sb. and a. Theol. [f. mod.L. sublapsārius, f. sub- SUB- 17 + lapsus fall, LAPSE: see -IAN. Cf. F. sublapsaire.]
A. sb. = INFRALAPSARIAN A, q.v.
1656. Jer. Taylor, Deus Justificatus, 33. The Sublapsarians say, That God made it by his decree necessary, that all wee who were born of Adam should be born guilty of Originall Sin.
a. 1660. Hammond, Hell Torm. (1665), 67. They which deny all irrespective decree of Reprobation or Præterition against Supralapsarians and Sublapsarians.
1765. Maclaine, trans. Mosheim’s Eccl. Hist., Cent. XVII. II. ii. § 12. The Reformed church was immediately divided into Universalists, Semi-universalists, Supralapsarians, and Sublapsarians.
1851. R. S. Hawker, in Life & Lett. (1905), 217. His little girl is a Sub-lapsarian.
1894. Simkinson, Laud, i. 13. The Puritan chiefs, divided into two hostile camps of sublapsarians and supralapsarians, argued interminably the question whether the Divine decrees of rigid election or reprobation dated from before or after the fall of Adam.
B. adj. = INFRALAPSARIAN B.
a. 1660. Hammond, Pacif. Disc., 14. The Decree of Reprobation according to the Sublapsarian Doctrine, being nothing else but a meer preterition or non-election of some persons whom God left, as he found.
a. 1751. Doddridge, Lect. (1763), 460. The Supralapsarian and Sublapsarian schemes agree in asserting the doctrine of predestination, but with this difference.
1765. Maclaine, trans. Mosheim’s Eccl. Hist., Cent. XVII. II. II. ii. § 10. The Sublapsarian doctors.
1885. Encycl. Brit., XIX. 671/1. The canons of Dort … are favourable to the sublapsarian view.
Hence Sublapsarianism, the doctrine of the sublapsarians. So † Sublapsary a. = SUBLAPSARIAN B.
1728. Chambers, Cycl., Sublapsary, in Theology; or Infralapsary; a Term applied to such as hold, that God having foreseen the Fall of Adam, and in consequence thereof, the Loss of Mankind; resolved to give a Grace sufficient to Salvation to some, and to refuse it to others.
1865. Pall Mall Gaz., 20 Oct., 11. Predestinarianism, Supra-lapsarianism, Sublapsarianism, with all their various minor variations.
1875. Spurgeon, Lect. Stud., Ser. I. 78. The great problems of sublapsarianism and supralapsarianism.
