danger of perdition, and that what God has said concerning them is to fail? By no means!' he replies, It is not true that the word of God has taken none effect, for all are not of course the objects of God's peculiar love who are descended from Abraham or from Israel. God, in the family of Abraham, chose Isaac to be the sole progenitor of the favored people, and rejected Ishmael from that honor altogether; and this was not merely because Ishmael was the son of Hagar, for in the family of Isaac he preferred Jacob to Esau, without regard to the actual merit or demerit of either, but for reasons in his own mind alone. Just so at this time they are not all Israel which are of Israel, there is among that privileged and honored" people only a remnant, who inherit the spiritual promises.' Then he meets the objector again, What shall we say? Is the objection started that if this is so, then God is unrightcous? Is it said that if God selects out of Israel certain individuals to be the objects of his more peculiar regard, he treats the rest with injustice or unkindness? We deny the inference. For according to the Scriptures of the Old Testament, all the differences which exist among men are to be traced ultimately, not to any natural difference among those who are all alike by native disposition sinners, but to the mercy of God which makes one man to differ from another; and what is right on the large scale is equally right in the present instance. This is what God said to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy and will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. And to take a different illustration, God said to Pharaoh, For this same purpose have I raised thee up-[exalted you to the eminence on which you stand] that I might shew my power in thee. Therefore, to repeat the proposition in another form, he hath mercy on whom he will, and from whom he will he withholds his mercy.' And then the apostle goes on to vindicate what he has said, against the objec tion, Why doth he yet find fault, for who hath resisted his will?” This view of the course of thought in the chapter before us, we do not bring forward as being unquestionably right in opposition to what Mr. Spicer has said. We only state it as that which obviously seems to be the line of the Apostle's argument, and as a view of the matter which plain readers of plain understanding will not be very ready to give up without some substantial proof that some other view is the right one. We submit it to our author whether his work is not capable of some improvement on this point. But if we dwell longer on the scope of the Apostle's argument, we may become tedious to some of our readers. And especially if we should go into an inquiry respecting the meaning of that fatal stumbling-block in the way of Arminian interpreters, "Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy,"-we might find ourselves unawares drawn into a discussion of what is the true doctrine of election. That subject we set aside for the present, hoping to take it up on some other occasion. Nevertheless, we must be allowed to suggest to our author one or two questions about his doctrine of national election. Mr. Spicer's doctrine then, as we understand it, is this: "Some nations have been elected to enjoy peculiar privileges, and from such privileges others have been reprobated." "When God chooses and rejects in this manner, it may be called unconditional election and reprobation.” In other words, the difference between one nation and another, as it regards the means of salvation, is owing to the purpose of a Sovereign God, who "in bestowing his favors on nations is not regulated by the deserts of those nations, but bestows them upon whom, when, and where he pleaseth.” For example, the fact that the people of the United States enjoy the light of the gospel, is simply because God has elected them to this privilege; and the fact that the miserable tribes of the West have not the gospel, is because God has reprobated them from the enjoyment of such means of salvation. According to our author then, it is God's will-it is the Divine purpose, that has hidden the light of salvation from those tribes. God has not elected them to Christian privileges; by a sovereign purpose, they are unconditionally reprobated. Now the question very naturally comes up, If these things are so, what is the use and what is the ground of missions to the heathen? It might be said to the Missionary Society of the Methodist Church; (supposing them to adopt this doctrine,) You confess that God has unconditionally reprobated the Missisaugas and Potawatamies from the privileges of the gospel; why then send them missionaries and thus resist the purpose of God? If it is God's purpose that they shall have the gospel, will they not have it, whether you send it to them or not? And if it is God's purpose that they shall not have the gospel, must they not be destitute of the gospel do what you can? Another question about this national election and reprobation. How much better is it with regard to objections against the divine character than the election of individuals? Does not God know that when men are left in the darkness of heathenism, they will assuredly become just what Paul, speaking by the Spirit, has described in the first chapter of Romans; and, by thus sinning against the light of nature and of conscience, will become vessels of wrath fitted for destruction? If God has ordained the difference between the Turks and the Americans in regard to privileges, has he not also ordained that difference in regard to character and eternal destiny, which he knew would be in so many thousands of instances the certain result? In what light then does this "explanation of Scripture" present the character of God? We trust that our author's good sense will persuade him to omit in future editions the last paragraph on page 19th, and the first on page 20th. The sophistry of that reasoning is too obvious to produce any effect; and he must be aware that in arguments of that sort, the ars celare artem is of great importance. We have only room for a single specimen, which we select because it seems as if the author had himself been imposed upon by some misrepresentation which it has been his