abound," I could not do it more effectually than by showing, according to the doctrine of your fourth letter, 1. That, upon the whole, sin can do us no harm. 2. That, far from hurting us, it will "work for our good." And, 3. That even a grievous fall into adultery and murder will make us " sing louder in heaven; all debts and claims against believers, be they more or be they less, be they small or be they great, be they before or be they after conversion, being for ever and for ever cancelled by Christ's fulfilling the law for them." In the name of reason, I ask, Where is the difference between publishing these unguarded tenets, and saying roundly, "Let us sin, that grace may abound?"

Do not reply, sir, that this objection was brought against St. Paul as well as against you, and therefore the apostle's doctrines and yours exactly coincide; for this would be impeaching the innocent to screen the guilty. The charge of indirectly saying, "Let us sin, that grace may abound," is absolutely false, when it is brought against St. Paul; but alas! it is too true when produced against the author of "Pietas Oxoniensis." Where did that holy apostle ever say, that "sin works for our good?" When did he declare, that "the Lord overrules sin," even adultery and murder, "for the good of his" backsliding "people;" and that grievous falls in this world, will make us more joyful in the next? But you know, sir, who has published those maxims, and who stands to them even in "a finishing stroke;” intimating still, that it is God's "secret will to do good to his people by the abominable thing which his soul hateth. Page 55, line 36, &c. O sir, hell is not farther from heaven, than this doctrine from that of the apostle; for while you absolutely promise fallen believers louder songs in heaven, he conditionally threatens them with "much sorer punishment" in hell, Heb. x. 29; and Christ says, "Go and sin no more, lest a worse thing

happen unto thee." But your scheme says, "Go any length in sin, and a more excellent thing shall happen unto thee a grievous 'fall will drive thee nearer to Christ."

Leaving you to reconcile yourself with holy Paul and

our blessed Lord, I beg leave to account for the warinth with which you sometimes plead for, and sometimes against, sin. As a good man, you undoubtedly "detest and abhor" this dangerous maxim of the great Diana of the antinomians, "Sin works for good to believers ; " but as a sound Calvinist, you plead for it; yea, and you father it upon the apostle too; see Third Check, vol. i., p. 472. This contrariety in your sentiments may be illustrated by Judah's inconsistent behaviour to Tamar.

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As Tamar was an agreeable woman, Judah took an antinomian fancy to her, gave her his signet, bracelets, and staff for a pledge; and faithfully sent her a kid from the flock. But as she was his disgraced daughter-in-law, big with a bastard-child, though he himself was the father of it, he rose against her with uncommon indignation, and said, in a fit of legality, “Bring her forth, that she may be burned." O! that, instead of calling me a spiritual calumniator," and accusing me of "vile falsehood and gross perversion" for bearing my testimony against a similar inconsistency, you would imitate the undeceived patriarch, take your signet and bracelets again; I mean, call in your fourth letter, that fatal pledge sent me from the press for your great Diana, and from this time "know her again no more!" Gen. xxxviii. 26.

SECTION IV. But you are not put out of countenance by your former mistakes; for, pages 8, 9, speaking, it seems, of those mistaken good men, "who say more at times for sin than against it," or of those who traduce obedience, and make void the law through faith; representing it as a bare rule of life, the breaking of which will in the end work for the believer's good; you say, "Though I have begged you so earnestly in my review, to point out by name who these wretches" (you should say, these persons)

are; though I have told you, that without this the charge of slander must for ever be at your door; still neither they nor their converts are produced, no, nor one quotation from their writings, in order to prove these black charges upon them." Here is a heap of gross mistakes. I have not only produced one quotation, but many, both from Dr. Crisp's writings and your own. See Second

Check, vol. i., from p. 361 to p. 363, and Third Check, vol. i., from p. 454 to 477. Again, that "neither they nor their converts are produced," is a capital oversight. Turn to Fourth Check, vol. ii., p. 124 ::- "Produce a few of them," says your brother; to which I answer: "Well, sir, I produce first, the author of 'Pietas Oxoniensis;' next yourself; and then all the Calvinists who admire your brother's fourth letter; where he not only insinuates, but openly attempts to prove, that David, &c., ' stood absolved and complete in the everlasting righteousness of Christ,' while his eyes were full of adultery, and his hands of blood. Now, sir, if this was the case of David, it may not only be that of many, but of all the elect;" for the imaginary covenant of "finished salvation;" stands as sure for fallen believers, who cheat, swear, and get drunk, as for those who commit adultery, murder, and incest.

