To conclude: if God has taken such particular care to clear himself from the charge of absolutely appointing Judas to be a son of perdition!" Nay, if CHRIST himself asserts that the FATHER gave him Judas, as well as the other apostles:-and if the HOLY GHOST declares, by the mouth of David, that Judas was once Christ's familiar friend, and as such honoured with his trust and confidence; is it not evident, that the doctrine of free wrath, and of any man's (even Judas') absolute, unconditional reprobation is as gross an imposition upon Bible Christians, as it is a foul blot upon all the Divine perfections?

a goat, and for unavoidable damnation; if he could converse, eat, drink, travel, lodge, and pray for years with a man to whom he bore from everlasting, and will bear to all eternity, a settled ill will, an immortal hatred, where is sincerity? where is the Lamb without blemish? the Lamb of God in whose mouth no guile was ever found? If Christ be such a sly damner of one of his twelve apostles as the "doctrines of grace" (so called) represent him to be, who can trust him? What professor-what Gospel minister can assure himself that Christ has not chosen and called him for purposes as sinister as those for which it is supposed that Judas was chosen, and called to be Christ's familiar friend? Nay, if Christ, barely on account of Adam's sin, left Judas in the lurch, and even betrayed him into a deeper hell by a mock call, may he not have done the same by Zelotes, by me, and by all the professors in the world? O ye "doctrines of grace," if you are as sweet as honey, in the mouth of Zelotes, as soon as I have eaten you, my : poison corrodes my vitals; I must either part with you, my reason,

I.

kings unto him:] my Father, I say, who gave them me, is greater than all, and none shall pluck them [that thus hear my voice and follow me] out of my Father's hand: for I and my Father are one [in nature, power, and faithfulness, to show that "the way of the Lord is strength to the upright; but destruction shall be to the workers of iniquity," Prov. x, 29.] John x, 2, 26, &c.

No man can come unto me except the Father draw him, [and he be faithful to the Father's attraction:] every man, therefore, that hath heard and learned of [that is, submitted to] the Father [and to his drawings] cometh unto me. There are some of you that believe not, &c. Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, ex. cept it be given him of my Father, John vi, 44, 45, 64, 65.

The meaning is, that no man can believe in the Son, who has not first a degree of true faith in the Father. "Ye believe in God, believe also in me," says Christ. "All must honour the Son, as they honour the Father." All, therefore, that do not learn of," that is, submit to, and honour the Father, cannot come to the Son and pay him homage. He that obstinately refuses to take the first step in the faith, cannot take the second. To show, therefore, that Zelotes cannot with propriety ground the doctrine of free wrath upon John vi, any more than upon John x, I need only prove the three propositions contained in the opposite Scale.

II.

science, you would have believed Moses; and] had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: but if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words? John v, 44, &c. [If ye believe not in God, how shall ye believe in me? If you dishonour my Father, how can you honour me?]

The Fa

[FIRST PROPOSITION. ther draws all to himself, and gives to the Son all those who yield to his drawings. Witness the following scriptures.] All the day long I have stretched forth my hand to [draw] a

disobedient people, Rom. x, 21. Despisest thou the riches of God's forbearance, not considering that his goodness leadeth [that is, gently draweth] thee to repentance, [and of

consequence to faith in a Mediator between God and man?] Rom. ii, 4. Of those whom thou hast given me none is lost [hitherto] but [one, Judas, who is already so completely lost, that I may now call him] a son of perdition, John xvii, 12.

The Son

SECOND PROPOSITION. likewise, "who is the light that enlightens every man, draws all to himself," and then brings to the Father those who yield to his attraction, "that they may receive the adoption of sons." Witness the following scriptures :-" And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me, John xii, 32. Come unto me, all ye that labour [and are restless] and I will give you rest." If you come to me, I will plainly reveal to you the Father: I will enable you by my peaceful Spirit to call him ABBA, FATHER, with delightful assurance: [for] no man knoweth the Father but the Son, and he, to whomsoever the Son will reveal him [by the Holy Ghost,] Matt. xi, 27, 28.

