divinity' preachers tantalize and goad the poor reprobate, tormenting him before the time, with earnest and impassioned exhortations to repent and come to Christ; assuring him that nothing hinders but his own want of will; which will, they know at the same time, he never can have, if their doctrine of decrees be true; and that he neither has, nor can have, any more available ability to repent and come to Christ than to pluck the sun from the firmament. We are thankful that we have not so learned Christ. Our understanding of free grace,-real, saving grace, is, that it is free, because free to all. Mr. Whitefield on the contrary defined it-free, because not free to all!”

The following specimen of the style of the preachers alluded to will show how extremely necessary it is to look farther into the system than to the mere sound of words. It is taken from a production of Dr. Beecher's, entitled, "The Sinner his own Destroyer:

'The decrees of God do not compel him to sin, and election, when he has sinned, does not shut him out of heaven.'

Does not shut him out of heaven' !-How could election' shut him out? Why does Dr. Beecher use this strange form of language? Was it unstudied? Was it not because a conviction was felt that the plain and direct language in accordance with the system, would have been revolting? Would not that language have been,-' and election, when he has sinned, does' nevertheless take him into heaven? But, the preacher continues,—

'He is voluntary in his departure from God, he is voluntary in loving the creature more than God, and he is voluntary in refusing to return to God by Jesus Christ. A complete atonement has been made for all his sins, and a free pardon is offered if he will repent. But he will not repent. Christ is able and willing to save him if he will come to him, but he will not come. Aversion to God and his government caused his departure, and the same aversion prevents his return by Jesus Christ. God has built an eternal prison, and the sinner fits himself for it, and goes there of his own accord, in spite of all the restraints which God has laid upon him, and all the obstructions by which he has blocked up the way to ruin. God has done every thing but just to exert almighty power, yet he will not turn. He will die! He shuts his eyes; he stops his ears; and casts behind him Bibles, and Sabbaths, and prayers, and exhortations, and entreaties; he treads under foot the blood of the covenant, and does despite to the Spirit of Grace; and, through a host of opposing means, and while God, and angels, and men, are entreating him to stop, he forces his way down to ruin.'

This strain of preaching is the very height of Hopkinsian subtilety, and would deceive, if it were possible, the very elect. And will the reader believe, that, after all, it does nothing more than to conceal the horrible decrees of Calvin? Yet so it is. The meaning is, we apprehend, that a complete atonement has been made for

even the poor reprobate's sins, and a free pardon is offered him, if he will repent, that is, of himself, without grace!-That Christ is able and willing to save him, if he will come to him,—of himself, without grace,—but will not give him grace to come!—And that God entreats him to stop,-even against his own eternal adamantine decree, but is not sincere enough, or concerned enough, to give him one particle of such grace as he bestows on the elect to incline or to help him to stop! We ourselves once heard a distinguished preacher of this class,--while vehemently urging every sinner present to come immediately to Christ,-exclaim, in substance, thus, But some of you, perhaps, will say, What then shall we do with the decrees?-He answered,- It is easy enough to explain that ;-but-I shall not do it now.' This mode of cutting the knot, we very much regretted; for it did seem to us that the untying of it was very important to the success of the exhortation, delivered with a zeal worthy of better doctrine.

The system of decrees, as held by the genuine old supralapsarian Calvinists, is thus stated by the eloquent Saurin, late pastor of the French Church at the Hague.

"The third system is that of such divines as are called supralapsarians. The word supralapsarian signifies above the fall, and these divines are so called because they so arrange the decrees of God as to go above the fall of man, as we are going to explain. Their grand principle is, that God made all things for his own glory; that his design in creating the universe was to manifest his perfections, and particularly his justice and his goodness; that for this purpose he created men with design that they should sin, in order that in the end he might appear infinitely good in pardoning some, and perfectly just in condemning others; so that God resolved to punish such and such persons, not because he foresaw they would sin, but he resolved they should sin that he might damn them. This is their system in a few words. is not that which is generally received in our Churches, but there have been many members and divines among us who adopted and defended it: whatever veneration we profess for their memory, we ingenuously own, we cannot digest such consequences as seem to us necessarily to follow these positions. We will just mention the few difficulties following:

It

First, We demand an explanation of what they mean by this principle, "God has made all things for his own glory?" If they mean that justice requires a creature to devote himself to the worship and glorifying of his Creator, we freely grant it. If they mean that the attributes of God are displayed in all his works, we grant this too. But if this proposition be intended to affirm that God had no other view in creating men, so to speak, than his own interest, we deny the proposition, and affirm that God created men for their own happiness, and in order to have subjects upon whom he might bestow favors.

We desire to be informed in the next place, how it can be conceived, that a determination to damn millions of men can contribute to "the

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glory of God?" We easily conceive that it is for the glory of divine justice to punish guilty men: but to resolve to damn men without the consideration of sin, to create them that they might sin, to determine that they should sin in order to their destruction, is what seems to us more likely to tarnish the glory of God than to display it.

Thirdly, We demand how, according to this hypothesis, it can be conceived that God is not the author of sin? In the general scheme of our Churches, God only permits men to sin, and it is the abuse of liberty that plunges men into misery. Even this principle, moderate as it seems, is yet subject to a great number of difficulties: but in this of our opponents, God wills sin to produce the end he proposed in creating the world, and it was necessary that men should sin; God created them for that. If this be not to constitute God the author of sin, we must renounce the most distinct and clear ideas.

Fourthly, We require them to reconcile this system with many express declarations of Scripture, which inform us that "God would have all men saved." How does it agree with such pressing entreaties, such cutting reproofs, such tender expostulations, as God discovers in regard to the unconverted: "O that my people had hearkened unto me! O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!" Matt. xxiii, 37.

