Calvinism and Arminianism

SOVEREIGNTY, FREEWILL AND SALVATION
PROF. M. M. NINAN
must necessarily follow the transgression of man, as proceeding from a law imposed on him.
The fall of man is therefore a means ordained for the execution of the decree of
reprobation.
The second of these reasons is that which states the two parts of reprobation to be
preterition and predamnation. These two parts, according to that decree, are connected
together by a necessary and mutual bond, and are equally extensive. For, all those whom
God passed by in conferring Divine grace, are likewise damned. Indeed no others are
damned, except those who are the subjects of this act of preterition. From this therefore it
may be concluded, that "sin must necessarily follow from the decree of reprobation or
preterition, because, if it were otherwise, it might possibly happen, that a person who had
been passed by, might not commit sin, and from that circumstance might not become liable
to damnation; since sin is the sole meritorious cause of damnation: and thus certain of
those individuals who had been passed by, might neither be saved nor damned — which is
great absurdity.
This second opinion on Predestination, therefore, falls into the same inconvenience as the
first. For it not only does not avoid that [conclusion of making God the author of sin,] but
while those who profess it make the attempt, they fall into a palpable and absurd
self-contradiction — while, in reference to this point, the first of these opinions is alike
throughout and consistent with itself.
2. The third of these schemes of Predestination would escape this rock to much better
effect, did not the patrons of it, while declaring their sentiments on Predestination and
providence, employ certain expressions, from which the necessity of the fall might be
deduced. Yet this necessity cannot possibly have any other origin than some degree of
Predestination.
(1.) One of these explanatory expressions is their description of the Divine permission, by
which God permits sin. Some of them describe it thus: "permission is the withdrawing of
that Divine grace, by which, when God executes the decrees of his will through rational
creatures, he either does not reveal to the creature that divine will of his own by which he
wills that action to be performed, or does not bend the will of the creature to yield
obedience in that act to the Divine will." To these expressions, the following are
immediately subjoined: "if this be a correct statement, the creature commits sin through
necessity, yet voluntarily and without restraint." If it be objected that "this description does
not comport with that permission by which God permitted the sin of Adam:" We also
entertain the same opinion about it. Yet it follows, as a consequence, from this very
description, that "other sins are committed through necessity."
(2.) Of a similar tendency are the expressions which some of them use, when they contend,
that the declaration of the glory of God, which must necessarily be illustrated, is placed in
"the demonstration of mercy and of punitive justice." But such a demonstration could not
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