As the above passage, which I have transcribed from Mr. B. is the only answer he has made to my Fourth Proposition, I cannot but consider it as unanswered. He has advanced something, however, of an opposite tendency, which I shall now consider.

It was affirmed that the want of faith in Christ is ascribed, in the scriptures, to men's depravity. Mr. B. thinks this position contrary to John x. 26. Ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep; which passage, he thinks, ascribes the want of faith to "non-election." (p. 55.) To this I reply, On some occasions, Mr. B. would make nothing of such a term as because; (p. 63.) and, were I to follow his example, I might say, It means no more than this: "Your unbelief, if you persist in it, will be a certain evidence that you are not of my sheep." No complaint could justly be made, if the matter were left here especially as the above are the very words of Mr. Henry, which Mr. B. has quoted for a different purpose. But, waiving this, be it observed, the truth which they did not believe was, that Jesus was the Christ. If thou be the Christ, said they, tell us plainly. Jesus answered, I have told you, and ye believed not: the works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me; but ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep. This text, therefore, if it prove any thing for Mr. B. will prove too much; it will prove that non-election is the cause of that which he acknowledges to be sinful; namely, a discrediting of Jesus being the Christ.

Farther: Though Christ's people are sometimes called his sheep, simply on account of their being given to him in eternal election, as in verse 16 of this chapter; yet this is not always the case. They sometimes bear that name as being not only elected, but called; as the followers of Christ; and thus they are represented in the context: I know my sheep, and am known of mine; they follow the Shepherd, for they know his voice; they go in and out, and find pasture. And in the next verse to that in question, My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. All those who looked for redemption in Israel, readily embraced Christ as the Messiah, as soon as they heard of him; they knew his voice, as soon as they heard it, and followed him: but others, though they were of the house of Israel, yet, not being the real people of God, re

jected him as the Messiah, the great Shepherd of the sheep. He that is of God heareth God's words; ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God.* There appears, to me, a great probability of this being the meaning of the passage. But, suppose a being not of Christ's sheep, here, to mean the same as not being of the number of the elect; this can be no otherwise assigned as the cause of their not believing, than as we assign the absence of the sun as the cause of darkness. BECAUSE of God's forbearing to execute vengeance, the hearts of the sons of men are fully set in them to do evil; but no one, it is hoped, will think evil excusable on that account. See Dr. Gill's Cause of God and Truth, Part II. pp. 100. 222. Part III. p. 77. First Edition.

Mr. B. assigns man's natural incapacity as another reason of his not believing, and says, "Sacred scripture every where abounds with passages to this purpose." (p. 55.) Well: if this assertion can be made good, something will be effected to purpose. In proof of it, however, no more than two passages are produced; viz. John vi. 44. No man can come unto me, &c.-and 1 Cor. ii. 14. The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them, &c. It is true, if these two will prove the point, they are equal to two hundred but it were as well not to speak of such great numbers, unless more were produced. To what Mr. B. says on both these passages, it is replied, If the term cannot will prove this their inability to be natural and innocent, it will prove the same of the inability of those who are in the flesh, and cannot please God, and of those whose eyes are full of adultery, and who cannot cease from sin. Mr. B. takes no notice of what was said before, on these modes of speaking; but, instead of that, puts us off with barely informing us, that "this is sufficient for him ;" and with asking his reader, “Does not this seem to strike you at once, that our Lord is here representing man's natural inability?" (pp. 56, 57.)

Mr. B. thinks I am strangely inconsistent, in maintaining that man's inability consists wholly in the evil state of his heart, or will, and yet allowing it to be total; (p. 56.) and elsewhere seems to wonder greatly at the same thing. (p. 93.)

* John viii, 47.

I also might wonder, that one who professes to believe in the total depravity of human nature, should object in such a manner. Must not that inability be total, which proceeds from, or rather consists in, total depravity?

If by total, Mr. B. means unable in every respect; I grant I do not think man is, in that sense, totally unable to believe in Christ. But an inability in one respect may be so great in degree as to become total.* It is thus in things which relate merely to a natural inability. A man may have books, and learning, and leisure, and so may not, in every respect, be unable to read; and yet, being utterly blind, he is totally unable, notwithstanding. In respect of the inability in question, those that are in the flesh are totally unable to please God; and yet their inability lies wholly in the evil state of their hearts towards God, and not in his being so difficult to be pleased, that, if his creatures were to do all they ought to do, it would be to no purpose. Men, by nature, are totally unable to love God with their heart, soul, mind, and strength; and yet, as Mr. B. allows this to be their duty, he cannot say, their incapacity for so doing is natural and innocent. We consider men as spiritually dead; and we consider spiritual death as a total privation of all real good; and this we may do without considering them as destitute of such faculties as, if the state of their hearts were but what it ought to be, would infallibly discern and embrace things of a spiritual nature.

