CHAPTER VII.

OPINIONS CONCERNING PREDESTINATION.

SECTION I.

THE opinion which is to be stated first, because it appears to be the most simple, may be called the Socinian. It is the system of those who attempt to get rid of all the difficulties in which the divine foreknowledge seems to involve the subject, by denying that this attribute belongs to the Almighty to the extent in which it is usually understood. Socinus and his immediate followers admitted that God knows all things which are knowable. But they abridged the objects of divine knowledge, by withdrawing from that number those events whose future existence they considered as uncertain. Their manner of reasoning was this. Every thing that now is, has a real existence, which is the subject of knowledge. Every thing that is past had at some former time a real existence, which is also the subject of knowledge. Every thing that is necessarily to happen at some future time may be known by a mind capable of tracing the nature of the connexion, by which it proceeds out of that which now is. Thus all the changes in the material world arise, according to certain general laws, out of its present condition. If any being, therefore, is perfectly acquainted with that condition, and with the operation of those laws, he sees the future in the present; and, in general, every event, the futurition of which is certain, may be the subject of infallible knowledge. But there are events which appeared to Socinus contingent, in this sense of the word, that they do not arise from any thing preceding, as their cause. They may be, or they may not be; and as he thought that they were not certainly future, he thought also that it was impossible for any being to know certainly beforehand that they were to happen. Amongst this number he ranked the determinations of free agents, all those actions which proceed from the will of man. For as the actions of men follow the choice which they have made, and as he who chose one thing might have chosen another, it appears that there is no previous circumstance necessarily and unavoidably producing this or that action; and from hence Socinus inferred that every thing done by men acting freely is, by its nature, incapable of

being the subject of that infallible foreknowledge commonly ascribed to the Almighty.

According to this system, there cannot be any such degree with regard to the salvation of particular persons as is meant by the word predestination. For as the remission of sins is connected in Scripture with faith and repentance, and as the determinations of free agents are supposed to be unknown to God, he must be ignorant whether any persons will attain that character, without which they cannot be saved. The only decree respecting the salvation of men, which Socinus admits to have been made from the beginning, and to be unchangeable, is this general conditional decree, that whosoever repents and believes in Jesus shall have eternal life. This decree is applied to particular persons, when they appear to possess the character which it describes; and by this application, what in its original form was merely the declaration of a condition, becomes an absolute peremptory decree, giving eternal life to those who have been faithful unto death. But it is unknown to God what number of such persons there may be, or whether there may be any. Although he has provided means for the recovery of mankind, he is as ignorant of the efficacy or the result of these means as any of the children of men; and all the expressions in Scripture, which we are accustomed to consider as spoken after the manner of men, are understood by Socinus to be the literal descriptions of the state of a being, who waits with anxiety for what men will do, who is grieved at their obstinacy, who repents that he has done so much for them, and who is liable to meet with total disappointment in the end which he proposed to himself.

If this system appears to remove some of the difficulties which attend other systems, it purchases this advantage by bringing the character of the Deity so far down to a level with human weakness, as to sap the foundations of religion. If God does not foresee the determinations of free agents, he cannot foresee the consequences of their determinations. But if it be considered how very much the state of the moral world depends upon actions that proceed from choice, how far the history of the human race has, from the beginning, been affected by the conduct of creatures who might have acted otherwise, we must be sensible that a being who had not the foreknowledge of that conduct was, from the beginning, ignorant of by much the greatest part of the transactions that were to take place in the world which he made. The whole train of prosperous and calamitous events that were to befal families and nations was hidden from his eyes. Instead of appearing in the exalted light of the author of a plan by which the affairs of the universe are ordained and arranged for the good of his creatures, he becomes a spectator of unlooked-for occurrences, and his power and wisdom are employed merely in directing events as they arise to his view. His measures are perpetually traversed by evils which he had not foreseen; and while he is occupied from day to day in applying remedies to the disorders which he discovers in different parts of his works, new emergencies show that some other remedy might have been better suited to the case.

From the following expressions of Socinus, it will appear that I

have not exaggerated, in painting that degradation of the Deity which necessarily results from abridging his foreknowledge." No absurdity," says Socinus," will follow from supposing that God does not know all things before they happen. For of what use is this knowledge? Is it not enough that God perpetually governs all things, and that nothing can be done against his will; that he is always so present by his wisdom and power, that he can both discern the attempts of men, and hinder them if he pleases; that he can turn all that man can do to his own glory; and that he may, when he sees proper, appoint beforehand in what manner he shall accommodate his actions to the attempts which man may make ?"'* The answer to all such questions is this, that it is irreverent, and contrary to the idea of an infinitely perfect Being, to ask; is it not enough for him, that even we are able to form the notion of a much higher degree of perfection than is stated in the questions; that the characters of Creator and Ruler of the universe imply much more; and that the Scriptures uniformly ascribe to God the foreknowledge of the determinations of free agents? The moral conduct of many individuals was foretold before they were born; the behaviour of the people of Israel for a succession of ages, the treatment which they were to receive from the Egyptians, the Babylonians, and other nations; the peculiar kinds of wickedness which were to prevail in the neighbouring kingdoms; the obstinacy of the Jews in rejecting the Messiah; the circumstances of his sufferings; the destruction of Jerusalem, and the corruptions of Christianity, all these are the subjects of predictions so particular, as to show the most intimate knowledge of the future sentiments and actions of men; for the events which I have enumerated, and many others which occur in reading the prophetical parts of Scripture, are of such a kind that they derive their complexion and character, not from any circumstances in the material world, but from the volitions and determinations of the free agents, who were concerned in bringing them about.

