From this statement, it is evident, that the question which was carried in the Assembly, by a majority of one, was, not whether affusion or sprinkling was a lawful mode of baptism; but whether all mention of dipping, as one of the lawful modes should be omitted. This, in an early stage of the discussion, was carried, by a majority of one in the affirma tive. But it would seem that the clause, as finally adopted, which certainly was far more decisive in favour of sprinkling or affusion, was passed "with great unanimity." At any rate, nothing can be more evident, than that the clause as it originally stood, being carried by one vote only, and afterwards, when recommitted, and so altered as to be much stronger in favour of sprinkling, and then adopted without. difficulty, the common statement of this matter by our Baptist brethren is an entire misrepresentation. THE END. THE SINNER'S INABILITY IS NO EXCUSE FOR HIS IMPENITENCY Samuel Cover. BY S. G. WINCHESTER. PHILADELPHIA: PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION. Entered, according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1836, by ALEXANDER W. MITCHELL, M. D., in the office of the Clerk of the District Court for the THE SINNER'S INABILITY, &c. THE doctrines of grace have all, in their turn, been more or less subjected, by their opposers, to perversion and caricature. Their tendency to foster pride, to encourage sin, and even to excuse the sinner, is often urged as an argument against their truth, by those who have laboured in vain to controvert them successfully by Scripture quotation. The doctrine of human inability has not escaped this unwarranted and ruthless censure. This doctrine is by no means inconsistent with that which declares the sinner's unwillingness, to be the reason why he does not repent and believe in Christ. Both these doctrines are distinctly taught in the Scriptures, as appears from John vi. 44. "No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him.” Compared with John v, 40. "And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life." No language, it seems, could more clearly convey the idea, that sinners are both unable and unwilling to come to Christ, than that employed in the above quotations. Nor will it for a moment be alleged that He, whose language it is, was capable of teaching inconsistencies. It will hardly be contended that the inability spoken of in the first quotation, is nothing more or less than the unwillingness which is taught in the second; for this would be to confound things that are in themselves essentially different. Such an interpretation is trifling with Scripture, if there be any distinction at all between a man's inability to do a thing, and his unwillingness to do it. We are then, shut up to the conclusion, that the doctrine of inability is not inconsistent with that of unwillingness; that they are both true, and must be inculcated; and that the only question to be decided at present is, on which of these characteristics of a sinner, do the Scriptures charge his refusal to come to Christ? or, in other words, whether the sinner's choice to remain in his sins, is determined by a sense of his inability to forsake them, or by his unwillingness to do so? To an examination of this question the reader's attention is now invited. It is no part of our present design, to argue at any length the subject of human inability, nor to enter into any metaphysical discussion of the nature of that inability, whether it be natural, or moral, or both. It may be proper, however, to remark that it is difficult to conceive how any form of expression could more satisfactorily teach the doctrine of some kind of inability, |