of all the earth proclaimeth his holy will and pleasure, on this point, and saith; "I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy;" up riseth the proud, unhumbled heart of man, in boilings of the most fiery wrath, and the scum of bitterness runs over the pot of his malignity in deadly displeasure, against the justice of the decree. So then, according to this inverted order of things, man insists upon a right of freedom which he denies God; and the creature claims a sovereignty, which he would withhold from the Creator! Reader, ponder well this statement of things, and mark its correctness. There is but one Being in the universe, who is capable of choosing rightly; and whose election or reprobation cannot but be founded in unerring wisdom, and yet this Holy One, according to man's decision, shall be the only one precluded from this privilege! Can there be a more glaring and palpable proof of the desperately wicked state of the human heart.

I found my heart very powerfully led out to the contemplation of this subject. And according to my usual custom, when at any time more than ordinarily engaged in the study of divine things, I love to consult the Wonderful Counsellor! There is somewhat always relieving to the mind, when, under exercises of any kind, the child of God can unbosom himself to Him. It is always profitable to spread our concerns before the Lord. His throne of grace is everlastingly open. He himself is always there. He waits to be gracious. And his people need no introduction, as at earthly courts, when God the Spirit leads out the soul upon the person of Jesus. According to Christ's own words: he may "go in and out, and find pasture." Under these impressions I hastened in my visit to the Lord. He saith himself, "I am the Lord thy God, which

teacheth thee to profit; which leadeth thee by the way that thou shouldest go," Isa. xlviii. 17.

It struck me then while before the Lord, and it strikes me now again in the same forcible manner, that God by this very process, in causing every human being to do that daily themselves, which they are so much displeased at in Him, hath taken the most effectual means to demonstrate his own glory and man's presumption. For while, from the first dawn of reason in childhood, in which the mind can act, to the latest hour of old age, if all practise themselves what they dare to condemn in Him, doth not every one of them thereby sign the mittimus of his own sentence? Surely that solemn scripture is awfully fulfilled, in which the Lord hath said, "Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant!" Luke xix. 22.

Nay more, the Lord's decision on this matter becomes the more glaring and pointed; because it should seem, as if it was only in this instance concerning election, that the Lord makes mankind to pass judgment upon themselves. It is God's sovereignty which is struck at, by this rebellion of man. Hence, therefore, that sovereignty takes this very method to assert and justify his right by an appeal to what they call their's. There are no other of the attributes of God which the unrenewed nature of man presumes to quarrel with and to arraign, but this of his sovereignty; and this only, when exercised in election. Well then, for the full conviction of the sinner on his own ground, and to silence and confound him for ever, under the condemnation of his own heart, the Lord creates him into an office, of which he himself is not at the time conscious, and makes him his own judge. In the very constitution of his nature he is so formed, with dispositions of liking and disliking, of approbation and disgust, that in the exercise of the sovereignty of his

own mind, (and those exercises are at the same time so constructed, that no laws of God or man can controul them) he is everlastingly electing or rejecting, choosing or refusing as his will directs. In this process of the human frame, the Lord forms a mode of trial which ariseth out of the very constitution of man. Each is his own judge. He shall be tried by his own peers. His own elections or rejections are, in his esteem, his own rightful lords. These are his nobility of inheritance; his right, his just claim. These shall judge him. So then, here is a court he cannot dare impeach. Here are jurors he cannot challenge, for he himself hath impannelled them. Here is a sentence he must abide by; for it is passed by himself, and in the court of his own conscience. And as that sentence, in every instance, claims the right of election in man, what an unanswerable determination doth it bring with it to the right of election in God? And let the reader now say what shall arise, at the retribution of all things, to prevent the everlasting condemnation of every man on his own ground, who, while demanding the freedom of choice in himself, dares to contend the point with God?

Yes, indeed there is a way, and a wonderful way it is, by which that sentence may be, and by which indeed that sentence hath been in innumerable instances rescinded; namely, when by an act of grace from that very sovereignty men have called in question, the Lord hath taken occasion to magnify the riches of his love; and by the exercise of that power, against which they had so daringly murmured, they themselves have been brought over to bless God for that very election manifested towards them, which they had before taken such offence at being shewn to others. Did God intend such a process for purposes so blessed? Did the Lord adopt this method, among all the stores of his grace, to assert and maintain the justice of his own claim

against the reproaches of men; who, while they would deny him his right, so imprudently and unjustly claim what they think their own? And is this the manner of men, O Lord God! Oh the wonderful ways of a wonder-working God!

But here I pause. Indeed I can go no farther, until that I have first fallen down to the dust of the earth, before the sovereign majesty of my God, under the deepest sense of self-abasement and abhorrence! How long, and how daringly violent did I myself oppose this glorious truth; which now, through thy grace subduing my rebellion, and teaching my soul its blessedness, is become my greatest joy and delight! Lord! thou knowest well with what bitterness of a fallen nature I contended against the sovereignty of thy grace, in thy free-will election; while, in the very moment, audaciously insisting upon my own power, in a freewill ability of serving thee! Oh! what mercy hath been shewn me, in the recovery of my soul from a delusion so awful!

And how many are there of God's dear children at this present moment, under the same mistaken views as I once was? They themselves, the unconscious partakers of God's electing grace, while in judgment contending against it! What a deception the human heart is to itself, while in an unrenewed state of nature? Yea, what darkness and corruption still lurk there, even after the Lord hath called us by grace? Should these lines meet the eye of any of the latter description, and should the grace shewn to me, be shewn them, very sure I am that whenever the Lord rescues them from the error of their mind, they will stand amazed as I still do, in the recollection of former rebellion. And with me, they will be at a loss which to admire most, the Lord's forbearance, or our presumption.

On the doctrine of election, there is one very striking consideration, which, since the Lord wrought upon

my mind to the belief of it, hath operated upon me, at all times, most forcibly: I mean the whole persons of the Godhead have uniformly preached it, and are everlastingly preaching it to the church.

God the Father in his choice of Christ, as the Head and Husband of his people, calls upon the church to receive him, and to accept him as his chosen. "Behold my servant whom I uphold, mine elect in whom my soul delighteth!" Isa. xlii. 1. And it is worthy our highest remark, in confirmation of this leading truth, that Christ was expected by the people under this character of God's chosen. For when the enemies of Christ rejected him as the Messiah, they still, in the same moment, acknowledged that Christ when come, would come as the chosen of God. See Luke xxiii. 35. And as God by election chose Christ; so the church, in every individual member, is spoken of as the same. For speaking to the church, the Lord saith, "Ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me, above all people," Exod. xix. 5. See also Deut. xxxii. 9. Isa. xliii. 21. Mal. iii. 17, 18. Eph. i. 4.

God the Son, in like manner hath been and still is, by the ministry of his word and teaching, the great preacher in his church of the doctrine of election. Indeed, what are all the heads of his sermons, in the days of his flesh, but so many sweet and gracious expressions, in proof how much his soul delighted in his Father's choice of him, and the church in him? Who can read the thanks which Jesus gave the Father upon numberless occasions of this sort, for his distinguishing grace to his people, without being led to see that the very heart of Jesus was wrapped up in holy joy, in the view of God's electing love. His whole soul seemed to be going forth with delight that the Father had hid his mysteries in grace," from the wise and prudent, and revealed them unto babes," Matt. xi. 25, 26. Nay, what was it that called forth the bitterness and