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approve] his voice;-that know not [i. e. do not approve] the voice of strangers; and flee from a stranger instead of following him :In a word, persons that actually follow the good shepherd in some of his folds or pastures. In this description of a sheep every verb is put in the present tense, to show us that the word sheep denotes a character, or persons actually possessed of such a character; so that the moment the character changes, the moment a man who once left all to follow Christ, leaves Christ to follow a stranger, he has no more to do with the name and privileges of a sheep, than a deserter or a rebel has to do with the name and privileges of his majesty's soldiers or subjects.

According then to our doctrine, no sheep of Christ, that is, no actual follower of the Redeemer perishes. We think it is shocking to say, that any of them are plucked out of his hand. On the contrary we frequently say with St. Peter, Who will harm you [much more, who will separate you from the love of Christ] if ye be the followers of that which is good; [i. e. if you be sheep;] and we insist upon the veracity of our Lord's promise, He that endureth unto the end; in the cha racter of a sheep, i. e. in the way of faith and obedience, the same shall be [eternally] saved. And we maintain, that so long as a believer does not make shipwreck of the faith and of a good conscience;-so long as he continues a sheep, an harmless follower of the Lamb of God, he can no more perish, than God's everlasting throne can be overturned. But what has this doctrine of our Lord to do with Calvinism?

With regard to the sheep mentioned in Matt. xxv. 33, 34. whom our Lord calls BLESSED of his Father, we believe that they represent the multitude of obedient perseve ring believers, whom two apostles describe thus: BLESSED are they that do his (God's) commandments, that they may have right (or if Mr. Hill pleases, privilege) to the tree of life, and enter &c. into the city, Rev. xxii. 14—BLESSED is the man that endureth temptation; for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.-And this is the love of God that we keep his commandments, James i. 12.-1 John v. 3.-For such ENDURING OBEDIENT believers a kingdom of glory is prepared from the foundation of the world; and to it they are and shall be judically elected; while the goats, i. e. unbelievers, or disobedient fallen believers, are and shall be judicially reprobated from it. Hence it is, that when our Lord accounts for his judicial election of the obedient (whom he parabolically calls sheep) he does not say, Inherit the kingdom &c. for I absolutely finished your salvation: but he says, Inherit the kingdom, for ye gave me meat, &c. ye fed the hungry from a right motive, and what

you did in that manner, 1 reward it as if you had done it to myself. In other terms, Ye heard my voice and followed me, in hearing the whispers of my grace and following the light of your dispensation; and now I own you as my eternally-rewardable elect, my sheep, which have followed me without finally drawing back.

Again, when our Lord gives an account of the judicial reprobation of the finally dis. obedient, whom he parabolically calls goats, he does not say, Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for you from the foundation of the world, for then I absolutely finished your eternal reprobation. No: this is the counterpart of the gospel of the day. But he says, Depart, &c. for ye gave me no meat, by feeding the hungry in your generation, &c. That is, ye did not believingly follow me in following your light and my precepts. Either you never began your course, or you drew back before you had finished it. Either you never voluntarily listed under my banner, or you deserted before you had fought the good fight out; either you never believed in me the light of the world, and your light; or, instead of keeping the faith, you voluntarily, avoidably, unnecessarily, and resolutely made shipwreck of it, and of a good conscience. And therefore your damnation is of yourselves. You have personally forfeited your conditional election to the rewards of persevering obedience, and personally made your conditional reprobation from those rewards sure by your final disobedience.

From these evangelical descriptions of the sheep and the goats, mentioned in John x. and Matt. xxv. it appears to us indubitable : (1) That these sheep, [i. e. obedient, persevering believers] shall never perish, although they might perish, if they brought upon themselves swift destruction by denying the Lord that bought them (2) That they shall be eternally saved, although they might have missed eternal salvation, if they had finally disregarded our Lord's declaration, He that endureth unto the end, the same shall be (finally) saved.—(3) That the good Shepheard dpeculiarly laid down his life for the eternal redemption of obedient, persevering, believers; and that these believers are sometimes eminently called God's elect, because they make their conditional calling to the rewards of perseverance sure, by actually persevering in the obedience of faith.-(4) That the peculiarity of the eternal redemption of Christ's persevering followers, far from being connected with the absolute reprobation of the rest of mankind, stands in perfect agreement with the doctrines of a general temporary redemption; and a general initial salvation; and with the doctrines of a gratuitous election to the blessings of one or another dispensation of God's saving

