impart gracious influences to bring them to accept his offers; and since he has not predestinated to do this for all, he cannot sincerely will that all should comply with his invitations.

This sophism is grounded upon two suppositions, which are unsound and shallow. It supposes that a disposition to obey is indispensably necessary to the accountableness of a sinner, and essential to his power of obeying. As if a governor could not justly make any laws which some of the subjects had not the disposition to obey: or, as if no king could make any laws against smuggling, but such as smugglers felt disposed to obey. This view of the case is subversive of all government, as it insinuates that it would be a sufficient apology for disobeying the law or command, if the smuggler said, he could not obey it, for he felt no inclination or disposition to submit to it, and therefore it is unjust to make him accountable for it. The above sophism has another glaring error. It supposes that the rule of the subject's homage is not the published enactment of the government, but the private mind, and secret purposes of the king, which, by the bye, is supposed to be at variance with his published and avowed declaration. This stultifies all legislation and all accountableness. Whatever purposes and counsels are unrevealed, they are not among the moral means to be employed by us, and as far as they are unpublished, they are never the rule of human conduct. The decrees published to us in the gospel are not the rule of conduct to the heathen, until they are published to them; but the moment they are published, a great and eternal change is made in the measure of their accountableness, and in the rule of their conduct.

In all the concerns of life and business, men never pose themselves about the decrees of eternity. They never consult the eternal decrees to know what trade to pursue, in what town to set up, what physician to call in, what medicine to take, &c. In all such transactions men reason and calculate on the general character,

aspect, adaptation, bearing, and tendency of things, and they regard such arrangements as pretty clearly denoting to them the mind and the purpose of their Maker and providential Governor. In all their speculations and transactions they never make a supposed unrevealed decree their rule, because "the bow in the cloud” vindicates the purposes of God from any suspicion of hostility to their "seed time and harvest time." Let us be as wise in our generation; and in our spiritual transactions believe, that the atonement of Christ vindicates all the decrees of God from any aspect opposed to the published declaration, "Him that cometh I will nowise cast out."

The purposes or decrees of God are revealed and published in the nature, tendency, and meaning of the things which he commands, or offers, or prohibits. To suppose any design or purpose opposite to these, is to suppose the most horrible monstrosity in the universe,God contradicting himself.

It is true that in numerous instances the event is very different from the design and purpose declared. In a moral government, during an economy of probation in which millions of free agents are at work, such a difference and such a failure are to be expected. This assertion may sound startling, but try to evade it as you may, you can not avoid the conclusion, that the moral government of free agents in a state of trial, must be susceptible of failures. It is a FACT that such failures have taken place; and to attempt to wrest or alter this fact, is to try to change the universe.

The will of God is publicly revealed for public ends, and it is impossible to shew what private ends he can have, that are opposed to his public avowals. The universe is a public commonwealth. Of this commonwealth God is the public head, and chief member. In administering its affairs he does every thing in his official capacity and public character, as the Governor of it. All the measures proposed and executed in it are for the public good of the whole commonwealth. In its

government every wrong and every sin is treated, not as a private offence, but as a public injury, to be publicly noticed, whether in punishment or in pardon. As the public and official organ of this moral commonwealth, God has announced his purposes, requirements, prohibitions, offers, and invitations.

These form his PUBLIC WILL: public, not in opposition to secret, but in opposition to private or unofficial. I call this public will, as I call the great principle on which divine moral government is administered public justice; as consulting the public good of the commonwealth, as well as the private interests of individuals.

The atonement of Christ is a public vindication of this public will from any suspicion of insincerity. In the atonement all the promises, invitations and offers, are yea and amen in Christ, to the glory of the divine character and purposes. The nature of God, as the God of truth in real works and words of verity—the accurate adaptation of the provision to the case of the sinner-the actual experience of every applicant at the door of mercy-the perpetuation of gracious offers and invitations in the world, after so many forfeitures—the pressing earnestness with which men are invited and courted to accept them-the aggravated and sorer punishment which befals those who refuse them-and the worthy name and character of the Mediator, who reveals and confirms all these by his death; all these are "things in which it is impossible for God to lie," and which impress upon all his proposals and overtures the image and superscription of verily undissembling sincerity.

