John L. Girardeau

Professor of Systematic Theology

in Columbia Theological Seminary, South Carolina.

Calvinism and Evangelical Arminianism

Compared as to Election, Reprobation, Justification and Related Doctrines.

© eBook — Lance George Marshall, 2011.

Table of Contents

Preface

PART I.

Introductory Remarks

SECTION I. DOCTRINE OF ELECTION STATED AND PROVED

SECTION II. DOCTRINE OF REPROBATION STATED AND PROVED

SECTION III. OBJECTIONS FROM THE MORAL ATTRIBUTES OF GOD ANSWERED

1. Objection from Divine Justice.

2. Objection from Divine Goodness.

3. Objection from Divine Wisdom.

4. Objection from Divine Veracity.

SECTION IV. OBJECTIONS FROM THE MORAL AGENCY OF MAN ANSWERED

PART II.

Transitional Observations

SECTION I. CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION STATED

SECTION II. GROUND OF JUSTIFICATION

SECTION III. NATURE OF JUSTIFICATION

SECTION IV. CONDITION OF JUSTIFICATION

Preface

DURING the temporary occupation of the pulpit of the First Presbyterian Church in this city, a few years ago, some of the young members of that church requested me to instruct a Bible-class, on Sabbath nights, in the distinctive doctrines of the Calvinistic faith. A large number were enrolled, and the understanding was that the members of the class would be entitled to a free interrogation of the instructor. Unexpectedly, from the very first, a large promiscuous congregation attended, and the liberty to ask questions was used by outsiders, the design appearing to be to start difficulties rather than to seek light, and to convert the exercise into a debate. To avoid this result, and to treat objections in a more logical and orderly manner than was possible in extemporized replies to the scattering fire of miscellaneous inquiries, resort ere-long was had to written lectures. Notwithstanding this change, the attendance and the interest suffered no abatement, but rather increased - a fact which seemed to militate against the common opinion that doctrinal discussions would prove dry and unacceptable to a popular audience. The lectures, which were prepared not without painstaking labor, suggested the production of a formal treatise on the subjects which had occupied all the available time-namely, Election and Reprobation, with special reference to the Evangelical Arminian theology. This was done, and a discussion of the doctrine of justification, in relation to that theology, was added.

Another reason which conduced to the preparation of this work was the conviction that there is room for it. A distinguished writer has remarked, that one who solicits the attention of the public by publishing a book should have something to say which had not been said before. This opinion, no doubt, needs qualification; but it applies, to some extent, in the present instance. The ground covered by the controversy between Calvinists and Evangelical Arminians has not been completely occupied. John Owen's "Display of Arminianism," and similar works of the Puritan period, antedated the rise of Evangelical Arminianism. Jonathan Edwards was a contemporary of John Wesley. Principal Hill's comparison of Calvinism and Arminianism had reference mainly to the Remonstrant system, as developed by Episcopius and Curcellaeus, Grotius and Limborch. The same is, in a measure, true of Principal Cunningham's comparative estimate of Calvinism and Arminianism in his Historical Theology. The comparative treatment of Calvinism 'and modern, Evangelical Arminianism, contained in works on Systematic Theology composed in recent times, are, however able, necessarily brief and somewhat meagre. Such works as those of Green, Annan and Fairchild hardly profess to be severely analytical or exhaustive of any one topic. Dr. N. T. Rice's "God Sovereign and Man Free," although a valuable discussion, is brief, and leaves much to be said even in regard to the question it handles. There seemed, therefore, to be room for further discussion concerning the relative merits of Calvinism and Evangelical Arminianism, and it is hoped that the present attempt will not be considered arrogant on the ground of being superfluous.

Still another incentive leading to the production of this volume has been furnished by the taunt ever and anon issuing from Arminian sources that "Calvinism is dying," and the sneering intimation of recent works-Dr. Miner Raymond's "Systematic Theology," for example-that but few people of sense now pretend to hold some of its peculiar and monstrous tenets. An honest indignation justifies the disproof of such contemptuous allegations; and, however inadequate may be the present defence of the venerable theology thus belittled, it is prompted by the profound conviction that the system known as Calvinism expresses the faith of martyrs, confessors and reformers, the faith in which the majority of Christ's true people have lived and died; that it is the truth of God ; and that, instead of dying, it is as immortal as that Inspired Word which liveth and abideth forever. If opponents deem it to be dying, and imagine that they can hasten its coveted dissolution, they will find its supposed dying-chamber an arena of vigorous contest, and its fancied death-bed a redoubt that neither they nor the powers of hell can carry by storm.

The work does not assume to cover the whole field of the controversy of which it treats, to discuss articulately all the distinctive views of the systems compared. It is its purpose to bring out their radical and controlling principles, in themselves and in their necessary connections, to confront them with each other, and to subject them to a searching examination.

I have endeavored to write in a calm and dispassionate temper, consistent with sincere, brotherly love to those of God's people from whose views I differ; and, in submitting the results of long reflection, embodied in this volume, to the judgment of candid readers, I invoke for them a like calm and dispassionate consideration.

The work is humbly committed to Him whose truth it professes to vindicate, with the prayer that He will deign to employ it for His glory and the good of His Church. Especially would I be grateful, if He would be pleased to use it for arresting, at least in some degree, the tendency now manifested on the part of some professed Calvinists seriously to modify the doctrines of the Calvinistic Symbols.

COLUMBIA, S. C., Jan. 18, 1890.

Introductory Remarks

PREDESTINATION, in the Scriptures and in theological treatises, has two senses - one wide or general, the other narrow or special. In the wide or general sense, it signifies the decrees of God, terminating either efficiently or permissively on all beings, acts and events. The universe, intelligent and unintelligent, is its object. It is the plan in accordance with which God creates and governs all finite beings, and all their properties and actions. In the narrow or special sense, it signifies the decrees of God, terminating on the destinies of intelligent, moral beings-angels and men. In a still more restricted sense, it signifies the decrees of God terminating on the destinies of men. In this last sense, predestination is, by Calvinistic theologians, regarded as a generic decree including under it Election and Reprobation as specific decrees: the former predestinating some human beings, without regard to their merit, to salvation, in order to the glorification of God's sovereign grace ; the latter foreordaining some human beings, for their sin, to destruction, in order to the glorification of God's retributive justice.

The design of the First Part of this discussion is the exposition and defence of the Calvinistic doctrines of Election and Reprobation; special reference being had to the objections advanced against them by the Evangelical Arminian Theology, which will be put upon trial and summoned to answer for the difficulties inherent in itself. This special examination of that theology is warranted upon two grounds, - first, because it proposes to found its proofs directly upon the Scriptures, and is on that account the most formidable, as it is the most obtrusive, assailant of the Calvinistic scheme ; secondly, because there is a demand in our own times for a careful consideration of the Evangelical Arminian doctrines, as differing in some respects from those of the Remonstrants, and as now having had sufficient opportunity to develop themselves into a coherent and peculiar theological system, commanding the suffrages of a large section of the Church of Christ. Did the present school of Arminians precisely coincide in doctrine with that earlier one which articulated its theology in opposition to the Synod of Dort, it might well be regarded as a superfluous office to subject its views to a particular examination. But the system of Wesley and Watson is not identical with that of Episcopius and Limborch; and the polemic treatises of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are not altogether suited to meet the present phases of the Arminian theology.

In addition to these considerations it deserves to be noticed, that at the time of the Remonstrant controversy the defenders of Calvinism swung, between the Supralapsarian and Sublapsarian methods of conceiving the divine decrees. Francis Junius, for instance, in his discussion with James Arminius, on Predestination, endeavored to vindicate both these modes of viewing the decrees as reducible to unity upon the same doctrine. This placed him at a disadvantage which was observed by the keen eye of his subtle antagonist, and employed against him not without considerable effect. And while the Synod of Dort was Sublapsarian, it so happened that the chief opponents of the Remonstrants were pronounced Supralapsarians ; as, for example, Gomarus, Voetius, Twisse, and Perkins. The natural result was, that the type of doctrine which the Arminian divines felt called upon to attack was the Supralapsarian. To this day, the objections urged by Arminians against the Calvinistic doctrine of decrees are mainly directed against the Supralapsarian and Necessitarian theories. But it must be borne in mind that the doctrines of Calvinism have been always more or less cast in the mould of Sublapsarianism. They have had a definite development, according to that type, in the Symbolic Formularies of the Reformed Church, and in the works of representative theologians. This frees the Calvinist from the embarrassment resulting from the attempt to defend differing and incongruous views of the divine decrees, and gives him the advantage of appealing to the Calvinistic standards, as being either implicitly or explicitly Sublapsarian in their utterances.

The charge has been frequently made that the Calvinistic apologists of later times have modified the severer aspects of their system under the pressure of controversy. This is a mistake. It has arisen from the persistent determination of Arminian writers to take Supralapsarianism and Necessitarianism as symbolic Calvinism. When, therefore, the true exponents of Calvinism defend their system from another point of view, they are twitted with compromising the Calvinistic system. But surely the Calvinistic Confessions and the views of the vast majority of Calvinistic divines ought, by fair adversaries, to be construed as representatives of the system. Did the Calvinist treat the Wesleyan Arminian doctrines as identical with the Remonstrant, would not the blunder be exposed and the injustice resented?

It is not intended to imply that Arminians have always correctly represented the position of the Supralapsarians. On the contrary, the affirmation of the latter, that God dooms men to punishment for their sin, has seldom had due consideration given it by Arminian writers. This only makes the charge of injustice in the conduct of the controversy all the graver, since not only the views of Supralapsarians, but their misapprehended views, are attributed by the mass of Arminian controversialists to Sublapsarian Calvinists.

In this discussion, the Sublapsarian view of the divine decrees will be adhered to, under the conviction that it is characteristic of the system of doctrine stated in all of the Calvinistic Confessions which speak definitely on the question, and maintained by the great majority of Calvinistic theologians.

The treatment of the subject will be distributed into the following sections: First, the doctrine of Election, stated and proved; Secondly, the doctrine of Reprobation, stated and proved ; Thirdly, Objections to these doctrines, derived from the Moral Attributes of God, answered; Fourthly, Objections derived from the Moral Agency of man, answered.

PART I.—SECTION I. THE DOCTRINE OF ELECTION STATED AND PROVED.

IN order to secure clearness and to prevent misapprehension in regard to the issues involved, statements of the doctrine of election by the prominent Calvinistic Confessions will be furnished, and also representations of that doctrine from Evangelical Arminian sources of high authority. The Calvinistic doctrine will then be analyzed into its constituent elements, their scriptural proofs exhibited, and the questions between Calvinists and Evangelical Arminians in regard to those points will be discussed.

The statement of the doctrine of election by the Westminster Confession is as follows: "By the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, some men . . . are predestinated unto everlasting life.

"These men . . . thus predestinated . . . are particularly and unchangeably designed; and their number is so certain and definite that it cannot be either increased or diminished.

"Those of mankind that are predestinated unto life. God, before the foundation of the world was laid, according to his eternal and immutable purpose, and the secret counsel and good pleasure of his will, hath chosen in Christ, unto everlasting glory, out of his mere free grace and love, without any foresight of faith, or good works, or perseverance in either of them, or any other thing in the creature, as conditions, or causes moving him thereunto; and all to the praise of his glorious grace.

"As God hath appointed the elect unto glory, so hath he, by the eternal and most free purpose of his will, fore-ordained all the means thereunto. Wherefore they who are elected being fallen in Adam, are redeemed by Christ, are effectually called unto faith in Christ by his Spirit working in due season; are justified, adopted, sanctified, and kept by his power through faith unto salvation." [1]

The Westminster Larger Catechism says: "God, by an eternal and immutable decree, out of his mere love, for the praise of his glorious grace, to be manifested in due time, hath elected some angels to glory; and, in Christ, hath chosen some men to eternal life, and the means thereof.

"God doth not leave all men to perish in the estate of sin and misery, into which they fell by the breach of the first covenant, commonly called the covenant of works; but of his mere love and mercy delivereth his elect out of it, and bringeth them into an estate of salvation by the second covenant, commonly called the covenant of grace."

"The covenant of grace was made with Christ as the second Adam, and in him with all the elect as his seed." [2]

The Westminster Shorter Catechism: "God, having out of his mere good pleasure, from all eternity, elected some to everlasting life, did enter into a covenant of grace, to deliver them out of the estate of sin and misery, and to bring them into an estate of salvation by a Redeemer." [3]

What follows is a part of the utterance of the Synod of Dort: "The cause, or fault, of this unbelief" [i. e. in Christ], "as of all other sins, is in no wise in God, but in man. But faith in Jesus Christ, and salvation through him, is the free gift of God.

"But whereas, in process of time, God bestoweth faith on some, and not on others, this proceeds from his eternal decree.

"Now, election is the unchangeable purpose of God, by which, before the foundation of the world, according to the most free pleasure of his will, and of his mere grace, out of all mankind - fallen, through their own fault, from their first integrity into sin and destruction - he hath chosen in Christ unto salvation a set number of certain men, neither better nor more worthy than others, but lying in the common misery with others; which Christ also from all eternity he appointed the Mediator, and head of all the elect, and foundation of salvation. And so he decreed to give them to him to be saved, and by his Word and Spirit effectually to call and draw them to a communion with him: that is, to give them a true faith in him, to justify, sanctify, and finally glorify them, being mightily kept in the communion of his Son, to the demonstration of his mercy, and the praise of the riches of his glorious grace.

"This said election was made, not upon foresight of faith, and the obedience of faith, holiness, or of any other good quality or disposition, as a cause or condition before required in man to be chosen; but  unto faith, and the obedience of faith, holiness, etc. And therefore election is the fountain of all saving good, from whence faith, holiness, and the residue of saving gifts, lastly everlasting life itself, do flow, as the fruits and effects thereof.

"The true cause of this free election is the good pleasure of God; not consisting herein, that, from among all possible means, he chose some certain qualities, or actions, of men, as a condition of salvation; but herein, that out of the common multitude of sinners he culled out to himself, for his own peculiar" [possession] "some certain persons.

"And as God himself is most wise, unchangeable, omniscient, and omnipotent, so the election made by him can neither be interrupted nor changed, revoked or disannulled, nor the elect cast away, nor their number diminished." [4]

The Second Helvetic Confession says: "God hath from the beginning freely, and of his mere grace, without any respect of men, predestinated or elected the saints, whom he will save in Christ." [5]

The French Confession: "We believe that out of this universal corruption and damnation, wherein by nature all men are drowned, God did deliver and preserve some, whom, by his eternal and immutable counsel, of his own goodness and mercy, without any respect of their works, he did choose in Christ Jesus. . . . For some are not better than others, till such time as the Lord doth make a difference, according to that immutable counsel which he had decreed in Christ Jesus before the creation of the world: neither was any man able by his own strength to make an entrance for himself to that good, seeing that of our nature we cannot have so much as one right motion, affection, or thought, till God do freely prevent us, and fashion us to uprightness." [6]

The Belgic Confession: "We believe that God, after that the whole offspring of Adam was cast headlong into perdition and destruction, through the default of the first man, bath declared and shewed himself to be such an one, as he is indeed ; namely, both merciful and just: merciful, by delivering and saving those from condemnation and from death, whom, in his eternal counsel, of his own free goodness, he bath chosen in Jesus Christ our Lord, without any regard at all to their works." [7]

The Swiss Form of Agreement (Formula Consensus Helvetica): "Before the foundations of the world were laid, God, in Christ Jesus our Lord, formed an eternal purpose, in which, out of the mere good pleasure of his will, without any foresight of the merit of works or of faith, unto the praise of his glorious grace, he elected a certain and definite number of men, in the same mass of corruption and lying in a common blood, and so corrupt in sin, to be, in time, brought to salvation through Christ the only Sponsor and Mediator, and, through the merit of the same, by the most powerful influence of the Holy Spirit regenerating, to be effectually called, regenerated, and endued with faith and repentance. And in such wise indeed did God determine to illustrate his glory, that he decreed, first to create man in integrity, then to permit his fall, and finally to pity some from among the fallen, and so to elect the same." [8]

To these statements of the doctrine may be added those of British Episcopal Churches, for the reason that they are, upon this point, explicitly Calvinistic.

The Seventeenth Article of the Church of England is as follows: "Predestination to life is the everlasting purpose of God, whereby (before the foundations of the world were laid) he hath constantly decreed by his counsel, secret to us, to deliver from curse and damnation those whom he hath chosen in Christ out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ to everlasting salvation, as vessels made to honour. Wherefore they be endued with so excellent a benefit of God, be called according to God's purpose by his Spirit working in due season: they through grace obey the calling: they be made sons of God by adoption: they be made like the image of his only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ: they walk religiously in good works: and at length, by God's mercy, they attain to everlasting felicity."

The third article of the Church of Ireland has these words : "By the same eternal counsel, God bath predestinated some unto life, and reprobated some unto death: of both which there is a certain number, known only to God, which can neither be increased nor diminished. [9]

"Predestination to life is the everlasting purpose of God, whereby, before the foundations of the world were laid, he hath constantly decreed in his secret counsel to deliver from curse and damnation those whom he hath chosen in Christ out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ unto everlasting salvation, as vessels made to honour. [10]

"The cause moving God to predestinate unto life is not the foreseeing of faith, or perseverance, or good works, or of any thing which is in the person predestinated, but only the good pleasure of God himself. [11] For all things being ordained for the manifestation of his glory, and his glory being to appear both in the works of his mercy and of his justice, it seemed good to his heavenly wisdom to choose out a certain number, towards whom he would extend his undeserved mercy, leaving the rest to be spectacles of his justice.

"Such as are predestinated unto life be called according unto God's purpose (his Spirit working in due season), and through grace they obey the calling, they be justified freely, they be made sons of God by adoption, they be made like the image of his only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, they walk religiously in good works, and at length, by God's mercy, they attain to everlasting felicity." [12]

Having thus sufficiently given the doctrine of Calvinism in regard to Election, I proceed to furnish that of Evangelical Arminianism. In the absence of any Symbolic Articles in which the views of Evangelical Arminians touching the doctrine of Election are embodied, [13] reference must be had to the statements of those who are accepted by them as representative theologians.

John Wesley thus speaks: "The Scripture tells us plainly what predestination is: it is God's fore-appointing obedient believers to salvation, not without, but 'according to his foreknowledge' of all their works 'from the foundation of the world.' . . . We may consider this a little further. God, from the foundation of the world, foreknew all men's believing or not believing. And according to this, his foreknowledge, he chose or elected all obedient believers, as such, to salvation."

"God calleth Abraham 'a father of many nations,' though not so at that time. He calleth Christ 'the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world,' though not slain till he was a man in the flesh. Even so he calleth men 'elected from the foundation of the world,' though not elected till they were men in the flesh. Yet it is all so before God, who, knowing all things from eternity, 'calleth things that are not as though they were.'

"By all which it is clear, that as Christ was called 'the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world,' and yet not slain till some thousand years after, till the day of his death, so also men are called 'elect from the foundation of the world,' and yet not elected, perhaps, till some thousand years after, till the day of their conversion to God . . .

"If the elect are chosen through sanctification of the Spirit, then they were not chosen before they were sanctified by the Spirit. But they were not sanctified before they had a being. It is plain, then, neither were they chosen from the foundation of the world. But God 'calleth things that are not as though they were.' . . .

"If the saints are chosen to salvation, through believing of the truth . . . they were not chosen before they believed; much less before they had a being, any more than Christ was slain before he had a being. So plain is it that they were not elected till they believed, although God 'calleth things that are not as though they were.' . . .

"It is plain the act of electing is in time, though known of God before; who according to his knowledge, often speaketh of the things 'which are not as though they were.' And thus is the great stumbling block about election taken away, that men may 'make their calling and election sure.'" [14]

In another place, Wesley says: "But do not the Scriptures speak of election? . . . You cannot therefore deny there is such a thing as election. And if there is, what do you mean by it?

"I will tell you in all plainness and simplicity. I believe it commonly means one of these two things; first, a divine appointment of some particular men, to do some particular work in the world. And this election I believe to be not only personal, but absolute and unconditional . . .

"I believe election means, secondly, a divine appointment of some men to eternal happiness. But I believe this election to be conditional, as well as the reprobation opposite thereto. I believe the eternal decree concerning both is expressed in these words, 'He that believeth shall be saved: he that believeth not shall be damned.' And this decree without doubt God will not change, and man cannot resist. According to this all true believers are in Scripture termed elect . . .

"God calleth true believers 'elect from the foundation of the world,' although they were not actually elect or believers till many ages after, in their several generations. Then only it was that they were actually elected, when they were made the 'sons of God by faith.' . . .

"This election I as firmly believe as I believe the Scripture to be of God. But unconditional election I cannot believe; not only because I cannot find it in Scripture, but also, (to waive all other considerations,) because it necessarily implies unconditional reprobation. Find out any election which does not imply reprobation, and I will gladly agree to it. But reprobation I can never agree to, while I believe the Scripture to be of God: as being utterly irreconcilable to the whole scope of the Old and New Testament." [15]

"What do you mean by the word Election? . . . I mean this. God did decree from the beginning to elect or choose (in Christ) all that should believe to salvation." [16]

"Irresistible Grace and Infallible Perseverance are the natural consequence of the former, the uncondittional decree . . . So that, in effect, the three questions come into one, Is Predestination absolute or conditional? The Arminians believe it is conditional." [17]

Richard Watson thus distributes the subject of election: "Of a divine election, or choosing and separation from others, we have these three kinds mentioned in the Scriptures. The first is the election of individuals to perform some particular and special service. . . . The second kind of election which we find in Scripture is the election of nations, or bodies of people, to eminent religious privileges, and in order to accomplish, by their superior illumination, the merciful purposes of God, ill benefiting other nations or bodies of people. . . . The third kind of election is personal election; or the election of individuals to be the children of God and the heirs of eternal life." [18]

In regard to the last-mentioned aspect of election - that which is in dispute - he says: "What true personal election is, we shall find explained in two clear passages of Scripture. It is explained negatively by our Lord, where he says to his disciples, 'I have chosen you out of the world'; it is explained positively by St. Peter, when he addresses his first epistle to the 'elect, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus.' To be elected, therefore, is to be separated from 'the world,' and to be sanctified by the Spirit, and by the blood of Christ.

"It follows, then, that election is not only an act of God done in time; but also that it is subsequent to the administration of the means of salvation. The 'calling' goes before the 'election'; the publication of the doctrine of 'the Spirit,' and the atonement, called by Peter 'the sprinkling of the blood of Christ' before that 'sanctification,' through which they become 'the elect' of God. The doctrine of eternal election is thus brought down to its true meaning. Actual election cannot be eternal; for, from eternity, the elect were not actually chosen out of the world, and from eternity they could not be 'sanctified unto obedience.' The phrases 'eternal election,' and 'eternal decree of election,' so often in the lips of Calvinists, can, in common sense, therefore, mean only an eternal purpose to elect; or a purpose formed in eternity, to elect, or choose out of the world, and sanctify in time, by 'the Spirit and the blood of Jesus.' This is a doctrine which no one will contend with them; but when they graft upon it another, that God hath, from eternity, 'chosen in Christ unto salvation' a set number of men, 'certam quorundam hominum multitudinem' - not upon foresight of faith and the obedience of faith, holiness, or any other good quality or disposition (as a cause or condition before required in man to be chosen); but unto faith, and the obedience of faith, holiness, etc., 'non ex praevisa fide, fideique obedientia, sanctitate, aut alia aliqua bona qualitate et dispositione,' etc., (Judgment of the Synod of Dort,) it presents itself under a different aspect, and requires an appeal to the word of God." [19]

Without further definition of his own view, Watson proceeds to argue against the Calvinistic doctrine.

Dr. Ralston adopts Watson's threefold distribution of election - of individuals to office, of communities to religious privileges, of individuals to eternal life. In regard to the last kind he says: "That election of this personal and individual kind is frequently alluded to in the Scriptures, is admitted by Arminians as well as Calvinists; but the great matter of dispute relates to the sense in which the subject is to be understood. Calvinists say that this election is 'from all eternity;' this Arminians deny, except so far as the foreknowledge or purpose of God to elect may be termed election. [20]

So far for his view as to the temporal origin of election. As to its conditionality he thus speaks: "Before the election in question can exist, there must be a real difference in the objects or persons concerning whom the choice is made. Even an intelligent creature can make no rational choice where no supposed difference exists; and can we suppose that the infinite God will act in a manner that would be justly deemed blind and irrational in man? The thought is inadmissible. . . . If God selects, or chooses, some men to eternal life and rejects others, as all admit to be the fact, there must be a good and sufficient reason for this election."

Now, what is this reason? He answers: "We arrive at the conclusion, therefore, that however different the teachings of Calvinism, if one man is  elected to everlasting life and another consigned to perdition, it is not the result of an arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable partiality, but accords with reason, equity, and justice, and is a glorious display of the harmonious perfections of God. It is because the one is good and the other bad; the one is righteous and the other unrighteous; the one is a believer and the other an unbeliever; or the one is obedient and the other rebellious. These are the distinctions which reason, justice, and Scripture recognize; and we may rest assured they are the only distinctions which God regards in electing his people to glory, and sentencing the wicked to perdition." [21]

Dr. Miner Raymond, Professor in Garrett Biblical Institute, Illinois, in his Systematic Theology, concurs in the three-fold distribution of election already indicated, but differs with the writers who have been cited in regard to the end to which individuals are savingly elected. They make it eternal life, and he a contingent salvation. According to them, election, being conditional upon the foresight of perseverance in faith and holiness to the end of life, terminates on an assured felicity in heaven; according to him election, being conditioned upon the foresight of only a contingent perseverance in faith and holiness, terminates on only a contingent salvation. Election is not to eternal life, but to the contingent heirship of eternal life. Let us hear him speak for himself:

"A third use of the terms 'elect,' 'elected,' 'called,' 'chosen,' and other terms of similar import, is found in the Scriptures. 'Many are called, but few are chosen.' 'Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus.' Here, evidently, the choosing is after the calling - that is, it is an act done in time. The election is by and through the sanctification of the Spirit; that is, it is a selection, a choosing out of the world, a separation from the world, by regeneration, conversion, the new birth; in a word, when God justifies a sinner, regenerates his nature, adopts him as a child of God, makes him an heir of eternal life, he thereby, then and there, separates him from the sinners of the world - elects him to be his child and an heir of eternal life. The sinner, by this election, becomes a saint, an elect person, and is frequently so called in the Scriptures.

"This election is almost universally spoken of as conditioned upon repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ; and if, in any passages, the condition is not specifically mentioned, it is plainly implied. If, in any sense, this election is eternal, it is so only in the purpose of the Divine Being to elect; and as the election itself is conditioned upon faith, it follows that the eternal purpose to elect was based upon that foreseen faith. . . .

"Men may do despite unto the Spirit of grace by which they have been sanctified. Till probation terminates, final destiny is a contingency. Two opposite eternities are either of them possible, and the question is decided, never by any thing external to the man himself, but by his own free choice, aided by the grace of God." [22]

It is necessary to add that this writer makes regeneration a work, jointly wrought by divine and human agency, and holds that, in the order of thought, repentance precedes faith and faith precedes regeneration. The question being, What conditions salvation? his answer is - and it deserves special notice as indicative of the developments of the Evangelical Arminian theology - "That salvation is conditioned upon man's acceptance, and co-operation by faith, is implied in all the commands, precepts, exhortations, admonitions, entreaties, promises, and persuasions of the Word of God; and such passages as the following are equivalent to a direct affirmation that man determines the question of his salvation: 'He that believeth shall be saved; he that believeth not shall be damned,'" etc. [23]

It may be asked, why Fletcher has not been previously summoned as a witness. The reason is, that the definition which he gives of election, as pertaining to individual salvation, seems to be somewhat peculiar to himself. He represents it as of two kinds, one an election to initial salvation, conveying a temporary redemption, - which is unconditional; the other an election to eternal salvation, - which is conditioned upon the perseverance of the believer to the end of the day of initial salvation. "We believe," says he, "that Jesus Christ died for the whole human race, with an intention first, to procure absolutely and unconditionally a temporary redemption, or an initial salvation for all men universally; and secondly, to procure a particular redemption, or an eternal salvation conditionally for all men, but absolutely for all that die in their infancy, and for all the adult who obey him, and are faithful unto death." [24] The statement is eccentric and somewhat confused, but agrees substantially with those which have been furnished.

These statements of the Calvinistic and Evangelical Arminian doctrines of election having been furnished, the way is open for an analysis of the Calvinistic doctrine into its component elements, and the exhibition of the scriptural proofs on which they are founded.

It is resolvable into the following elements: first, its author or efficient cause; secondly, its object, in general; thirdly, its objects, in particular; fourthly, its end or final cause; fifthly, its origin; sixthly, the love which it involves; and seventhly, its ground or reason. This order of statement is adopted, not because it is deemed most logical, but because it is desirable to consider last the features of the subject in regard to which the Calvinist and the Evangelical Arminian mainly join issue.

Before these points are considered, it is proper to premise, that in this discussion there is no intimation of an order of time, as obtaining in the relation to each other of the divine decrees. What is intended is that one may be in order to another, in this sense - that one may be pre-supposed by another. The decree, for instance, to permit the Fall is in order to, or pre-supposed by, the decree to provide redemption for sinners. To deny such an order as this, because it appears to conflict with the simplicity and immutability of an Infinite Being, is to reject all difference and distinction between the acts of God, and to reduce all his perfections to the absolute unity of his essence; and that would be to subvert the doctrine of the Trinity itself. We are obliged to conceive an order of thought or nature as existing in the divine decrees. "What divines," says President Edwards, "intend by prior and posterior in the affair of God's decrees, is not that one is before another in the order of time, for all are from eternity; but that we must conceive the view or consideration of one decree to be before another, inasmuch as God decrees one thing out of respect to another decree that he has made; so that one decree must be conceived of as in some sort to be the ground of another, or that God decrees one because of another; or that he would not have decreed one, had he not decreed that other." [25] Then follows an argument in which Edwards powerfully supports this view. "While," observes Dr. Thornwell on the same subject, "owing to the simplicity and eternity of the divine nature, there cannot be conceived in God a succession of time, nor consequently various and successive decrees, yet we may justly speak of his decrees as prior or posterior in point of nature." [26] "The question," remarks the same writer in another place, "concerning the order of the divine decrees involves something more than a question of logical method. It is really a question of the highest moral significance. The order of a thing very frequently determines its righteousness and justice. Conviction and hanging are parts of the same process, but it is something more than a question of arrangement whether a man shall be hung before he is convicted." [27]

Corresponding with this order in the decrees we must conceive also an order in the exercises and modes of the divine perfections - one not of time, but of thought; that is, the exercise of one divine perfection is pre-supposed by that of another, and a mode of a perfection is pre-supposed by another mode of the same perfection. The conceptions of the divine intelligence, for example, must be considered as in order to the exercises of the divine justice and love and the acts of the divine will. The view which God took of man unfallen, man fallen, and man to be redeemed, was in order to those exercises of justice and love, and those determinations of will, which were related to man in those respective conditions. So also, for instance, the intrinsic perfection of divine love is one, but it may exist in different modes, one of which is pre-supposed by another. The benevolence of God towards the creatures of his power is pre-supposed by that peculiar love which has for its objects those who are redeemed by his dear Son and united to him by the grace of his Spirit.

It is not designed to say that one mode precedes another which in an order of time did not previously exist. The modes of the divine love are co-eternal, and their appropriate objects were eternally before the divine mind. When the objects are actually brought into existence, no new modification of the love of God occurs. There is only a new manifestation of his love which existed eternally. And, although the subject is confessedly difficult, I can see no just reason for supposing that a new manifestation of love would be equivalent to a new modification of that attribute. It may be a question, whether it be not necessary to suppose a new modification of the divine will, involved in the determination to effect a manifestation of love which had not previously been made. But were that so - which I am not prepared to admit as beyond doubt - the immutability of the divine love, even as to its modes, would not be disproved, unless it could be conclusively shown that the love of God is one and the same with the will of God considered as determinative. One is apt to think that impossible, notwithstanding the fact that some eminent theologians, under the influence of the old scholastic distribution of the mental powers into intelligence and will, have expressed themselves in favor of the identity of the divine love and the divine will even in its acts. The view which denies an order of nature in the divine decrees and the exercises of the divine perfections, on the ground of the simplicity and immutability of the infinite Being, cannot be adjusted to our convictions of the distinction between intelligence and will, between justice and mercy, between benevolence and complacency. The result would be the impersonal infinite substance of the Pantheist, manifesting itself in conformity with a law of blind necessity. And yet he is compelled by the patent facts of observation to grant that this impersonal substance expresses itself diversely in the countless differences of finite existence. But the argument is not with the Pantheist: it lies within the limits of Christian Theism. It is enough to point out the fact that those theologians who merge the divine love into the acts of the divine will have no hesitation in affirming a difference between the intelligence and the will of God. Nor would they deny that the conception of ends by the divine wisdom is pre-supposed by, and is in order to, the specific determinations of the divine will. It is no derogation from the glory of the ever-blessed God to say, that one decree is in order to another, or that the exercise of one perfection is in order to the exercise of another. With these preliminary cautions I proceed to develop the proofs of election.

1. The Author or Efficient Cause of Election - God. This answers the question, Who elects?

Eph. i. 4: "According as he hath chosen us in him" - that is, according as God the Father has chosen us in Christ. This meaning of the words is determined by the immediately preceding verse: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ." The doctrine is here taught that God the Father, as the representative of the Trinity, is the author of the electing decree. From his bosom the scheme of redemption sprang.

2 Thess. ii. 13: "But we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation."

1 Thess. v. 9: "For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ."

These passages are sufficient to prove, beyond doubt, that God, and God alone, is the author or efficient cause of election. This the Evangelical Arminian professes to acknowledge, not only with regard to the election of communities to peculiar privileges, but also to that of individuals to salvation. But if it be true that, according to his system, the will of man is the ultimate, determining cause of his choice of salvation, it follows inevitably that man and not God is the efficient cause of election. That man determines the question of his salvation, we have seen, by a citation from his Systematic Theology, that Dr. Miner Raymond expressly asserts. [28] But if this be regarded as an individual opinion which cannot be considered representative of the system, I shall endeavor, in the prosecution of the argument under another head, to prove that what he candidly avows is the logical result of the principles which he holds in common with his school. And should the proof be fairly exhibited, it will be evinced that the Evangelical Arminian theology stumbles upon the very threshold of the scriptural doctrine of election. It is one thing to say that God is the author of a scheme of redemption, involving the accomplishment of a universal atonement and the bestowal of universal grace, and quite another to say that he is the author of the election of sinners to salvation. The former the Arminian affirms; the latter he is logically bound to deny.

2. The Object, in general, of election - man considered as fallen and ruined. This answers the question, Upon what did election terminate?

Rom. v. 8: "God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. "

Eph. i. 4: "According as he hath chosen us in him [that is, Christ], before the foundation of the world."

Ezek. xvi. 6: "And when I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live; yea, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live."

Rom. ix. 21: "Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?"

Upon this point the issue is between the Supralapsarians and the Sublapsarians. Some of the former contend that in the decree of election man was viewed simply as creatable, others, that he was contemplated as created but not fallen. The Sublapsarians hold that in that decree man was regarded as fallen and corrupt. In favor of the Sublapsarian doctrine I urge-

(1.) The Scriptural argument.

In the passage cited from the fifth chapter of Romans the apostle is treating of the security of those who are justified through faith in Christ. His argument is drawn from the love of God towards them. The electing love of God, having been eternally pitched upon them viewed as sinners and therefore ill-deserving, was not grounded in or conditioned upon any good quality or act foreknown to pertain to them, but issued freely from his bosom, and, from the nature of the case, cannot change in consequence of the changeableness of its objects. Having loved them regarded simply as ungodly sinners, he cannot fail to love them contemplated as reconciled to him by the death of his Son. It is evident that the passage teaches that the object of election was man viewed as fallen and sinful.

When, in the passage taken from the first chapter of Ephesians, the apostle declares that believers were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, he must mean that they were elected to be redeemed by Christ, appointed as their Mediator and Federal Head; and, therefore, it is necessarily implied that when elected they were conceived as ruined by sin.

In the graphic passage quoted from the sixteenth chapter of Ezekiel, God, under the figure of a polluted, deserted; helpless infant represents the object of his electing love as being in a state of sin and misery. The description cannot have reference to the execution of the electing purpose in effectual calling, for the palpable reason that that is immediately after set forth as terminating upon the same infant when it had arrived at marriageable age. It is curious that in the attempt to make this and other statements of Scripture refer to the temporal execution of the electing purpose, the great Supralapsarian Dr. Twisse and the Arminians are at one with each other. Extremes meet. The company is hardly creditable to the professed Calvinist.

In the celebrated passage from the ninth chapter of Romans, the "lump" must refer to the fallen and corrupt mass of mankind, for-

First, Divine mercy, from its very nature, cannot terminate upon any other than an ill-deserving and miserable object. Those who are chosen out of the mass are denominated "vessels of mercy." Mercy proposes to save its objects, and none can be considered susceptible of salvation but those who are sinful and ruined.

Secondly, The lump is that from which Jacob is said to have been taken; and it is evident that he belonged to the fallen and corrupt mass of mankind. That Esau and Jacob are declared to have done neither good nor evil cannot be proved to refer to their election simply as creatable men, or apart from their being contemplated as sinners. The meaning clearly is, if we judge from the analogy of the passage, that God's preference of one to the other was not conditioned upon his knowledge of a distinction between their characters. Regarding them both as belonging to a sinful race, and, consequently, both as condemned, he elected Jacob and passed by Esau. In electing one and rejecting the other, he had no regard to their "works," that is, their special conscious virtues or sins. They were both viewed as fallen and condemned in Adam. This is Calvin's view; [29] and it proves him to have been a Sublapsarian.

Thirdly, Esau and other reprobate men are called "vessels of wrath." But wrath is the exercise of retributive justice towards the guilty. It pre-supposes the sinful character of the objects upon whom it is inflicted. Moreover, they are said to be "fitted for destruction." Now, either they were fitted to contract guilt in order to destruction, or they were fitted for destruction in consequence of guilt. If the former be supposed, they are not the objects of just punishment. The supposition is impossible. If the latter be true, they are regarded in God's decree as sinners worthy of punishment. This is the true view.

Another argument which may be adduced is, that the Scriptures "represent calling as the expression of election - the first articulate proof of it. But calling is from a state of sin and misery. Therefore election must refer to the same condition. We are said to be chosen out of the world." [30]

It deserves to be noticed, also, that Supralapsarians confound the wider and the narrower senses of Predestination, both of which are employed in Scripture. In the wider, it means the general purpose or determination of God in relation to all actual things. In the narrower, it signifies the designation of certain definite beings - men - to salvation or destruction. It is manifest that the particular decree of election or of reprobation is different from the general decree by which all things are brought into existence. The order, then, is: the decree to create or bring into existence. This grounds foreknowledge of existing beings. Now this foreknowledge which presupposes the decree to bring into existence, in turn, in the order of thought, precedes Election and Reprobation - the special decree of predestination. Then the foreknowledge of the actual salvation or destruction of men presupposes their election or reprobation. General decree of predestination - general foreknowledge; special decree of predestination - special foreknowledge: that, I conceive is the order indicated in Scripture. Supralapsarianism confounds the special with the general decree. The distinction is indispensable to a correct understanding of the Scriptures.

These special arguments are enhanced and confirmed by the general doctrine of the Scriptures that God is not the author of sin but its righteous punisher. For, the Supralapsarian fails to relieve his view of the consequence that it implies the divine efficiency in the production of sin, by the distinctions which he makes - namely, that while God is the producer of the sinful act as an entity and therefore a good thing, he does not produce the sinful quality which inheres in the act; and that God is not the efficient cause of sin, since sin itself is not a positive thing requiring an efficient, but merely the privation of a good quality and therefore supposing only a deficient, cause. However ancient may be these distinctions, and however venerable may be the names by which they are supported, they are liable to the charge of depreciating the criminal enormity of sin, and of threatening to reduce it to a mere imperfection incident to the make of the finite creature. [31]

(2.) The Metaphysical argument.

"The Supralapsarian theory," says Dr. Charles Hodge, "seems to involve a contradiction. Of a Non-Ens (a thing not existent), as Turrettin says, nothing can be determined. The purpose to save or condemn, of necessity must, in the order of thought, follow the purpose to create." "The theory," observes Dr. Thornwell, "which makes the decree respect man not as fallen, nor even as existing, but only as capable of both, makes the decree terminate upon an object which in relation to it is a nonentity. It makes the decree involve a palpable contradiction."

There is first the conception in the divine mind of all possible beings. The knowledge of the futurition, the actual existence, of any of these possible beings - I speak not now of the acts of beings - must depend upon the determination of God to reduce them from the category of the possible to that of the actual. Without such a decree, low could lie know them as certain to be? And if he could not know them as existent, how could he determine anything in regard to them as existent? Not known as to be, they would be beyond the reach of any predication save that of possibility. The Supralapsarian theory confounds the conception of the possible with that of the actual. If there be such a decree as it affirms, it would, from the nature of the case, terminate on the barely possible - possible beings would be its objects. God is represented as decreeing to save or damn beings who are conceived to be in posse, not in esse, and who cannot therefore be conceived as guilty and ruined. Whatever qualities could be conceived as attaching to them must have been conceived as possible qualities, for actual qualities cannot be conceived as inhering in merely possible beings. Now there is predication of actual qualities necessarily involved in the decree to save or to condemn. It is true that the decree to create terminates on the possible, but it does not involve the contradiction of supposing actual qualities to inhere in only possible entities. Its very design is to put the possible into a condition in which it can be capable of attribution, and therefore of moral destination. Let us suppose, with the Supralapsarian, that first of all God decreed to glorify his grace and his justice. There must be beings through whom that glorification shall be effected. Now what sort of beings does God predestinate to that end? Possible beings, replies he. Are then possible beings predestinated to an actual heaven and an actual hell? Again, he contends that men are predestinated to damnation for their sin. What sort of sin? The possible sin of possible men? Is it not evident that the conception of actual men and actual sin is pre-supposed in a decree to adjudge them to actual salvation and actual damnation? But that implies the decree to create as pre-supposed by the decree to predestinate to salvation or destruction. Furthermore, there can be no distinction of sin and holiness in beings merely possible. That distinction is rendered possible only by the decree to create. When they are created, beings may remain holy or fall into sin. As this distinction conditions the possibility of a decree to predestinate to salvation or damnation, the decree to create must in the order of thought precede the decree to elect or to reprobate.

The maxim, "What is last in execution is first in intention," which the Supralapsarian urges in favor of his scheme, cannot be proved to hold of the plan by which God develops his purposes. That plan does not appear to involve a subordinated, but a coordinated series - that is, one in which the parts are related as conditions to each other, but not as means to ends. Creation, the Fall, Redemption are coordinate parts of God's great plan, each having its own peculiar significance, resulting from its own peculiar adaptation to manifest the divine glory through the illustration of certain divine perfections. But the Supralapsarian doctrine makes, at least logically if not confessedly makes, each element in the general scheme a means to the attainment of the succeeding feature, and the whole a concatenated series of means to the accomplishment of the ultimate end. Creation is in order to the Fall, the Fall in order to salvation or damnation, and they in order to the glory of grace and justice. Upon this theory it is not conceivable that the Fall should not have happened. It was necessary, in order that men might glorify grace in their salvation and justice in their damnation. The covenant of works with a probation possible to have been fulfilled, and glorious rewards possible to have been secured, becomes unintelligible. It is not conceivable how the theory can be adjusted to the genius of the Calvinistic theology.

(3.) The Moral argument.

There are laws of rectitude at the root of the moral faculty which are regulative of our moral judgments, just as there are laws of thought and belief at the root of the intellect which control its processes. Now the fundamental laws of justice and benevolence, implanted by the divine hand in our moral constitution, rise up in revolt against the doctrine that God first determines to glorify his justice in the damnation of men, and then determines to create them and "efficaciously to procure" their fall into sin in order to execute that purpose. The Supralapsarian logically makes God the efficient producer of sin. Dr. Twisse's distinction between God's decreeing to effect, and decreeing efficaciously to procure, the fall of man into sin, is a distinction without a difference. If God shut up man to sin, it was the same as his causing him to sin. But if anything is certain, it is that God is not the efficient cause of sin. If he were, as he cannot do wrong, sin would cease to be sin and become holiness, and the distinction between right and wrong would be completely wiped out.

(4.) The argument from Calvinistic consent.

None of the Calvinistic Symbols are Supralapsarian. Some of them imply, without expressly asserting, Sublapsarianism. Others are distinctly Sublapsarian. In the last-named class are the Canons of the Synod of Dort and the Formula Consensus Helvetica.

3. The Objects, in particular, of election - some individual men. This answers the question, Who are elected ?

Matt. xxiv. 22: "But for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened."

Matt. xxiv. 24: "Insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect."

Matt. xxiv. 31: "And he shall send forth his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other."

Lk. xviii. 7: "And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry. day and night unto him?"

Rom. viii. 33: "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?"

Rom. xvi. 13: "Salute Rufus chosen (elect) in the Lord."

Eph. i. 1, 4, 5, 7, 11: "Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus. . . . According as he hath chosen (elected) us. . . . . Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ. . . . In whom we have redemption by his blood, the forgiveness of sins. . . . . In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will."

Col. iii. 12: "Put on, therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies."

1 Thess. i. 4: "Knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God."

1 Thess. v. 9 : "For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ."

2 Thess. ii. 13: "But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen (elected) you to salvation."

2 Tim. ii. 10: "Therefore I endure all things for the elect's sake."

Tit. i. 1: "Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God's elect."

1 Pet. i. 1, 2: "Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ."

These passages conclusively show, that there is not only an election of communities to peculiar privileges - which is cheerfully conceded - but that there is an election of individuals to everlasting salvation; and the conclusion from these testimonies cannot be resisted, that the latter is the highest and the most important sense which is attributed to election by the Word of God. This distinction is admitted by the Evangelical Arminian. But he holds that the election of individuals is conditioned upon the divine foresight of their faith and perseverance in holiness. Election, then, according to him, is not really the election of individuals to a certain salvation, but, if the solecism be allowable, the election of a condition upon which individuals may attain to salvation; but of this more anon. His argument in favor of a conditional election of individuals, derived from the text in Peter last cited, will be considered when his prooftexts come to be noticed.

It deserves to be considered, that the Arminian cannot object to the Calvinistic doctrine on the ground that it represents a definite number of individuals as elected to everlasting life; for the Arminian doctrine enforces precisely the same view. According to the latter doctrine, God foreknows who will believe and persevere in faith and holy obedience unto the end, that is, unto the attainment of final salvation. Those who will so persevere to the end are, of course, a definite number. Now it is they who are, by Arminians, said to be elected. The conclusion is unavoidable that a definite number of individuals are elected. The main difference between the two doctrines, that in regard to which the stress of the controversy between them takes place, is concerning the question of the conditionality or the unconditionality of election. Does God eternally elect individuals to believe, and to persevere in holiness unto the attainment of everlasting life? The Calvinist answers, Yes. The Arminian answers, No: he purposes to elect to everlasting life those who of their own free choice believe and persevere in holiness to the end. What the purpose to elect signifies, how it accomplishes any more than the individual's own perseverance to the end achieves, it is impossible to see; but such is the Arminian position. Conditional or unconditional? - These are the test-questions, the shibboleths of the contestants. The extract from Watson previously given evinces this to be the chief issue.

4. The End or Final Cause of Election proximately, the everlasting life of sinners; ultimately, the glory of God's grace. This answers the question, Unto what does God elect?

(1.) The proximate end of election is the everlasting life of sinners.

Matt. xxv. 34: "Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world."

John vi. 37, 44: "All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh I will in no wise cast out. . . . No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day."

Acts xiii. 48: "And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed."

Rom. viii. 28-3o, 33, 34, 38, 39: "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For, whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the first-born among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called; and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified. . . . Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, and who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. . . . For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Eph. i. 9-11: "Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: that in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him: in whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will."

1 Thess. v. 9: "For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ."

2 Thess. ii. 13, 14: "But we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation, through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth: whereunto he called you by our Gospel to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ."

(2.) The ultimate end of election is the glory of God's grace.

Rom. ix. 23: "And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory."

Eph. i. 5, 6, 11, 12: "Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. . . . In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will, that we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ."

These scriptural statements in regard to the end or final cause of election are so explicit that comment is scarcely necessary, especially as there is here no issue worth noticing between the Calvinist and the Evangelical Arminian.

It is true that, as the extracts given from their writings show, Fletcher and Raymond held peculiar views upon this point, but they contravene the catholic doctrine of Arminianism. Fletcher's view, which distinguishes between an absolute election of individuals to an initial and contingent salvation, on the one hand, and a conditional election of all men and an unconditional of some to a final salvation, on the other, is liable to the following objections: first, that the distinction has no foundation in Scripture, as the passages which have been cited prove; secondly, that it is out of harmony with the general doctrine of his school of theology, as expounded by such writers as Wesley and Watson; and thirdly, that he asserted both a conditional and an unconditional election to final salvation.

The view which is common between Fletcher and Raymond - that election is of individuals unto faith and holy obedience, is confronted by the fatal difficulty that it concedes the Calvinistic position which has always been resisted by Arminian theologians, namely, that God's decree includes the election of individuals unto faith and holy obedience as means to the attainment of everlasting life as the end. The general doctrine of Arminian writers is, that these are conditions upon which election takes place, and that individuals may or may not perform the conditions. If they do, they are elected unto everlasting life; if they do not, they are not so elected. But the Calvinist makes the performance of these conditions part of the electing decree. So far, therefore, as Fletcher and Raymond represent individuals as elected unto faith and holiness, they give up the question to their opponents. Consequently, I cannot in fairness attribute to Evangelical Arminianism views which, although asserted by Arminians, are incapable of logical adjustment to it as a system. It is evident that Dr. Raymond has, in his Systematic Theology, taken a new departure which seems to be his own. How far he is a representative of current opinions is an interesting question, but one which I have not the means of deciding. While I endeavor to show, that logically the Arminian scheme maintains an election of conditions upon which individuals may attain to everlasting life, rather than the election of individuals to everlasting life, that is quite a different thing from endeavoring to show - what is not logically true of it - that it holds an election of individuals to the use of the elected conditions.

5. The Origin of election - from eternity. This answers the question, When did God elect?

Jer. xxxi. 3: "Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee."

Matt. xxv. 34: "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world."

John vi. 37, x. 29, xvii. 2, 9: "All that the Father giveth me shall come to me." "My Father which gave them me." "That he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him." "I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine."

Eph. i. 4, 5, 11: "According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world. . . . . Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will. . . . Being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his will."

Eph. ii. 4, 5: "For his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us."

2 Tim. i. 9: "His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began."

Isa. ix. 6, with Isa. viii. 18 and Heb. ii. 13, 14: "His name shall be called . . . . The Everlasting Father." "Behold, I and the children whom the Lord hath given me." "Behold, I and the children which God hath given me. Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same."

These testimonies prove that election does not take place in time, but is from eternity.

By the extracts which have been already furnished from their writings it will be perceived, that Wesley, Watson, Ralston and Raymond contend that election takes place in time. It is not an eternal predestination. When men believe, they sometimes say, at others, when they are justified and sanctified, at others still, when they have persevered to the end, they are then elected; not before. But-

(1.) Their general doctrine is explicitly delivered, that election is conditioned upon the divine foresight of perseverance in faith and holy obedience to the end. A believer may, near the termination of his earthly course, totally and finally fall from grace and perish forever. In consistency with this doctrine, then, they must hold that election cannot take place in time; that it can only take place when time with all its contingencies has ceased with the believer and he has attained the end of his faith. It can only occur at or after the expiration of his last mortal breath, for up to that critical moment he may lose his religion and miss of heaven. There is here, therefore, a manifest contradiction. One position is, that election takes place in time; the other is, that it takes place after time has ceased: it occurs when the man believes, is justified and sanctified; it occurs when he has finished his course and has entered heaven! It would seem after all that they hold to election in eternity, but it is eternity a parte post, not eternity a parte ante!

(2.) If election occur in time, it must, at the time at which it occurs, fix the destiny of the believer subsequently to that time, that is, for eternity. Otherwise it is a changeable election, and that the Evangelical Arminian does not allow. If one is elected when he believes, etc., the election is then to eternal life or it means nothing. But if the believer may, as he does hold, fall from faith and holiness and finally perish, it follows that the election is unto eternal life and not unto eternal life at the same time. Here then is another instance of contradiction.

(3.) A distinction is drawn between a purpose to elect and actual election. The former is conceded to be eternal, the latter, it is contended, takes place in time. What is this, but the distinction between an eternal purpose and its temporal execution? God, for example, eternally purposed to create the world. Its actual creation occurred in time. The actual creation was the temporal execution of the eternal purpose to create. If, then, the distinction were admitted between an eternal purpose to elect and actual election, the latter would be but the temporal execution of the former. But, the execution in time of an eternal purpose must correspond with the purpose itself. As it was, so must be its temporal accomplishment. If the purpose was unconditional, so must be its execution; if conditional, the execution must correspond with it. One fails to see what is gained by this distinction, so urgently insisted upon by Evangelical Arminian theologians, even if their demand for an actual election were granted.

But the question inevitably arises, What is their actual election? Is it conversion? No, for conversion is one of its conditions; and a condition must be before that which is suspended upon it. Is it sanctification? No, for sanctification is also one of its conditions. Is it perseverance in holiness? No, for perseverance in holiness is equally one of its conditions. What, then, is it? If perseverance in faith and holiness to the end condition it, it follows that this actual election cannot precede the end. Actual election can only be the election of a man to be saved who is already saved, of one to get to heaven who has got there. If that consequence be refused, naught remains but to admit that the only election which is conceivable is God's eternal purpose of election. An election in time is rendered impossible by Arminian principles themselves.

(4.) Arminian writers make purpose and foreknowledge one and the same thing. God eternally purposes to elect in the sense of eternally foreknowing an actual election. But, in the first place, if, as has been shown, an actual election distinguished from a decree to elect be nothing, God's foreknowledge of an actual election would be his foreknowledge of nothing. In the second place, the very design of this identification of purpose and foreknowledge is to exclude divine determination from election, and reduce it to simple prescience. It must, therefore, follow that the everlasting salvation of a countless multitude of sinners is the result not of divine, but of human, determination. God, it is true, determines the existence of the means of salvation, but those who will be saved determine their employment. Heaven with its eternal felicity and glory is not decreed, it is only foreseen, by the Almighty Ruler of the universe. This cannot be admitted. The consequence refutes the doctrine.

6. The Love involved in election - a peculiar, free, inalienable, saving love of Complacency towards the elect. This answers the question, How does God regard the elect?

Ex. xxxiii. 19: "And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee: and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will shew mercy on whom I will shew mercy."

Rom. ix. 13, 15, 16, 18: "As it is written, Jacob have I loved. . . . For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy. . . Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy."

Mal. i. 2, 3: "Was not Esau Jacob's brother? saith the Lord: yet I loved Jacob and I hated Esau."

Deut. vii. 7, 8: "The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people: but because the Lord loved you."

Deut. x. 15: "Only the Lord had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed."

Isa. xliii. 4 : "Since thou wast precious in my sight, thou hast been honorable, and I have loved thee: therefore will I give men for thee, and people for thy life."

Isa. lxiii. 9: "In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old."

Isa. lxiii. 16: "Doubtless thou art our Father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not: thou, O Lord, art our Father, our Redeemer; thy name is from everlasting."

Ps. lxxxix. 19, 20, 28, 30-35: "Then thou spakest in vision to thy holy one, and saidst, I have laid help upon one that is mighty; I have exalted one chosen out of the people. I have found David my servant; with my holy oil have I anointed him. . . . My mercy will I keep for him forevermore, and my covenant shall stand fast with him. . . . If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments; if they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments; then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes. Nevertheless my loving-kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail. My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips. Once have I sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David."

Ps. xciv. 18: "When I said, My foot slippeth; thy mercy, O Lord, held me up."

Isa. liv. 8, 10: "In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer. . . . For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee. "

Isa. xlix. 15: "Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee."

Mic. vii. 20: "Thou wilt perform the truth to Jacob, and the mercy to Abraham, which thou hast sworn unto our fathers from the days of old."

Jer. xxxi. 3: "The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee."

Zeph. iii. 17: "The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing."

John xvii. 23, 26: "I in them and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them as thou hast loved me . . . . And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it; that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them."

Rom. v. 5, 8, 9: "Hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. . . . God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him."

Rom. viii. 32, 33: "He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?"

Rom. viii. 38, 39: "For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Rom. ix. 13: "As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated."

Eph, ii. 4, 5: "But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. . . . That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus."

Tit. iii. 4-7: "But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost; which he shed on us abundantly, through Jesus Christ our Saviour; that being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life."

Heb. xiii. 5: "For he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee."

1 Jno. iii. 1: "Behold, what manner of love the Father bath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God."

1 Jno. iv. 9, 10, 19: "In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. . . . We love him because he first loved us."

2 Thess. ii. 16, 17: "Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God, even our Father, which hath loved us, and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts, and stablish you in every good word and work."

To some of these proof-texts it is objected, that they have exclusive reference to Israel as a community elected to national privileges. Waiving now the considerations which will hereafter be adduced in answer to this objection, it is enough to say that the passages cannot possibly be limited to the outward nation of Israel apart from the true, spiritual Israel who are in Scripture emphatically characterized as the seed of Abraham and Jacob. Take the powerful passage quoted from the thirty-first chapter of Jeremiah, as an example. The whole context in which it stands, and especially the great, evangelical promise which is connected with it, make it apparent that the electing love, which it proclaims, terminates not only on Israelitish and Jewish believers, but also on all God's true people, and is the fountain of spiritual and saving blessings: "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, which my covenant they brake, although I was a husband to them, saith the Lord: but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts, and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more."

The testimonies alleged from Scripture clearly reveal the nature of God's electing love. It is expressly declared to be eternal. It is peculiar: it is directed to the people of God. It is free, that is, sovereign and unconditioned upon any good quality or act in its objects. They are contemplated as in themselves condemned and polluted sinners. It is intense and inalienable: more so than that of a mother for the babe that sprung from her body and suckles her bosom. It is saving: it is the source of every benefit of redemption and the cause of preservation to everlasting life.

The fact that the passage in Titus declares that the kindness and love of God appeared in time can create no difficulty. That which was manifested in time must have eternally existed, for it is impossible to conceive that God began to love in time - that a divine attribute had a temporal origin.

Following the instructions of the Scriptures, we are constrained to admit that there are two distinct aspects of the divine love or goodness. One of these, in the form of benevolence, terminates on men indiscriminately, the just and the unjust, the evil and the good; and, when it is directed to them as ill-deserving and miserable, it assumes the special form of mercy. The other, the love of complacency, is a peculiar affection, supposing the existence in its sinful objects of a saving relation to Christ as Mediator, Federal Head and Redeemer. Now let it be supposed that the infinite benevolence of God, in the form of mercy contemplating the lost and wretched condition of man, into which he was conceived as having plunged himself by his sin and folly, suggested his salvation: "Deliver him from going down to the pit." That suggestion was checked by the demands of infinite justice, which could not be denied without a sacrifice of the divine glory: "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them." For, although the attributes of God are all infinite, and cohere in his essence in perfect harmony with each other, the exercise of one may be limited by another. The exercise of mercy towards the fallen angels was checked by wisdom and by justice. It pleased God, in the case of human sinners, by a sovereign act of his will, to open a way for the outgoing and exercise of his mercy in the salvation of a part of them, and to leave the way open for the exercise of his justice in the punishment of the remaining part. The Father, as the representative of the Godhead, "according to the good pleasure of his will," elected some of mankind to be redeemed. This, while it was a sovereign act of his will, involved the exercise of infinite love and mercy; and as the objects upon which the choice terminated were regarded simply as sinners, condemned and unholy, the love and mercy were free, mere love and mercy. "God commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us," and, of course, the unmerited love which so illustriously expressed itself on earth was eternal. Those thus designated became the Father's elect ones, his sheep, whose redemption he had sovereignly determined to effect. Appointing, in infinite wisdom and love, the eternal Son as their Mediator and Redeemer, the Father entered into covenant with him as Federal Head and Representative, and gave his elect sheep to him, that as their good Shepherd, he might, when incarnate, lay down his life for their redemption. "Thine they were," says the Saviour, "and thou gavest them me." The Son, on his part, freely accepted the momentous trust, and engaged to lay down his life for them, to lose none of them, to give every one of them everlasting life and raise him up at the last day. "I am the good Shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. . . . My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all." "I came down from heaven not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day." Thus conceived as in Christ the elect became the objects of a complacential love, measured only by the regard of the Father for his well-beloved Son. "Since thou wast precious in my sight, thou hast been honorable, and I have loved thee." "I," says the Lord Jesus, "have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them."

This love of complacency towards the elect is not to be confounded with God's love of benevolence towards all men. It includes the love of benevolence, but is inconceivably more. It differs from it in important respects. In the first place, it supposes a peculiar relation of the elect to God's only-begotten Son, and is, according to scriptural representations, analogous to the love the Father bears to him. In the second place, the gift of Christ which it specially makes to the elect, and in which it expresses its measure, is infinitely more costly and precious than that of sunshine, rain and other mere providential blessings which benevolence indiscriminately confers upon the general mass of men. In the third place, the elect, although in themselves unlovely, are conceived as in Christ intrinsically possessed of the graces of the Holy Spirit, which render them appropriate objects of complacential regard. It is this love, this peculiar, intense, unutterable love, which the Scriptures declare to be manifested towards the elect in the actual execution of God's eternal purpose of salvation.

It is manifested in the gift of his Son for their redemption: "He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?" Who these "all" are is to be collected from the next sentence: "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?" "Beloved, let us love one another. . . . In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only-begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another." "And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life; and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son hath not life."

It is manifested in their attraction to Christ. "No man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me draw him." "Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love; therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee."

It is manifested in their regeneration. "But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus; that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness towards us through Christ Jesus." "But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost."

It is manifested in their justification and covenant union to God in Christ. "God commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. Much more then being justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him." "After that the kindness and love of God toward man appeared. . . . that being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life." "And when I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live; yea, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live." Here was free, mere, eternal, electing love. "Now when I passed by thee and looked upon thee, behold thy time was the time of love; and I spread my skirt over thee and covered thy nakedness: yea, I sware unto thee, saith the Lord God, and thou becamest mine." Here was the manifestation of electing love.

It is manifested in their adoption. "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not because it knew him not."

It is manifested in their sanctification. "The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously and godly, in this present world; looking for that blessed hope, and the appearance of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works."

And it is manifested in their comfort and preservation to eternal glory. "Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee." "For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee. In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy oil thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer . . . For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee." "But we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth. . . . Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God even our Father, which hath loved us, and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and stablish you in every good word and work."

In connection with this aspect of the subject of election, the Arminian doctrine is open to the charge of being entirely unscriptural.

First, it destroys the difference which, it has been incontestably shown by the explicit testimony of Scripture, exists between God's love of benevolence for mankind in general and his love of complacency for his elect people in particular. This is proved by the fact that it represents God as having furnished the very highest expression of his love to all men indiscriminately: he gave his Son to die for all. The point here urged is, not that the Arminian is unscriptural in holding this doctrine, though that is true, but that in maintaining it he reduces the intense, inexpressible, unchangeable affection which God from eternity entertained for his own people to a general regard for all sinners of the human race - his love for his sheep to a love for goats. If God gave his dear Son to die equally for all, he loved all with an equal love. The consequence is irresistible, but it is in the face of the plainest declarations of the divine Word.

The Arminian will, of course, reply, that there is no plainer declaration of that Word than that God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. To this the rejoinder is inevitable, that if his construction of that passage be correct, the Word of God would contradict itself. For it would be a contradiction, if the gift of Christ were affirmed at one and the same time to be and not to be the expression of a peculiar love of complacency. We are shut up to a choice between these contradictories, one of which must be true, the other false. The weight of testimony is overwhelmingly in favor of the first alternative, and by that a regard for evidence compels us to abide.

The same remarks will apply to other and less forcible passages, which are ordinarily pleaded in support of the love of God, and a consequent atonement, for every individual of the human race. They are all capable of being debated; but to dispute about the assertions of Scripture touching the eternal, peculiar and inalienable love of God for his chosen people, is not to inquire into their meaning but to deny their authority. More at present will not be said upon this particular aspect of the subject. A fuller discussion of it is reserved to a consideration of the objections to the Calvinistic doctrine which are derived from the moral attributes of God.

Secondly, the unscriptural character of the Arminian's denial of electing love is made apparent by his denial of the fruits which spring from it. The Scriptures represent it as a cause which produces very definite results. We have seen, by a direct reference to their testimony, that the drawing of the sinner to Christ, his regeneration and justification, adoption, sanctification and preservation to everlasting felicity, are attributed to it. These inestimable benefits the Arminian ascribes to the general love of God for mankind, but his system compels him to deny that they flow with certainty from it. They are contingent results. Why? Because that love does not of itself ensure their production: the will of the sinner is their real, efficient cause, and as that acts contingently, the results may or may not be effected. The love of God gives him the opportunity, furnishes him what is called sufficient grace, provides for him a ground of acceptance in the atoning merit of Christ; but he must improve the opportunity, he must use the grace, he must accept the offered atonement. He may not do any of these things; and consequently in innumerable instance; no saving results follow from the love of God to men. The mere statement of the doctrine is sufficient to evince its contrariety to scriptural truth. The fact is, that as the Arminian denies electing love, he is obliged to deny that it produces any fruit: no cause, no effect. The denial of the latter proves the unscriptural character of the denial of the former. If anything be clearly revealed in the Word of God it is that saving results are produced with certainty by the love of God for sinners: it is a saving love. If, therefore, in the case of some men those results are not produced, it follows irresistibly that the saving love of God does not terminate on all, and that, as it takes effect on some only, it is electing love.

Should the Arminian contend that he is not correctly represented, and that he admits a special love of God for his saints, the answer must be rendered, that whatever his view may be of that love, he does not regard it as saving. It is conceded that he holds the gift of Christ for the world to have been the fruit of love and mercy. But for what end did God send his Son into the world? He answers: to die for all men. His doctrine, however, is that the Son did not die to save all men. If he did, he failed to attain that end, for the Arminian allows that many are lost. For what, then, did Christ die? He replies: to make the salvation of all men possible. How possible? In this way, he says: if men believe in Christ and continue in faith to the end, they will be saved. The atonement secures for them that possibility. But on the supposition that some believe, become saints, and are especially dear to God, they may cease to be saints and perish forever. Whatever, then, may be, according to the Arminian view, the love of God towards his saints, it is a love which does not secure their salvation: it is not a saving love. It is not equal to the love which a mother cherishes for her child. She would save him if she could. This reputed divine love may be called a special love, but it is not the love for his saints which the Scriptures assign to God. The idea of it was not born of inspiration: God never claimed such love as his own.

Thirdly, the determination to save those who, God foresees, will believe and persevere in faith and holiness to the end - the Arminian election - is not the fruit of mere, free love: it is partly the suggestion of justice. As their salvation is suspended upon their faith and perseverance, it is due to them, upon their fulfilment of the condition, that they should receive the end. Justice recognizes this foreknown fulfilment of the condition precedent, and adjudges to them the salvation which God himself made to depend upon it. Mercy makes the condition possible, it is true; but justice demands the rewarding of its performance. This conclusion could only be avoided by making faith and perseverance in holy obedience the products of efficacious grace. But that would be the doctrine of Hypothetical Redemption, not of Arminianism. The advocate of the former scheme concurs with the Arminian in holding the universality of the atonement, but he differs from him in asserting the predestinated efficacy of grace. That the Arminian denies. In the last analysis, then, as Dr. Miller Raymond coolly but honestly puts it, "man determines the question of his salvation;" and if so, it is but right and just that God should acknowledge the fact. God appoints the condition: believe and persevere; but he cannot make the sinner believe and persevere. "Our human system," says Dr. Whedon, [32] "is a system of free agents upon whose will and determination it depends whether they attain eternal bliss or eternal woe. . . . In the sinner's act of acceptance of God's saving grace we promptly deny any 'make-willing' on the part of God which excludes man's power of not-willing or refusing. God demands a free acceptance. He does not make a farce of our probation by first requiring our free-willing, and then imposing upon us a 'make-willing.' The free-willing and the 'make-willing' are incompatible." The sinner, then, must himself, by his own improvement of assisting grace, believe and persevere. Well, he does it. What then? Why, he has performed the condition, won the reward, and justice, assisted by grace, places the crown upon his head! It is perfectly plain that the Arminian doctrine does not refer the determination to save sinners to the mere love of God: it ascribes it in part to God's sense of justice. Whatever the Arminian's reason may say about this doctrine, it is certainly the poles apart from scriptural truth.

7. The Ground or Reason of election - positively, the mere good pleasure of God's sovereign will; negatively, nothing in the elect themselves. This answers the question, Why did God elect?

(1.) The ground or reason of election is, positively, the mere good pleasure of God's sovereign will.

Deut. vii. 7, 8: "The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people: but because the Lord loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the Lord brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt."

Deut. iv. 37: "And because he loved thy fathers, therefore he chose their seed after them, and brought thee out in his sight with his mighty power out of Egypt."

Dan. iv. 35: "He doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What doest thou?" - a confession wrung from even a heathen monarch.

Matt. xi. 25, 26: "At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because 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."

Ex. xxxiii. 19: "And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the name of the Lord before thee: and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will shew mercy to whom I will shew mercy."

Mal. i. 2, 3: "Was not Esau Jacob's brother? saith the Lord: yet I loved Jacob and I hated Esau."

Rom. ix. 11-16: "For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth; it was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid. For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy."

1 Cor. i. 21: "For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe."

Eph. i. 5, 9-11: "Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will. . . . Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself: that in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth; even in him: in whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will."

Phil. ii. 13: "For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure."

The Scripture testimonies which have thus been collected clearly and powerfully prove, that the God, who, even according to Nebuchadnezzar's confession, doeth according to his will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, whose hand none can stay and to whom none can say, What doest thou? has decreed the salvation of some of the human race, according to his mere, sole, sovereign pleasure. The statements of this fact are express and unequivocal. Nothing but adherence to a system could lead one who reverences God's word to deny their force. The objects of the divine decree are declared to be predestinated unto the adoption of children and to an inheritance in Christ, according to the good pleasure of God's will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself, according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will. In one short passage the assertion is made again and again, with impressive reiteration, as if to preclude all shadow of doubt, that the ground of election is alone the sovereign pleasure of the divine will. There can be no question as to the objects of the decree: they are those who are adopted as the children of God in Christ, those who obtain an inheritance in Christ. Nor can there be any question as to the existence of the decree: it is termed a predestinating purpose. Nor can there be any question as to the seat of this predestinating decree: it is affirmed to be the will of God. Nor, finally, can there be any question as to its absoluteness: it is precisely described as purposed in himself, according to his good pleasure. There is no place for supposing any reference to an extrinsic ground, reason, or condition. The purpose, as to its origination and ground, is intrinsic to God, purely sovereign and absolutely unconditioned by anything ab extra. The objects upon whom it terminated were extraneous to God; but the purpose itself was as free as it was subjective to him. Every individual human being to whom it was directed might have been justly consigned with the revolted angels to hell.

The passage in Philippians discharges, in relation to this question, a twofold office. In the first place, it shows, positively, that the whole application of redemption springs from the good pleasure of God's will; and, in the second place, negatively, as with a devouring edge it cuts away the supposition that anything in the creature can condition the purpose of God to save. It declares that the willing and the doing - the whole of the obedience of the Christian mail - is determined by the will of God working according to his good pleasure. In few but pregnant words, a conclusive testimony is rendered to the efficacious grace of God as the expression and realization of the eternal purpose of his will.

Our blessed Lord and Saviour spoke very definitely in regard to this subject. After mentioning the sovereign distinction which God in his providence had made between the cities of Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum on the one hand, and Tyre, Sidon and Sodom on the other, in giving the gospel to the former and withholding it from the latter, he answers objections which might be rendered to this divine procedure and all others like it by saying, "I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because 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." He solemnly expresses his acquiescence in the divine sovereignty which refuses a saving knowledge of redemption to some and grants it to others. To say that the proud debar themselves from it is futile, for God could, if he so willed, in a moment overcome their pride, as he did in the case of Saul of Tarsus, a typical representative of the very class who were cavilling at the Saviour's doctrine and rejecting his offer of the gospel. Nor can the Arminian consistently urge this construction of the language of our Lord, since he admits that Tyre, Sidon and Sodom would have accepted the gospel had it been tendered to them, supported by miraculous proofs. Why, then, did God deny it to them? What answer can be given by the Arminian himself to this question, but that so it seemed good in God's sight? He admits, I say, that the cities specified would have repented if the gospel had been preached to them, for this is one of the passages which he adduces to support his doctrine of a scientia media - a conditional foreknowledge of God. [33] He foreknew that if the gospel were furnished to those cities they would repent. Why then did God not furnish them the gospel? It is hard to see how one who denies the sovereignty of election, and affirms the indiscriminate love of God for all mankind, can answer that question.

It is objected that the proofs derived from the passages in Exodus, Deuteronomy, Malachi and the ninth chapter of Romans are irrelevant, because they refer not to the election of individuals to salvation, but of a nation to peculiar privileges. This question has long been discussed by commentators and theologians, but it has a fresh interest for every generation. Arguments in answer to the above-mentioned objection are here briefly presented.

First, the objection concedes the principle of a sovereign and unconditional election. Why, argues God with Israel, did I swear unto your fathers and bring them into covenant relation to me? Because, he answers, I loved them. Why did he love them? The reply is, that it was not because of any qualities he saw in them which distinguished them favorably from other peoples, but because such was his sovereign pleasure. If, therefore, it be admitted that God chose Israel from among the nations with whom they had been equally immersed in idolatry, and without any reference to pre-disposing conditions in them elevated them to a special relation to himself and the enjoyment of peculiar blessings, the principle of an unconditional election is clearly conceded. The objection to a specific application of the principle, namely, to individuals in regard to salvation, proceeds upon the acknowledgment of the principle itself. It is confessed that a nation was unconditionally elected to peculiar privileges.

Secondly, the election of a nation to peculiar privileges of a religious nature, involving a knowledge of redemption, was the election of individuals to those religious privileges, for they were the components of the nation. The election of a nation, considered abstractly and apart from the individuals forming it, would be unintelligible. The individuals constituting the nation were, by the election of the nation, brought into contact with these peculiar religious privileges. Those who were not connected with the nation elected were divinely excluded from contact with them. It follows that the principle of a sovereign, unconditional election was exhibited in relation to individuals. The individuals of one nation were discriminated from the individuals of another.

Thirdly, the individuals of the nation elected were brought into relation to the conditions of salvation - the only conditions upon which salvation could be attained. Their election to national privileges of a religious and redemptive character conditioned their attainment of eternal salvation. Here then was a sovereign, unconditional election of individuals to conditions without which their salvation would have been unattainable. The objector admits that this election rendered their salvation more probable, than it would otherwise have been; but he denies that it necessarily conditioned salvation, that without it salvation would have been impossible. This question will be argued at length when the objections to unconditional election from the moral attributes of God come to be examined. At present a few considerations drawn immediately from Scripture are submitted. They are conclusive upon the point.

In the first place, the great argument of Paul in Romans proves that no individual of the human race can be justified and saved except through faith in the vicarious merits of Christ. This cannot be successfully gainsaid.

In the second place, Paul, in the tenth chapter of the same epistle, declares that no individual of the race can exercise faith in Christ, except he has heard of him. Faith in Christ conditions salvation, and the knowledge of Christ conditions faith in him. "How shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard?"

In the third place, God's Word explicitly asserts that no man under heaven can be saved except through the name of Christ, that is, of course, through the knowledge of that saving name. "Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved."

In the fourth place, Paul, in the second chapter of Ephesians, closes the case by furnishing the concrete proof. The Ephesian Christians had been heathen, that is, they at one time did not know the gospel of Christ. Now the apostle tells them that at that time they were in a hopeless condition: their salvation would have been impossible had that state of ignorance continued. The argument is plain and overwhelming. "At that time ye were without Christ." Why? "Ye were aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise." Because they were not connected with the nation of Israel they did not know the gospel; and because they did not know the gospel they could not know Christ. Hence, they had "no hope and were without God in the world." Without connection with the visible church, they had no knowledge of the gospel; therefore they were without Christ, without God and without hope.

These arguments from Scripture are sufficient to prove, that the unconditional election of a nation to peculiar privileges, of a religious and redemptive character, is the unconditional election of the individuals composing it to conditions, upon which alone eternal salvation is attainable. Now it is manifest, that other nations were not excluded from access to the means of salvation because they were morally worse than the Israelites, and that the Israelites were not elected to the enjoyment of those means because they were morally better than other peoples. It was then by virtue of God's sovereign, unconditional election, that the nations rejected were left in an idolatrous and heathenish state in which they were not salvable, and that the Israelites were introduced into a state in which they possessed the means of salvation. If the operation of the principle of sovereignty in election went thus far, why should it not be admitted that it went farther - that it also manifested itself in producing actual salvation? Some of the Israelites themselves were not actually saved; some of them were. The presumption afforded by the analogy of the case would lie in favor of the unconditional election to salvation of such as were actually saved. All were, by reason of a sinful nature, equally indisposed to make a profitable use of the means of grace, to employ the conditions of salvation. None were more worthy than others of the grace which would enable and determine them to look through a sacrificial ritual and typical ordinances to the only true sacrifice for sin, and believe in him to salvation. The presumption, I say, is in favor of the conclusion that a divine election made the difference between the two classes - the unsaved and the saved. The principle of sovereign election would, in its application, have proceeded but a step farther. A long step! it will be said. Yes, but the Almighty God can take long steps. He treads upon the mountains and the stormy seas, and he can triumphantly march over all difficulties raised by sin and hell to the eternal salvation of the soul.

This powerful presumption is confirmed by all those testimonies of Scripture already quoted which unquestionably prove, that the proximate end of the election of individuals is everlasting life, and by all those yet to be cited which as unquestionably prove, that the conditions of final salvation are not the conditions of election - that faith and perseverance in holy obedience are themselves the fruits of election: that, indeed, they are parts of salvation begun on earth and completed in heaven.

Fourthly, let it be admitted that Jacob and Esau were the respective heads of different nations, and it cannot be denied that they were also individuals. The language of Scripture in regard to them cannot, without violence, be confined to them as national heads. It refers to them chiefly as persons in relation to the divine purpose. Meyer, whose commentaries are held in high repute for critical ability and exegetical fairness, and who certainly was not influenced by a partisan zeal for Calvinism, says: "Paul, however, has in view, as the entire context, vv. 10, 11, 13 evinces, in 'the elder and the younger' (the greater and the lesser) Esau and Jacob themselves, not their nations." [34] He meets the difficulty urged against this interpretation from the declaration, that "the elder shall serve the younger," which, it is contended, was only fulfilled in the national subjection of the Edomites, the descendants of Esau, to the Israelites, the descendants of Jacob, in this way: "The fulfillment of the 'serving' is to be found in the theocratic subjection into which Esau was reduced through the loss of his birthright and of the paternal blessing, whereby the theocratic lordship passed to Jacob. But inasmuch as in Genesis the two brothers are set forth as representatives of the nations, and their persons and their destiny are not consequently excluded, - as, indeed, the relation indicated in the divine utterance took its beginning with the brothers themselves, by virtue of the preference of Jacob through the paternal blessing, - the apostle's apprehension of the passage, as he adapts it to his connection, has its ground and its warrant, especially in view of similar hermeneutic freedom in the use of Old Testament expressions." [35] We would not tie ourselves to the opinions of commentators on the Bible, remembering the frailty which made possible the biting sarcasm of Werenfels:

"This is the Book where each his dogmas seeks,

And this the Book where each his dogmas finds;"

but this impartial witness is true. His appeal to the immediate context is conclusive enough, and the appeal, along with it, to the whole drift of the argument in Romans, and the whole analogy of Scripture is absolutely decisive.

Let us for the nonce part these twins, and look at Jacob by himself. It is very certain that the Holy Ghost speaking through Paul declares him to have been, in some sense, elected. The Arminian objects to an unconditional election to eternal life. Now he must admit that Jacob's election, whatever may have been its end, was unconditional. The apostle expressly teaches that it was not because God regarded him as a doer of good that he elected him. He could not have so taught, if it were true that his election was conditioned upon the divine foresight of his good works. He might have employed as illustrative of his argument the instances of Isaac and Ishmael, the children of Abraham, the father of believers; but those of Jacob and Esau were evidently more to his purpose; for there was in themselves no possible ground of difference between these two brothers. They were not only the children of the same father, but, as was not the case with Isaac and Ishmael, the children of the same mother; and they were twins. What could have made the difference between their persons and their destinies but the mere unconditioned purpose of God? But it is needless further to press a point which can only be resisted by denying the truth of the inspired Word. The Arminian concedes it.

But he admits, as has been shown by a reference to representative theologians, the election of some individuals to eternal life. He must also, upon his principles, admit that Jacob was elected to eternal salvation. He was in life the exemplar of urgent and successful prayer, a prince that had power with God and prevailed, and in Hebrews he is said to have died by faith. Having believed in Christ, and done good works, and persevered in them to the end, he was, of course, elected to eternal life. Now why not put the two things together: the unconditional election of Jacob, which is conceded to be stated by Paul in Romans, and his election to eternal life, which is also granted? Why not admit the teaching of Scripture to be, that Jacob was unconditionally elected to eternal life? The only possible answer is, Because Paul in Romans speaks only of Jacob's election to temporal blessings. The point then to be proved is that Paul speaks of Jacob's election not only to temporal blessings, but also to salvation.

The first proof is, that the whole tenor and strain of the apostle's argument in Romans has chief reference to the justification and salvation of individual sinners. Consequently, to divert his discourse concerning election, which is a constituent element of that argument, into another direction, is to wrench it from its track.

The second proof is, that in the immediate context Paul treats of the promise made by God to Abraham's children, and he shows that Jacob was constituted an heir of that promise by divine election. To say that this illustrious promise guaranteed, exclusively or even chiefly, temporal blessings, is to eviscerate the Scriptures of their meaning. Paul's argument concerning the promise in Galatians as well as in Romans would be contradicted. The promise conveyed spiritual and saving blessings. To take any other view is to strip the Old Testament of its evangelical element and reduce the New Testament exposition of it to absurdity. Jacob, therefore, was elected to share in the promise of salvation; that is, as a promised salvation is not an earned salvation he was elected to salvation.

The third proof is, that the apostle expressly distinguishes between the natural and the spiritual seed of Abraham. It is only the latter, argues he, who are the children of God. In immediate connection with this he introduces the cases of Jacob and Esau as illustrative of that distinction. Both were the carnal descendants of Abraham, but only Jacob, of the two, was one of his spiritual children, and therefore one of the children of God. How was he constituted such? Not by natural descent, but by God's election of him irrespectively of his works. Jacob's election was therefore to adoption into God's family, and, as God never loses any of his adopted children, to eternal life.

