SECOND APPENDIX.

Containing, (1) Arguments to prove, that all men univerfally, in the day of their vifitation, have some gracious power to believe SOME faving truth.—And (2) An anfwer to objections.

BEING confcious that I cannot be too careful, and guarded, in writing upon fo important, and delicate a fubject, I once attempt to explain, strengthen, and guard the doctrine that it contains.

I. I have faid that Faith [confidered in general] is believing heartily; I add, and fometimes it may fignify a power to believe heartily. For as God gives to all the Heathens in the day of their vifitation, a power to be lieve heartily that God is, indulging them with graci ous calls and opportunites to use that power; we may fay, that he gives them the faith of their difpenfation. Nevertheless all the Heathens have not that faith: For many obftinately bury their talent, till at

at laft it is taken from them.

As this doctrine of faith entirely fubverts the doctrine of finifhed damnation, which is fo clofely connected with the doctrines of abfolute election, and fi nifhed falvation: I beg leave to add the following arguments to those which I have produced to prove, that faith is not the work of God in the fenfe of our adverfaries, and that in the day of falvation, thro the free gift which is come upon all fome gracious power to believe fome faving truth.

men, we have

all

*

(1) If

(1) If faith is the work of God in the fame fenfe in which the creation is his performance, when Chrift marvelled at the Centurion's faith, he marvelled, that God fhould be able to do what he pleases, or that a man fhould do what he can no more help doing, than he can hinder the world from exifting: That is, he marvelled at what was not at all marvellous; and he might as well have wondered that a tun fhould outweigh an ounce.

(2) When God invites EVERY creature in all the world to believe, [Mark xvi. 15.] if he denies MOST of them power fo to do, he infults over their wretched impotence, and acts a part which can hardly be reconciled with fincerity. What would the world think of the king, if he perpetually invited all the Irish poor over to England to partake of his royal charity, and took care that most of them fhould never meet with any veffels to bring them over, but fuch as would be fure to founder in the paffage.

(3) When our Lord endeavoured to fhame the pharifees for their unbelief, he faid, John came to you and ye believed him not, but the publicans and harlots believed him and ye, • when ye had feen it, repented not afterwards, that ye might believe. But if faith is the work of God in the fenfe of our adverfaries, was it any fhame to the pharifees, that God would not do his own work? Had they any more reason to blush at it, than we have to redden, because God does not give us wings and fins as he does to birds and fishes ?

(4) To fuppofe that Chrift affiduously preached the gospel to the inhabitants of Capernaum, whilst all the time he withheld from them power to believe it, and that afterwards he appointed them a more intolerable damnation for not believing: To fuppofe this I fay, is to caft the most horrible reflection upon the lamb of God. But if it is allowed, that those obftinate unbelievers will justly be sent into a more dreadful hell, for having buried to the end their talent of power to believe in their ftronger

P 2

light;

light; is it not reasonable to fuppofe, that those who fhall go to a lefs intolerable hell, will also be sent there for having finally refused to use their talent of power to believe in their weaker light ?

*(5) Altho' Chrift pofitively fays, that men fhall be damned for their unbelief: [See John iii. 18. Mark xvi. 16.] yet fome of our adverfaries deny it ; being defervedly-afhamed of representing our Lord as damning myriads of men for not doing what is abfolutely impoffible. Hence they tell us, that reprobates fhall be damned only for their fins. But this contrivance does not mend the matter: for bad works, or fins, neceffarily flow from unbelief. Now, unbelief being nothing, but the abfence of faith: God, by abfolutely withholding all faving faith neceffarily caufes all unbelief; and unbelief, by neceffarily caufing all fin, neceffarily caufes alfo damnation. For he that abfolutely withholds all light neceffarily causes all darkness, and of course all the works of darkness. Thus" the doctrines of grace" [so called] that seem to rear their graceful head to heaven, end in the gracelefs venomous tail of finished damnation." Definit in pifcem mulier formofa fuperne."

