LETTER V.

On Predestination, Election, and
Reprobation.

I BELIEVE there is no doctrine which is less understood by the great majority of mankind, than that of Predestination. I write not in opposition to certain sectarians, who misinterpret and misrepresent it; these Letters are written for the world in general, and to shew to that world that there is no doctrine really maintained by the Church of England, which is not consonant with the Scriptures. Our Articles are founded on Sacred Writ alone, and not on the interpretation of any human being whatever.

The seventeenth Article on Predestination and Election will be considered and explained in this Letter. The hor

rible* doctrine of Calvin, that the great mass of mankind are unalterably doomed, by a Divine decree, to eternal punishment, and a few destined by the Divine Will to salvation. I shall merely notice, as the dreadful assertion has been so often proved groundless by the wisest of men, and has been so recently and so completely refuted by the present Bishop of Winchester, that my expression of abhorrence at such a statement is little required it shall be my endeavour to

Calvin himself calls it "decretum horribile."

† Archbishop Tillotson observes, "Nothing can be admitted to be a revelation from God, which plainly contradicts his essential perfection, and, consequently, if any one pretends Divine revelation for this Doctrine, that God hath, from all eternity, absolutely decreed the eternal ruin of the greatest part of mankind, without any respect to the sins and demerits of men, I am as certain that this Doctrine cannot be of God, as I am sure that God is good and just; because this grates upon the notion that mankind have of goodness and justice," "for every man has greater assurance that God is good and just, than he can have of any subtle speculations about Predestination and the decrees of God."

prove, that St. Paul's Predestination is not Calvin's Predestination, but that the Apostle's Doctrine is entirely consistent with the idea which any humble and devout Christian would form of the designs of God; that it manifests, in the clearest manner, the united purity of his mercy and of his justice; that it is a brief exposition of the gracious operations of the Deity, for the salvation of fallen man.

I will first observe, that Predestination is not fate. There is, indeed, a grand system pre-ordained by the Almighty, and what that plan or system is, the Scriptures, if searched diligently, and studied devoutly, will clearly point out, as it pervades the whole Bible; but to ascribe any single circumstance which occurs to any individual as arising from fate, is a mark of a mind of a vulgar conception, as well as a want of knowledge of Divine revelation.

If we are told, that not a sparrow shall

fall to the ground without God knowing it, and that the very hairs of our head are all numbered, how much more must we consider that all the ways and actions of man are known to him. Nothing happens, or can happen, without his knowledge, nothing without his permission. Be it, however, carefully ob¡ served, that the permission of God is a very different thing from his absolute will. His positive decrees have a general view consistent with the grand system above alluded to; for even, where a nation appears to be peculiarly favored or punished, the favor or the punishment, even of a nation, does not arise from an arbitrary and peculiar choice in that case, but may be always traced to the original grand and general design of Providence; as an especial instance, the Jews were not chosen by God on account of their own merits, for their history proves that they were "a stiff-necked," and frequently an ungrateful people; they were

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chosen from the Almighty's gracious approbation of the signal faith of Abraham, because it is ordained in God's general decree, that faith is the most acceptable offering which the creature can make to his Creator,

The private acts of individuals, are permitted, but not willed: they are permitted, because we are free agents, that is, God does not interpose his sovereign power to prevent improper actions, but he leaves mankind to take the decreed consequences of such actions. To argue that God wills evil to be done, is to make him the author of evil, which no one can possibly assert, or could deny, if they did, that such assertion is direct blasphemy.

Among numerous proofs which might be given, that there are no absolute, arbitrary, and irreversible decrees respecting either nations or individuals, I will refer to only a few passages in Scripture, We will first take the eighteenth chapter of Jeremiah.