PERSEVERANCE.

The views of Hopkinsians as to the nature of sin and of regeneration lead to some peculiarities of statement in regard to perseverance. If regeneration is a passive change, in which the subject of it receives a new nature, a something which he had no power of any kind to secure, and, when once secured, which he cannot lose; then his perseverance becomes a natural necessity. He cannot fall away, if he would. He is in no danger of final apostasy, and needs no warnings or exhortations to preserve him from it.

But such, obviously, is not the scriptural view of Christian perseverance, nor is it the view taken by Hopkinsian writers. They believe assuredly that the true Christian will persevere. He will endure to the end, and be finally saved. This is secured by declarations and promises which can never fail. But then how shall he persevere, and why? Not because he cannot possibly fall away, and is in no danger of it; but because, by the grace of God, he will be kept, and kept in the free and active exercise of his own intellectual and moral powers. His perseverance, at every step, is an active perseverance; a holding on, and a pressing on, in the divine life, a growing up in a meetness for the heavenly world.

But if this is the scriptural idea of perseverance, then the Christian needs motives to induce him to persevere, and just such motives as are set before him in the gospel. How is he to persevere actively, but under the influence of motives such as these? He needs to be plied with injunc tions, exhortations, persuasions, warnings. He needs to be told of the necessity of an active, patient, unfailing perseverance. He must endure to the end, if he would be saved. He must be faithful unto death, if he would inherit a crown of life. He needs to be told, not only of the sin and guilt of a final apostasy, but of its terrible consequences. "If any man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered." If the righteous man turn from his righteousness, and commit iniquity, and persist in it, he shall surely die." He needs warnings more awful even than

these. He needs to be told that, "if those who have been once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, that it will be impossible to renew them again unto repentance, seeing they have crucified to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame."

If the children of God were kept passively, and not actively; if they were so kept that they could by no possibility fall away; inducements, warnings, such as these would be impertinent. There would be no place or use for them. But if the Christian's perseverance is, from first to last, an active perseverance; if he is to be kept, if kept at all, in the free exercise of his own faculties and powers; then, as before remarked, he must have motives. The end. in view cannot be attained without them. And it is altogether pertinent and consistent for the inspired writers to present and urge just such motives as those which have been brought into view.

Most of the objections urged against the doctrine of perseverance are entirely obviated by the explanations which have here been given. It cannot be said, for example, that this doctrine is inconsistent with human freedom; for it teaches, on the very face of it, that Christians are, and must be free. They must persevere freely and actively, or not at all.

Neither can it be said that this doctrine is inconsistent with the use of motives, or religious means. On the contrary, it implies that there must be means. How shall Christians hold on their way, persevering actively, voluntarily in the exercise of religion, but under the influence of appropriate means the means of grace?

Nor is the doctrine at all inconsistent with those scriptures, which represent believers as liable to fall away, and in actual danger of so doing. For those who hold the doctrine truly, insist that Christians are liable to fall; that in themselves they are in danger of falling; that they have need to be exhorted, persuaded, threatened, warned; and

that their only security is in the promise and grace of God.

It is sometimes said that this doctrine must be of an immoral tendency; that those who regard themselves as converted, feeling sure of heaven, will give loose to their evil propensities, and plunge into sin. It is possible, indeed, for the hypocrite and self-deceiever to pervert the doctrine of perseverance in this way. But then, such persons would soon discover themselves; the mask of hypocrisy would be taken off; and their real character would be known. A real, sincere Christian one who has the heart of a Christian can never so abuse a precious doctrine of God's grace. He rather exclaims, with Paul: "How shall we who are dead to sin live any longer therein?" Such an one will be melted under a sense of the divine goodness and grace, and will regard the promises of perseverance not as an inducement to negligence and sloth, but rather as an encouragement to struggle on in the Christian race, to fight the good fight of faith, and thus prepare for the rest of God's people. This, indeed, is the very purpose for which the promises of perseverance were made to us, to operate as motives of encouragement; and thus they will be received and acted upon by all who are truly the children of God.

