Certain Articles To Be Diligently Examined And Weighed Because Some Controversy Has Arisen Concerning Them Among Even Those Who Profess The Reformed Religion

These articles are partly either denied or affirmed in a decisive manner, and partly either denied or affirmed in a doubting manner, each of which methods signified by certain indicative signs which are added to the different articles.

1. ON THE SCRIPTURE AND HUMAN TRADITIONS

1. The rule of theological verity is not two-fold, one primary and the other secondary; but it is one and simple, the Sacred Scriptures.

2. The Scriptures are the rule of all divine verity, from themselves, in themselves, and through themselves; and it is a rash assertion, "that they are indeed the rule, but only when understood according to the meaning of the confession of the Dutch churches, or when explained by the interpretation of the Heidelberg Catechism."

3. No writing composed by men — by one man, by few men, or by many — (with the exception of the Holy Scriptures,) is either axiopison "creditable of itself," or autopison "of itself deserving of implicit credence," and, therefore, is not exempted from an examination to be instituted by means of the Scriptures.

4. It is a thoughtless assertion, "that the Confession and Catechism are called in question, when they are subjected to examination;" for they have never been placed beyond the hazard of being called in doubt, nor can they be so placed.

5. It is tyrannical and popish to bind the consciences of men by human writings, and to hinder them from being submitted to a legitimate examination, under what pretext soever such tyrannical conduct is adopted.

2. ON GOD CONSIDERED ACCORDING TO HIS NATURE

1. GOD is good by a natural and internal necessity, not freely; which last word is stupidly explained by the terms "unconstrainedly" and "not slavishly."

2. God foreknows future things through the infinity of his essence, and through the pre-eminent perfection of his understanding and prescience, not as he willed or decreed that they should necessarily be done, though he would not foreknow them except as they were future, and they would not be future unless God had decreed either to perform or to permit them.

3. God loves righteousness and his creatures, yet he loves righteousness still more than the creatures, from which, two consequences follow:

4. The First, that God does not hate his creature, except on account of sin.

5. The Second, that God absolutely loves no creature to life eternal, except when considered as righteous, either by legal or evangelical righteousness.

6. The will of God is both correctly and usefully distinguished into that which is antecedent, and that which is consequent.

7. The distinction of the will of God into that which is secret or of his good pleasure, and that which is revealed or signified, cannot bear a rigid examination.

8. Punitive justice and mercy neither are, nor can they be "the only moving" or final causes of the first decree, or of its first operation.

9. God is blessed in himself and in the knowledge of his own perfection.

He is, therefore, in want of nothing, neither does he require the demonstration of any of his properties by external operations: Yet if he do this, it is evident that he does it of His pure and free will; although, in this declaration [of any of His properties] a certain order must be observed according to the various egresses or "goings forth" of his goodness, and according to the prescript of his wisdom and justice.

3. ON GOD, CONSIDERED ACCORDING TO THE RELATION BETWEEN THE PERSONS IN THE TRINITY

1. The Son of God is not called by the ancient fathers "God from himself," and this is a dangerous expression. For, Autoqeo" [as thus interpreted, God from himself,] properly signifies that the Son has not the divine essence from another — But it is by a catachresis, or improperly, that the essence which the Son has is not from another; because the relation of the subject is thus changed: for "the Son," and "the divine essence," differ in relation.

2. The divine essence is communicated to the Son by the Father, and this properly and truly. Wherefore it is unskillfully asserted "that the divine essence is indeed properly said to be common to the Son and to the Father, but is improperly said to be communicated:" For it is not common to both except in reference to its being communicated.

3. The Son of God is correctly called Autoqeo" "very God," as this word is received for that which is God himself, truly God. But he is erroneously designated by that epithet, so far as it signifies that he has an essence not communicated by the Father, yet has one in common with the Father.

4. "The Son of God, in regard to his essence, is from himself," is an ambiguous expression, and, on that account, dangerous. Neither is the ambiguity removed by saying "The Son, with respect to his absolute essence, or to his essence absolutely considered, is from himself." Besides, these modes of speaking are not only novel, but are also mere prattle.

5. The divine persons are not trowoi uparxewv or modes of being or of existing, or modes of the divine essence; For they are things with the mode of being or existing.

6. The divine persons are distinguished by a real distinction, not by the degree and mode of the thing.

7. A. person is an individual subsistence itself, not a characteristic property, nor is it an individual principle; though it be not an individual, nor a person, without a characteristic property or without an individual principle.

8. QUERIES. — Is it not useful that the Trinity be considered, both as it exists in nature itself, according to the co-essential relation of the divine persons, and as it has been manifested in the economy of salvation, to be accomplished by God the Father, in Christ, through the Holy Spirit? And does not the former of these considerations appertain to religion universally, and to that which was prescribed to Adam, according to the law? But the latter consideration properly belongs to the gospel of Jesus Christ, yet not excluding that which I have mentioned as belonging to all religion universally, and therefore to that which is Christian.

4. ON THE DECREE OF GOD

1. The decrees of God are the extrinsic acts of God, though they are internal, and, therefore, made by the free will of God, without any absolute necessity. Yet one decree seems to require the supposition of another, on account of a certain fitness of equity; as the decree concerning the creation of a rational creature, and the decree concerning the salvation or damnation [of that creature] on the condition of obedience or disobedience. The act of the creature also, when considered by God from eternity, may sometimes be the occasion, and sometimes the outwardly moving cause of making some decree; and this may be so fare that without such act [of the creature] the decree neither would nor could be made.