It cannot be said that the predictions of Scripture declare only what is probable. For, besides the apparent improbability of many of the events foretold, and the immense extent of time, and space, and operation, to which the predictions reach, it is obvious that all of them are delivered, not in the language of conjecture, but with the most solemn asseveration, in the name of the God of truth; and it is hard to form any conception more unworthy of the Supreme Being, than that he should conduct his government by declaring as certain, future events, concerning which he himself, at the time of the declaration, was doubtful.

Socinus, and some later writers who tread in his steps, sensible that the probability of the events foretold does not afford a satisfying account of the predictions that are found in Scripture, have recourse to a system, with regard to the exertion of the divine foreknowledge in particular cases, of which I shall endeavour to give a fair exposition. They hold that God is able to foresee future events whensoever he pleases, because he can make a particular ordination with respect to them; by which means, events in their own nature contingent be

* Socini Prælect. cap. 8.

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come certainly future, and so are the subject of infallible foreknowledge. Thus many blessings foretold in Scripture are good things which God had resolved to send by the actions of men: many evils foretold are punishments which he had resolved to inflict by the same means; many sins foretold are the consequence of his punishing former sin, by withdrawing that grace which would have restrained from future transgression; and the whole series of predictions, that respect the Messiah, results from the ordination of the Almighty concerning the deliverance of mankind. But we must not infer, it is said, from those extraordinary cases in which God chooses to foreordain, and consequently to foresee what is future, that his foreknowledge of future events is universal. The greater part of the determinations of free agents he leaves in their natural state of uncertainty: they may choose one course, or they may choose another; and the course which they are to follow is unknown to him till they have made their choice.

It is admitted by the framers of this new system, that the ordination of God gives events that certainty which renders them capable of being foreknown; and this principle is borrowed from that system of theology which it was their object to overturn. What is peculiar to them is, that they confine this ordination to particular extraordinary cases, and suppose all others exempted from it. But a foreknowledge, exerted at some times and not at others, constitutes a most imperfect kind of government. For the occasion of its being exerted at any particular season can be nothing else but the state of the world at that season: but as this state arises out of that which went before, and as the propriety of the measures taken in reference to it is very much affected by that which is to come after, a being, who is supposed ignorant of the great series of events in the universe, is unqualified for making any extraordinary interposition. The framers of the new system were obliged to account for the multitude of predictions respecting the Messiah, by ascribing the whole scheme of his appearance to the ordination of the Almighty. But that scheme, according to the account given of it in Scripture, embraces the introduction, the propagation, and the removal of sin, i. e. the whole history of the determinations of the human race, or of their moral conduct from the beginning to the end of time. The ordination of this scheme, therefore, necessarily includes the foreknowledge of the moral conduct of men; and we cannot withdraw that moral conduct from the number of the objects foreknown by God, without supposing that he was unacquainted with the reasons of that scheme which we allow that he ordained.

It appears, then, that the partial admission of the divine foreknowledge, to which necessity has driven the Socinians, does not answer the purpose for which it was resorted to; and that this system carries with it its own confutation, in presuming to restrict the operations of the Supreme Mind. Reason and Scripture concur in teaching that no bounds can be set to the Almighty. Our faculties may be unable to rise to the exalted conception of a Supreme Mind, to whom all things that have been, that now are, and that shall be, are equally present. But the plain declarations of Scripture supersede our speculations.

There we read that all his works are known to him from

the beginning;* that all things are naked and open in his sight;† that the purposes of his heart endure throughout all generations. The power of foretelling future events, which reason teaches to be essential to his nature, is there claimed by him as his prerogative;§ it is often occasionally exerted in uttering predictions: and as well from the nature of these predictions, as from the manner in which the power is elsewhere spoken of, we are led to conclude that it implies a perception of all the actions of his creatures, which is not subject to mistake, which is incapable of receiving any accession, and which extends with equal clearness and facility through every portion of space, and every point of duration.

That abridgment of the objects of the divine foreknowledge, which was first introduced by Socinus, and is peculiar to those who follow him, has not been adopted by all who are called Socinians. Dr. Priestley writes thus, in the first part of his Institutes of Natural and Revealed Religion, which treats of the being and attributes of God. "God having made all things, and exerting his influence over all things, must know all things, and consequently be omniscient. Also, since he not only ordained, but constantly supports all the laws of nature, he must be able to foresee what will be the result of them, at any distance of time; just as a man who inakes a clock can tell when it will strike. All future events, therefore, must be as perfectly known to the Divine Mind as those that are present; and as we cannot conceive that he should be liable to forgetfulness, we may conclude that all things, past, present, and to come, are equally known to him; so that his knowledge is infinite." Dr. Priestley takes no notice of the distinction which Socinus made between those events which, arising from necessary causes, are certainly to be, and those which Socinus called contingent, such as the determinations of free agents. The reason is, that Dr. Priestley, being a professed materialist, considered the operations of mind as taking place according to the same laws of nature with the motions of body.

There does not appear to him any more uncertainty in the one than in the other, and therefore both are, in his opinion, equally the objects of divine foreknowledge. If the doctrine of the universal prescience of God unavoidably involves the principles of materialism, it must be renounced by all who hold that the soul is essentially distinct from the body. But if the doctrine can be defended without having recourse to these principles, it is not a sound argument against the truth of the doctrine, whatever discredit it may thereby suffer in the opinion of the ignorant or careless, that a materialist finds it perfectly reconcileable with his system.

SECTION II.

ARMINIUS, who lived in the beginning of the seventeenth century, may be regarded as the founder of the system of opinions generally held by those, who, while they admit the dignity of our Saviour's per

Acts xv. 18. † Heb. iv. 13.

Ps. xxxiii. 11.

Isa. xlvi. 9, 10.