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quite too orthodox to seek the Lord while he may be found, lest they should interfere with their own proper passivity and with his own appropriate work! Hence their earnest seeking they often postpone, we fear, till it comes in spasm and in paroxysm, when God can not be found-when it is too late forever! Prov. 1:20–33; Luke, 13:24-30; Mat. 7:21-23. Such passivity is not taught in the Holy Scriptures, John, 1:11-13. Born should be (from yɛvvaw) rendered begotten always. God is our father-not mother!

2. Is there no danger that your views of full atonement may lead to Universalism, and do they not apprehend such a tendency?

1. I may not say it certainly leads to independent thought, and that is very suspectable in their conservative assumptions. But they are with their theology forever in a mist, possibly a Scotch mist," about the nature of salvation as actually offered to men in the gospel. Is there an offer of that to men, or to some men, or to one man, which, relatively to each of such, or of his class, as non-elect, has no existence? Go preach the gospel to EVERY CREATURE—in all the world? Does this lead to universal salvation? Does it imply any danger that men will be saved by the gospelwithout obeying it? or that the non-elect will obey it? or that, if they should-though we all know they will not, any damage would accrue, or God have any objection?

Some say to us, well, where the difference, since it all comes to the same thing at last? Answer, Is it no difference whether or not God is sincere and veracious in the fact of his offered mercy? Blind and stupid is the mind that can see no difference between honesty and dishonesty! between right and wrong, and this where the actions of God are alone concerned. The difference is, that, if God could lie, the whole universe were one eternal desolation, and heaven an impossibility. I should not have taken notice of this most contemptible allegation, had it not on several oc

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casions been polemically addressed to me; once by a selfish old theologue, or, rather, theologaster, who, in a bad way, I fear, loved himself, and mainly nothing else. Some of them have so represented it, as if really God offers salvation to no mortal in the gospel! One of them, at his ordination, me teste, told the Presbytery that offer was an Arminian idea; that there was no such thing in the gospel. And he proved it too, in his way; why, said he, there is no need of it to the elect, for they have it already; they have the reality, and the offer to them were superfluous. And as to the non-elect, there is no offer to them; and for two reasons: (1) It would do them no good if there were; for they are unable to accept it. They have no ability, more than the dead in their sepulchre. And if it could do them no good, it were a very vanity, too, to offer it to them, and the doctrine of such an offer is false and silly. Besides, (2) They have no offer-for another good reason. Offer? of what? of salvation or atonement? There is none for them! there never was any, there never will be any.

Hence there is no offer at all-only doctrinal statements, only the privilege of hearing such Solomons enunciate to them, or to others in their presence, the arbitrary connection that there is between faith and grace-between passive regeneration and passive salvation! all the elect, in his mongrel theosophy, being quasi a kind of substantive verbs, each in the passive voice, pluperfect tense, third person plural, and neuter gender! But, deserving of ridicule as well as execration, as is this direful stupidity, that confounds the eternal difference between physical and ethical, between matter and mind, between mechanical powers and moral government, and that sees the dynamics and the statics of the universe only in the worse chaos of its own confusions, I would say how little its disciples properly know of the holy scriptures! or of the way in which these are able to make us WISE TO SALVATION, through faith which is in Christ Jesus.

VIEWS OF TRUTH IN REALITY.

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But we affirm, and demonstrate, and know, and preach, (1) That God offers the gospel, in its due ministration, to every hearer.

(2) That the offer is no nullity; no insult to their weakness and their ruin; no equivoque or ambiguity; but made to them with infinite sincerity and perfect consistency by God himself, and by his own order in the gospel.

(3) That the atonement proper, or the mission and the passion of the Son of God, is always the normal, and the necessary, and the only basis of this offer.

(4) That the atonement is, therefore, not limited at all, or properly capable of limitation; though ultimately its application is limited to the elect alone, or all the finally redeemed.

(5) That men are all obligated, as their supreme duty, to repent and believe the gospel; so that the sin of neglecting so great salvation is perfectly paramount, and just infinitely tremendous and perilous.

(6) That they have full natural ability to do this, and are therefore wholly blamable for its omission; their only inability being moral, not physical, that is, not organic or necessitating, but voluntary, so that themselves make it, and maintain it, and are the architects of their own despair, as they perish from the way, and are so forever punished for their

sins.