The fourth proof is, that God's saints are explicitly said in Scripture to be elected unto faith, holy obedience and perseverance in the same to the end. Jacob was an eminent saint of God. In calling himself the God of Jacob, Deity himself pays a tribute to the exemplary sanctity of his servant. Jacob therefore was elected to faith, holiness and perseverance in them to the end - that is, he was elected to salvation. If this be not the election which Paul treats of in the ninth of Romans, the principal election of Jacob is left out of account, and the less is signalized.

These proofs establish the fact that the election of Jacob was not merely to temporal blessings, and that consequently it was an unconditional election, grounded in the sovereign will of God, to eternal salvation. What is the difficulty that opposes the admission of these proofs? It is two-fold:

In the first place, the freedom and sovereignty of the human will would be impugned. God, it is argued, having endowed the will with these prerogatives cannot, consistently with himself, determine it by his agency. To admit unconditional election is to admit this divine determination of the will. It will hereafter, in the progress of the discussion, be shown that unless unconditional election along with this admitted inference be received, one must hold the only other alternative, namely, that the human will, and the human will of the natural man, determines the question of salvation; which is unscriptural, impossible and absurd. If Jacob was not determined to salvation by God's grace, he determined himself to it; and if anything is certain, it is, that Paul never taught such a view.

In the second place, it is contended that if the sovereign, unconditional election of Jacob to salvation be admitted, one must also concede the sovereign, unconditional reprobation of Esau; but that, it is contended, cannot possibly be allowed. Here a distinction, which has been already stated, must be observed - between Jacob and Esau as both possessed of original sin, and lying together under condemnation as members of a fallen and corrupt race, on the one hand, and Jacob and Esau as the conscious doers of actual good or evil, on the other. Regarded as in the former condition, they were equally damnable. God might justly have left both to the doom which was assigned to Esau. But without regard to the conscious, special good works of Jacob, as conditions, he was sovereignly pleased to confer on him peculiar religious privileges and his saving grace; and without regard to the conscious, special bad works of Esau, as conditions, he was sovereignly pleased to deny him peculiar religious privileges and his saving grace. It is certain that the peculiar religious privileges were denied to Esau, but the denial to him of saving grace is the stumbling-block.

Now let it be noticed that God did not infuse a wicked disposition into Esau, as he infused a gracious disposition into Jacob. Finding Esau wicked, he sovereignly left him in that condition, and judicially condemned him to suffer its punishment. Finding Jacob, like his brother, wicked, he sovereignly lifted him out of that condition by his unmerited grace, and in Christ his representative and substitute delivered him from condemnation and destined him to glory.

Let it be noticed further, that God's exclusion of Esau from connection with the Theocracy, containing the visible Church of Christ with its ordinances, which is admitted, was equivalent to God's exclusion of him from his favor which is life and his dooming him to reprobacy. If it be said, that Esau's exclusion from the fellowship of God's people was in consequence of his sins, the apostle answers that it was not in consequence of his sins. Before he had done any evil he was hated of God. It will still be said: that is true; but while the purpose of exclusion was before Esau's actual sins, it was not before God's foreknowledge of them, and that foreknowledge conditioned the purpose: this must have been Paul's meaning. But, it must be replied, this could not have been Paul's meaning. He could not have intended to distinguish between Esau's actual evildoing and God's foreknowledge of it. He could not have meant to imply, that in some cases God forms a purpose to punish an evil-doer after he has done the evil, but that in this case of Esau he purposed, before he actually did evil, to punish him, because he foresaw that he would do the evil. Such a conception never was suggested by inspiration as that God ever postpones the formation of a purpose to punish sin until the sin has been committed. All his purposes are eternal. The only supposition possible is, that Paul meant to say that it was not because God foreknew that Esau would do evil that he purposed to reject him. This being the only possible supposition, the conclusion is that Paul meant to affirm that God's purpose as to Esau's rejection was grounded alone in his own sovereign pleasure.

God's decree to reject Esau was not, then, without his foreknowledge of Esau's guilty state as a sinner, but was not conditioned upon his foreknowledge of Esau's conscious, actual sins. So God's decree to save Jacob was not without his foreknowledge of Jacob's guilty state as a sinner, but was not conditioned upon his foreknowledge of Jacob's conscious, actual good works. If this statement of the case is not in accord with Paul's, nothing would remain but to adopt the rigid Supralapsarian view. The Arminian position cannot be harmonized with that of the inspired apostle.

It has thus been shown that the account of Jacob and Esau in the ninth chapter of Romans so far from invalidating, actually confirms, the proofs of the sovereignty and unconditionality of God's electing purpose. The subject of reprobation will meet further consideration in the sequel. Let us resume the thread of the main argument which goes to show that the passages cited, to prove that the ground or reason of election is the mere good pleasure of God's will, from Exodus, Deuteronomy, Malachi and Romans, do not refer only to a national election to peculiar privileges, but chiefly to an individual election to eternal life.

Fifthly, Paul in Romans and Galatians explicitly distinguishes between those whom, on the one hand, he designates as Israel according to the flesh, outward Jews, the natural descendants of Abraham, and those whom, on the other, he characterizes as Israel according to the Spirit, inward Jews, the true, spiritual children of Abraham and heirs of the promise. Both these classes had been elected to the enjoyment of peculiar privileges, but it is remarkable that he terms the latter "a remnant according to the election of grace." Here then is a palpable distinction between a national election to privileges and an individual election to salvation. Without it the apostle's language is unintelligible.

Sixthly, the consideration which is perhaps the most conclusive is, that these passages cannot be wrested from their place in the analogy of Scripture. They must be construed in harmony with such clear and powerful testimonies as that which has been adduced from the Epistle to the Ephesians. To pursue any other course is to mutilate the integrity of God's Word. What is gained by it on the part of those who admit an election of individuals to everlasting life, it is difficult to imagine.

Lastly, the objections which have nearly always been offered to Paul's doctrine in Romans have not been urged against an election to national privileges, but to an unconditional election of individuals to salvation. Those who present them have hit the point: that is to say, they understand Paul to teach this objectionable doctrine, and they cannot agree with him. It is not probable that the opponents alike of the Pauline and the Calvinistic doctrine have been mistaken as to the identity of the two. It is more consistent, if not more pious, to hold that both are erroneous as teaching the same thing, than with the Arminians to make Paul an antagonist of the Calvinistic doctrine, which, as some candid infidel remarked, is as much like his own as if he had spit it out of his mouth.

(2.) Negatively, election is not conditioned by the divine foresight of any good qualities, dispositions or acts of those who are elected: it is all unconditional election.

First, All the passages which were adduced to prove that the ground or reason of election was the mere good pleasure of God's sovereign will may here be used to show that election is unconditioned by any foreseen good qualities, dispositions or acts of man.

Secondly, Faith is not a condition but a result of election.

John vi. 37: "All that the Father giveth me shall come to me" - that is, shall believe in me.

John vi. 65: "And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man call come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father."

Acts xiii. 48: "As many as were ordained to eternal life believed."

Eph. ii. 8: "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God."

Phil. i. 29: "For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake."

Acts xiv. 27: "And when they were come, and had gathered the church together, they rehearsed all that God had done with them, and how he had opened the door of faith unto the Gentiles."

Acts xvi. 14: "And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, which worshipped God, heard us: whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul."

Acts v. 31: "A Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel." Repentance is here generic, including faith.

Lk. xvii. 5: "And the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith."

Heb. xii. 2: "Looking unto Jesus the author and the finisher of our faith."

Col. ii. 12: "Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God" - that is, the faith which God's operation produces.

1 Cor. xii. 9: "To another, faith by the same Spirit."

John iii. 3: "Except a man be born again, he can not see the kingdom of God."

Eph. ii. 4-6: "But God who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) and hath raised us up together."

1 Tim. i. 9: "Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began."

Jas. i. 18: "Of his own will begat he us."

1 Cor. i. 26-31: "For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: that no flesh should glory in his presence. But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: that according as it is written, He that glorieth let him glory in the Lord."

These testimonies conclusively prove that faith is not a condition but a fruit of election. It does not condition it, for it is produced by it. The Lord Jesus explicitly declares that faith is the gift of God, and that if God did not give it, no man could believe. Further he declares that the elect shall believe in him. It is they who were given him by the Father. If all men were given him by the Father, then, according to his testimony, all men would believe in him. But all men do not believe. The conclusion is, that those believe in him who were elected to believe.

In the celebrated passage in the second chapter of Ephesians, the words "and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God" have by some been understood to refer to salvation - and that salvation is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; by others, specifically to faith - and that faith is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. The following reasons furnished by Charles Hodge in support of the latter view appear to my mind convincing: " 1. It best suits the design of the passage. The object of the apostle is to show the gratuitous nature of salvation. This is most effectually done by saying, 'Ye are not only saved by faith in opposition to works, but your very faith is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.' 2. The other interpretation makes the passage tautological. To say: 'Ye are saved by faith; not of yourselves; your salvation is the gift of God; it is not of works,' is saying the same thing over and over without any progress. Whereas to say: 'Ye are saved through faith (and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God), not of works,' is not repititious; the parenthetical clause instead of being redundant does good service and greatly increases the force of the passage. 3. According to this interpretation, the antithesis between faith and works, so common in Paul's writings, is preserved. 'Ye are saved by faith, not by works, lest any man should boast.' The middle clause of the verse is therefore parenthetical, and refers not to the main idea ye are saved, but to the subordinate one through faith, and is designed to show how entirely salvation is of grace, since even faith, by which we apprehend the offered mercy, is the gift of God. 4. The analogy of Scripture is in favor of this view of the passage, in so far that elsewhere faith is represented as the gift of God." [36]

To say that salvation is of grace, that is, that it is the free gift of God, and then directly afterwards to say, that salvation is not of ourselves, it is the gift of God, certainly appears redundant. The difficulty disappears if we take the apostle's meaning to be that faith is the gift of God. But whatever view may be taken of that passage, other testimonies so expressly affirm faith to be the gift of God that Arminian writers admit the fact. John Wesley, who in his note on the above mentioned text says, "This refers to the whole preceding clause: that ye are saved through faith is the gift of God," speaks very explicitly in his sermon on the same text, entitled Salvation by Faith: "For by grace ye are saved through faith; and that not of yourselves. Of yourselves cometh neither your faith nor your salvation. It as the gift of God; the free, undeserved gift, the faith through which ye are saved, as well as the salvation, which he of his own good pleasure, his mere favor, annexes thereto." Charles Wesley, in his exquisite hymn beginning, "Father, I stretch my hands to thee" makes the sinner thus plead:

"Author of faith, to thee I lift

My weary, longing eyes;

Oh, let me now receive that gift,

My soul without it dies."

Other writers make the same scriptural and devout acknowledgment. Here then the Arminian and the Calvinist certainly speak the same dialect. One would suppose that logic would constrain both to reason thus: If faith is the gift of God, he must bestow it because he purposed to bestow it. As it is a fact that he does not grant it to all, but only to some, his purpose was an electing purpose. This logic is irresistible, and Fletcher seemed to admit its force in holding an unconditional election to an "initial salvation." The same logic, however, enforces the holding of an unconditional election to final salvation. For, if one should lose his initial salvation, and should be restored and finally saved, his final salvation would be conditional upon that faith which is confessedly the gift of God. He could not be saved initially or finally without faith, and faith is God's free gift.

In admitting that faith is the gift of God, and that faith conditions salvation, the Arminian admits efficacious grace, and is logically bound to concede unconditional electing grace. But this he denies. He is therefore compelled to reconcile his doctrine that faith is the gift of God with one of his leading positions, namely, that the sinner's unconstrained will determines the question of his believing or not believing in Christ for salvation. Let us see how Dr. Whedon, in his comments upon Eph. ii. 8, attempts to effect the difficult reconciliation. "Faith," he says, "is indeed empowered in us by the grace underlying our probation; but that faith freely exercised by us, and seen by God, is the underlying condition of our election in time; and foreseen by God, is the underlying condition in our eternal election before the foundation of the world." [37]

This then is the explanation. Faith is distinguished as power and exercise of power. God gives the power to believe, but the sinner himself must actually believe. Faith is a potentiality which may or may not be exerted. There is, of course, some ground in common here betwixt the Arminian and the Calvinist. The latter no more holds than the former that God believes in Christ in order to be saved. It is the sinner himself who so believes. But he contends that in bestowing the principle of faith upon the sinner, God also determines him to believe. The principle never slumbers as a mere potentiality a simple capacity to believe. Here the difference between the parties emerges into view. The Calvinist contends that God gives the sinner to believe; the Arminian, that God only gives him the power to believe, and that the sinner is free to use or not to use that power. In the last analysis, it is his own will that must determine the question whether or not he will employ the power and actually believe, and so it is his own will, as Dr. Raymond, Dr. Whedon and Dr. James Strong frankly assert, which determines the question of personal salvation. In the case of every actual believer in Christ there must come a critical, a supreme moment when the power to believe is consciously exercised. The Arminian holds that at that moment it is not God who by his efficacious grace determines the sinner to exercise faith, but the sinner who by the free, elective power of his own will, undetermined by a supernatural influence, determines himself to believe. This is clear, for by the same free election of his will he may determine not to believe. This, together with the doctrine of Universal Atonement, is the key-position of the Arminian system - the Carthage which must be destroyed, or the system stands. In this discussion, therefore, the attack will be made persistently, repeatedly and from every quarter, upon that stronghold. Hence no apology is made for a return again and again to the consideration of this question. Just at this point the argument is urged from the nature of faith as a product of divine, supernatural influence. The disjunction between faith as a potentiality and as an actual energy is inadmissible.

In the first place, it cannot be adjusted to the plain teachings of the Scriptures which have been adduced. The Lord Jesus says that all whom the Father gave him shall come to him - that is, shall believe in him. It is not optional with those thus given by the Father to the Son to be redeemed whether they will or will not exercise the power to believe: the plan of salvation, the gift of the Father, the engagements of the Son, require the actual exercise of faith. How otherwise could the Son declare that not one of those given to him should be lost? There is not a feeble ewe or a tender lamb that will be missing, when upon the list of the Lamb's book of life he renders an account of the flock which was committed to him to be saved from sin and Satan, death and hell. Luke says that as many of the Gentiles at Antioch as were ordained to eternal life believed. In regard to this passage the doctors differ: each has his own remedy and the consultation comes to naught. Bengel and Wesley take the word "ordained" to refer to a present operation of grace through the preached gospel. The former says the ordination must be explained of "the present operation of grace through the gospel." [38] The latter says: "St. Luke does not say fore-ordained. He is not speaking of what was done from eternity, but of what was then done, through the preaching of the gospel. He is describing that ordination, and that only, which was at the very time of hearing it. During this sermon those believed, says the apostle, to whom God then gave the power to believe. It is as if he had said, 'They believed, whose hearts the Lord opened;' as he expresses it in a clearly parallel place, speaking of the same kind of ordination." [39] There are but two remarks which it is necessary to make concerning this interpretation: first, that as the inspired historian distinctly says the Gentiles mentioned did actually believe, the concession that this was effected by the operation of grace explodes this distinction between the power and the exercise of faith; secondly, that if it be admitted that God operated to determine these Gentiles to exercise faith - and that is admitted - he must have eternally purposed so to operate; and unconditional election follows. No wonder that the metaphysical mind of Dr. Whedon refuses to accept this extraordinary testimony of Bengel and Wesley to the Calvinistic doctrine.

The learned divine just mentioned gives an interpretation which is perfectly consistent with the distinction between the power to believe and actual believing. It is that these Gentiles, Luke meant to say, were pre-disposed to eternal life and so determined themselves to believe. The exposition is so remarkable that it will be given entire: "Ordained to eternal life - should be rendered, disposed to eternal life. It plainly refers to the eager predisposition just above mentioned in the heart of many of these Gentiles on learning that old prophecy proclaims a Messiah for them As many as were so inclined to the eternal life now offered committed themselves by faith to the blessed Jesus. Rarely has a text been so violently wrenched from its connections with the context, and strained beyond its meaning for a purpose, than has been this clause in support of the doctrine of predestination. There is not the least plausibility in the notion that Luke in this simple history is referring to any eternal purpose predestinating these men to eternal life. The word here rendered ordained usually signifies placed, positioned, disposed. It may refer to the material or to the mental position. It is a verb in the passive form, a form which possesses a reciprocal active meaning; that is, it frequently signifies an action performed by one's self upon one's self. Thus, in Rom. ix. 22, 'The vessels of wrath fitted to destruction' are carefully affirmed, even by predestinarians, to be fitted by themselves. Indeed, the very Greek word here rendered ordained is frequently used, compounded with a preposition, in the New Testament itself, in the passive form with a reciprocal meaning. Thus, Rom. xiii. 1, 'Be subject unto the higher powers' is literally, place yourselves under the higher powers. So, also, Rom. viii. 7; 1 Cor. xvi. 16; Jas. iv. 7, and many other texts. The meaning we give is required by the antithesis between the Jews in verse 46 and these Gentiles. The former were indisposed to eternal life, and so believed not; these were predisposed to eternal life, and so believed. The permanent faith of the soul was consequent upon the predisposition of the heart and the predetermination of the will." [40] In regard to this exposition I remark:

First, the learned commentator does not say anything in respect to the source of this predisposition. If he meant that it was natural, the position is Pelagian. If, that it was the product of supernatural grace, that is, the gift of the power to believe, he would speak inconsistently with himself, for he says that "the permanent faith of the soul was consequent upon the predisposition." A permanent faith must, as a state, antecede acts of faith and would be the power to believe - predisposing to the exercise of faith.

Secondly, the predisposition of these heathen to receive the gospel and their facile determination to believe in Christ would have been an astonishing exception to the facts of universal observation. There certainly is no parallel to their case in the history of modern missions. These heathen of Antioch were extremely peculiar. The presumption derived from missionary experience is powerfully against Dr. Whedon's hypothesis of the marvellous readiness of these Gentiles to embrace the Gospel. To say that God's grace made the exception would be to occupy Calvinistic ground. To suppose a miraculous influence would amount to the same thing, since the miracle would have been one of grace.

Thirdly, the assertion of the possession by these pagans of a self-determining power of the will in a state of sin and in relation to spiritual things involving the salvation of the soul, if Dr. Whedon's construction of his theological system be correct, leaves no room to doubt that in this respect that system embraces as one of its distinctive characteristics an element common to Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians. "They all agree," says John Owen, "that it is absolutely in the power of the will of man to make use of it [grace] or not, that is, of the whole effect on them, or product in them, of this grace communicated in the way described; for notwithstanding anything wrought in us or upon us thereby, the will is still left various, flexible and undetermined." [41] This fact ought to challenge the attention of God's true people in the Arminian communions. There is evidently a growing tendency to attach more importance than Wesley did to the doctrine that the will of the sinner determines the question of practical salvation. The doctrine is palpably opposed alike to the plain teaching of the Word of God, and the experience of those who know their own natural impotence and the power of converting grace. It would seem that such evangelical writers as Bengel and Wesley preferred to shun the whirlpool of Dr. Whedon's view, even if they ran the danger of striking upon the rock of the Calvinistic.

Another interpretation of this passage in Acts is that of Meyer. [42] He says that these Gentiles at Antioch were not ordained - ordinati, but destined - destinati, to eternal life; and that the destination was conditioned upon the divine foresight that they would become believers - credituros. This interpretation is open to two objections. First, the distinction between an eternal ordination and an eternal destination might have been visible to the "optics sharp" of the astute German, but not to the eye of common sense. It is a trivial distinction. Secondly, if the Gentiles at Antioch were destined by God, in consequence of his foresight of their faith, to eternal life, every one of them was, of course, saved. The consequence refutes the interpretation to the Arminian, who would otherwise have been naturally led by the analogy of his system to adopt it. He would accept the destination to eternal life of all who are foreknown to persevere in faith to the end, but not of those who are only foreknown to accept by faith an initial salvation, and that is all the record warrants us in holding concerning the conscious acts of these Gentile believers at Antioch. Meyer is one-half Arminian, one quarter Calvinist, and the remaining quarter sui generis: Arminian, in that he holds the foresight of faith to condition the divine purpose to save; Calvinist, in that the divine purpose ensures the final salvation of those who believe in the first instance; and Meyerite, in that he holds that the divine purpose destines believers, but does not ordain them, to eternal life. But what matter? He is not a slave to a dogmatic system; he is a free exegete! He is at liberty to make one passage of Scripture contradict another! Must Scripture be shackled by dogmatic theology? Meanwhile ordinary believers will think the Bible, like its God, consistent with itself. It is Arminian throughout or Calvinistic throughout. The old question still remains, which?

These conflicting witnesses damage each other's testimony. The plain meaning of the inspired historian is, that God purposed that these Gentiles should actually believe in Christ and that through their faith they should be eternally saved.

Paul, in Philippians, declares that it is given to us to believe on Christ. The evasion is nothing worth, that he speaks of those who are already believers. For if the continued exercise of faith be a divine gift, so must its first exercise have been. He says, in Colossians, that we are risen with Christ through the faith which God operates in us. If we be actually risen with Christ, we must have actually believed in him. The resurrection and the means are both divinely wrought in us. The apostles prayed to Jesus to increase their faith - both the principle and its fruit. He alone who could increase both could give both. Some believe, says Paul, in 1 Corinthians, not because of any difference in predisposing gifts, not because they are noble and wise and mighty or because they were anything at all, but because God effectually calls them by his Spirit to believe. But why particularize? The doctrine explicitly delivered, concerning the regeneration by supernatural, new-creating, life-giving grace of the spiritually dead, makes it plain enough for the blind to see and the deaf to hear and the dumb to confess, that faith in Christ both in principle and in exercise is the free gift of God, according to the eternal purpose of his merciful will.

In the second place, the position that faith is the gift of God merely as a power and not as an exercise of power is out of harmony with the views of Wesley himself. He held that God in giving salvation - as a present fact - gives faith. It is an indispensable condition of the salvation gratuitously bestowed. But if we are actually saved by grace, it follows that by grace we actually believe.

In the third place, evangelical faith which, as a power, is confessed to be a divine gift implies the possession of spiritual life - that is, a holy life supernaturally imparted. With one who denies this there can be on the question before us no debate: he flatly denies the Scriptures. But every principle of life, whether natural or spiritual, enters into and vitalizes every part and faculty of the being in which it inheres. It must by virtue of a spontaneous necessity express itself in the will as well as in every other faculty. To say that one may have, and continue to enjoy, natural life and that he might by the election of his will refuse to perform the spontaneous functions appropriate to it - to breathe, to eat, for example, would be to speak unintelligibly. Certain special acts he may resolve or decline to do, but the main functions he cannot decline to perform. He must in some way express the power resident in the principle of life. That it is competent to the will to resolve not to express it at all is simply out of the question. In like manner he who possesses spiritual life must give expression to it in some functions appropriate to it. It is not within the ability of the will absolutely to suppress its manifestation. The supposition is impossible, that the will, as an element of the renewed and holy nature, could choose not to express the spontaneous tendencies of the spiritual life. That life flows into the will and impresses upon it the very law of its spontaneity. The will thus spiritually vitalized may elect between holy acts, but that it should elect not to perform any holy act whatsoever - that is inconceivable. A spiritually living will must express by its decisions, in some form, a spiritually living nature, a nature consisting of the will itself as well as the intellect and the feelings, - must, I say, not by the compulsion of an external force, but by the holy spontaneity resident in itself. The adult, who is born again of the Holy Ghost, as certainly turns, in obedience to the instincts of his new nature, to Jesus Christ for salvation, and actually and consciously believes in him, as the new-born infant turns, in conformity with its natural instincts, to the fountain of nourishment in its mother's breast. No more could he by an act of will refuse to do this and continue to live spiritually, than could a man decline to eat and maintain his corporeal life. In fine, if the supernatural gift of the power to believe in Christ has been conferred on one, and he consequently possesses a spiritually living principle, he will by a "happy necessity" of spontaneous action choose actually to believe in Christ. He cannot, as a renewed man, choose not to believe. His will has an elective affinity for Christ which must express itself by the act of faith in him. The element of sin still remaining in him may protest and resist, but cannot prevent the action of the renewed will.

It is true that there is a habit or state of faith in the Christian man which is distinguishable from the special acts or exercises of faith, but that state involves acquiescence in the plan of salvation and trust in Christ; and it can never be forgotten that such a man could not, by a deliberate decision of his will, refuse to believe in his Saviour.

The question of the self-determining action of the will in regard to the actual exercise of faith in Christ will meet us again in the course of the discussion. At present it is sufficient to have established the position that faith is a result of election, and therefore cannot be a condition of it.

Thirdly, A holy disposition and good works are not conditions, but results, of election.

Isa. xxvi. 23: "Lord, thou wilt ordain peace for us: for thou hast wrought all our works in us."

Acts v. 31: "Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel."

Rom. viii. 29: "Whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son."

Rom. ix. 11: "For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth."

Eph. i. 3, 4: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love."

Eph. ii. 10: "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them."

Phil. ii, 12, 13: "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure."

2 Thess. ii. 13: "God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth."

2 Tim. i. 9: "Who hath saved us and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began."

1 Pet. i. 2: "Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ."

The consideration of those passages in this collection in which foreknowledge is connected with election is reserved until the direct proof-texts cited in favor of conditional election shall be examined. The other passages are so definite in asserting that holy obedience is the fruit and not the condition of election that they must be twisted to make them teach anything else. Wesley and Whedon, in order to escape the force of the testimony in the fifth chapter of Acts distinguish between the giving of repentance and the giving of forgiveness. Forgiveness is a direct gift, but as man must himself repent it is the power to repent which is given. Whedon remarks: "Repentance, being a human act, can hardly be said strictly and simply to be given, and therefore it would seem that it is the privilege or power of repentance which is here meant." Not only the Holy Spirit, but even Meyer is against him here. He says: "Nor merely the impulse and occasion given . . . Against this view may be urged the appended 'and forgiveness of sins,' which is not compatible with that more free understanding of 'to give."' That is to say, the gift of repentance and that of forgiveness stand on the same foot. One is given in the same way as the other.

It must not be overlooked that there is a wide and a narrow sense of the term repentance. In theological usage it has now come to be synonymous with penitence - grief for and hatred of sin, and a sincere turning from it to God. But in the New Testament it is usually employed in a broad, generic sense equivalent to conversion, including the new birth, faith in Christ and penitence. This is the sense in which Peter in his pentecostal sermon used it, when, in response to the inquiry, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?" he said, "Repent and be baptized." Only in this way can his answer to these inquirers concerning the way of salvation be harmonized with the more specific direction of the Lord Jesus under similar circumstances: "This is the work of God that ye believe on him whom he hath sent;" and of Paul and Silas to the convicted jailer at Philippi: "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." They put faith forward, as the first duty of the sinner. Peter could not have meant to put forward penitence as the first duty; he must have intended to say: Be converted - be born again, believe in Christ and turn from your sins, with sorrow for them, unto God. From this Scriptural point of view, repentance must be regarded as given of God - as a change operated in the sinner by supernaturally communicated grace. And as what God does in time, he must have eternally purposed to do, conversion as embracing faith and penitence cannot be conceived as both an effect and condition of election.

The testimony in Eph. i. 4 is indisputable. Arminians are compelled to evade it. For example, Wesley says upon the text: "'As he hath chosen us' - both Jews and Gentiles, whom he foreknew as believing in Christ." That is, he chose us because he foreknew that we would be holy. But Paul says just the opposite: he chose us that we should be holy. So clear is the affirmation that holiness is the effect of election, that even Meyer and Ellicott both acknowledge that the Greek infinitive rendered "that we should be" is one of intention - in order that we should be holy. Eph. ii. 10 is equally incontestable, as showing how the divine election accomplishes holiness. God, having elected us in order that we should be holy, creates us, as his workmanship, anew in Christ Jesus, to the end that we should do good works. Ellicott insists upon the telic force of the last clause. The two passages taken together make it as plain as day to the humble inquirer into the mind of the Spirit, that holy obedience is the fruit and not the condition of election.

Fourthly, Perseverance to the end in faith and holy obedience is not a condition but a result of election.

Ps. cxxxviii. 8: "The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me; thy mercy, O Lord, endureth forever: forsake not the works of thine own hands."

Ps. lxxxix. 19, 20, 28, 30-35: "Then thou spakest in vision to thy holy one, and saidst, I have laid help upon one that is mighty; I have exalted one chosen out of the people. . I have found David my servant; with my holy oil have I anointed him . . . My mercy will I keep for him forevermore, and my covenant shall stand fast with him. . . . If his children forsake my law and walk not in my judgments; if they break my statutes and keep not my commandments; then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes. Nevertheless my loving-kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail. My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips. Once have I sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David."

Ps. xciv. 18: "When I said, My foot slippeth, thy mercy, O Lord, held me up."

Isa. xlix. 15 and liv. 8, 10: "Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee." "In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer. . . . For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee."

Mic. vii. 20: "Thou wilt perform the truth to Jacob, and the mercy to Abraham, which thou hast sworn unto our fathers from the days of old."

Matt. xxv. 34: "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world."

Lk. xii. 32: "Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure [purpose] to give you the kingdom."

John vi. 37-40, 44-47: "All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day." "No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me. Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of God, he hath seen the Father. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life."

John x. 11-16, 26-30: "I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. For he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth: and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep. The hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep. I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep. And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold and one shepherd." "But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any (man) pluck them out of my hand. My Father which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man [none] is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. I and my Father are one."

John xvii. 11: "Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me."

Acts ii. 47: "And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved [saved ones]."

Rom. v. 8-10: "God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we stall be saved by his life."

Rom. viii. 38, 39: "For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

1 Cor. i. 4, 8: "I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ . . . Who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ."

Eph. ii. 4, 5: "But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. . . . That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus."

Phil. i. 3, 6: "I thank my God upon every remembrance of you . . . being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ."

1 Thess. v. 23, 24: "And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it."

2 Tim. iv. 18: "And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom."

Heb. xiii. 5: "For he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee."

1 Pet. i. 3-5: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time."

Jude 1, 24, 25: "Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to them which are sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, and called." "Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen."

Time would fail to enter into a particular analysis of these passages. Taken collectively, they furnish a great mass of proof that God will preserve his people to everlasting life in heaven; and that his preservation of them is due to his eternal purpose It would be enough to establish the point before us if they did no more - and they certainly do that - than to prove that believers are chosen or elected unto salvation. In the Scriptures salvation is sometimes made to include regeneration, justification, adoption, sanctification and glorification: these are the parts embraced in it as a whole. Sometimes it simply means glorification - the possession of heavenly felicity and glory as the consummate result and crown of the whole scheme. Take it either way, and election to salvation is election to perseverance. The operative grace of God as the fruit of election determines to the means and the end alike or rather to all the parts and to the whole. If, for example, it determined to faith as a means to a losable justification, it would not determine to salvation. But he that believeth shall be saved. What sort of salvation is that which may be lost? How is he saved from hell who finally sinks into it? He who is justified is glorified. The beginning is due to predestination, and by it is linked to the end. Every part of salvation and the whole of it are referred to God's electing purpose.

The passages which have been quoted abundantly prove that faith, good works, and perseverance in the same to the end are not conditions, but results, of election. In eternally predestinating the glorification of his people, God also predestinated the means to the accomplishment of that end: means which he himself purposed to employ and to determine them by his grace to use.

And to these testimonies is now added an explicit assertion of the fact that election is unconditional. In Rom. ix. 27 and xi. 5, 6, Paul says: "Esaias also crieth concerning Israel, Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved." "Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace. And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work." The mass of Israel are not saved. Who then are saved? A remnant. How are they saved? According to the election of grace: therefore not according to an election conditioned by the foreknowledge of their works. It would be vain to say that faith is not a work. Good works are works, and they are said to be a foreknown condition of election. Nor will it do to say that these foreseen good works are not legal and meritorious but evangelical and gracious, for they are denied to be determined by grace and consequently affirmed to be determined by the will of man. They are therefore human works; and Paul sweeps away all works of every kind from the reason of election. That reason is grace, grace alone, the electing grace of God's sovereign will. Grace and works are contradictories. One or the other must originate election. We must choose between them. Paul affirms grace; God forbid that we should affirm works! The impossibility of adjusting this powerful passage to the Arminian scheme is evinced in Dr. Whedon's exposition of the apostle's dilemma: "Grace and works, the apostle now affirms, are a contradiction. Our faith is as free as our works, and our works as free as our will, that will possessing the full power in the given case to choose or refuse. If it be of compensative works, then it is no more gratuity or grace, otherwise work or compensation is no more compensation or work. Each excludes the other." [43]

The proof-texts which Arminians adduce in favor of the doctrine of conditional election, and against unconditional, are of two kinds: direct, and indirect. The indirect are: first, those which are cited in favor of universal atonement; secondly, those which are adduced in support of the defectibility of the saints; and thirdly, those which are alleged to assert the possession and exercise of free will by men in regard to salvation.

The following are the chief, if not the only, direct proof-texts which claim particular examination:

Rom. viii. 29, 30: "Whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the first-born among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called; and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified."

1 Pet. i. 2: "Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ."

2 Thess. ii. 13: "But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth."

The argument from these passages is: first, that foreknowledge, that is, prescience, is represented as, in the order of thought, preceding predestination or election: election is according to foreknowledge; secondly, that election is said to be conditioned upon faith, holy obedience and perseverance in the same.

Let us in the first place hear what lexicographers, and commentators who are not Calvinistic, have to say upon these texts. The words, in the passages from Romans and First Peter, which are of critical importance, are "did foreknow" - προεγνω, and " foreknowledge" - προγνωσιν, both from the same root.

Schleusner says: "(4.) ut simplex γινωσκω, amo aliquem, alicui bene volo. Rom. viii. 29, ους προεγνω quos Deus ab aeterno amavit, seu, ad quos pertinent benigna illa voluntas divina (προθεσις) cui homines adductionem ad religionem et felicitatem christianam debent." He censures Koppius for a different interpretation, and supports his own by a reference to divers passages of Scripture, emphasizing that in the same epistle, where Paul says, God hath not cast away his people whom he foreknew - προεγνω, and where the word cannot be taken in the sense of simple prescience.

In regard to the noun he says: "(2) per metonymiam causae pro effectu: consilium decretum." In this sense he says that the word προγνωσις is twice used in the New Testament: Acts, ii. 23 and 1 Pet., i. 2 . In the latter passage "according to the foreknowledge of God the Father" means according to the most wise and benignant counsel (consilio) of God whereby they were made Christians (Christianis factis)."

Cremer makes the terms "foreknow" and "foreknowledge" equivalent to God's self-determination to unite himself in fellowship with human beings. This self-determination corresponds with election, the difference, however, obtaining between them that the self-determination which is abstracted from particular objects is expressed in election which designates those objects. He says: "'To foreknow' therefore corresponds with 'to elect before the foundation of the world,' which in Eph. i. 4, precedes 'to predestinate,' just like 'foreknew' in Rom. viii. 29. 'Foreknowledge,' however, essentially includes a self-determination to this fellowship on God's part (Rom. viii. 29, 'with whom God had before entered into fellowship'); whereas 'election' merely expresses a determination directed to the objects of the fellowship; cf. 1 Pet. i. 2: 'elect according to the foreknowledge of God."' Cremer's view is peculiar, but it rejects the interpretation which makes foreknowledge in these passages equivalent to mere pre-cognition.

Upon 1 Pet. i. 2, he remarks: "'Elect according to the foreknowledge of God' denotes the foreordained fellowship between God and the objects of his saving counsels; God's self-determination to enter into the fellowship with the objects of his sovereign counsels, preceding the realization thereof."

In this very chapter in 1 Peter the word has the force of fore-ordination, verse 20: "Who [Christ] verily was foreordained - προεγνωσμενου before the foundation of the world;" upon which Glassius in his Philologiae Sacrae says: "hoc est, aeterno Dei decreto ordinatus in victimam pro peccatis hominum offerendam."

I will refrain from citing the opinions of commentators in regard to Rom. viii. 29, for the reason that both Calvinists and Arminians differ among themselves as to the precise meaning of the foreknowledge mentioned in that verse and its connection with the predestination of which the apostle there speaks. The views of some, who are not professed Calvinists, upon 1 Pet. i. 2 will be furnished.

Dr. Fronmüller, the expositor of the Epistles of Peter in Lange's commentary thus interprets the verse: "'According to the foreknowledge of God' should be connected with 'elect': it denotes not mere prescience and pre-cognition, the object of which is indeed not mentioned, but both real distinction and fore-decreeing." Dr. Mombert, the translator, adds this from Grotius: "Foreknowledge here does not signify prescience but antecedent decree (antecedens decretum), as in Acts ii. 23; the same sense as in Eph. i. 4."

Dr. Huther, the continuator of Meyer's commentaries, remarks upon this verse: "προγνωσις is translated generally by the commentators as: predestination." [He refers in a note to Lyranus: praedestinatio; Erasmus: praefinitio; Gerhard: προθεις juxta quam facta est electio; De Wette: βουλη aut προωρισμος.] "This is no doubt inexact, still it must be observed that in the N. T. προγνωσις stands always in such a connection as to show that it expresses an idea akin to that of predestination, but without the idea of knowing or of taking cognizance being lost. It is the perceiving of God by means of which the object is determined, as that which he perceives it to be. Cf. Meyer on Rom. viii. 29: 'It is God's being aware in his plan, in virtue of which, before the subjects are destined by him to salvation, he knows who are to be so destined by him.' It is incorrect, therefore, to understand the word as denoting simply foreknowledge. [In a note he says: "The word has not this signification in the New Testament."] This leads to a Pelagianizing interpretation, and is met by Augustin's phrase: eligendos facit Deus, non invenit."

Rosenmüller upon the text says: "προγνωσις, decretum consilium, ut Actor. ii. 23. Ad christianam igitur religionem perductos esse ait, ex decreto et consilio Dei Patris." He refers to Carpzov as taking the word to be equivalent to προθεσις

Olshausen's opinion can be clearly collected from what he says upon Rom. viii. 29: "Here, however, there seems to be no difference between προεγνω and προωρισε, while, too, in Acts, ii. 23; 1 Pet. i. 2; Rom. xi. 2, προγνωσις is used directly for the divine will."

These authorities are not referred to as decisive, but for the purpose of showing that the proofs of an election conditioned upon foreknowledge, which are derived from Rom. viii. 29 and 1 Pet. i. 2, are entirely too doubtful to oppose to the mass of direct scriptural testimony which has been adduced in favor of unconditional election.

But the appeal to authorities aside, it is perfectly evident from the very structure of these texts that election is not conditioned upon the divine foreknowledge of faith, holy obedience and perseverance in the same. In Rom. viii. 29, those who are foreknown are distinctly represented as predestined to be conformed to Christ. The predestinating decree effects that conformity; consequently it cannot be conditioned upon the conformity as foreknown. Further, it is explicitly said that it is God who, in accordance with his predestinating purpose, calls, who justifies, who glorifies. Does the sinner call, justify and glorify himself? Are not these divine acts? Is it not God who in executing his eternal purpose thus saves the sinner?

In i Pet. i. 2, the persons addressed are expressly said to be elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. All holy obedience, involving faith and the conscious reception of the benefits which flow from the application of Jesus' blood, is ascribed to God's electing purpose as its proximate end. It is that unto which the persons designated are elected. Nor will it answer to say that election is declared to be through sanctification of the Spirit. Will it be contended that the sinner sanctifies himself in order to obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Christ? That would be to assert that he sanctified himself in order to his sanctification. And if it be still replied that he must believe in order to receive the sanctification of the Spirit, it is rejoined that, in the first place, it is the sanctifying office of the Spirit to give faith as Arminians concede; and, in the second place, faith is included in the obedience unto which the persons addressed are said to be elect and which the sanctifying power of the Spirit produces. Otherwise the statement would be: they believe in order to be sanctified in order to believe. No just criticism can extract that meaning from the inspired words of the apostle.

On the passage in Peter, Richard Watson makes this extraordinary comment: [44] "Here obedience is not the end of election, but of the sanctification of the Spirit; and both are joined with 'the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus' (which, in all cases, is apprehended by faith,) as the media through which our election is effected - 'elect through sanctification of the spirit,' &c. These cannot, therefore, be the ends of our personal election; for if we are elected 'through' that sanctification of the Spirit which produces obedience, we are not elected, being unsanctified and disobedient, in order to be sanctified by the Spirit that we may obey: it is the work of the Spirit which produces obedient faith, and through both we are 'elected' into the Church of God." First, this is, in one respect, as good Calvinism as could be desired. He admits that it is the Spirit who produces faith and obedience. This is an admission of efficacious grace. For if it be the Spirit who produces obedient faith, it certainly is not the determining will of the sinner which produces it. The sinner believes, but the grace of the Spirit originates his faith. But as the Spirit is God, and whatever God does in time he eternally purposed to do, his production of faith in the sinner was eternally purposed; or what is the same thing the sinner was eternally elected to believe. Secondly, Watson argues that since one is elected through sanctification of the Spirit involving faith and obedience, faith and obedience are means and not ends of election. Exactly so; except that sanctification, involving faith and obedience, is not the means through which election exists, but through which it operates. The Calvinist does not make sanctification producing faith and obedience an end of election. The end is proximately the final salvation of the sinner, and ultimately the glory of God's grace. Sanctification is the elected means to that end. He misses the mark, therefore, when he makes Calvinism regard obedience as the end of election; but his language otherwise is perfectly Calvinistic, for it asserts that the means through which election takes effect are produced in the sinner by the grace of the Spirit, and of course were eternally ordained.

Whatever then be the nature of the foreknowledge mentioned in these texts, it cannot be that of faith and holiness as conditions of election. That, at least, is clear.

2 Thess. ii. 13, is adduced to prove that election is conditioned upon faith and holy obedience. In regard to this it may be urged: first, this passage puts "sanctification" before "belief of the truth." The words sanctification of the Spirit are often used to signify the whole agency of the Spirit in producing experimental religion, beginning in regeneration, including the operation of faith, penitence and the disposition to bring forth good works, and ending in glorification. If the Spirit exerts this renewing and saving influence upon the sinner, it is in consequence of God's eternal purpose that he should. Whatever God does in time he eternally purposed to do, and, as the Spirit is God, whatever the Spirit does in time was eternally purposed. The supernatural operation of the Holy Spirit and the faith engendered by it constitute, according to the statement of Paul in this passage, the ordained means through which the electing purpose of God effects the salvation of the sinner. If, as is most probable, the salvation to which the apostle in this text says God chooses is final felicity and glory, that end is not appointed without the appointment, also of the means to its attainment; and those means are chiefly the operations of the Spirit, renewing and sanctifying the sinner. To say that the sinner is himself the originator of his spiritual life and its functions, and that he by his repentance and faith conditions the work of the Spirit in his soul, is to take a position which is both unscriptural and irrational.

What does the Arminian gain by insisting on the words, "through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth?' If he mean that the material cause of election is here asserted, he holds that sanctification and faith are the cause on account of which, on the ground of which, God elects to salvation. But he refuses formally to take that view. If he mean that sanctification and faith are the instrumental cause of election, he contradicts the decisive testimony of Scripture that they are not the instrumental cause but the effects of election. If he mean that sanctification and faith are the instrumental cause of salvation, he affirms exactly what the Calvinist maintains.

Here, however, there is need of an important distinction - between the condition of election, and the conditions of salvation. Neither the work of Christ nor the work of the Spirit is in any sense a cause of election, while they are in important senses causes of salvation. Christ was not the efficient or meritorious or instrumental cause of election. He was not the foundation of election - fundamentum electionis; but he is the foundation of redemption fundamentum redemptionis. He purchased redemption by his complete obedience to the precept and the penalty of the divine law, by which he satisfied justice and brought in everlasting righteousness; and by his priestly intercession he acquires the saving grace of the Holy Ghost which as a king he imparts. His work was thus an instrumental and meritorious cause of redemption. Nevertheless he was elected to the discharge of this momentous work by the sovereign will of the Father. So, neither was the work of the blessed Spirit a cause of election, either efficient or instrumental. In effecting the renewal and sanctification of the sinner he is the proximate efficient cause by which the electing purpose - the will of God by which the elect are sanctified - is executed, and in performing this office his grace is a divinely appointed instrumental cause of salvation. The difference between the cause of election and the cause of salvation is thus made apparent.

The graces and duties of the renewed soul are in no sense efficient or meritorious causes. In what sense they are instrumental causes, it is important to determine. Faith in Christ as a justifying Saviour is the instrumental cause of union with him. That is, it is a condition without which actual, in contradistinction to federal, union with him would not take place. In this sense, faith is the sole condition of salvation. It alone consciously unites the sinner to Christ, and Christ is salvation. But in regard to final salvation - heavenly felicity and glory - all the graces of the Spirit and all the works of the Christian man are instrumental causes or conditions without which that consummate end would not, by the adult, be reached.

Now the point of this exposition of the means of salvation is the a fortiori argument necessarily deducible from it, that if neither the work of Christ nor the work of the Holy Spirit is an instrumental cause or condition of election, much less can the faith and holy obedience of the sinner be such a cause or condition. The conditions of salvation are indispensable, but they are in no sense conditions of election.

Secondly, the judgment of impartial commentators is opposed to the Arminian interpretation of this verse. Auberlen and Riggenbach, in Lange's series, say: "The εν, etc. cannot belong to ειλατο, since the objective purpose of free grace is not conditioned by the subjective process in us." Ellicott observes: "The preposition εν may be instrumental (Chrysostom, Lüneman, al.) but is perhaps more naturally taken in its usual sense as denoting the spiritual state in which the ειλατο εις σωτηριαν was realized." Webster and Wilkinson remark: "εν αγ. following ειλ. indicates that their present state, character and qualification for future blessedness, are the effect of God's choice, involved in it, as part of his original purpose of grace toward them. So in 1 Pet. i. 1, 2. Even Rosenmüller says in regard to the originating cause of belief of the truth: "Deus ad salutem vos perduxit dum emendavit vos per doctrinam Christi perfectiorem, et effecit ut fidem haberetis religioni."

Having considered the direct scriptural proofs adduced in support of the doctrine of conditional election, I might pass on to the examination of the indirect and inferential evidence furnished by the Arminian positions in regard to the universality of the atonement, the defectibility of the saints, and the free-will of man in the spiritual sphere. But for several reasons I propose not to launch upon that wide sea. In the first place, the indirect proofs of unconditional election, which may be drawn from related doctrines of the Calvinistic system, it is not my intention to present, and this justifies the exclusion of similar proofs on the Arminian side. In the second place, anything like an adequate consideration of that class of proofs would swell this discussion beyond the limits which it is designed to bear. In the third place, the topics coming within the scope of that kind of proof have been for centuries handled in systems of theology and controversial treatises, and their treatment here would be, in great measure, but a re-statement of familiar arguments. They are not peculiar to the Evangelical Arminian theology, the prominent features of which, as a modification of the Remonstrant, it is the chief purpose of this disquisition to examine.

The elements into which the doctrine of election may be analyzed having been established by a direct appeal to God's Word, the way is clear to gather them up into a comprehensive and definitive statement:

Election is God's eternal purpose or decree, - incited by his mere mercy towards man considered as fallen by his own fault into sin and misery, grounded alone in the sovereign pleasure of his own will, unconditioned by any qualities, dispositions or acts of the creature, and involving a peculiar love of complacency towards its objects, - to bring certain individual men to everlasting salvation and all the means necessary thereto, in order to the glory of his grace.

I will conclude this part of the discussion by summing, up the arguments opposed to the Arminian doctrine, particularly emphasizing those relating to the conditional nature of election, as the chief point at issue between the parties to the controversy.

1. It is unscriptural in that it fails to make God the sole author of election. For while it represents God as providing the means by which the sinner may be saved, it makes the sinner by his free will determine himself to the saving use of those means. It is, therefore, really the sinner who elects God, and not God who elects the sinner. His election of God as a Saviour conditions God's election of him as saved.

2. It professes to teach the election of individuals to salvation, but in reality denies it. For it affirms the election only of a condition upon which individuals may be saved, if they will to comply with it. That condition is faith in Christ and perseverance in holiness to the end. But individuals are not elected to employ this condition: they may or may not employ it. To say that if they do they are elected to salvation, is to affirm a hypothethical and contingent election, which is no election at all. It is a contradiction in terms.

3. It is incorrect and inconsistent with itself in teaching that election is in time.

(1.) The Scriptures positively teach that election is from eternity.

(2.) Election in time could only be the temporal execution of an eternal purpose. A so-called actual election must correspond with that purpose and express it.

(3.) God's purpose and his prescience are unwarrantably confounded. God's purpose is held to be merely his prescience of an actual election to be executed in time, as conditioned upon his prescience of man's complying with the terms of salvation. But purpose involves will; prescience does not. To identify them is to pervert the accepted meaning of the terms. This is the more remarkable, because the Arminian contends that foreknowledge exerts no causal influence upon events.

(4.) God's actual election in time as the only election expressing his will is postponed until the sinner perseveres in holiness to the end of life. But it is contrary alike to Scripture and to reason to maintain that God waits upon the acts of men in order to decide upon his own acts. Whatever he does in time, he must have eternally willed to do. Either then God eternally willed to elect individuals, or no election is possible. To this the Arminian cannot answer, that God did eternally will an actual election conditioned upon his foresight of the sinner's perseverance in holiness to the end; for in doing so, he would deny his position that an eternal purpose of election was nothing more than prescience, not involving will.

(5.) The doctrine is inconsistent with itself. It affirms election to be in time. But it also virtually affirms that it cannot be in time. For it teaches that men are only actually elected when they have persevered in holiness to the end of life. It is then, only when time has ceased that election takes effect. It is therefore affirmed that election is in time and is not in time!

(6.) The objects of this election are dead men. It terminates upon men only when the contingencies of life are passed. But the Bible calls some living men elect, and Arminians concede the fact.

(7.) The affirmation that election is in time is equivalent to the affirmation that in time the destiny of the elected person is fixed for eternity. Otherwise his election means nothing. But it is also affirmed that his election is conditioned upon his perseverance in holy obedience to the end of time with him. Consequently, his destiny cannot he fixed in time. The destiny of the elect is fixed in time: it is not fixed in time!

4. It is out of accord with Scripture in regard to the ultimate end of election. It admits that the proximate end is salvation; but it is logically bound to deny that the ultimate end is solely the praise of God's grace. For, the praise is due to grace for the provision of the means of salvation, and it is due to the elect themselves for the free determination of their own wills to employ those means. God does not determine the sinner to use the means; the sinner determines himself. He may be grateful for the provision of the means, but gratitude for electing grace would have no ground. His faith, good works and perseverance bring him to heaven, but they are not grounded in or due to election: it is conditioned upon them. He could not sincerely praise the grace of God for bringing him to heaven: he could only praise it for affording him the means of getting there.

5. It denies the electing and saving love of God, which the scriptures abundantly assert.

(1.) It confounds the love of benevolence and the love of complacency.

(2.) It fails to distinguish between the mercy of God towards a fallen race considered as out of Christ and the peculiar, intense and inalienable love of God towards those whom he regards as in Christ.

(3.) It makes goats the objects of the same love with the sheep given by the Father to the Son to be by his death redeemed and saved.

(4.) It makes the love of God secure the salvation of none of his children. It only secures for them a possible and contingent salvation. It is therefore less than the love of earthly parents to their children, for they would save their children if they could. To say that God cannot save all his children would be heresy deepening into blasphemy.

(5.) It makes the love of God for his people changeable. For he cannot cherish the same love for them when they cease to be his people by falling away from him.

(6.) It contradicts the assertions of God's Word - that his faithful love to his Son will lead him never to suffer any to perish who are bound up in the same covenant with that Son, even when they forsake his ways and break his statutes, that nothing shall separate them from his love, that he will never leave them nor forsake them, that though a mother may forget her sucking child, he will never forget them, but save them with everlasting mercies.

6. It makes election superfluous and useless. For it denies that election is in order to faith and holiness and affirms that it is conditioned upon perseverance in them to the end - that is, the end of life and the attainment of heaven. It follows necessarily that when the sinner is foreknown to get to heaven he is elected to get there. Where is the use of such election? One is obliged to apply to it Occam's razor - the law of parsimony, that causes are not needlessly to be multiplied for a given effect. If, through the assistance of grace and the free determinations of his own will, a man has persevered in holy obedience to the end and has attained to heavenly happiness, why should a cause be invoked to ensure the result which without it has been secured? It is inconceivable that God would elect men to be saved in consequence of his foreknowing that they are saved; or that he would have elected to save men who, he foreknew, would by the assistance of grace save themselves. God does nothing in vain; but this doctrine represents him as doing a vain thing.

7. It misrepresents the elements of the plan of salvation.

(1.) It confounds the fruits of grace with the means of grace. Faith, good works, and perseverance in the same, are fruits of grace - its products, not its means or conditions. The means of grace are the Word, the Sacraments, and Worship.

(2.) It unwarrantably limits salvation to heavenly felicity, when it treats of God's destination of men; confounds glorification - a part of salvation - with salvation as a whole. Regeneration, justification, adoption, and sanctification the Scriptures declare to be as essential as glorification. Election, according to Arminianism, is to glorification; according to Scripture, it is to salvation. And yet it urges the necessity of experiencing a present salvation. How is this inconsistency to be explained upon Arminian principles? By distinguishing between an initial and losable salvation on the one hand, and a final salvation on the other. Hence some Arminian theologians maintain a two-fold election: one, unconditional, to an initial and contingent salvation, another to a final. But,

First, the Scriptures incontestably represent salvation as a great, undivided whole, beginning in regeneration and justification and completed in glorification. It is utterly unscriptural to split it into two parts, one contingent, the other certain; one initial, the other final.

Secondly, the Scriptures clearly represent the election of individuals to salvation as one, undivided purpose. It is entirely unscriptural to effect this schism in God's electing purpose and to make one part of it terminate on an initial and amissible salvation, and another on a final and certain. The choice must be made between two alternatives: either no electing purpose, or one which is not separable into parts conditioned by the fluctuating agency of man.

Thirdly, a salvation which may be lost is no salvation. There is no foundation in Scripture for the doctrine of a merely initial and uncertain salvation. They represent him who is saved as eternally saved. There are two great pillars on which the certain salvation of the believer rests, pillars which cannot be thrown down by sin or Satan, earth or hell. They are the unchangeable purpose of God and the indestructible life which the justified soul possesses in Christ. Whom God purposes to save, he saves forever; who live in Christ forever live. Otherwise God purposes to save without saving, and justifies without justifying. According to the view under consideration, a man may be elected to be temporarily saved who is lost at last - saved in time, but lost in eternity. And as one who is temporarily saved may backslide again and again - that is, lose his faith entirely - he may be elected to several temporary salvations, and finally perish. And further, since such a man may die in faith, he must have been elected to several temporary salvations and an eternal salvation to boot. Surely it is not God's election which is meant, but his own. There is little wonder that Evangelical Arminian divines differ among themselves, some referring election in part to an initial salvation, and others confining it to a final. The real difficulty is, that both parties to this family feud reject God's election, which like himself is stable, and substitute for it man's election of himself, which, like man, is characterized by change.

(3.) It unjustifiably confounds eternal life with heavenly life. The Scriptures say that he who hath the Son hath eternal life. Life, like salvation, is a great whole, beginning in the new birth and justification, developed in sanctification, and consummated in glory. Election, according to Arminianism, is to life in heaven; according to Scripture, it is to life in Christ. To live in Christ is to live forever. There is a second birth, but the Bible speaks nowhere of a third birth. He who is born again is born once for all into God's family, a child of the Father, a brother of the Son, and an heir of glory - a joint-heir with Christ, not to a contingent and perishable inheritance, but to an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for those who are kept by the power of God, through faith unto salvation.

(4.) It denies, what the Scriptures unequivocally assert - the bondage to sin and Satan of the will of the unregenerate sinner. For, as will hereafter be shown, it affirms the power of the natural will, as such, to use imparted grace which is alleged to be sufficient but not regenerating.

(5.) It denies what the Scriptures plainly teach - the life-giving act of the Holy Spirit in regeneration as initiating the sinner's experience of salvation. For it makes repentance precede and condition regeneration, unscripturally regards regeneration as a "work," in which the sinner actively cooperates with the Spirit, and so is palpably and confessedly Synergistic. [45]

(6.) It makes assurance of salvation a solecism. To distinguish between the assurance of salvation and the certification by the witness of the Spirit of salvation is vain. They mean the same thing. To speak of the certification of being saved at present as the same with the certification of being saved is, I say, a solecism; for it amounts only to a certification of a reprieve and furnishes no guarantee against a final doom. This is not the doctrine of the Scriptures. They represent the assurance of final salvation as attainable. "Oh that my words were now written!" exclaimed Job, the type and exemplar of a suffering faith, "oh that they were printed in a book! That they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock forever!" The passionate fervor and profound solemnity of the exordium redeem the "words" from every rationalistic interpretation which would disembowel them of their grand redemptive significance. What are the words so magnificently introduced? "For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me." "He shall redeem Israel," chanted the precentor of the Church in her songs of praise, "from all his iniquities." "Though I walk in the midst of trouble, thou wilt revive me: thou shalt stretch forth thine hand against the wrath of mine enemies, and thy right hand shall save me. The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me: thy mercy, O Lord, endureth forever: forsake not the works of thine own hands." "For we know," cried Paul, the battle-scarred veteran of the Cross, "that if our earthy house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." "Wherefore" - what? let us live as we list, because we are sure of a home in heaven? - "wherefore, we labor that whether present or absent we may be accepted of him." "Now," argues the same glorious apostle, "is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light." From his Roman prison he utters this language of triumphant confidence: "I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed to him against that day" - the sacred deposit of my dying body, and my undying soul with its eternal weight of interests. Believers may know their election: "Knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God." And knowing their election, they may know their final salvation, for it is that on which their election terminates. But the Arminian doctrine teaches that Christ's sheep may know him, and he may know them and call them by name, and assure them that none shall pluck them out of his hand, and yet, at the last, he may say to them, "I never knew you; depart from me."

8. The last point that will be urged is, that it is entirely unscriptural in maintaining that election is conditioned upon any qualities, dispositions or acts of man.

(1.) We have seen from the numerous passages collected that the Scriptures expressly teach that election is unto faith, good works and perseverance in faith and good works to the end - that they are the fruits of election. The conclusion is irresistible, that they do not condition it. It is true that Watson says: "We have no such doctrine in Scripture as the election of individuals unto faith." [46] It has been abundantly shown by direct citations, that we have such a doctrine in Scripture. The authorities are opposed, but God's is the weightier. Watson's misstatement of the Calvinistic doctrine that it makes the obedience of faith an end of election, and not merely a means through which it effects final salvation, has already been corrected; and his failure to use 1 Pet. i. 2 against Calvinism - that is, against itself - has been exhibited.

(2.) The Arminian doctrine involves the capital mistake of making the acts of repentance and faith in the natural sphere condition election. Men are said by Arminian writers to be partly in a state of grace when they receive assisting and co-operating, or, as it is otherwise called, prevenient grace, antecedently to regeneration, and consequently to be able, in that state, to perform gracious acts. [47] But, without higgling about words, the real question is, whether in that condition the man is born again. No, they reply; his repentance and faith precede and condition regeneration. So say explicitly Pope, Ralston and Raymond, and such was the doctrine of Wesley. Now, if a man is not born again of the Spirit, he is simply born after the flesh. Whatever gracious gifts may be supposed to be conferred upon him, he is still in the natural condition in which he was born of his mother. He is still in his sins. So I understand Wesley to teach. [48] Before, then, he is born again he repents and believes. It follows necessarily that by faith he accepts salvation in his natural condition, and since faith is held to be the initial condition of election, his acts in the natural sphere condition election. To say that the Arminian theology maintains that before a sinner is born again of the Holy Spirit he may do that which renders it proper for God to elect him to eternal life may seem to some to be a libel. Let us see.

"He," observes Mr. Wesley in his Sermon on Salvation by Faith, "that is by faith born of God sinneth not," etc. In his second Sermon on Faith, from Heb. xi. 1, he speaks definitely upon the point: "The faith of a servant implies a divine evidence of the invisible and eternal world: yea, and an evidence of the spiritual world, so far as it can exist without living experience. Whoever has attained this, the faith of a servant, 'feareth God and escheweth evil;' or, as it is expressed by St. Peter, 'feareth God and worketh righteousness.' In consequence of which, he is in a degree (as the apostle observes) 'accepted with him' . . . Nevertheless he should be exhorted not to stop there; not to rest till he attains the adoption of sons; till he obeys him out of love, which is the privilege of all the children of God. Exhort him to press on by all possible means, till he passes 'from faith to faith;' from the faith of a servant to the faith of a son, from the spirit of bondage unto fear to the spirit of childlike love. He will then have 'Christ revealed in his heart' enabling him to testify, 'The life that I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me:' the proper voice of a child of God. He will then be 'born of God.'"

Mr. Watson says: "Justification, regeneration and adoption are not distinct and different titles, but constitute one and the same title, through the gift of God in Christ, to the heavenly inheritance. They are attained, too, by the same faith. We are 'justified by faith' and we are the 'children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.' 'But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God (which appellation includes reconciliation and adoption) even to them that believe on his name, which were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God,' or in other words were regenerated." [49] "The regenerate state is only entered upon at our justification." Mr. Watson confounds adoption with regeneration. Faith conditions adoption as it does justification; but it does not, cannot, is not in Scripture said to, condition regeneration. It is out of the question that one could condition his own birth. In the passage in the first chapter of John the power to become sons of God εξουσια not δυναμις; authority or right to become sons, which was conferred on those who having been born of God by the powerful operation of the Holy Ghost received Christ by faith. The order is: first, regeneration; secondly, faith; thirdly, adoption. Regeneration is in order to faith, and faith in order to justification and adoption. To require faith in order to regeneration is to require a living function from the dead in order to life.

Dr. Pope is very explicit. He says: "Repentance precedes the faith which brings salvation." [50] "Faith as the instrument of appropriating salvation is a divinely-wrought belief in the record concerning Christ and trust in his person as a personal Saviour: these two being one. It must be distinguished, on the one hand, from the general exercise of belief following evidence which is one of the primary elements of human nature, and from the grace of faith which is one of the fruits of the regenerating Spirit." [51] Here the faith which appropriates salvation and is a trust in Christ as a personal Saviour is distinguished from faith as produced by regeneration. He says further: "The special grace of enlightenment and conversion, repentance and faith, it [Arminianism] holds to be prevenient only, as resting short of regeneration; but as flowing into the regenerate life." [52]

Dr. Ralston is equally explicit. He observes that Calvinists indicate "the following order: 1. Regeneration. 2. Faith. 3. Repentance [penitence]. 4. Conversion. Arminians think the Scriptures present a different order on this subject. They contend that so far from repentance and faith being preceded by regeneration and flowing from it, they precede, and are conditions of regeneration." [53] The Calvinistic order should not have contained conversion as a distinct element. It is generically the new birth, faith, and repentance in the narrow sense of penitence and turning from sin to God. The Arminian order is no doubt accurately given.

Dr. Raymond is still more explicit. Speaking of the sinner who "improves the common grace given to all mankind," he says: "If he gives the Spirit free course, his heart becomes so far changed from its natural love of sin as to sorrow on account of sin, and in a degree to hate it; he is truly penitent; has initial godly sorrow for sin; his will is emancipated from its natural bondage to unbelief, and is so far invigorated by divine grace as to be able to volitionate a determined purpose of amendment and of future obedience; nay, more, he actually does volitionate saving faith. But all this is not what theologians call regeneration. It is antecedent to regeneration, and constitutes the state of mind on which regeneration is conditioned. Faith, the evidence of justification, and regeneration are contemporaneous, not separable in consciousness, but in the order of thought faith is first, justification second, and regeneration third." [54]

The proofs have thus been furnished that the Arminian theology involves the position that men, in the natural sphere, before they are regenerated, condition their election to salvation. For, as one who, in the first instance, believes in Christ may persevere in believing to the end, it is evident that the conditioning of election may begin in the natural sphere antecedently to the new birth.

(3.) The Arminian doctrine involves the following unscriptural positions in regard to the application of redemption: God's purpose was not savingly to apply redemption, but to permit men to avail themselves of redemption provided; the sinner's will and not God's is the determining factor in the great concern of personal salvation; the principle upon which salvation is applied is not that of grace, but of human willing; man is, in this respect, made sovereign and God dependent; the glory of salvation, as a whole, is divided between God and man; and, finally, the logical result must be a semi-Pelagian subversion of the Gospel scheme.

First, Arminian theologians do not, so far as I know, take the ground that there was no divine purpose in regard to the application of redemption. But if there was some purpose, it must have been either efficient or permissive. Arminians deny that it was efficient, that is, that it was a purpose efficaciously to apply salvation to individuals. Consequently, they maintain that it was permissive. But if so, God simply determined to permit men to avail themselves of the salvation which he would graciously provide; which amounts to this: that he determined to permit men to save themselves upon condition of their believing in Christ and persevering in faith and holiness to the end.

Now, I admit with all Calvinists the existence of some permissive decrees, but deny that this purpose touching the application of redemption falls under that denomination. The Arminian commits the tremendous blunder of treating the case of Adam in innocence, and that of the sinner, as one and the same in relation to the divine decrees and to the ability of the moral agent. It is true that God decreed to permit Adam to sin, and it is true that Adam had the power to stand or to fall; but it is not true, either that God simply decreed to permit his sinful descendants to be saved, or that they have the power to choose holiness. Were the decree simply permissive, no sinner would or could be saved. The dead man needs something more than permission to live; he needs life.

The Sublapsarian Calvinist - and he is the typical Calvinist - admits that the decree to permit the fall, and the foreknowledge of the fall are pre-supposed by the decrees of election and reprobation. But it is altogether a different thing to say, with the Arminian, that the decree to permit men to recover themselves from the Fall, and the foreknowledge that they would recover themselves from it, conditioned or were pre-supposed by the decree to elect them to be saved. On the contrary, the Scriptures teach that as men cannot recover themselves from the consequences of the Fall, God of his mere mercy elected some of the guilty and helpless mass to be recovered and saved, and in pursuance of that purpose imparts to its objects the grace which alone recovers and saves them. Otherwise they must all have perished together.

Secondly, in rebuttal of this allegation Arminian theologians contend that their doctrine is that sinners are saved, if saved at all, by grace. The grace by which it is professed that men are saved in the first instance, that is, are empowered to accept the offer of salvation, is, as to the order of time, called prevenient grace - grace which operates antecedently to regeneration, at least to "full regeneration." "The manifestation of divine influence," remarks Dr. Pope, "which precedes the full regenerate life receives no special name in scripture; but it is so described as to warrant the designation usually given to it of Prevenient Grace." [55] As to its nature and functions it is variously denominated assisting, co-operating, sufficient, grace. It has been already shown that, notwithstanding the communication of this grace, the decision which determines the question of practical salvation is held to be made by the sinner's will, unconstrained by grace; that this is the view expressly maintained by such writers as Raymond, Whedon and Strong. But inasmuch as it may be alleged that these divines do not represent the views of the early teachers of the Evangelical Arminian theology and those of the body of Evangelical Arminians, I will proceed to show that these able writers have grasped the logic of their system, and have given expression to its legitimate conclusion.

It will not do to say, that because co-operating grace is given to all men, those who are saved do not recover and save themselves, but are recovered and saved by grace. For, either this co-operating grace is the controlling and determining element in producing recovery and salvation, or it is not. If it be the controlling and determining element, the Arminian position is relinquished and the Calvinistic conceded; since, in that case, men are saved by all invincible influence operating in accordance with an electing decree. If this grace be not the controlling and determining element, the will of man is that element. And then it follows that men recover and save themselves by the energy of their own wills. But that is alike unscriptural, and contrary to the profession of Arminians themselves that men are saved by grace.

If it be said, that, although it be true that the final factor which determines the question of recovery and salvation is the will of man, yet without the assisting grace of God it could not determine the question, and therefore men are saved by grace, it is answered: that upon this supposition it is admitted that the will of man may decline the assistance of grace, or may accept it - may co-operate with it or may not. That proves that the final determination of the case is regarded as being in the power of the will, and it comes to this, that in the last resort the man saves himself. It is his will which gives to the assisting and co-operating grace any influence in producing recovery and salvation.

If it be said, that neither grace nor the will of man is the controlling and determining element, but they are coordinate and coequal factors, it would follow: First, that as from the nature of the case they are antagonistic to each other, a perfect equipoise would result, and no action would be possible. Between grace and the will the man would be like the ass of Buridan between two equally attractive measures of oats. The two forces are antagonistic, for grace tends to the production of holiness, and the will of the natural man to the production of sin. The consequence pointed out must follow. Secondly, if action could be attained, it would of necessity be equally shared by grace and the human will; and then the man could be said to be saved by neither. He could not be saved by grace; he could not be saved by himself. Grace and the human will, as they would have an equal share in the action which saves, would have an equal share in the glory of salvation. And so the saved sinner would sing: To God and to myself be the glory of my salvation! The absurdity of the consequence refutes the supposition.

If, further, it be said, that the natural will is, "without the power to co-operate with the divine influence, but the co-operation with grace is of grace," [56] and in this way it becomes apparent that the sinner is saved by grace; it is replied: First, in order to cooperation the influences co-operating with each other must be distinct, the one from the other, and this would necessitate the view that grace of one sort or in one aspect co-operates with grace of another sort or in another aspect. But grace is one, and to divide it thus into two distinct parts or aspects is wholly unwarrantable. The division is an arbitrary one adopted to justify a theory. Secondly, the supposition represents grace inside of the will co-operating with grace outside of it. But if it be admitted that in the first instance grace may be an inducement to action presented to the will, yet when the will to any extent appropriates the inducement, by that appropriation the inducement passes into the will itself and is assimilated into its spontaneity. It ceases to be external to the will and becomes internal to it. The motive agency of grace then operates within the will itself, and co-operation of grace with grace would be the co-operation of an inducement absorbed into the will with the same inducement, considered as still extraneous to it and unabsorbed. Thirdly, grace cooperating with grace, were such a combination of influences possible, would, to use a homely comparison, be a team which would surely be able to draw the will to action. But no, the will is the driver and holds the reins which control the powerful combination. Even the co-operation of grace with grace can not determine the course of the will. Notwithstanding their united influence, that sovereign faculty determines its own course. Fourthly, it is still the will which determines itself to the co-operation, and makes the co-operation decisive. This is really what is intended. It is the will which is the determining factor in the co-operation, as is apparent from the position that the will may entirely decline to co-operate with grace. The conclusion is that, in the last analysis, it is not grace but the will which is the saving element.

To all this it may be rejoined, that there is no assertion of the anomaly of grace co-operating with grace, but only of the fact that the will is incited by grace itself to co-operate with grace. The co-operation is not of grace with grace, but of the will with grace. But this does not relieve the difficulty; for, in the first place, it would be admitted that it is the natural will, as such, which co-operates with grace; and as that will is the deciding factor, it is it which determines the question of salvation; and no evangelical thinker could deliberately and professedly take that ground. In the second place, grace inciting the will to co-operate with grace would be grace mediately through the will co-operating with grace. The Arminian must make his election between two alternatives both of which are damaging: either that the will, as natural, decides to co-operate with grace and so determines the question of salvation, which involves heresy; or that grace co-operates with grace, which involves absurdity.

If, finally, it be said, that although the grace is not determining, it is sufficient, grace: that is, sufficient to enable the sinner's will to determine the question of his recovery and salvation; it is answered:

First, sufficient grace would necessarily be regenerating grace. For, grace which would be sufficient to enable the spiritually dead sinner - and Evangelical Arminians acknowledge him to be by nature spiritually dead - to perform a function of spiritual life, believing in Christ, for example, must be grace which gives life. But grace which gives life is regenerating. Now,

Secondly, regenerating grace is necessarily irresistible and determining grace. Regenerating grace produces the new birth, and no one can resist his own birth. "Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again." Regenerating grace produces a resurrection to spiritual life, and no one can resist his own resurrection. "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above." Regenerating grace new-creates the soul, and no one can resist his own creation. "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them."

But Arminians contend that grace may be resisted, and some Calvinists go too far in conceding the same, while they hold that it cannot be so resisted as to be overcome. They prefer, therefore, to use the terms invincible or insuperable grace. Both parties are mistaken. Regenerating grace, from the nature of the case, cannot be, in any degree, resisted. The distinction is lost sight of between the common operations of the Spirit, which are illuminating, and his regenerating grace. The former are resistible, the latter is not. The Spirit may be resisted when he instructs the sinner in his duty and moves him to its discharge. Nothing is more common. But to talk of resisting the creative power of the Spirit is to speak without meaning. As well talk of a feather resisting a hurricane, or a straw a cataract, or a hillock of sand a stormy sea. The sinner may be unwilling beforehand that regenerating grace should be exercised upon him; but it is idle to speak of his resisting it when it is exercised. What can resist the creative power of God? Is it not almighty? Can finite power resist infinite, acting infinitely? Now, regenerating grace is creative power. It is, therefore, irresistible. There is no sense or degree in which it can be resisted.

It has thus been shown, that sufficient grace must be irresistible and determining grace. To call any other kind of grace sufficient for the needs of a sinner would imply a contradiction. It would be, as Pascal in his criticism of the theology of the Jesuits tersely puts it, "a sufficient grace which sufficeth not." Again the Arminian position is given up, and the Calvinistic established. For, irresistible and determining grace could only be received in consequence of God's decree to impart it. And since only some men receive that grace - for only some are regenerated - the decree to confer it is proved to be an electing decree; that is, a decree by which some were elected to be regenerated. Any other doctrine involves the consequence that men determine themselves to their own new creation, and therefore save themselves. But how one can prepare himself for, not to speak of determining, his own creation, it passes intelligence to apprehend.

It is plain, in view of what has been said, that the real question at issue between Calvinists and Arminians, in relation to Election, is this: Did God decree that he would save some men, and consequently that he would give them grace to determine their wills? Or, did God decree to permit men with the assistance of grace to save themselves, and consequently that he would leave it to their own wills finally to determine the question of their compliance with the divinely fore-ordained condition of salvation? That question inevitably resolves itself into this simple one: Is God the determining agent in actually saving man? Or, is man the determining agent in saving himself? The determining agent, I say; for Arminians hold that God provided atonement through Christ, and gives to men the assisting and co-operating grace of the Holy Spirit; and that, without the atonement of Christ and the grace of the Spirit, no man could be saved. But it is the specific difference of the Arminian doctrine, so far as this question of the application of salvation is concerned, that, in the last analysis, the will of man must be conceived as the determining factor. I have, therefore, fairly stated the question at issue, as to this matter, between Calvinists and Arminians.

But, that being the state of the question, who that adores the Infinite God, and knows the guilt, depravity and dependence of the sinner, can hesitate to decide that, whatever may be the speculative difficulties attending it, the Calvinistic doctrine is that which consists with the teachings of Scripture and the facts of human experience?

If God be the determining agent in the application of salvation, it follows from the fact that only some are actually saved that God elected them to be saved. The doctrine of the election of individuals to salvation is proved.

And if God be the determining agent in the application of salvation, it follows, from the necessary consequence that the will of man is not the determining agent, that election is not conditioned upon the acts of the human will, and therefore not conditioned upon faith and good works and perseverance in them to the end. The doctrine of Unconditional Election is established.

The conclusion of the whole matter is, that the salvation of men from sin and misery is to be ascribed not to their own wills co-operating with assisting grace, but to the sovereign, electing purpose of God operating upon their wills by efficacious grace. "It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy."

The Arminian doctrine necessitates a conclusion opposite to this - namely, that salvation as practically applied is to be, in the last analysis, ascribed to the will of the sinner, since it is that which determines him to comply with the gracious influences of the Holy Spirit. The following consequences logically result:

In the first place, the principle upon which, in the application of redemption, the sinner is saved, is not grace, but the energy of the human will. The principle upon which salvation is provided is acknowledged to be grace, although we shall hereafter see that Arminianism even qualifies its announcement of that principle; but the ultimate and determining principle upon which salvation is applied is, and is by some frankly confessed to be, human willing.

In the second place, in the matter of the application of salvation man is made sovereign and God dependent. God, it is contended, is sovereign in providing salvation, but in applying it his will is conditioned by the acts of man's will. It is not he who decides the question of practical salvation, but man. Hence the decision of his will is dependent upon the decision of man's sovereign and self-determining will. It is no answer to say, that man is dependent on God for the grace without which he could not appropriate salvation. That may be so, but while he is dependent on God for the supply of assisting grace, he is not dependent on him for the use of it. In that respect he is confessedly independent of God. He originates action by the self-determining, and therefore self-dependent power of his own will.

In the third place, the glory of salvation, as a whole, is divided between God and man. As God alone provides salvation, all the glory is due to him for the provision. But as man is a co-efficient with God in applying salvation, to the extent of his efficiency he is entitled to the glory of the application. As he might accept or reject the atonement, and might use or decline to use assisting grace, his acceptance of the one and his use of the other are his own undetermined acts, and the credit of them is his own. He has made a praiseworthy employment of his powers and opportunities, and the praise cannot justly be denied him. And as it is his natural will, undetermined by divine influence, which decides to use grace and appropriate salvation, it is his natural will which shares the glory with God! To this it may be replied, that repentance is a confession of sin and misery and faith of weakness and want, and it would be absurd to ascribe glory to a criminal pleading for pardon and a beggar suing for help. That would be true did the grace of God determine the sinner to repentance and faith. But, if by the undetermined energy of his will, he overcomes the difficulties opposed by the flesh, the world and the devil, and makes the sacrifice of himself to Christ and his service, the praise of his conversion is due to him. Conversion is a glorious thing. The glory for conversion is due somewhere. Either it is due to grace or to the sinner's will. If it is not effected by grace it is not due to it. If, as is contended, it is effected by the will, to the will the glory is due. The prayers of a pious Arminian deny this; his theology affirms it.

In the fourth place, the tendency is inevitable to a semi-Pelagian subversion of the gospel scheme. It is not intended to bandy opprobrious epithets, but the interests of truth require that the logical tendencies of a system should be pointed out. From an early period in the history of the Christian Church two doctrines, in regard to the experience of salvation, have been in conflict with each other, and have struggled for the mastery with varying fortunes. The one is that grace effects salvation; the other, that free-will effects it. Around these two doctrines grew up two contending systems, which from their leading representatives were denominated Augustinianism and Pelagianism. Intermediate between these two, adopting some and rejecting some of the elements of each, arose another system, which from the fact that it first took root at Marseilles was called Massilianism, and from the name of its chief exponent has been denominated Cassianism. In the course of time it received the name of Semi-Pelagianism - a name which sufficiently intimated the belief that it was a modification of Pelagianism, rather than of Augustinianism, and was justified by the circumstance that it originated as a protest against the latter system. Its characteristic doctrine was the co-efficiency of grace and free-will in producing individual salvation. Arminianism, in its recoil from Calvinism, which is essentially the same as Augustinianism, was a modification of Semi-Pelagianism as it had been of Pelagianism. It concurred with Semi-Pelagianism in affirming the doctrines of conditional election, universal atonement and the defectibility of the saints. The regulative principles of the two systems were therefore precisely the same. They were imbued with the same genius and spirit. Of what value, then, were their differences? Semi-Pelagianism maintained the existence of a degree of free-will, in spiritual matters, in the nature of man after the Fall. Arminianism holds that man has, antecedently to regeneration, a degree of free-will; that, however, is not an element of nature, but a gift of grace in consequence of the atonement of Christ. Semi-Pelagianism taught that by virtue of his natural free-will man may begin his conversion, and that then the aids of grace are furnished to enable him to complete it. Arminianism teaches that grace operating upon the free-will which it confers stimulates it to begin conversion and then assists it to complete it. There would appear then to be a difference between the systems in regard to the beginning of conversion, one holding that the natural will, and the other, that the natural will aided by grace begins it.

But what exactly, according to Evangelical Arminianism, is the significance of this prevenient grace which operates upon the will to induce it to seek conversion? The answer to this question will be furnished from two writers, one in the earliest period of the system and the other in the most recent. "Allowing," says John Wesley, "that all the souls of men are dead in sin by nature, this excuses none, seeing there is no man that is in a state of mere nature: there is no man, unless he has quenched the Spirit, that is wholly void of the grace of God. No man living is entirely destitute of what is vulgarly called 'natural conscience.' But this is not natural: it is more properly termed 'preventing grace.' Every man has a greater or less measure of this, which waiteth not for the call of man. Every one has, sooner or later, good desires, although the generality of men stifle them before they can strike deep root, or produce any considerable fruit. Every one has some measure of that light, some faint glimmering ray which, sooner or later, more or less, enlightens every man that cometh into the world. And every one, unless he be one of the small number, whose conscience is seared as with a hot iron, feels more or less uneasy when he acts contrary to the light of his own conscience. So that no man sins because he has not grace, but because he does not use the grace which he hath." [57] "One," observes Miner Raymond, "who improves the common grace given to all mankind, and the special privileges providentially his, is enlightened as to the eyes of his understanding, or as to the discriminating power of conscience, so as to see his duties and obligations, to apprehend his sins and his sinfulness, and to become fully persuaded of his need of a divine Saviour and his entire dependence upon the grace and mercy of God." [58]

What material difference is there between the two positions? If, says the Semi-Pelagian, one, complying with the light of nature and the warnings of conscience, begin the work of conversion, grace will assist him. If, says the Evangelical Arminian, one improve prevenient grace, that is, the light of natural conscience, further grace will be granted to assist him. What is the thing to be improved? The light of natural conscience, answers the Semi-Pelagian; the light of natural conscience which is prevenient grace, replies the Arminian. Is the difference more than nominal? What is that which does the improving? The natural will, says the Semi-Pelagian; the natural will, the Arminian must also say. For, it must be either the natural will or the will renewed by the Holy Spirit. It cannot be the latter, for confessedly, the man is not yet renewed. It must, therefore, be the former. But, urges the Arminian, the will is assisted by grace. Yes, but as the will may decline the assistance, it is the master of the situation. For, if it decline, as grace cannot decline the assistance of grace, it is the natural will which declines it; and so, if it accept the assistance, it must be the same will which accepts. But, contends the Arminian further, the will is enabled by grace. Here a demurrer must be put in. He is not entitled to use the word enabled. For, as he admits that the sinner in his natural condition is spiritually dead, enabling grace would be life-giving or regenerating and determining grace; and without now going into the question how far that sort of grace is enabling or not, it is enough to say that it is excluded by the supposition that the sinner is not yet regenerated. It is evident that the two systems come very near together in regard to the condition of the awakened sinner previously to his regeneration.

