human reason in vain attempts to sound, finite faculties to scan
infinite, or the limited intellect of man to comprehend the immensity of
the Godhead. Erasmus, a peculiar favourite with the reformers of our own
country, when contemplating this inexplicable subject, observed, that in
the Holy Scriptures there are certain secret recesses, which God is
unwilling for us too minutely to explore; and which, if we endeavour to
explore, in proportion as we penetrate farther, our minds become more
and more oppressed with darkness and stupefaction; that thus we might
acknowledge the inscrutable majesty of the divine wisdom, and the
imbecility of the human mind.” Congenial, also, with the feelings and
sentiments of Erasmus upon this point were those of Luther. To acquire
any knowledge,” he remarked, of a deity not revealed in Scripture, to
know what his existence is, his actions and dispositions, belongs not to
me. My duty is only this; to know what are his precepts, his promises,
and his threatenings. Pernicious and pestilent is the thought of
investigating causes, and brings with it inevitable ruin, especially
when we ascend too high, and wish to philosophize upon predestination.”
How differently Calvin felt upon the same subject, and with what little
reserve, or rather with what bold temerity, he laboured to scrutinize
the unrevealed Divinity, is too well known to require any thing beyond a
bare allusion to the circumstance. His sentiments, however, were much
less regarded than some are disposed to allow; and upon this particular
question, so far were they from having attained their full celebrity at
the period when the articles of the church of England were framed, that
they were not taught without opposition even in his own unimportant
territory of Geneva. For at that precise era he was publicly accused (by
Sebastian Castellio) of making God the author of sin; and although, not
contented with silencing, he first imprisoned and afterward banished his
accuser, yet he could not expel the opinions of his adversary. While the
church of Rome maintained a predestination to life of one man in
preference to another individually _on account of personal merit_, the
Lutherans taught a gratuitous predestination of Christians collectively,
of those whom God has chosen in Christ out of mankind; and by this
single point of difference were the contending opinions principally
contradistinguished. With us the system of Calvin still retains so many
zealous advocates, that to a modern ear the very term PREDESTINATION
seems to convey a meaning only conformable with _his_ particular system.
It should, however, be observed that this word was in familiar use for
centuries before the Reformation, in a sense, very different from what
Calvin imputed to it, not as preceding the divine prescience, but as
resulting from it, much in the same sense as that in which it has since
been supported by the Arminians. Yet, obvious as this appears, writers
of respectability strangely persuade themselves, that, immediately prior
to the Reformation, the doctrines of the church of Rome were completely
Calvinistical; a conclusion to which, certainly, none can subscribe who
are sufficiently conversant with the favourite productions of that time.
So far, indeed, was this from being the fact, that Calvin peculiarly
prided himself on departing from the common definition of the term,
which had long been adopted by the adherents of the schools, and
retained with a scrupulous precision. For while they held that the
expression _predestinati_ is exclusively applicable to the elect, whom
God, foreknowing as meritorious objects of his mercy, predestinates to
life; and while they appropriated that of _præsciti_ to the non-elect,
whose perseverance in transgression is simply foreknown; Calvin, on the
other side, treating the distinction as a frivolous subterfuge,
contended that God, decreeing the final doom of the elect and non-elect
irrespectively, predestinates both, not subsequently but previously to
all foreknowledge of their individual dispositions, especially devotes
the latter to destruction through the medium of crime, and creates them
by a fatal destiny to perish. Whatever, therefore, modern conjecture may
have attributed to the popish scholastics, it is certain that, abhorring
every speculation which tends in the remotest degree to make God the
author of sin, they believed that only salutary good is predestinated;
grace to those who deserve it _congruously_, and glory to those who
deserve it _condignly_. They maintained that almighty God, before the
foundations of the world were laid, surveying in his comprehensive idea,
or, as they phrased it, in his prescience of simple intelligence, the
possibilities of all things before he determined their actual existence,
foresaw that, if mankind were created, (although he willed the salvation
of all, and was inclined to assist all indifferently, yet) some would
deserve eternal happiness, and others eternal misery; and that therefore
he approved and elected the former, but disapproved or reprobated the
latter. Thus, grounding election upon foreknowledge, they contemplated
it, not as an arbitrary principle, separating one individual from
another under the influence of a blind chance or an irrational caprice;
but, on the contrary, as a wise and just principle, which presupposes a
diversity between those who are accepted and those who are rejected.
