attested; and farther, that though they had not the written law, yet, that "by nature," that is, "without an outward rule, though this also, strictly speaking, is by preventing grace,"(9) they were capable of doing all the things contained in the law. He affirms, too, that all such Gentiles as were thus obedient, should be "justified, in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men, by Jesus Christ, according to his Gospel." The possible obedience and the possible "justification" of heathens who have no written revelation are points, therefore, distinctly affirmed by the apostle in his discourse in the second chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, and the whole matter of God's sovereignty, as to the heathen, is reduced, not to the leaving of any portion of our race without the means of salvation, and then punishing them for sins which they have no means of avoiding; but to the fact of his having given superior advantages to us, and inferior ones only to them; a proceeding which we see exemplified in the most enlightened of Christian nations every day, for neither every part of the same nation is equally favoured with the means of grace, nor are all the families living in the same town and neighbourhood equally circumstanced as to means of religious influence and improvement. The principle of this inequality is, however, far different from that on which Calvinistic reprobation is sustained; since it involves no inevitable exclusion of any individual from the kingdom of GoD, and because the general principle of God's administration in such cases is elsewhere laid down to be, the requiring of much where much is given, and the requiring of little where little is given:-a principle of the strictest equity. avoided the offence for which he is punished, otherwise to punish him would be palpably unjust, and inconsistent with the character of God our governor."(8) The case of HEATHEN NATIONS has sometimes been referred to by Calvinists, as presenting equal difficulties to those urged against their scheme of election and reprobation. But the cases are not at all parallel, nor can they be made so, unless it could be proved that heathens, as such, are inevitably excluded from the kingdom of heaven; which is not, as some of them seem to suppose, a conceded point. Those, indeed, if there be any such, who, believing in the universal redemption of mankind, should allow this, would be most inconsistent with themselves, and give up many of those principles on which they successfully contend against the doctrine of absolute reprobation; but the argument lies in small compass, and is to be determined by the word of God, and not by the speculations of men. The actual state of pagan nations is affectingly bad; but nothing can be deduced from what they are in fact against their salvability; for although there is no ground to hope for the salvation of great numbers of them, actual salvation is one thing, and possible salvation is another. Nor does it affect this question, if we see not how heathens may be saved; that is, by what means repentance, and faith, and righteousness, should be in any such degree wrought in them, as that they shall become acceptable to God. The dispensation of religion under which all those nations are to whom the Gospel has never been sent, continues to be the patriarchal dispensation. That men were saved under that in former times we know, and at what point, if any, a religion becomes so far corrupted, and truth so far extinct, as to leave no means of salvation to men, nothing to call forth a true faith in principle, and obedience to what remains known or knowable of the original law, no one has the right to determine, unless he can adduce some authority from Scripture. That authority is certainly not available to the conclusion, that, in point of fact, the means of salvation are utterly withdrawn from heathens. We may say that a murderous, adulterous, and idolatrous heathen will be shut out from the kingdom of heaven; we must say this, on the express exclusion of all such characters from future blessedness by the word of God; but it would be little to the purpose to say, that, as far as we know, all of them are wicked and idolatrous. As far as we know they may, but we do not know the whole case; and, were these charges universally true, yet the question is not what the heathen are, but what they have the means of becoming. We indeed know that all are not equally vicious, nay, that some virtuous heathens have been found in all ages; and some earnest and anxious inquirers after truth, dissatisfied with the notions prevalent in their own countries respectively; It is allowed, and all scriptural advocates of the uniand what these few were, the rest might have been versal redemption of mankind will join with the Callikewise. But if we knew no such instances of supe-vinists in maintaining the doctrine, that every disposirior virtue and eager desire of religious information tion and inclination to good which originally existed in among them, the true question, "what degree of truth the nature of man is lost by the fall; that all men, in is, after all, attainable by them?" would still remain a their simply natural state, are "dead in trespasses and question which must be determined not so much by sins," and have neither the will nor the power to turn our knowledge of facts which may be very obscure; to God; and that no one is sufficient of himself to think but such principles and general declarations as we find or do any thing of a saving tendency. But, as all applicable to the case in the word