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ing terms of salvation; and yet hope and expect to be saved by their good works. But why should God save them for their mere good works, rather than Socrates, or Seneca, or Plato, or Cato, or Cicero, or any other amiable, virtuous heathens? Or why should God save them for their exterior virtues and obedience, rather than the young man in the gospel, who had kept externally all the divine commands, or Paul, who as touching external obedience to the law, was blameless? know that some say, that Peter taught a different doctrine, when he said, "Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons; but in every nation, he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted of him." Peter said this, in respect to Cornelius, a Roman officer, who actually embraced the gospel. And Paul made the observation, in respect to other heathens who embrace the gospel; "There is no difference between the Jew and the Greek for the same Lord over all, is rich unto all that call upon him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." God will save all believers in Christ, whether Jews or gentiles, but he will save no others, however beautiful and amiable they may appear in their mere external conduct. Men may do a thousand amiable, virtuous actions, while they have not the love of God in them, and while they are total enemies to the cross of Christ, and their amiable and virtuous conduct may create that self-righteousness and self-dependence, which is the greatest obstacle to their cordially submitting to God, and relying on Christ alone for pardoning mercy. "For the whole need not a physician, but they that are sick." Many seem to think they are christians, because they have had christian parents, have had a

christian education, and have lived in a christian land, just as the Jews thought they were the people of God and were interested in his gracious covenant, because they were of the seed of Abraham, had been circumcised at eight days old, and had outwardly conformed to the laws of Moses, though they were inwardly enemies to the God of Israel. Paul says, he built his hopes of heaven on this false and sandy foundation; and his own deception led him to warn others against it. He tells his brethren, "He is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh but he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart; in the spirit and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God." There is not, perhaps, a more common and dangerous practical opinion among the better sort of sinners, than a belief that they gain pardon and acceptance with God, by their good desires, good prayers, and good deeds, while they retain all the depravity of their hearts, and live wholly to themselves, and not to God. And they hold this deception fast and will not let it go, though they are so often and plainly told it will destroy them.

4. If God has cast off hitherto, and will continue to cast off all the heathen nations, so long as they remain heathens; then he has given and will continue to give most clear and awful displays of his amiable sovereignty in the dispensations of his grace. Those, who deny his sovereignty in personal election to eternal life, freely and fully acknowledge his sovereignty in national election to national privileges and advantages. They allow, that God granted great national favors to the Jews, which he denied to other nations, and

among these favors, his holy oracles and peculiar religious institutions and instructions. By bestowing these national favors upon the Jews, he gave them an opportunity of obtaining eternal life; and by denying these favors to the heathen nations, he deprived them of an opportunity of securing the salvation of their souls.--So that this national election and reprobation was inseparably connected with personal election and reprobation, and equally displayed the absolute sovereignty of God in the dispensations of grace. Accordingly, the apostle in the ninth of Romans represents this national election and reprobation as inseparably connected with personal election and reprobation. Speaking of Rebecca, the mother of Esau, and of Sarah, the mother of Jacob, he says, ("The children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth.) It was said unto her, the elder shall serve the younger.--As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid. For he saith unto Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth merey. For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth. Therefore, hath he

mercy on whom he will have mercy and whom he will he hardeneth. Thou wilt say then unto me, why doth

he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will? Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say unto him that formed it, why hast thou made me thus ? Hath not the potter power over the clay of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor? What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much long suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: and that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory ?" All Arminian expositors employ this remarkable passage of scripture to explain away the doctrine of personal election and divine sovereignty. They say the election here mentioned is national election, and not personal election. It is granted, that the apostle mentions national election, but only for the purpose of illustrating and proving personal election and divine sovereignty. And the argument is conclusive. For the national election of the Jews to their peculiar religious as well as civil privileges, necessarily implied their personal election, and the reprobation or exclusion of the gentiles from the national privileges of the Jew, necessarily implied their personal reprobation or exclusion from the kingdom of heaven. God elected the Jews to the means of salvation; but reprobated the gentiles to the means of destruction. And the consequence has been to the elected Jews, that some of them have been saved: and the consequence has been to the reprobated gentiles, that none of them in their gentile state, have been saved. This is a most awful and glorious display of divine sovereignty in the dispensations of grace. God has for ages personally

elected about one third of mankind, and personally reprobated more than two thirds to ignorance, stupidity, impenitence, and endless destruction. But notwithstanding God has given such clear and visible evidence of personal election and reprobation, by his word, and by the dispensations of his providence and grace, yet Methodists, Arminians, and multitudes of others, presume to call the great and fundamental doctrine of personal election and reprobation, blasphemy. Though God has told them in his word, and confirmed it by his providence, that all the heathen nations are in a state of reprobation, without God, without Christ, and without hope in the world, and strangers to the promises of grace; yet under this full blaze of light, they call one of the first principles of the oracles of God, blasphemy. This is a demonstration how little God and the bible are known, even in the christian world.

5. If God has suffered and still suffers all the heathen nations to walk in their own way, and to live and die in the region of darkness and shadow of death, without the means of grace, and the offers and hopes of salvation; is it not strange that those who call themselves christians and with the bible in their hands, should still believe that all mankind will be saved? It seems, that they must disbelieve the history, the predictions, the promises, the threatenings, and express declarations of the bible, in order to believe the doctrine of universal salvation. Nor is this all; for it seems that they must disbelieve what they actually see and know of the present state of both the christian and heathen world The present state of this sinful and miserable world, exhibits infallible evidence, that all mankind will not be forever happy in the world to come.