justified. As if he had said, That God, according to a special decree of mercy, sent Christ to deliver and save the predestinate effectually and infallibly; in which sense they alone are called vessels of mercy.

It would be useless to produce more passages from Augustine, whose opinion of the absolute predestination of some to eternal life and of the eternal giving of them to Christ the Mediator, that they might be by him infallibly led to the same, is known to all who are conversant with his writings. What is meant by predestination, and giving and leading to eternal life, without this special design of applying his death and merits to them, can neither be understood nor imagined. See cap. 18, de præd. Sanct. cap. 7, de bono persev. cap. 9, de cor. & grat.

TEST. 4. The fourth testimony may be derived from Ambrose, whose words are these (lib. 6, cap. 7, Luke ;) Although Christ suffered for all, yet he suffered specially for us, because he suffered for his church: therefore it is not to be doubted that much is due from him who hath received much. Here we see that, according to the opinion of Ambrose, Christ in suffering had a special regard to his church, from whence it followed that she received the special benefit of that passion of Christ. Therefore he asserts, that Christ suffered for all; but so that the will and intention of Christ in suffering does not equally regard all men, but is directed in some singular manner towards his mystical body, that is, the church of the first-born, which he willed to acquire for himself with his own blood and to unite to himself by his Spirit, in order to the infallible participation of eternal life. He did not suffer for all men with this special intention.

TEST. 5. Remi, Bishop of Rheims, may follow Ambrose. He writes thus on Rom. viii., Whom he predestinated or before appointed to reign with him in eternal blessedness, those he called and justified by his passion, by baptism, and faith, adorned with good works, and justified unto the end of life. A little after, on these words, He who spared not his own Son, he says, that is, did not preserve him from death, but delivered him up for us all who were predestinated to eternal

life. All these shew that Christ suffered for the elect and the elect alone, with a certain purpose of saving them; which is the special intention that we endeavour to establish, and which we contend is to be limited to the elect alone in this oblation of Christ.

TEST. 6. Fulgentius says (De incarn. & grat. Jesu. Chr. cap. 29, p. 92, Biblioth. Patr. tom. 6,) Those who think that the will of God, by which he wills the salvation of all men, is equal towards the redeemed and the condemned; when they are asked, why God wills that all men should be saved, and yet all are not saved, what will they answer? The learned Fulgentius intimates, that God of his special will hath determined that the salvation of those who are actually saved should be procured by Christ, and that those who affirm the contrary have nothing solid to answer when they are urged to shew from whence this distinction arises, that some are really saved by the death of Christ, and others are not saved. He demonstrates that this cannot be referred to the human will (cap. 30 and 31).

TEST. 7. I add another testimony of the same Fulgentius, (lib. 3, de verit. Prædest.) Those whom God hath predestinated to the adoption of sons, no Christian ought to doubt that these were not only predestinated in Christ before the formation of the world, to the reward of glorification, but also to the grace of justification; and by virtue of this predestination were called according to purpose and justified. He who does not doubt that the elect children of God were predestinated both to grace and glory before the formation of the world, will willingly confess, that the death and merit of Christ was ordained and accepted in some special way for these elect persons, that from thence they might infallibly obtain the grace and glory destined for them.

TEST. 8. Paschasius* (Biblioth. Patr. tom. 9, p. 930) on the words Matt. i. 21, He shall save his people from their

* PASCHASIUS RATBERTUS, a celebrated Benedictine of the 9th Century, was born at Soissons, and was carefully educated by the Monks of Notre Dame. He took the religious habit in the Abbey of Corbey, of which he became Abbot. About the year 831 he wrote a treatise “On the body and blood of Christ," in which he maintained, that after the consecration

sins, writes thus, Hence Zacharias says, HE HATH RE

DEEMED HIS PEOPLE IN THE HOUSE OF HIS SERVANT

DAVID. Therefore those whom he foreknew to be his own, without doubt he came to save; all the rest he hath left by his secret judgment in the mass of damnation. In these words he teaches that Christ came into the world and suffered death, with some special intention of saving the predestinate; but he had not the same special intention to effect the salvation of others, although he was willing to make salvation procurable by all on condition of faith.

TEST. 9. Gregory the Great says (Moral, lib. 22, cap. 18, p. 132,) For the only begotten Son of God to intercede for man, is, with the co-eternal Father, the same as to demonstrate that he was man; and for him to have petitioned in behalf of human nature, is to have taken the same nature into the height of his divinity. He intercedes, therefore, for us, not with words, but with compassion; because what he was unwilling should be condemned in the elect, he delivered them from by undertaking it. The last words are especially to be noticed, in which it is clearly indicated, that Christ in his whole mediatorial office had a special regard to the infallible deliverance of the elect.

