for us, and we may sit still ourselves. This is enthu siasm, though too often dignified with the false name of christian faith. Suppose a man wanted to move a weight that required double his strength to move it; would it not be proper to say-of himself he can do nothing? or would it follow, that if he was offered help, he should sit still and not put his own strength to the work? If a friend came to his assistance, would it not be properly said, that his friend enabled him to do what he did; but would it follow that his friend did all, and he did nothing? This illustration will very aptly explain the doctrine of grace, as co-operating with human endeavours.

PART IX.

ELECTION AND REPROBATION.

1. THE foundation of all religion is the character of God, and as our conceptions of it are true or false, our religion will be either a sublime system of devotion elevating our moral virtues, or a groveling system of superstition, generating pride and persecution, and every deadly vice. It is therefore the duty of every man, and especially of every public instructor to exert his best powers to preserve the character of God from every unjust and ungenerous imputation, and to rescue the honour of religion from every injurious and illiberal commentary.

2. The doctrines of unconditional election and absolute reprobation though by some christians eagerly contended for, are no ways different from those of the

fatalist or necessarian. They go to destroy the moral agency of man, to justify the vilest sinner, by taking from him the possibility of pursuing a different course of action (for whether the incapacity be moral or natural is immaterial, so long as it is an incapacity) they cast all the blame of men's sins upon God; they represent him, as acting an insincere and double part, in first inviting sinners to repentance, and afterwards himself withholding from them the power to repent, and impelling others, by an irresistible force to exercise contrition, and be saved. These doctrines therefore, on the one hand, hold up God as a captious and cruel being, who not only trifles with his creatures by calling them to repent, whilst he has chained them fast in fetters of impenitence, but who punishes them for crimes, which he himself not only tempted, but even compelled them to commit. No virtuous man would even associate with a person of such a character, as these notions make of God. Besides which, on the other hand, they have sometimes sunk the serious christian whose views of the divine character have not been sufficiently enlarged, into a state of melancholy and dejection, and caused him to look up to

the sovereign of the universe, not with affection and gratitude, as to a father and a friend, but with trembling and terror, as to a severe and capricious tyrant, whose government is arbitrary, and whose judgments are unjust.

3. The following is the absurd and inconsistent language in which these doctrines represent a holy, just and merciful being, as speaking to his creatures: "I behold, through the fall of Adam, by my mere pleasure imputed to his

posterity, yet unborn

action, and they had

(as if it had been their own personally consented to it) the whole race of mankind obnoxious to my eternal wrath, and utterly unable to recover from it; and though they be all the souls that I have made all equally wanting, all equally capable of my favour, nor have I any reason to extend it to any rather than to all, yet do I absolutely decree to vouchsafe this favour only to some few of them, leaving the far greater part of them under a sad necessity of perishing everlastingly for the offence of their forefather Adam committed long before they had a being, so that they shall be as sure to be damned eternally, as they are to be born in time; and yet I will proclaim myself unto

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them, a God merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness, on purpose that they may not perish, but be led by it to repentance, and declare to them that my delight is in shewing mercy. I will entreat them with the greatest earnestness, and even beseech them to be reconciled to me, as being so far reconciled to them in Christ Jesus as not to impute to them their transgressions and sins. I will send to them all my messengers and prophets, declaring that I do it because I have compassion on them. I will allure them to repentance, with the promise that their sins shall be blotted out, and not one of them remembered against them, I will tell them, that I would have purged them, but they would not be purged, that I would gather them, but they would not be gathered. I will ask them, why will ye die ? And enquire, what more I could have done for them that I have not done? Yea, I will even solemnly protest and swear unto them by the greatest oath, even that of my own life, that I would not the death of him that dies, but rather that he should return and live, but after all, I will be true and constant to that absolute degree of reprobation, which must render their damnation inevitable, and to the