we may It has, I think, been deemed the grossest Arminianism for a preacher to say, all be saved if we will;" but it seems perfectly consistent with the soundest Calvinism and plainest Scriptures, since nothing but a will is requisite to be made partakers of divine blessings. "Whosoever will, let him come and take of the waters of life freely." It is, morcover, as comfortable Calvinism to those who desire, above all things, to be saved, as that God hath no pleasure in the death of the sinner, but rather that he turn and live: for if they are truly willing, grace has made them so; and what is there to hinder their salvation, when God is as willing as they? This, however, it may be needful to remark, is more than a feeble, indolent, ineffective wish. It is that which originates in the power of God, and is effectual to all the purposes of subjection to his will, and delight in his service and ways; " for it is God that works in us both to will and to do;" though it is purely our work to oppose his will, by obeying our own. It will hence appear, that the above distinction is not so trifling and unimportant as some would have us believe; for it obviously enters into the composition of divine truth, and makes no inconsiderable part of our own experience. It is clear also, that sinners are not dead, in the sense of stones and posts; for then they would be as innocent as they, in the gratification of every evil propensity. Nor, in that case, would the Spirit of God have employed entreaties, warnings, expostulations, invitations, &c. to persuade and to overcome their prejudices, disinclinations, and aversions. It is more certain that spiritual death is described as a sleep, in which all the powers of the mind are entombed in ignorance and kept under the dominion of flesh; "for to be carnally minded is death." A death more nearly a-kin to that of the Devil, which consists in pride, hatred, enmity, and alienation of heart from God, than to that of a senseless log of wood. Thanks be to God if he hath conquered our hearts, and made us willing in the day of his power! for, like others, we were destroying ourselves, by willingly following the devices and desires of our own hearts, even when the light of Truth and strong convictions opposed us therein. H.K. CHRIST'S VICTORY OVER DEATH. Ir is appointed for all men once to die. This the curse of the law hath declared; "and no man hath power over the spirit to retain the spirit, neither hath he power in the day of death; and there is no discharge in that war." It is from Sin that * Death hath received his power, Sin arms him with vengeance CHRIST'S VICTORY OVER DEATH. 165 against the human race; and the divine law, which sentences to death, gives authority to the power he employs. "The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law." This enemy of man found not a match for his power but in him, who, though he fell in the combat, rose to die no more. Being God over all, blesssed for ever, Lord of life and of death, he possessed sufficiency of power to perfect and maintain his conquest over the King of Terrors. He displayed his authority and power, when with such case he did cast out Devils; and when, to the word of his mouth, he who had the power of Death submitted with such servile fear. But it was through Death he obtained a victory over this common enemy; and how it was thus obtained is of importance to enquire. In the fulness of time, God sent forth his Son, made of a wo man, made under the law. This law, under which he was made, subjected all the descendants of Adam to death, as the punishment of sin, to all that can be conceived miserable in the separation of soul and body, and in the separation of both from God, to lie under his vengeance in suffering the punishment due to their offences. The wages of Sin is Death." The demands of the law, which sentence man to death, are righteous and just; and must, in every iota, and to all their extent, be fully answered. When this is done, Justice is satisfied; and the law can demand no more. Our Lord Jesus Christ engaged to bear this curse, to subject himself to all that was in that death which the law threatened. He hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us. He who knew no sin, was made sin for us. The Lord laid on him the iniquities of us all; and when he placed himself under the law, guilty by imputation, it would not let him go till he had endured all the punishment due to his elect, and paid the utmost farthing which it exacted of them. The arrows of Death, dipped in the poison of the curse, stuck fast in him, wounded him to the soul, till he was sorrowful, even unto death. During his humbled life, and particularly toward the close of it, in the garden of Gethsemane and on the cross, he felt all the misery that can be conceived in being forsaken of God, and in enduring the outpourings of his wrath. Prior to the moment of his dissolution, he endured all that constituted the hell or misery which the accumu lated guilt of his elect deserved. Death, which, in the extensive sense of the law's threatening, included in it every penal evil, employed against him all its strength, wasted itself in the combat, and left him a powerful conqueror! There was inflicted on him all that was in the bitterness of Death, without his being destroyed. The weight of punishment he endured could not deprive him of life. The strength which Death employed against him could not subdue him: he survived it; he felt all that was in the punishment threatened, and honourably died a conqueror over Death, a voluntary death in obedience to the law, and His submission to death did not imply its dominion over him; for his resurrection from the dead demonstrated that he had overcome Death. As the separation of soul and body was part of the curse, to this he delivered himself as one who was able to effect that change, in obedience to the divine law, without being forced to submit to it, like others who die under the curse. Wicked men die under the curse; but their subjection to it is by constraint, and as of violence. Death executes the sentence on them in all its severity and terror: they are unwilling to submit to it, nor are they able to endure the punishment of sin contained in it. But when Christ died under the curse, his death was not by constraint, nor by force; his soul and body were not torn asunder, or separated in the reluctant agonies of horror and despair; for though he died, his death was an act of his own, in a voluntary and not a forced submission to the threatening, like others who die under the curse. In this, in a particular manner, including the expiation that was perfected by the shedding of his blood, does Christ's conquest over Death appear: be endured all deserved sufferings prior to the mere dissolution of his body, without these being able to deprive him of life! Death spent all his power upon him, till the law of God could permit it to do no more: then Christ said, "It is finished!" then he overcame