miable and most glorious character ? does this char acter of God attract your esteem and veneration ? do you love and adore it?

The facred scripture tells you, that God is good unto all. Was he good to you, when he called you out of nothing into being, to be eternally miserable? the fcripture tells you, that God is love. Was it an act of love, to give you exiftence, upon the hard condition, of enduring eternal mifery? do you fee reafon to love, adore, and obey that God who hath fo conftructed the fyftem of the universe as to make it neceflary that you, with millions multiplied by millions, of your fellow creatures, fhould be eternally finning and fuffering, in order that he may be glorified, and a part of his intelligent creatures be made fupremely happy?

But why need I urge this matter any farther ? it is impoffible, in the very nature of things, that any man fhould entertain the leaft veneration for fuch a character of God, as this fenfe of the word benevolence gives him. And, if a man can have no veneration for God, he cannot obey him with any more generous difpofition, than that with which the wretch labors who is chained to the oar for life, or the condemned criminal in the mines of Peru or Potofi.

In the other sense of the word benevolence, you are led to the contemplation of such a system of creation and moral government, with such a mediatorial difpenfation annexed, as comprehends every

individual

individual fon and daughter of Adam, tenders the virtue and happiness of them all, and will finally present them all before the throne of God with exceeding and eternal joy.

On this plan of creation and providence, you feel grateful to your divine Creator, that he gave you exiftence. You cordially thank him for your intellectual and moral powers; and that he hath defigned you for immortality. You fee your God to be juft and good. You feel caufe to love him with fupreme affection; and you obey him with great and increasing delight. Such views of our Maker, and of his impartial regard, and univerfal benevolence to all men, as his creatures, the works of his hands, his children, have a most direct and powerful tendency to induce all men to love God, and obey him with alacrity and cheerfulness. The goodnefs of God leads to repentance. Repentance and obedience are the natural effects of divine goodness, on every ingenuous mind.

But on the plan of partial election, and eternal mifery, there abfolutely can be no motive, no encouragement, derived from eternal confiderations, to love God, to repent of fin, or to obey the gospel. Unless a man knew that he was one of the favorites of heaven; and that his name was written in the Lamb's book of life; what affurance has he of forgiveness or repentance? or that his obedience will meet with divine acceptance? the number of the elect and of thereprobate, was deter mined from all

eternity,

eternity, and cannot be increafed or diminished. The elect only were given to Chrift. He died for them, and for none else. Perfectly futile and infignificant, therefore, are all the exertions of men upon fuch a scheme of providence as this. If a man be elected, he will certainly be faved; and if he be not elected, he will certainly be damned. What efficacy then can there be in a man's reading, prayer, meditation, and attendance on divine ordimances, with reference to his future ftate? all these things can be of no fervice to a reprobate. And no man, on the plan we are combating, knows that he is not a reprobate. A man, therefore, is at an utter uncertainty, and left in eternal doubt, of what complexion his future ftate will be, whether happy or miserable; and must remain in doubt, till the general judgment.

It is in vain to tell a man that, if he believes and is baptized, he shall be faved. No man, who is endowed with common fenfe, will believe any fuch thing, though he be told it ever fo often, and ever Yo folemnly. Go to a prifon, with a pardon in your hand from the prince, and tell the rebels, that their prince hath determined to pardon fome of then and to execute the reft. Tell them alfo, that whofoever of them shall repent of their rebellion, and return to their allegiance, fhall be pardoned and received to favor. Would they confider this general and indefinite invitation to repentance and return to duty, as confiftent with the declaration that

a part of them only were to be forgiven, and the reft to be abfolutely executed? would they not have reason to suspect the whole, as a piece of duplicity and impofition? the text in St. Mark, "He that believeth and is baptized, fhall be faved: and he that believeth not fhall be damned;" is palpably inconfiftent with a partial election to eternal life. A fyftem of religion fo apparently abfurd and contradictious holds out no motive to repentance or amendment of life. So far is this fyftem of religion, from encouraging men to abandon vice and practise virtue, that it tends directly, and in its very nature, to the abfolute negle&t of all religion. There is no motive held out, as derived from any confiderations of a future ftate, to diffuade men from the practice of any vice, or the perpetration of any crimes whatever. If a man be elected, he will be faved, though he cheat, and steal, and swear, and rob, and murder, every day of his life. I well know that electionists, and advocates for eternal mifery, do not allow this inference from their doctrines; but this does not prevent every man of common sense from feeing it to be juft. And, though we ought not to diftrefs ourselves about the use which evil minds may make, of doctrines that are certainly true; yet, if any doctrine naturally tend to licentioufnefs, as that of eternal mifery and partial election to life, most certainly does, we may well fufpect the truth of that doctrine.

who holds the doctrines of partial election,

A man, and of

the

teh ete. aal mifery of a great part of the human race, certainly ought to be among the laft men in the world, to complain of the evil tendency of any doctrine whatever. For no doctrine that came from Rome, in company with that, can poffibly have a more fatal tendency.

Tell a man, that it is the established fyftem of the universe, that men fhall be punished eternally, for mere temporary crimes; and this for the highest glory and bleffednefs of him who formed this fyftem, and the greatest good of his holy intelligent kingdom; and, if he be entirely deftitute of prejudice and prepoffeffion, he will not believe it.

This doctrine hath ever been fatal to the fuccefs of all miffions from Rome, either to the eaftern or western Indies. This fame doctrine hath prevented, more than any thing else, the fuccefs of all our miffions among the natives of America.

The Indians of the eaft or weft, never entertained the idea of eternal mifery, till they were taught it by chriftians, either of the Popish or Proteftant church. And no wonder that they have generally refused a religion, which reprefents the God of the universe in fo unjuft and forbidding a light.

Such fhocking reprefentations of Christianity have made thousands of infidels and atheists. Had the religion of Jefus been juftly reprefented, as the facred writers have left it, as a fyftem of divine benevolence, defigned and calculated to make all

men