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us feel that God is no less incomprehensible in his manner of governing the world than in that of creating it. It would be easy to prove this, if time would allow us to examine the secret way, which Providence uses to govern this universe. Let us be content to cast our eyes a moment on the conduct of Providence in the government of the church for the last century and a half.

Who would have thought that in a neighbouring kingdom a cruel and superstitious king, the greatest enemy that the Reformation ever had, he, who by the fury of his arms and by the productions of his pen, opposed this great work, refuting those whom he could not persecute, and persecuting those whom he could not refute, who would have thought that this monarch should first serve the work he intended to subvert, clear the way for reformation, and by shaking off the yoke of the Roman pontiff execute the plan of Providence, while he seemed to do nothing but satiate his voluptuousness and ambition?

Who would have thought that the ambitious Clement,† to maintain some chimerical rights, which the pride of the clergy had forged, and which the cowardice of the people and the effeminacy of their princes had granted, who would have believed, that this ambitious pope, by hurling the thunders of the Vatican against this king, would have lost all that great kingdom, and thus would have given the first stab to a tyranny, which he intended to

confirm?

and proceed to the fourth, in which we are to treat of the depths of revelation.

IV. Shall we produce the mortifying list of unanswerable questions, to which many doctrines of our religion are liable; as for example those which regard the Trinity, the incarnation, the satisfaction, the union of two natures in Jesus Christ, the secret ways of the Holy Spirit in converting the souls of men, the precise nature of the happiness to be enjoyed in the intermediate state between our death and our resurrection, the faculties of glorified bodies, the recollection of what we shall have seen in this world, and many more of the same kind?

All this would carry us too far from the principal design of the apostle. It is time to return to the precise subject, which inspired him with this exclamation. The words of the text are, as we have intimated, the conclusion of a discourse contained in the ninth, tenth, and eleventh chapters of this epistle. Those chapters are the cross of divines. The questions there treated of concerning the decrees of God are so abstruse, that in all ages of the church, and particularly since the schism of Pelagius, divines, orthodox and heterodox, have employed all their efforts to give us a system free from difficulties, and they have all failed in their design.

To enable you to comprehend this, we are going succinctly to state their different systems; and the short view we shall take will be sufficient to convince you, that the subject is beyond the reach of the human mind, and that though Who would have imagined that Zuinglius the opinion of our churches has this advantage would have had such amazing success among above others, that it is more conformable to the people in the world the most inviolably at-right reason, and to the decisions of Scripture, tached to the customs of their predecessors, a yet it is not without its abysses and depths. people scrupulously retaining even the dress of their ancestors, a people above all so inimical to innovations in religion, that they will hardly bear a new explication of a passage of Scripture, a new argument, or a modern critical remark, who would have supposed, that they could have been persuaded to embrace a religion diametrically opposite to that which they had imbibed with their mothers' milk?

Who would have believed that Luther could have surmounted the obstacles that opposed the success of his preaching in Germany, and that the proud emperor, who reckoned among his captives pontiffs and kings, could not subdue

one miserable monk?

Who would have thought that the barbarous tribunal of the inquisition, which had enslaved so many nations to superstition, should have been in these provinces one of the principal causes of our reformation?

And perhaps the dark night, which now envelops one part of the church, will issue in a bright morning. Perhaps they, who in future time speak of Providence, will have reason to add to a catalogue of the deep things of divine government, the manner in which God shall have delivered the truth oppressed in a kingdom, where it once flourished in vigour and beauty. Perhaps the repeated blows given to the reformed may serve only to establish the reformation. But we abridge this third article,

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Let us begin with the system of Socinus and his followers. God, according to them, not only has not determined the salvation of his children, but he could not even foresee it. Whatever man resolves depends on his owr. volition, and whatever depends on human volition cannot be an object of the knowledge of God, so that God could not foresee whether I should believe or not believe, whether I should obey or not obey, whether I should receive the gospel or reject it. God made no other decree than that of saving such as believe, obey, and submit to his gospel: these things depend on my will, what depends on my will is uncertain, an uncertain object cannot be an object of certain knowledge: God therefore cannot certainly foresee, whether my condition will be eternally happy, or eternally miserable.

