mise. "Oh, but our Lord foreknew that the man certainly would do as requested." Then the man could not help doing it. His volition was inevitable. It could not have been infallibly known, that he certainly would comply; if that compliance was antecedently uncertain, and if it could so have happened that he might not have complied.

Thus does scripture prophecy (not one only, but every individual prophecy in God's book) demonstrate, 1. The absolute foreknowledge of the three divine persons: and, 2. The unalterable necessity, or indefeatable futurition, of things foreknown.

Either God is ignorant of future events, and his understanding, like that of men, receives gradual improvement from time and experience and observation (a supposition blacker, if possible, than atheism itself!) or, the whole train of incidents, even to the rise and fall of a mote in the air, ever was, now is, ever will be, and ever must be, exactly that, and no other, which he (a) certainly knew it would be. Fore

(a) Properly speaking, it cannot be affirmed of God, that he either did know, or that he will know; but, simply, that he knows. For, in Deum non cadunt prius et posterius: there is no past, nor future, to him. All is present, and unsuccessive. The distribution of things, into those that have been, those that are, and those that shall be; is, indeed, suited to the flux condition, and to the limited faculties, of beings like ourselves, whose estimates of duration are taken from the periodical journies of an opaque grain, round a lucid speck termed the sun but can have no place in him, of whom it is declared, that a thousand years are, with the Lord, as one day; and one day, as a thousand years. And even this declaration, magnificent as it is, falls infinitely short of the mark.

When, therefore, I speak of foreknowledge, as an attribute essential to Deity; I speak, as St. Paul says, after the manner of men. The simple term, knowledge, would be more intrinsically proper; but then it would not so readily aid the conceptions of ordinary persons. Though, for my own part, I would always rather call the divine knowledge, omniscience, than give it any other name.

Let me just hint, that, if all things, without exception, and without succession, are eternally present, as an indivisible point, to the uncreated view; necessity comes in, with a full tide. For that

knowledge, undarkened by the least shadow of ignorance, and superior to all possibility of mistake, is a link, which draws invincible necessity after it, whether the scripture doctrine of predestination be taken into the account or no.

Take a few more evidences of our Lord's necessitarianism.

When they deliver you up [to be tried as religious criminals at the Jewish and Heathen tribunals], take no thought how or what you shall speak. For it shall be given you, in that same hour, what you shall speak. For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father, who speaketh in you. Matt. x. 19, 20.

Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground, without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Matt. x. 29, 30.

O Father, thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Matt. xi. 25.

It is given unto you, to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven; but to them it is not given. Matt. xiii. 11.

Without a parable spake he not unto them: that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by the prophet. Matth. xiii. 34, 35.

which is always a philosophical now, can be no other, nor otherwise, than it is. Not to add: that the Deity, whose view of all things is thus unchangeably fixed, and perpetual, and intransitory; must have within himself a constant and irremediable source of standing uneasiness, if any thing can happen in contrariety to his will, and so as to cross or defeat the wisdom and goodness of his designs. He must certainly interest himself, and very deeply too, in the accomplishment of a will which is all-holy, and all-right, and all-wise. Consequently, could such a will (and his will is precisely such) be frustrated, though but in one single instance; that frustration would necessarily be a calamity on God himself, and inflict essential and never-ending pain on the divine mind. Another (I think, irrefragable) proof, that nothing is left to contingency.

Flesh and blood have not revealed unto thee, but my Father who is in heaven. Matth. xvi. 17.

Upon this rock will I build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Ver. 18. The Son of man must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things, and be killed, and rise again the third day. Ver. 21.

It must needs be [Avafans, there is a necessity] that offences come. Matt. xviii. 7.-Or, as St. Luke has it, it is impossible [avevdexTov, it is not expectable] but that offences will come: Luke xvii. 1. Our Lord not only asserted the thing, which we mean by necessity; but even made use of the word itself. And so we find him doing, in three or four other parts of the gospels. Nor is the sense, in which he used the term, left ambiguous; as appears from comparing the two above passages together. Necessity is that, by which, things cannot, without the utmost folly and absurdity, be expected to come to pass any otherwise than just as they do. But Arminianism pays very slender regard to Christ's authority.

Go thou to the sea, and cast a hook, and take the fish that first cometh up: and when thou hast opened his mouth, thou shalt find a piece of money. Matt. xvii. 27.