But the crucial test is the doctrine of regeneration. The Semi-Pelagian system is definitely Synergistic; it affirms the co-operation and co-efficiency of grace and the human will in the change of conversion including regeneration. It denies that regeneration is an instantaneous act of God alone, and maintains that conversion culminating in regeneration is the joint work of man and God. The later Lutheran system is also Synergistic, but to what extent? Luther himself was no Synergist. He went further than Augustin and further than Calvin in asserting the sole efficiency of God, as any one will be convinced by glancing at his Bondage of the Will. But the Lutheran doctrine soon went away from the views of the great Reformer, and, absorbing gradually those of Melanchthon in his last utterances, became afterwards under the influence of such men as Gerhard definitely Synergistic. Its Synergism, however, is not strictly cooperation; it is, on man's part, non-resistance and passive consent. If one does not resist the Word and the Spirit, God regenerates him. His non-resistance, it is true, conditions regeneration, but the will is not an active co-efficient. This allusion is made to the Lutheran doctrine in order to get by comparison a clear conception of the Arminian. On the one hand, the Arminian doctrine is distinguished from the Semi-Pelagian in a two-fold way: by denying what the Semi-Pelagian affirms, namely, that man apart from grace begins conversion, and by holding that regeneration, although conditioned by repentance, faith and justification, is accomplished by God himself. It agrees with the Semi-Pelagian in making the human will an active co-efficient in conversion before regeneration, and the determining factor in presenting the conditions upon which regeneration is effected. It is distinguished from the Lutheran doctrine by denying that mere non-resistance is the condition of regeneration, and maintaining that the positive co-operation of the will with grace in repentance and faith is that condition. It agrees with the Lutheran in holding that a state of the sinner's will, determined by himself, is a condition precedent to the regenerating act. The Evangelical Arminian doctrine, therefore, occupies a position between the Lutheran and the Semi-Pelagian, with a stronger affinity with the latter and a greater tendency towards it. This is shown by the development of the Evangelical Arminian Theology. The Remonstrants declined towards Semi-Pelagianism as they receded from Arminius, and so the Evangelical Arminians are more and more tending towards it as the interval widens between them and Wesley.

It may be remarked, in passing, that this recession of the Evangelical Arminian theology from its first position is apparent in connection with other phases of doctrine than that immediately under consideration. Wesley and Watson held that the race suffer penally in consequence of Adam's sin. Raymond denounces "the abhorrent doctrine of inherited obligation to punishment." [59] By Wesley and Watson the doctrine of total depravity was more strongly and unqualifiedly asserted than it is now. Wesley allowed the imputation of Christ's righteousness. The denial of it was begun by Watson, and it is now emphatically rejected. But it is in regard to the supreme question in hand of the entire dependence of the poor, guilty, miserable, undone sinner upon the grace of God for conversion that this downward tendency becomes as conspicuous as it is lamentable to every lover of gospel truth. The venerable John Wesley failed not to affirm this dependence in strong and unmistakable terms. Where will you find an assertion by him of the supremacy of the sinner's will in the great concern of personal salvation? But now we hear it boldly and roundly declared by learned theologians "that man determines the question of his salvation." These ominous words peal on the ear like the notes of a fire-bell at the dead of night. They mean a sure descent to a lower level of doctrine than that of the early Evangelical Arminians. Those men were prevented by their deep experience of grace from using this language. But alas! they sowed the seed which have sprung up and are now bearing the fruits of Semi-Pelagianism. Well, it may be asked, what is there so bad in that? What if the logical tendencies of the system are in the direction of Semi-Pelagianism? To that question this must be replied: James Arminius did not, as Limborch afterwards did, advocate that theology; John Wesley would have gone to the stake before he would have confessed his approval of it; it is one for which Jesuits have contended, and against which pious Romanists have struggled; it is, in some respects, less orthodox than that of Trent; such men as Prosper, Hilary and Fulgentius treated it as essentially Pelagian, and the Magdeburg Centuriators afterwards did the same; in short, it denies the supremacy of the grace of God and reduces it into subordination to the human will, and is therefore a subversion of the gospel scheme. I have sung and prayed and preached with Evangelical Arminians, and have been with them in precious seasons of reviving grace; some of them are among my most cherished friends, and some I have seen cross the Jordan of death whose shoes I would have carried; but could I get the ear of my Evangelical Arminian brethren, I would ask their attention to those illboding and alarming words issuing from high places: "Man determines the question of his salvation." Do they express the logical result of their theological principles? If they do, is it not time to subject those principles to a fresh examination?

NOTE. - The reader is referred for a very able, though necessarily succinct, discussion of the points in this controversy by the illustrious Southern divine, Dr. R. L. Dabney, in his Theology: Lectures XLVIII., XLIX., on the Arminian Theory of Redemption. Serus in caelum redeat.

SECTION II. THE DOCTRINE OF REPROBATION STATED AND PROVED.

THE following are the statements of the Westminster Confession of Faith, which are either indirectly or directly concerned about the doctrine of Reprobation:

"God from all eternity did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass: yet so as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty and contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.

"By the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life, and others foreordained unto everlasting death.

"These angels and men, thus predestinated and foreordained, are particularly and unchangeably designed; and their number is so certain and definite, that it cannot be either increased or diminished.

"The rest of mankind [that is, those not elected to life] God was pleased, according to the unsearchable counsel of his will, whereby he extendeth or withholdeth mercy as he pleaseth, for the glory of his sovereign power over his creatures, to pass by, and to ordain them to dishonor and wrath for their sin [N. B.], to the praise of his glorious justice.

"Although, in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the first cause, all things come to pass immutably and infallibly; yet by the same providence he ordereth them to fall out, according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently.

"The almighty power, unsearchable wisdom, and infinite goodness of God so far manifest themselves in his providence, that it extendeth itself even to the first fall, and all other sins of angels and men; and that not by a bare permission, but such as hath joined with it a most wise and powerful bounding, and otherwise ordering and governing of them, in a manifold dispensation to his own holy ends: yet so as the sinfulness thereof proceedeth only from the creature, and not from God, who, being most holy and righteous, neither is, nor can be, the author or approver of sin. [N. B.]

"As for those wicked and ungodly men, whom God, as a righteous judge, for former sins, doth blind and harden, from them he not only withholdeth his grace, whereby they might have been enlightened in their understandings, and wrought upon in their hearts; but sometimes also withdraweth the gifts which they had, and exposeth them to such objects as their corruption makes occasion for sin; and withal gives them over to their own lusts, the temptations of the world, and the power of Satan: whereby it comes to pass that they harden themselves, even under those means which God useth for the softening of others.

"Our first parents, being seduced by the subtilty and temptation of Satan, sinned in eating the forbidden fruit. This their sin God was pleased, according to his wise and holy counsel, to permit [TO PERMIT, be it noticed], having purposed to order it to his own glory.

"They being the root of all mankind, the guilt of this sin was imputed . . . to all their posterity, descending from them by ordinary generation.

"The first covenant made with man was a covenant of works; wherein life was promised to Adam, and in him to his posterity, upon condition of perfect and personal obedience.

"Man, by his fall, having made himself incapable of life by that covenant, etc.

"God hath endued the will of man with that natural liberty, that it is neither forced, nor by any absolute necessity of nature determined to good or evil.

"Man, in his state of innocency, had freedom and power to will and to do that which was good and well-pleasing to God; but yet mutably, so that he might fall from it. [60]

"All those whom God hath predestinated unto life, and those only, he is pleased, in his appointed and accepted time, effectually to call by his word and Spirit out of that state of sin and death, in which they are by nature, to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ, etc. . . . Others, not elected, although they may be called by the ministry of the word, and may have some common operations of the Spirit, yet they never truly come unto Christ and therefore cannot be saved."

The Westminster Larger Catechism, after stating the doctrine of election, says: "And also, according to his sovereign power, and the unsearchable counsel of his own will (whereby he extendeth or withholdeth favor as he pleaseth) [God] hath passed by, and fore-ordained the rest to dishonor and wrath, to be for their sin inflicted [N. B.], to the praise of the glory of his justice."

The following statements are extracted from the judgment of the Synod of Dort.

"Forasmuch as all men have sinned in Adam, and are become guilty of the curse, and of eternal death; God had done wrong unto no man, if it had pleased him to leave all mankind in sin and under the curse, and to condemn them for sin.

"The cause or fault of this unbelief, as of all other sins, is in no wise in God, but in man. But faith in Jesus Christ, and salvation through him, is the free gift of God.

"But whereas, in process of time, God bestoweth faith on some, and not on others, this proceeds from his eternal decree. For, from the beginning of the world God knoweth all his works. Acts xv. 18, Eph. i. 11. According to which decree, he graciously softens the hearts of the elect, however otherwise hard; and as for those that are not elect, he in just judgment leaveth them to their malice and hardness. And here especially is discovered unto us the deep, and both merciful and just, difference put between men, equally lost; that is to say, the decree of election and reprobation, revealed in God's Word. Which as perverse, impure and wavering men do wrest unto their own destruction, so it affords unspeakable comfort to godly and religious souls.

"Moreover, the holy Scripture herein chiefly manifests and commends unto us this eternal and free grace of our election, in that it further witnesseth, that not all men are elected, but some not elected, or passed over in God's eternal election: whom doubtless God in his most free, most just, unreproachable and unchangeable good pleasure hath decreed to leave in the common misery (whereinto by their own default they precipitated themselves), and not to bestow saving faith and the grace of conversion upon them; but leaving them in their own ways, and under just judgment, at last to condemn and everlastingly punish them, not only for their unbelief, but also for their other sins, to the manifestation of his justice. And this is the decree of reprobation, which in no wise makes God the author of sin, (a thing blasphemous once to conceive,) but a fearful, unreprovable and just judge and revenger."

The French Confession: "Others he [God] left in that corruption and damnation, in whom he might as well make manifest his justice, by condemning them justly in their time, as also declare the riches of his mercy in the others. For some are not better than others, till such time as the Lord doth make a difference, according to that immutable counsel which lie had decreed in Christ Jesus before the creation of the world."

The Belgic Confession: "We believe that God (after that the whole offspring of Adam was cast headlong into perdition and destruction through the default of the first man) hath declared and showed himself to be such an one as he is indeed; namely, both merciful and just . . . just, in leaving others in that their fall and perdition, whereinto they had thrown themselves headlong."

Formula Consensus Helvetica: "In such wise indeed did God determine to illustrate his glory that he decreed, first to create man in integrity, then to permit his fall, and finally to pity some from among the fallen and so to elect them, but to leave the others in the corrupt mass, and at length to devote them to eternal destruction."

The Irish Confession (Episcopal): "God, from all eternity, did, by his unchangeable counsel, ordain whatsoever in time should come to pass: yet so as thereby no violence is offered to the wills of the reasonable creatures, and neither the liberty nor the contingency of the second causes is taken away, but established rather.

"By the same eternal counsel, God hath predestinated some unto life, and reprobated some unto death: of both which there is a certain number, known only to God, which can neither be increased nor diminished."

These statements of the doctrine of reprobation in Calvinistic formularies may be digested into the following definition:

Reprobation is God's eternal purpose, presupposing his foreknowledge of the fall of mankind into sin through their own fault, and grounded in the sovereign pleasure of his own will, not to elect to salvation certain individual men, - that is, to pass them by, and to continue them under condemnation for their sins, - in order to the glory of his justice.

The scriptural proofs are as follows:

1. The testimonies which have been adduced to prove the doctrine of election also establish that of reprobation; for, if God elected to salvation some of mankind, it follows as a necessary inference that he did not elect the rest, but purposed to continue them under condemnation for their sins.

2. God did not create men in order that they should sin and be damned and so glorify his justice; for he is not the author of sin, but man, in the first instance, sinned and fell by the free and avoidable decision of his own will.

Gen. i. 26, 27, 31: "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness . . . So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him." "And God saw every thing that lie had made, and, behold, it was very good."

Gen. v. 1: "In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him."

1 Cor. xi. 7: "For a man indeed not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God."

2 Cor. iii. 18: "But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory."

Eph. iv. 24: " And that ye put on the new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness."

Col. iii, 10: "And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him."

Jas. iii. 9: "Therewith bless we God even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God."

Ecc. vii. 29: "Lo, this only have I found, that God made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions."

Ps. xcix. 8: "Thou tookest vengeance of their inventions."

Acts, xvii. 26: "And hath made of one blood all nations of men."

Rom. i. 20, 21: "For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse; because that when they knew God, they glorified him not as God," etc.

Rom. v. 12, 17, 18, 19: "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned . . . By one man's offence death reigned by one . . . By the offence of one [or, one offence] judgment came upon all men to condemnation . . . By one man's disobedience many were made sinners."

Gen. iii. 12, 17: "And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat . . . And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake," etc.

Jas. i. 13-17: "Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: but every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. Do not err, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning."

1 John ii. 16: "For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father."

Hos. xiii. 9: "O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself."

3. Some testimonies to the awful fact of the reprobation of the wicked are subjoined.

Ex. vii. 3, 4, and ix. 12, 16: "And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt. But Pharaoh shall not hearken unto you." "And the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he hearkened not unto them; as the Lord had spoken unto Moses. . . . And in very deed for this cause have I raised thee up, for to show in thee my power; and that my name may be declared in all the earth."

Deut. xxix. 4: "Yet the Lord hath not given you a heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day."

Deut. xxxiii. 35: "To me belongeth vengeance and recompense; their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste."

Prov. xvi. 4: "The Lord hath made all things for himself: yea even the wicked for the day of evil."

Isa. vi. 9, 10: "And he said, Go and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and convert, and be healed."

Isa. xxix. 10: "For the Lord hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and hath closed your eyes."

Isa. xxx. 33: "For Tophet is ordained of old; yea, for the king it is prepared."

Isa. lx. 2: "For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee."

Mal. i. 2-5: "I have loved you, saith the Lord. Yet ye say, wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob's brother? saith the Lord: yet I loved Jacob, and I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness. Whereas Edom saith, we are impoverished, but we will return and build the desolate places; thus saith the Lord of hosts, They shall build, but I will throw down; and they shall call them, The border of wickedness, and, The people against whom the Lord hath indignation forever. And your eyes shall see, and ye shall say, The Lord will be magnified from the border of Israel."

Matt. xi. 25, 26: "At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because 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. xiii. 13, 14: "Therefore speak I to them in parables; because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive."

Mark iv. 11, 12: "And he said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables: that seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them."

Lk. iv. 25-28: "But I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land; but unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet, and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian. And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath."

John x. 26: "But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you."

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."

John xvii. 9: "I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine."

Acts xxviii. 25, 26: "And when they agreed not among themselves, they departed, after that Paul had spoken one word, Well spake the Holy Ghost by Esaias the prophet unto our fathers, saying, Go unto this people and say, Hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see and not perceive, etc."

Rom. ix. 13: "Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated."

Rom. ix. 17, 18, 21, 22: "For the Scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth. Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth . . . Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor? what, if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much long suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction?"

Rom. xi. 7-10: "What then? Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded (according as it is written, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear;) unto this day. And David saith, Let their table be made a snare, and a trap, and a stumbling-block, and a recompence unto them: let their eyes be darkened that they may not see, and bow down their back alway."

2 Tim. ii. 17-20: "And their word will eat as doth a canker: of whom is Hymeueus and Philetus; who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already; and overthrow the faith of some. Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his. And, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity. But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to honor, and some to dishonor."

1 Thess. v. 9: "For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ." The necessary implication is, that God has appointed some to wrath.

1 Pet. ii. 8: "And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed."

2 Pet. ii. 3: "And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not."

Jude, 4: "For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ."

Such are the proofs of the doctrine of reprobation which are derived from the Word of God, and they are too solid to be shaken by appeals to human sentiment, or even to human reason. It is admitted that the chief weight of the argument consists in the scriptural evidence in favor of unconditional election. That being proved, reprobation cannot be denied. The two doctrines stand or fall together. They are opposite sides of the same truth - two hemispheres of the same globe, one bright with the light of the divine love and of the beauty of holiness, the other dark with the judicial frown of God and the dreadful deformity of sin. But while this is true, the additional evidence furnished by the direct testimony of the Scriptures which have been cited is also conclusive. Some of the passages quoted have, of course, been strenuously contested. The most prominent are i Pet. ii. 8, and Jude, 4. But it must be conceded that the word in the former passage translated "appointed" (ετεθησαν) has in it the force of purpose; and while the same thing is not as apparently true of the word in the latter passage rendered "before ordained" (προγεγραμμενοι), yet the same sense is substantially conveyed. For, if that disputed word be literally translated "before written," it would have to be confessed that the written assignment beforehand of these ungodly men to condemnation was but a revelation of God's judicial purpose. It will not do to say that only God's foreknowledge of the doom of these wicked men was expressed, for the obvious reason that no man can be doomed, except God dooms him, and that necessarily involves an eternal purpose; unless the preposterous ground could be maintained that God's purpose to condemn, like his actual sentence of condemnation, has no existence until the crime meriting condemnation shall have been committed. Further, to represent the Calvinist as holding that God dooms men to sin, as well as to condemnation for their sin, and in order to that condemnation, is to misrepresent him.

It is not deemed necessary to develop at large the proofs of the doctrine, particularly as it will fall to be considered in connection with the objections which will hereafter be examined. A few words are added, expounding the nature of the doctrine and guarding it against misconception.

The Calvinistic doctrine is not that God decreed to make men sinners. "Our Standards," says Dr. Thornwell, the late able Professor of Systematic Theology in one of the Seminaries of the Southern Presbyterian Church, "afford no sort of shelter to the Hopkinsian error, that the decree of reprobation consists in God's determining to fit a certain number of mankind for eternal damnation, and that the divine agency is as positively employed in men's bad volitions and actions as in their good." [61] God in eternity conceived the human race as fallen into sin by its own free and avoidable self-decision. So conceiving it, he decreed judicially to condemn the whole race for its sin. We have seen that the teaching of Scripture is, that out of his mere mercy, and according to the good pleasure of his sovereign will, he decreed to save some of the fallen and sinful mass who were thus contemplated as justly condemned. That is Election. The rest, consequently, were not elected to be saved, but were passed by and ordained to continue under just condemnation. That is Reprobation. There are two elements which it involves: first, a sovereign act of God, by which they were in his purpose passed by and left in the condition in which they were regarded as placing themselves. That is called Preterition. Secondly, there is a judicial act of God, by which they were in his purpose ordained to continue under the sentence of the broken law and to suffer punishment for their sin. That is called Condemnation. Principal William Cunningham, the late distinguished Professor of Historical Theology in the Free Church of Scotland, who, as a Comparative Theologian of the first eminence, ought to have known what he was talking about, thus clearly explains the doctrine: "In stating and discussing the question with respect to reprobation, Calvinists are careful to distinguish between the two different acts formerly referred to, decreed or resolved upon by God from eternity, and executed by him in time, - the one negative and the other positive, - the one sovereign and the other judicial. The first, which they call non-election, preterition, or passing by, is simply decreeing to leave - and in consequence, leaving - men in their natural state of sin: to withhold from them, or to abstain from conferring upon them, those special, supernatural, gracious influences, which are necessary to enable them to repent and believe; so that the result is, that they continue in their sin, with the guilt of their transgression upon their head. The second - the positive, judicial - act is more properly that which is called, in our Confession, 'fore-ordaining to everlasting death,' and 'ordaining those who have been passed by to dishonor and wrath for their sin.' God ordains none to wrath or punishment, except on account of their sin, and makes no decree to subject them to punishment which is not founded on, and has reference to, their sin, as a thing certain and contemplated. But the first, or negative, act of preterition, or passing by, is not founded upon their sin, and perseverance in it, as foreseen." [62]

This is the decretum horribile - an expression of Calvin concerning which endless changes have been rung. It is a decree, not horrible in the sense of being too bad to be believed, but of being terrible to the wicked and awful even to the pious. It is indeed suited to appal the stoutest heart and blanch the boldest face. It reveals more strongly than anything else, except the Cross on which Jesus bled and died, God's infinite abhorrence of Sin - the opposite of his nature, the menace of his government, the dynamite of the universe. And it is enough to fill us with horror of sin to know, that even infinite mercy has rescued not one of the fallen angels from their doom, and only some of our guilty and ruined race from the everlasting damnation which is its due.

SECTION III. OBJECTIONS FROM THE MORAL ATTRIBUTES OF GOD ANSWERED

Preliminary Remarks.

I now proceed to consider the objections which are urged against the Calvinistic doctrines of election and reprobation. They are mainly derived from two sources - the moral attributes of God, and the moral agency of man. Before these objections are specially examined a few things must be premised.

First, the question of the divine decrees in relation to the everlasting destinies of men is one which, as it is raised by God's supernatural revelation of his will in his Word, must be settled by its authority. Reason in its original integrity - right reason, which was a part of God's first revelation of himself to man - was entitled to speak concerning the general plan of the divine government, and to deduce inferences from it in regard to God's eternal purposes as thus manifested. But sin has occurred; and the question of a possible recovery from its retributive results reason could have no means of determining. Upon that question only a new and supernatural revelation could throw any trustworthy light. This would have been true had reason itself retained its original purity. But it has not. The faculty which presumes to sit in judgment upon the awful problem of sin, and its relation to the divine government, has itself been seriously affected by the moral revolution which has taken place. It is therefore doubly incompetent to assume the functions of a judge.

True, reason circumstanced as it now is, has a legitimate office to discharge in judging of the claims of a revelation professing to come from God. But that preliminary office having been performed, and the conclusion having been reached, that the Bible is a revelation from God, the duty of reason is to submit to the divine authority involved in that expression of his will. Hence one great Protestant canon is, that the Bible is the only complete and ultimate rule of faith and practice. It alone, in spiritual matters, infallibly teaches us what we are to believe, and what we are to do.

But, as this supreme rule has to be interpreted, another great canon, co-ordinate with the first, is that the Holy Spirit, speaking in the Scriptures, is the supreme judge of controversies in religion. The supreme rule is the Scriptures; the Supreme Judge of the meaning of the rule is the Holy Ghost speaking in the Scriptures - this is the watchword of Protestantism.

Now, in the controversy between Calvinists and Arminians touching the decrees of God in relation to the destinies of men, both parties admit the canons which have been noticed. It is clear, then, that both parties to the issue are under obligation not to judge the infallible Scriptures by fallible reason - not to subordinate the supreme rule to a lower, and the supreme judge to an inferior. Appeals are competent from the court of reason; but the court of last resort, from which no appeal can lie, is the Scriptures illuminated and interpreted by the Holy Ghost. This is, on both sides, acknowledged.

The argument, then, is one founded on Scripture, and it may be fairly claimed that the doctrines of election and reprobation have, in the conduct of this discussion, been made to rest upon scriptural proofs. If so, no merely rational objections can be validly urged against them.

Secondly, the fact deserves to be noted that, in the prosecution of this controversy, the arguments of Arminian writers have been chiefly grounded in rational considerations, and not in the direct testimonies of Scripture. When the Calvinist shows from the express declarations of the divine Word that God from eternity elected some of the human race to salvation, the Arminian is unable to adduce such positive statements to prove that he did not. His arguments are drawn, in the main, from general principles announced in the Scriptures, and from what are supposed to be fundamental intuitions of the human mind. Now it is evident that this sort of reasoning, in relation to doctrines of a purely supernatural character, cannot be of equal value with direct appeals to the explicit deliverances of Scripture. Ignorance and an evil heart of unbelief are prolific sources of error in regard to the mysterious truths of a supernatural revelation.

In the first place, we are ignorant of God's nature as it is in itself, and of the vast and comprehensive scheme of his moral government as a whole. The analogy of our own nature, and the limited observation to which we can attain of the procedures of divine providence, are utterly insufficient guides to the understanding of such supernatural truths as the election and condemnation of human beings.

In the second place, our ignorance is often manifested in wrong inferences from admitted principles. It is obvious that the danger arising from this source is much greater when we deduce our inferences from general statements, than when we draw them from definite declarations made in the professed delivery or elucidation of particular truths.

In the third place, an evil heart of unbelief inclines us to refuse submission to God's authority, and to reject doctrines which are plainly revealed. Of this danger the teachers of religion in our Saviour's day furnished eminent examples. We tend to accept tradition, precedents, widespread opinions and the apparently instinctive judgments of reason, rather than the authoritative statements which miraculous credentials prove to come directly from God himself. The docile and trusting temper of little children becomes us in dealing with the oracles of God.

In the fourth place, under the operation of the same causes men are prone to assert for the natural reason the prerogative of final judgment upon the contents of supernatural revelation. They appeal to the intuitive judgments of their souls as a higher law superior to the Bible itself. The danger of mistake just here is great and imminent. The Bible does not contradict any true intuition, intellectual or moral, of our being. It must harmonize with our fundamental laws of belief and our fundamental laws of rectitude, for its Author is theirs. When a conflict seems to emerge between it and them, we may be sure that we have mistaken false laws for true, embraced a cloud for a divinity. There is peril of grievous blundering when we bring the Bible to the bar of our intuitions.

Thirdly, Arminian writers are in the habit of dwelling at much greater length upon the difficulties of reprobation than upon those of election. Reprobation, they argue, is but an inference from election, and in disproving the consequence they claim to disprove that from which it is derived. This was the course pursued by the Remonstrant divines at the Synod of Dort, and when the Synod objected to it as illegitimate they complained of the decision as a grievance. This is certainly unfair. The doctrine of election is much more definitely, fully and clearly delivered in Scripture than that of reprobation, and therefore it should be made the first and principal topic of discussion. The Arminians, moreover, overlook the fact that Calvinists do not hold reprobation to be merely an inference from election. They maintain that it is also supported by independent testimonies of Scripture. It is necessary to a thoroughgoing apprehension of the state of the controversy that attention be called to this method of procedure on the part of Anti-Calvinists.

Fourthly, it merits notice, in view of the fact that Anti-Calvinists conduct their argument mainly by urging objections to the Calvinistic position, that "mere objections constitute at best but a negative testimony which cannot destroy positive evidence." The same course of argumentation would, if successful, upset our belief in some of the grandest and most essential articles of the Christian scheme. If positive evidence of Scripture is to be sacrificed to objections and difficulties raised by the natural reason or the natural feelings, nothing would be left to us but the dry bones of Natural Religion, and even them the Atheist would not allow to rest in peace.

It is not intended to affirm that Arminians offer no testimony upon this subject, which is professedly drawn from Scripture. But the direct proofs, as has already been shown, are, as proofs, insignificant both in weight and in number; being so debatable in character as to be actually adduced on the Calvinistic side, and opposed, as they are, by an overwhelming mass of direct proofs in favor of the doctrines in question. The quantity of direct and positive evidence is certainly against the Arminian. He furnishes, it is true, abundance of indirect proof, derived by way of inference from doctrines conceived to be inconsistent with those of election and reprobation. In view of this seeming conflict of doctrines, pains have been taken in the previous part of this discussion to exhibit the direct and positive proofs afforded by the Scriptures of the doctrines of election and reprobation. If the Arminian were able to collect an equal body of such proofs in favor of the doctrines that God efficiently wills the salvation of every individual man, and of the doctrine that he gave his Son to die that every individual man should be saved, the result would certainly be that the Bible would contradict itself, and consequently there need be no further question in regard to what it teaches. But if the direct proofs of the Arminian amount to no more than the establishment of the doctrines that God, in some sense, wills the salvation of all men, and that, in some sense, he gave his Son to die for all men, no contradiction emerges; and the sense, in which the statements that God wills the salvation of all men and that he gave his Son to die for all men are to be taken, must be adjusted to doctrines which are positively and unequivocally asserted in the divine Word. Doubtful statements must be squared with unambiguous. They must dress by the right.

Fifthly, it is unwarrantable for us, limited as are our faculties, and sinful as are our natures, to speculate as to what God ought to do or must do in consistency with his character. It becomes us rather to hear with reverence what, in his Word, he says he has done or will do. Impressed by the necessity of the direct and positive testimony of Scripture, which is lacking in the usual argument from the character of God against the Calvinistic doctrine, some distinguished Anti-Calvinistic writers, such as Bishop Copleston and Archbishop Whately, virtually abandoned that line of proof.

Having cited attention to these considerations which lie at the very threshold of the question before us, I pass to the examination of special objections to the Calvinistic doctrines of election and reprobation; and the first class we encounter is derived from the Moral Attributes of God.

1. Objection from Divine Justice.

It is objected that these doctrines are inconsistent with the justice of God.

It is important to observe that this objection derived from the divine justice is not mainly directed against the decree to elect some of the human race to salvation. How could it? What has justice to do with election, which is confessedly the result of grace? It is true that the Calvinistic doctrine of election is charged with imputing partiality to God in distinguishing between the members of the race, so as to save some and leave others to perish. But the objection is chiefly leveled against the decree to reprobate some of the human race. It is especially this decree which is declared to be in conflict with justice. Now let us recall the statement of the Calvinistic doctrine of reprobation. It is that God decreed sovereignly to pass by - that is, not to elect to salvation - some of the guilty and condemned mass of mankind, and judicially to continue them under the condemnation which, by their sin, they were conceived in the divine mind as having deserved. That is the Calvinistic doctrine. Is it against this doctrine that the objection from justice is urged? It is not. What, then, is the doctrine, as stated by Arminian writers, against which the objection is pressed? Let us hear one of them who at the present day holds the position of a representative theologian. He says:

"By unconditional election divines of this class [Calvinists] understand an election of persons to eternal life without respect to their faith or obedience, those qualities in them being supposed necessarily to follow as consequences of their election; by unconditional reprobation, the counterpart of the former doctrine, is meant a non-election or rejection of certain persons from eternal salvation; unbelief and disobedience following this rejection as necessary consequences." [63]

Let these statements be compared. The Calvinist says, God finds men already disobedient and condemned, and leaves some of them in the condition of disobedience and condemnation to which by their own avoidable act they had reduced themselves. The Arminian represents the Calvinist as saying, God decrees to reject some of mankind from eternal salvation, and their disobedience follows as a necessary consequence. That is to say, if the language mean anything, God's decree of reprobation causes the disobedience of some men, and then dooms them to eternal punishment for that disobedience. But who would deny that to be unjust? That is not what the Calvinistic doctrine teaches. No section of the Calvinistic body teaches it. The Calvinistic Symbols do not. The Sublapsarian theologians do not; and they constitute the vast majority of Calvinists. The Symbols and these theologians alike hold that man was created upright, in the image of God, endowed with ample ability to refrain from sinning, and that, therefore, he fell by his own free self-decision. Even the Supralapsarian theologians do not unqualifiedly teach the doctrine here imputed to Calvinists. To a man, they contend that God decreed to reprobate some of mankind "for their sin." But should it be said that they, in taking this position, are chargeable with inconsistency, it must be remembered that the body of Calvinists, being Sublapsarian, are not liable to the same charge. It is not, therefore, the Calvinistic doctrine of reprobation which is liable to the criticism of being incongruous with the justice of God, but one which Calvinists would unite with Arminians in condemning. The arrow misses the mark, and for a good reason: it was aimed at another. This is the first blunder in the Arminian statement of the Calvinistic position. It is represented to be: that God decreed to cause the first sin of man and then decreed to doom some of the fallen race to destruction for its commission. The true statement is: that God decreed to permit sin, and then decreed to continue some of the race under the condemnation which he foreknew they would, by their own fault, incur.

The second blunder in the Arminian statement of the Calvinistic position is, that the decrees of election and reprobation are represented as being equally unconditional. They are said to correspond in this respect. This representation is only partly correct; and how far it is correct and how far incorrect, it is important to observe. It is admitted that both the decrees of election and reprobation are conditioned upon the divine foreknowledge of the Fall; that is to say, the foreknowledge of the Fall is, in the order of thought, pre-supposed by each of these decrees. This is the doctrine of the Calvinistic Confessions, and even of Calvin himself. [64] But the question before us is, whether the divine foreknowledge of the special acts of men, done after the Fall, conditioned these decrees. It has already been shown that in this regard the decree of election is unconditional. It is not conditioned by the divine foreknowledge of the faith, good works and perseverance therein of the individuals whom God wills to save. The question being, whether the decree of reprobation is also unconditional, a distinction must be taken. The preterition - the passing by - of some of the fallen mass, and leaving them in their sin and ruin, is unconditional. It is not conditioned by the divine foreknowledge of their special sins, rendering them more ill-deserving than those whom God is pleased to elect. So far reprobation is unconditional. In this regard, it is, like election, grounded in the good pleasure of God's sovereign will. But the judicial condemnation - the continuing under the sentence of the broken law-of the non-elect, is conditional. It is conditioned by the divine foreknowledge of the first sin and of all actual transgressions, the special sins which spring from the principle of original corruption. In this respect, and to this extent, the decrees of election and reprobation are different, the one being unconditional, the other conditional. To say, then, that they are entirely alike in being both unconditional is to misrepresent the Calvinistic position. This exposition is supported by the following statement of Principal Cunningham: "The second - the positive, judicial act - is more properly that which is called, in our Confession, 'foreordaining to everlasting death,' and 'ordaining those who have been passed by to dishonor and wrath for their sin.' God ordains none to wrath or punishment, except on account of their sin, and makes no decree to subject them to punishment which is not founded on, and has reference to, their sin, as a thing certain and contemplated. But the first, or negative, act of preterition, or passing by, is not founded upon their sin, and perseverance in it as foreseen." [65]

The third blunder in the Arminian statement of the Calvinistic position is, that the decrees of election and reprobation are alike in being causes from which human acts proceed as effects; the former being the cause of holy acts in those who are to be saved, the latter, of sinful acts in those who are to be lost. After what has already been said there is little need to dwell upon the defectiveness of this statement. A sinner is destitute of any principle of holiness from which holy acts could spring. The efficiency of grace is a necessity to the production of holiness in his case. But the principle of depravity in a sinner's nature is itself a cause of sinful acts. Unless, therefore, the Calvinistic doctrine could be fairly charged with teaching that God causes the sinful principle, it cannot be held to teach that he causes the sinful acts which it naturally produces. On the contrary, it maintains that the principle of sin in the nature of man is self-originated. Its consequences are obviously referred to the same origin: all sin, original and actual is affirmed to be caused by man himself. God, in reprobating the sinner for his sins, cannot be said to cause his sins. But it will be replied that the difficulty is not entirely removed; for reprobation supposes that God withholds from the sinner the efficiency of grace by which alone he could produce holy acts, and so is represented as causing the absence of those acts and the commission of sinful. The rejoinder is plain: the assertion of a correspondence between the two decrees in regard to causal efficiency operating upon the sinner is given up. The only similarity remaining is one between election as directly and positively causing holy acts and reprobation as indirectly and negatively occasioning sinful. This amounts to a relinquishment of the analogy affirmed to obtain between them, and the preferment of a separate charge against the justice of reprobation: namely, that God is unjust in withholding from some sinners the efficient grace which he is said to impart to others. But if all men are sinners by their own free self-decision and, therefore, by their own fault, there would have been no injustice had God withheld his grace from all. Consequently there could have been no injustice in withholding it from some. What is true of all must be true of some. This point will meet further consideration as the discussion advances.

It is clear, in view of what has been said, that the implication contained in the fore-cited Arminian statement of the Calvinistic doctrine of reprobation is far from being correct - namely, that God, by virtue of that decree, causes the sins of the non-elect in the same way as, by virtue of the decree of election, he causes the faith and good works of the elect. In the decree of election he ordains men to salvation not because of their obedience, but of his mere mercy, according to the counsel of his sovereign will; while, in the decree of reprobation, he judicially, that is, in accordance with the requirement of his justice, ordains men to punishment because of their self-elected disobedience.

The Calvinistic doctrine having thus been cleared of mis-conception and mis-statement, we are prepared for the real state of the question. It is this: Was God just in eternally decreeing to punish transgressors of his law for their wilful violation of it? This being the real question, what answer but one can be given? Has not God, the righteous Governor of the world, a right to exercise his justice upon voluntary sinners? And if he has, was he unrighteous in eternally decreeing to exercise his justice upon them? The argument is not with those who deny the existence of retributive justice in God, but with those who admit it, and justify its exercise upon the wicked. How, then, can they pronounce a doctrine inconsistent with the divine justice, which affirms that God decreed to reprobate men for their sin? We may well ask with Paul, "Is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance?" Is the Judge of all the earth unjust in inflicting punishment upon reckless and inexcusable revolters against his government and violators of his law? It is evident that this cannot be the doctrine against which the objection under consideration is urged. It cannot be consistently advanced against this doctrine by the Arminian, for with the Calvinist he admits the justice of God in punishing wilful sinners. The doctrine against which it is directed is, that God so decreed the sin of man that it became in consequence of his decree necessary and unavoidable, and then decreed to punish man for what he could not avoid. But, as has been shown, that is not the doctrine which is held by the great body of Calvinists or stated in the Calvinistic symbols.

A special form of the objection drawn from the divine justice against the Calvinistic doctrines of election and reprobation is, that they ascribe partiality to God, in that he is represented as discriminating between those who are in the same case, by decreeing to save some and to reprobate others. The objection in this form is at least relevant, for the discrimination which is charged the Calvinist admits; but he denies that the discrimination involves partiality, in the sense of injustice. If there be injustice, it must either be to the divine government, or to the elect, or to the reprobate. It cannot be to the divine government, for the elect are saved through the merit of Christ, their glorious Substitute, who in their room rendered perfect satisfaction to the divine justice for their sins. It cannot be to the elect, for salvation cannot possibly inflict injustice upon them. It cannot be to the reprobate, for they had no sort of claim to the divine favor which was refused. They possessed no right of which they were defrauded. The only desert they had was of punishment for their sins. Where then is the injustice which was inflicted upon them? Discrimination there was, but it was between those who were all equally ill-deserving; and surely God had the right to release some from merited punishment, and to continue others under its infliction. Surely he had the right to exercise his mercy toward some and his justice upon others.

It might, with some color of plausibility, be said that God was not good in saving some and leaving others to perish, but how it can be pleaded that he was unjust passes comprehension. Let it be clearly perceived that none had any, the least, claim upon the divine regard, and the objection of unjust partiality at once vanishes. Let it be seen that all had brought themselves into sin and condemnation by their own free and unnecessitated decision, and it must be granted that the glorification of his mercy in the salvation of some, and of his justice in the punishment of others, were ends which were worthy of God. They were all, as criminals, prisoners in the hands of justice. God, as the supreme Sovereign pleases to exercise clemency towards some of them, and, as supreme judge, continues to exercise justice upon others, for the purpose of glorifying both his grace and his justice in the eyes of the universe. The execution of justice upon criminals is always dreadful; it can never he unjust. No temper but that of squeamish sentimentality, or of captious insubordination to the righteous measures of government, can detect injustice in such a procedure. One would suppose that instead of objecting to the justice of God in the punishment of his fellow-criminals, he who has been discharged by unmerited favor from his deserved share in their doom would spend time and eternity in thankful acknowledgments of that grace. That wicked men object to the justice of their own punishment is no matter of wonder; that pious men object to the justice of God in punishing the wicked, even though he might save them, is a fact which can only be accounted for on the ground that there is a wrong application of a true principle, as a standard of judgment in the case. Arminians and other Anti-Calvinists object to the Calvinist doctrine of reprobation because, as they contend, it involves this monstrous assumption: that God judicially condemns to everlasting punishment those whose sin was unavoidable and was therefore no fault of their own. God is represented as magnifying his justice in the punishment of the innocent. How do they support this objection?

They lay it down as a fundamental principle, that ability is always the condition and measure of obligation. No one can justly be required, under any circumstances, to do what he is unable to do. Ability to do must be equal to the commanded duty. This principle, in itself true, is universally applied, and consequently in some cases wrongly applied. It is applied to man in his present fallen and sinful condition as well as to man in his original and unfallen and sinless estate. The Calvinist maintains that men are now, in consequence of the Fall, and as unregenerate, in a condition of spiritual inability. They are not able to furnish acceptable obedience to the moral law, and they are likewise unable to comply with the requirements of the gospel. Now in what way did they come to be thus disabled? If by their own fault, their inability is the fruit of avoidable sin, and is therefore itself a sin. But, contends the Arminian, the Calvinist holds that they were born thus disabled; and if so, the inability was contracted by no fault of their own. It is congenital and constitutional. To condemn them for not doing what an inability so derived disqualifies them for doing is plainly unjust. It is like striking a corpse for a death which the living man could not avoid. This is the cardinal point in the question now at issue, and to it especial attention must be devoted.

1. The Sublapsarian Calvinist - and he is the true Calvinist - is not committed to the support of either party in the contest between the Arminian and the Supralapsarian. He is an interested spectator, except when his own position is endangered by assault. As the battle advances he cries, Strike on, Arminian! Wield the mighty principle that God is not the author of sin: that, in the first instance - the instance of man in innocence - ability is the condition and measure of obligation. Again he shouts, Strike on, Supralapsarian! Wield the mighty principle that in the second instance - the instance of man in his present fallen state - ability is not the condition and measure of obligation: that man's present inability is his own sin and crime, for which God justly condemns him to punishment. That, at the origin of the human race in innocence, ability conditioned and measured obligation, is not a distinctive tenet of Arminianism; it is the doctrine of the true Church Universal. That, in the present fallen condition of the race, inability cannot and does not discharge men from their obligation, as subjects of God's government, to render obedience to all his requirements, whether legal or evangelical, - this is not a peculiar tenet of Supralapsarianism; it also is the doctrine of the true Church Universal. The Arminian adheres to the faith of that Church, so far as man in innocence is concerned, and breaks with it, so far as man in his fallen, unregenerate state is concerned. The Supralapsarian departs from it as to man in innocence and cleaves to it as to fallen, unregenerate man. Both are right and both are wrong. The Calvinist holds the faith of the true Church in its integrity.

2. The difficulty of reconciling congenital inability with the justice of God in condemning men to punishment presses upon the Evangelical Arminian as well as upon the Calvinist. The former holds that men are born under guilt and in depravity. Consequently he must hold, and in fact does hold, that they are born in a condition of spiritual inability. [66] It is true that Dr. Pope speaks of an "unindividualized" human nature which before the birth of individuals is, through the virtue of Christ's atonement, freed from the guilt of Adam's sin and endued with a measure of spiritual life, and implies that were it not for this redemptive provision individuals would be born in spiritual death. But at other times he talks in the same dialect as his brethren, and admits the Evangelical doctrine that men are born in that condition. The question then is, how the Arminian harmonizes this fact with his fundamental principle that ability conditions obligation and the justice of God in punishing men for disobedience to his requirements. In this way: he holds that along with the decree to permit the Fall, there was, conditioned by the divine foreknowledge that it would occur, the decree to provide redemption from its consequences for all mankind. Accordingly, the merit of the universal atonement offered by Christ secured for all men the removal in infancy of the guilt of Adam's sin. And, further, he holds that a degree of spiritual life is imparted to every man, or, as it is sometimes expressed, a part of spiritual death is removed, and thus a measure of free will is restored. The original inability thus ceases to be total: men are endowed with a sufficient ability to comply with the divine requirements.

(1.) The first of these positions - namely, that Adam's guilt is by virtue of the atonement removed from every infant, is opposed by insuperable difficulties.

First, the fundamental assumption, that the atonement was offered for every individual man, cannot be proved from the Scriptures. They teach that Christ died for those of all nations and classes who were, in the eternal covenant, given to him by the Father to he redeemed. But as no value will be attached by the Arminian to this assertion, let it, for the sake of argument, be supposed that by virtue of the atonement the guilt of Adam's sin is removed from every infant. What follows? As an infant, he has, ex hypothesi; no guilt derived from Adam. That is removed. In that respect, therefore, he is innocent. But as an infant cannot contract guilt by conscious transgression, he is also in that respect innocent. There being no other source of guilt, he is entirely innocent. Is the Evangelical Arminian prepared to take the Pelagian ground that infants are altogether innocent? Further, he holds that infants are totally depraved in consequence of original sin residing in them as a principle. That he does not declare to have been removed by virtue of the atonement. We have then a being totally innocent and totally depraved, at one and the same time. Will the Evangelical Arminian defend that paradox? Further still, if it be said that total depravity is the result of development, and is consequently predicable only of the adult, the question arises, how a partial depravity, which is the principle of the development, can consist with entire innocence. The difficulty differs from the other merely in degree. If it be contended that the infant is both entirely innocent and entirely undepraved, the difficulty is avoided, but others equally great are substituted for it. For such a position would contradict the express teachings of his system and reduce his doctrine to bald Pelagianism. And, moreover, it would be impossible to account for the origin, the initial point of the development of depravity. There being no guilt and no depravity in the infant, he begins life both innocent and pure. How then does his depravity begin? Does each individual fall as Adam did? And are there as many falls as there are individuals? Would these absurdities be admitted? "We do not," says Dr. Pope, "assume a second personal fall in the case of each individual reaching the crisis of responsibility." [67] Well, then, each individual must begin existence depraved, and therefore cannot be innocent. But if he has guilt it must be Adam's guilt imputed, for he cannot contract, as an infant, the guilt of personal, conscious transgression.

There are two methods by which the Arminian may be conceived to evade the force of this difficulty. He may deny that depravity is sin. He may say, I admit the connate depravity of the infant, but as I do not concede that depravity is of the nature of sin, I am not exposed to the pressure of this difficulty. Innocence may not consist with sin, but it may with depravity. Lest it be supposed that this extraordinary hypothesis has been conjured up for the sake of an ideal completeness of the argument, let us hear a recent writer, Dr. C. W. Miller. Expressly following Limborch in his discussion of Original Sin, he says: "It is shown that the 'inclination to sin' which is a part of the fearful heritage received front Adam 'is not sin properly so called.' This is an important point." "The fundamental truth is here affirmed 'that there is no corruption in children which is truly and properly sin.' This cuts the tap-root of Augustinianism, whose main postulate is that infants inherit a moral corruption from Adam which is of the nature of sin, and deserves eternal death." Speaking purely for himself he further says: "The confusion of thought in Augustinianism consists in confounding sin and depravity. They are not the same, neither do they have any necessary connection." "It is true that man 'as born after the Fall possesses, even before any volitional act of his own, a fallen nature.' But that this 'fallen nature' is a 'sinful state' 'unrighteous evil, moral evil, sin, sinfulness,' [the quoted language being taken from Whedon on the Will] is all utter absurdity. A 'sinful nature or state' can be produced only by actual sin." [68]

In the first place, this hypothesis is extravagantly paradoxical. It violates the meaning of the terms and the usus loquendi of Christendom, including the Evangelical Arminian bodies themselves. In the second place, it strips a confessed inclination to sin of all sinful quality. In the third place, it denies sinfulness of the intense selfishness which manifests itself in children before they can intelligently appreciate their relation to the moral law. In the fourth place, it places every infant in the sinless condition of Adam before he fell, and to that extent is palpably Pelagian; and in the fifth place, it makes the universal allusion of theology and the Church to the Fall a wretched solecism, since there would be as many separate falls from sinlessness into sin as there have been, are and will be, human beings on earth. One may well pause here and notice, in this conspicuous instance, the trend of contemporary Arminian speculation to the Semi-Pelagianism of Cassian and Limborch. Indeed, Dr. Miller has no hesitation in avowing himself a theologian of that school. It requires no argument to show that if Evangelical Arminianism should take on that theological type it will have renounced the leadership of Wesley, Fletcher and Watson; notwithstanding Dr. Miller's labored attempt to evince the contrary.

There is another and apparently more promising method by which an attempt may be made to meet the difficulty created by the alleged co-existence in the infant of corruption with entire innocence. It will be urged that the same difficulty obtains in the case of the adult who is actually justified by faith. His whole guilt is removed by the justifying act, but yet the principle of corruption remains, and it will no doubt be said that upon this fact the Calvinist lays especial emphasis. But -

The removal of guilt and regeneration are inseparably related to each other. If one takes place so must the other. This is admitted by the Arminian himself. No question is here raised in regard to the order in which they occur - that is, whether regeneration precedes justification, or the opposite. Nor is it here made a question whether they occur synchronously, or may be separated by an interval of time. What is urged is, that where one of these great changes takes place the other will at some time assuredly occur. In the divine plan of salvation they are never disjoined. As the Calvinist would say, he who has been regenerated will be justified, and as the Arminian would put it, he who has been justified will be regenerated. No adult is held, by either, to be merely regenerated or merely justified, merely renewed or merely absolved from guilt. There is not in the case of the justified believer the simple co-existence of depravity with the removal of guilt. This inseparable relation of justification and regeneration the Arminian concedes with reference to infants dying in infancy. No human being can be admitted into heaven guilty and unregenerate. But the weight of the difficulty lies upon the case of the unregenerate infant who lives to adult age. He, according to the supposition, is absolved from Adam's guilt and yet is not regenerate. There is the simple, unmodified co-existence of innocence and depravity in his case, and consequently the analogy between it and that of the justified believer fails.

If to meet this special difficulty, it be said that not only are all infants justified from the guilt of Adam's sin, but that all infants are regenerated, the rejoinder is, that the Arminian doctrine, so far from teaching the regeneration of all infants, teaches the contrary; and further, it cannot be true that every heathen man has been regenerated in infancy.

It deserves also to be noticed that while depravity continues to exist in the justified believer, its operation is, in two respects, very seriously modified. (1.) It no longer reigns. It is not the dominant principle. Grace reigns. But in the infant unregenerated and incapable of consciously exercising faith in Christ, depravity is the reigning principle, and in the event of his growing to maturity will develop as such until regeneration takes place and faith is exercised for justification. (2.) In the justified believer depravity is checked, its development hindered, by the principle of holiness; and this principle, as it increases in energy, contributes more and more to the destruction of corruption. As this cannot be true of the unregenerate infant, it is obvious that the cases are not analogous.

Another specific difference between the two cases lies in the fact that, previously to justification, every believer has committed conscious sins, and developed, by his voluntary agency, the principle of depravity. While he is absolved from guilt, so far as the rectoral justice of God is concerned, and the retributive consequences of sill are involved, it is consistent with fatherly justice that the principle of corruption, restrained by grace, should remain within him. Intrinsically, that is, considered not as in Christ, but in himself, he deserves to eat some of the fruits of his own doing, and experimentally to feel the bitterness of sin. This vindication of the co-existence of depravity with justification will not apply to the circumstances of an infant, who, according to the supposition, has been justified from guilt without having committed any conscious sin.

Moreover, it ought not to escape observation that the depravity which continues in the justified believer is so overruled by God's government of grace as to secure the ends of a wholesome discipline. Now, it may be doubted whether any infant is, as such, susceptible of disciplinary rule; but, even if that hypothesis were admissible in relation to infants dying in infancy, it cannot be shown that depravity is overruled so as to further the ends of a salutary discipline in the cases of infants who do not die in infancy, but live to adult age and palpably die in their sins.

These considerations are sufficient to show that the objection pressed against the Arminian doctrine of the absolution of every infant from the guilt of Adam's sin, that it involves the co-existence of entire innocence and depravity, cannot be met by an appeal to the case of the justified believer.

Secondly, the view that Adam's guilt has been removed from every infant cannot be harmonized with the existence of depravity, whether regarded from the point of view of its origin, or of its results. Wesley and Watson admit that it is penal in its origin. But if so, as the guilt of Adam's sin is removed from the infant by virtue of the atonement, the depravity which is one of its penal consequences must also be removed. It is, however, inconsistently maintained that while the cause is destroyed the effect remains. Let depravity be contemplated with reference to its results. It must be admitted that they are penal. Whoever commits sin is worthy of punishment. This desert of punishment must be checked by the provision of vicarious atonement, or penal infliction must follow as its consequence. In the case of the infant, who lives to maturity, depravity, it is conceded, issues in conscious acts of sin. Before he is justified by faith these sins merit punishment. Notwithstanding then the alleged removal of Adam's guilt from the infant, he incurs condemnation when he commits personal sins; and this is the natural result of the existence in him of the principle of corruption. How is this exposure to incur punishment reconcilable with the removal of Adam's guilt? Only in one conceivable way: by his falling into sin through his own avoidable act. But such a fall is denied in regard to each individual, as we have seen in a citation from Dr. Pope. And such a fall as Adam's was when he first contracted guilt would be out of the question, since our first father had, previously to his first act of sin, no principle of depravity, and the infant confessedly has. If it be urged that sufficient grace is given to make the first sinful act and its consequent fall avoidable, it would follow that each individual falls as Adam did; and that is denied. It is evident that the presence of the principle of corruption in the unregenerated infant, who is held to be exempted from the penal consequences of Adam's sin and yet is not guilty of conscious transgression, is a fact which must prove troublesome to the Evangelical Arminian. [69]

Thirdly, if Adam's guilt is removed from every infant, the Arminian has to account for spiritual death as remaining in him. Spiritual death is held by him to be a consequence of Adam's guilt entailed upon his posterity. Now if the cause be removed the effect must go with it. But, confessedly, the effect does not go. It must therefore be inferred that the cause still operates to produce it. If then all infants are in a condition of spiritual death, it cannot be true that Adam's guilt has been removed from them. It will not do to say in reply to this that a degree of spiritual life is imparted to them. For, on that supposition, some degree of spiritual death remains, as is evident from the form in which Wesley's statement is presented by Watson - namely, a portion of spiritual death is removed. The portion, then, which is not removed remains. But the part continuing must be accounted for; and it could only be accounted for on the ground that a part at least of Adam's guilt, which is its cause, continues.

Fourthly, actual justification is split in two by this hypothesis, both as to the thing itself, and as to the time at which it occurs. For every infant is said to be justified, so far as Adam's guilt is concerned. When he has arrived at adult age he is exhorted to seek justification by faith. If he receive it, it is only in part. For as in infancy he was actually justified from Adam's guilt, he can, as an adult, be justified only from the guilt of his own conscious sins. But the Scriptures make no such division. They teach that actual justification is one, having reference as well to the guilt derived from Adam as to that contracted by personal transgressions.

Fifthly, the Evangelical Arminian theology is inconsistent with itself in regard to the analogy which it affirms between the effects of Adam's sin and Christ's righteousness. In the first place, it admits that Adam's sin entailed spiritual death upon his descendants. But as it contends that Adam's guilt is entirely removed from his posterity by virtue of the atonement, it should, to be consistent, hold that the entire effect of that guilt is removed. That would involve the total removal of spiritual death. On the contrary, it only concedes the removal of a portion of spiritual death. The benefit of the Atonement does not match the injury of the Fall. The life conferred is not equal to the death inflicted. The analogy breaks down. In the second place, it admits that the condemnation entailed by Adam's sin upon the whole race was actual, not possible. As it contends for an analogous effect, mutatis mutandis, of Christ's righteousness upon the whole race, the justification of the whole race ought to be actual, not possible. But only in part is it said to be actual: only infants experience an actual justification, and that from Adam's guilt. The justification of the infant who lives to adult age is merely possible. It is conditioned upon a faith which may never be exercised. The justification bestowed by Christ does not match the condemnation entailed by Adam. In the third place, it admits that the ruin resulting from Adam's sin was an actual, not a possible, ruin. The race is "lost and ruined by the Fall." So the salvation resulting from Christ's righteousness should be an actual, not possible, salvation. But the analogy fails. The possible salvation said to have been won by Christ does not match the actual ruin inflicted by Adam: in Adam all do die; in Christ all may live. Myriads do not actually live. For to restrict the term life to the resurrection of the body, and to say that the wicked will be raised to life in Christ, is to misinterpret the glorious words of Paul, and destroy their grand significance.

(2.) The position must next be considered, that, by virtue of Christ's atonement, God has given to every man a degree of spiritual life involving the restoration of a measure of free-will, so that every man is endued with sufficient ability to comply with the divine requirements. Now, either it is contended that this infusion of a degree of spiritual life is regeneration, or that it is not.

If it be contended that it is regeneration, the reply is obvious. It is true that Arminian writers do not make this supposition, and therefore it would seem to be unnecessarily considered here. But if there be an impartation of spiritual life to those who are admitted to be spiritually dead, it must be regeneration, even though it is by Arminians denied to be. The consideration of the hypothesis is therefore, from the necessity of the case, required. Now -

In the first place, Arminians are inconsistent with themselves in regard to this subject. If every man who by nature is spiritually dead is by grace made spiritually alive, it is perfectly manifest that every man is in infancy born again; for the new birth is precisely the change in which a principle of spiritual life is supernaturally introduced into the soul of the sinner. To take any other ground is to gainsay the Scriptures. They represent the change as one in which the spiritually dead sinner is quickened, and if the infusion of a degree of spiritual life does not quicken the soul, language has no meaning. Every man then is in infancy born again. But Evangelical Arminians and Evangelical Arminian preachers enforce upon adults the necessity of being born again. Why preach the need of the new birth to those who are already born again? How with consistency can it be said, You are regenerated, but you must be regenerated?

In the second place, if the impartation of a degree of spiritual life be regeneration, as the purpose of its bestowal, according to the Arminian theology, is that the will of the sinner may be assisted in determining the question of conversion, the regenerating grace of the Holy Ghost is reduced into subordination to the natural will: it is made a minister to incite that will to take saving action. Surely that cannot be true. If it be replied that it is the regenerating grace that determines the will, one of the differentiating elements of the Arminian system is given up, and, to that extent, the Calvinistic adopted.

In the third place, either it is maintained that this degree of spiritual life continues, or that it does not continue, with the sinner until the moment of his believing in Christ. If it continue with him through all changes until he believes, it may be long after he has reached adult age, how comes it to pass that it does not prove more successful as an assistant of the will? Could anything more clearly show the inferiority and subserviency to the natural will of the regenerating grace of God, than such an hypothesis? If it does not continue till the act of believing in Christ, but may be lost through the obstinate resistance of the sinner's will, is it again imparted, and again, and again? Is the series of infusions kept up until final impenitency ensues and the failure of its mission stands confessed; or until the sovereign will of the sinner vouchsafes compliance with its solicitations? And is the sinner, before he believes in Christ, born again an indefinite number of times? Are there many spiritual births before that second birth for which the unconverted sinner is exhorted to pray and strive?

If it be contended - and it is by Arminian writers contended - that the infusion of a degree of spiritual life into every man is not regeneration, the answer is: from the nature of the case it must be. That which is dead has no degree of life; that which has a degree of life is not dead. The supposition of the least degree of life destroys the supposition of death. If then the least degree of spiritual life be infused into every man, it follows that every man is spiritually alive. To deny this is to affirm that a man may be spiritually dead and spiritually alive at one and the same time. But if, in consequence of the infusion of a degree of spiritual life into every man, every man is spiritually alive, every man is regenerated. Every heathen is, in infancy, regenerated. For, it is the very office of regeneration to impart spiritual life to the spiritually dead sinner. It is admitted by all evangelical theologians, including Arminians, that regeneration, strictly speaking, is God's act in consequence of which a sinner is born again. If then he cannot be spiritually alive before he is spiritually born, or, what is the same, born again, be cannot be spiritually alive before he is regenerated; as he cannot begin to live spiritually before his new birth, he cannot begin to live spiritually before his regeneration. Upon this point we want no clearer proof than is furnished by Wesley himself. "Before" he says, "a child is born into the world, he has eyes, but sees not: he has ears, but does not hear. He has a very imperfect use of any other sense. He has no knowledge of any of the things of the world, or any natural understanding. To that manner of existence which he then has we do not even give the name of life. It is then only when a man is born that we say he begins to live."

He then applies the felicitous illustration to the case of a man "in a mere natural state, before he is born of God." [70] This witness is true. To be spiritually alive is to be born again. But as to be born again is to be regenerated, to be spiritually alive is to be regenerated. One, therefore, fails to see how the Evangelical Arminian, can consistently deny that, according to his doctrine, every man is in infancy regenerated. There is but one conceivable mode in which this difficulty may be sought to be avoided. He may deny that one who has a degree of spiritual life is spiritually alive; and it is enough to say of such a position that its statement is its refutation. But if it comes to this, that every man is affirmed to be regenerated in infancy, the doctrine would surpass in extravagance that of baptismal regeneration; and yet, by a happy inconsistency, the Evangelical Arminian utterly rejects that doctrine. Wonders never cease.

One might go on accumulating obstacles in the path of this remarkable tenet, that God gives a degree or seed of spiritual life to every man; but more will not now be said in regard to it, as it is the same with the doctrine of "sufficient grace" which has already been partially considered, and will be still more particularly examined when the objection to the Calvinistic doctrine from the divine goodness shall come to be discussed. It has been shown that the Arminian attempt is vain to escape the difficulty which was alleged to rest upon him as well as upon the Calvinist - namely, the reconciliation of the spiritual inability in which men are born with the justice of God in punishing them for sin.

3. The Calvinistic solution of this great difficulty, from the days of Augustin to the present time, is, that men's spiritual inability is not original, but penal. It is not original, for God conferred upon man at the creation ample ability to comply with all his requirements. There was not inserted into his nature any evil principle from which sin could be developed, nor any weakness or imperfection which, in the absence of determining grace, necessitated a fall. He was, it is true, liable to fall in consequence of mutability of will, but he was at the same time able to stand. When, therefore, he sinned, the fault was altogether his own. He could not lay the blame upon his natural constitution, and so, by implication, upon its divine author. He unnecessarily and inexcusably revolted against the paternal and beneficent rule of God, and consequently subjected himself to the just sentence of a violated law. When he sinned, he wantonly, deliberately, wilfully threw away that spiritual ability with which he had been richly endowed. He disabled himself by his own act. His subsequent inability to love God and obey his law was a necessary part of his punishment. For, the judicial curse of the divine government, and the rupture of the spiritual bond which united him to God as the source of holiness and strength, certainly involved the withdrawal of grace, and the loss of ability. Original righteousness was forfeited. In a word, his inability was penal.

Now, when our first father sinned, he acted not for himself alone but also for his posterity. He was appointed by God their federal head and representative. Consequently, while his act of sin was not theirs consciously and subjectively, for at the time of its commission they had no conscious existence, it was theirs federally, legally, representatively. The judicial consequences of his first sin were likewise entailed upon them. "They sinned in him and fell with him in his first transgression;" they were condemned in his condemnation; and they lost their spiritual ability in him. The spiritual inability which was a part of his punishment is a part of theirs. As the inability which he brought upon himself did not, and could not, discharge him from the obligation to obey God, so neither does theirs relieve them of the same obligation. The spiritual inability of the race, as it was self-contracted by an avoidable act of rebellion against God, cannot exempt them from the punishment which is justly due to their sin. And if it be just for God to punish them in time, it was just for him to decree the punishment in eternity. That is to say, the decree of reprobation is consistent with justice.

4. We have now reached the last point in this regression. We have got back to Adam, and the responsibility of the race for his first sin. Here the difference between the Calvinistic and Arminian doctrines seems to be lessened, and they appear to approximate each other. For they agree in affirming the accountability of mankind for the first sin of the first man, although they differ as to the mode in which that accountability is realized; the Arminian contenting himself with holding the parental relation as grounding it, the Calvinist contending that over and beyond the parental there was the strictly legal and representative relation from which the responsibility of the race is derived. To both parties the question springs up just here - and it is one of profoundest interest and importance - Was it just that the human race should be held responsible for the first sin of Adam, their progenitor, so that the judicial consequences of that sin are entailed upon them?

It is not necessary here to discuss the question, as one of fact, whether God entered into a covenant with Adam which implicated his posterity in his responsibility. The fact of such a covenant, the fact that there was some sort of federal constitution in relation to Adam and his posterity, is admitted by Evangelical Arminians. They admit that the account given in Genesis of the transactions in the garden of Eden is not allegorical but literal, not mythical but historical. They hold that the universality of bodily suffering and death, and of sin working with the force of an all-pervading law from the moment that the human faculties begin to expand, proves conclusively that in some way guilt and depravity are inherited from the primitive ancestor of the race, and are not originated by the conscious acts of each individual. Every man at birth is the heir of guilt and corruption. As then the fact of a federal constitution of some kind, and of the accountability, in some sense, of all men as parties to it in their first parent, is maintained by Evangelical Arminians along with almost the whole nominal Church, it is not requisite to enforce the proofs of it which are challenged by Pelagius and Socinians, Rationalists and Sceptics. It will be assumed.

But the questions, what the nature of the covenant was, in what sense Adam was the head and representative of his posterity, how the federal constitution affects our conceptions of the justice of God in his dealings with the human race, - these questions it is vital to the argument to consider. The Evangelical Arminian charges the Calvinistic doctrine with attributing injustice to God. But as he, with the Calvinist, concedes the hereditary guilt and corruption of mankind, in consequence of which, notwithstanding the aids of grace which he alleges are furnished them, innumerable multitudes actually perish, it is incumbent upon him as well as upon the Calvinist to vindicate the divine justice in view of these mysterious but undeniable facts. This he endeavors to accomplish in two ways:

(1.) The first is this: God, along with the decree to permit the fall of the first man and of his posterity as implicated in his responsibility, and his foreknowledge that the fall thus permitted would take place, also decreed to provide a redemption which would match the foreseen evil in all its extent. It is pleaded that the apparent injustice in holding the race involved in the consequences of their first father's sin and fall is relieved by the redemptive provision. The alleged bearing of this provided redemption upon the race, in absolving every man from the imputation of Adamic guilt, and restoring to each a seed of spiritual life and a competent measure of free will, thus affording to all a fair probation, removing from them spiritual inability, and rendering it possible for them to avail themselves of the salvation procured by Christ, - this has been already discussed. The point now to be considered is, the allegation of the Evangelical Arminian theology that without such a decreed provision of redemption, accompanying the fall of the race in Adam and intended to counteract its disastrous results, the justice of God could not be vindicated; but that, on the other hand, the fact of that provision supplies the desired vindication.

It is difficult, if not impracticable, to ascertain the catholic doctrines of the Evangelical Arminian system. One theologian teaches a doctrine which another either denies or modifies; and there is no common, recognized standard by which these differences could be judged. In regard to the positions just mentioned, for example, some hold that the purpose to permit the Fall with the entailment of its consequences upon all mankind, and the purpose to provide redemption as an antidote, were concurrent. Neither was the redeeming purpose conditioned by the purpose to permit the Fall, nor was it pre-supposed by the purpose touching the Fall. They must be conceived as concurrent, neither pre-supposing the other. With reference to this view it is sufficient to say that it is neither conceivable nor credible. We are obliged to think one purpose as pre-supposing another, not in the order of time - for that order is inapplicable to God's eternal purposes - but in the order of nature or of thought. How could the conception of redemption exist without the pre-supposition of beings to be redeemed? And how could the conception of such beings obtain without the pre-supposition of a fall into sin and misery?

Again, it has, with more ground in reason, been maintained that the purpose of redemption, in the order of thought, preceded and conditioned the purpose to permit the Fall and, indeed, all other purposes, even that to create. But-

In the first place, this view is inconsistent with the usual statement in the Arminian scheme of the order of the divine purposes, - namely the purpose to create; the purpose to permit the Fall; the purpose to redeem; the purpose to call; the purpose to elect.

In the second place, it has no clear support from Scripture. It has been supposed to be required by such passages as Colossians i. 16, where it is stated that all things were created, not only by Christ, but for him. This statement, however, does not necessarily imply that all things were created by the Son of God and for him, as he is Redeemer. And unless that could be proved to be the meaning of the passage, the view under consideration is not substantiated by it. No doubt the world was made for the glory of the eternal Son of God, but, for aught that appears to the contrary, that end might have been secured had sin not taken place, and had there consequently been no redemption. It is right to say that creation has by divine decree become a magnificent theatre for the display of the transcendent glory of redemption; but that is very different from saying that creation was decreed in order to be the theatre of redemption.

In the third place, this scheme of the divine decrees is liable to some of the difficulties, metaphysical and moral, to which that of the Supralapsarian is exposed. A decree to redeem merely creatable beings, or even created but unfallen beings, is inconceivable, if not self-contradictory; and if the decree of redemption, in the order of thought, preceded the decrees to create and to permit the Fall, creation and the Fall were means necessary to the accomplishment of the redemptive end. That would run athwart the doctrine of a simple permission of the Fall; and, further, since a large section of the human race, according to the admission of Arminians, are not actually saved, the end contemplated by the decree of redemption would, to that extent, fail to be accomplished and the divine will be defeated.

This view has also difficulties peculiar to itself. For, as the foreknowledge of a permitted fall could not, in the order of thought, have preceded the decree to create, since merely possible beings could not be permitted actually to fall, and it is impossible to see how the certainty that such beings would actually fall could be foreknown, the decree to redeem would have had no redeemable objects upon which to terminate, and therefore is inconceivable. And still further, if it be contended that such a decree was possible, it follows that as it fails, in its execution, to secure the final redemption of all, and actually issues in that only of some, of the human race, it would be subject to the very objection which Arminians urge against the Calvinistic decree of election.

But, whatever be the relation which Evangelical Arminians predicate of the purpose to permit the Fall and the purpose to redeem, whether the one precedes the other, or they are absolutely concurrent, the difficulty which they seek to avoid by making the decree to redeem complementary to the decree to permit the Fall still presses upon them. They do not, by this means, vindicate the justice of God in implicating the race in the responsibilities attending Adam's sin. It is held, let it be remembered, that it would have been unjust in God to treat the race as responsible for Adam's sin, had he not purposed to provide redemption from its consequences.

First, It deserves to be remarked that Evangelical Arminians are accustomed to enforce the analogy between the sufferings of men for the sin of Adam and the sufferings of children for the sins of their parents. Now, either it is just that children should suffer for the sins of their parents, or it is unjust. If it be said to be just, then, if the analogy hold, it is just that Adam's children should suffer for his sin. If it be said to be unjust, God's ordinary providence is charged with injustice; for it is a fact that children do suffer for the sins of their parents. Either alternative is damaging to the Arminian view. Let it be observed, that this argument is addressed to the concessions of Arminians. The analogy which they plead I regard as deceptive, and the argument based upon it as inconclusive.

Secondly, If the implication of the race in the consequences of Adam's sin would have been unjust apart from the purpose of redemption, it would follow that the prevention of the injustice must be conceived as having been the demand of justice and not a free dictate of grace. A measure by which injustice is prevented or removed cannot, without an abuse of language, be denominated a fruit of grace. It is a product of justice. And so the grace of God is no more grace. The redemption of sinners from the consequences of the Fall is required by justice. The sinner, therefore, instead of extolling divine grace should celebrate divine justice; instead of shouting, Grace! grace! he should shout, justice! justice! The truth is, that a constitution of things by which the interposition of divine justice is required to prevent or remove the effects of divine injustice is, from the nature of the case, as inconceivable as it is impossible. The only relief to the Arminian from the pressure of this difficulty would lie in denying that men, in any sense, suffer on account of Adam's sin, and that would throw him into collision with the doctrine of Scripture, the facts of experience and the results of observation.

Thirdly, If, apart from the provision of redemption, the constitution by which the race was involved in the consequences of Adam's sin would have been intrinsically unjust, the redemptive provision accompanying it could not possibly relieve that intrinsic injustice. It would inhere in the very nature of such a constitution. The redemption provided might deliver men from its evil results, but it could not deliver God from the charge of having instituted an arrangement in itself unjust. It would relieve the disaster, but leave the original wrong untouched. The consequence of the injustice would be removed, but the injustice would abide. No fact can be undone. To state the case differently: if a federal constitution by which Adam's descendants became responsible for his sin would have been in itself unjust, the co-ordination with it of a redeeming purpose could not cancel the injustice, for that purpose could only take effect after the wrong had been inflicted. Men must have suffered before they could be actually redeemed. If not, from what would they be redeemed? The suffering, consequently, must while it lasts be conceived as having been unjustly imposed.

Fourthly, If it was intended, in order to avoid injustice, that the provision of redemption should deliver men from the sufferings entailed upon them by Adam's fall, then it was necessary, in order to the attainment of the end contemplated, that all those sufferings should be removed. For, if any part of them remained, to that extent the injustice would not be repaired. And this difficulty weighs especially upon those who hold that those sufferings are penal. If it be replied, as replied it must be, that the redemptive provision was not designed to operate ipso facto in the removal of suffering, but that such removal is conditioned upon the acceptance of the offer of redemption, and that ability is given to men to accept the offer, the difficulty is not discharged. For, in the first place, infants can neither understand nor accept the offer; yet they suffer. The injustice is not removed from them. It would be idle to say that they suffer disciplinarily, for, as infants, they are unsusceptible of discipline. They cannot perceive the ends of suffering. And further, disciplinary suffering pre-supposes penal. It cannot be justly imposed upon beings who were not, in the first instance, either consciously or putatively guilty. In the second place, the removal of injustice inflicted upon adults cannot, consistently with justice, be conditioned upon their voluntary acceptance of an offer to remove it. Justice requires the unconditional undoing of injustice which has been done. This difficulty becomes all the more aggravated when it is considered that the acceptance of the redeeming provision is opposed by the corrupt nature derived from the Fall. Either God can remove the consequences of the Fall, or he cannot. If he can and does not, he perpetuates the injustice which he is supposed to have inflicted. If he cannot, how did the provision of redemption come to be conceived in his mind as calculated to relieve the intrinsic injustice of the federal constitution? He would in devising it have known that he could not make it effectual to relieve that injustice. If it be said, that he cannot, in accordance with the nature he bestowed upon man, act inconsistently with man's free will, the answer is, that when he determined to provide redemption he must have foreseen that limitation upon its applicability as a remedy, and therefore his inability fully to remove the inherent injustice of the federal constitution. In the third place, even the offer of redemption is not made actually to every man. Some have not the opportunity furnished them of accepting it. Myriads of the heathen never heard of it. How then does the provision of redemption remove the injustice involved in the sufferings induced upon them by the Fall? If it be urged, that the atonement of Christ indirectly benefits them, without their knowledge of it, the reply is obvious, that their sufferings continue. They are not benefited to the extent of their removal. Nor can it be pleaded that like adults in Christian lands they bind their sufferings upon themselves by rejecting the tendered remedy. For how can they reject a remedy which was never proffered them? To say that they have some knowledge of the gospel through tradition from the patriarchal, or any other, era, is but to trifle with a solemn subject. If finally it be said, that the heathen in relation to the gospel scheme are in a condition similar to that of infants, that will not answer, for we have seen that the sufferings of infants cannot be adjusted to the theory that the provision of redemption checked the intrinsic injustice of the Adamic constitution.

Under the conviction that it is one of the key positions of the Evangelical Arminian scheme, I have thus criticised with some minuteness the view, that the divine purpose to provide redemption for mankind, which was co-ordinate with the constitution implicating them in the judicial consequences of their first father's sin, prevented the injustice otherwise chargeable upon that constitution.

(2.) The second way, in which Evangelical Arminians attempt to vindicate the justice of God in view of the hereditary guilt and corruption of all men, is to be found in their doctrine concerning the nature of the relation sustained by the first man to the race. That doctrine is: that God made a covenant with Adam as a parental head representing his posterity, by virtue of which they, having been in his loins, are justly subjected to the consequences of his sin. They were in him as children are in a father; one with him because of, and simply because of, the parental and filial relation. As they were thus - to use Wesley's words - "contained in Adam," it followed that when he sinned the consequences of his fatal act were deserved by them. In support of this view they appeal to the analogy of providence. Children, without their conscious agency, are involved in the disastrous consequences of their parents' sins. They suffer because their fathers were criminals; and to object, on the ground of injustice, to the primal constitution through which all men experience the injurious results of their first father's fall into sin is to impeach the justice of God in his ordinary and acknowledged dealings with men.

It is true that some Arminian theologians affirm that Adam was "a public person and a legal representative;" [71] and that this language taken by itself would imply that they do not regard him as having been simply a parental head. But, two considerations clearly show that notwithstanding these terms by which they appear to qualify the merely parental headship of the first man, merely parental headship is what they really hold. The first is their unwillingness to admit that the race had a proper probation in Adam which was closed by his fall into sin. The second is their denial that the posterity of Adam in any sense committed his first sin and are on that account chargeable with its guilt. These facts prove that they do not maintain, but on the contrary deny, the strictly representative character of the first man. For, if he had been not only a parental head and trustee, but over and beyond that a legal representative, of the race, they would have had their probation in him, and must, in accordance with the essential principle of representation, be considered as having legally and constructively performed his act in committing the first sin and as being therefore chargeable with its guilt. We shall get a precise conception of the Evangelical Arminian doctrine concerning the headship of Adam by comparing it with the Calvinistic. The Evangelical Arminian holds that when God created Adam a parental head, he in the same act and by virtue of it created him a federal head. In becoming the first father, Adam, of necessity, became the representative, of mankind. Only as he was, and because he was, father was he representative. The Calvinist holds that after God had created Adam a parental head he, by a free determination of his will, appointed him a federal head and legal representative, and then entered into a covenant of life with him, suspending justification for himself and his posterity as his constituents upon his perfect obedience during a limited time of trial. In the one case he was created a federal head because he was created a parental head, the representative relation being no more than is involved in the parental. In the other, he was not created a federal head and representative, but, by a free act from which his Maker might have abstained, was appointed and constituted the bearer of that transcendently responsible office. It is plain that, according to the Evangelical Arminian theology, Adam was in no other sense a federal head and legal representative than as he was the parental head of the human race. The relation he sustained was that of mere parental headship with such responsibilities and consequences as it naturally involves. Accordingly. I shall endeavor to show that such a relation will not bear the strain that is put upon it.

First, Evangelical Arminian theologians themselves, as we have seen, explicitly acknowledge the fact that the visitation upon the race of the bitter consequences of Adam's sin, merely in virtue of their relation to him as a parental head, cannot be reconciled with our conceptions of the divine justice. In itself considered, such a constitution would have been unjust. In order to its having been adopted as a part of the divine scheme of government it was necessary that its intrinsic injustice should be destroyed by an extrinsic connection with a purpose of redemption in consequence of which the damage done by the Fall should be amply repaired. Taken by itself, then, the parental headship of Adam, as foreknown to issue in the fall of the race, is confessed by Evangelical Arminians themselves to be incapable of being harmonized with justice. But it has in these remarks been already shown that its connection with a redeeming purpose does not relieve this difficulty. It is not vindicated from the charge of inherent injustice by its association with the purpose of God to provide redemption. If, therefore, according to the admission of its advocates, the constitution by which Adam was made the parental head of the race was intrinsically unjust, it is impossible by an appeal to it to establish the justice of God in inflicting the results of his sin upon them. The difficulty raised by our intuition of justice instead of being met is aggravated. A procedure confessed to have been unjust is vindicated by an unjust constitution in which it originated! Arminians themselves being judges, the mere parental headship of Adam will not carry the weight imposed upon it.

Secondly, It is one of the curious inconsistencies of Evangelical Arminian divines that, having acknowledged the injustice of the constitution involving the race in responsibility for the sin of Adam their parental head conceived apart from the purpose of God to redeem them, they proceed to illustrate the justice of that constitution by citing the analogous case of the ordinary parental relation and its consequences upon children. They affirm that it is at one and the same time intrinsically unjust and intrinsically just. The soundest exponents of the Evangelical Arminian system maintain that the sufferings entailed upon Adam's posterity by his sin are in their nature penal. They are not mere calamities; they are punishments. Temporal death, spiritual death, liability to eternal death, - these, they justly contend, are not to be regarded as simply our misfortune. They are in some sense the results of our own fault - we have, in some way, deserved them. The Pelagianizing utterances of such writers as Miner Raynond, who scouts this view, cannot by a candid critic be considered as representative of Evangelical Arminianism even in its present attitude. If they are, it is not the system of Wesley, Fletcher and Watson: it is far gone from that system.

Now, it is a fundamental principle of God's moral government that none but the guilty are held liable to punishment. Before one can be justly punished it must be proved that he did some wrong act, or is the culpable author of some wrong disposition inherent in him. Before he can share another's punishment, he must have shared the other's fault: he must, in some sense, be justly held as particeps criminis. This is a principle of human law, and in that regard it reflects the divine. In what sense, then, are children now the sharers of their parents' acts? They are different persons from them, and therefore their personality cannot be considered as merged into that of their parents. The acts on account of which they suffer may have been committed before they were born. They could not therefore have consciously joined in their performance. Their parents are not, strictly speaking, their legal representatives, so that their acts, although not consciously and subjectively, would yet be legally, representatively, putatively, the acts of their children. These suppositions exhaust the possibilities in the case, and as neither of them is true, it follows that children do not share the guilt of their parents, and therefore cannot be justly punished for it. They suffer on account of the evil deeds of their parents. That fact is announced in the Decalogue, and abundantly established by the ordinary course of providence; and in view of it the responsibilities of parents are seen to be nothing less than tremendous. But these sufferings are not punishments; they are calamities, except in cases in which the children imitate the wickedness of their parents, and so by their own conscious and voluntary acts make their parents' guilt their own. When they incur the guilt they deserve the punishment. Until then their sufferings are not penal. The sufferings of an infant in its cradle cannot be regarded as penal inflictions for the sins of its immediate parents.

This important distinction between punishment and calamity is distinctly asserted by God himself in his Word. He commanded Moses to embody this provision in his code: "The fathers shall not be put to death for the children; neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin." [72] Accordingly, we are told that when Amaziah, the son of Joash, king of Judah ascended the throne, he put to death the men who had murdered his father, but remembering the divine law he did not inflict the same doom upon their children. The record is as follows: "And it came to pass, as soon as the kingdom was confirmed in his hand, that he slew his servants which had slain the king his father. But the children of the murderers he slew not: according to that which is written in the book of the law of Moses, wherein the Lord commanded, saying, The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, nor the children be put to death for the fathers: but every man shall be put to death for his own sin."[73] The same principle of procedure is affirmed in the eighteenth chapter of Ezekiel: "What mean ye, that ye use this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge? As I live, saith the Lord God, ye shall not have occasion any more to use this proverb in Israel. Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die." If a righteous man, continues the Lord by the mouth of the prophet, beget a son who doeth wickedly, the son shall bear his own iniquity; he shall surely die. If a wicked man have a son who doeth righteously, he shall not bear the iniquity of his father; he shall surely live. "Yet ye say, The way of the Lord is not equal. Hear now, O house of Israel: Is not my way equal? Are not your ways unequal?" Here the equity of the divine administration is asserted because it proceeds upon the principle that every man is rewarded or punished for his own conduct. No one suffers penally because of his father's sins. His teeth are not set on edge because his father ate sour grapes, but they are set on edge because he himself has eaten sour grapes.

The conclusion from this argument is that, if it be a principle of the divine government that children are not dealt with retributively and punitively for the sins of their parents, it follows that Adam's children could not be justly punished for his sin, on the supposition that he was merely their parental head. Either, then, we must give up the alleged analogy between Adam's relation to his posterity and that of ordinary parents to their children, or, maintaining that analogy, we must charge God with an unjust deviation from the principles of his moral government in punishing Adam's children, for the sin of one who was simply a parental head. No one who fears God can hesitate as to the choice between these alternatives. He is shut up to the conclusion that as Adam's children are punished for his sin, he could not have been merely a parental head. He must have sustained to them another and different relation. Of course this argument will have no force with one who adheres to the analogy and at the same time denies the penal character of men's inherited sufferings. But as the Evangelical Arminian of the old school is not a Pelagian, it has a powerful bearing upon his position.