This is the system. Thanks be to God, we preach to a Christian auditory. It is not necessary to refute these errors, and you feel, I persuade myself, that to reason in this manner is not to elucidate, but subvert religion; it is at once to degrade God from his deity, and Scripture from its infallibility.

This system degrades God, for what, pray, is a God, who created beings, and who could not foresee what would result from their existence? A God who formed spirits united to bodies by certain laws, and who did not know how to combine these laws so as to foresee the effects they would produce? A God forced to suspend his judgment? A God who every day learns something new, and who does not know to-day

what will happen to-morrow. A God who can- | not tell whether peace will be concluded, or war continue to ravage the world; whether religion will be received in a certain kingdom, or whether it will be banished; whether the right heir will succeed to the crown, or whether the crown will be set on the head of a usurper? For according to the different determinations of the wills of men, of kings, or people, the prince will make peace, or declare war, religion will be banished or admitted, the tyrant or the law-nied. But Jesus Christ has verified them: then ful king will occupy the throne: for if God cannot foresee how the volitions of men will be determined, he cannot foresee any of these events. What is this but to degrade God from his Deity, and to make the most perfect of all intelligences a being involved in darkness and uncertainty like ourselves.

Farther, to deny the presence of God is to degrade Scripture from its infallibility, for how can we pretend to respect Scripture when we deny that God knows the determinations, and volitions of mankind? What then are we to understand by all the express declarations on this subject? For example, what does the psalmist mean? "O God, thou hast searched and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and up-rising, thou understandest my thoughts afar off. Thou art acquainted with all my ways, for there is not a word in my tongue but thou knowest it altogether," Ps. cxxxix. 1, &c. What means God himself, speaking by Ezekiel? "Thus saith the Lord to the house of Israel, I know the thoughts that came into your mind every one of them," chap. xi. 5. And again by Isaiah; "I know that thou wouldst deal very treacherously," chap. xlviii. 8. What did St. Peter mean? speaking of his own thoughts, he said, "Lord, thou knowest all things," John xxi. 17. What does the Wise Man mean, who assures us, not only that God knows the hearts of kings, but that he has them "in his hand, and turneth them whithersoever he pleaseth as rivers of water!" Prov. xxi. 1. Above all, how can this principle be reconciled to many express prophecies of events which being closely connected with the volitions of men could not have been certainly foretold, unless God at the time had a certain knowledge of these determinations? "The prescience of God," says Tertullian, "has as many witnesses as there are prophets and prophecies."* Had not God foreseen that Jesus Christ would preach the gospel in Judea, that the Jews would hate him, that they would deliver him to Pilate, that they would solicit his death, that Pilate would have the meanness and pusillanimity to yield to their entreaties; had not God known all these things, how could he have predicted them?

But the men we oppose do not much respect the decisions of Scripture. The principle to which all this system tends, is, that reason is to decide on the doctrines of Scripture, and not that the doctrines of Scripture are to direct reason. This principle once granted, all the doctrines of our faith are subverted, as experience proves. See into what rash declarations this principle had conducted Socinus and his followers. What decision of Scripture, what doctrine of faith, what truth however established, repeated, and enforced, has it not * In his second book against Marcion.

allured them to deny? The bondage of the human will seems to destroy the nature of man: this bondage must be denied. But the doctrine of absolute decrees seems to disagree with the liberty of man: these absolute decrees must be denied. But the foreknowledge of God cannot be allowed without the doctrine of decrees; the foreknowledge of God must be denied. But a thousand prophecies prove this prescience; the mystical sense of these prophecies must be deJesus Christ must be denied his titles, his attributes, his works, his worship, his satisfaction, his divinity, his union to God, his incarnation, must all be denied: he must be made a mere man, a prophet, a teacher, distinguished from others only by some extraordinary talents: the whole system of the gospel of salvation, and of redemption must be denied. To follow these ideas, my brethren, is to tumble from precipice to precipice without knowing where we shall stop.