* (6) The defign of the gofpel, with regard to God is evidently to extol his grace, and clear his juftice. Now, if an abfolute decree of preterition, or limited redemption, hinders a vast majority of mankind from believing to falvation, both thofe ends of the gofpel are entirely defeated in all that perish: For God by paffing by the reprobated culprits thousands of years before they were born, and by withholding every dram of faving grace from them, fhows himself a merciless Creator to them all. Nor does this opinion lefs horribly impeach God's juftice than his grace; for it reprefents him as judicially fentencing men to eternal torments, merely for the fin of a man whom most of them never heard of; or which is all one, for the neceffary, unavoidable, pre-ordained confequences

of that fin.

*(7) St. Paul, in his epiftles to the Romans, takes

particular

particular care to clear God's juftice with refpect to the condemnation of the wicked, that every mouth may be stopped-and that they may be without excufe. But the fcheme which I oppose, instead of leaving men with out excufe, opens their mouths, and fills them with the beft apology in the world. "Abfolute neceffity and complete impoffibility, caufed by another before we were born: An apology this, which no candid perfon can ever object to.

*(8) Agreeably to St. Paul's doctrine our Lord obferves, that the man sentenced to be cast into outer dark nefs for not having on a wedding garment, was Speechless. But if the Crifpian doctrines of grace are true, might not that man, with the greatest pro priety, have faid to the mafter 'of the feaft, while the executioners bound him hand and foot; "To all eternity I fhall impeach thy justice, O thou partial judge. Thou appointeft me the hell of hypocrites, merely because I have not on a wedding garment, which thou haft from all eternity purpofedly kept from me, under the ftrong lock and key of thy irreverfible decrees. Is this the manner in which thou judgeft the world in righteoufnefs ?"

(9) Iffalvation depends upon faith, and if God never gives reprobates power to believe in the light that enlightens every man, and a fufficiency of means fo to do; it follows, that he never gives them any perfonal ability to escape damnation; but only to secure and increase their damnation; and thus he deals far harder with them than he did with devils For Satan and his angels were all perfonally put in a state of initial falvation, and endued with a perfonal ability to do that, on which their eternal falvation depended. To fuppofe therefore, that a majority of the children of Adam, who are born finful with out any perfonal fault of their own, and who can fay to the incarnate Son of God, Thou art flesh of our flesh, and bone of our bone-to fuppofe, I fay, that a vast majority of these favoured creatures have far lefs favour fhown them, than Beelzebub himself

had, is fo graceless, fo evangelical a doctrine, that one might be tempted to think, it is ironically called the doctrine of grace; and to fufpect, that its defenders are filed evangelical minifters" by way of burlefque.

*From the preceding arguments I conclude, that when it is faid in the fcriptures, people coULD NOT believe, this is to be understood, either of persons, whofe day of grace was over, and who of course were justly given up to a reprobate mind, as the men mentioned, Rom. i. 21, 28: Or of perfons, who by not using their one talent of power to believe the obvious truths belonging to a lower difpenfation, abfolutely incapacitated themselves to believe the deep truths belonging to Christianity.

II. Altho' I flatter myself, that the preceding arguments guard the doctrine of free grace against the attacks of thofe, who contend for free-wrath ; I dare not yet conclude. Still fearful left fome difficulty unremoved fhould prejudice the candid reader against the truth, I beg leave to answer three more plaufible objections to the doctrine of this Effay.

OBJ. V. "If faith is the gift of the God of GRACE to us, as fight is the gift of the God of NATURE, does "it not follow, that as we may fee when we will, "fo we may believe in Chrift -believe the for"giveness of our fins; and, by that means, fill our"felves with peace and joy in the Holy Ghoft when we

have a mind? But is not this contrary to experi "ence? Do not the beft Chriftians remember a "time, when they could no more believe than "they could make a world, tho' they prayed for "faith with all the ardor they were capable of ?"

ANS. (1) You ftill feem to take it for granted, that there is no true faith, but an explicit faith IN CHRIST and no explicit faith in Chrift, but the faith of full affurance. But I hope, that I have al

ready