will. I see, I approve what is right, but I do what is criminal."

FOURTH ARGUMENT.- "The man whose experience is described in Rom. vii. is said to 'delight in the law of God after the inward man,' and to serve the law of God with the mind:' therefore he was partaker of apostolic holiness."

ANSWER.-Does he not also say, "With the flesh I serve the law of sin?" And did not Medea say as much in her way, before she imbrued her hands in innocent blood? What else could she mean, when she cried out, I see and approve with my mind what is right, though I do what is criminal?" Did not the pharisees, for a time, rejoice in the burning and shining light of John the baptist? And does not an evangelist inform us, that Herod himself heard that man of God news, "with delight," and did "many things," too? Mark vi. 20. But is this a proof, that either Medea, the pharisees, or Herod, had attained apostolic holiness?

FIFTH ARGUMENT.- "The person who describes his unavailing struggles under the power of sin, cries out, at last, 'Who shall deliver me?' &c.; and immediately expresses a hope of future deliverance, thanking God for it, through Jesus Christ our Lord.' Rom. vii. 24, 25. [oes not this show, that the 'carnal man, sold under sin,' was a Christian believer, and, of consequence, Paul himself?"

ANSWER.-This shows only, that the man sold under sin, and groaning for evangelical liberty, is supported under his unhappy circumstances by a hope of deliverance; and that, when the law, like a severe schoolmaster, has almost brought him to Jesus Christ,-when he is come to the borders of Canaan, and is not far from the kingdom of God, and the city of refuge, he begins to look and long earnestly for Christ, and has, at times, comfortable hopes of deliverance through him. He has a faith that desires

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liberty, but not a faith that obtains it. He has a degree of the faith to be healed, which is mentioned Acts xiv. 9; but he has not yet the actually healing, prevailing faith, which St. John calls "the victory," and which is accompanied with an internal witness, that Christ is formed in our hearts. It is absurd to confound the carnal man, who struggles into Christ and liberty, saying, "Who shall deliver me?" &c., with the spiritual man, who is come to Christ, stands in his redeeming power, and witnesses that "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made him free from the law of sin and death." The one may say, in his hopeful moments, "I thank God, I shall have the victory, through Jesus Christ;" but the other can say, "I have it now; thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord." 1 Cor. xv. 57. The one wishes for, and the other enjoys, liberty: the one has ineffectual desires, and the other has victorious habits. Such is the contrast between the carnal penitent described in Rom. vii. 14, and the obedient believer described in Rom. viii. “There is a great difference," says the Rev. Mr. Whitefield, "between good desires and good habits. Many have the one who never attain the other." Many come up to the experience of a carnal penitent, who never attain the experience of an obedient believer. "Many have good desires to subdue sin; and yet, resting in those good desires, sin has always had the dominion over them;" with the flesh they have always served the law of sin. 66 A person sick of a fever may desire to be in health, but that desire is not health itself." Whitefield's Works, vol. iv., page 7. If the Calvinists would do justice to this important distinction, they would soon drop the argument which I answer, and the yoke of carnality which they try to fix upon St. Paul's neck.

SIXTH ARGUMENT.-"You plead hard for the apostle's spirituality but his own plain confession shows, that he was really carnal, and sold under sin. Does he not say to the Corinthians, that 'there was given him a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet him, lest he should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations' which had been vouchsafed him? 2 Cor. xii. 7.

Now, what could this thorn in the flesh be, but a sinful lust? And what this messenger of Satan, but pride, or immoderate anger? Thrice he besought the Lord, that these plagues might depart from him; but God would not hear him. Indwelling sin was to keep him humble; and if St. Paul stood in need of that remedy, how much more We?"

ANSWER.-1. Indwelling anger keeps us angry, and not meek: indwelling pride keeps us proud, and not humble. The streams answer to the fountain. It is absurd to suppose, that a salt spring will send forth fresh water.

2. You entirely mistake the apostle's meaning. While you try to make him a modest imperfectionist, you inadvertently represent him as an impudent antinomian: for, speaking of his thorn in the flesh, and of the buffeting of Satan's messenger, he calls them his "infirmities," and says, "Most gladly therefore will I glory in my infirmities." Now, if his infirmities were pride, a wrathful disposition, and a filthy lust, did he not act the part of a filthy antinomian, when he said that he gloried in them? Would not even Paul's carnal man have blushed to speak thus ? Far from glorying in his pride, wrath, or indwelling lust, did he not groan, "O wretched man that I am?"