We propose in the second place the system of our brethren of the confession of Augsburgh, and that of Arminius; for though they differ in other articles, yet they both agree pretty nearly in this point. Their system is this. They grant foreknowledge; but deny foreappointment. They allow indeed that God always foresaw who would be happy in heaven, and who victims in hell; but they tremble at the thesis, which affirms that God predestinated the first to felicity, and the last to misery. According to them, God made no other decree than to save believers, and to condemn infidels; he gave all men assistance sufficient to enable them to believe, and having only foreseen who would believe, and who would not believe, he made no decree to secure the faith of some, and the unbelief of the rest.

Although it is never our custom to envenom controversy, and to tax people with heresy for not being of our opinion; though we would rather reconcile opposite opinions than triumph in refuting them; yet we cannot help making three reflections. First, this system does not agree with itself-secondly, it is directly opposite to many decisions of the Holy Spirit, and particularly to the doctrine of the three chapters before us-and thirdly, should we grant the whole, a thousand difficulties would remain in the doctrine of the decrees of God, and we should always be obliged to exclaim, as these brethren must on this article, "O the depth!"

1. We affirm, that this system is inconsistent with itself, that the doctrine of prescience supposes that of predestination, and that unless we deny that God foresaw our salvation, we are obliged by our own thesis to affirm that he predestinated us to it. I grant there is a sense, in which it is true that to foresee a thing is different from determining to bring it to pass: but there is another sense, in which to foresee and foreappoint is one and the same thing. If I foresee that a prince sending armed troops into the house of the widow and orphan will expose that house to pillage, it is certain, my foresight has no influence in the fate of that house, and in this case to foresee the act of plundering is not a determination to plunder. But if the prince foresee the event,

if he know the rage and fury with which his soldiers are animated, if he knew by experience that in such conjectures they have committed such crimes, if, in spite of this prescience, he send his madmen into this house, if he allow them their armour, if he lay them under no restraint, if he do not appoint any superior officer to bridle their fury, do you not think, my brethren, that to foresee and to resolve this case are in him one and the same thing?

Apply these reflections to our subject. Let us suppose that before the creation of this world God had subsisted alone, with one other spirit such as you please to imagine. Suppose, when God had formed the plan of the world, he had communicated it to this spirit that subsisted with him. Suppose, that God who formed the plan, and the intelligence to whom he had communicated it, had both foreseen that some men of this world would be saved and others lost; do you not perceive, that there would have been an essential difference between the prescience of God, and the prescience of the spirit we have imagined? The foreknowledge of this last would not have had any influence either over the salvation, or destruction of mankind, because this spirit would have foreknown, and that would have been all. but is not the foreknowledge of God of another kind? Is that a speculative, idle, and uninfluential knowledge? He not only foresaw, but he created. He not only foresaw that man being free would make a good or ill use of his liberty, but he gave him that liberty. To foresee and to foreappoint in God is only one and the same thing. If indeed you only mean to affirm, by saying, that these are two different acts, that God does no violence to his creatures, but that notwithstanding his prescience, the one hardens himself freely, and the other believes freely: if this be all you mean, give us the right hand of fellowship, for this is exactly our system, and we have no need to asperse one another, as both hold the same doc

trine.

There is a second inconvenience in the system of bare prescience, that is, that it does not square with Scripture, which clearly establishes the doctrine of predestination. We omit many passages usually quoted in this controversy; as that Jesus Christ said to his father, "I thank thee, O Father, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight," Matt. xi. 25. And this of St. Paul, God hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, having predestinated us to the adoption of sons," Eph. i. 4. As this famous passage, "whom he did foreknow them he did predestinate, and whom he did predestinate them he also called," Rom. viii. 28, 29.

