upon eternal life, as many as were careful about, and determined on salvation, believed. For that the historian is speaking of the candid and serious part of the hearers of the apostles, in opposition to the blaspheming Jews; that is, of those Gentiles "who, when they heard this, were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord," is evident from the context. The persons who then believed, appear to have been under a previous preparation for receiving the Gospel; and were probably religious proselytes associating with the Jews. Luke x. 20, "But rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven." The inference from this text is, that there is a register of all the elect in the "book of life," and that their number, according to the doctrine of the Synod of Dort, is fixed and determinate. Our Calvinistic friends forget, however, that names may be "blotted out of the book of life:" and so the theory falls." And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life."

sought by Christ and his apostles, subsequently to this declaration; and also from the fact of great numbers of this same people being afterward brought to acknowledge and embrace Christ and his religion. This is our objection to the former part of this interpretation. Not every one who is lost finally, is given up previously to judicial blindness. To be thus abandoned before death is a special procedure, which our Lord himself confines to the special case of blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. To the latter part of the comment the objection is still stronger. Mr. Scott acknowledges the wicked and wilful blindness of these Jews to be the cause of the judicial dereliction supposed. From this it would naturally follow, that this wilful blinding and hardening of their hearts was the true reason why they "could not believe," as provoking God to take away his Holy Spirit from them. But Mr. Scott cannot stop here. He will have another cause for their incapacity to believe: not, indeed, the prophecy quoted from Isaiah by the evangelist, but "Gon's purpose," Prov. xvi. 4, "The Lord hath made all things for him- of which that prediction, he says, was the "declaraself; yea, even the wicked for the day of evil." If tion." It follows, then, that they could not believe," there be any relevance in this passage to the Calvin- because it was "God's purpose which could not be deistic theory, it must be taken in the supralapsarian feated." Agreeably to this, Mr. Scott understands the sense, that the final cause of the creation of the wicked prediction as asserting that the agent in blinding the is their eternal punishment. It follows from this, that eyes of the people reproved, that is, the obstinate Jews, sin is not the cause of punishment; but that this flows was God himself. from the mere will of God, which is a sufficient refutation. The persons spoken of are "wicked." Either they were made wicked by themselves, or by God. If not by God, then to make the wicked for the day of evil, can only mean that he renders them who have made themselves wicked, and remain incorrigibly so, the instruments of glorifying his justice, "in the day of evil," that is, in the day of punishment. The Hebrew phrase, rendered literally, is, "the Lord doth work all things for himself;" which applies as well to acts of government as to acts of creation. Thus, then, we are taught by the passage, not that God created the wicked to punish them, but so governs, controls, and subjects all things to himself; and so orders them for the accomplishment of his purpose, that the wicked shall not escape his just displeasure, since upon such men the day of evil will ultimately come. It is therefore added in the next verse, "Though hand join in hand, he shall not be unpunished."(5)

John xii. 37-40, But though he had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on him; that the saying of Esaias the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spake, Lord, who hath believed our report? and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed? Therefore they could not believe, because that Esaias said again, He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them."

Mr. Scott's interpretation is, in its first aspect, more moderate than that of many divines of the same school. It is "they had long shut their own eyes, and hardened their own hearts; and so God would give up many of them to such judicial blindness, as rendered their conversion and salvation impossible. The prophecy was not the motive or cause of their wickedness; but it was the declaration of God's purpose which could not be defeated: therefore while this prophecy stood in Scripture against them and others of like character, who hated the truth from the love of sin, the event became certain; in which sense it is said that they could not believe."

That, in some special and aggravated cases, and especially in that which consisted in ascribing the miracles of Christ to Satan, and thus blaspheming the Holy Ghost (cases, however, which probably affected but a few individuals, and those principally the chief Pharisees and Rabbis of our Lord's time); there was such a judicial dereliction as Mr. Scott speaks of, is allowed; but that it extended to the body of the Jews, who at that time did not believe in the mission and miracles of Christ, may be denied. The contrary must appear from the earnest manner in which their salvation was

(5) HOLDEN translates the verse, "Jehovah hath made all things for himself; yea, even the wicked he daily sustains; and observes, "should the received translation be deemed correct, the day of evil' would be considered, by a Jew of the age of Solomon, to mean the day of trouble and affliction."