2. QUERY. — Can the act of the creature impose a necessity on God of making some decree, and indeed a decree of a particular kind and no other — and this not only according to some act to be performed respecting the creature and his act, but also according to a certain mode by which that act must be accomplished?

3. One and the same in number is the volition by which God decrees something and determines to do or to permit it, and by which he does or permits the very thing which he decreed.

4. About an object which is one and the same, and uniformly considered, there cannot be two decrees of God, or two volitions, either in reality, or according to any semblance of a contrary volition — as to will to save man under conditions, and yet to will precisely and absolutely to condemn him.

5. A decree of itself imposes no necessity on any thing or event. But if any necessity exists through the decree of God, it exists through the intervention of the divine power, and indeed when he judges it proper to employ his irresistible power to effect what he has decreed.

6. Therefore, it is not correctly said, The will of God is the necessity of things."

7. Nor is this a just expression: "All things happen necessarily with respect to the divine decree."

8. As many distinct decrees are conceived by us, and must necessarily be conceived; as there are objects about which God is occupied in decreeing, or as there are axioms by which those decrees are enunciated.

9. Though all the decrees of God have been made from eternity, yet a certain order of priority and posteriority must be laid down, according to their nature, and the mutual relation between them.

5. ON PREDESTINATION TO SALVATION, AND ON DAMNATION CONSIDERED IN THE HIGHEST DEGREE

1. The first in order of the divine decrees is not that of predestination, by which God foreordained to supernatural ends, and by which he resolved to save and to condemn, to declare his mercy and his punitive justice, and to illustrate the glory of his saving grace, and of his wisdom and power which correspond with that most free grace.

2. The object of predestination to supernatural ends, to salvation and death, to the demonstration of the mercy and punitive justice, or of the saving grace, the wisdom, and the most free power of God, is not rational creatures indefinitely foreknown, and capable of salvation, of damnation, of creation, of falling, and of reparation or of being recovered.

3. Nor is the subject some particular creatures from among those who are considered in this manner.

4. The difference between the vessels to honor and those to dishonor, that is, of mercy and wrath, does not appertain to the adorning or perfection of the universe or of the house of God.

5. The entrance of sin into the world does not appertain to the beauty of the universe.

6. Creation in the upright state of original righteousness is not a means for executing the decree of predestination, or of election, or of reprobation.

7. It is horrid to affirm, that "the way of reprobation is creation in the upright state of original righteousness;" (Gomarus, in his Theses on Predestination;) and in this very assertion are propounded two contrary volitions of God concerning one and the same thing.

8. It is a horrible affirmation, that "God has predestinated whatsoever men he pleased not only to damnation, but likewise to the causes of damnation." (Beza, vol. I, fol. 417.)

9. It is a horrible affirmation, that "men are predestinated to eternal death by the naked will or choice of God, without any demerit on their part." (Calvin, Inst. l. I, c. 2, 3.)

10. This, also, is a horrible affirmation: "Some among men have been created unto life eternal, and others unto death eternal."

11. It is not a felicitous expression, that "preparation unto destruction is not to be referred to any other thing, than to the secret counsel of God."

12. Permission for the fall [of Adam] into sin, is not the means of executing the decree of predestination, or of election, or of reprobation.

13. It is an absurd assertion, that "the demerits of the reprobate are the subordinate means of bringing them onward to destined destruction."

14. It is a false assertion, that "the efficient and sufficient cause and matter of predestination are thus found in those who are reprobated."

15. The elect are not called "vessels of mercy" in the relation of means to the end, but because mercy is the only moving cause, by which is made the decree itself of predestination to salvation.

16. No small injury is inflicted on Christ as mediator, when he is called "the subordinate cause of destined salvation."

17. The predestination of angels and of men differ so much from each other, that no property of God can be prefixed to both of them unless it be received in an ambiguous acceptation.

6. ON THE CREATION, AND CHIEFLY THAT OF MAN

1. The creation of things out of nothing is the very first of all the external acts of God; nor is it possible for any act to be prior to this, or conceived to be prior to it; and the decree concerning creation is the first of all the decrees of God; because the properties according to which he performs and operates all things, are, in the first impulse of his nature, and in his first egress, occupied about nihility or nothing, when those properties are borne, ad extra, "outwards."

2. God has formed two creatures rational and capable of things divine; ONE of them is purely spiritual and invisible, and [that is the class of] angels; but the OTHER is partly corporeal and partly spiritual, visible and invisible, and [that is the class of] men; and the perfection of this universe seeing to have required the formation of these two [classes of] creatures.

3. QUERY. — Did it not become the manifold wisdom of God, and was it not suitable to the difference by which these two rational creatures were distinguished at the very creation, that, in the mode and circumstances of imparting eternal life to angels and to men, he might act in a different manner with the former from that which he adopts towards the latter? It appears that he might do so.

4. But two general methods may be mentally conceived by us, ONE of which is through the strict observance of the law laid down, without hope of pardon if any transgression were committed; but the OTHER is through the remission of sins, though a law agreeable to their nature was likewise to be prescribed by a peremptory decree to men, with whom it was not the will of God to treat in a strict manner and according to the utmost rigor; and obedience was to be required from them without a promise or pardon.

5. The image and likeness of God, after which man was created, belongs partly to the very nature of man, so that, without it, man cannot be man; but it partly consists in those things which concern supernatural, heavenly and spiritual things. The former class comprises the understanding, the affections, and the will, which is free; but the latter, the knowledge of God and of things divine, righteousness, true holiness, etc.

6. With respect to essence and adequate objects, the faith by which Adam believed in God is not the same as that by which he believed in God after the promise made concerning the Blessed Seed, and not the same as that by which we believe the gospel of Christ.

