we are concerned in the present question. As for the great mass of the careless and worldly, they are, indeed, for the most part, far too confident of salvation; but their confidence commonly results from a vague, general, unweighed notion of God's mercy; not, from any Calvinistic persuasion of their being selected from the rest of mankind, and ordained to persevere in holiness, under the constant guidance of the Divine Spirit. They need, indeed, to be, if possible, alarmed and filled with apprehension; but it is a far different kind of alarm they need, from that of which we have been speaking; they need to be warned of the dangers attendant on a careless, not on an active and zealous christian life; of the danger, not of falling from a state of grace, but of never striving to be in such a state; of the danger of losing heaven, not by turning from the service of God, but by not turning from the service of sin. Their false security arises, not from their dwelling, with too confident expectation, on the glories of a better world, but from their thinking too little, or not at all, of any world but this. Let such be alarmed, by all means possible, into a just sense of

the ruin to which they are hastening, by taking no pains to lead a christian life; and to urge such a ground of alarm will have no tendency to dishearten those who are conscious of an earnest desire, and endeavour to live to God. And the more confidence is expressed of the final success of those who will come to Christ, and set themselves to work out their own salvation, the more will the sinner be encouraged to begin in earnest, and pursue with vigour, the great work of reformation.

3. But is there, then, it may be asked, no "fear and trembling" to be felt by all men in working out their salvation? Can any man be exempt from all danger of excessive and presumptuous confidence? Undoubtedly such a danger is always, and by every one, to be sedulously guarded against; but it will be best guarded against, not by seeking to lower the Christian's hopes, but by connecting his confidence with his own unremitting efforts; by striving to establish in his thoughts an inseparable combination between the idea of the happiness he looks forward to, and that of the

requisite exertions on his part. The fullest confidence of attaining any object, if the attainment of it be still regarded as dependent on our own endeavours, and if that confidence be grounded, on a firm resolution to use those endeavours, can never lead to negligence and inactivity."

a It is to be observed, however, by the way, that there are many expressions in Scripture, which do not even imply any full conviction in the writer's mind that a particular event will take place; though, taken strictly, they might seem to imply this, and have, probably, been often so understood. Instances may be found, probably, in all languages, but I think they are particularly common in Greek, of the same terms being used in speaking of an object proposed, and of an object attained; a full design and attempt to do any thing, is often expressed in the same manner as if it had been actually done. Thus in the Ajax of Sophocles (to take an instance from a profane writer), Agamemnon charges Ajax with having murdered him; i. e. having done all that in him lay to accomplish that purpose, though his design was frustrated by extraneous impediments. And, indeed, nothing is more common in most of the ancient writers, than to speak of a person's having done this or that, i. e. having been doing it---having formed the design, and actually set about it, though the attempt was stopped. In this sense, the Lord is repeatedly said to have delivered the Israelites out of Egypt, to bring them into the land of Canaan, which he had promised to their forefathers; and yet the whole generation perished in the wilderness through their own.

The Christian who is earnestly striving to be led by the Holy Spirit, and to "grow in grace"

refusal, when summoned, to take possession of the promised land; and a considerable portion of the promised land was never occupied even by their posterity, through their own neglect to drive out the nations whose territory had been allotted to them. In this case, the positive and unqualified declarations of Scripture, not only do not imply any compulsion exercised on the Israelites, but do not even imply a foreknowledge that the events would take place; but merely that the Lord had performed his part, and had left it completely in their power to bring about the events in question.

So also, many of the expressions of the Sacred Writers, in which they speak of the holiness of life here, and eternal life hereafter, provided by the grace of God for those whom they are addressing, not only do not relate to any absolute predestination to reward, or irresistible control of the will; but do not necessarily imply, according to a fair construction of the language, even so much as a perfect confidence in the writers, that these objects will, in fact, be attained; but merely that such is the design and tendency of the gospel dispensation; that God had placed these things within their reach.

I am not contending, be it observed, that this absolute predestination and irresistible grace may not, in fact, be a part of the gospel-scheme in the Divine Mind; but only that no inference to that effect can be fairly drawn from the words of the Apostles. They may be truths, but they are not revealed truths; they may belong to the gospel-scheme, but not to the gospel-revelation.

daily, must not be told indeed that he cannot turn aside from the right path if he would ; that it is out of his power to fall into a life of sin: but that fear and trembling which I conceive St. Paul to have intended, the conviction, namely, that our care and diligence are never to be laid aside even to the end, will not lessen such confidence as proceeds on the full determination to retain that diligent care; nor will it dash with any mixture of gloomy apprehensions the joyful anticipations with which such a Christian looks forward to a future life.

§ 4. We may learn, not only from St. Paul's precepts relative to christian trust and "joy in the Holy Ghost," but also from his example, as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, in concerns of a different nature, that he at least did not consider the active and circumspect employment of means, inconsistent with the most undoubting certainty as to the event; even a certainty founded on immediate precise revelation from heaven. Let any one read the account of what befel him while imprisoned at Jerusalem, and he will find him assured, by a supernatural vision, of his