nifestative adoption; 5. Sanctification; 6. Religious walking in good works; 7. Continuance in these to the end; which last blessing must, of necessity, be included, because the article adds, that these elect, regenerate persons attain, at length, to everlasting felicity; which they could not do, without final perseverance, any more than you or I, upon our departure from this church, could arrive at our respective homes, if we finally stopt short of them by the way. Such, therefore, being the chain and process of salvation: how impious, and how fruitless, must any attempt be, either to transpose or to put asunder, what God has so wisely and inseparably joined together!

Unless we take absolute election into the account, we must either suppose, that God saves no man whatever; or that those he saves, are saved at random, and without design. But his goodness forbids the first, and his wisdom excludes the latter. Absolute election, therefore, must be taken into the account; or you at once, ipso facto, strike off either goodness or wisdom, from the list of divine perfections. That scheme of doctrine must, necessarily, be untrue, which represents the Deity as observing no regular order, no determinate plan, in an affair of such consequence, as the everlasting salvation of his people. I cannot acquit of blasphemy, that system, which likens the Deity to a careless ostrich, which having deposited her eggs, leaves them in the sand to be hatched or crushed, just as chance happens. Surely, he who numbers the very hairs of his people's heads, does not consign their souls, and their eternal interests, to precarious hazard! the blessings of grace and glory are too valuable and important, to be shuffled and dealt out by the hand of chance. Besides, if one thing comes to pass, either without, or contrary to the will of God another thing, nay, all things, may come to pass in the same manner; and then, good bye to providence entirely.

When Lysander, the Spartan, paid a visit to king Cyrus (at Corinth, if I mistake not) he was particularly struck with the elegance and order, the variety and magnificence of Cyrus' gardens.Cyrus, no less charmed with the taste and judgment of his guest, told him, with visible emotions of pleasure, "These lovely walks, with all their beauty of disposition and vastness of extent, were planned by myself; and almost every tree, shrub and flower, which you behold, was planted by my own hand." Now, when we take a view of the church, which is, at once, the house and garden of the living God; that church which the Father loved-for which the Son became a man of sorrows-and which the holy Spirit descends from heaven in all his plenitude of converting power, to cultivate and build anew ;when we survey this living paradise and this mystic edifice, of which such glorious things are spoken*, and on which such glorious privileges are conferred; must we not acknowledge?-Thy sovereign hand, O uncreated love, drew the plan of this spiritual Eden! Thy hand, Almighty power, set every living tree, every true believer, in the courts of the Lord's house. Thy converted people are all righteous; they shall inherit the land for ever, even the branches of thy planting, the work of thy hands, that thou mayest be glorified t.

Admitting election to be thus a complete, eternal, immanent act in the divine mind, and, consequently, irrespective of any thing in the persons chosen; then (may some say) "farewel to gospel obedience; all good works are destroyed." If, by destroying good works, you mean, that the doctrine of unconditional election destroys the merit of good works, and represents man as incapable of earning or deserving the favour and kingdom of God, acknowledge the force of the objection. Predesti

nation does, most certainly destroy the merit of our works and obedience, but not the performance of them since holiness is, itself, one end of election *, and the elect are as much chosen to intermediate sanctification on their way; as they are to that ultimate glory which crowns their journey's end † : and there is no coming at the one but through the other. So that neither the value, nor the necessity, nor the practice of good works, is superseded by this glorious truth; our acts of evangelical obedience are no more than marshaled, and consigned to their due place; restrained from usurping that praise, which is due to the alone grace of God; and from arrogating that office, which only the Son of God was qualified to discharge.

