prove to be of the elect? If nothing more were meant, than that in all our prayers there should be a condition implied, namely, that what we ask is according to the will of God, there could be no just objection to it. But if. lest what we ask should not accord with the divine purpose, we refrain from asking any thing, our conduct will resemble that of the slothful servant, who, from certain notions which he entertained of his Lord's character, concluded that there was no encouragement for him to do any thing, and therefore went and buried his Lord's talent in the earth. And why should we neglect to pray for our neighbours, our hearers, or our children only, lest they should not be elected? Why not also, on the same ground, neglect to pray for ourselves? There must have been a time when we had no ground to conclude ourselves elected; and did we wait till we had obtained evidence of this, before we began to pray for the salvation of our own souls? If we did not, and yet object on this account to pray for others, surely self-love must be the Alpha and Omega of our religion.

Paul, as has been already observed, believed and taught the doctrine of election: yet in the same Epistle, nay, in the same chapter, he declared his most anxious solicitude for the salvation of his unbelieving brethren and kinsmen according to the flesh. And wherefore? Because he desired any thing contrary to the will of God? No; but not knowing what was the secret will of God respecting individuals, he was satisfied with obeying his commandments. God, he well knew, would regulate his own conduct by his wise and righteous decrees, but they could be no rule to him, inasmuch as they were utterly beyond his knowledge.* It was for him to obey the precept, and to leave the issue to his disposal, who worketh all things after the council of his own will.

The doctrines of Efficacious Grace, and the final Perseverance of Believers, are in themselves of a humbling nature. They imply the utter depravity of the human heart, as being proof against every thing but omnipotent love; and the proneness of the best of men to draw back even to perdition, were it not that they are

* See Dr. Ryland's Sermon, before the subscribers to the Stepney Institution, preached at Devonshire Square, 1812. pp. 31-34.

preserved by grace. When a serious Christian remembers the hateful enmity with which he formerly opposed the divine authority, and resisted to the utmost the very calls of mercy, his soul is humbled within him. It was God,' says he, 'who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved me, even when I was dead in sins, hath quickened me together with Christ. By grace I am saved! Or, if he survey his life from the beginning of his Christian course, and the innumerable defects and miscarriages of it are brought to his recollection, shame and confusion overwhelm him. He is God,' saith he, ' and changeth not: therefore it is that I am not consumed! But these important doctrines may be perverted and being so, that which is retained may be as false as they are true, and as productive of spiritual pride as they are of humility. If the influence of either sin or grace be supposed to destroy our accountableness to God; If the necessity of regeneration be contended for, on some other ground than our having been degenerate; if it consist not in the renewal of the mind to a right spirit, but in the communicating of a principle essentially different from any thing to which we were obliged in our unregeneracy, or from that which we possessed in a state of original purity; if this principle and its opposite, the new and the old man, be considered as agents, and the man himself not an agent, but a passive spectator of their conflicts; if a confident persusion of our being the children of God to be taken for Christian faith, and the apprehensions excited by a guilty conscience be treated as unbelief; finally, if perseverance be considered as a certain connexion between a beginning and an end, while an actual progress in grace and holiness is either denied or overlooked; it is easy to perceive what kind of effects will follow.

It is from these fond notions that men imagine themselves possessed of such extraordinary knowledge, as to be entitled to look down upon all around them, as the Jews in the time of our Saviour looked down upon the Gentiles, treating them as dogs. Not only are natural men despised, as though destitute of common un. derstanding; but the first parent of our race, created in the image of God, is accounted a natural man, and as such utterly in

capable of knowing what they know. Even the angels of heaven are in this respect considered as greatly their inferiors.

Much is said in the scriptures of living by faith; and truly understood, it is of the greatest importance. Without it there is neither the progress nor existence of true religion. To live by faith on the son of God, is not only to be crucified to the objects of sense which surround us, and alive to unseen realities; but to feel habitually divested of self-sufficiency, and to place our whole confidence in the promised grace of Christ. Such a confidence has revealed truth for its foundation, and operates in a way of unfeigned humility. Hence the language of the prophet: Behold his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: BUT THE JUST SHALL LIVE BY FAITH. But if a life of faith be understood to mean a continued, unshaken confidence that we are converted, and shall be saved. this is entirely another thing, That true Christians may know that they have passed from death to life, is readily granted; this, however, is not an object of faith, but of consciousness. It is nowhere revealed in the scriptures concerning us that we are true Christians; therefore it can be no exercise of faith to be persuaded of it. A believer may be conscious that he is such, and that he loves our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity; and this faith and love having the promise of salvation, he may be, probably, too certain that he shall be saved. If our hearts condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God. The apostles and primitive Christians appear to have entertained little or no doubt of their personal Christianity. Why? Because great grace was upon them all. These affording a living and constant evidence of their being born of God. But when they speak of holding fast the beginning of their confidence to the end, their meaning is not that they are to maintain a good opinion of their own state; but an unshaken attachment to the gospel, in the declarations and promises of which they had from the beginning confided. The most unshaken persuasion of the goodness of our own state may be mere self-confidence; and if it operate in a way of religious vaunting, there is every reason for concluding it will be found nothing better. Such was that of the Pharisees, who boasted that God was their Father, and so trusted that they were righteous, and des

spised others. The soul of such a man is lifted up, and therefore is not upright in him. Instead of living by faith, his life is that to which a life of faith is directly opposed.

Such doctrine has a bewitching influence upon minds of a certain cast. It is a species of religious flattery, which feeds their vanity and soothes their selfishness: yet they call it the food of their souls. Like intoxicating liquors to a drunkard, its tendency is to destroy but yet it seems necessary to their existence; so much so, that for the sake of it, they dispise the bread of life.

[No part of the preceding Treatise was fully prepared for the press by the author, though the manuscript lay by him for several years. It is supposed that this SECOND PART was not finished, and he had not so much as entered on a THIRD. Its practical inAuence on the temper and conduct of its professors, is, however, abundantly manifest in the writings and preaching of its principal patrons, and in the continual ebullitions of pride, censoriousness, and bitterness, which almost universally proceed from their admirers. The former are scarcely ever known to drop a sentence tending to produce in their admirers the least degree of godly jealousy over themselves and the latter never hesitate to revile all the ministers of the gospel who will not encourage them in their presumptuous confidence of their own safety, and their utter aversion to the very name of duty and moral obligation.

:

The review of the Voice of Years, in the Baptist Magazine, for June, 1815, pp. 252-254, was one of the last things which Mr. FULLER ever wrote, and is well worthy the attention of all professors who are not fully aware of the pernicious tendency of the Antinomian system. R.]

SPIRITUAL PRIDE:

OR

THE OCCASIONS, CAUSES, AND EFFECTS OF HIGHMINDEDNESS IN RELIGION;

WITH

CONSIDERATIONS EXCITING TO SELF-A BASEMENT,

INTRODUCTION.

As there is nothing pertaining to holiness which renders us more like our Lord Jesus Christ than lowliness of mind, so there is nothing pertaining to sin which approaches nearer to the image of satan than pride. This appears to have been the transgression for which he himself was first condemned, and by which he seduced our first parents to follow his example. It was insinuated to them that they were kept in ignorance and treated as underlings, and that by following his counsel, they would be raised in the scale of being: Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

All the evil that is in the world is comprehended in three things-the lust of the flesh, the bust of the eye, and the pride of life. Each of these cardinal vices implies that man is alienated from God, and that all his affections and thoughts centre in himself: but the last is the most subtile in its influence. It consists in THINKING More highly of ourselves THAN WE OUGHT TO THINK. VOL. IV.

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