of God. men are required to do those things which have a saving_tendency, we contend, that the grace to do them has been bestowed upon all. Equally sacred is the doctrine to be held, that no person can repent or truly believe except under the influence of the Spirit of God; and that we have no ground of boasting in ourselves, but that all the glory of our salvation, commenced and consummated, is to be given to God alone, as the result of the freeness and riches of his grace. If all knowledge of right and wrong, and all gracious influence of the Holy Spirit, and all objects of faith have passed away from the heathen, through the fault of their ancestors "not liking to retain God in their knowledge;" and without the present race having been parties to this wilful abandonment of truth, then they would appear no longer to be accountable creatures, being neither under law nor under grace; but as we find it a doctrine of Scripture that all men are responsible to GOD, and that the "whole world" will be judged at the last day, we are bound to admit the accountability of all, and with that, the remains of law and the existence of a merciful government towards the heathen on the part of GoD. With this the doctrine of St. Paul accords. No one can take stronger views of the actual danger and the corrupt state of the Gentiles than he; yet he affirms that the Divine law had not perished wholly from among them; that though they had received no revealed law, yet they had a law "written on their hearts;" meaning, no doubt, the traditionary law, the equity of which their consciences (8) WESLEY'S Works, vol. 15, p. 23. An unguarded opinion as to the IRRESISTIBILITY OF GRACE, and the passiveness of man in conversion, has also been assumed, and made to give an air of plausibility to the predestinarian scheme. It is argued, if our salvation is of God and not of ourselves, then those only can be saved to whom God gives the grace of conversion; and the rest, not having this grace afforded them, are, by the inscrutable counsel of God, passed by and reprobated. This is an argument à posteriori; from the assumed passiveness of man in conversion to the election of a part only of mankind to life. The argument à priori is from partial election to life to the doctrine of irresistible grace, as the means by which the Divine decree is carried into effect. The doctrine of such an election has already been refuted, and it will be easy to show that it derives no support from the assumption that grace must work irresistibly in man in order that the honour of our salvation may be secured to God, which is the plausible dress in which the doctrine is generally presented. It will also be freely allowed, that the visitations of the gracious influences of the Holy Spirit are vouchsafed in the first instance, and in numberless other subsequent cases, quite independent of our seeking them or desire for them; and that when our thoughts are thus turned to serious considerations, and various exciting and quickening feelings are produced within us, we are often wholly passive; and also, that men are sometimes suddenly and irresistibly awakened to a sense of their guilt and danger by the Spirit of God, either through the preaching of the word instrumentally or through other means, and sometimes even independent of any external means at all; and are thus con (9) WESLEY'S Notes, in loc. strained to cry out, "What must I do to be saved?" | tribute the destruction of the one to their refusal of the All this is confirmed by plain verity of Holy Writ; and grace of God, and the salvation of the other, as the is, also, a certain matter of experience as that the mo- instrumental cause, to their acceptance of it; and to tions of the Holy Spirit do often silently intermingle urge that that personal act by which we receive the themselves with our thoughts, reasonings, and con- grace of Christ detracts from his glory as our Saviour sciences, and breathe their milder persuasions upon by attributing our salvation to ourselves, is to speak as our affections. absurdly as if we should say that the act of obedience and faith required of the man who was commanded to stretch out his withered arm, detracted from the glory of Christ's healing virtue, by which, indeed, the power of complying with the command, and the condition of, his being healed, was imparted. From these premises the conclusions which legitimately flow are in direct opposition to the Calvinistic hypothesis. They establish, 1. The justice of God, in the condemnation of men, which their doctrine leaves under a dark and impenetrable cloud. More or less of these influences from on high visit the finally impenitent, so as to render their destruction their own act by resisting them. This is proved, from the "Spirit" having "strove" with those who were finally destroyed by the flood of Noah; from the case of the finally impenitent Jews and their ancestors, who are charged with "always resisting the Holy Ghost;" from the case of the apostates mentioned in the Epistle to the Hebrews, who are said to have done "despite to the Spirit of grace;" and from the solemn warnings given to men in the New Testament, not to "grieve" and "quench" the Holy Spirit. If, therefore, it appears that the destruction of men is attributed to their resistance of those influences of the Holy Spirit, which, but for that resistance, would have been saving, according to the design of God in imparting them, then is the justice of GOD manifested in their punishment; and it follows, also, that his grace so works in men, as to be both sufficient to lead them into a state of salvation, and even actually to place them in this state, and yet so as to be capable of being finally and fatally frustrated. 