The passages of Scripture we have thus considered are those mainly depended on in support of the Calvinistic doctrine of election. The doctrine, like the chameleon, has different shades, according to the school. The high predestinarians, or, as they are called, "_supra -lapsarians_," maintain, as we have seen, that God created a certain number to be saved, and a certain number to be lost. The _infra_- or _sublap_-_sarians_, maintain that God contemplated the race as fallen, and determined to save a given number, and a given number only, and to reprobate a given number. Regarding the former a Saviour has been provided for them and irresistible grace. The modern Calvinists differ, as we have also seen, from both of these schools, and hold that God loves all, and has provided a Saviour for all, but that converting grace is given only to some. There is a consistency, a grim consistency, in the two former views; but the latter limps, it divides the Trinity. It makes God's love to be world-wide, Christ's death to be for all, but the gracious or converting work of the Spirit is limited. But however these systems differ from each other, they all agree in this, that God is not earnestly desirous of saving all men. And this, as we hold, is the damning fact against them all. There are certain specific objections, however, to which we now beg attention. CHAPTER VI. OBJECTIONS TO THE CALVINISTIC DOCTRINE OF ELECTION. (1.) WE object, in the _first_ place, to the Calvinistic doctrine of election, because it is absurd to call it election. The advocates of the three views of election mentioned stoutly maintain that the persons chosen are chosen unconditionally; in other words, they are chosen not on account of any mental or moral quality in them. It is on this account designated _unconditional_. There is nothing whatever in the persons chosen on which to ground the choice. Supposing this to be the case, can there be any choice, election? Mr. Robinson has put the case thus: "What is election? Is it possible to choose one of two things, excepting for reasons to be found in the things themselves? Ask a friend which of a number of oranges he will take. If he sees nothing in them to determine selection, he says, 'I have no choice.' Ask a blind man which of two oranges, that are out of his reach, he prefers, and you mock him by proposing an impossibility. If they are put near him, that he may feel them or smell them, or if by any other means he can judge between them, he can choose, otherwise he cannot choose. If they lie far from him, he may say, 'Give me the one that lies to the east, or the west;' but that is a lottery, an accident, chance, certainly no choice. Therefore, to assert that the cause of election is not in anything in the person chosen, is really to deny that there is any election. And it is a curious fact that the most vehement predestinarians, while they flatter themselves that they are the