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grace; and of a conditional election to the rewards of voluntary, unnecessitated obedience.-(5) That our opponents give the truth as it is in Jesus two desperate stabs, when they secure the peculiar eternal redemp. tion of finally disobedient believers, and comfort mourning backsliders in so unhappy a manner, as to overthrow the general, temporary redemption of all mankind; and to encourage or countenance the present disobe dience of Laodicean believers.-(6) That the calvinian doctrines of grace, which do this double mischief under such fair pretences, are of all the tares which the enemy sows, those which come nearest to the wheat, and of consequence those by which he can best feed his immoral goats, deceive simple souls, set Christ's moral sheep at perpetual variance, turn the fruitful field of the church into a barren field of controversy, and make a deistical world think that faith is ethusiastical fancy; that orthodoxy is immoral nonsense; and that revelation is nothing but an apple of discord. (7) And lastly, that the doctrines of grace which we maintain, do equal justice to the divine attributes;-defend faith; without wounding obedience :-oppose pharisaism, without recommending antinomianism; -assert the truth of God's promises without representing his most awful threatenings as words without meaning;-reconcile the scriptures, without wounding conscience and reason; exalt the gracious wonders of the day of atone ment, without setting aside the righteous terrors of the great day of retribution; extol our heavenly Priest, without pouring contempt upon our divine Prophet ;-and celebrate the honours of his cross, without turning his sceptre of righteousness into a solifidian reed, his royal crown into a crown of thorns, and his law of liberty into a rule of life, by which his subjects can no more stand or fall in judgment, than an Englishman can stand or fall by the rules of civility followed at the French court.

To the best of my knowledge, Reader, thou hast been led into the depth of our doctrines of grace. I have opened to thee the mysteries of the evangelical system, which Mr. Hill attacks as the heresy of the Arminians. And now, let Impartiality band thee up to the judgment seat. Let Reason and Revelation hold out to thee their consentaneous light. Pray that the Spirit of truth may help thine infirmities: Turn Prejudice out of the court: and let Candour pronounce the sentence and say, if it is our principles or those of Mr. Hill, which "inevitably" draw after them shocking, not to say blasphemous" consequences.

I shall close this answer to the Creed which that Gentleman has composed for Arminians, by an observation which is not entirely foreign to our controversy. In one of the three letters which introduce the fictitious Creed, Mr. Hill says, "Controversy I am

persuaded has not done me any good;" and he exhorts me to examine closely whether I cannot make the same confession. I own that it would have done me harm, if I had blindly contended for my opinions. Nay, if I had shut my eyes against the light of truth;-if I had set the plainest scriptures aside, as if they were not worth my notice;if I had overlooked the strongest arguments of my opponents:-if I had advanced groundless charges against them; if I had refused to do justice to their good meaning or piety; and, above all, if I had taken my leave of them by injuring their moral character, by publishing over and over again arguments, which they have properly answered, without taking the least notice of their answers ;-if I had made a solemn promise not to read one of their books, though they should publish a thousand volumes; if continuing to write against them, I had fixed upon them (as "unavoidable" consequences) absurd tenets, which has no more necessary connexion with their principles than the doctrine of a general redemption has with calvinian reprobation; if I had done this, I say, controversy would have wounded my conscience or my reason, and without adding any thing to my light, it would have immoveably fixed me in my prejudices, and perhaps branded me before the world for an Arminian bigot. But, as matters are, I hope I may make the following ac knowledgment, without betraying the impertinence of proud boasting.

Although I have often been sorry that controversy should take up so much of the time, which I might with much more satisfaction to myself have employed in devotional exercises :—and although I have lamented, and do still lament my low attainments in the meekness of wisdom, which should constantly guide the pen of every controversial writer; yet I rejoice that I have been enabled to persist in my resolution either to wipe off, or to share the reproach of those, who have hazarded their reputation in defence of pure, and undefiled religion. And, if I am not mistaken, my repeated attempts have been attended with these happy effects: in vindicating the moral doctrines of grace, I hope, that, as a man, I have learned to think more closely, and to investigate truth more ardently, then I did before. There are rational powers in the dullest souls, which lie hid as sparks in a flint, Controversial opposition and exertion, like the stroke of the steel have made me accidentally find out some of these latent sparks of reason, for which I should never have thanked my Maker, if I had never discovered them. have frequently been thankful to find that my horse could travel in bad roads better than Ĭ expected; nor do I think that it is a piece of pharisaism to say, I am thankful to find that my mind can travel with more ease than I thought she could, through theological roads

