takers of his converting grace. To alleviate alarms excited by misrepresentations of the revealed counsel of the Most High, may be an object sometimes attainable by that ingenuity of inconsistent explanation, which, even while under the pressure of difficulties, it is constrained to prune the exterior branches of an unsubstantial system, labours to guard the trunk from attack.— To subdue them, the axe must be laid to the root: the false doctrine must be manifested to be false. To the fervent piety and the practical holiness of numbers of our Christian brethren, who conceive themselves to read in the word of God the tenets in question, my testimony, however unimportant, I rejoice to bear. But compelled, as I have repeatedly been, to know the terrors which those tenets have produced, it seems an act of duty, in addressing persons, exposed to similar terrors, not to withhold my deliberate conviction, that the tenets are destitute of scriptural support: and that the detached passages of Holy Writ whence they are deduced, fairly admit, when considered in themselves, and clearly demand, when taken in conjunction with the rest of Scripture, a very different interpretation. For the present purpose, it may be sufficient to refer the desponding sufferer to some plain passages of the Divine Word, which teach that salvation, in every respect unattainable but through our Lord Jesus Christ, is through him open to every man and that on every man of rational faculties, the free mercy of God bestows, for the sake of the great Redeemer, a portion of antecedent grace so far influencing the will, the understanding, and the heart, as, without intrenching on moral agency, to enable him, if diligent in the application of grace received, to obtain through the blood of the cross an inheritance among the saints. " Have I any pleasure that the wicked should die? saith the Lord God. As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way, and live. Turn ye, turn ye, why will ye die?" Can we frame to the imagination any sense, in which these words could be uttered without delusion, if there were any person not actually enabled by divine grace, in will no less than in every other requisite faculty, to turn unto God? The Lord is not willing that any should perish; but that all should come to repentance. God our Saviour will have all men to be saved. Jesus tasted death for every man: gave himself a ransom for all; is the propitiation for the sins of the

whole world. Could any one of these declarations have been made, if there had been a single individual actually or virtually "passed over," in the plan of redemption; unconditionally excluded from the possibility of obtaining salvation through Jesus Christ; unblessed with that preventing influence on his will, without which he must remain incapable of profiting by the Redeemer's death; tantalized by offers of mercy, with which he is left morally incompetent to close? Would our Lord have commanded his disciples to "preach the gospel to every creature," if there had been a single person to whom it must necessarily have been preached in vain? And must it not necessarily have been preached in vain to the man, had such there been, whom God had not freed by the antecedent operation of his grace upon the will, from all impossibility of believing? Is it possible that redemption can be general, if election renders it necessarily partial? Is it true that all men may be saved, if God bestows only on certain select individuals the preventing grace without which no man can be saved? Is it not trifling to affirm that all may be saved" if they will;" while without the preventing grace of God, said to be bestowed on the elect, no man can "will ?"— Are these conclusions to be evaded by a verbal distinction; by replying that it is not a "natural" but a “moral" impossibility which precludes those who are not of the number of the elect from salvation? As though an impossibility would be the less an impossibility, if it should arise from a moral cause! As though the most essential parts of a man's nature were not the moral constitution which he brings into the world! I forbear to accumulate scriptural passages similar in import to those which have been produced. The views which God has disclosed of his own attributes, and the universal tenor of his word, are altogether at variance with the opinions which it has been here requisite to withstand. Fear not, ye mourners. Every man may become one of God's elect. Go forth and prosper. The way of salvation, unbarred to the whole world, lies before you. pursue it, in the strength of your God.

Enter it,

D

THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD DISPLAYED.

CONTEMPLATION OF THE STARRY HEAVENS.

Extracted from Sturm's Reflections.

THE sky at night presents us a sight of wonders, which must raise the astonishment of every attentive observer of nature.— But from whence comes it, that so few consider the firmament with attention? I am willing to believe, that in general it proceeds from ignorance: for it is impossible to be convinced of the greatness of the works of God, without feeling a rapture almost heavenly. O how I wish to make you share this divine pleasure!-Raise your thoughts for this purpose towards the sky. It will be enough to name to you the immense bodies which are strewed in that space, to fill you with astonishment at the greatness of the artificer. It is in the centre of our system that the throne of the sun is established. That body is more than a million of times larger than the earth. It is one hundred millions of miles distant from it, and notwithstanding this prodigious distance, it has a most sensible effect upon our sphere.Round the sun move nineteen globular bodies, seven of which are called planets, the other twelve, moons or satellites: they are opaque, and receive from the sun, light, heat, and perhaps also their interior motion. Georgium Sidus, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Earth, Venus, and Mercury, are the names of the seven principal planets. Of these seven, Mercury is nearest the sun; and for that reason is mostly invisible to the astronomer. As he is near nineteen times smaller than our earth, he contributes but little to adorn the sky. Venus follows him, and is sometimes called the morning, and sometimes the evening star. It is one of the brightest of the heavenly bodies, whether it precedes, the sun-rise, or succeeds the sitting sun. It is near as large again as our earth, and is about sixty-eight millions of miles distant from the sun. After Venus comes our earth, round which the moon moves as a secondary planet. Mars, which is the fourth planet, is seven times smaller than our globe; and its distance from the sun, is one hundred and forty-four millions of miles. Jupiter, with his belt, is always distinguished by his splendour in the starry sky; It seems in size to surpass all the ixed stars; it is almost as bright as Venus in all her glory, exVOL. I.