* When we say, the depravity of man is total, we do not mean that it is incapable of augmentation; but that it amounts to a total privation of all real good. The depravity of the fallen angels is total; and yet they are capable of adding iniquity to iniquity.

I would wish Mr. B. to remember, that a moral inability, whether vir tuous or vicious, may be as total as a natural inability. And I would also beg him to examine, whether he can form a clear idea of a person being under a moral inability to perform any action which he is, and always was, naturally unable to perform? For instance, can he conceive of a man born blind, as having a violent and invincible aversion from light? I own, it appears, to me, inconceivable: and it seems equally absurd to suppose that sinners should be capable of aversion from a plan of salva1 tion which was utterly unsuited to their natural powers.

SECTION VI.

REPLY TO MR. B.'S NINTH LETTER, ON PUNISHMENTS BEING THREATENED AND INFLICTED FOR THE WANT OF FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST.

IN proof of this point, reference was had to Mark xvi. 16. He that believeth not shall be damned. This passage had been explained by Mr. Brine as only giving the descriptive characters of the saved and the lost. To prove the contrary, I produced a number of threatenings in the word of God, delivered against sin, in the same mode of speaking as the above passage is directed against unbelief. Mr. Button thinks, that these also are mere descriptive characters; and that, if the scriptures used no other modes of speaking, we could not justly infer, that the punishments therein threatened were on account of the crimes therein specified. (p. 62.) This is very extraordinary indeed. As though, from such a threatening as God shall destroy thee, O thou false tongue, we were not warranted to conclude, that falsehood is a crime, and the procuring cause of the punishment threatened! If this reasoning be just, it cannot be inferred, from the laws of England declaring that a murderer shall be put to death, that it is on account of his being a murderer. Neither could our first parents justly infer, from its being told them, The day ye eat of the fruit ye shall surely die, that it should be on account of their so eating!

John iii. 18. He that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed on the name of the only-begotten Son of God. In urging this passage, I had grounded pretty much on the term because. But Mr. B. produces another text of scripture, where that term is used, and cannot, he thinks, denote a procuring cause. (pp. 63, 64.) The passage to which he refers is John xvi. 17. loveth you, because ye have loved me.

The Father himself
To this it is replied,

Suppose a word, in one instance, be understood in a peculiar sense, is this sense to be urged as a rule of interpreting that word in other places? If it is, Mr. B. would be puzzled, notwithstanding what he said in p. 62, to prove that sin is the procuring cause of damnation. This is the method taken by the adversaries to the proper deity and satisfaction of Christ.

But, farther: I apprehend the term because, even in this passage, is to be taken in its proper sense, as denoting the ground, or reason, of a thing. The love of God has, (with great propriety, I think,) been distinguished into natural and sovereign: the former is God's necessary approbation of every intelligent creature, in proportion as it bears his holy likeness; the latter is his free favour, fixed upon his elect, without the consideration of any thing in them, or done by them. The one is exercised towards an object while that object continues pure, and ceases when it becomes impure: thus God loved those angels, when holy, who are now fallen under his most awful displeasure. The other, not being founded on any thing in the creature, removes not from its object, but abideth for ever. The propriety of the above distinction may be argued from the doctrine of reconciliation by the death of Christ. To be reconciled, is to be restored to favour. Now, the sovereign favour of God was not forfeitable; we could not, therefore, be restored to that: but his necessary approbation, as the Lawgiver of the world, was forfeitable; and to that we are restored by the death of Christ.*

The godly are the objects of God's natural love, as bearing his holy likeness. If any man love me, says Christ, he will keep my words, and my Father will love him, and we will come and make our abode with him. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love. And thus, in the passage referred to, The Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me. All this may be affirmed, without making inherent qualities any part of our justifying righteousness, or in the least injuring the doctrine of God's sovereign, eternal, and immutable love to his elect.†

*The reader will remember, I am reasoning with those who allow of the love of God to elect sinners being sovereign and unforfeitable. + See Mr. R. Hall's Help to Zion's Travellers, pp. 25–41.