7. Without doing any wrong to God, to Adam, and to the truth itself, it may be said, that in his primeval state Adam neither received or possessed a Proximate capability of understanding, believing, or performing any thing whatsoever which could be necessary to be understood, believed, or performed by him, in any state whatsoever at which it was possible for him to arrive, either by his own endeavors or by the gift of God, though he must have had a remote capability, otherwise something essential would still have been to be created within man himself.

8. The liberty of the will consists in this — when all the requisites for willing or not willing are laid down, man is still indifferent to will or not to will, to will this rather than that. This indifference is removed by the previous determination, by which the will is circumscribed and absolutely determined to the one part or to the other of the contradiction or contrariety; and this predetermination, therefore, does not consist with the liberty of the will, which requires not only free capability, but also tree use in the very exercise of it.

9. Internal necessity is as repugnant to liberty as external necessity is; nay, external necessity does not necessitate to act except by the intervention of that which is internal.

10. Adam either possessed, or had ready and prepared for him, sufficient grace, whether it were habitual or assisting, to obey the command imposed on him, both that command which was symbolical and ceremonial, and that which was moral.

7. ON THE DOMINION OF GOD OVER THE CREATURES, AND CHIEFLY OVER MAN

1. The dominion of God over the creatures rests on the communication of the good which he has bestowed on them: And since this good is not infinite, neither is the dominion itself infinite. But that dominion is infinite according to which it may be lawful and proper for God to issue his commands to the creature, to impose on him all his works, to use him in all those things which his omnipotence might be able to command and to impose upon him, and to engage his services or attention.

2. Therefore the dominion of God does not extend itself so far as to be able to inflict eternal death on a rational creature, or to destine him to death eternal, without the demerits of the creature himself.

3. It is, therefore, falsely asserted, that "though God destined and created for destruction any creatures (indefinitely considered) without any consideration of sin as the meritorious cause, yet he cannot be accused of injustice, because he possesses an absolute right of dominion over them." ( Gomar’s Theses on Predestination.)

4. Another false assertion is this: "By the light of GLORY we shall understand by what right God can condemn an innocent person, or one who has not merited damnation, as by the light of GRACE we now understand by what right God saves unworthy and sinful men; yet this right we do not comprehend by the light of nature." (Luther On the Servitude of the Will.)

5. But still more false is the following assertion: "Man is bound to acquiesce in this will of God, nay, to give thanks to God, that he has made him an instrument of the divine glory, to be displayed through wrath and power in his eternal destruction."

6. God can make of his own whatsoever he wills. But he does not will, neither can he will, to make of that which is his own whatever it is possible for him to make according to his infinite and absolute power.

8. ON THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD

1. The providence of God is subordinate to creation; and it is, therefore, necessary that it should not impinge against creation, which it would do, were it to inhibit or hinder the use of free will in man, or should deny to man its necessary concurrence, or should direct man to another end, or to destruction, than to that which is agreeable to the condition and state in which he was created; that is, if the providence of God should so rule and govern man that he should necessarily become corrupt, in order that God might manifest his own glory, both of justice and mercy, through the sin of man, according to his eternal counsel.

2. It appertains to the providence of God to act and permit; which two things are confounded when permission is changed into action under this pretext — that it cannot be idle or unemployed.

3. Divine providence does not determine a free will to one part of a contradiction or contrariety, that is, by a determination preceding the actual volition itself; under other circumstances the concurrence of the very volition with the will is the concomitant cause, and thus determines the will with the volition itself, by an act which is not previous but simultaneous, as the schoolmen express themselves.

4. The permission of God by which he permits any one to fall into sin is not correctly defined as "the subtraction or withdrawing of divine grace, by which, while God executes the decrees of his will through his rational creatures, he either does not unfold to the creature his own will by which he wills that wicked work to be done, or he does not bend the will of the man to obey the divine will in that action." (Ursinus On Providence, tom. I, fol. 178.)

9. ON PREDESTINATION, CONSIDERED IN THE PRIMEVAL STATE OF MAN

1. It is not a true assertion, that "out of men considered in puris naturalibus, (either without supernatural things or with them,) God has determined, by the decree of election, to elevate to supernatural felicity some particular men, but to leave others in nature."

490 2. And it is rashly asserted that "it belongs to the relation or analogy of the universe, that some men be placed on the right and others on the left, even as the method of the master Builder requires, that some stones be placed on the left side, and others on the right, of a house which is to be built."

3. The permission by which God permits that some men wander from and miss the supernatural end, is unwisely made subordinate to this predestination; for it appertains to providence to lead and conduct a rational creature to supernatural felicity in a manner which is agreeable to the nature of that creature.

4. The permission, also, by which God permitted our first parents to fall into sin, is rashly said to be subordinate to this predestination.

10. ON THE CAUSE OF SIN UNIVERSALLY

1. Though sin can be committed by none except by a rational creature, and, therefore, ceases to be sin by this very circumstance if the cause of it be ascribed to God; yet it seems possible, by four arguments, to fasten this charge on our divines. "It follows from their doctrine that God is the author of sin."

2. First reason. — Because they teach that, "without foresight of sin, God absolutely determined to declare his own glory through punitive justice and mercy, in the salvation of some men and in the damnation of others."

Or, as others of them assert, "God resolved to illustrate his own glory by the demonstration of saving grace, wisdom, wrath, ability, and most free power, in the salvation of some particular men, and in the eternal damnation of others; which neither can be done, nor has been done, without the entrance of sin into the world."

3. Second reason. — Because they teach "that, in order to attain to that chief and supreme end, God ordained that man should sin and become corrupt, by which thing God might open a way to himself for the execution of this decree."

