We turn next to Eusebius, who wrote A. D. 315. "The Creator of all things has impressed a natural law upon the soul of every man, as an assistant and ally in his conduct, pointing out to him the right way by this law; but, by the free liberty with which he is endowed, making the choice of what is best worthy of praise and acceptance, and of greater rewards, on account of his good conduct, because he has acted rightly, not by force, but from his own free-will, when he had it in his power to act otherwise. As, again, making him who chooses what is worst, deserving of blame and punishment, as having by his own motion neglected the natural law, and becoming the origin and fountain of wickedness, and misusing himself, not from any extraneous necessity, but from free-will and judgment. The fault is in him who chooses, not in God. For God has not made nature or the substance of the soul bad; for he who is good can make nothing but what is good. Every thing is good which is according to nature. Every rational soul has naturally a good free-will, formed for the choice of what is good. But when a man acts wrongly, nature is not to be blamed; for what is wrong, takes place not according to nature, but contrary to nature, it being the work of choice, and not of nature.' Hilary of Poictiers, A. D. 354, furnishes us with the following testimonies. 'He prays, therefore, God to give. The beginning therefore is from ourselves, when we pray that the gift may be from him: then, because it is his gift in consequence of our beginning, it is again our act that it is sought, and obtained, and that it continues.' 'Lest what is often wont to be said by many persons should have some authority of reason, who assert that it is the peculiar gift of God, that any one is conversant in the things and works of God, excusing their own infidelity, because they remain faithless from the want of God's good will towards them; perseverance in faith is indeed the gift of God, but the beginning is from ourselves. And our will ought to have this property from itself, namely that it exerts itself. God will give increase to the beginning, because our weakness does not obtain consummation of itself; yet the merit of obtaining consummation is from the beginning of the will.' Out of a host of witnesses in the first four centuries against the calvinistic doctrine of 'special grace,' which Dr. Beecher has the folly to represent as a received doctrine during all that time, it will be sufficient for us to select a single passage from Ambrose, A. D. 374. 'The mystical Sun of Righteousness is risen upon ALL, is come for ALL, has suffered for ALL, and has risen again for ALL he therefore suffered that he might take away the sin of the world. But if any one does not believe in Christ, he defrauds himself of the general benefit, just as if any one should exclude the rays of the sun by shutting his windows.' We shall conclude our citations from the ancient Fathers by an account of a work, in five books, by Theodore, Bishop of Mopsuestia, written expressly against those who said, that men sin by nature, not by will and choice.' He considers it as a doctrine held by those in the west, and from thence brought into the east, especially by an author, called Aram, (now understood to have been Jerome, under a fictitious name,) who had written several books in defence of it. The opinions of that sect he represents in this manner. 'One of them is, that men sin by nature, not by choice. By nature, however, not meaning that, in which Adam was first formed; for that, they say, was good; but that which he afterwards had, when he had transgressed, being now bad instead of the good, and mortal instead of the immortal nature, which he before had. Hence men being bad by nature, who before were good, now sin by nature, not by choice. Another opinion of theirs, and consequent upon that, is, that infants, though newly born, are not free from sin; forasmuch as from Adam's transgression a sinful nature, as they express it, is derived to all his posterity; for this they allege those words, "I was born in sin," and others."* Theodore lived about A. D. 400; was an intimate friend and fellow disciple of Chrysostom; a bishop thirty-six years, a voluminous writer, and wrote, as we are expressly told, against all heresies.' The particular 'heresy' referred to above was clearly neither more nor less than what is now called calvinism in its incipient stages. It is plain, likewise, that it had then but just begun to appear in the church in a distinct and systematic form, being treated * Lardner's Credibility. Works, Vol. II. p. 527. as a novelty by one of the most learned men of the age; and also that when it did thus appear in a distinct and systematic form, it was immediately attacked, exposed, and condemned. Truly, therefore, Dr. Beecher may be said to be most unlucky in his statement; for the doctrines of original sin, entire depravity, and the accompanying errours, instead of being ' received doctrines of the church,' as he asserts, until the beginning of the fifth century, do not appear to have been broached, certainly not openly, systematically, and generally taught, until towards the close of the fourth. And, moreover, as soon as they were thus taught, they were met by a strong and decided opposition; an opposition which was not overcome by argument or persuasion; but by intrigue and caballing among bishops, by the growing ascendency of the Church of Rome, and finally by decisions of councils,-that mighty engine of corruption, of which we can at this time form no adequate idea, which could in a single day, and by a casting vote, make the errours and superstitions of a few misguided, perhaps artful and designing, individuals, the errours and superstitions of the whole Catholic church, and which was never more powerful, active, or unprincipled, than at the period of which we are now speaking.