son have the temerity to say the apostles entertained any doubts of Christ the son's being the saviour of the world, and of his being sent to effect this great salvation of all? They declare they know these things which they testify to be true.

The apostles wished all to whom they preached, to be perfected and established in belief of the truth which they taught. However, John says, (when, I think, alluding to works) "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." Hence it will follow that christian perfection, relates to a perfect belief in the truth, and not to perfection of our own works, and yet some or many of our works may bear witness before the world that we have the most perfect confi dence in Christ, and in the universality of his great salvation. The Apostle Paul insinuates that in our coming to this perfection, we must come to the unity of all the parts of humanity in our faith, according to the measure of the stature, of the fulness of Christ. And in another place he says, all the family in heaven and earth is named of or in Christ. Hence it will follow, if we truly believe in him through the perfection of faith we shall believe the full measure and stature of his salvation, which embraces the whole world of mankind. In a word, that we should believe him to be a perfect saviour of all that die in Adam. Our belief could not be perfect, if it only embraced an idea of an imperfect partial saviour. We must have one whole faith in one whole saviour. And that redeemer is Christ the son of God. A right belief in Christ amounts to Christian perfection. But not a belief cloged with fearful doubts. He that has this perfect belief in Christ, has a perfect witness in himself, a sure word of prophecy, a light shining in a dark place, by which he knows his redeemer lives, and because he lives, men shall live also as members of his mystic body. And although the christian sees himself a fallible creature, yet he sees Jesus a perfect and infallible saviour; "re marks the perfect man and beholds the upright in Jesus Christ the son of God.” On this perfect son of God the christian wholly relies

with unshaken confidence. And this reliance is the perfection of the christian religion, wherever it takes root in the heart of man; and will finally lead to a perfect day of glory, when time shall be no more, when that which is perfect in a temporal view, shall be done away by something superior in eternity.

CHAPTER 12.

THE DOCTRINE OF ELECTION.

'The glorious doctrine of God's particular electing race, when rightly and scripturally understood, reflects the highest glory on the majesty, wisdom and goodness of God our Saviour; and at once animates our souls with wonder, mingled with the sweetest delight, raising the once dormant hopes of man, to the highest pitch of the most pleasing expectation. For we discover by. the clear revelation of divine truth, that God for his own highest glory, and the best good of all his offspring, hath in the eternity of his own exclusive being, purposed a full display of his adorable perfections, through the means of an admirable plan concerted by his infinite wisdom, according to the foreknowledge of God, which plan of free abounding grace was foreordained in the hands of his Almighty power, and by the resistless sway of this omnipotent attribute of his beattific being, to be fully executed and carried into perfect effect in all its parts, whether hidden or revealed.

The ultimate object of this so well concerted plan of God, is a full display of his own unblemished Giory, in the best good of all created intelligences. He hath therefore, wisely chosen all the distinct, or individual and collective means, perfectly well adapted to the biessed end and object of infinite wisdom. Hence, according to the foreknowledge of God, and his own good pleasure, he hath foreordained the particular election of certain individuals, as well as whole bodies of moral beings, to fill particular places according to the plan of his universal grace. And those thus elected of God to any distinct station in his kingdom of grace, are chosen to the exclusion of all other beings, as no more particular means of grace are needed than what God has seen fit

to choose, and those thus elected under the unclouded discernment of infinite wisdom, being chosen for the benefit of all other moral beings, that God might make known the divine riches of his goodness and mercy towards all moral beings, through their special instrumentality; they are therefore called vessels of mercy; because in the elect, is manifested God's boundless mercy to the whole, both elect and non-elect. But if Jehovah had designed to aggravate the torment of the non-elect in a gloomy state of unavailing wue and misery; then in that dreadful case it would have been more proper to have called the elect vessels of wrath and cruelty; in as much as they are some of the chosen means to bring about whatever end infinite Wisdom had in view. the untarnished Majesty of heaven, I presume never concerted a plan unworthy of his revealed character. For the best good of the whole creation in the final end, stands based on the unblemished and refulgent glory of God the Creator. Therefore Jesus, the desire of all nations, comes as it is written of him.

But

However, it is a sacred truth and well attested in divine revelation, that as certain as the true and living God, gives out a common call to all men to look to him for salvation, just so certain those who are in the decree of election, receive from the same merciful source, a special call to enter into the work allotted to them in the prudent economy of God. But the first is true as shall be proved by the word of God, therefore, also the last, as shall be plainly proved by the same word of God. Isa 45--22, "Look unto me, all ye ends of the earth, and be ye saved, for I am God and there is none else." 56 chap 12-13. The first being proved we will prove the second. Rom- 8, beginning at the 28th verse. Reader, now please to turn to your bible and read to the end of the chapter, compared with what goes before. I shall transcribe but two verses in this place, as follows. "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifies" Now

If the attentive reader would wish to know the revealed purpose of God, according to which the elect are called let him turn to the same Apostles words on this subject Eph. 1st chapter, read the whole especially verses 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. And you will find that the purpose of God's will in his special call and election is universal mercy in the end. For further light on this most sublime subject of the special election of a few, for the best good of the whole let us go back to the beginning, and then let the mind, from thence travel through the different ages of antiquity and so on down to the present day. And I think, if we take a careful view, though brief, yet I hope we shall discover a real beauty and divine harmony in the plan of election according to the extensive riches of grace mercy and truth. Now for an even honest start at the beginning of the creation of God. In his own unborn eternity, will dwell, does dwell and ever has dwelt, amidst the unsullied glory of his own incomprehensible perfections, that God, who is the august sire of all intelligences; whose all penetrating eye surveys the wide spread uni verse, and whose boundless wisdom comprehends all the systems of universal nature. So that to him there is no new thing comes into being. For the great Jehovah in the perfection of knowledge, saw from the bosom of his own eternity, the finite beginning and final end of all that appertains to time or a temporal mode of being. Yes, he saw with one comprehensive view, all intellgent beings and the whole mode of being as one present object, even while the whole in itself considered slept in unconscious embryo: Yet God foresaw the active being of the great whole. So that according to his foreknowledge the plan of election dwelt in the mind of God, and to be revealed to man in due time, through Jesus Christ, who stood as the first on the alphabet in the tables of eternity as the elect of God, to be the only mediator between the infinite Father, and finite man. Through whom as a medium, man should be awakened to a sense of his own moral existence and finally to a sense of perfect felicity? God the Father who dwelt in the regions