could not expel the opinions of his adversary (3).

Turning then from the devious track which he was pursuing, our Reformers, as generally on other occasions, trod in the wary steps of the Lutherans, who, while the Church of Rome maintained a predestination to life of one man in preference to another individually, on account of personal merit, taught on the other hand a gratuitous predestination of Christians collectively, of those, whom God has chosen in Christ out of mankind; and by this single point of difference were the contending opinions principally contradistinguished.

My object in the present Lecture will be, to point out the Scholastical and Lutheran sentiments upon this much agitated question, reserving those of our own Church for a future consideration.

With us the system of Calvin for so long a period superseded every other, and even still retains so many zealous advocates, that to a modern ear the very term Predestination seems to convey a meaning only conformable with his particular system. It should however be observed, that the

word was in familiar use for centuries before the Reformation, in a sense very different from what he imputed to it; not as preceding the divine prescience, but as resulting from it, much in the same sense as that in which it has since been supported by the Arminians. Yet, obvious as this appears, writers of respectability strangely persuade themselves, that immediately prior to the Reformation the doctrines of the Church of Rome were completely Calvinistical; a conclusion, to which certainly none can subscribe, who are sufficiently conversant with the favourite productions of the time; who possess enough of fortitude to encounter the barbarisms of scholastical argument, and of patience to investigate its real object. So far indeed was this from being the fact, that Calvin peculiarly prided himself in departing from the common definition of the term, which had long been adopted by the adherents of the Schools, and retained with a scrupulous precision. For while they held, that the expression prædestinati is exclusively applicable to the elect, whom God, foreknowing as meritorious objects of his mercy, predestinates to life; and appropriated that of præsciti to the non

elect, whose perseverance in transgression is simply foreknown; he, on the other side, treating the distinction as a frivolous subterfuge, contended, that God, decreeing the final doom of the elect and non-elect irrespectively, predestinates both, not subsequently, but previously to all foreknowledge of their individual dispositions, especially devotes the latter to destruction through the medium of crime, and creates them by a fatal destiny to perish (4). Whatsoever therefore modern conjecture may have attributed to the Scholastics, it is certain, that, abhorring every speculation, which tends in the remotest degree to make God the author of sin, they believed, that only salutary good is predestinated ; grace to those, who deserve it congruously, and glory to those, who deserve it condignly (5).

But to enter more particularly into their leading opinions upon this subject, they maintained, that Almighty God, before the foundations of the world were laid, surveying in his comprehensive idea, or, as they phrased it, in his Prescience of simple intelligence, the possibilities of all things, before he determined their actual existence, foresaw that if mankind were created, al

though he willed the salvation of all, and was inclined to assist all indifferently, yet that some would deserve eternal happiness, and others eternal misery; and that therefore he approved and elected the former, but disapproved or reprobated the latter. Thus grounding election upon foreknowledge, they contemplated it, not as an arbitrary principle, separating one individual from another, under the influence of a blind chance, or an irrational caprice; but, on the contrary, as a wise and just one, which presupposes a diversity of nature between those who are accepted, and those who are rejected (6).

Persuaded then that God is the fountain of all good, that from his divine preordination freely flows the stream of grace, which refreshes and invigorates the soul, they believed, that he has regulated his predetermination by the quality of the soil through which his grace passes, and the effects which in every case it produces, not restricting his favours, but distributing them with an impartial hand over the barren desart and the fruitful field; equally disposed towards all men, but, because all are not equally disposed towards him, distinguishing only such as prove deserving of his

bounty. Although no adequate cause indeed exists, (according to the strict and accurate meaning of that expression,) why God should confer his gifts even upon the best of men, except in the plenitude of divine munificence, yet they conceived, that a sufficient reason was to be assigned, why he should communicate them rather to this man than to that, why he should elect the good, and reject the bad.

Hence it was, that in order to systematize upon this principle of election, and shew how consistent it is, as well with thẹ justice, as the benevolence of the Deity, the will of God was considered in a double point of view, as absolute and conditional, or, in the technical language of the Schools, as antecedent and consequent. In the first instance, by his absolute or antecedent will, he was said to desire the salvation of every man; in the latter, by his conditional or consequent will, that only of those, whom he foresaw abstaining from sin, and obeying his commandments; the one expressed his general inclination, the other his particular resolution, upon the view of individual circumstances and conditions (7). To the enquiry, why some are unendowed with grace, their answer was, because some