TESTIMONIES OF ELECTION. 255 worketh all things after the counsel of his own will. Can stronger language or fuller be used than this? EPH. ii. 5, 10. The election of God is the great display of free and sovereign grace; nor can the salva tion be ascribed so completely to grace on any other principles. iii. 11, 21. God's purposes are eternal purposes in Christ, containing all spiritual blessings in time and to eternity. PHIL. iv. 5. Whose names are in the book of life? Those whom God hath chosen from the beginning unto salvation. COL. iii. 12. Put on as the elect of God, holy and beloved. 1 THES. i. 4. Knowing, brethren, beloved, your election of God. iii. 3. Appointed thereunto. v. 9. Not appointed to wrath; but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 THESS. ii. 13, 14. Cause for thanksgiving: that God hath, from the beginning, chosen you unto salvation. To the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ; the end is as sure as the beginning. 1 TIM. v. 21. So there are elect angels as well as men. 2 TIM. i. 9. Saved, &c. 'according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus, before the world began. ii. 10. Why did Paul endure all things? For the elect's sake. What will they obtain Salvation in Jesus Christ, with eternal glory! ii. 19. The sure foundation. The Lord knoweth them that are his. TITUS i. 1. According to the faith of God's elect, in hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began. HEB. vi. 17. To the heirs of promise, God's counsels are immutable. viii. 10. God's covenant. I will be their God, and they shall be my people. I will put my laws into their minds, and write them in their hearts. JAMES i. 18. What were the first fruits? God's portion, begotten of his own will. ii. 5. Hath not God chosen the poor of this world, &c. Father, for so seemeth it good in thy sight." "Even so, 1 PET. i. 2. Elect, according to the fore-knowledge of God, &c. i. 4. To an inheritance incorruptible, &c. i. 5. Kept by the power of God unto salvation. i. 20. Christ, the head of the elect, fore-ordained before the foun dation of the world. i. 23. They are an incorruptible seed, born again by the Word of God: the Word that was made flesh. . 4. 6. Christ, chosen of God, elect. ii. 9. His people a chosen generation. v. 13. Whether an individual or a church, elect together with you. Make your election sure in your own experience. 2 PET. i. 10. 1 JouN ii. 19. Thus God's elect are manifested. 1 JOHN ii. 1. This is God's peculiar love. iv. 19. We love him because he first loved us. 2JOHN. The elect lady. Her elect sister, with their children, individually, mentioned in this relation: "For the truth's sake, which dwelleth in us, and shall be with us for ever." JUDE. Sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Christ Jesus. Before, of old ordained. REV. xvii. 9. Those destroyed, whose names are not written in the book of life, from the foundation of the world: against these the gates of Hell cannot prevail. xvii. 14. The Lamb's followers are chosen. xx. 12. The book of life opened. xx. 15. All cast into the lake of fire, whosoever was not found written in the book of life! xxi. 27. None enter Heaven but they who are written in the Lamb's book of life. These are the true sayings of God. May they be read with prayer, weighed without prejudice, and produce divine convic tion on every conscience! LETTER FROM THE LATE REV. D. EDWARDS, My dear Sir, OF IPSWICH [Author of Sermons to the Condemned.] Your kind present and affectionate letter I have received for both which I beg the acceptance of my warmest thanks. I am also obliged to you for the candid construction you put upon my poor attempts in endeavouring to spread the fame of our dear Redeemer. Jesus is worthy! Jesus is worthy! - but alas! how stammering any tongue in speaking of him! Dear Sir, my advancement in the divine life is extremely small: I feel what I confess. I want to live more by faith on Jesus Christ, and the infinite fulness that is in him. I want to imbibe more of his Spirit, and to maintain a more close and secret walk with God. I beg the assistance of your prayers at the throne, in so grand and important an enterprize. The difficulty of the ministerial work seems to grow upon my hands: it is but seldom I am enabled to preach as I would; I mean, to speak the word in the sight of God, as if I were to step from the pulpit to the supreme tribunal. Sometimes it is so. I feel my subject: I shudder with horror when I denounce the terrors of the Lord; and feel some sacred extasy when the love of Jesus is my theme, But alas! how often do my spirits flag, and my zeal languish! It is really an afflictive thought that I serve so good a Master with so much inconstancy. The worth of immortal souls, sometimes, is strongly impressed upon my heart, What are em LETTER OF THE LATE D. EDWARDS. 257 pires, diadems, and sceptres, when compared with one precious soul! This has often brought to my mind the following lines, which I have somewhere read: "Thus, while I'm dreaming life away, "I too ere long must yield my breath: Shall sound the gospel-trump no more: I have been this week much afflicted with rheumatic pains. that I have here no continuing city."-Blessed be the name of our good God, that there are some seasons in which I am enabled to sit, as it were, at the grave's mouth and converse freely with Death, and say, "O Death where is thy sting!" But I must conclude. "May the good will of Him that dwelt in the bush" be with you and yours! May you enjoy much of that unction which proceedeth from the Holy One!