history is left to the wildness of accident. All this carries along with it so complete a dethronement of God-it is bringing his creation under the dominion of so many nameless and undeterminable contingencies-it is taking the world and the current of its history so entirely out of the hands of him who formed it--it is, withal, so opposite to what obtains in every other field of observation, where, instead of the lawlessness of chance, we shall find that the more we attend, the more we perceive of a certain necessary and established order-that from these and other considerations which might be stated, the doctrine in question, in addition to the testimonies which we find for it in the Bible, is at this moment receiving a very general support from the speculations of infidel as well as Christian philosophers.

Assenting, as we do, to this doctrine, we state it as our conviction, that God could point the finger of his omniscience to every one individual amongst us, and tell what shall be the fate of each, and the state of suffering or enjoyment of each at any one period of futurity, however distant. Well does he know those of us who are vessels of wrath fitted for destruction, and those of us whom he has predestinated to be conformed to the image of his dear Son, and to be rendered meet for the inheritance. We are not saying, that we, or that any of you could so cluster and arrange the two sets of individuals. This is one of the secret things which belong to God. It is not our duty to be altogether silent about the doctrine of predestination-for the Bible is not silent about it, and it is our duty to promulgate and to hold up our testimony for all we find there. But certain it is, that the doctrine has been so injudiciously meddled with-it has tempted so many ingenious and speculative men to transgress the limits of Scripture-it has engendered so much presumption among some, and so much despondency among others-it has been so much abused to the mischief of practical Christianity, that it were well for us all, could we carefully draw the line between the secret things which belong to God, and the things which are revealed, and belong to us and to our children.'

Dr. Chalmers proceeds to shew from the history, that the intimation given to St. Paul that not a man in the ship should be lost, neither restrained his practical urgency that they should follow his directions, nor discharged the men from the necessity of observing them. He then shews that, à fortiori, the knowledge that some are elected to eternal life, who they are, and who they are not, being entirely unknown, does not in the slightest degree interfere with the duties and responsibility of the preacher, nor can it alter the indissoluble connexion between the means and the end. The train of remark is obvious, but it is a topic which the wonderful perversity of mens' minds on this point, renders it necessary to urge and illustrate to a degree of triteness and reiteration. At the same time, useful as it is to vindicate the doctrine of Predestination from misapprehension, and to guard against an unhallowed abuse of it,

we conceive that this is but half the preacher's business; since, if it be a Scripture doctrine, it must, like every other truth, have its positive use; it must be a part of that truth which "sanctifies" the heart. We never find articles of faith introduced into the Scriptures but for a practical purpose; and it is by observing the use which the sacred writers make of a doctrine, that we can best learn to interpret it. For those purposes, and under such aspects, we shall do well, sanctioned by their example, to preach the doctrine of Predestination positively as well as negatively. Otherwise, the impression left on the mind will be, that the tenet, even though incontrovertible, is useless and unprofitable, and the references made to it in the Scriptures will appear as blots upon the sacred page, faults, if such the objector might dare call them,-their introduction appearing quite inexplicable. Now it is certain that the Apostles were not speculators; it is certain, too, that they advert to the great fact of Divine fore-appointment, with all the familiarity and unreservedness with which they refer to any other known fact, never attempting to prove it, but arguing from it as a thing which required no proof; deducing from it an answer to the Jewish objections against the Gospel itself and the calling of the Gentiles, employing it to alarm the impenitent, and triumphing in it as the security of the believer amid the fiery trials which threatened to overwhelm his faith and " separate him from the love of God." Now we cannot but think that were the providence and purpose of God in relation to his Church-for what mean the terms predestination and election but this?-referred to simply and unequivocally, yet incidentally, rather than formally, in a similar application and bearing, it would be the shortest way to correct honest misapprehension; the abuse of the doctrine would be more effectually guarded against, and its genuine tendency would be seen to be " according to godliness."

The next sermon, in like manner, though not satisfactory as an exposition of the text, is in the highest degree striking and impressive. In the general tenor of the following sentiments we fully concur.

