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Though I cannot think with Mr. E. that the word of God becomes a spiritual principle in us till it is actively received, yet I allow that it is productive of great effects. The understanding and conscience being enlightened by it, many open sins are forsaken. and many things done in a way of what is called religious duty, And though I have no notion of directing sinners to a course of previous humiliation, nor opinion of the efforts of man toward preparing himself for the reception of divine grace; yet I believe God ordinarily os deals with men as gradually to beat down their false confidences, and reduce them to extremity ere they are brought to embrace the gospel. Such things are not necessarily connected with faith or salvation. In many instances they have their issue in mere self righteous hope and where it is otherwise, they are to faith and salvation, as I have said before, but as the noise, and the shaking of the dry bones, to the breath of life.

Moreover, the word of Godproduces still greater and bettereffects when it is believed. In them that believe "it worketh effectually." When the commandment comes to a soul in its spirituality, it gives him to percieve the exceeding sinfulness of sin; and when the gospel comes, not in word only, but in power, it produces mighty effects. It is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth. It operated before, to the "pulling down of strong holds," and the casting down of many a vain "imagination;" but now it "bringeth every thought into subjection to the obedience of Christ." It is thus that we "know the truth, and the truth (as known) makes us free." If once we are enabled to behold the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, it changes us into the same image, begets and excites holy affections, and produees every kind of gracious exercise.

The gospel is the mould in which the mind of the believer is cast, and by which it is formed. The statement of Dr. Owen, as quoted by Mr. Ecking is very just and scriptural. "As the word is in the gospel, so is grace in the heart; yea, they are the same things variously expressed. Rom. vi. 17. As our translation. doth not, so I know not how, in so few words to express that which is so emphatically here insinuated by the Holy Spirit. The meaning is, that the doctrine of the gospel begets the form, figure, im

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age, or likeness of itself in the hearts of them that believe: so they are cast into the mould ofit. As is the one, so is the other. The principle of grace in the heart, and that in the word, are as children of the same parent, completely resembling and representing one another. Grace is a living word, and the word is a figured limned grace. As we have heard, so have we seen and found it: such a soul can produce the duplicate of the word, and so adjust all things thereby," &c.*

All this describes the effect of the word on those who believe it: but the question is, how we come to believe it? Dr. Owen has elsewhere attempted to solve this difficulty, by proving that a principle of spiritual life is communicated to the sinner in regeneration, antecedently to believing.† He doubtless considered these things as consistent with each other; and though Mr. Ecking, in making the quotation, appears to consider them as contradictory, yet while he admits that "we must have a spiritual principle before we can discern beauties," the same contradiction, if such it be, attaches to himself.

I allow, with Dr. Owen, that the Spirit of God makes use of "the reasons, motives, and persuasive arguments which the word affords, to affect the mind; and that converted persons are able to give some account of the considerations whereby they were prevailed upon." But I also think, with him, that "the whole work of the Spirit in our conversion does not consist herein; but that there is a real physical work whereby he imparts spiritual life to the souls of all who are truly regenerated."+

Mr. M'Lean rejects the idea of physical influence, and seems to confound it with something corporeal, or mechanical. If I understand the term physical, with respect to influence, it is opposed to moral. That influence is denominated moral that works upon the mind by motives, or considerations which induce it to this or that; and all beyond this is physical and supernatural. When

* On Psalm 130, pp. 168-170: in Ecking's Essays, pp. 77-79.

+ Discourses on the Holy Spirit, Book III. Chap. 1.

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God created the soul of man, originally, in righteousness and true holiness, I suppose it must be allowed to have been a physical work. Man certainly was not induced by motives to be righteous any more than to be rational: yet there was nothing corporeal or mechanical in it. It is thus that I understand Dr. Owen, in the passage just quoted, in which, while he admits of the use of moral suasion, he denies that the whole work of conversion consists in it; and I should think Mr. M. could not, even upon his own principles, maintain the contrary. For whatever motives or considerations the word of God may furnish in a way of moral suasion, yet he holds with the necessity of a divine supernatural influence being superadded to it, by which the mind is illuminated and rendered spiritual. But, if divine influence consists in any thing distinct from the influence of the word, it must be supernatural and physical. The party is also equally unconscious of it on his principles as on mine: he is conscious of nothing but its effects. He finds himself the subject of new views and sensations; but as to knowing whence they came, it is likely he thinks nothing of it at the time, and is ready to imagine that any person, if he would but look into the Bible, must see what he sees so plainly taught in it. He may be conscious of ideas suggested to him by the word, and of their effect upon his mind; but as to any divine influence accompanying them, he knows nothing of it.

