him to us as the doctor of grace; and therefore they who should go and seek in his writings, what is the doctrine of the church concerning this article of faith, would be like those who should seek in Origen what we ought to think concerning the Trinity, instead of consulting St. Athanasius." H. E. xi 358.

Have a

This wants no commentary, and is much the same thing as saying more openly, Cave canem. care of Chrysostom and of the Greek fathers, on the article of predestination. Submit yourselves humbly to the divine authority of popes, councils, and tradition.

S. Basnage, in his large account of the Pelagian heresy, Annal. iii. writes in the true spirit of a partyThe historian disappears, and in his room you find the bigoted Calvinist. I shall therefore make little use of him upon this occasion.

man.

"There is no one question which has raised greater controversies in the church, than that concerning the grace of God and the power of man. Some, in order to vindicate God from being the author of sin, have been so solicitous to maintain the perfect freedom of men's faculties, and their liberty of choosing good or evil, that they either have, or have been thought to have diminished from the absoluteness of the sovereignty, or from the efficacy of the grace of God. They have been thought, I say, to diminish from the grace of God: for whether they have really done so, or only by their adversaries have been represented as doing so, is not very evident. Others, in the contrary extreme,

that they might be sure not to ascribe too little to the efficacy of the divine grace, have supposed men to have no natural powers at all of acting or willing, no use of the original faculties given them at their creation, no liberty of will or freedom of choice in matters of mo rality and religion. By which doctrine they have consequently (even themselves seeing and acknowledging the consequence) introduced an absolute necessity and fatality upon men's actions. From whence it follows, in the next step of deduction (though this indeed they are not willing to see, but in truth it does necessarily and unavoidably follow) that God himself, and not man, will be the author of sin." S. Clarke, Serm.

XXX.

"One cause of trouble of mind to melancholy pious persons, is an apprehension that possibly they may be excluded from mercy, by some positive decree and fore-appointment of God. From nature and reason this apprehension cannot arise, because it is absolutely contrary to all our natural notions of the divine attributes, to conceive that the infinitely merciful and good God, whose tender mercies are over all his works, should for his own pleasure, and not for any wickedness of theirs, eternally decree any of his creatures to be miserable. Neither in Scripture indeed, any more than in the reason of things (but only in the writings of some unskilful interpreters), is there any foundation for any such apprehension. For supposing there be some few obscure texts, which unstable persons may be apt to misinterpret to their own and others' disquiet;

yet is it not fit that the whole tenour, the whole design and perpetual aim of Scripture, should be the interpreter of particular passages? And is not this the whole current of Scripture from one end to the other, to declare that far be it from God, that he should do wickedness; and from the Almighty, that he should commit iniquity; for the work of a man shall he render unto him, and cause every man to find according to his ways? That the judge of all the earth will do what is right? That he will render to every man according to what he has done, whether it be good or evil? That with righteousness shall he judge the world and the people with equity? That God made not death, neither has he pleasure in the destruction of the living? And if this were not the whole tenour of Scripture, yet is it not undeniable, that the particular texts which speak after this manner, are infinitely clearer and plainer, and less possible to be misapplied than those which are imagined to look the contrary way? Does not God swear by himself; As I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, but rather that he should turn from his ways and live? Does not the apostle St. Peter declare, that God is not willing that any perish, but that all should come to repentance? And St. Paul, that God would have all men to be saved, and to come to the know, ledge of the truth? And is it not fit that these plain texts which cannot be mistaken, should be the rule by which the obscurer ones are to be interpreted, rather than that the obscurer places should cause the plain

ones to be perverted or neglected? And yet indeed even the obscure ones are not so much so in themselves, as by our want of attending to their true meaning. The ninth chapter of the epistle to the Romans, which has sometimes perplexed the minds of well-meaning persons, was by all Christians in the first ages without difficulty, and is now again by all rational men, who attend to the scope of the apostle's argu. ment, more than to the schemes of men's own inventing, clearly understood to be written, not concerning God's choosing some particular persons, and rejecting others from eternal salvation, but concerning his rejecting the nation of the Jews, and receiving in the Gentiles to be partakers of the benefits of the Gospel: and the elect there spoken of are the whole Christian church, whereof all nevertheless do not attain unto salvation; and the reprobate there mentioned, are the whole nation of the unbelieving Jews, whereof all nevertheless were not finally cast off: And where God's fore-determination of particular persons is spoken of, it is not a fore-appointment to eternal happiness or misery, but always to some temporal office or advantage only. Thus of Jacob and Esau it was determined, before either of them was born, or had done either good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, it was determined, what? only that the elder should be servant to the younger. And when it was fore-appointed that our Saviour should be betrayed, it was likewise fore-appointed, not that Judas. should betray him, but that our Lord should choose

on purpose into the number of his apostles one such person as Judas, whose own wickedness he saw would make him a proper instrument of accomplishing that design. And when St. Paul asks, Who maketh thee to differ from another? he does not speak of moral dispositions, but of miraculous qualifications for offices and dignities in the church; as is evident from the context. And when God hardened Pharaoh's heart, it was not that God originally made him wicked, but his own obstinate wickedness made him worthy to be judicially hardened, and a fit person to be raised up by providence, for the manifestation of God's glory in his exemplary destruction." S. Clarke, Serm.

clxxii.

The Pelagians were charged with holding that man was able to perform a perfect obedience. This was a nice point in the controversy; and the Pelagians reasoned about it thus:

When a man commits a sin, it is by his own fault, else he would contract no guilt, and deserve no punishment. He might therefore have abstained from it by his own natural powers, or by the assistance of God, which would have been granted to him if he had qualified himself to receive it. If this be so of any sin, and of each sin, it must hold true of all the sins which a man commits; and he might have avoided them.

Therefore it is naturally possible that a man may live without sin; but yet, morally speaking, all circumstances being considered, it is impossible for a man to offend in no instance; and it is a certain fact, that