and devotion in some manner even among pagans; which if we allow not to have been in all respects so complete, as to instate the persons endowed with them, or practisers of them, in God's favour, or to bring them to salvation; yet those qualities and actions (in degree, or in matter at least, so good, and so conformable to God's law,) we can hardly deny to have been the gifts of God, and the effects of divine grace.” Barrow's Sermons, Vol. III. p. 329. folio ed. "The fourth consideration is, that God rewards those that have made use of the single talent, that lowest proportion of grace, which he is pleased to give; and the method of his rewarding is by giving them more grace; which as it is in some degree applicable to heathens, who have certainly the talent of natural knowledge, and are strictly responsible for it, so if they use not that, but retain the truth in unrighteousness (Rom. i. 18), that makes their condition the same with ours (who are finally lost also, and at the present have our talent taken away from us), if we make not the due use of it." Dr. Hammond's Letter to Dr. Sanderson, Works, Vol. I. p. 674. Again: "When it

is considered, what the state of our corrupt will is, being naturally averted from God, and strongly inclined to evil, it seems to me scarce proper to call this, in relation to supernatural virtues, a free will, till God, by his preventing grace, hath in some degree manumitted it, till Christ hath made it free. Being then what it is, i. e. in some degree emancipated by God's grace, and by grace only, (this act of Christ's love and grace being reached out to enemies, to men in their corrupt state of aversion and opposition to God,) the will is then enabled (still by the same principle of grace) to choose life, when it is proposed, and the ways and means to it; and though it be still left free to act or not to act, to choose or not to choose, yet when it doth act and choose life, it doth it no otherwise (to my understanding) than the body doth perform all the actions of life, merely by the strength of the

soul; and that continual animation it hath, it receives from it; which makes the parallel complete; and gave ground to the expression and comparison betwixt giving of natural life, and regeneration." P. 679. It is not pretended that this view of the subject is free from the difficulty which embarrasses all our reasonings, when we attempt to reconcile the notion of preventing grace with that of free will. It only removes that difficulty one step, and throws it back upon our necessary ignorance of what may be termed the moving force of God's providence in the moral government of the world; that force which originates a series of secondary causes and effects, and which must, however remotely, as far as we are able to judge of causation, be the first cause of every act of volition; for "the laws of nature, bringing forth her various productions, were of his establishment; the workings of chance followed from some determinate causes, though to us unknown; these again from some other prior, and so on in a continual channel from the sources first opened by the exertion of his power; for no event, however casual, can happen without something occasioning it to fall out in that manner; the actions of men proceed according to their apprehensions and judgments, thrown upon them by their constitution or temperament, by education, by company and occurrences befalling them in life, all of which were conveyed by nature or fortune, and therefore must be referred to the origin from whence they are derived. For every effect must be produced by the action of some agent, material or spiritual, or the concurrence of several, and must follow according to the manner of that action being exerted; which manner was determined by some impulse or motive impressed from elsewhere, nor can we stop, until we arrive at some act of omnipotence." Tucker's Light of Nature, ch. 26, p. 269. Thus, then, in effect, the real difficulty of this question is closely connected, if not identified, with that which is at the bottom of all the

great questions in controversy between Arminians and Calvinists, and which has disturbed the peace of the Church from its first foundation, the existence of evil in the world; for we should feel no difficulty in ascribing all our thoughts and intentions to a divine impulse, through whatever channels communicated, if they were all pure and holy. I need hardly add, that by the initial or inceptive grace which I have here spoken of, something is meant very different from what was called by the Semipelagians, the first grace of God, that is, the law of nature. (See Jortin's Dissertations, p. 84.) Upon the whole of this question I would recommend the perusal of Dr. Hey's Remarks on the Tenth Article. See Sermon V. p. 86, and the note on p. 53.

P. 16. a presumption in its favour.] "What can be more for the honour of a religion, than that it drives from it all determined wickedness, as not able to bear the splendour of its visage; especially when we consider, that this same religion, so terrible to hardened vice, bears the most benignant aspect to a repentant sinner, whom she invites to her bosom, and to whom she communicates all her comforts and consolations ?" Warburton's Sermons, Works, Vol. IV. p. 409.

SERMON II.

P. 21. "Did religion bestow heaven without any terms or conditions indifferently upon all; if the crown of life was hereditary, and free to good and bad; and not settled by covenant upon the elect of God only, such as live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world; I believe there would be no such thing as an infidel among us. And without

controversy, it is the way and means of attaining to heaven, that make profane scorners so willingly let go the expectation of it. It is not the articles of the creed, but the duty to God and their neighbour, that is such an inconsistent, incredible legend. They will not practise the rules of religion, and therefore cannot believe the promises and rewards of it." Bentley's Confut. of Atheism, Serm. I. p. 5.

P. 24. I am afraid that this is too accurate a description of the religious instruction which is usually given to the youth of this Christian country, in the higher and middle classes of society. A change for the better seems now to be taking place in our great schools: it is to be hoped that the instruction, which is there afforded to the rising generation, will not be restricted to lectures on the Greek Testament, the Catechism, or the Evidences, but that it will extend itself to lessons of practical piety and virtue.

SERMON III.

P. 39. attributes, &c.] See Archbishop King's Discourse on Predestination, p. 19, with Dr. Whately's valuable Remarks.

P. 53. "Vain men would be wise; they would fain go to the bottom of things, when, alas! they scarce understand the very surface of them. They will allow no mysteries in religion, and yet every thing is a mystery to them. They will bear with nothing in religion which they cannot comprehend; but above other things the divine perfections, even those which are most absolute and necessary, are above their reach.""God may reveal something to us, which we are bound to

believe, and yet after that revelation the manner of it may be incomprehensible by us, and consequently a mystery to us." Bp. Stillingfleet on Scripture Mysteries. "Nature abounds in mysteries, of which we may have a certain knowledge, but no clear conception; some are too large for imagination to grasp; some too minute for it to discern; others too obscure to be seen distinctly; and others, though plainly discernible in themselves, yet remain inexplicable in the manner of production, or appear incompatible with one another. Therefore though conception be the groundwork of knowledge, and the inconceivableness of a thing a good argument against its reality, yet it is not an irrefragable one; for it may be overpowered by other proofs, drawn from premises whereof we have a clear conception and undoubted knowledge." Tucker's Light of Nature, ch. 14, p. 381. This concluding observation is precisely applicable to the doctrine of Three Persons in one God. It is inconceivable, as to its mode; and so is the mode of God's existence inconceivable; but this inconceivableness is not an irrefragable argument against its reality; for it is overpowered by this argument, that it is asserted in the Word of God, and we have a clear conception and undoubted knowledge of these facts, that the Scriptures are the Word of God, and that they assert this doctrine.

P. 53. God is able to reconcile his seeming contradictions.] Dr. Hammond, in the postscript to his Third Letter on Prescience, addressed to Dr. Sanderson, having briefly stated the notion of God's immense and infinite knowledge, and that of future contingents not predetermined by God, nor caused by any necessity, concludes with the following memorable caution: "If, taking these propositions apart, any Christian can doubt the truth of either of them, he sees the shelves he splits upon, and the shipwreck of a great part of the faith, whether on this or on that side. But if he cannot but assent to these truths