Hence it was, that in order to systematize upon this principle of
election, and to show how consistent it is as well with the justice as
the benevolence of the Deity, the will of God was considered in a double
point of view, as _absolute_ and _conditional_, or, in the technical
language of the schools, as _antecedent_ and _consequent_. In the first
instance, by his absolute or antecedent will, he was said to desire the
salvation of every man; in the latter, by his conditional or consequent
will, that only of those whom he foresaw abstaining from sin and obeying
his commandments: the one expressed his general inclination, the other
his particular resolution upon the view of individual circumstances and
conditions. To the inquiry, why some are unendowed with grace, their
answer was, Because some are not willing to receive it, and not because
God is unwilling to give it.” He,” they said, offers his light to all.
He is absent from none; but man absents himself from the present Deity,
like one who shuts his eyes against the noon-day blaze.” To the
foregoing statement it should be added, that they held an election, or
rather an ordination, to grace (which they expressly asserted to be
defectible) distinct from an election to glory; that according to them,
a name may be written in the book of life at one period, which at
another many be erased from it; and that predestination to eternal
happiness solely depends upon final perseverance in well doing. On the
whole it is evident, that they considered the dignity or worthiness of
the individual as the meritorious basis of predestination; merit of
congruity as the basis of a preordination to grace, and merit of
condignity as that of a preordination to glory. Thus, not more
fastidious in the choice of their terms than accurate in the use of
them, while they denied that the prescience of human virtue, correctly
speaking, could be the primary cause of the divine will, because nothing
in time can properly give birth to that which has existed from eternity,
they strenuously maintained it to be a secondary cause, the ratio or
rule in the mind of the Deity which regulated his will in the formation
of its ultimate decisions. Although in the established confession of
their faith the Lutherans avoided all allusion to the subject of
predestination, it was nevertheless introduced into another work of
importance, and of considerable public authority, the _Loci Theologici_
of Melancthon, a production which was every where received as the
standard of Lutheran divinity. Both Luther and Melancthon, after the
Diet of Augsburgh, kept one object constantly in view,--to inculcate
only what was plain and practical, and never to attempt philosophizing.
But to what, it may be asked, did the Lutherans object in the theory of
their opponents when they themselves abandoned the tenet of necessity?
Certainly, not to the sobriety and moderation of that part of it which
vindicated the justice, and displayed the benevolence, of the Almighty;
but, generally, to the principles upon which it proceeded; to the
_presumption_, in overleaping the boundary which Heaven has prescribed
to our limited faculties, and which we cannot pass without plunging into
darkness and error; and to its _impiety_ in disregarding, if not
despising, the most important truths of Christianity. A system of such a
nature they hesitated not to reject, anxious to conduct themselves by
the light of Scripture alone, nor presuming to be wise above what God
has been pleased to discover. Maintaining not a particular election of
personal favourites, either by an absolute will, or even a conditional
one, dependent upon the ratio of merit, but a general election of all
who, by baptism in their infancy, or by faith and obedience in mature
years, become the adopted heirs of Heaven; they conceived this to be the
only election to which the Gospel alludes, and, consequently, the only
one upon which we can speak with confidence, or reason without
presumption. If it be observed, that the selection of an integral body
necessarily infers that of its component parts, the answer is obvious:
The latter, although indeed it be necessarily inferred by the former, is
nevertheless not a prior requisite, but a posterior result of the divine
ordination. What they deemed absolute on the part of God was his
everlasting purpose to save his elect in Christ, or real Christians
considered as a whole, and contrasted with the remainder of the human
race; the completion of this purpose being regulated by peculiar
circumstances, operating as inferior causes of a particular segregation.
