Retyped by Rick Friedrich in May 1999.

SECOND CHECK TO ANTINOMINANISM;

OCCASIONED BY A LATE NARRATIVE.

IN THREE LETTERS

TO THE HON. AND REV. MR. SHIRLEY.

BY THE

VINDICATOR OF THE REV. MR. WESLEY'S MINUTES.

Reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all long-suffering and (Scriptural) doctrine; for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine. 2 Tim. iv, 2, 3.

Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith. But let brotherly love continue. Tit. I, 13; Heb. xiii, 1.

PREFACE.

THE publication of the "Vindication of Mr. Wesley's Minutes" having been represented by some persons as an act of injustice, the following letter is made public to throw some light upon that little event, and serve as a preface to the SECOND CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.

To the Rev. Mr. John Wesley.

"REV. AND DEAR SIR,--AS I love open dealing, I send you the substance, and almost the very words, of a private letter I have just written to Mr. Shirley, in answer to one, in which he informs me he is going to publish his Narrative. He is exceedingly welcome to make use of any part of my letters to Mr. Ireland, concerning the publication of my Vindication, and you are equally welcome to make what use you please of this. Among friends all things are, or should be, common.

"I am, Rev, and dear sir, yours, &c,

J. FLETCHER.

"MADELEY, Sept. 11, 1771."

To the Hon. and Rev. Mr. Shirley.

"REV. AND DEAR SIR,--It is extremely proper, nay, it is highly necessary, that the public' should be informed how much like a minister of the Prince of Peace, and a meek, humble, loving brother in the Gospel of Christ you behaved at the conference. Had I been there, I would gladly have taken upon me to proclaim these tidings of joy to the lovers of Zion's peace. Your conduct at that time of love is certainly the best excuse for the hasty step you had taken; as my desire of stopping my Vindication, upon hearing it, is the best apology I can make for my severity to you.

"I am not averse at all, sir, to your publishing the passages you mention, out of my letters to Mr. Ireland. They show my peculiar love and respect for you, which I shall at all times think an honour, and at this juncture shall feel a peculiar pleasure, to see proclaimed to the world. They apologize for my calling myself a lover of quietness, when I unfortunately prove a son of contention: and they demonstrate, that I am not altogether void of the fear that becomes an awkward, unexperienced surgeon, when he ventures to open a vein in the arm of a person for whom he has the highest regard. How natural is it for him to tremble, lest by missing the intended vein, and pricking an unseen artery, he should have done irreparable mischief, instead of a useful operation.

"But while you do me the kindness of publishing those passages, permit me, sir, to do Mr. Wesley the justice of informing him I had also written to Mr. Ireland, that 'whether my letters were suppressed or not, the Minutes must be vindicated,--that Mr. Wesley owed it to the Church, to the real Protestants, to all his societies, and to his own aspersed character;--and that, after all, the controversy did not seem to me to be so much, whether the Minutes should stand, as whether the Antinomian gospel of Dr. Crisp should prevail over the practical Gospel of Jesus Christ.'

"I must also, sir, beg leave to let my vindicated friend know, that in the very letter where I so earnestly entreated Mr. Ireland to stop the publication of my letters to you, and offered to take the whole expense of the impression upon myself, though I should be obliged to sell my last shirt to defray it, I added, that 'if they were published, I must look upon it as a necessary evil or misfortune;' which of the two words I used I do not justly recollect. A misfortune for you and me, who must appear inconsistent to the world: you, sir, with your Sermons, and I with my title page; and nevertheless necessary to vindicate misrepresented truth, defend an eminent minister of Christ, and stem the torrent of Antinomianism.

"It may not be improper also, to observe to you, sir, that when I presented Mr. Wesley with my Vindication, I begged he would correct it, and take away whatever might be unkind or too sharp; urging that, though I meant no unkindness, I was not a proper judge of what I had written under peculiarly delicate and trying circumstances, as well as in a great hurry; and did not therefore dare to trust either my pen, my head, or my heart. He was no sooner gone, than I sent a letter after him, to repeat and urge the same request; and he wrote me word he had 'expunged every tart expression.' If he has, (for I have not yet seen what alterations his friendly pen has made,) I am reconciled to their publication; and that he has I have reason to hope from the letters of two judicious London friends, who calmed my fears lest I should have treated you with unkindness.

"One of them says, 'I reverence Mr. Shirley for his candid acknowledgment of his hastiness in judging. I commend the Calvinists at the conference for their justice to Mr. Wesley, and their acquiescence in the declaration of the preachers in connection with him. But is that declaration, however dispersed, a remedy adequate to the evil done, not only to Mr. Wesley, but to the cause and work of God? Several Calvinists, in eagerness of malice, had dispersed their calumnies through the three kingdoms. A truly excellent person herself, in her mistaken zeal, had represented him as a Papist unmasked, a heretic, an apostate. A clergyman of the first reputation informs me a Poem on his Apostasy is just coming out. Letters have been sent to every serious Churchman and Dissenter through the land, together with the Gospel Magazine. Great are the shoutings, And now that he lieth, let him rise up no more! This is all the cry. His dearest friends and children are staggered, and scarce know what to think. You, in your corner, cannot conceive the mischief that has been done, and is still doing. But your letters, in the hand of Providence, may answer the good ends you proposed by writing them. You have not been too severe to dear Mr. Shirley, moderate Calvinists themselves being judges; but very kind and friendly to set a good mistaken man light, and probably to preserve him from the like rashness as long as he lives. Be riot troubled, therefore, but cast your care upon the Lord.'

"My other friend says, 'Considering what harm the Circular Letter has done, and what a useless satisfaction Mr. Shirley has given by his vague acknowledgment, it is no more than just and equitable that your letters should be published.'

Now, sir, as I never saw that acknowledgment, nor the softening corrections made by Mr. Wesley in my Vindication; as I was not informed of some of the above mentioned particulars when I was so eager to prevent the publication of my letters; and as I have reason to think, that through the desire of an immediate peace, the festering wound was rather skinned over than probed to the bottom; all I can say about this publication is, what I wrote to our common friend, namely, that 'I must look upon it as a necessary evil.'

"I am glad, sir, you do not direct your letter to Mr. Olivers, who was so busy in publishing my Vindication; for, by a letter I have just received from Bristol, I am informed he did not hear how desirous I was to call it in, till he had actually given out before a whole congregation it would be sold. Beside, he would have pleaded with smartness that he never approved of the patched-up peace, that he bore his testimony against it at the time it was made, and had a personal right to produce my arguments, since both parties refused to hear his at the Conference.

"If your letter is friendly, sir, and you print it in the same size with my Vindication, I shall gladly buy ten pounds' worth of the copies, and order them to be stitched with my Vindication, and given gratis to the purchasers of it; as well to do you justice as to convince the world that we make a loving war; and also to demonstrate how much I regard your respectable character, and honour your dear person. Mr. Wesley's heart is, I am persuaded, too full of brotherly love to deny me the Pleasure of thus showing you how sincerely I am, Rev, and dear sir, your obedient servant,

JOHN FLETCHER.

MADELEY, September 11, 1771."

SECOND CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.

LETTER I.

HONOURED AND REVEREND SIR,--I cordially thank you for the greatest part of your Narrative. It confirms me in my hopes that your projected opposition to Mr. Wesley's Minutes proceeded in general from zeal for the Redeemer's glory. And as such a zeal, though amazingly mistaken, had certainly something very commendable in it, I sincerely desire your Narrative may evidence your good meaning, as some think my Vindication does your mistake.

In my last private letter I observed, Rev, sir, that if your Narrative was kind, I would buy a number of copies, and give them gratis to the purchasers of my book, that they might see all you can possibly produce in your own defense, and do you all the justice your proper behaviour at the conference deserves. But as it appears to me there are some important mistakes in that performance, I neither dare recommend it absolutely to my friends, nor wish it in the religious world the full success you desire.

I do not complain of its severity; on the contrary, considering the sharpness of my fifth letter, I gratefully acknowledge it is kinder than I had reason to expect. But permit me to tell you, sir, I look for justice to the Scriptural arguments I advance in defence of truth, before I look for kindness to my insignificant person; and could much sooner be satisfied with the former than with the latter alone. As I do not admire the fashionable method of advancing general charges without supporting them by particular proofs, I shall take the liberty of pointing out some mistakes in your Narrative, and by that means endeavour to do justice to Mr. Wesley's declarations, your own sermons, my Vindication, and, above all, to the cause of practical religion.

Waiving the repetition of what I said in my last, touching the publication of my Five Letters to you, I object first to your putting a wrong colour upon Mr. Wesley's declaration. You insinuate, or assert, that he, and fifty-three of the preachers in conference with him, give up the doctrine of "justification by works in the day of judgment." "It appears," say you, "from their subscribing the declaration," notwithstanding Mr. Olivers' remonstrances, "that they do not maintain a second justification by works."

Surely, sir, you wrong them. They might have objected to some of Mr. Olivers' expressions, or been displeased with his readiness to enter the lists of dispute; but certainly so many judicious and good men could never so betray the cause of practical religion, as tamely to renounce a truth of that importance. If they had, one step more would have carried them full into Dr. Crisp's eternal justification, which is the very centre of Antinomianism; and without waiting for the return of the next conference, I would bear my legal testimony against their Antinomian error. Mr. Wesley I reverence as the greatest minister I know, but would not follow him one step farther than he follows Christ. Were he really guilty of rejecting the evangelical doctrine of a second justification by works, with the plainness and honesty of a Suisse I would address him, as I beg you will permit me to address you.

1. Neither you, Rev. sir, nor any divine in the world, have, I presume, a right to blot out of the sacred records those words of Jesus Christ, St. James, and St. Paul: "Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life. Not every one that says to me, Lord! Lord! shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that does the will of my Father. Be ye therefore doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For we are under the law to Christ. Not the hearers of the law shall be just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified. Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire, and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is." His very words shall undergo the severest scrutiny. "I say unto you, [0 how many will insinuate the contrary!] that every idle word that men shall speak they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment, for by thy words shalt thou [then] be justified, and by thy words shalt thou [then] be condemned."

Can you say, sir, that the justification mentioned by our Lord in this passage is the same as that which St. Paul speaks of as the present privilege of all believers, and has no particular reference to "the day of judgment" mentioned in the preceding sentence'? Or will you intimate our Lord does not declare we shall be justified in the last day by works, but by words? Would this evasion be judicious? Do not all professors know that words are works in a theological sense; as being both the signs of the "workings" of our hearts, and the positive "works" of our tongues? Will you expose your reputation as a divine, by trying to prove, that although we shall be justified by the works of our tongues, those of our hands and feet shall never appear for or against our justification? Or will you insinuate that our Lord "recanted" the legal sermons written Matt. v, and xii? If you do, his particular account of the day of judgment, chap. xxv, which strongly confirms and clearly explains the doctrine of our second justification by works, will prove you greatly mistaken, as will also his declaration to St. John, above forty years after, "Behold, I come quickly, and my reward is with me, to give to every man as his work [not faith] shall be."