Let us now, therefore, more particularly examine this passage, and we shall find,

1. That it affirms not that their eyes should be blinded, or their ears closed by a Divine agency, as assumed by Mr. Scott and other Calvinists. This notion is not found in Isaiah vi. from which the quotation is made. There the agent is represented to be the prophet himself. "Make the heart of this people fat, and inake their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes," &c. Now as the prophet could exert no secret direct influence over the minds of the disobedient Jews, he must have fulfilled this commission, if it be taken literally, by preaching to them a fallacious and obdurating doctrine, like that of the false prophets; but if, as we know, he preached no such doctrine, then are the words to be understood according to the genius of the Hebrew language, which often represents him as an agent, who is the occasion, however innocent and undesigned, of any thing being done by another. Thus the prophet, in consequence of the unbelief of the Jews of his day in those promises of Messiah he was appointed to deliver, and which led him to complain, "Who hath believed our report ?" became an occasion to the Jews of "making their own hearts fat, and their ears heavy, and of shutting their eyes" against his testimony. The true agents were, however, the Jews themselves; and by all who knew the genius of the Hebrew language, they would be understood as so charged by the prophet. Thus the Septuagint, the Arabic, and the Syriac versions all agree in rendering the text, so that the people themselves, to whom the prophet wrote, are made the agents of doing that which, in the style of the Hebrews, is ascribed to the prophet himself. So also, it is manifest that St. Paul, who quotes the same Scripture, Acts xxviii. 2527, understood the prophet; "Well spake the Holy Ghost by Esaias the prophet unto our fathers, saying, Go unto this people, and say, Hearing ye shall hear, and not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and not perceive: for the heart of this people is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes HAVE THEY closed; lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them." Nor in the passage as it is given by St. John, is the blinding of the eyes of the Jews attributed to God. It stands, it is true, in our version," He hath blinded their eyes," &c. But the Greek verbs have no nominative case expressed. and it is left to be supplied by the reader. Nor does the context mention the agent; and farther, if we sup ply the pronoun He, we cannot refer it to God, since the passage closes with a change of person, “and I should heal them." The agent blinding and hardening, and the agent attempting to "heal," cannot, therefore, be the same, because they are opposed to each other, not only grammatically, but in design and operation. That agent, then, may be "the God of this world," to whom the work of blinding them that believe not, is expressly attributed by the apostle Paul; or St. John, familiar with the Hebrew style, might refer it to the

prophet, who consequently, and through the wilful perverseness of the Jews, was the occasion of their making their own "hearts gross, and closing their ears ;" or, finally, the personal verb may be used impersonally, and the active form for the passive, of which critics furnish parallel instances.(6) But in all these views the true responsible agent and criminal doer is "THIS PEOPLE," this perverse and obstinate people themselves; a point to which every part of their Scriptures gives abundant testimony.

could not but do, in consequence of having been "left to their pride and lusts;" and excluded before they were born from the mercies of Christ. If this sentiment, then, is not in the "extracts," it is not in the original register; or else, something is there which God, in his own revealed word, has not extracted, and respecting which the commentator must either have had some independent revelation, or have been guilty of speaking very rashly. On the contrary, in the parallel passage in 2 Peter ii. 1-3, where the same class of persons is certainly spoken of, so far are they from being represented as excluded from the benefits of Christ's redemption, that they are charged with a specific crime, which necessarily implies their participation in it, with the crime of "denying the Lord that BOUGHT them."

