but it is not a whit the lefs true because it is uncomfortable to fuch perfons, any more than the doctrine of election, which, however frightful it be to unconverted finners, yields true peace and comfort to those who are born again, and have the faith of God's elect; though they take no pleasure in the rejection of others, but wifely leave it to the fovereignty of that God, who does whatsoever he pleases. Nor can the univerfal fcheme afford fuch comfort to a converted man, as that of special grace does; fince, according to the former, he may be loft and perish, when the latter fecures certain falvation to him.

To close this head; it seems, according to this writer, that as the nation of the Jews are called God's elect, in like manner, the kingdom of Christ, converted ones, have the fame title applied to them, not in their personal, but focial capacity, as chriftian churches: fo the whole church at Theffalonica are called God's elect, not with respect to fingle perfons, but on the account of their being called by the gospel. But, furely, the calling of the Theffalonians by the gof pel, must be perfonal, and not focial, or as a chriftian church; and therefore their election must be perfonal too, of which their calling was an effect, fruit and evidence. And though the nation of the Jews are called God's elect, or chofen, as fuch, and were distinguished by many favours, as a nation, from the reft of the world; yet there was a special, perfonal and particular election among them, a remnant, according to the election of grace: nor are all that bare that name under the gospel, or in the kingdom of the Messiah, churches, but particular perfons: the few, Chrift faid, were chofen, when many were externally called by the gospel, were perfons, and not nations or churches; these are the elect, for whofe fake the days of tribulation will be shortened, whom falfe prophets cannot deceive, and whom the angels will gather from the four winds: not churches, nor all the members of churches, are the poor of this world, whom God has chofen, and made rich in faith, and heirs of a kingdom: the elect Lady, and her fifter, and Rufus, chofen in the Lord, and the elect ftrangers, were perfons chosen before the foundation of the world in Chrift, to be holy and happy. I go on to confider,

III. The doctrine of Adam's fall, and original fin. Under this head our author endeavours,

1. To prove the entire innocence of infants from fcripture. The paffages he produces or refers to, are Jer. ii. 30. and xix. 4. Matt. xviii. 3, 4. the two first of these seem rather to be understood of the prophets, as they are by feve

» Part II. p. 60, 67.

▾ See Rom. ix. 6, 7, 8, 27, 29. and xi. 5, 7.

ral

* Matt. xx. 16. and xxiv. 22, 24, 31. Jam, ii, 5. 2 John i. 13. Rom. xvi. 13. 1 Pet. i. 1, 2. Ephes. i. 4.

• Part II, p. 73

ral expofitors, than of infants; the former of them has no apparent reference to children, and the latter of them distinguishes innocents from the fons, or the children that were burnt with fire, for burnt-offerings to Baal; and both feem rather to regard the prophets; who, though not free from fin, yet were innocent as to any crime for which they fuffered, and their blood was shed. And supposing infants were intended, they are only called so in a comparative sense, in comparison of others, who have added to their original guilt and corruption many actual fins and tranfgreffions; and as for the words of our Lord in Matt. xviii. 3, 4. the meaning is not, that men must be perfectly innocent, and entirely free from fin, or there can be no expectation of entering the kingdom of heaven; for then no man could hope to enter there; but that men must be born again, and appear to be fo, and, in a comparative fenfe, must be holy, and harmless, free from pride, ambition, malice and envy. And even his learned Cicero, to whom he has recourfe, helps him off but very lamely; for in the very citation he makes from him, he says, "We are no fooner born, but we fall into "a wretched depravity and corruption of manners and opinions; so that we "feem almoft to fuck in error with our mother's milk."