0, if faith alone turn the scale of justifying evidence at the bar of God, how many bold Antinomians will claim relation to Christ, and boast they are interested in his imputed righteousness! How many will say, with the foolish virgins, "'Lord! Lord! we are of faith, and Abraham's children. In thy name' we publicly opposed all legal professors, traduced their teachers as enemies to thy free grace; and, 'to do thee service,' made it our business to expose the righteousness, and cry down the good works of thy people; therefore 'Lord! Lord! open to us!'" But, alas! far from thanking them for their pains, without looking at their boasted faith, he will dismiss them with a "Depart from me, ye that work iniquity!" As if he said--

"Depart, ye that made the doctrine of my atonement a cloak for your sins, or 'sewed' it as a 'pillow under the arms of my people,' to make them sleep in carnal security, when they should have 'worked out their salvation with fear and trembling.' You profess to know me, but I disown you. My sheep I know: them that are mine I know. The seal of my holiness is upon them all: the motto of it, (Let him that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity,) is deeply engraven on their faithful breasts,--not on yours, ye 'carnal, ye sold under sin!'

"'And why called ye me, LORD! LORD! and did not the things which I said?' Why did you even use my righteousness as a breastplate, to stand it out against the word of my righteousness; and as an engine to break both tables of my law, and batter down my holiness? Your heart condemns you, ye 'sinners in Zion! Ye salt without savour!' Ye believers without charity! And am not I 'greater than your heart?' And 'know' I not 'your works?' Yes, 'I know that the love of God is not in you,' for you despised one of these my brethren. How could you think to deceive me, 'the Searcher of hearts and Tryer of reins?' And how did you dare to call yourselves by my name? As if you were my people? my dear people? mine elect? Are not all my peculiar people 'partakers of my holiness,' and 'zealous of good works? Have not I chosen to myself the man that is godly,' and protested that 'the ungodly shall not stand in judgment, nor sinners,' though in sheep's clothing, 'in the congregation of the righteous?' And say I not to the wicked, though he should have been one of my people, Lo ammi, Thou art none of my people now. 'What hast thou to do with taking my covenant in thy mouth?' You denied me in works, and did not wash your hearts from iniquity in my blood; therefore, according to my word, 'I deny you,' in my turn, 'before my Father and his holy angels.' Perish your hope, ye hypocrites: and utter darkness be your portion, 'ye double minded! Let fearfulness surprise you,' ye tinkling cymbals! Let the fall of your Babels crush you, ye towering professors of my humble faith! Fly, 'ye clouds without water; ye chaff,' fly before the blast of my righteous indignation! 'Ye workers of iniquity! Ye Satans transformed into angels of light! Ye cursed, depart!'"

II. Nor is our Lord singular in his doctrine of justification, or condemnation, by works in the day of judgment. If it is a heresy, the patriarchs, prophets, and apostles are as great heretics as their Master. Enoch, quoted by St. Jude, prophesied, that when the Lord shall "come to execute judgment upon all men," he will "convince the ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds and hard speeches." This conviction will no doubt be in order to condemnation; and this condemnation will not turn upon unbelief, but its effects, "ungodly deeds and hard speeches." Solomon confirms the joint testimony of Enoch and St. Jude, where he says, "He that knoweth the heart, shall render to every man according to his works;" and again, "Know, O young man, that for all these things, for all thy ways, God shall bring thee into judgment."

St. Paul, the great champion for faith, is particularly express upon this anti-Crispian doctrine. "The Lord," says he, "in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, will render to every man according to his deeds; to them that continue in well doing," (here is the true perseverance of the saints!) "eternal life! Indignation Upon every soul of man that does evil, and glory to every man who worketh good; for there is no respect of persons with God. We shall all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in the body," not according to that he hath believed, whether it be true or false, but "according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad." St. Peter asserts, that the Father, "without respect of persons, judgeth according to every man's work." And St. John, who, next to our Lord, gives us time most particular description of the day of judgment, concludes it by these awful words:

"And the dead were judged out of the things written in the books, according to their works." It is not once said, "according to their faith."

Permit me, sir, to sum up all these testimonies in the words of two kings and two apostles. "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter," says the king who chose wisdom, "Fear God, and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man; for God shall bring every work into judgment, whether it be good or evil." "They that have done good," says the King who is wisdom itself, (and the Athanasian creed after him,) "shall go into everlasting life; and they that have not done good," or "that have done evil, to everlasting punishment." "You see then," and they are the words of St. James, "that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only." By faith he is justified at his conversion, and when his backslidings are healed. But he is justified by works, (1.) In the hour of trial, as Abraham was when he had offered up Isaac: (2.) In a court of spiritual or civil judicature, as St. Paul at the bar of Festus: and, (3.) Before the judgment seat of Christ, as every one will be whose faith, when he goes hence, is found working by love; for there, says St. Paul, as well as in consistoral courts, "circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God," 1 Cor. vii, 19.

III. This doctrine is so obvious in the Scriptures, so generally received in all the Churches of Christ, and so deeply engraven on the consciences of sincere professors, that the most eminent ministers of all denominations perpetually allude to it; yourself, sir, not excepted, as I could prove from your sermons if you had not recanted them. How often, for instance, has that great man of God, the truly reverend Mr. Whitefield, said to his immense congregations, "You are warned; I am clear of your blood; I shall rise as a swift witness against you, or you against me, in the terrible day of the Lord! O, remember to clear me then!" or words to that purpose. And is not this just as if he had said, "We shall all be 'justified or condemned in the day of judgment' by what we are now doing: I by my preaching, and you by your hearing?"

And say not, sir, that "such expressions were only flights of oratory, and prove nothing." If you do, you "touch the apple of God's eye." Mr. Whitefield was not a flighty orator, but spoke the words of soberness and truth, with Divine pathos, and floods of tears declarative of his sincerity.

Instead of swelling this letter into a volume, (as I easily might,) by producing quotations from all the sober Puritan divines, who have directly or indirectly asserted a second justification by works, I shall present you only with two passages from Mr. Henry. On Matt. xii, 37, he says, "Consider how strict the judgment will be on account of our words. 'By thy words thou shalt be justified or condemned,'--a common rule in men's judgment, and here applied to God's. Note the constant tenor of our discourse, according as it is gracious or not gracious, will be an evidence for us, or against us, at that day. Those that 'seemed to be religious, but bridled not their tongue,' will then be found to have put a cheat upon themselves with a vain religion. It concerns us to think much of the day of judgment, that it may be a check upon our tongues." And again:

Upon those words, Rom. ii, 13, "Not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified;" the honest commentator says, "The Jewish [Antinomian] doctors bolstered up their followers with an opinion that all that were Jews, [the elect people of God,] how bad soever they lived, should have a glorious place in the world to come. This the apostle here opposes. It was a very great privilege that they had the law, but not a saving privilege, unless they lived up to the law they had. We may apply it to the Gospel: it is not hearing, but doing that will save us," John xiii, 17; James i, 22. Who does not perceive that Mr. Henry saw the truth, and spoke it so far as he thought his Calvinistic readers could bear it? Surely, if that good man dared to say so much, we, who have "done leaning too much toward Calvinism," should be inexcusable if we did not say all.

IV. These testimonies will, I hope, make you weigh with an additional degree of candour the following arguments, which I shall produce as a logician, lest any should be tempted to call me a bold metaphysician, or almost a magician

The voice that St. John heard in heaven did not say, "Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord, for their FAITH follows them:" no, it is their works. Faith is the hidden root, hope the rising stalk, and love, together with good works, the nourishing corn: and as the king's agents, who fill a royal granary, do not take in the roots and stalks, but the pure wheat alone; so Christ takes neither faith nor hope into heaven, the former being gloriously absorbed in sight, and the latter in enjoyment.

If I may compare faith and hope to "the chariot of Israel and the courser thereof," they both bring believers to the everlasting doors of glory, but do not enter in themselves. Not so lore and good works; for love is both the nature and element of saints in glory; and good works necessarily follow them, both in the books of remembrance which shall then be opened, and in the objects and witnesses of those works, who shall then be all present; as it appears from the words of our Lord, "You have done it," or "You have not done it, to one of the least of these my brethren;" and those of St. Paul to his dear converts, "You shall be 'my joy and my crown' in that day." Thus it is evident, that although faith is the temporary measure according to which God deals out his mercy and grace in this world, as we may gather from that sweet saying of our Lord, "Be it done to thee according to thy FAITH;" yet love and good works are the eternal measures, according to which he distributes justification and glory in the world to come. On these observations, I argue,

We shall be justified in the last day by the grace and evidences which shall then remain.

Love and good works, the fruits of faith, shall then remain.

Therefore we shall then be justified by love and good works, that is, not by faith, but by its fruits.

V. This doctrine, so agreeable to Scripture, the sentiments of moderate Calvinists, and the dictates of reason, "recommends" itself likewise "to every man's conscience in the sight of God." Who, but Dr. Crisp, could (after a calm "review of the whole affair,") affirm, that in the day of judgment, if I am accused of being actually a hypocrite, Christ's sincerity will justify me, whether it be found in me or not?

Again: suppose I am charged with being a drunkard, a thief, a whoremonger, a covetous person; or a fretful, impatient, ill-natured man; or, if you please, a proud bigot, an implacable zealot, a malicious persecutor, who, notwithstanding fair appearances of godliness, would raise disturbances even in heaven if I were admitted there: will Christ's sobriety, honesty, chastity, generosity: or will his gentleness, patience, and meekness, justify me from such dreadful charges? Must not I be found really sober, honest, chaste, and charitable? Must I not be inherently gentle, meek, and loving? Can we deny this without flying in the face of common sense, breaking the strongest bars of Scriptural truth, and opening the flood gates to 'the foulest waves of Antinomianism? If we grant it, do we not grant a second justification by works? And does not St. Paul grant, or rather insist upon as much, when he declares, that "without holiness no man shall see the Lord?"

VI. You will probably ask, what advantage the Church will reap from this doctrine of a second justification by works? I answer, that, under God, it will rouse Antinomians out of their carnal security, stir up believers to follow hard after holiness, and reconcile fatal differences among Christians, and seeming contradictions in the Scripture.

1. It will re-awaken Antinomians,* who fancy "there is no condemnation to them," whether they "walk after the Spirit" in love, or "after the flesh" in malice; whether they "forsake all" to follow Christ, or like Judas and Sapphira "keep back part" of what should be the Lord's without reserve. Thousands boldly profess justifying faith, and perhaps eternal justification, who reverence the commandments of God just as much as they regard the scriptures quoted in Mr. Wesley's Minutes.

* [I beg I may not be understood to level the following paragraphs, or any part of these letters, at my pious Calvinist brethren. God knows how deeply I reverence many, who are immovably fixed in what some call "the doctrines of grace;" how gladly (as conscious of their genuine conversion and eminent usefulness) I would lie in the dust at their feet to honour our Lord in his dear members; and how often I have thought it a peculiar infelicity in any degree to dissent from such excellent men, with whom I wanted both to live and die, and with whom I hope soon to reign for ever!

As these real children of God lament the bad use Antinomians make of their principles, I hope they will not be offended if I bear my testimony against a growing evil, which they have frequently opposed themselves. While the Calvinists guard the foundation against Pharisees, for which I return them my sincere thanks, they will, I hope, allow the Remonstrants to guard the superstructure against Antinomians. If in doing those good offices to the Church, we find ourselves obliged to bear a little hard upon the peculiar sentiments of our opposite friends, let us do it in such a manner as not to break the bonds of peace and brotherly kindness; so shall our honest reproofs become matter of useful exercise to that "love which thinketh no evil, hopeth all things, rejoiceth even in the galling truth," and is "neither quenched by many waters," nor damped by any opposition.

