perhaps wliich might command consideration, but the poor and miserable (2'). So little does this Divine choice rest on even faith, that it is rather in order to faith (2''>), and introduces its recipients into the Kingdom as firstfiuits of a great harvest to be reaped oy God in the world (1'*).
Similarly, in the Book of Acts, the whole stress in the matter of salvation is laid on the grace of God (1123 i3« 143.26 1540 1S27). ^,^^1 t,j it^ in the most
pointed waj-, the inception of faith itself is assigned (18-''). It is only .slightly varied language when the increase in tiie Church is ascribed to the hand of the Lord (IP'), or the direct act of God (14*" 18'°). The explicit declaration of 2" presents, therefore, nothing peculiar, and we are fully pre- pared for the philosoplij' of the redemptive history expressed in lo'", tliat only those ' ordained to eternal life ' believed — the believing that comes by the grace of God (IS"), to whom it belongs to open the heart to give heed to the gospel (Ki"), being thus referred to the counsel of eternity, of which the events of time are only the outworking.
The general philosophy of histor}- thus suggested is implicit in the very idea of a promissory system, and in the recognition of a predictive element in prophecy, and is written large on the pages of the historical books of the NT. It is given expression in every declaration that this or that event came to pass 'that it might be fulhlled which was spoken by the prophets,' — a form of statement in which our Lord liad.Himself betrayed His teleological view of history, not only as respects details (Jn 15-^ 17'-), but with the widest reference (Lk 21--'), and which ■Nvas taken up cordially bj' His followers, particu- larly by Matthew (1~ 2'i>- ''» 4''' 8'' 12" 13^' 21^ 26"*, Jn 12» 18» 19«-28.36). Alongside of this phrase occurs the equally significant 'Set of the Divine decree,' as it has been appropriately called, by which is suggested the necessity which rules o\ er historical sequences. It is used with a view now to Jesu.s' own plan of redemption (by Jesus Ilim.self, Mt 8=', Lk •2« 4'^ 9-2 13*i 17'^ '-'4", Jn 3" 10>« 12»^ ; by the evangelist, Mt 16-'), now to the underlying plan of God (by Jesus, Mt 24", Mk 13'- '", Lk 21"; by the writer, Mt 17'°, Mk 9", Ac 3^' 9'"), anon to the prophetic declaration as an indication of the underlying plan (by Jesus, Mt 26^", Lk 2-2^ 04M.U. by the writer, Jn 20", Ac 1"* 17'). This appeal, in either form, served an important apologetic pur- pose in the first proclamation of the gospel ; but its fundamental significance is rooted, of course, in the conception of a Divine ordering of the whole course of history to the veriest detail.
Such a teleological conception of the history of the Kingdom is manifested strikingly in the speech of St. Stephen (Ac 7), in which the developing plan of God is rapidly sketched. But it is in such declarations as those of St. Peter recorded in Ac 023 428 ii^g^i the wider philosophy of history comes to its clearest expression. In them everything that had befallen Jesus is represented as merely the emerging into fact of what had stood before- hand prepared for in ' the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God,' so that nothing had been accomplished, by whatever agents, except wliat ' his hand and his counsel had foreordained to come to pass.' It would not be easy to frame language which should more explicitly proclaim the conception of an all -determining decree of God governing the entire sequence of events in time. Elsewhere in the Petrine discourses of Acta the speech is coloured by the same ideas : we note in the immediate context of these culmin- ating passages the high terms in which the exalta- tion 01 God is expressed (4-'"-), the sharpness with which His sovereignty in the ' call ' (■n-poi!Kn\(oiiai) is declared (2™), and elsewhere the repeated emerg. ence of the idea of the necessary corresponilenct
PKEDESTINATION
PREDESTINATION
57
of the events of time witli the predictions of Scriiiture (1'" 2^ 3^). The same doctrine of pre- destination meets us in the pages of Ht. Peter's Epistles. He does, indeed, speak of the members of the Christian community as God's elect (I 1' 2" 5", II 1'°), in accordance with the apostolic habit of assuming the reality implied in the manifesta- tion ; but this is so far from importing that election hangs on tlie act of man that St. Peter refers it directl3' to the elective foreknowledge of God (I 1^), and seeks its conhrniation in sanctification (II l'"), — even as the stumbling of the disobedient, on tlie other hand, is presented as a confirmation of their appointment to disbelief (I 2*). The pregnant use of the terms ' foreknow ' (irporfi.vu(rKui) and ' fore- knowledge' (irpliyvwaLi) by St. Peter brought to our attention in these pa.ssages(Ac 2-', 1 P !-•-"), where they certainly convey the sense of a loving, dis- tinguishing regard which assimilates them to the idea of election, is worthy of note as another of the traits common to him and St. Paul (Ro 8™ 11-, only in NT). The usage might be explained, in- deed, as the development of a purely Greek sense of the words, but it is much more probably rooted in a Semitic usage, which, as we have seen, is not without example in OT. A simple comparison of the passages will exhibit the impossibility of read- ing the terms of mere prevision (cf. Cremer sub voc, and especially the full discussion in K. Miiller's Die Gottliche Zuvorersehung unci Enoiih- lung, etc. pp. 38 f., 81 f . ; also Gennrich, SK, 1898, 382-395 ; Pfleiderer, Urchri-Henthum, 289, Paulin- ismus, 268 ; and Lorenz, Lehrxystem, ett. 94).