but still, through sin and perverseness, with a possibility of their not attaining to it: for, with the primitive Christians, the immediate purpose or business of Election was not Eternal Life itself, but An Entrance into the visible Church in order to a thus mediate attainment of Eternal Life.

Accordingly, when a primitive writer speaks of The Elect, his mind being preoccupied with his own familiar IDEALITY of the word Election, he constantly uses the terms We and Us; plainly employing those terms, as equivalent to We professed Christians or Us professed Christians : and, in like manner, when a message is to be delivered to The Elect as such, the messenger has no difficulty in determining or ascertaining what precise individuals are the Elect; on the contrary, he evidently considers himself, as sent to All who are professed and admitted members of the visible Church Catholic.

2. In strict agreement with this well-defined and well-understood IDEALITY, we find our early writers ever considering The Election of the house of Israel collectively to be God's peculiar people, as a type and shadow and homogeneous exemplar of The Election of the Christian Church collectively to be an elect race and a holy nation and a peculiar people specially adopted of God in contradistinction to the great mass of unbelievers who have not been thus adopted.

But the Election of Israel was the election of a certain family, containing certain individuals, out of the great mass of the unbelieving and idolatrous world, not to an irreversible certainty of eternal happiness hereafter, but into a Society which henceforth should collectively and (as it were) officially be God's peculium, however its numbers. might hereafter gradually increase, and however some of its individual members might fail spiritually to profit by their advantages.

Therefore the antitypical and homogeneous Election of the Christian Church must, as we actually find to be the case, have been analogously viewed by the early divines, as an election of various families and individuals, out of the great mass of reprobated Unbelievers, not to an irreversible certainty of eternal salvation hereafter, but into a Society, which, occupying the place of the ancient apostate Levitical Church, should henceforth, with increasing numbers, constitute the officially peculiar people of God, whatever might be the precise character of certain individuals comprehended within it.

3. Such a view of the matter produced, of necessity, the opinion: that, Although all the Elect are chosen into the Church, in order to their final salvation through the medium of personal faith and holiness; yet God's ultimate purpose and design of Election, inasmuch as he employs only moral suasion and not physically irresistible coercion, is

itself conditional, and may through man's ness be frustrated.

perverse

This being the case, though ALL within the pale of the visible Church were deemed the Elect of God; because, out of the great mass of the unbelieving world, they had been chosen into the Church to holiness, in order to their final attainment of everlasting felicity: yet, as from instances perpetually occurring we perceive to be the fact, they judged, agreeably to the frequently vituperative language of St. Paul to the Corinthians notwithstanding they are collectively described as called to be Saints or Elect; that, within the pale of the Elected Church of Christ, there might be, and actually were, both good and evil.

Go, says the personified Church to Hermas, and relate to THE ELECT OF GOD his mighty deeds. And thou shalt say unto them: This beast is the figure of the trial that is about to come. If, therefore, ye shall have prepared yourselves, ye may escape it, provided your heart be pure and without spot. But woe to those doubtful ones, who shall hear these words and despise them! It were better for them never to have been born *.

4. The general consequence, therefore, of the primitive IDEALITY of Election, was obviously, as indeed it was declaredly, the following.

Election into the pale of the visible Church,

*Herm. Past. lib. i. vis. 4. § 2.

though God's moral purpose and design is the attainment of everlasting happiness, does not irreversibly and infallibly assure eternal salvation to a person thus elected: or, in other words, The Elect may finally perish, so far as individual members of the Church of the Election are concerned.

The Sovereign Ruler hath sworn, by his own glory, concerning HIS ELECT: Even now, if any one shall sin, he shall not have salvation *.

Beware, my sons, lest peradventure these your dissentions should defraud you of eternal life. How will you instruct THE ELECT OF GOD, when you yourselves have no discipline †?

If, forsaking the Church when a man has been a confessor, any person shall have exchanged his first faith for later perfidy, he cannot, merely by reason of his confession, flatter himself, as if he was ELECT to the reward of glory: since, from this very conduct, the deservedness of his punishment is only increased. For the Lord ELECTED Judas also among the Apostles: and yet Judas afterward betrayed the Lord‡.

A person, who is ELECTED, may both be tempted and perish §.

Cyprian. de unit. eccles. Oper. vol. i. p. 118.

§ Hieron. Comment. in Ezech. xx. Oper. vol. iv. p. 389.

CHAPTER III.

THE CAUSATION OF ELECTION ACCORDING TO THE

PRIMITIVE CHURCH.

As, in point of IDEALITY, the doctrine of Ecclesiastical Individual Election was, from the beginning, held by the early Christians: so, in point of FACT, that doctrine could not but be even palpably felt to set forth an indisputable truth. It was only necessary for a man to use his eyes, in order that he might perceive the naked circumstance of Certain Individuals, out of the great mass of the unbelieving world, being elected into the pale of the visible Church Catholic.

But, while this IDEALITY of Election itself was maintained, some speculation could scarcely fail, ere long, to arise respecting the CAUSATION of such Election.

It was seen, that, in point of bare fact, certain individuals, out of the unbelieving world whether jewish or gentile, were elected into the pale of the visible Christian Church; just as, heretofore, certain individuals, out of the midst of the apostatic