is a system of false doctrine; or, that the God of love, holiness, and equity, once hated his righteous creature, once reprobated the innocent, and said by his decree, “Cain, Esau, Saul and Judas are very good, for they are seminal parts of Adam my son, whom I pronounce very good, Gen. i, 31. But I actually hate those parts of my unsullied workmanship: without any actual cause, I detest mine own perfect image. Yea, I turn my eyes from their present complete goodness, that I may hate them for their future pre-ordained iniquity." Suppose the God of love had transformed himself into the evil principle of the Manichees, what could he have done worse than thus to hate with immortal hatred, and absolutely to reprobate his innocent, his pure, his spotless offspring, at the very time in which he pronounced it very good? If Zelotes shudders at his own doctrine, and finds himself obliged to grant, that so long, at least, as Adam stood, Cain, Esau, Saul, and Judas stood with him, and in him were actually loved, conditionally chosen, and wonderfully blessed of God in paradise; it follows that the doctrine of God's everlasting hate, and of the eternal, absolute rejection of those whom Zelotes considers as the four great reprobates, is founded on the grossest contradiction imaginable.

2. But Zelotes possibly complains that I am unfair, because I point out the deformity of his "doctrine of grace," without saying one word of its beauty. "Why do you not," says he, "speak of God's absolute everlasting love to Jacob, as well as of his absolute, everlasting hate to Esau, Pharaoh, and Judas? Is it right to make always the worst of things?" Indeed, Zelotes, if I am not mistaken, your absolute election is full as subversive of Christ's Gospel, as your absolute reprobation. The Scripture informs us, that when Adam fell he lost the favour, as well as the image of God; and that he became "a vessel of wrath" from head to foot: but if everlasting, changeless love still embraced innumerable parts of his seed, his fall was by no means so grievous and universal as the Scriptures represent it: for "a multitude, which no man can number," ever stood, and shall ever stand on the Rock of ages: a rock this which, if we believe Zelotes, is made of unchangeable, absolute, sovereign, everlasting love for the elect, and of unchangeable, absolute, sovereign, everlasting wrath for the reprobates.

3. But this is only part of the mischief that necessarily flows from the fictitious doctrines of grace. They make the cup of trembling, which our Lord drank in Gethsemane, and the sacrifice which he offered on Calvary, in a great degree insignificant. Christ's office as high priest was to sprinkle the burning throne with his precious blood, and to "turn away wrath" by the sacrifice of himself: but if there never was either a burning throne, or any wrath flaming against the elect; if unchangeable love ever embraced them, how greatly is the oblation of Christ's blood depreciated? Might he not almost have saved himself the trouble of coming down from heaven to "turn away a wrath" which never flamed against the elect, and which shall never cease to flame against the reprobates?

4. From God's preaching the Gospel to our first parents it appears that they were of the number of the elect, and Zelotes himself is of opinion that they belonged to the little flock. If this was the case, according to the doctrine of free, sovereign, unchangeable, everlasting

love to the elect, it necessarily follows, that Adam himself was never a child of wrath. Nor does it require more faith to believe that our first parents were God's pleasant children, when they sated themselves with forbidden fruit, than to believe that David and Bathsheba were persons after God's own heart, when they defiled Uriah's bed. Hence it follows that the doctrine of God's everlasting love, in the Crispian sense of the word, is absolutely false, or that Adam himself was a child of changeless, everlasting love, when he made his wife, the serpent, and his own belly, his trinity under the fatal tree: while Cain was a child of everlasting wrath, when God said of him, in his father's loins, that he was very good. Thus we still find ourselves at the shrine of the great Diana of the Calvinists, singing the new song of salvation and damnation finished from everlasting to everlasting, according to the doctrine laid down by the Westminster divines in their catechism: "God from all eternity did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatever comes to pass."