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rendered almost impassable by heaps of doc trinal rubbish, brought from all parts of Christendom, and by briars of contention which have kept growing for above a thousand years. To return: As a divine, I see more clearly the gaps and stiles, at which mistaken good men have turned out of the narrow way of truth, to the right hand and to the left.-As a protestant, I hope I have much more esteem for the scriptures in general, and in particular for those practical parts of it which the cal vinists had insensibly taught me to overlook or dispise. And this increasing esteem is, I trust, accompanied with a deeper conviction of the truth of christianity, and with a greater readiness to defend the gospel against infidels, pharisees, and antinomians.-As a preacher, Í hope I can now do more justice to a text, by reconciling it with seemingly contrary scriptures. As an anti-calvinist, I have learned to do the Calvinists justice in granting that there is an election of distinguishing grace for God's peculiar people, and a particular redemption for all believers who are faithful unto death; -And by that means, as a controvertist, I can more easily excuse pious Calvinists, who through prejudice, mistake that Scriptural election, for their Antinomian election, and who consider that particular redemption as the only redemption mentioned in the scriptures. Nay, I can, without scruple, allow Mr. Hill, that his doctrines of finished salvation and irresistible grace, are true with respect to all those who die in their infancy.-As one who is called an Arminian, I have found out some flaws in Arminianism, and evidenced my impartiality in pointing them out, as well as the flaws of Calvinism. [See the Preface.] -As a witness for the truth of the gospel, I hope I have learned to bear reproach from all sorts of people with more undaunted courage. And I humbly trust, that were I called to seal with my blood the truth of the doctrines of grace and justice against the pharisees and the antinomians, I could (divine grace supporting me to the last) do it more ration ally and of consequence with greater steadiness.-Again as a follower of Christ, I hope I have learned to disregard my dearest friends for my heavenly Prophet: or to speak the language of our Lord, I hope, I have learned to forsake father, mother, and brothers for Christ's sake and the gospel's.-As a disputant, I have learned that solid arguments and plain scriptures make no more impression upon bigotry, than the charmer's voice does upon the deaf adder; and by that means, I hope, I depend less upon the powers of reason, the letter of the scripture, and the candour of professors, than I formerly did.-As a believer, I have been brought to see and feel, that the power of the Spirit of Truth, which teaches men to be of one heart, and of one mind, and makes them think and speak the same, is at a very low ebb in the religious world; and that the prayer which I ought

continually to offer is, O Lord, baptize christians with the Spirit of Truth and the fire of love. Thy kingdom come! Bring thy church out of the wilderness of error and sin, into the kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.-As a member of the church of England, I have learned to be pleased with our holy Mother for giving us floods of pure morality to wash away the few remaining Calvinian freckles still perceptible upon her face.-As a christian, I hope I have learned in some degree to exercise that charity, which teaches us boldly to oppose a dangerous error, without ceasing to honour, and love its abettors, so far as they resemble our Lord; and enables us to use an irony with St. Paul and Jesus Christ, not as an enemy uses a dagger, but as a surgeon uses a lancet or a caustic: and lastly, as a Writer I have leart to feel the truth of Solomon's observation, "Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh; Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man," and the sum of the anti-solifidian truth, which I endeavour to vindicate.

I do not say that I have learned any of these lessons as I should have done; but I hope I have learned so much of them as to say, that in these respects my controversial toil has not been altogether in vain in the Lord. And now, Reader, let me intreat thee to pray, that if I am spared to vindicate more fully what appears to us the scriptural doctrine of grace, I may be so helped by the Father of lights and the God of love, as to speak the pure truth in perfect love, and never more drop a needlessly-severe expression. Some such have escaped me before I was aware. In endeavouring to render my style nervous, I have sometimes inadvertently ren. dered it provoking. Instead of saying that the doctrines of grace (so called) represent God as "absolutely graceless," towards myriads of reprobated culprits, I would now say, that, upon the principles of my opponents, God appears devoid of grace towards those whom he has absolutely reprobated" from all eternity. The thought is the same, I grant; but the expressions are less grating and more decent. This propriety of language I labour after as well as after more meekness of wisdom. The Lord help me and my antagonists to keep our garments clean! Controvertists ought to be clothed with an ardent flaming love for truth, and a candid humble regard for their neighbour. May no root of prejudice stain that flaming love; no malice rend our seamless garments! And if they are ever rolled in blood, may it be only in the blood of our common enemies, destructive error, and the man of sin.

END OF THE Creed,

AN APPEAL

ΤΟ

MATTER OF FACT, AND COMMON SENSE,

OR, A

RATIONAL DEMONSTRATION

OF

MAN'S CORRUPT AND LOST ESTATE.

Yz pompous sons of Reason idoliz'd
And. vilifi'd at once: of Reason dead,
Then deify'd, as Monarch's were of old;

Wrong not the Christian, think not Reason yours
'Tis Reason our great Master holds so dear,
"Tis Reason's injured rights his wrath resents;]
'Tis Reason's voice obey'd his glories crown;

To give lost Reason life, he pour'd his own:
Believe, and shew the Reason of a Man;
Believe, and taste the Pleasure of a God;

Through Reason's wounds, alone, thy faith can die.

YOUNG.

The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was LOST. Luke xix. 10.

TO THE PRINCIPAL INHABITANTS OF THE PARISH OF MADELEY,
IN THE COUNTY OF SALOP.