THIRD PROPOSITION. These drawings of the Father, and of the Son, are not irresistible, as appears from the following scriptures: "Because

I have stretched out my hands, and no man [comparatively] regarded [my drawings,] I will mock when your destruction cometh as a whirlwind, Prov. i, 24, 27. These things I say unto you [obstinate Pharisees,] that you might be [drawn unto me, and] saved, &c, and [notwithstanding my drawings] ye will not come unto me, that ye might have life," John v, 34, 40.

The preceding propositions are founded upon the proportion of faith, upon the relations of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and upon the doctrine of the dispensations explained in the Essay on Truth.

Should Zelotes compare these propositions, he will see that if the Father does not particularly give all men to the Son, that they may receive the peculiar blessings of the Christian dispensation; and if the Son does not explicitly reveal the Father to all men by the Spirit of adoption, or the baptism of the Holy Ghost; it is not out of free, repro. bating wrath; but merely for the two following reasons: (1.) As in the political world all men are not called to be princes and kings; so in the religious world all are not blessed with five talents; all are not called to believe explicitly in the Son and in the Holy Ghost, or to be "made kings and priests to God" in the Christian Church. (2.) Of the many that are called to this honour, few (comparatively) are obedient to the heavenly calling; and, therefore, "few are chosen" to "receive the crown of Christian righteousness:" or, as our Lord expresses it, few "are counted worthy to stand before the Son of man" among them that have been faithful to their five talents. But, as all men have one talent till they have buried it, and God has judicially taken it from them: as all men are at least under the dispensation of the Father, as a gracious and faithful Creator: as Christ, "the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world," draws all men implicitly to this merciful Creator; while the Spirit, as "the saving grace which has appeared unto all men, implicitly teaches them to deny ungodliness," and to live soberly, righteously, and piously in this present world: as this is the case, I say, what can we think of the absolute election or reprobation of individuals, which insures saving grace and heaven to some, while (through the denial of every degree of saving grace) it secures damning sin and everlasting burnings to others?

If it be asked, how it has happened that so many divines have embraced these tenets? I reply, It has been chiefly owing to their inattention to the doctrine of the dispensations. Being altogether taken up with the particular dispensations of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, they overlooked, as Peter once did, the general dispensation of the Father, which is the basis of all the superior economies of Divine grace. They paid no manner of attention to the noble testimony, which that apostle bore when, parting with his last scrap of Jewish bigotry, he said: "Of a truth, I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: but in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted of him." As if he had said, Though distinguishing grace should never give two talents to a heathen that fears God and works righteousness; though he should never explicitly hear of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; yet shall he enter, as a faithful servant, into the joy of his merciful Lord, when many "children of the kingdom shall be thrust out" for it is revealed upon earth, and of consequence it is decreed

in heaven, that they who are chosen and called to partake of the Divine peace, which is essential to the peculiar dispensations of the Son, and of the unspeakable joy, which is essential to the peculiar dispensation of the Holy Ghost, shall be reprobated, or "thrust out," if they do not "make their high calling and election sure:" while they that were only chosen and called to the righteousness essential to the general dispensation of the Father, shall "receive the reward of the inheritance," if they do but "walk worthy of their inferior election and calling."

