Above all, when the suffering Christian takes his election into the account, and knows that he was by an eternal and immutable act of God appointed to obtain salvation through our Lord you marry or live single, you will still have something or other to molest you: nor does the whole course of man's present sublunary life afford him a single draught of joy, without a mixture of wormwood in the cup. This is the universal and immutable law, which to resist, were no less vain than sinful and rebellious. As the wrestlers of old had their respective antagonists assigned them, not by their own choice, but by necessary lot; in like manner, each of the human race has his peculiar destiny allotted to him by Providence, To conquer this is to endure it. All our strength in this warfare is to undergo the inevitable pressure. It is victory to yield ourselves to fate." Lips Epist. miscell. cent. 1. ep43. opor. tom. 2. p. 54. Edit. Vesaliens. 1675. About two years after, this celebrated Christian Seneca wrote as follows to the same person, (Theodore Leewius) who had married and just lost his wife in childbed; Jam fatum quid? Aeterna, an æterno, in æternum, Dei Lex: what is fate? God's everlasting ordinance: an ordinance which he settled in eternity, and for eternity: an ordinance which he can never repeal, disannul, or set aside, either in whole or in part. Now if this his decree be eternal, a retro and immoveable, quoad futurum: why does foolish man struggle and fight against that which must be? Especially, seeing fate is thus the offspring of God, why does impious man murmur and complain? you cannot justly find fault with any thing determined or done by him; as though it were evil or severe : for he is all goodness and benevolence. Was you to define his nature, you could not do it more suitably than in those terms. Is therefore your wife dead? debuit: it is right she should be so. But was it right that she should die, and at that very time, and by that very kind of death! Most certainly. Lex ita lata: the decree so ordained it. The restless acumen of the human mind may sift and canvass the appointments of fate, but cannot alter them. Were we truly wise we should be implicitly submissive, and endure with willingness what we must endure, whether we be willing or not. A due sense of our inability to reverse the disposals of Providence, and the consequent vanity of resisting them, would administer solid repose to our minds, and sheathe, if not remove the anguish of affliction. And why should we even wish to resist? Fate's supreme ordainer is not only the Jesus Christ; that, of course, he hath a city prepared for him above, a building of God, an house not made with hands, but eternal in the heavens; and that the heaviest sufferings of the present life are "not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in the saints; what adversity can possibly befall us, which the assured hope of blessings like these will not infinitely overbalance? A comfort so divine, May trials well endure." However keenly afflictions might wound us on their first access; yet, under the impression of such animating views, we should quickly come to ourselves again, and the arrows of tribulation would in a great measure become pointless.-Christians want nothing but absolute resignation to render them perfectly happy in every possible circumstance; and absolute resignation can only flow from an absolute belief, and an absolute acquiescence in God's absolute providence, founded on absolute predestination. The apostle himself draws these conclusions to our hand, in Rom. viii. where, after having laid down as most undoubted axioms, the eternity and immutability of God's purposes; he thus winds up the whole: "What shall we say then to these things, if God be for us, who can be against us?—who - all-wise God, but an all-gracious Father. Embrace every event as good and prosperous, though it may for the present carry an aspect of the reverse. Think you not that he loves and careth for us more and better than we for ourselves. But as the tenderest parent below doth oftentimes cross the inclinations of his children, with a view to do them good; and obliges them both to do and to undergo many things against the bent of their wills, so does the great Parent of all." Ibid. epist. 61. p. 82. shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?-nay: in all these things we are more than conquerors, through him that loved us. Such, therefore, among others, being the USES, that arise from the faithful preaching, and the cordial reception of predestination; may we venture to affirm, with Luther, hac ignorata doctrina, neque fidem, neque ullum Dei cultum, consistere posse? that "Our faith, and all right worship of God, depend in no small degree, upon our knowledge of that doctrine."* The excellent Melancthon, in his first common places (which received the sanction of Luther's express approbation,) does, in the first chapter, which treats professedly of free will and predestination, set out with clearing and establishing the doctrine of God's decrees; and then proceeds to point out the necessity, and manifold usefulness of asserting and believing it. He even goes so far as to affirm roundly, that "A right fear of God, and a true confidence in him, can be learned more assuredly, from no other source than from the doctrine of predestination." But, Melancthon's judgment of these matters will best appear from the whole passage; which the reader will find in the book and chapter just referred to. "Divina Predestinatio," says he, "Libertatem homini adimit: Divine predestination quite strips man of his boasted liberty: for, all things come to pass according to God's fore-appointment, even the internal thoughts of all creatures, * De Serv. Abitr. cap. 20. no less than their external works. Therefore, Eph. i. the apostle gives us to understand, that God "performeth all things according to the counsel of his own will." And our Lord himself asks, Mat. x. "Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? yet one of them falleth not to the ground, without your Father." Pray, what can be more full to the point, than such a declaration? So Solomon, Prov. xvi. "The Lord hath made all things for himself; yea, even the wicked for the day of evil." And in the xxth chapter, " Man's goings are of the Lord: how then can a man understand his own way?" To which the prophet Jeremiah does also set his seal, saying, chapter x. “O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself; it is not in man that walketh to direct his own steps." The historical part of scripture teaches us the same great truth. So, Gen. xv. we read that the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet full. In 1 Sam. ii. we are told, Eli's sons hearkened not to his reproof, because the Lord would slay them. What could bear a stronger resemblance to change and accident, than Saul's calling upon Samuel, only with a view to seek out his father's asses? (1 Sam. ix.) yet, the visit was foreordained of God, and designed to answer a purpose little thought of by Saul, 1 Sam. ix. 15, 16. [See also a most remarkable chain of predestinated events in reference to Saul, and foretold by the prophet, 1 Sam. x. 2, 8.] “In pursuance of the divine preordination, there went with Saul a band of men, "whose hearts God had touched," 1 Sam. x. 26.-The harshness of king Rehoboam's answer to the ten tribes, and the subsequent revolt of those tribes from his dominion, are by the sacred historian expressly ascribed to God's decree: "wherefore, the king hearkened not unto the people: for the cause was from the Lord, that he might perform his saying which the Lord spake by Ahijah the Shilonite, unto Jeroboam the son of Nebat," 1 Kings xii. 15.— What is the drift of the apostle Paul, in the 9th and 10th of Romans, quam ut omnia, quæ fiunt, in destinationem divinam referat? but to resolve all things that come to pass into God's destination? the judgment of the flesh, or of mere unregenerate reason, usually starts back from this truth with horror: but on the contrary, the judgment of a spiritual man will embrace it with affection. Neque enim vel timorem dei, vel fiduciam in deum, certius aliunde disces, quam ubi imbueris animum hac de predestinatione sententia: "You will not learn either the fear of God or affiance in him from a surer source than from getting your mind deeply tinctured and seasoned with this doctrine of predestination." Does not Solomon in the book of Proverbs, inculcate it throughout; and justly: for how else could he direct men to fear God and trust in him? the same he does in the book of Ecclesiastes: nor had any thing so powerful a tendency to repress the pride of man's encroaching reason, and to lower the swelling conceit of his supposed discretion as the firm belief quod a Deo fiunt omnia, that all things are from God. What invincible comfort did Christ impart to his disciples in assuring them that "their very hairs were all numbered" by the Creator? Is there then (may any objector say,) no such thing as contingency? no such thing as chance, or fortune?-No. Omnia necessario evenire scripturæ docent; the doctrine of scripture is, that all things come to pass necessarily. Be it so, that to you some events seem to happen contingently; you nevertheless must not be run away with by the suggestions of your own narrow-sighted reason. Solomon himself, the wisest of men, was so deep |