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that God desires the salvation of sinners, instead of compel. ling them to sin after having foreordained them to everlasting death, as Presbyterians blasphemously allege.

The following passage addressed to his son Timothy is still more to our purpose. “I desire, therefore, first of all, that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all men, . . . . . for this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour, who will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” 1 Tim. ii. 1-4. Comments on such a text as this are unnecessary, and would only weaken the impression it irresistibly makes on the reader, that God wills the salvation of all, and that Christ gave himself a ransom for all. What a contrast between this obvious doctrine of the blessed Apostle and that of the Confession, that " by the decree of God some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life, and others foreordained unto everlasting death”! *

Moreover, it is to be remarked that St. Paul often declares that “ with God there is no respect of persons.” Rom. ii. 11; Col. iii. 25. The same declaration is also to be found in other parts of the Sacred Scriptures, particularly 1 St. Peter i. 17. “ You invoke the Father, him who without respect

i of persons judgeth every man according to bis work.” What can be the meaning of such declarations in the view of Presbyterians ? These words, we grant, do not imply that God bestows his graces and favors upon all in an equal degree, for the contrary is seen every day in the natural order; one has a remarkable natural facility for the acquisition of knowledge, another is naturally dull. The words do not imply, that, in things not of necessity but of liberality, God may not prefer one to another. If I choose to give alms to one beggar, and not to another, I am not an accepter of persons, for the favor I bestow is due to neither. God bestows spiritual favors on some

We cannot refrain here from relating, that, when the editor of this journal was about joining the Presbyterian Church, many years ago, he objected to this article of the Confession. “So do I," answered the pastor of the church. " It is repugnant to the word of God, and revolting to human reason; and last year, when I was in the General Assembly, I did all I could to get it struck out or modified, but was not able to secure a majority in favor of my motion. However, you need not let it trouble you. What we ask you to believe is not this Confession, but the Bible, and we only put this Confession into your hands as an excellent summary of what we believe to be the teaching of the Bible, without, however, binding you to believe it in opposition to the word of God.”

which he does not on others, but without respect of persons. He chooses and calls one to high dignity in the Church, and leaves another in the lowest ranks of the laity ; but in this there is no respect of persons, because the ecclesiastical dignity is due to nobody. But there would evidently be gross respect of persons, if you should condemn one to punishment, without any motive save your own will, because punishment is due only to the commission of a crime ; and it would be the most odious respect of persons conceivable, if you should purposely make one commit a crime in order to have a pretext for punishing him. But this is the respect of persons Presbyterians ascribe to the Almighty.

The view we here take confirms the interpretation we have given to the passage quoted by the Confession from the Epistle to the Romans. " I have loved Jacob and hated Esau.” There is no respect of persons here, because the honor of being chief of the people of God and father of the Messiah was due neither to Jacob nor to Esau. Again, “ Whom he will be hardeneth.” When one has once thrown himself into sin and voluntarily hardened his heart, the Almighty may justly and does justly leave him in his obduracy, even by withdrawing some of the graces previously granted. For it would be against all order of justice and providence to say, the more rebellious and sinful one becomes, the greater and more multiplied should be the graces bestowed.

The proofs against Calvinism which we have adduced from our inspired volumes are sufficient ; but the dogma of predestination is so repugnant to reason itself, especially when enlightened and directed by faith, that we cannot refrain from offering a few additional remarks. The wisdom of God is totally at variance with predestination to sin and hell. God, in creating the world, and man his noblest work, must have had a motive, and a motive supremely reasonable and worthy of his infinite wisdom. He made man for an end, and what end we all know, from the very elementary lessons of the Christian religion. One of the first questions put to the child in the Catechism is that which requires him to assign the end of his own creation.

66 Who made you ? God. Why did he make you? To know him, love him, serve him in this life, and be eternally happy with him in the next.” This is the end for which Christians have always believed man was created. But on predestinarian principles the answer here assigned could not consistently be given. The Presbyterian child, to answer in conformity with NEW SERIES.

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VOL. I. NO. II.

the teachings of his sect, must answer to the question, Why did God make you?—I don't know; perhaps to offend and disobey him here, and be eternally miserable hereafter. But this answer, which follows rigorously from Presbyterian principles, is so revolting to reason, so absurd, so contrary to the notions which all have of the will of God to save all men, and of their redemption through Christ, that Presbyterians themselves. shrink from giving it. In their Larger Catechism, they ask, "What is the chief end of man?" and answer, "Man's chief end is to glorify God and fully enjoy him for ever." Truth is powerful and will out, in spite of all efforts to conceal it. After having told us in the Confession of Faith that by "God's decree, for the manifestation of his glory, some are predestinated unto everlasting life, and others foreordained unto everlasting death," they now tell us, in their Catechism, the end of man is "to glorify God and enjoy him for ever." If the end of man be to glorify God, then God made him for that end; then God made all that they might enjoy him; and then he foreordained none to everlasting death, unless for their own demerits; for otherwise the end for which he made them would not have been to enjoy him, but that they might be separated from him and burn eternally in hell.