For, persuaded of his good will toward all men without distinction, of
his being indiscriminately disposed to promote the salvation of all, and
of his seriously (not _fictitiously_, as Calvin taught) including all in
the universal promise of Christianity, they imputed to him nothing like
a partial choice, no limitation of favours, no irrespective exclusion of
persons; but assuming the Christian character as the sole ground of
individual preference, they believed that every baptized infant, by
being made a member of Christ, not by being comprised in a previous
arbitrary decree, is truly the elect of God, and, dying in infancy,
certain of eternal happiness; that he who, in maturer years, becomes
polluted by wilful crime, loses that state of salvation which before he
possessed; that nevertheless by true repentance, and conversion to the
Father of mercy and God of all consolation, he is again reinstated in
it; and that, by finally persevering in it, he at length receives the
kingdom prepared for every sincere Christian before the foundation of
the world. Can any man, whom prejudice has not blinded, rank these
sentiments with those of Calvin? It may seem almost unnecessary to
subjoin, that the Lutherans held the defectibility of grace; its
indefectibility being a position supported but by those who think that
the Redeemer died for a selected few alone. Upon the whole then it
appears, that the Lutherans, affecting not in any way to philosophize,
but committing themselves solely to the guidance of Scripture, differed
from the church of Rome in several important particulars. For, although
on some points they coincided with her, although they inculcated, with
equal zeal and upon a better principle, both the universality and the
defectibility of grace, as well as a conditional admission into the
number of the elect, they nevertheless were entirely at variance with
her upon the very foundation of the system. Thus while their opponents
taught, that predestination consists in the prospective discrimination
of individuals by divine favour, according to the foreseen ratio of
every man’s own merit,--works of congruity deserving grace here, and
works of condignity eternal life hereafter, and that in this way it
principally rests upon human worth; the Lutherans, disclaiming every
idea of such a discrimination, placed it upon the same basis as they
assumed in the case of justification,--that of an effectual redemption
by Christ. Instead, therefore, of holding the election of individuals as
men _on account of personal dignity or worthiness_, they maintained the
election of a general mass as Christians _on account of Christ alone_;
adding that we are admitted into that number, or discarded from it, in
the eye of Heaven, proportionably as we embrace or reject the salvation
offered to all, embracing it with a faith inseparable from genuine
virtue, or rejecting it by incredulity and crime. For neither in this,
nor in the instance of justification, did they exclude repentance and a
true conversion of the heart and life, as _necessary requisites_, but
only as _meritorious causes_, from the contemplation of God’s omniscient
intellect. Let those,” said Luther, who wish to be elected avoid an evil
conscience, and not transgress the divine commandments.” Instructed then
by the unerring page of truth, they asserted no other predestination
than what is there expressly revealed; that of the good and gracious
Father of mankind, who from eternity has been disposed to promote the
happiness and welfare of all men, has destined Christ to be the Saviour
of the whole world, and withholden from none the exalted hope of the
Christian calling. Convinced that this is the only predestination which
Christianity discloses, and consequently the only one which we can
either with safety or certainty embrace, they discouraged every attempt
at investigating the will, out of the word, of God; every attempt at
effecting impossibilities, at unveiling the secret counsels of Him who
shrouds his divine perfections in darkness impervious to mortal eyes.
With such investigations, indeed, the world had already been
sufficiently bewildered by the scholastics, who, endowed with a ready
talent at perplexing what before was plain, and at rendering
abstruseness still more abstruse, had made the subject totally
inexplicable, vainly labouring to develope with precision that
mysterious will upon which the wise must ever think it _folly_, and the
good _impiety_, to speculate. Disquisitions of this presumptuous nature,
from a personal experience of their mischievous tendency, Luther abjured
himself, and deprecated in others. Are we, miserable men,” he exclaimed,
“who as yet are incapable of comprehending the rays of God’s promises,
the glimmerings of his precepts and his works, although confirmed by
words and miracles, are we, infirm and impure, eager to comprehend all
that is great and glorious in the solar light itself, in the
incomprehensible light of a miraculous Godhead? Do we not know, that God
dwells in splendour inaccessible? And yet do we approach, or rather do
we presume to approach it? Are we not aware, that his judgments are
inscrutable? And yet do we endeavour to scrutinize them? And these
things we do, before we are habituated even to the faint lustre of his
promises and precepts, with a vision still imperfect, blindly rushing
into the majesty of that light which, secret and unseen, has never been
by words or miracles exhibited. What wonder, then, if, while we explore
its majesty, we are overwhelmed with its glory?” For a farther account
of the Lutheran views on predestination, see the last pages of the
article CALVINISM.
