certainly forefeen, they muft certainly be: fo while they ART. are fuppofed to be contingent, they are yet affirmed to be XVII. certain, by faying that they are certainly forefeen. When God decrees that any thing fhall be, it has from that a certain futurition, and as fuch it is certainly foreseen by him: an uncertain forefight is an act of its nature imperfect, because it may be a mistake, and fo is inconfiftent with the divine perfection. And it feems to imply a contradiction to say that a thing happens freely, that is, may be, or may not be, and yet that it is certainly foreseen by God. God cannot forefee things, but as he decrees them, and fo gives them a futurition, and therefore this prescience antecedent to his decree, must be rejected as a thing impoffible.

They say farther, that conditionate decrees are imperfect in their nature, and that they fubject the will and acts of God to a creature: that a conditionate decree is an act in fufpenfe, whether it fhall be or not; which is inconfiftent with infinite perfection. A general will, or rather a willing that all men fhould be faved, has alfo plain characters of imperfection in it: as if God wifhed fomewhat that he could not accomplish, fo that his goodness should feem to be more extended than his power. Infinite perfection can with nothing but what it can execute; and if it is fit to wish it, it is fit alfo to execute it. Therefore all that ftyle, that afcribes paffions or affections to God, muft be understood in a figure; fo that when his providence exerts itself in fuch acts as among us men would be the effects of thofe paffions, then the paffions themselves are in the phrase of the Scripture afcribed to God. They fay we ought not to measure the punishments of fin by our notions of juftice: God afflicts many good men very feverely, and for many years in this life, and this only for the manifeftation of his own glory, for making their faith and patience to fhine; and yet none think that this is unjuft. It is a method in which God will be glorified in them: fome fins are punished with other fins, and likewife with a course of severe miferies: if we transfer this from time to eternity, the whole will be then more conceivable; for if God may do for a little time that which is inconfiftent with our notions, and with our rules of juftice, he may do it for a longer duration; fince it is as impoffible that he can be unjust for a day, as for all eternity.

As God does every thing for himfelf and his own glory, fo the Scriptures teach us every where to offer up all praife and glory to God; to acknowledge that all is of him, and to humble ourselves as being nothing before

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ART. him. Now if we were elected not by a free act of his, but by what he forefaw that we would be, fo that his grace is not efficacious by its own force, but by the good ufe that we make of it, then the glory and praise of all the good we do, and of God's purposes to us, were due to ourselves: he defigns, according to the other doctrine, equally well to all men; and all the difference among them will arife neither from God's intentions to them, nor from his affiftances, but from the good use that he forefaw they would make of these favours that he was to give in common to all mankind: man should have whereof to glory, and he might say, that he himself made himfelf to differ from others. The whole ftrain of the Scriptures in afcribing all good things to God, and in charging us to offer up the honour of all to him, feems very expressly to favour this doctrine; fince if all our good is from God, and is particularly owing to his grace, then good men have fomewhat from God that bad men have not; for which they ought to praise him. The ftyle of all the prayers that are ufed or directed to be used in the Scripture, is for a grace that opens our eyes, that turns our hearts, that makes us to go, that leads us not into temptation, but delivers us from evil. All these phrases do plainly import that we defire more than a power or capacity to act, fuch as is given to all men, and fuch as, after we have received it, may be ftill ineffectual to us. For to pray for fuch affiftances as are always given to all men, and are fuch that the whole good of them shall wholly depend upon ourselves, would found very oddly; whereas we pray for fomewhat that is fpecial, and that we hope fhall be effectual. We do not and cannot pray earneftly for that, which we know all men as well as we ourselves have at all times.

Humility and earneftnefs in prayer feem to be among the chief means of working in us the image of Chrift, and of deriving to us all the bleffings of heaven. That doctrine which blafts both, which fwells us up with an opinion that all comes from ourselves, and that we receive nothing from God but what is given in common with us to all the world, is certainly contrary both to the spirit and to the defign of the Gofpel.

The

To this they add obfervations from Providence. world was for many ages delivered up to idolatry; and fince the Chriftian religion has appeared, we fee vaft tracts of countries which have continued ever fince in idolatry: others are fallen under Mahometanifm; and the state of Christendom is in the Eastern parts of it under fo much ignorance,

ignorance, and the greatest part of the Weft is under fo ART. much corruption, that we must confefs the far greateft part XVII. of mankind has been in all ages left deftitute of the means of grace, fo that the promulgating the Gofpel to fome nations, and the denying it to others, must be afcribed to the unfearchable ways of God, that are paft finding out. If he thus leaves whole nations in fuch darkness and corruption, and freely chooses others to communicate the knowledge of himself to them, then we need not wonder if he fhould hold the fame method with individuals, that he does with whole bodies: for the rejecting of whole nations by the lump for fo many ages, is much more unaccountable than the felecting of a few, and the leaving others in that ftate of ignorance and brutality. And whatever may be said of his extending mercy to fome few of those who have made a good ufe of that dim light which they had; yet it cannot be denied but their condition is much more deplorable, and the condition of the others is much more hopeful; fo that great numbers of men are born in fuch circumftances, that it is morally impoffible that they fhould not perish in them; whereas others are more happily fituated and enlightened.

