by a great deal of evil, and therefore I do not think that this is a fatal charge when brought against the Creeds and Articles, or other theological forms. No doubt they do partially express the truth. No doubt, to some extent, they are well-ordered attempts to express truth. We owe an immense deal to them, and we should regard them most thankfully, and treat them most considerately, even when we believe ourselves to have risen above them, and feel that we should not naturally express our theology in that sort of language.

Before I read some sentences of this Article on Predestination, let me remind you that it is founded on some words of St. Paul, and remember what St. Paul's epistles or letters were. They may be described as the utterances of a man thinking aloud to his friends, a man under high guidance and inspiration (although not miraculously preserved from error, as he takes care himself to inform you, I Cor. vii. 6, 25, 40). St. Paul's letters are his own glowing thoughts as they arose, often without order; often glancing along the surface, still oftener reaching deep down beneath it, but generally without any settled consistency; his letters differ, they are not always easy to reconcile with each other. Sometimes statements in the same page seem contradictory; yet this is as a man writes out of a full heart; the letters are not to be treated like legal documents, they are to be read lovingly and intelligently, like every other part of the Bible.

St. Paul, when he began to talk of predestination, got into some of the difficulties that everybody must get into

who talks about that subject. It clearly turns on matters that the human mind cannot in the least grasp, and no one was more aware of this than the apostle. How little could he have imagined that out of a few sentences which serve well enough to express his inability to cope with the question, we should proceed gravely to found an authoritative article of belief! Naturally and very obviously he contradicted himself, just as a man will constantly in writing a letter say, in trying to think out a subject, what is uppermost in his mind; and if you look over your friends' letters you will find they are full of inconsistencies, which are easily reconciled to you because you know the people; at the same time they are not always accurate statements of Truth. Doubtless, St. Paul would have been more guarded; would have striven after more rigid accuracy of thought and argument had he foreseen that at this age of the world we should be founding authoritative articles upon his religious utterances or diffuse meditations. But then we should have had something very different from the Epistles to the Corinthians, probably nothing half so real, so personal and pathetic.

The confusion and trouble which was to be expected from an attempt to treat St. Paul like a schoolman or logician has arrived. This Article on Predestination is founded upon some remarks in which the apostle tries to reconcile the foreknowledge of God with His goodness and justice. If He has willed some to be saved, and some to be damned, 'why does He yet find fault,' when men turn out vessels of wrath; ought He to have

allowed them to be born unless He intended to make them ultimately happy, were they all to be saved? Then we observe the inner conflict of the apostle's mind; at one time God wills some to be lost (Rom. ix. 18), at another, God wills all Israel to be saved (Rom. xi. 26), and Christ is said to be the Saviour of all men. But still, some people seem so very bad, so utterly alien from God, that it seems almost impossible that they should ever be saved; but St. Peter is very bold,' and affirms that it is not God's will that any should perish, and we may ask with St. Paul, 'who hath withstood His will?'

As far as texts go, there would seem as much reason to suppose that we are all predestined to be saved as that some are predestined to be lost. That being the state of St. Paul's and St. Peter's minds, I will read the first sentence of the Article on Predestination :'Predestination to Life is the everlasting purpose of God, whereby (before the foundations of the world were laid) He hath constantly decreed by His counsel, secret to us, to deliver from curse and damnation those whom He hath chosen in Christ out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ to everlasting salvation, as vessels made to honour.' And then further on :-'As the godly consideration of Predestination, and our Election in Christ' (our election ;' of course, there are none here belonging to the number of the damned, we courteously assume that, when we speak of ourselves and our friends)' is full of sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort to godly persons,' &c. So, for curious and carnal persons, lacking

the Spirit of Christ, to have continually before their eyes the sentence of God's Predestination, is a most dangerous downfall, whereby the Devil doth thrust them either into desperation, or into wretchlessness of most unclean living, no less perilous than desperation.' So that in fact, brethren, you see that 'curious and carnal persons' have got to contemplate quietly all their lives. the certainty of their own damnation, which has been predestined of course by God, so that they cannot help themselves. Exactly so; but then naturally, they are curious' as well as 'carnal' enough to want to know something about a question which so nearly concerns them as their damnation. If you were told that you would be amongst the number of those predestined to be damned for ever, you would be curious to know, for instance, how it was possible to reconcile this with the justice, and the love, and the mercy of God in which you have been taught to believe.

The fact is, the language of the whole Article belongs to an atmosphere of thought which has passed away, and which it is impossible to revive. We do not now talk in this strain of God, of heaven, and hell. The whole groundwork of expression has shifted. We cannot dispute about an Article of this kind, because we have got no common terms; its language lies outside our present forms of thought, and if I were to begin gravely to argue its positions, you would say I was wasting my time, and you would be quite right. Predestination is not anything you can deny or affirm, because it is a word indicating something or other entirely outside our

modern modes of thought. It is like those metaphysical discussions about the Procession of the Holy Ghost in the 'Filioque' clause which once exercised Christendom, and which now so astonish and perplex the intellects of our modern Westerns.

Try and imagine such language as is contained in this Article on Predestination, addressed by his Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury to his dear children in Christ: imagine him complacently telling them that those of them who were curious and carnal-minded would certainly be damned; that it was God's will, and they could not help it; and that this soothing reflection would probably hurry them into 'desperation,' and 'wretchlessness of unclean living.' This style of exhortation belongs to another age-an age of brutalising pastimes and pitiless cruelty-an age familiar with the horrors of the Inquisition. To such people even the language of Tertullian, descriptive of eternal torments, even the visions of Dante and the Last Judgment of Michael Angelo appeared highly edifying. When you are in heaven' the preacher might then say, 'you will be able to look down from your abode of bliss into hell, and see the damned writhing in the flames, and that will add the greatest intensity to your own happiness.' This mode of pulpit exhortation was not uncommon once, but it is language which can no longer be regarded as appropriate or effective-likely to convert sinners, or gladden the hearts of the righteous. We do not think of heaven as a place somewhere up in the clouds, where people sit and sing psalms for ever;

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