TEST. 10. Bernard on Psalm xci., He who dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High, vers. 9th, says, Christ died for his friends, that is, to acquire them; so that out of ene

of the bread and wine in the Lord's Supper, nothing remained of these symbols but the outward figure, under which the identical body and blood of Christ were really present. Thus was revived and brought into shape in the Latin Church that doctrine which has occasioned so much contention in the Church and havoc among Christians-the doctrine of Transubstantiation, which had been first started by a Monk at the beginning of the 7th Century. This doctrine being thus introduced into the Western Church occasioned a violent controversy. It was vigorously opposed by Rabanus Maurus, Archbishop of Mentz, the most considerable man of his times, who says, it was an error newly broached. Most of the learned men of that age took part in the controversy it excited. Paschasius was constrained to resign his Abbey in consequence of the opposition his opinion met, and he died soon after, in 865. His other works are Commentaries on St. Matthew; on Psalm xliv.; and on the Lamentations of Jeremiah : with Treatises De Partu Virginis; De Corpore Christi, &c. His works were collected and published by Father Sirmond, in 1618.

mies he might make them friends. A little after, Thus, therefore, Christ died as to time for the ungodly, but as to predestination for his brethren and friends; which is the same as if he had said, That Christ in dying on the cross had a singular respect to the predestinate, his future brethren and friends.

But passing from the antients, let us descend to the Schoolmen and modern Popish writers, who, while they contend that Christ died for all, at the same time acknowledge that he died for the elect alone, with special intention of applying his death to them, in order to the infallible attainment of eternal life.

TEST. 1. Let us begin with the Master of the SchoolPeter Lombard: Christ offered himself on the cross for all men, as to the sufficiency of the price, but for the elect only as to its efficacy; because he brings salvation to the predestinate alone (lib. 3, dist. 20, lit. E.) The argument which he adjoins, why Christ is said to have died for the elect alone as to its efficacy, is most worthy of notice. For he does not say with the Pelagians and Arminians, that they alone were foreseen to be excited by grace to apply Christ to themselves, according to the freedom of their own will; but that he effected salvation in them alone through the benignity of his special mercy. Now what he has effected in the elect, without doubt he determined to effect in them. And this is that special intention according to which we profess that the death of Christ referred and was ordained for the elect alone.

TEST. 2. Aquinas says, (part. 3, qu. 24, art. 4,) God fore-ordained our salvation, by predestinating from eternity that it should be completed through Jesus Christ. Aquinas speaks of the elect, and asserts that God ordained, from eternity, that their salvation should be infallibly completed through Jesus Christ. I ask, then, how Christ exhibited himself as conformed to the eternal appointment of his Father, if, in his saving passion, he had not applied his merits in a peculiar manner infallibly to effect and complete the salvation of the elect? It is granted, then, that the special intention of God in accepting this sacrifice,

́and of Christ in offering himself, was limited to the elect alone, as far as the passion of Christ is joined with the infallible effect of salvation as to individuals.

TEST. 3. Aquinas also observes (Quæst. disp. de grat. Christi. art. 7, resp. ad 4,) The merit of Christ as to its sufficiency equally regards all men, but not as to its efficacy; which arises partly from free-will, partly from the election of God, through which the effect of the merits of Christ is mercifully conferred upon some, but is by his just judgment withdrawn from others. What Aquinas says, that it arises partly from free-will, that the merits of Christ as to their efficacy do not equally regard all men, is to be understood. with respect to those who are lost, who, of their own freewill turn themselves away from the fountain of salvation: but what he says, that this inequality arises partly from the election of God, is to be understood with respect to those who are saved, who, because God, according to the good pleasure of his election, has special compassion on them, receive from the fountain of salvation whatever is necessary to effect their salvation. That this was the sentiment of Aquinas appears from his answer to the last argument, where he says, That this is conferred freely upon men by God, that they obtain the efficacy of the merit of Christ. If the effect of the merits of Christ is mercifully conferred on some certain persons by the election of God, and is at the same time denied to others, who can doubt that Christ, being most conscious of the election of God and of his calling, offered himself and his merits specially for these persons, and to the price of his death, which was most sufficient in itself, added moreover the most effectual and special intention of his will, in order to effect the salvation of these elect persons? To this those words refer (John x. 15,) I lay down my life for the sheep, namely, with some special intention of effectually redeeming and delivering them, and leading them to life eternal; as may be collected from the whole discourse of our Saviour at that time.

TEST. 4. Scotus (in 3 Sentent. dist. 19, quæst. 1) has