Such, when controversy at length sprang up from the inculcation of Austinism, was the System, in point of IDEALITY, which was maintained as the ancient System against a new System. The absence, therefore, of all controversy on behalf of either Arminianism or Nationalism, and the absence of all controversy on behalf of Calvinism until the time of Augustine when it was confidently alleged to be a mere unauthorised novelty, certainly demonstrate, that neither Calvinism nor Nationalism nor Arminianism could have been the System entertained, as apostolical, by the Primitive Church.

II. Precisely the same remarks, which have been thus employed in the case of the three several most popular modern Systems, will serve to introduce an inquiry into the nature of the aboriginal Scheme of Doctrine.

That the ancients must have entertained some opinion in regard to the import of the scriptural terms Election and Predestination, cannot be doubted and that this opinion, whatever in point of IDEALITY and CAUSATION it might be, passed universally current, or at least with no change beyond what from its plausibility might well escape

et immaculati; hoc est, qui sancti et immaculati ante non fuimus, ut postea essemus.-Nos, antequam essemus, prædestinati sumus, et tunc spiritum adoptionis accepimus, quando credidimus in Filium Dei. Hieron. Comment. in Epist. ad Ephes. i. Oper. vol. vi. p. 162. Vide etiam Hieron. Apol. adv. Ruffin. lib. i. c. 6, Oper. vol. ii. p. 199.

animadversion, down to the time of Augustine, is clear from the very absence of all controversy on the subject.

Hence, as we have now negatively settled, what was not the primitive opinion; the next question will be positively, what that primitive opinion really was.

If that opinion, to which the Christians of Marseilles not obscurely allude, can be definitively ascertained, a most important additional inquiry will immediately arise: namely, Whether the primitive opinion will naturally and easily accord with the language of Scripture both under the Law and under the Gospel.

Should the result of such an inquiry be, that The ascertained opinion of the Primitive Church readily acts the part of a key to the language of Scripture; we shall then, I apprehend, have attained as near to certainty, as the nature of moral demonstration will permit.

These matters being settled, yet another inquiry, not abstractedly necessary in itself, yet abundantly important to the members of the Anglican Church, will obviously spring up: namely, Whether the doctrine of the reformed Church of England be the doctrine of the Primitive Church and of Holy Scripture.

Finally, for the satisfaction of our own minds, or (if we may say so without presumption) to vindicate ways of God to man, it may be useful, still with

the

the Primitive Church for our guide and assistant, to inquire into the RATIONALE or PRINCIPLE of the doctrine of Election, as that doctrine was received from Scripture and from the Apostles by venerable Antiquity.

1. In the case of the writer, an inquiry of this sort must, of necessity, have been conducted by him in the silence of the closet, before he himself could have arrived at the result. But, in the case of the reader, the process may be advantageously inverted: for, to the reader, the inquiry will be rendered more clear, if the result be first distinctly laid before him.

Such an arrangement is strictly analogous to the plan adopted in mathematical research: where the theorem, or point to be demonstrated, is, so far as the reader is concerned, made to precede the demonstration. And its advantage is, that, from the first, the reader is brought acquainted with the conclusion: whence, without distraction, he is the more at liberty to watch jealously, whether, in the course of evolving the evidence, the conclusion is legitimately drawn out.

The result, then, to which I have been conducted, is this.

As contradistinguished, both from the doctrine of Calvinistic Election, from the more plausible doctrine of Arminian Election, and from the present (I believe) somewhat popular doctrine of National Election: the primitive Christians,

anterior to the time of Augustine, held, in point of IDEALITY, the doctrine of An Election of certain individuals out of all nations into the pale of the visible Church; with the merciful purpose and intention, on God's part, that through faith and holiness they should attain to everlasting life; but (since the immediate notion of their Election respected only an admission into the Church, not an admission into heaven) with a possibility, through their own perverseness, of their not making their Calling and Election sure, and of thus failing to obtain the conditionally pro

mised reward.

This, in point of IDEALITY, was, so far as I can find, the unvaried doctrine of the Catholic Church, down to the time of Augustine: but, in point of CAUSATION, a very important variety may easily be traced.

Anterior to the time of Clement of Alexandria, who flourished about the latter end of the second century, the impelling CAUSE of Election was believed to be The Absolute Will and Sovereign Pleasure of God.

But, after the time of Clement, the impelling CAUSE of Election was commonly, though not quite universally, supposed to be God's foreknowledge of man's future fitness.

This change, in point of CAUSATION, so far as we can venture to pronounce upon existing evidence, was first introduced by Clement of Alexandria

himself. Its design was, to remove any objections to the older Scheme, which might be started upon the score of God's justice: and its plausibility, united to some shew of accordance with Scripture, secured for it a rapid and easy reception *. Such being its character, it produced no controversy. At all events, the fact of the change itself is certain : and no controversy, so far as I know, is recorded.

Its attempted proof from Scripture lay in Rom. viii. 29; Whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate.

Here, it was argued, God's foreknowledge precedes God's predestination. Therefore the one must be the CAUSE of the other.

The conclusion is plausible: but it is warranted, neither by sound logic, nor by the immediate context.

To make out the conclusion, it is gratuitously assumed in the premises, that God's foreknowledge here imports, not God's general foreknowledge of the future existence of certain individuals, but God's specific foreknowledge of the future characters of those individuals operating in the way of CAUSATION.

Now this purely gratuitous assumption is forthwith contradicted by the immediate context, provided only we cite the entire clause, instead of stopping short in the middle of it.

Whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son.

When the clause is thus fully read, the groundlessness of the assumption immediately appears. A divinely foreseen conformity to the image of God's Son is plainly exhibited, not as the CAUSE, but as the CONSEQUENCE, of predestination.

More piously, however, than judiciously, anxious to remove those injurious reflections upon God's justice, which, even in the time of St. Paul (Rom. ix. 15-24.), were made upon the CAUSATION of the ancient original System: the Christians, at