To suppose that the atonement is only a semblance of benevolence and love, put forth to impose on mankind, to mock the applicant, or to tantalize the inquiring penitent, is "to trample under foot the blood of the everlasting covenant." In the atonement there is provision purposely intended for all, and all are sincerely invited to partake of it freely. The all-sufficiency of the atonement is the foundation laid for the universal invitations of the gospel. An all-sufficiency, not in

tended for all who are invited to partake of it, is such an awful imposture that I grudge the ink that mentions it in connection with "the gospel of TRUTH."

If the atonement do not prove the faithfulness and sincerity of God, where shall we look for proof. Should we not shudder at the very surmise of God's using a mental reservation in the atonement of his own Son? and in the offers and invitations and assurances of his grace. Was the blessed Savior himself insincere in his laborious toil, his bloody sweat or ignominious death? No, he was full of grace and truth. If the character of God for sincerity, and the character of a theological system for consistency, come in competition, which must give way? In a well-ordered mind there cannot be a moment's hesitation. Let us rather renounce our theological systems, or confess our ignorance of the whole of the case, than suspect for a moment any mental reservation, insincerity, and dissimulation, either in the divine invitations, or in the divine purposes and counsels. In the atonement God has given a public testimony of his truth and sincerity; and "he that hath received his testimony hath set to his seal that God is true;" and let God be true, though all human theologians were liars.

Thirdly. The atonement vindicates the divine purposes from the charge of capricious arbitrariness and partiality, in the determination to impart sovereign and gracious influences.

The Bible asks the question, "Who maketh thee to differ?" On the answer to this question hang all the controversies in polemical theology. The Bible itself answers this question, "Unto you it is given, in the behalf of Christ, to believe on him.” "God worketh in you to will and to do of his good pleasure." "God giveth the increase." That the difference in the spiritual conditions of men, and the change in men's hearts, is produced by divine influences, is asserted by the whole scripture, and is recognized in every one's prayers, though not in every one's creed.

It ought not to escape notice, that it is only in the transaction of saving a sinner, that men dare ask God, "Why doest thou this?" God has not "seen it good" to give a detailed account of this matter, or to answer the question, except, indeed with a warning voice, "Who art thou, O man, that repliest against God?" Nevertheless, he has introduced into his government the measure of atonement to be an interpretation of his purposes, and a vindication of his counsels against suspicions of unjust speciality, or unreasonable sovereignty.

The exercise of a sovereign speciality in the application of the atonement is indisputable. No hypothesis that admits the death of Christ to be an atonement, can deny this. There are in its application three instances of speciality which are signal, broad, and evident. There is a speciality in its application to mankind, to the exclusion of fallen angels. There is a speciality in its application to believers, to the exclusion of its rejecters. There is a third speciality, in the application of its benefits more largely to some believers than others, in proportion to their works and labors for Christ. I shall not enter now on a consideration of these subjects, as it will be more in place when we come to the chapter on the atonement in its relation to the work of the Spirit.

Here we have three well defined, indisputable instances of sovereign speciality in the application of the benefits of the death of Christ: What shall we do with them? How shall we evade them? They are not capricious, for they are the uniform laws observed in the application of the atonement. Shall we say that they are unjust, and that God has exercised a prerogative, in dispensing his favors, to which he had no right? Try it. Did you ever think that for God to take mercy on man, was really a wrong to the devils? Was converting Saul of Tarsus an evil in itself, and a wrong to all the pharisees? Is conferring gracious honors bountifully upon those who have sown bountifully, a wrong to those who have sown sparingly? Again, I say, here they are, three