of God, I meant what he meant when he said," Cursed is the ground for thy sake; " "cursed shall be thy basket and thy store; cursed shall be the fruit of thy land, the increase of thy kine and the flocks of thy sheep."

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With respect to Margaret's objection to the term nature," I can only differ from her. I have no objection to any one of the expressions she reprobates. The terms, "beauties of nature," powers of nature," "hand of nature," and others similar, appear to me perfectly proper words for designating those properties with which it has pleased God to endow the natural world: while the terms, 66 gifts of nature," dictates of nature," ," "light of nature," &c. with equal propriety designate the powers and capacities of the natural man, as distinct from the afterworks of divine grace. If the terms are accepted in another sense than that which they properly bear, the fault is in the acceptation, not the sense : it is not the words that mislead the thoughts, but the thoughts that falsify the words.

G. E. M.

THEOLOGICAL ESSAYS.

PERPETUITY OF FAITH IN THE ELECT.

THEOLOGIANS are very far from being agreed upon the question, whether it be possible for the elect to fall altogether from grace. Some have asserted, that the man who has once been reconciled to God, cannot again become his enemy; others have as strenuously maintained, that the pardon of such a one may be forfeited, and he suffer the last doom of divine vengeance.

Perhaps some difficulty has arisen from an erroneous or confused statement of the doctrine. It is erroneous, I apprehend, to say, that into whatever enormity of sin an elect man runs, he still shall not perish it is, I think, agreeable to the scriptures, teach that an elect man shall, by the grace of God, be preserved from such sins as would plunge him into final ruin. He is "kept through faith, unto salvation."

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And this seems to follow at once from the doctrine of election as laid down in a former paper. If it be true, as our article asserts, that 'predestination to life is the everlasting purpose of God, whereby.... he hath constantly decreed....to deliver, from curse and damnation, those whom he hath chosen in Christ out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ to everlasting salvation,' then to say, that these fall

not finally, is only to say that God accomplishes his purpose.

The purpose of God must especially be considered. For there are many excellent gifts flowing from him, which the condemned, as well as the saved, have had possession of-yea gifts, the peculiar operation of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit has, we must remember, various offices. It was he, that in creation, brooded on the primal waters, and, by his energy, brought that shapeless mass into a fair, well-ordered world. It is by him, that we live, and perform the functions of animal and rational existence. Every endowment of mind is the offspring of his power. Indeed there is nothing that the Deity performs, which depends not for its effect on the Holy Ghost. So, for instance, when Saul was to be fitted for a kingly station, we read, that he was furnished with the necessary qualifications, by the Spirit of the Lord. As endued with political wisdom, which was a divine gift, he became a new man. It is evident that the change extended no farther: for his conduct, almost immediately after his elevation to the throne proved, and ever continued to prove, that he was a stranger to vital godliness. Similarly, it was by the Spirit of the Lord, we are told, that Samson was enabled to slay the lion that roared against him. The same Spirit wrought in Judas, as in the rest of the apostles, when they were sent forth, by our Saviour, to perform miracles. And yet with respect to Saul and Judas, it were surely a singular charity to hope that they are not among the miserable number of the lost. To bring an instance therefore of the Spirit's being said to depart from any man is not to make an argument against the doctrine I

have laid down, unless you could also show that the Spirit's influence had been exerted on that man with a saving purpose. And I think it must be allowed, from the essential character of the Deity, that he can neither act without some intuition, nor suffer his actings to be rendered vain, by the frustration of his will," Hath he said, and shall he not do it? hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?" It certainly follows not, that because he has not set his peculiar love on any man, he therefore must withhold from that individual all gifts, all communications of his Spirit-the contrary is expressly shewn by the apostle Paul, (1 Cor. xiii ;) it does follow, from the fact, that there is with him "no variableness neither shadow of turning," that whom he, at one time, chooses for his own, he will not, at another, altogether reject.

It must be allowed, that by the grace of God we stand in the faith. It is not by our own power, or goodness, we are at any time faithful to him. Were he to withdraw, for ever so short a moment, his aid, we should stumble and fall. And this is true not only of us fallen creatures, but of every creature. Every creature, as a creature, is continually dependent on the Creator. His support indeed is administered through the reasonable faculties which he has bestowed on us-inasmuch as we are moral agentsbut yet it is, at all times, necessary for our well-doing. We acknowledge in the child of God a perpetual tendency to defection—but if this tendency be at one time counteracted by divine love, why should it not, if that love be consistent, be counteracted for ever?

The love of God is always described in scripture

as faithful and abiding. "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." And our Lord declares " My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of my hand: my Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and none is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand." It is mere special pleading, to say, in reply to these testimonies, that though no external enemy can destroy the elect, they may destroy themselves. Undoubtedly, they have, as I have shewn above, the perpetual tendency to self-destruction-but this is just what the love and power of Christ will preserve them from-or else, and mark the inevitable consequence, no one fallen man could ever be saved at all. Besides, our Saviour not indistinctly intimates in another place (Matt. xxiv. 24.) the impossibility of the elect's being deceived into destruction.

It may be alleged, that there are many passages, which seem to countenance an opposite doctrine; that awful warnings against apostacy (e. g.) Heb. vi.) are addressed to real believers, and that the possibility must be hence admitted of final fall,by those who have been once enlightened. I have already allowed that an ungodly man may possess, and consequently will be deprived of, many great and valuable gifts. These make the persons who misemploy them less