hap to meet with. I would ask whether the eternal decree of election does not infallibly secure the salvation of all the ELECT? If it does not, why is it said their number cannot be" diminished?" But if the eternal decree of election does infallibly secure the salvation of the elect, and yet although elected, they are not in Christ, what necessity is there of a union to Christ afterwards, if their salvation is already secured without it? p. 20. Mr. S. will be happy to learn that he is under a mistake here. No-. body, within our knowledge, believes that the "eternal decree of election infallibly secures the salvation" of a single human being, except by securing first his repentance and faith, and thus his vital union with Christ. The "necessity of a union to Christ," in the case of the elect, is therefore this, that according to the "decree of election" "their salvation" cannot be secured without it. One more quotation we are bound to make, lest we leave on the mind of our readers an unfair impression of what Mr. Spicer really believes. It is owing to the grace of God that and become penitent. By grace he is a sinner is brought to see his danger enabled to seek the Lord and believe in the Saviour. It is grace that gives him pardon and changes his heart, that enables him to do all the good that he does, bears with his infirmities, and finally admits him to an inheritance among the sanctified. So that every good man on earth, as well as every saint in heaven, may exclaim with the Apostle, "By the grace of God I am what I am." p. 22. Does any one ask, What does this mean? We ask in reply, What can it mean? If it means any thing, it seems to mean that the cause of the salvation of one man rather than another, must be found ultimately in the mercy of God. The grace which saves one does not save all. We should be pleased indeed to have the language a little more distinct and explicit; but we do believe that our author, and every pious member of the community to which he belongs, acknowledges in his heart and in his prayers, though perhaps he never confesses explicitly in terms, that it is God's mercy which makes one man to differ from another. We are happy to see our author at the conclusion of his work, notwithstanding all his antipathies against election, and the Connecticut Confession, standing on this ground. This is a great truth, a faithful saying; and we hope that his preaching will never overlook it. God's mercy finds all men alike guilty and wretched; some it strives with for a time, and hinders from running at once into the excess of misery; others it effec tually brings to repentance and faith and endless life. And the difference is not because the latter are of themselves or originally worthier or better than the former, but because God's mercy makes them better, and in a sense worthy of eternal life. We hope our author's preaching never will militate against this truth. He need not tell how God operates to make his mercy effectual; for on this point no man knows any thing except that the Holy Spirit operates by the instrumentality of the truth and according to the nature of the mind. The fact, however, we hope he will not fail to urge. If he will tell his hearers that it is God's mercy which makes them to differ from the Indians or the Hottentots; he need not tell them how. If he will tell them, that God's mercy makes them to differ from the wretch who expiates his crimes on the scaffold; he need not tell them how. If he will make the penitent and believing among his people to understand, that it is God's mercy which makes them to differ from the sinner whose heart is hardening, and whose unforgiven guilt is accumulating amid all the privileges of a Christian land; he need not undertake to tell them how. If he will preach this great fact clearly and distinctly, few will complain of him for not preaching the doctrine of election. TO CORRESPONDENTS. We regret that the interesting paper of J. S. C. came too late for our present volume. We regret also that we had no room left for the information communicated to us by a respected correspondent concerning the Seminary at Gettysburg. We rejoice in the very flattering prospects of that Seminary. An institution which is the object of so much Christian sympathy and liberality cannot fail to be a blessing both to the denomination of Christians who are its founders and to our country at large. INDEX. RELIGIOUS AND MISCELLANE- OUS COMMUNICATIONS. Assembly of Divines at Westmins- Beauty, 190 Believer to his guardian Angel, 127 Bookish Man, 296 Breakwater at Plymouth, 347 Calvin, 239 Chile, 80 Examination of Prof. Fitch's Theory 1 Thess. v. 22; 517 Faith, illustrations of, 178 George Burder, 521 Greece, the Appeal from, 235 Hannah More, 585 Historical sketch of the Rechabites, 179 Christian character adapted to the Hours in a Library, 189 Age, 561 Cicero, recollections of, 472 College at Santiago, 80 Colleges, Religious instruction in, 23, Commencement of Holy Time, 225, Correction of a Reference, 516 Illustrations of Faith, 178 Jane Gray Jennings, Memoir of, 449 Knox, the Scotch Reformer, 289 Language of Scripture on Spiritual Large Cities, 20, 134 Luxurious Livers, 468 Martyrdom of Sir John Oldcastle, 125 TT Meek Believer to his Guardian Angel, Memoir of Enoch Perkins, Esq. 627 Miser Demar, 189 Narratives of the State of Religion, 405 Nature of Sin, 19 Note to J. L. 64 Thoughts on the Revival under White- Timothy an Evangelist, 113 Organization of the Primitive Church- Titus and Crete, 169 Traffickers at St. Jago 82 University of Santiago, 84 Wane of the Turkish Empire, 22 THEOLOGICAL COLLECTIONS. Extracts from Andrew Cant, 645 Histories of the Inquisition, 191 Pascal's Thoughts, 28 Proper Subjects of Christian Research, 85 Sinner's Inability, 300 REVIEWS. Address to Manufacturers and Venders Appeal to the Temperate in Canada,547 Bacon's Sermon at the Funeral of Beecher's Election Sermon, 418 Sketches of South America, 80, 139, Bijou, 44 Sketch of the life of John Knox, 289 Sin, 18 Slander 190 Spanish Papist's prayer, 190 Suggestion to Peace Societies, 539 Tamul Poetry, 407 Bouton's Election Sermon, 418 Douglass on the Advancement of So- Examination of charges against the Family Altar, 377 Foot's Sermon on False Teachers, 545 |