do this? We think
that there was. They had sins--were guilty. Paul told them of a
Saviour who died for them. This met their case. They were degraded,
foul; the religion Paul preached appealed to their sense of right,
to their gratitude, to their fears and their hopes; and believing
it, they became regenerated in their moral nature. They had been won
to God by the "Gospel" (1 Cor. iv. 15). As temperance truth
revolutionises the drunkard, so does Gospel truth the sinner (1
Peter i. 23, 25). The apostle was the agent employed by the Holy
Spirit, and believing the message he brought, they were believing
the Spirit (See 1 Samuel viii. 7). Since, then, the truth believed
is a sufficient reason for the change, why introduce the theory of
irresistible grace? It may be replied that this kind of grace is
used to get the sinner to attend to the message.

But attention to any subject is brought about by considering
motives. Man has the power over his attention. It is the possession
of this power which is a main item in constituting him a responsible
being. He may or may not attend to the voice of God. If he attends
to it he lives; if not, he dies. If God used force in this matter,
why reason with men and appeal to them as He does?

We appeal to Christian consciousness. Let any Christian give a
reason of the hope that is in him--and it is all perfectly
reasonable. All through, in the great matter of conversion, he acted
freely. He attended to the Divine message--but there was no
compulsion. Why, then, insist upon irresistibility when it is
repudiated by Christian consciousness? We know no reason for it but
the exigencies of the system. If you are waiting for it you are
being deceived.

(3.) We object, in the _third_ place, to the Calvinistic view of
election, because it makes God a respecter of persons. What is it to
be a respecter of persons? Literally, it means "an accepter of
faces." According to the _Imperial Dictionary_, it signifies "a
person who regards the external circumstances of others in his
judgment, and suffers his opinion to be biased by them, to the
prejudice of candour, justice, and equity." It is to act with
partiality. It is of the utmost moment that respect of persons
should not be shown in the domestic circle, on the bench; or in the
church. If a father shows favouritism to one son less worthy, say,
than the others, he lays himself open to the charge of partiality,
unevenness in his procedure, and it tends