attention of the inspired writers, who understood and observed it. This event, however, which engaged so much the thoughts of the apostle, is now only read of, and but little thought of or understood: the consequence is, losing sight of the proper occasion of these expressions, yet willing, according to the mode of interpretation alluded to, to adopt them to themselves; and finding nothing else, in their circumstances, that suits, persons who have adopted this mode of interpretation, have learnt to apply them to the final destiny of individuals at the day of judgment; and upon this foundation hath been erected a doctrine which seems to lay the axe at once to the root of all religion, namely, the doctrine of an absolute and unconditional appointment to salvation or to perdition, independently of ourselves: and, what is extraordinary, those very arguments and expressions which the apostle employed in the ninth, tenth, and eleventh chapters of his Epistle to the Romans, to vindicate the impartial mercies of God, against the narrow and excluding claims of Jewish prejudice, have been interpreted to

establish a dispensation the most arbitrary and partial that could have been devised.

The errors and vain disputes, therefore, that have arisen in the latter ages of Christianity, concerning election and reprobation, appear to have arisen from applying particular phrases or passages to particular persons, which originally referred to the state and condition not of ticular persons, but of whole churches, in their collective capacities. Thus the body of heathens, whilst in their heathen state, are called

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par

aliens, strangers, enemies to God;" but such of them as were converted, who composed the churches to whom the apostles wrote, are styled "no longer strangers, but of the house-; hold of God; a chosen or elected generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people; as justified, as sanctified, and as saints.”

Again, the major part of the Jewish nation, who obstinately rejected the gospel of Christ, instead of being any longer "the holy nation, the people of God," are called "the vessels of wrath," fitted by their own obstinacy for destruction, and therefore reprobate; whilst the

believing Jews became vessels of mercy, foreordained to be called into the kingdom or covenant of the gospel, and chosen to eternal life,

in consequence of their belief. No private

persons are ever mentioned as elected to, or reprobated from eternal life, by any absolute and unconditional decree of God. Paul, indeed, was "a chosen vessel," but he was chosen as a proper instrument of Christ's gospel, to bear his name to the Gentiles. His being chosen to the crown of life hereafter, was the fruit of his earnest endeavours to keep the faith, as he himself tells us: "For I keep under," saith he, "my body, and bring it into subjection; lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway."

In the same manner, likewise, with respect to the case of Pharaoh, when it is said that God "hardened his heart," and raised him up to display his power; it is evident, from the eighth chapter of Exodus, the 15th, 19th, and 32d verses; and from the ninth chapter, and the 34th verse, and from the tenth chapter, and the 3d verse, as well as from the permis

sive sense in which the Hebrew word is used, and from the circumstances connected with his history, that it cannot mean that God reprobated Pharaoh, and predestinated him to wickedness and misery, by any absolute and unconditional decree from eternity; but that Pharaoh's own obstinate wickedness made him worthy to be judicially hardened, and a fit person to be raised up by Providence for the manifestation of God's glory, in his exemplary destruction.

The same remarks will also apply to Judas Iscariot; and it will be found, by an attentive examination of the nature and phraseology of Scripture, that all those passages in which God seems at any time to be represented as

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blinding men's eyes," as "closing their ears," as "hardening their hearts," or as " taking away from them their understanding," must of necessity be understood as figurative expressions only; not denoting, literally, what God actually effects by his power, but what, by his Providence, he justly and wisely permits. The most that is ever literally and strictly ascribed

to God, is his threatening to leave, in a judicial manner, those that are incorrigible unto themselves.

From the discussion of this subject we may therefore learn, secondly, in reference to what hath been said respecting the absolute sovereignty and dominion of God, that we must at all times be most careful to confine our ideas of the exercise of this sovereignty and dominion, to the conferring or the withholding the divine favours, and not to extend them to an unconditional infliction of future punishment, lest we should found upon the absolute sovereignty and dominion of God, decrees of reprobation and future punishment, neither consistent with the responsibility of man nor with the perfections of the Divine Being. To imagine for a moment that that Being, who in scripture is described as "the Lord God, merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abundant in lovingkindness and truth; who delighteth not in the death of a sinner; whose tender mercies are over all his works; and who would have all men to be saved." To imagine for a moment that this Being, thus described, whose glory