their heart, or thought their brain, but is instantly brought to their remembrance; "the books are opened” in their own breast, and every character has a voice which answers to the voice of "the Lion of the tribe of Judah."

"Shall I pervert judgment," says he, "and justify the wicked for a bribe? the bribe of your abominable praises? Think you,' by your base flatteries, to escape the righteous judgment of God?' Is not my wrath revealed from heaven against all ungodliness, and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness?' Much more against you, ye 'vessels of wrath,' who hold an impious absurdity in matchless insolence.

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"Said I not to Cain himself, at the beginning, 'If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?' Personal holiness, which ye scorned, is the wedding garment I now look for. 'I swear in my wrath that,' without it, 'none shall taste of my heavenly supper.' 'Ye have rejected my word' of commandment, and I reject you from being kings.' 'Ye cried unto me, and I delivered you; yet have ye forsaken me, and served other gods; therefore I will deliver you no more: go and cry unto the gods whom ye have chosen.' 'I wound the hairy scalp of such as have gone on still in their wickedness.' 'Whosoever hath sinned against me to the last, him do I blot out of my book;' and this have you done. 'Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, awake to everlasting shame! Will ye set the briers and thorns against me in battle,' and make them pass for roses of Sharon, and lilies of the valleys?' I will go through them with a look, and consume them together.' The day is come that burneth like an oven; all that have done wickedly are stubble,' and must be burned up root and branch.' 'Upon' such 'I rain snares, fire and brimstone, storm and tempest: this is the portion of their cup.' Drink the dregs of it, ye hypocrites; depart!' and 'wring them out in everlasting burnings.' "Said I not, "He that doeth good is of God, but he that doeth evil is not of God:' 'Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life;' for 'he that overcometh,' and he only, shall be clothed in white raiment, and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life?'

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And

shall I keep your name in that book for having continued in doing evil? Shall I give you the crown of life for having been unfaithful unto death? and clothe you with the bright robes of my glory, because you defiled your garments to the last? Delusive hope! Because your mind was not to do good, be ye' rather clothed with cursing, like as with a garment! Let it come into your 'bowels like water, and like oil into' your bones!""

VII. If "these shall go into eternal punishment;" if such will be the dreadful end of all the impenitent Nicolaitans; if our churches and chapels swarm with them; if they crowd our communion-tables; if they are found in most of our houses, and too many of our pulpits; if the seeds of their fatal disorder are in all our breasts; if they produce antinomianism around us in all its forms; if we see bold antinomians in principle, barefaced antinomians in practice, and sly pharisaical antinomians, who speak well of the law, to break it with greater advantage; should not every one "examine himself whether he is in the faith," and whether he has an holy Christ in his heart, as well as a sweet Jesus upon his tongue; lest he should one day swell the tribe of antinomian reprobates? Does it not become every minister of Christ to drop his prejudices, and consider whether he ought not to imitate the old watchman, who, fifteen months ago, gave a "legal alarm" to all the watchmen that are in connexion with him? And should we not do the church excellent service, if, agreeing to lift up our voices together against the common enemy, we gave God no rest in prayer, and our hearers in preaching, till we all "did our first works," and " latter end," like Job's, "exceeded our beginning?"

our

Near forty years ago, some of the ministers of Christ, in our church, were called out of the extreme of self-righteousness. Flying from it, we have run into the opposite, with equal violence. Now that we have learned wisdom by what we have suffered in going beyond the limits of truth both ways, let us return to a just scriptural medium. Let us equally maintain the two evangelical axioms on which the gospel is founded: 1. "All our salvation is of God, by free grace, through the alone merits of Christ."

And, 2. "All our damnation is of ourselves, through our avoidable unfaithfulness."

This second truth, as important as one half of the bible, on which it rests, has not only been set aside as useless by thousands, but generally exploded as unscriptural, dangerous, and subversive of true protestantism. Thus has the gospel balance been broken, and St. James's pure religion despised. What we owe to truth in a state of oppression hath engaged me to cast two mites into the scale of truth, which Mr. Wesley has the courage to defend against multitudes of good men, who keep one another in countenance under their common mistake. I do not want his scale to preponderate to the disadvantage of free grace: if it did, far from rejoicing in it, I would instantly throw the insignificant weight of my pen into the other scale; being fully persuaded that Christ can never be so truly honoured, nor souls so well edified, when we overdo on either side of the question, as when we scripturally maintain the whole truth as it is in Jesus. "But are we not in as much danger from overdoing in pharisaic works, as in antinomian faith?"