Death; and when in possession of full strength, and to fulfil every part of the law, he deliberately, and by an exertion of his own power, disembodied his spirit, and commended it into the hands of his Father. He cried with a loud voice, and bowed the head, and gave up the ghost! Then was fulfilled his own saying, "I lay down my life; no man taketh it from me: I have power to lay it down, and power to take it again." His death was not in consequence of weakness, or of pain. To represent Christ as languishing to death under the pains of crucifixion, or dying from mere agony and suffering, derogates from his dignity and power, and gives a view of his death, which the Scriptures do not warrant us to entertain. That he felt anguish and pain cannot be doubted; but his death was not the effect of weakness or suffering, else it might be said, Death overcame and subdued him. Those wl o witnessed his crucifixion, saw that he died before his strength was exhausted; and when the centurion saw that he cried with a loud voice, like one possessed of full strength; and gave up the ghost, like one who had power to dispose of his own life, he was astonished; and said, Verily, this was a righteous man; this was the Son of God!" Why would Pilate, or any other, express their surprize that he was so soon dead, if he had died in the course of nature, under sufferings, like other men? or, Why did the soldiers come to put a peried to that life, which they expected, as in ordinary cases, would have continued much longer, if they had not thought CHRIST'S VICTORY OVER DEATH. that he could not so soon have expired? But the whole demonstrated that he had power to lay down his life; and that the King of Terrors, who had reigned from Adam, was completely foiled in this battle with the Captain of our Salvation! He displayed fully his power over death in his resurrection from the dead. No power could detain him whose strength was the strength of Omnipotence: no power could detain him in the grave, whom Divine Justice was bound to honour and release. "Him God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, for it was not possible that he should be holden of it." 1t was not possible, in strict justice, that he could be detained in the grave, having finished transgression, made an end of sin, and brought an everlasting righteousness, and fully satisfied all the demands of the divine law. Farther: He displays his victory over death in delivering his people from the power of it, in every respect in which it is said to reign; and will give a complete discovery of his victory over it in the resurrection of the dead: "By the word of his power, he will raise from their graves the numberless generations of men; some to the resurrection of life, and some to the resurrec"The earth and sea, and death and Hell, Then death, and tion of damnation." shall give up the dead which are in them." every resemblance of it, shall be utterly destroyed, and banished When this mortal shall put on imfrom his kingdom for ever. mortality, and this corruptible shall put on incorruption, then ADJUTOR. shall be fulfilled the saying that is written," Death is swallowed up in victory!". AN ORIGINAL LETTER FROM THE LATE MR. JOSEPH WILLIAMS, OF KIDDERMINSTER, TO A MINISTER OF HIS ACQUAINTANCE. Rev. and dear Sir, Kidderminster, July 6, 1754. I HAVE lately been reading as under. It is an extract from a sermon, preached before the reverend Presbytery of Newcastle, in one of our American colonics, October 11, 1752, by Mr. S. Davies, in Hanover, Virginia, who will perhaps call on us next month, on his return from Scotland. From Isaiah Ixii. 1," For Zion's sake, I will not hold my peace," &c. he takes occasion to mention some measures which the ministers of the gospel should pursue for the advancement of religion in the world. Particularly," saith he, " We should our public ministrations:" make proper preparations for and under this head, give me leave. Sir, to select here and there some of his remarks, viz. "A barren genius, diligently cultivated, will produce more useful fruits than the wild spontaneous productions of a luxurious genius suffered to run to waste; and the best foundation of learning laid in youth, will soon become a scene of desolation and ruin, unless the structure be carried on, and the wastes of Time repaired by diligent study during our after-life. "The success of our ministrations very much depends on the clearness and affectionate solemnity of our discourses. These must be clear to enlighten the mind, and solemn and pathetic to affect the heart. An over eager attention to the little niceties of accurate composition, does often enfeeble our discourses with those excessive refinements and languid delicacies, which are far less useful, as well as far less graceful, than the expatiating, extempore, irregular thoughts of a mind deeply impressed with eternal things. Let us, on the one hand, take care not to degrade the majestic truths of the gospel by an indecent and slovenly dress; and, on the other, not to divest them of their awful solemnity with pert theatrical levities and beauish gauderies. Let us not affect to extemporize to such an excess as to render our sermons a chaos of embrio-thoughts, maimed arguments, and rude expressions; or a huddle of passionate reveries, without matter or method: and let us not so scrupulously confine ourselves in public to the path we have laid out to ourselves in our studies, as to admit of no extempore amplifications, or occasional excursions; for it is attested, by the experience of all who have made the trial, that in the fervour of our public addresses, a variety of tender and passionate, and at the same time pertinent, thoughts will occur to us, which we might have sought in vain in the coolness of our private studies. "A warm heart has always a fruitful invention; and will spontaneouely suggest sentiments more striking to the populace, and even to hearers of taste, than our premeditated and laboured thoughts; and it would be a robbing our auditory of one of the best parts of their entertainment, to suppress these devout sallies and excursions of a transported heart, lest we should deviate a little from that insipid regularity with which we have planned our discourses. We all know that when a thought flashes upon our mind with unexpected suddenness, it affects us more than thosewhich are familiarized to us by frequent meditation; and hence the sudden irruptions of ideas on our minds, in our public discourses, enkindle the heart at once; and not only animate us at that moment, but diffuse a peculiar vigour and pathos through the remainder of our ministrations; and, therefore, such a rigid confinement to our notes, upon ordinary occasions, as denies us this advantageous and oratorical licence of expressing such extemporary thoughts, is an ungrateful imposition to a warm heart that would indulge its own ardour, and a great obstruction to the fervour and pathos of our delivery, and consequently to the |