to objection." In opposition to the Calvinists, I have there 'represented Predestination as founded in foreseen obedience and disobedience (u);' and I have added, "this appears to me the only sense in which Predestination is reconcileable with the attributes of God and the free-agency of Man; and afterwards I have said, "we are utterly incapable of comprehending how God's prescience consists with the other attributes of the Deity and with the free-agency of Man." These two propositions have been thought inconsistent with each other, from the want of adverting, as I conceive, to the distinction between a doctrine which is incomprehensible, and a doctrine which is irreconcileable with the attributes of God, or with any known truth. I reject the Calvinistic doctrine of Predestination, not because it is incomprehensible,

(u) Cum Deus ab æterno præsciat omnia actu futura, ac proinde novit hunc hominem ad finem usque Christo crediturum, illum vero non ita crediturum; certum est Deum huic ita considerato vitam, illi mortem æternam decernere. Quicquid enim facit in tempore, id ab æterno facere decrevit; at in tempore servat hunc credentem, illum incredulum damnat: quare, ut cum Fulgentio loquamur, prædestinavit illos ad supplicium, quos a se præscivit voluntatis malæ vitio discessuros; et prædestinavit ad regnum, quos ad se præscivit misericordiæ prævenientis auxilio credituros, et in se misericordiæ subsequentis auxilio mansuros. Et hoc decretum salvandi singulares personas prævisa Fide, sed non ob prævisam Fidem, Prædestinationis nomine intellexerunt omnes Catholici Scriptores ante Augustini tempora.-Grotius.

prehensible, but because I think it irreconcileable with the justice and goodness of God. I do not reject the doctrine of the prescience of God, though I profess myself incapable of comprehending how it consists with the other attributes of the Deity, and with the free-agency of Man (x). I do not say, that God's prescience is not consistent with his other attributes and the free-agency of Man, but I say, that I am incapable of comprehending how they consist. The fact I believe, but the manner of accomplishing it I do not understand. This is a very material distinction in theological subjects. Incomprehensibility is not a just ground for rejecting a doctrine; but if a doctrine contradicts any plainly revealed truth, it ought to be rejected. The Predestination of Calvinists is, in my judgement, of the latter description; the prescience of God, considered with reference to the free-agency of Man, is of the former description; I therefore reject the one, and admit the other. It is our duty, in a great variety of cases, to believe what we do not comprehend. We are called upon to exercise cau

tion

(x)" The reconciling the Prescience of God with the Free-will of Man, Mr. Locke, after much thought on the subject, freely confessed he could not do, though he acknowledged both. And what Mr. Locke could not do, in reasoning upon subjects of a metaphysical nature, I am apt to think few men, if any, can hope to perform." Lord Lyttleton's Letter to Mr. West.

tion and humility in judging of the mysterious dispensations of God, and of his incomprehensible attributes, as a part of the trial to which we are subjected in this probationary state. The pride of the understanding, as well as the pride of the heart, is to be repressed. We are not to imagine that we have "searched out God," or that we comprehend the reasons and designs of all that "he doeth in the armies of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth." "Such knowledge is too wonderful for us; we cannot attain unto it."

I am aware that some persons, now living, who seem to glory in the name of Calvinists, maintain the doctrine of Election, and reject that of Reprobation. That this was not the system of Calvin himself, will fully appear by the quotations from his Works in the next Chapter. And that it was not the system of the Calvinists at the end of Queen Elizabeth's reign, will be equally evident from the first of the Lambeth Articles, all of which will be there subjoined. It may perhaps be said, that it is unfair to attribute to any persons, sentiments which they themselves disavow. But surely there is no want of candour in saying, that those who maintain the Calvinistic doctrine of Election, must also admit that of Reprobation, if it can be proved that Reprobation necessarily follows from Election; and if our adversaries

confess

confess that the doctrine of Reprobation is unfounded, it is strictly logical to shew, that the doctrine of Election is also unfounded, by proving that Election cannot subsist without Reprobation, unless it could be shewn that those who are not predestinated to life eternal, may be annihilated, of which there is no hint in Scripture. In every dispute it is argued from premises upon which the parties are agreed, to those points about which they disagree; and this seems to be the only mode by which error can be exposed, truth established, or conviction produced. "No medium," says Dr. Davenant, himself a distinguished Calvinist, and one of those who attended the Synod of Dort, can be assigned, either on God's part, betwixt the decrees of predestinating some men, and not predestinating some others; or on men's part, betwixt men absolutely predestinated to attainment of life eternal, and absolutely prætermitted, and left infallibly to fail of the obtainment of eternal life, which we call absolute Reprobation. As for example, let us suppose the number of mankind to be two millions of men; if out of these, one million only, by the decree of Election, be infallibly appointed to eternal life, and these certainly and absolutely distinguished from others, not only as to their number, but their persons also; who can deny, but that one million also, and those certain as to their persons, are as abso

lutely

lutely comprized under the decree of Non-Election or Reprobation, as the others were under the decree of Election or Predestination." "So that, says Dr. Whitby, there is no possibility of asserting one of these decrees, without owning the other also; and so whatsoever argument holds good against an absolute decree of Reprobation, must certainly destroy the opposite decree of absolute Election." If God of his own good pleasure elected certain persons exclusively to be eternally happy, by furnishing them, through his especial grace, with his own appointed means of Faith in the death of Christ, it is implied, that those means are denied to the rest of the human race, who are passed over and left to their own unassisted powers. This denial or præterition is in fact Reprobation; for both Calvinists and ourselves believe, that "Man by his own natural strength and good Works cannot turn to Faith," the only appointed mean of Salvation; and that "the fault and corruption of every man that is naturally engendered of Adam, deserveth God's wrath and damnation (y)," which he is of himself unable to avert; and consequently, in the words of the 4th Lambeth Article, "Those who are not predestinated to Salvation, shall be necessarily or inevitably damned for their sins." This was unquestionably the doctrine of former Calvinists, who were fully

(y) Article the 9th.