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BOOK I.

THE NEGATIVE TESTIMONY OF HISTORY IN REGARD TO THE TRUE SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF ELECTION AND PREDESTINATION.

Sicut Apostoli inter se diversa non docuerunt, ita et Apostolici non contraria Apostolis ediderunt. Quinimo impium esset, asseverare Apostolos viva voce contraria scriptis suis tradidisse. Paulus disertè dicit, eadem se in omnibus Ecclesiis docuisse. Confess. p. 19.

Confess. Helvet. sect. ii. in Syllog.

B

CHAPTER I.

PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS.

THAT SOME Doctrine of Election is taught in Holy Scripture, can be doubted, I think, by no one, who, with even moderate attention, peruses the sacred volume.

But, as to WHAT Doctrine of Election is inculcated in Holy Scripture, much diversity of opinion may easily prevail: for this matter can, in no wise, be deemed a point equally evident.

Accordingly, while the bare fact of The scriptural inculcation of SOME Predestinarian Doctrine has never been denied: great difference of sentiment has subsisted, and indeed still subsists, in regard to the important question of WHAT Predestinarian Doctrine ought to be received as the mind of Divine Revelation.

I. Three several Schemes of Exposition have been advanced and maintained, as respectively setting forth what ought to be esteemed the genuineness of Scriptural Verity.

1. By the Remonstrants or Arminians, the IDEA

of Election is pronounced to be The Election of certain individuals, out of the great mass of mankind, directly and immediately, to eternal life and its MOVING CAUSE is asserted to be God's eternal Prevision of the future persevering holiness and consequent moral fitness of the individuals themselves, who thence have been thus elected.

2. By the Nationalists (if, for the convenience of brief nomenclature, I may employ the term), the IDEA of Election is determined to be The Election of certain whole nations into the pale of the visible Church Catholic, which Election, however, relates purely to their privileged condition in this world, extending not to their collective eternal state in another world: and its MOVING CAUSE is pronounced to be That same absolute Good Pleasure of God, which, through the exercise of his sovereign power, led him to choose the posterity of Jacob, rather than the posterity of Esau, that upon earth they should become his peculiar people and be made the depositories and preservers of the true religion.

3. By the Calvinists or Austinists, the IDEA of Election is judged to be The Election of certain individuals, out of the great mass of mankind, directly and immediately, to eternal life, while all other individuals are either passively left or actively doomed to a certainty of eternal death: and its MOVING CAUSE is defined to be God's un

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