4. Third reason. — Because they teach "that God has either denied to man, or has withdrawn from man, before he sinned, grace necessary and sufficient to avoid sin;" which is equivalent to this — as if God had imposed a law on man which was simply impossible to be performed or observed by his very nature.

5. Fourth reason. — Because they attribute to God some acts, partly external, partly mediate, and partly immediate, which, being once laid down, man was not able to do otherwise than commit sin by necessity of a consequent and antecedent to the thing itself, which entirely takes away all liberty; yet without this liberty a man cannot be considered, or reckoned, as being guilty of the commission of sin.

6. A Fifth reason. — Testimonies of the same description may be added in which our divines assert, in express words, that "the reprobate cannot escape the necessity of sinning, especially since this kind of necessity is injected through the appointment of God." (Calvin’s Institutes, Lib. 2, 23.)

11. OF THE FALL OF ADAM

1. Adam was able to continue in goodness and to refrain from sinning, and this in reality and in reference to the issue, and not only by capability not to be brought into action on account of some preceding decree of God, or rather not possible to lead to an act by that preceding decree.

2. Adam sinned freely and voluntarily, without any necessity, either internal or external.

3. Adam did not fall through the decree of God, neither through being ordained to fall nor through desertion, but through the mere permission of God, which is placed in subordination to no predestination either to salvation or to death, but which belongs to providence so far as it is distinguished in opposition to predestination.

4. Adam did not fall necessarily, either with respect to a decree, appointment, desertion, or permission, from which it is evident what kind of judgment ought to be formed concerning expressions of the following description:

5. "I confess, indeed, that by the will of God all the sons of Adam have fallen into this miserable condition in which they are bound and fastened." (Calvin’s Institute, lib. 3, cap. 23.)

6. "They deny, in express words, the existence of this fact — that it was decreed by God that Adam should perish by his own defection."

7. "God foreknew what result man would have, became he thus ordained it by his decree."

8. "God not only foresaw the fall of the first man, but by his own will he ordained it."

12. ON ORIGINAL SIN

1. Original sin is not that actual sin by which Adam transgressed the law concerning the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and on account of which we have all been constituted sinners, and rendered obnoxious or liable to death and condemnation.

2. QUERIES. — Is original sin only the absence or want of original righteousness and of primeval holiness, with an inclination to commit sin, which likewise formerly existed in man, though it was not so vehement nor so inordinate as now it is, on account of the lost favor of God, his malediction, and the loss of that good by which that inclination was reduced to order? Or is it a certain infused habit (or acquired ingress) contrary to righteousness and holiness, after that sin had been committed,

3. Does original sin render men obnoxious to the wrath of God, when they have been previously constituted sinners on account of the actual sin of Adam, and rendered liable to damnation?

4. Adam, when considered in this state, after sin and prior to restoration, was not bound at once to punishment and obedience, but only to punishment.

 

13. ON THE PREDESTINATION OF MAN CONSIDERED PARTLY IN HIS PRIMEVAL STATE, AND PARTLY IN THE FALL

1. IT is rashly asserted that "the matter of predestination, as it is opposed to reprobation, is man in common or absolutely, if regard be had to the foreordaining of the end; but if regard be had to the means for the end, it is man about to perish by and in himself and guilty in Adam." (Trelcatii Institut., lib. 2. On Predestination.)

2. With equal infelicity is it asserted that "one reprobation is negative or passive, another affirmative or active — that the former is before all things and causes in things foreknown and considered, or that will arise from things; and that this act is respective of sin, and is called predamnation."

3. It may become a subject of discussion in what manner the following things can be said agreeably to this doctrine: "The impulsive cause of this predestination is the benevolent inclination of the will of God in Christ; and predestination is an eternal act of God, by which he resolves to make in Christ some creatures partakers of his grace and glory."

4. This is a stupid assertion: "The just desertion of God, by which he does not confer grace on a reprobate man, and which appertains to predestination and to its execution, is that of exploration or trial." This also cannot be reconciled with the expressions in the preceding paragraph.

14. ON PREDESTINATION CONSIDERED AFTER THE FALL

1. QUERIES. — Out of the fallen human race, or out of the mass of corruption and perdition, has God absolutely chosen some particular men to life, and absolutely reprobated others to death, without any consideration of the good of the one or of the evil of the other? And from a just decree, which is both gracious and severe, is there such a requisite condition as this in the object which God is about to elect and to save, or to reprobate and condemn?

2. Is any man damned with death eternal, solely on account of the sin of Adam?

3. Are those who are thus the elect necessarily saved on account of the efficacy of grace, which has been destined to them only that they may not be able to do otherwise than assent to it, as it is irresistible,

4. Are those who are thus the reprobate necessarily damned, because either no grace at all, or not sufficient, has been destined to them, that they may assent to it and believe,

5. Or rather, according to St. Augustine, Are those who are thus the elect assuredly saved, because God decreed to employ grace on them as he knew was suitable and congruous that they might be persuaded and saved; though if regard be had to the internal efficacy of grace, they may not be advanced or benefited by it,

6. Are those who have thus been reprobated certainly damned, because God does not apply to them grace as he knows to be suitable and congruous, though in the mean time they are supplied with sufficient grace, that they may be able to yield their assent and be saved,

15. ON THE DECREES OF GOD WHICH CONCERN THE SALVATION OF SINFUL MEN, ACCORDING TO HIS OWN SENSE

1. The first decree concerning the salvation of sinful men, as that by which God resolves to appoint his Son Jesus Christ as a savior, mediator, redeemer, high priest, and one who may expiate sins, by the merit of his own obedience may recover lost salvation, and dispense it by his efficacy.

