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included by God, in an aggregate number, to be affected by Adam's sin or righteousness; then, since the whole includes all its parts, one million of men includes one million individuals of mankind and we say, if each one of these individuals die for this single sin of Adam, then was each man guilty of that one sin. Therefore each individual of the million was guilty of the one sin of Adam.

Mr. M'C. seems to think, that the decree of Jehovah, and even his sacred covenant, are worth nothing; and leave their objects among the non-entities, which are decreed ever to remain non-entities. Let me propose him a problem-Have the bodies of the saint's, now in their graves, any interest in the resurrection of the just, and the glories of the heavenly state, which the bodies of sinners have not? If so, does it arise from the covenant of grace?

In relation to the covenant of grace, we believe, and have believed, since the days of the reformation, and I pledge the man who says to the days of the apostles, or as far back as he pleases to go-We believe that the eternal Father and his Eternal Son, foreseeing from all eternity (for what can be hid from infinite wisdom, which knoweth all that can be known) that Adam would transgress the covenant; and yearning with bowels of infinite compassion, such bowels as mortal man knoweth not, nor can know, over a poor, foreseen, lost race-of noble powers and high destinies; did determine to interpose and to show to surrounding spheres, what is MERCY, and did solemnly cove nant and vow to each other as follows.

That if, on the one hand, the Eternal Son should pledge his truth and honour to assume human nature into a personal union with his divine, and should vo

given him, some in this age, some in the next, some in the succeeding age, and so on till the last of the race should be born, and should have finished his destined course on earth.

And that he should have full authority and power over the whole race of mankind, and over the world which they inhabit; that he might pick out each one at the day and hour appointed; that he should have authority to command any and all the angels of God, and the whole created universe of God, to render him any assistance, they could, in recovering and preserving to eternal life, this travail of his soul; And that he should have the command and direction of the Infinite Spirit of God, to enlighten, purify, and sanctify these destined ones, and bring them to glory.

And in relation to all mankind, that since they were under the law, and since he had pledged himself to work out the righteousness of the law, he should give them a free offer of that righteousness, as he should see

cause.

And finally, that all who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved.

All this we profess to believe-And it has, in a good degree, been the faith of the professing church of God from the beginning. And we are too tender of the honour of our intellectual reputation, not to stake the whole of it in this cause. We do believe that the Eternal Father, and his Eternal Son, equally omni

scient, did intend that the new covenant, or the eternal covenant of grace, (we have proved it to be eternal) should save a definite number of mankind-(ask God why not all!) And as we (by hypothesis) supposed that a million were included in Adam's covenant; so we shall suppose (by hypothesis) that half a million is included in the covenant of grace-God forbid that this ratio should not be too small-(and no man can prove by the Scriptures that it is not) we are not ashamed to say, that we believe, that if God saves half a million of men, he must save half a million of individual men : that if half a million men were pledged as the travail of the Redeemer's soul, in the eternal covenant of grace, (for we have proved it to be eternal) then half a million of individual men were pledged. And again, we stake our intellectual reputation on the assertion, that those who were thus given by the Father, and accepted by the Son, and known to both, did stand in a relation to that Son, different from the rest of mankind. Call him their covenant head-call him their representative if you will-call him by any relative name you will-we again stake our intellectual reputation on the assertion that his relation to the travail of his soul, to those who were given him to be saved, is dif ferent from the relation he bore to those who were not given him to be saved.

If after all we are pronounced incapable of perceiving the truth of an axiom, we must console under the mortifying imputation, by reflecting that Mr. M'C. is just as ill of as we. For as no axiom can be proved by argument; and as men of common sense cannot perceive the intuitive light of his axiom, it follows that Mr. M'C. will never be able to reveal his discovery by

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burst forth into birth; and tyranny shrunk back; and the spirit of liberty waved her flag, and cried, to arms, my sons, to arms; when Europe was regenerated, to become the regenerator of the world. It is too late to enquire whether this was the work of God! Can I believe that the Melancthons, and the Luthers, and the Morells, and the Calvins, and the Jewels, and the Owens, and twenty others, whom I could name, and a thousand others of whom I have never heard, did not understand the gospel. In reading their works I have often paused and palpitated, and asked what has become of this race of noble blood? Were they all Monks? Have they no sons at all? In this age, scarcely can be found a man who holds a lamp that can show us how to step over a gutter: those held lamps that shed light over half a world. How were they so great? Surely God poured on them his spirit in no ordinary degree-surely they studied the holy word-surely they prayed for the spirit of illumination when they studied. I find them expressing for each other a manly esteem; and I see them interchanging the sidelong-glance of love, in a way that lovers only can see : but I have not found a single puff at each other, in all that I have read of them. Indeed they were made of too weighty metal to be puffed up by the breath of mortal man. And am I to be told that these men did not understand the gospel? Am I to be told that they

"chattered" the gospel call in terms that made Jesus Christ a cheat and a liar.

I do not say that they were always right. God left so much human frailty in them, as warns us to depend not on them, but on his own spirit and word.* In some instances I think them wrong, and then, with timid step, I take a different way. But never have I told, and never shall I tell, the public, that I learned the way to truth by my father's errors. No, ye heroes, if ever I name your name, save for praise, may my name

rot.

The churches of the reformation were, I hope, not wrong in any essential point of doctrine, worship, or practical law. I hope so, because I am sure, that if the case be otherwise, I shall never live to see the error rectified. Is it possible to believe that the glorious churches of Switzerland-that the glorious churches of France, and of Holland-that the glorious churches of England, and of Scotland, and of Ireland, and of the United States of America; that all these churches, and all their anointed instructors, the lights of the world, should all of them, and every man of them, all this time have been proclaiming the gospel in terms which make God a cheat and his Son a liar! It cannot be! This new discovery must be a strife of words. The fathers were right and instead of their gospel, you have offered you A METAPHOR, METAMORPHOSED

INTO A METAPHYSIC.

I shall pursue the new theory no farther.

It is not absolutely impossible to form a veri-similitude conjecture of the causes which have produced

*Their doctrine I believe to be always right--when they chanced to slip in a bit of philosophy, a system, it was wrong.

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