and guide the footsteps of the benighted wanderer into the paths of life and peace."*

With a solemn warning to you, my young friends, diligently to attend to these most necessary and most salutary counsels, I now take my leave; assuring you, that as the following pages were composed with a most heartfelt desire for your benefit, so your favourable reception of and candid attention to them will be to me an abundant reward; as your increasing seriousness of attention to scriptural knowledge, your successful diligence in preparing for the annual examination in divinity, and the exemplary zeal and piety, with which I almost uniformly find such of you as have been ordained discharge your duty as ministers of God, in the various clerical situations entrusted to you, fill me with the most heartfelt gratitude to the Author and Giver of every good gift; and inspire me with the warmest hope, that He will employ you as favoured instruments in diffusing the knowledge of his Gospel, promoting the edification of his church, and extending the glory of his name.

* A Charge delivered by the Bishop of St. Asaph, to his Clergy, August, 1806, the concluding paragraph.

I would not be understood to concur in all the sentiments and opinions of this Charge, but those which I have quoted I fully adopt.

INTRODUCTION.

IN the following work, it is intended to compare the tenets of absolute predestination, as it is held by Calvin, and the system of doctrines with which it is necessarily connected, with the general tenor of the sacred Scriptures, and thus determine, whether that system ought to be rejected or received. In this comparison mere abstract metaphysical discussion, and reference to mere human authority, will be avoided as far as possible; not because it is apprehended, that the result of a philosophical examination into the nature of God, and the moral and intellectual powers of man, would prove unfavourable to the opinions defended in this work, or that the testimony of the venerable fathers, either of the primitive Christian church, or of the church of England, would be found to support the doctrine of absolute predestination; but because these sources of argument have been minutely examined by many preceding writers, and some of those very recent and distinguished, and seem less adapted to convey instruction and conviction to the serious inquirer after religious truth, than a direct reference to the sacred Scriptures themselves, which all parties admit as the ultimate and only criterion of Christian verity. And because this criterion may be more readily and distinctly applied, when the attention is not distracted by the subtilty of metaphysical disputation, or the unbounded variety of human opinions, a variety which, according to the different bias of the author who selects such opinions, appears to supply most powerful authorities in favour of contrary results; since not only different divines of high reputation, but even the same at different periods of their lives, have maintained sentiments directly contrary to each other.

To Scripture therefore exclusively I propose to appeal, adducing human testimonies only as they illustrate the meaning

of holy writ, and appealing to the conclusion of reason and the feelings of the human mind, only so far as such an appeal is warranted and even suggested by the direct authority of the Scripture itself. In the prosecution of this inquiry, I seem to myself to have found clearly established by the general tenor of Scripture, the following conclusions, which appear to me inconsistent with the doctrine of absolute predestination.

1st. Scripture describes the JUSTICE OF GOD as exhibited in the moral government of the world, so as to warrant our forming the same conception of it, as reason leads us to form of justice, as a general rule of conduct, to apply to it the same criterions of action as consistent or inconsistent with such justice, and to prove that such justice is exercised by God towards all human beings alike, with the strictest impartiality, or, as it is sometimes expressed, that in this view, "there is no respect of persons with God;"* but "that in every nation, he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted with Him."t

2dly. That we are taught by the Scripture, that the DIVINE MERCY, as displayed in the moral government of the world, is, in its general nature, correspondent to those ideas of mercy which human reason and human feeling necessarily lead us to form, but in degree and efficacy infinitely superior; so that no human being is, from his birth, necessarily excluded from the benefits of its influence; or, in other words, that "the Lord is loving unto every man, and his mercy is over all his works."

3dly. That Scripture describes mankind in general, and every individual, as placed in a state of trial, or under the control of a moral government, in which the dispensations of God, whether to nations or individuals, are CONDITIONAL, influenced by the right or wrong conduct of the nations or individuals to whom such dispensations extend: and that the commands, the exhortations, the warnings, and the promises of Scripture, are addressed to all men, who have an opportunity of hearing them, in such a manner as presupposes

* Rom. ii. 11.

† Acts x. 35.

Ps. cxlv. 9.

or implies, that as, on the one hand, each individual who obstinately and perversely determines to close his eyes, and shut his ears, and harden his heart against the calls of Scripture, has it in his power, and will be permitted, to disbelieve its promises, disregard its warnings, disobey its commands, and incur the punishment threatened against unrepented sin; so on the other, every individual who is not thus obstinate and perverse, will with the call of Scripture, receive also such aid from the assisting grace of God, as to have it in his power to attend, and understand the instructions, believe the promises, and obey the commands of holy writ; so that no one is precluded from escaping death eternal, but by his own fault; but if he escape death and obtain pardon and acceptance with God, he hath not whereof to boast, as if this were the effect of his own merit, because,

4thly. It appears that all men are represented in Scripture as so prone to evil, and so exposed to temptation, that they cannot, by their own unassisted reason or strength repent of and forsake their sins, obey the will, or obtain the favour of God; so that, in every step of their progress in virtue and religion, they require the assistance of the Spirit of God, to excite, to direct, and to support them; but that this assistance is never denied to those who sincerely pray for, and carefully improve it; while at the same time, the Spirit of God does not operate compulsively or irresistibly, but may be neglected or resisted, may be grieved and quenched, may at length be judicially withdrawn; so that in this state of trial, no human being is perfectly secure from falling into sin and condemnation, until removed by death, but during the entire period of his existence here, is called on to "work out his salvation with fear and trembling, knowing that it is God alone which worketh in him to will and to do of his good pleasure."*

If this view of the Scripture be just and accurate, it will follow that the Calvinistic doctrines of absolute predestination or, as it is otherwise expressed, of unconditional or irrespec

Philip. ii. 12, 13.