1 Cor. iv. 7, "For who maketh thee to differ from another?"

2. It may be denied that the prophecy of Isaiah here quoted is, as Mr. Scott represents it, "a declaration of God's purpose, which could not be defeated." A simple prophecy is not a declaration of purpose at all, but the declaration of a future event. If a purpose of God to be hereafter accomplished be declared, this declaration becomes more than a simple prophecy; it connects the act with an agent; and in the case before us, that agent is assumed to be Gon. But we have shown, that the agent in blinding the eyes and closing the ears of these perverse Jews is nowhere said to be GOD; and therefore the prophecy is not a declaration of HIS purpose. Again, if it were a declaration of God's purpose, it would not follow that it could not be defeated; for prophetic threatenings are not absolute, but imply conditions. This is so far from being a mere assumption," and what hast thou that thou didst not receive?" Mr. that it is established by the authority of Almighty God himself, who declares, Jer. xviii. 7, 8," At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it; if that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them." Here we have a prophetic commination uttered; "at what instant I speak"-"that nation against whom I have pronounced." We have also the purpose in the mind of GOD-" the evil that I thought;" and yet this prediction might fail, and this purpose be defeated. So in the case of repentant Nineveh, the predicted destruction failed, and the wrathful purpose was defeated without any impeachment of the Divine attributes; on the contrary, they were illustrated by this manifestation of the mingled justice and grace of his administration. Mr. Scott, like many others, argues as though the prediction of an event gave certainty to it. But the certainty or uncertainty of events is not created by prophecy. Prophecy results from prescience; and prescience has respect to what will be, but not necessarily to what must be. Of this, however, more in its proper place.

3. If this prophecy could be made to bear all that the Calvinists impose upon it, it would not serve their purpose. It would, even then, afford no proof of general election and reprobation, since it has an exclusive application to the unbelieving part of the Jewish people only; and is never adduced, either by St. John or by St. Paul, as the ground of any general doctrine what

ever.

Jude 4, "For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men," &c.

The word which is here rendered ordained, is literally forewritten; and the word rendered condemnation, signifies legal punishment or judgment. The passage means, therefore, either that the class of men spoken of had been foretold in the Scriptures, or that their punishment had been there formerly typified in those examples of ancient times, of which several are cited in the following verses; as Cain, Balaam, Korah, and the cities of the plain. Mr. Scott, therefore, very well interprets the text, when he says, "the Lord had foreseen them, for they were of old registered to this condemnation; many predictions had, from the beginning, been delivered to this effect." But when he adds, "Nay, these predictions had been extracts, as it were, from the registers of heaven; even the secret and eternal decrees of God, in which he had determined to leave them to their pride and lusts, till they merited and received this condemnation," we may well ask for the proof. All this is manifestly gratuitous; brought to the text, and not deduced from it; and is, therefore, very unworthy of a commentator. The "extracts" from the register of God's decrees, as they are found in the Scriptures, contain no such sentiment as that these abusers of the grace of God only did that which they

(6) See WHITBY's Paraphrase and Annot., and his Dis. on the Five Points, ch. i.

The context shows that the apostle was here endeavouring to repress that ostentation, which had arisen among many persons in the church of Corinth, on account of their spiritual gifts and endowments. This he does by referring those gifts to God, as the sole giver,-" for who maketh thee to differ?" or who confers superiority upon thee? as the sense obviously is; Scott acknowledges, that "the apostle is here speaking more immediately of natural abilities and spiritual gifts, and not of special and efficacious grace." If so, then the passage has nothing to do with this controversy. The argument, he however affirms, concludes equally in one case as in the other; and in his sermon on election, he thus applies it: "Let the blessings of the Gospel be fairly proposed, with solemn warnings and pressing invitations, to two men of exactly the same character and disposition: if they are left to themselves in entirely similar circumstances, the effect must be precisely the same. But behold, while one proudly scorns and resents the gracious offer, the other trembles, weeps, prays, repents, believes! Who maketh this man to differ from the other? or what hath he that he hath not received? The Scriptural answer to this question, when properly understood, decides the whole controversy."(7)

As this is a favourite argument, and a popular dilemma in the hands of the Calvinists, and so much is supposed to depend upon its solution, we may somewhat particularly examine it.