2. The SECOND DECREE is that by which God resolves to receive into favor those who repent and believe, and to save in Christ, on account of Christ, and through Christ, those who persevere, but to leave under sin and wrath those who are impenitent and unbelievers, and to condemn them as aliens from Christ.

3. The THIRD DECREE is that by which God resolves to administer such means for repentance and faith as are necessary, sufficient, and efficacious. And this administration is directed according to the wisdom of God, by which he knows what is suitable or becoming to mercy and severity; it is also according to his righteousness, by which he is prepared to follow and execute [the directions] of his wisdom.

4. From these follows a FOURTH DECREE, concerning the salvation of these particular persons, and the damnation of those. This rests or depends on the prescience and foresight of God, by which he foreknew from all eternity what men would, through such administration, believe by the aid of preventing or preceding grace, and would persevere by the aid of subsequent or following grace, and who would not believe and persevere.

5. Hence, God is said to "know those who are his;" and the number both of those who are to be saved, and of those who are to be damned, is certain and fixed, and the quod and the qui, [the substance and the parties of whom it is composed,] or, as the phrase of the schools is, both materially and formally.

6. The second decree [described in § 2] is predestination to salvation, which is the foundation of Christianity, salvation, and of the assurance of salvation; it is also the matter of the gospel, and the substance of the doctrine taught by the apostles.

7. But that predestination by which God is said to have decreed to save particular creatures and persons and to endue them with faith, is neither the foundation of Christianity, of salvation, nor of the assurance of salvation.

16. ON CHRIST

1. QUERIES. — After the entrance of sin into the world, was there no other remedy for the expiation of sin, or of rendering satisfaction to God, than through the death of the Son of God,

2. Had the human nature in Christ any other thing, than substance alone, immediately from the LOGOS, that is, without the intervention of the Holy Spirit,

3. Have the holy conception of Christ through the Holy Ghost, and his birth from the Virgin Mary, this tendency — to cover the corruption of our nature lest it should come into the sight of God,

4. Does the holy life of Christ, in which he fulfilled all righteousness according to the prescript of the moral law concerning the love of God and of our neighbor, conduce only to this purpose — that Christ may be a pure and innocent High Priest and an uncontaminated victim, But was it not like-wise for this purpose — that this righteousness [of the holy life of Christ] may be our righteousness before God, and by this means performed by him for us, that is, in our name and in our stead,

5. Do those things which Christ suffered prior to his being placed before the tribunal of Pilate, concur with those which he afterwards endured, for the purging away and expiation of sins, and the redemption and reconciliation of sinners with God?

6. Was the oblation by which Christ offered himself to the Father as a victim for sin, so made on the cross that he has not offered himself and his blood to his Father in Heaven,

7. Is not the oblation by which Christ presents himself to his Father in heaven sprinkled with his own blood, a perpetual and continuous act, on which intercession rests or depends?

8. Is not the redemption which has been obtained by the blood of Christ, common to every man in particular, according to the love and affection of God by which he gave his Son for the world, though, according to the peremptory decree concerning the salvation of believers alone, it belongs only to some men?

17. ON THE VOCATION OF SINNERS TO COMMUNION WITH CHRIST, AND TO A PARTICIPATION OF HIS BENEFITS

1. Sinful man, after the perpetration of sin, has such a knowledge of the law as is sufficient for accusing, convicting, and condemning him; and this knowledge itself is capable of being employed by God when calling him to Christ, that he may, through it, compel man to repent and to flee to Christ.

2. An unregenerate man is capable of omitting more evil external works than he omits, and can perform more outward works which have been commanded by God than he actually performs; that is, it is possible for him to rule his inducements for abstaining in another and a better manner than that in which he does rule them; although if he were to do so, he would merit nothing by that deed.

3. The distribution of vocation into internal and external, is not the distribution of a genus into its species, or of a whole into its parts.

4. Internal vocation is granted even to those who do not comply with the call.

5. All unregenerate persons have freedom of will, and a capability of resisting the Holy Spirit, of rejecting the proffered grace of God, of despising the counsel of God against themselves, of refusing to accept the gospel of grace, and of not opening to Him who knocks at the door of the heart; and these things they can actually do, without any difference of the elect and of the reprobate.

6. Whomsoever God calls, he calls them seriously, with a will desirous of their repentance and salvation. Neither is there any volition of God about or concerning those whom he calls as being uniformly considered, that is, either affirmatively or negatively contrary to this will.

7. God is not bound to employ all the modes which are possible to him for the salvation of all men. He has performed his part, when he has employed either one or more of these possible means for saving.

8. "That man should be rendered inexcusable," is neither the proximate end, nor that which was intended by God, to the divine vocation when it is first made and has not been repulsed.

9. The doctrine which is manifested only for the purpose of rendering those who hear it inexcusable, cannot render them inexcusable either by right or by efficacy.

10. The right of God — by which he can require faith in Christ from those who do not possess the capability of believing in him, and on whom he refuses to bestow the grace which is necessary and sufficient for believing, without any demerit on account of grace repulsed — does not rest or depend on the fact that God gave to Adam, in his primeval state, and in him to all men, the capability of believing in Christ.

11. The right of God — by which he can condemn those who reject the gospel of grace, and by which he actually condemns the disobedient — does not rest or depend on this fact, that all men have, by their own fault, lost the capability of believing which they received in Adam.

12. Sufficient grace must necessarily be laid down; yet this sufficient grace, through the fault of him to whom it is granted, does not [always] obtain its effect. Were the fact otherwise, the justice of God could not be defended in his condemning those who do not believe.

