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with dreadful horns. 4. How shall I distinguish a "legal" from an evangelical If? Should you say that the "legal, blustering" serjeant wears an halberd, but the evangelical, mild If has no weapon at all; I ask, What business has an unarmed If in "the camp of Jesus?" Why do you call him "serjeant?" Is he not a sham "centinel," a ridiculous scare-crow, to deceive the simple, rather than a very valiant guard to check the forward?" 5. How shall I make a difference between an Everton If, and a Madeley If? When I read my bible in both places, I have always found the serjeant exactly of the same stature ; he always appeared in the same black regimentals: and to this day a Madeley If exactly answers to the description that the pious vicar of Everton gives of him. He is "a monosyllable, low in stature, but of lofty significance." Whereas the Everton If is yet lower in significance than in stature, since you make it signify just nothing. Should you reply, that a Madeley If is "like one of the circumcised race;" I answer, that although, eleven years ago, I circumcised him with an antinomian knife, yet I did not quite mutilate him. But I could name a gospel minister, who has "served more than three apprenticeships at a noted hall of physic," by whom the unhappy serjeant has not only been "circumcised," but quite emasculated, yea, deprived of his very vitals. For when If, in the above-quoted scriptures, is absolutely divested of conditionality, and turned into an unnecessary evidence of grace, which the elect can do without, as well as David and Solomon; may it.not be compared to a dead serjeant, whose lungs and heart are pulled out; and whose ill-smelling remains, far from being a "valiant guard" against the forward, prove an enticing lure to unclean birds, who fly about in search of a carcass?

Excuse, reader, this prolix and ludicrous defence of the serjeant. The subject, though treated in so queer a manner, is of the utmost importance; for the Minutes, the Checks, and the second gospel axiom, stand or fall with serjeant If. If he is a coward, a knave, or a cypher, antinomianism will still prevail; but if he recovers his

true and lofty significance, he will soon rid the church of antinomian dotages. As "much respect is due unto him," and to St. James's undefiled religion, which the ingenious book I quote indirectly undermines, I thought it my duty to " open my bag" also, and let out a ferret, or, to speak exactly the language of Everton, "a fox" to chase a "straggling goose hard at hand." Take notice, however, that, by the "goose," I do not mean the truly reverend author of "the World Unmasked," for he has wit enough, and to spare; but "the waddling dame," Calvinistic contradiction, alias Logica Genevensis. And now, reader, I lay her before thee, not to make thee " sup" upon her "amidst a deal of cackling music," but that thou wouldest help me to nail her up to the everlasting doors of the temple of truth, as sportsmen do cranes and foxes to the doors of their rural buildings.

CONCLUSION.

the dangerous

WERE I to conclude these strictures upon tenets, inadvertently advanced, and happily contradicted, in "the Christian World Unmasked," without professing my brotherly love and sincere respect for the ingenious and pious author; I should wrong him, myself, and the cause which I defend. I only do him justice when I say, that few, very few, of our elders equal him in devotedness to Christ, zeal, diligence, and ministerial success. His indefatigable labours in the word and doctrine entitle him to a double share of honour; and I invite all my readers to esteem him with me highly in love for his Master's and his work's sake; entreating them not to undervalue his vital piety, on account of his antinomian opinions; and beseeching them to consider, that his errors are so much the more excusable as they do not influence his moral conduct, and he refutes them himself, far more than his favourite scheme of doctrine allows him to do. Add to this, that those very errors spring in a great degree from the idea, that he honours Christ by receiving, and does God service by propagating, them.

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FIFTH CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.

The desire of catching the attention of his readers has made him choose a witty, facetious manner of writing, for which he has a peculiar turn; and the necessity I am under of standing his indirect attack obliges me to meet him upon his own ground, and to encounter him with his own weapons. I beg, that what passes for evangelical humour in him may not be called indecent levity in me. A sharp pen may be guided by a kind heart; and such, I am persuaded, is that of my much-esteemed antagonist, whom I publicly invite to my pulpit; protesting that I should be cdified, and overjoyed, to hear him enforce there the guarded substance of his book, which, notwithstanding the vein of solifidianism I have taken the liberty to open, contains many great and glorious truths.

"IN doctrine show uncorruptness, gravity, sincerity, sound speech that cannot be condemned; that he who is of the contrary part may be ashamed."--Titus ii. 7, 8.