gift of comfort; if he imparts it flowly and fparingly is it not becaufe He fees that fuch a method of proceeding is requifite for the trial of your faith, and will eventually work, if you continue ftedfaft in humble reliance and obedient love, for your good? Be not weary in well-doing: for in due feafon you shall reap, if you faint not. Even were the Lord of all, in the fingular myfterioufnefs of His counfels, apparently to hide his face from you until death: ftill fhould you be found one of those who, having fet in clouds, fhall rife in glory. Sometimes the defpondence fortified by the fufpenfion of religious comfort is darkened by the gloom of erroneous doctrine. The wretched individual begins to apprehend that he is predeftinated to wrath and anguish everlasting: that, if not exprefsly created for the purpose of being rendered miferable, at leaft he is" paffed "over" in the difpenfation of redeeming mercy that he is virtually reprobated, being defignedly excluded by the fovereign will of God from the number of those, whom the Almighty is fuppofed fpecially to have elected to be the fole partakers of his converting grace. To alleviate alarms excited by misconceptions of the revealed counfel counsel of the Moft High may be an object fometimes attainable by that ingenuity of inconfiftent explanation, which, even while it prunes the exterior branches of an unfubftantial fyftem, labours to guard the trunk from attack. To fubdue them, the axe must be laid to the root: the falfe doctrine must be manifefted to be falfe. To the fervent piety and the practical holiness of numbers of our Chriftian brethren, who conceive themselves to read in the word of God the tenets in queftion, my teftimony, however unimportant, I rejoice to bear. But constrained as I have repeatedly been to know the terrors which those tenets have produced, it seems an act of duty in addreffing perfons expofed to fimilar terrors not to withhold my deliberate conviction, that the tenets are deftitute of fcriptural fupport: and that the detached paffages of Holy Writ whence they are deduced fairly ad- mit, when confidered in themfelves, and clearly demand, when taken in conjunction with the reft of Scripture, a very different interpretation. For the prefent purpose it may be fufficient to refer the defponding fufferer to fome plain paffages of the divine word, which teach that falvation, in every respect unattainable but through our Lord Jefus Jefus Chrift, is through Him open to every man: and that on every man of rational faculties the free mercy of God beftows for the fake of the great Redeemer a portion of antecedent grace fo far influencing the will, the understanding, and the heart, as, without intrenching on moral agency, to enable him, if diligent in the application of grace received, to obtain through the blood of the cross an inheritance among the faints. Have I any pleafure that the wicked should die, faith the Lord God? As I live, faith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that his way, and live. the wicked turn from Turn ye, turn ye; why will ye die (d)? Can we frame to the imagination any fenfe, in which these words could be uttered without delufion; if there were any person not actually enabled by divine grace, in will no less than in every other requifite faculty, to turn unto God? The Lord is not willing that any should perish; but that all fhould come to repentance (e). Javed (f). God our Saviour will have all men to be Jefus tafted death for every man (g); gave himself a ransom for all (b); is the propitiation for the fins of the whole world i). Could any one of thefe declarations have been made, if there had been a fingle individual actually or virtually "paffed over," in the plan of redemption; unconditionally excluded from the poffibility of obtaining falvation through Jefus Chrift; unbleffed with that preventing influence on his will, without which he muft remain incapable of profiting by the Redeemer's death; tantalized by offers of mercy, with which he is left morally incompetent to clofe? Would our Lord have commanded his difciples to preach the Gospel to every creature (k); if there had been a fingle perfon to whom it must neceffarily have been preached in vain? And must it not neceffarily have been preached in vain to the man, had fuch there been, whom God had not freed by the antecedent operation of His grace upon the will from all impoffibility of believing? Is it poffible that redemption can be general, if election renders it neceffarily partial? Is it true that all men may be faved, if God bestows only on certain select individuals (i) John, ii. 12. (k) Mark, xvi. 16.. the the preventing grace without which no man can be faved? Is it not trifling to affirm that all may be faved, "if they will " while without the preventing grace of God, faid to be bestowed only on the elect, no man can "will?" Are thefe conclufions to be evaded by a verbal diftinction; by replying that it is not a "natural" but a *moral" impoffibility which precludes those who are not of the number of the elect from falvation? As though the most effential part of a man's nature were not the moral conftitution which he brings into the world! I forbear to accumulate fcriptural paffages fimilar in import to thofe which have been produced. The views which God has difclofed of his own attributes, and the univerfal tenor of his word, are altogether at variance with the opi nions which it has here been requifite to withstand. Fear not, ye mourners. Every man may become one of God's elect. Go forth and profper. The way of falvation, unbarred to the whole world, lies before you. Enter it, purfue it, in the strength of your God. IV. To perfons who truly repent through Christ, yet are at the fame time oppreffed |