2. These premises, also, secure the glory of our salvation to the grace of God; but not by implying the Calvinistic notion of the continued and uninterrupted irresistibility of the influence of grace, and the passiveness of man, so as to deprive him of his agency; but by showing that his agency, even when rightly directed, is upheld and influenced by the superior power of Gon, and yet so as to be still his own. For, in the instance of the mightiest visitation we can produce from Scripture, that of St. Paul, we see where the irresistible influence terminated, and where his own agency recommenced. Under the impulse of the conviction struck into his mind, as well as under the dazzling brightness which fell upon his eyes, he was passive, and the effect produced for the time necessarily followed; but all the actions consequent upon this were the results of deliberation and personal choice. He submits to be taught in the doctrine of Christ; "he confers not with flesh and blood;" "he is not disobedient to the heavenly vision;""he faints not" under the burdensome ministry he had received; and he "keeps his body under subjection, lest after having preached to others he should himself become a castaway." All these expressions, so descriptive of consideration and choice, show that the irresistible impulse was not permanent and that he was subsequently left to improve it or not, though under a powerful but still a resistible motive operating upon him to remain faithful. For the gentler emotions produced by the Spirit these are, as the experience of all Christians testifies, the ordinary and general manner in which the Holy Spirit carries on his work in man; and, if all good desires, resolves, and aspirations are from him, and not from our own nature (and, if we are utterly fallen, from our own nature they cannot be), then, if any man is conscious of having ever checked good desires, and of having opposed his own convictions and better feelings, he has in himself abundant proof of the resistibility of grace, and of the superability of those good inclinations which the Spirit is pleased to impart. He is equally conscious of the power of complying with them, though still in the strengh of grace, which yet, while it works in him "to will and to do," neither wills nor acts for him, nor even by him, as a passive instrument. For if men were wholly and at all times passive under divine influence; not merely in the reception of it, for all are, in that respect, passive; but in the actings of it to practical ends, then would there be nothing to mark the difference between the righteous and the wicked but an act of God, which is utterly irreconcilable to the Scriptures. They call the former "obedient," the latter "disobedient;" one "willing," the other "unwilling;" and promise or threaten accordingly. They at It is by such reasonings, made plausible to many minds, by an affectation of metaphysical depth and subtlety, or by pretensions of magnifying the sovereignty and grace of God (often, we doubt not, very sincere), that the theory of election and reprobation, as held by the followers of Calvin with some shades of difference, but in all substantially the same, has had currency given to it in the church of Christ in these latter ages. How unsound and how contrary to the Scriptures they are, may appear from that brief refutation of them just given; but I repeat what was said above, that we are never to forget that this system has generally had interwoven with it many of the most vital points of Christianity. It is this which has kept it in existence; for otherwise it had never, probably, held itself up against the opposing evidence of so many plain Scriptures, and that sense of the benevolence and equity of God, which his own revelations, as well as natural reason, has riveted in the convictions of mankind. In one respect, the Calvinistic and the Socinian schemes have tacitly confessed the evidence of the word of God to be against them. The latter has shrunk from the letter and common sense interpretation of Scripture within the clouds raised by a licentious criticism; the other has chosen rather to find refuge in the mists of metaphysical theories. Nothing is, however, here meant by this juxtaposition of theories so contrary to each other, but that both thus confess, that the prima facie evidence afforded by the word of God is not in their favour. If we intended more by thus naming on the same page systems so opposite, one of which, with all its faults, contains all that truth by which men may be saved, while the other excludes it, "we shoud offend against the generation of the children of God." CHAPTER XXIX. REDEMPTION.-FARTHER BENEFITS. HAVING endeavoured to establish the doctrine of the universal redemption of the human race, the enumeration of the leading blessings which flow from it may now be resumed. We have already spoken of justification, adoption, regeneration, and the witness of the Holy Spirit, and we proceed to another as distinctly marked, • and as graciously promised in the Holy Scriptures: this is the ENTIRE SANCTIFICATION, or the perfected HOLI NESS of believers; and as this doctrine, in some of its respects, has been the subject of controversy, the scriptural evidence of it must be appealed to and examined. Happily for us, a subject of so great importance is not involved in obscurity. That a distinction exists between a regenerate state and a state of entire and perfect holiness will be generally allowed. Regeneration, we have seen, is concomitant with justification; but the apostles, in addressing the body of believers in the churches to whom they wrote their epistles, set before them, both in the prayers they offer in their behalf, and in the exhortations they administer, a still higher degree of deliverance from sin, as well as a higher growth in Christian virtues. Two passages only need be quoted to prove this. 1 Thess. v. 23, "And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly, and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." 