Mr. Ecking represents "the inability, or spiritual death of sinners as consisting in disinclination, or loving darkness rather than light." And this disinclination he ascribes to ignorance and unbelief; from whence he argues, "If the removal of the effect is by removing the cause, it is reasonable to suppose that this is the way in which God works upon the human mind." (p. 66.) That the removal of the effect is by the removal of the cause, I allow; but what authority bad Mr. E. for making ignorance and unbelief the cause of spiritual death. Spiritual death consists in ignorance and unbelief, no less than in disinclination. It consists in sin;* and if ignorance and unbelief are sins, they are of the essence of spiritual death. It is true they are productive of other sins, and may

* Ephes. ii. 1.

be considered as growing near to the root of moral evil: but, unless a thing can be the cause of itself, they are not the cause of all evil. Before we ascribe spiritual death to ignorance, it is necessary to inquire whether this ignorance be voluntary, or involuntary? If involuntary, it is in itself sinless; and to represent this as the cause of depravity is to join with Godwin, in explaining away all innate principles of evil, and, indeed, all moral evil and accountableness from among men. If voluntary, the solution does not reach the bottom of the subject; for the question still returns, what is the cause of voluntariness of ignorance, or of the sinner's loving darkness rather than light? Is this also to be ascribed to ignorance? If so, the same consequence follows as before, that there is no such thing as moral evil or accountableness among men.

Mr. M'Lean has stated this subject much clearer than Mr. Ecking. He may elsewhere have written in a different strain, but in the last edition of his Dissertation on the Influences of the Holy Spirit, he attributes ignorance and unbelief to hatred, and not hatred to ignorance and unbelief. "Our Lord," he says, "asks the Jews, Why do ye not understand my speech? And gives this reason for it, even because ye cannot hear my word—that is, cannot endure my doctrine. Their love of worldly honour, and the applause of men is given as a reason why they could not believe in him. John v. 44. He traces their unbelief into their HATRED both of him and his Father. John xv, 22. 24."*

Nothing is more evident than that the cause of spiritual blindness is, in the scriptures, ascribed to disposition. Light is come into the world; but men LOVE DARKNESS rather than light, because their deeds are evil.-They say unto God, depart from us, for we DESIRE NOT the knowledge of thy ways.—Being alienated from the life of God, through the ignorance that is in them, BECAUSE OF THE BLINDNESS (hardness, or callousness,) OF THEIR HEART..—Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word. But if, as the scriptures teach, the cause of both ignorance and unbelief is to be traced to hatred, (as Mr. M'Lean acknowledges ;) and if, as Mr. Ecking says, "effects are removed by the

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removal of the cause," I scarcely need to draw the consequencethat though in a general sense it be true that we are regenerated by believing the gospel, yet in a more particular sense it is equally true that we are regenerated in order to it.

It is somewhat extraordinary that Mr. M'Lean, after allowing pride and aversion to be the great obstructions to faith, should yet deny the removal of them to be necessary to it. He will allow some sort of conviction of sin to be necessary to believing in Christ; but nothing that includes the removal of enmity, of pride, for this were equal to allowing repentance to be necessary to it: but if enmity and pride be not removed, how can the sinner, according to our Lord's reasoning in John viii. 43. v. 44, understand or believe the gospel? If there be any meaning in words, it is supposed by this language, that, in order to understand and believe the gospel, it is necessary to "endure" the doctrine, and to feel a regard to "the honour that cometh from God." To account for the removal of pride and enmity as bars to believing, by means of believing, is, I say, very extraordinary, and as inconsistent with Mr. M.'s own concessions as it is with scripture and reason: for, when writing on spiritual illumination, he allows the dark and carnal mind to be thereby rendered spiritual, and so enabled to discern and believe spiritual things.*

* Reply, p. 7.

I am yours, &c.

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