in the case of Pharoah, who when he saw there was respite, he hardened his heart yet more.-Sending his prophets and ministers to tell them their errors and mistakes in religion, and solemnly and affectionately to call them to repentance, by which their enmity and rage are provoked, as was the case in regard to the headers of Israel, when Christ preached to them.

But are not all these acts of great mercy and kindness? Shall the sinner's eye be evil, because God is thus good, even to him. If the sinner is hardened by such means, it is perfectly evident he can have no pretence to find fault with his Maker?

He must admit he is under infinite obligation to praise God for those very means by which he is hardened. For they are not only acts of mercy in themselves, but they present the divine character to view in an amiable light, and are powerful arguments to produce repentance. It is true indeed that God bardens men's hearts by giving them up to the enticements of wicked companions, the sophistry of false teachers, and the influence of the devil.-But if this be a judgment upon them for their refusing to be guided by the word and Spirit of God, their love of the company of sinners, and their predilection for error and falsehood, who can with any shadow of reason impeach the justice of it?-But does not he despoil himself of all this armor to silence the caviller and vindicate the ways of God, who lays out of the question the idea of hardening being a special act of providence, and denies the power of all second causes and instruments to excite the wills of men to evil?— This man we conceive quits plain Scripture ground, and goes to meet the enemy in the strength of his own metaphysical armor. All he can do is to talk of the abstract nature of moral agency, buman liberty, virtue and vice consisting in mere exercise and not in its cause, &c. The great leader of the darkness of this world was never yet much terrified and driven out of the field by such a mode of attack.

But says one, who is fascinated by the fine polish of this metaphysical panoply, you have not yet done with the objector. If you have, he has not done with you, and you may yet need the aid of the weapons you so lightly esteem? By no means, the cause which cannot be defended on plain Scripture ground, we believe God never intended should be defended.-We know very well, the sinner, though foiled by the blow just now given, may rise again and with vehemence urge, Why did God originally give me an heart that should be capable of being hardened in the way you have stated; or why did he not exert his omnipotent power and grace to soften my heart into repentance under these dispensations of love? But do the Scriptures here abandon us, and suggest no reply.-If they suggest a reply, it is certainly a true one, and it is the best that can be given, and we can have no occasion to go for help to the most illustrious champion of philosophical warfare. And happily for the Christian, St. Paul was assailed by this very objection, and I conceive I am bound to believe he took the best method to repel it. And what was it? It was indeed a summary one, but none more pungent and powerful could be devised; he pointed the objector to the infinite Jehovah as an absolute and holy sovereign, who hath mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth! And suggests whether the sovereign Lord and owner of all things, has not as much right to dispose of the objects of his creation, as the potter has to form his clay into such vessels as pleases him! "Hath not the potter power over the clay of the same lump, to make one vessel unto honor and another unto dishonor?”

If the caviller is tempted to take the last step of audacious impiety, and impeach the justice of his Maker in the awful retributions of sin, and say, "Why doth he yet find fault, who hath resisted his will," still the Scriptures stand by us and tell us what to say. "Nay, but who art thou, O man, that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say unto him

that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus." If this plain, solemn, appeal to the understanding and conscience does not silence the voice of objection, nothing will do it? He who imagines he can do better by his abstract reasoning than Paul has done, will find himself miserably deceived. It would flatter the pride of a presumptuous opposer of the sovereignty of God, to suggest that Paul treats him with too little ceremony, and to deign to take him on his own ground in a train of labored deduction, but it would probably only confirm him in his impiety.

He that knows that God does a certain thing, and is not satisfied that it is just, is not to be reasoned with any further.-For God's doing it is the highest possible proof of its wisdom and rectitude. So thought the Psalmist, when he exclaimed, "I was dumb, I opened not my mouth, because thou, Lord, didst it." Thus we see that there is nothing which any boasted philosophical theory can do, but the Scriptures can do it a great deal better.

We shall now put a period to our labors in a few words. We cannot pretend that any thing like complete justice is done to the subject. A consciousness of the want of ability, a pressure of family afflictions and cares, and professional duties, forbad every anticipation of that kind.

We are conscious of having aimed at nothing but a correct statement and illucidation of evangelical truth, and to free it from the embraces of a beguiling and injurious philosophy. If any thing we have said, shall tend to produce this effect, and to exalt and magnify the authority of the Holy Scriptures, and to persuade men that the best philosophy, the most precious wisdom, is the sincere milk of the word of God received into a good and honest heart, we shall be amply rewarded.

Should any one object to the metaphysical discussions contained in this volume and attempt by abstract reasonings to prove them incorrect, I shall take no notice of it. I have not introduced them to

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establish any point, except this, that by them no point in divinity can be established, so as to command any high degree of confidence. But should any one prove by plain arguments, drawn from the word of God, that when James says of vicious and impious exercises, "This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish;" and of good exercises, "But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, &c." he means that sin and holiness come both alike from a direct divine influence on the heart of men, I shall be bound to reply or confess my error. But nothing but proving this to be the meaning of the apostle shall ever be considered as worthy of any notice.

APPENDIX.

(Containing the Sermon alluded to on p. 10.)

MODERN PHILOSOPHICAL MIXTURES, DEGRADING THE CHARACTER, AND DEFEATING THE MORAL INFLUENCE OF THE GOSPEL, DETECTED.

COL. ii, 8.

Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy.

In these words the Apostle has nothing to do with natural philosophy, any farther than it overleaps its proper bounds, and purposely deviates from its own path, to arm itself against true theology. It is moral philosophers whose systems are so pernicious. Of these there are three general classes; pagan philosophers, who in the midst of universal darkness sought in vain to find out God infidel philosophers, whose great endeavor is to extinguish the light of revelation, and restore the ancient empire of spiritual ignorance and wickedness; and christian philosophers, who labor with vast ingenuity and mighty zeal, so to pare down and fashion the Gospel of Christ, as that it shall harmonize with their self-invented systems. In this discourse, our principal business will not be with philosophy, considered as an open enemy, but as a treacherous friend.--For, since the christian era, this splendid form has not only arrayed itself in open hostility against evangelical truth, but it has endeavored to incorporate itself with it, and extend its triumphs under a name so truly glorious. In this way immense injury has been done to the cause of Christ, by some of his professed followers. For ages the church languished under the evils brought upon it by the philosophical spirit of Origen.-Of the celebrated Dr. Cudworth it is said, "his attachment to the platonic philosophy has thrown an air of mysticism over some of his metaphysical opinions; and his doctrine of the plastic nature is supposed by Bayle to have given great advantage to the