All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given. He that can receive it, let him receive it. Matt. xix. 11, 12.

To sit on my right hand and on my left, is not mine to give, except unto them for whom it is pared of my Father. Matt. xx. 23.

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Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward, for ever. And, presently, the fig-tree withered away. Matt. xxi. 19.

Whosoever shall fall on this stone, shall be broken but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder. Matt. xxi. 44.

Many are called, but few are chosen. Matt. xxii. 14.

Fill you up the measure of your fathers. How (a) can you escape the damnation of hell? Matt. xxiii. 32, 33.

I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes and some of them ye shall kill and crucify, and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues; and persecute them from city to city; that upon you may come all the righteous bloodshed upon the earth. Matt. xxiii. 34, 35.Say not, "Where is the justice of this?" Justice belongs to another argument. We are not, now treating of justice, but of necessity. Keep to the point.

Two men shall be in the field: one shall be taken, and the other left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill: one shall be taken, and the other left. Matt. xxiv. 40, 41.

(a) Monsieur Le Clerc (who would have thought it?) has a passage, so full to the sense of this observable text, that one would almost imagine he designed it for the very purpose. "Posito, hominem peccato deditum esse; nec per totam vitam id habere, quod necessariò postulatur ad habitum peccati exuendum; inde colligimus, necessitate consequentiæ, hominem in peccato mansurum, nec ullâ ratione vitaturum pænas peccatori debitas impænitenti." Ontolog. cap. 13.

I really wonder at the above writer's expressing himself thus. But I do not wonder to hear the excellent Luther remark as follows. "Nonne clarè sequitur, dum Deus opere suo in nobis non adest, omnia esse mala quæ facimus, et nos necessariò operari quæ nihil ad salutem valent? Si enim non nos, sed solus Deus operatur salutem in nobis; nihil, ante opus ejus, operamur salutare, velimus nolimus." (De Servo Arbitr. sect. 43.) i. e. It is clearly evident, that, until God is present in us by his own gracious influence, whatever we do is evil : and we necessarily do those things only, which have no tendency to salvation. For if it is God alone who worketh salvation in us, and not we in ourselves; we can do nothing salutary, will we or nill we, until he himself actually doth so work in us. Well said honest Martin. To God's blessing upon the bold and faithful assertion of such noble truths as this, we owe our reformation from popery. And. nothing will finally preserve us from being carried captive into the popish Egypt again, but the revival and prevalency of the same noble truths which at first led us forth from that house of bondage.

This night, before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. Matt. xxvi. 34. Might Peter not have denied him? and might Christ have proved mistaken?

If it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Matt. xxvi. 39. But it was not possible.

Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, &c. but how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be? Ver. 53, 54.

All this was done, that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled. Ver. 56.

And they crucified him, and parted his garments, casting lots; that it might be fulfilled which was spoken, &c. Matt. xxvii. 35. Nothing but mere

necessity, from beginning to end!

My appeals to the other three evangelists shall be extremely concise.

He goeth up into a mountain, and calleth unto him whom he would, and they (a) came unto him. Mark iii. 13.

(a) It is precisely the same, in the spiritual conversion of the soul to God. None can come, until effectually called: and they, who are called effectually, cannot but come. For, as the profound and judicious Mr. Charnock unanswerably argues, "If there be a counsel [i. e. a display of godlike wisdom and design] in framing the lowest creature, and in the minutest passages of providence; there must needs be a higher wisdom in the government of creatures to a supernatural end, and in framing the soul to be a monument of his glory." Charnock on the Attributes, p. 373.-I have met with many treatises on the divine perfections; but with none, which any way equals that of Mr. Charnock. Perspicuity, and depth; metaphysical sublimity, and evangelical simplicity; immense learning, and plain, but irrefragable reasoning; conspire to render that performance one of the most inestimable productions, that ever did honour to the sanctified judgment and genius of a human being. If I thought myself at all adequate to the task, I would endeavour to circulate the outlines of so rich a treasure into more hands, by reducing the substance of it within the compass of an octavo volume. Was such a design properly executed, a more important service could hardly be rendered to the cause of religion, virtue, and knowledge. Many people are frightened at a folio of more than 800 pages, who might have both leisure and inclination to avail themselves of a well digested compendium.