turgy, five separate times; and that from principle: nor do I believe those forms of sound words, because I have subscribed to them: but I therefore subscribed them, because I believed them.I set out with the gospel from the very first; and, having obtained help from God, I continued to this day, witnessing both to small and great, saying no other things than Moses and the prophets *, Jesus and his apostles, have said before me. And, in an absolute dependance on the divine power and faithfulness, I trust that I shall, to the end, be enabled to count neither health, wealth, reputation, nor life itself, dear to me, so I may finish my course with joy, and fulfil the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God t. "Careless (myself a dying man) If the most accomplished and respectable person of all heathen antiquity, could declare, that he "would rather obtain the single approbation of Cato, than have a triumph voted to him by the senate; much more will a Christian minister prefer the approbation of God, to all the evanid eclats of an applauding universe. I shall arm myself, this afternoon, with a two-fold weapon: with the Bible in one hand; and our church articles in the other. I shall appeal at once, for all I have to say, to the authority of God's unerring oracles; and to their faithful epitome, the decisions of the church of England. They who, perhaps, set light by the scriptures, may yet pay some decent deference to the church; and they, who, it may be, pay little attention to churchdeterminations, will render implicit credit to the scriptures. So that, between the Bible and the XXXIX articles, I hope I shall be able to carry my point, and, as far as my subject leads me, enter a successful caveat against whatever things are contrary to sound doctrine. In attempting this, I shall fix my foot upon Arminianism; which, in its several branches, is the gangrene of the protestant churches, and the predominant evil of the day. What think you, I. Of conditional election? We have, indeed, some, who deny that there is any such thing as election at all. They start at the very word, as if it were a spectre, just come from the shades, and never seen before. I shall waste no time on these men.They are out of the pale, to which my allotted plan confines me at present. They cannot be church of England men, who proscribe a term that occurs so frequently in her offices and standards of faith; nor can they even be Christians at large, who cashier, with affected horror, a word, which, under one form or other, is to be met with between forty and fifty times, at least, in the New Testament only. My business, now, is with those who endeavour to save appearances, by admitting the word, while, in reality, they anathematize the things. These profess to hold an election: but then it is a conditional one, and founded, as they suppose, on some good quality or qualities foreseen in the objects of it. Thus, bottoming the purposes of God on the precarious will of apostate men; and making that, which is temporal, the cause of that which was eternal. "The Deity," say persons of this cast, "foreknowing how you and I would behave, and foreseeing our improvements and our faithfulness, and what a proper use we should make of our freewill; ordained us, and all such good sort of people, to everlasting life." Nothing can be more contrary to sound doctrine, and even to sound reason, than this. It proceeds on a supposition, that man is beforehand with God, in the business of salvation; and that the resolutions of God's will are absolutely dependent on the will of his creatures: that he has, in short, created a set of sovereign beings, from whom he receives law; and that his own purpose and conduct are shaped and regulated according to the prior self-determinations of independent man.-What is this, but atheism in a mask? For, where is the difference, between the denial of a first cause, and the assignation of a false one? Quite opposite is the decision of inspiration, Romans xi. 6. where the apostle terms God's choice of his people, an election of grace, or a gratuitous election and observes, that, if it be of grace, then is it no more of works; otherwise grace were no more grace but if it be of works, then is it no more grace; otherwise work were no more work. Conditional grace is a most palpable contradiction in terms. Grace is no longer grace, than while it is absolute and free. You might, with far greater ease, bring the two poles together, than effect a coalition between grace and works in the affair of election. As far, and as high, as the heavens are above the earth, are the imminent acts of God superior to a dependence on any thing wrought by sinful, perishable man. Consult our seventeenth article, and you will clearly see, whether conditional election be the doctrine of the church of England. "Predestination to life is the everlasting purpose of God, whereby, before the foundations of the world were laid, he hath constantly decreed, by his counsel secret to us, 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, as vessels made to honour." Is there a word about condi VOL. III. C tionality here? On the contrary, is not election, or predestination unto life, peremptorily declared to be God's own "everlasting purpose, decree, counsel, and choice?" The elect are said to be brought to salvation, not as persons of foreseen virtue and pliableness; but, simply and merely, " as vessels made to honour." Add to this, that the article goes on to style election a benefit, or gift; "Wherefore they that be endued with so excellent a benefit."-But how could predestination to blessedness be so termed, if it were suspended on the foresight of something to be wrought by the person predestinated? For, a condition, in matters of spiritual concern, is analogous to a price, in matters of commerce: and a purchased gift, is just as good sense, as conditional grace Our venerable reformers were too well acquainted with the scriptures, and with the power of God, to err on a subject of such unutterable moment. Whence, in the article now cited, they took care to lay God's absolute and sovereign election as the basis of sanctification; so far were they from representing sanctification as the ground-work of election. Our modern inverters of Christianity, the Arminians, by endeavouring to found election upon human qualifications, resemble an insane architect, who, in attempting to raise an edifice, should make tiles and laths the foundation, and reserve his bricks and stones for the roof. Quot sunt hominum virtutes, totidem sunt Dei dona, said the learned and excellent Du Moulin and, if sanctification be God's gift, men's goodness could not possibly be a motive to their election: unless we can digest this enormous absurdity, viz. that God's gifts may be conditional and meritorious one of another. Do you imagine, that God could foresee any holiness in men, which himself did not decree to give them? You cannot suppose it, without believing, at the same time, that God is not the author of all good; and that there are, or may be, some good and perfect gifts, which do not descend from the Father of lights; and that the apostle was widely mistaken, when he laid down this axiom, that it is God, who, of his own good pleasure, worketh in us both to will and to do. According to our church, God's election leads the van; sanctification forms the centre; and glory brings up the rear * : "Wherefore, they that be endued with so excellent a benefit of God, be called according to God's purpose, by his Spirit working in due season: they, through grace, obey the calling; they be justified freely; they be made the sons of God by adoption." Hitherto, good works are not so much as mentioned. Why so? Because our reformers were Antinomians, and exploded or despised moral performances; by no means. Those holy persons were, themselves, living confutations of so vile a suggestion. The tenor of their lives was as blameless as their doctrine. But they had learned to distinguish ideas, and were too judicious, both as logicians and divines, to represent effects as prior to the causes that produce them. They were not ashamed to betake themselves to the scriptures for information, and to deliver out the living water of sound doctrine, pure and unmingled, as they had drawn it from the fountains of truth. Hence, election, calling, justification, and adoption, are set forth, not as caused by, but as the real and leading causes of, that moral change, which, sooner or later, takes place in the children of God. For thus the article goes on: "They be made like the image of his only begotten Son Jesus Christ; they walk religiously in good works; and, at length, by God's mercy, they attain to everlasting felicity." This, then, is the order: 1. Election; 2. Effectual calling; 3. Apprehensive justification; 4. Ma * Art. xvii. |