fell upon their faces, and blessed him who was, who is, and who is to come, because he had TAKEN TO HIM HIS GREAT POWER AND REIGNED.*

But if the Spirit of God is not the cause why one sinner believes in Christ rather than another, then he is not the cause why there are more believers at one period of time than at another. And if so, to what purpose are either the promises or prayers before cited? As to the former, however strong they speak of latter-day glory, and of God's taking to him his great power, and reigning, they are, after all, mere predictions of what will be, rather than promises of what shall be. The same may be said of the promises concerning the success of the gospel after Christ's ascension. As to the latter, to what purpose was it to pray for what they already had? They had a gospel adapted to the condition of lost sinners; and as to divine grace, if any thing of that kind is necessary to a reception of it, their hearers are supposed to have had a sufficiency of it already bestowed upon them, otherwise it had been a mockery to address them. Now, if things are so, might not the apostles have expected some such an answer to their prayers as was given to Dives? "They have Moses and the prophets, yea Christ and the apostles, let them hear them; I have given them grace sufficient already; I shall do nothing more in order to their conversion, nothing at all until they have believed."

* Rev. xi. 15, 16, 17.

III. The scriptures represent God as having a determinate design in his goings forth in a way of grace, a design which shall never be frustrated.-My counsel, saith the Lord, shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure. I will work, and who shall let it? In the sending forth of his gospel particularly he speaks on this wise, "For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater: so shall my word be that goeth forth out my mouth, it shall not return unto me void; but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it."*But the scheme of P. if I understand it, supposes no such design. On the contrary, it supposes that God in sending his Son into the world, and the gospel of salvation by him, never absolutely determined the salvation of one soul; that notwithstanding any provision which he had made to the contrary, the whole world, after all, might have eternally perished. The Son of God might never have seen of the travel of his soul, the gospel might have been a universal savor of death unto death, and the whole harvest of the divine proceedings an heap in the day of grief, and of desperate sorrow!

To say that God designed to save believers, and therefore his design is not frustrated, is to say true,

* Isai. xlvi. 10. xliii. 13. lv. 10, 11.

but not sufficient. For how if there had been no believers to save? And there might have been none at all according to this scheme; and so, instead of the serpent's head being bruised by the seed of the woman, Satan might at last have come off triumphant; and the creator, the redeemer, and the sanctifier of men, might have been baffled in all the works of their hands!

IV. The characters of the converted, during their carnal state, is frequently such as proves that their conversion is to be ascribed to sovereign, discriminating, and efficacious grace. It is not owing to any excellency in the objects, either natural or moral, that they are converted rather than others. The apostle appeals to the Corinthians, in respect of the former kind of excellencies-" For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God hath chosen the foolish-the weak-and the base things of this world, to confound the wise; the mighty, &c. And all this is said to be, "That no flesh should glory in his presence. But OF HIM, continues the apostle, ARE YE IN CHRIST JESUS, who of God is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption; that he that glorieth may glory in the Lord."*

God bestows converting grace without any respect to moral qualities, The chief of sinners are frequent

* 1 Cor. i. 26.

ly brought to believe in Christ before others who are far behind them in iniquity. Numberless examples might be produced of this; I shall only instance in the cases of those two famous, or rather infamous cities, Jerusalem and Corinth. The one had been guilty of shedding the Redeemer's blood, and the other was a sink of abominations. And yet there were more believers in these cities than in almost any other. How this can be accounted for, but upon the supposition of sovereign and invincible grace, is difficult to say. For whether the depravity of man is sufficient to overcome any grace that is not invincible, or no, it will be allowed surely to have a tendency that way. And if so, one should think, the greater the depravity of any man is, the more improbable must be his conversion. The worst of sinners, therefore, believing before others, appears to be altogether inexplicable upon the scheme here opposed: but to sovereign and omnipotent grace every mountain becomes a plain; and to this the conversions in both these cities are attributed in scripture. Of the one it was promised, "Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power." As to the other, they were afterwards reminded that though they had been of the worst of characters; yet now they were washed,and sanctified by the Spirit of God. And before their conversion, the apostle was encouraged in preaching by this testimony, I have much people in this city!*

*

* Psal. cx. 3. 1 Cor. vi. 2. Acts xviii. 10.

V. The scriptures represent the grace given by the Holy Spirit, as being effectual; or as producing certain, and abiding effects. One great difference between the covenant made with the whole nation of Israel at Sinai, and that which God promised to make with his elect under the gospel, appears to consist in this, that the former only propounded things by way of moral suasion; but the latter not only admits of this, but provides for its becoming effectual. "Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers-which covenant they brakeBut this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people."* This seems to constitute one essential difference between the law and the gospel, on account of which the one is called the letter, and the other the spirit. The one is a mere inefficient rule of right and wrong; the other makes provision for the bestowment of the Holy Spirit. It is observable also that these promises which respect the first beginning of real good in the soul, are in every respect absolute. When promises are made of things which follow after our believing, they are generally, if not always connected with something good in the subject; thus

* Jer. xxxi. 31, 32, 33,