mixture of truth and error. I regard it, with his Lordship, as a great TRUTH, that it was the eternal purpose of God to send Christ into the world, that mankind might be saved - and moreover that the benefits of his mission should extend to all who believed and obeyed. It is also a great TRUTH, that every one to whom the gospel should be made known should have the power-that is, the means, the opportunity, the privilege of believing and obeying, if he pleased; so that the fault is exclusively in himself if he does not believe and obey. But some part of the passage quoted appears to me very remote from "sound speech that cannot be condemned."

$ 27. No absolute election of particular

persons, who must necessarily be saved, but a conditional offer of salvation to all.' That there is in the gospel a conditional offer made to all addressed by it, is not the point in dispute, but whether any perform the condition, without being chosen and disposed, with a peculiar discrimination. According to his Lordship's theological sentiments, millions of the human race "who are of their own nature inclined to evil," not only can but certainly will perform the required conditions of repentance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, without any other assistance but what

is common to all. The degeneracy is alike in all, and the assistance is the same; but one man makes himself to differ from another. Nobody doubts that one man does differ from another, that the penitent differs from the impenitent, the believing from the unbelieving, the obedient from the disobedient; the question is, whence does the difference originate? This difference is an important good, but is there any good of which God is not the source? It is granted, again, that believing, repenting, and obeying, are voluntary acts; but is there any ground of certainty and foreknowledge of a good will without preventing grace, or a divine principle imparted from the Father of lights? "Of his own will begat he us by the word of truth." To deny particular persons to be the subjects of special grace, and of an Election for this purpose, is to limit the free operation of mercy, and to measure infinite wisdom by our own standard. "Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself; but I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes." All Election is to benefit the creature; but who shall say to infinite beneficence, "Hitherto shalt thou go, but no further," when one is favoured beyond his just claims, and when no one has less than his due ?

SECT. III.

The same subject continued.

1-4. That the Prescience of being ordained to eternal life is founded on our compliance, examined.

5-9. That the idea of a Covenant is inconsistent with the Calvinistic System, examined. 10, 11. That absolute Decrees reject all Conditions, examined. 12. The same event may be absolutely decreed in one respect, and conditionally in another. § 13-15. This exemplified in the mediation of Christ. § 16. Inferential Remarks from the discussion of a Decree, a Covenant, and a Condition,

17: That an Exhortation to walk worthily, is inconsistent with certainty of salvation, examined. 18-20. The idea of Motive, considered. 21. Exhortation to diligence an essential part of the motive. § 22, 23. That an infallible Decree cannot be made sure, examined. 24. The doctrine of Motives recapitulated.

25, 26. General conclusions drawn.

27-30. That the Predestination of the 17th Article is God's purpose to make a conditional offer of salvation, examined. § 31 — 34. That Calvinistic Election is disclaimed and condemned in the 17th Article, examined,

§ 35, 36. That there was no difference between Judas and the other Apostles, except Good Works, examined. 37, 38. That the general terms of God's love, are irreconcilable with his leaving some to perish, examined.

39. That Election is not confined to those who will actually be saved, examined.

1. We are again told, that the prescience of our being ordained to eternal life, is founded in our compliance. It being the declared will

of God, that none to whom the gospel was 'made known, should obtain eternal life, who 'did not believe, and God foreseeing who would 'believe, it might be said, that those believed

'who were ordained to eternal life, that is,

those who God foresaw would comply with the ' ordained condition of faith in Christ, upon ' which eternal life was offered.'* ' In oppo'sition to the Calvinists, I have there [Ele'ments of Christian Theology] represented Predestination as founded in foreseen obedience ' and disobedience; and I have added, This appears to me the only sense in which Pre⚫ destination is reconcilable with the attributes of God and the free-agency of man.'t Here are supposed effects, viz. believing, complying, obedience, and disobedience. But every effect must have an adequate cause. That there is an adequate cause of disobedience, as of every evil, has been proved before; but where shall we find an adequate cause of the other effects? It will be probably answered in Free Will. Freedom, as pertaining to the Will, it has been shewn, is a mere negation or exemption, which in the nature of things can have no positive effects; but believing, complying, &c. are positive effects; consequently all must be reduced to Will. That this may be a secondary cause of positive effects, is granted; and also the innocent occasion of the sinfulness of actions; but if will, in man, be the deciding cause of his actions, and nothing more, how comes it to pass

that this cause which is found in every man, does not produce the same kind of effects? for it is an acknowledged axiom, That like causes produce like effects.

§ 2. If it be said, That this axiom belongs only to physics, but not to morals, I have a right to demand of the objector a reason of the difference, without his begging the question. No such reason, however, I am satisfied, can be given. If there be no other cause beside Freewill, this palpable absurdity is the consequence, that the same cause produces contrary effects, or, which is no better, that one of the effects is without a cause. God's infinite knowledge, and consequently his foreknowledge, sees all effects in their adequate causes; but how can the same thing be an adequate cause of opposite effects? To recur to the arbitrary nature of the human will, as the image of the arbitrary will of God, is an assumption without proof that there is any such will in the Deity. For will any one seriously avow, that such is the arbitrary nature of the divine Will, that it may do evil, as well as good? How much more worthy of supreme excellence is the sentiment, that the divine will cannot be so arbitrary as not to have an adequate cause of its determinations, viz. the perfect rectitude and infinite wisdom of the divine nature. The absolute nature