Page images
PDF
EPUB

pentance by the gallows, and others deterred from committing robbery by the terror of their punishment; but by what rule in logic or divinity can we infer from thence either that any robbers love God, or that all robberies shall work together for their good.

But “Onesimus robbed Philemon his master; and flying from justice was brought under Paul's preaching and converted." Surely, Sir, you do not insinuate, that Onesimus's conversion depended upon robbing his master! Or that it would not have been better for him to have served his master faithfully, and stayed in Asia to hear the gospel with Philemon, than to have rambled to Rome for it in consequence of his crime! The heathens said, “Let us eat and drink for to-morrow we die :" It will be well if some do not say upon a fairer prospect than theirs: "Let us steal and rob, for to-morrow we shall be converted."

XVII. You add, that "the royal and holy seed was continued by the incest of Judah with Tamar, and the adultery of David with Bathsheba." And do you really think, Sir, God made choice of that line to shew how incest and adultery work together for good? For my part, I rather think that it was because if he had chosen any other line, he would have met with more such blots. You know that God slew David's child conceived in adultery; and if he chose Solomon to succeed David, it was not because the adulterous Bathsheba was his mother, but because he was then the best of David's children: for I may say of God's choosing the son, what Samuel said of his choosing the father, "The Lord looketh on the heart," I Sam. xvi. 7.

XVIII. You proceed in your enumeration of the good that sin does to the pleasant children. "How has many a poor soul who has been faithless through fear of man, even blessed God for Peter's denial!" Surely, Sir, you mistake: none but the fiend who desired to have Peter that he might sift him, could bless God for the Apostle's crime; nor could any one on such a horrid account bless any other God but the god of this world. David said, "My eyes run down with water, because men keep not thy law;" but the author of Pietas Oxoniensis tells us, that "many a poor soul has blessed God" for the most horrid breaches of his law! Weep no more, perfidious Apostle : thou hast cast the net on the right side of the ship; thy three curses have procured God multitudes of blessings! Surely, Sir, you cannot mean this! Many a poor soul has blessed God" for granting a pardon to Peter, but never for Peter's denial. It is extremely dangerous thus to confound a crime, with the pardon granted to a penitent criminal.

66

XIX. Upon the same principle you add, "How have many others been raised out of the mire, by considering the tenderness shewn to the incestuous Corinthians." I am glad you do not say "by considering the incest of the Corinthians." The good received by many did not then spring from this horrid crime, but from the tenderness of the Apostle. This instance therefore, by your own confession, does not prove that sin does any good to believers.

But as you tell us what tenderness the Apostle restored that man, when he was swallowed up in godly sorrow, you will permit me to remind you of the severity which he shewed him while he continued impenitent. "In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, said he, when ye are gathered together, deliver such a one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord." Hence it appears, the Apostle thought his case so desperate, that his body must be solemnly delivered to Satan, in order if possible to bring his soul to repentNow if the incestuous man's sins "had been for ever and for ever cancelled;" if he had not forfeited the divine favour, and cut himself of from the general assembly of the first-born by his crime; what power could the Apostle, who acted under the influence of the Spirit, have had to cut him off from the visible church as a corrupt member? What right to deliver the body of one of " God's pleasant children" to destruction.

ance.

Was this finished salvation? For my part, as I do not believe in a two fold, I had almost said, jesuitical will in God, I am persuaded, he would have us consider things as they are; an impenitent adulterer as a profligate heathen, and a penitent believer as "his pleasant

child."