But since you press me still to produce witnesses, I promise you to produce by and by the Rev. Mr. Berridge, your second, together with his antinomian pleas against sincere obedience. In the mean time I produce "Mr. Fulsome," together with a quotation from "the Christian World unmasked." It contains a ludicrous description of a consistent antinomian, brought over to the doctrines of grace by I know not which of our gospel ministers.

His name, says Mr. Berridge, was Mr. Fulsome, and his mother's maiden name was Miss Wanton. "When the cloth was removed, and some few tankards had gone round, Mr. Fulsome's face looked like the red lion painted on my landlord's sign, and his mouth began to open. He talked swimmingly about religion, and vapoured much in praise of" Calvinistic "perseverance. Each fresh tankard threw a fresh light upon his subject, &c. 'No sin,' he said, 'can hurt me. I have had a call, and my election is safe. Satan may pound me, if he please; but Jesus must replevy me. What care I for drunkenness or whoredom, for cheating, or a little lying? These sins may hurt another, but they cannot hurt me. Let me wander where I will from God, Jesus Christ must fetch me back again. may fall a thousand times, but I shall rise again; yes, I

I

may fall exceeding foully.' And so he did; for instantly he pitched with his head upon the floor, and the tankard in his hand." Christian World unmasked: second edition, page 191.

was

Thus fell the antinomian champion of Calvinistic perseverance. "The tankard,” adds Mr. Berridge, recovered, but no one thought it worth their while to lift up Mr. Fulsome." And what does Mr. Fulsome care for it, if Jesus Christ himself is absolutely engaged to raise him up, though he had spilt, not only some of my landlord's ale, but all my landlord's blood? Let Mr. Fulsome take a peaceful nap upon the floor, till he can call for another tankard: it will never hurt him, for Mr. Hill declares that "the covenant of grace standeth sure in behalf of the elect under every trial, state, and circumstance they can possibly be in;" and that "God overrules sin for their good." Finishing Stroke, pages 6, 55.

Upon the principles of Calvinism, no logician in the world can, I think, find a flaw in the following arguments of Mr. Fulsome:-If I am unconditionally elected, irresistible grace will certainly save me at last; nay, my salvation is already finished: and for this tankard and twenty more, I shall only "sing louder in heaven the praises of free, distinguishing, restoring grace, which, passing by thousands, viewed me with unchangeable love, and determined to save me with an everlasting salvation, without any regard to that "jack o'lantern, sincere obedience." If, on the other hand, I am unconditionally reprobated, I shall absolutely be damned. Again: supposing Christ never died for me, not only all my faith, but also all my endeavours and works, were they as many as those of Mr. John Wesley, like a "jack o'lantern" will only dance before me to the pit of hell. Once more: if I am absolutely justified, it is not all the tankards and harlots in the world that can blot my name out of the book of life. And if I am in the black book, my damnation is as good as finished. My sincere obedience will never reverse a personal, absolute decree, older and firmer than the pillars of heaven. Nay, it may be the readiest way to hell; for

our vicar, who is one of the first gospel ministers in the kingdom, tells us that "the devil was surely the author of the condition of sincere obedience," and that "thousands have been lost by following after it." Landlord, bring in another tankard. Here is the health of all who

do not legalize the gospel!

Mr. Berridge is too good a logician, to attempt proving that Mr. Fulsome's creed is not quite rational upon the principles of Calvinism. He only says, page 192, "Such scandalous professors are found at all times, in our day, and in St. Paul's day; yet St. Paul will not renounce the doctrine of perseverance." True, he will not renounce his own doctrine of conditional perseverance, because it is the very reverse of the doctrine of absolute, or Calvinistic, perseverance, from which Mr. Fulsome draws his horrible, and yet just, inferences.

"But," says Mr. Berridge, page 178, “ a believer's new nature makes him hunger for implanted righteousness;" insinuating that a believer's holy nature puts him upon such spontaneous obedience to his "rules of life," that he needs not the help of a law, as a rule of rewards and punishments, to encourage him in the path of duty, and to keep him from the broad way of disobedience. As this is one of the grand arguments, by which pious Calvinists defend the antinomian babel, I shall answer it first as an anti-Calvinist, and Mr. Fulsome next as a Calvinist.

1. Experience shows that, to secure the creature's obedience, or the Creator's honour, the curb of a law is necessary for all free agents who are yet in a state of probation; and that so long as we are surrounded with so many temptations to faint in duty, and to leave the thorny way of the cross for the flowery paths of sin, the spur and bridle of a promising and threatening law are needful, even with respect to those duties which natural or supernatural inclination renders in general delightful; such as for mothers to take care of their own children, and believers to do good to their neighbour. Now as the civil law, that condemns murderers to death, does not except mothers who destroy the fruit of their womb, because natural affection