I have long wished to see, on both sides the question about which we unhappily divide, moderate men step out of the unthinking noisy crowd of their party, to look each other lovingly in the face, and to convince the world that with impartial zeal they will guard both the foundation and the superstructure against all adversaries, those of their own party not excepted. Whoever does this omne tulit punctum, he is a real friend to both parties, and to the whole Gospel; for he cordially embraces all the people of God, and joins in one blessed medium the Seemingly incompatible extremes of Scriptural truth. Ye men of clear heads, honest hearts, and humble loving spirits, nature and grace have formed you on purpose to do the Church this important service. Therefore, without regarding the bigots of your own party, in the name of the loving Jesus, and by his catholic Spirit give professors public lessons of moderation and consistence, and permit rue to learn those rare virtues with thousands at your feet.]

Upon their doctrinal systems they raise a tower of presumption, whence they bid defiance both to the law and Gospel of Jesus. His law says, "Love God with all thy heart, and thy neighbour as thyself, that thou mayest live" in glory. "If thou wilt enter into the life" (of glory,) "keep the commandments." But this raises their pity, instead of commanding their respect, and exciting their diligence. "Moses is buried," say they: "we have nothing to do with the law We are not under the law to Christ! Jesus is not a lawgiver to control, but a Redeemer to save us."

The Gospel cries to them, "Repent and believe!" and just as if God was to be the penitent, believing sinner, they carelessly reply, "The Lord must do all; repentance and faith are his works, and they will be done in the day of his power;" and so without resistance they decently follow the stream of worldly vanities and fleshly lusts. St. Paul cries, "If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die." "We know better," answer they; "there are neither ifs nor conditions in all the Gospel." He adds, "This one thing I do, leaving the things that are behind, I press toward the mark for the prize of my high calling in Christ Jesus--the crown of life. Be ye followers of me. Run also the race that is set before you." "What!" say they, "would you have us run and work for life? Will you always harp upon that legal string, Do! do! instead of telling us that we have nothing to do, but to believe that all is done?" St. James cries, "Show your faith by your works; faith without works is dead already, much more that which is accompanied by bad works."

"What!" say they, "do you think the lamp of faith can be put out as a candle can be extinguished, by not being suffered to shine? We orthodox hold just the contrary: we maintain both that faith can never die, and that living faith is consistent not only with time omission of good works, but with the commission of the most horrid crimes." St. Peter bids them "give all diligence to make their election sure, by adding to their faith virtue," &c. "Legal stuff!" say they, "The covenant is well ordered in all things and sure: neither will our virtue save us, nor our sins damn us." St. John comes next, and declares, "He that sinneth is of the devil." "What!" say they, "do you think to make us converts to Arminianism, by thus insinuating that a man can be a child of God to-day, and a child of the devil to-morrow?" St. Jude advances last, and charges them to "keep themselves in the love of God;" and they supinely reply, "We can do nothing." Beside, "We are as easy and as safe without a frame as with one."

With the seven-fold shield of the Antinomian faith they would fight the twelve apostles round, and come off, in their own imagination, more than conquerors. Nay, were Christ himself to come to them incognito, as he did to the disciples that went to Emmaus, and say, "Be ye perfect, as your Father who is in heaven is perfect:" it would be well if, while they measured him from head to foot with looks of pity or surprise, some were not bold enough to say with a sneer, "You are a perfectionist, it seems, a follower of poor John Wesley! are you? For our part, we are for Christ and free grace, but John Wesley and you are for perfection and free will."

Now, sir, if any doctrine, humanly speaking, can rescue these mistaken persons out of so dreadful a snare, it is that which I contend for. Antinomian dreams vanish before it, as the noxious damps of the night before the rising sun. St. Paul, if they would but hear him out, with this one saying, as with a thousand rams, would demolish all their Babels: "Circumcision is nothing, uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God:" or, to speak agreeable to our times, "Before the tribunal of Christ, forms of godliness, Calvinian and Arminian notions are nothing: confessions of faith and recantations of error, past manifestations and former experiences 'are nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God;' "the very thing which Antinomians ridicule or neglect!

2. This doctrine is not less proper to animate feeble believers in their pursuit of holiness. O if it were clearly preached and steadily believed,--if we were fully persuaded, we shall soon "appear before the judgment seat of Christ," to answer for every thought, word, and work, for every business we enter upon, every sum of money we lay out, every meal we eat, every pleasure we take, every affliction we endure, every hour we spend, every idle word we speak, yea, and every temper we secretly indulge,--if we knew we shall certainly "give account" of all the chapters we read, of all the prayers we offer, all the sermons we hear or preach, all the sacraments we receive; of all the motions of Divine grace, all the beams of heavenly light, all the breathings of the Spirit, all the invitations of Christ, all the drawings of the Father, reproofs of our friends, and checks of our own consciences,--and if we were deeply. conscious, that every neglect of duty will rob us of a degree of glory, and every willful sin of a jewel in our crown, if not of our crown itself; what humble, watchful, holy, heavenly persons should we be! How serious and self denying! How diligent and faithful! In a word, how angelical and divine, "in all manner of conversation!"

Did the woman, the professing Church, cordially embrace this doctrine, she would no more stay "in the wilderness, idly talking of her beloved;" but actually "leaning upon him," she would "come out of it," in the sight of all her enemies. No more wrapped up in the showy cloud of ideal perfection or imaginary righteousness, and casting away her cold garments, her moonlike changes of merely doctrinal apparel, she would shine with the dazzling glory of her Lord; she would burn with the hallowing fires of his love: once more she would be "clothed with the sun, and have the moon under her feet!"

Ye lukewarm talkers of Jesus' ardent love, if you were deeply conscious that nothing but love shall enter heaven, instead of judging of your growth in grace by the warmth with which you espouse the tenets of Calvin or Arminius, would you not instantly try your state by the thirteenth chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians, and by our Lord's alarming messages to the falling or fallen Churches of Asia? Springing out of your Laodicean indifference, would you not earnestly pray for the "faith of the Gospel, the faith that works by burning love?" if the fire be kindled, would you not be afraid of putting it out by "quenching the Spirit?" Would you not even dread "grieving" him, lest your love should grow cold? Far from accounting the "shedding abroad of the love of God in your hearts" an unnecessary frame, would you not be "straitened" till you were baptized, every one of you, with "the Holy Ghost and with fire?"

Ye who hold the doctrine of perfection without "going on to perfection," and ye who explode it as a pernicious delusion, and inconsistently publish hymns of solemn prayer for it, how would you agree, from the bottom of your reawakened hearts, to sing together, in days of peace and social worship, as you have carelessly sung asunder,

O for a heart to praise our God!

A heart from sin set free!

A heart in every thought renew'd,

And fill'd with love divine!

Perfect, and right, and pure, and good,

A copy, Lord, of thine.--

Bigotry from us remove,

Perfect all our souls in love, &c.

O ye halcyon days! Ye days of brotherly love and genuine holiness! if you appeared to pacify and gladden our distracted Jerusalem, how soon would practical Christianity emerge from under the frothy billows of Antinomianism, and the proud waves of Pharisaism, which continually break against each other, and openly" foam out their own shame!" "What carefulness" would godly sorrow work in us all! "What clearing of ourselves," by casting away our dearest idols! "What indignation" against our former lukewarmness! "What of offending either God or man! "What vehement desire" after the full image of Christ! "What zeal" for his glory! And "what revenge" of our sins! "In all things we should approve ourselves," for the time to come, "to be clear" from the Antinomian delusion. Then would we see, what has seldom been seen in our age, distinct (not opposed) societies of meek professors of the common faith walking in humble love, and supporting each other with cheerful readiness, like different battalions of the same invincible army. And if ever we perceived any contention among them, it would be only about the lowest place and the most dangerous post. Instead of "striving for mastery," they would strive only who should stand truest to the standard of the cross, and best answer the neglected motto of the primitive Christians: Non magna loquimur sed vivimus; "Our religion does not consist in high Words, but in good works."

3. I observed that this doctrine will likewise reconcile seeming contradictions in the Scriptures, and fatal differences among Christians. Take one instance of the former: What can those who reject a second justification by works make of the solemn words of our Lord, already quoted, "By thy words thou shalt be justified, or by thy words thou shalt be condemned?" Matt. xii, 37. And by what art can they possibly reconcile them with St. Paul's assertions, Rom. iv, 5, "To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is imputed to him for righteousness?" and v, 1, "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." Accept an example of the latter. In the Antinomian days of Dr. Crisp arose the honest people we call Quakers. Shocked at the general abuse of the doctrine of justification by faith, they rashly inferred it never could be from God; and seeing none "shall be justified in glory but the doers of the law," they hastily concluded there is but one justification, namely, the being made inherently just, or the being sanctified, and then declared holy. Admit our doctrine, and you have both parts of the truth,--that which the Antinomians hold against the Quakers, and that which the Quakers maintain against the Antinomians. Each alone is dangerous; both together mutually defend each other, and make up the Scriptural doctrine of justification, which is invincibly guarded on the one hand by FAITH against Pharisees, and on the other by WORKS against Antinomians. Reader, may both be thy portion! So shalt thou be eternally reinstated both in the favour and image of God.

VI. But while I enumerate the benefits which the Church will reap from a practical knowledge of our second justification by works, an honest Protestant, who has more zeal for, than acquaintance with the truth, advances, with his heart full of holy indignation, and his mouth of objections, which he says are unanswerable. Let us consider them one by one.

FIRST OBJECTION. "Your Popish, antichristian doctrine I abhor, and could even burn at a stake as a witness against it. Away with your new-fangled Arminian tenets! I am for old Christianity; and with St. Paul, 'determined to know nothing for justification but Christ, and him crucified.'"

ANSWER. Do you, indeed? Then I am sure you will not deny both Jesus Christ and St. Paul in this old Christian doctrine; for Christ says, "By thy words shalt thou be justified;" and St. Paul declares, "Not the hearers, but the doers of the law (of Christ) shall be justified." Alas, how often are those who say they" will know" and have "nothing but Christ," the first to "set him at nought" as a prophet, by railing at his holy doctrine: or to reject him as a king, by trampling upon his royal proclamations! But "I wot that through ignorance they do it, as do their rulers."

SECOND OBJECTION. "This legal doctrine robs God's dear children of their comforts and Gospel liberty, binds Moses' intolerable burden upon their free shoulders, and ' entangles them again in the galling yoke of bondage.'"

ANSWER. If God's dear children have got into a false liberty of doing the devil's works, either by "not going into the vineyard" when they have said, "Lord, I go," or by "beating their fellow servants" there, instead of working with them; the sooner they are robbed of it the better: for if they continue thus free, they will ere long be "bound hand and foot, and cast into outer darkness." It is the very spirit of Antinomianism to represent God's "commandments as grievous," and the keeping of his law "as bondage." Not so the dutiful children of God: "Their hearts" are never so much "at liberty," as when they "run the way of his commandments, and so fulfil the law of Christ." Keep them from obedience, and you keep them "in the snare of the devil, promising liberty to others, while they themselves are the servants of corruption."

Again: you confound the heavy yoke of the circumcision and ceremonial bondage, with which the Galatians once entangled themselves, with the "easy yoke of Jesus Christ." The former was intolerable, the latter is so "light a burden," that the only way to "find rest unto our souls is to take it upon us." St. Paul calls a dear brother his "yoke fellow." You know the word BELIAL in the original signifies "without yoke." They are sons of Belial who shake off the Lord's yoke; and though they should boast of their election as much as the Jews did, Christ himself will say concerning them, "Those mine enemies that refused my yoke, and would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me!" So inexpressibly dreadful is the end of lawless liberty!