5. This leads me to a third argument. If God from all eternity did "unchangeably ordain" all events, and, in particular, that the man Christ should absolutely die to save a certain, fixed number of men, who (by the by) never were children of wrath, and therefore never were in the least danger of perishing: if he unalterably appointed that the devil should tempt, and absolutely prevail over a certain fixed number of men who were children of wrath, before temptation and sin made them so if this is the case, I say, how idle was Christ's redeeming work! How foolish the tempter's restless labour! How absurd Zelotes' preaching! How full of inconsistency his law messages of wrath to the elect, and his Gospel messages of free grace to the reprobates! And how true the doctrine, which has lately appeared in print, and sums up the Crispian gospel in these sentences :-Ye, elect, shall be saved do what ye will; and ye, reprobates, shall be damned, do what ye can; for in the day of his power the Almighty will make you all absolutely willing to go to the place which he has unconditionally ordained you for, be it heaven or hell; God, if we believe the Westminster divines, in their catechism, "having unchange. ably foreordained whatever comes to pass in time, especially concerning angels and men." An unscriptural doctrine this, which charges all sin and damnation upon God, and perfectly agrees with the doctrine of the consistent Calvinists, I mean the doctrine of finished salvation and finished damnation, thus summed up by Bishop Burnet in his exposition of the seventeenth article: "They think, &c, that he," God, "decreed Adam's sin, the lapse of his posterity, and Christ's death, together with the salvation and damnation of such men as should be most for his own glory: that to those that were to be saved he decreed to give such efficacious assistances as should certainly put them in the way of salvation; and to those whom he rejected, he decreed to give such assistances and means only as should render them inexcusable." Just as if those people could ever be inexcusable who only do what their almighty Creator has unchangeably foreor. dained!"

SECTION XII.

Directions to understand the Scripture doctrine of election and reprobation-What election and reprobation are UNCONDITIONAL, and what CONDITIONAL―There is an unconditional election of sovereign, distinguishing grace, and a conditional election of impartial, rewarding goodness-The difficulties which attend the doctrines of election and reprobation are solved by means of the Gospel dispensations; and those doctrines are illustrated by the parable of the talents-A Scriptural view of our election in Christ.

WHEN good men, like Zelotes and Honestus, warmly contend about a doctrine; charging one another with heresy in their controversial heats, each has certainly a part of the truth on his side. Would you have the whole, Candidus? Only act the part of an attentive moderator between them: embrace their extremes at once, and you will embrace truth in her seamless garment, the complete "truth as it is in Jesus." This is demonstrable by their opposite sentiments about the doctrine of election. Zelotes will hear only of an unconditional, and Honestus only of a conditional election: but the word of God is for both; and our wisdom consists in neither separating nor confounding what the Holy Ghost has joined, and yet distinguished.

To understand the Scripture doctrine of election, take the following directions: 1. God is a God of truth. His righteous ways are as far above our hypocritical ways, as heaven is above hell: every calling, therefore, implies an election on his part. Who can believe that God ever demeans his majestic veracity so far as to call people, whom he does not choose should obey his call? Who can think that the Most High plays boyish tricks? And if he chooses that those whom he calls should come, a sincere election has undoubtedly preceded his calling. Nor are the well-known words of our Lord, Matt. xxii, 44, "Many are called, but few are chosen," at all contrary to this assertion for the context evidently shows that the meaning of this compendious elliptic saying is, "Many are called" to faith and holiness, "but few are chosen" to the rewards of faith and holiness. "Many are called" to be God's servants, and to receive his talents, "but few," comparatively, "are chosen" to enjoy the blessing of "good and faithful" servants. "Many are called to run the race but few are chosen to receive the prize." Not because God has absolutely reprobated any, in the Calvinian sense of the words, but because few are willing to "deny themselves;" few care to "labour;" few are faithful, few "so run that they may obtain;" few "make their initial calling and election sure" to the end; and of the many that are called to enter into the kingdom of God, few strive so to do; and therefore few "shall be able," see Luke xiii, 24.

2. According to the dispensation of "the saving grace of God, which hath appeared to all men;" so long as the "day of salvation" lasts, all men are sincerely called, and therefore sincerely chosen to believe in their light, to fear God, and to work righteousness. This general election and calling may be illustrated by the general benevolence of a good king toward all his subjects.

Whether they are peasants or courtiers, he elects them all to loyalty, that is, he chooses that they should all be loyal; and in consequence of this choice, by his royal statutes, he calls them all to be so. But when a rebellion breaks out, many do not "make their calling and election sure;" that is, many join the rebels, and in so doing forfeit their titles, estates, and lives. However, as many as oppose the rebels become hereby peculiarly entitled to the privileges of loyal subjects, which are greater or less according to their rank, and according to the boroughs or cities of which they have the freedom. Upon this general plan, as many of Adam's sons as, in any one part of the earth, make God's general calling and election sure, by actually fearing God, &c, are rewardable elect, according to the FATHER'S dispensation: that is, God actually approves of them, considered as obedient persons, and he designs eternally to reward their sincere obedience, if they "continue faithful unto death," Col. i, 23; Rev. ii, 10.

