salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ." 1. Thess. 5. we may equally rejoice to assure ourselves, that the spirit of the Gospel offers no sanction to Calvinistic exclusiveness. One moment's retrospect will be sufficient.

If there be one truth more conspicuously floating on the surface of the mighty stream of Revelation than another, and obvious to the most careless observer, it is God's "tender mercy towards mankind." We behold divine compassion breathing from every page of the sacred volume; the patience and long suffering of the Creator towards rebellious man; unwearied parental entreaty and expostulation; warnings, instructions, and remonstrances again and again renewed ;—all having one object, to save, and to bless! "Let him that glorieth glory in this; that he understandeth and knoweth Me, that I am the Lord which exercise loving kindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth; for in these things I delight, saith the Lord." Jere. 9. 24. "Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die, saith the Lord God, and not that he should return from his ways and live?" (Ezek. 18.) "As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die?" Ezek. 33. 11. Ho every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy and eat-yea come, buy wine and milk, without money and without price." "Incline your ear and come unto Me; hear and your soul shall live."

Is. 55. "Can a woman forget her sucking child that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea! they may forget,-yet will not I forget thee." Is. 49. 15.

These are but a few passages from the riches of the Old Testament. In the New Testament we find our Blessed Saviour Himself, saying, come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Matt. 11. 28. Him that cometh to Me, I will in no wise

every creature."

him take of the

Whosoever will, let

And lastly, for

the world, and preach the Gospel to (Mark 16. 15.) water of life freely." (Rev. 22. 17.) similar quotations might be multiplied endlessly, we will turn to that pathetic apostrophe so fully bearing on the question of God's mercy, and man's free agency in accepting or rejecting it,-"O, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not." Matt. 23. 37.

In what way does the Calvinist deal with expressions so affecting, love so benign, invitations to peace and happiness so earnest, and repeated, and undeserved? The Church of England justly holds it, in her 20th Article, to be "not lawful so to expound one place of

Scripture that it be repugnant to another." Do these passages read as if the theological aphorisms of Calvin could be true? Man "fore appointed to damnation"hopeless and helpless-predoomed to eternal misery? Can that Gracious Being who thus speaks, "O that there were such an heart in them that they would fear Me, and keep all My commandments always, that it might be well with them and with their children for ever?" (Deut.5.29) Can God so full of loving kindness mock His creatures ? Can He who is the God of Truth-spread before us the glories of Heaven which we cannot enter? Does He who knoweth our infirmity, and that without him we can do nothing, does He grant, partially, to one man, the grace which He withholds from another, though equally needful to all, the consequence of withholding that grace being an inevitable eternity of woe, the terrors of which, though beyond our conception, are known to Him? If passages there are in Holy Writ which suggest in any mind an interpretation so fearful, impossible, and contradictory as this, it were better, and more reasonable and logical, to doubt our right apprehension of such passages, than by adopting them, to set at nought the mass of evidence which makes known to us our Creator's infinite love and goodness, wisdom and unerring justice. Well may the commentators of our Church declare, that such an interpretation carries with it "a shocking reflection on the goodness of God," and that such an idea of election ought surely to be rejected." Not only is such a creed terrible, and contradictory to every attribute of God, His

sovereignty alone excepted, but it is opposed also to the whole tone and tenor of Scripture. The world, according to such doctrine, ceases to be the state of probation we are taught to consider it, and man can no longer be held an accountable being, if thus the helpless victim of absolute decrees. To be a responsible creature, one who is to give account hereafter before the judgment seat of Christ, for all things done in the body, he must be endued, according to his need, with such sufficient strength, and freedom of will, as will enable him to "choose whom he will serve ;" to resolve which master he will hold to, " God or Mammon." An infant plunged from a rock into the boiling surge beneath, would not be more certainly doomed than man amid the turmoil of this world if forsaken of God; having to contend not only against the infirmity which is his birth-right, but also to "wrestle against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." (Ephes. 6, 12.) When Christ commanded that the Gospel should be preached "to every creature," would not this message of pardon and peace have been really without meaning, if only those can hear who are predestined as elect? Who were these little ones of whom our Saviour spake, saying, “In Heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in Heaven." (Matt. 18.) Were they not the type of earth's children throughout creation? We are bidden to "take heed that we despise not one of these little ones," and to become as little children in love and obe

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dience, if we would enter the Kingdom of Heaven. As is the undoubting trustfulness of a child in its earthly parent, so should ours be, who are but "children of a larger growth," in our Heavenly Father. And what is the solemn declaration that follows? "It is not the will of your Father which is in Heaven, that one of these little ones should perish." So, by divine instruction, declares St. Peter, "The Lord is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." 2. Peter, 3. If therefore man perishes, it is most clear that it is by his own obstinate unbelief, and not by the predisposing intent or will of God.

J

There are those who have better learnt of their Saviour to be " meek and lowly of heart,"-whose minds more gentle and therefore less dogmaticmore enlarged and therefore more just,-shrink from the grosser tenets of Calvin, but who, dwelling too exclusively on particular texts, and unable to satisfy themselves why, with the same apparent advantages, one man becomes a Christian in spirit and in truth, while another advances not beyond profession, adopt conclusions and conjectures as to the partial and irresistible operation of the Holy Spirit upon certain minds, for which not only do I find no authority in holy scripture, but rather learn it to be a matter beyond our intellectual range. The mode or measure in which the Holy Spirit deals with human nature must ever be a mystery. It is admitted that to be "elect man must believe. But how belief is