dren together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not !" It is not enough that sinners be placed under circumstances that they might be saved, were it not their own fault to secure their salvation, that must be done for them which will prevent their failing of it, through their own fault. This, therefore, God determined to do for a certain number. He determined to remove out of the way every possible, fatal obstacle to their salvation, moral, as well as natural. He determined to put a disposition into their hearts, as well as a price into their hands, to get wisdom, glory, honor, and immortality. He determined so to draw them, that they should come to Christ; and then to keep them by his power, from drawing back unto perdition. Many are the texts which are express to this purpose. Two such I will here recite : Psal. cx. 3,

Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power." And John vi. 37, "All that the Father giveth me shall come to me and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out." The first of these texts speaks of a people of Christ who were not yet his willing people; and it promises that they shall be willing. The last speaks of those given to Christ who had not as yet come to him; and it declares that they all shall come, and none of them be rejected. Surely, then, the election of these was not merely conditional that if they were willing; if they would come to Christ, and abide in him, they should be saved. It was absolute; implying also that they should be willing; that they should come; that they should abide.

3. I think it is a wrong notion of the doctrine of election, to suppose that God's choice of persons as the heirs of grace and glory, was grounded on his foreknowledge of their faith and works. This, indeed, has been the opinion of many. They admit that God foreknew, from all eternity, which of

mankind would believe his word and obey his will: and that, in consequence of this his foreknowledge, he determined to give eternal life to these, and to no others.

But the inconsistency of this, and that it is not the scripture doctrine of election, may, I think, very easily be made evident.

(1.) It appears rational and necessary to believe, that God's foreknowledge of future events must be grounded on his decrees concerning them; and not his decreeing that things shall be, on his knowledge that they will be. To suppose otherwise, is to make the divine will dependant on creatures and events; and creatures and events independent on the divine will. It is also to suppose what is impossible, as implying a contradiction. God foreknows the voluntary actions of all creatures, because their hearts are in his hand, as much as the rivers of water, and he turneth them whithersoever he will. Were not this the case, it would be utterly inconceivable, if not evidently impossible, that God himself should foreknow how they would act. If there were not an antecedent, eternal certainty, what the actions of men would be, their actions could not be eternally foreknown for to say that is foreknown, of whichthere is no certainty, must be a plain contradiction. An event must be certain, or it cannot certainly be known that it will ever be but if there were an eternal certainty what the actions of creatures would be, that certainty must have had a cause; and that cause could be no other than the decree or purpose of Him who inhabits eternity; for other eternal cause, there could have been none.

Respecting the point in hand-the future faith and good works of those sinners that will be saved; there is no hypothesis on which they could possibly have been foreknown, without a divine predestination. On the supposition that men have a self-determining

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power, to believe or not to believe; to obey or not to obey, as some hold; then, how they will be determined, and what they will do, must be previously uncertain; and therefore, not knowable. But going on the calvinistic supposition, that creatures have no such contingent, independent, selfdetermining power; and that unregenerate sinners have no moral power to believe to the saving of the soul, or to do any works truly good, by reason of the total depravity of their hearts; then, God must be supposed to foreknow that they will never any of them do these things, until he shall give them a new disposition. If he foresaw, therefore, that any number of them would cordially believe and obey the gospel, it must be because he determined to put such an heart in them. Consequently, his electing them to eternal life could not be grounded on his foreknowledge of their doing the things required in order to their salvation; but his foreknowledge that they would do these things, must have been grounded on his purpose to give them effectual grace; working in them to will and to do, of his good pleasure.

(2.) We are thus expressly taught in the holy scriptures: not that God elected some to everlasting life, because he foresaw they would become good, of their own mere motion; but that he chose the vessels of his mercy out of the common mass of fallen men, determining to make them good, by his own internal operation. See forecited Rom. viii. 29, "Whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son." Their conformity to Christ was an essential part of their predestination; and not the moving cause of their being predestinated. See also Eph. i. 4, "According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love." Not because he foreknew we would, of ourselves, be thus holy and blameless.

(3.) To suppose that God's foreknowledge of the faith and holiness of the elect, was the ground of their election, is to explain away all the grace, designed to be glorified by this doctrine. The apostle in our text, you observe, speaks of a remnant according to the election of grace. And concerning Esau and Jacob, he takes notice of a declared preference given to the younger, before their birth; that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works. But if the foreknowledge of men's good works had been the ground of it, why should it be called an election of grace? or why should care be taken to inform us of its being before the persons were born? There is no more grace in choosing men to salvation because of works certainly foreseen, than because of works already done. According to this conception of the matter, God never designed any distinction between the elect and the non-elect, only in consequence of their first making themselves to differ. But if it be thus of works, surely, it is no more grace.

The scripture doctrine of election, I think, is very evidently this: That God, of his mere goodness, and not out of respect to any works of their's, done or foreseen, elected a certain number of lost men as the subjects of his saving mercy; determining to give to them, and them only, first effectual grace, and finally immortal glory.

We will now, as was proposed,

III. Attend to the objections which are apt to arise in the minds of many, and which have often been made, against this doctrine.

1. Some may perhaps be ready to think, that for God to elect one and reprobate another, without reference to any difference between them in point of merit, is hardly consistent with his being impartially just.

To this, however, the answer is obvious. The salvation of sinners is not a matter of justice; that is, of debt. Fallen men, whose damnation is just, might all of them justly have been left to perish with. out hope. And if God saw fit to recover a part of them to holiness and happiness, and to leave the remainder to impenitence and perdition, these last have no injustice done them, any more than if all had been so left. Yet,

2. It may be thought that this doctrine of a limited election, and of such an infinite difference made between objects alike miserable, and alike unworthy, is irreconcilable, at least, with the equal goodness of God.

But this objection, as well as the foregoing, was particularly considered in my last discourse, as made against the doctrine of divine sovereignty in effectual calling; and it is needless now to repeat the answer then given. The substance of it was, that God may have good reasons for making these differences; and for making them exactly as he does. That a man often does more for one child, or one poor neighbor than another, without being influenced by partiality of kindness. That God hath as good a right, and it may as well consist with his equal benevolence, to bestow the blessings of saving grace, as the bounties of creation and Providence, with vast diversity, when the greater beauty and happiness of the collective whole, will thereby be promoted. That we cannot find out the Almighty unto perfection; but, from our limited view of the wisdom of his works and counsels, we have no reason to conclude, that in his most sovereign discriminations, there is not perfect impartiality of goodness, as well as of justice. But,

3. The grand objection against the doctrine now insisted on is, that it makes the doings of men of no