We shall not dwell upon other portions of the chapter in question; for, if the foregoing remarks be just, it will be easy to dispose of every text which may, at first view, appear to support the Calvinistic doctrine of election. We shall dismiss the consideration of the ninth chapter of Romans with an extract from Dr. Macknight, who, although a firm believer in the Calvinistic view of election and reprobation, does not find any support for his doctrine in this portion of Scripture. “Although some passages in this chapter,” says he, “which pious and learned men have understood of the election and reprobation of individuals, are in the foregoing illustration interpreted of the election of nations to be the people of God, and to enjoy the advantage of an external revelation, and of their losing these honourable distinctions, the reader must not, on that account, suppose the author rejects the doctrines of the decree and foreknowledge of God. These doctrines are taught in other passages of Scripture: see Rom. viii, 29.” Thus this enlightened critic candidly abandons the ninth chapter of Romans, and seeks support for his Calvinistic view of the divine decrees elsewhere. Let us, then, proceed to examine the eighth chapter of Romans, upon which he relies. The words are as follow: “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the first-born among many brethren. Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.” We need have no dispute with the Calvinists respecting the interpretation of these words. If we mistake not, we may adopt their own construction of them, and yet clearly show that they lend not the least support to their views of election and reprobation. “As to _know_,” says Professor Hodge, “is often to _approve_ and _love_, it may express the idea of peculiar affection in the case; or it may mean to _select_ or _determine upon_.” These two interpretations, as he truly says, “do not essentially differ. The one is but a modification of the other.” “The idea, therefore, obviously is, that those whom God peculiarly loved, and by thus loving, distinguished or selected from the rest of mankind; or, to express both ideas in one word, those whom he _elected_ he predestinated, &c.” Thus, according to this commentator, those whom God elected, he also predestinated, called, justified, and, finally, glorified.