13. The efficacy of saving grace is not consistent with that omnipotent act of God, by which he so inwardly acts in the heart and mind of man, that he on whom that act is impressed cannot do otherwise than consent to God who calls him; or, which is the same thing, grace is not an irresistible force.

14. QUERY. — Are efficacious and sufficient grace correctly distinguished according to a congruous or suitable vocation and one that is incongruous, so that it may be called efficacious grace, which God employs according to his purpose of absolutely saving some particular man, as he knows it to be congruous or suitable that this man should be moved and persuaded to obedience; and so that it may be called sufficient grace which he employs, not for such a purpose, though, from his general love towards all mankind, some are affected or moved by it, on whom, by a peremptory decree, he had resolved not to have mercy?

15. The efficacy which is distinguished from efficiency itself, seems not to differ at all from sufficiency.

16. Those who are obedient to the vocation or call of God, freely yield their assent to grace; yet they are previously excited, impelled, drawn and assisted by grace; and in the very moment in which they actually assent, they possess the capability of not assenting.

17. In the very commencement of his conversion, man conducts himself in a purely passive manner; that is, though, by a vital act, that is, by feeling, he has a perception of the grace which calls him, yet he can do no other than receive it and feel it. But, when he feels grace affecting or inclining his mind and heart, he freely assents to it, so that he is able at the same time to withhold his assent.

18. ON PENITENCE

1. The doctrine concerning repentance is not legal but evangelical; that is, it appertains to the gospel and not to the law, although the law solicits and impels to repentance.

2. The knowledge or confession of sins, sorrow on account of sin and a desire for deliverance, with a resolution to avoid sin, are pleasing to God as the very beginnings of conversion.

3. In propriety of speech, these things are not the mortification itself of the flesh or of sin but necessarily precede it.

4. Repentance is prior to faith in Christ; but it is posterior to that faith by which we believe that God is willing to receive into his favor the penitent sinner.

5. QUERIES. — Is the repentance of Judas properly called legal?

6. Was the penitence or repentance of the inhabitants of Tyre and Sidon, of which Christ speaks in Matthew 11:21, dissembled and feigned, or true repentance?

19. ON FAITH

1. Justifying faith is not that by which any one believes that his sins are remitted to him for the sake of Christ; for the latter faith follows justification itself or remission of sins, which is the effect of justifying faith.

2. Justifying faith is not that by which any one believes himself to be elected.

3. All men are not bound to believe themselves to be elected.

4. The knowledge and faith by which any one knows and believes that he is in possession of faith, is prior by nature to that knowledge and faith by which any one knows and believes himself to be elected.

5. From these remarks, some judgment may be formed concerning that which is sometimes asserted, "A believing and elect person is bound to believe that he is elected."

6. Justifying faith is that by which men believe in Jesus Christ, as in the savior of those universally who believe, and of each of them in particular, even the Savior of him who, through Christ, believes in God, who justifies the ungodly.

7. Evangelical and saving faith is of such vast excellency as to exceed the entire nature of man, and all his understanding, even that of Adam, when placed in a state of innocence.

8. God cannot of right require faith in Christ from that man whom, by an absolute will, he has reprobated, either without consideration of any sin, or as fallen in Adam; therefore, it was not his will that Christ should be of the least advantage to this man; or, rather, he willed that Christ should not profit him.

9. Faith is a gracious and gratuitous gift of God, bestowed according to the administration of the means necessary to conduce to the end, that is, according to such an administration as the justice of God requires, either towards the side of mercy or towards that of severity. It is a gift which is not bestowed according to an absolute will of saving some particular men; for it is a condition required in the object to be saved, and it is in fact a condition before it is the means for obtaining salvation.

10. Saving faith is that of the elect of God; it is not the faith of all men, of perverse and wicked men, not of those who repel the word of grace, and account themselves unworthy of life eternal, not of those who resist the Holy Spirit, not of those who reject the counsel of God against themselves, nor of those who have not been ordained to life eternal. No man believes in Christ except he has been previously disposed and prepared, by preventing or preceding grace, to receive life eternal on that condition on which God wills to bestow it, according to the following passage of Scripture: "If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself." (John 7:17.)

20. ON REGENERATION AND THE REGENERATE

1. The proximate subject of regeneration, which is effected in the present life by the Spirit of Christ, is the mind and the affections of man, or the will considered according to the mode of nature, not the will considered according to the mode of liberty. It is not the body of man, though man, when renewed by regeneration through his mind and feelings, actually wills in a good manner, and performs well through the instruments of the body.

2. Though regeneration is not perfected in a moment, but by certain steps and intervals; yet, as soon as ever it is perfected according to its essence, that is, through the renovation of the mind and affections, it renders the man spiritual, and capable of resisting sin through the assisting grace of God. Hence, also, from the Spirit, which predominates in him, he is called spiritual and not carnal, though he still has within him the flesh lusting against the Spirit. For these two, a carnal man and a spiritual man, are so denominated in opposition, and according to [that which is in each of them] the more powerful, prevailing or predominant party.

3. The regenerate are able to perform more true good, and of such as is pleasing to God, than they actually perform, and to omit more evil than they omit; and, therefore, if they do not perform and omit what they ought to do, that must not be ascribed to any decree of God or inefficacy of divine grace, but it must be attributed to the negligence of the regenerate themselves.

4. He who asserts that "it is possible for the regenerate, through the grace of Christ, perfectly to fulfill the law in the present life," is neither a Pelagian, nor inflicts any injury on the grace of God, nor establishes justification through works.

5. The regenerate are capable of committing sin designedly and in opposition to their consciences, and of so laying waste their consciences, through sin, as to hear nothing from them except the sentence of condemnation.

