ward, and conceive no vain gloryings, but glory in the Spirit of the Lord; and when the voice of conscience awaketh from its long slumbers, give ear to its admonitions, and praise the Lord for his goodness. And when the sense of sin overwhelms you, still, in the overflowing floods, trust in him. And when the Saviour, all-glorious in his sufficient righteousness, discloseth himself to your view, rejoice and be exceeding glad, and praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his loving-kindness unto the children of men. And when at length you come to walk after the Spirit, and to have the witness of the Spirit that you are the sons of God, and to feel your calling and election becoming sure, then give thanks to God, and wait for the revelation of his sons, and the inheritance of the saints in light.

OF JUDGMENT TO COME..

PART IX.

THE REVIEW OF THE WHOLE ARGUMENT, AND AN ENDEAVOUR TO BRING IT HOME TO THE SONS OF MEN.

THIS is no common argument in which we have been engaged, and that is no common conclusion which it hath had in view. It is no controversy with the opinions of an antagonist, whose undefended sides you might lay bare,. and whose weapons you might turn against himself. You have no advantages from his unskilfulness or rashness, and you have no incitement from any personal interest in the struggle. For it is a question with all the doubts and objections of the hesitating mind. We stand to the post both of impugning and defending the great thesis of Judgment to Come,-a double capacity, which requires a double exercise of fairness and justice. We have both to excite the hesitations of the mind and to allay them again; so that our ingenuity is doubly tasked, and we feel often in a divided state. For it hath been our wish to deal wisely between the reason, of man and the revelation of God, steering wide of the coarseness and cruelty with which dogmatical theologians ride over the head of every natural feeling and reasonable thought of doubting menremembering the poverty of our own understanding, and attributing whatever we possess to the free and unmerited gift of God. To occupy this ground of meditating the matter in dispute between the reasoning power of man and the revelation of Almighty God, we may have given offence to both; to the one, for not having done its difficulties justice in the statement or the resolution; to the other, for having too daringly intermeddled and interfered

with the secrecy and sacredness of its counsels. We are weak and feeble-minded like other men, and little acquainted with such high discourse, begirt also with manifold engagements, and invaded with the noise of this unresting place; and therefore we hope from the sympathy of our fellow mortals, forgiveness for any injustice we have shown them; and we shall seek from the secret ear of our God that forgiveness for which he is to be feared, and that redemption for which he is to be sought after.

In casting our eye back over the eight preceding parts of our Argument, to review it all, we discern some passages in which we have spoken with liberty of men who still live under their Maker's good providence and within the reach of his tender mercy. These we could easily expunge or now soften down, or make atonement for; but we will not, we cannot-For, our zeal towards God and the common good hath been stung almost into madness by the writings of reproachable men, who give the tone to the sentimental and the political world. Their poems, their criticisms and their blasphemous pamphlets, have been like gall and wormwood to my spirit, and I have longed to summon into the field some arm of strength which might evaporate their vile and filthy speculation into the limbo of vanity, from which it came. For which office, being satisfied that nothing less than omnipotent truth under leading of Almighty God will suffice, I am weary of the vain infliction of pains and penalties by the ruling powers, which doth but aggravate the evil, by awakening sympathy in the bosom of all who dread that power should ever intermeddle with the free circulation of thought. Seeing that Truth, which I revere, thus wounded both by friends and foes, I could not rest, but have spoken out my feelings wherever occasion offered, at the risk of offending the workers of evil, and those who by brute power endeavour to counterwork them. I have done so, I say; not that I am equal to the task, or have executed the task, but in the hope of summoning from

the host of the Lord of Hosts some one (surely I cannot be mistaken that there are some such!) able and willing to take the field in the fair conflict of truth, and cast back into these blaspheming throats their vain bravadoes against the armies of the living God. One such spirit would do us more good than all the prosecutions and suppressions which all the law authorities of the realm can carry into effect. But I fear the worst; that the intrigues of policy and the weight of power will in this age totally expel from the two established churches all the vigour and virtue of mind from which such apologies can alone proceed. And sometimes I hope the best; that, through the Spirit of God working better understanding upon those powerful men who at present outwit religion with their policies and strangle her with their power, the noble spirit which now lieth depressed in both, and especially in this establishment of England, will be extricated, and the Newtons and Scotts who still watch in her corners, will yet have wide sees to administer and provinces to watch over. Which renovation, alas! long lingereth, and the enemy taketh advantage of its tardiness. But if it linger much longer, I hope, ere this realm, which is faint at both extremes, grows sick at the heart and threatens to lay down its heavenly spirit of religion, some of those men who in our senates do both know and seek the Lord, will lift up their voice, and make the calamity of England's and Scotland's wasted parishes and faded provinces to be heard in the ears of those whom God hath appointed to rule them in righteousness and in holiness.-Or do they mean to wait until we fall into the condition of prostrate Ireland? No, that can never be; for, long ere then, the generous spirit of the South and the indignant spirit of the North will have eased them of those who trouble their prosperity.

Thus again I am betrayed by my feelings into these digressions for which I meant only to explain the cogent reasons. But let them all pass, and bring what good or ill the Lord may please.-And now to return to our review of what hath been said:

1

We seem to ourselves, allowing for these occasional digressions, to have kept with sufficient constancy to the matter of our discourse, and to have brought the subject to a good termination, arguing strictly according to the plan we chose and laid out at the beginning; and if we mistake not, we have kept generally within the sight and experience of common minds. All abstract discourse upon responsibility in general, and the freedom or necessity of the human will, we have avoided; not out of terror of that marlstroom in the ocean of thought, but because it is too nice a question to be handled by the way, and when it is taken up, should occupy the whole diligence of the mind. But instead of such metaphysical discourse we entered upon the inductive and experimental inquiry. How the nature of man accorded with a taste of responsibility, and discovered that in no one of its relationships was it found devoid thereof, but acceded to it with a constant choice, as the very buckler of its social existence. Then we passed, to inquire what right God had to lay the human race under control, and what was the character of that responsibility under which he hath actually placed them. His claim rested upon the whole structure and sustenance of our estate, and his intention was to multiply the nobleness and happiness of our being. For which end, he hath in his mercy granted to us a constitution of law and government to live under; which we next passed on to peruse and consider.

Here there opened upon us a wide field of ethical and political discourse, into which we followed the train and leading of our argument. The largeness of divine law, compassing every province of purity, came under our review; the unmeasurable requirements of Christ's discipline, the unanswerable demands of his judgment, the inquisition of conscience, with the purer inquisition of God. These considering well, our mind was staggered not a little, and we applied ourselves to discover the pro