Some indeed pretend that, at any rate, _salvation_ is of grace, if election is not, because God saves _miserable_, _perishing_ sinners. But who made them miserable perishing sinners? Was not this the effect of God's decree? And is there much mercy displayed in placing men under a constitution which necessarily and unavoidably involves them in sin and suffering, that God may afterward have the sovereign honour of saving them? Surely the _tenderest_ mercies of this system are cruel--its brightest parts are dark--its boasted mercy hardly comes up to sheer justice, even to the elect; since they only receive back what God had deprived them of, and for the want of which they had suffered perhaps for years; and to obtain which, they could do nothing even as a condition, until God by his sovereign power bestowed it upon them. And as for the reprobates, the Gospel is unavoidably to them, a savour of death unto death. To them Christ came, that they might have death, and that they might have it more abundantly. Thus, turn this system as you will, it sweeps away the mercy and goodness of God, destroys the grace of the Gospel, and in most cases, transforms even the invitations and promises into scalding messages of aggravated wrath. 3. The doctrine we oppose makes God partial and a respecter of persons; contrary to express and repeated declarations of Scripture. For it represents God as determining to save some and damn others, without reference to their character, all being precisely in the same state. To deny this, is to acknowledge that the decree of election and reprobation had respect to character, which is to give up the doctrine. Some indeed pretend, that the decree of election was unconditional, but not the decree of reprobation. But this is impossible; for there could be no decree of election, only in view of the whole number from which the choice was to be made; and the very determination to select such a number, and those only, implied the exclusion of all the rest. If it be said, as the Sublapsarians contend, that the decree of election did not come in until all were fallen, or viewed in the mind of God as fallen; and therefore since all might have been justly damned, there was no injustice to those who were left, though some of the guilty were taken and saved; we reply, That even this would not wholly remove the objection of partiality. But we need not dwell here, because we have a shorter and more decisive way to dispose of this argument. The truth is, it does not cover the whole ground of our objection. Had God nothing to do with man until his prescient eye beheld the whole race in a ruined state? How came man in this state? He was plunged there by the sin of his federal head. But how came _he_ to sin? "Adam sinned," says Calvin, "because God so ordained." And so every one must say, that believes God foreordained whatsoever comes to pass. Taking all the links together, they stand thus:--God decreed to create intelligent beings--he decreed