perfect righteousness on their account!" ("He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world," said John. He died for all, he tasted death for every man.' My young reader, be not, as St Peter said, “led astray by this damnable heresy,'" 2 Ep. ii. 1, an error of "the wicked," chap. iii. 17, for our Lord "gave his flesh (life) for the world." The Bible! the Bible! without note or comment, is the religion of every true Protestant. Ignore every Pope. Amen.

The Doctor admits in his conclusion, that this is a quæstio vexata after all, a Christian "paradox," which it is difficult to reconcile and solve, hence he has left it where he found it, and leaves his reader, like Pilate, to exclaim, "What is truth?" "I am the truth," said Jesus; and hence he added, "Come unto me, all ye who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest;" and again, "Him that cometh unto me I will in nowise cast out." "I came not to judge but to save the world, by tasting death for every man.' I humbly think I have presented my young reader with a surer warrant for faith, as well as a better test of truth, than either of these learned divines has given; and I urge it the more on this ground, viz., that I have simply given the plain and connected word of God without the aid of logic or of science, falsely so called. If Dr Candlish had lived in Calvin's days, he would, in all consistency, have voted the death of poor Servetus. Dr Candlish and Dr Bonar are not agreed on faith. Dr Candlish holds faith in every sense to be a gospel grace, hence man cannot possibly naturally believe that grace is even grace, unless he is irresistibly forced by sovereign power. This is partly true and partly the reverse. To say it is absolutely true, in every sense, is just saying in so many words that God is fate! Hence man is a creature of circumstances, and bound by iron necessity, and Combe and Owen's philosophy, like a physical pillar, stands perfectly erect, (read Wesley on Calvin, p. 127). Dr Bonar holds the moral view, as held by the late Dr John Brown. Man cannot but believe truth. His native faculty, called faith, requires only to be exerted. "Ye believe the witness of men, the witness of GOD is greater." Man trusts thousands on a simple promise every day, and for what end did God swear at all if it were not that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation (founded on moral conviction), who have fled for refuge to the hope set before us? All the promises are suited to man's natural constitution, and are addressed to his native moral faculties, that the moral mind may be conquered, not by dynamic law, but by "the force of truth." The love of God is shed abroad in the heart (as exhibited on the cross) by the Holy Spirit, which is

given to us in answer to our prayer," Lord, increase our faith. "If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them who ask him? Ask that ye may receive, for very one that asketh (in Christ's name) receiveth." Hence man's moral responsibility.

Perversions of Scripture" By grace are ye saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves (that is, not of works) it (salvation) is the gift of God." There are many passages which say the same thing. Dr Candlish, in agreement with his fatalistic view, says, "it" stands for faith, hence faith, not salvation, is the gift of God spoken of. Is it not clear that faith is only here spoken of as the instrument through which we have access into this grace wherein we stand and rejoice in hope (i. e. in the object of faith), viz. of the glory of God. For we are saved by hope, Rom. viii. 24, that is, our salvation is still in expectancy. Therefore hold fast the profession of your hope firm unto the end. Faith, like memory, holds the truth of the fact believed, by which fact we are saved if we keep it in memory, unless ye have believed in vain, 1 Cor. xv. 1, 2. Hence there is no merit in faith at all. Hence Paul repeated to the Corinthians what they had forgotten: "For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures," 1 Cor. xv. 3; a fact which was true, whether they believed it or not. "Their unbelief could not make the truth of God a lie." To us it is sufficient to say, "Thus saith the Lord." Did Christ not die for the incestuous Corinthian, and was he not restored on repentance? "The Spirit even helpeth our infirmities, for we know not what to pray for as we ought." It also strengthens our feeble expiring faith. Lastly, as God giveth the Spirit to them who ask him, how can it be said that faith is a gift of the Spirit before the Spirit is really given? The truth is, that God, throughout the whole of Scripture, speaks to man as a free-willed moral being, and holds him responsible both as respects his faith and practice. I only find fault with the human view of Election.

