will, that either may cooperate with them, or may not, as ART. it pleases? The third is, Whether fuch perfons do, and must certainly perfevere, to whom fuch grace is given? Or, whether they may not fall away both entirely and finally from that ftate? There are also other questions concerning the true notion of liberty, concerning the feeblenefs of our powers in this lapfed ftate, with feveral leffer ones; all which do neceffarily take their determination from the decifion of the first and main queftion; about which there arex four opinions. The firft is of thofe commonly called Supralapfarians, who think that God does only confider his own glory in all that he does : and that whatever is done, arises as from its firft caufe, from the decree of God: that in this decree God, confidering only the manifestation of his own glory, intended to make the world, to put a race of men in it, to constitute them under Adam as their fountain and head: that he decreed Adam's fin, the lapse of his pofterity, and Chrift's death, together with the falvation or damnation of fuch men as fhould be moft for his own glory that to those who were to be faved he decreed to give fuch efficacious affiftances, as fhould certainly put them in the way of falvation; and to thofe whom he rejected he decreed to give fuch affiftances and means only as fhould render them inexcufable: that all men do continue in a ftate of grace, or of fin, and fhall be faved or damned, according to that firft decree: fo that God views himself only, and in that view he defigns all things fingly for his own glory, and for the manifefting of his own attributes. The fecond opinion is of thofe called the Sublapfarians, who fay, that Adam having finned freely, and his fin being imputed to all his pofterity, God did confider mankind, thus loft, with an eye of pity; and having defigned to refcue a great number out of this loft ftate, he decreed to fend his Son to die for them, to accept of his death on their account, and to give them fuch affiftances as fhould be effectual both to convert them to him, and to make them perfevere to the end: but for the reft, he framed no pofitive act about them, only he left them in that lapsed state, without intending that they fhould have the benefit of Chrift's death, or of efficacious and perfevering affiftances. The third opinion is of those who are called Remonftrants, Arminians, or Univerfalifts, who think that God intended to create all men free, and to deal with them according to the ufe that they fhould make of their liberty : that XVII. XVII. ART. that therefore he, foreseeing how every one would use it, did upon that decree all things that concerned them in this life, together with their falvation and damnation in the next that Chrift died for all men; that sufficient affiftances are given to every man, but that all men may choose whether they will use them, and perfevere in them, or not. The fourth opinion is of the Socinians, who deny the certain prescience of future contingencies and therefore they think the decrees of God from all eternity were only general; that fuch as believe and obey the Gofpel fhall be faved, and that fuch as live and die in fin fhall be damned: but that there were no fpecial decrees made concerning particular perfons, thefe being only made in time, according to the ftate in which they are: they do alfo think that man is by nature so free and fo entire, that he needs no inward grace; fo they deny a fpecial predeftination from all eternity, and do alfo deny inward afliftances. This is a controverfy that arises out of natural religion : for if it is believed that God governs the world, and that the wills of men are free; then it is natural to enquire which of thefe is fubject to the other, or how they can be both maintained? whether God determines the will? or if his Providence follows the motions of the will? Therefore all those that believed a Providence have been aware of this difficulty. The Stoics put all things under a fate; even the Gods themselves: if this fate was a neceflary series of things, a chain of matter and motion that was fixed and unalterable, then it was plain and downright atheifm. The Epicureans fet all things at liberty, and either thought that there was no God, or at least that there was no Providence. The Philofophers knew not how to avoid this difficulty, by which we fee Tully and others were fo differently moved, that it is plain they defpaired of getting out of it. The Jews had the same question among them; for they could not believe their 2de Bell. Law, without acknowledging a Providence: and yet the Jud. lib. ii. Sadducees among them allerted liberty in fo entire a manner, that they fet it free from all restraints: on the other hand, the Effens put all things under an abfolute fate : and the Pharifees took a middle way; they afferted the freedom of the will, but thought that all things were governed by a Providence. There are alfo fubtle difputes concerning this matter among the Mahometans, one fect afferting liberty, and another fate, which generally prevails among them. Jofeph. Ant. Jud. lib. xviii. c. C. 7. In the first ages of Chriftianity, the Gnoftics fancied that Her. lib. i. C. I. Clem. AL archon. 1. iii. Philo .Rom. that the fouls of men were of different ranks, and that ART. they fprang from different principles, or Gods, who made XVII. them. Some were carrial, that were devoted to perdition; others were fpiritual, and were certainly to be faved; Iren. adv. others were animal of a middle order, capable either of happiness or mifery. It feems that the Marcionites and Epiph. Manichees thought that fome fouls were made by the Her. 31. bad God, as others were made by the good. In oppofi- pæd. lib. i. tion to all thefe, Origen afferted, that all fouls were by na- c. 6. ture equally capable of being either good or bad; and Orig. Perithat the difference among men arofe merely from the freedom of the will, and the various ufe of that freedom: that cal. c. 21. God left men to this liberty, and rewarded and punished Explan. them according to the ufe of it; yet he afferted a Provi- 12. Ep. ad dence: but as he brought in the Platonical doctrine of preexistence into the government of the world; and as he explained God's loving Jacob, and his hating of Efau, before they were born, and had done either good or evil, by this of a regard to what they had done formerly; fo he afferted the fall of man in Adam, and his being recovered by grace; but he ftill maintained an unreftrained liberty in the will. His doctrine, though much hated in Egypt, was generally followed over all the Eaft, particularly in Paleftine