We omit all these passages because our opponents dispute the sense we give of them, and because it is but justice either to hear and answer their objections (which the limits of these exercises will not allow) or not to make use of them, for that would be taking for granted what is not allowed, that is, that these passages speak of predestination in our sense of the term. Let us content ourselves to oppose

against the doctrine of prescience without predestination these three chapters in Romans, of which the text is the close.

I am aware of what is objected. It is said that we make phantoms to combat, that the meaning of St. Paul is clear, that the end he had in view puts the matter out of doubt, and that his end has no relation to absolute decrees much less did he design to establish them. The apostle had laid down this position, that the gospel would hereafter be the only economy of salvation, and consequently that an adherence to the Levitical institution would be fatal. The Jews object to this, for they could not comprehend how an adherence to a divine institution could lead to perdition. St. Paul answers these complaints, by telling them that God had a right to annex his grace to what conditions he thought proper, and that the Jews, having rejected the Messiah who brought salvation to them, had no reason to complain, because God had deprived them of a covenant, the conditions of which they had not performed. According to these divines this is all the mystery of these chapters, in which say they, there is no trace of predestination.

But how can this be supposed to contain the whole design of the apostle? Suppose a Jew should appear in this auditory, and make these objections against us. You Christians form an inconsistent idea of God. God said, the Mosaical worship should be eternal: but you say God has abolished it. God said, "he that doth these things shall live by them;" but you say, that he who does these things shall go into endless perdition for doing them. God said, the Messiah should come to the children of Abraham; but you say, he has cast off the posterity of the patriarch, and made a covenant with Pagan nations. Suppose a Jew to start these difficulties, and suppose we would wish simply to remove them, independently of the decrees we imagine in God, what should we say to this Jew? We should tell him first, that he had mistaken the sense of the law; and that the eternity promised to the Levitical economy signified only a duration till the advent of the Messiah. Particularly we should inform him that his complaints against the Messiah were groundless. You complain, we should say, that God makes void his fidelity by abandoning you, but your complaint is unjust. God made a covenant with your fathers, he promised to bless their posterity, and engaged to send your Redeemer to bestow numberless benedictions and favours upon you. This Redeemer is come, he was born among you in your nation, of a family in one of your own tribes, he began to discharge his office among you, and set salvation before you; you rejected him, you turned his doctrine into ridicule, you called him Beelzebub, you solicited his death, at length you crucified him, and since that you have persecuted him in his ministers and disciples. On the contrary, the Gentiles display his virtues, and they are prodigal of their blood to advance his glory. Is it surprising, that God so dispenses his favours as to distinguish two nations so very different in the manner of their obedience to his authority? Instead of this, what does St. Paul? Hear his answers. "Before the children were born,

before they had done either good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, he saith, the elder shall serve the younger. Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. The Scripture saith to Pharaoh, for this purpose have I raised thee up that I might make my power known. He hath mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth. Who art thou who repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel to honour, and another to dishonour? What if God willing to show his wrath, and make his power known, endures with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath prepared to destruction?" Rom. ix. 11, &c. In all these answers, St. Paul has recourse to the decrees of God. And one proof that this is the doctrine he intends to teach the converted Jew, to whom he addresses himself, is, that this Jew makes some objections, which have no ground in the system we attack, but which are precisely the same that have been always urged against the doctrine of predestination. Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will" Thus the system of prescience without predestination does not agree with Scripture.

