in these discourses on every tenet connected with the doctrine of election proves either that

all, "whom the Lord our God shall call" to hear the gracious offers of the Gospel, are endued with power to repent and be converted, unless they forfeit it by wilful obduracy; or that, since it is impossible for the preacher, even the preacher under immediate inspiration, to distinguish the objects of divine mercy, all are to be addressed as if they had such power, and left in the full belief of it. Again, the stress laid universally upon the remission of sins through faith in Christ, proves the necessity incumbent upon the preacher to consider all men as naturally under the guilt and condemnation of sin, and Christ as the author of their deliverance from both to teach this plainly and decisively as the purpose of his incarnation, and the effect of his death, and Habitual con

the mystery of the Gospel.

formity to this example of the Apostles, can alone preserve Christian faith or practice in their purity. The principles of the Gospel can

alone support the moral duties of the Gospel,

by converting the heart to God, fixing obedience on an unshaken basis, appointing it its right place, and giving it its due estimation and just direction. Without the constant enforcement of those principles, what ought to be lively faith degenerates into a cold observance of outward forms; and what ought to be Christian practice is merged in a blind deference to the customs of society.

+ Indeed, the neglect or omission of these principles as the groundwork of all Christian instruction, is a far more pernicious error than that to which it is opposed. A system of preaching which maintains the lost state of the human race, which refers to Christ alone as the author of salvation, and enforces the necessity of habitual dependence upon divine grace, is frequently accompanied with very happy results, even though many unscriptural doctrines are superadded. Notwithstanding the mischiefs with which high Calvinism is pregnant, when inculcated from the pulpit, experience proves that the labours of many

zealous Calvinists have been blessed with great utility, and have produced a marked improvement in the parishes intrusted to their care: whereas the testimony of all ages asserts that no similar effect ever attended the minister who did not make Christ, Christ crucified for our sins and risen for our justification, i. e. who did not make the GOSPEL, the alpha and omega of his public instruction. To leave men in a cold and heartless state towards " "the Author "and Finisher" of their faith; not to press home upon them the relation in which their redemption through Christ has placed them, and the peculiar duties it imposes on them, is not merely an error, but an error which cannot be otherwise than fatal to spiritual utility. The doctrine of predestination, on the other hand, though particularly liable to abuse, is not necessarily pernicious, if it only occupies the place given it in the Articles of our church, and is made subservient to the plain offers, promises, and threats of the Gospel. In this way, I believe, notwithstanding the severity of their confession of faith, it is generally preached

by the Scotish clergy; in this way we find it preached by the leaders of our English reformation; who would have started at the idea that any of their followers should be led by principles which they profess to hold in common with themselves, to contradict the plain terms of Scripture, to deny the obligation of the moral law, to teach salvation by predestination instead of by faith, and to deny all concern in the last judgment with respect to the elect. While I combat these results of Calvinism with earnest zeal, I am far from believing that all who embrace the doctrine of personal election acknowledge them: I am still farther from insinuating that all such preach them; and I have only endeavoured to show that, if they imitate the Apostles, they cannot preach them.

It is the habit, I imagine, of most ministers who enter upon their office with a due sense of its importance, to set before themselves some standard of orthodoxy or model of imitation. With this view, let them give their days

and nights to the study of the Apostles; not with the design of obtaining from detached passages support for any preconceived opinion, but for the purpose of imbibing, through the influence of the Holy Spirit, their mode of argument, of precept, of illustration, of exhortation; in a word, the general tone of their preaching. A fixed deference to any other examples leads insensibly to a partial representation of the Gospel, if not to absolute error. What is the source of that superiority, which almost all parties agree in ascribing to the writings of our Reformers? The circumstances in which they found the Gospel, obliged them to turn aside altogether from all received interpretation and fallible authority, and to seek the materials of their doctrine from the Scriptures alone. To us, however, though they come as powerful auxiliaries to the study of the Apostles, they must not be made substitutes for it; or be thought to supersede the necessity of drawing from that fountain of living water, which is ever pure and clear itself, but always suffers some loss of its original salubrity in its passage