XX. You add, 1. "A grievous fall serves to make believers know their place." No indeed, it serves only to make them forget their place; witness David, who, far from knowing his place, wickedly took that of Uriah; and Eve, who by falling into the condemnation of the devil, took her Maker's place in her imagination, and esteemed herself as wise as God.- -2." It drives them nearer to Christ." Surely you mistake, Sir; you mean nearer the devil; for a fall into pride may drive me nearer Lucifer; a fall into adultery and murder may drive me nearer Belial and Moloch; but not nearer Jesus Christ.- -3." It makes them more dependent on his strength." No such thing. The genuine effect of a fall into sin, is to stupify the conscience and harden the heart; witness the state of obduracy in which God found Adam, and the state of carnal security in which Nathan found David, after their crimes.-4. "It keeps them more watchful for the future." Just the reverse: it prevents their watching for the future. If David had been made more watchful by falling into adultery, would he have fallen into treachery and murder? If Peter had been made more watchful by his first fall into perjury, would he have fallen three times successively?— -5. "It will cause them to sympathize with others in the like situation." By no means. A fall into sin will naturally make us desirous of drawing another into our guilty condition. Witness the devil and Eve, Eve and Adam, David and Bathsheba. The royal adulterer was so far from sympathizing with the man who had unkindly taken his neighbour's favourite ewe lamb, that he directly swore, "As the Lord liveth, the man thathas done this thing shall surely die."

6. "It will make them sing louder to the praise of restoring grace throughout all the ages of eternity." I demand proof of this. I greatly question whether Demas, Alexander the coppersmith, Hymeneus, Philetus, and many of the fallen believers mentioned in the epistles of our Lord to the churches of Asia, in the epistles to the Hebrews, and in those of St. Peter, St. James, and St. Jude, shall sing restoring grace at all. The Apostle far from representing them singing louder, gives us to understand that many of them shall be thought worthy of a much sorer punishment than the sinners consumed by fire from heaven; and that "there remaineth no more sacrifice for their sins;" (a sure proof that Christ's sacrifice availed for them, till they accounted the blood of the covenant an unholy thing) for, adds the Apostle, "the Lord will judge his people;" and notwithstanding all that Dr. Crisp says to the contrary, "there remaineth (for apostates) a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries." Weeping, wailing, gnashing of teeth, and not "louder songs," await the unprofitable servant.

But supposing some are renewed to repentance and escape out of the snare of the devil; can you imagine they will be upon the footing of those, who "standing stedfast and immoveable, always abounded in the work of the Lord?" Shall then the labour of these be in vain in the Lord? Are not our works to follow us? Shall the unprofitable servant, if restored, receive a crown of glory equal to his, who from the time he listed, has always fought the good fight, and kept the faith? The doctrine you would inculcate at once bears hard upon the equity of the divine conduct, and strikes a fatal blow at the root of all diligence and faithfulness, so strongly recommended in the oracles of God.

[blocks in formation]

You will be sensible of your error if you observe, that all the fine things which you tell us of a fall into sin, belong not to the fall, but to a happy recovery from it; and my honoured correspondent is as much mistaken, when he ascribes to sin the effect of repentance and faith, as if he ascribed to a frost the effect of a thaw, or to sickness the consequence of a recovery.

And now that we have seen how you have done a pious man's strange work; permit me Sir, to tell you, that through the prevalence of human corruption, a word spoken for sin generally goes farther than ten thousand spoken against it. This I know, that if a fall, in an hour of temptation, appears only half so profitable as you represent it, thousands will venture after David into the whirlpool of wickedness. But alas! facilis descensus averni, &c. it is easier to follow him when he plunges in, than when he struggles out, with his eyes wasted, his flesh dried up, and his bones broken.

XXI. I gladly do you the justice, to observe, that you exclaim against sin in the next page; but does not the antidote come too late? You say "Whatever may be God's secret will, we are to keep close to the declaration of his own written word, which binds us to resist sin." But alas! you wake a bad matter worse, by representing God as having two wills, a secret effectual will that we should sin, and a revealed will, or written word, commanding us to resist sin! If these insinuations are just, I ask, Why should we not regard God's secret, as much as his revealed will? Nay, why should we not regard it more, since it is the more efficacious, and consequently the stronger will?

You add, "He would be mad who should wilfully fall down, and break a leg or an arm, because he knew there was a skilful surgeon at hand to set it." But I beg leave to dissent from my honoured opponent. For, supposing I had a crooked leg, appointed to be broken for good, by God's secret will intimated to me and supposing a dear friend strongly argued, not only that the surgeon is at hand, but that he would render my leg straighter, handsomer, and stronger than before: must I not be a fool, or a coward, if 1 hesitate throwing myself down?