2. This writer endeavours to fet afide the proof of the imputation of Adam's fin to his pofterity, and the corruption of human nature by it, taken from Pfalm li. 5. Rom. v. 19. Ephes. ii. 3. by giving different turns to, and false gloffes on these paffages: As to Pfalm li. 5. he infinuates, that David might be base born, or unlawfully begotten, and so shapen in iniquity; and asks, is this a proof that other men are so, or that all men are fo? This is a glofs which is formed at the expence of the characters of David's parents, of whom there is not the leaft suggestion of this nature in the word of God, but the reverse; for they are reprefented as holy and religious perfons: this sense of them makes David illegitimate, who, therefore, muft have been excluded from the congregation of Ifrael; whereas we have no intimation of any such exclufion; but, on the contrary, that he frequently went into the house of God with company; befides, he is not speaking of any fin his parents were guilty of, when he was conceived and shapen, but of fin and iniquity, in which he was conceived and hapen; nor would it have been agreeable to his defign and view, to expose the fins of his parents, whilft he was lamenting his own. Our sense of Romans v. 19. that all mankind are made finners by the imputation of Adam's disobedience, is 'faid to be "contrary to reason, to the context, to known truths, to other more plain fcriptures, to be in injurious to God, and abufive to mankind." It is not contrary to reafon; imputation is not used by us in a moral fenfe, as when a man's own personal action, good or bad, is accounted to himself; but in a forensic fenfe,

Part II. p. 74, &c.

• Ibid. p. 76.

fenfe, as when the debts of one man are, in a legal way, transferred and placed to the account of another; which is neither contrary to reafon, nor the practice of men nor is it contrary to the context, which, this writer fays, leads us, by finners to understand sufferers, mortal men liable to die, as ver. 12, &c. but this is to make the apostle a moft miferable reafoner, and guilty of proving the fame thing by the fame; the fenfe of whose words, death passed upon all men, for that all have finned, must be, according to this interpretation, all men die because they die, or all men are fufferers because they are fufferers; whereas the apostle in thefe words, and throughout the context, fhews, why death paffed on all men, why many were dead, why death reigned as it did, why judgment came upon all men to condemnation; because all finned in Adam, and by his difobedience were made, reckoned, and accounted finners. Nor is this fense contrary to known truths, and other more plain fcriptures; as to the latter, this author does not pretend to mention any to which it is contrary; and as for the former, though nothing can act perfonally before it has an actual personal being; yet as men may have a reprefentative being, before they have an actual one, fo they may act in their reprefentative, as Levi paid tithes in Abraham before he was born; and though fin is a perfonal act, and a tranfgreffion of a law, yet it may be transferred to another, by imputation, not in a moral way, but in a judicial one: nor is our fenfe injurious to God, his being and perfections, or contrary to his methods of proceeding, who, in many cafes, has vifited the iniquities of the fathers upon the children: nor does it abuse mankind, but only reprefents how mankind are abused by fin; to which is owing all the miferies and calamities endured by man in this, or the other world. On the whole, our fenfe of the paffage before us ftands firm, without giving up any plain rule of interpretation of fcripture, and which is further confirmed by the other clause in the text; for as men are made righteous in a forenfick fenfe, or are justified, and have a right to life, through the righteoufnefs or obedience of Chrift, which this author owns, fo they are made finners in a forenfick fenfe, by the disobedience of Adam, that is, by imputation; and this gives light to another paffage of the apostle's, in Adam all die; and fhews a reason for it, because all finned in him, or were made finners by his difobedience. The text in Ephes. ii. 3. And were by nature children of wrath, even as others; is not forgotten by us to be underftood of God's elect; who, confiftent with their being beloved in Chrift with an everlasting love, may, confidered as the guilty and polluted defcendents of Adam, be called children of wrath; that is, deferving of it; for fo they are by nature, guilty through the imputation of fin unto them, being the natural pofterity of Adam, and filthy through a corrupt depraved nature, propagated and communicated

d 1 Cor. xv. 20.

communicated to them by natural generation; for whatfoever is born of the flesh is fief, carnal and corrupt, and not by custom or habits of fin, which become fecond nature.

