May you and I, dear sir. set them the example! In the mean time may the brotherly love, with which we forgive each other the real or apparent unkindness of our publications, continue and increase! May the charity that is not provoked, and hopeth all things, uniformly influence our hearts! So shall the words that drop from our lips, or distil from our pens, evidence that we are or desire to be the close followers of the meek, gentle, and yet impartial, plain-spoken Lamb of God. For His sake, to whom we are both so greatly indebted, restore me your former benevolence; and be persuaded that, notwithstanding the severity of your "Finishing Stroke," and the plainness of my answer, I really think it an honour, and feel it a pleasure, to subscribe myself, with undissembled sin cerity, Honoured and dear sir, Your affectionate and obedient servant in the gospel of our common Lord, MADELEY, Sept. 13th, 1773. J. FLETCHER. AN APPENDIX UPON THE REMAINING DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE CALVINISTS AND THE ANTI-CALVINISTS, WITH RESPECT TO OUR LORD'S DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION BY WORDS, To force my dear opponents out of the last entrenchment, in which they defend their mistakes, and from behind which they attack the justification by words and works peculiarly insisted on by our Lord and St. James, I only need to show how far we agree with respect to that justification; to state the difference that remains between us; and to prove the unreasonableness of considering us as papists, because we oppose an unscriptural and irrational distinction, that leaves Mr. Fulsome in full possession of all his "antinomian dotages." On both sides we agree to maintain, in opposition to Socinians and deists, that the grand, the primary, and properly meritorious cause of our justification, from first to last, both in the day of conversion and in the day of judgment, is only the precious atonement, and the infinite merits, of our Lord Jesus Christ. We all agree, likewise, that in the day of conversion, faith is the instrumental cause of our justification before God. Nay, if I mistake not, we come one step nearer each other; for we equally hold, that, after conversion, the works of faith are in this world, and will be in the day of judgment, the evidencing cause of our justification: that is, the works of faith (under the above-mentioned primary cause of our salvation, and in subordination to the faith that gives them birth) are now, and will be in the great day, the evidence that shall instrumentally cause our justification as believers. Thus Mr. Hill says, Review, page 149, "Neither Mr. Shirley, nor I, nor any Calvinist that I ever heard of, deny, that, though a sinner be JUSTIFIED IN THE SIght of GOD BY CHRIST ALONE, he is DECLARATIVELY JUSTIFIED BY WORKS both here and at the day of judgment." And the Rev. Mr. Madan, in his sermon on "Justification by works, &c., stated, explained, and reconciled with justification by faith," &c., says, page 29, "By Christ only are we meritoriously justified, and by faith only are we instrumentally justified IN THE SIGHT OF GOD; but by works, and not by faith only, are we declaratively JUSTIFIED BEFORE MEN AND ANGELS." From these two quotations, which could easily be multiplied to twenty, it is evident that pious Calvinists hold the doctrine of a justification by the works of faith, or, as Mr. Madan expresses it after St. James, "by works, and not by faith only." an It remains now to show wherein we disagree. At first sight the difference seems trifling; but, upon close examination, it appears, that the whole antinomian gulf still remains fixed between us. Read over the preceding quotations; weigh the clauses which I have put in capitals; compare them with what the Rev. Mr. Berridge says in his "Christian World unmasked," page 26, of “ ABSOLUTE impossibility of being justified IN ANY MANNER by our works," namely, before God; and you will see, that although pious Calvinists allow we are justified by works before men and angels, yet they deny our being ever justified by works before God, in whose sight they suppose we are for ever "justified by Christ alone," that is, only by Christ's good works and sufferings, absolutely imputed to us, from the very first moment in which we make a single act of true faith, if not from all eternity. Thus works are still entirely excluded from having any hand either in our intermediate or final justification before God; and thus they are still represented as totally needless to our eternal salvation. Now, in direct opposition to the above-mentioned distinction, we anti-Calvinists believe, that adult persons cannot be saved without being justified by faith as sinners, according to the light of their dispensation; and by works as believers, according to the time and opportunities they have of working. We assert, that the works of faith are not less necessary to our justification before God as believers, than faith itself is necessary to our justification before Him as sinners. And we maintain, that when faith does not produce good works, (much more when it produces the worst works, such as adultery, hypocrisy, treachery, murder, &c.,) it dies, and justifies no more; seeing it is a living, and not a dead, faith, that justifies us as sinners; even as they are living, and not dead, works, that justify us as believers. I have already exposed the absurdity of the doctrine, that works are necessary to our final justification before men and angels, but not before God: however, as this distinction is one of the grand subterfuges of the decent antinomians, and one of the pleas by which the hearts of the simple are most easily deceived into solifidianism, to the many arguments that I have already produced upon this head in the sixth letter of the Fourth Check, I beg leave to add those which follow :- 1. The way of making up the antinomian gap by saying, that works are necessary to our intermediate and final justification before men and angels, but not before God, is as bad as the gap itself. "If God is for me," says judicious Mr. Fulsome, "who can be against me? If God has for ever justified me only by Christ,' and if works have absolutely no place in my justification before him, what care I for men and angels? Should they justify when God condemns, what would their absolution avail? And if they condemn when God justifies, what signifies their condemnation? All creatures are fallible. The myriads of men and angels are as nothing before God. He is all in all." Thus Mr. Fulsome, by a most judicious way of arguing, keeps the field of licentiousness, where solifidian ministers have inadvertently brought him, and whence he is too wise to depart upon their brandishing before him the broken reed of an absurd distinction. 2. Our justification by works will principally, and in some cases entirely, turn upon the works of the heart, which are unknown to all but God. Again: were men and angels in all cases to pass a decisive sentence upon us according to our words, they might judge as severely as Mr. Hill judges Mr. Wesley; they might brand us for forgery upon the most frivolous appearances; at least they might condemn us as rashly as Job's friends condemned him. Once more: were our fellow-creatures to condemn us decisively by our works, they would often do it as unjustly as the disciples condemned the blessed woman, who poured a box of very precious ointment on our Lord's head. They had indignation, and blamed as uncharitable waste what our Lord was pleased to call a good work wrought upon him,-a good work which "shall be told for a memorial of her" as long as the Christian gospel is preached. To this may be added the mistake of the apostles, who, even after they had received the Holy Ghost, condemned Saul of Tarsus by his former, when they should have absolved him by his latter, works. And even now, how few believers would justify Phinehas for running Zimri and Cosbi through the body, or Peter for striking Ananias and Sapphira dead, without giving them time to say once, "Lord have mercy upon us!" Nay, how many would condemn them as rash men, if not as cruel murderers! In some cases, therefore, none can properly justify or condemn believers by their works, but He who is perfectly acquainted with all the outward circumstances of their actions, and with all the secret springs whence they flow. 3. The scriptures know nothing of the distinction which I explode. When St. Paul denies that Abraham was justified by works, it is only when he treats of the justification of a sinner, and speaks of the works of unbelief. When Christ says, "By thy words thou shalt be justified,” he makes no mention of angels: to suppose that they shall be able to justify a world of men by their words, is to suppose that they have heard, and do remember, all the words of all mankind, which is supposing them to be gods. Nay, far from being judged by angels, St. Paul says, that we shall judge them; not, indeed, as proper judges, but as Christ's assessors and mystical members; for our Lord, in his description of the great day, informs us, that he, VOL. II. M |