may be allowed to prognosticate concerning futurity, I would say, After our adversaries have been taught a sufficient length ' of time to bear in their communion these learned Frenchmen, 'Christ the Prince of Peace will cause them at length to exhibit a similar equanimity of disposition toward us who ask for 'peace with importunity.' Some of the most glaring inconsistencies of Cameron or Bax-. ter's system have been pointed out in the preceding extracts from Grotius. In opposition to Amyraut's improved edition of Cameronism, Stephen de Courcelles composed a treatise entitled, Vindicia de Jure Dei in Creaturas, to which Bishop Womack adjudges this equitable commendation, (page 14,) "It is of small price and of great profit." After premising, that Courcelles' opinions on some points were neither so orthodox nor evangelical as those of Arminius, I subjoin the following quotation from the 13th Chapter of his work, as an able exposure of several of the fallacies employed by the French Universalists, which have been repeated by their friends the Baxterians in England: 66 But I hear Amyraut replying thus: The inconveniences with which you charge the two preceding systems on the ob'ject of Reprobation, those of the Supra and Sub-lapsarians, do not attach to me. For 1 teach, that God seriously wills 'the salvation of all men; that Christ has endured the cursed 'death of the cross for all men equally; that to all men to whom the gospel is proclaimed, a possibility is granted of believing in Christ, if they will; and that none, except the 'finally impenitent and unbelieving, are rejected from salvation.' -These doctrines, I confess, have an imposing appearance; and when I peruse them in Amyraut's book, I can scarcely refrain from exclaiming, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God. My sole wish is, that he would constantly persist in them, and not overturn them by doctrines of a contrary tendency: This, it appears to me, he does when he asserts, that 'Adam sinned necessarily; and that from his offence such a 'great corruption has pervaded all men, that although, if they will, they may believe on Christ when preached to them, yet to will such an act is IMPOSSIBLE to any one except he be im'pelled by the unconquerable force of the Holy Spirit, which God communicates to a certain small number of elect persons.' By such a mode of teaching, that which seems to be bestowed by one hand is instantly withdrawn by the other." Courcelles having combatted with great ability Amyraut's doctrine of the necessity of Adam's sin, proceeds thus: "Since therefore, by asserting the necessity of the first sin, Amyraut has so shamefully stumbled at the very entrance, it was impossible for the other doctrines to be immaculate, which he raised as a superstructure on this bad foundation. Of this faulty descrip tion is that which he holds in common with the rest of the Reformed, Such great corruption has flowed from this first sin upon the whole of the human race, that we are all born the 'slaves of sin, with propensities to evil and with an inaptitude 'to every good thing; and without special grace, which is bes'towed on a few only that are absolutely elected, it is as utter an impossibility for us to free ourselves from this state of bondage, as for an Ethiopian to change his skin, or a Leopard its 'spots.'-If this dogma be once admitted, the benefits of Redemption are converted into a cruel tragedy, although the Holy Scriptures testify that in those benefits God has unfolded all the treasures of his grace and mercy. Tell me, what kind of grace or mercy is this-to cast the whole of the human race into an unavoidable necessity of sinning and of perishing, that he may liberate a few only from such thraldom? "But Amyraut teaches, that Christ died for all men equally, ' and that the remedy which he has procured is as extensive as 'the disease, according to that expression of St. Paul, God hath 'concluded all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all. (Rom. xi, 32.)-If this were really the case, the absurdity of his opinion would be somewhat diminished, and he would frame a God not altogether merciful, but one less cruel, because those whom he had wounded he would afterwards heal, and those whom he had precipitated into a pit he would draw out again: But this supposition is far from the truth." He then shews the incompatibility of this doctrine with the rest of Amyraut's theory, and says: "But I ask, Has not Christ paid a most complete and full satisfaction to God his Father for all that was due to Divine Justice on the part of infants newly born? They owe nothing except with respect to the sin and guilt which they contracted from Adam: For they have not yet committed any actual transgression. Since payment has been made on their part through Christ], they must be restored to the same state in which Adam stood prior to his fall: But they are not thus restored, according to Amyraut. God therefore acts towards them with cruel injustice; for, by such a procedure as this, he has NOT mercy upon all those whom he has concluded in unbelief"-After some other reasoning on this subject, Courcelles continues his refutation in the following manner: "Besides, since faith is necessary in order to make us partakers of the benefits which are procured by the death of Christ, and since no one can obtain it by his natural powers, (for it is imparted through a special gift, from which God by an absolute decree has excluded the greatest portion of mankind,) of what avail is it that Christ has died for those to whom faith is denied? Does not the affair revert to the same point, as if he had never entertained an intention of redeeming them? But,' says Amyraut, all men may believe in Christ if they will: For he is 'proposed to them in the gospel; and they are endued with an understanding and a will, which are the organs of belief. It remains therefore solely with themselves whether they will believe or not.'-If this be not a mere trifling with words, what is? As though that man who has not the ability even to will any thing, may do it if he will! And if [according to Amyraut it be impossible for him to will any thing, it is likewise out of his power to nill it; much less is it possible for him by an effort of unwillingness to implicate himself in some grievous crime, as they do who refuse to believe the gospel.' For he only has the power of nilling who also enjoys the power of willing,' as it is stated in Digest. de Reg. Juris.-leg. 3. If therefore the reprobates have not the ability of willing to believe in Christ, neither have they the ability of being unwilling; and on account of such unwillingness, which according to Amyraut is inevitable,] they commit no offence. Their being endowed with an understanding and a will, is not of the least consequence: For since those faculties have been corrupted by the hereditary sin which they contract from Adam, and since they are not adapted to form that faith which is required from them, it cannot be imputed to them as a crime that they do not believe. But they excel greatly in other matters which relate to the present life.' Of what avail is this, if they [the understanding and will be deficient and completely fettered in this the chief concern, in which they are most needed? For this circumstance was not unknown to God when he willed, that Christ should offer himself to death for them; nor was it unknown to Christ when he yielded obedience to the will of his Father. In vain therefore did both of them display such transcendent benevolence towards these miserable creatures, if it was not their pleasure to heal this original malady and to restore their understandings and wills to that integrity which was lost in Adam.