form. Upon a third occasion we pray in these words, "We beseech thee, Almighty God, look upon the hearty desires of thy humble servants, and stretch forth the right hand of thy majesty, to be our defence against all our enemies (c)." The desires therefore of the human heart are sometimes such, that God may be supposed to view them with complacency, to assist, and promote them. In many of the prayers of our Liturgy, the doctrines of Free-will and Divine grace, as asserted in the 10th Article, are fully and clearly recognized; and human exertions are considered both as possible and necessary. In the collect for Easterday, we pray thus, "Almighty God, .... we humbly beseech thee, that as by thy special grace preventing us, thou dost put into our minds good desires; so by thy continual help we may bring the same to good effect:" here preventing grace is acknowledged as putting good desires into our minds, but we are represented as ourselves bringing them to good effect through the continual help of God; that is, in bringing good desires to effect, divine grace and human exertions cooperate. In the collect for the sixth Sunday after the (c) Third Sunday in Lent. Epiphany, we pray, "O God, whose blessed Son was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil, and make us the Sons of God, and heirs of eternal life; grant us, we beseech thee, that having this hope, we may purify ourselves, even as he is pure: "we here pray that we may purify ourselves, even as Christ himself is pure; which surely implies, that when animated by the hope of becoming the sons of God and heirs of eternal life, we have power to contribute in some degree to our purification, although we cannot attain, or even approach, the purity of Christ, without divine assistance. In the collect for the second Sunday after Easter, we pray "God to give us grace, that we may daily endeavour ourselves to follow the blessed steps of Christ's most holy life;" by the sugges tion therefore, and with the help, of God's grace, we endeavour to follow the example of Christ, which shews that the grace of God does not act with compulsory force, but only directs and assists our endeavours. In the collect for the ninth Sunday after Trinity, we pray to God, that "we, who cannot do any thing that is good without him, may by him be enabled to live according to his will:" we here confess our own weakness, and pray God to enable us to obey his will; which seems incompatible F 3 patible with the idea of his acting solely and irresistibly. In the collect for the first Sunday after Epiphany, we pray to God not only that "we may perceive and know what things we ought to do, but that we may have grace and power faithfully to fulfil the same:" were grace irresistible, did it necessarily and solely produce a godly life, there would be no room for faithfulness on our part. In this prayer we entreat our Heavenly Father to enable us to know and perceive our duty, and therefore admit the insufficiency of our natural strength for this purpose, without the aid of the Spirit of God; but at the same time we acknowledge, that our own faithfulness, our sincere and uniform endeavour to obey the known will of God, is necessary to render this divine grace efficacious, and to produce a right application of this supernatural power. Faithfulness implies free-agency, a power to obey or to disobey. A servant is faithful to his master, but a machine necessarily executes the will of its maker. A kind master will reward the fidelity of a servant, although he has only done what it was his duty to do; and an all-merciful God has graciously promised to reward the faithfulness of his rational creatures with everlasting happiness, for the sake of his blessed Son. A grateful servant will will disclaim all right to the reward of his earthly master, and an humble Christian will acknowledge eternal life to be the free-gift of God through Jesus Christ. In these and in numerous other passages of our Public Formularies, the necessity of divine assistance is acknowledged, but in no one instance is the exertion of irresistible grace declared or supposed. On the contrary, the necessity of the concurrence or co-operation of man is universally expressed or understood. We pray to God for the help, the assistance, the guidance of the Holy Spirit; which words cannot but imply the concurrence of our own wills and endeavours, some co-operation on our part. It will not be imagined that I mean that God could not exercise an irresistible power over the minds and actions of men. I only maintain, that we have no ground to believe that he does exercise such a power. It is not our business to speculate upon what God could have done to cause our obedience and secure our Salvation: it is enough for us to search the Scriptures, and learn what God actually has done and promised, and then to consider what remains to be done by ourselves. After all the volumes which have been written upon the subject, the argument against the doctrine of irresistible grace lies in a very narrow compass. It has pleased God •F4 God to make us responsible beings; responsibility cannot exist without free-agency; free-agency is incompatible with an irresistible force; and, consequently, God does not act with irresistible force upon our minds. The language of the Homilies, respecting the corruption of human nature, and the necessity of divine assistance, is also very decisive: I shall quote only the following passage, which is sufficient to prove, that they do not represent our own care and exertions as fruitless and unnecessary, or the Spirit of God as acting irrespectively and irresistibly; "Let the misery and short transitory joys spied in the casualty of our days, move us while we have them in our hands, and seriously stir us to be wise, and to expend the gracious good-will of God to us ward, which all the day long stretcheth out his hands, as the Prophet saith unto us, for the most part his merciful hands, sometimes his heavy hands, that we being learned thereby, may escape the danger that must needs fall on the unjust, who lead their days in felicity and pleasure, without the knowing of God's will towards them, but suddenly they go down into hell. Let us be found watchers, found in the peace of the Lord, that at the last day we may be found without spot and blameless. Yea, let us endeavour ourselves, good |