the very expressions of the sacred writings. The articles could not be framed according to the sentiments of Arminius,

*

D 2

By Archbishop Laurence in his Bampton Lectures; and by Mr. Todd in his treatise on Original Sin, Free-Will etc.

which were not published until the follownig century; but care appears to have been employed, that they should not be conformed to those of Calvin. Our seventeenth article indeed, composed as the earlier part of it has been in expressions almost exclusively scriptural, seems to have been prepared, not for proposing any specific exposition of the scriptural doctrine, but for introducing the cautions, with which it is concluded, against the mischievous inferences deduced by calvinistical refinements. That such refinements are indeed mischievous, may now be stated on the authority of a very distinguished calvinist of our church. "Let

me then speak the truth before God," says* Mr. Simeon; "though I am no arminian, I do think that the refinements of Calvin have done great harm in the church-they have driven multitudes away from the plain and popular way of speaking used by the inspired writers, and have made them unreasonably and unscripturally squeamish in their modes of expression; and I conceive that the less addicted any person is to systematic accuracy, the more he will accord with the inspired writers, and the more he will approve of the views of our reformers."

The question of predestination is intimately connected with another concerning original sin,

• Hora Homileticæ by the Rev. C. Simeon, vol. 2. Lond. 1819.

on which doctor Bruce contends for the total exemption of our nature from every corruption of transmitted evil. The passage, which he has quoted from the catechism of his calvinistic brethren, is indeed sufficiently alarming. "The sinfulness of that estate, into which man fell, consisteth in the guilt of Adam's first sin; the want of that righteousness wherein he was created, and the corruption of his nature, whereby he (man) is utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all that is spiritually good, and wholly inclined to all evil; and that, continually. The fall brought upon mankind the loss of communion with God, his displeasure and curse, so as we are by nature children of wrath, bond-slaves to Satan, and justly liable to all punishments, in this world and that which is to come :-in this world, blindness of mind, a reprobate sense, strong delusions, hardness of heart, horror of conscience, and vile affections; and the curse of God upon the creatures for our sakes in the world to come, everlasting separation from the comfortable presence of God, and most grievous torments in soul and body without intermission, in hell-fire, for ever." To these words doctor Bruce has added, as repugnant to the favourable representation of the moral state of little children, made by our Saviour himself to his followers, another passage, which describes them, if neither baptized nor converted, as " vessels

of wrath, under the curse of God, wholly made up of sin, and who could do nothing but sin." It is not unnatural that an exposition of this doctrine so strongly and harshly stated, should dispose any man of mild dispositions to seek another interpretation; but before he should maintain the entire exemption from all hereditary taint of sin, and consequently the unimpaired sufficiency of our natural powers, it might be prudent to consider, whether a temperate statement could not be found, which would agree at once with the language of the sacred writings, with the ordinary experience of every man, and with the conceptions of our natural reason.

Such a temperate statement of this doctrine might have been found in the ninth article of our church. "Original sin," it is there stated, "standeth not in the following of Adam (as the pelagians do vainly talk) but it is the fault or corruption of the nature of every man, that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam, whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined to evil, so that the flesh lusteth always contrary to the spirit, and therefore in every person born into the world it deserveth God's wrath and damnation: and this infection of nature doth remain, yea in them that are regenerated, whereby the lust of the flesh, called in Greek φρόνημα σαρκός, which some do expound