requifite for falvation, what is the meaning of those gracious offers of mercy, and spiritual asfiftance; of those pathetic exhortations to repentance and amendment of life; of those unqualified promises of pardon to the penitent finner; with which the Scriptures every where abound? What are we to understand by the affurance of God, that he will make his fin"ful people a new heart and a new spirit?? What are we to understand by his earnest intreaties, that the wicked" will repent, and 66 66 turn themselves from all their iniquities, and "make themfelves a new heart and a new "fpirit, that fo iniquity may not be their "ruin?" What by his confequent moft folemn proteftations, that "though their fins be 66 as fcarlet, they fhall be made white as fnow; "though they be red like crimson, they fhall "be as wool?" that "if the wicked will for "fake his ways, and the unrighteous man his 66 paths, and turn unto the Lord, he will have mercy upon him; and unto his God, that he "will abundantly pardond?" What are we to understand by his moft plain declarations, “I "will fend unto them all my meffengers and "prophets, rifing up early and fending them, because I have compaffion on them?" and Ezek. xxxvi. 26. If. i. 18. Ezek. xviii, 30, 31. d If. lv. 7. 2 Chron. xxxvi. 15. Jer. xxv. 4. xxxv, 15. by his moft equitable appeal to their own judgment, "See, I have fet before thee life and "death, good and evil, in that I command "thee to love the Lord thy God, and to walk " in his ways?" and by his most folemn atteftation, "I call heaven and earth to record "against you, that I have set before you life and death, bleffing and curfing ?" and by his confequent inference and exhortation, "There"fore choose life?" and by his most tender expoftulations, "Why will ye die?" and by his earnest inquiries, "What more could I "have done" to prevent your death, "which "I have not done? and by his affectionate complaint, "I would have purged them, but "they would not be purged; I would have "gathered them, but they would not be "gathered?" and by his moft paffionate exclamations, "O that they were wife, that they would confider their latter endk!" "O that "my people had hearkened unto me, and If“rael had walked in my way 1!” “O that thou hadft known in this thy day the things that "belong unto thy peace?" And by his fubfequent fentence of condemnation, "but now "they are hid from thine eyes?" now, there f Deut. xxx. 15, 16, 19. If. v. 4. * Deut. xxxii. 29. Luke xix. 42. 1 66 Ezek. xviii. 31. i Ezek. xxiv. 13. Matt. xxiii. 37. Pf. lxxxi. 13. 3 fore they were not always fo. What is to become of the most folemn affurance of the Almighty by his Prophet, "As I live, faith the "Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of him "that dieth, but that the finner turn from his ❝evil way and live?" What is to become of the warning of the Apostle, that "the good nefs and long-fuffering of God" are defigned to "lead men to repentance; and that they "who despise the riches of his goodness, for"bearance, and long fuffering, do after their "hardness and impenitent hearts treasure up "unto themselves wrath against the day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judg "ment of God; who will render unto every "man according to his deeds; for there is no refpect of perfons with God?". Prejudice may pervert, and sophistry perplex the plaineft declarations of Scripture. But furely in the face of thefe, and of an innumerable multitude of fimilar paffages, which give a direction and a tone to the whole of the facred volume, to suppose that any man is incapacitated by a divine decree for performing the qualifications neceffary for falvation; that "our Lord Jefus Chrift is no otherwife the Saviour of the “wicked, than as they are beholden to him "for every worldly comfort that they en Ezek. xxxiii. 11. • Rom. ii. 4, 5, 6, 11. joy ;" and that the only use, to which these paffages can be applied by finners, is that of "making them careful to adjust their moral "external conduct according to the rules of decency, justice, and regularity, and thereby 66 prevent much inconvenience to themselves "and injury to fociety" is to suppose, (let me not be deemed irreverent in affirming it,) that the Bible is a compound of inconfiftency and error; is to make a liar of the God of truth; and to convert his gracious tenders of mercy into the most bitter, the most cruel, and moft farcaftic irony towards his deluded and abandoned creatures. I have thus ftated the arguments, by which I would vindicate my claim to the title of an evangelical Minifter, a Preacher of the Gospel of Chrift, although I decline to preach the doctrines of Calviniftic predeftination. In or der to this statement, I have been induced to enter at confiderable length on a myfterious and much controverted queftion; a question, to which, I folemnly repeat, that I have not been voluntarily led, and which it were better to leave precifely where the Gofpel leaves it; were it not that the diligence, with which it is obtruded by our accufers both from the pulpit Whitefield's Eighteen Sermons, p. 160. and from the prefs, and the misery and mif chief, which it occafions to the Church of Chrift, and the calumny withal, which it is made the inftrument of discharging against the national clergy; call loudly on us for a vins dication of ourselves, and therein (as we believe) of the true evangelical faith. I dare not hope indeed, that the present arguments are likely to convince a perfon, prepoffeffed by the contrary perfuafion; yet, whilft they might not unreasonably ferve to abate the confitlence, and mitigate the afperity of our accufers, they lead me to judge, with no faint perfuafion, of the fentence, which from a res view of the general scope of the Scriptures an unprejudiced inquirer would pronounce upon the question, whether the Gofpel is preached by us or by the Calvinifts-by us, whe teach, that Chrift Jefus made atonement for all the fins of the whole world; that all men may therefore be faved, who will strive by the grace of God to work out their falvation; but that no man will be faved, who is not diligent in fulfilling the conditions which God hath appointed:-or by the Calvinist, who teaches, that God elected a few individuals to falvation, and that Chrift died to make atonement for their fins alone, to the exclufion of the great mass of mankind; that the falvation of thefe elect depends folely upon |