6

daring insolence in any common prostitute, who should have come and called you to an account for not marrying her. And what should you have thought, if all the women in the world had come to you, and demanded your person to have been divided among them in wedlock? would you not have replied, Every man has a right to chuse his own partner in life: who is to control me in the object of my choice?' Let this sovereign prerogative be granted to your Maker, and the offensive doctrine of election by Arminian practice is established. God the Father made a marriage for his son, Matt. xxii. 2. And Christ says, "I will betroth thee unto me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness and in mercies. I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness, and thou shalt know the Lord."

The Father brings this dame to his son, "No man can come to me except the Father draw him;" and he accepts her at his hands, and says, This is flesh of my flesh, and bone of my bone. "This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church," Ephes. v. 32.

And though you, sir, are desirous of making the Saviour a polygamist, by putting Leah to bed in the dark, and forcing her upon him by a covenant of wedlock of your own devising, which has been altered ten times, yet the Saviour says, No; she shall not be my wife; nor am I her husband, call her Lo-ruhamah, Hosea i. 6. I will not have

、

her, I will have Hephzibah, my own delight, and no other. "There are threescore queens and fourscore concubines, and virgins without number. My dove, my undefiled is but one, she is the only one of her mother, she is the choice one of her that bare her."

I will come with another appeal to the court of equity. You, sir, keep several servants; and do you always hire every one that offers his service? Do not you act like a sovereign here? Have you not a choice in them? and do you not send for their character, and inquire after their honesty? Let this privilege be granted to your Maker, and the controversy is ended. God sends his ministerial servants into the market, to hire labourers into his vineyard, Matt. xx. 1; and he pitches upon such as you refuse, for he takes those that stand idle, Matt. xx. 6; and he takes them without any recommendation, which you will not do, for you require a character of their honesty; and yet at the same time you want to thrust a company of thieves into the Saviour's service; I mean such as yourself; who by your preaching free-will, and self-righteousness, rob, him of the glory of his arm, and the honour of his merit, all the day long.

Now, sir, you would think it insolent in any ruffian who should come and take you to task for not hiring him; and yet you are cavilling at God for not sending all the world into his vineyard; when it is plain that you make use of four,

branches of sovereignty in hiring your servants, which God does not do in his. You chuse the industrious, but he hires the idle; "Why stand ye here all the day idle? Because no man hath hired us. Go ye into the vineyard, and that which is right, that shall ye receive."

You chuse the strong, the goodly, and the honest; but the Lord chuses the weak, the base, the dishonourable, and them that are despised. You pay a man according to his worth, time, and labour, in which you show both sovereignty and partiality; but the Lord pays the first last, and gives as much to him that wrought but one hour, as to them who bore the heat and burthen of the day: every one received a penny. I know meritmongers murmur at this, supposing that they shall have more; but their eye is evil in so doing, because the master is good, in giving where it is most needed.

I know the fifteenth chapter of the Corinthians is perverted, to afford a ground for boasting, in promising the greatest reward of glory, to the greatest labourer and brightest Christian; but God's word has cut off that notion; nor is there a word that favours such a notion in all the chapter above cited. The saints are all to come to the unity of faith, and they are all to arrive to the fulness of Christ's stature, to a perfect man in Christ. I know their cant is, that every vessel will be full; some die young, and they are small vessels, others are of a larger size, but

God says no. "There shall be no more thence an infant, of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days for the child shall die an hundred years old; but the sinner being an hundred years old, shall be accursed." Thus it appears, that there shall not be one little vessel and another great; nor is one weak and another strong in the Lord. "In that day shall the Lord defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and he that is feeble among them at that day shall be as David, and the house of David shall be as God, as the angel of the Lord before him." Thus the young vessel is to die a hundred years old; the shortest vessel is to arrive to the fulness of Christ's stature; the weakest is to be as strong as David, the last are to be first; every one received a penny, and the least in the kingdom of God is equal to the angels in heaven, who neither marry nor are given in marriage.

Though it is said of the twelve Apostles, that they shall sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel, yet this shews no pre-eminence in a state of glory; for the Gentiles shall judge angels, and the world both, "Know ye not that we shall judge angels?" and if the world is to be judged by you, are ye not able to judge these matters?" A two-edged sword is to be in the hand of the elect, to bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron; this honour have all his saints, Psalm cxlix. 9.

The scriptures declare, that he that overcomes, shall sit down with Christ on his throne, even as

Christ overcame, and sat down with his Father in his throne. Christ rewarding every man according to his work, doth not militate against what I have said; there are two sorts of works, the works of the flesh, and the works of the Spirit, and there are no more. And he that is a just God and a Saviour, will doubtless judge and reward both the righteous and the wicked.

It is observable, that when the God of this world has blinded men's eyes, that they then begin to dream of merit, and fly to the bible for some ground of boasting, which is the last book in all the world that a man should fly to for such a ground; for the author of it purposed to stain the pride of all glory; and his word excludes all boasting, unless a man will be content to make his boast of the Lord; which, if he can submit to, he may, as David did, make his boast all the day long.

I shall come with another appeal to conscience; and indeed I would rather appeal to your own conscience, than to the word of God with you, because you seem to be altogether ignorant of it; God has hid your heart from understanding, therefore he shall not exalt you, Job xvii. 4.

When you go to a fair to buy cattle, do you purchase all the droves that are brought for sale? do you not pick out this horse of strength for draft, that horse of heels for your saddle, and such a particular flock of sheep for your fold, and this and that calf for weaning, and bringing up for your dairy? And is there any in the fair so daring,