Let it be distinctly understood that in contending against the view that children are punitively dealt with for the sins of their parents, it is not intended to say that their sufferings are in no sense penal: It is not conceivable that under a perfectly just government any moral agent could suffer unless his suffering be in the first instance, in some sense, penal. Men are not punished for the sins of their immediate parents, how much soever they may suffer for them; but they are punished for the sin of Adam, and hence the conclusion is that he must have been more than a father. As to those Arminian writers who boldly take the infidel position that no man is punished for the sin of Adam, it is enough to press the question, How, then, under the government of a just God are men born to suffering at all? How is it that infants suffer? Even if the ground be taken that those infants who are regenerated and die in infancy are in some inexplicable way disciplined through suffering for glory, what becomes of the case of those who live to adult age, and die unregenerate, who suffer in infancy, suffer in mature age and suffer in hell forever? Were their sufferings in infancy disciplinary? To say that suffering is natural, that is, that it is the legitimate result of an original, natural constitution, is to impeach alike the justice and the benevolence of God. The sufferings of all men partake of a penal character until they are by grace made spiritual children of God and justified through the merits of the sinner's atoning Substitute. Punishment then is changed into discipline - the judge gives way to the Father. But as the argument is not with Pelagians and skeptics, but with those who profess to be evangelical, no more needs to be said upon this particular point.

Thirdly, The theory that Adam was simply a parental head of mankind, only responsible for such consequences in regard to them as that relation carries with it, makes it necessary to hold that guilt and corruption were derived from him to them by propagation through the generative channel. The principle of derivation is that like begets like. There are insuperable difficulties in the way of that doctrine. In the first place, it is impossible to prove that legal guilt and moral qualities are transmitted by propagation from father to son. The theory involves a doctrine which is unsusceptible of proof. It is consequently an inadequate account of the relation between the legal guiltiness and moral state of Adam's descendants on the one hand and his sinful act on the other. In the second place, if the supposition of propagation be admitted, no proof of its justice can be furnished. How was it grounded? Why did Adam propagate a guilty and corrupt progeny? Are his children's teeth set on edge, because he as their father ate sour grapes? The soul that sinneth, it shall die. But, according to Arminians, infants could not have committed Adam's sinful act, and they cannot consciously sin. Still, they are admitted to be at birth, by virtue of their relation to their first father, guilty and depraved, and they actually suffer and die. Their teeth are set on edge, but they did not eat sour grapes. In the third place, if the theory of propagation be true, how comes it to pass that all Adam's sins have not entailed their baleful consequences upon his posterity? It is admitted that they are affected by only his first sin. How is this limitation to be accounted for? Will it, with Thomas Aquinas, be said that only the first sin corrupts the nature, and on the contrary all subsequent sins of Adam and of all his posterity only the person?[74] This would be an appeal to the theory of Numerical Identity of nature in Adam and his descendants, and that theory the Evangelical Arminian rejects; and besides he concedes the personal responsibility of men for Adam's fall. That explanation, therefore, will not answer. Will it be said, that, although the fallen nature is propagated and without special divine action would carry with it the consequences of other sins of Adam than the first, it pleased God to limit the imputation of guilt to the first sin? The reply would be, that the supposition, upon the mere theory of propagation, is inadmissible. For, wherever there is sin, it involves guilt, and the non-imputation of the guilt would, under a just government, be impossible, without atonement made for it after it had been incurred. Upon this theory, it would be as illegitimate to suppose the non-imputation of the guilt of other sins than the first to the propagated guilty and corrupt nature, as to suppose the non-imputation of the guilt of other sins than his first to Adam personally. Will it be said, that the limitation of imputed guilt to the first sin is to be referred to the federal constitution? The answer would be, that the explanation would be borrowed from a theory of strictly legal representation, different from and superadded to parental representation, which is rejected by the Evangelical Arminian. This appeal would therefore be to him incompetent. In the fourth place, if the theory of propagation were true it would follow that Adam when regenerated would have begotten regenerate children. But such a position is not maintained even by its advocates. If in order to remove this difficulty the ground be taken that the nature is propagated according to the original type and that is sinful, the reply is, as Dr. Thornwell has suggested, that the original type, that is, in the first instance, was holy, and a holy nature ought therefore to be propagated.

Fourthly, The theory of the mere parental headship of Adam cannot be adjusted to the analogy, clearly taught in Scripture, between the first Adam and the second. The first is declared to have been a figure or type of the second; "not that he was," as John Owen profoundly observes, "an instituted type, ordained for that only end and purpose, but only that in what he was, and what he did, with what followed thereupon, there was a resemblance between him and Jesus Christ."[75] The meaning is that the principle upon which the first Adam stood related to his posterity is the same with that which grounded the relation of the second to his seed, - they both acted in accordance with the principle of representation. As condemnation passed upon Adam's posterity on account of his disobedience, so justification passed upon Christ's posterity on account of his obedience. This is clear, and it is admitted by both parties to this question. Now, if condemnation came upon Adam's seed because he as their father sinned, it would follow that justification comes upon Christ's seed because he as their father obeyed. The principle must be the same in both cases, or the analogy is destroyed. Was it parental headship which in Adam's case grounded the justice of condemnation? So must it be parental headship which in Christ's case grounds the justice of justification. But neither Calvinist nor Arminian takes that view of justification. Both hold that while it is true that Christ's people are born of him by his Spirit, and so holiness is communicated to them, it is also true that justification is derived from him in another way. He did not as a merely parental head secure justification, but as a representative and substitute in law. But if Christ was, strictly speaking, a legal representative and not merely a parental head, so must Adam have been, or the analogy between them breaks down.

Further, if it be contended - as it is by Watson - that as Adam was a parental head, so Christ is a spiritual head - as the former was a natural parent, so the latter is a spiritual parent, it would follow from the analogy that justification can only flow from Christ to his spiritual children. And as Evangelical Arminians do not hold that all men are regenerate and therefore Christ's spiritual children, justification could not have been secured for all men. They are thus reduced to self-contradiction. If they deny that all men are the spiritual children of Christ, they deny that justification was secured for all men, and thus admit the Calvinistic doctrine of particular atonement. If they affirm that all men are the spiritual children of Christ, just as all men are naturally the children of Adam, they deny their own doctrine of the necessity of the new birth, their own admission that all men are not actually born again, and the indubitable testimony of Scripture. To say that the heathen are all regenerate is to gainsay the Bible and fact alike. It is clear that the Arminian doctrine of the parental headship of Adam will not square with the facts of Christ's case, and therefore cannot be adjusted to the scriptural account of the analogy between the first and the second Adam.

Fifthly, A decisive consideration is, that upon the Evangelical Arminian theory neither Adam nor his descendants could ever have been justified. It is not here intended to deny that if God had been pleased to enter into a covenant with Adam as an individual, apart from a representative relation to his posterity, in which he promised him life upon condition of perfect obedience for a limited time of trial, he might have attained to justification. Nor is it impossible to suppose that God may, had he pleased, have entered into a similar covenant with each individual of his posterity, in which case each would have stood upon his own foot and have had the opportunity of securing justification. On either of these suppositions, the principle of representation would have been excluded, and that of individual probation employed. God was not pleased to adopt this mode of dealing with Adam or his descendants. He collected all the individuals of the race into unity upon the first man appointed as their federal head and legal representative, embraced them with him in a common probation, and promised to him and to them in him justification upon condition of his perfect obedience for a specified and definite period. If it be supposed that neither of these methods of procedure was employed in relation to the first man and his descendants, the impossibility of justification would be conceded. If a special covenant arrangement did not limit the time of obedience, the naked, unmodified demand of mere law would have been in force. The consequence would necessarily have resulted, that no point in the endless existence of the subject of law could have been reached at which he could have appeared before God saying, I have finished the obedience assigned me and ask for my reward. The answer to such a claim, were it supposable, would inevitably be, Thou hast an immortality of obedience yet before thee, with the possibility of a fall. No justification, in the proper, scriptural sense of the term, can be conceived as possible except upon the ground of a completed obedience; and as no obedience can be completed unless there be a definite limitation of the time in which it is to be offered, a theory which throws out of account such limitation fails to provide for the possibility of justification. Now the Evangelical Arminian theory is open to this fatal objection. It makes no mention of a limitation of the time of obedience even in regard to Adam personally considered, and it denies that his descendants had a strict, legal probation in him. Suppose then - and the supposition is legitimated by the doctrine of a mere permission of the Fall - that Adam had stood in integrity and were standing in integrity now, how could he have been justified? Perpetual obedience with its accompanying contingency of fall would be his duty still as it was his duty at first. Of course, too, there would be no justification of his posterity in an unjustified head. To say that his righteousness, although incomplete and defectible, might be imputed to them, or accrue to their benefit, would be very far from saying that they would be justified on its account. As it could not ground his justification, it could not theirs.

This consideration is specially illuminated in the light of the scriptural analogy between Christ and Adam. The time of Christ's obedience was limited. He declared that he had twelve hours in which to walk and that he must work the works of him that sent him while it was day: the night was coming in which no man could work. Accordingly when he had completed his obedience, he triumphantly exclaimed amidst his dying agonies, "It is finished." Not only, therefore, was he justified from the voluntarily assumed and imputed guilt of his people's iniquities which were laid upon him, but his finished righteousness was capable of being imputed to his seed and of constituting the ground of their justification. It is too obvious to need pressing that if Adam's case was parallel to that of Christ, the time of his probationary obedience must have been limited to condition the possibility of his justification and that of his seed. The Evangelical Arminian theory contains no such element and therefore signally breaks down.

The ways, in which Evangelical Arminian theologians endeavor to vindicate God's justice in the constitution by virtue of which the consequences of Adam's first sin are entailed upon his race, have thus been subjected to examination and their insufficiency has been exhibited.

The question now is, What, according to the Calvinistic conception, is the scriptural method of reconciling the implication of the race in the consequences of Adam's first sin with the justice of God? And let it be borne in mind that this question is subordinate to the ultimate one which is under consideration namely, whether the Calvinistic doctrines of election and reprobation are, as charged, inconsistent with the divine justice.

Both parties to the question in hand admit the existence of an Adamic covenant: a federal transaction of some sort is conceded. The Calvinistic doctrine involves these elements: That, under the Covenant of Works, God appointed Adam a legal representative of his posterity; that he and they were one in law; that his acts were legally and representatively their acts, on the principle that what one does by a representative he himself does; that justification, that is, confirmation in holiness and happiness, was promised to Adam and his posterity on condition of his perfect obedience for a limited time, and death was threatened in the event of disobedience; and that as a consequence of all this mankind had their legal probation in Adam, so that had he stood and been justified they would in him have stood and been justified, and as he fell and was condemned they in him fell and were condemned. In support of this doctrine the following considerations are submitted:

First, The fact being admitted by Evangelical Arminians of a covenant with Adam which included his posterity, so that they are involved in the consequences pertaining to his first sin, it follows that if, as has been shown, parental headship implying only such federal responsibilities as it is conceived to carry with it naturally and necessarily was not, and could not consistently with justice have been, the relation between the first man and his descendants which grounded their judicial condemnation and penal sufferings, that relation must have been one subsisting between him as a strictly legal representative and them as his legal constituents. This is the only other alternative which is admissible. The conceded federal principle rules out the theory of a numerical identity between Adam and his posterity. Upon that theory a federal relation would have been a superfluity. As each man came into individual existence he would be chargeable not with Adam's sin imputed to him, but with a sin subjectively and therefore strictly and properly his own. This would be to upset the parallelism asserted by Paul between Adam and Christ. As numerical identity is grounded in nature, the analogy would require the identity of all men with Christ, as well as with Adam. Human nature obeyed in Christ as it disobeyed in Adam. As the sin of the nature is imputed to it on the one hand, so on the other would be its righteousness. As all men are thus justly condemned, all men would thus with equal justice be justified. But it is absurd to say that human nature, that is, all men, subjectively wrought righteousness in Christ; and it would be almost as absurd to say that his seed subjectively obeyed in him. It is plain that the righteousness of Christ is imputed upon a totally different principle. So, the analogy holding, must the sin of Adam. It is evident that the theory of numerical identity is inconsistent with the federal principle. The same is true of the hypothesis of an ante-mundane existence in which every human being fell from an estate of holiness by his own individual sin. If we adopt the supposition of a covenant between God and Adam, we would seem to be shut up to an election between the doctrine of parental headship and that of strict legal representation.

Secondly, The analogy between Christ and Adam proves that our first parent must have been the legal representative of his seed. The relation which he sustained to his posterity, grounding their implication in his act, must, as to the principle involved, have been like that which Christ bears to his seed; otherwise the analogy would be destroyed. Now, was Christ a legal representative of his people?

The animals which were sacrificed under the old dispensation were legal substitutes for the guilty persons for whom they were offered, that is, they legally represented the worshippers who presented them. They typified Christ the Lamb of God who was offered a sacrifice to satisfy divine justice for sinners. It is certainly the representative and not the parental relation which here comes into view. In Galatians Paul declares: "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us."[76] In 2 Corinthians he enounces the same great truth of legal substitution: "He hath made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him."[77] Peter clearly sets forth the same fact: "He bore our sins in his own body on the tree." It is needless to urge the consideration that these apostolic statements could not have been true of Christ as a parental head, but are true of him as a legal representative. It is indeed admitted that they hold good of him as a legal substitute; but there is no difference in principle between a substitute and a representative. In Galatians Paul says: "I am crucified with Christ."[78] The chief sense in which these words are to be taken is the representative. He discusses, in that passage, the doctrine of justification and not of sanctification. Hence he could not have only meant to say, I deny myself with Christ. It is true that he who has died federally and representatively with Christ to the guilt of sin will so live with him as to die more and more to its power, and Paul asserts that truth; but in the words cited, if regard be had to the connection in which they are used, primary reference is made by the apostle to the representative relation. In 2 Corinthians the same apostle says: "The love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then all died;"[79] for that is the true and now the generally admitted rendering of the words translated, "then were all dead." How could all die in one except representatively? Myriads of believers died before, and myriads were not born until after, Christ died. The great fact is here affirmed that the death of a representative is legally and constructively the death of those whom he represented. Those, therefore, who thus died with Christ died under the sentence of a condemning law, that is, died penally, and so cannot justly die again in that way; and having so died, the legal difficulties which lay in the path of acceptable obedience to God are removed, and the motives to a life of holiness are impressively enforced. Paul says again: "If ye be risen with Christ."[80] If believers died representatively with Christ, they rose representatively with him. There is also a spiritual resurrection, but there was a federal, as there will be a bodily. And if they died and rose representatively with him, they were representatively justified with him, when God the Father having raised him from the dead, on the ground of distributive justice, acquitted him of all imputed guilt, formally approved his righteousness, and published to the universe his desert of the reward stipulated by the covenant - the everlasting life of his seed.

But if Christ was the legal representative of his seed, so must Adam have been of his. The passage which settles that is the one in the fifth chapter of Romans, from the twelfth verse to the end. There the relation of the disobedience of Adam to the condemnation and death of his posterity is declared to be analogous to that of the obedience of Christ to the justification and life of his seed. But Christ in rendering obedience to the divine law acted as a legal representative; so consequently must Adam in committing his act of disobedience. It follows, that, if Adam had stood during his time of trial and been justified, all his posterity would have been representatively justified in him - that is, they would by the divine sentence have been adjudged to confirmation in holiness and happiness. In that case his righteousness, would have been imputed to his descendants, just as Christ's righteousness is now imputed to his people. Natural birth would have designated the parties upon whom his merit would have terminated, as now spiritual birth indicates the parties upon whom the merit of Christ takes effect. But Adam fell, and his guilt is imputed to his seed. Instead of attaining justification in him, they fell with him into condemnation. In these respects the cases of the first and second Adam are parallel. It is the principle of strict federal representation which stamps the character of each case.

Thirdly, If we are at all warranted, touching this matter, in appealing to the ordinary course of providence and the general judgment of men, we must resort not to the parental, but the representative, relation. We never judge that a child is, strictly speaking, well-deserving or ill-deserving on account of his parents' acts. If his father has perpetrated a crime, while we may feel that his child justly suffers in consequence of it, we do not pronounce him culpable. As in no sense he did the act, he is in no sense blameworthy. If one have committed murder, shame and obloquy attach to his child, but who would say that he was guilty of his father's crime? If he were he would deserve to be hanged. Such, however, is neither the judgment nor the custom of mankind. But if one be the representative, the attorney, the agent, of another, the case is different. There is a legal identity between the two, so that the acts of one are in law the acts of the other. Such is the general judgment of men. If there be any force in these considerations, they would go to show that Adam's children are not culpable because as their father he sinned; but if he were their legal agent and representative they must be regarded as blame-worthy for his sin. They did the act in him, not consciously and subjectively, but federally, legally, representatively.

It may be objected to this representation of the great and critically important doctrine of inherited sin, that the parental relation is thrown out of account and treated as if possessed of no significance. To this it is replied: In the first place, it is admitted that the parental relation as involving, the natural union between Adam and his descendants grounds the propagation of the race as a species, with all its essential and inseparable qualities. The question, however, is a different one whether the transmission of non-essential and separable qualities can be accounted for in accordance with this law. What is contended for is that even if that were conceded, the propagation of those qualities - that of sin, for example - would demand an antecedent solution in the principle of justice. Why sin should be transmitted from parent to child, entailing penal consequences, is a question which cannot be legitimately answered by appealing to a merely natural constitution. The deformity would be a misfortune and not a crime. The naturalness of sin would as much destroy its punishable feature as that of a misshapen body. The representative relation must be invoked to account for the legal character of propagation, even if it be admitted that propagation is the channel of the transmission of sin. The whole difficulty is avoided by referring the hereditary character of sin to the great law of federal representation. In the second place, it is admitted that the parental relation grounded the propriety of the superadded representative relation. It was fit that he who was appointed the federal trustee and legal representative of mankind, attended by the immeasurable responsibilities embraced in that office, should be their first father, possessed of all the tender affections which such a relation supposed. And it was fit that Adam as father should be the representative, inasmuch as the tie of blood, the bond of race, supplied the principle upon which he and all his individual offspring could be collected into legal unity. The statement of the case which is in this discussion maintained is precisely this: the parental grounded the propriety of the representative relation, and the representative relation grounded the imputation of guilt.

It may also be objected that the doctrine here affirmed is eccentric, for the reason that the term representative and its cognates are not found either in the Scriptures or in the Westminster Standards. This objection cannot be offered by those divines of the Evangelical Arminian school who themselves employ the phraseology which is disputed. If it be presented by others of that school, the answer is, that there are terms of articulate importance used by themselves which are not found in the Scriptures; for example the Trinity, Sufficient Grace, Prevenient Grace, and Universal Atonement. The objection, therefore, as an argument would prove too much and be consequently invalid. If the objection were urged by one belonging to the school of Calvinism, the reply would be: In the first place, there are terms employed by Calvinists which are not to be found in the Scriptures; for instance, Satisfaction to divine justice, the Righteousness of Christ, the Imputed Righteousness of Christ, the Vicarious Obedience of Christ, Particular, or Definite, or Limited Atonement, Effectual Calling and the Perseverance of the Saints. Are the doctrines signified by these terms not to be found in the Scriptures? If so, Calvinism would be blown to the winds. In the second place, the fact that the term representative, as applied to Adam, is not found in the Westminster Standards by no means proves that the doctrine of his representative character is not contained in them. He is expressly declared to have been a "public person" in the same sense in which Christ is said to be a "public person." Says the Larger Catechism: "The covenant being made with Adam as a public person, not for himself only, but for his posterity, all mankind, descending from him by ordinary generation, sinned in him and fell with him in that first transgression."[81] Speaking of Christ the same formulary says: "All which he did as a public person, the head of his church, for their justification."[82] Does this mean that Christ was a representative? What Calvinist would deny? In the same way it must be admitted that the Westminster divines held Adam to have been a representative. To this it must be added that the terms Particular Atonement and their synonyms are not found in the Westminster Standards. Is the doctrine not there? And it deserves to be remarked that the term representative was not in common use at the time when the Assembly was in session, and hence probably its absence from the formularies composed by it. But it was sufficiently used by divines of the period to show that they regarded Adam as a representative. "The sin of Adam," observes Dr. John Owen, "was and is imputed unto all his posterity . . . And the ground hereof is, that we stood all in the same covenant with him who was our head and representative therein."[83] "Adam," says Thomas Watson, "being a representative person, he standing, we stood; and he falling, we fell."[84]

We come now, at last, to the question, Was the federal constitution, involving the application of the principle of legal representation to Adam and his posterity and implicating them in the judicial consequences of his first sin, inconsistent with the justice of God?

The questions may be asked, Why, if the doctrines of election and reprobation have been proved to be revealed in the Scriptures, should the inquiry be considered in regard to their consistency or inconsistency with the perfections of God? And why, if the doctrine of federal representation is also delivered to us by the same sacred authority, should the attempt be made to show that it is not inconsistent with the divine justice. Everything that God, in his holy Word, declares he has done or will do must, of necessity, be consistent with his character; consequently these reasonings are gratuitous and suited to do more harm than good. We have the weighty opinion of Haldane, in his admirable commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, against this sort of argument in relation to the subject now in hand. This, it is cheerfully admitted, is eminently true and wise, on the supposition that a doctrine has been proved beyond reasonable doubt to be revealed in the Scriptures. The position of the Dogmatic Rationalist of the Wolfian type is utterly untenable, that doctrines conceded to be part of a supernatural revelation need to be fortified by rational demonstration. It is enough that they are introduced with the indisputable authority of the preface, "Thus saith the Lord." But it merits consideration that the real question often is, as it is in this particular instance, whether the doctrines alleged to be revealed in the Scriptures are actually so revealed. There being a difference between pious and reverent men in their interpretation of the passages adduced as proofs, moral and rational considerations, drawn from the teachings of Scripture and the fundamental laws of belief of the human mind, are thrown in on one side or the other to strengthen or weaken, not the divine statements, but the alleged evidence that the doctrines in question are derived from the word of inspiration. It is for this reason the present discussion has been allowed the range which it has taken; and if relief, however little, shall be given to any pious mind from doubt as to the divine authority of the doctrines it defends from attack, it will not be wholly vain.

(1.) If God established the federal constitution by which Adam was appointed the legal representative of the race, it must be regarded as just; for whatever God does is necessarily just. This principle was affirmed by the illustrious patriarch when pleading for Sodom: "Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?" The same great principle is asserted by Paul in the third chapter of Romans when replying to objections against gratuitous justification, and in the ninth chapter when answering cavils against sovereign predestination. But the Scriptures reveal the fact of the federal constitution as one of divine appointment. It was therefore not inconsistent with the justice of God.

(2.) It is not difficult to prove that the federal constitution involving the principle of legal representation was benevolent. The limitations assigned by a free determination of the divine will to a merely legal probation, - the limitation of the probation of all to that of one who was amply and richly furnished to stand the trial, one who from the nature of the case was susceptible of responsibilities which in their fulness could attach to no other; the limitation of the time of obedience which conditioned the easy attainment of immortal holiness and bliss for every individual of the race; and perhaps the limitation of the field of temptation, - these limitations upon the trial of mankind, which otherwise under a naked economy of law would have been perpetual for every individual and shadowed forever by the dread contingency of a fall, were certainly the products of benevolence. But such a constitution would not have been benevolent had it been unjust. Injustice done to the creatures of his power could not have consisted with the goodness of their Creator. It is not warrantable to affirm that at one and the same time he acted towards the human race benevolently and inconsistently with justice. On the other hand, if the representative arrangement had been inconsistent with justice it could not have been consistent with benevolence. Of necessity the attributes of God must be perfectly harmonious with each other both in their intrinsic nature and in their actual exercise. If then the federal economy was benevolent, it could not have been inconsistent with justice.

(3.) It may be urged that it was arbitrary and therefore was not grounded in justice. To this it is replied, that if it can be shown to have been dictated by wisdom and benevolence it cannot be proved to have been arbitrary; for that is arbitrary which is wanton and is founded upon no sufficient reason. It cannot be evinced that the federal ordination was the result of God's naked will proceeding without any regard to rational considerations. It cannot, therefore, be proved to have been inconsistent with justice because it was arbitrary.

(4.) The attempt has been made to convict it of incompatibility with justice, because mankind, who, it is alleged, were represented in Adam and bound by his act, had no voice, no suffrage, in the adoption of that measure of government by which the principle of representation was applied to their case: it was imposed upon them without their choice, and yet their everlasting destinies might have been decided by it. But-

First, It cannot be proved, though this be true, that the application of the principle of representation to the race by their divine Maker and Ruler was intrinsically unjust. We are incompetent judges of the whole case. God is infinitely wiser than we. It would be supremely rash and arrogant in us to undertake to decide upon what principles he should choose to conduct his moral government. It is at least supposable that he saw that it would be as fair to men to deal with them collected into moral unity in the person of a fully qualified representative, as to treat each individual as responsible only for his own subjective and conscious agency. It does not matter to say that when God constituted the first man a representative of his race he foreknew that he would fall and drag down his descendants with him into a common ruin; for had this measure not been adopted, God might have foreseen that every individual of the race would fall for himself, and in that case the advantages of the representative relation would be absent. So that at last it comes to this: Why did God create man at all if he foreknew that he would sin? And to that question as the limited human intelligence has never yet furnished a satisfactory answer, so it is likely that in the present sphere of thought it never will. It is enough to know that it is God who has done it. Whatever he does must be just and wise and right.

Secondly, God is infinitely benevolent. The application to the race of the principle of representation was therefore consistent with benevolence. It was applied to man while in innocence. It was no judicial infliction. There was no reason growing out of man's relation to God which could have occasioned harshness or rigor on his Maker's part. If he loved man at his creation, it is impossible to conceive that he would have chosen any mode of procedure which would have prejudiced his interests or borne hardly upon his destiny. Indeed it is impossible to say, without blasphemy, that God can treat any of his creatures inequitably.

Thirdly, To take the ground that the application to the race of the representative principle would have been unjust because they had no suffrage in its adoption, is to maintain that the subjects of God's government have a right to take part in its administration. This is absurdly to press the analogy of human government. The people are not sovereign in the divine administration. They are in no sense factors in the government. They do not elect the ruler. If they did, they would be supposed to elect God, before he could have the right to rule them. The right of God to rule is absolute and resides in himself. He creates the subjects of his government, and is therefore as to their very persons as well as their interests proprietary governor. He owns them. He is a pure autocrat. And a government by a single will must be the very, best government, if that will be perfect - if it be absolutely free from every element of error, injustice and wrong. The race therefore could, from the nature of the case, have no right to exercise suffrage with reference to any feature of the divine government, unless God himself were pleased in infinite condescension to confer that right. Whether that were possible, will not now be considered. It certainly was not a fact, and that consideration is sufficient to determine the question in hand. The race could have possessed no right of suffrage, and consequently there could have been no infringement of their rights by an application to them of the representative principle.

Fourthly, The same course of reasoning is pertinent to the objection, that the race had no suffrage in the selection of the person to represent them - that they had no voice in the appointment of Adam to that responsible office. But the following considerations may be added upon this point:

In the first place, God was better qualified to judge of the question who should be the representative than the whole human race could have been, on the supposition that by the anticipation of their actual existence, through the almighty power of God, they had been assembled in a great mass-meeting at the garden of Eden. He is infinitely wise and infinitely benevolent.

In the second place, it is plain that upon the supposition of the application of the representative principle, Adam was suited to be the representative. He was created in the full maturity of his powers both in body and soul. Had any other man been appointed a future representative, he must have been appointed to act either in his childhood or in adult age. If in childhood, the folly of the appointment would have been transparent. If in adult age, what guarantee would have existed that lie would not sin before arriving at maturity? The folly of such an appointment would have been equally manifest.

Further, Adam was the first man, the parent of the whole race. Who then could have been so fit as he to be the trustee of the whole race? The parental relation which he sustained to every man grounded the propriety of his federal and representative relation to every man. How could any man in the line of descent have represented those who preceded him? Unless, indeed, we suppose that election terminated on man in innocence. But it did not. This last supposition is mentioned for the reason that for aught we know the elect angels were in some sense represented by Christ. In that case, as their existence would have ante-dated his incarnation, his merits would have been reflected back upon their standing; or rather their standing would have been grounded in his future obedience. So, we know, it actually was with the Old Testament saints.

It deserves moreover to be considered, that the responsibilities which weighed upon the first man, on the supposition that he was a representative, must of necessity have been greater than those which could have been gathered upon any one of his descendants. To no other man could the whole race have sustained the relation of posterity. He alone could feel that all mankind were destined to be his offspring. The responsibilities of the father of the whole race could alone rest upon him; and if he could not fitly discharge the functions of a representative under so accumulated a load of responsibilities, it is certain that none of his descendants could.

(5.) If the principle of representation be discarded on the alleged ground of its injustice, it follows that under no circumstances can it be admitted. Unjust in one instance, it would be unjust in all. The representation of sinners by Christ must consequently be rejected as unjust. And then upon the supposition of the sin of the whole race of individuals, the remotest hope of their salvation would be shut out. For it is evident that no transgressor of the divine law could deliver himself from its penalty; and it is equally clear that no one laboring under the spiritual disabilities incurred by sin could recover himself from their influence. But if it would be impossible for the sinner to extricate himself from the disastrous consequences of his sin, and the principle of representation, involving substitution, would be inadmissible, every sinner must lie down hopelessly under the pressure of his doom. There are only two suppositions which could furnish a ray of hope - either that the sinner might deliver himself, or that lie might be delivered by a substitute-and both are excluded. The Pelagian hypothesis is here thrown out of account, as having not the shadow of support either from the Scriptures or from the principles of reason. "With out shedding of blood is no remission." Atonement or eternal death: these are the only alternatives to the transgressors of an infinite law. To this reasoning sundry objections may be offered.

First, It may be objected that representation which God foreknew would issue in a fall into sin, and representation intended to recover men from the disastrous effects of a fall, stand on a different foot in relation to justice, and to benevolence as well. But it is forgotten by those who urge this objection that mail at creation was endowed with freedom of will and with amply sufficient strength to refrain from sin and stand in holiness. The objection might be relevant if the nature of man as it issued from the creative hand of God implicated the necessity of a fall. But this is contrary to fact. If, then, the representative had maintained his standing, his posterity would have cheaply won confirmation in holiness and happiness.

These objections also overlook the important consideration that the confirmed holiness and happiness of the race were suspended upon an obedience of their representative which was limited as to time. Had he kept his integrity for the specified period designated in God's covenant, these priceless blessings would have been secured for himself and his posterity.

On the other hand, had there been no super-addition of a covenant to the naked dispensation of law, there could, from the nature of the case, have been no possible justification either for himself or for any member of his race. The demand of law unmodified by a covenant arrangement would have been for perpetual obedience as the condition of continued life. The requirement would have been, Obey, and as long as you obey you shall live; disobey, and you shall die. The period never could have been reached when the subject could upon a plea of finished obedience have been entitled to expect the confirmation of his relations to God. The contingency of a fall would have gone on parallel with his immortal existence.

It may be contended that while this is true in regard to the necessity of a covenant in order to justification, it was not necessary that the feature of representation should have been incorporated into the federal constitution. It might have pleased God to have entered into a separate covenant with each individual involving such a limitation upon the time of obedience as would have rendered possible the justification of every man. But whatever may be thought of the possibility of such an arrangement there are two things which clearly show that it was not a fact, and therefore it is idle to raise the question. In the first place, the universality of original sin proves that every member of the race was implicated in the responsibility of Adam's first sin, and that the complexion of his moral history was derived from it. There could have been no separate covenant with each individual. In the second place, the Epistle to the Romans settles the question. It teaches that the representative character of Adam was analogous to that of Christ.

It is evident from what has been said that mankind had in their first progenitor and legal representative a fair chance of attaining upon easy conditions a confirmed life of holiness and bliss which would have forever placed them beyond the possibility of falling.

Secondly, It may be objected that had the principle of representation not been adopted, and each individual of the race had been placed upon his own foot in relation to the divine law, many might have stood - more, it may be, than are actually saved through the atonement of Christ. It is not difficult to show that this is a wild supposition.

In the first place, the precedent of the fallen angels is against it. We have reason to believe that the principle of representation did not apply in their case. Each stood on the foot of individual obedience. But all of them fell. If angels, why not men? And it merits serious reflection that having fallen they remain so. The principle upon which they originally stood related to God appears to have been retained by him in application to their ease. No federal head and representative, so far as we know, has been appointed for them in their fallen and ruined condition. We know not the whole case, but these facts are suggestive.

In the second place, the precedent of Adam is against the supposition. With all his measureless responsibilities thronging upon him, he fell. In all the maturity of his glorious faculties and endowments, he fell. What shadow of probability is there that mere children would have been able to resist the assaults of that master of temptation who so promptly seduced him? For Adam's descendants would not have been born as he was created. It is more than probable that had each man been placed on his own individual footing each one would have fallen.

In the third place, each descendant of Adam would have had the influence of his evil example exerted upon him. The principle of imitation is strong, and would have seconded the temptations of the Devil. Added to this influence of the first man would have been that of every succeeding fall into sin, an influence gathering fresh accretion and augmented strength as the generations of men multiplied in number.

(6.) It may be objected that while it is consistent with justice that another's righteousness should be imputed, it is not consistent with that attribute that another's guilt should be imputed: justice requires that only the guilt of one's own conscious sin should be imputed to him. If this be true, it would follow that the guilt of Adam's first sin could not, consistently with justice, be imputed to his posterity.

We have here the assertion of a general principle or law - that of the impossibility under a just government of the imputation of another's guilt to one consciously and subjectively innocent. One clear instance to the contrary would destroy this pretended generalization, by negativing the assumed impossibility. Such an instance, and it is an illustrious one, we have in Christ. It is of course admitted on all hands that he was subjectively and consciously sinless. He was holy, harmless, undefiled and separate from sinners. It is a fact, however, that he suffered and suffered unto death, even the accursed death of the cross. Now there are only three conceivable suppositions in the case: either that he suffered without the imputation to him of any guilt; or that he suffered in consequence of the imputation to him of his own guilt; or that he suffered in consequence of the imputation to him of others' guilt. To say that he suffered without the imputation to him of any guilt is to impeach the justice of the divine government; for if there be any principle of government which is axiomatic it is that no suffering can be justly inflicted upon a person entirely innocent. To say that he suffered in consequence of the imputation to him of his own guilt is alike to blaspheme, and to subvert the grounds of human salvation. It remains that he must have suffered in consequence of the imputation to him of the guilt of others.

It is admitted by the parties to this controversy that the sufferings of Christ were penal. As he could not have been punished for nothing, or for his own guilt, it follows necessarily that he was punished for the guilt of others imputed to him.

This fact so vital to the pardon and salvation of sinners is explicitly affirmed in the Scriptures. They declare that human guilt was imputed to Christ. "And Aaron shall bring the goat upon which the Lord's lot fell, and offer him for a sin-offering: But the goat, on which the lot fell to be the scape-goat, shall be presented alive before the Lord, to make an atonement with him, and to let him go as a scapegoat into the wilderness. And when he hath made an end of reconciling the holy place, and the tabernacle of the congregation, and the altar, he shall bring the live goat: And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness. And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited: and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness." "My sins [guiltiness: marg.] are not hid from thee." "He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." "For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin." "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree." "So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many." "Who his ownself bare our sins in his own body on the tree."

But let it be conceded that the Scriptures teach the imputation of his people's guilt to Christ, and it will be urged that he consented to this imputation, whereas the descendants of Adam did not consent to the imputation of his guilt to them. The presence of consent in the one case, and its absence in the other, makes them so different as to destroy the analogy between them. To this it may be replied:

First, If it be a principle of all moral government, including the divine, that guilt cannot be imputed where there has been no conscious sin, it would be unsupposable that the infinitely just God, representing the Trinity, could have infringed that principle by imputing guilt to his sinless Son. It is inconceivable that either the Father or the Son could have consented to a measure involving the sacrifice of a principle affirmed to be fundamental to a righteous government. That consent to so transcendently wonderful and awful a procedure as the imputation of the guilt of others to the Son of God, viewed as incarnate, can only be conceived by us as possible on the ground that it was consistent with the divine perfections, and was justified by the infinitely glorious ends which were designed to be secured.

Secondly, It is hard to avoid the impression that those who urge the view under consideration, confound two things which are entirely distinct. It is one thing to impute the guilt of conscious sin, when no conscious sin has been committed, and quite another thing to impute the guilt of another’s conscious sin. In the former case the principle of justice would be flagrantly violated, for the imputation would not be in accordance with fact. It would be untrue and therefore unjust. But the same difficulty does not exist in the latter case. To impute to one the guilt of another's conscious sin does not necessarily involve an inconsistency with fact, and therefore does not necessarily conflict with truth. While then it would have been impossible for God the Father to impute to his incarnate Son the guilt of conscious, subjective sin, seeing he was holy, harmless, undefiled and separate from sinners, and equally impossible for God to impute the guilt of conscious, subjective sin to Adam's descendants for implication in his fall, seeing that when he fell they were not in conscious existence, it is neither impossible nor incredible that God the Father should have determined to introduce into his moral government a principle of representation in accordance with which, in order to the divine glory and the salvation of sinners, he called his Son to assume the guilt of fallen man, nor is it impossible or incredible that in dealing with the human race God, proceeding upon the same principle in appointing Adam as their federal head, should have ordained the imputation to them of his righteousness if he stood, and of his guilt if he fell. In either case, that of Christ or the posterity of Adam, the imputation is not of conscious and subjective, but of constructive, legal, representative guilt.

Thirdly, The distinction must not be overlooked between the consent of one to be the representative of others and the consent of constituents to be represented. The former was the case of Christ. His free consent to the appointment of the Father by which he became the representative of sinners, involving the imputation of their guilt to him, is supposed in the formation of the covenant of redemption. The same thing holds good in part of the case of Adam. He was by a free act of God's will appointed the representative of his posterity. It is true that this appointment could not have been declined by Adam, but it is also true that as he was graciously admitted to be a party to a covenant with God, his free and spontaneous consent to the divine ordination was supposed. If then it be granted that the cordial consent of a representative to the constitution under which he is appointed is supposed, it will not follow that the free, conscious consent of the constituents is to be equally supposed. Such was not the fact in regard to Christ's constituents. They did not, could not, consent in the first instance to his appointment as their representative. The same is true of Adam's constituents, who, in the first instance, did not and could not consciously consent to his appointment as their representative. The analogy then might be regarded as in some degree holding between Christ as consenting to be a representative and Adam as consenting to sustain a similar relation; but for aught that appears it would not obtain between Christ as a representative and Adam's constituents as represented.

Fourthly, Another distinction merits notice, to wit, between the derivation of responsibility upwards from constituents to a federal head and representative, on the one hand, and, on the other, the derivation of responsibility downwards from a federal head and representative to constituents. The cases are not perfectly analogous. It may, therefore, not be legitimate to say that because the Son of God consented to the imputation of the guilt of his constituents to him, it was requisite that Adam's constituents should have consented to the imputation of his guilt to them. If consent were necessary in the one case, it would not, in consequence of that fact, be proved that it was necessary in the other.

It deserves consideration that, on the supposition of the appointment of the Son of God as the federal head and representative of a sinful constituency, it was in the nature of things necessary for him to assume their guilt, and for God the Father judicially to impute it to him. Their guilt was not contemplated in the counsels of the Godhead as in any sense contingent, but as a fact; that is to say, it was not in any sense. contingent whether they would be guilty or not. They were viewed as fallen. But the case was, in some degree, different in regard to the relation between Adam and his posterity. There was, antecedently to his fall, no intrinsic necessity that his guilt should be imputed to them, because there was no such necessity that he should sin and contract guilt. He might have stood, and then his righteousness would have been imputed to them; on which supposition, their consent, according to the admission of the objectors, would not have been necessary. For it is conceded that a vicarious righteousness may be imputed, at least is imputable, without the previous consent of those upon whom such imputation is designed to take effect.

It will be said in reply that, granted there was no intrinsic necessity that Adam should fall and that his guilt should be imputed, yet God foreknew that such would be the actual result of a covenant with him; consequently, the difficulty is not removed. I rejoin, that had no federal and representative arrangement been adopted, and all men had been dealt with severally, each on his own foot, God might have foreknown that like the fallen angels all would have lapsed from holiness. Will it be demanded that before such an arrangement could have been justified the consent to it of every human being should have been secured? Who would take that ground? Why, then, might not the federal constitution have been adopted, without the consent of mankind, even though it was divinely foreseen that it would actually issue in the Fall? Looking at the matter from the low view of consequences, we must admit that no more injury has accrued from the application of the representative principle without the consent of mankind, than would have resulted if it had not been introduced and men without their consent had been treated as individually responsible.

It must also be again observed that had not the representative economy been adopted, and each member of the race had fallen through his own conscious sin, the ruin of all would have been irretrievable. For it is certain that no fallen human being could have saved himself. And if it be said that at least the justice of God in punishing every man only for his own conscious sin would have been apparent, it is easy to answer that the exercise of mercy in saving men would also have been debarred. Whether it would have been better that justice should be manifested in damning all, or mercy in saving some, it may he left to the objectors themselves to determine.

Fifthly, There is still another distinction which must be emphasized. It is that which exists between the infinite Son of God, as in essence identical and in power and glory equal with the eternal Father, on the one hand, and the finite, human subjects of the divine government, on the other. Antecedently to his own free act, by which he subordinated himself as Mediator to the will of his Father, the Son of God was not a subject of law; he was no creature, bound by the very conditions of the creaturely relation to comply with the requirements of the divine government. He was, with the Father, the source and administrator of the divine rule. Hence it is obvious that, in order to his becoming the representative and sponsor of sinful beings (amazing fact!) with the end in view of securing their pardon and salvation, his own free consent to such a procedure should exist. Without it, it is not conceivable that the mysterious economy by which he became the suffering and dying vicar, the priestly substitute, of sinners should have been carried into execution. He must have voluntarily consented to assume the guilt of sinners, and to be regarded and treated as putatively guilty, in order to the judicial imputation of guilt to him by God the Father as the representative of the Godhead in the solemn transaction. This has been clearly enough shown by such writers as Dr. John Owen, Bishop Horsley, Robert Hall and James Thornwell. But it would be extravagant to use the case of the Son of God as an analogue to that of mere creatures of the divine power and subjects of the divine law. What is and must be true of him is by no means necessarily predicable of them. If his consent to the employment of the representative principle, in such an application to him as to involve the imputation of the guilt of others to him, was indispensable, it does not follow that the application of the same principle of government to mere creatures and subjects, resulting in their implication in another's guilt, must have been conditioned only upon their free, conscious concurrence. It would amount to this: that it would have been impossible, because unjust, for God ever to have introduced the representative feature into his moral government, so far as the appointment of a creature as representative is concerned. The reason is plain. The appointment of such a representative, being necessarily founded in the eternal purpose of God, must from the nature of the case be prospective in its character - must anticipate the conscious existence of those for whom the representative is intended to act, and must therefore, if made at all, be made without their conscious consent. Will those who urge the objection under consideration maintain the view, that the infinite God was estopped from employing the principle of representation in the moral government of his creatures?

This objection, the gravity of which is not denied, has thus been subjected to a fair examination, and the reasons advanced against its relevancy, it may without arrogance be claimed, are at least sufficient to show, that the difficulties which it creates are more formidable than those inhering in the doctrine against which it is directed.

(7.) In an issue between the plain statements of Scripture and an alleged fundamental intuition, the proof of the reality of that intuition and of the legitimacy of its application to the case in hand must be such as to place it beyond suspicion. It must not be doubtful. It is admitted that our fundamental laws of belief and our fundamental principles of rectitude are standards to which, in some measure, the claims of a professed revelation from God are to be brought and by which they are to be tested. In some measure, I say, for they are far from being the only standards of adjudication. They enter as only one element into the criteria of judgment. But it must not be a spurious or even a doubtful law, which is thus erected into a standard by which an alleged supernatural revelation is to be tried. Let now this rule be applied to the supposed intuition of justice, which is appealed to in opposition to the doctrine of federal representation as delivered in the Scriptures. The foregoing argument, even if it be regarded as defective in conclusiveness, at least avails to show, that the alleged intuition of justice, in its application as a standard of judgment to that doctrine of federal representation as employed in the history of our race, is not beyond impeachment. It is itself on trial and therefore fails to be an unequivocal standard. It certainly is not sufficiently clear to ground the rejection of the Scriptures as the professed testimony of God.

Let us now briefly review the argument. The Calvinist maintains that God was just in decreeing to reprobate those who, by their own unnecessitated sin, had brought themselves into a condition of guilt and condemnation. To this it is objected, that they are born in a state of sin and spiritual inability. As they; are born sinners, it cannot be shown that they are punishable for their sin. It is congenital and constitutional. As they are born disabled by sin from obeying God's requirements, either legal or evangelical, they are not punishable for disobedience, inasmuch as ability conditions obligation. As this difficulty presses equally upon the Arminian and the Calvinist, each meets it in his own way. The Arminian contends that men are accountable for original, or birth, sin, because they were seminally contained in Adam as their first father, who differed from other fathers only in this, that he sustained a public relation to the whole race, which was possible to no other parent; and because this relation of parental headship, foreseen as issuing in sin and a fall, was modified by a purpose of redemption which was co-ordinated with it. Further by virtue of all universal atonement, the guilt of Adam's sin is not imputed, and by grace inability is removed. In this way the Arminian endeavors to vindicate the divine justice, in connection with a constitution which involved the race in congenital sin and inability. I have endeavored to show that this mode of meeting the gigantic difficulty, is insufficient and unsatisfactory, whether tested by Scripture or reason.

The Calvinist meets the difficulty by showing, that upon the relation of parental headship sustained by Adam to his race, the grace of God superinduced that of federal and legal representation. The race had their first probation in him. They were legally and representatively one with him, so that his act of sin was, considered not consciously and subjectively, but legally and representatively, their sin, and in that sense, their sin really, actually, personally, individually. In him they sinned. Consequently the guilt of that sin was justly imputable to them as their own guilt. It was another's guilt, inasmuch as they did not contract it consciously and subjectively. In this sense, it was the guilt of another's sin peccatum alienum, and became theirs by imputation only, just as, in this sense, the merit of Christ's righteousness is the merit of another's righteousness - justitia aliena, and becomes his people's only by imputation. But as they did contract Adam's guilt by acting legally and representatively in him, in that sense, the guilt was self-contracted, and the great maxim, "The soul that sinneth, it shall die," is not infringed. That Adam's descendants should be born, if born at all, in sin and spiritual inability, so far from being debarred, is required, by justice. In him they contracted guilt, and by their act despoiled themselves of that spiritual ability which was their concreated endowment. The fact, and the justice, of the federal constitution, involving the application of the principle of legal representation to the race in Adam, having been proved, the conclusion follows, that as mankind brought themselves into a condition of condemnation by their own fault, God is just in continuing upon some of them that doom which they had justly contracted.

I have dwelt at some length upon these views, because I am compelled to regard the great principle of Federal Representation, through which the sovereign grace of God dealt at first with man and deals with him now, as one of the key-principles of the Calvinistic system. If that principle be torn out of it, the system is disintegrated. Believing that it is impressed upon the whole Word of God, and illustrated in part by every scheme of free, representative government among men, I feel satisfied that its importance cannot be exaggerated.

It will be asked, What is the bearing of the Calvinistic doctrine, touching the decree of election and reprobation, upon the case of infants dying in infancy? I reluctantly answer the question, because it has so often been made a theme for furious declamation rather than for sober inquiry. To those who are willing to argue and not to denounce, we are ready to give an answer. There have been very few Calvinists who have taken the ground that any infants dying in infancy are excluded from salvation, so few as to exercise no influence upon the Calvinistic system. The great majority are divided into two classes: those who affirm the salvation of all infants dying in infancy - and at the present day this is probably the more numerous class; and those who affirm the certain salvation of all infants dying in infancy, who are children of believing parents, and content themselves with maintaining, in reference to other infants dying in infancy, the strong probability of their salvation. The former class, consequently, affirm the election to salvation of all infants dying in infancy, the reprobation of none; the latter class affirm the certain election of all infants dying in infancy, who are children of believing parents, and maintain the probable election of others dying in infancy. No class affirm the certain or probable reprobation of any infants dying in infancy. The question, therefore, of the justice of their reprobation is groundless, since neither the certainty nor the probability of their reprobation is asserted by any class of Calvinists.

But does not the Westminster Confession say that only elect infants are saved? No, it does not. The qualifying term only is not used. These are the words: "Elect infants, dying in infancy, are regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit who worketh when and where and how he pleaseth. So also are all other elect persons, who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word." The framers of the Confession evidently meant to imply that, as no human beings can be saved except in consequence of election, no infants, dying in infancy, can be saved, except in consequence of election. If all infants dying in infancy be saved, then they are all elect, and to this no Evangelical Arminian can consistently object, since he holds that all who are saved are elect. But the question whether all infants, dying in infancy, are elect, and therefore are saved, is one which the Confession did not undertake to decide. As it is not a matter concerning which the Scriptures speak definitely, it was wisely left where they put it.

If the ground be taken that justice requires the salvation of all infants dying in infancy, Calvinists unanimously deny. For the salvation of no sinner can be required by justice, and infants are sinners. If it be maintained, that all infants, dying in infancy, are saved through the mercy of God, applying to them the justifying blood of Christ and communicating the regenerating grace of the Spirit, speaking for myself, I do not deny. I think it probable and hope it may be so. But I am not prepared to go further, and dogmatically affirm what the Scriptures do not clearly reveal. The Word of God, and not human sentiment, is our rule of faith. When that speaks, let us speak; when it is silent, let us hold our peace.

It may be objected to the foregoing views, that the chief weight of the divine condemnation of sinners is represented as imposed upon them in consequence of their fall in Adam, and their possession of the principle of original sin; whereas the indictments of Scripture are mainly directed against actual transgressions. It is conceded that God's rebukes, expostulations and warnings have reference principally to the actual dispositions and transgressions of the wicked, but it cannot be overlooked that these actual wickednesses have their root in the principle of sin which is congenital with men. They develop and express it. We are, therefore, compelled, in the last analysis, to refer the ground of blameworthiness and condemnation to original sin. If that were not blameworthy and condemnable, but were a part of man's original constitution for the existence of which he is not accountable, it would be vain to seek in actual dispositions and sins, expressing a nature which he had no hand in producing but simply received, a legitimate ground of reprobation. Men consciously and spontaneously commit actual sins, and the divine condemnation of those sins is enforced by the decisions of conscience, but the root is the innate deprivation of original righteousness, and the innate principle of ungodliness; and this condition of the race at birth cannot be adjusted to our conceptions of justice, except upon the supposition of ante-natal guilt. This supposition the Scriptures confirm. The ultimate solution of the question urged by the intuition of justice is, therefore, to be found in the legal representation of the race by their primitive progenitor under the covenant of works. The case is not helped by the Arminian hypothesis of a gracious restoration of ability to the whole race. For either that supposed restoration of ability implies the regeneration of the whole race, or it does not. If it do, the supposition is exploded by facts: the whole race are not regenerated. If it do not, the ability imparted is not sufficient to overcome the principle of original sin, and the difficulty returns in all its force. Back to Eden - back to Eden, we must inevitably go.

If any one should still object to the decrees of election and reprobation as unjust, we return to him the answer of the inspired apostle: "Who art thou, O man, that repliest against God?" Has not God the right to deal with sinners as he pleases? Has he not the right to glorify his grace in the salvation of some out of the ill-deserving mass, and to glorify his justice in the destruction of others? Who is this potsherd of earth that quarrels with infinite sovereignty and justice? Let Him quarrel with those who are like him - the potsherds of earth.

2. Objection from Divine Goodness.

The next objection to the Calvinistic doctrines of election and reprobation, which will be considered, is derived from the divine goodness. It is urged that God's love is extended to every man,[85] that his tender mercies are over all his works; that it would be an impeachment of his goodness to say, that he elected some of mankind to be saved and ordained others to perish; that, knowing his efficacious grace to be necessary to the salvation of any, he decreed to impart it to some, and to withhold it from others no worse than they.

Some Calvinistic writers, in answering this objection, resort to the distinction between God's love of benevolence and his love of complacency. They admit, what the Scriptures plainly teach, that God exercises a love of benevolence towards all men, whatever their moral character may be. The common gifts of his providence, which are conferred without distinction upon the righteous and the wicked, are sufficient to evince this fact. "But I say unto you," is the inculcation of Christ in his Sermon on the Mount, "Love your enemies, bless them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust."[86] But this undeniable love of benevolence which God exercises towards all men is not to be confounded with the love of complacency with which he regards his elect people - a peculiar love which is indicated in such passages as this: "The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love; therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee."[87] Did God, it is argued, love all mankind with the love of complacency, his refusal to save all would present a difficulty which could not be explained. But the fact that he regards some with the mere love of benevolence is attended with no such difficulty. The infliction of the punishments, required by justice, upon the objects on whom the love of benevolence terminates is a fact abundantly asserted in Scripture and constantly illustrated by experience and observation. The conclusion is that the decree of reprobation is not inconsistent with the love of God to men, or, what is the same thing, with the divine goodness.

I confess my inability to avail myself of this Scriptural distinction, and of the argument based upon it answering the objection under consideration. The human race having been conceived in the eternal mind - so we must phrase it in our human dialect - as fallen by their own fault into sin, justice demanded the punishment of the whole race. It could require no less. On the other hand, mercy, which is but the benevolence of God contemplating the case of the ill-deserving and miserable, sought the salvation of the race; and being au infinite attribute, sought, we may well suppose, the salvation of the whole race. Existing together in the divine being, these infinite attributes, though differing in their intrinsic nature, are perfectly harmonious. But we are obliged to conceive that the exercise of one may check the exercise of the other. Did mercy not check the exercise of justice, the whole human race would be in the case of the fallen angels. None would be saved. Did justice not check the exercise of mercy, the whole human race would be saved. None would be lost. So probably was it in the divine settlement of the question as to the salvation of a guilty world. It pleased God in the exercise of his sovereign will, so far to yield to the plea of mercy as to determine, upon the ground of a competent mediation and substitution, to save some of the fallen race, and so far to accede to the claim of justice as to determine to leave others in its hands. But, in contemplating the sinful mass, God could have perceived in none of them any relations or qualities suited to elicit the love of complacency. The Westminster standards say that "out of his mere love" he determined to save some; but from the nature of the case that love could not have been at first the love of complacency. It must have been the love of benevolence. Having, by an act of sovereign will, decreed to elect some of the race to salvation, and having, consequently, appointed for them a Redeemer, he loved them with the peculiar love of complacency. The love of complacency was not the motive, but the fruit, of the electing decree. This, I take it, was the doctrine of those theologians, De Moor for instance, who held that Christ was not "the foundation of election."

If these views be correct, it will be seen, that in considering the relation of the decrees of election and reprobation to the goodness of God, the question is simply in regard to the love of benevolence. Is it to represent God as having acted inconsistently with his love of benevolence to the whole human race, to say, that, conceiving them as being all in precisely the same condition, he decreed to save some and to impart to them efficacious grace to that end, and to punish others, and therefore to withhold such grace from them? This being regarded as the state of the question, the negative will now be maintained. But it must be noticed that the Calvinist is not bound to show that the decree to reprobate the wicked was the product of benevolence. It is enough to prove that it is not inconsistent with benevolence. It is not the Calvinist, it is the Moral Influence School, that is responsible for the wonderful discovery that all suffering is the fruit of love. It is not the Calvinist who gallantly contends that it is love which breaks the criminal's neck on earth and sends him to further punishment in hell. He refers penal suffering not to love but justice, and all that is incumbent on him, in connection with this matter, is to show that the measures of justice are not inconsistent with the requirements of benevolence.

(1.) In the foregoing remarks, besides the adduction of evidence that the Calvinistic doctrines under treatment are set forth in Scripture, the attempt was made to show that they are not only not inconsistent, but positively consistent, with the divine justice, in answer to the objection that they cannot be reconciled with that attribute. If that argument was conclusive, it must exert a controlling influence upon the present question. It has been already observed that the acting of one divine attribute may check and modify that of another. In such a case, the divine wisdom decides to what extent the exercise of one should limit that of another. But supposing that one attribute has been actually exercised, it is impossible to conceive that such an exercise can be inconsistent with the nature of any other attribute. The forth-putting of the divine energies must be self-consistent, and consistent with every divine perfection. If, then, the reprobation of a part of the sinful race of man was just, it could not have been inconsistent with the divine goodness. Otherwise one attribute would have been exercised at the expense of another, and there would be a clash between the infinite perfections of God; and that is an impossible supposition.

For aught we know, the divine goodness may have suggested the salvation of the fallen angels, of some, or of all, of them. But on the supposition that such was the case, the determination to hold them under punishment, and the actual execution of that purpose, were certainly consistent with the goodness of God. But whether goodness suggested or not their salvation, it is a fact that their reprobation was decreed, and has been carried into execution. Was this procedure inconsistent with the divine goodness? Would any one who reverences God take that ground? But if not, why should the reprobation of human beings, who by their own fault fell into sin, be deemed inconsistent with goodness? If the reprobation of all the fallen angels was consistent with goodness, why not the reprobation of some fallen men?

It may be said that these two classes of beings were so differently circumstanced that to argue from the case of the one to that of the other is illegitimate. But all that it is necessary to show, in order to bring the two cases within the scope of this argument, is that both classes of beings fell by their own fault, and that, therefore, their punishment was just. This the Arminian, at least, cannot deny; and the assertion of other Anti-Calvinists to the contrary has been met and disproved by the preceding argument.

It may be urged that it is possible that goodness did not effect the salvation of the fallen angels, because it could not, consistently with justice; but that as it is a fact that goodness did propose, consistently with justice, the salvation of some human beings, it could not refrain from conferring the same boon upon all. For the Calvinist admits that the satisfaction rendered by Christ to justice furnished a sufficient basis for the salvation of all men without the compromise of that attribute. To this it may be replied: first, what goodness could or could not have effected consistently with justice in regard to the salvation of the fallen angels, we have no means of determining. We argue about the matter from ignorance. Our premises must be hypotheses, and the whole argument hypothetical. It is consequently nothing worth. Secondly, it is admitted that God's goodness, for aught we know, might, consistently with justice, have accomplished the salvation of all men. But if his determination not to save all men was consistent with justice, as has been shown, then that determination was not inconsistent with goodness. Here the Arminian will object that there was no divine determination not to save all men, but that the divine goodness contemplated the salvation of all. Let us see. Either he must hold that God's goodness could have effected the salvation of all men, or that it could not. If he hold that it could, as he admits that all men are not saved, he must also admit that God did not save all men although he could have done it. And then the difficulty of reconciling the destruction of some with the divine goodness bears upon him equally with the Calvinist. If he hold that the divine goodness could not effect the salvation of all men, he is confronted by these difficulties: - the difficulty that the will of man effects what the goodness of God could not; for, if the divine goodness could not effect the salvation of all men, for the same reason, whatever it may be, it could not effect the salvation of any. But some are saved. It follows that they accomplish for themselves what God's goodness could not do for them! Another difficulty is, that God permitted man to fall into sin with the foreknowledge that his goodness could not effect his salvation, and that some men would not will to save themselves, but would finally perish. How could the permission of the Fall be reconciled with the divine goodness by the Arminian? He might, it is conceivable, attempt to reconcile it with justice on the ground of the foreknowledge that the salvability of all men would be secured, and salvation would be offered to all. But he could not, on his principles, harmonize it with goodness. Another difficulty is, that those who, conscious through the force of sin of their inability to accept the offered salvation, pray to God to enable them to do it, would pray uselessly and hopelessly, for if the prayer were answered and God would grant the desired help, that would contradict the supposition that God's goodness cannot save men. And so as neither God could save them, nor they save themselves, they are necessarily lost. And this God must have foreknown. What becomes of the Arminian conception of the divine goodness? But enough in regard to this fatal dilemma, though it might be pressed further. If the Arminian contend that God can save men and will not save some, then as to the difficulty suggested by goodness he is in the same boat with the Calvinist. If he contend that God cannot save men, he is plunged into a wilderness of absurdities and self-contradictions.

(2.) The finiteness of our being, and the consequent limitation of our faculties, the fact that we are sinful worms of the dust born yesterday and crushed before the moth, should lead us to be modest and cautious in pronouncing upon the question, what is required by the infinite perfections of God and the boundless interests of the universe. Occupying, as we do, so small a place in that vast scheme of moral government which embraces in its scope all orders of being, in the whole immortality of their development, what can we know of the exigencies of such a system, except as the all-wise and almighty Ruler shall vouchsafe to inform us in the communications of his will? Now, we know, because he has ascertained us of the fact, that the angels who kept not their first estate but revolted against his government have not been saved from the retributive consequences of their fall. The case is profoundly mysterious to us, in view of the fact that redemption has been provided for fallen human beings. But mysterious as it is, it is a revealed fact. What man is there, then, professing reverence for the Supreme Ruler of the universe, who will venture to sit in judgment on the case, and affirm that the measure which consigned the whole fallen race of angels to hell was inconsistent with the divine goodness? Will he not cover his mouth with his hand, lay his mouth in the dust before the Majesty on high, and humbly confess that in this awful procedure lie acted alike in consistency with his justice and his goodness? What other, course could such a man take? How could he pronounce an adverse judgment? What grounds could exist for it? Has he the consciousness of God that he call determine what his infinite perfections demand - his infinite justice which will not compound with the violators of his law, his infinite holiness which will not tolerate the least degree of sin, but, blazing with insufferable brightness before cherubim and seraphim, abashes them into prostrate adoration? Has he the omniscience of God, that he can grasp the far-reaching and all-comprehending principles of his moral government, and say how they should or should not be applied? Has he the love of God for all the creatures of his hand and the subjects of his illimitable sway, that he call judge what measures are necessary or suitable to promote their interests? No; all the pious, while they adore the justice of God in the reprobation of guilty angels, confess also the consistency of that awful fact with the goodness of God.

The same considerations should lead us to refrain from questioning the goodness of God in reprobating guilty men. We are ignorant of the case as a whole, and our attitude should be one of adoring submission. What essential difference is there between the case of fallen angels and that of fallen men? There is none, if it be a fact that both classes of beings fell by their own fault. A provision made for the salvation of some of the fallen race of men and effectually applied to that end, while others are left in the hands of justice, cannot constitute such a difference. Had not God the right to show his mercy towards some, and to continue the operation of his justice upon others? And if it be a fact that he has done this, why should his reprobation of some guilty men be deemed more inconsistent with goodness than his reprobation of all guilty angels?

It may be said that there is a difference between the two cases, created by the different modes in which the two classes of beings came to sin; for each angel, being on his own foot, fell by his own conscious sin, whereas men are held accountable for the sin of a federal head. But, in the first place, we know too little of the genesis of angelic sin to dogmatize about it. In the second place, we do know that both angels and men were probationers, that they were endowed with sufficient ability to obey the divine law, and that their disobedience and fall were inexcusable and condemnable. And in the third place, this exception to the community between the two cases is incompetent to the Arminian, who admits the accountability of the human race for the sin of their head.

It will be also said, that all men might have been saved consistently with justice, since perfect satisfaction was rendered by Christ to justice. As justice opposed no obstacle to the salvation of all, why did not goodness effect it? How can the refusal to accomplish it, under such conditions, be reconciled to goodness? Again we are obliged, if reverent and sober, to remember our ignorance. How can we be perfectly sure that the perfections of God and the interests of his moral government did not require, notwithstanding the discharge of some of the original transgressors of law through a commutation of parties and the substitution of Christ in their place, that some of them should be left under the operation of justice? How can we determine that this was not as well a beneficent as a righteous measure to deter, by so fearful an example, other subjects of the divine government from yielding to the temptation to revolt in the hope of experiencing easy pardon through vicarious interposition? I venture not to assert that these things are so, but if they are possible, that consideration is sufficient to prevent our filing an objection to God's reprobation of some human sinners, because we judge that if his goodness saves some of mankind consistently with justice, it ought to save all.

It deserves to be noticed, that in the case of the fallen angels we behold the severity of God untempered by goodness to them, but in that of men we behold his goodness and severity; to them who are saved goodness, but to them who are lost severity. There is, also, in the angelic case, the direct exercise of justice consistently with goodness, and in the human case, the direct exercise of goodness consistently with justice. In the former, all are punished by justice, goodness concurring; in the latter only some are punished by justice, goodness concurring, while some are postively saved by goodness, justice concurring. Manifestly, while there is equal justice in both cases, there is more of goodness in the human; and were we foreigners to the human race as we are to the angelic, and looked upon both cases as we look upon that of the fallen angels, such, no doubt, would be our impartial judgment.

(3.) The Arminian, who objects to the Calvinistic doctrines of election and reprobation on the ground of their inconsistency with divine goodness, should reflect that his own doctrine needs to be defended against the same objection. His doctrine is that God provided redemption for the whole human race, that Christ as its substitute offered atonement for every individual member of it, and that the effect of this redeeming provision operating through an universal atonement has been to secure, not the certain salvation of any man, but the possible salvation - the salvability - of every man. It is not now intended to discuss the correctness of this doctrine, but to raise the question, whether it can be shown to be consistent with divine goodness; whether it be free from the charge of inconsistency with that attribute which its advocates press upon the Calvinistic doctrine.

First, it has already been evinced that Arminian theologians admit, that the constitution by which the race was held accountable for the sin of Adam, considered in itself, apart from a purpose of redemption which accompanied it, would have been unjust. It does not require formal argument to prove that they are under the necessity of also admitting that for similar reasons that constitution, regarded in itself, separately from a purpose of redemption which attended it, would have been unkind. But if, as has also been clearly shown, a provision of redemption which was intended to deliver men from the disastrous results foreknown to accrue from that constitution could not relieve it from the charge of intrinsic injustice, so neither could it rid it of the imputation of intrinsic unkindness. Now, this would necessarily have been true, even if the redeeming provision had made the salvation of every man absolutely certain. The Arminian scheme is loaded with this difficulty at its very start. But this is not all; the difficulty is greatly enhanced by the position that the provision of redemption was not intended to secure the certain salvation of every man from the consequences of the Fall. It was only designed to make it possible. It secured the possibility of deliverance from the effects of the unkindness done him in the Adamic constitution. But it is urged that it is men's own fault if they avail not themselves of the deliverance tendered them. Yes, but until the tender is actually made them, they suffer from the unkindness done them. And more than this: their refusal of the tendered salvation - and many refuse it - is instigated by the corrupt principle which through unkindness they derived from a connection with Adam to which "they were not consenting." Is it not, in view of these considerations, evident that the Arminian has a hard task when he undertakes to exhibit the consistency of his doctrine with divine goodness - hard enough, at least, to make him less forward in urging against the Calvinistic doctrine the charge of inconsistency with the benevolence of God.

Secondly, the case of the heathen is a stumblingstone to the Arminian scheme. According to that scheme, the provision of redemption was made for all mankind, the atoning death of Christ was intended to confer saving benefits upon all without distinction. Discrimination between individuals would not be consistent with divine goodness. The love of God was catholic, it terminated upon every soul of man. Hence Christ died for every individual of the race - that is, he died for every man to make the salvation of every man possible. Consequently, the offer of salvation is to be extended to every man, so as to give him the opportunity of accepting it; his own free acceptance of it being the divinely appointed condition of his possible salvation becoming to him an actual salvation. To this end, the grace of the Holy Spirit, acquired for the whole race by the merits of Christ, is given to every man to assist him to accept the offer, to incline his will to avail itself of it and so determine the question of his salvation.

At first view it would appear as if the benevolence of God were highly exemplified in this scheme, which includes within its ample and generous scope every individual of our fallen and hapless race; especially when it is contrasted with the narrower and more contracted scheme of the Calvinist, which, although it asserts not a merely possible but a certain salvation, confines its benefits to the elect. But a formidable difficulty at once springs up and opposes this judgment. The HEATHEN, - what of them? Their salvation was made possible by the redemptive provision. Christ died to make their salvation possible. The blessings he purchased by his blood were intended for every soul of man, and, therefore, intended for them. Now, how comes it to pass that goodness so extraordinarily manifested in making this provision for their salvation, does not inform them that it was made? It is possible for them now to partake of it and be saved - to eat of the abundant bread, to drink of the living water and quaff the refreshing wine. But the heathen know nothing of this. It is their designation - their definition, that they are ignorant of the gospel. None who know the gospel, however imperfectly, can properly be denominated heathen. But there are millions of heathen, strictly so called; human beings who have no knowledge whatsoever of the gospel and the scheme of redemption it reveals. The question must be answered, Where, so far as they are concerned, is the goodness in making the redeeming provision? But it was made for them. Well, of what avail is it to them unless they know that fact? Where is the goodness in concealing from some of the beneficiaries of the redemptive provision the fact that it was made for them? The provision was made for all, but only a few comparatively know of it. Why does not the goodness that filled the storehouse and threw open its doors invite all the starving to come and partake? Why are the invitations extended only to some? Surely, it is difficult to reconcile this amazing fact with goodness.

It is in vain to reply that the invitation is extended to all. How, we ask, is it extended? If the answer be, In the Bible; Yes, we rejoin, but the heathen know nothing of the Bible. The invitation is on the card, but the card is not sent to the heathen. If it have been already extended, why send foreign missionaries, at great sacrifice to themselves and heavy expense to the church, to convey it to them? Do they not make the first offer of the gospel to the contemporary heathen? No, the invitation has not been extended to all of them, although the provision is affirmed to have been made for all. The question is repeated, How is this reconcilable with goodness? Were one disposed to imitate the example of some Arminian objectors to the Calvinistic scheme, it would be easy to paint harrowing rhetorical pictures, in order to aggravate the force of this difficulty. But the purpose is to argue and not declaim.

It would be equally vain to say, that the heathen may know of the redemptive provision made for them, if they would. For the question is, how they could will to know of it. If they have no information of its existence, how could they desire its knowledge? Will it be said, that the means of intercommunication between the different parts of the world are so great, that the knowledge of the gospel scheme is accessible to them? The ready answer is, How would that affect the heathen who lived in past centuries of the Christian era, not to speak of the unnumbered myriads who preceded it in time? They had not the benefit of this modern intercommunication between races. But take the case of contemporary heathen, and it cannot be forgotten that if the knowledge of the gospel plan be accessible to them, on the supposition that they would put forth efforts to acquire it, they have no disposition to seek it. It is one of the results of acquaintance with the gospel that the disposition to know it is engendered. Even when it is made known, vast numbers of the heathen actually reject it. What room, then, is there for holding that they might know of the provision of redemption made for them, if they would? Their corrupt natures preclude their being willing to acquire the knowledge. The gospel must be sent to them, else they will not hear it; they must hear, else they will not believe; they must believe, else they perish. Such is Paul's argument.[88] How then can the providence which fails to acquaint the heathen with the redeeming provision made for them be, on the Arminian scheme, harmonized with goodness?

Further, it is a cardinal element of the Arminian system that the actual experience of salvation is suspended upon the voluntary acceptance of it. Men must not be constrained by efficacious grace to accept it. Grace cannot make them willing. Their power of otherwise determining is inalienable. Did they not possess the power of self-determination in reference to the question of accepting the offer of salvation, they would cease to be men. If converted by efficacious grace, they would not be converted men, but converted machines. Men, however assisted by grace, must, at last, by a choice of their own wills, which might reject it, accept the offer of salvation. If this be not conceded to be an element of the Arminian system, its chief differentiating feature is denied. Without it, its distinctive existence, as a coherent system, would cease.

This being the case, how does it consist with goodness, that the opportunity to fulfil the condition upon which the experience of salvation is suspended, is not given to some of those for whom redemption was provided? It being necessary to their participation of its blessings that they should, in the free exercise of their own wills, accept the offer of them, how does it consist with goodness that the offer is not extended to them? If it be not extended to them, they cannot accept it; if they do not accept it, they cannot be saved. But it is an undeniable fact, that the offer has not in the past, and is not now, extended to myriads of the heathen world. The difficulty is insuperable.

To avoid this difficulty, it may be said that the heathen who know not the gospel may be saved through the benefits of the atonement indirectly applied to them. But this supposition is in flat contradiction to the fundamental element of the Arminian scheme just signalized - namely, that men must freely accept the offer of salvation in order to experience its benefits. Both cannot be true. Which alternative will be elected? If the former, the integrity of the Arminian system is sacrificed; if the latter, the salvation of the heathen is pronounced impossible; and the difficulty suggested by goodness re-appears and asserts itself in all its formidable force.

Again, this indirect application of the redeeming provision to the heathen must be held to be either not saving, or saving. If it be held to be not saving, of what use is it? What real benefit does it confer? It could not be a measure of goodness, certainly not of saving goodness. If it be held to be saving, the question must be met, How is it saving? That which leads to salvation must lead to holiness. Will it be contended that this indirect application of the benefits of redemption contributes to the holiness of the heathen? Facts contradict so wild an hypothesis. What is accomplished? Not faith in Christ, not repentance for sin, not godly living. What, then? Are the heathen taken to heaven and made partakers of its holy fellowship and employments without any spiritual preparation for such a change? Surely not. It would seem then that no saving benefit is conferred upon them by this fancied application of redemption indirectly to their case. The truth is, the supposition is too extravagant to be gravely supported, or to deserve serious refutation. We have not yet discovered the goodness which is manifested to the heathen through the provision of redemption. But let us pursue the quest.

It may be said that as infants may unconsciously receive the benefits of atonement and the regenerating grace of the Holy Spirit, they being incapable of understanding the truth or apprehending the gospel offer, so may it be with the heathen. But, let us know what heathen are meant. Is it heathen infants dying in infancy? That is not denied. But that is not the question. The question is in regard to adult heathen. If they be put into the category of saved infants, then they must be dealt with as saved infants are dealt with. They must be purged from the guilt of original sin and regenerated by the grace of the Spirit, and that must be accomplished for them without their consciousness of the influences exerted upon them, or the change of state and character effected, and without their active concurrence with the work of the Spirit. Is it thus that God deals with adult sinners, with fully developed and atrociously wicked sinners? Is it thus that he sovereignly saves them without any action of their own wills? Is it thus that Arminians glorify sovereign grace? Verily those who would take this ground would out-Calvin Calvin in their maintenance of unconditional salvation. Nor is this the worst of it. These people who like infant sinners are justified and regenerated, live on as adult sinners, perpetrating crimes which are the climax of wickedness, substituting idols in the place of the living God, unconscious that they had been born again into the kingdom of grace and justified by the blood of Christ, or that they had lapsed from the possession of these inestimable blessings! And these are the people to whom as to infants dying in infancy the provision of redemption is indirectly applied!

To meet this formidable difficulty growing out of the consideration that the goodness which made a provision of redemption for all men has not published the fact to all, it has been maintained that the heathen really have access to some knowledge of the gospel; for, they live under the patriarchal dispensation and have some traditional acquaintance with the first promise of redemption for man. which was its characteristic element. Had this view not been seriously advocated by a distinguished theologian,[89] it might be deemed a shadow conjured up merely for the sake of argument. A few remarks will be made with reference to it:

In the first place, every dispensation of the gospel, except the final, is, from the nature of the case, bounded by definite limits. When, in the development of the divine plan, it has accomplished its end, it expires by its own limitation. It gives place to another, for which it has prepared the way; another, in a measure evolved out of it by an expansion of its principles, but also specifically marked off from it by new supernatural revelations and new facts and elements. When the new begins, the old vanishes - it ceases, as a dispensation, to exist. Each dispensation of the gospel must be regarded as a special form of administration of the covenant of grace. There is an essence which is common to all the dispensations. It is the saving provisions of the covenant. This essential feature passes from one dispensation to another. It is a fixed and invariable quantity. But there are also specific features which as peculiar to each dispensation are accidental and temporary. It is these which give to each its cast. When they cease, the dispensation as such ceases. Its distinctive law is no more operative. The covenant, as to its essential provisions, is permanent, but the special form of its administration is abrogated, and another is substituted in its room. This is the argument of the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, in the seventh and eighth chapters: "If, therefore, perfection were by the Levitical priesthood, (for under it the people received the law,) what further need was there that another priest should rise after the order of Melchisedec, and not be called after the order of Aaron? For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law." "For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second. For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. . . . In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away." The meaning could not be that the covenant of grace as to its essential features was about to vanish away, but the special form in which it had last been administered the Mosaic dispensation. That was decaying and waxing old, and was ready to vanish away.

If the Jew should now claim, because he has the knowledge of the Mosaic dispensation, that he is living under it as one in present operation, the Christian would reply that he makes a grievous mistake: that dispensation, having discharged its typical and temporary office, has passed away and given place to the Christian dispensation. The argument is a fortiori in respect to the Patriarchal dispensation. That, thousands of years ago, gave way to the Mosaic, as the Mosaic has now made room for the Christian. Between the time of its abrogation and the present, one whole dispensation and part of the history of another have intervened. It died, as a dispensation, ages ago. To say then that the heathen live under it, is to affirm, in the face of facts and inspired testimony alike, its present existence and operation.

But it may be contended that a knowledge of the first promise may survive the dispensation which contained it. If by this is meant a knowledge that there was such a promise, who would deny the proposition? Christians know that such a promise once existed, but they also know that the dispensation which contained it once existed. Of what value is such historical knowledge to the heathen, even if it be supposed that they have it? Can it contribute to their salvation? But the promise, as such, no longer exists. It has been fulfilled, and therefore it necessarily expired. How can there be a promise of what has been? To say, then, that the heathen may be saved through a knowledge of the first promise, is to say that they may be saved through a knowledge of nothing. If they believe that the promise still exists, they believe a delusion. Can that save them?

So was it with animal sacrifices. They were typical promises of the atoning death of Christ. That having been accomplished, they necessarily ceased. To maintain them still is to deny the past fact of Christ's death, and that would be anti-Christian. To maintain them in ignorance of the testimony that Christ has died, is to maintain senseless and empty rites, which can no longer be types, and therefore have no right to exist. The heathen consequently cannot be led through animal sacrifices to a saving knowledge of redemption. No knowledge of the Patriarchal dispensation and the first promise announced by it, which the heathen may be imagined to possess, could be to them a medium of salvation.

In the second place, it is unsupposable that they retain such knowledge in sufficient degree to make it saving. Multitudes of the heathen received a knowledge of the gospel through the preaching of the apostles, of their contemporary fellow-laborers and of the evangelists who succeeded them. But they have lost it. What reason is there for supposing that they retain a knowledge of the indistinct elements of the Patriarchal dispensation, when they have forgotten the clearer provisions and the glorious facts of the Christian? Is it at all likely that traditions coming down from a period hoary with age would survive those descending from one more recent?

But why argue this question? One cannot avoid the consciousness that in discussing it he is acting uselessly and preposterously. Facts prove that the heathen have no such knowledge of the first gospel promise as is alleged. No missionary encounters it. It is a mere dream that it exists. And the conviction that it does not, furnishes a ground for those missionary labors which Arminian bodies are prosecuting, at so great an expenditure of men and means, among the heathen tribes of earth. To say that these noble efforts find a sufficient reason in the need which the heathen have of clearer light than they already possess would be to threaten them with extinction. We may safely oppose the practical work of Foreign Missions to all hypotheses which assume for the heathen any knowledge whatsoever of the provisions of the gospel.

To conclude this particular argument: if the heathen have not been informed of that provision of redemption which, it is contended, was made for all mankind and consequently for them, how is that amazing fact to be reconciled with divine goodness? The Arminian, who has this gigantic difficulty to meet, may well refrain from objecting to the Calvinistic doctrine that it is inconsistent with the goodness of God. His own hands are full.

Thirdly, it is impossible to prove, that a scheme which provides for the possible salvation of all men more conspicuously displays the divine goodness than one which secures the certain salvation of some men. The words, atonement offered for all men, universal atonement, Christ died to save all men, Christ died for every soul of man, - these words are very attractive. They seem to breathe a philanthropy which is worthy of God. But let us not be imposed upon by the beauty or pomp of mere phrases. What is the exact meaning of the language? It is elliptical, and, to be understood, must be filled out. The meaning is, that atonement was offered for all men, that Christ died for all men, merely to make the salvation of all men possible: therefore the meaning is not what the language appears to imply - namely, that atonement was offered for all men to secure their salvation; that Christ died to save all men. That is explicitly denied. It is the heresy of Universalism. Let it be noticed - attention is challenged to it - that, upon the Arminian scheme, the whole result of the atonement, of the death of Christ, of the mission of the Holy Ghost, is the salvability of all men - the possible salvation of all. Dispel the glamor from these charming words, and that is absolutely all that they mean.

But let us go on. What precisely is meant by the possible salvation of all men? It cannot mean the probable salvation of all men. If it did, the word probable would have been used; but facts would have contradicted the theory. Not even the Arminian would assert the probable salvation of all men, in consequence of the atonement. It is then only a possible salvation that is intended. Now what makes the salvation of all possible? It is granted, that all obstacles in the way of any sinner's return to God are, on God's side, removed. The Calvinist admits that, equally with the Arminian. Where then lies the difference? What does the Arminian mean by a salvation possible to all? He means a salvation that may be secured, if the human will consent to receive it. To give this consent it is persuaded by grace. But it is not constrained by grace to give it. It holds the decision of the question in its power. It may accept the offered salvation; it may not. The whole thing is contingent upon the action of the sinner's will. This is what makes the salvation of all men merely possible; and it inevitably follows that the destruction of all men is also possible.

I shall, with divine help, presently prove that a possible salvation, contingent upon the action of a sinner's will, is really an impossible salvation. But conceding now, for argument's sake, that there is such a thing as a merely possible salvation of all men, it is repeated, that it cannot be shown to exhibit the beneficence of God one whit more clearly than does the certain salvation of some men. Upon the Calvinistic scheme, the absolute certainty of the salvation of countless multitudes of the race is provided for; on the Arminian, the certainty of the salvation of not one human being is provided for. But let it be admitted that although not provided for, yet in some way, the final result will in fact prove to be the certain salvation of countless multitudes. How can the Arminian show that these multitudes will exceed in number those which are saved upon the Calvinistic scheme? He can not. The human faculties have no data upon which they can institute such an equation. But until that is shown, it is impossible to see how his scheme more signally displays the saving goodness of God than the Calvinist's. One thing is clear: according to the Calvinistic doctrine, those who are saved will praise God's goodness for having saved them; and, according to the Arminian, they will praise his goodness for having made it possible for them to be saved. Which would be the directer tribute to the divine benevolence, it may be left to common sense to judge.