2 Cor. vii. 1, "Having these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God." In both these passages deliverance from sin is the subject spoken of; and the prayer in one instance and the exhortation in the other goes to the extent of the entire sanctification of "the soul" and "spirit," as well as of the "flesh" or body," from all sin; by which can only be meant our complete deliverance from all spiritual pollution, all inward depravation of the heart, as well as that which, expressing itself outwardly by the indulgence of the senses, is called "filthiness of the flesh." glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be, also, in the likeness of his resurrection; knowing this, that OUR OLD MAN is crucified with him, THAT THE BODY OF SIN MIGHT BE DESTROYED, that henceforth we should not serve sin; for he that is dead IS FREED FROM SIN." So clearly does the apostle show that he who is BOUND to the "body of death," as mentioned in the seventh chapter, is not in the state of a believer; and that he who has a true faith in Christ "is FREED from sin." The attainableness of such a state is not so much a matter of debate among Christians as the time when we are authorized to expect it. For as it is an axiom of Christian doctrine, that "without holiness no man can see the Lord;" and is equally clear that if we would *be found of him in peace," we must be found" without spot, and blameless;" and that the church will be presented by Christ to the Father without "fault;" so It is somewhat singular, that the divines of the Calit must be concluded, unless, on the one hand, we vinistic school should be almost uniformly the zealous greatly pervert the sense of these passages, or, on the advocates of the doctrine of the continuance of indwellother, admit the doctrine of purgatory or some inter-ing sin till death; but it is but justice to say, that mediate purifying institution, that the entire sanctification of the soul, and its complete renewal in holiness, must take place in this world. several of them have as zealously denied that the apostle, in the seventh chapter of the Romans, describes the state of one who is justified by faith in Christ, and very While this is generally acknowledged, however, properly consider the case there spoken of as that of among spiritual Christians, it has been warmly contend-one struggling in LEGAL bondage, and brought to that ed by many, that the final stroke, which destroys our point of self despair and conviction of sin and helplessnatural corruption, is only given at death; and that the ness which must always precede an entire trust in the soul, when separated from the body, and not before, is merits of Christ's death, and the power of his salvation. capable of that immaculate purity which these passages, 3. The doctrine before us is disproved by those pasdoubtless, exhibit to our hope. sages of Scripture which connect our entire sanctification with subsequent habits and acts, to be exhibited in the conduct of believers before death. So in the quotation from Rom. vi. just given,-"knowing this, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin." So the exhortation in 2 Cor. vii. 1, also given above, refers to the present life, and not to the future hour of our dissolution; and in 1 Thess v. If this view can be refuted, then it must follow, unless a purgatory of some description be allowed after death, that the entire sanctification of believers at any time previous to their dissolution, and in the full sense of these evangelical promises, is attainable. To the opinion in question, then, there appear to be the following fatal objections: 1. That we nowhere find the promises of entire sanc-23, the apostle first prays for the entire sanctification tification restricted to the article of death, either expressly, or in fair inference from any passage of Holy Scripture. 2. That we nowhere find the circumstance of the soul's union with the body represented as a necessary obstacle to its entire sanctification. of the Thessalonians, and then for their preservation in that hallowed state "unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." 4. It is disproved, also, by all those passages which require us to bring forth those graces and virtues which are usually called the fruits of the Spirit. That these The principal passage which has been urged in proof are to be produced during our life, and to be displayed of this from the New Testament, is that part of the in our spirit and conduct cannot be doubted; and we seventh chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, in which may then ask whether they are required of us in perSt. Paul, speaking in the first person of the bondage of fection and maturity? If so, in this degree of maturity the flesh, has been supposed to describe his state, as a and perfection, they necessarily suppose the entire believer in Christ. But, whether he speaks of himself, sanctification of the soul from the opposite and antagoor describes the state of others in a supposed case, nist evils. Meekness