spised, or wantonly forfeited; but the election of the Calvinists is clogged with the dreadful dogmas of an unscriptural and terrible Reprobation, which might be compared to a well-known monster, "Prima Leo, postrema Draco, media ipsa Chimera." Its head is Free Wrath; its body, Unavoidable Sin; and its tail, Finished Damnation. In a word, our Election recommends God's free, distinguishing grace, without pouring any contempt on the holiness of Christ's precepts, the sanction of his law, the veracity of his threatenings, and the conditionality of his promises. And our Reprobation displays God's absolute Sovereignty, without sullying his mercy, impeaching his veracity, or disgracing his Justice. In a word, our Election doctrinally guards the throne of sovereign grace, and our Reprobation, that of sovereign Justice: But Calvinian Elec tion and Reprobation doctrinally overthrow both those thrones: Or if they are left standing, it is to allow Free Wrath to fill the throne of Justice, and unchaste, bloody Diana to step into the throne of Grace, whence she hints to Laodicean believers that they may with advantage commit adultery, murder, and incest; calling as many as take her horrid innuendoes, 'My love, my undefiled,' &c., and assuring them, that they shall never perish, and that all things (the most grievous sius not excepted) shall work for their good. THE FICTITIOUS CREED. ARTICLE VIII. " I BELIEVE that the love and favour of Him, with whom is no variableness nor shadow of turning, and whose gifts and callings are without repentance, may vary, change, and turn, every hour, and every moment, according to the behaviour of the creature." THE GENUINE CREED. ARTICLE VIII. 6 We believe that God's works were all originally very good, and that God did love or approve of them all as very good in their places. We maintain that some of God's works, such as some angels, and our first parents, by free avoidable disobedience, forfeited God's love or approbation. He approved or loved them while they continued righteous; and disapproved or hated them, when the bad use which they made of their free will deserved his disapprobation or hatred.-Again, we believe that God's absolute gifts and callings are without repentance. God never repented that he gave all mankind his paradisaical favour in Adam, and yet all mankind forfeited it by the fall.-God never repented that he called all his servants, and gave to every one' of them his talents, as he thought fit; and yet, when the wicked and slothful servant had buried' and forfeited his talent, God said, ' Take the talent from him!" Ouce more: We believe, that so certain as God is the gracious Creator and the righteous Judge of angels and men, the doctrines of divine grace and divine justice (or the two gospel axioms) are perfectly reconcileable; and that, of consequence, God can justly curse mankind with temporal death, after having blessed them with paradisaical life; and punish them in hell, after having blessed them a second time with initial salvation during their day of personal probation on earth. To deny this, is to deny that there are graves on earth, or torments in hell, for any of the children of men. Nevertheless we believe that there is no positive change in God. From eternity to eternity he is the same holy and faithful God; therefore he unchangeably 'loves righteousness and hates iniquity:' Apostacy in men or in angels does not imply any change in him; the change being only in the receptive disposition of his free willing creatures. If I make my eyes so sore that I cannot look with pleasure at the sun, or that its beams, which cheered me yesterday, give me pain to-day; this is no proof that the sun has changed its nature. The law that condemns a murderer absolves me now; but if I stab my neighbour in ten minutes, the same law that now absolves me, will in ten minutes condemn me.— Impossible! says Mr. Hill's scheme: "The law changes not." I grant it; but a free agent may change; and the law of liberty, which is but the transcript of God's eternal nature, is so ordered, that, without changing at all, it nevertheless treats all free agents according to their changes. The changes that God makes in the world do not change him; much less is he changed by the variations of free agents: Such variations indeed lay rebels and penitents open to a new aspect from the Deity; but that aspect was in the Deity before they laid themselves open to it. Fire, without changing its nature, melts wax and stiffens clay; now, if a rebel's heart absolutely hardens itself, so that it becomes like unyielding clay; or if a penitent's heart humbles itself so that it becomes like yielding wax, God changes not any more thau the fire, when he hardens the stiff rebel by resisting him, and melts the yielding penitent by giving him more grace, To understand this better, we must remember that God's eternal nature is to resist the proud and give grace to the humble;' and that when free grace, (which has appeared to all men,) assists us, we are as free to choose humility and life, as we are to choose pride and death when we dally with temptation, or indulge the natural depravity of our own hearts. Hence it follows, that the judicious difference which God makes when he alternately smiles and frowns, dispenses rewards and punishments, springs not from any altera. tion in his unchangeable nature; but from a change in the mutable will and behaviour of free agents;—a change this, which arises from their will freely resisting divine grace, if the alteration be for the worse; and from their will yielding without necessity to that grace, if the change be for the better. Nor are we any more ashamed to own man's free agency before a world of fatalists, than we are ashamed to say, ' Verily there is a reward for the righteous: Though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not be unpunished: Doubtless there is a God that judgeth the earth, and will render to every man according to his works; that is, according to his free will; works being our own works, only so far as they spring from our own free will. And we think that the opposite doctrine is one of the most absurd errors that ever disgraced Christiauity; and one of the most dangerous engines, which were ever invented in Babel to sap the walls of Jerusalem ;-a dreadful engine this, which, if it rested upon truth, would pour floods of disgrace on all the divine perfections; would overset the tribunal of the Judge of all the earth; and would raise upon the tremendous ruins the throne of the doctrinal idol of the day: I mean the spurious doctrine of grace, which I have sometimes called the great Diana of the Calvinists, because, like the great Diana of the Ephesians, it may pass at once for LUNA or finished salvation in Heaven, and for HECATE or finished damnation in hell. THE FICTITIOUS CREED. ARTICLE IX. "I BELIEVE that the seed of the word by which God's children are born again, is a corruptible seed; and that so far from enduring for ever, (as that mistaken apostle Peter rashly affirms,) it is frequently rooted out of the hearts of those in whom it is sown." THE GENUINE CREED. ARTICLE IX. 6 WE believe that the word or the truth of God is the divine seed, by which sinners are born again when they receive it, that is, when they believe; and this spiritual seed (as that enlightened apostle, Peter, justly affirms) endures for ever ;'—but not for Antinomian purposes;-not to say to fallen believers, in the very act of adultery or incest, My love! my undefiled!'—No, it'endures for ever,' as a seed of reviving or terrifying truth It endures for ever' as a two-edged sword to defend the righteous, or to wound the wicked; to protect obedient believers, or to pierce disobedient and obstinate unbelievers; it endures for ever' as a sweet' savour of life' to them that receive and keep it; and as a bitter savour of death' to them that never receive it, and to them that finally cast it away, and never bring forth fruit to perfection.' : 6 But although the seed of the word can never be lost with respect to both its effects, yet (as we have already observed) it is too frequently lost with regard to its more desirable effect: If Mr. Hill doubts of it, we refer him to the parable of the sower, where our Lord observes that the good seed was thus lost in three sorts of people out of four, merely through the want of co-operation or concurrence on the part of free will, which he calls good or bad ground, soft or stony ground,' &c., according to the good or bad choice it makes, and according to the steadiness or fickleness of that choice. And if Mr. Hill exclaim against the obvious meaning of so well-known a portion of the gospel, the world will easily see that, supposing his doctrine of grace deserves to be called chaste, when it prompts him to vindicate, as openly as he dares, the profitableness of adultery and incest to fallen believers; it by no meaus merits to be called devout, when it excites him |