3. The apostle, still speaking of his "thorn in the flesh," and of Satan buffeting him by proxy, and still calling these trials his "infirmities," explains himself further in these words: "Therefore I také pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in persecutions," &c, "for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then am I strong. Christ's strength is made perfect in my weakness." Those infirmities-that thorn in the flesh, that buffeting of Satan-cannot, then, be indwelling sin, or any out-breaking of it; for the devil himself could do no more than to take pleasure in his wickedness; and, in Rom. vii., the carnal penitent himself "delights in the law of God after the inward man," instead of taking pleasure in his indwelling sin.

4. The infirmities in which St. Paul glories and takes pleasure were such as had been given him to keep him humble after his revelations: "There was given to me a thorn in the flesh," &c. 2 Cor. xii. 7. Those infirmities

and that thorn were not, then, indwelling sin; for indwelling sin was not given him after his visions, seeing it stuck fast in him long before he went to Damascus. It is absurd, therefore, to suppose that God gave him the thorn of indwelling sin afterwards, or, indeed, that he gave it him at all.

5. If Mr. Hill wants to know what we understand by. St. Paul's "thorn in the flesh," and by the "messenger of Satan" that buffeted him, we reply, that we understand his bodily infirmities,-the great weakness, and the violent head-ache with which, Tertullian and St. Chrysostom inform us, the apostle was afflicted. The same God who said to Satan concerning Job, “Behold, he is in thine hand, to touch his bone and his flesh, but save his life;" the same God who permitted that adversary to "bind a daughter of Abraham with a spirit of" bodily "infirmity for eighteen years;" the same gracious God, I say, permitted Satan to afflict Paul's body with uncommon pains, and, at times, it seems, with preternatural weakness, which made his appearance and delivery contemptible in the eyes of his adversaries. That this is not a conjecture grounded upon uncertain tradition is evident from the apostle's own words two pages before: "His letters, say they," that buffeted me in the name of Satan, "are weighty and powerful; but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech contemptible." 2 Cor. x. 10. And soon after, describing these emissaries of the devil, he says, "Such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ," to oppose me, and to prejudice you against my ministry. "And no marvel; for Satan himself," who sets them on, "is transformed into an angel of light." 2 Cor. xi. 13, 14. But if the "thorn in the flesh" is all one with the buffeting messenger of Satan, St. Paul's meaning is evidently this: God, who suffered the Canaanites to "be scourges in the sides of the Israelites, and thorns in their eyes," Joshua xxiii. 13, has suffered Satan to bruise my heel, while I bruise his head and that adversary afflicts me thus, by his thorns and pricking briers, that is, by false apostles, who buffet me through. malicious misrepresentations, which render me vile in

your sight. This sense is strongly countenanced by these words of Ezekiel : 66 They shall know that I am the Lord; and there shall be no more a pricking brier to the house of Israel, nor any grieving thorn of all that are round about them, that despised them." Ezekiel xxviii. 23, 24.

Both these senses agree with reason and godliness, with the text and the context. Satan immediately pierced the apostle's body with preternatural pain; and, by the malice of false brethren, the opposition of false apostles within the church, and the fierceness of cruel persecutors without, he immediately endeavoured to cast down or destroy the zealous apostle. But Paul walked in the "perfect way; and we may well say of him, what was said of Job on a similar occasion, "In all this" Paul "sinned not," as appears from his own words in this very epistle: "I am exceeding joyful in all our tribulation." "Our flesh had no rest, but we were troubled on every side. Without" the church" were fightings, within were fears." We had furious opposition from the heathens "without;" and "within," we feared lest our brethren should be discouraged by the number and violence of our adversaries. "Nevertheless God, who comforteth those that are cast down, comforted us." "We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus." "For which cause we faint not; but, though our outward man perish" through the thorns in our flesh, and the buffetings of Satan; "yet the inward man is renewed day by day;" it grows stronger and stronger in the Lord. When I see St. Paul bear up with such undaunted fortitude, under the bruising hands of satan's messengers, and the pungent operation of the "thorns in his flesh;" methinks I see the general of the Christians waving the standard of Christian perfection, and crying, "Be followers of me;" be wholly spiritual. "Take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand," and to witness with me, that, “in all