ELECTION denotes, in theological language, the divine act by which •certain indi viduals are chosen to salvation in Christ, and the doctrine of election is the doctrine of " God's everlasting purpose, whereby He bath constantly decreed by his secret counsel to deliver from curse and damnation those whom He has chosen in Christ out of man kind, and to bring them by Christ to everlasting salvation as vessels made to honor." These words, taken substantially from the articles of religion of the church of Eng land, may be said to represent, in a moderate form of expression, the orthodox doctrine on the subject of election. Besides this form of the doctrine, there is a lower and a higher form of it, which, apart from technical and polemical language, may be said to spring—the one from the supposed subordination of the divine act or purpose to the divine foreknowledge of human conduct—the other from the exaltation of the divine act or purpose into an absolute and arbitrary supremacy, having no relation whatever to human will or conduct. The former of these extremes corresponds to the Pelagian or Arminian doctrine of election, the latter to the hyper-Augustinian or Calvinistic. The Arminian aims to condition or limit the absolute character of the divine act in redemption in some way or another; the Calvinist aims to give to this act the most arbitrary and irrespon sible character. The one, while not altogether repudiating a doctrine of election, yet _gives such prominence to the human conditions of the elective purpose, as (in the view of Calvinists) to destroy it altogether; the other maintains not only a doctrine of elec tion or predestination, but also the correlative doctrine of reprobation. In the view of the Arminian, salvation is within the choice of the human will; in the view of the Cal vinist, the human will is of little or no account—the decree of God is everything—and this decree (which Calvin admitted to be a "decretum horribile") absolutely determines some to everlasting life and some to everlasting death. The separation has its source in the will of God, and not in the moral conditions of mankind.
It is obvious, in the mere statement of such views, how audaciously theology has sought to settle questions beyond all human scrutiny and settlement. In the nature of
things, the relations between the divine and human will appear indeterminable ; and, notwithstanding all the labor of inquiry devoted to such subjects in the past history of opinion, it cannot be said that any advance of thought has been made regarding them. If the mere logic of the question be kept in view, the Calvinistic opinion has the advantage over the Arminian—setting out, as it does, from the recognition of the divine will as absolutely supreme, and the source, consequently, of all subordinate action—a thought which is in the highest degree logically consistent. But then the moral per plexities which arise out of the practical application of this view, and the ease with which it may be perverted into a fanatical and dangerous error, will always repel many minds from its adoption.
Although the expressions election, elect, etc., are frequent in Scripture, it cannot be said that what is known as the theological doctrine of E. was acknowledged by the Christian church till the time of Augustine. The Greek fathers confined their attention almost entirely to questions purely theological—that is to say, relating to the character and constitution of the Godhead. Gnosticism and Arianism, the two main forms of heretical opinion before Augustine, indicate the channels into which theological discus sion had previously run. It was not till the Latin mind had taken up this discussion, that the more practical question of the relation of the divine and human will in redemption came to receive special attention. The controversy between Pelagins and Augustine in the beginning of the 5th c., brought out almost all the aspects of the question which have since, at successive epochs in the history of the church, risen into renewed prominence. The contests between the Scotists and Thomists in the 14th c., between the Arminians and Calvinists, and, within the Roman church, between 'the Jansenists and Molinists in the 17th c., are recurring expressions of the same radical conflict or divergency of opinion. The spirit of modern theology is adverse to the logical disputations engen dered by such discussions, and finds its more appropriate and useful field of labor in the province of critical and historical inquiry.