* The foregoing conclusions are still further sustained by the confession of Augustine, that he changed his opinions in some material points after his controversy with Pelagius had begun; a change, indeed, evident enough without any such confession to those who consult his works. Confirmation is also to be derived from the fact, that Pelagius and his immediate followers, and still more the semi-pelagians afterwards, appealed with unanswerable confidence to the early Christians in attestation of their principles; and also from the circumstance that many of the preceding Fathers, whose authority up to that time had ever been held in the highest veneration in the church, (such as Origen and Theodore,) soon began to fall under the suspicion and censure of those who joined themselves to Augustine's party. Besides, we are to consider in * The Greeks called the Oecumenical Council, which assembled at Ephesus, A. D. 449, a 'Gang of robbers,' to signify that every thing was carried in it by fraud or violence. 'And many councils indeed,' says Mosheim, 'both in this and the following ages, are equally entitled to the same dishonourable appellation.' Eccles. Hist. Vol. II. p. 74. this connexion what has been so satisfactorily proved by Grotius,* that modern Pelagians, or Arminians, do not push their opposition to the famous Five Points to such extremes as Pelagius himself is represented as having done, and therefore may and do agree with the primitive church, even in those respects in which he is represented as having differed from it. We may be thought, perhaps, to have spent more time upon this argument, than it is worth; but as it is one which ought to have some influence when properly applied, and has had much when misapplied, it is certainly important that the subject should be understood. If our work had been intended for scholars only, we might have contented ourselves with simply asserting the fact of the anti-calvinism of the primitive church, without running any hazard of contradiction. Nay, so unanimous are all the best writers upon this subject, that we might challenge Dr. Beecher to produce a single respectable authority to bear him out in his assertions, if he means by the doctrines he has named, those doctrines, as they are held and explained by Calvinists. All the best writers of his own party are against him. Calvin himself says, 'Perhaps I may be thought to have raised a great prejudice against myself, by confessing that ALL the ecclesiastical writers, except Augustine, have treated this subject with such ambiguities or variations, that nothing certain can be learned from their writings. Similar confessions are found in Beza and Vossius, but our limits will not admit of their insertion. Jansenius, also, the founder of a sect among the Catholics, bearing his name, and holding calvinistic sentiments, does not hesitate to say in so many words: 'That Augustine was the FIRST among the Holy Fathers, who taught Christians the meaning of the New Testament.'t Even Milner, though he wrote for the special purpose of proving, at all events, that the true church was always calvinistic, is obliged, however, to confess that long before Augustine appeared, the calvinistic doctrine of justification had been pitiably suffocated, as it were, in the rubbish of the growing superstition, and had been gradually sinking in the church from Justin's days. And I more ad * In his Disquisitio an Pelagiana sint ea dogmata quae nunc sub eo nomine traducuntur. Opp. Theolog. Tom. IV. p. 361, et seq. + Institutes. (Allen's) Vol. II. p. 280. Histoire Critique Nov. Test. par R. Simon. Tom. I. p. 291. mire,' he continues, 'that he was enabled to RECOVER its constituent parts so well as he did, than that He did not arrange and adjust them perfectly.' *** The peculiar work for which Augustine was evidently raised up by Providence was, to RESTORE the doctrine of divine grace to the church.'* The learned Simon is also, from the attention which he bestowed upon the subject, an important witness in this investigation; and his testimony goes to establish the position which we have taken. We should guard,' says he, 'against the doctrine that has prevailed among the Latins since the days of Augustine, that nothing can be said for Pelagius in all those places where he differs from that Father; for otherwise we shall be under the necessity of charging most of the ancient doctors of the church with heresy.' He does, indeed, contend that Pelagius carried some of his principles too far; but this is no more than what is admitted by Grotius, and other Arminians and Unitarians. All antiquity,' says he, in another place, which had opposed itself strongly to the Gnostics and Manicheans, who destroyed the liberty of man, seemed to speak in favour of Pelagius and his followers. If they had not run into the opposite extreme, absolutely denying the necessity of internal grace, they might have boasted of having tradition on their side.'+ Few have written on the early opinions of the church whose authority is entitled to more respect than Beausobre; and his testimony upon this point is also decisive. 'I allow,' says he, that those ancient writers, in general, say the Manieheans denied free-will. The reason is, that the Fathers believed, and maintained, against the Manicheans, that whatever state man is in he has the command over his own actions, and has equally power to do good or evil. Augustine himself reasoned upon this principle, as well as other Catholics his predecessors, so long as he had to do with the Manicheans. But when he came to dispute with the Pelagians he changed his system. Then he denied that kind of freedom which before he had defended; and, so far as I am able to judge, his sentiments no longer differed from theirs concerning the servitude of the will. He ascribed that servitude to the corruption which original sin brought into our nature; whereas * Church History. 1st. Am. Ed. Vol. II. pp. 442, 443. |