preceding article is sufficient to prove it. I know that all men are naturally dead in trespasses and sins. It is evident however that this death hath its degrees: and that the impotency of a man, favoured with revelation, is not of the same kind as that of him who is still in Pagan darkness. It is equally manifest, that a man, who, after having heard the doctrine of the gospel, grovels in the same sort of error and of vice into which he was impetuously drawn by his natural depravity, is incomparably more guilty than he who never heard the gospel. Hear what Jesus Christ says of those who having heard the gospel, and who had not availed themselves of its aids to forsake their error and vice; Had I not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin; but now they have no cloak for their sin. Here is the second thing you ought to know; hence the second thing you ought to do, is, not to shelter yourselves, with a view to extenuate voluntary depravity, under certain passages of scripture, which exclaim not against the impotency of a Christian, but against that of a man who is still in Pagan darkness; you must apply the general assertion of Jesus Christ to all the exterior cares that have been taken to promote your conversion: If 1 had not come, and spoken unto them, they had not had sin; but now they have no cloak for their sin. O my soul, with what humiliating ideas should those words of the Lord strike thee! If God had not come; if he had not made thee to suck truth and virtue with thy mother's milk; if he had not raised thee up masters in thy youth, and ministers in thy riper age; if thou hadst not heard so many instructive and pathetic ser

mons, and read so many instructive and affecting books; if thou hadst not been pressed by a thousand and a thousand calls, thou hadst not had sin : at least thou mightest have exculpated thyself on the ground of thy ignorance and natural depravity; but now thou art without excuse. O unhappy creature, what years has God tutored thee in his church! What account canst thou give of all his care! Now thou art without excuse. Here is the way we should study ourselves, and not lose sight of the precaution, not to sap morality under a plea of establishing this part of our theology.

3. The aids which man is unable to draw either from the wreck of nature, or from exterior revelation, are promised to him in the gospel he may attain them by the operations of the Holy Spirit. Thanks be to God, this consolatory proposition is supported by express passages of scripture; by passages the most conclusive, according to our first precaution. What else is the import of the thirty-first chapter of Jeremiah's prophecies? Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah.-This shall be the covenant that I will make with them: I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts. What else is the import of the thirtysixth chapter of Ezekiel's prophecies? I will spinkle clean water upon you; I will give you a new heart ; I will put a new spirit within you. What else is the import of St. James' words in the first chapter of his general epistle? If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraid

eth not. And of Jesus Christ in the words of my text, The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth. Hence the third thing that we should know, and the third thing that we should do, is, to bless God that he has not left us to the weakness of nature; it is, like St. Paul, to give thanks to God through Jesus Christ; Rom. i. 8. it is to ask of him those continual supports, without which we can do nothing. It is often to say to him, O God, draw us, and we will run after thee. Create in us a clean heart, and renew a right spirit within us. Cant. i. 8. Psal. li. 12.

4. But is it sufficient to pray? Is it enough to ask? We have said in the fourth place, that though man be unable to draw from frail nature, and from exterior revelation, the requisite aids to conform to the conditions of his salvation; he has no right to presume on the grace of the Holy Spirit, while he obstinately resists the efforts of frail nature, and the aids of revelation. But here we seem to forget one of the maxims already laid down; that if it is requisite for me to fulfil the conditions with which the gospel has connected salvation, how can I do otherwise than obstinately resist the efforts which frail nature, and exterior revelation afford? This difficulty is but in appearance. To know, whether when abandoned to our natural depravity, and aided only by exterior revelation, we can conform to the conditions of the gospel, or whether when abandoned to the depravity of nature, and aided only by exterior revelation, we are invincibly impelled to every species of crime, are

two very different questions. That we cannot perform the conditions of salvation, I readily allow; but that we are invincibly impelled to every species of crime, is insupportable. Whence then came the difference between heathen and heathen, between Fabricius and Lucullus, between Augustus and Sylla, between Nero and Titus? Whatever you are able to do by your natural strength, and especially when aided by the light of revelation, do it, if you wish to have any well-founded hope of obtaining the supernatural aids, without which you cannot fulfil the conditions of your salvation. But the scriptures declare, you say, that without the grace of the Holy Spirit you can do nothing, and that you can have no real virtue but what participates of your natural corruption: I allow it but practise the virtues which participate of your natural corruption, if you would wish God to grant you his divine aids. Be corrupt as Fabricius, and not as Lucullus; be corrupt as Augustus, and not as Sylla; be corrupt as Titus, and not as Nero, as Antonius, and not as Commodius. One of the grand reasons why God withholds from some men the aids of grace, is, because they resist the aids they might derive from their frail nature. Hear the theology of St. Paul, and the decision of that great preceptor in grace, imposes silence on every difficulty of which this point may be susceptible. Speaking of the heathens in the first chapter of his epistle to the Romans, he says, That which may be known of God is manifest in them; or, as I would rather read, is manifested to them; but because that when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were

may

thankful. That which be known of God is manifested to them; here then is the aid Pagans might draw from the ruins of nature; they might know that there was a God; they might have been thankful for his temporal gifts, for rain and fruitful seasons; and instead of the infamous idolatry to which they abandoned themselves, they might have seen the invisible things of God, which are manifest by his works. And because they did not derive those aids from the ruins of nature, they became wholly unworthy of divine assistance; God gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts.-They changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for

ever.

5. Our fifth proposition imports that the aids of the Holy Spirit promised to man are gradually imparted: hence to misapply the grace we have, is the most dangerous way to obstruct the reception of fresh support. But listen to some of our supralapsarians, and they will say, that the design of God in promising those aids is, to assure us that how much soever we shall resist one measure of grace, he will still give us a greater measure, and ever proportion the counterpoise of grace to that of a deliberate, obstinate, and voluntary enmity. So many have understood the doctrine of our church respecting irresistible grace: to judge of it consonant to their ideas, this grace redoubles its efforts as the sinner redoubles his revolts; so that he who shall throw the greatest obstacles in its way, shall be the very man who shall have the fairest claims to its richest portion.