• Methinks that Zelotes, instead of producing solid arguments in favour of his doctrines, complains that I bring certain strange things to his ears; and that the distinction between the Christian dispensation, and the other economies of grace, by which I have solved his Calvinistic difficulties, has absolutely no foundation in the Scripture. That I may convince him of his mistake in this respect, to what I have said on this subject in the Essay on Truth, I add the following proof of my dealing in old truths, and not in "novel chimeras." St. Paul, 1 Cor. ix, 17, declares that "the dispensation of the Gospel of Christ [which in its fulness takes in the ministration of the Spirit] was committed unto him." Eph. i, 10, he calls this dispensation "the dispensation of the fulness of times, in which God gathers in one all things in Christ." Chap. iii, 2, &c, after mentioning "the dispensation of the grace of God given him," as an apostle of Christ, he calls it "preaching among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ," and the "making all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which had been hid in God from the beginning of the world." Col. i, 25, &c, speaking of the Christian Church, in opposition to the Jewish, he says, "Whereof I am made a minister according to the dispensation of God, which is given to me for you, &c, even the mystery which hath been hid from ages, but now is made manifest to his saints:" and he informs them that this mystery, now revealed, was "Christ in them, the hope of glory." Again, what he calls here the mystery hidden before, but now made manifest to Christians, he calls in another place "the new testament, the ministration of righteousness,-where the Spirit of the Lord is"--and where "there is liberty," even the glorious liberty of the children of God; observing, that although the Mosaic dispensation or "ministration" was "glorious," yet that of Christ exceeds in glory," 2 Cor. iii, 6, &c.

To deny the doctrine of the dispensations is to deny that God made various covenants with the children of men since the fall: it is at least to confound all those covenants with which the various Gospel dispensations stand or fall. And to do so is not to divide the word of God aright, but to make a doctrinal farrago, and increase the confusion that reigns in mystical Babel. From the preceding quotations out of St. Paul's Epistles, it follows, therefore, either that there was no Gospel in the world, before the Gospel which was "hid from ages," and "made manifest" in St. Paul's days "to God's saints," when this mystery, "Christ in them the hope of glory," was revealed to them by the Holy Ghost: or, (which to the appears an indubitable truth,) that the evangelical dispensation of Adam and Noah was bright; that of Abraham and Moses brighter; that of initial Christianity, or of John the Baptist, explicitly setting forth

“the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world," brighter still; and that of perfect Christianity, (or of Christ revealed in us by the power of the Holy Ghost,) the brightest of all.

SECTION XI.

A rational and Scriptural view of St. Paul's meaning in the ninth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans-Some of the deepest passages of that chapter are thrown into the Scripture Scales, and by being weighed with parallel texts, appear to have nothing to do with free wrath and Calvinistic reprobation.

IF Zelotes find himself pressed by the weights of my second Scale, he will probably try to screen his "doctrines of grace," by retreating with them behind the ninth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans. But I am beforehand with him: and appealing to that chapter, I beg leave to show that the passages in it, which at first sight seem to favour the doctrine of free wrath, are subversive of it, when they are candidly explained according to the context, and the rest of the scriptures. Five couple of leading propositions open the section.

I.

I. To deny that God out of mere distinguishing grace, may and does grant Church blessings, or the blessings of the covenant of peculiarity, to some men, making them com. paratively vessels to honour; and making of consequence other men comparatively vessels to dishonour, or vessels less honourable: to deny this, I say, is to oppose the doctrine of the dispensations, and to rob God of a gracious sovereignty, which he justly claims.

II. God is too gracious unconditionally to reprobate, i. e. ordain to eternal death, any of his creatures.

III. In the day of initial salvation, they who through grace believe in their light, are conditionally ves. sels of mercy, or God's elect, ac. cording to one or another dispensation of his grace.

IV. God justly gives up to final blindness of mind, and complete hardness of heart, them that resolutely shut their eyes, and harden their hearts to the end of their day of initial salvation.

II.

To insinuate that God, out of mere distinguishing wrath, fixes the curse of absolute rejection upon a number of unborn men, for whom he never had any mercy, and whom he designs to call into being only to show that he can make and break vessels of wrath-to insinuate this, I say, is to attribute to God a tyrannical sovereignty, which he justly abhors.

God is too holy and too just not to reprobate his obstinately rebellious creatures.

In the day of initial salvation, they who unnecessarily do despite to the Spirit of grace and disbelieve. are conditionally vessels of wrath, that "fit themselves for destruction."

Perverse free will in us, and not free wrath in God, or necessity from Adam, is the cause of our avoidableunbelief: and our personal avoidable unbelief is the cause of our complet personal reprobation, both at the end of the day of grace, and in the day of judgment.