Calvinism and Arminianism

SOVEREIGNTY, FREEWILL AND SALVATION
PROF. M. M. NINAN
14. It is a false assertion, that "the efficient and sufficient cause and matter of
predestination are thus found in those who are reprobated."
15. The elect are not called "vessels of mercy" in the relation of means to the end, but
because mercy is the only moving cause, by which is made the decree itself of
predestination to salvation.
16. No small injury is inflicted on Christ as mediator, when he is called "the subordinate
cause of destined salvation."
17. The predestination of angels and of men differ so much from each other, that no
property of God can be prefixed to both of them unless it be received in an ambiguous
acceptation.
6. ON THE CREATION, AND CHIEFLY THAT OF MAN
1. The creation of things out of nothing is the very first of all the external acts of God; nor is
it possible for any act to be prior to this, or conceived to be prior to it; and the decree
concerning creation is the first of all the decrees of God; because the properties according
to which he performs and operates all things, are, in the first impulse of his nature, and in
his first egress, occupied about nihility or nothing, when those properties are borne, ad
extra, "outwards."
2. God has formed two creatures rational and capable of things divine; ONE of them is
purely spiritual and invisible, and [that is the class of] angels; but the OTHER is partly
corporeal and partly spiritual, visible and invisible, and [that is the class of] men; and the
perfection of this universe seeing to have required the formation of these two [classes of]
creatures.
3. QUERY. — Did it not become the manifold wisdom of God, and was it not suitable to the
difference by which these two rational creatures were distinguished at the very creation,
that, in the mode and circumstances of imparting eternal life to angels and to men, he
might act in a different manner with the former from that which he adopts towards the
latter? It appears that he might do so.
4. But two general methods may be mentally conceived by us, ONE of which is through the
strict observance of the law laid down, without hope of pardon if any transgression were
committed; but the OTHER is through the remission of sins, though a law agreeable to their
nature was likewise to be prescribed by a peremptory decree to men, with whom it was not
the will of God to treat in a strict manner and according to the utmost rigor; and obedience
was to be required from them without a promise or pardon.
5. The image and likeness of God, after which man was created, belongs partly to the very
nature of man, so that, without it, man cannot be man; but it partly consists in those things
103