in Israel, appeared mysterious and even impossible. And is there not a great change insisted on in the evangelical system as indispensable to salvation; to which masters in Israel now, confess, that they are strangers; and which they regard as impossible without the destruction of free-agency and accountability?

The manner of a sinner's justification was delivered to the saints, in such terms, as occasioned the objection, that it made void the law: superseding the obligations and motives to a moral life, and leading to licentiousness. "Do we then make void the law through faith?" "Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?" And is not this precisely the objection which has been urged against the doctrine of Justification by faith, as contained in the evangelical system, from the time of the Reformation to this day.

The saints were taught something concerning the sovereignty of God, as having mercy on whom he would; and punishing whom he would;—which produced the objection, "Why then doth he yet find fault; for who hath resisted his will? If wicked men receive their destination as God appoints; why does he blame them. If it be his will that they perish; and they do perish, are they not obedient; and why does he find fault?" And is not this the objection, which is urged unceasingly against the doctrine of Election, as taught in the evangelical system? To our reply, that the will of God, as a moral rule to man, and the will of God as a rule of administration to himself in disposing of rebels, are distinct; the answer is, "Metaphysics! metaphysics! The will of God is the will of God; and if sinners in any sense act in accordance with any will of God, they are obedient; and he has no cause to find fault." Now did the liberal exposition of the ninth of Romans ever produce, in the whole history of man, the objection which it produced from the lips of Paul, and still produces as explained by evangelical ministers? Or did it ever produce from liberal lips, the reply, "Nay, but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God?"-We have only to say, that the Apostle's answer to the objection is the same, which evangelical men have always returned, "Who art thou, O man, that re

pliest against God?" Shall a being of yesterday arraign the conduct of his Maker? Shall a rebel sit in judgment upon his God? Are not men rebels, justly doomed to die; and, in reference to their character and condition as condemned criminals, all clay of the same lump? And is not the discretion of God to pardon or reprieve as absolute as that of the potter over his clay, to make one vessel to honor and another to dishonor? Do you object that the punishment threatened is unjust? But how could God make a vessel of mercy of one whose punishment would be unjust; or a vessel of wrath of one whose punishment would be undeserved? Do you call men impotent because I have compared them to clay; or assert that the sovereignty of God, in saving some, causes and renders unavoidable the destruction of them that perish? They perish for their crimes against law, who might have been executed without offers of pardon. They perish, who are able to accept the terms of pardon, for rejecting them. Nor are they cut down in haste. With much long suffering they are endured, while by despising the riches of the goodness of God, they fit themselves for destruction. Such is the evangelical reply; and such as we understand his language and argument, is the reply of Paul.

It was objected to the Gospel and conceded in the early age, that, few embraced it but the poor, and the common people. To the poor the Gospel is preached. Have any of the Scribes and Pharisees believed on him? The common people heard him gladly. Not many wise men after the fleshnot many mighty not many noble are called. Celsus, in the second century, exults in the fact, that so few in the higher classes of society had professed christianity, and pours contempt upon the cause as patronized only by mechanics and vulgar people.*

Now is it not notorious that the liberal system of doctrines, unpatronized by the civil power, has never been the religion of the common people in any country; but rather the religion of men of philosophical minds and literary habits: i. e. the

* Are there no attempts making to create an impression now, that the liberal system is patronized peculiarly by persons in high life, by men of taste and talents, of wealth and refinement, and that the opposite system is fast going down, to be the religion of the common people only and the poor?

evangelical system has been patronized chiefly by that class of society, which patronized the faith delivered to the saints; while the oposite system has relied for patronage more commonly on the arm of government, and that class of men in society who as a body rejected the gospel. A late writer of high reputation on the liberal side in this country says, "It is not to be doubted that, throughout our country, a very large proportion of those men, who for their talents and learning and virtues, have the most influence in the community, and have it in their power to do the most towards giving a right direction to the public feeling and the public sentiment, are dissatisfied with the Calvinistic and Trinitarian form, in which they have had religion presented to them; but are prevented from making a public avowal of their opinions, by an unwillingness to encounter opposition, and obloquy, and loss of confidence, and the power of being useful."* The evangelical system in this country is embraced then, by the same classes extensively, which embraced the Gospel; and is extensively disapproved by that class of men who rejected. the Gospel.