O Sir, if the deceitfulness of sin is so great, that thousands greedily commit it, when the gallows on earth, and horrible torments in hell, are proposed for their just wages; how will they be able to escape in the hour of temptation, if they are encouraged to transgress the divine law, by assurances, that they shall reap eternal advantages from their sin? Oh! how highly necessary was it, that Mr. W. should warn his assistants against talking of a state of justification and sanctification, in so unguarded a manner as you, and the other admirers of Dr. Crisp, so frequently do?

You conclude this letter by some quotations from Mr. Wesley, whom you vainly try to press into the Doctor's service, by representing him as saying of established Christians what he speaks of babes in Christ, and of the commission of adultery and murder what he only means of evil desire resisted, and evil tempers restrained: but more of this in a Treatise on Christian Perfection.

Your FIFTH LETTER begins by a civil reproof, for" speaking rather in a sneering manner of that heart-cheering expression so often used by awakened divines, "the finished salvation of Christ:" an expression which, by the by, you will not find once in all my letters. But why some Divines, whom you look upon as unawakened, do not admire the unscriptural expression of finished salvation, you may see in the Second Check.

I am thankful for your second reproof, and hope it will make me more careful not to " speak as a man of the world.' But the third I really cannot thank you for. You are not very sparing of hard names against

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

TO ANTINOMIANISM.

Dr. Crisp," says my honoured correspondent; and again, "The hard
names, and heavy censures thrown out against the Doctor, are by far
more unjustifiable than what has been delivered against Mr. W." The
hardest names I give to your favourite divine are, the Doctor, the good
Doctor, and the honest Doctor, whom notwithstanding all his mistakes, I
represent (Second Check, page 24) as a good man shouting aloud sal-
vation to the Lamb of God. Now, Sir, I should be glad to know by what
rule, either of criticism or charity, you can prove that these are hard
papist unmasked, heretic,
names, more unjustifiable than the names of
apostate, worse than papists," &c. which have been of late so liberally
bestowed upon

Mr. W.

I confess that those branches of Dr. Crisp's doctrine which stand in direct opposition to the practical gospel of Christ, I have taken the liberty to call Crispianity; for had I called them Christianity, my conscience and one half of the Bible wonld have flown in my face: and had I called them Calvinism, Williams, Flavel, Allen, Bishop Hopkins, and numbers of sound Calvinists, would have proved me mistaken; for they agree to represent the peculiarities of the Doctor, as loose Antinomian tenets; and if any man can prove them either legal or evangeilcal, I shall gladly recant those epithets, which I have sometimes given, not to the good Doctor, but his unscriptural notions.

In the mean time permit me to observe, that if any one judges of my letters by the 36th page of your book, he will readily say of them what you say of the Rev. Mr. Sellon's works: "I have never read them, and from the accounts I hear of the abusive unchristian spirit with which they are written, I believe I shall never give myself that trouble." Now, Sir, I have read Mr. Sellon's books, and have therefore more right than you, who never read them, to give them a public character. You tell us you have heard of the imbecility of the performance*," &c. and I assure my readers, I have found it a masterly mixture of the skill belonging to the sensible scholar, the good logician, and the sound anti-Crispian divine. "Really," says he, He is blunt, I confess, and sometimes to an excess. in a private letter, "I cannot set my razor; there is a roughness about me I cannot get rid of. If honest truth will not excuse me, I must bear the blame of those whom nothing will please but smooth things." But sharp (you would say abusive) as he is, permit me to tell you, that my much admired countryman Calvin, was much more so.

For my part, though I would no more plead for abuse than for adultery and murder, yet like a true Swiss, I love blunt honesty; and to give you a proof of it, I shall take the liberty to observe, It is much easier to say a book is full of hard names, and heavy censures, written in an abusive, unchristian spirit; and to insinuate it is "dangerous, or not worth reading;" than it is fairly to answer one single page of it. And how far a late publication proves the truth of this observation, I leave our candid readers to decide.

