law would justly have ruined us; shall the double guilt of sinning against both the law and the gospel be insufficient to condemn us?

Enough has been said to shew that, if we are to retain the ordinary use of the terms, all men are neither interested in Christ, nor placed in a state of grace.

But perhaps by "a state of grace and an interest in Christ," no more is intended than what Arminians understand by the universal salvability of men that the gospel has superseded the covenant of works, and placed man in a new covenant relation to God, where none can perish except those who fall from this new relation: that Christ has broken down every barrier betwixt God and man, thrown open the gates of glory, made all welcome to enter who please, purchased grace for the whole; and, though he has secured salvation to none, has rendered it possible for all.

If this is what is to be understood by all being placed in a state of grace and interested in Christ: then the hypothesis deserves a few remarks on the view which it gives both of God and of man.

1. If it is intended to assert that, in consequence of what Christ has done, God may save as many as he pleases: we may observe that justice must require the salvation either of all, or only a part of our race. If, notwithstanding the work of Christ, his justice will allow God to save only some: then it is clear that the tenet of universal salvability does

not extend salvation farther than the doctrine of particular redemption; and that, notwithstanding the universal design of Christ's death, no more are actually brought to heaven, than if he had intentionally died only for some.

But if every barrier is broken down, and justice requires all to be saved; why are any permitted to perish? If from love to the whole world God gave up his Son to death for all: after giving the greater, is it consistent with his love to withhold the smaller and inferior gift? Is there mutability and inconstancy with God; so that after surren‐ dering his Son purposely for all, he keeps back the fruits of his sufferings and sorrows from multitudes? Is this such an inference as we are taught to draw from the declarations: "If, when we were enemies, we were reconciled unto God by the death of his Son; much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?" Rom. v. 10. viii. 32.

On this hypothesis it is as impossible to reconcile the perdition of any with the justice, as with the love of God. For Christ by his death must be acknowledged either to have merited salvation for all in whose behalf he died, or not. If he did not: then why, throughout the whole sacred volume is the redemption of all who are saved invariably ascribed to his death? Isa, liii. 4-12.

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ter. If it is affirmed that all have the power to enter: then I ask, how can such an assertion be reconciled with the scriptural doctrine, that by nature we are dead in trespasses and sins, and that no man can come to Christ except the Father draw him?

But if it is admitted that graceless men have not the power, to enter: what advantage is gained by breaking down the barriers betwixt man and God, and throwing open the gates of glory? By opening their graves, will you raise the dead? By throwing down the walls of Jericho, could an army without limbs have walked in? And supposing that Christ had not only thrown open the gates of heaven, but even laid its walls prostrate: unless he also give life to those who are spiritually dead, and limbs to those who are spiritually lame; is there one in all the great family of man who can climb the celestial hill, and sit down on the mount of God?

This notion of universal pardon and grace is utterly unfounded, and subversive of the whole plan of salvation. It deprives the Redeemer of the travail of his soul, by leaving those for whom he died far short of heaven. It destroys the believer's foundation for hope and comfort, by pla

• Moral inability consists in the strength of wickedness. The natural powers of Satan are the same as when he was in heaven: but his superlative wickedness renders him morally the weakest of creatures.

cing his salvation on a condition which he never can perform. It represents God as possessing that strong and tender love to the whole human race, that he would freely and gladly give them all things, except the only thing which will do them any essential service. "See your aim, even to exalt yourselves, and your free will in the room of grace, or at least leaving it room to come in, to have the best share in the work of salvation, viz. believing itself, which makes all the rest profitable. See now, what your universality of free grace leads and tends to: are not the very terms opposite to one another? To bring in reprobates to be objects of free grace, you deny the free grace of God to the elect: and to make it universal, you deny it to be effectual. That all may have a share of it, they deny any to be saved by it."*

CHAPTER IV.

OF THE NATURAL STATE OF MAN, SCRIPTURAL PREACHING, AND PRAYER FOR SPIRITUAL BLESSINGS.

I. Do the representations of this system correspond with the scriptural account of the relation in which natural men stand to God?

If in the act of being elevated the brazen serpent had either extracted the poison from the

* Owen's Works, vol. v. p. 540.

stings of the living serpents, or fortified the bodies of all the Hebrews against the slightest injury from the future attacks of these reptiles; we should have heard no more of any of their wounds, and the whole congregation would have been addressed as completely free from pain and danger.

And if Christ has really redeemed all men by his death, blotted out all their iniquities, given all an interest in his salvation, and restored them to the friendship of God; we surely might expect to hear men in their natural state described as the objects of Divine love. Their natural condition. would not be denounced as one of guilt and danger, nor they themselves as exposed to the displeasure of the Most High. But is this the case?

The Bible contains a sublime, delightful, and endearing account of the character of God. It tells us that he is the Father of mercies, and the God of love; that he is merciful, and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth. It tells us that, though the world lies in wickedness, and every imagination of the thoughts of the heart is only evil continually; he has so loved this vile, worthless, and rebellious world, that he has given his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have everlasting life.

But amidst this matchless grace and boundless compassion of the Most High; does the Bible ever speak of men by nature as near to God, as redeemed by the blood of his Son, and the objects