the time, opportunity, and power to use it, should you not grant us, that God treats us as rational, accountable creatures? that he does not use the gift of faith for us? that we may bury our talent of faith and perish, as some bury their talent of industry and starve? and that it is as absurd to say, the faith of every individual in the church is inamissible, because Christ is the author and finisher of our faith, as to affirm, that no individual ear of corn can be blasted, because Christ, who upholds all things by the word of his power, is the unchangeable author and finisher of all our harvests?

Once more permit me, honoured sir, to hang the millstone of reprobation about the neck of your Diana, to cast her back with that cumbrous weight into the sea of error, from whose scum she, like another Venus, had her unnatural origin. If the salvation of the elect is "finished," because "Christ is the author and finisher of their faith," it necessarily follows, that the damnation of the reprobates is also "finished," because Christ is the author and finisher of their unbelief. For he that absolutely withholds faith causes unbelief, as effectually as he that absolutely withholds the light causes darkness.

If, in direct opposition to the words of our Lord, John iii. 18, you say, with some Calvinists, that "Christ does not damn men for unbelief, but for their sins," I reply, This is mere trifling. If Christ absolutely refuses them power to believe in the light of their dispensation, how can they but sin? Does not St. Paul say, that "without faith it is impossible to please God?" Is not unbelief at the root of every sin? Did not even Adam eat the forbidden fruit through unbelief? And is not "this our " only "victory, even our faith?"

An illustration will, I hope, expose the emptiness of the pleas which some urge in favour of unconditional reprobation, or, if you please, non-election. A mother conceives an unaccountable antipathy to her sucking child. She goes to the brink of a precipice, bends herself over it with the passive infant in her bosom, and, withdrawing her arms from under him, drops him upon

the craggy side of a rock, and thus he rolls down from rock to rock, till he lies at the bottom beaten to pieces, a bloody instance of finished destruction. The judge asks the murderer what she has to say in her own defence. "The child was mine," replies she;" and I have a right to do what I please with my own. Besides, I did neither throw him down, nor murder him; I only withdrew my arms from under him, and he fell of his own accord.” In mystic Geneva, she is honourably acquitted; but in England, the executioner is ordered to rid the earth of the cruel monster. So may God give us commission to rid the church of your Diana, who teaches, that he, the Father of mercies, does by millions of his passive children, what the barbarous mother did by one of hers; affirming, that he unconditionally withholds grace from them, and that, by absolutely refusing to be "the author and finisher of their faith," he is the absolute author and finisher of their unbelief, and, consequently, of their sin and damnation!

XIII. However, without being frightened at these dreadful consequences, you conclude as if you had won the day page 65: "Now I appeal to any candid judges, whether I have not brought sufficient authority from the best of authorities, God's unerring word, for the use of that phrase, ‘finished salvation,' which, page 63, in its fullest extent, I undertook to vindicate." I cordially join in your appeal, honoured sir, and desire our unprejudiced readers to say, if you have brought one solid proof from "God's unerring word," in support of your favourite scheme, which centres in the doctrine of "finished salvation;" and if that expression, when taken "in its full extent," is not the stalking-horse of every wild Nicolaitan ranter, and the dangerous bait by which Satan, transformed into an angel of light, prevails upon unstable souls to swallow the silver hook of speculative, that he may draw them into all the depths of practical, antinomianism.

XIV. I do not think it worth while to dwell upon the lines you quote from Mr. Charles Wesley's hymns. He is yet alive to tell us what he meant by "It's finished,

it's past," &c. And he informs me, that he meant, “the sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, which Christ made upon the cross for the sins of the whole world, except doing despite to the Spirit of grace, or the sin against the Holy Ghost." The atonement, which is a considerable part of the Redeemer's work, is undoubtedly finished; and if, by a figure of poetry, that puts a part for the whole, you choose to give the name of "finished salvation" to a "finished atonement," I have already observed, Third Check, vol. i., p. 492, that we will not dispute about the expression. We only entreat you so to explain and guard it, as not to give sanction to "antinomian dotages," and charge the God of love with the hlasphemy of "finished damnation."

XV. The Calvinistical passage which you produce from the "Christian Library," is unguarded, and escaped Mr. Wesley's or the printer's attention. One sentence of it is worthy of a place in the index expurgatorius which he designs to annex to that valuable collection. Nevertheless, two clauses of that very passage are not at all to your purpose. "Christ is now throughly furnished for the carrying on of his work. He is actually at work." Now, if Christ is "actually at work," and "carrying on his work," that work is not yet "finished." Thus, even the exceptionable passage which you, or the friends who gave you their assistance, have picked out of a work of fifty volumes, shows the absurdity of taking the expression "finished salvation" "in its full extent."

