It is needless to attempt to conceal that no sub ject has excited more controversy that this: it forms the grand point of debate between the Arminians and Calvinists. Though we do not entertain any hopes of being able to put an end to the dispute, we nevertheless think it. necessary to state the ques tion; and we shall not be disposed to make any apology, though we should be discovered to bear more to one side than to the other.
The doctrine of predestination, which arises out of this subject, is unquestionably taught in Scrip ture (vide Rom. viii. 29. Eph. i. passim. 2 Thes. 13. 1 Pet. i. 2.) It is also held as a fundamental doctrine by the Church of England, the Church of Scotland, and many other churches, and is neces sarily connected with the fore-knowledge of God. " Whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate." It will be proper, however, to remark that we may fall into great mistakes in talking of the ledge of God: for with him there is neither fore nor (per; all things are eternally present to him 5 and by him, and in him, all things subsist. The language and the conceptions of men are formed on entirely different principles. We employ three principal tenses to mark the flight of time, and the course of our ideas, viz. the past, the present, and the future. But the grammars of men cannot limit the conceptions of the Almighty, whose existence is commensurate with eternity; " with whom a thousand years are as one day, and one day as a thousand years." We can with difficulty form a conception of this, yet it is demonstrable that it muse be so. It flows necessarily from the eternity and self-existence of God. All things being ordained by him; all the parts of the present dispensation being connected with, and adapted to each other ; and no power being able to alter or withstand what he has decreed in his wisdom, and in his might, the whole system of things must necessarily be present to his mind. He sees those things, to which we would ascribe only a possible existence, as actually existing; and as the architect sees all the parts and proportions of the future palace, in the plan which he has formed in his own mind, before a single stone of the build ing has been laid, so the eternal architect saw, be fore the foundation of the world, the proportion, order, and use of every part of the visible system of things, which appear to us only in succession, and at distant intervals, and perplex us greatly in all our attempts to account for them.
In conformity with the ideas which have now been thrown out, we would rather say that predes tination flows from the omniscience, than from the of God. Nobody can doubt that he knows every thing that is come to pass. We see how intimately he was acquainted with the fate of nations when he announced beforehand the events which were to befal them. No one of these pre dictions ever failed. Now, whether we say that he merely foreknew these events, but decreed nothing concerning them; or affirm that they were fixed by his absolute decree, on either supposition, the re sult must be the same; they could not but happen as God had foreknown and foretold.
For God to predestinate, then, or to foreknow, seems to amount to one and the same thing; unless we run into the impiety of supposing that God foreknows things over which he has no control, which he did not plan, and which he cannot prevent. Such a supposition is altogether inconsistent with the sovereignty of God, as the ruler of the universe, and the disposer of all events. It is true, indeed, that foreknowledge, among men has no influence on the events which are foreseen. We may be so well acquainted with the character and disposition of individuals, that we may know, almost with ab solute certainty, what they will do in given circum stances. We may be sure that pride will mislead one man, avarice another, and ambition a third; that one will be enslaved and led astray by vanity, and another by the lure of sensual indulgence. But though we may know all this with absolute certainty, yet our knowledge has no influence on the fate of the parties. The same would be true in regard to God, had he as little to do with the government of the world as. we have ; and did he come by his knowledge in the same way that we do. But his knowledge is the result of his own free will, which ours is not: we come to the knowledge of things by accident, or by application ; but God knows all things from the beginning, because in him all things subsist; he knows every event before it is unfolded in the course of his providence, because it forms part of his eternal plans : in short, he knows all things, because he has ordained them.