in its perfection supposes the given for the sake of more vivid representation in the extinction of all sinful anger; perfect love to God supfirst person, which is much more probable, he is clearly poses that no affection remains contrary to it, and so speaking of a person who had once sought justification of every other perfect internal virtue. The inquiry, by the works of the law, but who was then convinced then, is reduced to this, whether these graces, in such by the force of a spiritual apprehension of the extent of perfection as to exclude the opposite corruptions of the the acquirements of that law, and by constant failures heart, are of possible attainment. If they are not, then in his attempts to keep it perfectly, that he was in bond- we cannot love God with our whole hearts; then we age to his corrupt nature, and could only be delivered must be sometimes sinfully angry; and how, in that from this thraldom by the interposition of another. case, are we to interpret that perfectness in these graces For, not to urge that his strong expressions of being which Gop hath required of us, and promised to us in "carnal," "sold under sin," and doing always "the the Gospel? For if the perfection meant (and let it be things which he would not," are utterly inconsistent observed that this is a scriptural term, and must mean with that moral state of believers in Christ which he something), be so comparative as that we may be somedescribes in the next chapter; and, especially, that he times sinfully angry, and may sometimes divide our there declares that such as are in Christ Jesus "walk hearts between God and the creature, we may apply not after the flesh, but after the spirit; the seventh the same comparative sense of the term to good words chapter itself contains decisive evidence against the and to good works, as well as to good affections. Thus inference which the advocates of the necessary continu- when the apostle prays for the Hebrews, "Now the ance of sin till death have drawn from it. The apostle God of peace that brought again from the dead our declares the person whose case he describes, to be un- Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through der the law, and not in a state of deliverance by Christ; the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect and then he represents him not only as despairing of in every good work, to do his will," we must underself-deliverance, and as praying for the interposition of stand this perfection of evangelical good works so that a sufficiently powerful deliverer, but as thanking God it shall sometimes give place to opposite evil works, that the very deliverance for which he groans is ap-just as good affections must necessarily sometimes give pointed to be administered to him by Jesus Christ. place to the opposite bad affections. This view can "Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I scarcely be soberly entertained by any enlightened thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.". Christian; and it must, therefore, be concluded, that This is also so fully confirmed by what the apostle the standard of our attainable Christian perfection, as had said in the preceding chapter, where he uniques-to the affections, is a love of God so perfect as to "rule tionably describes the moral state of true believers, that nothing is more surprising than that so perverted a comment upon the seventh chapter, as that to which we have adverted, should have been adopted or persevered in. "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid How shall we, who are dead to sin, live any longer therein? Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into his death? Therefore, we are buried with him by baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the the heart" and exclude all rivalry, and a meekness so perfect as to cast out all sinful anger, and prevent its return; and that as to good works the rule is, that we shall be so "perfect in every good work" as to "do the will of God" habitually, fully, and constantly. If we fix the standard lower, we let in a license totally inconsistent with that Christian purity which is allowed by all to be attainable, and we make every man himself his own interpreter of that comparative perfection which is often contended for as that only which is attainable. Some, it is true, admit the extent of the promises and dispute. But they are not at all inconsistent with a the requirements of the Gospel as we have stated them; more instantaneous work, when, the depth of our nabut they contend, that this is the mark at which we are tural depravity being more painfully felt, we plead in to aim, the standard towards which we are to aspire, faith the accomplishment of the promises of GOD. The though neither is attainable fully till death. But this great question to be settled is, whether the deliverance view cannot be true as applied to sanctification or sighed after be held out to us in these promises as a deliverance from all inward and outward sin. That present blessing? And, from what has been already the degree of every virtue implanted by grace is not said, there appears no ground to doubt this; since no limited, but advances and grows in the living Christian small violence would be offered to the passages of throughout life, may be granted; and through eternity Scripture already quoted, as well as to many others, by also: but to say that these virtues are not attainable, the opposite opinion. All the promises of GOD which through the work of the Spirit, in that degree which are not expressly, or from their