to put away sin. If this enmity remaineth, what is the consequence? We are liable to the first and second death, and stand obnoxious to the righteous judgment of God. Now the fruit of the Spirit is love. But we cannot bring forth the fruits of the Spirit unless we are born of the Spirit. Now the works of the flesh are idolatry and hatred: hatred of God, and delight in self-righteousness: we are at enmity with God and he with us: and if he go away we must die in our sins. Hence further may the necessity of regeneration be enforced.

3d. From the love of God to us, whereby he loves a chosen remnant, and hath purposed to save them through the sending of his Son.

It is no mean proof of the Necessity of Regeneration, that God resolved to save fallen man through Jesus Christ: through the visible effect of Regeneration, whereby whosoever is so born, knows and feels that he tastes and enjoys the salvation of God. God looked from Heaven, to see if any were good: and his sad observation was, No not one. What then was the desert of all men? Death and all the sad variety of woe. Why then have not all experienced the desert of their rebellion against their Maker? Because he would have mercy in saving a remnant of our race: Except "the Lord of Hosts had left unto us a very small "remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and "we should have been like unto Gomorrah," Isaiah i. 9. The love of God as observed before is in

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flexibly opposed to, and strenuously resolved to punish every sin: but when through the offered mediation of Christ, God the Father can consistently with his honor look upon, hold out pardon to, and receive into communion the sinner, then also the divine love is manifested to such a sinner, brought by the grace of God into communion with him. It may be not ainiss just to take a very short and compendious view of the nature of the covenant made for the good of God's people. And first the Father says, I will, that a certain part of mankind should be saved through the intervention of my Son, these I choose, and will send my Son to redeem. The Son says I agree to die for these: and "all that the Father giveth me shall come unto "me;" and again, "Father I will that they whom "thou givest me, be with me where I am;" and to the end that these may be brought to acknowledgment of the truth, which they cannot be without regeneration, the Holy Spirit is promised them, I will put my Spirit within them and write my law in their hearts: and Christ in agreement with this, "I will pray the Father and he shall give you "another comforter that he may abide with you "for ever. Even the spirit of truth," John xiv.

16, 17.

But to consider our election more particularly. When a man by the grace of God hath been brought to see and consider himself as an immortal and eternal being: who after having passed the dark

valley of the shadow of death, must launch at once into a state of unalterable happiness or woe, and is led to reflect on the importance of salvation, how must he like the apostle Paul, feel continual heaviness and sorrow of heart, first for his brethren and kindred in the flesh, and next for his friends and neighbours to whom he is often ready to call in to partake of his joy: though this sorrow for others, does not and cannot destroy the principle of joy and peace which a man finds in believing. Election (nor let any man start at the word), is that infinite counsel and fore-knowledge of God, and that gracious settlement of his love whereby he saveth whom he will, as we may even learn under the Old Testament, or law dispensation, when he says in Deuteronomy, "I will have mercy, upon whom I "will have mercy," and the apostle Paul speaks of the "called according to God's purpose," and then adds," whom he did foreknow, them also he did

predestinate, whom he did predestinate, them "also he called," Rom. viii. 28, 29, 30. and to add' further an indisputable testimony, viz. that of Jesus himself, who declares " many be called but

few chosen," Matt. xx. 16. Further in considering this subject, four things may be noticed, riz.

1st. Election is a sovereign act of God.

The Lord has a right to do what he will with his own. And what do we by nature, deserve that he should do unto us? Why that he should con

sign us over to the pains of hell for ever. Those who feel not their own vileness in that spiritual sense in which the scripture lays it down, may indeed cavil at the secret decrees of God, but it is to their own eternal shame and confusion of face. And those who do feel powerfully their sins, are made willing by the Spirit of God, to receive this wholesome doctrine, that they are saved by the sovereign will and good pleasure of God. And if we consider that God has a sovereign right to condemn to the pains of hell, all his sinful creatures, without distinction can we see nothing lovely in God, when we view him saving some according to his own will, and by, his own power, on condition of a suitable satisfaction being paid to his justice, which suitable satisfaction, (as men could not give) God himself hath provided by choosing his own Son, as a ransom for his people, and choosing them in Christ, to be redeemed through his blood. Hence it is called "the election of grace, which "the election (or subjects of that election) hath ob"tained, and the rest were blinded," Rom. xi. 5, 7.

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2nd. Election supposes not any

human merit.

It seeks up its objects often from the vilest of the vile, and always from those whose hearts are at enmity with God. Thus Jehovah speaks to his prophet Ezekiel; "None eye pitied thee, but thou "wast cast into the open field, to the loathing of thy person in the day that thou wast born.

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"And when I passed by thee, and saw thee pol"luted in thine own blood, I said unto thee when "thou wast in thy blood, Live; yea I said unto "thee, when thou wast in thy blood, Live,” Ezek. xvi. 5, 6. Furthermore, a Mary Magdalene out of whom Christ cast seven devils, is chosen of God and saved, brought from a common prostitute, to glorify God, and to receive Christ as her lawful husband. Above all, the thief on the cross, who till the ninth hour, was blaspheming Christ with his companion, is chosen of God, and is led by his spirit to cry out, "Lord remember me when thou "comest into thy kingdom;" to which, hear the gracious reply of our Lord, " Verily I say unto "thee, this day thou shalt be with me in paradise,” Luke xxiii. 42, 43.

3d. Election is accomplished actually on the heart of God's elect, by the power of God's Spirit in Regeneration in his own appointed time. The soul is passive in the hands of the Spirit when the work of regeneration is first begun upon it: this may be traced by observing the various metaphors under which a state of sin and rebellion against God are expressed, as first men are said to be dead in trespasses and sins, and then the work of regeneration and the beginnings of spiritual life are ascribed wholly to God: "And you (says the apostle) hath "he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and "sins," Ephes. ii. 1. 2d. They are said to be in

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