Page 80 - Absolute Predestination With Observations On The Divine Attributes

supposed discretion, as the firm belief, quod a Deo fiunt omnia, that
all things are from God. What invincible comfort did Christ impart
to His disciples in assuring them that their very hairs were all
numbered by the Creator? Is there, then (may an objector say), no

such thing as contingency, no such thing as chance or
fortune?—No. Omnia necessario evenire scripturæ docent; the
doctrine of Scripture is, that all things come to pass necessarily. Be

it so that to you some events seem to happen contingently, you
nevertheless must not be run away with by the suggestions of your
own narrow-sighted reason. Solomon himself, the wisest of men,

was so deeply versed in the doctrine of inscrutable predestination as
to leave this humbling maxim on record: "When I applied my heart
to know wisdom, and to see the business that is done upon the

earth, then I beheld all the work of God, that a man cannot find out
the work that is done under the sun, because though a man labour to
seek it out, yet he shall not find it; yea, further, though a wise man
think to know it, yet shall he not be able to find it" (Eccles.

8.16,17)."

Melancthon prosecutes the argument much further, but this may suffice for a

specimen; and it is not unworthy of notice that Luther so highly approved of
Melancthon's performance, and especially of the first chapter (from whence the
above extract is given), that he (Luther) thus writes of it in his epistle to

Erasmus, prefixed to his book "De Serv. Arb.," "That it was worthy of
everlasting duration, and to be received into the ecclesiastical canon." Let it

likewise be observed that Melancthon never, to the very last, retracted a word of
what he there delivers, which a person of his piety and integrity would most
certainly have done had he afterwards (as some have artfully and falsely

insinuated) found reason to change his judgment on these heads.

AN APPENDIX

CONCERNING THE

"FATE" OF THE ANCIENTS.
57
FROM THE LATIN OF JUSTUS LIPSIUS.