You see then,' says the Preacher, (after citing at length Prov. i 22-8.) how a man may shut against himself all the avenues of reconciliation. There is nothing mysterious in the kind of sin by which the Holy Spirit is tempted to abandon him to that state in which there can be no forgiveness, and no return unto God. It is by a movement of conscience within him, that the man is made sensible of sin-that he is visited with the desire of reformation—that he is given to feel his need both of mercy to pardon, and of grace to help him-in a word, that he is drawn unto the Saviour, and VOL XXII. N. S.

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brought into that intimate alliance with him by faith, which brings down upon him both acceptance with the Father, and all the power of a new and a constraining impulse to the way of obedience. But this movement is a suggestion of the Spirit of God, and if it is resisted by any man, the Spirit is resisted. The God who offers to draw him unto Christ, is resisted. The man refuses to believe, because his deeds are evil; and by every day of perseverance in these deeds, the voice which tells him of their guilt, and urges him to abandon them, is resisted-and thus, the Spirit ceases to suggest, and the Father, from whom the Spirit proceedeth, ceases to draw, and the inward voice ceases to remonstrate-and all this because their authority has been so often put forth, and so often turned from. This is the deadly offence which has reared an impassable wall against the return of the obstinately impenitent. This is the blasphemy to which no forgiveness can be granted, because in its very nature, the man who has come this length, feels no movement of conscience towards that ground on which alone forgiveness can be awarded to himand where it is never refused even to the very worst and most malignant of human iniquities. This is the sin against the Holy Ghost. It is not peculiar to any one age. It does not lie in any one unfathomable mystery. It may be seen at this day in thousands and thousands more, who, by that most familiar and most frequently exemplified of all habits, a habit of resistance to a sense of duty, have at length stifled it altogether, and driven their inward monitor away from them, and have sunk into a profound moral lethargy, and, so will never obtain forgiveness-not because forgiveness is ever refused to any who repent and believe the Gospel, but because they have made their faith and their repentance impracticable. They choose not to repent and this choice has been made so often and so perseveringly, that the Spirit has let them alone. They have obstinately clung to their love of darkness rather than of light, and the Spirit has at length turned away from them since they will have it so. They wish not to believe, because their deeds are evil, and that Spirit has ceased to strive with them, who has so often spoken to them in vain -and whose many remonstrances have never prevailed upon them to abandon the evil of their doings.' pp. 330-332.

But in thus reducing the sin against the Holy Ghost to sim ple impenitence, the scope of the passage, and our Lord's merciful design in following up his reasonings with this alarming caution, are, it seems to us, wholly lost sight of. It is, we think, indubitable, that a specific sin is alluded to; that sin which led the Pharisees to ascribe the works of the Holy Ghost to Satanic agency. This was not calumniating our

*Qui impœnitentiam esse definiunt,' says Calvin, nullo negotio refelli possunt. Frustra enim et inepté negaret Christus in hoc seculo remitti. Deinde nomen blasphemiæ ad quævis peccata promiscue extendi nequit. Sed ex comparatione quam Christus adducit, facile

Lord as man, but it was striking at the honour of God; it was truly and properly blasphemy. And therefore St. Paul, in apparent allusion to this awful denunciation of our Lord, expressly states, that he, who had been " a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a calumniator," and might seem to have been chargeable with this very sin that is declared to be irremissible, "obtained mercy, because he did it ignorantly in unbelief" not in wilful contumacy. The sin against the Holy Ghost is properly termed by Dr. Chalmers a daring and obstinate rebellion against tho prerogatives of conscience;' that is to say, it involves this in its very nature, but something more than this. And as to the difficulty which he finds in supposing that for the remission of this sin, not even the acceptance of the Gospel of Christ, would avail' the transgressor, we must say that the difficulty is of his own making. It arises out of an impossible supposition,-a supposition at variance with the tenor of the whole sermon; for it implies a case in which the Gospel of Christ shall be accepted, after the Spirit of God bas finally withdrawn. That, in a certain sense, all sin against the Holy Ghost, who "resist the Spirit," grieve the Spirit," "quench the Spirit," is most true. But it is not less true, that the sin against which our Lord issued this awful caveat, is of a very distinctive character, and is identified with a hardness of heart which, when it reaches the height of deliberate enmity, is essentially incurable. Dr. Chalmers gains nothing that we perceive, by his exposition of the passage, and we regret that he has been led to adopt it, as it lessens the force and value of his sermon, to which, on this account, we much prefer a discourse of Mr. Toller's on the same text.

