he has done or omitted to do at every moment of his life. Now, the two first of these factors are out of his power. A man born in Africa, or descended from Chinese parents, cannot, by any choice or effort, become what a man born of French or German parents may become. A man born among the Turks or Arabs, and educated by the circumstances surrounding him there, must be a wholly different man from one born in New England. Man's freedom, therefore, may be likened to the power of the helmsman to direct a vessel. He cannot determine what sort of a vessel he shall be in, nor what sort of weather or currents shall come: all he can do at any mo. ment is to steer it to the right or left. If, now, in steering, he guides himself by a compass turning to a fixed point, and by a chart giving the true position of continents and islands, then this power enables him, in spite of storms and calms, to take the vessel round the world, to the harbor he seeks. But if he has no chart and compass, but steers as he chooses from moment to moment, he goes nowhere. His vessel will then drift before the steady winds and constant currents. So is human freedom a great power when it guides itself by eternal truths and fixed laws. But if it does not, then it is not freedom, but only wilfulness, and it accomplishes nothing. Man's freedom is thus surrounded by divine providence. God determines the original organization of every human being; God determines the circumstances which educate him; and God has fixed the laws by which he must guide himself in order to become really free. He cannot therefore resist the divine will, except temporarily. He can postpone the time when God's kingdom shall come, and his will be done; but that is all.

§ 4. History of the Doctrine of Election and Predestina tion. Before Augustine, all the Greek and Latin Fathers of the Church taught the concurrence of free will and grace in human conversion. They taught that man must begin the

work, and that God would aid him. God and man must work together.

Then came the controversy between Augustine and Pelagius. The latter, being at Rome, heard this sentence read from the writings of the former: "Da quod jubes, et jube quod vis" - Give what thou commandest, and command what thou willest. Pelagius objected to this formula. He said, “Since man ought to be without sin, he can be without sin." "There is," said he, "in man, a Can Do,' a 'Will Do,' and a 'Do."" The first is from God; in the others God and man unite.

Augustine objected that God worked in us both to will and to do. He had first taught that God sends motives which we can obey or resist; but he saw that if God works in us to will, he must also conquer our resistance, and work the power by which we consent.

But to this Pelagius replied, "Then there is no freedom in man."

Augustine answered, "God does not move us as we move a stone, but rationally; he makes us will what is good, and does not force us against our will. He frees the will from its proclivity to evil, by preparing grace,' and determines it to good by 'effecting grace.' That some do not yield to this, is not because of their greater resistance, but because God does not choose to conquer their resistance."

This is the point where grace passes into predestination. The Old Church had maintained that God predestined to life those whom he foresaw would repent and obey him. His foreknowledge did not cause this to happen, but he foreknew it because it would happen. It did not take place because he foresaw it, but he foresaw it because it would take place.

Election, according to the early Fathers, was nothing arbitrary. It depended on man to be saved or lost. So taught Justin Martyr, Origen, Basil, Hilary.

Basil said, "God hardened Pharaoh's heart by his judg

ments, which were sent to show how hard it was, because he saw he would not repent."

Origen adds, "Like a wise physician, God did not cure Pharaoh too soon, for fear of a relapse. He let him drink the cup of sin to the bottom in this life, so as to cure him more thoroughly hereafter."

Pelagius (and Augustine at first) took the same view. They said that God foresees and permits evil, and decrees the consequence of it.

Augustine said, "God has chosen some men in Christ, not because he foresaw they would be good, but because he determined to make them so." The reason of this choice, therefore, lay not in man, but in God's arbitrary will.

Pelagius said, "This is fatalism, under the name of grace, and is saying that God accepts the persons of men."

Augustine answered, " All men in Adam are in ruin. God saves some of them. If he let all die, we could not blame him how much less for saving some!"

:

But why does he not save all?

The answer is,

Because the elect see in the fate of the non-elect what they have escaped, and God's justice is revealed with his goodness.

None of the elect perish, though they may die unbaptized, and be ever so bad in their lives; but they will be all converted before they die.

The non-elect may be often better men than the elect; but they will not be saved.

The only place where Augustine allows freedom is in Adam, who might have turned either way.

Semi-Pelagianism consists essentially in saying, "Man begins the work; God aids him."

Augustine's view was carried out afterwards thus: "If God does all, it is no use to preach, exhort, or read Scripture, or use any means of grace."

Augustine had said that reprobation was not a decree to sin, but to punishment.

But Gottschalk, his follower, said it was a decree to sin. The Church rejected this statement, and softened the doctrine. Thomas Aquinas revived it again.

Luther and Calvin both maintained that there is no good in man after the fall. Flacius said that original sin is the substance of human nature, and human nature now bears the image of the devil.

Luther made freedom of the will to consist in doing evil with pleasure, and not by constraint.

Calvin denied that there is any free will. "Why give it such a lofty title?" he said. He seemed to think that all the power left to men is so much taken from God.

When God says, "Do this and live," it is, says Luther, merely irony on his part, as though he had said, "See if you can do it! Try it."

Luther actually taught that God's will in revealed Scripture that all should be saved, but his real and secret will was, that not all should be saved.

was,

Melancthon said, "Man has no power by himself to do right; but when grace is offered, he can receive it or reject it."

Calvin went beyond Augustine. He taught that,

1. The decree of predestination was not merely a decree to punishment, but to sin. He rejects with scorn the distinction between permitting and causing, between foreknowledge and predestination. He says it is improper to have God's decree waiting on men's choice.

2. He taught that Adam's sin was decreed by God. The Infralapsarian taught that God foresaw that Adam would sin, and so decreed some men to life, and others to death. The Supralapsarian taught that God determined to reveal his majesty, and mercy, and justice. He created men, and made them miserable to show his mercy, and made them sinful to show his justice.

3. If men complain that God has so created them, Calvin

answers, God has the same right that the potter has over the clay. If they complain that God has chosen some, and not others, to life, he replies, that so oxen, horses, and sheep might complain that they were not men.

4. God causes the sin which he forbids. This is not a contradiction in him, for his nature is different from ours. God created all for his own glory, and sinners to glorify his justice.

Finally, Calvin himself admits that this is " a horrible

decree."

§ 5. Election is to Work and Opportunity here, not to Heaven hereafter. How Jacob was elected, and how the Jews were a Chosen People.This reductio ad absurdum disproves the common idea of election. If a man were elected by God to heaven, and so could not help going to heaven, it would not be worth his while to give diligence to make his calling and election sure. It is sure already, without any diligence.

The common Orthodox idea of election is, therefore, a false one. God does not elect, or choose us, for passive enjoyment, but for active duty. He elects us to opportunities. He elects, or, as we may say, selects, us for certain special work, gives us certain special privileges, and holds us to an accountability for the use of them.

In the parable of the talents, God elected, or selected, one man to the possession of five talents, another to the possession of two, and another one. Each was elected; but each was elected to opportunities, and each to a different opportunity; but they all had to give diligence to make their calling and election sure.

The word "elect was first applied to the Jews. They were an elect or chosen people. They were selected from among all nations for a great duty and opportunity. They were taught the unity of God and his holiness. They were a. city set on a hill, a light shining in the darkness of the