order, referred to future shall destroy all opposite vice, is to say, that God, under time, are objects of present trust; and their fulfilment the Gospel, requires us to be what we cannot be, either now is made conditional only upon our faith. They through want of efficacy in his grace, or from some cannot, therefore, be pleaded in our prayers, with an defect in its administration; neither of which has any entire reliance upon the truth of God, in vain. The countenance from Scripture, nor is at all consistent general promise that we shall receive "all things whatwith the terms in which the promises and exhortations soever we ask in prayer, believing," comprehends, of the Gospel are expressed. It is also contradicted by of course, "all things" suited to our case which God our own consciousness, which charges our criminal has engaged to bestow; and if the entire renewal of neglects and failures upon ourselves, and not upon the our nature be included in the number, without any grace of God, as though it were insufficient. Either limitation of time, except that in which we ask it in the consciences of good men have in all ages been de- faith, then to this faith shall the promises of entire lusive and over-scrupulous, or this doctrine of the ne-sanctification be given; which, in the nature of the cessary, though occasional, dominion of sin over us is false. case, supposes an instantaneous work immediately fol It has been urged, that this state of entire sanctifica 5. The doctrine of the necessary indwelling of sin in the soul till death involves other antiscriptural consequences. It supposes that the seat of sin is in the flesh, and thus harmonizes with the pagan philosophy,tion supposes future impeccability. Certainly not; for which attributed all evil to matter. The doctrine of the if angels and our first parents fell when in a state of Bible, on the contrary, is, that the seat of sin is in the immaculate sanctity, the renovated man cannot be soul; and it makes it one of the proofs of the fall and placed, by his entire deliverance from inward sin, out corruption of our spiritual nature, that we are in bondage of the reach of danger. This remark, also, answers to the appetites and motions of the flesh. Nor does the the allegation, that we should thus be removed out of theory which places the necessity of sinning in the con- the reach of temptation; for the example of angels and nexion of the soul with the body account for the whole of the first man, who fell by temptation when in a state moral case of man. There are sins, as pride, covetous-of native purity, proves that the absence of inward evil ness, malice, and others, which are wholly spiritual; and yet no exception is made in this doctrine of the necessary continuance of sin till death as to them. There is, surely, no need to wait for the separation of the soul from the body in order to be saved from evils which are the sole offspring of the spirit; and yet these are made as inevitable as the sins which more immediately connect themselves with the excitements of the animal nature. This doctrine supposes, too, that the flesh must necessarily not only lust against the Spirit, but in no small degree, and on many occasions, be the conqueror: whereas, we are commanded to "mortify the deeds of the body;" to "crucify," that is, to put to death, "the flesh;" "to put off the old man," which, in its full meaning, must import separation from sin in fact, as well as the renunciation of it in will; and "to put on the new man." Finally, the apostle expressly states, that though the flesh stands victoriously opposed to legal sanctification, it is not insuperable by evangelical holiness." For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh; that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit," Rom. viii. 3, 4. So inconsistent with the declarations and promises of the Gospel is the notion that, so long as we are in the body, "the flesh" must of necessity have at least the occasional dominion. is not inconsistent with a state of probation; and that this, in itself, is no guard against the attempts and solicitations of evil. It has been objected, too, that this supposed state renders the atonement and intercession of Christ superfluous in future. But the very contrary of this is manifest when the case of an evangelical renewal of the soul in righteousness is understood. This proceeds from the grace of God in Christ, through the Holy Spirit, as the efficient cause; it is received by faith as the instrumental cause; and the state itself into which we are raised is maintained, not by inherent native power, but by the continual presence and sanctifying iufluence of the Holy Spirit himself, received and retained in answer to ceaseless prayer; which prayer has respect solely to the merits of the death and intercession of Christ. It has been farther alleged, that a person delivered from all inward and outward sin has no longer need to use the petition of the Lord's prayer,-" and forgive us our trespasses;" because he has no longer need of pardon. To this we reply, 1. That it would be absurd to suppose that any person is placed under the necessity of "trespassing," in order that a general prayer designed for men in a mixed condition might retain its aptness to every particular case. 2. That trespassing of every kind and degree is not supposed by this prayer to be continued, in order that it might be used always We conclude, therefore, as to the time of our com- in the same import, or otherwise it might be pleaded plete sanctification; or, to use the phrase of the apostle against the renunciation of any trespass or transgression Paul, "the destruction of the body of sin;" that it can whatever. 