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The ninth sermon is a beautiful discourse, on the reason"ableness of the faith.' We transcribe the exordium.

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"Shut up unto the faith." This is the expression which we fixs upon as the subject of our present discourse-and to let you more effectually into the meaning of it, it may be right to state, that in the preceding clause "kept under the law," the term kept, is, in the original Greek, derived from a word which signifies a sentinel. The mode of conception is altogether military. The law is made to act

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nobis constabit definitio. Cur atrocius peccare dicitur qui in Spiritum blasphemat quam qui in Christum ? an quia præcellit Spiritus majestas ut gravius vindicetur? Certé alia est ratio: nam quuni in Christo reluceat plenitudo Divinitatis, quisquis in eum contumeliosus est, totam Dei gloriam, quantum in se est, evertit atque abolet.' He proceeds to shew that the sin involves wilful and malignaut contumacy after illumination. See his Harmony.

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the part of a sentry, guarding every avenue but one-and that one leads those who are compelled to take it to the faith of the Gospel. They are shut up to this faith as their only alternative--like an enedriven by the superior tactics of an opposing general, to take up the only position in which they can maintain themselves, or fly to the only town in which they can find a refuge or a security. This seems to have been a favourite style of argument with Paul, and the way in which he often carried on an intellectual warfare with the enemies of his Master's cause. It forms the basis of that masterly and decisive train of reasoning, which we have in his epistles to the Ro mans. By the operation of a skilful tactics, he (if we may be allowed the expression) manœuvred them, and shut them up to the faith of the Gospel. It gave prodigious effect to his argument, when he reasoned with them, as he often does, upon their own principles, and turned them into instruments of conviction against themselves. With the Jews he reasoned as a Jew. He made a full confession to them of the leading principles of Judaism-and this gave him possession of the vantage ground upon which these principles stood. He made use of the Jewish law as a sentinel to shut them out of every other refuge, and to shut them up to the refuge laid before them in the Gospel. He led them to Christ by a schoolmaster which they could not refuse-and the lesson of this schoolmaster, though a very decisive, was a very short one. "Cursed be he that continueth not in all the words of this law to do them." But, in point of fact, they had not done them. To them then belonged the curse of the violated law. The awful severity of its sanctions was upon them. They found the faith and the free offer of the Gospel to be the only avenue open to receive them. They were shut up unto this avenue; and the law, by concluding them all to be under sin, left them no other outlet but the free act of grace and of mercy laid before us in the New

Testament.

But this is not the only example of that peculiar way in which St. Paul has managed his discussions with the enemies of the faith. He carried the principle of being all things to all men into his very reasonings. He had Gentiles as well as Jews to contend with—and he often made some sentiment or conviction of their own, the starting point of his argument. In this same Epistle to the Romans, he pleaded with the Gentiles the acknowledged law of nature and of In his speech to the men of Athens, he dated his argu

from a point in their own superstition. In this way he drew

converts both from the ranks of Judaism, and the ranks of idolatry— and whether it was the school of Gamaliel in Jerusalem, or the school of Gamaliel in Jerusalem, or the school of poetry and philosophy in countries of refinement, that he had to contend with, his accomplished mind was never at a loss for principles by which he bore down the hostility of his adversaries, and shut them up unto the faith.

But there is a fashion in philosophy as well as in other things. In the course of centuries, new schools are formed, and the old, with all their doctrines and all their plausibilities, sink into oblivion. The restless appetite of the human mind for speculation, must have, noweltics to feed upon-and after the countless fluctuations of two thou