PREFACE TO THE DIALOGUE.

I HAVE found among my papers a manuscript of the late Rev. Mr. Fletcher, entitled, "A Dialogue between a Minister and one of his Parishioners, on Man's Fallen and Lost Estate." It consists of three parts, which are completed and have been transcribed, in a fair and legible character, in his own hand writing. It was intended, it seems, to be followed by four more, of which I know and can learn nothing. Indeed, I cannot now recollect how I became possessed of these: but suppose that they had been put into my hands by himself, or into the hands of some friend who transmitted them to me to look over. For I find on the title page the following request and declaration, written also with his own hand, and in different parts of the work sundry of my corrections and alterations, evidently made long ago :—

"Any lover of truth, who will have patience to read these sheets, is desired to write on the white side his observations, and to mark, if he thinks it worth his while,

«1. Bad or weak arguments.

"2. Bad English, tedious turns, vain repetitions.

"3. What is useless to the subject, or too prolix.

"4. Conclusive arguments forgotten.

"N. B. Beside these three parts, there are four more on the same subject.

"The fourth part contains an answer to the plea of the self-righteous moralist and formalist.

"The fifth, an appeal to his conscience and experience.

"The sixth, the testimony of the Church for the doctrine.

"The seventh, some objections answered, with some directions and encouragements given.

"The grand objection that the author hath to the whole, is the length, μεγα βιβλιον, μέγα κακον ; (A great book is a great evil. For want of skill and judgment, he knew not how to lop off luxuriant branches properly, and requests the help of Jesus' friends, if they judge that by dint of amputations and emendations, this work might become worth reading."

I would observe farther, that this dialogue was manifestly composed by Mr. Fletcher, before he wrote or published his "Appeal to Matter of Fact and Common Sense," on the same subject: and that it is probable, after he had conceived the design of that larger work, he laid

aside the intention of publishing this. Although many of the arguments and sentiments, and even some of the expressions here used, are very similar to some in the Appeal; yet as the subject appears here in a new form, and as no one sentence of it, I believe, is entirely the same, it appears to me, that it will both please and profit the readers, to whom the memory of that man of God is very dear, and every thing that dropped from his pen acceptable. I wish I could also furnish the remaining four parts. J. BENSON.

A DIALOGUE

BETWEEN

A MINISTER AND ONE OF HIS PARISHIONERS.

PART FIRST.

Containing an account of the doctrine to be examined.

PARISHIONER.-Though I have hitherto avoided conversing with you on religious subjects, I hear you in the church, and am well acquainted with the doctrines you chiefly enforce. They always appeared to me so singular, (to use no harsher expression,) that I could not help being greatly prejudiced against you; but having at length reason to hope, from the exemplariness of your life, that you mean well, and are open to conviction, I come to lay my objections before you, with the freedom of a well wisher to your ministry, and the simplicity of an inquirer after truth.

Minister. The motive of your visit makes it doubly agreeable. One of my greatest pleasures is to converse with such of my parishioners as are willing to expostulate, or advise with me about spiritual things: but, alas! most of them, through strong prejudice or false shame, refuse me this satisfaction and delight.

Par.-I never could prevail with myself to wait upon you before last Sunday; as you was then reading the twenty-fifth chapter of the Acts, I was struck with the 16th verse, where Festus says, "that it was not the custom of the Romans, [who were but heathens,] to condemn any man, before he had had his accusers face to face, with liberty to answer for himself, concerning the crime laid against him." And I concluded that I came short of heathen honesty, in condemning you as an enthusiastic preacher, before I had given you an opportunity of answering for yourself.

Min.-You see that "all Scripture is profitable for reproof, or for instruction:" may we in all cases apply it with as much candour as you have done in this! If you please, then, propose your objections; the more frank and open you are, the more I shall account you an advocate of truth, and a friend to me.

Par.-Your request agrees with my design; and I shall, without apology, tell you what gives me offence in your doctrine. And to begin with what you often begin with yourself, let me ask, Do you not go much too far when you speak of man's depravity and danger?

You say that we are all in a fallen, lost, undone state by nature, that our understanding is blind in spiritual things, our reason impaired, our will perverse, our conscience defiled, our memory weakened, our imagination extravagant, our affections disordered, our members instruments of iniquity, and our life altogether sinful. You suppose that till a change pass upon us we remain dead in sin, under the curse of God's broken law, and exposed every moment to eternal destruction of body and soul. You repre

sent us as so amazingly helpless, that we can no more, without the power of Divine grace, recover ourselves out of this deplorable state, than we can raise the dead: and, in short, you declare, that unless we are duly sensible of these melancholy truths, we neither can truly repent, nor unfeignedly embrace the Gospel. Is not this a true account of your doctrine?

Min.-It is: I readily assent to it.