After this very ample exposition of the sentiments of the German
reformers on the chief points of Christian doctrine, it is only
necessary to give a few additional particulars in corroboration of some
portions of the preceding statement. The high estimation in which Luther
held the productions of the judicious Melancthon is apparent from a
passage in the preface to the first volume of Luther’s works, dated
1545. In that year also appeared the last amended edition of
Melancthon’s Common Places,” to which he alludes. Long and earnestly,”
he says, have I resisted the importunity of those who have wished me to
publish my works, or, to speak more correctly, my confused and
disorderly lucubrations; not only because I was unwilling that the
labours of the ancients should be turned aside by my novelties, and that
the reader should be hindered from perusing them, but likewise because
now, by the grace of God, a great number of methodical books are extant;
among which the _Common Places_ of our Philip claim the preference, for
by them a divine and a bishop may be abundantly and satisfactorily
confirmed, so as to become powerful in the word of the doctrine of
piety, especially when the Holy Bible itself can now be procured in
almost every language. But the want of order in the matters to be
discussed in my books induced, nay compelled, me to render them a sort
of rude and indigested chaos, which it would now require even on my part
no small exertion to digest into a methodical form. Under the influence
of such motives as these, I was desirous that all my productions should
be buried in perpetual oblivion, that they might give place to others of
a better description.” In this preface Luther also gives the following
testimony to the general usefulness of Melancthon’s labours: In the same
year Philip Melancthon had been called to this university by Prince
Frederick to fill the chair of Greek professor, but no doubt with the
intention that I should have him as my colleague in the labours of the
divinity professorship. For his works are sufficiently in proof of what
the Lord hath effected by this his choice instrument, not only in polite
literature, but in theology, although Satan be enraged and all his
party.” Though the early opinions of Luther upon the doctrine of a
philosophical necessity appear to have been occasionally expressed in a
harsh and repulsive manner, yet his followers pertinaciously contend
that even the harshest of them cannot, with propriety, be construed into
a sense favourable to the Calvinistical system. Those of Melancthon in
the first edition of his _Loci Theologici_, although occurring but in
one or two instances, were nevertheless still more offensive, and less
capable of a mitigated interpretation. So far indeed did he carry the
doctrine of divine predetermination as to degrade man to a level with
the brutes, as will be obvious from the following passage in the edition
of 1525. Lastly, divine predestination takes away human liberty. For all
things come to pass according to divine predestination, not only
external works, but also internal thoughts in all creatures.” After the
Diet of Augsburgh in 1530, we hear no more of this obnoxious tenet.
Indeed so early as 1527 these reformers seem to have abandoned it. At
least, when in that year a form of doctrine was drawn up for the
churches of Saxony, free will in acts of morality was thus inculcated:
The human will is so far free as to be able in some sort to perform the
righteousness of the flesh, or civil justice, when it is obliged by the
law and by force not to steal, not to kill, not to commit adultery, &c.
Therefore let ministers teach, that it is in a measure in our own hands
to restrain carnal affections, and to perform civil justice; and let
them diligently exhort men to a strict and proper course of life,
because God also requires this kind of righteousness, and will
grievously punish those men who live so negligent of their duty. For as
we are bound to make a good use of the other gifts of God, so is it
likewise our duty to employ to good purpose those powers which God has
bestowed on nature.” For God takes no delight in that ferocious mode of
life which is adopted by some men, who, after having heard that we are
not justified by our own powers and works, foolishly dream that they
will wait until they be drawn by God, and in the mean time their course
of life is most impure. Such persons God will most severely punish; and
they must therefore be earnestly reprehended and admonished by those
whose province it is to teach in the churches.” This work, which is
generally termed, _Libellus Visitationis Saxonic_, was first composed in
German by Melancthon in 1527, and afterward republished by Luther with a
preface, in which he thus expresses himself: We do not publish these as
rigorous precepts, nor do we again employ ourselves in drawing up
pontifical decrees, but we relate matters of history and public deeds,
and present the confession and symbol of our belief.” The previous
controversy between Luther and Erasmus, on the topic of free will, had
probably tended to produce an amelioration of the doctrinal system of
the Lutheran church. In this view it was not without reason that Erasmus
made the following reflections in a letter dated 1528, soon after he had
seen this production: The Lutheran fever, every succeeding day, assumes
a milder form; so that Luther himself now writes recantations on almost
every thing, and on this account he is considered by the rest as a
heretic and a madman.” Similar caustic remarks occur in other letters of
Erasmus; and as, in those days of high religious excitement, taunts of
this kind were considered too good to be confined as secrets within the