-and oh! that His precious influence may descend upon, Dear Sir, your affectionate Friend Ipswich, March 14, 1772. P. S. I suppose you have seen in the public papers, that the bill for repealing the Articles of the Church was rejected by a considerable majority. It is very evident that the design was to expunge them, because many of the Articles contain the foundationtruths of the gospel. The star called Wormwood, is fallen upon the waters, and made them bitter with error; but 'tis our comfort that the Lord Jesus Christ reigneth. REMARKS ON ROMANS IX. 19. Thou wilt say then, Why doth he yet find Fault? For who hath resisted his Will? THAT God everywhere finds fault with disobedience to his will, and has determined to punish it, requires no more trouble to prove than just to transcribe a few plain scriptures: "Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they repented not," &e - The Lord hath a controversy with Israel, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land-But my people would not XIV. LI hearken to my voice: and Israel would none of me so I gave them up unto their own hearts' lusts, and they walked in their own counsel. Because I have called and ye refused, — have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof, I also will laugh at your calamity," &c.; "For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord, therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own ways," &c.-" Remember from whence thou art fallen; for I have not found thy works perfect before God.-If, therefore, thou shalt not repent, I will come unto thee quickly," &c." The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from Heaven in flaming fire, to take vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel," &c. But the subject of the Apostle, in the above Scripture, is, unquestionably, to capose and oppose the objection of an enemy to the doctrine he was inculcating. Such a one conceives, that if this doctrine of unconditional election be true, man ought to be excused from all blame in not doing the will of God; for God, he supposes, can with no justice or propriety find fault with any for that disobedience which the objector concludes cannot, from the strain of his discourse, be against his purpose or will. Thus he arguos, If God's sovereignty in the decree of election be admitted, man's obligation to do his will is a doctrine full of absurdity: because no one ought to be blamed for not doing what is out of his power, and what God never intended that he should do. Yea, that to attach blame to sinners 30 circumstanced, is contrary to all reason and equity. The amount of this, I conceive, will be, that the characters the Apostle is opposing imagine his reasoning, in this chapter, strikes at the very root of man's culpability and accountableness for his transgression; and, therefore, deny the one or the other, from the supposed impossibility of maintaining both with consistency. It is, however, singularly striking that these very objections should unite in professors so extremely opposite in their principles and views as hyper-Calvinists and zealous Arminians. Yet is this a fact undeniable. And if it be allowed that the Apostle is stating and. refuting the objections of opposers of his doctrine, the conclusion is equally undeniable; namely, that such persons claim a much nearer kindred, on the ground of opposition to the scriptural, apostolical, doctrine of election, than either are willing to own. In a word, the objectors referred to in the text alledge, that upon the principle of Paul's reasoning God cannot, with justice, find fault with any for not doing his will. Hyper-Calvinists (that is, High Calvinists) and Arminians alledge the same, and for the same reason; therefore, both these are involved in the objection he is stating, and are mutually concerned in the reply he has given. High Calvinists maintain, that disobeying God's law is not resisting his will; because it is not his will that we should al! be holy. Or, in other words, that this is not the will of God, with reference to all mankind. This they argue from the purpose and REMARKS ON ROMANS IX. 19. 259 decree of election: confounding his command as a moral Governor, with his secret purpose as a righteous Sovereign; and upon this ground deny that any are faulty, in a sense that renders them justly liable to everlasting punishment; for as they who were never chosen to life, have no power to repent and obey the will of God, they consider them not proper objects of blame for any failure therein; and infer, for that reason, that neither God nor man can consistently charge them with sin and condemnation on that account. Arminians likewise suppose this consequence to follow on the admission of the divine purpose of election; and therefore hold fast the one, that they may reprobate the other. The inspired writers, however, teach that absolute, uncon-litional election deducts nothing from the fault of man in disobeying either law or gospel. The divine will, so far as revealed, they represent as the rule of duty for all, and charge all with sin, and with the blame of resisting his will, and coming short of his glory, in every instance of disobedience. The text at the head of these remarks is a proof of it; but other Scriptures may be adduced for further confirmation; enough to vield sufficient evidence that those come the nearest to apostolic views of divine truth, that maintain both the one and the other. For what can be clearer, from their united testimonies, than that the Lord complains of the neglect, and punishes for the violation of his will, while he hath mercy on whom he will have mercy, and leaves whom he deems proper to their own hardness and unbelief? So we read in the case of Pharaoh; and in various other cases. All, however, are without excuse for sin, because it is of choice. Al are without boasting, because it is of grace. This, some writers term moderate Calvinism; but it might be easily proved to be the doctrine of Calvin himself: and this the writer conceives to be Bible-Calvinism; and on that account alone, sincerely wishes and prays it may become general with all that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. II. K. ON SPIRITUAL CONVERSATION. ALTHOUGH hearers of the gospel are greatly increased of late, yet it is to be feared that real religion is in proportion scarce, and spiritual conversation in general in a low state. If we enquire into the causes of such declensions, it will be found that the growing conformity to the world amongst professors of the gospel, greatly contributes to exclude serious converse, which must occasion grief to all such as are truly gracious. It is said in Mal. iii. 16, that, "They who feared the Lord, spake often one to another;" but now it is to be lamented that such but seldom converse together on the best things. What is the present state of conversation amongst hearers of the word in England? Instead of its being chiefly on evangelical and devotional |