THE subjects of reprobation and election are so closely connected that they might be considered in one chapter. Indeed, so close is the connection, that certain verses supposed to prove one of them, are also adduced to prove the other, as--"Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated." It is, however, stoutly maintained that election is scriptural, whilst reprobation is repudiated. It is important to have clear ideas on the subject. What, then, are we to understand by the doctrine of reprobation? The question is not whether those dying in impenitency shall be subjected to suffering; for this is held by the opponents of Calvinism as well as by Calvinists themselves. The question is this, Is it true that God in a past eternity foreordained millions of men to endless misery, that to this end they were born, and to this end they must go? John Calvin held that it was so. He says, "All are not created on equal terms, but some are foreordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation; and accordingly as each has been created for one or other of these ends, we say that he has been predestinated to life or to death." He says, again, "If we cannot assign any reason for God's bestowing mercy on His people, but just that it so pleases Him, neither can we have any reason for His reprobating others; but His will. When God is said to visit in mercy, or to harden whom He will, men are reminded that they are not to seek for any cause beyond His will." He says, again, "The human mind, when it hears this doctrine, cannot restrain its petulance, but boils and rages, as if aroused by the sound of a trumpet. Many, professing a desire to defend the Deity from an invidious charge, admit the doctrine of election, but deny that any one is reprobated. This they do ignorantly and childishly, since there could be no election without its opposite--reprobation. Those, therefore, whom God passes by He reprobates, and that for no other cause but because He is pleased to exclude them from the inheritance which He predestines to His children". (_Inst_., b. iii.). Zanchius held--"It was therefore the first thing which God determined concerning them from eternity--namely, the ordination of certain men to everlasting destruction" (_Thesis de Reprob_.). Elnathan Parr maintained, "If a man be reprobated he shall certainly be damned, do what he can" (_Grounds of Divinity_). Maccovius says that "God has indeed decreed to damn some men eternally, and on this account He has ordained them to sin but each sins on his own account, and freely." To like purpose we might quote Maloratus, Amandus Pollanus, John Norton, John Brown of Wamphray, Piscator, &c. (_Vide Old Gospel_, &c., Young, Edin.) Calvin and his followers did not mince the matter, as these extracts clearly show.