eager to comprehend all that is great and glorious in the solar light itself, in the incomprehensible light of a miraculous Godhead? Do we not know, that God dwells in splendour inaccessible? And yet do we approach, or rather do we presume to approach it? Are we not aware, that his judgments are inscrutable? And yet do we endea

And these things we do,

vour to scrutinise them? before we are habituated even to the faint lustre of his promises and precepts, with a vision still imperfect blindly rushing into the majesty of that light, which, secret and unseen, has never been by words or miracles exhibited. What wonder, then, if, while we explore its majesty, we are overwhelmed with glory!

THE DOCTRINE OF PREDESTINATION [CONCLUDED].

EPHES. i. 5.

Having predestinated us to the adoption of children by Jesus Christ.

THE doctrine of predestination, according to the system adopted by the Lutherans, the outline of which on a former occasion I endeavoured to trace, was never intended to excite enthusiasm, or encourage presumption, but rather to administer solid consolation to pious and reflecting minds. Thus, they said, amidst the mutabilities of all things temporal, the subversions of ecclesiastical establishments, and the ruins of empires, we may with comfort and confidence assert, that God has predestinated the perpetual existence of a Church, against which the gates of hell shall not prevail,-of a Church, which, founded upon the rock of his promise, can never fall, so that in vain the rains come, 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 im

portant truth, that Almighty God is no respecter of persons, no capricious tyrant, 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 detailed. 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 Lu

therans. 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 Scriptures.

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 salvation, 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 maledicto 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; "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," 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