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have interpreted the invitations in Isa. lv. 1-7. and various others; carefully and justly guarding against the notion of their being addressed to renewed, or as some call them, sensible sinners. Thus also you interpret 2 Cor. v. 20. of God's beseeching sinners by the ministry of the word to be reconciled to him. But your old friend would tell you, that God will never invite a sinner to rest for salvation on that blood that was never shed for him, or on that satisfaction that was never made for him. I should have thought too, after all that you have said of the warrant which sinners as sinners have to believe in Christ, you would not have denied it to be their duty, nor have adopted a mode of reasoning which, if followed up to its legitimate consequences, will compel you to maintain either the possibility of knowing our election before we believe in Christ, or that in our first reliance on his righteousness for acceptance with God we are guilty of presumption.

John. I conceive, my dear brethren, that you have each said as much on these subjects as is likely to be for edification. Permit me, after having heard and candidly attended to all that has passed between you, to assure you both of my esteem, and to declare that in my opinion the difference between you ought not to prevent your feeling towards and treating each other as brethren. You are agreed in all the great doctrines of the gospel; as the necessity of an atonement, the ground of acceptance with God, salvation by grace only, &c. &c. and with respect to particular redemption, you both admit the thing, and I would hope both hold it in a way consistent with the practice of the primitive ministers; or if it be not altogether so, that you will reconsider the subject when you are by yourselves. The greater part of those things wherein you seem to differ, may be owing either to a difference in the manner of expressing yourselves, or to the affixing of consequences to a principle which yet are unperceived by him that holds it. I do not accuse either of you with doing so intentionally: but principles and their consequences are so suddenly associated in the mind, that when we hear a person avow the former, we can scarcely forbear immediately attributing to him the latter. If a principle be proposed

to us for acceptance, it is right to weigh the consequences: but when forming our judgment of the person who holds it, we should attach nothing to him but what he perceives and avows. If by an exchange of ideas you can come to a better understanding, it will afford me pleasure: meanwhile it is some satisfaction that your visit to me has not tended to widen but considerably to diminish your differences. Brethren, there are many adversaries of the gospel around you, who would rejoice to see you at variance let there be no strife between you. You are both erring mortals; but both, I trust, the sincere friends of the Lord Jesus. Love one another!

ANSWER TO THREE QUERIES

PROPOSED TO THE AUTHOR.

1. SINCE, on the present constitution of things, men never had a disposition to love and serve God, nor can it be produced by any circumstances in which they can be placed; how can they be accountable for what they never had, and without divine influence never can have?

"2. If it be said, that man is accountable from his powers and constitution, and therefore that God requires of him perfect obedience and love as the result of his possessing a moral nature; still how is it consistent with the goodness of God, to produce accountable beings in circumstances wherein their rebellion is certain, and then punish them for it?

"3. If the reply to these difficulties be founded on the principle, that from what we see, we cannot conceive of a constitution, which hath not either equal or greater difficulties in it; is it not a confession, that we cannot meet the objections and answer them in the direct way, but are obliged to acknowledge that the government of God is too imperfectly understood by us, to know the principles on which it proceeds?

"The above queries are not the effect of any unbelief of the great leading doctrines of the gospel; but as every thinking man has his own way of settling such moral difficulties, you will confer a favour on me if you will state how you meet and answer them in your own mind.”

ANSWER.

If the querist imagines that we profess to have embraced a system which answers all difficulties, he should be reminded that we VOL. IV.

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profess no such thing. If it answer all sober and modest objections, that is as much as ought to be expected. The querist would do well to consider whether he be not off Christian ground; and whether he might not as well inquire as follows: How could it consist with the goodness of God, knowing as he did the part that men and angels would act, to create them? Or, if he had brought them into being, yet when they had transgressed, why did he not blot them out of existence? Or, if they who had sinned must needs exist and be punished, yet why was it not confined to them? Why must the human race be brought into being under such circumstances?

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I remember, when a boy of about ten years old, I was bathing with a number of other boys near a mill-dam, and the hat of one of my companions falling into the stream, I had the hardihood, without being able to swim, to attempt to recover it. I went so deep that the waters began to run into my mouth, and to heave my feet from the ground. At that instant the millers seeing my danger, set up a loud cry, "Get back! get back! get back! I did so, and that was all.-What the millers said to me, modesty, sobriety, and right reason, say to all such objectors as the above, Get back! get back! get back! You are beyond your depth ! It is enough for you to know that God HATH created men and angels, and this notwithstanding he knew what would be the result; that he HATH NOT blotted them out of existence; and that he HATH NOT prevented the propagation of the human race in their fallen state. These being FACTS which cannot be disputed, you ought to take it for granted, whether you can understand it or not, that they are consistent with righteousness; for the contrary is no other than REPLYING AGAINST GOD.'

Whatever objections may be alleged against an hypothesis, or the meaning of a text of scripture, on the ground of its inconsistency with the divine perfections; yet in matters of acknowledged fact, they are inadmissible. If God HATH DONE thus and thus, it is not for us to object that it is inconsistent with his character; but to suspect our own understanding, and conclude that if we knew the whole, we should see it to be right. Paul invariably takes it for granted that whatever God doth is right: nor will he dispute with any man

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