the spiritual strength insured to him by the Lord, who "never faileth them that seek Him." Rejoice," (says the Apostle, to such a Christian,) "rejoice in the Lord alway, and again I say, rejoice. . . . being confident of this very thing, that He which hath begun a good work in you, will perform it until the day of the Lord Jesus Christ."

NOTE.

NOTE A, page 160.

THERE is a term applied in Scripture to persons who embraced the Christian faith, for which our language affords no adequate translation. We have not in English, as there is in Greek, a present participle passire; and this deficiency often drives us into awkward and sometimes obscure circumlocution: thus, if TUπToμévoç is rendered "one who is beaten," this might be τομένος understood to relate to what is past, and complete (which would be tεrvμμévos); but it signifies properly, though in uncouth English, "one who is being beaten." The particular term I am now alluding to is σωζομένοι ; "the Lord added to the Church daily such as should be saved;" Tous owSoμévovę: (Acts ii. 47) the word rendered "such as should be saved," (a rendering which has perhaps led some readers who cannot, or do not, study the original, to suppose that absolute predestination is implied in this passage,) signifies merely "persons coming into the way of salvation," namely, by embracing Christianity.

It is to be observed, however, by the way, that there are many expressions in Scripture, which do not even imply any full conviction in the writer's mind that a particular event will take place, or has taken place, though taken strictly, they might seem to imply this, and have, probably, been often so understood. Instances may be found, probably, in all languages, but I think they are particularly common in Greek, of the same terms being used in speaking of an object proposed, and of an object attained; a full design and attempt to do any thing, is often expressed in the same manner as if it had been actually done. Thus in the Ajax of Sophocles (to take an instance from a profane writer), Agamemnon charges Ajax with having murdered him; i. e. having done all that in him lay to accomplish that purpose, though his design was frustrated by extraneous impediments. And, indeed, nothing is more common in most of the ancient writers, than to speak of a person's having done this or that, i.e. having been doing it—having formed the design, and actually set about it, though the attempt was stopped. In this sense the Lord is repeatedly said to have delivered the Israelites out of Egypt, to bring them into the land of Canaan, which he had promised to their forefathers; and yet the whole generation perished in the wilderness, through their own refusal when summoned, to take possession of the promised land; and a considerable portion of the promised land was never occupied even by their posterity, through their own neglect to drive out the nations whose territory had been allotted to them. In this case, the positive and un

qualified declarations of Scripture, not only do not imply any compulsion exercised on the Israelites, but do not even imply a foreknowledge that the events would take place; but merely that the Lord had performed his part, and had left it completely in their power to bring about the events in question.

So also, many of the expressions of the Sacred Writers, in which they speak of the holiness of life here, and eternal life hereafter, provided by the grace of God for those whom they are addressing, not only do not relate to any absolute predestination to reward, or irresistible control of the will; but do not necessarily imply, according to a fair construction of the language, even so much as a perfect confidence in the writers, that these objects will, in fact, be attained; but merely that such is the design and tendency of the gospel dispensation; that God had placed these things within their reach.

I am not contending, be it observed, that this absolute predestination and irresistible grace may not, in fact, be a part of the gospel-scheme in the Divine Mind; but only that no inference to that effect can be fairly drawn from the words of the Apostles. They may be truths, but they are not revealed truths; they may belong to the gospel-scheme, but not to the gospel-revelation.

ESSAY V.

ON THE ABOLITION OF THE LAW.

THERE are very many passages relative to the Mosaic Law occurring in the writings of the Apostle Paul, (especially in the Epistle to the Romans, and in those to the Galatians and to the Hebrews), whose most obvious and simple interpretations, at least, would seem to imply the entire abolition of that law, by the establishment of the Gospel. For instance, Rom. vii. 6. "But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held ;"—or, according to another, and perhaps better reading, which makes no material difference, "being dead to that law wherein we were held." And these passages constitute one class of those from which such pernicious consequences have been sometimes deduced, and oftener, perhaps,