[ocr errors]

Page 38, you assure me upon honour, that Mr. W.'s pieces against election and perseverance, (why did you forget reprobation?) have greatly tended to establish your belief in those most comfortable doctrines." "has done much service to the Hence you conclude, that Mr. W.'s pen some very experienced Christians hope, Calvinistic cause," and add, that " be will write again upon that subject, or publish a new edition of his former Tracts.'

* Some of Mr. Sellon's works, are Arguments against the doctrine of general redemption considered.-A defence of God's sovereignty.-And the Church of England, vindicated from the charge of Calvinism. All these are well worth the reading of every sensible and pious map.

You are too much acquainted with the world, not to know that most deists declare they were established in their sentiments by reading the Old and New Testament. But would you argue conclusively if you inferred from thence, that the sacred writers have done infidelity much service? And if some confident infidels expressed their hopes, that our bishops would reprint the Bible to propagate deisin; would you not see through their empty boast, and pity their deistical flourish? Permit me, to expose by a simile the similar wish of the persons you mention, who, if they are very experienced Christians," will hardly pass for very modest logicians.

[ocr errors]

The gentleman of fortune you mention, never read all Mr. Wesley's Tracts, nor one of Mr. Sellon's on the Crispian orthodoxy and I am no more surprized to see you both dissent from those divines, than I should be to find you both mistaken upon the bench, if you passed a decisive sentence, before you had so much as heard one witness out. The clergyman you refer to has probably been as precipitate as the two pious magistrates; therefore you will permit me to doubt whether he, any more than my honoured opponent, "has had courage enough to see for himself."

CONCLUSION.

HAVING SO long animadverted upon your letters, it is time to consider the present state of our controversy. Mr. W. privately advances among his own friends some propositions, designed to keep them from running into the fashionable errors of Dr. Crisp. These propositions are secretly procured, and publicly exposed through the three kingdoms, as dreadfully heretical, and subversive of the protestant doctrine of justification by faith. In Mr. W.'s absence a friend writes in defence of his propositions. The Rev. Mr. Shirley, instead of trying to defend his mistakes by argument, publicly recants his circular letter and his volume of sermons by the lump. Some of the honest souls, who had been carried away by the stream of fashionable error, begin to look about them, and ask whether narratives and recantations, are to pass for scriptures and arguments? The author of Pietas Oxoniensis to quiet them, enters the lists, and makes a stand against the anti-Crispian propositions; but what a stand!

1. "Man's faithfulness, says he, I have no objection to, in a sober gospel sense of the word." So Mr. W.'s first proposition, by my opponent's confession, bears a sober gospel sense.

2. He attacks the doctrine of working for life, by proposing some of the very objections answered in the Vindication, without taking the least notice of the answers;by producing scriptures quite foreign to the question, and keeping out of sight those which have been advanced ;- -by passing over in silence a variety of rational arguments ;- -jumbling all the degrees of spiritual life and death, acceptance and justification, mentioned in the sacred oracles;confounding all the dispensations of divine grace towards man ;-and levelling at Mr. W. a witticism, which wounds Jesus Christ himself.

3. He acknowledges the truth of the doctrine that we must "do something in order to attain justification;" and after this candid, concession, fairly gives up the fundamental protestant doctrine of justification by faith ;-the very doctrine which Luther called Articulus stantis vel cadentis Ecclesiæ, aud which our church so strongly maintains in her Articles and Homilies. The Rev. Mr. Shirley throws his Sermon on justification by faith over-board; his second comes up to mend the matter, and does it so unfortunately, as to throw the handle after the axe. He renonnces the doctrine itself. I maintain, says he, that believing cannot be previous to justification, that is, to complete justification. As dangerous a propitiation as was ever advanced by Crisp, and refuted by all the sober Calvinists of the last century!

« PreviousContinue »