as if they would endeavour to serve God and mammon! It is right, then, to urge you to prove your ownselves, (not indeed whether ye be in the faith, for that is supposed, but) whether there be any thing allowed in your life and conversation inconsistent with the character of a believer: and if there be, repent and do the first works, and take with you words and say, O Lord our God, other lords beside thee have had dominion over us; but by thee only will we make mention of thy name. Thus shall your souls be restored from their spiritual declensions, and he will lead you again in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. And as for those who, by the grace of God, are enabled to live in the enjoyment of his presence in your souls, and to manifest the power of his Spirit in your lives, I commend you to him who is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy! SERMON XV. ETERNAL REPROBATION NOT IN THE BIBLE. EZEK. XXXIII. 11. AS I LIVE, SAITH THE LORD GOD, I HAVE NO A MAN cannot justly be required to believe any thing plainly contrary to reason. But it does not therefore follow that nothing is to be believed but what reason will enable a man to understand. The fact that any doctrine in the Bible is incomprehensible by human reason affords no ground whatever to suppose it ought to be rejected. I do not lay down this proposition as very profound, or as by any means original. On the contrary, it is a common-place truth, which is daily acknowledged in the ordinary affairs of life, and constantly acted upon. And it is not till it is applied to the Bible, that men seem much disposed to deny it. Who, for instance, ever thinks of denying certain principles in science, or facts in natural history, simply because he cannot un derstand them? Who can tell why the needle of the compass points to the pole? and who on that account disputes the fact? Can any man explain why cold condenses water to a certain degree of temperature, and after that expands it? And will he, because he cannot explain it, deny that the same body of water first becomes smaller, and afterward larger, by the continued action of the same cause? I trow not. Similar questions may be raised, in a thousand instances, out of the force of gravity, the hydrostatic paradox, and the various phenomena of animal and vegetable nature. From these facts it may be plainly proved that men (men too of the highest reasoning powers and most cultivated minds) are in the constant habit of believing what they cannot understand. It may, however, be replied, that facts and principles, such as I have alluded to, are. proved by experience and observation, and therefore stand upon a very different footing from that of doctrines affirmed to form part of a revelation from God. What a man's senses make evident to him he cannot deny, and indeed does not need the use of his reason to prove. But when the matter to be believed is obvious neither to sense nor reason, the case becomes materially altered. And this I freely admit. I am far from affirming that the belief of certain doctrines I and the belief of certain inexplicable wonders in creation are in all respects the same. only maintain that, in both instances, men are required to believe what they cannot understand. Perhaps we may find a closer illustration of our position in the case of young children, or very uneducated persons. They are constantly required, by such as are older or more learned than themselves, to believe what their senses do not affirm, and what seems contrary to their reason: as for instance, when we tell them the sun stands still, and that water is harder than wood. It is thought sufficient for such inexperienced persons to be told that wiser judges than themselves can prove such facts, though they cannot comprehend them, and that such assertions are perfectly reasonable though they appear to be otherwise. In this manner, (I humbly conceive,) the difficulties which some find in the doctrines of the Bible may be answered. It It may, for instance, be perfectly agreeable to reason, that there should be three distinct persons in one God, though our reasoning powers may not enable us to solve that mystery. So God and man may be but one Christ, although we find it impossible to see how that can be. In fact, to deny the reasonableness of any proposition, because we cannot understand it, is to assume that nothing is reasonable but what we can understand. And since we will not suffer children or persons of intel ct inferior to our own to argue in this way, why should we make the same objection when God declares what we cannot understand? It seemed desirable to make these preliminary observations, because the subject we are about to consider will lead me to controvert a doctrine which some, (following, as I conceive, their own wisdom rather than God's word,) are disposed to maintain. The particular doctrine against which the text seems to me most strongly to militate, is commonly called the doctrine of reprobation: a doctrine which I cannot find in the Bible, and which, most certainly, is not taught in the Articles of the Church of England. 6 The writers who inculcate this doctrine are of what is termed the High Calvinistic School, and their sentiments are thus briefly expressed, The whole of mankind are di'vided into two classes, the elect, and the ' reprobate: God from eternity decreed to 'save the elect, and to condemn the repro'bate. And Christ died only for the elect ' and not for all mankind.' Upon the doctrine of election, it is not my intention to speak. I will, therefore, only notice that part of the above statement which the text seems to me to refute. What they say is, if you admit that God did from all eternity purpose to save the elect, you must also, (as a fair deduction of |