breast of the correspondents to whom they were addressed, it is not
improbable that Luther might be prevented through them, among other
reasons, from making farther doctrinal concessions; it being no uncommon
circumstance in the history of the human mind for persons of otherwise
strong understandings to be under the influence of this pitiable
weakness. That Melancthon not only abandoned but reprehended the
doctrine in 1529, we cannot doubt, because his own express testimony in
proof of it remains on record. In a letter to Christopher Stathmio,
dated March 20th, 1559, which was not long before his death, he notices
the subject in these words: Thirty years ago, not through the desire of
contention, but on account of the glory of God, and for the sake of
discipline, I sharply reprehended the Stoical paradoxes concerning
necessity, because they are reproachful toward God and injurious to
morals. At this time the legions of the Stoics are waging war against
me; but in the answer which I have written in opposition to the Bavarian
inquisition, I have once more pointed out in a modest manner that
opinion (on fate or predestination) in which anxious minds may acquiesce
and be at rest.” On consulting the tract to which his letter alludes, we
find him employing this strong and unequivocal language: I also openly
reject and abhor those Stoical and Manichean furies who affirm that all
things _necessarily_ happen, evil as well as good actions. But
concerning these I refrain at present from any lengthened discussion;
only I entreat young people to avoid these monstrous opinions, which are
contumelious against God, and pernicious to morals.” From the _Loci
Theologici_, in which Melancthon had first introduced this obnoxious
tenet, he expunged _necessity_ in the edition of 1533, and inserted in
its place the opposite one of _contingency_. The following are extracts
from this amended work: The discussion on _the cause of sin_ and that on
_contingency_ have sometimes greatly agitated the church, and excited
mighty tragedies. Men of acute minds collect multitudes of inextricable
and absurd things about both these subjects. Because there is some
danger in them, young people must be warned to abstain from these
interminable disputes, and in preference to search out a simple and
pious opinion, beneficial to religion and morals, in which they may
abide, nor suffer themselves to be withdrawn from it by those fallacious
tricks of disputations. But this is a pious and true sentiment to be
embraced with both hands, and to be retained rather by the whole
heart,--that God is not the cause of sin, and that he does not will sin.
But the causes of sin are the will of the devil, and the will of man.”
But this sentiment being once laid down, that God is not the cause of
sin, it evidently follows that contingency must be granted. The freedom
of the will is the cause of the contingency of our actions.” Neither
must the delirious doatings about Stoical fate, or about necessity, be
conveyed into the church, because they are inextricable and sometimes
injurious to piety and morals.” From these opinions it becomes the pious
to be abhorrent in their ears and in their hearts.” These extracts serve
to prove, that Melancthon reprobated the idea of introducing into the
church the doctrine of Stoical fate, before Calvin had distinguished
himself either as an author or a reformer. Into his subsequent
productions of almost every description Melancthon introduced the
doctrine of contingency, and strenuously defended it, particularly in
the amended edition of his _Loci Theologici_ in 1545. Luther never
formally revoked any of his own writings; but on this last corrected
production of his friend, as we have shown, he bestowed the highest
commendations. Yet he did not scruple publicly to assert, that at the
beginning of the Reformation he had not completely settled his creed. In
the seventh volume of his works this sentence is found: I have also
published the confession of my faith; in which I have openly testified
what and how I believe, and in what articles I think myself at length to
be at rest.” He seems, indeed, to have generally avoided the subject,
from the period of his controversy with Erasmus, to the publication of
his Commentary on Genesis,--his last work of any importance. But in
this, after a long argument to prove that, as we have no knowledge of
the unrevealed Deity, we have nothing to do with those things which are
above our comprehension; and that we are not to reason upon
predestination out of Christianity; he thus apologizes for his former
opinions: “It has been my wish diligently and accurately to deliver
these charges and admonitions; because, after my death, many persons
will publish my books to the world, and by that course will confirm
errors of every kind and their own delirious ravings. But among other
matters I have written, that all things are absolute and necessary; but
at the same time I added, that we must behold God as he is revealed to
us, as we sing in the Psalm, ‘Jesus Christ is the Lord of sabaoth, nor
is there any other God.’ In several other passages I have used similar
expressions. But these people will pass by all such passages, and will
only seize upon those concerning a hidden Deity. You, therefore, who now
hear me, recollect that I have taught this,--We must not inquire
concerning the predestination of a hidden God, but we must abide and
acquiesce in those things which are revealed by calling and by the
ministry of the word.” But in other passages of my different works I
have inculcated the same sentiments, and I now deliver them again with
an audible voice; therefore I am excused.” For the more modern state of
the Lutheran church see NEOLOGY.