(7) That the influence of the Spirit is not to make men accountable; men are such, in the very nature and the very structure of their moral being: they are such as creatures under law, absolutely, universally, necessarily. But it is needful to remove the moral obstacles which our own sin and folly put in our way; so that the Spirit enlightens, convinces, effectually persuades, and actuates us in duty; so that we do it, and obey the gospel, and are saved by the grace of God in Christ Jesus.

(8) That, as to freedom, man's moral actions are voluntary, and therefore free. If he sins voluntarily against all the per

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suasion and authority of God, and is under no necessity to sin, except what he makes by his own preference and voluntary agency, why is he not free, as well as criminal in it? And to what does the opposite view tend but to excuse the footstool and criminate the throne? Besides, intellectually, it is indiscriminate and stupid.

2. But is your view Calvinistic?

1. Yes, is our answer-if Calvinism it is to believe with Calvin in his maturer thoughts and works. His noble Institutes, which we admire, and love, and for the most part, or in the main, we adopt, were written in his comparative youth; but his Commentaries, his latter epistles, and his last will and testament,* were the ripened fruits of his older and

* This great and renowned Reformer, this mighty man of Christ, this leader of modern commentators on the word of inspiration, was as correctly illuminated and as profoundly humble before God, in view of his sins, as he was incomparably eminent and honored among men, in consideration of his powers, his attainments, and his deeds of enduring usefulness. His last will and testament, as found appended to BEZA'S LIFE OF CALVIN, and as dictated, just before he died, to Peter Chenalat, the Genevese notary, contains many solemn and excellent sentiments, splendidly appropriate to the moral sublimity of such a scene; among others, this:

I also testify and confess that with humble supplication I beseech God that he would in sovereign mercy cause me to be washed and cleansed by the blood of that great Redeemer who shed his blood for the sins of the human race, that to me it may be vouchsafed, before his own tribunal, to stand at last [beautified and beatified] in the image of the Redeemer himself.

Thus spoke the dying saint, the living and immortal martyr of Jesus. These are his words:

Testor etiam ac profiteor me suppliciter ab eo petere, ut ita me ablutum et mundatum velit sanguine summi illius Redemptoris, EFFUSO PRO HUMANI GENERIS PECCATIS, ut mihi liceat, apud tribunal ipsius, consistere sub ipsius Redemptoris imagine.

The whole document deserves to be translated and studied, as so solemn, so luminous, so sublime, at such a moment, "quite in the verge of heaven"-" fly, ye profane !"

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richer piety; and they state our views, especially on the great subject of atonement, which is quite cardinal in our American controversy.

2. I have no recollection of Calvin teaching that the atonement was made for all men, in any of his writings.

1. Possibly then, dear sir, repressing my surprise, I can amuse you, at least, by quoting his ipsissima in the original : Communem omnium gratiam facit apostolus, quia omnibus exposita est, non quod ad omnes extendatur re ipsa nametsi passus est Christus pro peccatis totius mundi, atque omnibus indifferenter Dei benignitate offertur, non tamen omnes apprehendunt.

2. Are they the words? Indeed! Where does Calvin say that?

1. I am happy to tell you exactly. Have you his OPERA OMNIA at hand?

2. No, I have not that great work in my study, though it may seem strange to you.

1. Indeed it does, since it has long been in mine; and of all human thesauruses of theological wisdom, I prize it as chief. I have it in nine volumes folio, done in vellum, the edition of 1671, Amstelodami, apud viduam Johannis Jacobi Schipperi; and must be allowed to wonder that your library should not contain it.

2. Well, let me hear where it is to be found, for I will see it there before I quit; for novel is the specimen to me, I

own.

1. Yes, there are several others there; and all of them The large expression about the blood of Christ will not admit of construction, according to the restrictive sentiments, which have done so much mischief to the souls of men; in view of what he says on the subject in other places, with such amplification and explicitness. Shame to you, ye preachers of NO OFFER, or one that is worse than none, to men, in the glorious gospel of the blessed God. But wE HAVE SEEN, AND DO TESTIFY THAT THE FATHER SENT THE SON TO BE THE SAVIOR OF THE WORLD.