3. Distinguishing, or particular grace, chooses, and, of consequence, calls some men to believe explicitly in the Messiah to come, or in the Messiah already come; and as many as sincerely do so, are rewardable elect according to the Son's dispensation, when it is distinguished from that of the SPIRIT, as in John vii, 38, 39; for in general Christ's dispensation takes in that of the Holy Ghost, especially since "Christ is glorified," and when he is "known after the flesh no more." Compare John xvi, 7, with 2 Cor. v, 16.

4. A still higher degree of distinguishing grace elects, and of consequence calls, believers in Christ to take by force the kingdom which consists in "righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost ;" and as many as make this calling and election sure, are God's rewardable elect, according to the dispensation of the Holy Ghost.

5. All true worshippers belong to one or another of these three classes of elect. The first class is made up of devout heathens, who worship in the court of the Gentiles. The second class is formed of devout Jews, or of such babes in Christ as are yet comparatively carnal, like John's disciples, or those of our Lord before the day of pentecost. These worship in the holy place. And the third class is composed of those holy souls who, by being fully possessed of Christ's Spirit, deserve to be called Christians in the full sense of the word. These (which, in our Laodicean days, I fear, are a little flock indeed) are all perfected in one, and, having "entered within the veil," worship now "in the holy of holies."

6. In order to eternal salvation, those three classes of elect must not only "make their calling and election sure," by continuing to-day in the faith of their dispensation; but also by going on "from faith to faith;" by rising from one dispensation to another, if they are called to it; and, above all, by "patiently continuing in well doing," or by "being faithful unto death;" none but such " having the promise of a crown of life that fadeth not away."

7. Distinguishing grace not only chooses some persons to see the felicity of God's chosen in the two great covenants of peculiarity, called the law of Moses, and the Gospel of Christ; but it elects them also to peculiar dignities, or uncommon services in those dispensations. Thus

1

Moses was elected to be the great prophet and lawgiver of the Jews: Aaron to be the first high priest of the Jewish dispensation: Saul, David, and Solomon, to be the three first kings of God's chosen nation. Thus again the seventy were chosen above the multitude of the other disciples, the twelve above the seventy; Peter, James, and John, above the twelve; and St. Paul, it seems, above Peter, James, and John. The following scriptures refer to this kind of extraordinary choice-to this election of peculiar grace :-"Moses his chosen stood in the gap. The man's rod whom I shall choose shall blossom. The man whom the Lord shall choose, he shall be holy," that is, he shall be set apart for the priesthood. "He chose David his servant, and took him from the sheep fold. Before I formed thee," Jeremiah, "in the belly, I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee," or, I set thee apart, "and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations." Of his disciples he chose twelve apostles. "He," Paul, is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles." Agreeably to the doctrine of these peculiar elections to singular services, it is even said of Cyrus, a heathen king, by whose means the Jews were to be delivered from the Babylonish captivity: "Cyrus is my shepherd, and shall" or will "perform all my pleasure, saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built, and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid, &c. For Jacob my servant's sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even called thee by thy name, though thou hast not known me.' Once more: David, speaking of God's choosing the tribe of Judah before all the other tribes, says: "Moreover he refused the tabernacle of Joseph, and" reprobated, or "chose not the tribe of Ephraim, but chose" or elected "the tribe of Judah, the Mount Sion, which he" peculiarly "loved." But what have all those civil or ecclesiastical elections of persons and places to do with our election to a crown of glory? Will Zelotes affirm that Saul and Jehu are certainly in heaven, because they were as remarkably chosen to the crown as David himself? And though St. Paul knew that he was "a chosen vessel, set apart from his mother's womb" for great services in the Church, does he not inform us, that he "so ran as to obtain the crown;" and that he "kept his body under lest, after he had preached to," and saved "others, he himself should become a castaway-a reprobate ?"

8. Do not forget that frequently the word chosen, or elect, means principal, choice, having a peculiar degree of superiority, or excellence. This is evident from the following texts: "The wrath of God smote down the chosen of Israel," Psa. lxxviii, 31. "I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, and precious," 1 Peter ii, 6. "The elder to the

elect lady," 2 John 1. And it would be the height of Calvinian orthodoxy to suppose that the prophet's words, "Thy choicest," or, as the original properly means, "thy elect valleys shall be full of chariots," are to be understood of Calvinian election. To render Zelotes less confident in that election, one would think it sufficient to throw into the Scripture Scales, and weigh before him, the following passages, which are literally translated from the original :

.I.

For Israel, mine elect, I have called thee, Isa. xiv, 4

II.

He [Kish] had a son whose name was Saul, an elect, 1 Sam. ix, 2.