6. The regenerate are capable of grieving the Holy Spirit by their sins, so that, for a season, until they suffer themselves to be brought back to repentance, he does not exert his power and efficacy in them.

7. Some of the regenerate actually thus sin, thus lay waste their conscience, and thus grieve the Holy Spirit.

8. If David had died in the very moment in which he had sinned against Uriah by adultery and murder, he would have been condemned to death eternal.

9. God truly hates the sins of the regenerate and of the elect of God, and indeed so much the more, as those who thus sin have received more benefits from God, and a greater power of resisting sin.

10. There are distinctions by which a man is said to sin with a full will, or with a will that is not full — fully to destroy conscience, or not fully but only partly, and to sin according to his unregenerate part. When these distinctions are employed in the sense in which some persons use them, they are noxious to piety and injurious to good morals.

21. ON THE PERSEVERANCE OF SAINTS

1. QUERIES. — Is it possible for true believers to fall away totally and finally:

2. Do some of them, in reality, totally and finally fall from the faith?

3. The opinion which denies "that true believers and regenerate persons are either capable of falling away or actually do fall away from the faith totally and finally," was never, from the very times of the apostles down to the present day, accounted by the church as a catholic doctrine. Neither has that which affirms the contrary ever been reckoned as a heretical opinion; nay, that which affirms it possible for believers to fall away from the faith, has always had more supporters in the church of Christ, than that which denies its possibility of its actually occurring.

22. ON THE ASSURANCE OF SALVATION

1. QUERIES. — Is it possible for any believer, without a special revelation, to be certain or assured that he will not decline or fall away from the faith,

2. Are those who have faith, bound to believe that they will not decline from the faith?

3. The affirmative of either of these questions was never accounted in the church of Christ as a catholic doctrine; and the denial of either of them has never been adjudged by the church universal as a heresy.

4. The persuasion by which any believer assuredly persuades himself that it is impossible for him to decline from the faith, or that, at least, he will not decline from the faith, does not conduce so much to consolation against despair or against the doubting that is adverse to faith and hope, as it contributes to security, a thing directly opposed to that most salutary fear with which we are commanded to work out our salvation, and which is exceedingly necessary in this scene of temptations.

5. He who is of opinion that it is possible for him to decline from the faith, and who, therefore, is afraid lest he should decline, is neither destitute of necessary consolation, nor is he on this account, tormented with anxiety of mind. For it suffices to inspire consolation and to exclude anxiety, when he knows that he will decline from the faith through no force of Satan, of sin, or of the world, and through no inclination or weakness of his own flesh, unless he willingly and of his own accord, yield to temptation, and neglect to work out his salvation in a conscientious manner.

23. ON THE JUSTIFICATION OF MAN AS A SINNER, BUT YET A BELIEVER, BEFORE GOD

1. QUERIES. — was it possible for the justice of God to be satisfied unless the law were likewise satisfied,

2. Is the satisfaction which has been rendered in Christ to the justice of God, the same as that rendered to the law through Christ?

3. Do legal righteousness and that of the gospel differ in essence? Or, Is the essence of both of them the same, that is, the matter — the obedience performed to God, and the universal form — the necessary conformity to the law?

4. Are there three parts of the righteousness of Christ by which believers are constituted righteous? Is the first of them the holiness of the nature of Christ, which is denominated habitual righteousness? Is the second those sufferings which, from infancy to the moment of his decease, he sustained on our account, and is this denominated his passive obedience, or that of his death? Is the third the most perfect, nay, the more than perfect fulfillment of the moral law, (add also that of the ceremonial law,) through the whole of his life to the period of his death; and is this denominated his active obedience, or that of his life?

5. Were not the acts of that obedience which Christ performed, and by which we are justified, imposed on him according to the peculiar command of the Father, and according to a peculiar compact or covenant entered into between him and the Father, in which he prescribed and stipulated those acts of obedience, with the addition of a promise that he should obtain eternal redemption for them, [the human race] and should see his seed, whom this obedience should justify through his knowledge, that is, through faith in him,

6. To which of the offices of Christ do those acts of obedience belong,

7. Is the righteousness of Christ the righteousness of a believer or of an elect person, before God imputes it to him?

8. Does God impute this righteousness to him before he justifies him through faith?

9. Or, which is the same thing, Is the object about which God is occupied in the act of justification, an elect person, unrighteous indeed in himself but righteous in Christ his head; so that he accounts him righteous because he is already righteous in Christ, that is, because the punishment due to him has been paid and endured by him in His Surety and Head, or because he has thus performed the obedience which was due from him?

10. Has an elect person really endured punishment in Christ and performed obedience, or only in the divine estimation or reckoning! And is this divine estimation, by which the elect person is reckoned to have endured punishment and performed obedience, an act preceding justification?

11. Does not the act of acceptation, by which God accepted the obedience of his Son, precede the oblation by which, through the gospel, he offers his Son for righteousness,

12. Is the accepted imputation of the righteousness of Christ justification itself, or a preliminary to justification?

13. Is not the act of apprehension, by which faith apprehends Christ and his righteousness, or Christ for righteousness, prior to justification itself?

14. If this act [of apprehension] be prior to justification, how is faith the instrumental cause of our justification; that is, at once the instrumental cause of the apprehending which precedes justification, and of justification itself which succeeds this apprehending,

15. Or, Does not faith apprehend Christ offered for righteousness, before faith is imputed for righteousness?

16. In this enunciation, "faith is imputed to the believer for righteousness," is the word "faith" to be properly received as the instrumental act by which Christ has been apprehended for righteousness? Or is it to be improperly received, that is, by a metonymy, for the very object which faith apprehends?

