to lead to a total disregard of all moral virtue. Let us then inquire into,
1. Its source —
[Does it indeed proceed from pride ? Those who cannot endure the thought of God's sovereignty, will affirm confi- dently that it does : and in reference to all who maintain the doctrine of election, they will exclaim, " These men fancy themselves the special favourites of heaven." But let me ask. Who are the proud? they who acknowledge themselves to be only as parts of one vast mass of clay, of which the potter, agreeably to his own sovereign will, and for the praise of the glory of his own grace, has taken a part, to form of it a vessel of honour for his own use^; or those who assert that they were selected because they were of a finer quality than the mass that was left behind ? Who are the proud ? they who say with the Apostle, " By the grace of God I am what I am ;" or those who say, " By my own strength, and on ac- count of my own superior goodness, I am what I am ?" Who, I say, are the proud? they who accept heaven solely as the free gift of God in Christ Jesus ; or they who expect to pur- chase it at a price which they themselves shall pay? The belief of the doctrines of predestination and election is not founded in pride, but in humility, and in a deep conviction that we are nothing, and have nothing, and can do nothing, but what of itself deserves God's wrath and indignation. It is the denial of these doctrines that proceeds from pride ; because it argues a conceit that we have something originally, and of ourselves, which merits the distinction that we hope for in a future world, and to which our ultimate salvation must, in part at least, if not altogether, be ascribed. Will any man say that Paul was actuated by pride, when he said, " Whom God did predestinate, them he also called, and justified, and glori-
fiedi? " No man ever had a higher sense of the dignity
conferred upon him, than Paul had: nor had ever man a deeper sense of his own unworthiness : " I am less than the least of all saints :" " I am nothing^" And the more deeply we feel our unworthiness, the more cordially shall we acquiesce in his humiliating statements of the freeness and sovereignty of divine grace.]
2. Its tendency —
[A belief of these doctrines, it is supposed, will produce a laxness in morals. But was the Apostle regardless of morality ?
P Rom. Ik. 21.
1 Rom. viii. 'M) See also F.ph. i. 4— fi, 9, 11. and 2 Tim. i. 9.
r Kph. iii. 8. '2 Cor. xii. 11.