Lastly, We desire to know how it is possible to conceive a God, who, being in the actual enjoyment of perfect happiness, incomprehensible and supreme, could determine to add this decree, though useless to his felicity, to create men without number for the purpose of confining them for ever in chains of darkness, and burning them for ever in unquenchable flames. Such are the gulfs opened to us by these divines! As they conceive the ways of God in a manner so much beyond comprehension, no people in the world have so much reason as they to exclaim, "O the depth! How unsearchable are the ways of God!" For my part, I own I cannot enough wonder at men, who tell us in cool blood, that God created this universe on purpose to save one man, and to damn a hundred thousand; that neither sighs, nor prayers, nor tears, nor groans, can revoke this decree; that we must submit to the sentence of God, whose glory requires the creation of all these people for destruction! I say I cannot sufficiently express my astonishment at seeing people maintain these propositions with inflexibility and insensibility, without attempting to mitigate or limit the subject, yea, who tell us that all this is extremely plain and free from every difficulty, and that none of our objections deserve an answer.

Such being the difficulties of the several systems of the decrees of God, it should seem there is but one part to take, and that is, to embrace the plan of our Churches.'

Mr. Saurin then proceeds to give the plan and system of their Churches, and to answer, in his way, some difficulties which arise as objections; after which, he adds:

'After all these questions, should you appeal to our consciences to know whether our own answers fully satisfy ourselves; whether our ar

guments may not be turned against us; whether the objections we have made against others do not seem to conclude against ourselves; and whether the system we have proposed to you appears to ourselves free from difficulty: to this we reply by putting our finger upon our mouth: -we acknowledge our ignorance, we cannot rend the veil under which God has concealed his mysteries: we declare that our end in choosing this subject was less to remove difficulties than to press them home, and by these means to make you feel the toleration which Christians mutually owe to one another on this article.'-Sermon on Rom. xi, 3.

THE GENERAL CONFERENCE.

An Appeal to the Philadelphia Conference, on the subject of cooperat ing with the other Conferences, in changing the ratio of delegation to the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Philadelphia, 1831. pp. 24.

THE pamphlet, the title of which we have given above, is signed by the Rev. Messrs. Dr. Thomas Sargent, Manning Force, Joseph Rusling, Richard W. Petherbridge, Bartholomew Weed, Solomon Higgins, Levi Storks, Anthony Atwood, Thomas J. Thompson, and James A. Massey, all ministers of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the city of Philadelphia and its vicinity, and members of the Philadelphia Annual Conference. The subject which it presents for the special consideration of that Conference, is certainly a very important one in itself, and one in which our whole body is deeply interested. That it will receive the calm and candid consideration of that old and central Conference, whose deliberations will take place nearly on the same spot where the first Methodist Conference was ever held in America, we cannot doubt. It does not appear to us, however, at all necessary that the Conference should, in the parliamentary sense of the term, 'reconsider' the vote of last year, by which the recommendation of the General Conference (adopted by all the other Annual Conferences) to alter the ratio of delegation, was rejected. Each succeeding Annual Conference is as competent to originate any measure, or to act on any anew, as any preceding Conference was. A measure rejected at any one session of an Annual Conference cannot, indeed, be brought forward again during the same session, except by a vote, on motion, to reconsider. But, although any proposed measure may have been rejected at never so many previous sessions, it may nevertheless be brought forward again at any succeeding session, and without any motion or vote to reconsider. This we know constantly occurs in mea

sures brought before Congress and the State Legislatures; and also in our General Conference. The same proceeding, undoubt edly, would be perfectly in order in any Annual Conference. We make these remarks simply to obviate any possible objection which might be made on this ground, to bringing forward the measure again at the next session of the Philadelphia Conference; and not from any impression that the highly respectable brethren, whose names are attached to the pamphlet before us, will not concur in these views. Indeed, when they say, as they do at the close of the pamphlet, Finally, we would affectionately and sincerely recommend to the Philadelphia Conference, at its next session, to reconsider the recommendation of the last General Conference, rejected here the last year, and pass it,' we take for granted that they mean simply to prepare the minds of the brethren composing the Conference, to take up and act upon the subject again, after a year's reflection and farther light; and not to admit the necessity of any previous vote for a reconsideration, in the technical parliamentary sense.

It is not our purpose to enter here into an examination of any subordinate bearings of this question, which will doubtless be fully discussed in the approaching session of the Philadelphia Conference. We take it up in its general character, as a matter of common concernment, and in this view only. That the whole of the Annual Conferences, except that of Philadelphia, have already decided favorably on the recommendation of the General Corference, and almost with entire unanimity too in each, is certainly a consideration, we think with the authors of the pamphlet before us, which ought to have great weight. That there is at least a respectable portion of the Philadelphia Conference also, who think that they ought to yield to the wish of the General Conference in such a case, supported as it is too by the concurrence of all the other Annual Conferences, seems evident from the names of the brethren in the city of Philadelphia and its vicinity, attached to this Appeal.' We do not, however, affirm that even all this, of itself, is an infallible proof of the propriety and expediency of the proposed measure. It might be possible that even a single individual in any one Conference might, like Athanasius against the world, be right, and all the rest be wrong. Whether this is such a case is another question. And we concur with the authors of the 'Appeal' in the sentiment, that where no matter of moral obligation, involving conscience, is concerned, it might promote brotherly love, and be no departure from the wisdom that cometh from above, to yield individual opinions, even if still unconvinced that they are erroneous, to the judgment and wishes of so overwhelming a majority of intelligent Christian brethren and ministers. The arguments in the pamphlet before us, by which this course is affectionately urged upon the members of the Philadelphia Conference, we shall not here enter into or repeat, as we presume that the pamphlet itself