The doctrine of perseverance, rightly understood, is a great and precious truth of the gospel. It is so theologically. It forms an indispensable link in a chain of connected doctrines, commonly called the doctrines of grace-a chain reaching from eternity to eternity, from the sovereign election of the believer before the world began to his final glorification in heaven. "For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son; and whom he did predestinate, them he also called; and whom he called, them he also justified; and whom he justified, them he also glorified." Here, at the end of the golden chain, hangs the perseverance and final glorification of the saints: "Whom he justified, them he also glorified.” This is a precious doctrine, too, in its practical influences.

It is one full of encouragement to the tried, afflicted, tempted, and sometimes almost despairing, people of God. We can have no better encouragement in any great undertaking than the assurance of success. With such assurances, persons often accomplish that which they would not have dared to attempt without them. But the Christian, when pressing through the narrow gate, and entering upon the work of preparation for heaven, engages in a great and difficult undertaking. Beset with enemies, within and without, and in the midst of temptation, trial, and conflict, he is pressing his way onward and upward to glory. And now, for his encouragement, he hears a voice calling out to him from the skies: "Struggle on; never give over; hold fast that thou hast; fight the good fight of faith; and you shall be sustained; you shall be carried through; you shall come off a conqueror, and more than a conqueror, through him who hath loved you and died for you." And now what precious encouragement is here! What a motive to perseverance! Who would not lay hold of it, and make the most of it? Who would recklessly cast it from him, and endeavor, without it, to win his way to heaven?

We have thus endeavored, briefly indeed, to sketch some of the leading peculiarities of what has been called Hopkinsianism. The intelligent reader will perceive that, while it sets forth prominently all the great points of Calvinism, it is Calvinism of a peculiar type. It differs variously from the Calvinism of the seventeenth century, and is, as its friends insist, an improvement upon it. It presents many of the old Calvinistic doctrines in a more reasonable and scriptural point of light, and frees them from objections which had been urged against them.

These new explanations, as before stated, originated in New England more than a hundred years ago; and though they have spread far and wide throughout the land, and throughout the Protestant Christian world, still, New England has been the principal seat and focus of them. they have prevailed more generally than elsewhere, and

Here

here, it might be expected, their influence would be manifested. And this leads to an objection which has been persistently urged against them, with the consideration of which this Article must close.

It has long been insisted by our brethren of the old Calvinistic school, and more especially those in the Presbyterian Church, that the introduction of Unitarianism into New England was owing to the prevalence of the Hopkinsian theology. This, it is said, was a loosening and letting down of the bars of Calvinism; and these once let down, errors in doctrine came in like a flood. Let us look, then, at this subject a moment historically.

There was no Unitarianism in New England, of any kind, so far as we have the means of knowing, until subsequent to the great revival of 1740. It was not long after the close of the revival, that Arianism began to creep in privily among us. And who brought it in? Who were the Arians of that period? Were they among the friends and promoters of the revival — the pupils and followers of President Edwards? Not, we venture to say, in a single instance. So far from this, the Arians of that day were, to a man, of the opposite class. They had been settled as Calvinists, or moderately so, but in their zeal against the revivalistsagainst vital spiritual religion, and its most earnest supporters - they had swerved from the faith, and were secretly introducing another gospel. They called themselves Arminians, but were really Arians, or semi-Arians. We do not now recollect a church, where the doctrines of Edwards and his followers were preached, from sixty to ninety years ago, which has since become Unitarian; while it would be easy to mention scores of churches, which once called themselves Calvinistic, in distinction from Edwardean or Hopkinsian, which first became Arminian in doctrine, and lax in discipline, and over which Unitarian ministers have long since been established. 1

1

1 Among the earliest Arian ministers in New England, according to the first President Adams, were the Rev. Messrs. Bryant of Braintree, Chauncey and