Without saying one word concerning the truth of this doctrine, let us turn our thoughts for a moment to its characteristics and tendency. In what light does it represent the Deity? And what encouragement does it afford to piety, love and obedience in men? The answer to these questions is so extremeobvious, that a few short hints will be sufficient.

In the first place, it takes away every vestige of the divine goodness, which is the fountain of all the moral attributes in God, as well as the primary cause of the moral nature and duties of man. That God is no respecter of persons, but regards all his creatures with the same parental tenderness, is the great cause why they owe him submission, gratitude, praise, and devotion. The scheme of predestination annihilates this holiest of his attributes, and clothes him with the habiliments of a partial, capricious Being, a respecter of persons, showering blessings on a certain selected portion of his creatures, and entailing endless misery on the rest, without reference to any thing they have done, or could do. Light and darkness are not more opposite, than are the traits of such a character to the perfections of a God of infinite goodness.

Again, if God creates wicked natures in men, or what is precisely the same thing, if he so creates men that they are obliged to sin, or decrees from all eternity that they shall sin, and then punishes them for their guilt, he becomes literally the author of sin, and inflicts punishments for deeds, which he made it necessary to commit. If men are reprobate

by the appointment of God, they are so by a law, which it would be rebellion in them to resist; and if he has decreed, that all their thoughts and actions shall be wicked, they sin against divine law whenever they think a good thought, or perform a virtuous act. This is what is meant, I suppose, when we are told, that the prayers of the unregenerate are an abomination in the sight of God. It is because he has willed, that they shall be wicked, and prayer is an attempt at holiness in opposition to his will. This is perfectly consistent with the doctrine, and proves God to be the author of sin, although he threatens a terrible punishment on the offender.

I know it has been said by some, who are willing to sacrifice consistency to a show of reason, that God does not act with compulsion over the nonelect; he simply passes them by, and permits them to be ruined. He decrees salvation to some, and does not prevent the remainder from perishing. This sophistry is too shallow to merit a serious reply, and only shows the embarrassments in which the friends of the doctrine are involved, when they would reconcile it with the attributes of God, and the common sense of mankind. Calvin is more bold and consistent. He declares that whom God passes by he reprobates; quos Deus praeterit reprobat. The divine will and character are equally concerned in the decree of salvation to some, and of perdition to others, and God is just as much the author of the sins by which the wicked are condemned, as he is of the means by which the righteous are saved.

This scheme, also, represents God as acting an insincere part. He commands men to obey his laws, threatens punishment to disobedience, calls to repentance, and promises pardon to such as will listen; and all this at the same time that he has foreordained the ruin of the very creatures whom he thus endeavours to influence by motives! Is it said, that he speaks to the elect only, in the precepts, admonitions, commands, and encouragements of his word? This removes no difficulty. Why threaten or persuade the elect? Their destiny is fixed, and to threaten them with punishment or proclaim the necessity of repentance, is deception. The case is aggravated when applied to the reprobate. To preach repentance and a promise of pardon to them, is not only a cruel deception, but a mocking of their wretchedness.

If all acts and dispositions are decreed, men are not moral agents, nor accountable beings. Why then should they be judged by laws, which they have no power to obey? God has declared, that he will judge all men according to their deeds, but such a judgment, on the principles of election and reprobation, would be an excess of injustice, a refinement of cruelty, which can be supposed to exist only in a being, who delights to practise evil, and inflict misery.

With such views of the everlasting God, as this doctrine presents to us, where shall the mind seek for motives of piety? In alluding to this subject, Tillotson has well observed, that "Men cannot easily have a blacker thought of God, than to imagine that he hath, from all eternity, carried on a secret

design to circumvent the greatest part of men into destruction, and underhand to draw men into a plot against heaven, that by this unworthy practice he may raise a revenue of glory to his justice. Shall we attribute that to the best Being in the world, which we would detest and abominate in ourselves."* What is left in such a Being to praise, adore, love, or imitate? Whoever would make the notion of election and reprobation a ruling principle of his devotions, can have no other feelings than those of dread and horror of a Being, who delights to bestow torments and misery on those, to whom he has given no ability to gain his favour, and no power to escape the fury of his wrath. Love and reverence cannot mingle with such devotions; never can the humbled transgressor lift to heaven the eye of contrition, and plead for the mercy of a compassionate Father; the voice of praise will sound in vain, and the tears of penitence will flow unheeded. Heaven and earth, man and nature, the past and the future, are all bound in the indissoluble chains of destiny. The decrees of God are not to be broken, and he has ordained happiness to a part, and wretched

Tillotson's Sermons, Vol. VIII, p. 3408.

On another occasion Tillotson says;

"The doctrine of absolute reprobation is no part of the doctrine of the holy Scriptures, that ever I could find; and there's the rule of our faith. If some great divines have held this doctrine not in opposition to the goodness of God, but hoping they may be reconciled together, let them do it if they can; but if they cannot, rather let the schools of the greatest divines be called in question, than the goodness of God, which, next to his being, is the greatest and clearest truth in the world." Ibid. Vol. VIII, p. 3564.

ness to the remainder. Prayers will avail nothing, and why should they be wasted? Towards such a Being, no incense of piety can arise from the virtu ous heart; and if it could, it would be an unmeaning, vain, and useless oblation.

It will be seen, also, that, the doctrine has not a better tendency to promote the personal virtues, and regulate the conduct of men towards each other. Whoever can summon so much self assurance as to rank himself among the elect, who are favoured of God infinitely above the great mass of his fellow creatures, must have a stronger control over the predominant feelings of human nature than is generally exhibited, not sometimes to let his spiritual pride shoot above his surrounding virtues, and to look with a compassion approaching contempt on the unfortunate outcasts, thus forever excluded from the mercy of their Maker.

Nor can it be thought very strange that such persons should imagine little respect, or comity, or affection due from them to that degraded portion of their race, whom God himself has plunged into a gulf of perdition, even beyond the reach of infinite mercy. Would it be the part of duty, nay, would it not be an indignity to the great Jehovah, to regard with complacency the beings on whom he has denounced an irrevocable curse? Such must certainly be the feelings of a person, who believes he has been redeemed from all iniquity by the merits of Christ, and that much the larger part of mankind are reprobates. Ought he to love those, whom God will never love,