Again, a God of infinite wisdom and mercy can hate no being without cause or motive, as is evident of itself. Hence, the royal prophet represents it as a horrid thing that his enemies "hated him without cause." (Pss. xxxiv. 19, lxviii. 5, cxviii. 61.) But if the Almighty from the beginning had foreordained some to everlasting death, he would have hated them without cause. The foreordination is the effect of hatred, of hatred as relentless, as intense, as eternity is long; for God could not thus foredoom the objects of his love. The question does not turn on a greater or less degree of happiness and glory bestowed upon some and refused to others. For we grant that God might have made us solely for a temporal end, and he has created angels who are superior to men, and angels of different degrees of eminence. He may also have less love for one than for another at his pleasure; but he cannot hate any one at his pleasure. Hatred requires essentially some demerit in the object hated, or else it is injustice and cruelty. Consequently, predestination to hell without motive of demerit in the predestinated, from the mere will of God, is unjust and cruel, which cannot be affirmed of God without absurdity and blasphemy.

Punishment, furthermore, is evidently unjust, unless for a crime committed. This is a most manifest and certain principle of both the natural and the eternal law. But eternal death is the most awful punishment, and therefore to inflict it where there is no crime committed is the most frightful injustice. But there is no difference between inflicting punishment where no crime is committed, and willing the punishment and then causing the crime to be committed that the punishment may be inflicted. Therefore, to suppose that God first wills or predestinates men to eternal death, and then makes them sin or fall into crime that he may inflict it, is charging him with the most frightful injustice. The conclusion is irresistible and undeni

able.

Presbyterians tell us that by this predestination to hell God shows his infinite power and his sovereign justice. But who is not revolted at the bare thought of an intelligent being showing his power by punishing and torturing his creatures, not for their offences, but for the sake of showing his power? Cruelty to animals is considered unjustifiable even in men; how much more the infliction of eternal punishment on reasonable beings, for the sake of showing his power, by their Creator? When we read of the treatment the Helotes received from the Spartans, we shudder at the flagrant violation of the rights of humanity. They were excluded from the cities and subjected to severe labor; and, moreover, at a certain period in each year, were flogged, for no crime but simply that of being Helotes. They were made drunk in order to create in the Spartan youth a disgust for drunkenness; and when they were becoming too numerous, the young Spartans were sent to hunt them to death as wild beasts. What a horrible state of society does not this fact disclose! But to the everlasting shame of predestinarians, on their system, the good God, whom we are taught to call our Father, and who reveals himself as the Father of mercies, is made to act in regard to men and angels incomparably worse than. this. For before they were created, before they had committed or could commit any evil action whatever, they were predestinated to everlasting death, and the sin they commit was intended, foreordained, as the means of fulfilling the decree which doomed them to the everlasting death! He creates men that he may show his power in damning them, and makes them sin that he may damn them justly, show his sovereign justice in their damnation! The bare statement is enough to curdle an ordinary man's blood; what, then, can Cal

vinists be who profess to believe it? and what must be their views of God, to suppose that such a manifestation of power and justice can redound to his glory? Why, even the Devil himself would alınost scruple to accept of such glory, and spurn the sycophant who would award it to him.

The Scripture authorities we have adduced, and the reasonings we have offered, are undoubtedly amply sufficient for our purpose ; but our conclusion will acquire a firmer hold on the mind, by being invested with the authority of the Church, the seal of truth and correct interpretation of Scripture.

As early as 475, we learn from ecclesiastical history, a priest of the Gallic Church, called Lucidus, * broached errors similar to those of our modern predestinarians. The bishops of Gaul were not slow to bring him to an abjuration of his errors, and in a letter which he wrote to a council of bishops convened at Arles, he expressly condemns his past errors, on account of which the council was assembled. He condemns the assertion, that “Christ bad not died for all ” ; that “the prescience of God condemns some violently to death"; that “ those who perish, perish through the will of God”; and that “some are doomed for death, and others predestinated for

These errors do not seem to have spread far at that time ; but we find, a few years later, another council, held at Orange, 529, asserting, “ that some are predestinated unto evil by divine power, we not only do not admit, but, if there be any that would admit such great evil, we give them anathema with all detestation."

A monk called Gotescalchus, or Gottschalk, in the ninth century, broached anew the very errors we find in the Confession of Faith. This monk was then residing with Count Eberhard, to whom a learned bishop, Raban of Mayence,

“I hear that you keep in your house a certain Gottschalk, who teaches that divine predestination imposes on men such a necessity, that, even if they exert themselves to the best of their abilities, with the help of divine grace, to work out their salvation, they will exert themselves in vain, if they are not predestinated for life ; as if God by his predestination impelled men to sin ! This doctrine has already thrown many persons into despair. It has made them say, 'What need is there of

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