3. That this petition is still relevant to the neither be referred to the hour of death, nor placed sub-case of the entirely sanctified and the evangelically persequently to this present life. The attainment of per- fect, since neither the perfection of the first man nor that fect freedom from sin is one to which believers are of angels is in question; that is, a perfection measured by called during the present life; and is necessary to that the perfect law, which, in its obligations, contemplates completeness of "holiness," and of those active and all creatures as having sustained no injury by moral passive graces of Christianity by which they are called lapse, and admits, therefore, of no excuse from infirmito glorify God in this world, and to edify mankind. ties and mistakes of judgment; nor of any degree of Not only the time, but the manner also, of our sanc- obedience below that which beings created naturally tification, has been matter of controversy: some con- perfect were capable of rendering. There may, howtending that all attainable degrees of it are acquired by ever, be an entire sanctification of a being rendered the process of gradual mortification and the acquisition naturally weak and imperfect, and so liable to mistake of holy habits; others alleging it to be instantaneous, and infirmity, as well as to defect in the degree of that and the fruit of an act of faith in the Divine promises. absolute obedience and service which the law of God, That the regeneration which accompanies justifica-never bent or lowered to human weakness, demands tion is a large approach to this state of perfected holiness; and that all dying to sin, and all growth in grace, advances us nearer to this point of entire sanctity, is so obvious, that on these points there can be no reasonable from all. These defects, and mistakes, and infirmities, may be quite consistent with the entire sanctification of the soul, and the moral maturity of a being still naturally infirm and imperfect. Still, farther, if this were not a sufficient answer, it may be remarked, that we are not the ultimate judges of our own case as to our "trespasses," or our exemption from them; and we are not, therefore, to put ourselves into the place of God, "who is greater than our hearts." So, although St. Paul says, "I know nothing by myself," that is, I am conscious of no offence, he adds, "yet am I not hereby justified; but he that judgeth me is the Lord:" to whom, therefore, the appeal is every moment to be made through Christ the Mediator, and who, by the renewed testimony of his Spirit, assures every true believer of his acceptance in his sight. Another benefit which accrues to all true believers, is the RIGHT TO PRAY, with the special assurance that they shall be heard in all things which are according to the will of God. "And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us." It is under this gracious institution that all good men are constituted intercessors for others, even for the whole world; and that God is pleased to order many of his dispensations, both as to individuals and to nations, in reference to "his elect who cry day and night unto him." With respect to every real member of the body or church of Christ, the PROVIDENCE of God is special; in other words, they are individually considered in the administration of the affairs of this life by the Sovereign Ruler, and their measure of good and of evil is appointed with constant reference to their advantage, either in this life or in eternity. "The hairs of their head" are, therefore, said to be "numbered," and "all things" are declared "to work together for their good." To them also VICTORY OVER DEATH is awarded. They are freed from its fear in respect of consequences in another state; for the apprehension of future punishment is removed by the remission of their sins, and the attestation of this to their minds by the Holy Spirit, while a patient resignation to the will of God, as to the measure of their bodily sufferings, and the strong hopes and joyful anticipations of a better life, cancel and subdue that horror of pain and dissolution which is natura! to man. "Forasmuch, then, as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he, also, himself took part of the same, that, through death, he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver them who, through fear of death, were all their life time subject to bondage," Heb. ii. 14, 15. THE IMMEDIATE RECEPTION OF THE SOUL INTO A STATE OF BLESSEDNESS after death, is also another of the glorious promises of the new covenant to all them that endure to the end, and "die in the Lord." This is so explicitly taught in the New Testament, that, but for the admission of a philosophical error, it would, probably, have never been doubted by any persons professing to receive that book, as of Divine authority. Till, in recent times, the belief in the materiality of the human soul was chiefly confined to those who entirely rejected the Christian revelation; but, when the Socinians adopted this notion, without wholly rejecting the Scriptures, it was promptly perceived that the doctrine of an intermediate state, and the materiality of the soul, could not be maintained together;(1) and the most violent and disgraceful criticisms and evasions have, therefore, by this class of interpreters been resorted to, in order to save a notion as unphilosophical as it is contrary to the word of God. Nothing can be more satisfactory than the observations of Dr. Campbell on this subject. "Many expressions of Scripture, in the natural and obvious sense, imply that an intermediate and separate state of the soul is actually to succeed death. Such are the words of the Lord to the penitent thief upon the cross, Luke xxiii. 