THIRD OBJECTION. "Your doctrine is the damnable error of the Galatians, who madly left Mount Sion for Mount Sinai, made Christ the alpha, and not the Omega, and after 'having begun in the Spirit would be made perfect by the flesh.' This is the other Gospel which St. Paul thought so diametrically contrary to his own, that he wished the teachers of it, though they were 'angels of God,' might be even 'accursed and cut off.'"

ANSWER. You are under a capital mistake: St. Paul could never be so wild as to curse himself, anathematize St. James, and wish the Messiah to be again cut off: for he himself taught the Romans, that "the doers of the law shall be justified." St. James evidently maintains a justification by works; and our Lord expressly says, "By thy words thou shalt be justified." Again: the apostle, if he had foreseen how his Epistle to the Galatians would be abused to Antinomian purposes, gives us in it the most powerful antidotes against that poison. 'fake two or three instances. (1.) He exhorts his fallen converts to the fulfilling of all the law: "Love one another," says he, "for all the law is fulfilled in this one word, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself;" because none can "love his neighbour as himself," but he that "loves God with all his heart." How different is this doctrine from the bold Antinomian cry, 'We have nothing to do with the law!" (2.) He enumerates the works of the flesh, "adultery, hatred, variance, wrath, strife, envyings, heresies, &c; of which," says he, "I tell you before, as I have told you in time past, that they who do such things" shall not be justified in the day of judgment, or, which is the same thing, "shall not inherit the kingdom of God." How different a Gospel is this from that which insinuates, "impenitent adulterers may be dear children of God, even while such, and in a very safe state, and quite sure of glory!" And (3.) As if this awful warning were not enough, he point blank cautions his readers against the Crispian error: "Be not deceived," says he, "whatever a MAN (not whatever CHRIST) soweth, that shall he also reap. He that soweth to the flesh shall reap corruption, and he that soweth to the Spirit shall reap life everlasting." How amazingIy strong therefore must your prejudice be, which makes you produce this epistle to thrust love and good works out of the important place allotted them in all the word of God! And no where more than in this very epistle!

FOURTH OBJECTION. "Notwithstanding all you say, I am persuaded you are in the dreadful heresy of the Galatians; for they were, like you, for 'justification by the works of the law;' and St. Paul resolutely maintained against them the fundamental doctrine of justification by faith."

ANSWER. If you once read over the Epistle to the Galatians without prejudice, and without comment, you will see, that (1.) They had returned "to the beggarly elements of this world," by superstitiously "observing days, months, times, and years." (2.) Imagining they "could not be saved except they were circumcised," they submitted expect that grievous and bloody injunction. (3.) Exact in their useless ceremonies, and fondly hoping to be justified by their partial observance of Moses' law, they well nigh forgot the merits of Christ, and openly trampled upon his law, and "walked after the flesh." Stirred up to contentious zeal by their new teachers, they despised the old apostle's ministry, hated his person, and" devoured one another." In short, they trusted partly in the merit of their superstitious performances, and partly in Christ's merits; and on this preposterous foundation they "built the hay" of Jewish ceremonies, and "the stubble" of fleshly lusts. With great propriety, therefore, the apostle called them back, with sharpness, to the only sure foundation, the merits of Jesus Christ; and wanted them to "build upon it gold and precious stones," all the works of piety and mercy that spring from "faith working by love."

Now which of these errors do we hold? Do we not preach present justification by faith, and justification at the bar of God according to what a man soweth, the very doctrine of this epistle? And do we not "secure the foundation," by insisting that both these justifications are equally through the merits of Christ, though the second, as our Church intimates in her twelfth article, is by the evidence of works?

Will you bear with me if I tell you my thoughts? We are all in general condemned by the Epistle to the Galatians, for we have too much dependence on our forms of piety, speculative knowledge, or past experience; and too little heart-felt confidence in the merits of Christ: "We sow too little to the Spirit, and too much to the flesh." But those, in the next place, are peculiarly reproved by it, who "return to the beggarly elements," the idle ways and vain fashions "of this world." Those who make as much ado about the beggarly element of water, about baptizing infants and dipping adults, as "the troublers" of the Church of Galatia did about circumcising their converts, "that they might glory in their flesh." Those who "zealously affect others, but not well:" those who now despise their spiritual fathers," whom they once received as angels of God:" those who "turn our enemies when we tell them the truth," who "heap to themselves" teachers, smoother than the evangelically legal apostle, and would call us blind if we said, as he does, "Let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another," Gal. vi, 4. Those who plead for spiritual bondage while they talk of Gospel liberty, and affirm "that the son of the bondwoman" shall always live "with the son of the free;" that sin can never be cast out of the heart of believers, and that Christ and corruption shall always dwell together in this world. And, lastly, those who say there is no "falling away from grace," when they are already fallen like the Galatians, and boast of their stability chiefly because they are ignorant of their fall!

FIFTH OBJECTION. "However, your Pharisaic doctrine flatly contradicts the Gospel summed up by our Lord, Mark xvi, 16, 'He that believeth shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned.' HERE is not one word about works. All turns upon faith."

ANSWER. Instead of throwing such hints, you might as well speak out at once, and say that Christ in these words flatly contradicts what he had said, Matt. xii, 37, "By thy words thou shalt be justified, or by thy words thou shalt be condemned." But drop your prejudices, and you will see that the contradiction is only in your own ideas. We steadily assert, as our Lord, that "he who believeth," or "endureth unto the end believing," (for the word implies both the reality and the continuance of the action,) "shall infallibly be saved;" because faith, which continues living, "works" to the last "by love" and good works, which will infallibly justify us in the day of judgment. For when faith is no more, love and good works will evidence, (1.) That we were grafted into Christ by true faith: (2.) That we did not "make shipwreck of the faith;" that we were not "taken away as branches in him which hear not fruit, but abode fruitful branches in the true Vine." And (3.) That we are still in him by HOLY LOVE, the precious and eternal fruit of true persevering faith. How bad is that cause which must support itself by charging an imaginary contradiction upon the Wisdom of God, Jesus Christ himself! *

* [This is frequently the stratagem of those who have no arguments to produce. I bore my testimony against it in the Vindication, and flattered myself that serious Writers would be less forward to oppose the truth, and expose the ministers of Christ by that injudicious way of discussing controverted points. Notwithstanding this, I have before me a little pamphlet, in which the editor endeavours to answer Mr. Wesley's Minutes, by extracting from his writings passages supposed to stand in direct opposition to time Minutes. Hence, in a burlesque upon the Declaration, he tries to represent Mr. Wesley as a knave.

I would just observe upon that performance, (1.) That by this method of raising dust, and avoiding to reason the case fairly, every malicious infidel may blind Injudicious readers, and make triumphing scoffers cry out, Jesus against Christ! Saul against St. Paul or John the divine against John the evangelist! as well as Wesley against John! and John against Wesley. (2.) Mr. Wesley having acknowledged, in the beginning of the Minutes, he "had leaned too much toward Calvinism," we may naturally expect to meet in his voluminous writings with a few expressions that look a little toward Antinomianism: and with some paragraphs Which (when detached from time context, and not considered as spoken to deep mourners in Zion, or to souls of undoubted sincerity,) seem directly to favour the delusion of time present times. (3.) This may be easily accounted for without flying to the charges of knavery or contradiction. When after working long with. out cheering light we discover the ravishing day of luminous faith, we are all apt, in the sincerity of our hearts, to speak almost as unguardedly of works as Luther did; but when the fire of Antinomian temptations has frequently burned us, and consumed thousands around us, we justly dread it at last; and ceasing to lean toward Crisp's divinity, we return to St. James, St. John, and St. Jude, and to the latter part of St. Paul's Epistles which we too often overlooked, and to which hardly two ministers did, upon the whole, ever do more justice than Mr. Baxter and Mr. Wesley. (4,) A man who gives to different people, or to time same people at different times, directly contrary directions, does not always contradict himself. I have a fever, and my physician, under God, restores me to health by cooling medicines; by and by I am afflicted with the cold rheumatism, and he prescribes fomentations and warming remedies, .hut my injudicious apothecary opposes him, under the pretence that lie goes by no certain rule, and grossly contradicts himself. Let us apply this to Mr. Wesley and the Versifier, remembering there is less difference between a burning fever and a cold rheumatism, than between the case of the trifling Antinomian and that of the dejected penitent. (5.) Whoever considers without prejudice what our satiric poet produces as contradictions, will find some of them do not so much as amount to an opposition, and that most of them do not seem so contradictory as numbers of propositions that might be extracted

from the oracles of God. If the editor of the Answer to the Minutes will compare this note with the 28th page of the Vindication, I hope he will find his performance answered, his direct attack upon the Minutes frustrated, and Mr. Wesley's honesty fully vindicated.]

SIXTH OBJECTION. "Your doctrine exalts man, and by giving him room to boast, robs Christ of the glory of his grace. 'The top stone' is no more 'brought forth with shouting, Grace! Grace!' but, Works! Works! 'unto it!' And the burden of the song in heaven will be,.--. Salvation to our works! and no more, Salvation to the Lamb!"

ANSWER. I no less approve your godly jealousy, than I wonder at your groundless fears. To calm them, permit me once more to observe, (1.) That this doctrine is Christ's, who would not he so unwise as to side with our self-righteous pride, and teach us to rob him of his own glory. It is absurd to suppose Christ would be thus against Christ, for even Satan is too wise "to be against Satan." (2.) Upon our plan, as well as upon Crisp's scheme, free grace has absolutely all the glory. The love and good works by which we shall be justified in the day of judgment, are the fruits of faith, and "faith is the gift of God." Christ is the great object of faith, the Holy Ghost, called the Spirit of faith, the power of believing, the means, opportunities, and will to use that power, are all the rich presents of God's free grace. All our sins, together with the imperfections of our works, are mercifully forgiven through the blood and righteousness of Christ: our persons and services are graciously accepted merely for his sake, and through his merits: and if rewards are granted us according to the fruits of righteousness we bear, it is not because we are profitable to God, but because the meritorious sap of the Root of David produces those fruits, and the meritorious beams of the Sun of righteousness ripen them. Thus you see, that, which way soever you look at our justification, God has all the glory of it, but that of turning moral agents into mere machines,--a glory which, we apprehend, God does no more claim than you do that of turning your coach horses into hobby horses, and your servants into puppets.

If faith on earth gives Christ the glory of all our salvation, you need not fear that love (a superior grace) will rob him in heaven: for "love is not puffed up, seeketh not her own, and does not behave herself unseemly" toward a beggar on earth; much less will she do so toward the Lord of glory, when she has attained the zenith of heavenly perfection. Away then with all the imaginary lions you place in your way to truth! Notwithstanding Crisp's prohibitions, like the Bereans, receive Christ in his holy doctrine, and be persuaded that in the last day you will shout as loud as the honest doctor, Grace! Grace! and Salvation to the Lamb! without suggesting, with him, to those on the left hand, the blasphemous shouts of Partiality! Hypocrisy! Barbarity! and damnation to the Lamb! Thus shall you have all the free grace he justly boasts of, without any of his horrid reprobating doctrine.

SEVENTH OBJECTION. "How will the converted thief, that did no good works, be justified by works?"