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rept that the light of it is less brilliant than the morning star.How small is our earth in comparison with Jupiter! there would be no less than eight thousand globes like ours necessary to form one equal in size to that of Jupiter. Saturn, whose distance from the sun is upwards of nine hundred millions of miles, was thought the remotest planet, until the late discovery of the Georgium Sidus, whose distance is eighteen thousand millions of miles, and its magnitude eighty-nine times greater than our earth. In the mean time, the sun, with all the planets which accompany it, is but a very small part of the immense fabric of the universe. Each star, which from hence appears to us no larger than a brilliant set in a ring, is in reality an immense body, which equals the sun both in size and splendour. Each star, then, is not only a world, but also the centre of a planetary system. It is in this light we must consider the stars, which shine over our heads in a winter night. They are distinguished from the planets by their brilliancy, and because they never change their place in the sky. According to their apparent size, they are divided into six classes, which comprehend altogether about three thousand stars. But though they have endeavoured to fix the exact number of them, it is certain they are innumerable.The very number of stars sowed here and there, and which the most piercing eye can with difficulty perceive, prove that it would be in vain to attempt to reckon them. Telescopes, indeed, have opened to us new points in the creation, since, by their assistance, millions of stars are discovered. But it would be a very senseless pride in man, to try to fix the limits of the universe by those of his telescope.

If we reflect on the distance beetween the fixed stars and our. earth, we shall have new cause to admire the greatness of the creation. Our senses alone make us already know that the stars must be farther from us than the planets. Their apparent littleness only proceeds from their distance from the earth.-, And, in reality, this distance cannot be measured; since a cannon-ball, supposing it always to preserve the same degree of swiftness, would scarce, at the end of six hundred thousand years, reach the star nearest to our earth. What then must> the stars be? Their prodigious distance and their brightness tell us, they are suns which reflect as far as to us, not a borrowed light, but their own light; suns which the Creator has

sown by millions in the immeasurable space; and each of which is accompanied by several terrestrial globes, which it is designed to illuminate.

In the mean time, all these observations, however surprising they are, lead us, at the utmost, but to the first limits of the cre ation. If we could transport ourselves above the moon; if we could reach the highest star over our heads, we should discover new skies, new suns, new stars, new systems of worlds, and perhaps still more magnificent. Even there, however, the dominions of our great Creator would not end; and we should find, with the greatest surprise, that we had only arrived at the frontiers of the worldly space. But the little we do know of his works, is sufficient to make us admire the infinite wisdom, power and goodness of our adorable Creator. Let us stop

here, then, and reflect how great must be that being who has created these immense globes! who has regulated their course, and whose mighty hand directs and supports them! And what is the clod of earth we inhabit, with the magnificent scene it presents us, in comparison of the beauty of the firmament? If this earth were annihilated, its absence would be no more observed than that of a grain of sand from the sea shore. What are provinces and kingdoms in comparison of those worlds? Nothing but atoms which play in the air, and are seen in the sun beams. And what am I, when I reckon myself among this infinite number of God's creatures? How am I lost in my own nothingness! But however little I appear in this, how great do I find myself in other respects!" How beautiful this starry firmament which God has chosen for his throne! What is more admirable than the celestial bodies! Their splendour dazzles me; their beauty enchants me. However, all beautiful as it is, and richly adorned, yet is this sky void of intelligence. It knows not its own beauty; while I, mere clay, whom God has moulded with his hands, am endowed with sense and reason." I can contemplate the beauty of these shining orbs: Still more, I am already, to a certain degree, acquainted with their sublime Author; and I partly see some rays of his glory. I will endeavour to be more and more acquainted with his works, and make it my employment, till, by a glorious change, I rise above the starry regions.