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We ask, thirdly, what is the system good for? Does it cast any light on the ways of Providence? Does it fill up any of the depths which absorb our imperfect reason? In a word, is it not subject to the very same difficulties as that of predestination? These difficulties are the following, how could a God supremely good create men, who he knew must be some day infinitely miserable? How could a God infinitely holy permit sin to enter the world? How is it, that a God of infinite love to justice, does not bestow on all mankind succour sufficient to render them perfectly holy? How it came to pass that a God, who declares he "would have all men to be saved," did not reveal his will for the space of four thousand years to any but the single nation of the Jews? How is it that at this present time he does not extend our conquests to the ends of the earth, that we might carry thither the light of Christianity, preach the gospel in idolatrous climes, and the mosques of Mohammed? How does he afford life, and health, and strength, and courage, and opportunity to a creature, while he prosecutes black and horrible crimes, which make nature tremble? These are great difficulties in Providence. Let any one inform us of a system without them, and we are ready to embrace it: but in this system now before us all these difficulties are contained, and should we grant its advocates all they require, they would be obliged however to exclaim with us on the borders of the ways of God, "O the depth!"

The third system is that of such divines as are called Supralapsarians. The word supralapsarian signifies above the fall, and these divines are so called because they so arrange the decrees of God as to go above the fall of man, as we are going to explain. Their grand principle is, that God made all things for his own VOL. II.-14

glory; that his design in creating the universe was to manifest his perfections, and particularly his justice and his goodness; that for this purpose he created men with design that they should sin, in order that in the end he might appear infinitely good in pardoning some, and perfectly just in condemning others; so that God resolved to punish such and such persons, not because he foresaw they would sin, but he resolved they should sin that he might damn them. This is their system in a few words. It is not that which is generally received in our churches, but there have been many members and divines among us who adopted and defended it: but whatever veneration we profess for their memory, we ingenuously own, we cannot digest such consequences as seem to us necessarily to follow these positions. We will just mention the few difficulties following.

First, we demand an explanation of what they mean by this principle, "God has made all things for his own glory." If they mean that justice requires a creature to devote himself to the worship and glorifying of his Creator, we freely grant it. If they mean that the attributes of God are displayed in all his works, we grant this too. But if this proposition be intended to affirm that God had no other view in creating men, so to speak, than his own interest, we deny the proposition, and affirm that God created men for their own happiness, and in order to have subjects upon whom he might bestow favours.

We desire to be informed in the next place, how it can be conceived, that a determination to damn millions of men can contribute to "the glory of God?" We easily conceive that it is for the glory of divine justice to punish guilty men: but to resolve to damn men without the consideration of sin, to create them that they might sin, to determine that they should sin in order to their destruction, is what seems to us more likely to tarnish the glory of God than to display it.

Thirdly, we demand, how according to this hypothesis it can be conceived that God is not the author of sin? In the general scheme of our churches, God only permits men to sin, and it is the abuse of liberty that plunges man into misery. Even this principle, moderate as it seems, is yet subject to a great number of difficulties: but in this of our opponents, God wills sin to produce the end he proposed in creating the world, and it was necessary that men should sin; God created them for that. If this be not to constitute God the author of sin, we must renounce the most distinct and clear ideas.

Fourthly, we require them to reconcile this system with many express declarations of Scripture, which inform us, that "God would have all men saved." How does it agree with such pressing entreaties, such cutting reproofs, such tender expostulations as God discovers in regard to the unconverted; "O that my people had hearkened unto me! O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and ye would not?” Matt. xxiii. 37.

Lastly, we desire to know how it is possible to conceive a God, who being in the actual

of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour." If you still demand, what then is the use of our ministry, and what right has God to complain that so many sinners persist in impenitence, since he has resolved to leave them in it? To this we answer, "who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, why hast thou made me thus?"

enjoyment of perfect happiness, incomprehen- that "the potter hath power over the clay, sible and supreme, could determine to add this degree though useless to his felicity, to create men without number for the purpose of confining them for ever in chains of darkness, and burning them for ever in unquenchable flames. Such are the gulfs opened to us by these divines! As they conceive of the ways of God in a manner so much beyond comprehension, no people in the world have so much reason as they to exclaim, "O the depth! How unsearchable are the ways of God!" For my part, I own I cannot enough wonder at men, who tell us in cool blood, that God created this universe on purpose to save one man, and to damn a hundred thousand; that neither sighs, nor prayers, nor tears, nor groans, can revoke this decree; that we must submit to the sentence of God, whose glory requires the creation of all these people for destruction! I say I cannot sufficiently express my astonishment at seeing people maintain these propositions with inflexibility and insensibility, without attempting to mitigate or limit the subject, yea, who tells us that all this is extremely plain and free from every difficulty, and that none of our objections deserve an answer.

on the borders of other abysses, "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!"