The Arminian, however, if he should candidly admit that his scheme labors under the difficulties which have been mentioned, will still reply, that it has, in regard to goodness, this advantage over the Calvinistic: that it makes possible the salvation of those whose salvation the Calvinistic scheme makes impossible. He charges, that while the Calvinistic scheme makes the salvation of some certain, it makes the destruction of some equally certain. The one scheme opens the door of hope to all; the other closes it against some. This, it is contended, cannot be shown to consist with the goodness of God. It is not intended to deny that this is a difficulty which the Calvinistic scheme has to carry. Its adherents are sufficiently aware of the awful mystery which hangs round this subject, and of the limitations upon their faculties, to deter them from arrogantly claiming to understand the whole case. The difficulty is this: If God can, on the ground of the all-sufficient merit of Christ, save those who actually perish, why does not his goodness lead him to save them? Why, if he know that, without his efficacious grace, they will certainly perish, does he withhold from them that grace, and so seal the certainty of their destruction? These solemn questions the Calvinist professes his ability to answer only in the words of our blessed Lord: "Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight."

But should the Arminian, professing to decide how the Deity should proceed in relation to sinners, use this conceded difficulty for the purpose of showing that the Calvinist imputes malignity to God, it is fair, it is requisite, to prove that he has no right to press this objection - that it is incumbent on him to look to his own defences. What if it should turn out that he is oppressed by a still greater difficulty?

In the first place, the Evangelical Arminian admits that God perfectly foreknew all that will ever come to pass. Consequently, he admits that God foreknew what, and how many, human beings will finally perish. He must also admit that God foreknows that he will judge them at the last day, and that what God foreknows he will do on that day, he must have eternally purposed to do. The final condemnation, therefore, of a definite number of men is absolutely certain. The question is not now whether God makes it certain. Let us not leave the track. What it is asserted the Arminian must admit is, that it is certain. Now this is very different from saying that God eternally knew that all men would perish, unless he should interpose to save them. For he foreknew his purpose to make such an interposition in behalf of some of the race, and so foreknew the absolute certainty of their final salvation. The case before us is, not that God knew that those who will actually perish would perish unless he interposed to save them. It is, that he foreknew that they will finally perish. But if this must be admitted - that God foreknew with certainty that some human beings will be, at the last day, adjudged by him to destruction, then their destruction is certain. Now we crave to know how a provision of redemption which made their salvation possible can exercise any effect upon their destiny. Their destruction is to God's knowledge certain. How can the possibility of their salvation change that certainty? It cannot. Where, then, is the goodness to them of the redeeming provision? It is impossible to see.

Further, how can salvation be possible to those who are certain to be lost? How can their salvation be possible, if their destruction be certain? There is but one conceivable answer: it is, that although God foreknew that they would be lost, he also foreknew that they might be saved. That is to say, there was an extrinsic impossibility of their salvation created by God's certain foreknowledge, but an intrinsic possibility of their salvation growing out of their ability to avail themselves of the provision of redemption. It may be pleaded that their case is like that of Adam in innocence. God knew that he would fall, but he also knew that he might stand. This brings us to the next point, and that will take us down to one of the fundamental difficulties of the Arminian scheme.

In the second place, a possible salvation would be to a sinner an impossible salvation. Mere salvability would be to him inevitable destruction. It will be admitted, without argument, that a possible salvation is not, in itself, an actual salvation. That which may be is not that which is. Before a possible can become an actual salvation something needs to be done - a condition must be performed upon which is suspended its passage from possibility to actuality. The question is, What is this thing which needs to be done - what is this condition which must be fulfilled before salvation can become a fact to the sinner? The Arminian answer is: Repentance and faith on the sinner's part. He must consent to turn from his iniquities and accept Christ as his Saviour. The further question presses, By what agency does the sinner perform this condition - by what power does he repent, believe, and so accept salvation? The answer to this question, whatever it may be, must indicate the agency, the power, which determines the sinner's repenting, believing and so accepting salvation. It is not enough to point out an agency, a power, which is, however potent, merely an auxiliary to the determining cause. It is the determining cause itself that must be given as the answer to the question. It must be a factor which renders, by virtue of its own energy, the final decision - an efficient cause which, by its own inherent causality, makes a possible salvation an actual and experimental fact. What is this causal agent which is the sovereign arbiter of human destiny? The Arminian answer to this last question of the series is, The sinner's will.[90] It is the sinner's will which, in the last resort, determines the question whether a possible, shall become an actual, salvation. This has already been sufficiently evinced in the foregoing remarks. But what need is there of argument to prove what any one, even slightly acquainted with Arminian theology, knows that it maintains? Indeed, it is one of the distinctive and vital features of that theology, contra-distinguishing it to the Calvinistic. The Calvinist holds that the efficacious and irresistible grace of God applies salvation to the sinner; the Arminian, that the grace of God although communicated to every man is inefficacious and resistible, and that the sinner's will uses it as merely an assisting influence in determining the final result of accepting a possible salvation and so making it actual. Grace does not determine the will; the will "improves" the grace and determines itself. Grace is the handmaid, the sinner's will the mistress. Let us suppose that in regard to the question whether salvation shall be accepted, there is a perfect equipoise between the motions of grace and the contrary inclinations of the sinner's will. A very slight added influence will destroy the equilibrium. Shall it be from grace or from the sinner's will? If from the former, grace determines the question, and the Calvinistic doctrine is admitted. But that the Arminian denies. It must then be from the sinner's will; and however slight and inconsiderable this added influence of the will may be, it determines the issue. It is like the feather that alights upon one of two evenly balanced scales and turns the beam.

Moreover, this will of the sinner which discharges the momentous office of determining the question of salvation is his natural will. It cannot be a gracious will, that is, a will renewed by grace; for if it were, the sinner would be already in a saved condition. But the very question is, Will he consent to be saved? Now if it be not the will of a man already in a saved condition, it is the will of a man yet in an unsaved condition. It is the will of an unbelieving and unconverted man, that is, a natural man, and consequently must be a natural will. It is this natural will, then, which finally determines the question whether a possible salvation shall become an actual. It is its high office to settle the matter of practical salvation. In this solemn business, as in all others, it has an irrefragable autonomy. Not even in the critical transition from the kingdom of Satan into the kingdom of God's dear Son, can it be refused the exercise of its sacred and inalienable prerogative of contrary choice. At the supreme moment of the final determination of the soul "for Christ to live and die," the determination might be otherwise. The will may be illuminated, moved, assisted by grace, but not controlled and determined by it. To the last it has the power of resisting grace and of successfully resisting it. To it - I use the language reluctantly - the blessed Spirit of God is represented as sustaining the attitude of the persuasive orator of grace. He argues, he pleads, he expostulates, he warns, he beseeches the sinner's will in the melting accents of Calvary and alarms it with the thunders of judgment - but that is all. He cannot without trespassing upon its sovereignty renew and re-create and determine his will. This is no misrepresentation, no exaggeration, of the Arminian's position. It is what he contends for. It is what he must contend for. It is one of the hinges on which his system turns. Take it away, and the system swings loosely and gravitates to an inevitable fall.

Now this is so palpably opposed to Scripture and the facts of experience, that Evangelical Arminians endeavor to modify it, so as to relieve it of the charge of being downright Pelagianism. That the attempt is hopeless, has already been shown. It is utterly vain to say, that grace gives ability to the sinner sufficient for the formation of that final volition which decides the question of personal salvation. Look at it. Do they mean, by this ability, regenerating grace? If they do, as regenerating grace unquestionably determines the sinner's will, they give up their. position and adopt the Calvinistic. No; they affirm that they do not, because the Calvinistic position is liable to two insuperable objections: first, that it limits efficacious grace to the elect, denying it to others; secondly, that efficacious and determining, grace would contradict the laws by which the human will is governed. It comes back to this, then: that notwithstanding this imparted ability, the natural will is the factor which determines the actual relation of the soul to salvation. The admission of a gracious ability, therefore, does not relieve the difficulty. It is not an efficacious and determining influence; it is simply suasion. The natural will may yield to it or resist it. It is a vincible influence.

Now this being the real state of the case, according to the Arminian scheme, it is perfectly manifest that no sinner could be saved. There is no need of argument. It is simply out of the question, that the sinner in the exercise of his natural will can repent, believe in Christ, and so make a possible salvation actual. Let it be clearly seen that, in the final settlement of the question of personal religion, the Arminian doctrine is, that the will does not decide as determined by the grace of God, but by its own inherent self-determining power, and the inference, if any credit is attached to the statements of Scripture, is forced upon us, that it makes the salvation of the sinner impossible. A salvation, the appropriation of which is dependent upon the sinner's natural will, is no salvation; and the Arminian position is that the appropriation of salvation is dependent upon the natural will of the sinner. The stupendous paradox is thus shown to be true - that a merely possible salvation is an impossible salvation.

If in reply to this argument the Arminian should say, that he does not hold that the merely natural will which is corrupt is the final determining agent, but that the will makes the final decision by reason of some virtue characterizing it, the rejoinder is obvious: first, this virtue must either be inherent in the natural will of the sinner, or be communicated by grace. If it be inherent in the natural will, it is admitted that it is the natural will itself, through a power resident in it, which determines to improve communicated grace and appropriate salvation; and that would confirm the charge that the Arminian makes the final decision to accept salvation depend upon the natural will, which would be to render salvation impossible. If this virtue in the will which determines it to make the final decision be communicated by grace, it is a part of the gracious ability imparted to the sinner; and then we would have a part of this communicated gracious ability improving another part - that is, gracious ability improving gracious ability. Now this would be absurd on any other supposition than that grace is the determining agent, and that supposition the Arminian rejects. To state the case briefly: either this virtue in the will which is the controlling element is grace or it is not. If it be grace, then grace is the determining element, and the Calvinistic doctrine is admitted. If it be not grace, then the will by its natural power is the determining element, and that is impossible, - it is impossible for the natural will, which is itself sinful and needs to be renewed, to determine the question of practical salvation.

Let us put the matter in a different light. There must be some virtue in the natural man to lead him to improve grace - to use gracious ability. Now whence is this virtue? It must be either from God, or from himself. If it be from God, then the cause which determines the question of accepting salvation is from God, and the Calvinistic doctrine is admitted. If it be from himself, then it is the natural will which uses the gracious ability, and determines the appropriation of salvation; and that is impossible.

Further, the Arminian must admit either that the will makes the final decision in consequence of some virtue in it, or that it makes it without all virtue. If in consequence of some virtue, then as that virtue is distinguished from the grace it uses, it is merely natural, and the natural will is affirmed to be virtuous enough to decide the all-important question of salvation; which is contrary to the doctrine, maintained by Evangelical Arminians, that the natural man is depraved, and destitute of saving virtue. If the will makes the final decision without all virtue, then the natural will, as sinful, improves grace to the salvation of the soul, which is absurd and impossible. The Arminian is shut up to admit that it is the natural will of the sinner which improves grace and determines the question of personal salvation; and it is submitted, that such a position makes salvation impossible.

There is another mode of showing that, according to the distinctive principles of the Arminian system, salvation is impossible. The Scriptures unquestionably teach that salvation is by grace: "By grace ye are saved."[91] Not only so, but with equal clearness they teach that none can be saved except by grace; that no sinner can save himself: "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which he shed on us abundantly, through Jesus Christ our Saviour; that being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life."[92] There is no need to argue this point, since it is admitted by Evangelical Arminians as well as by Calvinists. Their common doctrine is that no sinner can save himself. If his salvation depended upon his saving himself it would be impossible. But the distinctive doctrines of Arminianism - the doctrines which distinguish it from Calvinism - necessitate the inference that the sinner saves himself. This inference is illegitimate, the Arminian contends, because he holds that had not Christ died to make salvation possible and were not the Holy Spirit imparted to induce the sinner to embrace it, no man could be saved. This, however, is no proof of the illegitimacy of the inference from his doctrine that the sinner is after all his own saviour. The proof of the legitimacy of the inference is established in this way: According to Arminianism, sufficient grace is imparted to all men. Every man has, consequently, sufficient ability to repent, believe and embrace salvation. This sufficient grace or ability, therefore, is common to all men. But that it does not determine all men to be saved is proved by the fact that some are not saved. This the Arminian holds. Now, what makes the difference between the saved and the unsaved? Why is one man saved and another not saved? The answer to these questions is of critical importance and it must be rendered. What answer does the Arminian return? This: The reason is, that one man determines to improve the common grace and another does not. He cannot hold that grace makes the difference, for grace is the common possession of both. The specific difference of their cases is the respective determinations of their own wills, undetermined by grace. He therefore who determines to use the common gift cannot be saved by it, but by his determination to use it. If it be not that which saves him, but the grace itself, then all who have the grace would be saved by it equally with him. No, it is not grace which saves him, but his use of grace. And as he might have determined not to use it, it is manifest that he is saved by the exercise of his own will; in other words that he saves himself. The saving factor is his will; he is his own saviour. This is made still plainer by asking the question, Why is another not saved, but ruined? He had the same sufficient grace with him who is saved. His own determination not to use it, it will be said, is the cause of his ruin - he therefore ruins himself. In the same way precisely the determination of the saved man to use it is the cause of his salvation - he, therefore, saves himself. Granted, that he could not be saved without grace; still, grace only makes his salvation possible. He must make it a fact; and beyond controversy, he who makes his salvation a fact accomplishes his salvation. He saves himself.

This reasoning conclusively evinces it to be a necessary consequence from the distinctive doctrines of Arminianism, that sinners are not saved by grace but by themselves in the use of grace; and as that position contradicts the plainest teachings of Scripture, the system which necessitates it makes salvation impossible.

To all this it will be replied, that the ability conferred by grace pervades the will itself, and enables, although it does not determine, it to make the final and saving decision. But this by no means mends the matter. Let it be admitted that the will is enabled by grace to decide; if it is not determined by it to the decision, then it follows that there is something in the will different from the gracious ability, which uses that ability in determining the result. What is that different element? It cannot be a gracious power. To admit that would be to contradict the supposition and to give up the question; for in that case it would be grace which determines the decision. What can that be which differs from the gracious ability conferred and uses it, but the natural power of the sinner's will? But his will, apart from grace, is sinful and therefore disabled. So the Arminian admits. How, then, can a disabled thing use enabling grace? How can it determine to use that grace? Over and beyond the enabling power there is postulated a determining power. The enabling power is grace; over and beyond it is the determining power of the sinful will. The thing is inconceivable. Sin cannot use grace; inability cannot use ability; the dead cannot determine to use life. To say then that grace is infused into the will itself to enable it to form the final volition, which makes a possible salvation actual, does not remove the difficulty. If it does not determine the will, the will determines itself. The very essence of that self-determination is to use or not to use the enabling grace, and therefore must be something different from that grace. The determination is not from grace, but from nature. Again the impossibility of salvation is reached. A doctrine which assigns to grace a merely enabling influence, and denies it a determining power, makes the salvation of a sinner impossible. To say to a sinner, Use the natural strength of your will in determining to avail yourself of grace, would be to say to him, You cannot be saved. For if he answered from the depths of his consciousness, he would groan out the response, Alas, I have no such strength!

The truth is, that a thorough examination of the anthropology of the Arminian discloses the fact that, in the last analysis, it is not essentially different from that of the Socinian and Pelagian. It is cheerfully conceded that the Arminian soteriology is different from the Socinian and Pelagian. For the former professedly holds that the atonement of Christ was vicarious and that it rendered a perfect satisfaction to the retributive justice of God. But, according to it, the atonement did not secure salvation as a certain result to any human beings; and when it comes to the question how the sinner practically avails himself of the salvation made only possible to all, the Arminian answers it by saying, that the sinner in the exercise of his own self-determining power, which from its nature is contingent in its exercise, makes salvation his own. The connection between his soul and redemption is effected by his own decision, in the formation of which he is conscious that he might act otherwise - that he might make a contrary choice. There is no real difference between this position and that of the Socinian and Pelagian. The Arminian professes to attach more importance than they to the influence of supernatural grace, but, in the last resort, like them he makes the natural power of the sinner’s will the determining cause of personal salvation. Every consideration, therefore, which serves to show the impossibility of salvation upon the anthropological scheme of Socinianism and Pelagianism leads to the conclusion that the same consequence is enforced by that of Arminianism. In both schemes it is nature, and not grace, which actually saves.

Still further, the distinctive doctrines of Arminianism not only make salvation impossible by denying that it is by grace, but also by implying that it is by works. Not that it is intended to say that Arminians in so many words affirm this. On the contrary, they endeavor to show that their system is not liable to this charge. We have, however, to deal with their system and the logical consequences which it involves. The question is, Do the peculiar tenets of the Arminian scheme necessitate the inference that salvation is by works? I shall attempt to prove that they do.

It must be admitted that a system, one of the distinctive doctrines of which is that sinners are in a state of legal probation, affirms salvation by works. The essence of a legal probation is that the subject of moral government is required to render personal obedience to law in order to his being justified. It is conceded on all hands that Adam's probation was of such a character. He was required to produce a legal obedience. Had it been produced it would have been his own obedience. It makes no difference that he was empowered to render it by sufficient grace. A righteousness does not receive its denomination from the source in which it originates, but from its nature and the end which it contemplates. Had Adam stood, he would have been enabled by grace to produce obedience, but it would have been his own obedience, and it would have secured justification on its own account.

Now it will not be denied that Arminian divines assert that men are now in a state of probation. It would be unnecessary to adduce proof of this. They contend that, in consequence of the atonement offered by Christ for the race, all men become probationers. A chance is given them to secure salvation. The only question is, whether the probation which Arminians affirm for sinners be a legal probation. That it is, may be proved by their own statements. If they take the ground that the obedience to divine requirements may be rendered through the ability conferred by grace, and therefore the probation is not legal, the answer is obvious: the obedience exacted of Adam he was enabled by grace to render; but notwithstanding that fact, his probation was legal. That men now have grace enabling them to render obedience cannot disprove the legal character of their probation.

The argument has ramified into details, but it has not wandered from the thing to be proved, to wit, that a possible salvation is an impossible salvation. All the consequences which have been portrayed as damaging to the Arminian theory of a merely possible salvation flow logically from the fundamental position that sufficient ability is given to every man to make such a merely possible salvation actual to himself. One more consideration will be presented, and it goes to the root of the matter. It is, that this ability which is affirmed to be sufficient to enable every man to make a possible salvation actual is, according to Arminian showing, itself a sheer impossibility. This may be regarded as an extraordinary assertion, but it is susceptible of proof as speedy as it is clear. The Evangelical Arminian not only admits the fact, but contends for it, that every man in his natural, fallen condition is spiritually dead - is dead in trespasses and sins. The problem for him to solve is, How can this spiritually dead man make his possible salvation an actual salvation? It must not be done by the impartation to him of efficacious and determining grace, for to admit that would be to give up the doctrine of a possible salvation and accept that of a decreed and certain salvation. Nor must it be done by regenerating grace, for two difficulties oppose that supposition: first, this regenerating grace would necessarily be efficacious and determining grace; and secondly, it could not with truth be maintained that every man is regenerated. A degree of grace, therefore, which is short of regenerating grace, must be conferred upon every man. What is that? Sufficient grace - that is to say, a degree of grace imparting ability sufficient to enable every man to make a possible salvation actually his own. Now, the argument is short: a degree of grace which does not regenerate, would be a degree of grace which would not bestow life upon, the spiritually dead sinner. If it did infuse spiritual life it would of course be regenerating grace; but it is denied to be regenerating grace. No other grace would be sufficient for the dead sinner but regenerating or life-giving grace. How could grace enable the dead sinner to perform living functions - to repent, to believe in Christ, to embrace salvation - without first giving him life? In a word, sufficient grace which is not regenerating grace is a palpable impossibility. An ability sufficient to enable the dead sinner to discharge living functions but not sufficient to make him live, is an impossibility. The Arminian is therefore shut up to a choice between two alternatives: either, he must confess sufficient grace to be regenerating grace, and then he abandons his doctrine; or, he must maintain that grace is sufficient for a dead sinner which does not make him live, and then he asserts an impossibility.

If to this the Arminian reply, that the functions which sufficient grace enables the sinner to perform are not functions of spiritual life, it follows: first, that he contradicts his own position that grace imparts a degree of spiritual life to every man; and, secondly, that he maintains that a spiritually dead man discharges functions which cause him to live, which is infinitely absurd.

If, finally, he reply, that sufficient grace is life-giving and therefore regenerating grace, but that it is not efficacious, and does not determine the fact of the sinner's salvation, the rejoinder is obvious: No spiritually dead sinner call possibly be restored to life except by union with Jesus Christ, the source of spiritual life. To deny that position is to deny Christianity. But if that must be admitted, as union with Christ determines the present salvation of the sinner, sufficient grace which gives life determines the question of present salvation. Sufficient grace gives life by uniting the sinner to Christ, and union with Christ is salvation. Sufficient grace which is conceded to be regenerating, is therefore necessarily efficacious and determining, grace.

We are now prepared to estimate the force of the analogy which, under a preceding head, it was supposed that the Arminian may plead between the case of the sinner and that of Adam. Our first father had sufficient grace, but it was not efficacious grace. It did not determine his standing. It rendered it possible for him to stand, but it did not destroy the possibility of his falling. He had sufficient ability to perform holy acts; nevertheless, it was possible for him to sin. In like manner, it may be said, the sinner, in his natural condition, has sufficient grace, but not efficacious grace. It renders it possible for him to accept salvation, but it does not destroy the possibility of his rejecting it. He has sufficient ability to repent and believe; yet, notwithstanding this, he may continue impenitent and unbelieving.

I admit the fact that Adam had sufficient grace to enable him to stand in holiness, and that it was possible for him either to stand or fall; but I deny that there is any real analogy between his case and that of the unregenerate sinner. It breaks down at a point of the most vital consequence. That point is the presence or absence of spiritual life. Adam, in innocence, was possessed of spiritual life - he was, spiritually considered, wholly alive. There was not imparted to him - to use an Arminian phrase - "a degree of spiritual life." Life reigned in all his faculties. There was no element of spiritual death in his being which was to be resisted and which in turn opposed the motions of spiritual life. Now let it even be supposed, with the Arminian, that a degree of spiritual life is given to the spiritually dead sinner, and it would necessarily follow that there is a degree of spiritual death which still remains in him. What conceivable analogy could exist between a being wholly alive spiritually and one partly alive and partly dead spiritually? What common relation to grace could be predicated of them? How is it possible to conceive that grace which would be sufficient for a wholly living man would also be sufficient for a partly dead man? Take then the Arminian conception of the case of the sinner in his natural condition, and it is obvious that there is no real analogy between it and that of Adam in innocence.

But it has already been shown that the impartation by grace of a degree of spiritual life to the sinner which does not involve his regeneration is impossible. Whatever grace and ability the Arminian may claim for the sinner, if it fall short of regenerating grace, if it does not quicken him in Christ Jesus, no life is communicated by it. The sinner is still dead in trespasses and sins. The communicated grace may instruct him, but it does not raise him from the dead - it is didactic, but not life-giving. It is the suasion of oratory, not the energy of life. It operates upon the natural faculties and becomes a motive to the natural will. But it is precisely the natural will, pervaded by spiritual death, which must decide whether or not it will appropriate the spiritual inducements and make them its own. In a word, a dead man must determine whether he will yield to the persuasion to live or not.

The Arminian theory defies comprehension. To hold that sinners are not spiritually dead is to accept the Pelagian and Socinian heresy that the natural man is able to do saving works. This the Evangelical Arminian denies. He admits that the sinner is spiritually dead, and that in his own strength he can do no saving work. What then does grace accomplish for the sinner, for every sinner? The hypothesis put forth in answer to this question is a plait of riddles which no ingenuity can disentangle. First, the sinner is spiritually dead. Then, "a degree of spiritual life" is imparted to him enabling him to discharge spiritually living functions. Well then - one would of course infer - the sinner is now spiritually alive: he is regenerated, he is born again. No, says the Arminian, only "a portion of spiritual death is removed from him:"[93] he is not yet regenerated. What then can sufficient grace be but the degree of spiritual life which is communicated to the sinner? But this grace - this degree of spiritual life he is to improve. He may do so or he may refuse to do so. If he improve it, it follows that as spiritually dead he improves spiritual life, and what contradiction can be greater than that? If that is denied, it must be supposed, that as spiritually alive he improves this grace - this spiritual life, and then it would follow that as he may resist it, he would, as spiritually alive resist spiritual life, which is absurd. What other supposition can be conceived, unless it be this: that he acts at the same time as equally dead and alive - that death and life co-operate in producing saving results, or in declining to produce them? But that is so absurd that no intelligent mind would tolerate it. Will it be said, that if he improve spiritual life he does it as spiritually alive, and if he resist it, he does it as spiritually dead? That would suppose that, in the case of successful resistance, spiritual death is too strong for spiritual life and overcomes it. How then could the vanquished life be said to be sufficient, or the insufficient grace to be sufficient grace? The spiritual life imparted is unable to overcome the spiritual death still existing, and yet it confers sufficient ability upon the sinner. The Arminian hypothesis is susceptible of no other fair construction than this: that the sinner, as spiritually dead, improves the degree of life given him by grace; that, as impenitent and unbelieving, he, by the exercise of his natural will, uses the imparted ability to repent and believe. Such ability is just no ability at all; for there is no power that could use it. It is like giving a crutch to a man lying on his back with the dead palsy, or like putting a bottle of aqua vita, in the coffin with a corpse.

Let us put the case in another form: The Arminian holds that the sinner is spiritually dead and consequently unable to do anything to save himself. But a degree of spiritual life is imparted to him to enable him to embrace salvation offered to him. It follows that now the sinner is neither wholly dead nor wholly alive: he is partly dead and partly alive. Now, either, first, his dead part uses his living part; or, secondly, his living part uses his dead part; or, thirdly, his living part uses itself and his dead part uses itself; or, fourthly, his living part uses both the living and dead part; or, fifthly, the living and dead part co-operate. The first supposition is inconceivable; for death cannot use life. The second supposition violates the Arminian doctrine that it is life which is to be used, not life which uses death; and further, how is it possible for life to use death in performing saving functions? The third supposition involves the concurrent but contradictory acting of life and death, neither being dominant, so that the sinner ever remains partly alive and partly dead. No salvation is reached. The fourth supposition involves the causal and determining influence of the life imparted by grace, and, therefore, the abandonment of the Arminian and the adoption of the Calvinistic doctrine; for the whole man would be ruled by the life-giving grace. The fifth supposition is impossible; for it is impossible that life and death can co-operate to secure salvation.

Let the Arminian account of the unconverted sinner's condition be viewed in every conceivable way, and it is evident that there is no analogy between it and that of Adam in innocence. The sufficient grace or ability of the two cases is entirely different. In one case, there was total spiritual life, in the other there is partial spiritual life and partial spiritual death. They cannot be reduced to unity, nor can even similarity be predicated of them. Justification was possible to Adam, for, as a being totally alive, he had sufficient ability to secure it; but salvation, according to the Arminian supposition, is impossible to the sinner, for as a being partly dead, he has no sufficient ability to embrace it. It has already been conclusively shown that grace, to confer ability upon the spiritually dead, cannot be anything less than regenerating grace; and the bestowal of that upon the sinner, previously to his repentance and faith, the Arminian denies. An appeal to Adam's ability, in order to support the hypothesis of the sufficient ability of the unregenerate sinner, cannot avail to redeem that hypothesis from the charge of making a merely possible salvation impossible.

Let us now return for a moment to the argument employed under the preceding head. It was argued that God's foreknowledge, as conceded by the Arminian, that a definite number of human beings will be condemned at the last day, involves the absolute certainty of their condemnation, and that what God will do on that day he must have eternally purposed to do. How, it was asked, can the Arminian show that this certainty of the destruction of some men is consistent with the possibility of their salvation? It was supposed that in his attempt to show this, he might contend that although the divine foreknowledge created an extrinsic impossibility of their salvation - that is, an impossibility apprehended in the divine mind, yet there is an intrinsic possibility of their salvation - that is, a possibility growing out of their own relations to the scheme of redemption, and their ability to avail themselves of them. In short, he might contend that although God foreknows that some men will be lost, he also foreknows that these same men might be saved; and to fortify that view, he might appeal to the analogy of the case of Adam, the certainty of whose fall God foreknew, but the possibility of whose standing, so far as his intrinsic ability was concerned, he also foreknew. It has now been proved that there is no analogy between Adam's sufficient ability and that which the Arminian vainly arrogates for the unregenerate sinner; and that on the contrary, on the Arminian's own principles, the unregenerate sinner is endowed with no sufficient ability to appropriate a merely possible salvation. Upon those principles, therefore, at the same time that God foreknows the certainty of some men's destruction, he also foreknows the intrinsic impossibility of their salvation. The Arminian, consequently, has the case of the finally lost to harmonize with divine goodness, as well as the Calvinist, and is logically restrained from attacking the Calvinistic doctrine because of its alleged inconsistency with that attribute. The charge recoils, indeed, with redoubled force upon himself, for while the Calvinistic doctrine provides for the certain salvation of some men, his doctrine makes the salvation of any man impossible. A scheme which professes to make the salvation of every man possible, but really makes the salvation of any man impossible, is not one which can glory in being peculiarly consistent with the goodness of God.

The Arminian impeaches the doctrine of unconditional election for representing God as worse than the devil, more false, more cruel, more unjust.[94] No recourse has been had to declamatory recrimination; but it has been proved by cold-blooded argument that the distinctive principles of Arminianism, in making the application of redemption to depend upon the self-determining power of a dead man's will, make the actual salvation of any sinner a sheer impossibility. How such a scheme magnifies the goodness of God can only be conceived by those who are able to comprehend how a dead man can use the means of life. The love of the Father in giving his Son, the love of the Son in obeying, suffering, dying for the salvation of sinners, the mission of the eternal Spirit to apply a salvation purchased by blood, - all this infinite wealth of means depends for efficacy upon the decision of a sinner's will, a decision which, without regenerating and determining grace, must, in accordance with the law of sin and death, be inevitably rendered against its employment.

The proposition will no doubt have been regarded as extraordinary, but it is now repeated as a conclusion established by argument, that a merely possible salvation such as the Arminian scheme enounces is to a sinner an impossible salvation. When the argument has been convicted of inconclusiveness, it may be time to resort to the weapons of the vanquished - strong and weighty words.

The objection against the Calvinistic doctrines of election and reprobation that they are inconsistent with the goodness of God has now been examined, and it has been shown, first, that it is inapplicable, and secondly, that the Arminian is not the man to render it.

3. Objection from Divine Wisdom.

The next objection which will be considered is derived from the wisdom of God. It may be stated in the words of Richard Watson: "The doctrine of the election to eternal life only of a certain determinate number of men, involving, as it necessarily does, the doctrine of the absolute and unconditional reprobation of all the rest of mankind, cannot, we may confidently affirm, be reconciled . . . to the wisdom of God; for the bringing into being a vast number of intelligent creatures under a necessity of sinning, and of being eternally lost, teaches no moral lesson to the world; and contradicts all those notions of wisdom in the ends and processes of government which we are taught to look for, not only from (sic) natural reason, but from the Scriptures."[95]

After what has been said in exposition of the Calvinistic doctrine, it cannot fail to be observed that there is here a positive misrepresentation of that doctrine; and that in two respects. In the first place, when the decree of reprobation is represented as "absolute and unconditional," it is meant to imply that it just as efficaciously determines the sin and destruction of some men as the decree of election does the holiness and salvation of others. It has already been shown that even the Supralapsarians do not profess to hold such a view, and that it is expressly denied in the Calvinistic Confessions, and by the Sublapsarians, who constitute the vast majority of the Calvinistic body. In the second place, the statement is incorrect that the Calvinistic doctrine maintains that God brought into being a vast number of intelligent creatures under the necessity of sinning and of being eternally lost. The common teaching of the Calvinistic Churches, as embodied in their Confessions and Catechisms, is that Adam might have stood in innocence and secured justification for himself and his posterity, who were represented by him under the covenant of works. And although some Calvinistic theologians have advocated Necessitarianism, it would be impossible to show that it has been taught in the Calvinistic Symbols. Nor have the body of Calvinistic divines affirmed the view that, in the first instance, man was under any necessity of sinning. The doctrine which, in the foregoing quotation, is pronounced inconsistent with the divine wisdom is not the Calvinistic doctrine, and therefore I do not feel called upon to vindicate it from exceptions. Leaving the Necessitarian to answer for his own position, I propose briefly to show, first, that the Calvinistic doctrine is not inconsistent with the wisdom of God, and, secondly, that the Arminian doctrine is.

The wisdom of God is that attribute by which he selects ends and adopts the fittest and most effectual means to secure them. Now according to the Calvinistic doctrine, God in dealing with the race of human sinners proposed to himself these ends: the glorification of his grace in the salvation of some, and the glorification of his justice in the punishment of others. In order to secure the first of these ends, he determined to elect some of the mass of fallen, corrupt and hell-deserving men to be everlastingly saved, and in pursuance of that purpose, gave his Son to obey his violated law in his life and death as their substitute and so to render perfect satisfaction to justice for their sins, and then imparts to them his Spirit to unite them to their federal Head, to determine them to holy obedience, and to cause them to persevere to the attainment of heavenly felicity. What fitter and more effectual means can be imagined than these to secure the proposed end - namely, the glorification of divine grace in the salvation of sinners? There is a precise adaptation of the means to the end, and no possible contingency in regard to the result. Where is the inconsistency with divine wisdom in this procedure? Does it not illustrate that attribute?

In order to secure the second of these ends, to wit, the glorification of his justice in the punishment of sinners, God determined to leave some of the fallen, corrupt and hell-deserving mass under the just sentence of his violated law, and ordained them to continue under the condemnation which they had merited by their sin. The question is not now whether that end were worthy of God. That question has already been discussed. But assuming that he did propose to himself such an end, it cannot be denied that the means were exactly suited to secure it. So far from there being a want of wisdom in this procedure, a clear exemplification of it is furnished.

But let us take Mr. Watson's conception of the divine wisdom. The office which he signalizes as discharged by it is to teach moral lessons to the world. The operation of the decrees which Calvinists ascribe to God is inconsistent with wisdom, he contends, because it teaches no moral lesson to the world. Surely the bestowal of the unmerited and transcendent blessing of eternal life upon some sinners of the human race, while others are left to perish, is suited to impress upon its recipients a lesson of gratitude which they will never forget through the everlasting ages. The determination to inflict condign punishment upon some members of the guilty race is adapted to teach the world the dreadful evil of sin and the fearfulness of falling into the hands of the living God. Is not the retention of some sinners in the hands of vindicatory justice, while others are discharged through the obedience of a substitute, also fitted to deter all intelligent beings from tampering with the temptation to revolt against the government of God? If the consistency with wisdom of any measures is to be collected from their fitness to impart valuable moral lessons, the decrees of election and reprobation, as represented by Calvinists, must be pronounced eminently consistent with that attribute.

In the passage which has been cited it is also declared that the decrees of election and reprobation, as conceived by Calvinists, would, in their execution, contradict the ends of a wise government, so far as they can be ascertained from reason and Scripture. Let us test the allegation. The ends which it is usual to ascribe to a wise government are: first, the vindication of justice; secondly, the prevention of crime and the consequent protection of society; and thirdly, the reformation of offenders. The execution of the decree of reprobation upon the inexcusable violators of the divine law certainly vindicates the justice of God. It, therefore, is adapted to secure the first end of a wise government. The execution of the decrees of election and reprobation tends to the prevention of sin, - that of election by engendering and maintaining in its objects the love of holiness and the hatred of wickedness; that of reprobation by infusing the dread of sin into all beholders of its deserved and terrible punishment. The execution of these decrees is, consequently, adapted to promote the second end of a wise government.

It would be folly to assert that the third end - namely, the reformation of offenders, is always sought by a wise government. In some cases it is, in others it is not. The swift execution of a murderer cannot be regarded as a measure looking to his reformation, unless destroying his life may be considered as a means of his living better; and sending him out of the world may be contemplated as qualifying him to discharge his duties in the world. The decree of election proposes the reformation of offenders and secures it, and therefore promotes the third end of a wise government. The decree of reprobation no more contemplates this end than does the sentence of human law which adjudges a flagrant criminal to summary execution. And it deserves to be solemnly considered that every sin against God deserves the prompt execution of soul and body. Who among the orthodox would take the ground that the incarceration of the fallen angels in hell was a reformatory measure? If, then, God inflict the same doom upon some human sinners, it is obvious that he could not contemplate their reformation as an end. Enough has been said to evince the unjustifiableness of the allegation, that the execution of the decrees of election and reprobation, as conceived by Calvinists, would contradict the ends which a wise government proposes to attain.

Let us next inquire whether the Arminian conception of the plan of salvation be not inconsistent with wisdom. On account of the inexact and confused phraseology of the Arminian theology in its statements concerning the plan of redemption, we are obliged in order to a thorough discussion of the question in hand to make two suppositions. Either, it is the Arminian doctrine that God proposed as an end the salvation of the whole race, or it is that he proposed as an end the salvability of the whole race.

Let us take the first supposition - namely, that the end which God proposed to secure was the salvation of the whole race. We are justified in making this supposition, because Arminians constantly and vehemently affirm that Christ died to save all men, and because they denounce any other doctrine as utterly unscriptural and as dishonoring the character of the blessed God. It must be admitted that if the end proposed to be accomplished had been the salvation of all men, it would have been one characterized by infinite wisdom. No objection is now urged against the possible consistency of such an end with the divine wisdom. But assuming, according to the first supposition, that such was the end selected, the question necessarily arises, Are the means, which the Arminian holds to have been adopted, fitted to secure its accomplishment? If not, the wisdom of the plan breaks down in the selection of the means. What, then, are the means which, according to the Arminian statement, were selected to achieve the end? The atonement of Christ offered for the sins of every man, the grace of the Holy Ghost imparted to every man to enable him to avail himself of the merit of Christ, and the undetermined and self-determining action of the sinner's will in improving the ability conferred by grace and embracing the offered salvation. Now, according to the Arminian doctrine, the attainment of the end, to wit, the salvation of all men is, from the nature of the case, contingent - that is, it may or may not take place; for, it is conditioned upon the undetermined and contingent action of every man's will. It must, therefore, be granted by the Arminian himself that there could be, from the very nature of the means employed, no certainty as to the attainment of the proposed end. And facts abundantly prove this to be true; for all men are not actually saved. The Arminian is not a Universalist, but admits this fact - that some men are lost. The question is, how can he vindicate the wisdom employed in the selection of means which fail to accomplish the proposed end? The end is the salvation of the race. That fails. Why? Because the means adopted are inadequate to secure it. There could therefore be no wisdom in the selection of the means.

Let us take the second supposition. The Arminian may contend that he does not represent the end to be the actual salvation of all men, but their possible salvation - not their salvation, but their salvability. We are then entitled to say to him: If that be your view, in the name of consistency, you are required to change your phraseology. Instead of saying what you do not mean - namely, that Christ died for the salvation of all men, say what you do mean - namely, that Christ died for the salvability of all men. Instead of saying what you do not mean - that men are saved by grace, say what you do mean - that men save themselves by improving grace. Instead of saying what you do not mean - that men by believing in Christ enjoy salvation in the present life, say what you do mean - that men enjoy salvability in the present life, and may enjoy salvation in the future life. Square your terms with your doctrine, that men may understand precisely what it is, and may no longer be deceived by the "imposture of words."

But let it be supposed that the end which the Arminian attributes to God is the possible salvation of all men; and the doctrine is impeachable because it ascribes to the divine scheme of redemption no element of wisdom. There would be no wisdom in the selection of the end; for a possible salvation is no salvation, can be no salvation. Unless God make the salvation of the dead certain, they must forever lie dead. A possible salvation of the dead apart from their actual salvation by the power of God immediately and miraculously exerted upon them is an impossible salvation. Is the possible salvation of the spiritually dead an end to be ascribed to divine wisdom? There could be no wisdom in the selection of the means. There is no wisdom in the adoption of means to secure an impossible end. Worse than this, there can be no wisdom in the selection of means which are themselves impossible to be employed. In the last resort, the means by which, according to the Arminian, a possible salvation becomes actual is the self-determination of a will unregenerated by the grace of God - that is to say, the means by which a dead man is to be saved from death is the self-determined exercise of the dead man's will. In short, there can be no wisdom in the selection of an end impossible of attainment, and the adoption of means impossible of employment. Such is the scheme of salvability which under the fair name of a scheme of salvation the Arminian theology eloquently describes as the fruit of infinite wisdom! The proof that a merely possible salvation is an impossible salvation has, in part, been furnished in the foregoing remarks: a further presentation of it may be made at a subsequent stage of the discussion.

4. Objection from Divine Veracity.

The next objection which requires consideration is, that the Calvinistic doctrines of election and reprobation are inconsistent with the veracity of God.

This objection is presented in several forms:

First, that these doctrines are inconsistent with those passages of Scripture which declare God's love for all mankind, and the consequence of that love, a universal atonement.

Secondly, that they are inconsistent with the scriptural affirmation that God wills that all men shall be saved.

Thirdly, that they are inconsistent with the command of God that all men should repent and believe the gospel, and with the universal offer of salvation.

The first and the second of these special forms of the objection will not be considered in this place. The question of the Extent of the Atonement or the question, For whom did Christ die? it is usual to consider under a special head. It constituted one of the points debated between the Remonstrants and the defenders of the Synod of Dort. The question of the will of God touching the salvation of all men is cognate to that just noticed, and properly falls to be examined, in part at least, in connection with it. But it may here be remarked that if the doctrine of election has, in the preceding part of this discussion, been proved to be scriptural, it has been also proved that Christ died for the salvation only of the elect; and that God efficaciously wills only their salvation. These doctrines stand or fall together. Assuming, then, the doctrine of election and its necessary consequent, particular atonement, the Calvinist is bound to meet the objection that they are inconsistent with the sincerity of God in commanding all men everywhere to repent and believe the gospel, and in extending a universal offer of salvation. This form of the objection it is now proposed to examine.

There are two questions involved in it which, although related to each other, are sufficiently distinct to justify their separate consideration.

The first is, How can the doctrines of election and reprobation be reconciled with the command of God to all men to repent and believe the gospel? Is not God represented as insincere in commanding those to repent and believe whom he did not elect to be saved and from whom he withholds his saving grace? In short, how can the sincerity of God be vindicated in view of the allegation that he commands those to repent and believe whom he has decreed to reprobate, and who, he therefore foreknows, cannot obey the command? This question the Calvinist must face. But let us clear away irrelevant matter, so that the precise issue may be distinctly apprehended. The Arminian puts the difficulty in this way: God, according to the Calvinist, foreordained and necessitated the sin and spiritual inability of men: he gives them no grace to relieve them of their inability; and yet commands them to do what they cannot do, in consequence of his own agency exerted upon them. How, then, can God's sincerity be vindicated? But this is not the true state of the question. It would be, if Calvinism were Necessitarianism; and how the Necessitarian can successfully meet the difficulty, I confess that I have never been able to see. But Calvinism, as it has already been shown, is not Necessitarianism. While it maintains the position that men in their present condition are spiritually disabled, and, apart from the regenerating grace of God, are under a fatal necessity of sinning - not of committing this or that particular sin[96] - but of sinning, it does not hold that, in the first instance, that necessity existed. On the contrary it teaches that the will of man was "neither forced, nor by any absolute necessity of nature determined to good or evil;" that while man in innocence was liable to fall on account of the mutability of his will, he was also able to stand, and might by complying with the condition of the covenant of works have secured justification. According to Calvinism, then, God did not either originate or necessitate man's sin and consequent inability. The form in which the Arminian usually presses the objection is consequently irrelevant and unjustifiable. The Calvinist, therefore, is not called upon to meet it. It is not applicable to him. He is no knight-errant who gallantly undertakes to fight other people's battles, but is satisfied with the scope afforded to his valor and his arms in defending his own position. The objection which he is fairly enjoined to meet is that which has been stated: Does he represent the God of truth as insincere, in commanding those to repent and believe whom he decreed to reprobate for their own, unnecessitated sin, and who, he foreknows, cannot obey the command?

It is admitted that God commands all men everywhere to repent and believe the gospel, with this limitation, however: that all men who are commanded are those who have the Word of God. For how could men be commanded, if they have no knowledge of the command? Let us now endeavor to understand exactly what the Arminian means by this objection. Does he mean to take the ground that whatsoever God commands men to do, he efficiently decreed that they should do? One would suppose that this is his meaning, from the fact that he so vehemently contends that God wills the salvation of all men. What else can be meant by this position, but that God decretively wills the salvation of all men? If this be his meaning, he is compelled to hold that God's decretive will is defeated in innumerable instances, since he admits the fact that many men refuse to obey the command to repent and believe. He is, consequently, shut up to the concession that there is a discrepancy between the command of God and his decretive will, as efficacious, and is debarred, by consistency, from pressing that difficulty upon the Calvinist as one peculiar to him.

If he mean by God's will that all men should be saved, a will that the means and opportunities for securing salvation should be enjoyed by all men, the same result follows, for he is forced to admit the fact that those means and opportunities are not possessed by all men. This has been proved in the foregoing remarks. Upon this supposition, also, he is confronted with a want of agreement between the command and the efficient will of God, and is deterred from urging his own difficulty upon the Calvinist.

If he mean, that God wills to give ability to all men to attain salvation, without the knowledge of the gospel, he contradicts his own definite doctrine, that in order to be saved men must believe the gospel and accept the salvation which it tenders. To say that the Spirit, by immediate revelation and apart from the written Word, ordinarily communicates the knowledge of salvation, is to contravene alike the testimony of the Scriptures themselves and the facts of observation. On this supposition, also, it must be allowed that there would be a want of concurrence between the command of God and his efficacious will that all men should be saved; and again the Arminian is estopped from pressing the objection under consideration.

If he mean, that the will of God that all men should be saved is not a decretive and efficacious will, but a desire that all men should be saved, as he admits the fact that all men are not actually saved, he must also admit a disappointment in myriads of instances of the divine desire, and a corresponding diminution of the divine happiness; and there would also emerge a want of harmony between the command of God and his will, in the form of desire, that all men should be saved. On this supposition, the difficulty objected against the Calvinistic doctrine lies with equal weight upon the Arminian.

The difficulty created by any one, or all, of these suppositions is not removed, if the Arminian say that in this sense at least God efficaciously willed the salvation of all men - namely, that he willed by virtue of Christ's atonement that the disabling guilt of Adam's sin should be removed from all men. For, the question returns, How such a will could be a will that all men should be saved? Conscious depravity would still remain, with the guilt and curse which it entails, and unless that depravity and its judicial consequences are removed from all men by the will of God, there could not be affirmed to be a will of God that all men should be saved.

If, finally, the Arminian say, that he means by the will of God that all men should be saved, only a permissive will, what more would he affirm than the Calvinist? For a will to permit all men to be saved would amount to no more than this: that God willed not to prevent the salvation of any man by a positive divine influence exerted upon him, and that the Calvinist admits as well as the Arminian.

If in answer to this it be said, that the Calvinist holds that the judicial curse of God exerts a disabling influence upon the sinner, and that God willed to allow that disabling influence to remain upon some of mankind, the case of conscious sin and the condemnation which it deserves confronts the Arminian. All actual transgressions merit the judicial curse of God, and the Arminian holds that men commit actual transgressions, and that "the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men." Here then is a disabling curse which must be removed ere men can be saved. Does God will to remove it from all men as, according to the Arminian, he willed to remove the condemnation for Adam's sin from all men? If so, all men are actually delivered both from the curse pronounced upon them for Adam's sin, and that inflicted upon them for their own conscious sins; and that involves the actual salvation of all men - a position maintained only by the Universalist. The Arminian must hold, therefore, that God willed to permit the disabling influence of his judicial curse to remain upon some men. Consequently, should he maintain the view that God's will that all men should be saved is simply a permissive will, he would be in the same relation to the question of the sincerity of God in commanding all men to repent as that sustained by the Calvinist.

It has thus been evinced, that the objection grounded in the sincerity of God is one which the Arminian as well as the Calvinist is required to meet. But let us proceed to a more particular examination of the objection itself.

There are evidently two fallacious hypotheses upon which the Arminian founds the objection, in the special form under treatment. The first is, that there can be no inconsistency between the decretive will and the preceptive will of God - between God's purpose and his command. The second is, that God cannot sincerely command obedience from those who are not able to render it - in other words, that in every possible case ability is the condition and measure of duty. Let us consider the first.

It is strenuously contended by the Arminian that it is necessary to suppose that when God commands anything to be done, he also decretively wills that it should be done. Otherwise, an inconsistency is ascribed to the divine will - God wills to be done what he does not will shall be done. A contradiction emerges. Now, this would be true only in those cases in which the will of God is spoken of in the same sense. To say that God decretively wills that a thing be done and that he does not decretively will that the same thing be done, or that he preceptively wills to be done what he preceptively wills not to be done, - that would involve a contradiction. But to say that God preceptively wills a thing to be done and that he does not decretively will that it be done, - that involves no contradiction, for the reason that the divine will is regarded in different senses. This the Arminian himself must admit, or maintain a position inconsistent with his own doctrine as to the immutability of God, with the plain teachings of Scripture, and with the most obtrusive facts. He contends that God commands all men to repent and believe. Here is God's preceptive will. There can be no dispute about it. But all men do not repent and believe. Neither can there be any dispute about that fact. The question then is, Did God decretively will that all men should repent and believe? This must be answered in the affirmative, upon the Arminian ground that there can be no inconsistency between the preceptive and the decretive will of God. It must be admitted then that in this matter of the repentance and faith of all men, the decretive will of God has failed of execution - he has not accomplished what he decreed to accomplish. What becomes of the immutability of God, not to speak of his wisdom and his power? But the Arminian holds the immutability of God. He is therefore palpably inconsistent with himself. He is obliged, if he maintain the infinite perfections of God, to admit that the preceptive and the decretive will of God do not coincide in regard to the repentance and faith of all men. Will he then, in spite of this necessitated admission, charge the Calvinist with unwarrantably affirming an inconsistency between the command of God that all men should repent and believe and the absence of his decree that all should obey that command?

But let us look at the matter in the light of revealed facts. God, through Moses, commanded Pharaoh to let his people go. Here was his preceptive will, unmistakably delivered, and enforced by tremendous sanctions. Did God decretively will that the obstinate monarch should consent to let his people go? If so, his decretive will signally failed of accomplishment. For although Pharaoh under the pressure of judgment temporarily consented, he ultimately persisted in his refusal and was destroyed. As that cannot without blasphemy be affirmed, it must be conceded that in the case of Pharaoh the command of God was not concurrent with his decree. Was God insincere, therefore, in commanding the Egyptian king to release the Israelites from bondage ?

God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. Here was the preceptive will of God, which the illustrious patriarch unhesitatingly prepared to obey. But the event proved that God had not decretively willed that Isaac should be sacrificed. Here was another instance of a want of coincidence between the preceptive and the decretive will of God. Was God, then, insincere in commanding Abraham to sacrifice his son?

God commanded the Jews to accept Jesus as their Messiah and to believe in him. Here was his preceptive will. Did he also decretively will that all of them should accept him and believe in him? Surely not, else his decree was balked in its execution. Again we have a most striking instance of the fact that the command of God does not always tally with his decretive will. Who would take the ground that God was insincere in commanding all the Jews to accept Jesus as their Messiah and believe in him?

With these scriptural facts the course of God's ordinary providence not unfrequently concurs. How often does he call his people to the performance of functions which he does not intend that they shall discharge! A young man, for example, is pressed by conscientious convictions that it is his duty to preach the Gospel. He sedulously prepares for the great office. His preparations completed, the church which is edified by his ministrations calls him to preach. The ecclesiastical authorities confirm the call. There is every evidence which can be furnished by piety, gifts, and the sustaining judgment of his brethren, that he is called to preach. And yet just as soon as he steps upon the threshold of the sacred office he receives the summons of his Master to leave his earthly work. He dies. In this case God's command and his decree do not coincide. He calls his servant to do a work which he did not intend that he should perform. As in the instance of Abraham, he tests the spirit of obedience, and stops the actual sacrifice. Yet who would say that God is insincere in extending a call to duty which he did not decretively will should be actually discharged?

When, therefore, the Calvinist teaches that God commands all men to repent and believe, but that he does not decretively will that all men should repent and believe, he is not liable to the censure that he charges God with insincerity. He is supported in this position by the Word of God and the facts of providence.

But the Calvinist contends that he is warranted in going further, and affirming that not only is it true that, in certain cases, God does not decretively will to be done what he commands to be done, but that, in certain cases also, God decretively wills that what he commands to be done should not be done. That was true in Abraham's case. God himself arrested his performance of the commanded duty. When his obedient servant was in the act of performing it, he stopped him by the command, "Lay not thy hand upon the lad." It is plain that God had decretively willed that, so far as the consummation of the duty was concerned, he should not execute his preceptive will.

Not only does this hold true of the obedience of God's servants, but also of the disobedience of his enemies. God commanded Pharaoh to liberate Israel. He hardened the heart of the incorrigibly wicked monarch so that he should not obey the command. This is the express language of Scripture, and they who quarrel with it quarrel with God. Not that God made Pharaoh the wicked sinner that he was. His wickedness was his own, produced by and chargeable upon himself. God did not insert it into him, nor did he necessitate its existence. But finding him as he was, furiously bent on wickedness, he determined his sinful principle into a special and definite channel, in order to achieve the redemption of his afflicted people. He withdrew from him his Spirit, left him to the full scope of his evil passions, and shut him up to a refusal to comply with the divine command. In a word, God judicially punished him by continuing him under the necessity of expressing his own execrable wickedness. The destruction of Israel's enemies and their own glorious liberation were, in the divine purpose, conditioned upon Pharaoh's obstinacy. His obstinate resistance of the preceptive will of God was, therefore, ordained by the decretive will of God. To deny this is to deny the explicit statements of Scripture.

God, by the testimony of John the Baptist, by voices speaking from the heavens, and by unimpeachable miracles, commanded the Jews who were contemporary with Jesus to "hear him" and to believe on him. But he decretively willed that some of them should be the agents in producing his death. The apostle Peter in his great sermon on the day of Pentecost enounced this fact when he said: "Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and slain." The apostles, said in a prayer: "For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together, to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done." Assuredly the death of Christ and the form in which it was inflicted were pre-determined. Consequently, the means and agencies involved must likewise have been foreordained. The sinful principle of which the atrocious act of the crucifixion was the expression was not produced by the divine efficiency. God is not the author of sin. The sinner is himself the author of it. The Scribes and Pharisees, the priests and rulers, and the contemporary generation of their countrymen were not made the malicious and incorrigible sinners they were by the divine causality; but being what they were by virtue of their own election, God determined to shut them up to the specific expression of wickedness which resulted in the crucifixion of Christ. They were not, by the divine decree, obliged to be sinners or to sin, but they were, by it, obliged to vent their own wickedness in such a way as to fulfil the eternal counsel of God touching that event which is the pivot upon which the whole scheme of redemption turns. In a word they with wicked hands crucified and slew the Saviour, but God decretively willed that they should crucify and slay him. The act was alike forbidden and decreed - commanded not to be done, and decreed to be done. It is but putting the same thing in different words to say that God commanded all the Jews to believe in Jesus, and decreed that some of them in consequence of unbelief should slay him. The bearing of these scriptural facts upon the question in hand is obvious and striking. The Arminian denies that there can be any incompatibility between the preceptive and the decretive will of God, and denounces the distinction between them, which the Calvinist affirms, as dishonoring to the divine perfections. Consequently, he holds that as God has expressed his preceptive will in the form of a command that all men should repent and believe the gospel, his decretive will must consist with it - that in point of fact he wills that all men should repent and believe; otherwise God would be insincere in issuing such a command. We meet this position by showing from the indisputable testimony of Scripture that, in the case of Abraham, of Pharaoh, and of some of the Jews in the matter of our Lord's crucifixion, God commanded to be done what he did not decretively will should be done; and further, that, in each of these cases, he commanded to be done what he decreed should not be done. Especially is the instance of the crucifiers of Christ a pertinent one. The Arminian says that as God commands all men to repent and believe, he decretively wills that all men should repent and believe. The Calvinist says that God commands all men to repent and believe, but that he has decretively willed to reprobate some men - that is to say, to pass them by, to withhold from them the saving grace which he imparts to others, and to shut them up in impenitency to their final doom. The Scriptures, in the instance designated, clearly illustrate the same distinction, enforced upon a more restricted theatre. God commanded all the Jews who were contemporary with Jesus to repent and believe in him, but he decretively willed concerning some of them to pass them by, to withhold from them his saving grace, and to shut them up in impenitency to their final doom. Does any one dispute the applicability of this language to the Jewish rejectors of Christ? Let him consider the awful words of the Lord Jesus, as found in the thirteenth chapter of Matthew, and especially these, recorded in the eleventh chapter of Romans: "Wot ye not what the Scripture saith of Elias? how he maketh intercession to God against Israel, saying, Lord, they have killed thy prophets, and digged down thine altars; and I am left alone and they seek my life. But what saith the answer of God unto him? I have reserved to myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal. Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace. And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work. What then? Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded (according as it is written, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear;) unto this day. And David saith, Let their table be made a snare, and a trap, and a stumbling-block, and a recompence unto them: Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see, and bow down their back alway."

These arguments derived immediately from Scripture are sufficient to refute the hypothesis of the Arminian that there can be no inconsistency between the preceptive will and the decretive will of God between the divine command and the divine purpose. Consequently, the objection against the Calvinistic doctrines of election and reprobation that they impute insincerity to God, so far as it is grounded in that hypothesis, is proved to be destitute of scriptural foundation. No insincerity is ascribed to God when it is maintained that, although he has decreed to reprobate some men for their sin, he commands all men to repent and believe the gospel. Man's duty is one thing, God's decree another. The preceptive will of God is plainly revealed in Scripture as a rule of action which all men are required to obey. The decretive will of God, concerning the salvation of this or that individual, no one has a right to inquire into until he has complied with the divine command to believe in Christ. When he has believed, it is his privilege to be assured of his election, testified to him by the witness of the Holy Spirit concurring with that of his own spirit. The apostle Paul says to the Thessalonian believers: "Knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God." What Paul knew of them, they might know of themselves. Writing to the Roman Christians, he says: "Salute Rufus, chosen (elect) in the Lord." "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him," but, from the nature of the case, it is incognizable by the ungodly.

The second fallacious hypothesis upon which the Arminian founds his objection against the Calvinistic doctrine touching the matter in hand is, that in every possible case ability is the condition and measure of obligation, and that, consequently, God could not sincerely command obedience from those who are not able to render it. The Calvinist holds that without regenerating and determining grace no man can obey the command of God to repent and believe the gospel; and that God has decreed to withhold that grace from those who are not included in his electing purpose. As, therefore, they are not able to repent and believe, the Calvinist represents God as insincere in commanding them to repent and believe.

The hypothesis that in every possible case ability conditions and measures duty has been considered in a preceding part of this discussion. There it was admitted that, in the first instance, in which the requirements of law are laid upon its subject, his ability to obey is pre-supposed. It was conceded that the first man and the race represented by him were possessed of original ability to obey the divine law. But it was shown that when the original ability with which the subject of government is endowed has by wilful and unnecessitated sin been sacrificed, a penal inability supervenes, which cannot possibly discharge him from the obligation to render obedience to the divine requirements. So when Adam and the race in him by their own inexcusable act forfeited their concreated ability to obey God, the penal inability which followed as a judicial consequence could not release them from the duty to obey the divine commands. It may be affirmed as an indubitable principle, that God's right to command and man's duty to obey cannot be impaired by sin and the inability which it necessarily entails upon its perpetrators. The wilful transgressor of the divine law continues to be subject to the obligation which originally rested upon him. Although disabled by guilt and corruption, he is bound to perform the duties to which he was competent in innocence. The fallen angels are not released from the obligation to obey God by the fact of their inability to obey him. They are as much bound to render obedience to him in hell, as they originally were in heaven. So is it with men. The only question concerning which any doubt is possible is in regard to the justice of their implication in the sin of Adam and its penal results. That question has been already discussed. If the justice of that procedure be admitted, it must be granted that God's right to command obedience from men and their duty to render it are not qualified by the fact of their penal inability. Consequently, God without any breach of sincerity may command those to repent and believe the gospel whose guilt and depravity disable them for complying with the requirement.

It will not be denied that repentance is a duty which nature itself requires of the sinner. It would be a duty, although there were no specific command which imposed it. It cannot, therefore, be disputed that God may rightfully and sincerely exact by special command the performance of a duty which is bound upon the sinner by his natural conscience. Nor does it affect the case to say that the sinner cannot comply with this requirement. It is his duty to repair the wrong which he has done, notwithstanding the fact that he has disabled himself for making the reparation. Repentance is, in one sense, clearly a legal duty; and the sinner's incapacity to perform it cannot release him from the obligation to discharge it, nor impair God's right to impose it by special command.

But while this may be acknowledged, it may be urged that the duty to believe in Christ for salvation stands on a different foot - that faith is not required by a legal, but by an evangelical, command. Hence it may be argued that as faith, unlike repentance, stands related not to the authority of law, but to the provisions of a redemptive scheme which is the free product of God's gracious will, it cannot with sincerity be demanded of the sinner, unless at the same time sufficient ability to exercise it be communicated to him. In a word, faith may be said to lie outside of that class of legal duties which no self-contracted disability can excuse men from performing. As it is not obedience to law, but to the gospel of God's grace, the right to demand it supposes the supernatural impartation of ability to yield it. But this, it may be replied, is an erroneous statement of the case. It is cheerfully conceded that faith, although characterized as obedience, is not legal righteousness. Its matter is not the works of the law, nor is its end justification on the ground of personal obedience. It obeys by not obeying. That is to say, the very essence of the obedience which it involves is the renunciation of legal righteousness as a complement of personal works, and reliance upon the righteousness of another, even the righteousness of Christ as the substitute of the guilty. But while this is true, faith is nevertheless obedience to law. The gospel is not the product of law, but of grace. But the gospel as the fruit of grace being in existence, God as Lawgiver and Ruler commands men to receive it and to believe in the Saviour whom it reveals. If the question be asked, Why should men believe in Christ? with reference to the end contemplated, the answer is, In order to their being freely justified by grace on the ground of the vicarious obedience of Christ. If the same question be asked, with reference to the ground of the obligation to believe in Christ, the answer is, Because God has commanded them to do it. The authoritative will of God or, in other words, his law, expressed in the form of a specific command requiring faith in Christ, obliges those who hear the gospel to exercise that faith. He, therefore, who believes, obeys God's law as well as trusts in his mercy, and he who refuses to believe is alike a violator of the divine law and a despiser of divine grace.

If this view be correct - and it is difficult to perceive how it can be gainsaid - the principle that a self-originated inability to obey the law cannot impair God's right to command obedience, nor man's duty to render it, applies as well to faith in Christ as to those purely legal works which are required by natural religion. Consequently no insincerity can be imputed to God in commanding those to believe in Christ who have no power to comply with the requirement.

The mode in which the Arminian attempts to avoid the difficulty which he urges against the Calvinist is utterly, unsatisfactory. For, in the first place, if he take the extraordinary ground that the command to repent and believe is imposed literally upon all men - that is, upon every individual of the race - he cannot prove that such an ability to obey it as he contends for is imparted to the millions of the strictly heathen world. In the second place, it has already been shown by conclusive arguments, and, if God permit, may still further be evinced, that the ability which he claims for those who live under the gospel scheme is wholly insufficient to enable the unregenerate sinner to repent and believe in Christ. He professes to meet the difficulty growing out of the divine sincerity, but in reality fails to remove it. It presses upon his system as well as upon the Calvinistic.

Let us now pass on to consider the second form of this objection - namely, that, upon the Calvinistic scheme, the universal offer of salvation through the invitations of the gospel is inconsistent with the sincerity of God. The difficulty is thus put by Richard Watson; "Equally impossible is it to reconcile this notion to the sincerity of God in offering salvation to all who hear the gospel, of whom this scheme supposes the majority, or at least great numbers, to be among the reprobate. The gospel, as we have seen, is commanded to be preached to 'every creature;' which publication of 'good news to every creature' is an offer of salvation 'to every creature,' accompanied with earnest invitations to embrace it, and admonitory comminations lest any should neglect and despise it. But does it not involve a serious reflection upon the truth and sincerity of God which men ought to shudder at, to assume, at the very time the gospel is thus preached, that no part of this good news was ever designed to benefit the majority, or any great part, of those to whom it is addressed? that they to whom the love of God in Christ is proclaimed were never loved by God? that he has decreed that many to whom he offers salvation, and whom he invites to receive it, shall never be saved? and that he will consider their sins aggravated by rejecting that which they never could receive, and which he never designed them to receive?"[97]

There are two chief difficulties with which, to my mind, the Calvinistic scheme has to cope. The first is that which attends the attempt to reconcile with the justice and goodness of God the implication of all men in the sin of Adam and its judicial results. This difficulty has already been carefully considered, and it has been shown that it bears more heavily upon the Arminian than upon the Calvinistic system. But admitting the justice and benevolence of the constitution under which the first man and his posterity were collected into unity upon the principle of legal representation, and that in this way the guilt and spiritual inability of the race were self-contracted and justly imputable, the Calvinist is able to justify the decrees of unconditional election and of reprobation, and to affirm God's right to command and man's obligation to obey, notwithstanding the fact that men are in themselves unable to render the required obedience.

The second difficulty - the gravity of which it would be idle to deny - is that which grows out of the necessity of adjusting to our conceptions of God's sincerity the universal offer of the gospel: the difficulty which it is now proposed to examine. The pinch of it is in this circumstance: that God not only commands men to repent and, believe as a duty which they owe to him, but invites and urges them to accept salvation as a benefit which he tenders them. They are not only addressed as the subjects of government, but as the objects of mercy. That God should offer them the blessings of salvation, without having designed those blessings for all and without conferring upon all the ability to accept them, seems to involve a mockery of human wretchedness, and a deviation from sincerity.

The doctrine upon this point of the Calvinistic system is thus set forth by the Synod of Dort: "This death of the Son of God is a single and most perfect sacrifice and satisfaction for sins, of infinite value and price, abundantly sufficient to expiate the sins of the whole world."[98] The promise of the gospel is, that whosoever believeth in Christ crucified shall not perish, but have eternal life: which promise ought to be announced and proposed promiscuously and indiscriminately to all nations and men to whom God, in his good pleasure, hath sent the gospel, with the command to repent and believe."[99] "But because many who are called by the gospel do not repent nor believe in Christ, but perish in unbelief; this doth not arise from defect or insufficiency of the sacrifice offered by Christ upon the cross, but from their own fault."[100] "Sincerely and most truly God shows in his Word what is pleasing to him, namely, that they who are called should come to him; and he sincerely promises to all who come to him, and believe, the peace of their souls and eternal life."[101]

The following are the words of the Westminster Confession of Faith: "Others, not elected, although they may be called by the ministry of the Word, and may have some common operations of the Spirit, yet they never truly come to Christ, and therefore cannot be saved."[102] The Larger Catechism thus puts the case: "All the elect, and they only, are effectually called; although others may be, and often are, outwardly called by the ministry of the Word, and have some common operations of the Spirit, who, for their wilful neglect and contempt of the grace offered to them, being justly left in their unbelief, do never truly come to Jesus Christ."[103]

It deserves to be noticed, that the sufficiency of the atonement to ground the salvation of all men is fully admitted. The limitation which the Calvinist affirms is not upon the intrinsic value of the atonement, but in relation to the design of God touching the persons for whom it was to be offered as a ransom-price, and its application to them in order to make their salvation certain. The infinite dignity of the person of Christ, and the connection of his divine nature with his human, imparted infinite worth to his whole obedience in life and in death. In a word, the atoning merit of Christ was infinite. The following remarks of the great John Owen, as strict a Calvinist as ever lived, may be regarded as representative: "The first thing that we shall lay down is concerning the dignity, worth, preciousness, and infinite value of the blood and death of Jesus Christ. The maintaining and declaring of this is doubtless especially to be considered; and every opinion that doth but seemingly clash against it is exceedingly prejudiced, at least deservedly suspected, yea, presently to be rejected by Christians, if upon search it be found to do so really and indeed, as that which is injurious and derogatory to the merit and honor of Jesus Christ. The Scripture, also, to this purpose is exceeding full and frequent in setting forth the excellency and dignity of his death and sacrifice, calling his blood, by reason of the unity of his person, 'God's own blood,' Acts xx. 28; exalting it infinitely above all other sacrifices, as having for its principle 'the eternal Spirit,' and being itself 'without spot,' Heb. ix. 14; transcendently more precious than silver, or gold, or corruptible things, i Pet. i. 18; able to give justification from all things, from which by the law men could not be justified, Acts xiii. 28. Now, such as was the sacrifice and offering of Christ in itself, such was it intended by his Father it should be. It was, then, the purpose and intention of God that his Son should offer a sacrifice of infinite worth, value and dignity, sufficient in itself for the redeeming of all and every man, if it had pleased the Lord to employ it to that purpose; yea, and of other worlds also, if the Lord should freely make them, and would redeem them. Sufficient we say, then, was the sacrifice of Christ for the redemption of the whole world, and for the expiation of all the sins of all, and every man in the world. This sufficiency of his sacrifice hath a twofold rise: First, the dignity of the person that did offer and was offered; Secondly, the greatness of the pain he endured, by which he was able to bear, and did undergo, the whole curse of the law and wrath of God due to sin. And this sets out the innate, real, true worth and value of the blood-shedding of Jesus Christ. This is its own true internal perfection and sufficiency. That it should be applied unto any, made a price for them, and become beneficial to them, according to the worth that is in it, is external to it, doth not arise from it, but merely depends upon the intention and will of God. It was in itself of infinite value and sufficiency to have been made a Price to have bought and purchased every man in the world. That it did formally become a price for any is solely to be ascribed to the purpose of God, intending their purchase and redemption by it. The intention of the offerer and accepter that it should be for such, some or any, is that which gives the formality of a price unto it; this is external. But the value and fitness of it to be made a price ariseth from its own internal sufficiency."[104]

The views so strongly expressed by the illustrious Puritan have not been modified by the utterances of more recent theologians. They are fully maintained by such men as Cunningham, Hodge and Thornwell. The truth is that the intrinsic sufficiency of the atonement cannot be exaggerated. The obedience of Christ was exhaustive of the requirements of the divine law, preceptive and penal. It was, consequently, susceptible, in itself considered, of limitless application, in all cases, at least, in which the principle of federal representation was capable of being employed. When, therefore, the terms limited atonement, definite atonement, particular atonement, are used, it must be observed that they have no reference to the intrinsic value of Christ's satisfaction, but relate entirely to the sovereign purpose of God.

It follows from this view that, as the atonement of Christ was, in itself, sufficient, had God so pleased, to ground the salvation of all men, it is sufficient to ground the universal offer of salvation. Men are invited to stand on a platform which is broad enough to hold them all, to rest upon a foundation which is strong enough to support them all, to partake of provisions which are abundant enough to supply them all. When, therefore, God invites all men to seek salvation in Christ, he is not insincere in offering them a platform too narrow to hold them, a foundation too weak to sustain them, provisions too meagre to supply them. Were they all to accept the invitation, they would all be saved. So much for the intrinsic sufficiency of the remedy for human sin and misery. So far the Calvinist is not chargeable with representing God as insincere in the matter of the gospel offer.

It will be urged, however, that notwithstanding his admission of the absence of limitation, as to the intrinsic sufficiency of the atonement, the difficulty remains in view of his doctrine that there is limitation, as to its extrinsic design and application. It was not rendered for all, it is not intended to be effectually applied to all; it cannot, therefore, be sincerely offered to all as a remedy for the evils under which they suffer.

In order that the precise nature of the gospel offer should be apprehended, let us collect some of the prominent passages of Scripture in which it is expressed. "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy and eat; yea, come buy wine and milk without money and without price."[105] "And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned."[106] "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."[107] "In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water."[108] "Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved."[109] "Let him that is athirst come; and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely."[110]

In these scriptural statements of the gospel offer, no man is invited to believe that Christ died for him in particular. Every man is invited to believe in Christ in order to his being saved. The plain meaning of the offer is, Believe in Christ and you shall be saved: you are a sinner; Christ died to save sinners; if you believe in him as a Saviour, you shall be saved. If the Calvinist representing the Scriptures as teaching that Christ died to save the elect, should also represent God as inviting every man to believe that Christ died for him in particular, he would be justly chargeable with imputing insincerity to the divine Being.[111] But he is not guilty of this inconsistency. He regards the offer as consisting of a condition and a promise suspended upon its discharge. The condition is faith; the promise is salvation. The terms simply are: if you believe in Christ as a Saviour you shall be saved; and you are invited so to believe. Perform the condition, and the promised salvation is yours. The preachers of the gospel have no commission to proclaim to every man that Christ died to save him, and that he ought to believe that fact. That would be to exhort men to believe that they are saved, before they exercise faith in Christ. For surely to believe the proposition, Christ died for thee, and to believe in Christ as a personal Saviour, are very different things. The Calvinist, therefore, does not blasphemously ascribe a want of veracity to God by representing him as teaching, in the doctrinal statements of his Word, that Christ did not die for every man, and as declaring in the gospel offer that Christ did die for every man. He holds that, in the gospel offer, God simply announces the condition upon which men may be saved and indiscriminately invites all to fulfil it.

This being the state of the case, I remark that the gospel offer gives to every man who hears it a divine warrant to believe in Christ and be saved. So far as God's assurance is concerned, he has a right to believe and be saved, if he will. The terms are, Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely. Where is the insincerity of such all offer? It could only be evinced by showing that God is the author of the sinner's will not to believe and be saved. But it has been already sufficiently manifested that no Calvinist holds that God is the cause of the sinner's unbelief. The sinner himself is the cause of it. If it be said, still God knows when he gives the warrant to all to believe and be saved, that there are some who are not able to avail themselves of it; when he furnishes the right, that there are some who cannot employ it; the answer is, that it may please him, for wise and holy purposes, by extending the offer of salvation to such men, to test their unbelief, and so to expose their perverse wickedness and vindicate his justice in their condemnation. Who are we, that we should venture to set bounds to the procedures of infinite wisdom, justice and holiness? Why may we not conceive that God is as righteous in conveying to men the free offer of salvation in order to evince to themselves and to the universe their wickedness in disbelieving the gospel, as in imposing upon men his commands in order to illustrate their wickedness in disobeying his law? Certainly, if sinners spontaneously reject the warrant and the right which God gives them to believe and be saved, they are left without excuse and will be speechless in the great day of accounts. And he would take bold ground who would hold that God has no right to place sinners in such circumstances, and in such relations to himself, as to manifest the inexcusableness of their wickedness.

In the Epistle to the Romans, the inspired apostle clearly teaches that the light of nature, while insufficient to ground the knowledge of salvation, is sufficient to render men without excuse for their wicked apostasy from God. "Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him. from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse."[112] To say that Paul meant that the Gentiles might have been justified by obeying this light of natural religion is to reduce his whole argument to contempt. Their relation to the instructions of nature did not make their justification possible, but proved their condemnation to be just. It might be asked, where is God's sincerity in furnishing light to those who, he knows, cannot avail themselves of it in consequence of sin? To such a questioner it might be thundered, Who art thou that repliest against God?

The same line of remark applies to the relation of the moral law to those who have not the gospel. When God, by the requirements and admonitions of conscience, illuminated and re-enforced by the common operations of his Spirit, convinces them of the duty and the necessity resting upon them to obey it, he cannot intend by these means to assure them of the hope of salvation on the ground of a legal righteousness. He knows that by the deeds of the law they cannot be justified. To what end, then, are these instrumentalities employed, if not to leave the wicked transgressors of the law without excuse, and to vindicate the divine justice in their condemnation? "For when the Gentiles, which have not the law [that is, the law as written in the Scriptures] do by nature the things contained in the law, these having not the law are a law unto themselves: which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing, or else excusing, one another." And of those who, having not the written law, violate this natural law embodied in the conscience, it is expressly declared that they shall perish. "As many as have sinned without law shall perish without law." Is God insincere in addressing the instructions, expostulations and warnings of the law to those who cannot obey it in their natural strength, and to whom he has communicated no knowledge of that redemptive scheme through the provisions of which alone they can escape condemnation, and present to him acceptable obedience?

Is God insincere in pressing the demands of his law upon any man, unevangelized or evangelized, although he knows that the result will be the excitement of contradictoriness and opposition instead of obedience to those requirements, and although he knows that that result cannot be avoided except in consequence of the impartation of his saving grace?

These considerations go to show that God, in innumerable instances, pours the light of nature and of the moral law upon ungodly men for the purpose of convicting them of sin and of rendering them inexcusable. And, if he is pleased to adopt this course. towards the despisers of his law, why should one be censured for attributing insincerity to him in pursuing a similar course towards the despisers of his grace? In neither case is he bound to restore that ability to obey him which men have forfeited by their own sin; and if it be one of the ends of that moral government which he is now conducting to furnish a thoroughgoing and exhaustive exposition of the desperate evil of sin, one, basing his judgment upon merely rational grounds, might without rashness conclude that such an end would be most effectually compassed by permitting the wicked to exhibit malignant enmity to his gospel as well as to his law. That could only be done by bringing them into contact with the gospel offer. If they reject that offer, made to every man who is willing to receive it, the native opposition of their hearts to God is most clearly brought to the surface and exposed. To the contemners of the rich and unmerited blessings freely and graciously offered in the gospel, God may righteously utter the awful words: "Behold, ye despisers, and wonder and perish." It is very certain that God could, if he pleased, constrain every man who hears the gospel offer to accept it. The fact that he does not, whatever other inferences it may warrant, legitimates this: that it is his purpose to uncover and bring into light the malignant and inexcusable character of sin. Unbelief in Christ is the climax of wickedness. In the great day, every mouth will be stopped; but especially will they be struck dumb who have despised alike the grace of the gospel, and the justice of the law.

If, therefore, God gives to every man who hears the gospel a warrant and right to embrace the salvation it offers, he is sincere in extending the offer to all, notwithstanding the fact that he does not confer upon all the grace which effectuates its reception. Those who reject it will not be able to excuse themselves by the plea of God's insincerity.

It deserves also to be noticed, as some divines have shown, that faith is required, on grounds of justice, as the first duty of the sinner in order that he make reparation for the injury done to the divine veracity in the first instance of man's transgression. God distinctly testified to man in innocence, "In the day thou eatest thereof" (that is, of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil) "thou shalt surely die." That divine testimony the Devil as distinctly denied. Man believed the Devil and disbelieved God. The divine word was discredited by unbelief. On the supposition, therefore, that man is to be restored to the favor of God, it is righteous, it is meet and proper, that a naked faith in the simple testimony of God should be exacted from him as the first step to his recovery. The requirement of faith from the sinner is, consequently, not merely a measure of mercy to him, but of justice to God. The atonement of Christ, proposed to the sinner's acceptance as the means of his reconciliation to God; is the free product of grace, and it is exuberant grace that, in the first instance, nothing but faith in the provision of redemption should be demanded of the sinner; but there is a reason for the exaction of faith in the divine testimony to this plan of recovery, which is deeply seated in justice and law. The salvation of the guilty springs from the free and unmerited mercy of God, but it is effected in such a way, even in regard to its experimental application, as to consist with the divine perfections of justice and truth, and to honor, vindicate and establish the principles of God's moral government. The Fall began in unbelief, and the sinner's restoration fitly begins with faith. The insult offered to the divine word must be obliterated by a simple and unquestioning reliance upon it. From God's side, the requirement of faith on the part of the sinner in order to his salvation is a demand of justice, and in that aspect of it may as fairly be laid upon the spiritually disabled sinner as any precept to obey the moral law. In this view of the case, it is clear, that it no more involves a departure from sincerity for God to require faith in Christ from the sinner because he cannot, in his own strength, exercise it, than for God to demand obedience to his law from the sinner, because he cannot, in his own strength, perform it. God sincerely requires obedience to his law from the sinner, although he knows that without his efficacious grace that obedience cannot be rendered, and although he has not purposed to impart that grace to determine him to its performance. In the same manner, God sincerely requires from the sinner faith in the gospel, although he knows that without his efficacious grace he cannot exercise it, and although he has not purposed to bestow that grace to determine him to its exercise.

Men argue as if the exhortation to the sinner to believe in Christ were simply an invitation to him to partake of blessings freely tendered by mercy. That it certainly is, but only that it certainly is not. It is forgotten that it imposes an obligation to the discharge of an imperative duty. The whole race lies under the fearful guilt of having believed the Devil and given God the lie. Those who live under the gospel are bound to wipe out this foul dishonor done to the divine veracity. The Calvinist could only be convicted of representing God as insincere in requiring this reparation to his injured honor, by its being shown to be his doctrine that God himself influenced men to prefer the testimony of Satan to his own; and that the Calvinist denies.

Let it be borne in mind, also, that while, as we have seen, God, in extending the offer of the gospel to all men, furnishes an ample warrant to all to believe in Christ and to be saved, he is not bound by any of his perfections to give to all the disposition to avail themselves of the warrant. They have no claim upon him. They brought themselves into their condition of sin and inability, and, consequently, they can have no ground for complaining against God for not removing their indisposition to comply with his command and invitation to believe in Christ.

But while it is true that God is not bound to give to all who hear the gospel a disposition to accept its invitations, it is also true that he debars no man from availing himself of them and receiving salvation through Christ. So far as he is concerned, all legal obstacles have been removed which barred the access of sinners to his pardoning mercy. The road has been opened to his favor, by means of the finished work of an atoning Saviour. All who will to come may come. No one who comes is thrust back. The only barriers between sinners and salvation are those which are raised by themselves. God erects none. His decree, executed by his efficacious grace, constrains some to come; but his decree prevents none from coming. He decrees to condemn men for not coming, not to debar them from coming. He is therefore sincere in opening the door of mercy to all who please to enter it.

It must further be observed that God exercises no positive influence upon the minds of any sinners to deter them from coming to Christ for salvation. He creates no indisposition in them to come. If he did, there would be some color of truth in the charge that he deals insincerely with them in making the offer of salvation. It is common to represent the Calvinist as holding that God chains the sinner to a stake, and then invites him to come to provisions which are placed beyond his reach. The Calvinist teaches no such doctrine. He contends that the sinner chains himself, and that he prefers his chains to the provisions of redemption which are tendered him. He forges his own chain and then hugs it. The true doctrine is that the bread and the water of life are offered to all. None, by nature, hunger for the bread; none thirst for the water. To some God pleases to impart the hunger and the thirst which impel them to come and partake. Others he leaves under the influence of a distaste for these provisions of salvation - a distaste not implanted by him, but engendered by their own voluntary sin. He infuses into none a disrelish for the bread and water of life. If they desired to partake of them they might; for God invites them, and therefore authorizes them, to come and enjoy them. Is God insincere in this procedure because they exclude themselves from these blessings? It is shifting the ground of the objection to say, that God knows, when he extends the invitation, that they are, without his grace, unable to accept it. That difficulty has already been met. What is now insisted upon is, that God does not infuse the inability. It is self-engendered. In the parable of the Great Supper our Lord illustrates the invitation which God extends to all who hear the gospel to come and partake of its saving provisions. All who were invited to the Supper refused to come. The Master of the feast constrained some to come. Did this discrimination prove him insincere in inviting the others? Certainly not. Their own unwillingness was the cause of their refusal. He could only have been insincere on the supposition that he so influenced them as to render them unwilling. In like manner, the refusal of sinners to accept the gospel offer is caused by their own unwillingness; nor can God be charged with insincerity, except upon the supposition that their unwillingness is produced by his agency. That supposition forms no part of the Calvinistic doctrine. Any statement to the contrary is a misrepresentation.

