and the floods descend, and the tempests beat against it (').

While maintaining therefore the election of a collective mass on account of Christ, and not that of each separate individual on account of his own merits, they at the same time inculcated the important truth, that Almighty God is no respecter of persons, no capricious tyrant (2), but just and equitable in his proceedings; that he has sent his Son to be the Saviour of the whole world; and has in consequence predestinated to the adoption of children those, who duly receive and apply the means of salvation, which he has thus gratuitously provided for them, excluding none from his affections, except such as exclude themselves. Nor should it, they thought, be esteemed a point of indifference to be persuaded of his good will towards us as men, and to be assured of it as Christians, as well as to be convinced of possessing a certain title to everlasting happiness; " to an "inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, " and that fadeth not away, reserved for us " in heaven," of which nothing but our own contumacy in crime can deprive us. But the sentiments of the Lutherans on this head I have already sufficiently de

tailed. I proceed, therefore, in the last place, to consider what our own Church has established in her Article upon the same subject; a subject, perplexing only by being contemplated as Calvin contemplated it, who, with all the confidence of the Schools, and the vanity of his country, endeavoured to explain that, which his better judgment should have told him was inexplicable. So far indeed is the Article in question from sanctioning the creed of the French Reformer, that, like those already reviewed, it seems to have been framed in perfect conformity with the less abstruse, and more scriptural, opinions of the Lutherans. With them it teaches an election of Christians out of the human race, conceives abundant consolation derivable from such an election, when piously surveyed, and not perverted by a profligate fatalism; and, lastly, represents its position upon the point as consistent with God's universal promises and revealed will, expressly declared to us in the holy Scrip

tures.

But in order accurately to comprehend its scope, it will be requisite to examine it more minutely.

"Predestination to life" it defines to be

"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 sal“vation, as vessels made to honour." The tendency and propriety of the leading terms adopted in this definition, we immediately perceive, when we recollect the system of the Scholastics, to which it was opposed. They believed predestination to be God's everlasting purpose to confer grace and glory upon individuals, who deserve the first congruously, and the latter condignly; conceiving us competent by our own virtues to extricate ourselves from crime, and its alarming consequences. Our Church, on the other hand, always keeping the idea of redemption in view, states it to be the everlasting purpose of the Almighty, to deliver from a state of malediction and destruction, (" a male"dicto et exitio liberare,") from a guilt, which none can themselves obliterate; and to render eternally happy, through Christ, or Christianity, as vessels before dishonourable thus formed to honour, those, whom

he has elected not as meritorious individuals separately, but as a certain class of persons, as Christians collectively, "whom " he has chosen in Christ out of mankind."

After having explained the nature, and slightly alluded to the objects, of that predestination, which alone it inculcates, the Article proceeds to enlarge upon the latter point, and to specify the peculiar characteristics of this highly favoured community. "Wherefore," it is added, "they which be "endued with so excellent a benefit of God, "be called according to his purpose, by "his Spirit working in due season," Spiritu ejus opportuno tempore operante; by his Spirit operating, not irresistibly at pleasure, without regard to time and circumstances, but conformably with the established constitution of human nature, at a seasonable period, when the mind is indisposed to resistance, or, as in infancy, incapable of it (3); "they through grace obey "the calling, they are justified freely;" are justified without any expiation or satisfaction for sin on their part, Christ himself only being the meritorious cause of it;" "they are made the children of God by adoption; they walk religiously in good "works; and at length by God's mercy,"

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not by condign merit, "attain everlasting "felicity." Such is the description given of those, who are predestinated to life; a description, which, when connected with the preceding clause, manifestly points out the election of a part out of the whole, yet not, according to the tenet of the Romish Church, the election of men preferred one before another on account of their personal qualities, but of Christians, distinguished as an aggregate from the remainder of the human race, by a characteristical discrimination, by being called, justified, and sanctified, through Christianity.

The definition of the doctrine being completed, the subsequent passage, still carrying on the contrast with the Church of Rome, touches, in guarded but not ambiguous language, upon the application of it. "As the godly consideration,” it remarks, "of predestination and our election in "Christ," of the election of us Christians, " is full of sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable "comfort to godly persons, and such as "feel in themselves the working of the "Spirit of Christ," vim Spiritus Christi ; the influence of that holy Spirit, of which the Gospel speaks, and not of that meritorious principle, which the Schools termed