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of predestination, every man in reality is judged before he is born.

On other subjects Calvin is deservedly considered a learned and elegant writer; but his doctrines respecting election and predestination are so indefensible, that his strongest arguments in support of them appear to me to deserve no attention. However, it is but fair that I should give a short specimen of them, (which is all that can be done in a treatise of this kind,) that the reader may judge for himself: at the same time I can assure him, that this specimen is by no means selected as being either better or worse than any other which expresses Calvin's sentiments on these subjects; for whenever he writes on them, he is equally confused, weak, and inconclusive.

From Calvin's Institution of the Christian Religion, in four Books, Quarto, Geneva, Aug. 1, 1559. Extract from the 1st Section of the 22d Chapter of the 3d Book.

"All these things which we have set are not "without controversy among many, especially "the free election of the faithful, which yet can"not be weakened; for the common sort do think "that God, as he foreseeth what every man's de"servings shall be, so maketh difference between men, that therefore whom he foreknoweth that they shall be not unworthy of his grace, them

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" he adopteth into place of children; and whose "natures he espieth that they will be bent to "wickedness and ungodliness, them he appointeth "to the damnation of death: so by cloking it "with the veil of foreknowledge, they do not "only darken election, but feign that it hath beginning elsewhere. And this opinion received "of the common sort is not the opinion of the common sort alone, for in all ages it hath had great maintainers; which I do plainly confess, "to the intent that no man should trust that "it shall much hurt our cause if their names be objected against us; for the truth of God herein "is more certain than that it may be shaken, more clear than that it may be darkened with "the authority of men. But some other, neither "exercised in the Scripture, nor worthy of any voice, do rail at this doctrine with greater ma"liciousness than that their forward pride ought "to be suffered; because God, choosing some af"ter his own will, leaveth other some, they pick

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a quarrel against him: but if the thing itself be "known for true, what shall they prevail with "brawling against God? We teach nothing but "that which is approved by experience, that it was alway at liberty for God to bestow his grace to whom he will. I will not enquire whereby the posterity of Abraham excelled other, but by that vouchsafing whereof there is

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"found no cause elsewhere than in God. Let "them answer why they be men rather than oxen 66 or asses. When it was in the hand of God to "make them dogs, he fashioned them after his

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own image will they give leave to brute beasts to quarrel with God for their estate, as though "the difference were unrighteous ?"

Chapter 23. Sections 1. and 2.

"It is not meet to assign the preparing unto "destruction to any other thing than to the se"cret counsel of God. These sayings indeed "should be sufficient for the godly and sober, and "them which remember themselves to be men; "but forasmuch as these venemous dogs do cast

up not only one sort of venom against God, we "will as the matter shall serve answer to every one particularly. Foolish men do divers ways " quarrel with God, as though they had him subject to their accusations: first, therefore, they

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ask, by what right the Lord is angry with his creatures, of whom he hath not been first pro"voked by any offence? for to condemn to de"struction whom he will, agreeth rather with "the wilfulness of a tyrant, than the lawful sen"tence of a judge; therefore they say, that there "is cause why men should charge God, if by his "bare will, without their own deserving, they be

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predestinate to eternal death. If such thoughts "do at any time come into the minds of the godly

"to break their violent assaults, they shall be sufficiently armed with this, although they had no

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more, if they consider how great wickedness it "is even so much as to enquire of the causes of "the will of God, since of all things that are it "is the cause, and worthily so ought to be; for "if it have any cause, then somewhat must go "before it whereto it must be as it were bound, "which it is unlawful once to imagine; for the "will of God is so the highest rule of righteous

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ness, that whatsoever he willeth, even for this "that he willeth it, it ought to be taken for righ"teous. When therefore it is asked, why the "Lord did it? it is to be answered, because he "willed it. But if you go further in asking, why "he willed it? thou askest some greater and

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higher thing than the will of God, which can"not be found. Wherefore if any man assail us "with such words, why God hath from the beginning predestinated some to death, which, "when they were not, could not yet deserve the judgment of death? we, instead of answer, may again on our side ask of them, what they think "that God oweth to man, if he will judge him by his own nature ?"

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This hateful doctrine of absolute decrees was never thought of in the three first centuries, or before the time of Augustin; an indisputable proof that Scripture does not naturally suggest it;

for had it done so, some of the Fathers, who were as learned and as conversant in the Scriptures as Augustin, would have taken notice of and enforced it; but they never did. Mosheim observes, that it was eagerly adopted into the Romish Church; and no wonder, for it is easy to perceive how much the doctrine of peculiar election is calculated to gain proselytes to any communion. Would to God the corrupt doctrines of absolute and unconditional decrees had ever been confined to the Romish communion, and that they had never found their way into the reformed Church, especially into the writings of those great men, Luther and Calvin; men to whom the world are so highly indebted for the noble and courageous" stand they made against the impiety, domination, and wicked encroachments of the Church of Rome, and whose names on this account will be transmitted to the latest ages with everlasting honour: but, at the same time, it is ever to be lamented that they should have tarnished their great and illustrious talents, by retaining so much as they did of the spirit of Popery; for Mosheim informs us, that the doctrines of absolute predestination, irresistible grace, and human impotence, were never carried to a more excessive length, or maintained with more violent obstinacy, than they were by Luther*: and that Calvin maintained, that the

* Vol. ii. p. 173. Maclaine's translation.

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