fair and precise statement of the question. Not whether He will keep us IF we remain faithful, but whether He will continue to make us faithful. Not whether He will desert us IF we provoke Him, but whether He will suffer us to provoke Him thus far. Not what His agency will be as consequent to ours, but what our agency will be as consequent to His. He began the work when there was nothing in the creature to induce Him, but every thing to dissuade will He discontinue the work when there is less to dissuade than at first? In a word, will He begin a work, uninduced by the creature; and uninduced by the creature, and even less provoked, will He desert it?

This question cannot be decided by reason, it must be settled by Revelation alone. Nor can it be determined even by the general benevolence of God as set forth in that Revelation; for He there sustains the character of One who has in-fact withdrawn His influence and left perfectly holy beings to fall. No instance indeed is known, (if the case under consideration is not one,) of His having begun to sanctify sinners and withdrawn from the work. But after all the question wholly turns on what He has promised;-on the positive stipulations in the covenant with His Son and with His people. If in fact He promised His Son an elect seed, and inscribed their names in the book of life before the foundation of the world; if He promised Him that they should never perish," that none should "pluck them out of [His] hand," "that of all

which He" had "given" Him He "should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the Last Day;"* if none but the elect are regenerated, as our text expressly declares; and if the covenant made with Christians engages infallibly to secure them against apostacy; then the Perseverance of the Saints is secured beyond a possibility of failure.

That such a covenant was made with Christ in behalf of His elect, was proved in a former Lecture, and is confirmed by the texts just quoted. That covenant you may see more largely displayed in the eighty-ninth Psalm, under the typical form of a covenant with David. "I have made a covenant with my Chosen ;-thy seed will I establish forever. Then thou spokest in vision to thy Holy One, and saidst, I have laid help upon One that is mighty; I have exalted One chosen out of the people.-His seed also will I make to endure forever-if His children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments; if they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments; then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes; nevertheless my loving kindness will I not utterly take from Him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail." He who never asked in vain, lodged in heaven a prayer for the safe keeping of all this elect seed to the end of the world: "Glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee. As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as

* John vi. 39. and x. 3-5, 11, 14-16, 26-29.

pray

thou hast given him.-I pray for them; I not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me.-Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one as we are.-I pray not that thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil.-Sanctify them through thy truth. Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; that they ALL may be one, as thou Father art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them, that they may be one even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that thou hast loved them as thou hast loved me. Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me." In accordance with this He told His disciples, "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that you should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain."

In virtue of this covenant with the Redeemer, as soon as a soul is united to Him by faith, it receives a sentence of justification which forever frees it from the condemning sentence of the law : "Ye-are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that ye should be married to another, even to Him that is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.-Now we are deliver

ed from the law, (that being dead wherein we were held,) that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.-There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life hath made me free from the law of sin and death. -Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ ?” "The law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. Then He said, Lo I come to do thy will, O God. By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.-For by one offering He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us: for after that He had said before, This is the covenant that I will make with them; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them, and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Now where remission of these

is there is no more offering for sin." Though the drift of this passage is to prove that the death of Christ, once endured, was sufficient to take away sin without being repeated, yet the argument is so wrought as strongly to imply, what is explicitly declared in the text, that all who by a union to Christ are once "justified," are forever delivered from condemnation. By this union men grow to Christ as "members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones" and will He suffer His members to be torn from His bleeding side? At the time of this union they are "born of God,” and become "sons” and heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ," ❝to an inheritance incorruptible,—and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for [them,] who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation." Henceforth their title is, "NO MORE a servant, but a son."

Had not a seed been secured to Christ by such an absolute covenant, He might have entirely lost the reward of His death. He had no security for a single soul unless the covenant secured the whole. Remove now the immutable purpose and promise of God, and what hinders the whole body of believers on earth from apostatizing at once? The Church may become extinct in a single day. if things are left thus uncertain, what mean all the promises and oaths of God respecting the future glory of Zion?

But

When God came in time to enter into covenant with His people, He bound Himself to them indi