That election, as taught by the scriptures (and from thence by our reformers), not only carries a favourable aspect on universal piety and holiness, but even ensures the practice of both; is evident, among many other passages from that of the apostle, 2 Thessalonians ii. 13. We are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning, i. e. from everlasting, chosen you to salvation through [not for, but through] sanctification of the spirit and belief of the truth. How very opposite were St. Paul's views of the tendency of this doctrine, from those of the Pelagian and Arminian objectors to it! They are perpetually crying out,

* Eph. i. 4. + "Because we deny salvation by our own deeds," says one of our good old divines, "the papists charge us with being enemies to good works. But am I an enemy to a nobleman, because I will not attribute to him those honours, which are due only to the king? If I say to a common soldier in an army, you cannot lead that army against the enemy; will he therefore say, then I may be gone; there is no need of me? or, if I see a man at his day labour, and say to him, you will never be able to purchase an estate of £10,000 per annum, by working in that manner; will he therefore give over his work, and say he is discouraged;"Parr's Comm. on Romans, p. 177

-Mr.

that it ruins morality, and opens a ready door to licentiousness." He, on the contrary, represents the believing consideration of it as a grand incentive to the exercise of our graces, and to the observance of moral duty. Let us, says he, who are of the day, who are enlightened into the knowledge of this blessed privilege, and can read our names in the book of life; let us, who are thus of the day, be sober; putting on the breast plate of faith and love, and, for an helmet, the hope of salvation: for, God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, 1 Thessalonians v. 8, 9. Now, if election secures the performance of good works, and, upon its own plan, renders them indispensably necessary; I should be glad to know, how good works can suffer by the doctrine of election? You may as well say, that the sun which now shines into this church, is the parent of frost and darkness. No: it is the source of light and warmth. And you and I want nothing more than a sense of God's peculiar, discriminating favour, shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost given to us to render us more and more fruitful in every good word and work. As an excellent person † observes, "that man's love to God will be without end, who knows that God's love to him was without beginning."

*

II. What think you of that fashionable tenet, so contrary to sound doctrine, concerning the supposed dignity and rectitude of human nature in its fallen state? A doctrine as totally irreconcileable to reason and fact, as if an expiring leper should value himself on the health and beauty of his person; or a ruined bankrupt should boast his immensity of wealth.

As soon as we are born we go astray. Nay, I will venture, on scripture authority, to carry the + Dr. Arrowsmith.

*Romans v. 5.

me*

point higher still. All mankind are guilty and depraved before they are born. Behold, I was shapen in wickedness, and in sin did my mother conceive A thunderbolt to human pride, and a dagger in the very heart of natural excellence! Thus speaks the Bible; and thus experience speaks. Our own church, likewise, delivers her judgment in perfect conformity to both.

ARTICLE IX. Of Original or Birth-Sin.

"Original sin standeth not in the following" [or imitation] "of Adam, as the pelagians do vainly talk; but it is the fault" [by imputation], "and corruption" [by internal, hereditary deriva

*Psalm li.

In this article express mention is made of the pelagians; but nothing is, by name, said of the Arminians. The reason is plain. At the time when our articles passed the two houses of convocation, in the year 1562, Arminius, who was then only two years of age (for he was born A. D. 1560, had not began to sow his tares; he was no more than a schismatic in embryo.-Arminianism is a mushroom of later date, than the re-establishment of the church of England, by Elizabeth. It was not until the latter end of her reign, that Arminianism had any great footing even in Holland; the seat of its nativity. I say in Holland; for there this grand corruption of the reformation began; and from thence it found its way to England. It was a Dutch wind that blew Arminianism over to this island, many years after our articles were re-settled as we now have them. Therefore it is, that only pelagianism is mentioned. However, though Arminianism is younger, by about 1200 years, than pelagianism, its nature and tendency are much the same in fact. The seeming difference lies in little more than this: Pelagius spoke out; Van Harmin (commonly called Arminius), with more art, but less honesty, qualified and disguised the poison, that it might not be quite so alarming. Somewhat like what a good man remarked long ago, concerning the leaven, or false doctrines of the Pharisees: "Christ," says he, " compares the errors of the Pharisees to leaven. Why so? because of its secret mixture with the wholesome bread. You do not make your bread all of leaven; for then, no body would eat it but you mingle it skilfully, and by that means, both go down together. Thus our Lord intimates, that the Pharisees mixed their errors with some truths; and therefore he directs them to beware, lest, with the truths, they swallow the errors also." Gurnall's Christian Armor, vol. i. p. 104. Octavo edition.