terpretation must be affixed to the language of another modern Predeftinarian of eminence; when, alluding to David's murder of Uriah and adultery with Bathfheba, he demands, "Though I believe that David's fin displeased “the Lord, muft I therefore believe that Da"vid's perfon was under the curfe of the law? Surely no, Like Ephraim he was ftill a

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pleasant child: though he went on frowardly, " he did not lofe the character of the man "after God's own heart"." And again; "No "falls or backflidings in God's children can "ever bring them again under condemnation, "becaufe the law of the fpirit of life in Chrift "Jefus hath made them free from the law of "fin and death." And again; "If Chrift "has fulfilled the whole law and borne the curfe, then all debts and claims against his people, be they more or be they lefs, be they "fmall or be they great, be they before or be they after converfion, are for ever and for ever cancelled. All trefpàffes are forgiven them. They are juftified from all things.

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They already have everlasting life." "God "views them without fpot, or wrinkle, or any "fuch thing: they ftand always compleat in

Quoted from Sir Richard Hill, in Fletcher's Third Check to Antinomianifm, p. 72.

• Ibid. p. 8o.

• Ibid.

p. 82.

"the everlasting righteousness of the Re"deemer. Black in themfelves, they are. "comely through his comelinefs. He, who is "of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, can "nevertheless addrefs them with, Thou art all fair, my love, my undefiled; there is no fpot " in thee "."

Far be it from me to affert, that every man, who calls himself a Calvinift, does admit these abominable tenets, however they may feem in reafon, and by fair deduction, to form a conftituent part of his creed, and avowed as they are by fome of our accufers: or that every man, who does maintain thofe fentiments, as part of his creed, is prepared to take advantage of that fanction, which they fupply to licentious practice! Some minds indeed there may be, and fuch unquestionably there are, of fuperior quality, whofe love of God is too devout, and their piety too ardent, to fuffer them to use their tenets as a licence for careleffness or immorality; and who remain, as Tully teftified of the difciples of Epicurus, virtuous in spite of their principles".

• Quoted from Sir Richard Hill, in Fletcher's Third Check to Antinomianism, p. 84.

Sunt nonnullæ difciplinæ, quæ, propofitis bonorum et malorum finibus, officium amore pervertunt. Nam qui fummum bonum inftituit, ut nihil habeat cum virtute conjunctum, idque fuis commodis, non honeftate metitur,

But this may be fafely affirmed; that whereever fuch principles are maintained, and that there are some perfons bold enough to maintain them, the foregoing extracts will demonftrate,) the peril to a mind of the common ftamp is palpable and incalculable. Let a man of ordinary temper be perfuaded, that he is one of the elect; (and it refts with the Calvinift to fhow, that perfons in general, who maintain his opinions, will not be so perfuaded, unless on fubftantial grounds ;) and let him moreover be perfuaded of what we have seen there are not wanting teachers to perfuade him, that no duties are required to be performed, no obligations to be fulfilled, no terms, no conditions to be obferved, in order to qualify him for falvation; but that whatever fins he may commit, he is fure to be faved notwithstanding; that whatever be his falls and backslidings, all trefpaffes are forgiven him; that God views him without fpot, or wrinkle, or any fuch thing; that he is juftified from all things; that he already has everlafting life ;that he ftands always abfolved in the everlafting righteoufnefs of the Redeemer :-that perfon is little acquainted with the corrupt and vicious propenfities of human nature, who hic, fi fibi ipfe confentiat, et non interdum naturæ boni. tate vincatur, neque amicitiam colere poffit, nec juftitiam. Cic. de Off. lib. i. cap. 2.

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will undertake to anfwer for the confequence; or rather it may be faid, who will not undertake to affirm, that the confequence will neither redound to the credit of the doctrine, nor conduce to the everlafting welfare of its profeffor.

"The great advocates of election and "reprobation," fays Bifhop Sherlock, a writer diftinguished for the clearness and folidity of his judgment, "always reckon themfelves in "the number of the elect; and that their ini

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quities, of which they are often confcious, "may not rife up against them, they main"tain, that the act of man cannot make void "the purpose of God, or the fins of the elect

deprive them of the benefit of God's eternal "decree. Thus fecured, they despise the vir "tues and moral attainments of all men, and "doom them with all their virtues to deftruc

tion, whilft they advance themselves with "all their fins to a throne of glory, prepared "for them before the world began." "If I "be elected, no fins can poffibly bereave me " of the kingdom of heaven; if reprobated,

no good deeds can advance me to it." Such was the language of a German potentate in former times, when his friends admonished him of his vicious converfation, and dangerous ftate. "An objection," remarks Heylyn," not

• Sherlock's Sermons, vol. ii. p. 89.

more old than common but fuch, I muft "confefs, to which I never found a fatisfactory ❝ answer from the pen of Supralapfarian, or "Sublapfarian, within the fmall compass of "my reading "."

What fruit, on the other hand, is to be expected from thofe, who believe themselves to lie under a fentence of irrefpective and inevi table reprobation; intended and decreed to everlafting torments by the unalterable will, and fitted for perdition by the omnipotent hand, of God? What in a man of ordinary temper, but “a reckleffhefs of unclean living," a foul dead to every fenfe of religion, and a heart hardened in impénitence? Or, if fuch a perfuafion gain poffeffion of one, whofe mind is endowed with higher and more ingenuousqualities, and alive to a nicer fenfibility, to what other confequences can it be expected to lead, than a difmal melancholy; a fixed and comfortless defpondence; or a gloomy alienation of reason; which will endure as long as his mortal existence, and will at length break forth perhaps in a paroxyfm of frenzy, or in a death violent and premature? For fuch a being, an outcast in his own imagination from divine grace, and abandoned to irremediable condemnation, the prefent has no enjoyment

: Heylyn's Quinquarticular Hiftory, part i. chap. iv.