type of THE SYNAGOGUE and THE CHURCH, many elder brothers were REPROBATED by the Lord, and many younger brothers were ELECTED. Thus Cain, the elder, is rejected; while Abel, the younger, is chosen thus Ismael, the elder son of Abraham, is an alien from his father ; while Isaac, the younger, receives the inheritance. Of the sons of Isaac, likewise, Esau, the elder, is a hunter, and wanders in the forests: while Jacob, the younger, dwells simply at home. Hence it is written in Malachi: Jacob have I loved; but Esau have I hated. And truly, according to the Apostle, while yet in their mother's womb, they had done neither good nor evil, nor had they either merit or offence, so that the one should be ELECTED and the other REJECTED; except, as we have said, in a type of THE SYNAGOGUE and THE CHURCH, the elder shall be cast aside, and the younger shall be taken *.

(2.) A person, who is ELECTED, may both be tempted and perish. Thus Saul was elected to be

* Sacra narrat historia, seniores plurimos fuisse a Domino reprobatos, et juniores electos, in typum Synagogæ et Ecclesiæ. Senior Cain abjicitur; et Abel junior eligitur: Ismael, filius Abraham, alienus a patre est; et Isaac junior hæreditatem accepit. Filiorum quoque Isaac, senior Esau venator est, et vagatur in saltibus: junior Jacob simpliciter habitat domi. Unde scriptum est et in Malachia: Jacob dilexi; Esau autem odio habui. Et rectè, juxta apostolum, nihil, in matris utero constituti, boni vel mali fecerant; nec habebant meritum aut offensam,

a king; and Judas, to be an apostle: yet, by their own fault, they afterward fell away*.

II. I have now collected together such early evidence as I have been able to find, in regard to the sentiments entertained by the Primitive Church touching the doctrine of Election and Reprobation. This necessary task, therefore, having been performed, I may be allowed to offer a few remarks on the testimonies which have been produced.

1. On a careful perusal of the cited passages, it is

ut eligeretur alter, et alter abjiceretur: nisi in typo, ut diximus, Synagogæ et Ecclesiæ, senior repelletur, et assumitur junior. Hieron. Comment. in Ezech. xxvii. Oper. vol. iv. p. 412.

Exactly to the same purpose speaks the Pseudo-Ambrose.

Jacob et Esau duorum populorum habent typum; id est credentium et non credentium: ut, cum ex uno sint, diversi sint tamen.

Nam, cum nati nondum fuissent, aut aliquid egissent bonum vel malum, ut secundum electionem, propositum Dei maneret, non ex operibus, sed ex vocante, dictum est; Quia major serviet minori: sicut scriptum est; Jacob dilexi, Esau autem odio habui.

Hoc pertinet ad causam Judæorum, qui sibi prærogativa defendunt, quod filii sunt Abrahæ.

Sed, subintrantibus gentibus quæ sine Deo prius erant, et salutem quam illi perdiderunt accipientibus, exsuscitatur dolor: sed iterum, quia ipsi sibi perditionis causa sunt, sopitur. Comment. in Epist. ad Rom. ix. in Ambros. Oper. p. 1850.

*Nec statim, qui eligitur, tentari non potest nec perire: quia et Saul electus in regem, et Judas in apostolum, suo postea vitio corruerunt. Hieron. Comment. in Ezech. xx. Oper. vol. iv. p. 389.

impossible not to perceive, that the same ruling IDEA runs, with strict harmony, through the whole of them.

In the phraseology of these passages, THE CHURCH and THE ELECT are perfectly coincident and commensurate *.

* Mr. Coles himself admits: that The Church of Christ consists of Elect Persons; or, in other words, that The Church corporately is the Election.

Such an admission, we might think, would be a virtual dereliction of the calvinistic idea, which confines the Elect to a certain number of special individuals within the Church Catholic, while other individuals equally within the Church Catholic are not to be deemed the Elect. But the necessity of that dereliction is avoided by the adoption of the theory: that The Church of the Elect is not the VISIBLE Church Catholic, but an INVISIBLE Church within the visible Church Catholic, the members of which are known, with an absolutely infallible certainty, to God alone. See Coles's Disc. on God's Sovereign. p. 103–168.

A theory of this description, it is quite clear, was never thought of by the primitive Christians: because it is totally inconsistent with their avowed opinions on the subject. By The Church of the Elect, they understood, not An invisible and mystical Church every member of which was irreversibly elected and predestinated to eternal life, but The visible Church Catholic, which comprehended a mixture both of good and of bad, and of which the elect members might fall away to eternal perdition.

As little can such a theory, I think, be reconciled with the plain and natural language of Scripture.

When St. Paul, speaking plurally of himself and of the whole body of Ephesian Christians whom he is addressing, says, that God hath chosen us and predestinated us; or when, addressing the whole body of the Colossian Christians, the same Apostle

All, who have been gathered into the Church out of the mass of the unbelieving world, are

says, Put on, as the Elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies; or when St. Peter, addressing the whole body of the Christian Strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, speaks of them collectively, as being Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father: it is difficult, from such language, fairly and reasonably to suppose, that not The members of the entire visible Churches in Ephesus and Colossa and Pontus and Galatia and Cappadocia and Asia and Bithynia are meant by The Elect, but only Certain individuals of those Churches, who must be viewed, quite apart from their ostensible brethren, as jointly constituting an invisible Church concealed within these visible Churches.

God's Church and God's Elect are so plainly in Scripture spoken of as coincident and identical, that the theory of An invisible Church of the Elect is absolutely necessary to the Calvinistic System. But, if, merely to serve a theological turn, we be at liberty, and that too in defiance of the testimony of the primitive Christians, thus to interpret Scripture: we may make the apostolical language speak any thing which best suits our preconceived purposes.

The Epistles are clearly written to certain whole visible and tangible Churches, accurately defined and specified according to their geographical localities.

Now ALL the members of those visible and tangible Churches, without any exception in favour of PARTICULARS, are collectively and generically spoken of as The Elect.

Doubtless, therefore, the term must have been used by the writers in a sense applicable to whole visible Communities.

Consequently, since we cannot believe that every member of every visible primitive Church was elect in the calvinistic sense of the word: the only sense, in which it can be applicable to whole visible Communities, is that of An Election into the pale of the visible Church Catholic.

considered and addressed as The Elect of God: while The Church herself, viewed collectively as The Election, is spoken of as A Society or a People called and chosen out of the nations which had long remained ignorant of all true religion.

Hence The Elect of God are not, as on the calvinistic and arminian plans which in point of IDEALITY are identical, contradistinguished from numerous persons within as well as without the pale of the visible Church: but those, from whom they are contradistinguished, are Absolute Unbelievers, who either have never heard the sound of the Gospel, or who have heard it only to reject the Gospel.

Such a contradistinction springs inevitably from the Doctrinal System of the primitive Christians. The IDEALITY of the word Election, with a Calvinist and an Arminian, is An Election of certain individuals to eternal life: for, widely as they differ in their views of the principle of CAUSATION, they equally make Eternal Life the immediate and direct object or purpose or business of Election. But, with the primitive Christians anterior to the time of Augustine, the IDEALITY of the word Election was An Election of certain individuals from all nations into the Church, with the object and intention indeed of their attaining to eternal life through the powerful instrumentality of those means of grace which constituted their high ecclesiastical privileges,