43. Stephen's dying petition, Acts vii. 59. The comparisons which the apostle Paul makes in different places (2 Cor. v. 6, &c.; Phil. i. 21), between the enjoyment which true Christians can attain by their continuance in this world, and that which they enter on (1) A few divines, and but few, have also been found, who, still admitting the essential distinction between body and spirit, have thought that their separation by death incapacited the soul for the exercise of its powers. This suspension they call "the sleep of the soul." With the materialist death causes the entire annihilation, for the time, of the thinking property of matter. Both opinions are, however, refuted by the same scriptural arguments. | at their departure out of it, and several other passages. Let the words referred to be read by any judicious person, either in the original or in the common translation, which is sufficiently exact for this purpose, and let him, setting aside all theory or system, say, candidly, whether they would not be understood, by the gross of mankind, as presupposing that the soul may and will exist separately from the body, and be susceptible of happiness or misery in that state. If any thing could add to the native evidence of the expressions, it would be the unnatural meanings that are put upon them, in order to disguise that evidence. What shall we say of the metaphysical distinction introduced for this purpose between absolute and relative time? The apostle Paul, they are sensible, speaks of the saints as admitted to enjoyment in the presence of God, immediately after death. Now, to palliate the direct contradiction there is in this to their doctrine, that the vital principle, which is all they mean by the soul, remains extinguished between death and the resurrection, they remind us of the difference there is between absolute, or real and. relative, or apparent time. They admit, that if the apostle be understood as speaking of real time, what is said flatly contradicts their system; but, say they, his words must be interpreted as spoken only of apparent time. He talks, indeed, of entering on a state of enjoyment immediately after death, though there may be many thousands of years between the one and the other; for he means only, that when that state shall commence, however distant in reality, the time may be, the person entering upon it will not be sensible of that distance, and, consequently, there will be to him an apparent coincidence with the moment of his death. But does the apostle any where give a hint that this is his meaning? or is it what any man would naturally discover from his words? That it is exceedingly remote from the common use of language, I believe hardly any of those who favour this scheme will be partial enough to deny. Did the sacred penman then mean to put a cheat upon the world, and, by the help of an equivocal expression, to flatter men with the hope of entering, the instant they expire, on a state of felicity, when, in fact, they knew that it would be many ages before it would take place? But were the hypothesis about the extinction of the mind between death and the resurrection well founded, the apparent coincidence they speak of is not so clear as they seem to think it. For my part, I cannot regard it as an axiom, and I never heard of any who attempted to demonstrate it. To me it appears merely a corollary from Mr. Locke's doctrine, which derives our conceptions of time from the succession of our ideas, which, whether true or false, is a doctrine to be found only among certain philosophers, and which, we may reasonably believe, never came into the heads of those to whom the Gospel, in the apostolic age, was announced. "I remark that even the curious equivocation (or, perhaps, more properly, mental reservation) that has been devised for them, will not, in every case, save the credit of apostolical veracity. The words of Paul to the Corinthians are, knowing that while we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord; again, we are willing rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord. Could such expressions have been used by him, if he had held it impossible to be with the Lord, or, indeed, anywhere, without the body; and that, whatever the change was which was made by death, he could not be in the presence of the Lord, till he returned to the body? Absence from the body, and presence with the Lord, were never, therefore, more unfortunately combined, than in this illustration. Things are combined here as coincident, which, on the hypothesis of those gentlemen, are incompatible. If recourse be had to the original, the expressions in Greek are, if possible, still stronger. They are, di conμoves Ev Tw owpari, those who dwell in the body, who are εkdημsνтεs aто т8 Kupis, at a distance from the Lord. As, on the contrary, they are δι εκδημώντες εκ το σωματ ros, those who have travelled out of the body, wno are di evenμsvтes проs тоν Kupiov, those who reside, or are present with the Lord. In the passage to the Philippians, also, the commencement of his presence with the Lord is represented as coincident, not with his return to the body, but with his leaving it; with the dissolution, not with the restoration of the union. "From the tenor of the New Testament, the sacred writers appear to proceed on the supposition that the |