But it will be urged: Where, after all, is the sincerity of invitations addressed to the dead; of lighting up a charnel-house as a banqueting hall, spreading in it a feast of viands, and exhorting the mouldering corpses to rise and partake of the sumptuous repast? Unless life be infused into them it is a grim and solemn mockery to exhort them to attempt the functions of the living. Besides the answer which has already been furnished to this objection, the following considerations are submitted:

First, sinners are not in such a sense dead as to be wholly beyond the reach of the gospel offer. The effect of the fall was the total destruction of spiritual life. That was totally eliminated from every faculty of the soul. Holiness was not an essential element, but a separable quality, of man's original constitution. It is a sufficient proof of that position that all evangelical theologians admit the possibility of its restoration after having been lost. The faculties which were essential to the very make and constitution of man survived the disaster of the fall; otherwise his being would have been extinguished. Although, therefore, the principle of spiritual life no longer exists until restored by supernatural grace, the intellect, the feelings, the will, considered as to its spontaneity at least, and the conscience as a moral faculty, still continue their functions in the natural sphere. In contact with these powers God brings the instructions, invitations and threatenings of the gospel. The gospel does not speak to stocks and stones; it addresses beings who are intelligent, emotional, voluntary and moral. They are capable of apprehending its statement that they are spiritually dead, and its gracious offer to them of the boon of everlasting life. They can understand the proposition that God has through Christ provided redemption for sinners, and that they are freely invited to accept it. They are susceptible of some feeling of desire to obtain it, and of some sense of obligation to seek it.

Secondly, with the operation of these natural faculties in the moral sphere the Holy Spirit concurs, in the discharge of what has been called his law-work. He illuminates the understanding, stimulates the affections, presses upon the conscience the sanctions of the moral law, and directs the attention of the sinner to the provisions of redeeming mercy which are proposed to his acceptance in the gospel.

Thirdly, is there anything which the unconverted sinner can will to do? This is an important question. It is very certain that he can do nothing in the spiritual sphere, for the reason that he is spiritually dead. He cannot convert himself, for how can a dead man restore himself to life? He cannot repent, he cannot believe in Christ, for repentance and faith suppose the possession of spiritual life. This spiritual inability is itself sin, and as has been already shown cannot be held to absolve the sinner from the obligation to obey God's requirements either purely legal or evangelical, unless the preposterous ground is assumed that sin can excuse sin. The spiritual inability of the sinner is no reason why God may not consistently either with justice or goodness or veracity command and invite him to repent and believe. The gravity of the distinction between original and penal inability can scarcely be overestimated, although it is one which is but too seldom emphasized. It was maintained both by Augustin and Calvin. The latter says: "For since he [Augustin] had said 'that no ground of blameworthiness could be discovered when nature or necessity governs' he cautions us that this does not hold except in regard to a nature sound and in its integrity; that men are not subject to necessity but as the first man contracted it for them by his voluntary fault. 'To us,' says he, 'nature is made a punishment, and what was the just punishment of the first man is nature to us. Since, therefore, necessity is the punishment of sin, the sins which thence arise are justly censured, and the blame of them is deservedly imputed to men, because the origin is voluntary.'"[113]

Dr. Thornwell enforces the distinction in these impressive words: "We must distinguish between inability as original and inability as penal. Moral power is nothing more nor less than holy habitudes and dispositions; it is the perception of the beauty, and the response of the heart to the excellence and glory, of God, and the consequent subjection of the will to the law of holy love: Spiritual perception, spiritual delight, spiritual choice, these and these alone constitute ability to good. Now, if we could conceive that God had made a creature destitute of these habits, if we could conceive that he came from the hands of the Creator in the same moral condition in which our race is now born, it is impossible to vindicate the obligation of such a creature to holiness upon any principle of justice. It is idle to say that his inability is but the intensity of his sin, and the more helpless the more wicked. His inability is the result of his constitution; it belongs to his very nature as a creature, and he is no more responsible for such defects than a lame man is responsible for his hobbling gait, or a blind man for his incompetency to distinguish colors. He is what God made him; he answers to the idea of his being, and is no more blameworthy for the deformed condition of his soul than a camel for the deformity of its back. The principle is intuitively evident that no creature can be required to transcend its powers. Ability conditions responsibility. An original inability, natural in the sense that it enters into the notion of the creature as such, completely obliterates all moral distinctions with reference to the acts and habits embraced within its sphere. . . .

"But there is another, a penal inability. It is that which man has superinduced by his own voluntary transgression. He was naturally able - that is, created with all the habitudes and dispositions which were involved in the loving choice of the good. Rectitude was infused into his nature; it entered into the idea of his being; he was fully competent for every exaction of the law. He chooses sin, and by that very act of choice impregnates his nature with contrary habits and dispositions. His moral agency continues unimpaired through all his subsequent existence. He becomes a slave to sin, but his impotence, hopeless and ruinous as it is, results from his own free choice. In the loss of habits he loses all real power for good; he becomes competent for nothing but sin; but he is held responsible for the nature which God gave him, and the law which constitutes its eternal norm according to the divine idea and the spontaneous dictates of his own reason can never cease to be the standard of his being and life. All his descendants were in him when he sinned and fell. His act was legally theirs, and that depravity which he infused into his own nature in the place of original righteousness has become their inheritance. They stand, therefore, from the first moment of their being in the same relation to the law which he occupied at his fall. Their impotence is properly their own. Here is not the place to show how this can be. I am only showing that there is a marked distinction between the inability which begins with the nature of a being and the inability which it brings upon itself by sin; that in the one case responsibility is measured by the extent of the actual power possessed, in the other, by the extent of the power originally imparted. No subject by becoming a traitor can forfeit the obligation to allegiance; no man can escape from the law by voluntary opposition to law. The more helpless a creature becomes in this aspect of the case, the more wicked; the more he recedes from the divine idea, from the true norm of his being, the more guilty and the more miserable. To creatures in a state of apostasy actual ability is not, therefore, the measure of obligation. They cannot excuse themselves under the plea of impotency when that very impotence is the thing charged upon them."[114]

This subject has been again adverted to for the purpose, in the first place, of showing that as the spiritual inability of the sinner cannot absolve him from the obligation to pay obedience to any requirement God may please to make, there is no insincerity involved in the extension of the gospel offer occasioned by the divine knowledge of the sinner's incompetency to embrace it; and, in the second place, of guarding against any misconception of the views about to be presented in regard to that measure of ability which the unregenerate sinner possesses in the merely natural sphere.

The question recurring, Can the unconverted sinner will to do anything in regard to the offer of salvation conveyed in the gospel, I answer:

He call will, or not will, to place his understanding in such relation to the evidence which God proposes for his consideration, to the facts and teachings, the invitations, remonstrances and warnings of the gospel, as is suited to impress it with the duty, the policy, the importance of paying attention to the great concern of personal salvation.

He can will, or not will, to attend upon the ordinances of God's house, and listen to the preaching of the divine Word, and thus place himself in the way along which Jesus as a Saviour is passing.

He can will, or not will, to read the Scriptures, and so subject his mind to the influences which they are suited to exert.

What hinders the unregenerate man from doing these things? What hinders him from hearing the preacher of the gospel any more than listening to any public speaker? What hinders him from repairing to the sanctuary any more than going to any other building? What hinders him from reading the Bible any more than perusing any other book? To do these things he is not dependent upon supernatural grace. He may do them in the exercise of his natural will. Now, on the supposition that he avails himself, as he is competent to do, of these means which God furnishes him in the natural sphere, it is perfectly possible for him to be impressed with the statements of the gospel concerning his lost and ruined condition as a sinner, and the redemption effected by Christ, and the expediency and necessity of complying with the calls of mercy. It is also conceivable that he should be convinced of his utter inability to accept the offer of the gospel and rely upon Christ for salvation.[115]

In this condition of mind, he can will, or not will, to cry to God for help. What would hinder him from determining, in view of his inability to meet the exigency, to pray that God would enable him to come to Christ and accept the offered salvation? Men sincerely appeal for help only when they cannot help themselves. The very conviction of impotence would be the strongest motive to prayer. Now, the throne of grace is accessible to all. God debars no sincere suppliant from approaching it. He invites the distressed to call upon him and promises that he will answer their cry.

These things, then, the unconverted sinner call do in the natural sphere: he can hear the preaching of the gospel, he can read the Scriptures, he can call on God for delivering grace. In that charnel-house in which the objector paints the gospel feast as spread - yea, in the sepulchre in which his spiritual corpse is lying, he can, in the exercise of his natural powers, apprehend the invitation to partake of the blessings of redemption and cry to God for ability to embrace it. His prayers would have no merit: they would, on the contrary, be the expression of impotence, of self-despair and of utter dependence on God.

If, therefore, the unregenerate sinner may do these things, what ground is there for imputing insincerity to God in extending to him the gospel offer and urging him to accept it? If he will not do what he is able to do, with what face can he find fault with God for not doing for him what he is not able to do? What excuse will he render in the day of final accounts for his wilful neglect of the means which were placed in his power? Should the Judge ask him, in that day: Didst thou attend the sanctuary and hearken to the preaching of the gospel? Didst thou seriously read the Scriptures? Didst thou call on God to save thee? Didst thou not know that thou couldst have done these things? he will be speechless; for his inner consciousness will attest the justice of the awful interrogatories, and close his lips to self-justification.[116]

There is but one other consideration which I will submit with reference to the special aspect of the subject before us. Men assert for themselves the power of free-will. They claim the ability to decide the question of accepting the offer of salvation by the determination of their own wills. This they arrogate for themselves in the face of the clear and unmistakable testimony of God's Word to the contrary. The Scriptures inform them that they are dead in trespasses and sins, and that they can see the kingdom of God only by virtue of a new and supernatural birth, involving the infusion of spiritual life, the renewal of their wills, and ability to embrace Christ as he is offered in the gospel. This they presumptuously deny, and boldly take the ground that God himself cannot determine the human will by his efficacious grace, without invading the rights and prerogatives which belong to its essential constitution. They must themselves decide the question of embracing the offer of salvation by the undetermined election of their own wills. Assisted by grace they may be, but controlled by grace they cannot and must not be. The sovereignty of man's free will must be preserved.

When, accordingly, God makes to them a tender of salvation and calls upon them to accept it, without imparting to them the efficacious, determining, constraining grace which they deliberately declare their unwillingness to receive, what does he but meet them on their own ground? Did he not offer them salvation he would, according to their own view, deal with them unjustly. Did he bestow upon them constraining grace, he would, according to their own view, contradict the constitution he imparted to them. Very well; God treats them precisely as they demand he should. He offers salvation to their acceptance; he does not confer upon them constraining grace. It is just what they would have. Where, then, is the reasonableness of the complaint that God is insincere, if the case be regarded from their own point of view?

It is no answer to this statement of the matter that the Calvinist says, God knows that the claim of the unconverted sinner to the possession of free-will in spiritual things is false. God not only knows that fact, but faithfully ascertains the sinner of it, urges it upon his attention and exhorts him to relinquish all dependence upon himself and throw himself upon unmerited and sovereign mercy. This faithful and kindly dealing with his soul the sinner flouts. Is not God right in permitting him to walk in the light of the sparks which he has kindled and to eat the fruit of his own doings? Is not God right in saying to him, in effect, You claim the power to decide the question of salvation for yourself: have your own way: I offer you salvation, I will not invincibly determine your will: test the question in the way you elect, and let the issue prove whether you or your God be right. It would be bold and arrogant to assign reasons for God's procedures, save in those cases in which he is pleased to reveal them; but if it be a part of his plan to furnish a complete exposition of the principles of sin and grace operating in connection with each other, it would seem to be necessary to test the claim of an unregenerate sinner to the possession of free will and ability in relation to spiritual things and those which concern the salvation of the soul. This is effectually done by freely offering salvation to the sinner, and opposing no obstacle to his receiving it; and also by taking him at his own word, dealing with him on his own terms, and leaving him to the decision of his own will undetermined by an irresistible influence of grace. This is exactly what the sinner claims to be fair, and what the Arminian theology formally demands for him. The conditions exacted on the human side are fairly supplied on the divine side. The issue is joined, and the question awaits settlement whether the will of a fallen being possesses elective ability in the spiritual sphere. And little is risked, when the opinion is adventured, that the final result, illuminated by the light of the great, judicial day, will be that the claim of a fallen and unregenerate being to possess free will in spiritual things will be exploded in the eyes of the on-looking universe. The actual trial, which will have been had, will forever settle the case.

Having vindicated the Calvinistic doctrine from the charge of inconsistency with the sincerity of God, I proceed to show that it is difficult for the Arminian to redeem his own doctrine from the same reproach.

First, One fails to see how all offer of the gospel when not actually made can be said to be sincerely made. There are large sections of the world which are designated as heathen for the very reason that they have no knowledge of the gospel. To them the tender of the blessings of redemption is not communicated. But the Arminian insists that as the atonement of Christ was made for every individual of the race, there is a corresponding offer of its benefits to "every soul of man." And as God imparts to every man sufficient ability to embrace the offer, he is sincere in extending it to all. But the fact has to be met that the offer of the gospel is not actually communicated to all of those for whom it is alleged that redemption was purchased. Myriads of heathen people neither know that redemption has been effected, nor that its benefits are offered to them. There is no offer of the gospel actually made to masses of the heathen. To them it is zero; and of zero nothing can be predicated. To say that an offer which is not made is sincerely made is absurd. A sincere offer which is not made is a sincere nothing.

If it be said that the offer as contained in the Bible is couched in universal terms, it is again replied as before that the heathen have not the Bible, and therefore know nothing of the offer in whatsoever terms it may be conveyed. If a feast were spread in a city, and cards of invitation were issued in which all its inhabitants were invited, and yet the cards were sent only to some and the rest remained in ignorance of the fact that they were included, how could it be said that the invitation was sincerely extended to all? In regard to such an invitation to all, the question of sincerity could not be raised. The only question would be as to the existence of the invitation.

The difficulty reaches farther back than this. It may be fairly asked, how it can be shown that God was sincere in making a redemptive provision for those to whom he did not intend by his providence to extend the offer of participation in its benefits. For it will be admitted that God could, if he pleased, convey the gospel offer to every individual of the race. This he does not please to do. The inconsistency has to be accounted for between the allegation that God in his Word declares that the provision of redemption is designed for every man, and the fact that in his providence he does not extend the offer of its blessings to every man. And the question must be pressed, how, in view of this inconsistency, God's sincerity can be vindicated. One can conjecture no relief from this difficulty except upon the ground that Christ has bound upon the Church the obligation to communicate the gospel offer to all mankind. This is not true of the Old Testament Church, and while it is true of the New Testament Church, still the ability and the willingness of the Church to comply with this obligation are conferred alone by the grace of God. Assuredly, the merely natural inclinations of Christians would not impel them to convey to the heathen the knowledge of the gospel. God's decretive will, as indicated in the measures of his providence, must, therefore, be regarded as implicated in the fact that the gospel is not actually communicated to every individual of the race.

It does not relieve the difficulty to say, that God communicates sufficient grace to the church to enable her to obey the command of her Head to preach the gospel to every creature, and leaves it to her by the free election of her self-determining will to carry the command into execution. For, in that case, it must be confessed that God foreknew that the church would fail, to a great extent, in yielding obedience to the command, and so conditioned upon her disobedience the fate of the heathen world. He designed no other means for the communication of the gospel to the heathen than the agency of the church, and he knew that that instrumentality would not be adequately employed to accomplish the contemplated end. The Arminian cannot escape the difficulty of adjusting, upon his principles, the non-extension of the gospel offer to large sections of the race to the sincerity of God. The Calvinist is not burdened with this difficulty, because, in the first place, he does not hold that the atonement of Christ was offered for every individual of mankind; and because, in the second place, he holds that the invitation to partake of the benefits of the atonement is extended to all those who hear the gospel.

Secondly, The Arminian is confronted with the difficulty that, according to his doctrine, ability to accept the gospel offer is imparted to those to whom that offer is never actually made. He teaches that God has given to every man sufficient grace, - that is to say, sufficient grace to enable him to embrace the salvation purchased for him by Christ. The Evangelical Arminian, as has already been shown, holds that God has, through the merit of Christ, removed the guilt of Adam's sin from the race, and that he has imparted a degree of spiritual life to every soul of man, or, as it is otherwise expressed, removed a degree of spiritual death from every soul of man. The result is, that every man of the race is furnished by supernatural grace with ability to embrace the gospel offer whenever it is tendered to him. He is thus prepared for its reception. This divinely imparted ability to receive it must be regarded as a prophecy and a pledge that it will be brought in contact with him; just as the divinely given ability of the child to receive food is a promise registered in its very make that the needed nourishment will be provided for it. Why the receptive ability, in either case, if the thing to be received were never intended to be brought into relation to it? There would be a contradiction of a divine pledge implicitly but really stamped upon the nature of man - one-half of a divine arrangement, which supposes and guarantees another half as its complement; another half which, however, is wanting. The heathen are furnished with ample ability to embrace the gospel offer, but it is never brought into relation to countless multitudes of them. It is fair to ask, Where, upon such a supposition, is the divine sincerity? It matters not that the heathen may be unconscious of this divine gift of gracious ability to receive the gospel. That would only show that he is not conscious of God's infraction of the pledge inlaid in his being. The inconsistency is in the Arminian doctrine. That is all to which attention is called. God is represented as not fulfilling an implied, but real, pledge and guarantee.

In one or other of the following ways it is conceivable that the Arminian may attempt to set aside this argument:

In the first place, he may contend that evangelization by Christian missionaries is not the only method by which the heathen acquire a knowledge of the gospel scheme, but that they possess, apart from that method, a sufficient acquaintance with the promise of redemption to condition their salvation. When the objection to the Calvinistic doctrine of its inconsistency with the divine goodness was under consideration, this hypothesis was discussed and refuted. Something more in regard to it may now, however, be added.

It may be said that it is impossible to assign a limit of time beyond which the world in general ceased to have any saving acquaintance with the provisions of the gospel; and that such instances as those of Job and Melchisedec would appear to show that a knowledge of the gospel sufficient to save might be derived from the traditions of the Patriarchal dispensation, or by immediate revelation.

The cases which are appealed to were those of persons who lived in the Patriarchal period; and it is certainly unwarrantable to make them analogous to the case of the heathen who have lived after the expiration of the Jewish dispensation and the beginning of the Christian. Besides, they are entirely too extraordinary and exceptional to be pleaded as illustrating the condition of the masses of the heathen world. We are too ignorant concerning the question, who Melchisedec was, to employ his case as an element in this argument; and it may well be asked, What cases, since the commencement of the Christian dispensation, have ever been discovered among the heathen which bore any resemblance to that of Job and his contemporaries? As Cornelius the Centurion lived in contact with the Jews, it is obvious that he derived his knowledge of the gospel from them: indeed, that fact is expressly mentioned in the history of his case.

The hypothesis of an immediate revelation of the plan of redemption to the heathen is too wild and fanciful to merit serious refutation. There is one consideration which ought with those who accept the authority of the Scriptures to be decisive of this question. It is that Paul, the apostle to the heathen nations, plainly intimates in his epistles to the churches gathered out of them, that previously to the preaching of the gospel by Christian missionaries the members of those churches were destitute of any knowledge of the scheme of salvation. Who can doubt this that reads the description of the moral condition of the heathen, as given by him in the Epistle to the Romans? And in the Epistle to the Ephesians he speaks expressly on the subject. He calls upon the members of the church at Ephesus to remember the ignorant and hopeless condition in which they were before they heard the gospel at his lips. "Wherefore," says he, "remember, that ye being in the time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by that which is called the circumcision in the flesh made by hands; that at that time ye were without Christ; being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world."[117] Here he tells the Ephesian believers that when they were heathen they were aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, that is to say, that they had no connection with the church of God; and in consequence of that fact that they were strangers to the covenants of promise, by which he means to say that they were ignorant of the gospel. Because they were not in contact with the church they could have no knowledge of the gospel. And because they were ignorant of the gospel, they were, he goes on to argue, without Christ; plainly intimating that there can be no saving relation to Christ apart from the knowledge of the gospel. Further, because they were without Christ, he declares that they were without God. Having in their heathen condition had no saving relation to Christ they could have had no saving relation to God, and therefore they had no hope. In this passage the apostle plainly teaches that the heathen, apart from the evangelizing labors of Christian missionaries, have no saving knowledge of the gospel, and that so long as that ignorance continues their condition is hopeless.

In the Epistle to the Romans he makes a more general statement. He declares that it is necessary to the salvation of any man, whether Jew or Greek, that he call on the name of the Lord, and that no man could call on that name who had not heard it by means of preaching. This plainly intimates that without the preaching of the gospel none can have any saving acquaintance with it. As the heathen have not the preaching of the gospel, it follows that they have no knowledge of the gospel.

Other arguments of a similar character might be derived from Scripture, but these are sufficient, with those who respect the authority of the divine Word, to refute the supposition that apart from the preaching of Christian missionaries the heathen possess any knowledge of the gospel scheme.

With these representations of the condition of the heathen furnished in the New Testament Scriptures the observation of modern missionaries concurs. They meet no heathen who have any knowledge whatsoever of the gospel scheme. And it is evident that the missionary efforts of Evangelical Arminian bodies are grounded in this supposition of ignorance of the gospel on the part of the heathen world. It cannot, in consistency with their admissions, be contended that they institute these efforts in order to impart to the heathen a clearer knowledge of the gospel than they are presumed already to possess. They go upon the theory that without the preaching of missionaries the heathen have no acquaintance with even the fundamental elements of the plan of redemption.

If it be clear that without the preaching of the gospel de novo to the heathen they possess no knowledge of it, the difficulty remains that, according to the Arminian doctrine, God has given to masses of men an ability to accept the offer of salvation, and at the same time does not secure the extension of that offer to them. Consequently, the question in regard to the divine sincerity has not been answered.

In the second place, the Arminian, in order to meet the difficulty in hand, may contend that the heathen who have no knowledge of the gospel are saved by an indirect application to them of the merits of Christ's atonement. But the essence of the theory of sufficient grace as imparted to all men is, that all are in this way enabled to embrace the offer of salvation - to repent of sin and believe in Christ. What is the office of this universally imparted ability, if the mode in which it is to be exerted, the things upon which it is designed to terminate, are completely unknown by its possessors? Even were it supposed that the mercy of God may save the heathen who know not the gospel through the indirect and therefore unconsciously experienced application to them of the benefits of the atonement, what becomes of the divinely given ability directly and consciously to receive those benefits? There is an aptitude without the object to which it is suited, a power without the end which elicits its exercise, a divine constitution to the integrity of which two complementary elements are necessary, but from which one of them is absent. It is manifest that upon this hypothesis no account can be given of a universally imparted ability to receive the gospel offer, which would harmonize it with the sincerity of God. It would be a useless and therefore deceptive endowment, a prophecy without fulfilment, a beginning without a possible end.

In the third place, the Arminian may contend that the ability furnished by grace to the heathen who have not the gospel is designed to enable them, in consequence of the atonement, to render such an obedience to the moral law, relaxed and accommodated to their weakness, as will secure their acceptance with God. Had not this astounding theory been formally enunciated and supported, it might be deemed impossible that it should be introduced as an element into a Christian theology. But it is not a shadow which is conjured up. This doctrine, as already pointed out, is stated and maintained by no less a theologian than Richard Watson.[118] Indeed, in the passage in which he treats of the ability possessed by the heathen, he does not even qualify his statement by supposing that the law is accommodated to their weak moral strength, but affirms that they are able to obey the law as "written on their hearts," that is, "the traditionary law the equity of which their consciences attested," that they are "capable of doing all the things contained in the law," "that all such Gentiles as were thus obedient should be 'justified in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to his Gospel.'" But let it be admitted that these extraordinary utterances have reference to the moral law as relaxed and accommodated to the moral strength of the heathen, and that the theory ought to be viewed as affected by the advantage which such an admission would furnish to it.

It might easily be shown that the hypothesis of a relaxation of the moral law and its accommodation to the weak moral strength of the sinner is both unscriptural and absurd; that the possibility of the justification of any sinner, either upon the two-fold ground of the merits of Christ and his own personal obedience to law, or upon the sole ground of his own personal obedience, is contradicted alike by the explicit testimony of Scripture, the creeds of all Protestant Churches and the symbolical articles of Evangelical Arminian bodies; that the doctrine of justification by faith alone, as set forth so clearly in the Word of God, bears upon the whole race of man, upon the heathen as well as upon those who possess a written revelation, - upon all these grounds the theory under consideration could, without difficulty, be convicted of being destitute of truth. But the point which is now emphasized is, that it represents God as violating his own veracity. For, if anything is susceptible of proof it is that in his Word he declares that by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. This theory by asserting that he imparts to some flesh, namely the heathen, ability to obey the law in order to their justification, represents him as contradicting the plainest statements of his Word. No flesh, no man living, shall be justified by the deeds of the law: some flesh, some men living, may be justified by the deeds of the law - this is the flat contradiction in which this extraordinary theory involves the God of truth. The alternatives are, either he is insincere in the teachings of his Word, or he is insincere in his dealings with the heathen.

It has thus been shown that the difficulty that ability to accept the gospel offer is imparted to some to whom that offer is not actually made, a difficulty growing directly from the doctrine of the Arminian and implicating him in the charge of representing God as insincere, is not met and removed by any of the methods by which he may seek to accomplish that end. To say that God gives ability to all the heathen to attain salvation is to say, in relation to multitudes of them, that by his grace he enables them to do what by his providence he affords them no opportunity of doing.

Thirdly, The Arminian charges the Calvinistic doctrine as making God insincere in extending the gospel offer to non-elect men; but the Arminian doctrine is chargeable with making God insincere in extending that offer to any man. It has really the same difficulty to carry in relation to the extension of the offer to every man, which the Calvinistic doctrine has to bear with reference to its extension to some men. The objection urged against the Calvinistic doctrine is two-fold: in the first place, that God necessitated the inability of the sinner, and in the second place, that he makes to him an offer of salvation which, in consequence of that inability, he knows the sinner cannot accept. The first part of this objection is not pertinent. The Calvinistic doctrine denies that God necessitated the sinner's inability. The second part is pertinent. The Calvinist admits that God makes the offer of salvation to the sinner, knowing that he has not the ability in himself to accept it, and this difficulty he is bound to meet. The Arminian affirms that he is not confronted with that difficulty because, according to his doctrine, God bestows upon the sinner who hears the gospel offer the ability to embrace it. Now, if it can be proved that the ability which the Arminian affirms to be conferred upon the sinner is really no ability at all, it will be shown that the Arminian doctrine labors under precisely the same difficulty with the Calvinistic, aggravated, however, by the consideration that it holds with respect to the extension of the gospel to all men; whereas the Calvinistic has to meet it, only with respect to the tender of that offer to some men - namely, the non-elect.

The proof that the ability to accept the gospel offer, which the Arminian asserts to be imparted to the sinner, is really no sufficient ability, has been furnished in the preceding part of this discussion. There the argument going to show the utter insufficiency of this alleged ability divinely conferred upon the unregenerate sinner was prosecuted with some thoroughness. It is unnecessary to repeat it here.

If, therefore, it can be evinced that the Calvinist represents God as insincere because he extends the gospel offer to the non-elect who are unable to accept it, for the very same reason it can be proved that the Arminian represents God as insincere in communicating that offer to all men. The Arminian has no right to urge an objection against the Calvinistic doctrine which really presses with still greater weight upon his own.

This concludes the discussion of the objections against the Calvinistic doctrines of election and reprobation, which are grounded in their alleged inconsistency with the moral attributes of God.

SECTION IV. OBJECTIONS FROM THE MORAL AGENCY OF MAN ANSWERED

I pass on, finally, to answer those objections to the Calvinistic doctrines of election and reprobation which are derived from the Moral Agency of Man.

This, for two reasons, will be done briefly. In the first place, the preceding discussion, in which objections to these doctrines drawn from the moral attributes of God were subjected to a thorough-going examination, has swept away much of the ground upon which the Arminian erects difficulties professedly growing out of the relations between the divine efficiency and the agency of the human will. Again and again, by repeated statement usque ad nauseam, which could only have been justified, and was fully justified, by the common misconception and consequent misrepresentation of the true doctrine of symbolic Calvinism, and the importance of its being stated and expounded with a clearness and fulness that would render misapprehension impossible, it has been shown, that the causal efficiency of God did not so operate upon the will of man as to determine it to the commission of the first sin and thus to necessitate the Fall. Man sinned by a free - that is, not a merely spontaneous, but an avoidable, decision of his own will. For this even Twisse, the great Supralapsarian, explicitly contends. It has also been evinced, by a minute analysis of the doctrine of the Evangelical Arminian concerning the human will after the Fall, that he is shut up to a choice between two alternatives: either, that the prevenient and sufficient grace which he affirms to be conferred upon all men is regenerating grace; or, that it is the natural will, clothed with the power to accept or to reject the aid of supernatural grace, which determines the question of practical salvation. If he adopts the former alternative he admits the Calvinistic doctrine, so far as the nature of the grace is concerned, though not the numerical extent of its bestowal. If he chooses the latter alternative, he makes, in the last resort, common cause with the Pelagian. If he concedes prevenient and sufficient grace to be regenerating, he, along with the Calvinist, is pressed by the difficulty of reconciling the determining efficacy of God's will with the free action of the human will. If he denies that grace to be regenerating, he, along with the Pelagian, gets quit of the difficulty mentioned, but, with him, encounters the greater, of showing how a sinful will, undetermined by the divine efficiency, determines itself to the generation of holy dispositions and the performance of saving acts.

In the second place, as it has been the design of this treatise, in the main, to consider the peculiar and distinctive doctrines of Evangelical Arminians in connection with election and reprobation, it would not comport with that purpose elaborately to examine the ground which is common between them and the earlier Arminians of the Remonstrant type. There is at bottom but little to discriminate the one system from the other as far as the moral agency of man is involved. So much as differentiates the Evangelical Arminian scheme, in regard to the relation of the human will to the grace of redemption, has passed under strict review in the foregoing remarks. For these reasons, what is to be said under this head of the subject will be compressed within narrow limits.

Certain things must be premised. The meaning of the terms employed in the discussion ought to be definitely fixed; otherwise no satisfactory result can be reached. Nothing is more common among Calvinists than this remark, which is by many accepted as almost an axiom: The attempt to reconcile the sovereignty of God and the free agency of man is hopeless and therefore gratuitous. God is sovereign: man is a free-agent. Both these propositions are true. Each is separately established by its own independent evidence. Each, therefore, is to be maintained. Our inability to evince their consistency is no ground for rejecting either. Let us leave their reconciliation to another sphere of being, satisfied in this with the reflection that they are not contradictions. There is a sense in which all this is true; but, without qualifications of its meaning and definitions of its terms, the dictum as one of universal validity is so vague as to settle nothing. What is meant by one of the terms of the contrast - the sovereignty of God? It may be conceived as that aspect of the divine will which is expressed in both his efficient and permissive decrees. Accordingly it may be apprehended as in some instances absolutely pre-determining events, and as in others bounding, ordering and governing events which are not absolutely predetermined, but permitted to occur. Or, again, the sovereignty of God may be conceived as that aspect of his will which is expressed alone in efficient decree, and as therefore absolutely pre-determining events. Now it is evident that the question of reconciling the free-agency of man with that sort of divine sovereignty which operates in connection with permissive decree is a very different one from the question of reconciling the free-agency of man with that kind of sovereignty which operates in connection with efficient decree and absolute predetermination. This distinction cannot be disregarded, if we would get a clear apprehension of the state of the question.

What, next, is meant by the other term of the contrast - the free-agency of man? I shall not here pause to discuss the unnecessary question, whether there is not a difference between the freedom of the will and the freedom of the man; but shall assume that there is no such difference worth contending about, since the will is precisely the power through which the freedom of the ma expresses itself. To affirm or deny the freedom of the will is the same thing as to affirm or deny the freedom of the man. The very question is, whether or not the man is free in willing, or free to will. If he is not free in respect to his will, it is certain that he is not in respect to any other faculty. Now, if we may credit the common judgment of mankind, there are two distinct kinds of freedom which ought never to be confounded. The one is the freedom of deliberate election between opposing alternatives, of going in either of two directions, the freedom, as it is sometimes denominated, of otherwise determining. The other is the freedom of a fixed and determined spontaneity. It might have been well if these two things had always been kept distinct; if the term freedom had been restricted to the former, and the term spontaneity had been assigned to the latter. This was the judgment of so acute and judicious a thinker as Calvin, and had that course been pursued a vast amount of logomachy would have been avoided. Let us illustrate the importance and test the accuracy of this abstract distinction by concrete cases. Man in innocence possessed the freedom of deliberate election between the opposite alternatives of sin and holiness. So has the Church universal held. He may have chosen either. He was not determined by a fixed moral spontaneity either to holiness or to sin. Man in his fallen and unregenerate condition does not possess the freedom of deliberate election between the opposing alternatives of holiness and sin. By his first fatal act of transgression, he determined his spiritual condition as one of fixed spontaneity in the single direction of sin. He is spontaneously free to choose sin, but he is not, without grace, free deliberately to elect holiness. Here then is a case of spontaneous freedom, but not of the freedom of deliberate choice between conflicting alternatives. Man as a saint in glory has not the freedom of deliberate election between the alternatives of holiness and sin; he is determined by a fixed spontaneity in the direction of holiness. He is spontaneously free in the choice of holiness, but he is not free deliberately to elect sin. When, therefore, it is assumed that the free-agency of man is an independent truth resting upon its own indisputable evidence, it must be inquired, Which of these kinds of free-agency is meant? For it is of vital importance to know in what sense the term is employed. And it is also of the greatest consequence to understand in what circumstances man is contemplated, when free-agency in either one or the other sense is predicated of him.

Let us now apply these obvious distinctions between two forms of divine sovereignty on the one hand, and two kinds of human freedom on the other, to the maxim which has been cited in regard to the reconcilability of the sovereignty of God and the free-agency of man. Let it be observed that in this dictum the sovereignty of God is regarded as his efficient and pre-determining will. It is plain that the question is not, how the free-agency of man can be reconciled with the sovereignty of God considered as his permissive will. It is only when the free action of the human will is viewed in its relation to the efficient and pre-determining will of God that apparent contradiction results - an apparent contradiction with which it is said we must rest content in our present sphere of thought.

How was it in the case of man before the Fall? If he possessed the freedom of deliberate election between the opposite alternatives of holiness and sin, if he was free to sin and free to abstain from sinning, it would seem to be clear that God did not by his efficient will pre-determine that he should sin; for in that case, the sin of man would have been necessitated and therefore unavoidable. On the other hand, if God had efficaciously pre-determined man's sin, it would seem to be equally clear that man could not have had the freedom of deliberate election between holiness and sin, between sinning and not sinning. To say that God pre-determined the first sin, and that man was free to abstain from its commission, that is, that he might not have sinned, would be to affirm not merely an apparent, but a real contradiction. As predetermined by the divine will to sin he was obliged to sin; as free to abstain from sinning he was not obliged to sin. The contradiction is patent. This contradiction is not inherent in the Calvinistic doctrine. The Calvinistic Confessions, which surely ought to be accepted as exponents of Calvinism, affirm that man before the Fall was possessed of the freedom of deliberate election between the alternatives of sin and holiness; and they also teach that God decreed to permit - they do not assert that he efficiently decreed - the first sin. There is consequently no question of reconciling the free-agency of man before the Fall with the sovereignty of God considered as his efficient and pre-determining will, so far as the first sin is concerned. The relation was between the sovereignty of God as his permissive will and the freedom of man deliberately to choose between the opposite alternatives of holiness and sin; and whatever difficulties may arise in connection with that relation, they cannot be regarded as involving even a seeming contradiction.

The inquiry next arises, What is the relation between the sovereign will of God and the free-agency of man after the Fall? In his fallen condition, unmodified by the influence of supernatural grace, man does not possess the freedom of deliberate election between the contrary alternatives of sin and holiness. That sort of freedom, as has been shown, he had in his estate of innocence, but he lost it when he fell. By his own free, that is, unnecessitated, self-decision in favor of sin, he established in his soul a fixed and determined spontaneity in the direction of sin. He sins freely, in the sense of spontaneously; in sinning he is urged by no compulsory force exerted by a divine influence either upon him or through him, but follows the bent of his own inclination - in a word, does as he pleases. He is not, however, free to be holy or to do holy acts. Spiritually disabled, he is no more free to produce holiness than is a dead man to generate life. When, therefore, it is affirmed that man is a free-agent in his sinful and unregenerate condition, it must be demanded, what sort of free-agency is meant. If the freedom of choosing between sin and holiness be intended, the affirmation is not true. He only possesses the freedom which is implied by a fixed spontaneity in accordance with which he pleases to sin. Only in that sense is he a free-agent, as to spiritual things. In inquiring, whether the free-agency of man in his sinful and unregenerate condition can be reconciled with the sovereign will of God as efficient and determinative, it must be remembered that it is only the freedom of sinful spontaneity concerning which the inquiry is possible. It alone, and not the freedom of election between sin and holiness, is one of the terms of the relation. What this relation is between the sinful spontaneity of the unregenerate man and the sovereign will of God as efficient and determining, I will not now discuss,[119] for the reason that the matter which is under consideration here is the relation between the sovereignty of God and the free-agency of man in respect to the great concern of practical salvation.

Before the regeneration of a sinner the question of reconciling his free-agency as to spiritual things with the sovereignty of God viewed as efficient cannot exist, for the plain reason that the unregenerate man has no such free-agency. He is not free to choose holiness, to accept in his natural strength the gospel offer and to believe on Christ unto salvation. It is not intended to affirm that God positively interposes hindrances in the way of his performing these spiritual acts, or that the legal obstacles in the way of his salvation have not been removed by the atoning work and merit of the Saviour. The contrary is true. Nor is the ground taken, that the unregenerate sinner is not under obligation to obey the call and command of God to all men to comply with the terms of the gospel, or that he is not bound to use such means of grace as are divinely placed in his power, or that he has no natural ability and opportunities to employ those means. But although all this is conceded, still the doctrine of Scripture is that he has no freedom to will his own spiritual life, and consequently no freedom, in the absence of that life, to will the existence of spiritual dispositions and the discharge of spiritual functions. His spontaneous habitudes are exclusively sinful: he is dead in trespasses and sins. To talk then of reconciling the sovereignty of God with the free-agency in spiritual things of the unregenerate sinner is to talk of reconciling that sovereignty with nothing. One of the terms of the supposed relation is absent, and the relation is non-existent. There is no problem to be solved. The influence of the Spirit of God upon the sinner before regeneration, however powerful, is simply illuminating and suasive. It enlightens, instructs and convinces, warns, invites and persuades; but as such divine operations are confessedly not determining, the problem under consideration does not emerge in connection with them.

Nor can it occur in respect to regeneration itself. In the supreme moment of regeneration, which from the nature of the case is an instantaneous act of almighty power, the sinner can be nothing more than the passive recipient of a newly created principle of life. The omnipotent grace of God efficaciously causes a new spiritual existence, makes the previously dead sinner a new creature in Christ Jesus. The ability to will holiness, the freedom to choose it, are thus divinely produced. Free-agency in regard to spiritual things is originated. That sort of free-agency not having existed until called into being by the regenerating act, it is idle to talk of reconciling it with the sovereign and efficient will of God expressed in that act. The only reconciliation, in the case, which it is possible to conceive is that between a producing cause and its effects; and it would be unmeaning to speak of their reconciliation before the effect is produced.

After the regeneration of the sinner has been effected, the question as to the reconciliation of divine sovereignty and human free-agency becomes a pertinent one, and, I am free to confess, an insoluble one. It is clearly the teaching of the Scriptures that God determines the will of the renewed man to holiness, and also that the will of the renewed man freely, that is, spontaneously chooses holiness. The renewed nature, after being started into existence, is not left to develop the principle of life, like a potential germ, in accordance with inherent and self-acting laws or spiritual forces. It continually needs fresh infusions of grace, new accessions of spiritual strength; and the grace which created the nature, and implanted in it the principle of spiritual life, is necessary not only to sustain that life, but also to determine its activities. At the same time the renewed nature spontaneously exerts its own energies. In a word, God determines the renewed will, but the renewed will acts in accordance with its own spontaneous elections. A single explicit passage of Scripture proves this representation of the case to be correct. The apostolic injunction is: "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure."[120]

How this is so, who can explain? It is a mystery unfathomed, and probably, in the present sphere of thought, unfathomable. The difficulty does not consist in the fact that God creates a will endowed with the power of free, spontaneous action. He also creates the intellect and the feelings with their own spontaneous activities. But the difficulty lies in this: that having created a will with ability spontaneously to elect its own acts, he by an efficient influence determines those acts. This he did not do in the instance of man before the Fall. He did not determine his spontaneous activities. But this he does in the case of the believer in Christ, so far as he is regenerate and his will is renewed, and in the case of the saint in glory. Here the maxim, which has been the subject of criticism in these remarks, holds good. In our inability speculatively to harmonize the sovereign efficiency of God with the spontaneous freedom of the saint, we are obliged to accept both facts upon the authority of the divine Word. Both being true, there can be no real contradiction between them; and our impotence to effect their reconciliation is but one of the many lessons which enforce the humility springing from the limitation of our faculties, furnish scope for the exercise of faith, and stimulate to the quest of truth. But formidable as this difficulty is, it is not the insuperable difficulty involved in the supposition that the efficient determination of the divine will consists with the freedom of deliberate election between contrary alternatives, on the part of the human will. The one may be inconceivable; the other is incredible.

The bearing of this statement of the distinctions which ought to be observed touching divine sovereignty and human free-agency upon the objections to the doctrines of election and reprobation will be apparent as those objections shall be considered. It goes far towards answering them by anticipation, and will justify brevity in dealing with them.

First, It is alleged that these doctrines are inconsistent with liberty and therefore with moral accountability.

Secondly, It is alleged that these doctrines are inconsistent with personal efforts to secure salvation.

We must divide. As election influences only the case of the elect, the question is, first, whether it is inconsistent with their liberty and moral accountability; and, secondly, whether it is inconsistent with their efforts to secure salvation. The only mode in which it can be conceived to be inconsistent with their free moral agency in these forms is, that by means of efficacious grace it irresistibly effects the production of holiness.

1. It is admitted that such is the result of election upon the elect.

2. This, however, does not prove it to be inconsistent with their free moral agency, but the contrary, for the following reasons:

(1.) Did not grace create a will to be holy, there could be no such will in a sinner. As has been already shown, he lost the liberty of willing holiness by reason of sin. He cannot, in his own strength, recover it. The dead cannot recover life. As, then, efficacious grace, the fruit of election, restores to him the liberty to will holiness, so far from being inconsistent with that liberty, it is proved to be its only cause. How a cause can be inconsistent with its effect, and an effect due to its operation alone, it is impossible to see. Upon this point the Evangelical Arminian maintains contradictory positions. He holds that as man is naturally dead in sin, he cannot of himself will holiness. Grace must give him that ability, that is, that spiritual liberty to will holiness. But he also holds that if grace does this, it destroys the liberty of the moral agent.

(2.) The liberty and moral accountability of the elect cannot be destroyed by election, acting by means of efficacious and determining grace, for if it were, there could be no such thing as immutable confirmation in holiness. But Evangelical Arminians themselves admit the fact that the glorified saints are confirmed in holiness, so as to be beyond the danger of a fall. Now, there are only two suppositions possible: either, the glorified saints are confirmed by virtue of their own culture of holy habits, that is to say, by virtue of the holy characters which they, themselves have formed; or, they are confirmed by the determining grace of God. The first supposition is manifestly inconsistent with the confirmation of infants dying in infancy, and of adults who, like the penitent thief on the cross, are transferred to heaven without having had the opportunity of developing holy characters on earth. The second supposition must therefore be adopted, to wit, that the saints in glory are confirmed in their standing by the infusions of determining grace. But it surely will not be contended that they are deprived of liberty and moral accountability on that account. No more, then, are saints on earth. The principle is precisely the same in both cases. Further, Evangelical Arminians acknowledge that those who reach heaven are elected to final salvation. If election, according to their own admission, is not inconsistent with the liberty and moral accountability of moral agents in heaven, why should it be held to be inconsistent with those attributes in moral agents on earth?

(3.) The doctrine of Prayer, as held by both Evangelical Arminians and Calvinists, completely refutes this objection. Prayer is a confession of human helplessness, a cry for the intervention of almighty and efficacious grace. When we cannot deliver ourselves, we appeal to God for deliverance. When our wills are confessedly impotent, we implore grace to quicken and determine them. We pray not merely to be helped, but to be saved. Would he, whose feet are stuck fast in the horrible pit and the miry clay, be relieved by such an answer to his prayers as Hercules is fabled to have given to the wagoner: Help yourself, and then I will help you? I cannot help myself, he cries; O Lord, pluck thou my feet out of the horrible pit and out of the miry clay. When God answers his prayer, delivers him, puts his feet upon a rock, and a new song in his mouth, does he interfere with the suppliant's liberty and moral accountability? If so, the more of such interference, the better for despairing sinners. Its absence is hell; its presence is heaven. The case is too plain to need argument. Let the experience of converted sinners decide.

(4.) The sudden, overwhelming, irresistible conversion of some men furnishes an answer to this objection. The fact of such conversions Wesley frankly admitted. How could he help it? Had he not seen them with his own eyes? Had he not read of them in the Bible? And are such conversions incompatible with the liberty and moral accountability of those who are their blessed subjects? When Saul of Tarsus, the hater of Jesus, the savage inquisitor thirsting for the blood of the saints, was suddenly, overwhelmingly, irresistibly converted and transmuted into a flaming preacher of the Cross, was the supernatural, efficacious and determining transformation inconsistent with his liberty and moral accountability?

(5.) The doctrine of a Special Providence, maintained alike by Evangelical Arminians and Calvinists, overthrows this objection. It is confessed to be a scriptural truth, that God by an influence exerted in his natural providence upon the minds and hearts of men often determines their thoughts, inclinations and purposes, without violating their liberty and accountability. Why, then, should it be thought a thing incredible that he may, with the same result, exercise a like determining influence by his grace? What is grace but special providence running in redemptive moulds? The argument here from analogy is conclusive. To deny determining grace is to deny determining providence. To admit determining providence is to admit determining grace.

3. Election cannot be inconsistent with personal efforts to secure salvation.

(1.) An obvious reason is, that its very design is to accomplish that result. This is its teleology. How can those be hindered from believing, repenting and performing the duties of holiness, by that which is the sole cause of faith, repentance and holy living? And it must be remembered, that these graces are not merely means, but parts, of salvation. Those, therefore, who are elected to be saved are elected to believe, to repent, and to bring forth all the fruits of holiness. To say that election is not inconsistent with efforts to secure salvation is not enough: it is the producing cause of those efforts. Without it they never would be put forth; with it they certainly will. Did the elect not employ these efforts they would defeat God's predestinating purpose. That such is his purpose was incontestably proved by Scripture testimony in the former part of this treatise.

(2.) Election is not inconsistent with the use of the means of grace, for the plain reason that the use of those means by the elect is included in the electing decree. The means of grace are the Word of God, the Sacraments and Prayer. These means the elect are predestinated to employ, in order to the attainment of salvation as the predestinated end.

How the determining grace of God, which is the fruit of election, consists with the free, that is, spontaneous, action of the human will is, as has been confessed, a mystery which cannot be explained. But not only is the consistency a fact clearly asserted by the Scriptures, but the denial of it would be the denial of the possibility of salvation; for did not God's grace determine the will of the sinner towards salvation it is absolutely certain that it would never be so determined. And, further, to deny the fact is to deny the possibility of heavenly confirmation in holiness; which is to deny what Arminians admit.

4. The remaining question is, whether the decree of reprobation is inconsistent with the free moral agency of the non-elect sinner.

(1.) That ground can only be taken upon the supposition, that as God in consequence of election irresistibly produces the holiness of the elect, so in consequence of reprobation he irresistibly produces the sins of the reprobate. This position has already been abundantly refuted. God is not the author of sin; nor does the Calvinistic doctrine affirm that he is. On the contrary it solemnly maintains that he is not; and teaches, that, in the first instance, man had ample ability to refrain from sinning, and that he sinned by a free and avoidable election of his own will. The objection under consideration represents the Calvinist as holding that man sinned at first and sins now because he was reprobated. This is an utter mistake. He holds that every man who is reprobated was reprobated because he sinned. It is palpably clear, therefore, that, as reprobation had nothing to do in bringing about sin in the first instance, in that instance it was simply impossible that it could have been inconsistent with the free moral agency of man. The objection amounts to this absurdity: man freely sinned and was therefore reprobated; consequently, reprobation so obstructed the free-agency of man that he could not avoid sinning!

(2.) The decree of reprobation infuses no sinful principle or disposition into men now. Their inability to obey God, and their positive inclination to disobey him, are the results of their own free and unnecessitated choice, in the first instance, and their indisposition to avail themselves of the offer of salvation, and to put forth efforts to secure holiness, is what they now spontaneously elect. They do not desire holiness, and God is under no obligation to change their wills by his grace. If it be said, that they cannot choose holiness and salvation because they are reprobated, it is sufficient to reply, first, that they are reprobated because they did not choose holiness, and do not choose it now, but chose sin, and choose it now; and, secondly, that they cannot choose holiness because they will not, and reprobation precisely coincides with their own wills. To say that they do not will to be damned, is only to say that they are not willing to experience the retributive results of their own self-elected conduct. Of course, they are not. No criminal is willing to be hanged. But if he was willing to commit the crime for which he is hanged, his hanging is of his own getting. The sentence of the judge is not inconsistent with his free-agency when he perpetrated the deed. God gives no man the will to sin, but he justly inflicts the doom of self-elected sin. Nor can his sentence of reprobation be, in any sense, regarded as the cause of that doom. It inflicts what the sinner has freely chosen. In fine, reprobation is no further inconsistent with the sinner's seeking salvation than is his own will. He does not wish to be holy, and reprobation keeps him where he desires to be. Reprobation did not cause sin; it justly punishes it.

PART II—TRANSITIONAL OBSERVATIONS

The affirmation or denial of the doctrine of Unconditional Election, the consideration of which has now been closed, must stamp the complexion of one's whole theology. It is one of the most controlling of all doctrines, in the influence it exerts upon the formation of a theological system. If it be admitted, the whole provision of redemption is viewed as designed to effect the certain salvation of the elect, Christ as a Saviour appointed to save his people from their sins, and the atonement as offered for them in order to secure that result. Total depravity and total inability are logically supposed; for if unconditional election be a fact, man is contemplated as utterly unable to accomplish anything, even the least, in the way of saving himself. The application of salvation, at every step from the beginning to the end, accords with the sovereign purpose of God, by his own power to recover the sinner from his condition of despair. The grace which saves is efficacious and invincible. Synergism in order to regeneration becomes impossible. Faith in Christ is seen to be a pure gift of grace. Justification is acknowledged to be due to the gratuitous imputation of another's righteousness, and as that righteousness is the perfect obedience to the Law, rendered by the incarnate Son of God in conformity with the terms of an eternal covenant between God the Father and himself as the Head and Representative of an elect seed given to him to be redeemed, their justification in him involves an indefectible life. The same is seen to be true of adoption, which forever fixes the regenerate children of God in his paternal regards. The life of the saints cannot be lost. Sanctification is viewed as the process by which the Spirit makes the elect meet for the heavenly inheritance won inalienably for them by their glorious Surety and Substitute; and their perseverance in grace is the necessary result. In fine, this doctrine reduces redemption to unity, as a scheme originating in the mere good pleasure and sovereign determination of God, supposing the dependence of man's will upon God's will, making the salvation of those whom God chooses as his people absolutely certain, and necessitating the ascription of the whole, undivided glory of the completed plan to the free, efficacious and triumphant grace of God. Nothing is projected which is not executed, nothing begun which is not finished, nothing promised which is not done. Conceived in the infinite intelligence of God, the scheme is consummated by his infinite power, and the results are commensurate with the infinite glory of his name.

If, on the other hand, unconditional election is denied, the genius of redemption becomes contingency. The atonement was offered to make the salvation of all men only possible; the human will has the power to accept or reject the tender of assisting grace, and decides the supreme question of receiving or not receiving Christ as a Saviour; repentance and faith precede regeneration - the sinner with the subsidiary help of grace arranges for his own new creation and resurrection from the death of sin; the effects of justification and adoption are conditioned upon the continued choice of the human will to avail itself of them; and the man may by his own election reach heaven in order to God's electing him to that end, or, although having been regenerated, justified, adopted and, it may be, entirely sanctified, he may at last fall from the threshold of glory into hopeless perdition. A magnificent scheme of divine philanthropy, embracing in its arms the whole world, professing to make the salvation of all men possible, it miscarries in consequence of its dependence upon the mutable state and the contingent action of the human will, and in its completion issues in the actual salvation of no more souls than unconditional election proposes to save. Its poverty of result is as great as its richness in promise: its achievement in inverse ratio to its effort.

It is proposed now to go on and compare the schemes of Calvinism and Evangelical Arminianism, in regard to the doctrine of Justification by Faith. In order to a clear view of the case, the Calvinistic doctrine will first be stated, without an immediate presentation of its proofs, and the Evangelical Arminian will be subjected to a somewhat particular examination - examination, I say, for it is a question of no mean difficulty what exactly it is. Such proofs of the former doctrine as may be furnished will be submitted during the discussion of the latter.

SECTION I. THE CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION STATED

The Calvinistic doctrine may be stated under three heads: first, the Ground of justification; secondly, its Constituent Elements, or Nature; thirdly, its human Condition or Instrument.

1. The Ground of justification, or, what is the same, its Matter or Material Cause, is the vicarious righteousness of Christ imputed to the believer. This is the obedience of Christ, as the appointed Substitute of the sinner, to the precept and the penalty of the Moral Law: what Paul denominates the righteousness of God which is revealed from faith to faith. It is fitly termed the righteousness of God, not only because it was provided and accepted by God, but because it was wrought out by God himself in the person of his Incarnate Son. It is God's righteousness because God produced it. This is judicially imputed by God the Father to the believing sinner, who had no share at all in its conscious production. In that sense, it is not his, but another's righteousness - justitia aliena. But as Christ was his Surety and Representative and Christ's righteousness was imputed to him, it becomes, in this sense, his righteousness. It is his in law, before the divine tribunal; not his as infused and constituting a subjective character, but his as a formal investiture of his person. God, therefore, is just in justifying him since, although consciously and subjectively a sinner, he possesses in Christ a perfect righteousness, such as the law demands in order to justification, and such as satisfies its claims. When the sinner by faith accepts Christ with this righteousness, he has an adequate ground of justification: consciously has it, so that he can plead it before God.

2. The Constituent Elements of justification are, first, the pardon, or non-imputation, of guilt; secondly, the acceptance of the sinner's person as righteous, involving his investiture with a right and title to eternal life. Taken generally, justification may be said to consist of three things: first, the imputation of Christ's righteousness; secondly, the non-imputation of guilt, or pardon; thirdly, the acceptance of the sinner's person as righteous and the bestowal upon him of a right and title to eternal life. But taken strictly, justification is pardon and the eternal acceptance of the sinner's person. The ground and the constituent elements are not to be confounded. It is not: justification is the non-imputation of guilt and the imputation of righteousness, which would seem to be the natural antithesis; but first comes the imputed righteousness of Christ as the ground, and then the elements or parts, - namely, pardon, and acceptance with a title to indefectible life.

3. The Condition on man's part, or the Instrument, of justification is Faith, and faith alone. In receiving Christ, as a justifying Saviour, it receives and rests upon Christ's righteousness, as the ground of justification. God imputes this righteousness and the sinner embraces it by faith. In describing faith as the condition of justification, an indispensable distinction is to be noted. The only meritorious condition of justification was performed by Christ. As the Representative of his people he undertook to furnish that perfect obedience to the precept of the Law which, under the Covenant of Works, was required of Adam as the representative of his seed and which he failed to render, and, in addition, to furnish a perfect obedience to the penalty of the violated law. Upon the fulfilment of this condition the justification of his seed was suspended. This condition he completely fulfilled in his life and in his death, and thus meritoriously secured justification for his seed. But in the application of redemption to the sinner, he is required to exercise faith in Christ and his righteousness, in order to his conscious union with Christ as a Federal Head, and his actual justification. In this sense, faith is to him the condition of his justification. It is simply an indispensable duty on his part - a conditio sine qua non. He cannot be consciously and actually justified without faith; but his faith has no particle of merit. All merit is in Christ alone. Faith involves the absolute renunciation of merit, and absolute reliance upon the meritorious obedience of Christ. Faith, then, is simply the instrument by which Christ and his righteousness are received in order to justification. It is emptiness filled with Christ's fulness; impotence lying down upon Christ's strength. It is no righteousness; it is not a substitute for righteousness; it is not imputed as righteousness. It is counted to us simply as the act which apprehends Christ's righteousness unto justification. All it does is to take what God gives - Christ and his righteousness: Christ as the justifying Saviour and Christ's righteousness as the only justifying righteousness.

In discharging this instrumental office faith is entirely alone. It is followed, and in accordance with the provisions of the covenant of grace it is inevitably followed, by the other graces of the Spirit, and by good, that is, holy works; but they do not co-operate with it in the act by which Christ and his righteousness are received in order to justification. They are not concurring causes, but the certain results of justification. In a word, faith, while not the sole cause for the act of the Spirit uniting the sinner to Christ in regeneration is also a cause, is the sole instrumental cause on man's part of justification. Other graces, the existence of which is conditioned by faith may be superior to it in point of intrinsic excellence, love for example; faith has none. All the excellence it possesses is derived from its relation to Christ. Itself it confesses to be nothing, Christ to be everything. It is an exhausted receiver prepared by its very emptiness to be filled with the merit of Christ's righteousness. Hence, it is precisely suited to be the instrument, and the sole instrument, of justification. As all human works whatsoever are excluded from it, justification is seen to be altogether of grace.

The statement of the doctrine in the Westminster Shorter Catechism is the same with the foregoing, except that the order of division is somewhat different, the constituent elements being placed before the ground. It is as follows:

"Justification is an act of God's free grace, wherein he pardoneth all our sins, and accepteth its as righteous in His sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received by faith alone."

The statements in the other parts of the Westminster Standards are fuller. That of the Confession of Faith is:

"Those whom God effectually calleth, he also freely justifieth; not by infusing righteousness into them, but by pardoning their sins, and by accounting and accepting their persons as righteous: not for anything wrought in them, or done by them, but for Christ's sake alone: not by imputing faith itself, the act of believing, or any other evangelical obedience to them, as their righteousness; but by imputing the obedience and satisfaction of Christ unto them, they receiving and resting on Him and His righteousness by faith; which faith they have not of themselves, it is the gift of God."

The Larger Catechism thus states the doctrine: "Justification is an act of God's free grace unto sinners, in which he pardoneth all their sin, accepteth and accounteth their persons righteous in His sight; not for anything wrought in them, or done by them, but only for the perfect obedience and full satisfaction of Christ, by God imputed to them, and received by faith alone."

In his Lecture on justification, in his Systematic Theology, Dr. Charles Hodge makes a just and admirable statement of the doctrine.[121] "It is frequently said," he remarks, "that justification consists in the pardon of sin and the imputation of righteousness. This mode of statement is commonly adopted by Lutheran theologians. This exhibition of the doctrine is founded upon the sharp distinction made in the 'Form of Concord' between the passive and active obedience of Christ. To the former is referred the remission of the penalty due to us for sin; to the latter our title to eternal life. The Scriptures, however, do not make this distinction so prominent. Our justification as a whole is sometimes referred to the blood of Christ, and sometimes to his obedience. This is intelligible, because the crowning act of his obedience, and that without which all else had been unavailing, was his laying down his life for us. It is, perhaps, more correct to say that the righteousness of Christ, including all he did and suffered in our stead, is imputed to the believer as the ground of his justification, and that the consequences of this imputation are, first, the remission of sin, and, secondly, the acceptance of the believer as righteous. And if righteous, then he is entitled to be so regarded and treated."

The possibilities in regard to justification are thus clearly presented by Dr. Thornwell in his very able discussion of the validity of Romanist Baptism, when considering the form of the sacrament or its relation to the truths of the gospel: "To justify is to pronounce righteous. A holy God cannot, of course, declare that any one is righteous unless he is so. There are no fictions of law in the tribunal of Heaven - all its judgments are according to truth. A man may be righteous because he has done righteousness, and then he is justified by law; or he may be righteous because he has received righteousness as a gift, and then he is justified by grace. He may be righteous in himself, and this is the righteousness of works; or he may be righteous in another, and this is the righteousness of faith. Hence, to deny imputed righteousness is either to deny the possibility of justification at all, or to make it consist in the deeds of the law - both hypotheses involving a rejection of the grace of the gospel. There are plainly but three possible suppositions in the case: either, there, is no righteousness in which a sinner is accepted, and justification is simply pardon; or, it must be the righteousness of God, without the law; or, the righteousness of personal obedience; it must either be none, inherent, or imputed." He powerfully refutes the suppositions of no righteousness and inherent righteousness, and establishes that of imputed.

Having given the Calvinistic statement of the doctrine, I proceed to compare with it the Evangelical Arminian, under three corresponding heads.

SECTION II. GROUND OF JUSTIFICATION.

The Ground or Meritorious Cause of justification the Evangelical Arminian theologians assert to be Christ's "obedience unto death." This is a general statement, and, so far as it is general, it is in accord with the Calvinistic doctrine on the subject. He who would take any other ground would descend to the low level of the Pelagian and the Socinian. All who pretend to orthodoxy must hold that the atoning merit of God's incarnate Son is the ground of the sinner's acceptance before the divine tribunal. But when the general statement is analyzed into particulars, there are several points at which the differences between the Arminian and the Calvinistic systems come distinctly into view. Is the meritorious obedience of Christ the Righteousness of God which is revealed from faith to faith? Upon whom does that obedience terminate for justification ? What is the result secured by it so far as probation is concerned ?-these questions are answered very differently in the two systems.

1. The Calvinist affirms, and the Arminian denies, that "the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith" is the vicarious obedience of Christ to the requirements of the law. This phrase, "the righteousness of God," is of the most critical importance in the apostle's discussion of justification. It is the hinge upon which it turns. Why was not Paul ashamed of the gospel of Christ? Because it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. Why is the gospel the power of God unto salvation? Because therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith. It is precisely the fact that the gospel reveals the righteousness of God to faith which constitutes it God's power to pardon the sinner and receive him into his favor. It is therefore of the utmost consequence to determine the question, What is this righteousness of God? As the Arminian denies that it is the vicarious obedience of Christ to the law, it behooves him to answer that question in some other way. Several answers have been returned: first, that it is the intrinsic rectitude of the divine character declared by the gospel; secondly, that it is the rectoral justice of the divine administration; thirdly, that it is God's method of justification; fourthly, that it is justifying faith; and sometimes these are mixed together in a marvellous and indescribable compound.

First, Is it the intrinsic or essential righteousness of God, declared by the gospel? In speaking formally of this righteousness Dr. Pope says: "It may be viewed objectively; and in this sense is used to describe God's method of restoring man to a state of conformity with his law: the righteousness of God, as the originating and regulative and essential principle of that method; exhibited in the work of Christ, the meritorious ground of the sinner's acceptance, or in Christ our Righteousness, and, as such, proclaimed in the gospel, to which it gives a name. Viewed subjectively, it is the righteousness of the believer under two aspects: first, it is justification by faith, or the declaratory imputation of righteousness without works; and then it is justification by faith as working through love and fulfilling the law; these however constituting one and the same Righteousness of Faith as the free gift of grace in Christ." Speaking further of the "Righteousness of God" he says: "The gospel is a revelation of God's righteous method of constituting sinners righteous through the atonement of Christ by faith: hence it is termed the Righteousness of God. Viewed in relation to the propitiatory sacrifice, it is a manifestation of God's essential righteousness in the remission of sins; viewed in relation to the Evangelical institute, it is the divine method of justifying the ungodly." This is somewhat confused and obscure, but two things are evidently set forth: in the first place, the "righteousness of God" is his essential righteousness manifested by the gospel; and in the second place, the "righteousness of God" is his method of justifying sinners. What Dr. Pope has joined together logic will take leave to put asunder, as the union was ab initio null and void. The former of these positions will be considered first, and separately from the latter, the consideration of which is reserved to another place.

It needs not many words to show that the essential righteousness, or, what is the same, the justice, of God cannot be the righteousness of God which is revealed to the faith of the guilty and despairing sinner as the ground of his hope of acceptance. It is an attribute of the divine nature, and exactly that attribute which is the most dreadful to the sinner's contemplation. It demands his punishment, visits its withering curse upon his head, and raises the flames of consuming wrath in the way of his approach to God. Nor does it at all relieve the difficulty to say that the sinner beholds the demands of this awful attribute satisfied by the suffering obedience of the Son of God, and from that circumstance derives the hope of pardon and acceptance. This aggravates the difficulty a thousand-fold. That the essential righteousness of God could be appeased only by the blood and anguish of the Cross presents it in a more fearful light than when it was revealed amidst the darkness, smoke and flame, the thunders and lightnings, the trumpet blast and the voice of words of Sinai's quaking mount. "If they do these things in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry?" If justice thus dealt with God's beloved Son, what will it do with the conscious transgressor of his law? It cannot be the intrinsic righteousness of God requiring such a sacrifice as that exhibited on the Cross which is revealed to faith. It is revealed to despair. But that the righteousness produced by an incarnate God satisfying the demands of God's essential righteousness which cannot be remitted, relaxed or compromised, and satisfying them in the room of the sinner - that this righteousness is revealed in the gospel to the faith of the guilty as a complete ground of acceptance with God is comprehensible. This it is which constitutes the gospel God's power to pardon, this which makes it tidings of great joy to those who sit in hopeless despair at the smoking gate of hell. To reveal the justice of God as a ground of hope to be apprehended by faith is a form of expression unknown to the Scriptures. It is what Christ has done and suffered in obeying the law which is held up to faith as the ground of acceptance with God. And as the righteousness of God is said to be revealed to faith, that righteousness must be the same with the righteousness of Christ. It certainly is not the distinguishing peculiarity of the gospel that it reveals the justice of God, or the grand office of faith that it receives that justice. The righteousness of God, therefore, which is revealed to faith, constituting the gospel the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth, cannot be the justice of God. It is preposterous. Justice is rather God's power unto damnation. It would be an inversion of the grace of the gospel, did the just live by faith in the justice of God. It is true that the Publican pleaded with God for favor through atonement (ιλασθητι), but it is certain that he did not plead for justice; he asked for mercy. Nor is the essential righteousness of God transmuted by atonement into mercy. It abides righteousness still. It was mercy that provided the atonement, and it is mercy that extends pardon to the sinner, in consistency with the claim of unchanging righteousness fulfilled by the obedience of the Saviour. Faith in that obedience, as the righteousness provided, produced, and accepted by God, is the required condition through which the sinner's guilt is remitted, and his person admitted to favor.

Secondly, It is sometimes contended that the "righteousness of God" which is revealed to faith is the rectoral righteousness of the divine administration.[122] The rectoral righteousness of God, as the term implies, is his justice in the administration of his moral government. What is this but the attribute of justice in energy ad extra? It enforces the divine law which is a transcript, or formal expression, of his moral perfections. The same course of argument, consequently, which was employed in relation to the intrinsic or essential righteousness of God will equally apply to his rectoral righteousness. But in the case of the latter it becomes evident that righteousness or justice is the actual rendering to every one what is his due. Were there no creature in existence, God would render to himself what is due in accordance with his intrinsic justice; and the same attribute would secure to each Person of the Godhead what properly belongs to him. There would be an infinite reciprocity in the communication and the reception of what is just to each. Towards the creatures who are subjects of the moral government of God, the attribute of justice, no longer confined to the relations of the Godhead, is so exercised as to render to each his due. This administration of justice, from the nature of the case, must be perfect, for it is divine. Each subject must receive exactly what is his due. The righteous cannot be treated as sinful, nor the sinner as righteous. Either the sinner must be punished in his own person, or, upon the supposition that substitution is admitted, in the person of a substitute. The rectoral righteousness, or distributive justice, of God must be completely satisfied, else the divine government is imperfectly administered.

Upon the Arminian scheme a serious difficulty here occurs. It is upon that scheme conceded that the principle of substitution has been introduced into the moral government of God, and that the atonement was in its nature vicarious. But, in the first place, it is denied that Christ as the substitute assumed human guilt, and that it was imputed to him by God, as judge. Dr. Raymond says: "The notion - held, to be sure, by but a very few - that the sins of mankind, or any portion of them, were imputed to Christ - that is, that he took upon him our iniquities in such a sense as that he was considered guilty, or that they were accounted to him, or that he suffered the punishment due on account of those sins - in a word, the idea that the Son of God died as a culprit, taking the place of culprits and having their transgressions imputed to him, accounted as his - we have characterized as well-nigh bordering upon blasphemy; it is, to say the least, a horrible thing to think of. The term impute cannot, in any good sense, be applied in this case. If, however, it be insisted upon that the sins of mankind, or of the elect, were imputed to Christ, the only sense admissible - and even in that sense the formula is eminently awkward - is, that consequences of man's sins were placed upon him; he suffered because of sin, not at all that he was punished for sin, or suffered the penalty of sin."[123] Now, it is demanded, if this were true, how, in accordance with the rectoral righteousness of God, Christ could have suffered and died. Of course he had no conscious guilt. Upon the supposition before us he had no imputed guilt. As these are the only possible ways in which one can be guilty, Christ had no guilt at all - he was perfectly and in every sense innocent. Did rectoral justice render to him his due, when as innocent he suffered and died? It may be said that he freely consented to suffer and die. But divine justice could not have consented; and as the Son of God was infinitely just, he could not have consented. To say that men sometimes elect to suffer and die for others does not in the least relieve the gigantic difficulty; for no man has the right to suffer and die for others unless it be his duty to do so. But the Son of God was, in the first instance, under no obligation to offer himself as a sacrifice for sinners. Further, to say that Christ consented to suffer and die is to suppose a covenant between God the Father and God the Son. This, however, is denied by Arminians, who admit only a covenant between God and men. The difficulty is insuperable upon the Arminian scheme. The rectoral righteousness of God was overslaughed or thrown out of account in relation to the stupendous fact of Christ's sufferings and death. And yet it is contended that the rectoral righteousness of God is revealed, declared, manifested by the gospel through the atonement of Christ! The abettor of the Moral Influence theory, which discards the distributive justice of God, may be consistent in maintaining that the sufferings and death of Christ were a sacrifice made by love with which justice had nothing to do; but as the Arminian admits retributive justice and yet denies that Christ was putatively guilty, he is involved in flat self-contradiction. Either rectoral justice had nothing to do with the sufferings and death of Christ, or it had to do with them. If the former, the Arminian doctrine under consideration - namely, that the "righteousness of God" which is revealed to faith is his rectoral righteousness manifested by the gospel, is fatuously absurd. If the latter, the rectoral righteousness of God did not render Christ his due as a perfectly innocent being. On either horn the Arminian doctrine is impaled. In the second place, if the imputation of the sinner's guilt to Christ as his Substitute is denied, it follows that his guilt remains upon himself. It is in no way removed. But, it is contended that he is pardoned, if he believes in Christ. How, then, in accordance with rectoral righteousness, does he receive his due? Rectoral righteousness absolutely requires the punishment of guilt. There is no principle clearer in the moral government of God than the inseparable connection of guilt and punishment. To say that he is pardoned is to say that his guilt has not been punished. For, if pardoned, he is not consciously punished; and if Christ, as his Substitute, was not punished, his guilt has in no sense been punished. The inseparable connection between guilt and punishment no longer exists; rectoral justice has been defrauded of its rights. The sinner has not had his due rendered to him. If Christ was not the Substitute of the sinner, and if his death was not a penalty substituted for the death-penalty due the sinner, but simply, as we have seen it stated, a substitute for the penalty, then the penalty demanded by rectoral justice has been dispensed with. For it is as clear as day that the penalty has not been endured at all: not by the sinner - he is pardoned; not by Christ - he endured no penalty. The rectoral righteousness of God may have its precept, but in this case is shorn of its penalty: a mutilated righteousness, surely! Yet the rectoral righteousness of God is that which is revealed to faith in the gospel, seeing the sinner is pardoned because it has been fulfilled in the suffering and death of Christ!

Thirdly, It is maintained that the "righteousness of God" which is revealed from faith to faith, which without the law is manifested, is God's method of justification. Says Watson: "The phrase, the righteousness of God, in this [Rom. iii. 21, 22] and several other passages in St. Paul's writings, obviously means God's righteous method of justifying sinners through the atonement of Christ, and, instrumentally, by faith."[124] This is hardly a true construction of the apostle's words.

In the first place, there would be no progress in the statement: it would return upon itself. For it would amount to this: God's method of justification is through faith in his method of justification. The question still presses, What is God's method of justification? If one should ask by what means he might reach a certain place, it would be a poor answer to tell him, Take the road that leads to that place. The sinner asks, What is God's method of justification? or, what is the same thing, How shall I be justified? It would be an equally poor answer to tell him, Accept by faith God's method of justification. But if the answer should be, God has revealed the righteousness of Christ to faith; accept that righteousness by faith, and thou shalt be justified, it would be satisfactory, and it is the only satisfactory answer that can be given to the inquiry. To reply to it by saying, The righteousness of God is his method of justifying the sinner; accept that method by faith, and thou shalt be justified, would be tautological and to no purpose. Nothing would be explained.

In the second place, righteousness without works is said to be imputed: "Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works."[125] But it is out of the question to speak of a method of justification being imputed. To this the Arminian will reply by saying that it is faith which is described as the righteousness without works, and it is declared that faith is imputed. Now we have just heard Watson saying that God's righteousness is his method of justifying the sinner. It seems then that there are two justifying righteousnesses: God's method of justification, and faith. This is utterly inadmissible. Either it is God's method of justification which is the righteousness without works that is imputed, and that is absurd; or it is faith which is that righteousness, and that will be disproved as the argument is developed. Meanwhile, it cannot be allowed to the Arminian to play fast and loose with the all-important terms justifying righteousness. He cannot in one breath, as Watson does, signify by those terms God's rectoral justice, God's method of justification, and the sinner's faith. This is "confusion worse confounded." The righteousness which justifies cannot possibly be all three, or any two, of them. If it be one of them, let the Arminian adhere to that one alone, and he will at least be consistent with himself, however inconsistent with Scripture.

In the third place, the righteousness which is of God by faith is contrasted with the righteousness which is one's own. But there would be no meaning in the comparison of one's personal righteousness with God's method of justification. Let us hear Paul: "Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith."[126] By his own righteousness he certainly could not have intended his own method of justification, but his conscious, subjective obedience to the law; and that he should have contrasted that with the obedience of Christ is intelligible. The former could constitute no ground, the latter is a perfect ground, of justification. The same comparison is instituted by Paul in describing the zeal of his countrymen which was not according to knowledge. "For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God."[127] By their own righteousness is meant their legal obedience, "for Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, That the man which doeth those things shall live by them."[128] Their legal obedience is contrasted, not with the divine method of justification, but with the obedience of Christ by which he is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.

In the fourth place, our sin imputed to Christ is contrasted with his righteousness imputed to us. "For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him."[129] Will it be said that Christ was made God's method of condemnation for us, that we might be made God's method of justification in him? That would be the natural antithesis, if the righteousness of God mean God's method of justification. It most certainly cannot here mean faith, for it would be asserted that we are made faith in him! Both these constructions are so outrageous that they are rejected by Arminians themselves. Refusing to see the doctrines of imputed guilt and imputed righteousness which are so plain on the face of the passage that a blind man might perceive them, they say that Christ was made a sin-offering for us. Well then, we were made a righteousness-offering to God in him. That would be the antithesis required. No; we are justified in him. Between a sin-offering for us and being justified in him, what conceivable comparison is there? But let us not be hasty. Let us see whether some one of the various Arminian interpretations of the phrase "righteousness of God" will not meet the demands of the case? Are we made the essential righteousness of God in Christ? Are we made the rectoral righteousness of God in him? Are we made God's method of justification in him? Are we made faith in him? Are we made all these in him? No, answers the Arminian, we are justified in him. It follows that the righteousness of God here spoken of is neither God's essential righteousness, nor his rectoral righteousness, nor his method of justification, nor faith, nor all these together. What, then, can it be? The answer is, justified and sanctified. So it would appear that justified and sanctified[130] is another of the senses in which the phrase righteousness of God is employed.

A parallel passage is that in which Christ is declared to be made of God to us - righteousness: "But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption."[131] It will scarcely be contended that Christ is of God made unto us God's method of justification. If it be asked, Who ever asserted such an absurdity? it may be inquired in reply, How then is Christ made righteousness to us? Is he made to us God's essential righteousness, or his rectoral righteousness, or faith? Are these suppositions too absurd to ascribe to the Arminian? If so, the question recurs, How is Christ made righteousness to us? The answer cannot be, Because he is our sanctification, for the plain reason that in this passage righteousness is discriminated from sanctification. It will hardly do to say that he is made to us wisdom, and sanctification, and sanctification and redemption. A first and a second blessing of sanctification are surely not taught here. In what sense then is Christ made righteousness to us? There is but one other answer. It is that of the Calvinist: Christ's righteousness is ours by imputation.

Another passage which cannot be harmonized with the view under consideration is the powerful one in Jeremiah:[132] "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely; and this is his name whereby he shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS." There can be no doubt that this statement refers to Christ. How he could be called Jehovah, God's method of justification made ours, it is impossible to see. Even John Wesley, in his celebrated sermon on these words, acknowledged that the doctrine of Christ's imputed righteousness is, in a certain sense, taught in them, and he defined that righteousness to be what Christ did and suffered - what is usually termed his active and passive obedience. But from Richard Watson to the present day, the Evangelical Arminian theology has gone beyond its leader and discarded the phrase imputed righteousness of Christ. Be the interpretation of these glorious words what it may, it most assuredly cannot be: The Lord, our divine method of justification! No more can it be our divine essential righteousness, or our divine rectoral righteousness, or our faith.

Still another statement may be emphasized. It is that in which Gabriel tells Daniel, "Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people, and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness."[133] Illustrious testimony to the obedience of Christ! Who can resist the conviction that the righteousness here signalized is the "righteousness of God" which Paul magnified as the fundamental feature of a sinner's justification, the revelation of which constituted the gospel the power of God unto salvation, redeemed it from contempt and rendered it an object of glorying in the splendid capital of the Roman empire? And if this be so, the everlasting righteousness, the bringing in of which was foretold by an angelic prophet, cannot be regarded as God's method of justification, unless it be held that Jesus first brought in a method of justification which had been employed since the promise of redemption was delivered to Adam and Eve, and unless it be maintained that God will be everlastingly employed in justifying sinners after the sentences of the Final Judgment shall have forever sealed the doom of men. An everlasting method of justification is something hard to be understood, except it be by those who regard anything more tolerable than imputed righteousness; but that an obedience of a divine-human Substitute, brought in when he suffered and died for his people on earth, should, according to the purpose of God, have grounded their justification from the beginning of sin, and will everlastingly continue to ground their justified standing in heaven, - this is not only intelligible, but is the most glorious doctrine of the glorious gospel of the blessed God. The wonder is that any Protestant, that any believing sinner conscious of the sin that mingles even with his faith, should ever question it. This, and this alone, is the righteousness which finishes transgression, makes an end of sins, and effects a reconciliation. for iniquity, that perpetuates the light of God's face and forever removes the shadow of contingency from the bliss of heaven. So much for the position that the righteousness of God, without the law, which is revealed from faith to faith is God's method of justifying the sinner.

Fourthly, It is, with a remarkable versatility of interpretation, held that the righteousness of God is the righteousness of faith. Mr. Fletcher says of "our own righteousness of faith": "We assert that it is the righteousness of God."[134] Dr. Ralston in professedly discussing the question, What is the righteousness of God? quotes with approval from a learned commentator a passage in which this view is expressed. "In reference," he observes, "to this phrase, which occurs in Rom. i. 17, Whitby remarks: 'This phrase, in St. Paul's style, doth always signify the righteousness of faith in Christ Jesus's dying or shedding his blood for us.'" And then Ralston goes on to shift his terms, and curiously italicises the scriptural words which annihilate this view. "To this," he continues, "we might add the testimony of Paul himself, who, in Rom. iii. 22, gives precisely the same comment upon the phrase in question. 'Even,' says he, 'the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ."[135] That is, the righteousness of God is the righteousness of faith, and the righteousness of faith is the righteousness which is by faith. This is not Paul's confusion; it is Dr. Ralston's. He seemed unconscious that a righteousness which inheres in faith and a righteousness which comes by faith are not, cannot be, the same thing. That the righteousness of God is the righteousness that justifies not even the Arminians deny. That faith is the righteousness that justifies, they vehemently contend; for, was not Abraham's faith imputed to him for righteousness? Was he not righteous because he believed? His faith was the righteousness imputed to him. If this is not their doctrine, language can convey no meaning. When the relation of faith to justification comes in its place in the general scheme of the argument to be examined, this doctrine will be more particularly considered. At present, it is relevant to prove that the righteousness of faith, or faith as righteousness, cannot be the righteousness of God. The appeal will be taken directly to the Scriptures, and if they do not show this, the plainest declarations are incapable of being understood.

Rom. i. 17: "For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith." If faith be the righteousness of God, the statement would be exactly equivalent to this: the righteousness of God is revealed from the righteousness of God to the righteousness of God; or, faith is revealed from faith to faith. This cannot be the apostle's statement. If it be repudiated by the Arminian, it may be asked, For what reason? Is it urged that the righteousness of God is different from the righteousness of faith? The difficulty is only changed, not removed; for the statement would be: the righteousness of God is revealed from the righteousness of faith to the righteousness of faith. What meaning can be attached to such an utterance? If the righteousness of God and the righteousness of faith are different expressions for the same thing the first difficulty remains: God's righteousness is certainly not revealed to itself; neither is faith revealed to itself. So far as this cardinal statement of the mode of justification is concerned, it is perfectly clear that faith is not the righteousness of God.

Rom. iii. 21, 22: "But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ, unto all and upon all them that believe." If faith be the righteousness of God, the statement here would be tantamount to this: the righteousness of God which is by the righteousness of God; or faith which is by faith. This cannot be escaped except by a denial of the position that faith is the righteousness of God - the very affirmation resisted in these remarks. Moreover, what sense can be extracted from the sentence: faith is unto all and upon all them that believe? Yet, if faith be the righteousness of God, that sentence is virtually put into the apostle's mouth.