The faith delivered to the Saints occasioned a virulent hatred. It was not hatred of it as false, arising from an ardent love of truth. For Pharisees and Sadducees could tolerate each other; and Pagans could tolerate thirty thousand gods, with all their lust and blood.

And is not the evangelical system encountered by a virulence of opposition, in circumstances which show that it cannot arise from the love of truth or hatred of error. Nonę will pretend that the effects of the evangelical system are as deplorable as the effects of idolatry in its present forms. The evangelical system has produced no temple of impure resort; no gratifications of lust enjoined as acts of worship, no blood of human victims; no burning of widows or drowning infants; no self-inflicted penal tortures. And yet such is the hatred of many to the evangelical system, that they oppose deliberately, all attempts to extend it to the heathen; and on the ground avowedly, that they had rath

* Dr. Ware's letters to Trinitarians and Calvinists, pp. 146, 147.

er they would remain as they are than to adopt the evangelical system. In the face of all the absurdity and obscenity and blood of idolatry, not a few have declared, that they would not lift a finger to convert the whole pagan world to the evangelical faith, or words to that effect. They speak kindly of infidels, Mahometans and pagans, and fiercely of all which breathes the Spirit of the evangelical system. Such asperity, the faith delivered to the saints occasioned: and such asperity the evangelical system occasions.

The faith delivered to the saints produced a stricter morality than any cotemporaneous system. Whether this be true of the evangelical system is not to be decided by a comparison of the best characters on one side with the most defective on the other; or of individuals of acknowledged moral purity on both sides, of which it is admitted there are many.* Nor can the moral efficacy of the two systems be decided by the standard of public morality, where the evangelical system has prevailed in the early period of life and exerted its influence upon the conscience, and in the formation of moral habits; or where it still prevails to such an extent, as to exert a powerful modifying influence; and especially where the opposite system is of but recent public notoriety and of limited extent. Great moral causes do not produce their effects immediately; nor, upon every individual, exactly the same effect. Their tendency and efficacy is to be looked for in those communities, where the influence of the two systems has been the most unmingled and of the longest duration; and also in those obvious changes in a community, which, as one or the other prevails, become apparent. With these explanations in view, I remark that the superior moral efficacy of the evangelical system is a matter of unequivocal concession. In an article on predestination in the British Encyclopedia, written, it is said, by Robert Forsyth, Esq, a learned civilian, and an infidel, after giving an account of the Calvinistic and Arminian system, and the preference to the latter it is said, "There is one remark which we think ourselves in justice

*We desire all that is said on this subject to be understood with the same explanation which we have made on p, 8.

bound to make: It is this, that, from the earliest ages down to our own days, if we consider the character of the ancient stoics, the Jewish Essenes, the modern Calvinists, and Jansenists, compared with that of their antagonists the Epicurians, the Sadducees, the Arminians and the Jesuits; we shall find that they have excelled in no small degree in the practice of the most rigid and respectable virtues, and have been the highest honor to their own age, and the best models for imitation to every succeeding age." This is the testimony of a philosopher to the different moral effects of the two systems, from the time of Augustine at least to the present day.

Dr. Priestly, whose partiality for the evangelical system will not be suspected, says, that those who hold the evangelical doctrines "have less apparent conformity to the world and seem to have more of a real principle of religion." He says also, "Though Unitarian dissenters are not apt to entertain any doubt of the truth of their principles, they do not lay so much stress upon them as other Christians do upon theirs. Nor indeed is there any reason why they should, when they do not consider the holding of them to be at all necessary to salvation. They therefore, take much less pains to make proselytes, and are less concerned to inculcate their principles upon their children, their servants, and their dependents in general. From this principle it is, that great numbers, becoming Unitarians in the church of England, and even among the clergy, do not feel the impropriety and absurdity to say nothing more harsh, of continuing to countenance a mode of worship, which, if they were questioned about it, they would not deny to be according to their own principles, idolatrous and blasphemous. Such persons also having no zeal for speculative religion, merely because they have no zeal for religion in general; their moral conduct, though decent is not what is deemed strict and exemplary."*

but

In a periodical publication of high literary character, of decided and known partiality to infidel opinions,† we find * Discourses on various subjects, pp. 95, 96.

+ Edinburgh Review.