ANSWER. (1.) We mean by WORKS "the whole of our inward tempers and outward behaviour;" and how do you know the outward behaviour of the converted thief? Did not his reproofs, exhortations, prayers, patience, and resignation, evidence the liveliness of his faith, as there was time and opportunity? (2.) Can you suppose his inward temper was not love to God and man? Could he go into paradise without being born again? Or could he be born again and not love? Is it not said, "He that loveth is born of God;" consequently, he that is born of God loveth? Again: does not he who "loveth, fulfil all the law," and do, as says Augustine, all good works in one? And is not "the fulfilling of the law of Christ" work enough to justify the converted thief by that law?

EIGHTH OBJECTION. "You say, that your doctrine 'will make us zealous of good works;' but I fully discharge it from that office: for 'the love of Christ constraineth us to abound in every good word and work.' "

ANSWER. (1.) St. Paul, who spoke those words with more feeling than you, thought the contrary; as well as his blessed Master, or they would never have taught this doctrine. You do not, I fear, evidence the temper of a babe when you are so exceedingly "wise above what" Christ preached, and "prudent above what" the apostle "wrote." (2.) If the love of Christ in professors is so constraining as you say, why do good works and good tempers bear so little proportion to the great talk we hear of its irresistible efficacy? And why do those who have tasted it "return to sin as dogs to their vomit?" Why can they even curse, swear, and get drunk? Be guilty of idolatry, murder, and incest? (3.) If love alone is always sufficient, why did our Lord work upon his disciples' hearts, by the hope of "thrones and a kingdom," arid by the fear of a "worm that dieth not, and a fire that is not quenched?" Why does the apostle stir up believers to "serve the Lord with godly fear," by the consideration that "he is a consuming fire?" Illustrating his assertion by this awful warning, "If they (Korah and his company) escaped not," but were consumed by fire from heaven, because they "refused him (Moses) that spake on earth; ranch more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven!" Why did St. Paul himself, who, no doubt, understood the Gospel as well as Crisp and Saltmarsh, "run a race for an incorruptible crown, and keep his body under, LEST he himself should be a Castaway?" O ye orthodox divines, and thou ludicrous versifier of an awful declaration! instead of attempting to set St. Paul against St. Paul, and to oppose Wesley to Wesley, answer these Scriptural questions; and if you cannot do it without betraying heterodoxy, for the Lord's sake, for the sake of thousands in Israel, keep no more from the feeble of the flock those necessary helps which the "very chief of the apostles," evangelical Paul, without any of your Crispian refine.. meats, continually recommended to others, and daily used himself. And for your own souls' sake, never more prostitute these awful words, "The love of Christ constraineth us;" never more apply them to yourselves, while you refuse to treat the most venerable ambassador of Christ, I shall not say, with respectful love, but with common decency.

NINTH OBJECTION. "All the formal and Pharisaical ministers, who are sworn enemies to Christ and the Gospel of his grace, preach your legal doctrine of justification by works in the day of judgment ."

ANSWER. And what do you infer from it? That the doctrine is false? If the inference be just, it will follow there is neither heaven nor hell; for they publicly maintain the existence of both. But suppose they now and then preach our doctrine without zeal, without living according to it, or without previously preaching the fall, and a present justification by faith in Christ, productive of peace and power, what can be expected from it? Would not the doctrine of the atonement itself be totally useless, if it were preached under such disadvantages? The truth is, such ministers are only for the roof, and you, it seems, only for the foundation. But a roof, unsupported by solid walls, crushes to death; and a foundation without a roof is not much better than the open air. Therefore, "wise master builders," like St. Paul, are for having both in their proper places. Like him, when the foundation is well laid, "leaving the first principles of the doctrine of Christ, they go on to perfection;" nor will they forget, as they work out their salvation, to shout, Grace! Grace! to the last slate that covers in the building; or to "the top stone," the key that binds the solid arch.

TENTH OBJECTION. "Should I receive and avow such a doctrine, the generality of professors would rise against me; and while the warmest would call me a Papist, an antichrist, and what not; my dearest Christian friends would pity me as an unawakened Pharisee, and fear me as a blind legalist."

ANSWER. "Rejoice, and be exceeding glad when all men (the godly not excepted) shall say all manner of evil of you falsely for Christ's sake,"--for preferring Christ's holy doctrine to the loose tenets of Dr. Crisp: and remember, that, in our Antinomian days, it is as great an honour to be called legal by fashionable professors, as to be branded with the name of Methodist by the sots who glory in their shame.

VII. As I would hope my objector is either satisfied or silenced, before I conclude, permit me a moment, Rev. sir, to consider the two important objections which you directly, or indirectly, make in your Narrative.

1. "I should tremble," say you, (page 21,) "lest some bold metaphysician should affirm, that a second justification by works is quite consistent with what is contained in Mr. Wesley's declaration; but that it is expressed in such strong and absolute terms as must for ever put the most exquisite refinements of metaphysical distinctions at defiance."

ANSWER. "For ever at defiance!" You surprise me, sir: I, who run as perfect a stranger to "exquisite refinements" as to Dr. Crisp's eternal justification, defy you (pardon a bold expression to a bold meta physical) ever to produce out of Mr. Wesley's declaration, I shall not say (as you do) "strong and absolute terms," but one single word or tittle denying or excluding a second justification by works; and I appeal both to your second thoughts and to the unprejudiced world, whether these three propositions of the declaration, "We have no trust, or confidence, but in the alone merits of Christ for justification in the day of' judgment. Works have no part in meriting or purchasing our justification from first to last, either in whole or in part. He is not a real Christian believer, (and consequently cannot be saved,) who does not good works where there is time and opportunity." I appeal to the unprejudiced world, whether these three propositions are not highly consistent with this assertion of our Lord, "By thy words thou shalt be justified," that is, "although from first to last the merits of my life and death purchase, or deserve, thy justification; yet in the day of judgment thou shalt be justified by thy works; that is, thy justification, which is purchased by my merits, will entirely turn upon the evidence of thy works, according to the time and opportunity thou hast to do them."

Who does not see, that, "to be justified by the evidence of works," and "to be justified by the merit of works," are no more phrases of the same import than minutes and heresy are words of the same signification? The latter proposition contains the error strongly guarded against, both in the declaration and the Minutes: the former contains an evangelical doctrine, as agreeable to the declaration and Minutes as to the Scriptures; a doctrine of which we were too sparing when we "leaned too much toward Calvinism," but to which, after the example of Mr. Wesley, we are now determined to do justice.

Whosoever is "ashamed of Christ's words," we will proclaim them to the world. Both from our pulpits and the press we will say, "By thy words thou shalt be condemned." Yea, "Whoever shall say to his brother, Thou fool! shall be in danger of hell fire; and whosoever maketh a lie shall have his part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone;" for as "with the heart man believeth unto righteousness," or disbelieveth to unrighteousness, so "with the mouth confession is made to salvation," or "hard speeches" are uttered to "damnation." Reserve, therefore, Rev. sir, your Public praises for a more proper occasion than that which caused their breaking out in your Narrative. "Blessed be God!" say you, (page 16,) "Mr. Wesley and fifty-three of his preachers do not agree with Mr. Olivers in the material article of a second justification by works." Indeed, sir, you are greatly mistaken, for we do agree with him.; and shall continue so to do, till You have proved he does not agree with Jesus Christ, or that our doctrine is not perfectly consistent both with the Scriptures and the declaration.

2. Your second objection is not so formal as the first; it must be made up of broad hints scattered through your Narrative, and they amount to this: "Your pretended difference between justification by the merit of works, by the evidence of works, and between a first and a second justification, is founded upon the subtleties of metaphysical distinctions. If what you say wears the aspect of truth, it is because you give a new turn to error, by the almost magical power of metaphysical distinctions," pages 16, 20, 21.

Give me leave, sir, to answer this objection by two appeals, one to the most ignorant collier in my parish, and the other to your own sensible child; and if they can at once understand my meaning, you will see that my "metaphysical distinctions," as you are pleased to call them, are nothing but the dictates of common sense. I begin with the collier.

Thomas, I stand here before the judge, accused of having robbed the Rev. Mr. Shirley, near Bath, last month, on such an evening; can you speak a word for me? Thomas turns to the judge, and says, "Please your honour, the accusation is false, for our parson was in Madeley Wood; and I can make oath of it, for he even reproved me for swearing at our pit's mouth that very evening." By his evidence, the judge acquits me. Now, sir, ask cursing Tom whether I am acquitted and justified, by his merits, or by the simple evidence he has given, and he will tell you, "Ay, to be sure by the evidence; though I am no scholar, I know very well that if our Methodist parson is not hanged, it is none of my deservings." Thus, sir, an ignorant collier, as great a stranger to your metaphysics as you are to his mandrel, discovers at once a material difference between justification by the evidence, and justification by the merits of a witness.

My second appeal is to your sensible child. By a plain comparison I hope to make him at once understand, both the difference there is between our first and second justification, and the propriety of that difference. The lovely boy is old enough, I suppose, to follow the gardener and me to yonder nursery. Having shown him the operation of grafting, and pointing at the crab tree newly grafted, "My dear child," would I say, "though hitherto this tree has produced nothing but crabs, yet by the skill of the gardener, who has just fixed in it that good little branch, it is now made an apple tree: I justify and warrant it such. (Here is an emblem of our first justification by faith!) In three or four years, if we live, we will come again and see it: if it thrives and 'bears fruit,' well; we shall then by that mark justify it a second time, we shall declare that it is a good apple tree indeed, and fit to be transplanted from this wild nursery into a delightful orchard. But if we find that the old crab stock, instead of nourishing the graft, spends all its sap in producing wild shoots and sour crabs; or if it is a 'tree whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, (dead in the graft and in the stock,) plucked up by the root,' or quite cankered, far from declaring 'it a good tree,' we shall pass sentence of condemnation upon it, and say, ' Cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground? For every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire.'" Here is an emblem of our second justification by works, or of the condemnation that will infallibly overtake those Laodicean professors and wretched apostates, whose faith is not shown by works, where there is time and opportunity.

Instead of offering an insult to your superior understanding, in attempting to explain by "metaphysical distinctions," what I suppose your sensible child has already understood by the help of a grafting knife, I shall leave you to consider whether Scripture, reason, and candour do not join their influence to make you acknowledge, at least, in the court of your own conscience, that you have put a wrong construction upon Mr. Wesley's declaration as upon his Minutes, and by that mean inadvertently given another rash touch to the ark of practical religion, and to the character of one of the greatest ministers in the world.

I am, with due respect, Hon. and Rev. sir, your obedient servant, in the bond of the practical Gospel of Christ,

THE VINDICATOR.

LETTER II.

HONOURED AND REVEREND SIR,--Having endeavoured in my last to do justice to the practical Gospel of Christ, and Mr. Wesley's awful declarations, I pass on to the other mistakes of your Narrative. That which strikes me next is "the public recantation of your useful sermons, in the face of the whole world." (Page 22.)

1. 0! sir, what have you done! Do you not know that your sermons contain not only the legally evangelical doctrine of the Minutes, but likewise all the doctrine which moderate Calvinists esteem as the marrow of the Gospel? And shall all be treated alike? "Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked? That be far from thee to do after this manner!" Thus did a good man formerly plead the cause of a wicked city, and thus I plead that of your good sermons, those twelve valuable, though unripe fruits of your ministerial labours. Upon this plea the infamous city would have been spared, had only "ten" good men been found in it. Now, sir, spare a valuable book for the sake of a "thousand" excellent things it contains. But if you are inflexible, and still wish it "burned," imitate, at least, the kind angels who sent Lot out of the fiery overthrow, and except all the evangelical pages of the unfortunate volume.