- But, [Amyraut rejoins, it proceeds entirely from their own malignity, that, after God has mercifully bestowed on them these natural endowments, they do not em'ploy them in believing on Christ.' Let this be conceded: Yet the malignity here described has been implanted in them by nature; and it is more impracticable for them to lay it aside, than to divest themselves of their sex or to carry a huge mountain upon their shoulders. "Amyraut proceeds to say: But this impotency is of two 'kinds, the one physical, the other ethical. The former occurs, when any one is destitute of the members or faculties, which ' are requisite for the performance of any thing; but the latter La moral impotency consists of some depraved habit, which 'creates within a man an inability to obey the Divine Will or < Pleasure. And he allows, that an impotency of the former description is excusable; and that a man cannot justly be required to fly in the air like the birds, or to live in the water like fishes.' But he says, the latter species of impotency, 'which has malignity united with it, is completely inexcusable.' But it is absurd, as well as repugnant to the usage of correct speaking, to call that a moral impotency which cleaves to every man from his mother's womb, and which cannot be removed by any one, except by God alone, the Author of nature. For although that malignity is opposed to natural innocence, yet it is no less physical than the blindness or the deafness which some persons derive from their birth. But,' you will reply, it consists of morals, and every thing of this description is cor❝rectly called ethical. By no means; for that alone is ethical or moral which proceeds from a voluntary usage or habit. This malignity, by which we are rendered incapable of willing to believe in Christ when he is announced to us, is said to be implanted in us from the birth, in the same manner as cruelty and rapacity are implanted in wolves: It is therefore evidently physical. But it is in the power of no man to eradicate innate vices: For the poet has properly asserted, Dame nature once expell'd, you soon will learn Yet those things which are ethical and contracted by habit, may be set aside by a contrary habit. Nor do they take away all capability of doing what is opposed to them; they only render such an adverse course extremely difficult and incommodious. Wherefore God can with justice require from those who have corrupted themselves by vicious indulgences, that they desist from such evil courses; and that, unless they do desist, he will punish them with severity. But imagine God to have created them corrupted individuals, and to have left them in that state, so that, according to the common expression, it is as impossible for them to amend themselves as to raise the dead, -HE would be acting unjustly, were he to issue a similar requisition, without furnishing the adequate powers, according to Amyraut's theory, and were he, in case of their disobedience, eternally to punish them in the torments of hell. "From these premises it follows, in the last place, that God does not seriously desire the conversion or salvation of many of those for whom he provides the preaching of the gospel, and that he adopts a hypocritical conduct towards them, since [according to Amyraut] it is not his pleasure to remove from them that innate disability under which they labour of believing in Christ. For he must be accounted not to have willed the end, who has not willed the meuns without which the end can on no account be obtained. I am aware, that Amyraut utters this exception: God wills the conversion of certain men, only in such a manner as to approve of it; but he wills the 'salvation of others, so as likewise to effect it. Towards the former ⚫ class of men, he acts as a Legislator; but his conduct towards the 'latter, is that of a Father.' But this objection is devoid even of common speciousness. For it is the province of a tyrant, and not of an equitable legislator, to command impossibilities, and, in consequence of disobedience, to subject the offending parties to a cruel punishment. Much more tyrannical still must it be, if he is himself the cause why those things which he commands are impossible to be performed; as if he should order a man to run after he had broken his legs, or should command another man to read whose eyes he had plucked out. Yet this is exactly the doctrine which Amyraut's opinion inculcates: that is, God, under the penalty of eternal damnation, enjoins the per"formance of good works on those men whom, on account of the sin of their first parents, he has created in such a state of corruption that it is impossible for them to do any otherwise than commit iniquity. Nor is it of any importance, that they are said to have merited such punishment; for although they might have been most deserving of it, that could not in equity be required from them which he had under a penalty rendered impossible to be done.- Nevertheless,' says Amyraut, God would be pleased with their conversion, if they would con'vert themselves at the external hearing of the Gospel: For this would be a matter that would be wonderfully agreeable to him! Is this the expression of one who seriously wills conversion, or is it not rather that of one who mocks and trifles with the misery of another? For since the external preaching of the word is insufficient for this purpose, and since God knows for a certainty that without the aid of his determining grace no person can either will or effect this [conversion], the performance of it cannot be pleasing to the Divine Mind so long as He does not bestow such grace: In the same manner as it cannot be pleasing to him, that a dead person to whom he has not restored life should rise out of the tomb. For he who alone has in his own hand all those means which are necessary to the performance of any thing, and denies them to another, cannot possibly (except with deep dissimulation) command that other person to perform it: Under such circumstances, the more earnest and frequent the exhortations, promises, and threats which he employs, the more completely does he betray his own. hypocrisy, malice, or folly. Suppose me now to be on an island with some servauts, and that only one ship is there, which is solely in my own power: Suppose me then to command all those servants to sail over the sea from the island to the distant continent, and to grant the use of that single ship to a few of them only, but absolutely to deny to all the rest any such accommodation: In this case, who will be so foolish as to suppose it to be my serious will or intention, that those persons |