II. The whole of this train of reasoning, and consequently

the whole Calvinistic System, depends upon the

scriptural accuracy of a proposed definition of the term

Election. p. 67.

1. Unless some better reason, for adopting the calvinistic

definition of the term Election, can be given, than

the mere opinion of a private individual, the whole

will simply amount to this: The calvinistic doctrine

of Election MUST be true, because an individual

THINKS that it is true. p. 68.

2. To allege the mere phraseology of Scripture, as any

evidence, is nothing better than a gross petitio

principii. p. 69.

3. What we require, and what we have a right to require,

is some tangible PROOF, that Calvin's interpretation

of the word Election is, in point both of Ideality

and Causation, its true interpretation. p. 71.

4. The same demand may, of course, be justly made

upon every individual Calvinist of the present day.

p. 72.

CHAPTER VII.

AUGUSTINE. p. 73.

If Calvinism be the mind of Scripture, it must have been well

and familiarly known and received by the Catholic Church

from the very beginning. p. 73.

I. In regard to his advocacy of the Scheme now denominated

Calvinism, we cannot justly charge the Genevan

Reformer with inventive innovation. p. 74.

II. The Scheme may be retrogressively traced, in well nigh

unbroken succession, from Calvin in the sixteenth

century, up to Augustine in the fifth century. p. 74.

1. Augustine, like Calvin, fully maintained the five

Points. p. 75.

(1.) God's Sovereignty and Man's Original Sin. p. 75.

(2.) Absolute Predestination. p. 76.

(3.) Particular Redemption. p. 79.

(4.) Effectual Calling. p. 80.

(5.) Final Perseverance. p. 80.

2. In one particular only, that of Regeneration, there

is an apparent difference between Augustine and

Calvin. p. 81.

3. There is no evidence to determine, whether Augustine

was a Supralapsarian or a Sublapsarian. p. 87.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE HISTORICAL VINDICATION OF HIS SYSTEM, PREFERRED

BY AUGUSTINE, AND REPEATED BY CALVIN. p. 92.

Though Calvinism may be traced up to Augustine in the fifth

century, the question will still remain: Whether Augustine

himself was a daring innovator; or whether he propounded

nothing else, than what had been the universally familiar

doctrine of the Church from the very beginning. p. 92.

I. Augustine's vindication of his System, on the score:

that He set forth no new Scheme of doctrine; but that

He faithfully delivered to posterity, what had been

actually received from antiquity. p. 92.

1. Augustine's controversy with Pelagius and the Pela-

gians. p. 93.

2. The allegation made against him by the Christians of

Marseilles that, In superfluously maintaining his

own peculiar views of Election and Reprobation,

he was advancing an entirely new System, which

had never before been heard of, which had no
evidential sanction from the writings of the Fathers
that preceded him, and which was notoriously
contrary to the received sense of the Church
Catholic. p. 96.

3. Augustine's reply to the allegation. p. 99.

(1.) His attempt to enlist the Church Catholic in his

cause. p. 103.

(2.) His adduction of Cyprian and Gregory-Nazianzen

and Ambrose. p. 105.

4. The Council of Orange. A. D. 441. p. 111.

II. Calvin ventures not an appeal to any higher antiquity

than that of Augustine, save in so far as he repeats,

after his own fashion, Augustine's appeal. p. 115.

1. While, omitting Cyprian and Gregory-Nazianzen as

evidently conscious of their total irrelevancy, he

mentions Ambrose alone; he unfairly employs

language, which would lead an unguarded reader to

suppose, that Augustine claimed as his own the

suffrage of All Christian Antiquity. p. 116.

2. By way, apparently, of exciting prejudice against the
allegation of the Massilian Christians, he most
inaccurately intimates: that. That allegation was

preferred by THE PELAGIANS with whom Augustine

was then engaged in controversy. p. 117.

(1.) The very language of Augustine to the Massilian

Christians shews, that he was proposing to them

a novelty. p. 122.

(2.) He himself elsewhere confesses, that his view of
Election was the result of his own research and
discovery: whence plainly it follows, that he
had not received it from his catechetical

instructors under the aspect of the ancient and

authorised doctrine of the Church. p. 123.

с

CHAPTER IX.

CLEMENT OF ROME AND IGNATIUS OF ANTIOCH. p. 125.

Mr. Milner, the Historian of the Church of Christ, adduces

Clement of Rome and Ignatius of Antioch, as witnesses for

The Doctrinal Calvinism of the earliest Primitive Church.

p. 125.

I. The theory of Mr. Milner in regard to Primeval Doc-

trine. p. 126.

1. The passage, in substantiation of it, adduced by him

from Clement. p. 126.

2. The passage, in substantiation of it, adduced by him

from Ignatius. p. 127.

II. An examination of the effective amount of the testimony

brought forward by Mr. Milner. p. 128.

1. Language of Clement. p. 129.

(1.) Inaccuracy of the character, which Mr. Milner

ascribes to Clement's first Epistle to the

Corinthians. p. 129.

(2.) Mr. Milner assumes, what he ought to have

proved that Clement and Augustine use the

word Election in the same SENSE. p. 130.

2. Language of Ignatius. p. 135.

(1.) Mr. Milner again assumes, what he ought to have

proved. p. 135.

(2.) Unjust allegation preferred by Mr. Milner against

those, who allow no higher origin to Calvinism

than the age and authority of Augustine. p. 138.

CHAPTER X.

JUSTIN MARTYR. p. 141.

A statement of the difficulty, which inevitably springs out of

Mr. Milner's first theory: that The Primitive Church from

the beginning held and taught the Scheme of doctrine advocated

by Augustine and Calvin. p. 141.

I. An evident feeling of this difficulty compelled him to

frame a second or subsidiary theory; which, from the

admitted FACT that Justin never explicitly owns

the doctrine of Augustinian Election, and from the

additional well known FACT that Justin was once a

Platonist, lays it down: that, Through Justin's in-

fluence and authority, the genuine primitive doctrine

of Election gradually vanished from the Church in the

course of the second century; while the pelagianising

notion of a Self-determining Free Will gradually

usurped its place. p. 142.

II. An examination of this second theory, which the neces-

sity of his first theory has compelled Mr. Milner to

frame and to propose. p. 145.

1. The palpable inconsistency and moral impossibility of

Mr. Milner's speculation respecting Justin. p. 145.

2. Mr. Milner's mode of accounting for Justin's acknow-

ledged silence in regard to the doctrine of Augustinian

Election, on the plea: that A spirit of Philosophy

produced in him notions not altogether agreeable to

the genius of the Gospel. p. 149.

3. Justin, though he never owns the doctrine of
Augustinian Election, is not, as Mr. Milner's
language would lead his readers to suppose, silent
upon the topic of Election itself. On the contrary,
he twice mentions it: and, what is fatal alike to