CHAPTER III.

NATIONALISM.

By the Nationalists, 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 the MOVING CAUSE of that Election 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.

I. I have stated, to the best of my apprehension, the points and bearings of the System now before us: lest, however, I should have mistaken its character, I subjoin, as a corrective, the evolution of it which has been given by Mr. Locke.

There was nothing more grating and offensive

to the Jews, than the thoughts of having the Gentiles joined with them and partake equally in the privileges and advantages of the Kingdom of the Messiah: and, which was yet worse, to be told, that those aliens should be admitted, and that they, who presumed themselves children of that Kingdom, should be shut out.

St. Paul, who had insisted much on this doctrine in all the foregoing chapters of the Epistle to the Romans, to shew, that he had not done it out of any aversion or unkindness to his nation and brethren the Jews, does here, in the ninth chapter, express his great affection to them, and declares an extreme concern for their salvation. But, withal, he shews, that, whatever privileges they had received from God above other nations, whatever expectation the promises made to their forefathers might raise in them ; they had yet no just reason of complaining of God's dealing with them now under the Gospel, since it was according to his promise to Abraham and his frequent declarations in Sacred Scripture. Nor was it any injustice to the Jewish Nation if God, by the same sovereign power, had preferred Jacob (the younger brother, without any merit of his) and his posterity to be his people, before Esau and his posterity whom he rejected. The earth is all his nor have the nations, that possess it, any title of their own, but what he gives them, to the countries they

inhabit or to the good things they enjoy; and he may dispossess or exterminate them, when he pleaseth.

As he destroyed the Egyptians for the glory of his name, in the deliverance of the Israelites: so he may, according to his Good Pleasure, raise or depress, take into favour or reject, the several nations of this world. And, particularly as to the nation of the Jews, all but a small remnant were rejected, and the Gentiles taken in in their room to be the People and Church of God, because they were a gainsaying and disobedient people that would not receive the Messiah whom he had promised and in the appointed time sent to them.

He, that will with moderate attention and indifferency of mind read this ninth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, will see, that, what is said of God's exercising of an absolute power according to the good pleasure of his will, relates only to Nations or Bodies Politic of men incorporated in civil Societies, which feel the effects of it only in the prosperity or calamity they meet with in this world, but extends not to their eternal state in another world, considered as particular persons, wherein they stand each man by himself upon his own bottom, and shall so answer separately at the day of judgment. They may be punished here with their fellow-citizens, as part of a sinful Nation; and that be but

temporal chastisement for their good and yet be advanced to eternal life and bliss in the world to come *.

II. Following the plan which has been laid down, I shall now proceed to inquire: Whether the Scheme, which has received the sanction of Mr. Locke, was that, which, from the beginning, was universally adopted, by the Church Catholic, as the genuine sense of Scripture.

Now, respecting this matter, there undoubtedly occur passages, even in the very earliest writers, which, with sufficient plausibility, might be adduced in evidence. That the question, therefore, may be fairly examined, these passages shall be duly recited.

1. Clement of Rome, that friend of St. Paul, whose name the inspired Apostle declares to be

* Locke's Paraph. on the Epist. to the Rom. sect. viii. Works, vol. iii. p. 308, 309. To the same effect runs the paraphrase of Rom. viii. 28-30.

We certainly know, that all things work together for good to those that love God, who are the Called according to his purpose of calling the Gentiles. In which purpose, the Gentiles, whom he foreknew, as he did the Jews, with an intention of kindness and of making them his people, he preordained to be conformable to the image of his Son, that he might be the first-born, the chief, among many brethren. Moreover, whom he did thus ordain to be his people, them he also called, by sending preachers of the Gospel to them: and, whom he called, if they obeyed the truth, those he also justified by counting their faith for righteousness: and, whom he justified, them he also glorified; namely, in his purpose.

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written in the book of life, expresses himself in manner following.

Let us approach unto the Lord in holiness of soul, lifting up to him holy and unpolluted hands, loving our clement and merciful Father, who hath made us unto himself a part of the Election. For thus it is written: When the Most High divided the nations; as he scattered the sons of Adam, he appointed the boundaries of the nations according to the number of the angels. Then his people Jacob became the portion of the Lord : Israel, the lot of his inheritance. And, in another place, he says: Behold, the Lord taketh unto himself a nation from the midst of the nations, as a man taketh the first-fruits of his threshingfloor: and, out of that nation, shall come the holy of holies *.

2. The testimony of Irenèus, who stood in the second succession from the Apostles, having been the disciple of Polycarp the disciple of St. John, may fitly be added to that of the Roman Clement.

* Προσέλθωμεν οὖν αὐτῷ ἐν ὁσιότητι ψυχῆς, ἁγνὰς καὶ ἀμιάντους χεῖρας αἴροντες πρὸς αὐτὸν, ἀγαπῶντες τὸν ἐπιεικῆ καὶ εὔσπλαγχνον πατέρα ἡμῶν, ὃς Εκλογῆς μέρος ἐποίησεν ἑαυτῷ. Οὕτω γὰρ γέγραπται· Οτε διεμέρισεν ὁ Ὕψιστος ἔθνη, ὡς δὲ ἔσπειρεν υἱοὺς ̓Αδάμ, ἔστησεν ὅρια ἐθνῶν κατὰ ἀριθμὸν ἀγγέλων· ἐγενήθη μερὶς Κυρίου λαὸς αὐτοῦ Ἰακώβ, σχοίνισμα κληρονομίας αὐτοῦ Ἰσραὴλ. Καὶ, ἐν ἑτέρῳ τόπῳ, λέγει· Ιδού, Κύριος λαμβάνει ἑαυτῷ ἔθνος ἐκ μέσου ἐθνῶν, ὥσπερ λαμβάνει ἄνθρωπος τὴν ἀπαρχὴν αὐτοῦ τῆς ἅλω· καὶ ἐξελεύσεται ἐκ τοῦ ἔθνους ἐκείνου ἅγια ἁγίων. Clem. Rom. Epist. ad Corinth. i. § 29.