Instead of supposing the case of two men " of exactly the same character and disposition," why not suppose the same man in two moral states? For one man who "proudly scorns the Gospel" does not more differ from another who penitently receives it, than the same man who has once scoffingly rejected, and afterward meekly submitted to it, differs from himself; as, for instance, Saul the Pharisee from Paul the apostle. Now to account for the case of two men, one receiving the Gospel, and the other rejecting it, the theory of election is brought in; but in the case of the one man in two different states, this theory cannot be resorted to. The man was elect from eternity; he is no outcast from the mercy of his God and the redemption of his Saviour, and yet, in one period of his life, he proudly scorns the offered mercy of Christ, at another he accepts it. It is clear, then, that the doctrine of election, simply considered in itself, will not solve the latter case; and by consequence, it will not solve the former. For the mere fact, that one man rejects the Gospel while another receives it, is no more a proof of the non-election of the non-recipient, than the fact of a man now rejecting it, who shall afterward receive it, is a proof of his non-election. The solution, then, must be sought for in some communication of the grace of God, in some inward operation upon the heart, which is supposed to be a consequence of election; but this leads to another and distinct question. This question is not, however, the vincibility or invincibility of the grace of God, at least not in the first instance. It is, in truth, whether there is any operation of the grace of God in man at all tending to salvation, in cases where we see the Gospel rejected. Is the man who rejects perseveringly, and he who rejects but for a time, perhaps a long period of his life, left without any good motions or assisting influence from the grace of God, or

(7) CALVIN puts the matter in much the same way, -Inst. Lib. iii. c. 24.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

OF CHRIST.

The fact is, that this supposed puzzle has been always used ad captandum; and is unworthy so grave a controversy; and as to the pretence, that the admission of THEORIES WHICH LIMIT THE EXTENT OF THE DEATH a power in man to use or to abuse the grace of GoD involves some merit or ground of glorying in man himself, this is equally fallacious. The power "to will and to do" is the sole result of the working of God in man. All is of grace: "By the grace of God" must every one say, "I am what I am." Here is no dispute; every good thought, desire, and tendency of the heart, and all its power to turn these to practical account by prayer, by faith, by the use of the means of grace, through which new power "to will and to do," new power to use grace, as well as new grace, is communicated, is of GOD. Every good act, therefore, is the use of a communicated power which is given of grace, as the stretching out of the withered hand of the healed man was the use of the power communicated to his imbecility, and still working with the act, though not the act itself; and to attempt to lay a ground of boasting and self-sufficiency in the assisted acceptance of the grace of God by us; and the empowered submission of our hearts to it, is as manifestly absurd as it would be to say, that the man whose arm was withered, had great reason to congratulate himself on his share in the glory of the miracle, because he himself stretched out the invigorated member at the command of Christ; and because it was not, in fact, lifted up by the hand of him who, in that act of faith and obedience, had healed him. The question of the invincibility of Divine grace is a point to be in another place considered.

Acts xviii. 9, 10, "Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace; for I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee; for I have much people in this city."

Mr. Scott, to whom the doctrine of election is always present, says, "in this Christ evidently spake of those who were his by election, the gift of the Father, and his own purchase; though, at that time, in an unconverted state."(9) It would have been more "evident" had this been said by the writer of the Acts as well as by Mr. Scott, or any thing approaching to it. The "evidence," we fear, was all in Mr. Scott's predisposition of mind; for it nowhere else appears. The expression is, at least, capable of two very satisfactory interpretations, independent of the theory of Calvinistic election. It may mean, that there were many well-disposed and serious inquirers among the "Greeks" in Corinth; for when Paul turned from the Jews, he "entered into the house of Justus, one that worshipped GOD. This man was a Greek proselyte; and from various parts of the Acts of the Apostles it is plain, that this class of people were not only numerous, but generally received the Gospel with joy, and were among the first who joined the primitive churches. They manifested their readiness to receive the Gospel in Corinth itself when the Jews "opposed and blasphemed ;" and it is not improbable, that to such proselytes, who were in many places a "people prepared of the Lord," reference is made, when our Saviour, speaking to Paul in this vision, says "I have much people in this city." Suppose, however, he speaks prospectively and prophetically, making his foreknowledge of an event the means of encouraging the labours of his devoted apostle, the doctrine of election follows neither from the fact of the foreknowledge of God, nor from prophetic declarations grounded upon it. Even Calvin founds not election upon God's foreknowledge; but upon his decree.