Par. Believe me, the oddity, harshness, and uncharitableness of these tenets disgust the generality of your hearers, as well as myself. We live in an age when people have too much sense to imbibe such dismal notions, and too much wisdom to be frightened into godliness. Let me advise, let me entreat you to give over preaching damnation at this rate. Do but condescend to be more fashionable, and your charac. ter will be less offensive.

Min.-I thank you for your advice of becoming fashionable. I will follow it as soon as I am convinced that a preacher is to discard truth, and take fashion for his guide: but till then, "whether you will hear, or whether you will forbear, I must not shun to declare to you the whole counsel of God," Ezek. ii, 7; Acts xx, 27. And if some parts of it do not suit your taste, consider that, as the best medicines may be very unpalatable, so the most necessary doctrines may be extremely unpleasant. You value your physician for consulting your health rather than your taste; blame not me then for what you approve in him, and remember that our Lord himself, though filled with "the meness of wisdom," could not avoid offending "many of his disciples;" for St. John says that when they heard him "they murmured and went back," with the usual complaint, "This is a hard saying: who can bear it?" John vi, 60. Par.-If our Lord's doctrine was disagreeable to the Jews, it was true and salutary: but yours is generally supposed to be false and pernicious.

Min.-If the doctrine of our fallen state, as you have just now represented it, is not true, and conducive to spiritual health, I advise you myself to reject it, though it were preached by an angel from heaven. But, should its truth and importance be asserted by the joint testimony of Scripture, reason, experience, and our own Church, I hope that you will receive it as a good though unpalatable medicine.

Par.-Reason and experience will convince a candid Deist, and the declarations of our Church, supported by revelation, will silence the objections of an honest Churchman: you may therefore assure yourself, that if your doctrine is confirmed by this fourfold authority, I shall op. pose it no more.

The minister, having expressed the satisfaction which his visiter's answer gave him, and the pleasure he should feel in being directed right if he were wrong, resumed the subject in the

SECOND PART.

Wherein the apostasy and misery of man are proved from Scripture.

Min.-Let us first bring the doctrine of the fall to the touchstone of Scripture: "To the law and to the testimony, (says the prophet,) for it

we speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in us," Isa. viii, 20.

We read, Gen. i, 26, that God made man not only in his natural image, with life, understanding, and will, which constitute the being of good or bad spirits: but also after his moral likeness, i, e. "in righteousness and true holiness," according to St. Paul's definition of it, Eph. iv, 24. In this moral resemblance of God consists the well being, or Divine life of good spirits. While man continued in it, his spotless soul was actuated by the Spirit of God, as our bodies are by our souls, and eternal truth itself pronounced him very good, Gen i, 31.

But how soon-how low did he fall! In the third chapter we see him overcome by the tempter in disguise: he wickedly believes the father of lies before the God of truth: he proudly aspires to be equal with his Maker; and, in order to it, madly places appetite on the throne of reason. Thus unbelief, the besetting sin of man; pride, which the apostle calls "the condemnation of the devil," 1 Tim. iii, 6; and sensuality, the characteristic of the beast, invade his unguarded soul. And now, "when lust had conceived, it brought forth sin," Adam ate of the forbidden fruit, "and sin, when it was finished, brought forth death," James i, 15. It instantly quenched the Spirit, put an end to the breathings of prayer and praise in man's heart, defaced the image of God's moral perfections from his breast, "alienated him from the life of God," Eph. iv, 18, and infected his whole nature with the poisonous seeds of temporal and eternal death.

Par. So small a sin as that of tasting some forbidden fruit, could never have so dreadful an effect.

Min.-If Adam's transgression were small, as you say, I could put you in mind that the least spark can blow up the greatest ships, or fire the largest cities; and that the smallest drop of poison (for instance, the froth of a mad dog) can infect the whole animal frame, and communicate itself to millions of men and beasts, by means of the smallest bite.

But this is not the case with regard to that sin, under which "the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain until now," Rom. viii, 22. I readily grant the prohibition was small; but this made the sin so much the greater: for it argues the height of rebellion, deliberately to refuse paying so insignificant a homage to so great a Being. Beside, if you consider all the circumstances of our first parents' disobedience, you will find in it a complication of some of the most heinous crimes. Not to mention again unbelief, pride, and sensuality: an unreasonable discontent in their happy condition, a wanton squandering away of the richest patrimony, a barbarous disregard of their offspring, a base ingratitude for the highest favours, and an impious confederacy with Satan against the kindest of benefactors, are some of the black ingredients of what you call a small sin, but might justly term an execrable transgression.

Par. Suppose Adam's offence was as great as you conceive it to be, you should not conclude, without strong proofs, that it totally destroyed God's moral image, in which his soul was at first created.

Min.-The sad effects which it had upon him, are such proofs as amount to a demonstration. Follow the wretch after the commission of his crime, and you will find him proud and sullen, in the midst of shame