Should you say, "Christ is throughly furnished for his work; (namely, the salvation of the elect ;) therefore, that work is as good as finished," I once more present you with the frightful head of the Geneva Medusa, and reply, Christ is throughly furnished for his work," namely, the damnation of the reprobates; "therefore, that work is as good as finished." Thus all terminates still in uncovering the two iron-clay feet of your great image, absolute election and absolute reprobation, or, which is all one, "finished salvation" and "finished damnation."

O, sir, the more you fight for Dr. Crisp's scheme of

free grace, the more you expose his scheme of free wrath. I hope my judicious readers are shocked at it, as well as myself. Your "sword" really "puts us to flight." We start back,—we run away; but it is only from the depths of Satan, which you help us to discover in speculative antinomianism, or barefaced Calvinism.

XVI. If you charge me with calumny for asserting, that speculative antinomianism, and barefaced Calvinism, are one and the same thing; to clear myself, I present you with the creed of an honest, consistent, plain-spoken Calvinist. Read it, dear sir, without prejudice, and say, if it will not suit an abettor of speculative antinomianism, and, upon occasion, a wild ranter, wading through all the depths of practical antinomianism, as well as an admirer of "the doctrines of grace."

Five Letters, first edition, pages 33, 34, 27. "I most firmly believe, that the grand cause of so much lifeless profession, is owing to the sheep of Christ being fed in the barren pastures and muddled waters of a legalized gospel. The doctrines of grace are not to be kept out of sight, for fear men of corrupt minds should abuse them. I will no more be so fearful to trust God with his own truths, as to starve his children and my own soul: I will make an open confession of my faith.

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"1. I believe in God the Father almighty, who, from all eternity, unconditionally predestinated me to life, and absolutely chose me to eternal salvation. Whom he once loved, he will love for ever; I am, therefore, persuaded," pages 28, 31, “that as he did not set his love on me at first for any thing in me, so that love, which is not at all dependent upon any thing in me, can never vary on account of my miscarriages; and, for this reason, when I miscarry, suppose by adultery or murder, God ever considers me as one with his own Son, who has fulfilled all righteousness for me. And as he is always well pleased with him, so with me, who am absolutely 'bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh."" Pages 26, 31. "There are no lengths, then, I may not run, nor any depths I may not fall into, without displeasing him; as I see in David, who, notwithstanding his repeated backslidings, did not

lose the character of the man after God's own heart.' I may murder with him, worship Ashtaroth with Solomon, deny Christ with Peter, rob with Onesimus, and commit incest with the Corinthian, without forfeiting either the divine favour, or the kingdom of glory. Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect?' to the charge of a believer? to my charge? For,"

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2. Pages 26, 27, 32. "I believe in Jesus Christ, that, 'by one offering has for ever perfected' me, who am 'sanctified' in all my sins. In him I am complete in all my iniquities. What is all sin before his atoning blood? Either he has fulfilled the whole law, and borne the curse, or he has not. If he has not, no soul can be saved; if he has, then all debts and claims against his people and me, be they more (suppose a thousand adulteries, and so many murders) or be they less, (suppose only one robbery,) be they small or be they great, be they before or be they after my conversion, are for ever and for ever cancelled. I set up no more mountainous distinctions of sin, especially sins after conversion. Whether I am dejected with Elijah under the juniper-tree, or worshipping Milcom with Solomon; whether I mistake the voice of the Lord for that of his priest, as Samuel, or defile my neighbour's bed, as David; I am equally accepted in the Beloved. For, in Christ I am chosen, loved, called, and unconditionally preserved to the end. All trespasses are forgiven me. I am justified from all things. I already have everlasting life. Nay, I am now (virtually) sat down in heavenly places with Christ; and, as soon shall Satan pluck his crown from his head, as his purchase from his hand."

Pages 27, 28. "Yes, I avow it in the face of all the world, no falls or backslidings can ever bring me again under condemnation; for Christ hath made me free from the law of sin and death. Should I out-sin Manasses himself, I should not be a less 'pleasant child;' because God always views me in Christ, and in him I am without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing. Black in myself, I am still comely through the comeliness put upon me; and, therefore, he who is of purer eyes than