In expounding the testimony of Paul, when he says; As God elected us in himself before the foundation of the world, that we might be holy and immaculate before him:-we did but follow THE ECCLESIASTICAL SENSE of the words. For the Apostle says not: God elected us before the foundation of the world, when we were holy and immaculate. But he says: God elected us, in order that we might be holy and immaculate. In other words: God elected us, that we, who before were not holy and immaculate, might afterward become so: language, which applies to the case of sinners converted to better things. Thus that sentence, In thy sight shall no man living be justified, will stand good *.

Presumptuously dare, then, to object to God that stronger calumny: Wherefore it was, that, while Esau and Jacob were still in the womb, God should have said; Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.Object, likewise, as your comrade

+ Testimonium Pauli, in quo loquitur, Sicut elegit in ipso nos ante constitutionem mundi, ut essemus sancti et immaculati coram ipso sic interpretati sumus, ut-ecclesiasticum sensum secuti simus.Non enim ait apostolus: Elegit nos ante constitutionem mundi, cum essemus sancti et immaculati; sed Elegit nos, ut essemus sancti et immaculati: hoc est, qui sancti et immaculati ante non fuimus, ut postea essemus; quod et de peccatoribus, ad meliora conversis, dici potest. Et stabit illa sententia: Non justificabitur in conspectu tuo omnis vivens. Hieron. Apol. adv. Ruffin. lib. i. c. 6. Oper. vol. ii. p. 199.

Porphyry was wont to do: On what ground it was, that a clement and merciful God, from Adam down to Moses, and from Moses down to the coming of Christ, suffered all nations to perish through ignorance of the Law and Commandments of God. For neither Britain, nor the Irish Tribes, nor all those barbarous nations in a circuit as far as to the ocean, had known Moses and the Prophets. What need was there, that he should come in the last time, and not before an innumerable multitude of men should have perished? Which question, the blessed Apostle, writing to the Romans, most prudently discusses: simply confessing his ignorance of these matters, and humbly submitting to THE WISDOM OF GOD. Deign, therefore, thou also, to be ignorant of the matters into which thou inquirest. Be content to concede to God POWER OVER HIS OWN. He wants not thee for a defender *.

*Objice Deo fortiorem calumniam: Quare adhuc, cum in utero essent Esau et Jacob; dixerit; Jacob dilexi, Esau autem odio habui.-Et, ad extremum, quod solet nobis objicere contubernalis vester Porphyrius: Qua ratione, clemens et misericors Deus, ab Adam usque ad Moysen, et a Moyse usque ad adventum Christi, passus sit universas gentes perire ignorantia Legis et Mandatorum Dei. Neque enim Britannia fertilis provincia tyrannorum, et Stoica (qu. Scotica) gentes, omnesque usque ad oceanum per circuitum barbara nationes, Moysen prophetasque cognoverant. Quid necesse fuit eum in ultimo venire tempore, et non priusquam innumerabilis periret hominum multitudo?

In his exposition of the words of St. Paul, God elected us that we might be holy and immaculate, Jerome is opposing the wild speculation of Origen respecting the preëxistence of souls and his vain attempt to vindicate the justice of God on the plea that the moving CAUSE of Election is The merit of man in a prior state. But this circumstance affects, neither the force of his argument, nor the drift of his testimony. From St. Paul's express words, he rightly insists; that Holiness is the CONSEQUENCE, not the CAUSE, of Election: and he distinctly bears witness; that, Whatever deviations may have taken place in later times, such is the true Ecclesiastical Sense annexed to the language of the Apostle.

3. By the mere force of evidence, then, I am led to conclude; that the strictly Primitive Church assigned God's merciful, though inscrutable, Sovereignty, displayed in the exercise of his Supreme Will and Pleasure, as the alone moving CAUSE of Election: and my persuasion is collaterally confirmed, both by what I must needs call the very necessity of the case, and by what might have been well anticipated as the sure and certain

Quam quæstionem beatus apostolus, ad Romanos scribens, prudentissimè ventilat, ignorans hæc, et Dei concedens scientiæ. Dignare igitur et tu ista nescire, quæ quæris. Concede Deo potentiam sui: nequaquam te indiget defensore. Hieron. adv. Pelag. ad Ctesiphon. c. 4. Oper. vol. ii. p. 223.

consequence of adopting Clement's new System of CAUSATION.

(1.) Let us first attend to the very necessity of the case.

According to the view constantly taken by the early Church, the IDEALITY of Election was: not An Election of certain individuals, out of the great mass of mankind, immediately and directly, to eternal happiness in the next world; but An Election of certain individuals, out of the great mass both of the Gentiles and of the Jews, into the pale of the visible Church in this world, with the object and intention indeed of their obtaining eternal happiness hereafter, but still through their own perverse unholiness with the full moral possibility of their not attaining it.

Now it is perfectly clear: that an Election of this description cannot rest, as its moving CAUSE, upon God's foreknowledge of the future fitness of the individuals thus elected.

For, if God's foreknowledge of the fitness of the individuals were the moving CAUSE of their Election into the Church: then, by the very necessity of the case, none either would or could be elected into the pale of the visible Church, save those individuals whose future fitness and holiness God foreknew.

If, however, none were elected into the pale of the visible Church save those individuals whose fitness and holiness God foreknew then, by the

actual terms of the proposition, there neither would nor could, within the pale of the visible Church, be a single individual, who, at the time of his death, would be found personally unfit or unholy.

But it is evident, that too many individuals both habitually live and finally die, personally unfit and unholy, within the pale of that visible Church, into which, nevertheless, they have been elected.

Therefore, clearly, the impelling CAUSE of the Election of such unfit and unholy individuals into the pale of the visible Church cannot be God's foreknowledge of their future fitness and holiness: for a foreknowledge of the fitness of the permanently unfit, or a foreknowledge of the holiness of the permanently unholy, were a palpable and direct contradiction.

(2.) Let us next attend to what might have been well anticipated, as the sure and certain consequence of adopting the novel System of CAUSATION.

It is strange, that the obvious result of his proposed solution should not instantly have occurred to Clement himself: and it is still more strange, that such a result should not have immediately prevented the very general supplantation of the more reasonable and more consistent doctrine of the Church of the two first centuries.

Yet so it was. Nevertheless, as might naturally be expected, the inconsistency of the moving CAUSE of Election as laid down by Clement, with the primitive IDEALITY of Election itself, was not