Not at present; the stream runs too rapidly on the side of lawless faith, to leave any just room to fear we shall be immediately carried into excessive working. There would be some ground for this objection, if we saw most professors of religion obstinately refusing to drink any thing but water, eat any thing but dry bread or cheap vegetables; fasting themselves into mere skeletons; wearing sackcloth instead of soft linen; lying on the bare ground, with a stone for their pillow; imitating Origen, by literally "making themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake;" turning hermits, spending whole nights in contemplation in churches and churchyards; giving away all their goods, the necessaries of life not excepted; allowing themselves only three or four hours' sleep, and even breaking that short rest to pray or praise; overpowering their bodies the next day with hard labour, to keep them under; scourging their backs unto blood every day; or forgetting themselves in prayer for hours in the coldest weather, till they have almost lost the use of their limbs.

But, I ask any unprejudiced person, who knows what is now called " gospel liberty," whether we are in danger of being thus "righteous overmuch," or legal to such an extreme?

I grant, however, we are not absolutely safe from any quarter: let us, therefore, continually stand on our guard. The right wing of Immanuel's army, which defends living faith, is partly gone over to the enemy, and fights under the Nicolaitan banner. The left wing, which defends good works, is far from being out of the reach of those crafty adversaries. Therefore, as we are or may be attacked on every side, let us faithfully use "the word of truth, the power of God, and the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left." Let us gallantly fly where the attack is the hottest, which now, in the religious world, is evidently where gross Crispianity, if I may use the word, is continually obtruded upon us as true Christianity: I say, "in the religious world;" for, in this controversy, "what have I to do to judge them also that are without? Do not ye judge them that are within," and represent them as opposers of free grace?

Should pharisees, while we are engaged in repelling the Nicolaitans, try to rob us of present and free justification by faith, under pretence of maintaining justification by works in the last day; or should they set us upon unnecessary and unscriptural works, we shall be glad of your assistance to repel them also.

If you grant it us, and do not despise ours, the world shall admire, in the Shulamite, (the church at unity in herself,) "the company of two armies," ready mutually to support each other against the opposite attacks of the pharisees and the Nicolaitans; the popish workers, who exclude the gospel, and the modern gnostics, the protestant antinomians, who explode the law.

May the Lord God help us to sail safely through these opposite rocks, keeping at an equal distance from both, by taking Christ for our pilot, and the scripture for our compass! so shall we enter full sail the double haven of present and eternal rest. Once we were in immediate danger of splitting upon "works, without faith;" now we

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are threatened with destruction from faith "without works:" may the merciful Keeper of Israel save us from both, by a living faith, legally productive of all good works, or by good works, evangelically springing from a living faith!

Should the divine blessing upon these sheets bring one single reader a step towards that good old way, or only confirm one single believer in it, I shall be "rewarded a hundred fold" for this little "labour of love;" and I shall be even content to see it represented as the invidious labour of malice for what is my reputation to the profit of one blood-bought soul!

Beseeching you, dear sir, for whom these letters are first intended, to set me right where I am wrong; and not to despise what may recommend itself in them to reason and conscience, on account of the blunt and Helvetic manner in which they are written, I remain, with sincere respect, Hon. and rev. sir,

Your affectionate and obedient servant
in the practical gospel of Christ,
J. FLETCHER.

POSTSCRIPT.

SINCE these letters were sent to the press, I have seen a pamphlet, entitled, "A Conversation between Richard Hill, Esq., the Rev. Mr. Madan, and Father Walsh,” a monk at Paris, who condemned Mr. Wesley's Minutes as "too near Pelagianism," and the author as "a Pelagian ;" adding, that "their doctrine was a great deal nearer that of the protestants." Hence the editor concludes, that "the principles in the extract of the Minutes are too rotten even for a papist to rest upon, and supposes, that popery is about the midway between protestantism and Mr. J. Wesley." I shall just make a few strictures upon that performance.

1. If an Arian came to me, and said, "You believe that Jesus Christ is God over all, blessed for ever!' Pelagius, that heretic who was publicly excommunicated