Did Chrift come into the world, that the world might be faved? For judgment likewise he came into the world. Was he the light of the world? This alfo was the condemnation, that light came into the world. Does he intercede for the elect? He intercedes against the non-elect; as appears from many places in Pfalms. Does profperity make Chriftians more thankful and benevolent? It makes finners more thoughtless and selfish. Did afflictions make Job and David more humble and obedient? They had a contrary effect upon Pharaoh.

In view of this fentiment how invaluable does the Bible appear. Men are too blind ever to learn this truth from the light of nature. But the Bible teaches it in the plainest manner. The Bible alone affures Chriftians, that all things are theirs. The Bible alone can afford folid foundation for rational hope and joy in the darkest and most diftreffing hour.

REMARKABLE PROVIDENCE,

GENTLEMEN,

To the Editors of the Massachusetts M. Magazine.

BEING, not long fince, at the houfe of a Chriftian friend, in one of the populous towns in the State of Rhode-Ifland, he related to me the following incident, which took place in his family; which, if you think worthy of public notice, you will pleafe to infert in your en tertaining and inftructive Magazine. THEOPHILUS.

HERE being fome fpecial attention to religion in the

friends in his parlour, on an evening the winter past, with whom he spent the time in religious converfation. After the company had withdrawn, Mr. H. called his family into the keeping room, as ufual, to attend family devotion. After which, Mrs. H. who had, a few days before, been made a hopeful fubject of renewing grace, retired alone to the parlour for the purpose of performing the too much neglected duty of fecret prayer. As fhe opened the door, fhe found the room in a blaze. A brand had rolled out, and caught the floor on fire; and the house muft, in all probability, have been reduced to afhes in a few minutes, had not this timely and providential difcovery been made. Were not the inhabitants faved fo as by fire, in confequence of the attention of this person to fecret prayer? Let us watch and pray, and pray and watch.

The Editors wifh for more of Theophilus' labours,

ter.

ON THE IXth OF ROMANS.

Tis by attending to felect paffages of the word of God, and religious fentiment is to be collected, claiming authority from the infallibility of divine revelation. A confiderable part of the chapter we are about commenting upon, is adduced by Calvinilts, as forming a main pillar in that pian of doctrine, which they embrace in oppofition to Arminians. And if they have actually hit upon the true fpirit and meaning of the apoftle's difcourfe, it is prefumed that none will pretend but their conclufions have a folid foundation in the word of God. It is well known, that election and reprobation are among the principal topics, upon which the oppofers of Calvinism diffent from its abettors. And it is to be confeffed, that the latter depend for much of their ftrength, upon the Epiftle to the Romans, that part of it particularly, which comes within the ixth chapNot that other parts of the facred writings are, by any means, acknowledged to be deftitute of the like kind of mate-. rials. Language fimilar to that of the apoftle Paul is used by all the other infpired penmen upon these diftinguishing points; fo that, if Calvinifts have, in juftice, the advantage of their antagonis, in what they quote from Paul in the chapter before us, the fuccefs of the controverfy will, no doubt, be adjudged to them. An impartial attempt, at leaft, is, I hope, now about to be made, by examining the apoftle's ftatements, to come to an incontrovertible decifion upon the great object and drift of his difcourfe. To exhibit any great fpecimen of ingenuity or clearness of reafoning is not what the writer of this has much in his expectation. And whether any thing pertinent in the following obfervations is exhibited in a point of light, not perfectly familiar to the minds of readers in general, is fubmitted. A hope of being able to do fomething that may be useful, prompts to the prefent undertaking. From a frequent and careful perufal of the chapter, not excluding from the account other portions of the epistle, it has become exceedingly evident in my mind, that the apoftle is aiming to point out and prove an effential difference between faints and finners, depending folely on the fovereign and eternal purpose of God; and confequently, that fome are raifed up to be veffels of mercy, and others veffels of wrath, and that too without any thing in themfelves previously determining or leading to it. The apoftle himself takes his premifes chiefly from facts recorded in the Old Testament, and from them deduces the doctrine he is endeavouring to eftablifh.

His attention feems to be drawn to the fubject by his affection for the Jews, and his inquiries into the nature of their fituation.

uation. He profeffes to be tenderly affected and forely griev ed with the obftinacy of their unbelief; with their madness in wifhing themfelves accurfed from Chrift, as had once been the cafe with himself. But while he is bewailing the great unhappinefs of that people, to whom he himself stood fo nearly related, he feems, by a fudden turn of recollection, to be fmitten with a conscioufnefs of doing injuftice to the fubject, as if he were fixing them all in that unbelief, which was true only of a part. "Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect. For they are not all Ifrael that are of Ifrael." Here he adverts to a diftinction between real Ifraelites, and those who are nominally fuch, and have no intereft in the peculiar blessings of the church, And having made this diftinction, which muft be acknowledged a just one, because many of that nation had become believers, while the great body of them continued in infidelity, he is naturally induced to proceed and show the grounds of it. In doing this, the field of argument opens before him, as it appears in the fequel of his difcourfe. That a part of the Jewish nation embraced the Saviour, while the great multitude of them rejected him, is to be traced to the fame caufe with the like difference in other portions of the human race. The cafes ftated, and the inferences drawn, admit therefore of a general application; and the manifeft intent of them is to illuftrate and fortify the pofition, that those who obtain the kingdom of heaven, and thofe who perifh in the kingdom of darkness, meet their respective deftinies, agreeably to the eternal counfel, and under the fovereign control of the divine being. Some are made fubjects of mercy, and others fixed in fpiritual hardnefs and unbelief, as the fovereign purpose of God has ordained. That this is the doctrine contended for by the apostle, I fhall labour to evince by taking a view of the feveral cafes adduced by him, and confidering the objections he himself has taken notice of, as urged against the reafoning he had adopted. By treating the fubject with fo much labour and minutenefs he would feem to have put no small advantage into our hands to become acquainted with the great object and bent of his arguing. He begins with the promife made to Abraham, in which the feed, contemplated in the covenant, is limited to Ifaac, to the exclufion of the fon by the bond-maid. The ufe he would make of the diftinction, viz. that they are not all Ifrael which are of Ifrael, &c. is, evidently, to fhow, that there is fomething in the divine mind, beyond what is perceived by man, which determines the purposes of grace in favour of fome rather than of others. God was engaged to Abraham, by covenant, to bestow fignal bleffings upon him, in regard to his feed. But the whole of his feed was not comprised in the perfon of Ifaac. He had one fon, who had made confiderable progress

