of a law for himself, he would have made just such an one as God's law is; for it would be the greatest of hardships to a holy being not to be allowed to love God with all his heart.

"V.-I believe the conduct of man in breaking the law of God was most unreasonable and wicked in itself, as well as fatal in it's consequences to the transgressors; and that sin is of such a nature that it deserves all that wrath and misery with which it is threatened, in this world and in that which is to come.

"VI.-I believe the first sin of Adam was not merely personal, but that he stood as our representative; so that when he fell we fell in him, and became liable to condemnation and death, and what is more, are all born into the world with a vile propensity to sin against God.

"I own there are some things in these subjects, which appear to me profound and awful; but seeing God has so plainly revealed it in his word, especially in the fifth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, I dare not but bow my shallow conceptions to the unerring testimony of God, not doubting but that he will clear his own character sufficiently at the last. At the same time, I know of no other system. that represents this subject in a more rational light.

"VII.-I believe that men are now born and grow up with a vile propensity to moral evil,

and that herein lies their inability to keep God's law, and as such it is a moral and a criminal inability. Were they but of a right disposition of mind there is nothing now in the law of God but what they could perform; but being wholly under the dominion of sin they have no heart remaining for God, but are full of wicked aversion to him. Their very mind and conscience are defiled. Their ideas of the excellence of good and of the evil of sin are, as it were, obliterated.

"These are subjects which seem to me of very great importance. I conceive that the whole Arminian, Socinian, and Antinomian systems, so far as I understand them, rest upon the supposition of these principles being false. So that if it should be found at last that God is an infinitely excellent being, worthy of being loved with all that love that his law requires; that as such, his law is entirely fair and equitable, and that for God to have required less would have been denying himself to be what he is; and if it should appear at last that man is utterly lost, and lies absolutely at the discretion of God;-then the whole of these systems I think it is easy to prove must fall to the ground. If men on account of sin lie at the discretion of God, the equity and even necessity of predestination cannot be denied; and so the Arminian system falls. If the law of God is right and good, and

arises from the very nature of God, Antinomianism cannot stand. And if we are such great sinners, we need a great Saviour, infinitely greater than the Socinian Saviour!

“VIII.—From what has been said, it must be supposed I believe the doctrine of eternal, personal election and predestination. However, I believe that though in the choice of the elect God had no motive out of himself, yet it was not so in respect to punishing the rest. What has been usually but perhaps improperly called the doctrine of reprobation, I consider as nothing more than the divine determnation to punish sin in certain cases in the person of the sinner.

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"IX.-I believe that the fall of man did not at all disconcert the Great Eternal; but that he had from eternity formed a people upon the supposition of that event, (as well knowing that it would be,) aud that in this everlasting covenant, as it is called, the Sacred Three, speaking after the manner of men, stipulated with each other for the bringing about their vast and glorious design.

"X.-The breaking up of this glorious plan to view, I believe has been a gradual work from the beginning. First it was hinted to our first parents, in the promise of the woman's seed-then by the institution of sacrifices, by types, prophecies, and promises, it was carried on through the Mosaic dispensation-at length

the Son of God appeared-look our nature, obeyed the law, and endured the curse, and hereby made full and proper atonement for the sins of his own elect-rose again from the dead-commissioned his apostles to go into all the world and preach his gospel-and then triumphantly ascended above all heavens, where he sitteth at the right hand of God, interceding for his people, and governing the world in subserviency to their welfare, till he shall come a second time to judge the world.

"I cannot reflect upon this glorious procedure, with it's all-glorious Author, without emotions of wonder and gratitude. As a workman he might be truly said to have his

work before him! At once he glorified

the injured character of God, aud confounded the devil, destroyed sin, and saved the sinner!

"XI.—I believe that such is the excellence of this way of salvation, that every one who hears or has opportunity to hear it proclaimed in the gospel is bound to repent of his sin, believe, approve, and embrace it with all his heart; to consider himself, as he really is, a vile lost sinner; to reject all pretensions to life in any other way; and to cast himself upon Christ, that he may be saved in this way of God's devising. This I think to be true faith, which whoever have, I believe will certainly be saved

"XII.-But though the way of salvation is in itself so glorious that a man must be an enemy to God, to mankind, and to himself, not to approve it; yet I believe the pride, ignorance, enmity, and love to sin in men, is such, that they will not come unto Christ for life; but in spite of all the calls or threatenings of God, will go on till they sink into eternal perdition. Hence I believe arises the necessity of an almighty work of God the Spirit, to new model the whole soul; to form in us new principles or dispositions, or, as the scriptures call it, giving us a new heart and a new spirit. I think, had we not first degenerated, we had stood in no need of being regenerated, but as we are by nature, we must be born again. The influence of the Spirit of God in this work, I believe to be always effectual.

"XIII. I believe the change that takes place in a person at the time of his believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, is not only real, but relative. Before our believing in Christ we are considered and treated by God as a lawgiver, as under condemnation, but having fled to him for refuge, the law, as to it's condemning power, hath no more dominion over us, but we are treated even by God the Judge as in a state of justification. The subject matter of justification, I believe to be nothing of our own moral excellence; but the. P