Gentlemen,

You are no less entitled to my private labours, than the inferior class of my parishioners. As you do not choose to partake with them of my evening instructions, I take the liberty to present you with some of my morning meditations. May these well-meant endeavours of my pen, be more acceptable to you than those of my tongue! And may you carefully read in your Closets, what you have, perhaps, inattentively heard in the Church! I appeal to the Searcher of Hearts, that I had rather impart Truth than receive Tithes. You kindly bestow the latter upon me; grant me, I pray, the satisfaction of seeing you favourably receive the former, from,

Gentlemen,

Your affectionate Minister,

Madeley, 1772.

And obedient Servant,

J. FLETCHER.

CONTENTS.

THE INTRODUCTION.

FIRST PART.

The Doctrine of Man's corrupt and lost estate is stated at large, in the words of the Prophets, Apostles, and Jesus Christ; and recapitulated in those of the Articles, Homi lies, and Liturgy of the Church of England.

SECOND PART.

Man is considered as an inhabitant of the natural world, and his fall is proved by arguments deduced from the misery in which he is now undeniably involved; compared with the happiness, of which we cannot help conceiving him possessed, when he came out of the hands of his gracious Creator.

A view of this misery in the following particulars,-1. The disorders of the globe we inhabit, and the dreadful scourges with which it is visited.-H. The deplorable and shocking circumstances of our birth.-111. The painful and dangerous travail of women.-Iv. The untimely dissolution of still-born, or new-born children.-v. Our natural unclean liness, helplessness, ignorance, and nakedness. -VI. The gross darkness in which we naturally are, both with respect to God and a future state.-VII. The general rebellion of the brute creation against us.-VIH. The various poisons that lurk in the animal, vegetable, and mineral world, ready to destroy us. 1x. The heavy curse of toil and sweat to which we are liable; instances of which are given in the hard and dangerous labours of the Author's parishioners-x. The other innumerable calamities of life. And x1. The pangs of death.

THIRD PART.

Man is considered as a citizen of the moral world, a free agent, accountable to his Creator for his tempers and conduct; and his fall is farther demonstrated by arguments drawn therefrom-XII. His commission of sin.-XIII. His omission of duty.-XIV. The triumphs of sensual appetites over his intellectual faculties.-xv. The corruption of the powers that constitute a good head; the understanding, imagination, memory, and reason.-xvI. The depravity of the powers which form a good heart; the will, conscience, and affections.XVII. His manifest alienation from God.XVIII. His amazing disregard of his nearest relatives.-XIX. His unaccountable concern about himself. xx. His detestable tempers. XXI. The general out breaking of human corruption in all individuals.-xxII. The universal overflowing of it in all nations. Five objections answered,-xxIII. Some striking

proofs of this depravity in the general propensity of mankind to vain, irrational, or cruel diversions: and xXIV. In the universality of the most ridiculous, impious, inhuman, and diabolical sins.-xxv. The aggravating circumstances attending the display of this corruption.-xxvI. The many ineffectual endeavours to stem its torrent.-XXVII. The obstinate resistance it makes to divine grace in the unconverted.-xxvIII. The amazing struggles of good men with it.-xxIx. The testimony of Heathens and Deists concerning it; and after all-xxx. The preposterous conceit which the unconverted have of their own goodness.

FOURTH PART.

Man is considered as an inhabitant of the Christian world, and his fallen state is further proved by six scriptural arguments, introduced by a short demonstration of the authenticity of the Scriptures, and by a little attack upon the amazing credulity of Deists. The heads of these arguments are,-xxxI. The impossibility that fallen, corrupt Adam, should have had an upright, innocent pos terity: with answers to some capital objections.-xxxII. The spirituality and severity of God's law, which the unrenewed man continually breaks: and-XXXIII. Our strong propensity to unbelief, the most destructive of all sins, according to the gospel.-xxxiv. The absurdity of the Christian religion with respect to infants, and strict moralists: xxxv. The harshness and cruelty of Christ's fundamental doctrines; and xxxvI. The extravagance of the grand article of the Christian Faith, if mankind are not in a corrupt and lost estate.

FIFTH PART.

The doctrine of Man's fall being established by such a variety of arguments; first, a few natural inferences are added: secondly, various fatal consequences attending the ignorance of our lost estate: thirdly, the unspeakable advantages arising from the right knowledge of it.

The whole is concluded, with an Address to the serious Reader, who enquires what he must do to be saved. And with an Appendix, concerning the evangelical harmony, that subsists between living Faith, and loving Obedience.

INTRODUCTION.

IN religious matters we easily run into extremes. Nothing is more common than to see people embracing one error under the plausible pretence of avoiding another.

Many, through fear of infidelity, during the night of ignorance and storm of passion, run

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