Were it not ridiculous to compare wars which cost us only a little ink, and our friends a few pence, to those which cost armies their blood, and kingdoms their treasures, I would be tempted to say to you, Imitate the Dutch in their last effort to balance the victory, and secure the field. When they are pressed by the French, rather than yield, they break their dykes, let in the sea upon themselves, and lay all their fine gardens and rich pastures under water: but before they have recourse to that strange expedient, they prudently save all the valuable goods they can. Why should you not follow them in their prudential care, as you seem to do in their bold stratagem? When you publicly lay your useful book under the bitter waters of an anathema, why do you save absolutely nothing? Why must Gospel truths, more precious than the wealth of Holland and the gold of Ophir, lie for ever under the severe scourge of your recantation? Suppose you had "recanted" your third sermon. The way to eternal life, in opposition to mysticism; and "burned" the fourth, Salvation by Christ for Jews and Gentiles, in honour of Calvinism, could you not have spared the rest?

If you say, you may do what you please with your own; I answer, Your book, publicly exposed to sale, and bought perhaps by thousands, is, in one sense, no more your own; it belongs to the purchasers, before whom you lay, I fear, a dangerous example: for when they shall hear that the author has "publicly recanted it in the face of the whole world," it will be a temptation to them to slight the Gospel it contains, and perhaps to ridicule it "in the face of the whole world."

You add, "It savours too strongly of mysticism." Some passages are a little tainted with Mr. Law's capital error, and you might have pointed them out: but if you think mysticism is intrinsically bad, you are under a mistake. One of the greatest Mystics, next to Solomon, is Thomas a Kempis, and a few errors excepted, I would no more burn his" Imitation of Jesus Christ," than the Song of Solomon, and Mr. Romaine's edifying" Paraphrase of the 107th Psalm."

You urge also, your sermons "savour too much of free will." alas! sir, can you recant "free will?" Was not your will as free when you recanted your sermons as when you composed them'? Is there not as much free will expressed in this one line of the Gospel as in all your sermons, "I would have gathered you, and ye would not'?" Do not "free-will offerings, with a holy worship," delight the Lord more than forced, and, if I may be allowed the expression, bond-will services? Is not the free will with which the martyrs went to the stake as worthy of our highest admiration, as the mysticism of the Canticles is of our deepest attention'? If all that strongly "savours of free will" must be "burned," ye heavens! what Smithfield work will there be in your lucid plains! Woe to saints! Woe to angels! for they are all free-willing beings--all full of free will. Nor can you deny it, unless you suppose they are bound by irresistible decrees, as the heathens fancied their deities were hampered with the adamantine chains of an imaginary something they called "fate:" witness their Fata vetant, and Fata jubent, and ineluclabile Fatum.

Pardon, Rev. sir, the oddity of these exclamations. I am so grieved at the great advantage we give infidels against the Gospel, by making it ridiculous, that I could try even the method of Horace, to bring my friends back from the fashionable refinements of Crisp, to the plain truth as it is in Jesus.

Ridiculum acri

Fortius ac melius stultas plerumque secat res.

Nor is this the only bad tendency of your new doctrine: for by exploding the freedom of the will, you rob us of free agency. You afford the wicked, who determine to continue in sin, the best excuse in the world to do it without either shame or remorse; you make us mere machines, and indirectly reflect upon the wisdom of our Lord, for saying to a set of Jewish machines, "I would, and ye would not." But what is still more deplorable, you inadvertently represent it an unwise thing in God to judge the world in righteousness; and your new glass shows his vindictive justice in the same unfavourable light, in which England saw two years ago the behaviour of a great monarch, who was exposed in the public papers, for unmercifully cutting with a whip, and tearing with spurs, the horses worked in a tapestry of his royal apartment, because they did not prance and gallop at his nod.

If a commendable, but immoderate fear of Pelagius' doctrine drove you into that of Augustine, the oracle of all the Dominicans, Thomists, Jansenists, and all other Roman Catholic predestinarians, you need not go so far beyond him as to recant all your sermons, because you mention perhaps three or four times, the freedom of our will, in the whole volume. "Let no one," says judicious Melancthon, "be offended at the words free will, (liberum arbitriurn,) for St. Augustine himself uses it in many volumes, and that almost in every page, even to the surfeit of the reader."

The most ingenious Calvinist that ever wrote against free will is, I think, Mr. Edwards, of New-England. And his fine system. turns upon a comparison by which it may be overturned, and the freedom of the will demonstrated.

The will, says he, (if I remember right,) is like an even balance which can never turn without a weight, and must necessarily turn with one. But whence comes the weight that necessarily turns it? From the understanding, answers he; the last dictate of the understanding necessarily turns the will. And is the understanding also necessarily determined'? Yes, by the effect which the objects around us necessarily have upon us, and by the circumstances in which we necessarily find ourselves; so that from first to last, our tempers, words, and actions, necessarily follow each other, and the circumstances that give them birth, as the second, third, and fourth links of a chain follow the first, when it is drawn along. Hence the eternal, infallible, irresistible, universal concatenation of events, both in the moral and material world. This is, if I mistake not, the scheme of that great' divine, and he spends no less than four hundred and fourteen large pages in trying to establish it.

I would just observe upon it, that it makes the First Cause or First Mover, the only free Agent in the world; all others being necessarily bound with the chain of his decrees, drawn along by the irresistible motion of his arm, or, which is the same, entangled in forcible circumstances unalterably fixed by his immutable counsel.

And yet, even upon this scheme, you needed not, sir, be so afraid of free will; for if the will be like an even balance, it is free in itself, though it is only with what I beg leave to call "a mechanical freedom;" for an even balance, you know, is free to turn either way.

But with respect to our ingenious author's assertion, that the will cannot turn without a weight, because an even balance cannot, I must consider it as a mere begging the question, if not as an absurdity. What is a balance but lifeless matter? And what is the will but the living, active soul, springing up in its willing capacity, and self-exerting, self-determining power? O how tottering is the mighty fabric raised, I shall not say upon such a fine spun metaphysical speculation, but Upon so weak a foundation as a comparison, which supposes that two things, so widely different as spirit and matter, a living soul and a lifeless balance, are exactly alike with reference to self determination! Just as if a spirit, made after the image of the living, free, and powerful God, was no more capable of determining itself, than a horizontal beam supporting two equal copper bowls by six silken strings!

I am sorry, sir, to dissent from such a respectable divine as yourself; but, as I have no taste for new refinements, and cannot even conceive how far actions can be morally good or evil, any farther than our free will is concerned in them, I must follow the universal experience of mankind, and side with the author of the sermons against the author of the Narrative concerning the freedom of the will.

Nor is this freedom derogatory to free grace: for as it was free grace that gave an upright free will to Adam at his creation; so whenever his fallen children think or act aright, it is because their free will is mercifully prevented, touched, and so far rectified by free grace.

However, it must be granted, that many fashionable professors, and the large book of Mr. Edwards, are for you: but when you maintained the freedom of the will, Jesus Christ and the Gospel were on your side. To the end of the world this plain, peremptory assertion of our Lord, "I would and ye would not," will alone throw down the sophisms, and silence the objections of the most subtle philosophers against free will. When I consider what it implies, far from supposing that the will is a lifeless pair of scales, necessarily turned by the least weight, I see it is such a strong, self-determining power, that it can resist the effect of the most amazing weights; keep itself inflexible under all the warnings, threatenings, miracles, promises, entreaties, and tears of the Son of God; and remain obstinately unmoved under the strivings of his Holy Spirit. Yes: put in one scale the most stupendous weights, for instance, the hopes of heavenly joys, and the dread of hellish torments; and only the gaudy feather of honour, or the breaking bubble of worldly joy, in the other; if the will casts itself into the light scale, the feather or bubble will instantly preponderate. Nor is the power of the rectified will less wonderful; for though you should put all the kingdoms of the world and their glory in the one scale, and nothing but "the reproach of Christ" in the .other; yet, if the will freely leap into the infamous scale, a crown of thorns easily outweighs a thousand golden crowns, and a devouring flame makes ten thousand thrones kick the beam.

Thus it appears the will can be persuaded, but never forced. You may bend it by moral suasions; but if you do this farther than it freely gives way, you break, you absolutely destroy it. A will forced, is no more a will; it is mere compulsion; freedom is not less essential to it than moral agency to man. Nor do I go, in these observations upon the freedom of the will, one step farther than honest John Bunyan, whom all the Calvinists so deservedly admire. In his "Holy War" he tells us, "There is but one Lord Will-be Will in the town of Man's.. soul:" whether he serves Diabolus or Shaddai, he is Lord Will-be Will still, "a man of great strength, resolution, and courage, whom in his occasion no one can turn," if he does not freely turn, or yield to be turned.

I hope, sir, these hints upon the harmlessness of mysticism, and the important doctrine of our free agency, will convince you, and the purchasers of your sermons, that you have been too precipitate in "publicly recanting them in the face of the whole world," especially the ninth.

If you ask, why I particularly interest myself in behalf of that one discourse, I will let you into the mystery. At the first reading I liked and adopted it: I cut it out of the volume in which it was bound, put it in my sermon case, and preached it in my church. The title of it is, you know, "Justification by Faith;" and, among several striking things on the subject, you quote twice this excellent passage out of our homilies: "Justification by faith implies a sure trust and confidence which a man hath in God, that by the merits of Christ his sins are forgiven, and he is reconciled to the favour of God." O sir, why did you not except it in your recantation, both for the honour of our Church and your own'?

Were I to print and disperse such an advertisement as this: "Eight years ago I preached in my church a sermon, entitled Justification by Faith, composed by the honourable and reverend Mr. Shirley, to convince Papists and Pharisees that we are accepted through the alone merits of Christ: but I see better now; I wish this sermon had been burned, and I publicly recant it in the face of the whole world;" how would the Popish priest of Madeley rejoice! And how will that of Loughrea triumph when he hears you have actually done it in your Narrative! What will your Protestant parishioners, to whom your book is dedicated, say, when the surprising news reaches Ireland? And what will the world think, when they see you warmly plead in August for justification by faith, as being "the foundation that must by all means be secured;" and publicly recant, in September, your own excellent sermon on "Justification by Faith?"

Indeed, sir, though I admire your candour in acknowledging there are some exceptionable passages in your discourses, and your humility in readily giving them up, I can no more approve of your readiness in making, than in insisting upon "formal recantations." We cannot be too careful in dealing in that kind of ware; and it is extremely dangerous to do it by wholesale; as by that mean we may give up, or seem to give up, "before the whole world," precious truths, delivered by Christ himself, and brought down to us in streams of the blood of martyrs.

Among some blunt expostulations that Mr. Wesley erased in my Fifth Letter, as being too severe, he kindly but unhappily struck out this:

"Before you could with candour insist upon 'a recantation' of Mr. Wesley's Minutes, should you not have recanted yourself the passages of your own sermons where the same doctrines are maintained; and have sent your recantation through the land, together with your Circular Letter'?" Had this been published, it might have convinced you of the unseasonableness of your "recantation." Thus, this second hasty step would have been prevented; and if I dwell so long upon it now, believe me, sir, it is chiefly to prevent a third.