17. Is this phrase, "faith is received relatively and instrumentally," the same as "by the word Faith is signified, through a metonymy, the very object of faith"?

18. Or, Is it the same thing to say "we are justified by faith correlatively, and as it is an instrumental act, by which we apprehend Christ for righteousness" as we say "we are justified by obedience or righteousness"?

19. May the righteousness of Christ be correctly said to be graciously imputed for righteousness, or to be graciously accounted for righteousness?

20. When the apostle expresses himself in this manner, "Faith is imputed for righteousness," must not this be understood concerning the imputation which is made, not according to debt, but according to grace?

21. May that of which we are made partakers through faith, or by faith, be called the instrumental effect of faith?

22. When God has decreed to justify no one through grace and mercy, except him who believes in Christ, and, therefore, through the preaching of the gospel, requires faith in Christ from him who desires to be justified, can it not be said "when God is graciously judging according to the gospel, he is occupied about faith, as about a condition, which is required from, and performed by, him who appears before the throne of grace to be judged and justified"?

23. If this may be asserted, what crime is there in saying "through the gratuitous and gracious acceptance [of God] is faith accounted for righteousness on account of the obedience of Christ"?

24. Is "If the work of men who are born again were perfect, they might be justified by them, though they may have perpetrated many evil works when [or before] they obtain the remission of them" a correct assertion?

24. ON THE GOOD WORKS OF BELIEVERS

1. QUERIES. — Is it truly said, concerning the good works of believers "they are unclean like a menstruous cloth", And does this confession, "We are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousness are as filthy rags," etc., (Isaiah 64:6,) belong to those works?

2. In what sense is it correctly said "Believers sin mortally in every one of their good works"?

3. Do the good works of believers come into the judgment of God so far only as they are testimonies of faith; or like-wise so far as they have been prescribed by God, and sanctioned and honored with the promise of a reward, although this reward be not bestowed on them except "of grace" united with mercy, and on account of Christ, whom God hath appointed and set forth as a propitiation through faith in his blood, and, therefore, with reference to faith in Christ?

25. ON PRAYER

1. QUERIES. — Does prayer, or the invocation of God, hold relation only to the performance of worship to his honor? Or, does it likewise bear the relation of means necessary for obtaining that which is asked — means, indeed, which God foresaw would be employed before he absolutely determined to bestow the blessing on the petitioner,

2. Is the faith with which we ought to pray, that faith by which he who prays believes assuredly that he will obtain what he asks? Or is it that faith by which he is assuredly persuaded, that he is asking according to the will of God, and will obtain what he asks, provided God knows that it will conduce to his glory and to the salvation of the petitioner?

26. ON THE INFANTS OF BELIEVERS WHEN THEY ARE OFFERED FOR BAPTISM

QUERY. — When the children of believers are offered for baptism, are they considered as "the children of wrath," or as the children of God and of grace? And if they be considered in both ways, is this relation according to the same time, or according to different times?

27. ON THE SUPPER OF THE LORD

QUERY. — Is not the proximate and most appropriate, and, therefore, the immediate end of the Lords Supper, both as it was at first instituted and as it is now used, the memory, or commemoration, or annunciation of the Lord’s death, and this with thanksgiving for the gift of God, in delivering up his Son to death for us, and in having given his flesh to be eaten and his blood to be drank through faith in him?

28. ON MAGISTRACY

1. The chief magistrate is not correctly denominated political or secular, because those epithets are opposed to the ecclesiastical and spiritual power.

2. In the hands and at the disposal of the chief magistrate is placed, under God, the supreme and sovereign power of caring and providing for his subjects, and of governing them, with respect to animal and spiritual life.

3. The care of religion has been committed by God to the chief magistrate, more than to priests and to ecclesiastical persons.

4. It is in the power of the magistrate to enact laws concerning civil and ecclesiastical polity, yet not unless those persons have been asked and consulted who are the best versed in spiritual matters, and who are peculiarly designed for teaching the church.

5. It is the duty of the magistrate to preserve and defend the ecclesiastical ministry — to appoint the ministers of God’s word, after they have previously undergone a lawful examination before a presbytery — to take care that they perform their duty — to require an account of their ministry — to admonish and incite those among them who are negligent — to bestow rewards on those ministers who preside well over their flocks, and to remove such as are pertinaciously negligent, or who bring a scandal on the church.

6. Also to invoke councils, whether general, national or provincial; by his own authority to preside as moderator of the assembly, either in person or through deputies suitable for discharging such an office.

7. QUERY — Is it useful to ecclesiastical conventions or assemblies, that those persons preside over them whose interest it is that matters of religion and church discipline should be transacted in this manner rather than in that?

8. For the discharge of these duties, the magistrate must understand those mysteries of religion which are absolutely necessary for the salvation of men; for in this part [of his high office] he cannot depend upon and confide in the conscience of another person.

9. The Christian magistrate both presides in those ecclesiastical assemblies in which he is present, and pronounces a decisive and definitive sentence, or has the right of delivering a decisive and definitive sentence.

29. ON THE CHURCH OF ROME

1. QUERIES. — Must a difference be made between the court of Rome, (that is, the Roman pontiff, the cardinals, and the other sworn retainers and satelites of his kingdom,) and the Church which is denominated Romish?

2. Can those persons by no means be called "the church of Christ," who, having been deceived by the Roman pontiff consider him as the successor of St. Peter and the head of the church?

3. Has God sent a bill of divorcement to those persons, so that he does not at all acknowledge them as his, any more than he does Mahometans and Jew