LOGICA GENEVENSIS CONTINUED ;

OR,

THE SECOND PART

OF THE

FIFTH CHECK

ΤΟ

ANTINOMIANISM;

CONTAINING

A DEFENCE

OF

66

"JACK O'LANTHORN," AND THE PAPER-Kite," I. E. SINCERE OBEDIENCE; OF THE 66 VALIANT LAW OF LIBERTY-AND OF THE "COBWEB," I. E. THE EVANGELICAL SERJEANT IF," I. E. THE CONDITIONALITY OF PERSEVERANCE, ATTACKED BY THE

REV. MR. BERRIDGE, M.A.

VICAR OF EVERTON, AND LATE FELLOW OF CLARE HALL, CAMBRIDGE;

IN HIS BOOK

CALLED

THE CHRISTIAN WORLD UNMASKED.”

Quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus.-Hoz.

INTRODUCTION.

HAVING animadverted upon Mr. Hill's "Finishing Stroke," I proceed to ward off the first blow, which the Rev. Mr. Berridge has given to practical religion. But before I mention his mistakes, I must do justice to his person. It is by no means my design to represent him as a divine, who either leads a loose life, or intends to hurt the Redeemer's interest. His conduct as a Christian is exemplary; his labours as a Minister are great and I am persuaded that the wrong touches which he gives to the ark of godliness, are not only undesigned, but " intended" to do God service.

:

There are so many things commendable in the pious vicar of Everton, and so much truth in his "Christian World unmasked," that I find it a hardship to expose the unguarded parts of that performance. But the cause of this hardship is the ground of my apology. Mr. Berridge is a good and excellent man, therefore the Antinomian errors, which go abroad into the world with his letters of recommendation, speak in his evangelical strain, and are armed with the poignancy of his wit, cannot be too soon pointed out, and too carefully guarded against. I flatter myself that this consideration will procure me his pardon, for taking the liberty of dispatching his "valiant Serjeant," with some doses of rational and scriptural antidote for those, who have drunk into the pleasing mistakes of his book, and want his piety to hinder them from carrying speculative into practical Antinomianism.

SECT. I.

ONE of my opponents has justly observed, that "the principal cause of controversy among us," is the doctrine of our justification by the works of faith in the day of judgment. At this rampart of practical godliness Mr. Berridge levels such propositions as these in his Christian World unmasked, 2d Edit. page 170, 171. FINAL "justification by faith" is the CAPITAL doctrine of the gospel.-Faith being the term of salvation, &c. must UTTERLY exclude ALL "justification by works." -And page 26, we read of an ABSOLUTE impossibility of being justified" IN ANY MANNER 66 by our works."

If these positions are true, say, Reader, if St. James, St Paul, and Jesus Christ, did not advance great untruths when they said, " By works a man is justified, and not by faith only," Jam. ii. 24. "For not the

hearers of the law [of Christ] are just before God, but the doers shall be justified, &c. in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ," Rom. ii. 13, 16. "For [adds our Lord, when speaking of the day of judgment] by thy words thou shalt be justified," &c. Matt. xii. 37. Christian reader, say who is mistaken? Christ and his apostles, or the late Fellow of Clare-hall?

§ Mr. Berridge goes farther still. Without ceremony he shuts the gates of heaven against every man who seeks to be justified by works, according to our Lord's and St. James's doctrine, For when he has assured us, page 171, that faith must UTTERLY exclude ALL justification by works, he immediately adds, "and the man, who seeks to be justified by his passport of obedience, will find no passage through the city VOL. I. 3 1

gates." Might not our author have unmasked Calvinism a little more, and told the Christian world, that the man who minds what Christ says shall be turned into hell?

See the boldness of Solifidianism*! In our Lord's days believers were to keep their mouths as with a bridle, and to abstain fron" every idle word," lest "in the day of judgment" they should not be justified. In St. John's time they were to "do Christ's commandments, that they might enter through the gates into the city," Rev. xii. 14; but in our days, a Gospel minister assures us, page 171. that the believer, who according to our Lord's doctrine seeks to be "justified by his passport of obedience, will find No passage through the city-gates, He may talk of the tree of life, and soar up with his PAPER-KITE to the gates of paradise, but will find no entrance."-I grant it, if an Antinomian Pope has St. Peter's key; but so long as Christ has the key of David: so long as he opens, and no solifidian shuts; the dutiful servant, instead of being sent flying to hell after the "paper-kite" of obedience, will, through his Lord's merits, be honourably admitted into heaven by the passport of good works, which he has about him, For, though the remembrance of his sins, and the sight of his Saviour, will make him ashamed to produce it; yet he had rather die ten thousand deaths, than be found without it. The celestial Porter, after having kindly opened it for him, will read it before an innumerable company of angels, and say, "Enter into the joy of thy Lord, for I was hungry and thou gavest me meat," &c. Matt. xxv. 35, &c.

§ If the Vicar of Everton throws in an Antinomian caveat against this "passport of obedience t," and ridicules it still as a "paper-kite," Isaiah and St. Paul will soon silence him. Open ye the gates, says the evangelical prophet, "that the righteous nation which keepeth the truth" of the gospel-doctrines, may enter in: For, adds the evangelical Apostle, "Circumcision [including all professions of faith,] is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God. Yea though I have ALL FAITH and no charity, I am nothing," Isa. xxvi. 2. 1 Cor. vii 19, xiii. 2.

If I am at the city-gates, when Mr. Berridge will exclaim agains the "passport of obedience," I think I shall venture to check his imprudence by the following questions. Can there be a medium between "not having a passport of obedience, and having one of disobedience?" Must a man, to the honour of free-grace, take a passport of refractoriness along with him? Must he bring a certificate of adultery and murder to be welcome into the New Jerusalem? I am persuaded that with the utmost abhorrence, Mr. Berridge answers No! But his great Diana speaks louder than he, and says before all the world: "There is no need that he should have a testimonium of adultery and murder, bụt he may if he pleases; nay, if he is so inclined, he may get a diploma of treachery and incest: it will never invalidate his title to glory; for

* Solifidianism is the doctrine of the Solifidians; and the Solifidians are men, who, because sinners are justified [solafide] by SOLE FAITH in the day of conversion, infer as Mr. Berridge, that believing is the total term of all salvation," and conclude as Mr. Hill, that the doctrine of final justification by the works of faith in the great Day, is "full of rottenness and deadly poison." It is a softer word for Antinomianism.

† I speak only of the "obedience of faith." It is only for that obedience, and for the "works of faith," that St. James pleads in his Epistle, Mr. Wesley in the Minutes, and I in the Checks: All other obedience is insincere, all other works pharisaical.