And, now your sermons are recanted, is the Vindication of Mr. Wesley's Minutes invalidated? Not at all; for you have not yet recanted the Bath Hymnbook, nor can you ever get Mr. Henry, Mr. Williams, and a tribe of other anti-Crispian, though Calvinist divines, flow in glory, to recant 'with you; much less the prophets, apostles, and Christ himself, on whose irrefragable testimony we chiefly rest our doctrine.

II. As I have pleaded out the cause of free will against bound will, or that of your sermons against your Narrative, and am insensibly come to the Vindication, give me leave, sir, to speak a word also for that performance and the author of it.

You say he has "attempted a vindication of the Minutes;" but do not some people think he has likewise executed it'? And have you proved he has not?

You reply, "There would he a great impropriety in my giving a full and particular answer to those letters, because the author did all he could to revoke them, and has given me ample satisfaction in his letters of submission." Indeed, sir, you quite mistook the nature of that "submission:" it had absolutely no reference to the arguments of the Vindication; it only respected the polemic dress in which the vindicator had put them. You might have been convinced of it by this paragraph of his letter of submission: "I was going to preach when I had the news of your happy accommodation, and was no sooner out of church than I wrote to beg my Vindication might not appear in the dress in which I had put it. I did not then, nor do I yet, repent having written upon the Minutes; but, as matters are now, I am very sorry I did not write in a general manner, without taking notice of the Circular Letter, and mentioning your dear name." He begs, therefore, you will not consider his letter of submission as a reason for not giving "a full or particular answer" to his arguments. On the contrary, if you can prove they want solidity, a letter of thanks shall follow his "letter of submission:" if he is wrong, he sincerely desires to be set right.

You add, however, that he has "broken the Minutes into sentences and half sentences; and by refining upon each of the detached particles, has given a new turn to the whole." But he appeals to every impartial reader whether he has not, like a candid man, first considered them all together, and then every one asunder. He begs to be informed, whether an artist can better inquire into the goodness of a watch, than by making first his observations on the whole movement in general, and then by taking it to pieces, that he may examine every part with greater attention. And he desires you would show, whether what you are pleased to call "a new turn," is not preferable to the heretical turn some persons give them; and whether it is not equally, if not better adapted to the literal meaning of the words, as well as more agreeable to the Antinomian state of the Church, the general tenor of the propositions, and the system of doctrine maintained by Mr. Wesley for near forty years?

The vindicator objects likewise to your asserting, (page 21,) that "when he first saw the Minutes, he expressed to Lady Huntingdon his abhorrence of them." Had you said SURPRISE, the expression would have been strictly just; but that of abhorrence is far too strong. her ladyship, who testified her detestation of them in the strongest terms, might easily mistake his abhorrence of the sense fixed upon the Minutes, for an abhorrence of the Minutes themselves; but she may recollect, that, far from ever granting they had that sense, he said again and again, even in their first conversation upon them, "Certainly, my lady, Mr. Wesley can mean no such thing: he will explain himself."

But supposing he had a first been so far influenced by the jealous fears of Lady Huntingdon, as to express as great an abhorrence of the Minutes as the mistaken disciples did of the person of our Lord, when they took him for an apparition, and "cried out for fear;" would this have excused either him or you, sir, for resolutely continuing in a mistake, in the midst of a variety of means and calls to escape from it? And if the vindicator, before he had weighed the Minutes in the balance of the sanctuary, had even taken his pen, and condemned them as dangerously legal, what could you fairly have concluded from it, but that he was not partial to Mr. Wesley, and had also "leaned so much toward Calvinism," as not instantly to discover, and "rejoice in the truth'?"

In your last page you take your friendly leave of the vindicator, by saying, you "desire in love to cast a veil over all apparent mistakes of his judgment on this occasion;" but as he is not conscious of "all these apparent mistakes," he begs you would in love take off" the veil" you have cast upon them, that he may see, and rectify at least those which are capital.

III. And that you may not hastily conclude he was "mistaken" in his Vindication of that article that touches upon merit, he embraces this opportunity of presenting you with another quotation from the JOHN WESLEY of the last century, he means Mr. BAXTER, the most judicious divine, as well as the greatest, most useful, and most laborious preacher of his age.

In his "Catholic Theology," answering the objections of an Antinomian, he says: "Merit is a word, I perceive, you are against; you may therefore choose any other of the same signification, and we will forbear this rather than offend you. But yet tell me, (1.) What, if the words axios and axia were translated deserving and merit, would it not be as true a translation as worthy and worthiness, when it is the same thing that is meant'? (2.) Do not all the ancient teachers of the Churches, since the apostles, particularly apply the names axia and meritum to believers? And if you persuade men that all these teachers were Papists, will you not persuade most that believe you to be Papists too? (3.) Are not reward, and merit or desert, relative words, as punishment and guilt, in aster and servant, husband and wife? And is there any reward which is not meriti praemum, "the reward of some merit'?" Again:

"Is it not the second article of our faith, and next to 'believing there is a God,' that 'he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him 'P When you thus extirpate faith and godliness, on pretence of crying down merit, you see what overdoing tends to. And indeed by the same reason that men deny a reward to duty, (the faultiness being pardoned through Christ,) they would infer there is no punishment for sin; for if God will not do good to the righteous, neither will he do evil to the wicked; he becomes like the god of Epicurus, he does not trouble himself about us, nor about the merit or demerit of our actions. But David knew better: 'The Lord,' says he, 'plenteously rewardeth the proud doers; and verily there is a reward for the righteous, for there is a God that judgeth the earth;' that sees matter of praise or dispraise, rewardableness or worthiness of punishment, in all the actions of men." This is, sir, all Mr. Baxter and Mr. Wesley rnean by merit or demerit; and if the vindicator be wrong in thinking they are both in the right, please to remove "the veil" that conceals his "mistake."

IV. As one of his correspondents desires him to explain himself a little more upon the article of the Minutes which respects undervaluing ourselves; and as you probably place the arguments he has advanced upon that head among his "apparent mistakes," he takes likewise this opportunity of making some additional observations on that delicate subject.

How we can "esteem every man better than ourselves," and ourselves "the chief of sinners," or "the least of saints," seems not so much a calculation for the understanding, as for the lowly, contrite, and loving heart. It puzzles the former, but the latter at once makes it out. Nevertheless, the seeming contradiction may, perhaps, be reconciled to reason by these reflections:--

1. If friendship brings the greatest monarch down from his throne, and makes him sit on the same couch with his favourites; may not brotherly love, much more powerful than natural friendship; may not humility, excited by the example of Christ washing his disciples' feet; may not a deep regard for that precept, "He that will be greatest among you, let him be the least of all," sink the true Christian to the dust, and make him lie in spirit at the feet of every one

2. A well-bred person uncovers himself, bows, and declares, even to his inferiors, that he is their "most humble servant." This affected civility of the world is but an apish imitation of the genuine humility of the Church; and if those who customarily speak humble words without meaning, may yet be honest men, how much more the saints, who have "truth written in their inward parts," and "speak out of the abundance of their humble hearts 1"

3. He who walks in the light of Divine love, sees something of God's spiritual, moral, or natural image in all men, the worst not excepted; and at the sight, that which is merely creaturely in him, (by a kind of spiritual instinct found in all who are "born of the Spirit,") directly bows to that which is of God in another. 1-le imitates the captain of a first rate man of war, who, upon seeing the king or queen coming up in a small boat, forgetting the enormous size of his ship, or considering it is the king's own ship, immediately strikes his colours; and the greater vessel, consistently with wisdom and truth, pays respect to the less.

4. The most eminent saint, having known more of the workings of corruption in his own breast, than he can possibly know of them in that of any other man, may, with great truth, (according to his present views and firmer feelings of the internal evil he has overcome,) call himself "the chief of sinners."

5. Nor does he know, but if the feeblest believers had all his talents and graces, with all his opportunities of doing and receiving good, they would have made far superior advances in the Christian life; and in this view also, without hypocritical humility, he prefers the least saint to himself. Thus, although, according to the humble light of others, all true believers certainly "undervalue," yet, according to their own humble light, they make a true estimate of "themselves."

V. The vindicator having thus solved a problem of godliness, which you have undoubtedly ranked among his "apparent mistakes," he takes the liberty of presenting you with a list of some of your own "apparent mistakes on this occasion."

1. In the very letter in which you recant your Circular Letter, you desire Mr. Wesley to "give up the fatal errors of the Minutes," though you have not yet proved they contain One; you still affirm, "They appear to you evidently subversive of the fundamentals of Christianity," that is, in plain English, still "dreadfully heretical;" and you produce a letter which asserts, also, without shadow of proof, that the "Minutes were given for the establishment of another foundation than that which is laid;" that they are "repugnant to Scripture, the whole plan of man's salvation under the new covenant of grace, and also to the clear meaning of our Established Church, as well as to all other Protestant Churches."

2. You declare in your Narrative that, "when you cast your eye over the Minutes, you are just where you was," and assure the public, that "nothing inferior to an attack upon the foundation of our hope, through the all-sufficient sacrifice of Christ, could have been an object sufficient to engage you in its defence." Thus, by continuing to insinuate such an ATTACK was really made, you continue to wound Mr. Wesley in the tenderest part.

3. Although Mr. Wesley and fifty-three of his fellow labourers have let you quietly "secure the foundation," (which, by the by, had only been shaken in your own ideas, and was perfectly secured by these express words of the Minutes, "not by the merit of works," but by "believing in Christ,") yet, far from allowing them to secure the superstructure in their turn, which would be nothing but just, you begin already a contest with them about "our second justification by works in the day of judgment."

4. Instead of frankly acknowledging the rashness of your step, and the greatness of your mistake, with respect to the Minutes, you make a bad matter worse, by treating the Declaration as you have treated them; forcing upon it a dangerous sense, no less contrary to the Scriptures, than to Mr. Wesley's meaning, and the import of the words.

5. When you speak of the dreadful charges you have brought against the Minutes, you softly call them "misconstructions you may seem to have made of their meaning." (Page 22, line 4.) Nor is your "acknowledgment" much stronger than your "may seem;" at least it does not appear, to many, adequate to the hurt done by your Circular Letter to the practical Gospel of Christ, and the reputation of his eminent servant, thousands of whose friends you have grieved, offended, or stumbled; while you have confirmed thousands of his enemies in their hard thoughts of him, and in their unjust contempt of his ministry.

6. And, lastly, far from candidly inquiring into the merit of the arguments advanced in the Vindication, you represent them as mere "metaphysical distinctions;" or cast, as a veil over them, a friendly submissive letter of condolence, which was never intended for the use to which you have put it.

Therefore the vindicator, who does not admire a peace founded upon a "may seem" on your part, and on Mr. Wesley's part upon a "declaration," to which you have already fixed a wrong unscriptural sense of your own, takes this public method to inform you, he thinks his arguments in favour of Mr. Wesley's anti-Crispian propositions rational, Scriptural, and solid; and once more he begs you would remove the veil you have hitherto "cast over all the apparent mistakes of his judgment on this occasion," that he may see whether the Antinomian gospel of Dr. Crisp is preferable to the practical Gospel which Mr. Wesley endeavours to restore to its primitive and Scriptural lustre.

