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Thus far Boethius. The reader, perhaps, will be inclinable with me, to ask, what need of labouring the point so nicely? To what end, is the thread so finely spun? one thing, however, is plain: viz. that, by providence, he understood God's eternal foresight; and, by fate, that temporary disposure of events, which we now call providence (a). To the former, he might be induced by the literal import of the word providence. If I rightly remember, Cicero, somewhere, shows himself of the same mind, and assigns that very reason for it. It should also be noticed, that, according to Boethius' doctrine, the divine foreknowledge is not a naked, idle speculaformis, ac temporibus distributa; ut hæc temporalis ordinis explicatio, in divinæ mentis adunatu prospectu, providentia sit: eadem verò adunatio digesta atque explicata temporibus, fatum vocetur; quæ, licèt diversa sint, alterum tamen pendet exaltero. Ordo namque fatalis ex providentia simplicitate procedit. Sicut enim artifex, faciendæ rei formam mente percipiens, movet operis effectum; et quod simpliciter, præsentarièque prospexerat, per temporales ordinis ducit; ità Deus Providentià quidem singularitèr, stabilitèrque, disponit facienda: fato verò hæc ipsa, quæ disposuit, multiplicitèr ac temporalitèr administrat. Sive igitur, famulantibus quibusdam providentiæ divinæ spiritibis, fatum exercetur; seu animâ; seu totâ inserviente naturâ; seu cœlestibus siderum motibus; seu angelicà virtute; seu dæmonum variâ solertiâ; seu aliquibus horum, seu omnibus, fatalis series texitur: illud certè manifestum, est immobilem simplicemque gerendarum formam rerum esse providentiam ; fatum verò eorum, quæ divina simplicitas gerenda disposuit, mobilem nexum, atque ordinem temporalem. Quo fit, ut omnia, quæ fato subsunt, Providentiæ que subjecta sunt: cui etiam ipsum quoque subjacet fatum." Boethius, apud Bradward. L. et C. u. s.

(a) The folio edition of Bailey's Dictionary has a paragraph (under the word fate), in which it is observed, that "fate primarily implies the same with effatum, a word, or decree pronounced by God; or a fixed sentence, whereby the Deity has prescribed the order of things, and allotted every person what shall befal him. The Greeks call it apaguen, as though a chain, or necessary series of things, indissolubly linked together: and the moderns call it providence." The folio editors of the above work endeavour to explain away this judicious passage. But it is no wonder that a set of men, who are for excluding the Son and Spirit of God from the divine essence, should be for expunging predestination and its correlative articles from the Christian creed.

tion of what barely would come to pass; but is tantamount to an operative, effective determination of what certainly shall come to pass. For he supposes absolute fate itself to be no more than a subordinate administrator, whose business it is, to see that all events exactly correspond to that active knowledge of them which God had from everlasting. He expresses this very clearly in another subsequent passage, quoted by Bradwardin, wherein he reciprocates the terms providence and fate: "this series of fate, or providence, tightly binds down the actions and circumstances of men, by an indissoluble concatenation of causes (b)." To this Bradwardin himself heartily accedes, in a remarkable paragraph adopted from St. Austin: "Our wills have just so much ability, as God willed and foreknew they should have. Consequently, they cannot avoid being endued with whatever ability they possess; and what they are to do, they absolutely shall do: for, both their ability and their works were foreknown of God, whose foreknowledge cannot be deceived (c)."

What Bradwardin professedly delivers, concerning the subjection of our most voluntary actions to the decrees and providence of God; what he adds, concerning the coincidence of permission, and design; with several other correlative points of religious metaphysics; I purposely omit: not for want of inclination, but of room. I shall, therefore, for the present, conclude my extract from his testimony, with a short sample or two, of what he hath advanced concerning predestination itself, the powers of free-will, and the perseverance of the saints.

(b)" Hæc fati series, seu providentia, actus fortunasque hominum indissolubili causarum connexione constringit." Boeth. apud Eund. p. 267.

(c) "Quapropter et voluntates nostræ tantum valent, quantum Deus eas valere voluit atque præscivit. Et ideò, quicquid valent, certissime valent; et quod facturæ sunt, ipsæ omninò facturæ sunt: quia valituras ac facturas ille præscivit, cujus præscientia falli non potest." Augustin. apud Eund. ibid.