Phil. iii. 9: "And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith." The apostle contrasts his own righteousness which is of the law with another righteousness which is through faith. That other righteousness he describes as that which is of God, and as imparted through faith or attained by faith. Now, if faith be the righteousness of God, he is represented as desiring to have that faith which is through the faith of Christ, the faith which is of God by faith. This construction of the solemn language of Paul is so palpably inadmissible, that we are obliged to reject the view that the righteousness of God is faith, or, what is the same, that the righteousness of God is the righteousness of faith - the righteousness which faith is reckoned to be.

The question whether faith, in relation to justification, be any righteousness at all, legal or evangelical, imputed or inherent, will be considered in another place; but the passages of Scripture which have been adduced incontestably prove that the righteousness of God which is revealed from faith to faith, which is through faith, which is by faith, and which is unto all and upon all that believe, cannot be faith itself or any righteousness involved in it.

It has now been shown that the righteousness of God which is revealed to faith by the gospel is not God's intrinsic or essential righteousness, nor his rectoral righteousness by which he administers his moral government, nor his method of justification, nor faith. What, then, is it but the vicarious righteousness of Christ - his obedience to the precept, and the penalty of the law in the sinner's stead, wrought out in his life and in his death? The Arminian holds that the ground of justification is the merit of Christ, but fails to make the righteousness of Christ that righteousness of God which faith apprehends as the ground of acceptance. He is right in general, and wrong in detail.

2. To whom is the merit of Christ, according to the Arminian, made available as a ground of justification? Who stand upon that ground? This question is relevant because its answer throws some light upon the whole Arminian conception of justification. It behooves to be considered somewhere, and it may be well to take it up here. Arminian divines and commentators generally concur in holding that the guilt of Adam's sin is removed at birth from all men. They differ, it is true, in regard to the use of the term guilt in connection with the first sin; some contending that all men are in some sense guilty in respect to that sin, and therefore suffer the penal consequences of it. As punishment necessarily supposes guilt, men universally contracted guilt in Adam. Others hold that men suffer the consequences of Adam's sin, but that those consequences are not penal. Raymond scoffs at the notion that men are guilty in respect to Adam's sin in any proper sense. But although the tendency of the Evangelical Arminian theology seems to be now in the latter direction, it call scarcely be regarded as fairly representing the standard views of that theology as a whole. Be that as it may, all concur in admitting, what only Pelagians and Infidels deny, that men are in some way implicated in the Fall of Adam. This connection with the first sin is destroyed, in the case of all men, by the effect of Christ's atonement. They are absolved by the blood of Christ from the guilt (taken strictly or loosely) of Adam's sin. They are, so far as their connection with that sin is concerned, pardoned; and as, according to the Arminian doctrine, justification is exactly pardon, they are justified from that guilt. Indeed, this is, in terms, contended for in the expositions of the apostle's comparison of Adam's disobedience and Christ's righteousness in the fifth chapter of Romans. We have, then, the justification of all men at birth from the guilt of original sin. Now,

In the first place, this necessarily supposes two justifications, separated by an interval of time. The case of infants dying in infancy being left out of account, those who reach maturity, and who believe on Christ, were first justified at birth from the guilt of original sin, and afterwards, upon exercising faith, are justified from the guilt of their conscious, actual sin's.

In the second place, until the adult believes on Christ, he is a partially justified man; for be has been, confessedly, justified from the guilt of Adam's sin. How is this made consistent with the position that justification is conditioned upon faith? If it be replied that only justification from the guilt of actual sins is so conditioned, it is demanded upon what scriptural ground his justification is thus split into parts - the one conditioned, the other unconditioned, by faith?

In the third place, should the adult die without believing in Christ, he dies justified in part and unjustified in part, partly pardoned and partly condemned; pardoned for the guilt of original sin, condemned for that of actual. But as actual sin springs from the principle of original, he is condemned for a sin the guilt of which supposes a sin which has been pardoned. If not, the man must, like Adam, have from innocence fallen into sin, since he must have been innocent - free from guilt - in the interval between his birth when the guilt of Adam's sin was removed and his first voluntary, conscious, actual sin. This, however, is denied, and no wonder; for were it true there would be as many falls from innocence into sin, like that of the first man, as there have been, are, and will be human beings born of ordinary generation. But it must be so, if the premise be true that the guilt of Adam's sin is non-imputed to every soul of man, at his birth. He begins life innocent, for the guilt of the first sin is pardoned, and no infant is capable of contracting guilt by conscious transgression. If it be still contended that the man does not fall from innocence when he commits actual sin, because the principle of depravity is in him and occasions actual sin, it is insisted upon that he must be innocent since he is free from all guilt. And then the answer is still further insufficient, for the reason that it is impossible to see how freedom from all guilt and the principle of corruption can co-exist. If it be supposed that the man loses the justification which was secured for him by the atonement, it is replied that the Arminian is not at liberty to make that supposition; for the precariousness of justification for which he contends results from the contingent exercise of faith. One who has been justified by faith may cease to be in a justified state because he fails to exercise faith: the condition gone, the thing conditioned goes with it. But here is a justification which was not conditioned upon faith, as no infant at birth can exercise faith. It cannot, therefore, fail, since the uncertain condition of continuance is non-existent. Given without faith, why should it not continue without it?

The only relief from this difficulty would seem to lie in a theory akin to that of Placaeus, who held that the imputation of Adam's guilt is mediated through conscious sin. So, although that guilt has been removed, ipso facto, through the virtue of the atonement, it may be incurred afresh by actual sin. But Placaeus did not hold that Adam's sin was in any sense directly entailed upon his posterity, and consequently could not have maintained that it is removed by virtue of the atonement from all men at birth. The Arminian has to account for the re-incurring of a cancelled obligation. If he decline that office, the difficulty returns of two justifications, with the consequences by which that view is embarrassed.

The Arminian doctrine broadens the application of the ground of justification beyond the warrant of Scripture. It places in part upon it the whole race of man, many of whom never hear of its existence; while many others of them, who know of it through the gospel, fail to receive any benefit from it, but are swept away from it by the tempestuous floods of sin. The Calvinistic doctrine of a virtual justification through the representation of his people by Christ, and an actual, conscious justification through faith, is not liable to such objections. It is self-consistent, walking in a narrow way, indeed, but one which surely leads to life. No one is represented as being only in part on the Rock of Ages, and every one who was ever wholly upon it remains there, unshaken by the vicissitudes of life and the stormy agitations of death and judgment.

3. In connection with the point last noticed, of the extent to which the ground or meritorious cause of justification is applied, the question occurs, What is its result so far as probation is concerned? It is one of momentous importance. As the subject of probation is rarely handled with anything like thoroughness in systems of divinity, and as it deserves to be looked at in all its bearings, let us contemplate it, first, in relation to the condition of man under the scheme of natural religion, and secondly, in respect to his state as affected by redemption.

First, What was the nature of man's probation, so far as his relation to Adam was concerned? To this question Evangelical Arminian theologians give no consistent answer. It were idle to attempt the formulation of any doctrine upon this point from their confused and heterogeneous utterances. Some citations will be furnished, which will serve to put this allegation beyond doubt. Says Wesley: "In Adam all died, all human kind, all the children of men who were then in Adam's loins. The natural consequence of this is, that every one descended from him comes into the world spiritually dead, dead to God, wholly dead in sin: entirely void of the life of God, void of the image of God, of all that righteousness and holiness wherein Adam was created."[136] "Unless in Adam all had died, being in the loins of their first parent, every descendant of Adam, every child of man, must have personally answered for himself to God."[137] "But it is the covenant of grace, which God through Christ hath established with men in all ages (as well before and under the Jewish dispensation, as since God was manifest in the flesh), which St. Paul here opposes to the covenant of works made with Adam, while in paradise."[138] "One thing more was indispensably required by the righteousness of the law, namely, that this universal obedience, this perfect holiness both of heart and life, should be perfectly uninterrupted also, should continue without any intermission, from the moment when God created man, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, until the days of his trial should be ended, and he should be confirmed in life everlasting."[139] "The covenant of works required of Adam and all his children, to 'pay the price themselves' in consideration of which, they were to receive all the future blessings of God."[140] The fact may be noticed, although it is not pertinent to the present purpose that it should be dwelt upon, that Wesley did not hold the doctrine of strict federal representation. All men were in Adam's loins. He seminally contained them, and because of this fact represented them. The legal results of his sin are derived to them through parental propagation. How this consists with a legal probation of the race in him, it is impossible to see. Yet, he taught a covenant of works in some sense, and meant, it appears, to teach the probation of the race in Adam. They had a "trial" in him. Otherwise each would have had to answer for himself.

In like manner Watson intended, it would seem, to assert a probation of the race in the first man, for he contends that they suffer penally for his sin: "the full penalty of Adam's offence passed upon his posterity."[141] But how a proper probation is made out, let the following utterances evince. Speaking of the effect of the "federal connection between Adam and his descendants" upon the latter, he says: " By immediate imputation is meant that Adam's sin is accounted ours in the sight of God, by virtue of our federal relation. To support the latter notion, various illustrative phrases have been used: as, that Adam and his posterity constitute one moral person, and that the whole human race was in him, its head, consenting to his act, etc. This is so little agreeable to that distinct agency which enters into the very notion of an accountable being, that it cannot be maintained, and it destroys the sound distinction between original and actual sin."[142] "It is an easy and plausible thing to say, in the usual loose and general manner of stating the sublapsarian doctrine, that the whole race having fallen in Adam, and become justly liable to eternal death, God might, without any impeachment of his justice, in the exercise of his sovereign grace, appoint some to life and salvation by Christ, and leave the others to their deserved punishment. But this is a false view of the case, built upon the false assumption that the whole race were personally and individually, in consequence of Adam's fall, absolutely liable to eternal death. That very fact, which is the foundation of the whole scheme, is easy to be refuted on the clearest authority of Scripture; while not a passage can be adduced, we may boldly affirm, which sanctions any such doctrine."[143] "What then becomes of the premises in the sublapsarian theory which we have been examining, that in Adam all men are absolutely condemned to eternal death? Had Christ not undertaken human redemption, we have no proof, no indication in Scripture, that for Adam's sin any but the actually guilty pair would have been doomed to this condemnation; and though now the race having become actually existent, is for this sin, and for the demonstration of God's hatred of sin in general, involved, through a federal relation and by an imputation of Adam's sin, in the effects above mentioned; yet a universal remedy is provided."[144] All this is very curious. Men are condemned to death, spiritual, temporal and eternal, for Adam's sin; but he was not strictly speaking their representative, they were not one with him in law, and they would not have been condemned to death had it not been for the provision of redemption in Christ![145] It were folly to denominate this a proper probation. The whole case is unintelligible.

The views of Fletcher seemed to have been in accord with those of Wesley and Watson with, as usual, some peculiar refinements of his own, as the following quotation will show: "We were not less in Adam's loins when God gave his Son to Adam in the grand original Gospel promise, than when Eve prevailed upon him to eat of the forbidden fruit. As all in him were included in the covenant of perfect obedience before the Fall, so all in him were likewise interested in the covenant of grace and mercy after the Fall. And we have full as much reason to believe, that some of Adam's children never fell with him from a state of probation, according to the old covenant, as to suppose that some of them never rose with him to a state of probation, upon the terms of the new covenant, which stands upon better promises.

"Thus, if we all received an unspeakable injury, by being seminally in Adam when he fell, according to the first covenant, we all received also an unspeakable blessing by being in his loins when God spiritually raised him up, and placed him upon Gospel ground. Nay, the blessing which we have in Christ is far superior to the curse which Adam entailed upon us: we stand our trial upon much more advantageous terms than Adam did in paradise."[146]

Strict legal representation, the only competent ground of probation proper, is here discarded, and only such probation is asserted as may be collected from the notion of a seminal union with Adam - that is, from his parental headship viewed as representative. The hypothesis that we were also seminally contained in Adam as a restored, believing sinner, is something extraordinary. Of course, if according to the law of propagation all were condemned and died in Adam sinning, it would follow that according to the same law all are justified and live in Adam believing. What then of Cain and his followers? and what need of union to Christ? Is he a third Adam, and believing Adam the second, seeing we must have been in somebody's loins, as redeemed, and we certainly are not in Christ's? Christ redeemed Adam, in order that a justified race might be generatively propagated from him.

Under the head of "The Original Probation," Pope, speaking of Adam's relation to his posterity, says: "He represented his posterity; but not as a mediator between God and them; and therefore the ordinance of probation had not the nature of a covenant. The so-called COVENANT OF WORKS has no place in the history of paradise."[147] "Original sin," he remarks, "is the sin of Adam's descendants as under a covenant of grace. What it would otherwise have been we can never know: there would then have existed no federal union of mankind."[148] Treating of Mediate and Immediate Imputation he makes this sweeping assertion, in which Wesley's view is consigned to the class of unscriptural hypotheses: "Such speculations as these stand or fall with the general principle of a specific covenant with Adam as representing his posterity, a covenant of which the Scripture does not speak. There is but one Covenant, and of that Christ is the Mediator."[149]

The following passages from Raymond will show how the Evangelical Arminian theology is running down at the heel. "We feel no partiality for the idea of federal headship or representation; but with proper explanation, it may be admitted; it is at best but a figurative illustration, and is of doubtful service. Adam was the head of his race, and represented his race, just as a father is the head and representative of his family. Consequences of the character and conduct of parents naturally accrue to their children. . . . But can any man say that these disadvantages are punishments? Does God consider the children guilty of their parent's sins? Certainly not."[150] "Adam was not the race, nor did he represent the race in such a sense that they could be justly doomed to eternal death for his sin."[151] "It is not true that the race, as individuals, stood their probation in Adam."[152] This is followed by an attempt to prove that had Adam stood, there is no evidence to show that the probation of the race would have terminated happily in him.

Whedon's views may be gathered from the following paragraphs: "If for the fall of Adam, or any reason whatever, the whole human race is born unable to do good, it cannot, then, be damned for not doing good."[153] "On Adam's sin, moral subversion and mortality obtained full sway over him, and so of all his descendants by the law of propagation: the law by which throughout the entire generative kingdoms, whether vegetable, animal, or human, like nature begets like nature, bodily, mental, and moral."[154] "How does the apostle mean that all have sinned? Theologians have replied, All have sinned in Adam. But no such phrase as sinned in Adam occurs in Scripture. The phrase In Adam all die does occur. This does not mean, however, that any man's body or person was physically, materially or morally present, or so incorporated in the body of Adam as to expire with him when he expired. No more was any person present in Adam to eat the forbidden fruit when he ate. Every man dies conceptually in the first mortal man, just as every lion dies in the first mortal lion; that is, by being subjected to death by the law of likeness to the primal progenitor. The first lion was the representative lion, in whose likeness every descended lion would roar, devour, and die; and so in him the whole lion race die."[155] "The clause all have sinned, therefore, means just the same as all sin - thus stating a fact which (allowing for volitional freedom) is as uniform as a law of nature . . . Not because they literally sinned in Adam; not because Adam's personal sin is imputed to them, but because such is their nature that in this scene of probation, hemmed in with temptations on all sides, sooner or later they will sin; and of whatever act a being is the normal, if not absolutely universal, performer, of that he is normally called the doer; if of sin, then a sinner."[156]

First, It is obvious from these views of prominent theologians that no consistent doctrine in regard to a probation of the race in Adam can be collected from them. They are incapable of being reduced to systematic shape. It is useless to enlarge upon this point: the foregoing extracts speak for themselves. Wesley, Watson and Fletcher allow some sort of covenant with Adam, and a corresponding probation of his descendants in him: Pope explicitly denies a covenant. Raymond as expressly rejects a probation of men in Adam, and Whedon affirms that there is no proof from Scripture that men sinned in Adam.

Secondly, Wesley contended that perfect obedience was required of Adam "until the days of his trial should be ended, and he should be confirmed in life everlasting." This is a curious statement, coming from him, and one difficult of comprehension. Did he intend to include in it Adam's descendants? If he did not, he denied what he admitted - their probation in him. If he did, there are four suppositions possible. First, did he mean by the end of the trial the close of Adam's life? But had he stood, there would have been no close of his life. Secondly, did he mean the end of a certain, definite period during Adam's life? If he did, he affirmed the Calvinistic doctrine and asserted the theory of strict legal representation. But how could he do that, and at the same time hold to a losable justification? Or, how could such a justification consist with "confirmation in everlasting life"? Thirdly, did he mean by the end of the trial, the close of each man's life? That would be tantamount to denying that each man, under the first covenant, had a probation in Adam, a thing which he admitted. Every man would have stood on his own foot. Besides, had Adam stood in integrity, how could any man have died? If in Adam as sinning they died, in Adam as not sinning they would have lived. Fourthly, did he mean by the end of the trial the close of the whole earthly history of Adam and his posterity, supposed to continue in holiness? That would be attended with the same difficulties as the supposition of the trial's terminating at the expiration of a certain, definite period. Moreover, how can it be maintained that there would have been an end of the earthly history of Adam and his descendants, had they remained holy? What proof is there for it? The expression sounds well in a Calvinist's ear, but what does it mean in an Arminian's month?

Thirdly, A probation supposed to terminate in an "amissibie" - a losable justification would have been no real probation at all. For, according to the supposition, the probation would have been both finished and not finished: finished by justification; not finished, since justification might have been lost. And further, had Adam secured justification for his posterity, they might have subsequently lost it, for if they may lose the justification merited by Christ, they surely may have forfeited that won by Adam. If so, what probation would have remained to the race, but one finished and yet unfinished, which is a contradiction in terms?

Fourthly, A seminal union of Adam and his posterity, involving such a representative feature as that union would carry with it, could have been no proper ground for a legal probation. Adam would have differed from ordinary parents simply by the circumstance of his being the first father of mankind; and no one talks of children having a strict, legal probation in their parents. The former are not adjudged to temporal death for the crimes of the latter, much less to eternal death. Those writers, therefore, who hold merely to the seminal relation, and deny probation, are consistent. According to the most accomplished Evangelical Arminian theologians of recent times, the seminal union will not account for legal probation and its tremendous results. The fact is worthy of attention. Asserting the one, they deny the other.

Fifthly, The defect common to all the writers who have been cited, is that their doctrine falls short in not affirming a federal headship of Adam involving strict legal representation, superadded by divine appointment to a headship naturally belonging to the parental relation, and implying only such a federal and representative element as necessarily attaches to that relation. It is true that some admit a covenant, but it was not such a covenant as constituted a competent ground for the legal probation of the race. As the Calvinistic view of probation is denied, and as it stands or falls with the doctrine of the covenant of works, it behooves that proof be furnished of the fact that such a covenant existed.

First, The most prominent and conclusive proof is derived from the fifth chapter of Romans. It establishes an analogy between Christ and Adam. If Christ was a representative, so must have been Adam. The scriptural proofs in favor of Christ's representative character were presented in the foregoing discussion of the Objections to Election. They will not, therefore, be stated here. If it be denied that Adam was a representative, the only point at which the analogy holds between him and Christ is obliterated. Adam,, although not an instituted type, was a real figure, of Christ. That is, although he was not made a representative for the purpose of typifying Christ as a representative, as Aaron was constituted a priest in order to typify the sacerdotal function of Christ, yet, in consequence of the unity of plan characterizing God's moral government of the human race, which from the beginning proceeded upon the principle of federal representation, Adam as a representative was an analogue of Christ. He was only a type of Christ by reason of the fact that he was a representative of his seed, as Christ is of his. In this respect there is a parallelism between the first and second Adam, in others an antithesis. The passage affords a brief, but pregnant, proof of the representative character of Adam.

But, if Adam were a representative, it is clear that he must have acted under a covenant. In what other way could he have been constituted a representative of his posterity? His concreated relation to a naked dispensation of law could not account for the fact. He would have been obliged to answer for himself alone, so far as the judicial results - the reward or punishment - of his conduct were concerned. It may be urged that as God made him by creation a parental head, there was no need of the superaddition of covenant headship to constitute him a representative. This point has already been elaborately argued, but it is briefly replied here:

In the first place, he was not made simply a parental head. The proof is plain. Christ was not simply a parental head, and as Adam was a type of Christ he could not have been. As Christ certainly was not carnally a parental head, there is no analogy in that regard ; and as he is spiritually a parental head by a supernatural and sovereign influence, it is hard to see how the likeness obtains in that respect. It remains that the analogy is grounded in a federal and representative headship different from parental.

In the second place, if Adam had stood and been justified as a mere parental head, and not as a federal and representative head, his justification would not have secured the justification of his seed; for the righteousness of a parent cannot ensure the standing in righteousness of his children. According to the supposition that Adam was not a federal head and legal representative appointed under a constitution different from the act by which he was created a parent, each one of his posterity would have stood upon his own foot in law, and consequently the standing of each would have been contingent upon his own personal, conscious obedience. Arminians themselves acknowledge the forensic character of justification. The same must be true of condemnation. The propagative channel alone will not account for the derivation of either. A good child is not punished for his father's crimes; nor is a bad child rewarded for his father's virtues. And as it is a fact that a child of good dispositions, humanly speaking, is sometimes born of a bad parent, and a child of bad dispositions of a good parent, it is evident that the seminal principle is not adequate to meet the demands of the case. The universal and undeniable fact of native depravity clearly proves guilt in the progenitor of the race, descending, in consequence of a representative and not a merely parental headship, to those who were his legal constituents, and not merely the fruit of his loins.

But if it be admitted, it may be suggested, that Adam was a representative as well as Christ, it is not proved that his posterity would have been justified in him, on the supposition that he had stood and been justified. It is proved, because:

There could have been no meaning in his being constituted a representative of his seed, had not the possible justification of them through his acts been a consequence of the appointment.

Further, his condemnation involved the condemnation of his seed. Pari ratione, his justification would have involved theirs.

Again, the obedience of the second Adam secured the justification of his seed. The principle is the same in both cases.

The same view is presented, though not so expressly, in the fifteenth chapter of First Corinthians and the second chapter of Hebrews. The death of all in Adam and the life of all in Christ depend upon the operation of the same principle. Now it is certain that men do not live because they were seminally contained in Christ. To say that they were in his loins were to blaspheme. Neither, then, the analogy holding, do men die because of a seminal connection with Adam. A federal and representative union is necessitated, and that supposes a covenant originating in the constitutive and appointing prerogative of God. It is nothing short of an impeachment of the moral government of God to assert that men die morally and spiritually, or die at all, in Adam, just as all lions die in the first mortal lion - that the seminal relation accounts for both classes of facts. The Scriptures explicitly declare, in regard to man, that "the wages of sin is death," that "by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin." Infants die before they consciously sin. Their death is the wages of sin. Of what sin? Not their own conscious sin, unless they die in anticipation of it, as if a man were hanged for prospective murder. Of another's sin, therefore. How? As young lions die because the old lion died? Is the death of young lions the wages of an old lion's sin? See, what the seminal principle of Wesley, Watson and Fletcher comes to in the hands of Whedon! N0, death is a judicial infliction in consequence of the sin of a legal representative acting under a legal covenant, and its penal element can only be removed in consequence of the obedience of another and a better Representative under another and a better covenant.

The second chapter of Hebrews proves the necessity of the incarnation of the Son of God, of a community of nature between him and his brethren, the seed of Abraham. Why this necessity? That he might be of the same blood with his seed, inasmuch as the first Adam was of the same blood with his. The principle of representation is probably broad enough to admit of an application in every case in which the subjects of government may be logically collected into unity; but Christ as the representative of his human seed behooved to be made like unto them by taking their nature, because the first representative of men, Adam, sustained that relation to them. The representative must, in this instance, partake of the nature of the represented because of the Adamic law. This settles the question that both Christ and Adam were representatives. The law of representation proceeding by the tie of race controlled both cases. This evinces the difference between a merely seminal union, and a representative union. Christ was not a seminal head of his people, as was the first Adam of his posterity. In that respect therefore the second Adam did not conform to the law of the first. It was in the fact that they were representatives that a common principle obtained. Now as Christ acted as a representative under the economy of a covenant, so likewise must Adam.

Secondly, There could have been no justification without a covenant. Had no covenant existed limiting the time of probation, the demand of the naked law would forever have been, Do and live; and the promise, As long as you do, you shall live. Probation would necessarily have been everlasting, unless closed by sin, and justification involving confirmation in holiness and happiness unattainable. But-

In the first place, God promised justification to Adam as the reward of obedience, because he promised him life as that reward. It is scarcely supposable that God promised not to kill Adam, or not to allow him to die, as long as he continued obedient. It would have been a necessary inference from the character of God and of man's relation to him, that he would preserve the existence of au obedient and loving subject. If any conclusion, however, could be collected from the threatening, In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die, bearing the nature of a promise it would simply be a promise of exemption from death, or the continuance of existence. This is not the highest and most significant sense in which the Scriptures employ the term life, as might be evinced by numerous passages. In connection with the enjoyment of God's favor it is used to signify perpetual, indefectible well-being: it is life everlasting. That God promised this kind of life to Adam in the event of his continuing obedient during the time of probation assigned him, is conclusively shown by the consideration that as, according to the Scriptures, there was an analogy between Christ and Adam, the life promised to Christ on condition of obedience must have been the same in kind, however different in degree of fulness, with that which was promised to Adam in case he stood his trial. But the life promised to Christ and in him to his seed was everlasting life. That supposes justification. As, therefore, God promised justification to Adam, a covenant is proved; since without a covenant justification would have been impossible.

In the second place, the analogy between Christ and Adam directly proves that justification was the reward promised to Adam. As it certainly was promised to Christ, so must it have been to Adam. Otherwise there is no analogy between the two. A covenant with Adam is thus clearly proved to have existed.

It has thus been shown that all men had a legal probation in Adam as their legal representative under the covenant of works. As their representative failed in standing the trial, they all failed in him, and are, therefore, no longer in a state of legal probation. There is no possibility of their obeying the law in order to justification. How, in themselves and by their own efforts, call the condemned be justified? "Therefore, by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified; for by the law is the knowledge of sin."

Secondly, The question next arises, What is the probationary relation which men now sustain to the government of God? Upon this subject the Calvinistic doctrine is: that by virtue of a covenant between God the Father and God the Son, the Son was appointed the Federal Head and Legal Representative of those sovereignly elected by the Father to be redeemed; that the Son accepted the commission, became incarnate, and undertaking to fulfil the covenant of works which Adam had failed to keep, as well as to satisfy the justice of God for its infraction, perfectly obeyed the law in its precept and its penalty, in his life and in his death, in the place of his seed, and rose again for their justification; and that thus their legal probation was finished in him: they, as sinners, being convinced of sin by the Holy Spirit, and by him persuaded and enabled to renounce all legal efforts to secure acceptance with God, and simply to believe in Jesus Christ as the condition of their actual justification.

There is also, in consequence of the indiscriminate offer of salvation to all who hear the gospel, what may be termed an evangelical probation. Those to whom the sound of the gospel comes are tested in regard to their willingness to embrace Christ, and rest upon his righteousness alone for salvation. In this sort of probation there is no legal element. It is, in deed, not probation proper. It is evident that it is confined to those who are in contact with the gospel and does not, therefore, refer to the case of the heathen.

There is, in addition, a subordinate species of probation to which those who are believers in Christ and adopted children of God are subjected, under the operation of the rule which is exercised over God's own house in accordance with the principle of fatherly justice. They are proved or tested with reference to their faithfulness, and correspondingly with the degree of it which they exhibit will that justice mete out to them the rewards won by Christ, and assign them their stations in the kingdom of glory. Salvation - the salvation of Paul and the penitent thief - is entirely of grace, the rewards of the heavenly state are all purchased by the merit of Christ alone; but the proportion in which the rewards will be administered to individuals will be determined by fatherly justice in accordance with the fidelity of the saints on earth. In this paternal rule over God's own house there is no element of retribution. The government is wholly disciplinary. Punishment gives way to chastisement. The Ruler and Judge is both Father and Saviour. It is needless to say that this sort of probation is not legal in the sense that it is in order to justification. Justification is presupposed. Nor is it in order to salvation. It is in order to the degree in which glory shall be experienced.

It is obvious that the Calvinistic position in regard to probation since the Fall, which has thus been briefly stated, depends upon the doctrines of Unconditional Election and Federal Representation, the proofs of which have been furnished in the preceding discussion. If those doctrines are true, the view of probation which has been given follows as a necessary consequence.

Let us turn now to the Evangelical Arminian doctrine. It is: That concurrent with the decree to permit the Fall was a decree to provide redemption from its effects for all the fallen race; that, accordingly, the atonement of Christ was offered to make the salvation of all men possible; that by virtue of the atonement the free gift came upon every man unto justification of life; that the guilt of Adam's sin is removed from every man at or after birth; that a degree of spiritual life and of free-will is imparted to every man, whereby he is assisted to work righteousness, in case he has not the gospel, to repent and believe in Christ, in case he has it; and that God has entered into a covenant of grace with all men, in which he promises them justification in the event of their fulfilling the above-mentioned conditions, and persevering in that fulfilment to the end. All men are thus in a state of "new and gracious probation." All these positions except that concerning the working of righteousness apart from the knowledge of the gospel, and that in regard to the covenant of grace with all men, have been subjected to minute examination in the previous discussion of Election and Reprobation. There are two questions that fall to be considered here: first, in respect to the covenant, and, secondly, in relation to the way in which, on this theory of probation, justification may be attained.

First, Calvinists affirm, and Arminians deny, that there was a covenant between God the Father on the one side, and on the other God the Son as Mediator, Federal Head and Representative of an elect seed given to him to be redeemed. The only covenant, contemplating salvation, which is admitted by Arminians is a covenant directly made with men. The covenant as viewed by Calvinists was conditioned, so far as merit was concerned, upon the obedience of the Son; and is therefore, as to the certainty of its accomplishment, entirely unconditioned upon the qualities, acts and conduct of men. Faith is required from men in order to their conscious union with Christ the covenant-head, and their actual justification in him. But this is no uncertain, contingent condition. It is a gift of God made certain to the human covenantees by the perfect fulfilment of his federal engagements by Christ and the unchanging promises of God the Father to him. The covenant of redemption or grace has two faces - one looking directly to Christ the Federal Head and Representative, the other indirectly or mediately through him to the elect constituents who were with him and in him a party to the covenant. Hence it has an immediate administration by the Father to Christ, and a mediate administration, of a testamentary character, through and by Christ to the elect. The question now is in regard to the fact of a covenant between God the Father and God the Son. Is there such a covenant, or is there merely a covenant between God and men? The question is one which can only be settled by a reference to the testimonies of Scripture. That there is a covenant between the Father and the Son is provable, either directly or inferentially, by an appeal to them.

In the first place, such a covenant is expressly affirmed. Ps. lxxxix. 28-34: "My mercy will I keep for him forevermore, and my covenant shall stand fast with him. His seed also will I make to endure forever, and his throne as the days of heaven. If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments; if they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments; then will I visit their transgression with the rod and their iniquity with stripes. Nevertheless my loving-kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail. My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips." Isa. xlii. 6: "I the Lord have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles." These passages refer to Christ, and especially the first asserts explicitly the existence of a covenant between the Father and him.

In the second place, all the passages are in proof which set forth an unconditional covenant to save. Isa. lix. 21: "As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the Lord: My Spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth and for ever." Isa. lv. 3: "Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David." Jer. xxxi. 31-34: "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah; not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand, to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the Lord; but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel: After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." The use made of this promise by the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews forbids its restriction to a merely national sense. Here then is an unconditional covenant to save, which cannot possibly be such a covenant as the Arminian describes - one conditioned upon the conduct of men.

In the third place, the passages are appealed to which declare the promises made by the Father to the Son. A few only will be cited: Psalms ii. 8: "Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession." Ps. lxxii. Zech. vi. 12, 13: "And speak unto him, saying, Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, Behold the man whose name is the BRANCH: and he shall grow up out of his place, and he shall build the temple of the Lord: even he shall build the temple of the Lord; and he shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon his throne; and he shall be a priest upon his throne: and the counsel of peace shall be between them both." Gal. iii. 15, 16: "Brethren, I speak after the manner of men: Though it be but a man's covenant, yet if it be confirmed, no man disannulleth, or addeth thereto. Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ." This is very clear. The promises to Christ, are said to belong to a divine covenant, which must, of course, have been made with him. The covenant contains the promises, and the promises are expressly declared to have been made to Christ. He receives the promises; in him they are not yea and nay, but yea and amen; and he administers them to sinners, their fulfilment to them experimentally being conditioned upon their acceptance of the gracious invitations of the gospel. They must come to Christ ere they can partake of the promises. Nothing without Christ: he stands between them and God, as the depositary of his promises contemplating the salvation of sinners. The promises suppose a covenant between the Father and the Son, by virtue of which they are first made to the Son, and through him administered to believing sinners. He who denies this denies the gospel. Let one example suffice. "Come unto me," said the Lord Jesus, "and I will give you rest." The sinner is invited to come to Christ, and the promise of rest, conditioned upon the acceptance of that invitation, is administered by Christ: "I will give you rest." But in the immediate context Jesus declares, "All things are delivered unto me of my Father." The Father delivers the promises of salvation to the Son, who dispenses them to the believing sinner. The same thing is explicitly asserted in the seventh and eighth verses of the seventeenth chapter of John. What is this but a covenant betwixt the Father and the Son?

In the fourth place, those passages may be adduced in which it is taught, that the Father, whose own the elect are, gives them to the Son that he might die for them, redeem them, and keep them to everlasting life, and that the Son voluntarily accepted the trust and consented to fulfil the great commission. In that wonderful allegory in the tenth chapter of John in which his pastoral office is so beautifully and affectingly depicted, the Lord Jesus speaking of his sheep, and expressly discriminating them from those who refused to believe in him because they were not of his sheep, says, "My Father which gave them me is greater than all." In the seventeenth chapter of the same gospel he speaks more definitely still to this point: "I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me . . . I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine. And all mine are thine, and thine are mine . . . Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are." The trifling gloss which would restrict this awfully solemn prayer to the apostles is destroyed by the Saviour's express extension of it to all his believing people: "Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word." These statements absolutely establish the fact that the Father gave those who were by his sovereign election his own to the Son to be his and to be by him redeemed. The context in the tenth chapter of John also shows that the Son, as a co-equal party in the august transaction, voluntarily accepted the gift, and engaged to fulfil the commission which he had received of his Father. "Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life that I might take it again. No man [Greek: none] taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father." The Father nominated the Son as Redeemer; the Son accepted the nomination. The Father commissioned the Son to undertake the stupendous office; the Son, a sovereign actor, master of his life, freely consented. His compliance was not extorted from him as a necessitated obedience to resistless authority; it was freely rendered as an expression of love to his Father and charity towards sinful man. O inconceivable manifestation of love to God and pity for man, blended into unity in the spontaneous outgoing of an infinite heart! No wonder the Father loved him, since he cheerfully consented to become incarnate, and to lay down his life amidst the shame and anguish of the Cross. One would be blind indeed who did not see in this ineffable counsel between the Father and the Son the elements of a covenant! We have also a plain testimony to the same effect from the fortieth Psalm, confirmed in the Epistle to the Hebrews: "Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened: burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required. Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart." Called of the Father to the sacrifice of himself in order to the purgation of a guilt which no accumulation of lesser victims could remove, he cheerfully assented to the divine vocation. It is perfectly evident that there was a mysterious but real agreement between the Father and the Son touching an enterprise which proposed to secure the glory of the divine name consistently with the salvation of the guilty. A theology which does not recognize this fact shoots, like " a deceitful bow," short of the mark.

In the fifth place, those Scriptures are referred to, which assert an analogy between Christ and Adam, and those which show that God has always dealt with men upon the principle of Federal Representation. Enough has already been said to prove that the fact of a parallelism between Christ and Adam is affirmed in the fifth chapter of Romans, the fifteenth of First Corinthians and the second of Hebrews. This will be denied by none but Pelagians, Socinians and Rationalizers. It has also been proved that there was a covenant between God and Adam, in which he was appointed the head and representative of his posterity. That being granted, and the analogy between him and Christ being allowed, it follows that there was also a covenant between God and Christ, the second Adam, in which he was constituted the Head and Representative of his posterity. All who under the covenant of works were represented by Adam were implicated in his disobedience and died; under the covenant of grace all who were represented by Christ partake of his righteousness and live. That the principle of federal representation is fundamental in both cases is too plain to be successfully gainsaid. What is taught is not only that there is generally a covenant embraced in both cases, but specifically a covenant between God and Adam in the first case, and a covenant between God and Christ in the second. In neither case was there a covenant between God and men apart from a federal head. The Calvinistic position is proved, that God enters into covenant with men only as they are considered in Christ a federal Head and Representative; and the Arminian is disproved that God institutes a covenant with men considered in themselves, apart from implication with Christ in that capacity. God has never entered into a covenant relation to man except through a federal head.

Further, all the statements of Scripture - and their name is legion - which evince the possibility of justification to sinners, prove the existence of a covenant, and a covenant between God and a representative head. Attention is again called to the fact - so often and so strangely overlooked - that, theoretically, justification is impossible without a covenant, and, historically, it is impossible without federal representation. Had it pleased God at first simply to require of man obedience to law, the subject could never have been justified, for the plain reason that justification supposes a close of probation and confirmation in life, and no period in an immortal existence could have been reached at which the subject could claim that he had finished his legal obedience and had become entitled to the reward of confirmation, so as to be beyond the contingency of a fall into sin. This has been already argued, and is so obvious that it need not be again insisted upon. Without a covenant limiting the time of trial and freely proposing the reward of confirmation when it should expire, justification would be impossible. This is what is meant by its theoretical impossibility. But it did not please God to enter into a covenant with every individual of the race, in which he limited his time of probation, and promised to him the reward of justification in the event of his continuing to obey during that time. He collected the race into legal unity upon the first man as the representative of all men, and entered into covenant with him in that capacity, limiting his and their period of probation and making justification possible to him and to them in him. Had he stood and been justified, they would have stood and been justified in him; virtually justified when he was justified, actually justified when each had consciously appropriated his vicarious and representative obedience. This is what is meant by the historical impossibility of justification without federal representation. Under the actual plan of government which God adopted, no man could have been justified except upon the foot of representation.

Just so now. No man can be justified without a covenant; and so far the Calvinist and the Arminian appear to agree, with the important exception that, on the supposition of a covenant, the former means by the justification which might be attained indefectible life, the latter, a precarious and losable life, which really is no justification at all. As to the theoretical impossibility of justification in some sense, they are in accord. Here, however, they part, the Calvinist denying and the Arminian affirming that men may be justified without having been represented by Christ under a covenant between the Father and him, in which he was appointed a federal head and representative. And in parting doctrinally with the Calvinist at this point, the Arminian parts doctrinally with the first Adam, the Second Adam, the Word of God, and the history of the divine dispensations towards the race.

The proof from Scripture which has now been furnished of a covenant between God the Father and God the Son as the Representative of his people, is vital to the question in hand. If such a covenant existed, the Calvinistic doctrine as to probation is established, and the Arminian refuted. For, if it existed, it is clear that the legal probation of his people was finished by the perfect obedience of Christ their Representative, just as, had Adam stood, the legal probation of his descendants would have been successfully concluded by his obedience, and, as he fell, it was brought to a disastrous close by his sin. There are two alternatives to the Arminian: If he admit a covenant between the Father and Christ, and hold that all men were represented by Christ under that covenant, he must concede the close of legal probation to all men, and their certain salvation. If he contend that all men have a legal probation, he is bound to deny such a covenant. He may say, that he declines each of these alternatives, and holds that all men are in a state of "gracious probation," which Christ as Mediator of the new covenant has merited for them. Their doctrine on this subject is utterly confused and inconsistent with itself as well as with Scripture, as will be evinced in the consideration of the remaining question in regard to this branch of the subject.

Secondly, What is the way in which, upon the Evangelical Arminian theory of probation, justification may be attained?

In the first place, the ground is explicitly taken that Christ was made a second general Parent and Representative of the whole human race. "In this state we were," says Wesley, "even all mankind, when 'God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, to the end we might not perish but have everlasting life.' In the fulness of time he was made man, another common head of mankind, a second general Parent and Representative of the whole human race."[157] Pope says: "He was the Representative of sinful mankind."[158]

In the second place, it is expressly maintained that there can be no justification except by faith. "By affirming," remarks Wesley, "that this faith is the term or condition of justification, I mean, first, that there is no justification without it."[159] Again he says: "Who are justified? None but those who were first predestinated. Who are predestinated? None but those whom God foreknew as believers. Thus the purpose and work of God stand unshaken as the pillars of heaven, 'he that believeth shall be saved: he that believeth not shall be dammed.' And thus God is clear from the blood of all men; since whoever perishes, perishes by his own act and deed. 'They will not come unto me,' says the Saviour of men; 'and there is no salvation in any other.' They will not believe: and there is no other way to present or eternal salvation."[160]

Watson approves the views just cited from Wesley,[161] and uses these words of his own: "On the one hand, therefore, it is the plain doctrine of Scripture that man is not, and never was in any age, justified by works of any kind, whether moral or ceremonial; on the other, that he is justified by the imputation and accounting of 'faith for righteousness.'"[162]

In the third place, it is asserted that men ignorant of Christ may, by prevenient grace assisting them, be justified by complying with the law of conscience, that the heathen may be justified without believing in Christ. This is a most extraordinary allegation, and needs to be substantiated by decisive proof. The words of Watson, in which Wesley is quoted, are cited in its support: "If all knowledge of right and wrong, and all gracious influence of the Holy Spirit, and all objects [N. B.] of faith, have passed away from the heathen, through the fault of their ancestors 'not liking to retain God in their knowledge,' and without the present race having been parties to this wilful abandonment of truth, then they would appear no longer to be accountable creatures, being neither under law nor under grace; but, as we find it a doctrine of Scripture that all men are responsible to God, and that the 'whole world' will be judged at the last day, we are bound to admit the accountability of all, and with that, the remains of law and the existence of a merciful government toward the heathen on the part of God. With this the doctrine of St. Paul accords. No one can take stronger views of the actual danger and the corrupt state of the Gentiles than he; yet he affirms that the divine law had not perished wholly from among them; and though they had received no revealed law, yet they had a law 'written on their hearts;' meaning, no doubt, the traditionary law, the equity of which their consciences attested; and, farther, that though they had not the written law, yet, that 'by nature,' that is, 'without an outward rule, though this, also, strictly speaking, is by preventing grace,' (Wesley's Notes, in loc.) they were capable of doing all the things contained in the law[!]. He affirms, too, that all such Gentiles as were thus obedient, should be 'justified, in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men, by Jesus Christ, according to his gospel.'"[163] The same marvellous view is expressed by Ralston: "St. Paul, in the second chapter to the Romans, clearly shows that 'there is no respect of persons with God;' and that 'the Gentiles, which have not the law,' may [!] 'do by nature (that is, by the assistance which God affords them, independent of the written law) the things contained in the law,' act up to the requirements of 'their conscience,' and be esteemed as 'just before God.'"[164] "Pious heathen - such as Melchizedek, Job, and Cornelius," are appealed to as instances of this justification by law through the help of prevenient grace!

Did ever theology travail in birth to be delivered of such a batch of prodigies? Well might she have cried again in pain to be delivered from them! First, Christ is the Head of all mankind. Well, then, all his members live because their Head lives. No, myriads of his members confessedly perish forever. Christ is the common Parent of all mankind. But how are they his children? By natural birth? He was never married, as was Adam, and left no carnal issue. By regeneration? No, these theologians admit that all men are not regenerated. By a miraculous act of creation? No, they of course hold that all men, since Adam, are born according to natural law. How, then, is Christ the parent of all men? In the name of Scripture and of reason, How? Christ is the Representative of all men. Of course, then, all men as his constituents are justified and live in consequence of his obedience, just as all men, the constituents of Adam their representative, were condemned and died because of his disobedience. Not at all; infants dying in infancy are justified and live, but innumerable multitudes of adults are not justified and die eternally. Yes, but justification is offered to all through Christ as their Representative. Was, then, condemnation offered to all through Adam as their representative? How comes it to pass that representation means actual condemnation in one case, and possible justification in the other, certain death in one, and contingent life in the other? Who can tell? Can these theologians?

Next, justification is possible only to those who believe: faith in Christ is its indispensable condition. That is most true: it is the doctrine of Scripture. It follows, then, that those who never heard of Christ cannot be justified, for Paul speaking by the Holy Ghost says, How can they believe in him of whom they have not heard? They cannot believe in Christ unless they have heard of him: they cannot be justified unless they believe in Christ. Consequently, the heathen who have never heard of Christ, and therefore cannot believe in him, cannot be justified. By no means does this mournful consequence follow, say the Arminian theologians. The heathen may be justified through the help of common grace by obeying the law written on their hearts; otherwise they would not be accountable. What! May some men be justified by the deeds of the law, when the Scripture says, "By the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified?" Yes, by the help of grace. Their justification would not be by works of law but by grace, eliciting into exercise the "principle" of faith in "some objects of faith," though not in Christ as one of them. Well, then, would Adam, if he had stood and wrought obedience during his time of probation, have been justified by grace, because he would have had the help of grace in "working righteousness?" Was the Pharisee justified by grace, when he ascribed his righteousness to the assistance of grace? Did he not say, "God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are?" Oh, no, could the heathen, by the help of grace, obey the law of nature, they would not be justified by grace, but by the works of the law. The ground of their justification would not be another's righteousness, but their own, not Christ's merits, but their own works. The thing is utterly impossible, and without its being discussed further, it is sufficient to use against it the Arminian's own argument, backed by the unanimous suffrage of Protestants: Without faith in Christ there is no justification. Was it not said with truth, that the Arminian doctrine of probation is confused and inconsistent with itself as well as with the Scriptures? According to the teaching of God's word, and to the admission of Arminian theologians themselves with reference to original sin and the necessity of faith in Christ in order to the justification of sinners, the legal probation of the heathen was finished when Adam fell; and their evangelical probation begins only when they come in contact with the gospel. When they believe they are brought into conscious union with Christ, who, as the Second Adam, finished the legal probation of his people, and merited for them eternal life.

This, according to the plan proposed, completes the discussion of the Ground of justification.

SECTION III. NATURE OF JUSTIFICATION.

The next great division of the subject which claims consideration is the Nature of Justification - in what does it consist? As has been already stated, the Calvinistic answer to this question is, that justification consists, first, in the pardon or non-imputation of guilt, and, secondly, in the acceptance of one's person as righteous, and his formal investiture with a right and title to eternal life. The Evangelical Arminian answer is, that justification consists in pardon. In this there is such agreement among standard writers that quotations are unnecessary. The only apparent difference arises from the opinion of some that justification also included acceptance of the person; but the acceptance intended is nothing more than is necessarily involved in pardon. Whosoever is pardoned is accepted of God. In regard to what the Calvinist denominates the first element of justification there is agreement between the parties: both hold that justification involves pardon. It is in respect to the Calvinist's second element that difference emerges between them - namely, the acceptance of the sinner's person as righteous and his investiture with a title to eternal life. This the Calvinist affirms, the Arminian denies.

In seeking for the reasons of this difference we find that they are the affirmation by one party and the denial by the other of the strict and proper representative office of Christ, and consequently of the imputation of the merit of his obedience to the believer. This is the hinge of the discussion. That Christ was strictly and properly a legal Representative has already been established in the consideration of the Objections to Election, etc. This is a point of the last importance. The earliest and best Evangelical Arminian theologians speak of representation, but it is evident that they use the term in a loose sense, a sense not justified by the scriptural statements which relate either to the scheme of natural religion or of the gospel. The account given of the office discharged by Adam in connection with his posterity, the sacrificial ritual of the Mosaic economy, and especially the argument of Paul, concerning the fundamental doctrine of substitution, and the parallel asserted by him between the first and the second Adam, in the Epistle to the Romans, together with other express declarations upon the same subject in other parts of the New Testament, enforce with the clearness of light the fact of strict and proper legal representation. This fact Evangelical Arminians do not admit. And yet they concede substitution when treating of the expiatory sufferings and death of Christ. But what is substitution but representation? What, a dying substitute but a dying representative? And if one has, under the sanction of a competent government, died as the substitute of another, how can he who was died for, die himself? Can justice require two deaths - one of the substitute and another of the principal? Would not that be equivalent to two deaths of the principal? Even human governments do not inflict this injustice. During the Napoleonic wars, a recruiting officer told a certain man that he would enroll him and send him to the field. The man replied that he was not liable to military duty, as he was dead. "How are you dead," said the officer, "when you are speaking to me?" "I hired a substitute," was the rejoinder; "he was killed in battle and I died in him." "I will report the case to the emperor," exclaimed the sergeant. He did so, and the emperor confirmed the position taken by the man. "Let him alone," said Napoleon, "the man is right." Did God appoint Christ a substitute? Did Christ accept the appointment? Then, it is impossible for those who died a legal death in him to die the same sort of death themselves. "He who does a thing through another does it himself."

In denying this Arminians reject the very genius of substitution. "Strictly speaking," says Pope, "Christ is not a Substitute for any man. He is the Representative and Vicar of humanity, and the Other Self of the race, being the Second Adam."[165] Here, then, is one form of the Arminian theory of substitution ; but-

In the first place, Is not a substitute for all men, a substitute for every man? Is not the whole human race composed of individual units? Or is "humanity" an abstract entity, and not a collection of human beings? To say that Christ might have sacrificed himself for all in obedience to an impulse of love, and not in compliance with the demands of justice, is to adopt the Governmental theory of the atonement, or to occupy the ground of the Moral Influence School. But Arminian theologians reject both: they rightly contend that the atonement was necessary to satisfy the strict requirements of justice. If so, the question returns, How could Christ, as vicariously dying for all men to redeem them from the curse of the law, be contemplated as having vicariously died for no particular man? The position is self-contradictory: Christ was the substitute of every man; he was the substitute of no man! And this is the more singular, in view of the fact that Arminians insist upon the text in the second chapter of Hebrews: "he tasted death for every man." How did he taste death for every man? Why, certainly, by dying as his substitute. But it seems he tasted death for "humanity," not "for any man!"

In the second place, Did liability to death attach to the whole human race? Yea. Did that involve the liability to death of every individual? Yea. Was the liability to death of "humanity" transferred to Christ as its Substitute, Representative, Vicar? Yea or nay? If yea, did not that imply the transfer of every man's liability to death, and if so was not Christ the substitute of every man? If nay, how was Christ the substitute of humanity? Did he die under justice as the substitute of humanity without the transfer to him of its liability to death? Would justice slay one who was neither consciously nor constructively liable to death?

In the third place, Christ is said to be "the Representative and Vicar of humanity, and the Other Self of the race, being the Second Adam." Fatal appeal to analogy! Was Adam the representative of no man? Was he the representative of humanity? It is humanity then that dies in Adam, not every particular man! But in this case we have facts to consult. All die, every mother's son. In representing humanity, therefore, he represented every human being. If, then, Christ as the Second Adam was the Representative of humanity, he was the representative of every human being.

In the fourth place, Dr. Pope also says: "He is the other self also of every believer who claims his sacrifice as his own." So, then, the actual death of the substitute results in the possible life of humanity, and it depends upon faith whether any individual will attain to actual life. But if Christ were not by God's appointment and by his own consenting act a substitute of the individual believer, how could faith make him such? The statement is ineffably absurd. "Christ is not a substitute for any man," but some men, by the magical power of faith, constitute him a substitute for them. Faith in what? Why, faith in the fact that Christ as a substitute died for them. And yet Christ did not die as a substitute for them. But if men cannot believe that Christ died for them individually, the Remonstrants' Achilles pouts in his tent - that is, the argument against the Calvinist that he requires every man to believe that Christ died for him,[166] when he holds that Christ died for the elect only. The Calvinist might, too, retort in this case: You require every man to believe that Christ died for him, when you hold that he died for humanity only, not for any man.

In the fifth place, as if to crown this heap of marvels, Dr. Pope says: "Christ's benefit is imparted before personal faith; and, in case of believers, their faith is the not rejecting what was before provided for them as their own."[167] Christ was not a substitute for any believer, for he was not a substitute for any man. Yet the believer has only not to reject Christ's benefit before provided for him. What can this mean? Christ was a substitute for humanity and thus provides beforehand a general benefit from which each believer may appropriate his share? If this be not the meaning, the only other is that Christ was a strict and proper substitute for humanity. If so, humanity must be delivered from death. But how that could take place, without the deliverance of every man from death, it is impossible to see. If it be the meaning, then as the substitution of Christ for humanity secured a general benefit for the race, it secured a special benefit beforehand which each believer may appropriate as what was his own. Where then is the sense in saying that Christ was a substitute for humanity but not for any man? If a part of the general benefit belongs to the individual believer, the substitution which procured the benefit must have been for him; and so would have been for particular men: is he not a man? Dr. Pope entangles himself in contradictions because he will not accept the true conception of substitution. If he did, he could not remain an Arminian: he must elect either Calvinism or Universalism. There would be no middle ground between them.

Another form of the theory of substitution is thus expressed by Dr. Raymond: "It is said that it [the death of Christ] is a substituted penalty; we say it is a substitute for a penalty; it is not itself a penalty, it takes the place of a penalty." Again: "It may be said that the death of Christ is the equivalent of obedience, but manifestly it is its equivalent in no other sense than that it saves the subject from penalty as fully and perfectly as obedience would have saved him; it is not obedience itself, nor a substituted obedience."[168] This lax view is answered by the judgment of Mr. Watson himself, definitely exhibited in such a passage as this: "How explicitly the death of Christ is represented in the New Testament as penal, which it could not be in any other way than by his taking our place, and suffering, in our stead, is manifest also from Gal. iii. 13, Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse [an execration] far us, for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth an a tree."[169] But let Dr. Raymond answer himself: "The death of Christ," he observes, "is declarative; is a declaration that God is a righteous being and a righteous sovereign. It satisfies the justice of God, both essential and rectoral, in that it satisfactorily proclaims them and vindicates them by fully securing their ends - the glory of God and the welfare of his creatures."[170]

If we take Mr. Watson's view, that the death of Christ was penal, we must hold that in dying Christ endured the penalty of the law. But as that writer maintained that the death of Christ was vicarious - that it was undergone in the room and stead of others, it follows that his endurance of the penalty for others discharged them from the obligation to endure it themselves, otherwise the penalty would be twice inflicted. But Mr. Watson was wedded to the doctrine of universal atonement, and therefore did not push out his scriptural view of substitution to its legitimate extent. If we adopt Dr. Raymond's view we accept a contradiction, for he denies that Christ endured the penalty of the law in his death, and yet contends that his death declared and vindicated the justice of God. First, we have the removal of the penalty altogether, since neither Christ endured it, nor does the pardoned sinner. The penalty, an essential element of law, is sunk. Yet, secondly, we have a declaration and vindication of divine justice. Manifestly, there is a contradiction, however ingeniously the author might attempt to explain it away. The truth is, and it will not brook denial, that no moral being could, under the government of God, suffer and die, were he both consciously and putatively innocent. He might, perhaps, consent, but a just God could not. Before he could suffer and die, he must be either a conscious sinner, or with his own consent, and by his voluntary assumption of the guilt of others, be judicially accounted and treated as guilty. The latter supposition has been rendered possible under the divine government, inasmuch as God, the supreme Sovereign, has been pleased to admit the principle of substitution. In no other way could the consciously guilty escape the penalty of the law. The substitute whom God accepts must undergo the penalty in the place of the guilty. On no other terms could pardon be extended without an outrage to justice, a dishonor to law, and an injury to the interests of the moral government of the universe.

Two qualifications were absolutely required in a substitute for sinners: first, he must be consciously, inherently, perfectly innocent previously to his undertaking the vicarious office, for, if he were guilty in any respect, he would be obliged to suffer and die in consequence of his own liability to punishment; secondly, he must be both human and divine-human, that he might represent man and sympathize with him, and that he might suffer and die; divine, that all infinite value might attach to his suffering and death; that he might adequately represent God's nature and government; that he might relieve the requirement under which he would act as a piacular victim of the appearance of excessive rigor in the eyes of beholders, and, in attaching those for whom he would devote himself as a substitute to himself by the ties of gratitude and love, to bind them by that very fact to the service of God; and, finally, that, after laying down his life, he might by a resurrection-power take it up again from the dominion of the grave. All these qualifications Christ brought to the achievement of the enterprise committed to his hands by the authority of the Father, and spontaneously elected by himself. Now either he was strictly and properly a substitute, or he was not. If he were, he incurred all the legal obligation, every whit of it, resting upon those for whom he acted in order to justification, and perfectly discharged the whole of it, completely satisfying the demands of justice in relation to that end; nothing being required of them, to that end, but to accept the substitute by faith and rely upon his righteousness for justification. If he were not strictly and properly a substitute, but in some inexplicable way he so suffered and died that the benefit of his vicarious acts accrued to all men in general, it being dependent upon their own free election, whether or not individual justification shall flow from the general fund of merit; if Christ's sufferings and death, according to the amazing statement quoted from Raymond, were "not obedience itself, nor a substituted obedience," - then the requirements of justice are not satisfied in behalf of the original transgressors, the law is defrauded of its rights, in short there has been no proper substitution at all. This whole theory, in accordance with which a provision was made, through the atoning death of Christ, for the bestowal of a general benefit upon the mass of mankind, from which each individual may by the election of his own will, with the assistance of grace, appropriate what is needed for his own salvation, whatever else it may be, is most certainly not a theory of substitution; and it is more and more vacating its claim to that designation, under the logic of the later Evangelical Arminian theologians, such as Dr. Pope and Dr. Raymond.[171] It neither accords, in general, with the law of substitution, nor, in particular, with the Scripture accounts of the representative sufferings and death of Christ.

It has already been shown, by an appeal to the Oracles of God, that in eternity God the Father entered (so we speak in our human dialect) into a covenant with God the Son, as the Mediator between God and man, and as the Head and Representative of those who were given him by the Father to be redeemed, of whom Jesus said that he would lose nothing, but raise it up at the last day. For these, in compliance with the stipulation of that covenant, Christ, in the fulness of time, obeyed the law which they had violated, satisfied divine justice, and brought in everlasting righteousness, which constitutes the ground of their justification - that is, their confirmation in holiness and happiness forever. This is strict and proper substitution or representation, and necessarily supposes that the guilt of the sins of those whom Christ represented was, with his own consent and by the judicial act of the Father, imputed to him, and that the merit of his righteousness is imputed to them. This Evangelical Arminians deny. Allusion was before made to Mr. Wesley's qualified use of the phrases righteousness of Christ and imputed righteousness, but it really amounted to very little. All that he meant was that believers are pardoned for the sake of what Christ has done and suffered for them. He says: "In what sense is this righteousness imputed to believers? In this: all believers are forgiven and accepted, not for the sake of anything in them, or of anything that ever was, that is, or ever can be, done by them, but wholly and solely for the sake of what Christ hath done and suffered for them."[172] "Christ therefore is now the righteousness of all them that truly believe in him."[173] Further, says he: "If we take the phrase of 'imputing Christ's righteousness' for the bestowing (as it were) the righteousness of Christ, including his obedience, as well passive as active, in the return of it; that is, in the privileges, blessings and benefits purchased by it: so a believer may be said to be justified by 'the righteousness of Christ imputed.' The meaning is, God justifies the believer for the sake of Christ's righteousness, and not for any righteousness of his own." True, he confirms, in this Sermon, a scriptural testimony to the imputation of Christ's righteousness to the person of the believer, which he had years before erected in the words of a noble hymn:

"Jesus, thy blood and righteousness

My beauty are, my glorious dress:

'Midst flaming worlds, in these arrayed,

With joy shall I lift up my head."

But in another sermon, like Saturn devouring his own children, he eats up the glorious words of this hymn, sung alike by all believers, by Calvinists, and, with a happy inconsistency, by Arminians. "It may be worth our while," he observes, "to spend a few more words on this important point. Is it possible to devise a more unintelligible expression than this - 'In what righteousness are we to stand before God at the last day?' Why do you not speak plain, and say, 'For whose sake do you look to be saved?' Any plain peasant would then readily answer, 'For the sake of Jesus Christ.' But all those dark, ambiguous phrases tend only to puzzle the cause, and open a way for unwary hearers to slide into Antinomianism"[174] Arrayed in Jesus' righteousness, he would amidst flaming worlds lift up his head with joy (and no doubt he will), but it is not possible to devise a more unintelligible expression than to stand in Jesus' righteousness before God at the last day! It is not my intention to dwell on this inconsistency - we are all more or less inconsistent - but to point out Mr. Wesley's real doctrine. In the extracts cited he indicates the ground of justification - the merit of Christ, its nature - pardon, and its condition - faith. He says nothing in regard to the mode in which God makes Christ's righteousness ours. The word impute is used, but not in its only true meaning, namely, to account or reckon to one either what he has done himself, or what another has done for him. Mr. Wesley did not intend to say that the obedience of Christ his representative is accounted or reckoned the believer's, just as though he had personally wrought it out. The passages quoted are confused and inconsistent. At one time it is said that Christ's righteousness is imputed in the sense that the believer is justified for his sake; at another, that it is imputed in the sense that it procures, "in the return of it" - Goodwin's expression - benefits for all men, which may be appropriated by faith. In both these senses the word impute is used, but in both loosely and abusively. The idea is wanting. And the school of Evangelical Arminianism has since departed to a less extent from Mr. Wesley's doctrine on this point than would at first sight appear. It has broken with his language, and adhered to his views. Neither did he, nor do they, hold the scriptural doctrine of imputed guilt and imputed righteousness. As to this matter the Evangelical Arminian doctrine is apparently self-consistent. It is, that there was no strict and proper imputation of Adam's guilt to his posterity, since he was not strictly and properly their legal representative; but inasmuch as he was in some sense their representative the disastrous consequences of his sin were entailed upon them. In like manner, there is no strict and proper imputation of the merit of Christ to all men, since he was not strictly and properly their legal representative; but seeing he was in a certain sense their representative, the beneficial consequences of his obedience are bestowed upon them. There are, however, two things which cannot escape notice in this apparently homogeneous scheme. The first is, that the disastrous consequences entailed by Adam's disobedience upon all men embraced the certain condemnation and death of all men, but the benefits conferred because of Christ's obedience upon all men do not include the certain justification and life of all men. The consistency of the scheme, therefore, exists in general statements, not in facts. The injuries inflicted by Adam are not paralleled by the benefits conferred by Christ. The second noticeable thing is, that the disastrous consequences of Adam's disobedience were justly entailed upon all men, but the beneficial consequences of Christ's obedience were graciously entailed upon all men. The principle of justice operated in the one case, the principle of grace in the other. In regard to neither of the two things noticed, is the Arminian scheme adjustable to the inspired parallelism between Adam and Christ as representatives. The principle of representation is kissed but betrayed, and consequently the principle of imputation, as its necessary corollary, shares the same fate.

This leads to a consideration, brief at least, of the question whether the righteousness, or, what is the same, the vicarious obedience, of Christ is strictly and properly imputed.

First, It is objected that the terms righteousness of Christ, imputed righteousness of Christ, are not found in Scripture, and the inference is that the conceptions are not there. This is remarkable. Because these terms are not in Scripture, are the doctrines expressed by them not there: - the Trinity, Immediate Creation, Particular Providence, the Fall of Man, Original Sin, Vicarious Obedience of Christ, Satisfaction to Justice? And will Arminians grant that the doctrines signified by the following terms are not in Scripture because the terms are not expressly found there: Universal Atonement, Free Agency, Free Will, Vincible Grace, Defectibility of the Saints? The argument palpably proves too much, and is therefore nothing worth. It is frivolous.

Secondly, The principle of strict and proper legal representation enforces strict and proper imputation. So much has already been said with reference to representation that the point will not now be pressed. Convincing proof has been presented of the representative office, strictly and properly, of Adam and of Christ. If Christ sustained that office, his obedience or righteousness is imputed to those whom he represented. If there is no such imputation, Christ was not a representative. Representation - imputation; no imputation - no representation. Any other doctrine but juggles with the terms. If a man in London should have a legal representative in New York, and the latter should, as such, incur an obligation, it would in law be imputable to the former. If not, legal processes and human language are tissues of deception.

Thirdly, the Scriptures either directly or indirectly prove the imputation of Christ's righteousness to his people.

The whole Old Testament ritual of animal sacrifice proves the imputation of the believer's guilt to Christ. Unless this be admitted, that ritual loses its meaning. It were worse than folly to say that God forgives sin and imparts life for the sake of animal blood shed in sacrifice. There was then a transfer of the obligation to die from the worshipper to the animal victim, which symbolized the transfer of his guilt to Christ, the reality symbolized actually occurring in case he believed, that is, his guilt was actually imputed to Christ. On the great day of atonement the guilt of the congregation was imputed to the goat that was slain, and that it was transferred and removed was proved by the ceremony in connection with the other goat which, having had the guilt of the people confessed over its head, with the imposition of the High Priest's hands, was sent away to the wilderness to return no more. Ceremonial guilt was thus, ipso facto, removed, and the guilt of conscience of every one who believed in the great sacrifice afterwards to be offered - a sacrifice preached from the gate of Eden to Calvary, from Adam to Christ - was completely purged away. That ceremonial guilt was taken away is proved by the a fortiori argument in the ninth chapter of Hebrews: "For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh; how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" Now, how did the blood of animals purge ceremonial guilt? Was that blood actually applied to the worshipper? No, the guilt was imputed to the animal, and, in that way, was removed. Neither is the blood of Christ literally applied to the soul of the believer - how could it be? - but his guilt is imputed to Christ, who by his vicarious death, takes it away. This is explicitly taught in the fifty third chapter of Isaiah. The prophet says of Christ the suffering Substitute, "the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all," or, as the margin has it, "made the iniquities of us all to meet on him," and then designates those of whom he was speaking as "my people:" "for the transgression of my people was he stricken." Who "my people" are is further explained by the words, "when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed," "by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many," "and he bare the sin of many." He was made an offering for sin, not merely by philanthropically giving his life in order to secure benefits for sinners, but precisely by having their guilt imputed to him, and dying judicially as their substitute. The same thing is asserted in the New Testament: Christ was made a curse for us, he bore our sins in his own body on the tree. It is inconceivable that this should have been true in any other way than putatively. To say that he did not really bear sins is flatly to contradict the Scriptures. The only possible supposition is that they were imputed to him as the Federal Head and Representative of his people. Now, to bring this argument to the conclusion contemplated, we have the authority of the apostle Paul for holding that in the same way in which Christ was made sin for his people they are made righteousness in him: "For he hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him."[175] Was he made sin for them by imputation? Even so, by imputation are they made righteousness in him. He could not have been condemned and have died judicially unless their guilt had been imputed to him; they cannot be justified and live unless his righteousness is imputed to them.

In the passage just cited from Second Corinthians believers are said to be "made the righteousness of God" in Christ. The same truth, substantially, is declared in First Corinthians,[176] and in such a connection as to render it clear that Christ is made righteousness to believers by imputation: "But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption." Now, in the first place, the righteousness here spoken of cannot possibly mean a sanctifying righteousness which is inherent, for it is expressly contradistinguished to sanctification. But there are only two kinds of righteousness, namely, inherent, which is infused into the soul, and imputed, which is reckoned to the soul. As the righteousness here mentioned is certainly not inherent, it must be imputed. In the second place, Christ is here declared to be made of God righteousness to us. The righteousness is in some sense made our own. As before shown, it cannot be God's essential righteousness, nor his rectoral, nor his method of justification, for they cannot be said to be made ours, as wisdom and holiness and redemption are said to be made ours. It may be urged that he is made righteousness to us, because he justifies us, just as he is made sanctification to us because he sanctifies us, and redemption to us because he redeems us. To this it is obvious to reply that a distinction must be observed between justification, sanctification and redemption as divine acts and works on the one hand, and the fruits of those divine acts and works on the other. Now, it is clear that Christ is not made to us, nor are we constituted in him those acts and works. We experience their results. In Christ we are made wise, righteous, holy, and subjects of redemption. What other meaning can attach to this righteousness, but that, since it cannot be holiness, it is a federal, representative, putative righteousness - in other words, Christ's righteousness imputed to us for justification? The only remaining supposition is that as faith, according to the Arminian, is justifying righteousness, Christ is made to us faith. It is not necessary to consider such a supposition, as it is manifestly absurd.

Of the same import is the glorious testimony in Jeremiah: "This is his name, whereby he shall be called, The Lord our Righteousness." Christ is our righteousness. How so, according to the Arminian? By faith, he answers. But if one, by a conscious act of faith appropriates the righteousness of Christ, how does that make the righteousness his? Because, he may reply, it was wrought for him. But hold! All that he gets by faith is confessedly only the benefit of Christ's righteousness, not the righteousness itself. That is Christ's, not his. It cannot be his, for, as he strenuously argues, one cannot have what is another's. How then can it be his? He is right in saying it cannot be consciously and subjectively his. There is only one other way in which it can be his - by imputation. That is vehemently rejected. Is it not plain that, on the Arminian doctrine, Christ's righteousness cannot be ours? But this grand text affirms it is ours. Faith cannot make it ours, unless God gives it to faith, and he gives it precisely by imputing it. It becomes ours in no other way. Further, the Arminian contends that the righteousness which is our own is the righteousness of faith. It is one which is consciously ours, and imputed to us as ours. Faith then is our justifying righteousness, but at the same time Christ's righteousness is the ground upon which our faith relies for justification. Here then are two justifying righteousnesses - one in us relying upon another out of us! According to Scripture, there is but one - "the Lord our righteousness." And further still, if faith be imputed to us as righteousness, not unto righteousness, and yet it is acknowledged that Christ is our righteousness, is Christ our faith? If this extravagance is disowned, then there is a righteousness which is our own besides faith, but that is denied. The only way out of these difficulties is to confess - what is true - that faith is no righteousness at all; that there is but one justifying righteousness, namely, Christ's righteousness, and that becomes ours by imputation. Being united to Christ we have him, and in having him we have his legal and representative righteousness which God imputes to us as ours. Thus is he Jehovah our Righteousness.

In Rom. iv. 6, Paul says, "Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works." It is not now designed to consider minutely this passage, as it will fall to be discussed under the head of the Condition of justification, but it cannot here be overlooked inasmuch as the terms imputeth righteousness occur in it, and the question in hand is whether Christ's righteousness is imputed. It will not be disputed that God imputes righteousness, for the apostle uses the very words. Now the question is, What is righteousness? It is the being and doing what is right or just. It is conformity to the standard of God's law. This supposes works - a term employed to signify both the state of mind and the conduct of the moral agent. There can be no righteousness which does not consist of works. To say that a man is righteous who, in no sense, possesses a righteousness of works, would be to say that he is altogether unrighteous and yet righteous at one and the same time. When, therefore, the apostle says that God imputeth righteousness, he must mean that he imputeth righteousness consisting of works. But he also says that God imputeth righteousness without works. This would involve a flat contradiction, were it not true that God may impute a righteousness of works which yet is without works. There is no contradiction, but a great truth, asserted in this passage, if God may impute the righteousness consisting of another's works to one who has no righteousness comprising his own works. And this is just what Paul says. The sinner is without works: he has no righteousness of his own. But God imputes to him the righteousness of Christ consisting of his works which he did in obedience to the law in the room of the sinner as his representative and sponsor before the divine tribunal. It is a vicarious righteousness of works, entirely independent of the conscious works of the sinner, which is imputed for justification. To take the ground that faith is the righteousness without works which God imputes for justification, is to affirm that God imputes that which is at the same time a righteousness and not a righteousness. The righteousness of another being excluded, the affirmation is confined to one's conscious righteousness, and to say that a conscious righteousness is imputed to him which is yet without works would be a contradiction in terms. Faith, then, cannot be the imputed righteousness intended by the apostle: it is the real righteousness of Jesus' works which is imputed for justification, in the utter absence of all works of his own by which the sinner might hope to be justified. This righteousness faith receives, and so faith is imputed as the sinner's act performed unto the attainment of the righteousness of another which God imputes as the sole ground of justification. It will be said that this concedes two imputations. Suppose it does, the first would be the imputation of the sinner's own act, by which he confesses he has no righteousness, and simply receives another's righteousness, and that such all act should be imputed as righteousness would be absurd; and the imputation of the righteousness received, the only righteousness the Scripture ever mentions in connection with justification.

In Phil. iii. 9, Paul speaks of "the righteousness which is of God by faith." It is evident that a righteousness which is of God by faith cannot be a righteousness which is of faith - that is, faith as a righteousness. It is a righteousness which comes by means of faith, a righteousness from God and received by faith, by faith in Christ. It is the righteousness of Christ which God imputes to the believing sinner. If faith be the righteousness imputed, then faith is imputed to faith. Surely faith does not come by faith.

The only other passage which will be appealed to, and it is decisive, is Rom. v. 17, 18, 19: "For if by one man's offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace, and of the gift of righteousness, shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ. Therefore, as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous." The One whose righteousness is spoken of is expressly declared to be Jesus Christ. Now this righteousness of One is defined to be the obedience of One. Putting these expressions together we have the Righteousness of Jesus Christ or the obedience of Jesus Christ. Yet Arminians affirm that the words righteousness of Christ are not found in Scripture. Let this passage re-refute the allegation. This righteousness or obedience of one, even Jesus Christ, is declared to be a gift, a free gift, that is, it is bestowed upon sinners without any desert on their part. A gift is something transferred from one to another. The righteousness of Christ, therefore, is transferred from God to the sinner, and being received by the sinner becomes his own. Having no righteousness of his own, he receives another's righteousness which God gives him, and which consequently becomes his own; his own, not by original possession, nor by his working for it, but by a transfer which holds in law. It is legally reckoned to his account: it is imputed to him. One man makes over a piece of property to another upon no consideration of value received. It is a free gift. But the transfer is legally executed by the donor so as to assure the possession of the property to the recipient. It was not his, but it becomes his and is reckoned to him in law. Why press the matter? The apostle's teaching is as plain as day. The righteousness or obedience of Jesus Christ is accounted, reckoned, imputed as the ground of justification, as the disobedience of Adam was accounted, reckoned, imputed as the ground of condemnation.[177]

These considerations derived from the Scriptures establish the doctrine that Christ's vicarious righteousness is imputed to the believer unto justification. It is hardly worth while to reiterate the answer which has so often been given to the objection that the imputation of one's guilt or righteousness to another involves what is impossible - the transfer of moral character, the infusion of one's consciousness into another. The imputation of legal responsibility is not the impartation of subjective moral qualities. The distinction is stamped upon the whole Word of God, and to deny it is to reject the way of salvation revealed in that Word. To say that guilt and legal righteousness, demerit and merit, are imputable, is one thing; it would be quite another to say that conscious turpitude or conscious holiness may be imputed. If the legal righteousness of Jesus is not accounted ours in God's court, the sanctifying righteousness of Jesus, infused by his Spirit, will never fit us for God's fellowship. Imputation may, it is true, be abused by Antinomians; it is equally true that Infusion may be abused by Legalists. It is a poor argument against any scriptural truth, or any other kind of truth, that it is liable to abuse. It is the resort of the partisan. "It is objected," says Dr. Charles Hodge, "that the transfer of guilt and righteousness, involved in the Church doctrine of satisfaction, is impossible. The transfer of guilt or righteousness, as states of consciousness or forms of moral character, is indeed impossible. But the transfer of guilt as responsibility to justice, and of righteousness as that which satisfies justice, is no more impossible than that one man should pay the debt of another. All that the Bible teaches on this subject is that Christ paid, as a substitute, our debt to the justice of God."[178]

As the divine law may be regarded in two aspects, both as to its preceptive requirements and as to its penalty, the question arises whether the vicarious righteousness of Christ included obedience to it in both these relations. If only the penalty was endured, the Arminian conception of the nature of justification as consisting in pardon would seem to be defensible; if not, if the whole law was vicariously obeyed it is seen to be too narrow. Some Evangelical Arminian theologians - Wesley, for example - admit that the scope of Christ's obedience included what he did as well as what he suffered, that is, as the phrase goes, his active and his passive obedience. In this they are not consistent. For, if on the ground of Christ's obedience to the penal requirement of the law the believer is pardoned, it would follow that on the ground of his obedience to its preceptive requirements, the believer is entitled to everlasting life. Without pausing further to signalize this incongruity, we may go on to consider the question, whether if Christ's righteousness is imputed to the believer, as has been shown, his obedience to the precept of the law is imputed to him. This is usually denominated his active obedience. The term active, as differentiating, is ill-chosen, for Christ was active in suffering the penalty, and suffered while he obeyed the precept. Let it be understood that by his active and passive obedience is meant his preceptive and penal obedience, terms which, although not in current use, more precisely than any others express the distinction between the two aspects of his righteousness answering to the two aspects of the law, preceptive and penal. That Christ's obedience to the precept of the law is imputed for justification will appear from the following considerations.

First, Without the imputation to us of Christ's active obedience, the most that could be supposed is that we would be simply pardoned in consequence of the imputation to us of his passive obedience. The hypothesis is, that being fully pardoned we would be innocent. We would be restored to the condition of Adam at creation, with liability to fall, according to the Arminian, with the addition of being confirmed in innocence, according to the Calvinist. All that could be affirmed of us is that we would be without guilt. As, however, Adam was not justified on account of his innocence, but God required perfect, personal obedience to the preceptive requirements of the law, in order to his being justified, so would it be with us. We would be uncondemned, but not justified. There would be no basis of justification. It will in the sequel be shown that the supposition of pardon without a full obedience to law is impossible.

Secondly, If it be said that the analogy, in this matter, is not between ourselves and Adam, but between Christ and Adam, it is replied: It is admitted that the analogy holds originally and principally between Christ and Adam. What, then, would certainly follow in regard to Christ? This, in the first place, that as Adam could not have been justified without obedience to the precept of the law, so neither could Christ; and if Christ could not have been justified, no sinner could be justified in him, and thus the gates of hope would be closed against a guilty and despairing world. In the second place, as Adam's obedience to the preceptive requirements of the law would precisely have constituted, had he stood, that righteousness which would have been imputed to his seed in order to justification, so Christ's active obedience must be imputed to his seed in order that they may be justified. The analogy, therefore, which is conceded to obtain between Christ and Adam, itself renders it necessary to hold that Christ wrought out active obedience for his seed, and that that obedience is imputed to them in order to their justification, as well as his passive obedience.

Thirdly, The same result is brought out clearly, if we more particularly contemplate the covenant of works in respect to its condition. It has been in the course of these remarks proved that God entered into a covenant of works with Adam, and that he also formed a covenant with Christ looking to the redemption of sinners. The latter is called the covenant of grace, because it had its origin in grace and so far as sinners, not Christ, are concerned, is executed by grace, and the covenant of redemption, because it contemplated. redemption as its end. It was a covenant of grace and redemption to us sinners, but not to Christ: he stood in no need of redeeming grace. To him it was a covenant of works, in which he engaged to fulfil the law on behalf of his seed. The covenant of works with Adam failed, and the legal probation of man came, with the failure of that covenant, to a ruinous termination. Christ, as the second Adam, a second Federal Head and Legal Representative, was, on the supposition of his voluntary susception of the enterprise of redemption at the call of the Father, under the necessity of doing what the first Adam had failed to do, and also of satisfying justice for the breach of the covenant of works by enduring the penalty of the law. To those who are so blind as not to see a revelation in the Scriptures of God's covenant dealings with man, no argument touching this matter would be convincing; to those who do see the federal form of God's government of the human race, argument would be needless.

Adam broke down in fulfilling the condition of the covenant of works in order to justification, and Christ performed it. What was the condition? Perfect, personal obedience, for a time, to the preceptive requirements of the law. Christ, therefore, was under obligation to render perfect, personal obedience to the law; and as the performance of the condition in the case of Adam would have grounded the justification of his posterity, so its performance in the case of Christ grounded, in part, the justification of his people. Now, why did Christ render obedience to the commands of the law? For himself alone? Surely not, but also for his seed. If, then, he acted as their representative in yielding obedience to the precept, they rendered that obedience in him. Where, then, is the difficulty of its being imputed to them? Is there any greater difficulty in the way of its being imputed to them than in the way of his passive obedience being imputed to them? Allow that Christ acted as the representative of his people, both in obeying the precept and in suffering the penalty of the law, and there exists as much reason for the imputation of one sort of righteousness as of the other.

This reasoning must be regarded as conclusive, unless it can be shown that the imputation of Christ's passive obedience destroys the necessity or the reasonableness of the imputation of his active. It may be said that such a result follows from the supposition, made by the Calvinist, that the endurance of the penalty of the law in the room of the elect secures for them an eternal pardon. On the admission that his passive righteousness is imputed to his seed, there is a perfect non-imputation to them of all their guilt, and consequently a perfect and eternal exemption from all the effects of that guilt. They must stand forever acquitted. Where, then, is the need or the place for the imputation of his active righteousness?

To this the answer may be returned: It is true that the endurance of the penalty by Christ as the representative of the elect secures for them a full and eternal pardon. But there is a mistake in considering that all the elect require: They need a right and title to life eternal; and mere pardon, were it possible to the sinner without a vicarious obedience to the precept of the law, would secure them only a right and title to exemption from punishment. To be pardoned is to be free from God's curse, but not to be put in possession of his favor. The soul would be uncurst, but not necessarily blest. The distinction must be taken between the negative and the positive results of righteousness: between a righteousness which secures exemption from wrath and one which merits a title to bliss. The imputation of Christ's passive obedience is the imputation of a righteousness which involves negative results. The possession of positive blessings can only accrue from the imputation of his active obedience. That positively entitles to a life which is vastly more than freedom from punishment. The positive communications of God's favor and loving-kindness are something more than his sentence which delivers from wrath. To those expressions of his love only an obedience to the precepts of his law can entitle the subjects of his government; and as Christ perfectly furnished such an obedience for his elect people, they become, in consequence of their union with him, entitled to them. They have, though in themselves worthless, a right in Christ to positive fellowship with God and the tokens of his love. In him they have fully obeyed the law in both of its essential elements - the precept and the penalty; and will, therefore, ultimately enjoy that complete and positive happiness which only such an obedience can acquire. Such results mere pardon could never secure. Not being in hell is a different thing from being in heaven. It is the difference between a negative and a positive happiness, a difference which corresponds with, and, in the case of the sinner, depends upon the difference between a preceptive and a penal righteousness, as imputed in order to justification. In the use of this distinction it is not implied that Christ in enduring the penalty did not also actively obey the law, but only that in consequence of the imputation of his passive righteousness to the sinner, the sinner becomes entitled to exemption from positive suffering of a penal nature.

