those whom God hath predestinated unto life, and those only, he is pleased in his appointed and accepted time, effectually to call, by his word and Spirit, out of that state of sin and death, in which they are by nature, to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ; enlightening their minds spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God; taking away their heart of stone, and giving unto them an heart of flesh; renewing their wills, and by his Almighty power determining them to that which is good; and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ; yet so as they come most freely, being made willing by his grace. This effectual call is of God's free and special grace alone, not from any thing at all foreseen in man; who is altogether passive therein, until being quickened and renewed by the Holy Spirit he is thereby enabled to answer this call, and to embrace the grace offered and conveyed in it. Elect infants, dying in infancy, are regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit, who worketh when and where and how he pleaseth. So also are all other elect persons, who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the word, others, not elected, although they may be called by the ministry of the word, and may have some common operations of the Spirit, yet they never truly come unto Christ, and therefore, cannot be saved; much less, can men not professing the Christian religion be saved in any other way whatsoever, be they never so diligent to frame their lives according to the light of nature and the

law of that religion they do profess; and to assert and maintain that they may, is very pernicious, and to be detested."

Lest it should be said that we are combating the dogmas of a by-gone age, I would remind you that the doctrines we have stated, are found in the Public Standards of the Presbyterian Church of the United States, and the Articles of the Episcopal Church of this country. I will likewise subjoin some of the statements of the ablest defenders of this system at different periods. President Edwards of Princeton, has the following expression in his works. "So long as men are in their natural state, they not only have no good thing, but it is impossible they should have or do any good thing." Man is "not susceptible of the things of the Spirit of God, because they are not discerned by means of any principle in nature, but altogether by a principle that is divine, something introduced by the grace of God's holy Spirit, which is above all that is natural." "The power of the enmity of natural man against God is so great that it is insuperable by any finite power." "Natural men cannot overcome their own enmity, let them strive never so much with their own hearts." Thomas Scott, whose commentary on the Bible has been circulated so industriously and so widely in this country and in England, has in one of his notes the following passages: "Man by nature is unholy, and cannot relish or even discern the excellency of true religion." “He can neither repent, submit, believe, love nor obey,

but must remain a rebel, an enemy." "He must be inwardly and effectually changed, before he can understand the nature and glory of the Gospel. "The new birth must precede all the actions of the spiritual life; till that has taken place, the man can neither see, hear, speak, walk, nor work in a spiritual manner." In this new birth "a real creation is effected by his (God's) omnipotence. The regenerated sinner has the substance of all holy dispositions communicated to his soul." In the sermons of Henry Martyn, late missionary to the East, a widely received writer, is found the following passage: "There is in the dead body no power to return to life; neither is there in the soul any ability to attain a spiritual life, or the exercise of holy affection toward God.” "There is in the dead body no spark of life, that time or care may fan into a flame; it will remain a corpse; nothing but the power of God can raise it from the dead. In like manner there is in the natural man no latent principle of spiritual life;" "a change" must be "wrought in him by an eternal agent, life put into him by the Spirit of God."

It is useless any further to multiply quotations. The import of what we have already given is too plain to be mistaken. The Westminster Confession asserts in so many words that the soul of man "is altogether passive in regeneration, that man cannot by any thing he can do even "prepare himself thereunto," that is, do any thing that will make it more proper for God to regenerate him than any other person who has done nothing at all. Some of the

private authorities we cited carry this doctrine out to a still greater fulness of statement. Edwards says, that there must be "a principle that is divine, something introduced by the grace of God's holy Spirit, which is above all that is natural." Scott says, in this new birth "a real creation is effected by his (God's) omnipotence." "The new birth must precede all the actions of the spiritual life." Henry Martyn says, "In the natural man there is no latent principle of spiritual life," except there be a superadded principle from above, any more than there is life in a dead body; for either to return to life, requires an effort of the same almighty power.

Is it any wonder that the Bible is thrown away with contempt, notwithstanding all that is touching, and heavenly, and true in its pages, when its cause is identified with doctrines so paradoxical and revolting, I was going to say inconsistent with each other, but I should say consistent, horribly consistent with each other! It is a part of one consistent system, which stripping God of mercy and man of freedom, reduces the whole universe to a dreary despotism, and subjects both God and man to a relentless and inexorable fate, which sweeps on with stern and irresistible sway over all beings and all events, through the ceaseless ages of duration.

We object to this doctrine of the mind being passive in regeneration, that it is an atrocious libel on the moral character of God, and if true, destroys his attributes of justice and goodness, makes it impossible for us to love or adore him, and ab

solves us from all allegiance to his throne, except that of mere power and compulsion. It represents him as requiring from men, what he does not give them the power to perform, and then punishing them with the utmost severity because they do not comply. It is representing him as punishing mankind because he did not change their natures. Those who are passed by and left to perish in their sins, suffer forever in consequence, not of their own neglect to do any thing which they might have done, but in consequence of the neglect of God to do what he alone could do; for this doctrine asserts that before regeneration every act is sinful, and it is impossible that it should be otherwise, and therefore there is nothing, which a man can do, which will have the least effect in inducing God to change his nature. Now this is the very essence of a tyranny, and whoever proves that to be the character of the God of the Scriptures, proves it to be a virtue instead of a crime to reject them as a standard of morality and religion; makes it a virtue to turn to that Deity, which the mind forms to itself, out of the elements of truth and beauty and goodness, which it finds in its own nature, and scattered throughout the universe.

We object, in the second place, to this system of passive regeneration that it is inconsistent with, and destroys the moral nature of man. It makes man in the state of nature, to be not in a state of probation. He has no choice between good and evil. He cannot, from the very constitution of his nature,