VI. Having thus finished my remarks upon the mistakes of your Narrative, I gladly take my leave of controversy for this time. Would to God it were for ever! I no more like it than I do applying a caustic to the back of my friends; it is disagreeable to me, and painful to them; and nevertheless, it must be done, when their health and mine is at stake.

I assure you, sir, I do not like the warlike dress of the vindicator, any more than David did the heavy armour of Saul. With gladness, therefore, I cast it aside, to throw myself at your feet, and protest to you, that, although I thought it my duty to write to you with the utmost plainness, frankness, and honesty, yet the design of doing it with bitterness never entered my heart. However, for every "bitter expression" that may have dropped from my sharp vindicating pen, I ask your pardon; but it must be in general, for neither friends nor foes have yet particularly pointed out to me one such expression.

You have accepted of "a letter of submission" from me; let, I beseech you, a concluding paragraph of submission meet also with your favourable acceptance. You condescend, Rev. sir, to call me your "learned friend." Learning is an accomplishment I never pretended to; but your friendship is an honour I shall always highly esteem, and do at this time value above my own brother's love. Appearances are a little against me: I feel I am a thorn in your flesh; but I am persuaded it is a necessary one, and this persuasion reconciles me to the thankless and disagreeable part I act.

If Ephraim must vex Judah, let Judah bear with Ephraim, till, happily tired of their contention, they feel the truth of Terence's words, Amantium (why not credentiun?) irae amoris redintegratio est.* I can assure you, my dear sir, without metaphysical distinction, I love and honour you, as truly as I dislike the rashness of your well-meant zeal. The motto I thought myself obliged to follow was E bello pax;** but that which I delight in is, In bello pax;*** may we make them harmonize till we learn war and polemic divinity no more!

* [The misunderstandings of lovers (why not of believers) end in a renewal and increase of love.]

** [We make war in order to get peace.]

*** [We enjoy peace in the midst of war.]

My Vindication cost me tears of fear, lest I should have wounded you too deeply. That fear, I find, was groundless; but should you feel a little for the great truths and the great minister I vindicate, these expostulations will wound me, and probably cost me tears again.

If, in the meantime, we offend our weak brethren, let us do something in order to lessen the offence till it is removed. Let us show them we make war without so much as shyness. Should you ever come to the next county, as you did last summer, honour me with a line, and I shall gladly wait upon you, and show you, (if you permit me,) the way to my pulpit, where I shall think myself highly favoured to see you "secure the foundation," and hear you enforce the doctrine of justification by faith, which you fear we attack. And should I ever be within thirty miles of the city where you reside, I shall go to submit myself to you, and beg leave to assist you in reading prayers for you, or giving the cup with you. Thus shall we convince the world, that controversy may be conscientiously carried on without interruption of brotherly love; and I shall have the peculiar pleasure of testifying to you, in person, how sincerely I am, Hon. and dear sir, your submissive and obedient servant, in the bond of a PRACTICAL Gospel,

J. FLETCHER.

LETTER III.

HONOURED AND REVEREND SIR,--If I mistake not the workings of my heart, a concern for St. James' "pure and undefiled religion" excites me to take the pen once more, and may account for the readiness with which I have met you in the dangerous field of controversy. You may possibly think mere partiality to Mr. Wesley has inspired me with that boldness; and others may be ready to say as Eliab, "We know the pride and naughtiness of thy heart. Thou art come down that thou mightest see the battle." But may I not answer with David, "Is there not a cause?"

Is it not highly necessary to make a stand against Antinomianism? Is not that gigantic "man of sin" a more dangerous enemy to King Jesus, than the champion of the Philistines was to King Saul? Has he not defied more than forty days the armies and arms, the people and truths of the living God? By audaciously daring the thousands in Israel, has he not made all the faint hearted among them ashamed to stand "in the whole armour of God," afraid to defend the important post of duty? And have not many left it already, openly running away, flying into the dens and caves of earthly mindedness, "putting their light under a bushel," and even burying themselves alive in the noisome grave of profaneness?

Multitudes indeed still keep the field, still make an open profession of godliness. But how few of these "endure hardship as good. soldiers of Jesus Christ!" How many have already cast away "the shield of Gospel faith, the faith which works by love!" What numbers dread the cross, the heavenly standard they should steadily bear, or resolutely follow! While in pompous speeches they extol the cross of Jesus, how do they, upon the most frivolous pretence, refuse to "take up" their own! Did the massy staff of Goliah's spear seem more terrible to the frighted Israelites than the daily cross of those dastardly followers of the Crucified? What Boanerges can spirit them up, and lead them on "from conquering to conquer?" Who can even make them look the enemy n the face? Alas! "in their hearts they are already gone back to Egypt. Their faces are but half Sion ward." They give way,-- they "draw back;" O may it not be "to perdition!" May not the king of terrors overtake them in their retreat, and make them as great monuments of God's vengeance against cowardly soldiers, as Lot's wife was of his indignation against halting racers!

But setting allegory aside, permit me, sir, to pour my fears into your bosom, and tell you with the utmost plainness my distressing thoughts of the religious world.

For some years I have suspected there is more imaginary than "unfeigned faith" in most of those who pass for believers. With a mixture of indignation and grief have I seen them carelessly follow the stream of corrupt nature, against which they should have manfully wrestled. And by the most preposterous mistake, when they should have exclaimed against their Antinomianism,* I have heard them cry out against "the legality** of their wicked hearts; which" they said "still suggested they were to do something in order to salvation." Glad was I, therefore, when I had attentively considered Mr. Wesley's Minutes, to find they were levelled at the very errors which give rise to an evil I had long lamented in secret, but had wanted courage to resist and attack.

* [The word Antinomianism is derived from two Greek words, anti and nomos, which signify "against the law," and the word "legal" from the Latin legalis, which means "agreeable to the law."]

** [The legality contended for in these letters is not a stumbling at Christ, and a going about to establish our own righteousness by faithless works: this sin, which the Scripture calls unbelief, I would no more countenance than murder. The evangelical legality I want to see all in love with, is a cleaving to Christ by faith which works righteousness; a "following him as he went about doing good;" and a showing by St. James' works that we have St. Paul's faith.]

I. This evil is Antinomianism; that is, any kind of doctrinal or practical opposition to God's law, which is the perfect rule of right, and the moral picture of the God of love, drawn in miniature by our Lord in these two exquisite precepts, "Thou shalt love God with all thy heart, and thy neighbour as thyself."

As "the law is good, if a man use it lawfully," so legality is excellent, if it be evangelical. The external respect shown by Pharisees to the law is but feigned and hypocritical legality. Pharisees are no more truly legal, than Antinomians are truly evangelical. "Had ye believed Moses," says Jesus to people of that stamp, "ye would have believed me:" but in your hearts you hate his law as much as you do my Gospel.

We see no less Gospel in the preface of the ten commandments, "I am the ,Lord thy God," &c, than we do legality in the middle of our Lord's sermon on the mount, "I say, Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her, bath already committed adultery in his heart." Nevertheless, the latter "has in all things the pre-eminence" over the former. For if "the law," shortly prefaced by the Gospel, "came by Moses;" grace, the gracious, the full display of the Gospel, and truth, the true explanation and fulfilling of the law, "came by Jesus Christ."

This evangelical law should appear to us "sweeter than the honeycomb, and more precious than fine gold." We should continually spread the tables of our hearts before our heavenly Lawgiver, beseeching him to write it there with his own finger, the powerful Spirit of Life and love. But alas! God's commandments are disregarded; they are represented as the needless or impracticable sanctions of that superannuated legalist, Moses; and if we express our veneration for them, we are looked upon as people who are always strangers to the Gospel, or are fallen into the Galatian state.

Not so David. He was so great an admirer of God's law, that he declares the godly man "doth meditate therein day and night.' He expresses his transcendent value for it, under the synonymous expressions of law, words, statutes, testimonies, precepts, and commandments, in almost every verse of the 119th Psalm. And he says of himself, "0 how I love thy law! It is my meditation all the day!"

St. Paul was as evangelically legal as David; for he knew the law is as much contained in the Gospel, as the tables of stone, on which the moral law was written, were contained in the ark. He therefore assured the Corinthians, that "though he had all faith," even that which is most uncommon, and performed the greatest wonders, it would "profit him nothing," unless it was accompanied by "charity," unless it "worked by love," which is "the fulfilling of the law;" the excellency of faith arising from the excellent end it answers in producing and nourishing love.

Should it be objected, that St. Paul says to the Galatians, "I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live to God;" and to the Romans, "Ye are become dead to the law by the body of Christ:" I answer, in the apostle's days, that expression, the law, frequently meant "the whole Mosaic dispensation;" and in that sense every believer is dead to it, dead to all that Christ has not adopted. For, (1.) He is dead to the Levitical law, "Christ having abolished in himself the law of ordinances. Touch not, taste not, handle not." (2.) He is dead to the ceremonial law, which was only "a shadow of good things to come," a typical representation of Christ and the blessings flowing from his sacrifice. (3.) He is dead to the curse attending his past violations of the moral law; for "Christ hath delivered us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us." And lastly, he is dead to the hopes of recommending himself to God by the merit of his obedience to the moral law; for in point of merit, he "is determined to know nothing but Christ and him crucified."

To make St. Paul mean more than this, is, (1.) To make him maintain that no believer can sin: for if "sin is the transgression of the law," and "the law is dead and buried," it is plain, no believer can sin, as nobody can transgress a law which is abolished: for "where no law is, there is no transgression." (2.) It is to make him contradict St. James, who exhorts us to "fulfil the royal law, according to the Scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." And, (3.) It Is to make him contradict himself: for he charges the Galatians "by love to serve one another; all the law being fulfilled, in one word, even in this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." And he assures the Hebrews, that under the new covenant, believers, far from being

without God's laws, have them written in their hearts; God himself placing them in their minds." We cannot, therefore, with any shadow of justice, put Dr. Crisp's coat upon the apostle, and press him into the service of Antinomians.

And did our Lord side with Antinomians? Just the reverse. Far from repealing the two above mentioned royal precepts, he asserts, that "on them hang all the law and the prophets;" and had the four Gospels been then written, he would no doubt have represented them as subservient to the establishing of the law, as he did the book of Isaiah, the evangelical prophet. Such high thoughts had he of the law, that when a lawyer expressed his veneration for it, by declaring that "the love of God, and our neighbour, was more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices, Jesus, seeing that he had answered discreetly, said unto him, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God."

The Gospel itself terminates in the fulfilling of the commandments. For as the curse of the law, like the scourge of a severe schoolmaster, drives, so the Gospel, like a loving, guide, brings us to Christ, the great Law Fulfiller, in whom we find inexhaustible treasures of pardon and power; of pardon for past breaches of the law, and of power for prevent obedience to it. Nor are we sooner come to him than he magnifies the law, by his precepts, as he formerly did by his obedience unto death. "If ye love me," says he, "keep my commandments." "This is his commandment, that we should love one another; and he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law."

Again: the Gospel displays Jesus' dying love, that by "believing" it "we may" love him, that is, "have everlasting life," the life of love which abideth when the life of faith is no more. Hence St. John sums up Christianity in these words, "We love him because he first loved us!" And what is it to love Jesus, but to fulfil the whole law at once, to love God and man, the Creator and the creature, united in one divinely human person!

Did the Son of God "magnify the law," that we might vilify it? Did he "make it honourable," that we might make it contemptible? Did he "come to fulfil it," that we might be discharged from fulfilling it according to our capacity? That is, discharged from loving God and our neighbour? Disc