Why should we Gentiles pray to God and thank him for his mercies and benefits, when he has condemned us all, though innocent, for Adam’s offence—one person’s offence, one small offence, eating an apple? Why should we acknowledge as our ruler one who has entirely neglected our souls’ salvation, despised us and sent no prophets or teachers to instruct us, as he has the Hebrews? So Julian the Apostate objects.

Why should these Christians, Caelius argues, reject us and claim God exclusively for themselves—that God of theirs alone, and so on? But to return to our counterfeit Caelius. At last he reaches this position: that those who never heard of or believed in Christ may be saved by their unaided natural powers, along with the Pelagians; and he supports it from Origen and others.

Those who have never heard God’s word, says Origen, are to be excused for their ignorance. We must not think God so hard, angry, cruel or unjust as to condemn anyone without a hearing. Only those who refuse Christ’s mercy and grace when it is offered, he holds, are in a state of damnation.

He concludes that many worthy Greeks and Romans—good, moral, upright people who kept the law of nature and treated others as they wished to be treated—are as certainly saved as those who lived uprightly before the law of Moses. They were acceptable in God’s sight, as Job was: the Magi, the Queen of Sheba, Darius of Persia, Socrates, Aristides, Cato, Curius, Cicero, Seneca and many other philosophers who lived uprightly. Whatever someone’s religion or nation, as with Cornelius, provided he lives honestly, calls on God, trusts him and fears him, he will be saved.

This opinion was formerly maintained by the Valentinian and Basilidian heretics, revived recently in Turkey in a sect whose patron was Rustan Pasha, defended by Galeatius Martius and some ancient Church Fathers, and in later times favoured by Erasmus and by Zwingli in his Exposition of the Faith to the King of France. Bullinger defends Zwingli’s position, and Gualter supports it in a full defence with many arguments.

Many Jesuits follow these Calvinists on this point: Franciscus Buchsius of Mainz, Andradius at the Council of Trent, and many scholastic theologians who are firmly persuaded from Romans 5:18–19 that the Gentiles’ good works so pleased God that they might merit eternal life and ultimately be saved.

Sesellius, Benedictus Justinianus in his commentary on the first chapter of Romans, Mathias Ditmarsh the political writer and many others take a middle position: these people may be not unworthy of salvation, but they will not pronounce on it absolutely. Hofmannus, a Lutheran professor at Helmstedt, and many of his followers, together with most of our Church and the Roman Catholics, firmly oppose it.

Franciscus Collius has fully examined all the opinions in his five books On the Souls of Pagans after Death, and discussed this question at length; anyone who wishes may consult them.

But to return to my author: his conclusion is that not only wicked people, blasphemers, the reprobate and those who reject God’s grace, but even the devils themselves will at last be saved, as Origen long ago taught in his works and our recent Socinians defend—Ostorodius, chapter 41 of his Instruction, Smaltius and others.

They argue, with many examples, that the scriptural terms “all” and “for ever” do not mean eternity, but only a longer time. The world will end like a comedy, and we shall all meet at last in heaven and live together in bliss; or else, ultimately, vanish into nothing.

For how can he be merciful if he condemns any creature to eternal, unspeakable punishment for one small, temporary fault—all posterity, so many myriads, for a single offence committed by someone else? What have you done to deserve this, sheep? But our Church rejects these absurd paradoxes; we teach otherwise.

We teach that this calling, predestination, election and reprobation arise not from the corrupted mass of humanity, or from foreseen faith, as our Arminians hold, or from foreseen works, as our Roman Catholics hold, nor from being passed over, but from God’s absolute decree before the creation of the world. As many in our Church hold, it was from the beginning, before the world’s foundations were laid or humanity was created; or, as others hold, from Adam’s fall—fallen humanity is the object of reprobation. With the perseverance of the saints, we must be certain of our salvation: we may fall, but not finally. Our Arminians will not admit this.

According to his unchangeable, eternal and just decree and counsel for saving human beings and angels, God calls everyone and wills that all be saved according to the efficacy of the calling. All are invited, but only the elect are taken hold of. The rest, unbelieving and unrepentant, whom God in his just judgment leaves to be punished for their sins, have a reprobate mind. Yet we must not decide who these are or condemn ourselves or others, because the invitation is universal. All are commanded to believe, and we do not know how early or late, before our end, we may be received.

I might have said more on this subject. But since it is a forbidden question, and the preface or declaration to the Articles of the Church, printed in 1633, forbids us—especially university theologians—in order to prevent factions and disputes, all inquisitive investigation, publishing or preaching, or twisting the Article through our own interpretation and commentary, on pain of ecclesiastical censure, I shall stop, and conclude with Erasmus on such controversies:

Let whoever wishes fight; I think the laws of our forebears should be reverently accepted and religiously observed, as though they came from God. It is neither safe nor pious to conceive or sow sinister suspicions about public authority. And if there is some tyranny, provided it does not compel impiety, it is better to endure it than to resist seditiously.