§ 113. PREDESTINATION. 565
" 7. Saving grace is not given, is not granted, is not communicated to all men, by wiiich tliey may be saved if the}' will.
"8. No man can come unto Christ unless it sliall be given unto him, and unless the Father siiall draw him ; and all men are not drawn by the Father that they may come to the Son.
" 9. It is not in the will or power of every one to be saved."
The Lambeth Articles were accepted by tlie Convocation at Dublin, 1615, and engrafted on tlie Irish Auticles of Religion, wliich were probably composed by the learned Archbishop Usslier (at that time Professor of Divinity in Trinity College, Dublin), and form the connecting link between the Thirty-Nine Articles and the Westminster Confession. Some of the strongest statements of the Irish Articles passed literally (witliout any acknowledgment) into the Westminster Confession. The Irish Articles are printed in Schaff's Creeds of Christendom, III. 526-544.
III. The Westminster Confession.
Chap. III. Of God's Eternal Decree.
The Westminster Confession of Faith, prepared by the Westminster Assembly in 1647, adopted by the Long Parliament, by the Kirk of Scotland, and the Presbyterian Churches of America, gives the clearest and strongest symbolic statement of this doctrine. It assigns to it more space than to the holy Trinity, or the Person of Christ, or the atonement.
"1. God from all eternity did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass ; yet so as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.
"2. Although God knows whatsoever may or can come to pass upon all supposed conditions, yet hath he not decreed anything because he foresaw it as future, or as that which would come to pass upon such conditions.
".3. By the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life, and others foreordained to everlasting death.
"4. These angels and men, tlius predestinated and foreordained, are particularly and unchnngeably designed ; and their number is so certain and definite that it cannot be either increased or diminished.
"5. Those of mankind that are predestinated unto life, God, before the foundation of the world was laid, according to his eternal and immutable purpose, and the secret counsel and good pleasure of his will, hath chosen in Christ, unto everlasting glory, out of his mere free grace and love, without any foresight of faith or good works, or perseverance in either of them, or any other thing in the creature, as conditions, or causes moving him thereunto ; and all to the praise of his glorious grace.
"6. As God bath appointed the elect unto glory, so hath he, by the eternal and most free purpose of his will, foreordained all the means there-
566 THE REFORMATION IN FRENCH SWITZERLAND.
unto. Wherefore tlicy who are elected, being fallen in Adam, are redeemed by Clirist, are effectually called unto faith in Christ by his Spirit working in due season; are justified, adopted, sanctified, and kept by his power through faith unto salvation. Neitlier are any other redeemed by Christ, effectually called, justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved, but the elect only.
" 7. The rest of mankind God was pleased, according to the unsearchable counsel of his own will, whereby he extendeth or withholdeth mercy as he pleaseth, for the glory of his sovereign power over his creatures, to pass by, and to ordain them to dishonor and wrath for their sin, to the praise of his glorious justice.
"8. The doctrine of this high mystery of predestination is to be handled with special prudence and care, that men attending tlie will of God revealed in his Word, and yielding obedience thereunto, may, from the certainty of their effectual vocation, be assured of their eternal election. So shall this doctrine afford matter of praise, reverence, and admiration of God; and of humility, diligence, and abundant consolation to all that sincerely obey the gospel."
IV. Methodism and Calvinism.
The severest condemnation of the Westminster Calvinism came from John Wesley, the most apostolic man that the Anglo-Saxon race has produced. He adopted the Arminian creed and made it a converting agency ; he magnified the free grace of God, like the Calvinists, but extended it to all men. In a sermon on Free Grace, preached at Bristol (Sermons, vol. I. 482 sqq.), he charges the doctrine of predestination with " making vai« all preaching, and tending to destroy holiness, the comfort of religion and zeal for good works, yea, the whole Christian revelation by involving it in fatal contradictions." He goes so far as to call it " a doctrine full of blasphemy," because " it represents our blessed Lord as a hypocrite, a deceiver of the people, a man void of common sincerity, as mocking ];is helpless creatures by offering what he never intends to give, by saying one thing and meaning another." It destroys "all the attributes of God, his justice, mercy, and truth, yea, it represents the most holy God as worse than the devil, as both more false, more cruel, and more unjust." This is as hard and unjust as anything that Pighius, Bolsec, Castellio, and Servetus said against Calvin. And yet Wesley cooperated for some time with George Whitefield, the great Calvinistic revival preacher, and delivered his funeral sermon in Tottenham-Court-Road, Nov. 18, 1770, on the text. Num. 23: 10, in which he spoke in the higliest terms of Whitefield's personal piety and great usefulness (Sermons, I. 470-480). "Have we read or heard," he asked, "of any person since the apostles, who testified the gospel of the grace of God through so widely extended a space, through so large a part of the habitable world ? Have we read or heard of any person, who called so many thousands, so many myriads of sinners to repentance ? Above all, have we read or heard of any, who has been a blessed instrument in his hand of bringing so many sinners from ' darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God?'" — This is a striking illustration how widely great and good men may differ in theology, and yet how nearly they may agree in religion.