ble to enforce the laws of morality by mere temporal
sanctions, the fear of exile, the dungeon, or the gibbet, when
conscience no longer enforced the dictates of religious faith. The
great auxiliary and support of all human authority is to be found in
that most noble attribute of human nature--_the sense of duty_,
which ceases to operate the moment we lose the consciousness of
freedom, believing that our thoughts, our actions, _ourselves_, are
but necessary links in an eternal chain of causes and effects.

Such a theory of religion renders it absurd to admonish mankind of
their _duty_, whether to obey the law of God, or to believe the
Gospel of Christ.

To this reasoning the Calvinist replies: "I acknowledge that men are
morally, spiritually dead. But at the command of God I would preach
to the dead: at his word the dead shall hear and live." But this
reply is irrelevant to the great points of the argument. It remains
to be proved, that God would be just in punishing as a crime that
spiritual death, of which, on the Calvinistic theory, He is the
author;--that it is possible for infinite goodness to subject
created beings to an inevitable _necessity_ of breaking his laws,
and then hand them over to perdition. This is the point which cannot
be evaded; and it is fatal to the predestinarian theology. Doubtless
God can raise the dead, literally or spiritually; but that does not
touch the question.

III.--CALVINISM IS OPPOSED TO THE CONSTITUTION AND THE PURPOSES OF A
VISIBLE CHURCH.

By the visible Church is meant the great body of persons who are
baptized into the faith of Christ, and openly profess his religion;
and the term is used in contradistinction to the invisible Church,
which consists of real, sincere, and spiritual disciples of our
Lord. These may be said to be invisible, since to search the heart
and penetrate its secrets, is the prerogative of God alone. The
truly faithful, as distinguished from the mere professors of
Christianity, will not be _seen_ in their distinct character until
the hour when the final judgment shall separate the righteous from
the wicked. "_Then_ shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in
the kingdom of their Father."

The visible Church, with her apostolic ministry, her worship, her
sacraments, and her various provisions for the edification of the
body of Christ, is instituted and constructed on the manifest
principle that the present is a probationary state, and that those