A few other passages might be added, which are sometimes adduced as proofs of the Calvinistic theory of "election" and "distinguishing grace;" but they are all either explained by that view of scriptural election which has been at large adduced, or are of very obvious interpretation. I believe that I have omitted none, on which any great stress is laid in the controversy; and the reader will judge how far those which have been examined serve to support those inferences which tend to limit the universal import of those declarations which prove, in the literal sense of the terms, that our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, "by the grace of God, tasted death for every man."

WE have, in the foregoing attempt to establish the doctrine of the redemption of all mankind against our Calvinistic brethren, taken their scheme in the sense in which it is usually understood, without noticing those minuter shades with which the system has been varied. In this discussion, it is hoped, that no expression has hitherto escaped inconsistent with candour. Doctrinal truth would be as little served by this as Christian charity; nor ought it ever to be forgotten by the theological inquirer, that the system which we have brought under review has, in some of its branches, always imbodied, and often preserved in various parts of Christendom, that truth which is vital to the church, and salutary to the souls of men. It has numbered, too, among its votaries, many venerable names; and many devoted and holy men, whose writings often rank among the brightest lights of scriptural criticism and practical divinity. We think the peculiarities of their creed clearly opposed to the sense of Scripture, and fairly chargeable in argument with all those consequences we have deduced from them; and which, were it necessary to the discussion, might be characterized in still stronger language. Those consequences, however, let it be observed, we only exhibit as logical ones. By many of this class of divines they are denied; by others modified; and by a third party explained away to their own satisfaction by means of metaphysical and subtle distinctions. As logical consequences only they are, therefore, in such cases, fairly to be charged upon our opponents, in any disputes which may arise. By keeping this distinction in view, the discussion of these points may be preserved unfettered; and candour and charity sustain no wound.

We shall now proceed to justify the general view we have taken of the Calvinistic doctrine of election, predestination, and partial redemption, by adducing the sentiments of Calvin himself, and of Calvinistic theologians and churches; after which, our attention may be directed, briefly, to some of those more modern modifications of the system, which, though they differ not, as we think, so materially from the original model as some of their advocates suppose, yet make concessions not unimportant to the more liberal, and, as we believe, the only scriptural theory.

Calvin has at large opened his sentiments on election in the third book of his Institutes. (1)" Predestination we call the eternal decree of God; by which he hath determined in himself what he would have to become of every individual of mankind. For they are not all created with similar destiny; but eternal life is foreordained for some, and eternal damnation for others. Every man, therefore, being created for one or other of these ends, we say he is predestinated either to life or to death." After having spoken of the election of the race of Abraham, and then of particular branches of that race, he proceeds, "Though it is sufficiently clear, that God, in his secret counsel, freely chooses whom he will, and rejects others, his gratuitous election is but half displayed till we come to particular individuals, to whom God not only offers salvation, but assigns it in such a manner, that the certainty of the effect is liable to no suspense or doubt." He sums up the chapter, in which he thus generally states the doctrine, in these words :(2)" In conformity, therefore, to the clear doctrine of the Scripture, we assert, that by an eternal and immutable counsel, God hath once for all determined both whom he would admit to salvation, and whom he would condemn to destruction. We affirm that this counsel, as far as concerns the elect, is founded on his gratuitous mercy, totally irrespective of human merit; but that to those whom he devotes to condemnation, the gate of life is closed by a just and irreprehensible, but incomprehensible judgment. In the elect, we consider calling as an evidence of election; and justification as another token of its manifestation, till they arrive in glory, which constitutes its completion. As God seals his elect by vocation and justification, so by excluding the reprobate from the knowledge of his

(1) The following quotations are made from ALLEN'S translation. Lond. 1823. (2) Chap. 21, book iit.