means of the atonement, an honourable ground of pardon, and in publishing this ground and offering pardon to all, but to make provision still further for securing a certain amount of actual salvation from the atonement, by determining a special influence, of spiritual illumination and converting power, to an extent limited by his own sovereign pleasure, but embracing a “multitude which no man can number, out of all peoples, and kindreds, and nations, and tongues."-The questions relative to the speciality of the divine love to such, and of the divine purpose concerning them, in the making of the atonement,—on which a good deal of the present controversy has been made to turn,-I find it will be necessary still to postpone.-I shall begin next discourse with this point; and it will immediately and naturally lead me to the attempt I promised to make, at balancing accounts between the parties, and showing the extent of their agreement, and the extent of their difference. The question will then also come in for a brief notice,—whether the sovereign purpose of God respecting some makes any difference in the ground and the justice of the condemnation of others, or whether it operates, in any manner or in any degree, as a preventive of their salvation.

DISCOURSE V.

FURTHER REMARKS ON MORAL INABILITY.-DIVINE DECREES.-BEARING OF THESE ON THE DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT, AND ON HUMAN RESPONSIBILITY.-SUMMARY OF AGREEMENT AND DIFFERENCE.

GAL. I. 8, 9.-" BUT THOUGH WE, OR AN ANGEL FROM HEAVEN, PREACH

ANY OTHER GOSPEL UNTO YOU THAN THAT WHICH WE HAVE PREACHED UNTO

YOU, LET HIM BE ACCURSED. AS WE SAID BEFORE, SO SAY I NOW AGAIN, IF ANY MAN PREACH ANY OTHER GOSPEL UNTO YOU THAN THAT YE HAVE RECEIVED, LET HIM BE ACCURSED."

THE greater part of last Discourse, you may remember, was occupied, with the discussion of the question, in many views so important, respecting human ability and human inability, in the department of spiritual interests and spiritual duties; and especially in regard to compliance with the invitations of the gospel. It is a maxim of justice, self-evidently necessary for the vindication of the divine government in condemning for disobedience and unbelief, that some such ability there must be as to constitute a valid ground of accountableness; -inasmuch as, justice there can be none, in calling to account, and inflicting punishment, for not doing what there is no ability to do. I endeavoured to

show you that there is such ability; that there is all, in kind and in degree, that is necessary to render men legitimately responsible, both for their disobedience to the law and their rejection of the gospel; and that the only inability that is imputed to them in the word of God, or that is at all consistent with their being accountable agents, is the moral inability arising from, or rather, I would say, identical with, disinclination,-perversity of disposition,-aversion of heart;-nothing else, and nothing more. The discussion of this point was indispensable, from its intimate connexion with our previous representations of the atonement, or of the great mediatorial work of the Son of God, in its general aspect towards the world, as well as with the vindication of the divine glory in offering pardon and salvation on account of it, to sinners of mankind indiscriminately and universally.

Two things, as remarked, were manifestly requisite:-First,-a ground, in reference to God, on which pardon might be thus offered to all consistently with the honour of his character and government. That ground, we saw, consisted in atonement, and universal atonement; atonement, in order to its being offered to any,-universal atonement, in order to its being offered to all :Secondly, a ground in reference to MAN, on which, with divine authority, he might consistently be invited and commanded to accept it, and justly punished for the non-acceptance of it. This latter

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ground seems to me plainly to lie in the possession, on the part of man, of natural ability;— the possession, that is, of all the natural powers necessary for understanding and believing divine truth, and for receiving and enjoying divine blessings; so that, with regard to such reception and enjoyment, it might be truly affirmed of every gospel-hearer-he may, if he will;-the sole hindrance lying in the will, or, which is the same thing, in the disposition as influencing and determining its volitions.

Your time will not admit of further recapitulation.-Against such statements the outcry of pelagianism and arminianism will be raised by none but the ignorant and the inconsiderate. There is nothing in them either pelagian or arminian. And, if there were, I have long learned to make very light account of every imputation but that of antiscripturism. If the charge is brought against me of misrepresenting the inspired Apostles, I shall give it, with a deep consciousness of my liability to err, the gravest and most deliberate consideration; -but if the charge be that only of having given statements which are not in accordance with this or the other human system, I shall not count it worth my while to repudiate it; inasmuch as every man has the same right to form his own views of the doctrines contained in this book as the framers of those systems themselves had.

Well, then,-taking up the question on Bible

grounds, it may be asked and urged,—are not men said to be "dead in trespasses and sins ??'—and does it not fairly follow, that, in this state, they are as incapable of any spiritual exercise and action, as a dead man is of any of the functions of animal life?-I answer :-it is true that men are "dead in trespasses and sins;" and that there is some analogy between spiritual and natural death :—but the analogy has been pressed to a pernicious extreme,an extreme incapable of reconciliation with human responsibility, or with common sense. Allow me an additional remark or two on this point.-1. The death of which the apostle speaks in the passage referred to (Eph. ii. 1—3,) is a living death,—the death of a still intelligent, conscious, acting, and accountable agent :"Ye were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein, in time past, ye walked, according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience."-2. There are two senses in which the epithet "dead" may legitimately be understood. In the first place, it means dead in law; sentenced, doomed to death; on the same principle on which we are accustomed to speak of any felon on whom the verdict of capital delinquency has been pronounced, as by that verdict, which fixes the hour and ensures the certainty of his execution, a dead man:-and, in the second place, what is more to our present purpose, it signifies spiritually dead. But what is it to be spirit