SERMON IV.

ACTS X. 4.

Thy prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial before God.

THE case of Cornelius, whose prayers and alms are here said to have ascended up for a memorial before God, was often quoted by the advocates of the Church of Rome, to prove the merit of works before the reception of grace; to prove the human will capable, by its own inherent rectitude, of deserving the favour and approbation of Heaven. The Lutherans, on the other hand, contended, that the argument supported not the conclusion drawn from it; and was therefore irrelevant; that the works of Cornelius were not the causes but the effects of grace; and that this is sufficiently apparent from the context, in which he is described as a devout man, who feared God, and prayed continually (1).

In allusion to the general question upon this subject, our Church asserts, that man

is incapable of turning and preparing himself to true faith and invocation by his own unassisted efforts, of performing acceptable works without preventing and cooperating grace; that such as precede justification are neither pleasing to the Almighty, nor meritorious of his favours, by what the School Divines termed Congruity; and that not being done as God has willed and commanded them to be done, they are to be considered as participating of the nature of sin. But what these works before justification properly are, what is signified by the expression Congruity, and even the appellation Sinful, by which they are characterized, evident as its sense may be supposed to appear, or with what particular view the insufficiency of our natural powers is so repeatedly urged, we shall in vain seek to discover by consulting modern controversies. In later times one object alone seems to have been contemplated, when the topic has been discussed respecting the efficacy or inefficacy of mere human ability in the production of good; the application of such a principle to the doctrine of Predestination. To this has every argument and almost every expression been directed. I should, however, premise, that

with this, in the instance under consideration, it is not properly connected; as it solely tends to establish the importance of Christian aid, and the necessity of Christian redemption.

On the present occasion I shall endeavour to deduce from its origin so much of the doctrine contained in our Articles upon Free Will and Works before Justification, (both embracing but one object,) as may be necessary to illustrate them; the illus-. tration itself I shall defer to the succeeding Lecture.

When we turn our eye towards the distant æra of which I am treating, we perceive, that the Calvinistical cloud, which arose in the reign of Elizabeth, so long obscured the genuine tenets of the Reformation, that it is not easy to distinguish them through the almost impenetrable darkness, in which they have been involved. Yet this perhaps appears least to have been the case of the subject under review, one, which was controverted between the Lutherans and their opponents in the Church of Rome, with much inflexibility on both sides, not only before the reputation of Calvin became extended, but even before his name was known in the world. For so obvious a

reason, therefore, if no other could be assigned, it would surely be proper principally to consult the writings of the Lutherans, when investigating the tendency of opinions, and the force of expressions, evidently derived from Lutheran sources.

But to explain the leading points of this once interesting, although now obsolete controversy, it will be requisite in some degree to explore the perplexed mazes of scholastical disquisition. The clew, however, which the volumes of Luther afford on the occasion, renders the attempt less bewildering, as we are not left to wander unguided from labyrinth to labyrinth, but solely to follow where he conducts us. Nor will it be requisite, in developing the ancient sophistry of the Schools, to regard in any way the glosses of modern Commentators; it will only be important to determine, in what view he contemplated it, and what were the more obnoxious, as well as prominent parts of it in his conception.

The question, therefore, to be investigated, was evidently scholastical, in the discussion of which, although the disputatious advocates of the Schools seemed not always, to agree among themselves, and even sometimes to disagree respecting