I come next to something still more personal. I had Newman Hall's tracts before me, "Christ for Every One." I sent a copy to a Free Church minister, "hoping it would convert him to my opinion." He answered in writing, "It is so bad he would not even shew it to his children," and he returned it postage free. I next sent it to an Established Church minister. He said, "It was so very heterodox he could trample it under his feet." What more could I have done for them? I next

distributed Hall's valuable tract among the poor. This stirred up the wrath of a certain minister, and I went to hear him preach. He said from his pulpit what I carefully jotted down, viz., "If a poor sinner came to me and said, 'Is my name in the book of life?' my answer would be, 'I cannot tell.' Yea, more, if the same poor sinner said to me, 'Did Christ die for him?' my answer would be still the same, 'I cannot tell' "! What can men reason but from what they know? A learned diploma must therefore necessarily be a very foolish thing? No marvel that our Lord said, "Be ye not called 'Rabbi,' neither 'Father,' nor 'Lord,' for I am your Master and your Lord.' A servant is not a master, a minister is not a lord! Be ye not lords over God's heritage, but be ye examples to the flock. "I have," said Christ to his disciples, "washed your very feet," that you might follow my example of true humility. Ah! what evils and innovations have diplomas introduced. They have created a hierarchy, a pope with his cardinals in Rome! in England, archbishops, bishops, priests, deacons, prebendaries, canons with their mitres, and maces as well. Even their wealth is overflowing! Yet the working man, the curer of men's souls, has not even a physician's fee. Hence also Courts of Arches, by whose judgments doctrinal errors called "Essays and Reviews" have been legally sanctioned although any babe in Christ could refute them, not in six months, but in one minute, by this single phrase, “Thus saith the Lord." Amen.

*

* Dr Candlish was either guilty, or acquiesced in the guilt, of those ministers who rouped Dr John Brown's eight-day clock for payment of their stipends. He even, after the Disruption, drew his share of all arrears Send back the money," come from whence it might, was nothing to him. How different was this from the spirit of the Mosaic law. The people's free-will offerings were so great that Moses had to restrain them by a proclamation, Exodus xxxvi. 6. Can a man rob God? He can, by withholding tithes and offerings. Try me therewith, said the Lord, and I will open the windows of heaven, and shower down blessings until there will not be room to contain them; hence, said Philo, "the storehouses of the priests were always full without compulsion," and adds, not like the custom of the heathen, who, to support their idolatry, "oppress widows and orphans, and even harlots." The Edinburgh ministers levy a tax on all houses of bad fame within the city. "Thou shalt not," said Moses, "bring the hire of an harlot into the house of the Lord." Tithes, offerings, and charitable gifts, were Philo's measures of grace, and so shall they be on the day of judgment, Matt. xxv. "Human customs," said Philo, in his quaint style, "are custom's prejudices, not proceeding from the Father (God), but from our old mother's side

In Dr Candlish's "Evidences on Sites," page 18, are the words, "We find it impossible, even occasionally, to have fellowship with the ministers of the Establishment, we must make provision as if the Established Church had no existence. The sacrament in the Church of Scotland is a pretence and a desecration of the sacrament." Were there not a few names in the Church of Sardis? How many are there even in the Church of Rome called "my people?" How many were in the Establishment when the good and great Dr Chalmers once presided, and whose sacraments Dr C. so long dispensed? How many are there still? and how many are now in the Free Church? I trust not a few. Are Dissenters to blame for protesting and refusing to pay ministers

DR JOHN BROWN.

The U. P. Church is one of progress. She renounced those bonds which had been taken as securities for stipends. She next adopted, as an article of her creed, the universality of the atonement," Christ died for all men," yea, for the "whole world." Dr Brown was the means of establishing this true ground of faith, and when on his trial for heresy, said he would rather resign his professorial chair than retract one hair'sbreadth of this confession of his faith. The Established and Free Churches hold this to be an open question. Christ said, "I give my flesh for the life of the world," hence Paul, Peter, and John held it to be a sine qua non, i. e., without keeping which fact in memory men believe in vain, 1 Cor xv. 2, 3, 1 Tim. ii. 1-6, 2 Pet. ii. 1, John ii. 2.