Predestination is the only ground, on which the divine foreknowledge and providence can stand. Abstracted from the will and purpose of God, neither persons, nor things, nor events, could have any certain futurition: consequently, they could not be certainly foreknowable. And providence must regulate every punctilio of its dispensations, by the same preconstructed plan; or it would follow, that God is liable to unforeseen emergencies, and acts either ignorantly, or contrary to his own will. The great Bradwardin was so clearly and deeply convinced of this, that he defines predestination to be (what in reality it is) neither more nor less than "Eterna prævolutio Dei, sive præordinatio voluntatis divinæ, circa futurum: God's eternal prevolition, or pre-determination of his will, respecting what shall come to pass (d)." He treats the mysterious articles of election and reprobation in particular, with such force and compass of argument, united with such modesty and judgment, as may alone suffice to class him among the ablest reasoners that ever wrote.

The

On the subject of liberty and necessity, he acknowledges that there is such a thing (e) as free-will in God's reasonable creatures: and, I believe, every Calvinist upon earth acknowledges the same. point in dispute between us and the Arminians, is not concerning the existence of free-will; but concerning its powers. That man is naturally endued with a will, we never denied: and that man's will is naturally free to what is morally and spiritually evil, we always affirmed. The grand hinge, then, on which the debate turns, is, whether free-will be, or be not, a faculty of such sovereignty and power, as either to ratify or to baffle the saving grace of God, according to its [i. e. according to the will's]

(d) Lib. i. сар. xlv. p. 421.

(e) Lib. ii. cap. i.

own independent pleasure and self-determination? I should imagine, that every man of sense, piety, and reflection, must at once determine this question in the negative. If some do not, who are nevertheless possessed of those qualifications, I can only stand amazed at the force of that prejudice, which can induce any reasonable and religious person to suppose that divine wisdom is frustrable, and the divine power defeatable, by creatures of yesterday, who are absolutely and constantly dependent on God for their very being (and, consequently, for the whole of their operations) from moment to

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moment.

Bradwardin believed, that the human will, however free in its actings, is not altogether exempt from necessity. He supposed, that what the understanding regards as good, the will must necessarily desire; and what the understanding represents as evil, the will must necessarily disapprove (f). A remark this, not spun from the subtilties of metaphysics; but founded in fact, and demonstrable from every man's own hourly experience. The will, therefore, is no other than the practical echo of the understanding: and is so far from being endued with a self-determining power, or with a freedom of indifference to this or that; that it closes in with the dictates of the intellect, as naturally, as necessarily, and as implicitly, as an eastern slave accommodates his obedience to the commands of the grand seignor. As the understanding is thus the directress of the will; so, ten thousand different circumstances concur to influence and direct the understanding: which latter is altogether as passive, in her reception of impressions from without, as she is sometimes active in her subsequent contemplation and combination of them. It follows, that if the understanding (from which the will receives its bias), be thus

VOL. I.

(f) Lib. ii. cap. ii. per totum.

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liable to passive, subjective necessity; the will itself, which is absolutely governed by a faculty so subject to necessitation, cannot possibly be possessed of that kind of freedom which the Arminian scheme supposes her to be: since, if she were, the handmaid would be above her mistress; and uncontrolable sovereignty would be the immediate offspring of constringent necessity. Hence Bradwardin observes, that the human will cannot so much as conquer a single temptation, even after God's regenerating Dpower has passed upon the soul, sine alio Dei auxilio speciali (g), "without a fresh supply of God's particular assistance:" which particular assistance he defines to be, voluntas Dei invicta (h), the supernatural influence, resulting from the unconquerable will of God: "armed with which, his tempted children get the better of every temptation; but destitute of which, every temptation gets the better of them (i)."

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And, indeed, were not this 'the case, "The number of the elect and predestinate would," as Bradwardin nervously argues, depend more on man than upon God. Men, by antecedently and casually disposing their own wills to this or that, would leave God no more to do, than to regulate his after-decrees in a subservient conformity to the prior determinations of his creatures, and in a way of subjection and subordination to their will and pleasure (k)" than which supposition, nothing can be more impious and irrational. Besides, as he presently adds, if free-will was possessed of these enor

(g) Lib. ii. cap. v. per totum.

(h) Ibid. cap. vi.

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(¿)" Quo tentati omnia superant tentamenta; et sine quo in omnibus superantur." Cap. vi. p. 489.

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(k) "Secundùm data [scil. Pelagiana], homines magis disponunt electos et prædestinatos in numero, quàm faciat Deus ipse; nam antecedentèr et causalitèr quia homines disponunt voluntates suas, hoc modo, vel illo; ideò Deus, subservientèr et subexecutivè, disponit numerum electorum tantum vel tantum." P. 480.

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