After all these questions should you appeal to our consciences to know whether our own answers fully satisfy ourselves; whether our arguments may not be turned against us; whether the objections we have made against others do not seem to conclude against ourselves; and whether the system we have proposed to you appears to ourselves free from difficulty; to this we reply by putting our finger upon our mouth: we acknowledge our ignorance, we cannot rend the veil under which God has concealed his mysteries: we declare, that our end in choosing this subject was less to remove difficulties than to press them home, and by these means to make you feel the toleration which Christians mutually owe to one another on this article. It was with this view that we led you to Such being the difficulties of the several the brink of this abyss of God, and endeavoursystems of the decrees of God, it should seemed to engage you to exclaim here, as well as there is but one part to take, and that is to embrace the plan of our churches; for although it is evident by the reflections we have made, that the subject is obscure, yet it is that of all which is most conformable to the light of reason, and to the Holy Scriptures. We believe that God from a principle of goodness, created mankind-that it was agreeable to his wisdom to form man free-that the root of mankind, Adam, our unhappy father, abused this liberty -that his descendants have added their natural depravity, and to the sins of their ancestors, many crimes of their own--that a conduct so monstrous rendered parents and children worthy of eternal misery, so that without violating the laws of justice God might for ever punish both-that having foreseen from all eternity these misfortunes, he resolved from all eternity to take from this unworthy mass of condemned creatures a certain number of men to be saved -that for them he sent his Son into the world -that he grants them his Spirit to apply the benefits of the death of his Son-and that this Spirit conducts them by the hearing of the word to sanctification, and from sanctification to eternal felicity. This in a few words is the system of our churches.

Hereupon, if you ask how it happens that two men to whom Christ is preached, the one receives and the other rejects him? We answer with St. Paul, this difference is, "that the purpose of God according to election might stand." If you ask again whence comes this choice, how is it that God chooses to give his Spirit, and to display his mercy to one, and that he chooses to make the other a victim to his justice? We answer, "God hath mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth," that is, leaves him to his own insensibility. If you inquire farther how God can without injuring his holiness, leave a man to his own hardness? We reply, that God is master of his creature, and

So much for the deep things of God considered as objects astonishing and transporting the mind. Now let us consider them as objects productive of virtue and holiness. As the doctrine we have been establishing is most sublime in speculation, so is it most effectual in practice. Recall what we said on the darkness in which God conceals himself. Remember this obscurity is every where mixed with light, a sort of twilight. There is obscurity in our natural ideas, obscurity in the works of nature, obscurity in the conduct of Providence, obscurity in many doctrines of revelation. Amidst all this darkness, I discover one certain principle, one particle of pure light emitting brightness without obscurity, one truth which natural ideas, the whole creation, the ways of Providence, and the language of revelation, concur to teach us, that is, that a holy life is necessary.

We do not make this reflection by way of introducing skepticism, and to diminish the certainty of the doctrines, which it has pleased God to reveal. Wo be to us, if while we lahour with one hand to establish the foundations of religion, we endeavour to subvert them with the other! Far from us be those modern Vaninis, who, under pretence of making us consider the Deity as covered with holy darkness, would persuade us that he is an inconsistent being, and that the religion he addresses to us shocks reason, and is incompatible with itself. But whence is it, pray, that amidst all the obscurities that surround us, God has placed practical duties in a light so remarkably clear? Whence is it that doctrines most clearly revealed are however so expressed as to furnish difficulties, if not substantial and real, yet likely and apparent: and that the practical part is so clearly revealed that it is not liable to any

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