towards

towards manhood, when Ifaac was born. Why might not the promise have been fulfilled in him? for it was manifeftly with a view to this, that Sarah gave her handmaid into the bosom of her husband. God was able, no doubt, to have raised up Abraham's first born for all thofe good purposes that were eventually fulfilled in Ifaac. No man alive can tell why thmael might not have become as fit a subject of the promise, had he been chofen of God for this end, as Ifaac; and yet it was the pleasure of God, unmoved by any thing that then, or afterwards appeared in either of thofe perfons, to fix his love on the latter. Therefore, it was faid: "In Ifaac thall thy feed be called." They were both the feed of Abraham, to whom the promise was made; and, in this respect, stood on equal ground. They were equal too, in respect to personal defert; for neither of them had a being when the purpose and promife of God were firft expreffed. But, notwithstanding all this, one was taken and the other left. This very determinately expreffes the fovereignty of God's electing mercy: but as if more might be faid to put the matter in a strong and convincing point of light, the apoftle proceeds: "And not only this, but when Rebecca alfo had conceived by one, even by our father Ifaac, (for the children being not yet born, heither having done any good or evil, that the purpofe of God according to election might ftand, not of works, but of him that calleth) It was faid unto her, The elder fhall ferve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Efau have I hated." If any doubts remain after candidly and fairly attending to the former cafe, they muft, one would think, be removed by a due and impartial confideration of the prefent. The apostle is, evidently, not shifting his subject, when he calls up a freth example for illuftration, as in the words laft quoted. It is ftill his object to make a plain and forcible exhibition of the doctrine of the divine fovereignty in putting a difference between perfons, who differ only in confequence of a previous divine appointment. If this be not his object, it is hard to conceive how the cafe now under confideration can be in point. Let us here come to a close inspection of the fact argued from, and the confequence drawn, that we may happily attain to an uniformity of fentiment with the infpired apoftle. The fact is on record in the xxvth chap. of Genefis, where it is stated, that when Rebecca went to inquire of the Lord relative to her peculiar fituation, "The Lord faid unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people fhall be feparated from thy bowels; and the one people fhall be ftronger than the other people; and the elder fhall ferve the younger."

It now remains to inquire for what purpofe the apostle has adduced this article of patriarchal hiftory. And if, in forming a judgment,

a judgment, we are influenced only by a ftrict regard to the manner in which he has treated the fubject, we shall scarcely be in any danger of coming to different conclufions. His difcourfe is too fimple and plain to leave his meaning uncertain or ambiguous, unless prepoffeffion be allowed to tyrannize over the mind, and bias its decifions. The apoftle tells us, exprefsly, that what was declared to Rebecca concerning her children before they were born, had refpect to the fovereign purpose and election of God in the matter. One was chofen and the other rejected; one was loved and the other hated; not because one had done better or worse than the other, for neither of them was confidered as having done either good or evil. No respect was had to any thing, either praife or blame worthy, that could be reckoned to the account of either of them. This is the apostle's reprefentation; and the difference put between them at fo early a period, even before they were born, or had done any thing to merit either favours or frowns from the Divine Being, he predicates of that purpose, or election, which God puts forth without regard to works. In the counfels of God the younger was ranked before the elder, not because the elder had done any thing to forfeit his birth-right; for the election of grace takes nothing of this kind into view, elfe, what is inferted by the apostle could not be true, that it is not of works, but of him that calleth.

God's choice is antecedent to the works of the creature of whatever kind, and confequently is not influenced by them. This is the plain, unequivocal language of the apostle in the words before us. Thofe, who think otherwife, evade this conftruction (if construction that may be called which is fo perfpicuous and explicit) by pleading that the divine prediction to Rebecca, relative to her two fons, does not at all respect their private perfons, but their pofterity only, and that in a collective view. The principle affumed and proceeded upon is, that the cafe is effentially different, whether collective bodies of men or nations be confidered as the fubjects of a divine predeftination, or the fame be fuppofed of individuals. But if the purpofe of God has relation to fpiritual things, (and it is about fuch that the apoftle is treating) it is hard to conceive what material difference there is in the cafe, whether the fubject of God's election be a fingle man or a multitude. Let this be as it may, the apostle is either speaking exclufively of the two individuals named, or extends his reafoning to the nations they refpectively reprefent, as if the purpose of God affected them in the fame manner it docs individuals. This appears from the care he takes to preclude the idea, that God's determinations concerning Jacob and Efau, might have been formed out of refpect to their doings. There could have been no propriety No. 2. Vol. III.

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