3. We are called upon to prove that God made a covenant with Adam and all his pofterity, which is the ground of his imputing fin unto them. That there was a covenant made with Adam, I suppose, will not be denied, fince a promife of life was made to him upon his obedience, and death was threatened in cafe of difobedience, to which he agreed in his ftate of innocence; all which formally conftitutes a covenant, and is fo called, Hof. vi. 7. They, like men, or Adam, have tranfgreffed the covenant. That this covenant was made with Adam and his pofterity, in which he was their federal head and representative, appears from his being called the figure of him that was to come; which is to be understood either of all mankind, who were to spring from him, or of the Lord Jesus Christ, who was to come in the fulness of time; if of the former, it proves that Adam was a type or figure of all his pofterity, that he perfonated them all, and that they were all reprefented in him and by him, which is the very thing it is brought to prove; if of the latter, that is, of Christ, Adam could only be a type or figure of him, as a public perfon and a covenant-head; and the parallel between them, as fuch, is clearly run by the apostle in the context, and in another place; fhewing that as the one conveys fin and death to all his pofterity, the other conveys grace, righteousness and life to all his. Without allowing fuch a covenant made with Adam and his pofterity, in which they were to ftand or fall with him; and without confidering him as a covenant-head, and representative of them, in whom they finned and fell, it cannot be accounted for, how Adam's fin should" bring death on many, or render them liable to be treated as finners, "or make them more liable to both fin and death, or that they should share "in the fatal confequences of his difobedience;" all which is acknowledged by this writer,

IV. Free grace and free-will come next into debate.

1. This man's notion of free grace is, that it is free and common to all men ; upon which scheme he is asked, what grace is that in God to decree to fave all men conditionally, to fend his Son to redeem all mankind; and yet to whole nations, and that for many hundred years together, does not fo much as afford the means of grace, of the knowledge of falvation, nor vouchfafes his Spirit to make application of it to them, but leaves them in their fin, and eternally damns them? To which he answers', "When we are upon the nature of the

"gospel

▲ Answer, p. 39, 40.

"gospel and the univerfality of its offers, there is no need to evade the argu"ment, by transferring the fcene to the heathen world." I am at a loss to know what argument is evaded by putting the question; for, if grace is free and common to all men, if God's decree of falvation is univerfal, and reaches to all the individuals of mankind, and Chrift has died for them all, then, furely, the heathen world has a concern in these things; and it must seem strange, if all this is true, that the knowledge of falvation, and the means of it, should not be afforded them, and they left in their fins to perifh without law. Where is the grace of this scheme? What is now become of free, common, and univerfal grace? And an idle thing it is, to talk of the univerfality of the offers of the gospel, when the gospel is not preached to a tenth part of the world, nor any thing like it; when multitudes, millions, whole nations know nothing of it. What this man means by faying that this is equally a difficulty against God's government of the world, I know not; fince this argument does not concern God's government of the world, but the administration of his grace to the fons of men.

2. That there is a free-will in man, and that man is a free agent, is not denied by us; the natural liberty of the will, and the power of man to perform the natural and civil actions of life, and the external parts of religion, are owned by us. We affert, indeed, that there is no free-will in man of himself to do that which is fpiritually good, nor any power in him to perform it. This is the ac count of free-will which we have already given, though this author fuggefts, that we have given no other than he has done, and dare not define it': he thinks that man cannot be free who is under a neceffitating decree to fin; and, that if man has no power to do any thing fpiritually good, and yet obliged to do it, then he is obliged to impoffibilities, and damned for not performing them. To which may be replied, that whatever concern the decree of God has in the fins of men, it does not neceffitate or force them to do them; it does not at all infringe the freedom of their will, or deftroy their free agency; as appears in the cafes of Joseph's being fold into Egypt, and the crucifixion of Chrift; which were both according to the decree and counsel of God; and yet Joseph's brethren and the crucifiers of Christ, acted as free agents, and with the full liberty of their wills. The things fpiritually good which man cannot do, have been instanced in"; as to convert and regenerate himself, to believe in Chrift, and to repent of fin in an evangelical manner; and these are things which he is not obliged to do of himself, and will not be damned for not performing of them. There are indeed things which man is obliged to, which he now cannot do, as to keep the whole law; which impotency of his is owing to his fin and fall, by which

1 Part II. p. 84.

* Answer, p. 41.

Answer, p. 41.