from a want of acquaintance with his own heart, or an overweening estimate of his own goodness.

I shall now close with a few miscellaneous observations upon different parts of your letter.

You ask, whether a humble Christian, in company with the ungodly and profane, will not "adore the goodness of God, which made him to differ?" Undoubtedly he will, and this in perfect consistency with his viewing his own sins to be greater than theirs; while he "has more access to his own heart," than to theirs, and duly considers the greater light, and the greater obligations to divine goodness, against which he has sinned,

You repeat, that if humility leads men to view themselves as the chief of sinners, it must be of a deluding tendency. But why so, any more than the laws of vision, which make an object near at hand, appear larger than an object of equal magnitude at a distance?

than there now is in the hearts of the impenitent?" I answer, yes: the saint, undoubtedly, views the holy exercises of his heart, as better than any of the exercises of the hearts of the unregenerate. But, then, I ask, in my turn, how does this prevent the sinful exercises of the saint's heart from appearing to him worse than any of the exercises of the impenitent? Of this one thing, you seem to be willingly ignorant, that the heart of a saint is neither constantly holy, nor constantly sinful-that holy and sinful exercises succeed each other in his heart, like light and darkness in the natural world, and never cars co-exist. This being well understood, it is easy to see, that a Chrisran may consistently profess religion, while he appears in his own eyes, more and more vile, as his light and capacity increase, and his growing humility gives him an increasing sense of the turpitude and criminality of the sinful exercises of his heart.

In my answer to your second objection, you represent me as con- It is your opinion, 'that if huceding what I did not concede.-mility makes a Christian appear to In quoting me, you left out the small, but important word, As: I said, "This objection would be well founded, if it were maintained, that Christians view their own hearts, as, at all times, worse than the hearts of others." Though Christians, when humble, always view their sins as greater than the sins of others; yet they do not view themselves as always sinning.— They have evidence, that some of the exercises of their hearts, are holy; which evidence justifies them in making a public profession of religion.

You ask, "Does not this evidence, resulting from holy affection, make it appear to the saint, that there is something better in his heart, than there was formerly, or

himself the vilest of sinners; then every one, who appears thus to himself, has a right to conclude, that he is a very humble Christian.'But this is altogether a mistake.— For mere conviction of sin, without any humility, is sufficient to make a person appear to himself, as one of the vilest of sinners, and has produced this effect upon thousands, antecedently to their being renewed and exercising one holy affection. But true humility, which involves love to holiness and hatred to sin, renders one's moral discernment more acute, and increases the sense which he has of his own vileness.

You say, "I am unable to see, on what ground a person can be justified in using such language,

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(viz. I appear to myself the vilest sinner in the world) while he sees reason to believe the contrary."But why you should be unable to see this, I cannot tell, unless, in your view, the expression, "I appear to myself the vilest of sinners,' be precisely the same as the expression, "I believe myself to be the vilest of sinners." But these two expressions may not be perfectly synonymous, in the apprehension of every mind. While the saint often appears to himself the 'chief of sinners;' he knows that, in the sight of God, by whom actions are weighed in a just balance, the sins of men are greater or less, in proportion to the light they enjoy, and the consequent obligations they violate.

You suppose I consider myself as having evidence to believe, that your heart is really worse than imine. This is a mistake. In order to have such evidence, I must know that your natural capacity and light are greater than mine; of which I am altogether unable to judge. This, I think, I have evidence to believe, that if either you, or I, should say, 'I have no sin,' it would be self-deception;' and that, when we sin, be it more or less, our sins are great and aggravated, just in proportion to the knowledge we have of truth, duty and obligation.

But, whether your capacity and light are greater or less; whether you are a saint or an impenitent siauer, I believe that true humility les a direct tendency to make my hrt, when sinful, appear to myseji, work than yours.

Pray that you may have a Ime me sure of light, united with t hu. by which is before honribe, Rev. and dear Sir, MINIMUS.

your dial iriend.

“God has made me willing," says Mr. B. " to do any thing that I can do consistent with truth for the sake of peace, and that I might not be a stumbling and offence to others. For this reason, I can cheerfully forego and give up, what I verily believe, after the most mature and impartial search, is my right in some instances. God has given me that disposition, that if this were the case, that a man has done me a hundred injuries, and I (though ever so much provoked to it) have done him one, I feel disposed, and heartily willing, humbly to confess my fault to him, and on my knees to ask forgiveness of him, though, at the same time, he should justify himself in all the injuries he has done me, and should only make use of my humble confessions to blacken my character the more, and represent me as the only per son guilty; yea, though he should, as it were, insult me, and say, he knew all this before, and that I was making work for repentance."

the Churches by Rev. S. B. Townsend erwise than as members of the Church of Sherburn; Address to the Church and

THE

HOPKINSIAN MAGAZINE.

VOL. II.

SERMON.

OCTOBER, 1826.

ON THE DOCTRINE OF PREDESTINA

TION.

[By Thomas Chalmers, D. D.] ACTS, XXVII. 22, 31.--And now I exhort you to be of good cheer: for there shall be no loss of any man's life among you, but of the ship. Paul said to the centurion and to the soldiers, Except these abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved.

The comparison of these two verses lands us in what may appear to many to be a very dark and unprofitable speculation. Now,our object in setting up this comparison, is not to foster in any of you a tenden cy to meddle with matters too high for us-but to protect you against the practical mischief of such a tendency. You have all heard of the doctrine of predestination. It has long been a settled article of our church. And there must be a sad deal of evasion and of unfair handling with particular passages, to get free of the evidence which we find for it in the Bible. And independently of scripture altogether, the denial of this doctrine brings a number of monstrous conceptions along with it. It supposes God to make a world, and not to reserve in his own hand the management of its concerns. Though it should concede

No. 10.

to him an absolute sovereignty over all matter, it deposes him from his sovereignty over the region of created minds, that far more dignified and interesting portion of his works. The greatest events in the history of the universe, are those which are brought about by the agency of wil-ling and intelligent beings-and the enemics of the doctrine invest every one of these beings with some sovereign and independent principle of freedom, in virtue of which it may be asserted of this whole class of events, that they happened, not because they were ordained of God, but because the creatures of God, by their own uncontrolled power, brought them into existence. At this rate, even he to whom we gave the attribute of omniscience, is not able to say at this moment, what shall be the fortune or the fate of any individual-and the whole train of future history is left to the wildness of accident. All this carries along with it so complete a dethronement of God-it is bringing his creation under the dominion of so many nameless and undeterminable contingencies-it is taking the world and the current of its history so entirely out of the hands of him who formed it-it is withal so opposite to what obtains in every other field of observation, where,

instead of the lawlessness of chance, vealed, and belong to us and to we shall find that the more we attend, our children. the more we perceive of a certain necessary and established orderthat from these and other considerations which might be stated, the doctrine in question, in addition to the testimonies which we find for it in the Bible, is at this moment receiving a very general support from the speculations of infidel as well as Christian philosophers.