and at Antioch. St. Gregory Nazianzen and St. Bafil drew a fyftem of divinity out of his works, in which that which relates to the liberty of the will is very fully fet forth that book was much ftudied in the Eaft. Chryfoftom, Ifidore of Damiete, and Theodoret, with all Orig. Phitheir followers, taught it fo copioufly, that it became the locar. received doctrine of the Eaftern Church. Jerome was fo much in love with Origen, that he tranflated fome parts of him, and fet Ruffin on tranflating the reft. But as he had a fharp quarrel with the bifhops of Paleftine, fo that perhaps difpofed him to change his thoughts of Origen : for ever after that, he fet himself much to difgrace his doctrine; and he was very fevere on Ruffin for tranflating him: though Ruffin confeffes, that, in tranflating his Ruffin. works, he took great liberties in altering feveral pallages Verf. Com. that he difliked. One of Origen's difciples was Pelagius, Orig. in a Scottish monk, in great efteem at Rome, both for his Ep. ad learning, and the great ftrictnefs of his life. He carried Rom. thefe doctrines farther than the Greek Church had done; Chryf. Ep. 4. ad fo that he was reckoned to have fallen into great errors Olymp. both by Chryfoftom and Ifidore, (as it is reprefented by Ifid. Peluf. Janfenius, though that is denied by others, who think 514 they meant another of the fame name.) He denied that we had fuffered any harm by the fall of Adam, or that there Lib. 1. Ep. : ART. there was any need of inward affiftances; and he afferted XVII. an entire liberty in the will. St. Auftin, though in his difputes with the Manichees he had faid many things on the fide of liberty, yet he hated Pelagius's doctrine, which he thought afferted a facrilegious liberty, and he fet himfelf to beat down his tenets, which had been but feebly attacked by Jerome. Caffian, a difciple of St. Chryfoftom's, came to Marseilles about this time, having left Conftantinople perhaps when his mafter was banifhed out of it. He taught a middle doctrine, afferting an inward grace, but fubject to the freedom of the will; and that all things were both decreed and done, according to the prefcience of God, in which all future contingents were forefeen he also taught, that the first converfion of the foul to God was merely an effect of its free choice; fo that all preventing grace was denied by him; which came to be the peculiar diftinction of those who were afterwards called the Semi-Pelagians. Profper and Hilary gave an account of this fyftem to St. Austin, upon which he writ against it, and his opinions were defended by Profper, Fulgentius, Orofius, and others, as Caffian's were defended by Fauftus, Vincentius, and Gennadius. In conclufion, St. Auftin's opinions did generally prevail in the Weft; only Pelagius, it feems, retiring to his own country, he had many followers among the Britains: but German and Lupus, being fent over once and again from France, are faid to have conquered them fo entirely, that they were all freed from thofe errors: whatever they did by their arguments, the writers of their legends took care to adorn their miffion with many very wonderful miracles, of which the gathering all the pieces of a calf, fome of which had been dreffed, and the putting them together in its skin, and reftoring it again to life, is none of the leaft. The ruin of the Roman Empire, and the diforders that the Weftern Provinces fell under by their new and barbarous masters, occafioned in thofe ages a great decay of learning: fo that few writers of fame coming after that time, St. Auftin's great labours and piety, and the many vaft volumes that he had left behind him, gave him fo great a name, that few durft conteft what had been fo zealously and fo copiously defended by him: and though it is highly probable, that Celeftine was not fatisfied with his doctrine; yet both he and the other Bifhops of Rome, together with many provincial fynods, have fo often declared his doctrine in thofe points to be the doctrine of the Church, that this is very hardly got over by those of that communion. The The chief and indeed the only material difference that ART. is between St. Auftin's doctrine and that of the Sublapfa- XVII. rians is, that he, holding that with the facrament of baptilm there was joined an inward regeneration, made a difference between the regenerate and the predeflinate, which thefe do not: he thought perfons thus regenerate might have all grace, befides that of perfeverance; but he thought that they not being predeftinated, were certainly to fall from that ftate, and from the grace of regeneration. The other differences are but forced strains, to reprefent him and the Calvinifts as of different principles: he thought, that overcoming delectation, in which he put the efficacy of grace, was as irrefiftible, though he ufed not fo ftrong a word for it as the Calvinifts do; and he thought that the decree was as abfolute, and made without any regard to what the free-will would choose, as any of thefe do. So in the main points, the absolutenefs of the decree, the extent of Chrift's death, the efficacy of grace, and the certainty of perfeverance, their opinions are the fame, though their ways of expreffing themfelves do often differ. But if St. Auftin's name and the credit of his books went far, yet no book was more read in the following ages than Caffian's Collations. There was in them a clear thread of good fenfe, and a very high frain of piety that run through them; and they were thought the best inftitutions for a monk to form his mind, by reading them attentively: fo they fill carried down, among those who read them, deep impreffions of the doctrine of the Greek Church. This broke out in the ninth century, in which Godefcalcus, a monk, was feverely used by Hincmar, and by the Church of Rhemes, for afferting fome of St. Austin's doctrines; againft which Scotus Erigena wrote; as Bertram, or Ratramne, wrote for them. Remigius, bishop of Lyons, with his Church, did zealously affert St. Auftin's doctrine, not without great sharpness againft Scotus. After this, the matter flept, till the fchool-divinity came to be in great credit: and Thomas Aquinas being accounted the chief glory of the Dominican order, he not only afferted all St. Auftin's doctrine, but added this to it; that whereas formerly it was in general held, that the providence of God did extend itfelf to all things whatsoever, he thought this was done by God's concurring immediately to the production of every thought, action, motion, or mode; fo that God was the first and immediate cause of every thing that was done; and in order to the explaining |