66

SPURGEON ON ELECTION.

God," said he in a late sermon, "is absolute sovereign, therefore he has a right to do as he will with all his works." (Who ever doubted this? But the question necessarily arises, Does God act arbitrarily? that is, without assigned reasons or without just judgments, based on principles clearly or inferentially expressed.) "He acts," says Spurgeon, "not intentionally and despotically in putting to pain any of his creatures." He does not "arbitrarily, and without cause or necessity, cause its existence to be one of misery." "It is incompatible with his goodness that he should have made a creature, and as a creature have condemned it to misery." (Here Spurgeon contradicts Calvin's notion of eternal decrees, viz, "God's decrees are his eternal purpose, by which he ordains whatsoever comes to pass." Sin comes to pass! But who dare say that God is the author and cause of sin?) Again, "all have sinned." "If the Lord

willeth to shew mercy, it shall be so." (True, and by an oath hath said that he hath no pleasure in the death of any, but rather that they should turn to him and live. Turn ye, therefore, why should ye choose death rather than life?) "If he withholds mercy," says Spurgeon, "who can call him to account?" "Can I not do as I will with mine own?" (No, sir, you dare not. Yours" is not a fit reply to all such arrogant inquiries," even "where man, as you say, has sinned himself out of court," for he is not "without appeal," as you assert.

for "desecrating" the sacraments? and for levying money on false pretences, in direct violation of Christ's golden Rule, which commands every honest Christian man to pay his own minister? As matters now exist, the poor are compelled by statute to pay for the rich!! When shall iniquity have an end?

K

Man has a right of appeal to the loving mercy of his God. "I delight in mercy," I never said to any, Seek ye my face in vain," but, on the contrary, "Look unto me and be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth, for I am God, and besides me there is none else.") "This is God's truth." (True, "God's judgments are a great deep." His acts of providence are to us inscrutable. He giveth no account to us of his many reckonings with nations and with individuals. "Secret things belong to God." Therefore I say, we have only to do with "those things which are revealed," that we may fear his name, and learn the just and merciful will of God.) "A man may say," adds Spurgeon, "I will not believe in Christ, because I am afraid I am not elected; but this is so stupid," says he; "I think that man is demented who speaks thus." (Why so, if God has pre-ordained and elected only a certain few out of many unto eternal life, and if Christ died only for them, as many falsely allege?) "I will, however," Spurgeon says, "shew that the doctrine of God's sovereignty, so far from discouraging anybody, has not in it any sort of discouragement whatever for any souls believing in Jesus Christ." (How absurd! If I must believe that Christ died for the elect only, I never could find peace until I first had discovered that I was one of that elect number. Again, as the book of life is sealed until the judgment day, how could I possibly believe with an assured hope? But as it is true that Christ died for "all men, ," "for the whole world," then I am as certain as Paul, John, and Peter were certain that Christ loved me, and gave himself for me, Gal. ii. 20. Hence the loving command to all, "believe and live," gives instant joy and peace; and, moreover, "I do not thereby frustrate the free grace of God, for if righteousness came by the law, then Christ hath died in vain," ver. 21. "O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth crucified among you," Gal. iii. 1. "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law," it is a damnable heresy to deny this, 2 Pet. ii. 1. "Christ being made a curse for us, that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles (the elect are not mentioned) through Jesus Christ, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit (to help our infirmities) through faith." Now, a mediator is not of one (he stands betwixt two), but God is one (he is our God and mediator as well). "Therefore I will that prayers be offered for all men, for God will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth, for there is one God and one mediator betwixt God and (the same all) men, the man (hence God-man) Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for (the same) all men, to be testified in due time. I will, therefore,