This argument taken from common obfervation becomes much stronger, when we confider what the Apostle fays, particularly in the Epiftles to the Romans and the Rom.ix.11. Ephefians, even according to the expofition of thofe of the other fide for if God loved Jacob, fo as to choose his pofterity to be his people, and rejected or hated Efau and his pofterity, and if that was according to the purpose and defign of his election; if by the fame purpofe the Gentiles were to be grafted upon that ftock, from which the Jews were then to be cut off; and if the counfel or purpose of God had appeared in particular to those of Ephefus, though the moft corrupted both in magic, idolatry, and immorality of any in the Eaft; then it is plain, that the applying the means of grace, arifes merely from a great defign that was long hid in God, which did then break out. It is reasonable to believe, that there is a proportion between the application of the means, and the decree itself concerning the end. The one is refolved into the unfearchable riches of God's grace, and declared to be free and abfolute. God's choofing the nation of the Jews in fuch a diftinction beyond all other nations, is by Mofes and the Prophets frequently faid not to be on their own account, or on the account of any thing that God faw in them, but merely from the goodnefs of God to them. From all this it feems, fay they, as reasonable to be

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Mat. xi. 25, 26.

Ibid. 21, 22, 23.

ART. lieve that the other is likewife free, according to those XVII. words of our Saviour's, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast bid these things from the wife and prudent, and baft revealed them unto babes: the reafon of which is given in the following words, Even fo, Father, for it feemed good in thy fight. What goes before, of Tyre and Sidon, and the land of Sodom, that would have made a better ufe of his preaching, than the towns of Galilee had done, among whom he lived, confirms this, that the means of grace are not bestowed on those of whom it was foreseen that they would have made a good ufe of them; or denied to thofe who, as was forefeen, would have made an ill use of them: the contrary of this being plainly afferted in those words of our Saviour's. It is farther obfervable, that he seems not to be fpeaking here of different nations, but of the different forts of men of the fame nation: the more learned of the Jews, the wife and prudent, rejected him, while the fimpler, but better fort, the babes, received him: so that the difference between individual perfons feems here to be refolved into the good pleasure of God.

It is farther urged, that fince thofe of the other fide confefs, that God by his prescience forefaw what circumftances might be happy, and what affiftances might prove efficacious to bad men; then his not putting them in thofe circumstances, but giving them fuch affiftances only, which, how effectual foever they might be to others, he faw would have no efficacy on them, and his putting them in circumstances, and giving them affiftances, which he forefaw they would abufe, if it may feem to clear the juftice of God, yet it cannot clear his infinite holiness and goodnefs: which muft ever carry him, according to our notions of these perfections, to do all that may be done, and that in the most effectual way, to refcue others from mifery, to make them truly good, and to put them in a way to be happy. Since therefore this is not always done, according to the other opinion, it is plain that there is an unfearchable depth in the ways of God, which we are not able to fathom. Therefore it must be concluded, that fince all are not actually good, and fo put in a way to be faved, that God did not intend that it fhould be fo; Rom. ix.19. for tubo bath refifted bis will? The counfel of the Lord Pl. xxxiii. flandeth faft, and the thoughts of his heart to all generations. It is true, his laws are his will in one refpect: he requires all to obey them: he approves them, and he obliges all men to keep them. All the expreflions of his defires that all men should be faved, are to be explained of the

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will of revelation, commonly called the fign of his will. ART. When it is faid, What more could have been done? that is to be understood of outward means and bleffings: but ftill God has a fecret will of his good pleasure, in which he Ifa. v. 4. defigns all things; and this can never be fruftrated.

From this they do alfo conclude, that though Chrift's death was to be offered to all Chriftians; yet that intentionally and actually he only died for those whom the Father had chofen and given to him to be faved by him. They cannot think that Chrift could have died in vain, Gal. ii. 21. which St. Paul fpeaks of as a vaft abfurdity. Now fince, if he had died for all, he fhould have died in vain, with relation to the far greater part of mankind, who are not to be faved by him; they from thence conclude, that all thofe for whom he died are certainly faved by him. Perhaps with relation to fome fubaltern bleffings, which are through him communicated, if not to all mankind, yet to all Chriftians, he may be faid to have died for all but as to eternal falvation, they believe his defign went no farther than the fecret purpofe and election of God, and this they think is implied in thefe words, all that are given me of my Father thine they were, and thou gavest them me. He alfo limits his interceffion to thofe only; I pray not for John xvii. the world, but for thofe that thou haft given me; for they are 9, 10. thine: and all thine are mine, and mine are thine. They believe that he alfo limited to them the extent of his death, and of that facrifice which he offered in it.

It is true, the Chriftian religion being to be diftinguished from the Jewish in this main point, that whereas the Jewish was reftrained to Abraham's pofterity, and confined within one race and nation, the Chriftian was to be preached to every creature; univerfal words are ufed concerning the death of Chrift: but as the words, preaching to every Mark xvi. creature, and to all the world, are not to be understood in 15. the utmost extent, for then they have never been verified; fince the Gofpel has never yet, for aught that appears to us, been preached to every nation under heaven; but are only to be explained generally of a commiffion not limited to one or more nations; none being excluded from it: the Apostles were to execute it in going from city to city, as they fhould be inwardly moved to it by the Holy Ghoft fo they think that thofe large words, that are applied to the death of Chrift, are to be understood in the fame qualified manner; that no nation or fort of men are excluded from it, and that fome of all kinds and forts fhall be faved by him. And this is to be carried no farther, without an imputation on the juftice of God: for if he

has