tion was clogged with this absurdity— that it made God to be the author of Adam's sin— he very astutely took refuge in this conditional foreknowledge, and in his corrected theses on predestination, published after the death of Arminius, he describes it as " that by which God, through the infinite light of his own knowledge, foreknows some future things, not absolutely, but as placed under a certain condition." Walseus, the cele- brated antagonist of Episcopius, had recourse to the same expedient. This distinction has been adopted by very few of those who espouse the doctrines of general redemption, and who believe that every event, how con- tingent soever to the creature, is, with respect to God, certainly foreknown. An old English divine thinks that " in the sacred Scriptures certain not obscure vestiges are apparent of this kind of knowledge of things that will happen thus or otherwise, on the supposition of the occurrence of this or that circumstance. Omitting the well-known example of David in Keilah (1 Sam. xxii, 12), and of Chorazin and Bethsaida (Matt, xi, 21; Luke x, 13), consult, among other sayings of the same description, Christ's answer to the chief priests and scribes who had asked 'Art thou the Christ? Tell us.' And he said unto them, 'If I tell you, ye will not be- lieve.' In the subsequent verse he adds, ' If I also ask you, ye will not answer me, nor let me go' (Luke xxii, 67, 68). You have here three events specified which yet will not occur even on the supposition of Christ our Lord himself." This kind of knowledge might very well be included in that of scientia visionis, because the lat- ter ought to include, not what God will do and what his creatures will do under his appointment, but what they will do by his permission as free agents, and what he will do, as a consequence of this, in his character of Governor and Lord. But since the predestinarians had confounded scienlia visionis with a predestinating de- cree, the scientia media well expressed what they had left quite unaccounted for, and which they had assumed did not really exist — the actions of creatures endowed with free will and the acts of Deity which from eternity were consequent upon them. If such actions do not take place, then men are not free ; and if the rectoral acts of God are not consequent upon the actions of the creature in the order of the divine intention, and the conduct of the creature is consequent upon the fore- ordained rectoral acts of God, then we reach a neces- sitating eternal decree, which, in fact, the predestina- rian contends for; but it unfortunately brings after it consequences which no subtleties have ever been able to shake off— that the only actor in the universe is God himself, and that the only distinction among events is that one class is brought to pass by God directly and the other indirectly, not by the agency, but by the mere instrumentality, of his creatures. — Watson. See also Watson, Theol. Institutes, i, 37 5; ii, 357, 429; Works, vii, 298,309; Pope, Compendium of Christian Theology (Lond. 1875), p. 145-149, 191 sq.; Raymond, Systematic Theology (see Index in vol. ii); Knapp, Tluolngy. $ 22; Fletcher, Works; Presbyterian Confession ; ('lunch Remembrancer (Jan. 1856); Bulletin Theol. (Oct. 1868), p. 26 sq. ; Hodge, Systematic Theology (see Index); Bromley, Divine Pre- science ; Clarke, Boyle Lectures for 1705 ; King, Sermons on the Divine Prescience ; Tillotson, Sermons ; Water- land, Works, vol. vi; Haag, llistoire des Dogmes (see Index in vol. ii; Graves, Works, vol. iv; Bib. Sacra, July, 18G8, p. 455; Neander, Dogm. p. 568 sq. ; Callisen, Essay with a View to bring into Harmony the Doctrine of the Omniscience of God and the Freedom of Man, in Schmidt u. Schwarz, Theol. Bibliothek, vol. viii; Reid, On the Active Powers, essay iv, ch. xi; rye Smith. First Lines of Christian Theology, p. 148, 149. See also the articles Election; Predestination.
Prescription. I. This expression, borrowed from the civil law, has in the Roman Catholic Church a can- onistic meaning. In order to put limits to the contests about mine and thine in rights, obligations, and posses- sions, that Church has fixed terms which invest with
legality the possession of rights and goods, unless proof be produced that these rights or goods are of an alien- able kind, or have been acquired by illegal means (usur- pation or theft time does not consecrate). If the lawful term be elapsed, the possessor is confirmed in the pos- session of said rights or goods, and he who is bound by certain obligations cannot call them in question. The term of prescription varies with the nature of the ob- ject : movable property prescribes quicker than immov- able, the property of adults quicker than that of minors, the property of those present quicker than that of ab- sentees; ecclesiastical property is prescribed only after forty years. According to the rules of the papal chan- cery, the possessor of an ecclesiastical office, after a three- years' possession, if it be not obtained by violence or simony, cannot be lawfully expelled from it. There is prescription in his favor.
II. Tertullian transplanted this expression to the theological domain by his work on prescriptions against heretics, a kind of argument against erroneous doctrine. This is what he means : The Catholic Church enjoys, in her doctrines and discipline, the right of prescription ; what she teaches and practices at the present hour site has taught and practiced from times immemorial — learned it from the apostles, as the apostles learned from Christ, as Christ had it from the Father. The catholic doc- trine is the true one, because it is the old and original one, and rests on the divine revelation; the doctrines of heretics and sectarians, on the other side, are false, because new, because they have not prescription in their favor, and consequently are not founded on divine reve- lation. I renseus taught similarly. It is easy to see that this proof by prescription is much the same as the proof by tradition, and that this mode of arguing can have no acceptability in Protestantism, where the Bible alone is regarded as the true test, and the apostolic or early Church practices have only an advisory influence, not authority. Of course, High-Churchmen, by their ritu- alistic tendency, can hardly be said to come under the full influence of Protestantism, and are therefore not to be considered as included in the exponents of evangeli- cal Christianity. See Elliott, Delineation if Roman Catholicism, p. 61 , 95, 407. See Authority. (J. H.W.)