Fourthly, If it be said, as has been done, to be inconceivable that the conscious, personal obedience of Jesus to the precepts of the law could be imputed to the believer, it may be replied: In the first place, no Calvinist takes the ground that the personal, subjective character of Jesus is transferred to the believer for justification, any more than that his conscious sufferings are transferred to him. But if it be admitted that his merit is imputed to the believer as having constructively and representatively done and suffered in his great Substitute what that Substitute did and suffered, it is no more inconceivable that the merit of his active obedience should be imputed than that of his passive. In both cases Christ obeyed the will of his Father administering law, and if his active obedience is not imputed, only a part of his obedience is reckoned to the account of the believer. In the second place, the division which the objection supposes to be made between the obedience of Christ to the precepts of the law, and his suffering and dying under the curse of the law, proceeds upon the unscriptural hypothesis that the Saviour in suffering and dying did not obey the law. But the truth is that he was a doer of the law, an intense actor of obedience to its demands, in the whole progress of his passion; and if he obeyed in suffering and dying, the objection to the imputation of his personal obedience would sweep away the imputation of his suffering and dying, and so there would remain no imputation of his obedience whatsoever, and the Pelagian and Socinian doctrine would be sustained.

Fifthly, Let us return to the parallelism between the first and the second Adam. If Adam had maintained his integrity during the period of his probation he would have been justified on account of his obedience to the precepts of the law. No obedience to the penalty would have been possible in his case. Now his seed would have been justified in and with him on the ground of his righteousness imputed to them, just as they are condemned on the ground of his guilt imputed to them. What kind of righteousness, then, would have been imputed to Adam's posterity? Manifestly, all active righteousness - his obedience to the precept. This would have been the only sort of righteousness which could have been imputed to them. The possibility of the imputation of active righteousness is thus conclusively evinced. It follows that the same possiblility exists in regard to the imputation of the active righteousness of Christ the second Adam.

Should it be urged that this argument only goes to show the possibility of such an imputation, and not its necessity or its actuality, the answer is: In the first place, the necessity of the imputation of Christ's active righteousness to his seed flows from the divinely taught analogy between the federal representation of the first and the second Adam. If the active obedience of Christ be not imputed to the elect, the correspondence between the two federal heads and the results of their respective representative acts would be destroyed. In the second place, the necessity of the imputation of Christ's active righteousness is grounded in the inexorable demand of divine justice for a perfect obedience to the law, that is to say, a perfect righteousness. The law must be obeyed as to its precepts, or there can be no justification. Now it is plain that the believing sinner can furnish no conscious, personal obedience to the precepts of the law. The only possible way in which he can furnish obedience to the law in this relation, is by presenting that of Christ his Substitute. But the only method by which Christ's obedience to the precepts of the law can become his is that it be imputed to him. Hence the necessity of the imputation of the active obedience of the Second Adam to his believing seed. The law, proceeding upon the principle of distributive justice, must have obedience to its commands, and the believer meets the imperative necessity by bringing Christ's to the bar.

Sixthly, The objection to the imputation of Christ's active righteousness is founded upon the supposition that in producing that righteousness he did not act as a federal head and representative of his people. He simply obeyed the preceptive requirements of the law for himself. He only acted as federal head and representative in suffering and dying. This view cannot be sustained. From the moment that he consciously rendered obedience to law, he not only rendered it as an individual but as a public person who had assumed, under covenant with God the Father, the responsibilities of his elect seed: he not only furnished individual but federal obedience. If this be so, it follows that his active righteousness, having been wrought for his seed, becomes actually theirs by virtue of its being imputed to him. Admit that it was federal, and you admit the fact of its imputation. To take any other view is to make his active obedience merely exemplary (and that only in part), so far as it is related to us, and then the passage is easy, and for aught that appears logical, to the Socinian dream that his sufferings were not expiatory but only designed to teach by a patient and heroic example.

In discussing Piscator's denial of the imputation of Christ's active righteousness, Dr. Charles Hodge well and truly says: "He argues that Christ's obedience to the law was due from himself as a man, and therefore not imputable to others . . , every man as such, in virtue of being a man, is individually bound to obey the moral law. Christ was a man; therefore he was bound to obey the law for himself He did not perceive, or was not willing to admit, that the word 'man' is taken in different senses in the different members of this syllogism, and therefore the conclusion is vitiated. In the first clause, 'man' means a human person; in the second clause it means human nature. Christ was not a human person, although he assumed human nature. He was a man in the sense in which we are dust and ashes. But because we are dust, it does not follow that all that may be predicated of dust may be predicated of us; e.g., that we have no life, no reason, no immortality . . . Piscator also argues that the law binds either to punishment or to obedience, but not to both at once. Therefore, if Christ's obedience is imputed to us, there was no necessity that he should die for us. On the other hand, if he died for us, there was no necessity that he should obey for us. The principle here assumed may be true with regard to unfallen man. But where sin has been committed there is need of expiation as well as of obedience, and of obedience as well as expiation, if the reward of perfect obedience is to be conferred."[179]

It is also argued, in more modern times, that much of what Christ did was of such a nature that it is impossible that it could be imputed to us, the working of miracles, for example, and other acts of Mediatorial power. What an argument! The conclusion is from some to all: because some of his acts were not imputable, therefore all were not! The statement of the argument is its refutation. And if it be meant that no act of Christ could be imputed which man might not, supposing he were holy, have consciously performed; in other words that finiteness in the acts was the measure of their imputability, that would prove vastly too much: it would sweep away the imputability of the merit of Christ's death itself, for, assuredly, no man could have died his death and lived again. The great principle is overlooked that we may be accounted to have done federally and representatively in a divine-human Substitute what it were madness to suppose that we could have done consciously and personally. No man could have rendered an infinitely meritorious obedience to God's law, could have offered an infinitely meritorious sacrifice in satisfaction to his justice, but it is a cause for devoutest thanksgiving that the merit of such an obedience and such a sacrifice is imputable to us.

Seventhly, It is unwarrantable to effect a divorce, as this objection to the imputability of Christ's active obedience does, between the two elements of the Saviour's righteousness, in relation to the precept and to the penalty of the law. The scriptural view is that he obeyed while suffering and suffered while obeying. The life of our glorious Redeemer was one of suffering, his death one of obedience. His suffering obedience was active, his active was a suffering obedience. From Nazareth to Calvary he learned obedience by the things which he suffered. Like his seamless robe, his righteousness is one. We should not rend it, but by faith taking it as it is, in its wondrous and indivisible totality, dress ourselves in it for the banquet of the Lamb. It is not intended to deny that the righteousness of Christ has two aspects, active and passive. It has, but the Scriptures ordinarily speak of his righteousness as one, culminating in his sufferings and death, which are dwelt upon and signalized as the climax and crown of his obedience. The distinction adverted to deserves to be asserted and maintained when it is denied that Christ's righteousness as active may be imputed.

To all this the following objection may be urged: Depravity is the judicial consequence of imputed guilt. If, then, the guilt be removed by pardon, the depravity is also removed: the cause gone, the effect goes with it. If, consequently, Christ secured pardon of our guilt, he secures, ipso facto, the extirpation of depravity. But depravity being taken away, the necessary activity of the soul could only develop in the direction of holiness; and as the soul would by the imputation of Christ's passive obedience be confirmed in innocence, it would be forever delivered from the contingency of sinning.

The case supposed is impossible, namely, that the sinner can be pardoned simply because of Christ's fulfilment of the penalty of the law. If this can be shown, the consequence derived from the supposition made - that there is no need of the imputation of Christ's active righteousness - will be disproved. It is of vital importance to consider that pardon cannot be extended to the sinner, consistently with the divine perfections, except upon the ground of a full and perfect satisfaction rendered to justice. This may be assumed, as it is acknowledged by the best Evangelical Arminian theologians, who upon this point are more scriptural than those of the Remonstrant school. Such a satisfaction would include perfect obedience to the whole law, both in its precept and its penalty. To suppose a satisfaction rendered to justice only by the endurance of the penalty would be to suppose an incomplete satisfaction, with which the demands of justice could not consist. The mistake upon which the objection is founded is that the suffering of the penalty would be a competent satisfaction to justice. Let us conceive that Christ in suffering and dying as a substitute merely underwent the penalty of the broken law. The demand of the law for a perfect fulfilment of its claims would not have been met. This, however, for reasons already stated, is inconceivable, for in suffering and dying Christ not only complied with the requirement of the law, but cordially obeyed the law itself. He honored the precept in honoring the penalty. There are two considerations which make this apparent. In the first place, the precept of the law requires perfect piety and perfect philanthropy: a love to God which is supreme, and a love to man which is like that one bears to himself. Viewing Christ simply as a legal substitute, this perfect, hearty love to God and man was required from him, and actually yielded by him, when he endured the penalty of the law by vicariously suffering and dying. The agony of the Cross was the highest expression which even he could give of spontaneous, affectionate obedience to that infinite law which is holy, just and good. The tragedy of Calvary was no mechanical execution. Having in the eternal covenant cheerfully consented to become the dying Substitute of the guilty, the bloody sweat of the garden, the tears, spittle and gore, the desertion and loneliness, and the experience of unmitigated wrath, of the accursed tree, occasioned no abatement of that unforced purpose, induced no faltering in its execution. He obeyed the law from the heart: he magnified it and made it honorable in the eyes of the universe in the very highest possible degree. In the second place, these views are enhanced when we contemplate him not merely as a legal Substitute, but as a Priest. It is the specific office of a priest to offer worship for the guilty through sacrifice. Jesus offered worship for the guilty through the bloody sacrifice of himself. He was the victim offered, and he the officiating Priest. His death, voluntarily undergone, was an act of sublimest worship to God, with which the praises of an innumerable company of angels and of a countless assemblage of worlds could bear no comparison. It was the homage of an Incarnate God to justice and Law. It needs no words to show that as sincere worship involves the affections of the heart, and as Jesus, the God-man, worshiped God by the sacrifice of himself to justice in the room of the guilty, he rendered in dying a free and affectionate obedience to the precept which requires perfect love to God and man. Subjection to the penalty was due from sinners, obedience to it on his part was the free suggestion of his love to God and his pity for man. Christ, in dying, obeyed both the precept and the penalty of the law. The fact is, that his obedience cannot, except logically, be divided. It is one and indivisible. The law of God, although capable of being regarded in its preceptive and penal aspects, is really one, and the righteousness of Christ, though susceptible of being considered in specific relation to these aspects of the law, is characterized by a corresponding unity. Pardon, therefore, was not acquired for the guilty simply by Christ's endurance of the penalty of the law; it is the result of his whole obedience, to both the precept and the penalty. It is incompetent to speak of mere pardon, and the consequences which would flow from it. The obedience of Jesus, as a whole, was a full satisfaction to justice in the room of those whom he represented, and it follows that believers are justified completely in him: not merely absolved from guilt, but also invested with a right and title in him to an indefectible life. His obedience, as representative, could have earned no less a reward.

If against this view the old difficulty be presented, that if justification, embracing pardon and a title to eternal life, is imparted in consequence of a perfect satisfaction to justice, it is the award of justice and not a gift of grace, the old answer is obvious: that as God, to whom the satisfaction is due, himself rendered it in the person of his incarnate Son, the whole case is one of free grace. The satisfaction itself, as conditioning pardon and eternal life, was the fruit of grace, and so, consequently, are the pardon and eternal life conditioned by it.

It has thus been shown that Christ was a Federal Representative; that his Righteousness or Vicarious Obedience is imputed to those whom he represented; that his righteousness as a whole, active and passive, is imputed, as the sole ground of their justification; and that, therefore, justification cannot, as the Evangelical Arminian theology affirms, consist in mere pardon, inestimable as that benefit is, but involves both pardon and a right and title in Christ to eternal life - to confirmation in holiness and happiness forever.

SECTION IV. CONDITION OF JUSTIFICATION.

The third and last general division of the subject now comes up for consideration: The Condition or Instrumental Cause of justification.

The question here does not relate to the nature of faith in general. There is sufficient agreement in the view that faith comprises in its unity the assent of the understanding, the trust of the heart and the consent of the will, when not only is abstract truth contemplated, but personal relations and interests are involved. Nor is the question whether faith conditions justification. Upon that point Calvinists and Evangelical Arminians are in accord. Whether the latter invariably and consistently contend that faith is the sole condition or instrumental cause of justification may be made a question. It will not, however, be now considered. The questions that here claim attention are: What is justifying faith? and What is the office which faith discharges in relation to justification? These questions are really distinct, but as we shall see, they practically coalesce in the Evangelical Arminian theology: at least the answer to one largely determines the answer to the other.

The Calvinistic reply to these questions may be given with sufficient definiteness in the terms of the Westminster Standards. Speaking of the way in which God justifies those whom he effectually calls, the Confession of Faith says, among other negative assertions: "Not by imputing faith itself, the act of believing, or any other evangelical obedience, to them, as their righteousness; but by imputing the obedience and satisfaction of Christ unto them, they receiving and resting on Him and His righteousness by faith; which faith they have not of themselves, it is the gift of God.

"Faith, thus receiving and resting on Christ and His righteousness, is the alone instrument of justification; yet it is not alone in the person justified,[180] but is ever accompanied with all other saving graces, and is no dead faith, but worketh by love."'[181]

The Larger Catechism gives this answer to the question, "What is justifying faith?" - "Justifying faith is a saving grace, wrought in the heart of a sinner, by the Spirit and word of God; whereby he, being convinced of his sin and misery, and of the disability in himself and all other creatures to recover him out of his lost condition, not only assenteth to the truth of the promise of the gospel, but receiveth and resteth upon Christ and His righteousness therein held forth, for pardon of sin, and for the accepting and accounting of his person righteous in the sight of God for salvation."[182]

It thus answers the question, "How doth faith justify a sinner in the sight of God?" - "Faith justifies a sinner in the sight of God, not because of those other graces which do always accompany it, or of good works that are the fruits of it; nor as if the grace of faith, or any act thereof, were imputed to him for justification; but only as it is an instrument, by which he receiveth and applieth Christ and His righteousness.[183]

The following citations are made from Evangelical Arminian authors of recognized standing.

"By 'the righteousness which is of faith,'" says Mr. Wesley, "is meant that condition of justification (and in consequence [consequently] of present and final salvation, if we endure therein unto the end) which was given by God to fallen man, through the merits and mediation of his only begotten Son."[184] He also says: "Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it (i. e., faith) was imputed to him; but for us also, to whom it shall be imputed (to whom faith shall be imputed for righteousness), shall stand instead of perfect obedience, in order to our acceptance with God." "Faith, therefore, is the necessary condition of justification.[185] Yea, and the only necessary condition thereof. This is the second point carefully to be observed; that the very moment God giveth faith (for it is the gift of God) to the 'ungodly, that worketh not,' that 'faith is counted to him for righteousness.' He hath no righteousness at all antecedent to this, not so much as negative righteousness, or innocence. But 'faith is imputed to him for righteousness' the very moment that he believeth. Not that God (as was observed before) thinketh him to be what he is not. But as 'he made Christ to be a sin offering for us,' that is, treated him as a sinner, punished him for our sins; so he counteth us righteous, from the time we believe in him; that is, he doth not punish us for our sins, yea, treats us as though we were guiltless and righteous."[186]

In the first place, notice that Mr. Wesley asserts the righteousness of faith to be the condition of justification. Now either this is a righteousness inherent in faith, or imputed to faith, or neither. If inherent in faith, our inherent righteousness is the condition of justification, which is utterly unscriptural; if imputed to faith, the Calvinistic position is conceded; if neither inherent in faith, nor imputed to faith, there is no righteousness which is of faith, none which it can claim, no righteousness which is ours. To say that faith relies upon it, is not enough. Jesus would not be the Lord our righteousness. His righteousness would be something foreign to us on which we depend. To say that faith appropriates it is to say that it makes it its own. Its own how? By inherence or by imputation? In no other than one of these two ways can it become our own by faith. If, as Mr. Wesley says, God gives it to us - then how? Does he make it inherent in us by his gift, or does he impute it to us as his gift? Either inherent or imputed this righteousness must be; and each of these suppositions is damaging to the Arminian doctrine.

In the second place, observe that Mr. Wesley says, this faith "shall stand instead of perfect obedience." Faith, then, is not perfect obedience, it only stands instead of it. But if it stands instead of it, it discharges the office of perfect obedience. The believer is accepted as if he had perfectly obeyed: his faith justifies in the stead of a perfect obedience which would justify him, but is wanting. But how faith can be reputed to have the value of perfect obedience and discharge the office it would perform if possessed, and yet faith relies upon the perfect obedience of Christ for justification which nevertheless is not imputed to the believer, this is what Mr. Wesley does not explain, and could not have explained. What is now emphasized is that the great founder of Evangelical Arminianism expressly declared that faith is imputed for righteousness in the sense that it stands instead of perfect obedience.

In the third place, Mr. Wesley misses an obvious and necessary distinction, and is consequently betrayed into confusion of thought, when he remarks that in imputing faith for righteousness God does not think the sinner to be what he is not. It is a truism to say that God does not think the sinner to be consciously and inherently righteous, but he does think him to be, because he adjudges him to be, putatively and legally righteous. Were the sinner neither, how could God, consistently with justice and truth, count him "as righteous" and treat him as such? This overlooked distinction is necessary to the understanding of the gospel. Further, if God counts the sinner as righteous, he must either regard him as inherently or as putatively righteous. The former supposition is not possible, according to Mr. Wesley's admission and to the facts of the case. The latter must, therefore, be true, and the imputed righteousness of another is confessed. But as faith is undeniably inherent, faith cannot be that imputed righteousness, since the righteousness cannot be inherent in us and another's imputed to us at the same time. Faith, consequently, receives the imputed righteousness, on account of which God regards and treats the sinner as righteous. Still further, Mr. Wesley, having declared - what is true - that God "counteth" the believer "as righteous", adds that God "treats" him "as though" he "were guiltless and righteous." In these last words he must be understood as meaning that God treats the believer as though he were inherently guiltless and righteous. This is true; and it is equivalent to saying that the believer is not inherently guiltless and righteous. God, however, pardons him and treats him as having righteousness. Now, either this righteousness is faith or it is not. If it is, then as faith is inherent, the believer is accounted righteous as having inherent righteousness. But that is contrary to the supposition that the believer is not inherently righteous. If it is not faith, it must be a righteousness which is in no sense inherent. It remains that it is the imputed righteousness of another, even the righteousness of Jesus Christ, which faith receives, and on account of which God treats the believer "as righteous."

The next writer who shall speak is Mr. Fletcher, a contemporary of Mr. Wesley and the staunch defender of his views. "You confound," says he, "without reason, the inherent righteousness of faith with Pharisaic self-righteousness. I have already proved that the latter, which is the partial, external, and hypocritical righteousness of unbelieving formalists, is the only righteousness which the prophet compares to filthy rags. With respect to the former, that is, our own righteousness of faith, far from setting it up in opposition to imputed righteousness rightly understood, we assert that it is the righteousness of God, the very thing which 'God imputes to us for righteousness;' the very righteousness which has now the stamp of his approbation, and will one day have the crown of his rewards."[187]

This is sufficiently, it is refreshingly explicit. It is exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to ascertain what most Evangelical Arminian theologians mean by the phrase "the righteousness of faith." They are strenuous in asserting, what no Calvinist denies, that faith is imputed for righteousness, since the Scriptures affirm this in so many words. But when the question is, Is faith this righteousness, or is the righteousness which is imputed different from faith itself as a righteousness? no definite answer can be extracted from their writings: they may mean this, they may mean that. But Mr. Fletcher talks in no uncertain tones. He definitely asserts that the righteousness of faith is inherent righteousness. He discriminates this kind of inherent, from another kind of inherent righteousness - the righteousness of the Pharisee. Generically they both come under the denomination of inherent righteousness, but specifically they are different. Mr. Fletcher is not incorrect in supposing that there are different sorts of inherent righteousness. There is a good and a bad sort. The inherent righteousness produced by the Spirit of God in His sanctifying work is a good inherent righteousness. But that there is a good righteousness of that denomination which is in order to the justification of a sinner is news to one who reads the Scriptures, or is acquainted with the facts of consciousness. The distinction is valid, because scriptural, between a legal, inherent righteousness which cannot avail to justification and an evangelical, inherent righteousness, which after justification avails to sanctification; but there is no scriptural ground for a distinction between a legal and an evangelical inherent righteousness in order to justification. All inherent righteousness previously to the justification of a sinner is legal, and is, by the apostle Paul, absolutely ruled out from the possibility of securing, or in any way conducing to, justification. But without further argument upon the point just here, let it be noted that Mr. Fletcher clearly, unmistakably makes the righteousness of faith inherent righteousness.

Next, he declares in the most positive terms that this, "our own," " inherent" righteousness is not to be set up in opposition to imputed righteousness; on the contrary it is imputed righteousness. Here the distinction, the Protestant distinction, between an inherent righteousness as our own and an imputed righteousness as another's, is emphatically denied. Our own inherent righteousness is that which God imputes to us. The imputation to us of another's righteousness is, indeed, everywhere in his writings rejected and ridiculed; and as this is done by others we are shut up to the conclusion that the catholic Evangelical Arminian doctrine is opposed to the distinction between inherent righteousness as our own and imputed righteousness as another's, and asserts the imputation alone of our own inherent righteousness, either as real or constructive.

This is not all. Mr. Fletcher affirms that this inherent righteousness of faith is the righteousness of God which is imputed. "We assert," he dogmatically says, "that it is the righteousness of God, the very thing which God imputes to us for righteousness." Mr. Fletcher must be held to his undoubted positions. He says that the righteousness of God is imputed: "The righteousness of God, the very thing which God imputes to us for righteousness." He says that the righteousness of faith is the righteousness of God: "Our own righteousness of faith . . . is the righteousness of God." He says that the righteousness of faith is inherent righteousness: "You confound the inherent righteousness of faith with Pharisaic self-righteousness." The conclusion is undeniable that the righteousness of God imputed is our own inherent righteousness of faith. In the discussion already had of the question, What is the righteousness of God? all the answers which have been given were considered, namely: The essential righteousness of God; the rectoral righteousness of God; God's method of justifying sinners; faith; the vicarious obedience of Christ. Now as even Mr. Fletcher would not have contended that God's essential righteousness, or his rectoral righteousness, or his method of justification, or the vicarious obedience of Christ, is or can be inherent in us, the only remaining supposition is that the righteousness of God is faith; for that is inherent, the only thing that is inherent in all these possible cases. It would be idle to attempt a distinction between faith itself and the inherent righteousness of faith. If faith be not that righteousness, what is the righteousness which is distinct from faith and yet belongs to it? It must, according to Fletcher, be an inherent righteousness; it cannot therefore, be God's essential, or his rectoral, righteousness, or his method of justification. To call either of them inherent is to speak absurdly. The righteousness of Christ is of course excluded. There is only one other conceivable supposition, and that is so ridiculous that no Arminian, so far as I know, makes it, to wit, that the righteousness of faith is God's act of justification. There is no other conclusion than that the righteousness of faith and faith itself are one and the same. This is Mr. Fletcher's only possible meaning. The righteousness of God is faith imputed to us; and against this position the irresistible reductio ad absurdum already employed is hurled. It is out of the question that faith, as God's righteousness, is revealed from faith to faith, is by faith, is through faith. A faith which is from, to, by, and through, faith is more unspeakable than "the unspeakable Turk."

The passages in which Mr. Watson speaks most expressly to this point are these: "Justification is a gratuitous act of God's mercy, a procedure of pure 'grace,' not of 'debt.' That in order to the exercise of this grace, on the part of God, Christ was set forth as a propitiation for sin; that his death, under this character, is a 'demonstration of the righteousness of God' in the free and gratuitous remission of sins; and that this actual remission or justification, follows upon believing in Christ, because faith, under this gracious constitution and method of justification, is accounted to men for righteousness; in other words, that righteousness is imputed to them upon their believing, which imputation of righteousness is, as he teaches us, in the passages before quoted, the forgiveness of sins; for to have faith counted or imputed for righteousness is explained by David, in the psalm which the apostle quotes (Rom. iv.), to have sin forgiven, covered, and not imputed."[188] "From this brief, but, it is hoped, clear explanation of these terms, righteousness, faith, and imputation, it will appear, that it is not quite correct in the advocates of the Scripture doctrine of the imputation of faith for righteousness, to say, that our faith in Christ is accepted in the place of personal obedience to the law, except, indeed, in this loose sense, that our faith in Christ as effectually exempts us from punishment, as if we had been personally obedient. The scriptural doctrine is rather, that the death of Christ is accepted in the place of our personal punishment, on condition of our faith in him; and that when faith in him is actually exerted, then comes in, on the part of God, the act of imputing, or reckoning righteousness to us; or, what is the same thing, accounting faith for righteousness, that is pardoning our offences through faith, and treating us as the objects of his restored favor."[189]

Mr. Watson's doctrine that faith is the condition of pardon, however incomplete in a discussion of justification, would be very simple and unexceptionable, were it not for the critically important and troublesome terms righteousness and imputation. But faith must be adjusted to the notions expressed by these terms, in any adequate consideration of its justifying office.

In the first place, Mr. Watson, in explaining the phrase faith imputed for righteousness, expressly says: "Righteousness is imputed to them upon their believing, which imputation of righteousness is . . . the forgiveness of sins." The imputation of righteousness is pardon. There are two obvious and formidable objections to this statement. The first is that pardon is the non-imputation of guilt, and to treat it formally as imputation is to make imputation and non-imputation precisely the same! The second is, that as pardon is the non-imputation of guilt, and pardon is said to be the imputation of righteousness, the non-imputation of guilt and the imputation of righteousness are made exactly the same! In the second place, Mr. Watson's theory evidently accounts only for the non-imputation of guilt. He was not entitled to the use of the terms imputation of righteousness. They are illegitimately introduced. The assumption that justification consists simply in pardon has in the foregoing remarks been considered and refuted. Although, then, faith is a condition of pardon - which, of course, is admitted, so far as the conscious reception of pardon is concerned, though not the pardon secured by Christ at the completion of his representative work, which is a condition precedent to the sinner's conversion and reconciliation to God - faith is not thereby shown to be a condition of justification, which not only pronounces the sinner pardoned but righteous. Are not guiltlessness and righteousness different things? We have seen that Mr. Wesley perceived and noted the difference between them. The truth is that if faith be simply the condition of pardon, there is no imputation of righteousness whatsoever, unless the view is maintained that the righteousness imputed is faith itself; but this does not appear to be the view expressed by Mr. Watson. He contends that the imputation of righteousness is pardon; and he could scarcely have meant that pardon is the imputation of faith as righteousness. Still, if faith be not the righteousness imputed, as Fletcher contends, then there is no righteousness which is imputed, for Mr. Watson denies that Christ's righteousness is imputed, and he could not have held that the righteousness of God, which he says is God's method of justification, is imputed. He was shut up then to the alternatives, either of admitting that faith is imputed as righteousness, or that no righteousness at all is imputed. If the former, he was reduced to Fletcher's absurdity of the imputation of inherent righteousness for justification, or to the theory of the imputation of faith as a quasi righteousness,. If the latter, he verbally contradicts himself, and really contradicts Scripture.

Dr. Pope's general doctrine on this subject it passes my ability to bring into consistency with itself, but he has this special utterance which may be considered as sufficiently indicating his position; "Faith is not righteousness, as justifying: it is counted for righteousness. It is put to the account of man in the mediatorial court as righteousness; not as a good work, but reckoned instead of the good works which it renounces."[190] All that it is necessary particularly to notice is that Dr. Pope's view is distinctly that while faith is not itself a justifying righteousness, it is accounted, imputed as righteousness, in the stead of a legal righteousness which would be competent to justify, It is not Christ's righteousness which is imputed. Faith is imputed in lieu of righteousness. In this he differs with Fletcher, at least nominally, as the latter boldly maintained that faith is righteousness. We shall see that while Fletcher's view is contradictory to Scripture, Pope's contradicts common sense and Scripture alike. One makes faith all inherent righteousness, the other makes it an inherent nothing: it is a substitute for inherent righteousness, but not itself an inherent righteousness.

Dr. Raymond's view of the nature and office of faith may be collected from the following passages: "The above will suffice to show in what sense the Protestant doctrine of justification by faith only, is both rational and Scriptural. Faith is said to be that condition of justification, or the pardon of sin, which, if a man have, no matter what else he is destitute of, he can not be lost, and without which, whatever else he may have, he can not be saved. Though faith be that only, and that alone, that justifies, it is not solitary and arbitrary; it is that which, in the nature of the case, is essential, as meeting an indispensable requirement, and is, in itself, such as secures, atonement having been made, all the remaining interests involved. It is not a mere speculative belief in the doctrines of Christianity. It is confidence in Christ, as the Son of God and Saviour of men. It is a state of mind, which naturally, intuitively assimilates the believer to the Spirit of Christ, adopts his sentiments, co-operates with his plans, takes him as a leader and guide. Faith in Christ is a voluntary act, by which Christ is accepted as prophet, priest and king. The moment, therefore, a man exercises this confidence in Christ, he is a saved man. This is itself the spirit of loyalty; it is in harmony with law; it seeks the ends of government; it approves, admires the righteousness of God; in it rebellion against God dies. The carnal mind, at enmity with God, and not subject to His law, is put away, is displaced by its opposite; faith is the spirit of filial obedience. It implies repentance, sorrow on account of sin, together with a turning from sin; it brings forth fruits meet for repentance. It implies, further, a purpose of righteousness." After acknowledging that faith "considered as a volitionating power, is the gift of God," he goes on to say: "But the exercise of man's God-given powers is with the man himself, and is made within limits subject to his own free choice. God no more believes for a man than he breathes and eats, walks and works, for him; faith, as a power to believe, is the gift of God; believing, the exercise of faith, is the act of man.[191] This act he must put forth or be damned; if he put it forth, he will be saved; he can not be lost while believing in Christ. If any choose to call that act of faith works, we shall not contend; if they still affirm that, in asserting that this faith is an act of the human will, we teach the doctrine of salvation by works, very well; we care not by what name it is called; we abide the affirmative of the doctrine that a man's eternal destiny is dependent upon a somewhat which he himself may do or leave undone [N. B.], and that somewhat is called, in the Bible, faith. To those to whom the Gospel is preached, it is a cordial confiding in Jesus Christ as the Son of God and Saviour of men; to those who have not heard the gospel, it is the same faith in the form of a filial trust in the mercy of God; or, as it has been designated, 'the spirit of faith with the purpose of righteousness.'"[192]

When the question is, What is the condition of justification? Dr. Raymond answers with all Protestants, It is faith alone. But when the question is, How is faith this condition? he replies, in substance, that it is especially adapted to this office, because it assures the rectitude of God in the administration of redemption. Why? Not because it accepts and rests upon the obedience of Christ imputed, by which justice has been satisfied, the law magnified and God's government vindicated and sustained: he scouts the notion of the imputed righteousness of Christ as the substitute of sinners. Not because faith in Christ as a justifying Saviour is in order to the impartation of the sanctifying grace of the Spirit, the author and determiner of all holiness. Why, then? Because faith contains within itself the seeds of every Christian virtue, the germs of all inherent righteousness or holiness. It is this aptitude, intrinsic to itself, to secure and promote the moral interests of God's government that adapts it to be the condition of justification. He does not say, with Fletcher, it is inherent righteousness, but he maintains that it is the seed or germ from which inherent righteousness is developed. The difference is in degree, not in hind. Faith is inchoate holiness from which all holiness springs; unless it breaks its neck after its first bound towards development, when the bright dawn of incipient grace expires in the darkness of nature's night, and the development becomes what the Frenchman pronounced it, with the accent on the first syllable. This view of the mode in which faith discharges its office as a condition of justification is supported by a distinction between the power to believe which is confessed to be the gift of God and the act of believing which is entirely man's, an act which he may or may not perform. If he perform it, it is a righteous exercise of his own "volitionating" power. It follows that man practically determines his justification. The merits of Christ afford him the opportunity of justifying himself. Upon this supposition justification cannot be purely of grace, and it is no wonder that Dr. Raymond coolly says, that if this is supposed to teach salvation by works, he will not contend: it is very well. The apostle Paul says to the Philippians: "For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake." No, intimates Dr. Raymond, it is not given to us to believe, only the power to believe is given. Paul says: "It is God which worketh in you, both to will, and to do, of his good pleasure." God works in you to will, declares Paul. Oh, no, suggests Dr. Raymond, God works in you the power of willing, but not to will: the volitionating is yours. But Paul says, God worketh in you to do. On the other hand, Dr. Raymond says that to do, to act belongs to man, not to God. God cannot believe in Christ. Mighty distinction! It overthrows the doctrine of an apostle, and establishes the sovereignty of the sinner's will. God says He will raise the dead at the last day. But God will not rise from the dead: man will rise; therefore God cannot raise the dead. Yes, God will give the power to rise, but the dead body must exercise it; and so having the power, it will of itself lift the earth or the marble and emerge from the grave! Christ says He will raise the spiritually dead soul. But Christ will not rise from spiritual death. The soul must rise. Therefore Christ cannot raise the dead soul. Ay, but Christ gives the power to rise and the soul exercises it. And so the sinner having the power of regeneration regenerates himself. God furnishes the ground of justification in the obedience unto death of his Son; he gives the sinner the power to place himself on that ground; but he cannot put the sinner there: he cannot determine the sinner's will to believe. He may "yearn over" the unwilling soul, he may long for its salvation; but he cannot save it. Why is this denied to almighty power and infinite love? Because God does not need to be saved and cannot exercise faith! God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, the atoning Blood - all depend for efficacy upon the sinner's volitionating act!

Having endeavored to gather from the statement of Evangelical Arminian theologians of repute what is their doctrine in regard to the nature and office of justifying Faith, the way is open to sum up the results, and to subject them to a final examination.

They are professedly agreed in holding that faith is the sole condition of justification. It is not, however, to be supposed that this is the same as to assert, with the body of Protestants, that faith is simply the instrument, and nothing more, by which a justifying righteousness is received and relied upon. True, it is maintained that faith is the sole condition or instrumental cause of justification, but if the question be, whether faith discharges this office merely and solely as it is faith, as it is simply assent and trust, or whether, as justifying, it involves in it or carries along with it some elements which are not, strictly speaking, of the very nature of faith, - the answers to these questions by the Evangelical Arminian theology are indistinct if not positively inaccurate. In the first place, there is a confusion of the condition of faith with the condition of justification. Conviction of sin and misery[193] is ordinarily a condition precedent to faith, but it is in no sense or degree an instrument whereby Christ is received and rested upon. It does not enter into or qualify the instrumental office of faith. In the second place, a quality of inherent righteousness is represented as entering into faith, adapting it to secure the moral interests of the divine government. Faith, as justifying, is not nuda fides - naked, simple, mere faith. But if it be not, it is not suited to be, what justification requires, a bare receiver of Christ. To the extent to which, as justifying, it embraces or exhibits any extraneous quality, to that extent Christ is displaced. Holiness is in its place indispensable, but faith, so far as it is the instrument of justification, has nothing to do with it; it has no eye, no ear for anything but a justifying Saviour: it reaches out both empty palms to him. The dread of Antinomianism, real or imaginary - and the imaginary is the Calvinistic Federal Theology - generates a wisdom superior to God's, a concern for righteousness more conservative than his, and clamors for a little infusion of ethics into faith, for fear a simple reliance upon Christ and His righteousness for justification might prejudice sanctification and damage the interests of holiness.[194]

The witnesses disagree, to some extent, in respect to the nature of justifying faith, and the imputation of it for righteousness. Mr. Fletcher explicitly, and Dr. Raymond implicitly, maintain that it is our own inherent, though evangelical, righteousness. Mr. Wesley and Dr. Pope hold that it is accepted instead of a perfect righteousness, and Mr. Watson is in substantial agreement with them on this point. For although, as we have seen, he pronounces this view "not quite correct," yet he says in connection with that mild stricture: "Except, indeed, in this loose sense, that our faith in Christ as effectually exempts us from punishment, as if we had been personally obedient." One call detect no substantial difference between the affirmations: faith is accepted in the place of personal obedience; faith is accepted as if we had produced personal obedience. They are obviously tantamount to the same thing. I shall not undertake to decide which of these views, that of Mr. Fletcher and Dr. Raymond on the one hand, or that of Mr. Wesley, Mr. Watson and Dr. Pope on the other, is the received doctrine of Evangelical Arminianism; nor will they be examined in detail beyond what has already been done. They are alike exclusive of the truth of God touching the imputation of the righteousness of Christ, and the simple instrumentality of faith in receiving that righteousness, and the arguments which will be used will be directed against them both.

(i.) The Evangelical Arminian theology illegitimately distinguishes between the Ground and the Matter of justification; or, in other words, it unwarrantably splits into two parts the one Material Cause of justification. The efficient cause of anything is that by which it is produced; the material cause, that out of which, on the ground of which, on account of which, it is produced; the instrumental cause, that through which, by means of which, it is produced; the formal cause, the thing itself so and so formed and configured, and contra-distinguishing it to other things, if physical made out of the same material, if moral or intellectual belonging to the same general kind; the final cause, the end for which it is produced. The efficient cause of the table on which this writing is done is the workman's skill, that produced it; the material cause, the wood out of which it was constructed, that grounded its construction; the instrumental cause, the implements through which, by means of which, it was constructed; the formal cause, the table itself so and so formed and configured, distinguishing it from other articles of furniture made out of the same material; the final cause, the end for which it was produced, say, that it might be used for writing. These causes, founded in an analysis for the most part as old as the gigantic intellect of Aristotle, and perfected by the intelligence of subsequent ages, are not to be sneered at as abstruse and scholastic. Their value has been tested by many a thinker, as he struggled to find his way through the confounding intricacies of a difficult and perplexing subject. They play havoc with ingenious but sophistical speculations, and with brilliant but illogical declamation: they are the Lapis Lydius of reasoning. The thinker who is acquainted with them knows their utility, and he who is ignorant of them unconsciously employs them to the extent to which he thinks at all.

In applying these causes to justification, the Calvinist holds, that its efficient cause is the free grace of God - it is that by which it is produced, or, what is the same, that which produces it; its material cause is the righteousness out of which, on account of which, on the ground of which, it is produced, and as one's own inherent righteousness is out of the question, it is the imputed righteousness of another, even Jesus Christ the Righteous, the Lord our Righteousness; its instrumental cause is faith - it is that through which, by means of which, it is produced, that which simply receives and relies upon the justifying righteousness of Christ; its formal cause is justification by the imputation of another's righteousness, as contra-distinguished to other kinds of justification proceeding upon the imputation of one's own, inherent righteousness; its final cause is, proximately, the salvation of the sinner, ultimately, the glory of God's grace. It will be perceived that the Calvinist makes no unphilosophical, no untenable distinction between the ground, and the matter, of justification. They are regarded as one and the same. It is the same thing to say that Christ's righteousness is the ground, and that it is the matter, of justification. That righteousness is its material cause. The material cause is one; it cannot be divided into two parts, the ground and the matter. Nor can there be two material causes of justification, one the righteousness of Christ, the other the faith of the sinner as righteousness. If the material cause is Christ's righteousness, it cannot be faith as the sinner's righteousness, or faith in any aspect; if it be faith, it cannot be Christ's righteousness. It must be either one or the other, not both, not one in one respect, and the other in another.

The Arminian, if asked, what is the ground of justification? answers, The righteousness of Christ. Well, then, Christ's righteousness is the righteousness that justifies, that out of which justification is produced. No. If asked, What is it that justifies? he replies, The righteousness of faith, or faith accepted as righteousness. This, then, is that out of which justification is produced. Faith either as righteousness or accepted instead of righteousness is the matter of justification. Faith as the matter is distinguished from the righteousness which is confessed to be the ground. There are, consequently, either two material causes of justification, or one and the same material cause is split into two parts, and these two parts are intrinsically different - as different as the righteousness of another and one's own subjective quality or conscious act. The Arminian's distinction is untenable. If Christ's righteousness is the ground of justification - and that is admitted - it is also its matter, the righteousness out of which it is produced. It may be asked, Where is the difficulty of supposing two material causes concurring to the production of justification? There might be, for example, two kinds of wood used in the construction of this table. The answer is, that how many soever may be the materials, or, to speak more broadly, the sorts of matter, which go to produce anything, physical, intellectual or moral, their union constitutes its one ground or matter - its material cause; and the Arminian would violate his own doctrine if he held that faith enters into the ground of justification. Even were it supposable that there might be two material causes, they would jointly be the ground. If, then, the obedience of Christ be one material cause of justification and faith another, the difficulty would be presented of mingling faith with the merit of Christ to constitute the ground of justification - a result which the Evangelical Arminian could not accept.

If this view be correct, it is evident that the Arminian theology not only makes an illegitimate distinction between the Ground and the Matter, but also unjustifiably confounds the Material Cause, and the Instrumental Cause, of justification. Faith is admitted to be the instrumental cause, but if, as has been shown, it is held to be the thing itself which justifies, either as a righteousness, or accepted as if it were a righteousness and judged to discharge its office, it is held to be the matter - in some sense the material cause - of justification; hence the material and instrumental causes are obviously confounded.

(2.) Either, faith is a real, substantive righteousness; or, it is an unreal, constructive righteousness, treated as though it were a real, substantive righteousness, and accepted in its place; or, it is no righteousness at all, but simply receives and rests upon a righteousness. The first view is that of some Evangelical Arminian writers; the second is that maintained by others, following Wesley, and is the one usually accredited to the Evangelical Arminian theology; the third is that held by Calvinists. Let us consider them in the order in which they have been stated.

First, Is faith a real, substantive righteousness, imputed to us in order to justification? The theologians who hold this view are acquitted of claiming that it is a legal righteousness: they claim that it is not legal, but evangelical. The view, however stated, cannot be sustained.

In the first place, it is opposed to the very nature of faith, as justifying. The Evangelical Arminian theologians contend that faith, as justifying, is an act. When it is performed the believer is immediately justified. But it is clear that as an act expires upon its performance, it cannot be a righteousness. It may be a righteous act, but the act is not a righteousness, which not only supposes a series of acts, but a series of works, each of them composed of acts. Further, faith, from its very nature, has no intrinsic excellence. Its excellence is derived from the object to which it is related, and as that object, so far as justification is concerned, is admitted by Evangelical Arminian divines to be Christ, faith borrows its beauty and glory from him. But that which has no intrinsic excellence or virtue, which possesses only a relative value, cannot with propriety be represented as a righteousness. To these considerations it must be added that faith involves a confession of unworthiness, of impotence, of nothingness. It flees to Christ, it lays hold on him, it depends upon him. It is the veriest of parasites. Detached from Christ, like a vine stripped from the tree to which it clings, it collapses and ceases to live.

In the second place, even were it supposed to be a righteousness, it would be necessarily an imperfect righteousness; and it must be acknowledged that a righteousness to be justifying behooves to be perfect. It is no answer to this to say that although in itself imperfect it relies upon the perfect righteousness of Christ. That would be to postulate two justifying righteousnesses, one perfect, the other imperfect; and three absurdities would emerge: the first, more than one justifying righteousness when one is enough; the second, the superfluity of an imperfect justifying righteousness in addition to a perfect; the third, an inconceivable reliance of one righteousness upon another righteousness for justification!

In the third place, no inherent righteousness can possibly be imputed to us in order to justification. Certainly no inherent legal righteousness can be so imputed, if the Scriptures are received as authority; and no evangelical righteousness can exist previously to justification, for such a righteousness is, from the nature of the case, sanctifying, and it will not be contended that a sanctifying righteousness is in order to justification. If it be urged that there may be an evangelical righteousness which is not sanctifying, it must be admitted that it exists before justification for if it existed after it, it would be sanctifying, which is contrary to the supposition. Now, it is sufficient to say in answer to this that the Evangelical Arminian theology expressly confesses that works done before justification have no value for justification. This inherent righteousness, therefore, which it is claimed is imputed to us in order to justification must at the same time, if consistency is observed, be acknowledged to have no value for justification. A contradiction ensues. Between the contradictories who can hesitate to elect that which asserts the worthlessness of all inherent righteousness, of all works, of all acts, of an inherent denomination existing before justification? The theory is a paradox. It not only gainsays Scripture, but traverses the Evangelical Arminian theology itself. Every righteousness must consist of works: righteousness without works is a solecism. These works are either the fruits of sanctification or not. If they are, they are evangelical and not legal. If they are not, they are legal and not evangelical. This righteousness in question consists of works which are not fruits of sanctification. It consists, therefore, of legal works; and no legal work can conduce to justification. That the advocate of this theory should urge that faith is not a legal work avails nothing. He makes it a legal work by making it a righteousness. Of course faith is not legal, in fact; it is the very opposite of works, but it is legal in his theory, and that destroys the theory. I affirm that it is not legal, he replies. So you do, it is rejoined, but you affirm that it is inherent righteousness conducing to justification; it is therefore legal. You affirm that it is and is not legal, in the same breath. Meanwhile the truth is that it is no righteousness. It merely receives a righteousness wrought by another and imputed for justification.

In the fourth place, an argument employed by John Owen on this point is decisive. "Faith," he observes, "as we said before, is our own; and that which is our own may be imputed unto us. But the discourse of the apostle is about that which is not our own antecedently unto imputation, but is made ours thereby, as we have proved; for it is of grace. And the imputation unto us of what is really our own antecedently unto that imputation, is not of grace, in the sense of the apostle; for what is so imputed is imputed for what it is, and nothing else. For that imputation is but the judgment of God concerning the thing imputed, with respect unto them whose it is."[195] The thought suggested by this testimony of the venerable Puritan which it is now intended to emphasize is, that if faith, as a justifying righteousness, is imputed to us, the imputation is made by justice, not by grace. For it is just, not gracious, to impute to us what is our own. The imputation of righteousness is manifestly referred to justice and not to grace; and this is contrary to the specific declarations of the Scriptures and to the whole genius of the gospel.

An effort may be made to blunt the edge of this consideration in two ways. It may be urged, that faith is the gift of grace, and therefore its righteousness is imputed to us as a gracious and not a legal righteousness. This is the plea of the Pharisee and the Romanist. The former thanks God for his righteousness. Grace produced it, but produced it in him. It was therefore his righteousness, and was pronounced by our Lord not justifying. The latter admits the merit of Christ, admits the grace of the Spirit, procured by that merit, as enabling him to be righteous. It was the position of Adam, had he been justified. His righteousness would have been wrought in the strength of grace, but would notwithstanding have been imputed to him as his own, legal righteousness. A righteousness receives its denomination not from the source in which it originates, but from the end which it contemplates.[196] Again, it may be urged, that while faith is imputed as righteousness, it is not the ground of justification, but relies on Christ's righteousness as the ground. This hypothesis of two righteousnesses, one the ground, the other the matter, of justification, and the absurd notion of one righteousness relying on another righteousness, have already been disposed of.

The testimony of Paul to the Philippians is decisive, and that shall be allowed to give the finishing stroke to this Semi-Pelagian hypothesis. He declares that he counted all things but loss, that he might win Christ, and be found in him, not having his own righteousness. The abettor of this view says, I have my own righteousness. Then you contradict Paul, says the Calvinist. No, answers the Arminian, Paul says that the righteousness he did not have "is of the law," but the righteousness which I have, and which he had, is faith. Hear Paul further, rejoins the Calvinist: He declares that the righteousness he did have is that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith. Certainly faith cannot be through faith and by faith. The righteousness which Paul says he did not have is the inherent righteousness which you say you have, and the righteousness which he says he would have is the imputed righteousness of Christ which comes through faith, the very same which you say you would not have. Thus does an inspired apostle inflict upon this theory of inherent righteousness a literal coup de grace.

Secondly, Is faith an unreal, constructive righteousness, treated as if it were a real, substantive righteousness, and accepted in its stead? No injustice is done by this statement of the question. For, if faith is regarded as if it were righteousness, and accepted in the stead of righteousness, it is all unreal, constructive righteousness. The view is labelled precisely according to its import.

This doctrine involves the rejection of a great and fundamental principle of the divine government. It is that, in order to justification, one must have, must himself possess, a perfect righteousness of works which satisfies the demands of justice and law, and is pleadable before the bar of God: either one which is his because he consciously produced it, or one produced by another, as his substitute, which is made his by imputation. The possibility of the sinner's possessing such a righteousness consciously produced by himself is denied alike by the Arminian and the Calvinist. The possibility of his possessing one produced by another as his representative, and made his by imputation, is denied by the Arminian and affirmed by the Calvinist. They both insist upon the necessity of a saving connection between the sinner and the meritorious obedience of Christ, but differ as to the mode in which the connection is realized. The Arminian contends that it is enough that Christ should have vicariously acted in behalf of the race in general, and that the sinner should by faith rely upon him. The Calvinist replies that this is not enough; that upon this theory Christ is not the Substitute of any individual man, and that it is impossible that faith alone should effect such a relation of the sinner to Christ as to make the righteousness of Christ pleadable by him in the divine court; and further, that it is utterly inadmissible to consider the mere pardon conditioned by faith, and that a losable pardon, as being justification. He maintains that there is needed a legal procedure on God's part, over and beyond the sinner's faith, to constitute the righteousness of Christ the sinner's righteousness in law, to pass over its merit to his account, and to reckon it to him as his, and that this is accomplished by judicial imputation, based upon the great principle of federal representation. He asks, Where, upon the Arminian theory, is there any legal union between the sinner and Christ, which would warrant even acquittal of guilt, consistently with the demands of justice and law? The Arminian himself acknowledges that pardon is not dispensed by virtue of the arbitrary prerogative of a Sovereign. Mr. Watson elaborately proves this.[197] There must be substitution. But substitution necessarily supposes a legal unity between the original transgressor and the substitute. Faith itself cannot possibly achieve that result, particularly a faith which, according to the Arminian, precedes regeneration, and "must," as Dr. Pope says, "be distinguished from the grace of faith which is one of the fruits of the regenerating Spirit." [198] This, urges the Calvinist, is to make the faith of the unregenerate man the sole factor of union with Christ in the moment of justification; for, an the order of thought, faith as justifying is made to precede the regenerating act of the Holy Spirit which spiritually unites the soul with Christ; and it follows that at the moment of justification there is neither legal nor spiritual union with Christ. There is only such connection as faith accomplishes. The soul does not grow up a living stone out of the foundation, but simply lies down upon it; and no wonder it is liable to be thrown from it by the shocks of inward temptation and of satanic rage.

In nothing, except in its assertion of the supremacy of the sinner's will in the matter of practical salvation, and its consequent rejection of the sovereignty of God's electing grace, is the Arminian theology more conspicuously defective than in its denial of the great principle, that God requires in the sinner, in order to justification, the possession of a real, substantive, perfect righteousness of works. The question, then, is, Does God require of the believing sinner the possession of no real righteousness in order to justification? or, Does he require of him the possession of a real, though vicarious and imputed righteousness, to that end? The latter is the true doctrine.

In the first place, it is established by the very nature of the justifying act. Both parties are agreed in holding that it is forensic: it pronounces or declares the sinner righteous. Both are agreed that it does not infuse righteousness, or, what is the same, make holy. Both, then, are agreed that it does not declare the sinner to be inherently righteous: it does not declare him to be, in himself, righteous, or holy. But it does declare him to be righteous. How righteous? Not inherently, not as viewed in himself. How, then? The Arminian cannot answer that question. He contends that it would be a legal fiction to declare him righteous by the imputation to him of another's righteousness. The Calvinist retorts, it would then be a legal fiction to declare him righteous, for, according to the Arminian, he is neither inherently nor putatively righteous, neither righteous in himself nor righteous in another. He is absolutely in no sense righteous. How, therefore, can he be declared righteous, without a legal fiction? The doctrine now under consideration admits that the sinner's faith is not a righteousness: it is only accepted and imputed as if it were. There is no call, consequently, to discuss the question whether the sinner is righteous because he believes. This theory confesses that he is not. To declare him righteous, then, because he believes, is to declare him to be what the theory admits he is not. Is this not a legal fiction? It is evident that the sinner cannot, consistently with justice, truth and law, be declared righteous, unless in some sense he is. The very nature of justification, by which, e concesso, the sinner is divinely declared righteous, demands the possession by him of a real righteousness. As an inherent righteousness of his own is out of the question, he must possess another's righteousness, made his by no fiction, but by God's judicial act of imputation. Christ is made of God righteousness to him; he is made the righteousness of God in Christ.

In the second place, This is true in regard to Adam and his posterity. It was always true in God's government of the race. Had Adam been justified he would have been declared righteous on account of a real and a perfect inherent righteousness which was required of him. His posterity would also have been justified: they would have been declared righteous. How? Because they would have had an inherent righteousness? How could they? An inherent righteousness must have been consciously produced by them. But they would have been justified before they could have consciously produced righteousness: they would have been born justified. Both parties admit that Adam was condemned on account of his own conscious act of sin. Were his posterity condemned on the same ground? They were not, as Arminians admit, for infants are born condemned. If not, how could their condemnation, as Arminians contend, have been removed through the virtue of Christ's atonement? How could that have been removed which never existed? Now, if they were condemned they were declared guilty. How guilty? Not by their own conscious acts, but because they possessed a guilt contracted by another who was their representative, and judicially imputed to them by God. Otherwise they have been declared guilty and treated as guilty, without their having any guilt at all. The inference to the analogous case of justified sinners, mutatis mutandis, is so obvious that it need not be pressed. God has never declared men to be what they are not. There must be some real sense in which they are what he declares them to be. If he declares them guilty, they must be either inherently guilty, or guilty by the imputation of another's guilt. If he declares them righteous, they must be either inherently righteous, or righteous by the imputation of another's righteousness.

But conceding this to have been the original requirement of the divine government, the Arminian will say that its operation has been modified by the mediation and atoning death of the Incarnate Son of God. God has entered into a new and gracious covenant with man, so that, in view of the fact that Christ has endured the penalty of the violated law as the substitute of sinners, as some say, or in view of the fact that he has suffered and died for the benefit of sinners, as others say, faith in him is accepted in the place of, or as if it were, a legal righteousness strictly conformed to the demands of the law. With reference to the view that the Lord Jesus was not in any sense a substitute for the guilty, that he did not stiffer penally, but simply died in some unexplained way for the benefit of sinners, it is not requisite that anything be here added to the comments before made. It treats with contempt principles fundamental to the divine government. The law is represented as summarily dispensed with, and justice and truth sacrificed. The salvation of the sinner is a compliment to the chivalry of a friend and benefactor. An aureole of beneficence encircles the theory; that is about all. A Systematic Divinity which propounds such an hypothesis rather deserves the title of Systematic Philanthropy. But the other view mentioned, which, it is believed, still prevails as a feature of that theology to which those great men, Wesley and Watson, gave shape, merits serious consideration - the view that Christ endured the penalty of the law as the substitute of sinners, and in consequence of that fact faith in him is accepted by God in the place of, or as though it were, a real legal righteousness. It is held, in accordance with this doctrine, that the divine law has not been dispensed with, but its requirement of a perfect righteousness complied with; that justice has been satisfied and truth fulfilled.

Let us hold strictly to the question. It is not, whether Christ obeyed the requirements of the divine law and brought in perfect righteousness. Nor is it, whether in God's intention a saving connection was designed between the Saviour's obedience unto death and human sinners. Nor still is it, whether faith is required and treated as an unmeritorious but indispensable condition of justification. But it is, whether the sinner can be justified, that is declared to be righteous in God's court, without being in some sense righteous, without possessing a real righteousness. Now there being no dispute between the Evangelical Arminian and the Calvinist as to the fact that in justification God declares the sinner righteous, it is incumbent on the former to show how the sinner who is declared righteous is really so. He justly throws out of account an inherent legal righteousness: the sinner cannot possibly be declared inherently righteous. He also rejects the righteousness of Christ as becoming the sinner's by imputation: the sinner, he holds, cannot be declared righteous for that reason. Moreover, according to the doctrine under consideration, the sinner's faith is no real righteousness: he cannot, therefore, be declared righteous on that account. The Evangelical Arminian would seem, then, to be shut up to the acknowledgment that the sinner is in no sense righteous, and consequently, cannot be declared righteous: that is, to the contradiction of affirming and denying the fact of a sinner's justification.

How shall he escape from this predicament? There is but one way conceivable, to my mind at least, by which he might attempt to avoid it, although I do not remember to have seen it suggested by any Evangelical Arminian writer, and might therefore omit to mention it. It is that faith puts the sinner, by a divine grant, in possession of the righteousness of Christ. It might be thus argued: God, in the promise of the gospel, conveys Christ to the sinner upon condition of his believing; he fulfils the condition, believes, and therefore possesses Christ as his Saviour; and in possessing Christ he possesses Christ's righteousness. There is, consequently, no fiction in his being declared righteous: he has Christ's righteousness. But, first, he is debarred from this resort by self-consistency; for he holds that faith justifies because it is accepted in the place of a real righteousness, or is treated as if it were a real righteousness. He would be obliged to withdraw this statement and say that faith justifies because in possessing Christ it possesses a real righteousness. Secondly, even were this change made, it would not succeed in relieving the difficulty. A tremendous sweep of function would be attributed to faith, to which it is not justly entitled. It is true that it puts the sinner in conscious possession of Christ and his righteousness, but it is far, infinitely far from being the sole or even the chief agency in investing him with that rich, that inestimable possession. Union with Christ, the wonderful oneness of the believer with Christ of which the Scriptures speak, is principally effected by a divine agency operating immediately, and not mediately through faith. For example, faith puts the sinner in conscious possession of Christ as a sanctifying Saviour, and, in a measure, of the inherent holiness which springs from him: but the spiritual union with Christ in that capacity is chiefly accomplished by the direct operation of the Holy Ghost in regenerating the soul, and thus binding it to Christ by the bond of a spiritual life. Of God Christ is made to us sanctification. There is beneath consciousness a mysterious oneness of the soul with Christ in spiritual life, of which true, saving faith is the conscious expression. In like manner, faith puts the sinner in conscious possession of Christ as a justifying Saviour and of his justifying righteousness, but there is a federal and representative union ordained by God the eternal Father between Christ and his constituents, directly grounding a legal life in him of which faith is on the sinner's part a conscious expression and acknowledgment. So, to pursue the inspired analogy in Romans, had men been justified in Adam, their conscious acts of holiness would have been preceded by that federal and representative union ordained of God, which, on the supposition, would have issued in their legal life. And so, in fact, their conscious acts of sin have been preceded by that federal and representative union constituted by God between them and their first father, the abuse of which by him resulted so disastrously to them. Faith is mighty indeed - mighty, because of its worthlessness which receives Christ's meritorious righteousness; mighty, because of its weakness which embraces Christ's strength; mighty, because of its emptiness which absorbs and fills itself with Christ's fulness; but faith does not, cannot, originate the legal life springing from the federal union with Christ, or the inherent life flowing from spiritual union with him, of which it is, by the grace of the Spirit, the conscious appropriation and confession. These considerations show that the scheme of redemption could not have so modified an original, fundamental principle of the divine government as to make it possible that God should declare one righteous who has no righteousness at all, one who is neither inherently nor putatively righteous. It cannot make God inconsistent with himself. The sinner's faith, without any real righteousness attaching to him, cannot be accepted in lieu of such a righteousness, or be regarded as if it were.

In the third place, The principle that God requires, in order to justification, a real, substantive, perfect righteousness of works as possessed by him who seeks to be justified, is confirmed by the declaration of the apostle that the law is not made void, but established, through faith: "Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law."[199] He meets the objection that if we are justified freely by grace, without the works of the law, the demand of the law for a righteousness of works in order to justification is nullified. He affirms that, on the contrary, it is established. How? The point is one of infinite importance. Let it be distinctly noticed, that Paul is not here treating of sanctification. His argument must not be wrested from its track. It is true that faith establishes the law as a standard of sanctification. But while that may be implied in his affirmation in this place, it is not its immediate and principal point. That point is that the law, as a standard of justification, far from being nullified, is established, through faith. As such it cannot be dispensed with or relaxed. Its demand for a perfect righteousness in order to justification must be complied with in every jot and tittle. It is eternal, indestructible, incapable of modification. And yet the sinner convicted of guilt, the sinner condemned on two grounds: his federal disobedience in Adam his representative, and his own conscious, subjective disobedience, the convicted, condemned sinner may be justified, may be declared righteous, in consequence of his exact conformity with the unchangeable demand of the law for a real, substantive and absolutely perfect righteousness. Is there a key to this apparently insuperable difficulty, involving what seem to be point-blank contradictions? - no righteousness, perfect righteousness; condemnation, justification, meeting in one and the same person; the law indestructible as a standard of justification, the law destroyed as a standard of justification; the law living, active, thundering with the voice of God, the law dead, buried, and silent as the grave. There is such a key, a great key, a divinely-furnished key, a key suspended from the golden girdle about the paps of the glorious Mediator. It is the principle of Federal Representation.

The sinner can produce no conscious, subjective, inherent righteousness in order to justification. The thing is preposterous. By such a performance of the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified. The law which convicts cannot acquit, the law which condemns cannot justify, the law which kills cannot confer life. The sinner can be no doer of the law; but there is a complete Doer of its requirements - Jesus Christ, the divine and human Substitute of sinners. He perfectly obeyed the law, conformed his life to its precepts, exhausted its penalty in his death, rose from the dead and ascended to the heaven of heavens justified, glorified and enthroned. He produced perfect, unimpeachable, everlasting righteousness. For whom? For his federal constituents, of whom by God the Father he was appointed the Head and Representative. Legally one with him by the ordination of the eternal covenant "ordered in all things and sure," what he did they did, what he suffered they suffered. When he obeyed the precept of the law they obeyed it, when he died they died, when he rose and was justified they rose and were justified. What fatuous ravings! it will be said by many. How could they? "Hearken, men and brethren!" I am not mad, but speak forth the words of truth and soberness. Not consciously and subjectively; who ever had so wild a dream? but federally, representatively, legally. Just in the same sense, and just as surely did they perform this obedience in him, as Adam's constituents committed his disobedience in him.[200] When they are passing through their conscious earthly existence the gospel is made known to them, they are effectually called by the Holy Ghost, they exercise faith in Christ the justifying Saviour, and are thus consciously united to him their Federal Head and Representative. United to him by the bond of the covenant and by the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit, they are now by their act of faith brought into conscious union with him. The perfect righteousness of Christ the representative which God imputes to those represented by him is now received by faith. Not having their own inherent righteousness which is of the law, but having the righteousness which is of faith, that is, the righteousness of Christ received by faith, God, consistently with his justice, truth and law declares them righteous. They are consciously, actually justified. Thus faith establishes the law. The demands of the law as a standard of justification were fully met by Christ's obedience. That obedience is his people's obedience - wrought by them representatively in him, imputed to them by God, and consciously received by their faith. Faith confirms the requirements of the law for justification. On the other hand, the law, having been thus perfectly fulfilled by Christ's obedience imputed to believers, is not a standard of justification to them, so far as their own conscious obedience is concerned. In that respect it is dead to them and they to it, as says the apostle in the seventh of Romans. Christ - he declares in the tenth - is the end of the law as a rule of justification, demanding from us conscious, subjective obedience. The paradox is explained. The Calvinistic theology is the only one that shows how a sinner can be declared righteous before the awful bar of God. It sings gratefully and triumphantly:

"Jesus, how glorious is thy grace!

When in thy Name we trust,

Our faith receives a righteousness

That makes the sinner just."

Finally, Much is made of the declaration that Abraham's faith was imputed for righteousness - ελογισθη εις οικαιοσυνην, as proving that faith is accepted in place of righteousness, or as if it were righteousness. Among the last words upon this subject are those of the "Professor of Sacred Literature in Yale College," Timothy Dwight, who cites numerous passages from the Old and New Testaments to show "that the phrases ελογισθη εις and ελ. ως are substantially equivalent to each other." He remarks that "they differ only as our expressions: to count a person for a wise man, and to count him as a wise man . . . We have here a peculiar phrase, used by many of the Scripture writers. They all employ it with a single and definite meaning. They never, when using it, give the telic sense to the preposition. If they do not give it this sense where there is no reference to the case of Abraham, the conclusion is irresistible that they do not where there is such a reference. When Abraham believed, therefore, - such is the Apostle's statement - his faith was reckoned to him by God for, i.e., as if it were, actual righteousness. Faith is not actual righteousness, but, in- view of the provision made by the grace of God for the forgiveness of sins, it is accounted as if it were." Just after this, he says that "faith, in the Christian system, is thus accepted of God in the place of the perfect righteousness which, on the legal method, was required for justification."[201]

To this re-statement of the old Arminian denial of the imputation of Christ's vicarious righteousness to the believer for justification, only a brief answer will here be given. One is enough if it be true, as one puncture of the heart is sufficient to destroy life. A self-contradictory construction of the words "imputed for righteousness" cannot Possibly be a valid construction. The construction furnished by the learned Professor is self-contradictory; for, in the first place, it interprets the words to mean: imputed as righteousness, that is, as being righteousness. This is plain from his own illustration, which is that when we count a person for a wise man we count him as a wise man, that is, as being a wise man. But, in the second place, the construction interprets the words to mean: imputed as if it were, in the place of righteousness, that is, as not being righteousness, but accepted notwithstanding the fact that it is not. These two elements of the construction are flatly contradictory to each other. The construction itself, therefore, being self-contradictory cannot be the true interpretation of the critically important words of inspiration - "imputed for righteousness."

Nor are we shut up by the law of Excluded Middle to accept as true either of the contradictories involved - namely, faith is imputed as being a real righteousness; faith is imputed as a supposititious righteousness in the place of a real. For, there are two other suppositions which not only may be made, but have been actually maintained. One is, that in this declaration faith is metaphorically employed for its object, which is the righteousness of Christ as justifying. The other is, that faith is imputed unto, in order to, to the attainment of, righteousness. Neither of these interpretations is exposed to the insuperable objection, opposing each of those propounded by the Professor, of making the inspired apostle reduce to naught his own argument touching justification, and violate the whole genius, strain and tenor of the Scriptures in relation to that all-important subject.

Whether we adopt one or the other of these interpretations, the catholic teachings of the Scriptures make one thing certain: that faith is not the righteousness which justifies, that the only justifying righteousness is "the righteousness of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ," the only Fulfiller of the Law, the only Substitute for poor, lost, despairing sinners; to whom, with the Father of eternal mercies, and the Spirit of all grace, one ever-blessed God, be glory by the Church throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.

Endnotes:

1. Ch. III. Sec, iv. [back]

2. Questions 30, 31. [back]

3. Quest. 20. [back]

4. Judgment, Arts. 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11: Hall's Harm. Prot. Conf. [back]

5. Ch. 10, Hall's Harm. [back]

6. Art. 12, Hall. [back]

7. Art. 16, Hall. [back]

8. Can. IV., Niemeyer, p. 731. [back]

9. Identical with the Lambeth Articles. [back]

10. Same as the English Article. [back]

11. Same as Lambeth Article. [back]

12. Nearly identical with English Article. [back]

13. In the XXV. Articles of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States, the topic of Election is omitted. [back]

14. These extracts are taken from Wesley's tract, entitled, The Scripture Doctrine concerning Predestination, Election and Reprobation: Works, vol. ix., pp. 421, 422, New York $d., 1827. It is incorporated into the Doctrinal Tracts published by order of the General Conference of the Meth. E. Church. [back]

15. Works, vol. 9, pp. 381, 382, New York, 1827; Predestination Calmly Considered: a part of the Doctrinal Tracts already mentioned. [back]

16. Ibid., p. 435 : A Dialogue, etc. [back]

17. Ibid., p. 475: What is an Arminian? Answered. [back]

18. Theol. Institutes, vol. ii., pp. 307, 308, 337, New York, 184o. [back]

19. Ibid., vol. ii., p. 338 [back]

20. Elements of Divinity, p. 289, Nashville, Tenn., 1882. This work is edited by Dr. T. O. Summers, and issued by the Southern Methodist Publishing House. [back]

21. Ibid., pp. 291, 292, 293. [back]

22. Vol. ii., pp. 420, 423. [back]

23. Ibid., pp. 358, 359. [back]

24. Works, vol. iii., pp. 435, 436: London, 1815. [back]

25. Misc. Observations concerning Divine Decrees and Election, §58.] [back]

26. Coll. Writings, vol. ii. p. 124. [back]

27. Ibid., vol. ii, p. 20. [back]

28. The same assertion is distinctly made by Dr. James Strong, in his article on Arminianism (Wesleyan), in the Schaff-Herzog Cyclopaedia. [back]

29. Comm. on Rom. ch. ix. [back]

30. Thornwell, Coll. Writings, vol. ii. p. 25. [back]

31. See Freed. of the Will in its Theo. Relations, in the So. Pres. Review, for a discussion of these distinctions. [back]

32. Comm. on Rom., ch. ii. [back]

33. Watson, Theo. Inst., vol. ii. p. 430, New York, 1840. Here the doctrine is approved. [back]

34. On Rom., ch. ix. 11, 12. [back]

35. On Rom., ch. ix. 11, 12. [back]

36. On Eph. ii. 8. [back]

37. Dr. James Strong emphasizes the same distinction between the power to believe and its exercise. [back]

38. Praesentem gratiae operationem per evangelium. [back]

39. Notes in loc. [back]

40. Comm. on Acts, xiii. 48. [back]

41. Works, vol. iii. p. 308, Goold's Ed., 1852. [back]

42. Comm. on Acts. [back]

43. Comm. on Rom. [back]

44. Theo. Inst., Vol. ii., p. 348, New York, 1840. [back]

45. Raymond, Syst. Theol. vol. ii. p. 355. [back]

46. Theo. Inst., Vol. ii. p. 347, New York, 1840. [back]

47. Pope, Comp. Chris. Theol., Vol. ii. p. 390. [back]

48. Sermons on the Righteousness of Faith and The Way to the Kingdom. [back]

49. Theo. Inst., Vol. ii. p. 267. [back]

50. Compendium Chris. Theol., Vol. ii. p. 384. [back]

51. Ibid., Vol. ii. p. 376. [back]

52. Ibid., Vol. ii. p. 390. [back]

53. Elem. of Divin., p. 347. [back]

54. Syst. Theo., Vol. ii. p. 348, 349. [back]

55. Comp. Chris. Theol., Vol. ii. p. 359. [back]

56. Pope, Comp. Chris. Theol., vol. ii. p. 80. [back]

57. Serm. on Working out our own Salvation. [back]

58. Syst. Theol., Vol. ii, p. 348. [back]

59. Syst. Theol., vol. ii. p. 37. [back]

60. These statements touching the first sin have been quoted, because they show the Calvinistic doctrine to be-that man's will at first was free, neither constrained by an extrinsic nor an intrinsic force to sin; that man had full power to stand; and, therefore, that the reprobate were not created to sin and be damned, nor necessitated by God to sin. [back]

61. Coll. Writings, vol. ii. p. 143. [back]

62. Hist. Theology, vol. ii. pp. 429, 430. [back]

63. Watson, Theo. Inst., Vol. ii. p. 326. See also Wesley, Sermon on Predestination. [back]

64. Comm. on Rom. ix. 11; 1 Pet. i. 20. [back]

65. Hist. Theol., Vol. ii. p. 430. [back]

66. Articles of M. E. Church, vii, viii; Wesley, Serms. on Orig. Sin, New Birth; Treatise on Orig. Sin, et passim; Watson, Theo. Inst., Vol. ii, p. 49; Pope, Comp. Chris. Theol., Vol. ii, p. 80.; Ralston, Elem. Div., p. 141; Raymond, Syst. Theol., Vol. ii, p. 83. [back]

67. Comp. Chris. Theol., vol. ii. p. 59. [back]

68. The Conflict of Centuries, pp. 115, 116, 166, 208: Nashville, South. Meth. Pub. House, 1884. [back]

69. It may be urged that the same reduction to absurdity applies to the Calvinistic element of the Federal Theology, that the elect are, in consequence of their virtual or representative justification in Christ their Covenant Head, absolved from their virtual or representative condemnation in Adam their head in the first Covenant. How can they be conceived to be, in infancy, at the same time, free from guilt and totally depraved? The answer is, that although they are virtually justified, they are actually condemned. There is no contradiction between virtual justification and actual condemnation. In the case of the elect who become adults, their actual condemnation in Adam continues until they exercise faith in Christ and are actually justified. Their actual condemnation and their depravity go on concurrently until then. In the case of infants, dying in infancy, regeneration implants the principle of holiness which contains the seed of faith; and it is not impossible, it is probable, that God applies to them, notwithstanding the fact that they cannot exercise faith, the blood of atonement and actually justifies them. In their case, all guilt and all depravity are alike removed by sovereign grace at death, and in heaven they will express their conscious acceptance of the plan by which they were saved. In the case of the elect, who are regenerated in infancy and may live to adult age before they exercise faith in Christ and are actually justified, three elements until then co-exist in them: actual condemnation, the principle of holiness, and the principle of depravity. There is nothing strange in this supposition, of the co-existence in them of the principles of holiness and depravity, seeing that the same co-existence remains after actual justification; the difference being that up to that change depravity reigns, and after it holiness. The Arminian theology, which knows nothing of the distinction between virtual or representative justification and actual, inasmuch as it rejects the principle of Representation, strictly considered, which necessitates that distinction, labors under all the difficulties which have been mentioned. It holds the absolution of the infant from all condemnation, in every sense, and yet maintains the presence in him of depravity - the co-existence of absolute innocence and the principle of corruption. [back]

70. Serm. on the New Birth. [back]

71. Watson, Theo. Inst., vol. ii. pp. 52, 53. [back]

72. Deut. xxiv. 16. [back]

73. 2 Kings xiv. 5, 6. [back]

74. Summa, ii., i. qu. 82, art. 2, as quoted by M�ller, Chris. Doct. Sin, vol. ii., p. 372. [back]

75. Works, Goold's Ed., vol. 10, p. 353. [back]

76. iii. 13. [back]

77. v. 21. [back]

78. ii. 20. [back]

79. v. 14. [back]

80. Col. iii. 1. [back]

81. Ques. 22. [back]

82. Ques. 52. [back]

83. Works, Goold's Ed., vol. 5, On Justification, p. 169. [back]

84. Select Works, Robert Carter and Brothers, p. 98. [back]

85. Watson, Theo. Inst. Vol. ii., p. 341. [back]

86. Matt. v. 44, 45. [back]

87. Jer. xxxi. 3. [back]

88. Rom. x. [back]

89. Richard Watson. [back]

90. Wesley, Watson, Raymond, et al. [back]

91. Eph. ii. 5, 8. [back]

92. Tit. iii. 5-7. [back]

93. Watson. [back]

94. Wesley's sermon on Free Grace. [back]

95. Theo. Inst., vol. ii., p. 341. [back]

96. This distinction is signalized by Owen. [back]

97. Theo. Institutes, vol. ii., p. 343. [back]

98. Ch. ii. Art. 3. [back]

99. Ch. ii. Art. 5. [back]

100. Ch. ii. Art. 6. [back]

101. Ch. iii. Art. 9. [back]

102. Ch. x. Sec. iv. [back]

103. Ques. 68. [back]

104. Works, Goold's Ed., vol. x, pp. 295, 296. [back]

105. Isa. lv. 1. [back]

106. Mark xvi. 15, 16. [back]

107. Matt. xi. 28. [back]

108. John vii. 37, 38. [back]

109. Rom. x. 13. [back]

110. Rev. xxii. 17. [back]

111. This argument against the Calvinist is styled the Remonstrants' Achilles; but it does about as much harm to the Calvinist as the Greek hero while sulking in his tent to the Trojan. [back]

112. Ch. i. 19, 20. [back]

113. De. Servit. et Liberat. Hum. Arbitrii, Opp. ed. Amstel., vol. viii, p. 151. [back]

114. Coll. Writings, vol. i. pp. 395-398. [back]

115. Owen, Works, vol. iii. p. 229, ff. Goold's Ed. [back]

116. A similar line of argument, very ably presented by the Rev. S. G. Winchester, may be found in Vol. i. of the Tracts issued by the Presbyterian Board of Publication, Philadelphia. [back]

117. Eph. ii. 12, 13. [back]

118. Theo. Inst., v. ii, p. 446. [back]

119. The doctrine of Calvin upon that subject I presented in the Southern Presbyterian Review, for October, 1880. [back]

120. Phil. ii. 12, 13. [back]

121. Vol. iii. p. 161. Substantially the same is given by Owen, On Justification, Works, vol. v., pp. 173, 208. [back]

122. Watson says: "By the righteousness of God it is also plain, that his rectoral justice in the administration of pardon is meant, which of course, is not thought capable of imputation." Inst., vol. ii., p. 227, ff. [back]

123. Syst. Theol., vol. ii. p. 337. [back]

124. Inst., vol. ii. p. 228. [back]

125. Rom. iv. 6. [back]

126. Phil. iii. 8, 9. [back]

127. Rom. x. 3. [back]

128. Ibid., 5. [back]

129. 2 Cor. v. 21. [back]

130. See Clarke and Benson in loc. [back]

131. 1 Cor. i. 30. [back]

132. Jer. xxiii. 5, 6. [back]

133. Dan. ix. 24. [back]

134. Works, New York, 1849, vol. i. p. 313. [back]

135. Elem. Divin., p. 402. [back]

136. Serm. on the New Birth. [back]

137. Serm. on God's Love to Fallen Man. [back]

138. Serm. on the Righteousness of Faith. [back]

139. Ibid. [back]

140. Ibid. [back]

141. Theol. Inst., vol. ii. p. 67. [back]

142. Ibid., p. 53. [back]

143. Ibid., pp. 394, 395. [back]

144. Ibid., p. 400. [back]

145. This remarkable theory is subjected to a particular examination in the discussion on election. [back]

146. Works, New York, 1849, vol. i, p. 28. [back]

147. Comp. Chris. Theol., vol. ii. p. 13. [back]

148. Ibid., pp. 60, 61. [back]

149. Ibid., p. 78. [back]

150. Syst. Theology, vol. ii. pp. 109, 110. [back]

151. Ibid., p. 131. [back]

152. Ibid., p. 136. [back]

153. Comm. on Romans, ch. ii. [back]

154. Ibid., ch. v. [back]

155. Ibid. [back]

156. Ibid. [back]

157. Serm. on Justification by Faith. [back]

158. Comp. Chris. Theol., vol. ii., p. 156. [back]

159. Serm. on Just. by Faith. [back]

160. Serm. on Predestination. [back]

161. Theol. Inst., vol. ii., p. 247. [back]

162. Ibid., p. 236. [back]

163. Ibid., p. 446. [back]

164. Elem. of Divinity, p. 286. [back]

165. Comp. Chris. Theol., vol. ii. p. 310. [back]

166. Of course this is not true. The Calvinist holds that Christ died for sinners, and requires every man to believe that. [back]

167. Comp. Chris. Theol., vol. ii, p. 311. [back]

168. Syst. Theol., vol. ii, pp. 261, 262.  [back]

169. Theol. Inst., vol. ii, p. 112.  [back]

170. Syst. Theol., vol. ii, p. 259. [back]

171. Each of these writers has published a work on Theology consisting of three volumes which, I have been informed, is used as a text-book.  [back]

172. Serm. on the Lord our Righteousness. [back]

173. Ibid. [back]

174. Serm. on the Wedding Garment. [back]

175. 2 Cor. v. 21. [back]

176.Ch. i. 30. [back]

177. It may here be quibbled, that if Christ's righteousness is given by imputation to the sinner, Christ loses it himself. It is a sufficient answer to ask, when God gives life to a dead sinner, does God lose it himself? The term transfer is used under limitation. [back]

178. Syst. Theol., vol. ii. p. 540. [back]

179. Syst. Theol., vol. iii. p. 148. [back]

180. Sola non solitaria. [back]

181. Ch. xi., secs. i. and ii. [back]

182. Questions, 72, 73. [back]

183. Ibid. [back]

184. Serm. on the Righteousness of Faith. [back]

185. How then are the heathen salvable? [back]

186. Serm. on Justification by Faith. [back]

187. Works, New York, 1849, vol. i. p. 313. [back]

188. Theol. Inst., vol. ii, pp. 235, 236. [back]

189. Ibid., p. 242. [back]

190. Comp. Chris. Theol., vol. ii, p. 412. [back]

191. The same distinction, put forth by Dr. Whedon, was considered somewhat at length in the preceding discussion on Election, etc. [back]

192. Syst. Theol., vol. ii. pp. 331, 332, 335, 336. [back]

193. This is erroneously and absurdly termed Repentance by Arminian theologians. [back]

194. See an extract from a sermon of Mr. Wesley quoted by Watson, Theol. Inst., vol. ii, p. 225; Ibid., pp. 101, 213, 214, 250; and Raymond's Syst. Theol., vol. ii, pp. 327-332, 335, 336. [back]

195. Works, vol. v, p. 319, Goold's Ed., On Justification. [back]

196. See Thornwell's masterly discussion of the point in his Validity of the Baptism of Rome, Coll. Writ., vol. iii, p. 352, ff. [back]

197. Inst., vol. ii., pp. 94, 213. [back]

198. Comp. Chris. Theol., vol. ii, p. 376. [back]

199. Rom. iii, 31. [back]

200. "We obeyed in him, according to the teaching of the apostle in Romans v. 12-21, in the same sense in which we sinned in Adam." Hodge, Syst. Theol., vol. iii, p. 143. [back]

201. Note to American Edition of Meyer's Commentary on Romans. [back]

Table of Contents

Preface

Introductory Remarks

PART I.—SECTION I. THE DOCTRINE OF ELECTION STATED AND PROVED.

SECTION II. THE DOCTRINE OF REPROBATION STATED AND PROVED.

SECTION III. OBJECTIONS FROM THE MORAL ATTRIBUTES OF GOD ANSWERED

1. Objection from Divine Justice.

2. Objection from Divine Goodness.

3. Objection from Divine Wisdom.

4. Objection from Divine Veracity.

SECTION IV. OBJECTIONS FROM THE MORAL AGENCY OF MAN ANSWERED

PART II—TRANSITIONAL OBSERVATIONS

SECTION I. THE CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION STATED

SECTION II. GROUND OF JUSTIFICATION.

SECTION III. NATURE OF JUSTIFICATION.

SECTION IV. CONDITION OF JUSTIFICATION.

Endnotes:

Table of Contents

Preface

Introductory Remarks

PART I.—SECTION I. THE DOCTRINE OF ELECTION STATED AND PROVED.

SECTION II. THE DOCTRINE OF REPROBATION STATED AND PROVED.

SECTION III. OBJECTIONS FROM THE MORAL ATTRIBUTES OF GOD ANSWERED

1. Objection from Divine Justice.

2. Objection from Divine Goodness.

3. Objection from Divine Wisdom.

4. Objection from Divine Veracity.

SECTION IV. OBJECTIONS FROM THE MORAL AGENCY OF MAN ANSWERED

PART II—TRANSITIONAL OBSERVATIONS

SECTION I. THE CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION STATED

SECTION II. GROUND OF JUSTIFICATION.

SECTION III. NATURE OF JUSTIFICATION.

SECTION IV. CONDITION OF JUSTIFICATION.

Endnotes: