souls are completely sanctified by the virtue of Christ's blood, and the sharp operation of a penal temporary fire in the suburbs of hell. The third opinion is that of the Calvinists, who think, that the stroke of death must absolutely be joined with Christ's blood and spirit, and with our faith, to cleanse the thoughts of our hearts, and to kill the inbred man of sin.

The last sentiment is that of the Church of England, which teaches that there is no other Purgatory but "Christ's blood"-" Sted fast, perfect faith" and "The inspiration of God's holy Spirit, cleansing the thoughts of our hearts, that we may perfectly love him, and worthily magnify his holy name."- "The only PURGATORY wherein we must trust to be saved [says she] is the death and blood of Christ, which, if we apprehend with a true and stedfast FAITH "-[called soon after a PERFECT faith"] it purgeth and cleanseth us from all "The blood of Christ," says St. John, " hath cleansed us froin all sin." "The blood of Christ," says St. Paul, "hath purged our consciences from dead works to serve the living God," &c. This then is the Purgatory wherein all Christian men put their trust and confidence."

our sins.

Homily on Prayer, Part iii.

Nor is this doctrine of Purgatory peculiar to the Church of England for the unprejudiced Puritans themselves maintained it in the Jast century. Mr. R. Alleine, in his excellent treatise on Godly Fear, printed in London, 1674, says, page 161, "The Lord Christ is sometimes resembled to a Refining Fire, &c. He is a refiner's fire,and he shall sit as a refiner, and purifier of silver. He shall purify, he shall save his people from their sins, yet so as by fire. God has his purgatory as well as his hell: though not according to that popish dream, a Purgatory after this life." And I beg leave to add ;-though not according to that Calviniar dream, a Purgatory when we leave this life-a Purgatory in the article of death.

The scriptural doctrine of Purgatory is vindicated, and the newfangled doctrine of a Death-Purgatory is exploded, in the following pages: where I endeavour both to defend the glorious liberty of the children of God, and to attack the false liberty of those, who, while they promise liberty to others in Christ, are themselves [doctrinally at last] the servants of corruption; pleading hard for the indwelling of sin in our hearts so long as we live; and thinking it almost blasphemous" to assert, that Christ's blood, fully applied by the Spirit, through a stedfast faith, can radically cleanse us from all sin, without the least assistance from the arrows or sweats of death.

Reader, I plead for the most precious liberty in the world, heart liberty;-for liberty from the most galling of all yokes, the yoke of heart-corruption: let not thy prejudices turn a deaf ear to the im→ portant plea. If thou candidly, believingly, and practically receivest the truth as it is in Jesus, it shall make thee free, and thou shalt be FREE INDEED. Then, instead of shouting " Indwelling sin and Deathpurgatory," thou wilt fulfil the law of liberty; shouting, Christ and Christian liberty for ever." In the mean time, when thou makest inercession for thy well-wishers, remember the author of this Essay, nd pray that he may plead on his knees against the remains of sin, far more carnestly than he does in these sheets against Mr. Hill's nistakes.

THE

LAST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM.

SECTION I.

MOST of the controversies which arise between men who fear God, spring from the hurry with which some of them find fault with what they have not examined, and speak evil of what they do not understand. Why does Mr. Hill at the head of the Calvinists attack the doctrine of Christian Perfection which we contend for? Is it because he and they are sworn enemies to righteousness, and zealous protectors of iniquity! Not at all. The grand reason, next to their Calvinian prejudices, is their inattention to the question, and to arguments by which our sentiments are supported. Notwithstanding the manner in which that gentleman has treated me and my friends in his controversial heats, I still entertain so good an opinion of him as to think, that, if he understood our doctrine, he would no more pour contempt upon it, than upon the oracles of God. I shall therefore endeavour to rectify his ideas of the glorious Christian-Liberty which we press after. If producing light is the best method of opposing darkness, setting the doctrine of Christian perfection in a proper point of view, will be the best means of opposing the doctrines of Christian perfection, and of a Death-purgatory. Begin we then by taking a view of our Jerusalem and her perfection: and when we shall have marked her bulwarks, and cleared the ground between the towers and Mr. Hill's battery, we shall march up to it, and see whether his arguments have the solidity of brass, or only the showy appearance of wooden artillery, painted and mounted like brazen orduance.

Christian perfection! Why should the harmless phrase offend us? Perfection! Why should that lovely word frighten us? Is it not common and plain? Did not Cicero speak intelligibly, when he called accomplished philosophers, perfectos philosophos ;" and an excellent orator, "perfectum oratorem ?" Did Ovid expose his reputation when he said that "Chiron * perfected Achilles in music," or, "taught him to play upon the lute to perfection?" And does Mr. Hill think it wrong to observe that a fruit grown to maturity is in its perfection? We, whom that Gentleman calls perfectionists, use the word perfection exactly in the same sense; giving that name to

* Phillyrides puerum cithara perfecit Achillem.

The word Perfection comes from the Latin perficio, to perfect, to finish, to accomplish; it exactly answers to the words on, and TALO, generally used in the Old and New Testament. Nor can their derivatives be more literally, and exactly rendered than by perfect and perfection. If our translators render sometime the word

by upright and sincere, or by sincerity and in integrity, it is because they know that these expressions, like the original word, admit of a great latitude. Thus Columel calls wood that has no rotten part, and is perfectly found, lignum sencerum: and Horace says, that a sweet Cask, which has no bad smell of any sort, is vas sencerum. Thus

the maturity of grace peculiar to the established believers under their respective dispensations: and if this is an error, we are led into it by the sacred writers, who use the word perfection as well as we.

The word predestinate occurs but four times in all the scriptures, and the word pedestination not once; and yet Mr. Hill would justly exclaim against us, if we shewed our wit by calling for " a little Foundery" [or Tabernacle] "eye-salve," to help us to see the word predestination once in all the Bible. Not so the word perfection: it occurs, with its derivatives, as frequently as most words in the scripture; and not seldom in the very same sense in which we take it. Nevertheless we do not lay an undue stress upon the expression; and if we thought that our condescension would answer any good end, we would entirely give up that harmless and significant word. But, if it is expedient to retain the unscriptural word Trinity, because it is a kind of watch-word, by which we frequently discover the secret opposers of the mysterious distinction of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost in the divine unity: how much more proper is it not to renounce the Scriptural word Perfection, by which the dispirited spies, who bring an evil report upon the good land of holiness, are often detected ?-Add to this, that the following declaration of our Lord does not permit us to renounce either the word or the thing, "Whosoever shall be ashamed of me, and of my words, in this sinful generation, of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father." Now the words of my motto, Be ye Perfect, &c. being Christ's own words, we dare no more be ashamed of them, than we dare desire that he may be ashamed of us in the great day. Thus for the word perfection.

Again: We call Christian perfection the maturity of grace and holiness, which established, adult believers attain to under the Christian dispensation; and by this means, we distinguish that maturity of grace, both from the ripeness of grace, which belongs to the dispensation of the Jews below us; and from the ripeness of glory, which belong to departed saints above Hence it appears, that by christian perfection we mean nothing but the cluster and maturity of the graces, which compose the christian character in the church

militant.

us,

In other words, christian perfection is a spiritual constellation made up of these gracious stars, perfect repentance, perfect faith, perfect humility, perfect meekness, perfect self-denial, perfect resignation, perfect hope, perfect charity for our visible enemies, as well as for our earthly relations.-And above all, perfect love for our invisible God, through the explicit knowledge of our Mediator Jesus Christ. And as this last star is always accompanied by all the others, as Jupiter is by his satellites, we frequently use, as St. John, the phrase perfect love, instead of the word perfection; understanding by it the pure love of God, shed abroad in the heart of established also Cicero calls purity of diction, which is perfectly free from faults against grammar, integritas sermonis: Plautus says, that a puré, undefiled virgin, is filia integra. And our translators call the perfectly-pure milk of God's word, The sincere milk of the word: 1 Peter ii. 2. If therefore the word sincerity and integrity are taken in their full latitude, they convey the fullest meaning of man and Tλons, i. c. perfection.

believers by the Holy Ghost, which is abundantly given them ander the fulness of the christian dispensation.

Should Mr. Hill ask if the Christian perfection which we contend for, is a sinless perfection, we reply: Sin is the transgression of a divine law, and man may be considered either as being under the antievangelical, Christless, remediless law of our Creator; or, as being under the evangelical, mediatorial, remedying law of our Redeemer : and the question must be answered according to the nature of these two laws.

With respect to the first, that is, the Adamic, Christless law of innocence and paradisiacal perfection we utterly renounce the doctrine of sinless perfection, for three reasons: 1. We are conceived and born in a state of sinful degeneracy, whereby that law is already virtually broken. 2. Our mental and bodily powers are so enfeebled, that we cannot help actually breaking that law in numberless instances, even after our full conversion. And 3. when once we have broken that law, it cousiders us as transgressors for ever: nor can it any more pronounce us sinless, than the rigorous law which condemns a man to be hauged for murder, can absolve a murderer, let his repentance and faith be ever so perfect. Therefore, I repeat it, with respect to the Christless law of paradisiacal obedience, we entirely disclaim sinless perfection; and improperly speaking, we say with Luther, "In every good work the just man sinneth: That is, he more or less transgresses the law of paradisiacal innocence, by not thinking so deeply, not speaking so gracefully, not acting so properly, not obeying so vigorously, as he would do, if he were still endued with original perfection, and paradisiacal powers. Nor do we, in the same sense, scruple to say with Bishop Latimer: "He [Christ] saved us, not that we should be without sin; that no sin should be left in our hearts: No: he saved us not so. For all manner of imperfections remain in us, yea in the best of us: So that, if God should enter into judgment with us" [according to the Christless law given to Adam before the fall]" we should be damned. For there neither is nor was any man born into this world, who could say, I am clean from sin" I fulfil the Adamic law of innocence]" except Jesus Christ:" And in that sense, we have all reason to pray with David, "Cleanse thou me from my secret faults; for if thou wilt mark what is done amiss, Lord, who may abide it?"-If thou wilt judge us according to the law of paradisiacal perfection, "what man living shall be justified in thy sight?" But Christ has so completely fulfilled our Creator's paradisiacal law of innocence, which allows neither of repentance nor of renewed obedience, that we shall not be judged by that law; but by a law adapted to our present state and circumstances, a milder law, called the law of Christ, i. e. the Mediator's law, which is, like himself, full of evangelical grace and truth.

To the many arguments, which I have advanced in the Checks in defence of this law, I shall add one more, taken from Heb. vii. 12; "The priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law." From these words I conclude, that, if the law under which the Jews were, was of necessity changed, when God substituted the priesthood of Christ for that of Aaron; much more was the Adamic law of paradisiacal innocence of necessity changed, when God gave to Adam by promise the Bruiser of the serpent's head, the High-priest after the order of Melchisedec. For if a change in the external priesthood of necessity implied a change of

VOL. II.

C

the Mosaic law; how much more did the institution of the priesthood itself, necessarily imply a change of the Adamic law, which was given without any mediating priest!

If Mr. Hill therefore, will do our doctrine justice, we intreat him to consider, that we are not without law to God, nor yet under a christless law with Adam; but under a law to Christ, that is under the law of our royal priest, the evangelical law of liberty :—a more gracious law this, which allows of sincere repentance, and is fulfilled by loving faith. Now as we shall be judged by this law of liberty, we maintain not only that it may, but also that it must be kept; and it is actually kept by established christians according to the last and fullest edition of it, which is that of the New Testament. Nor do we think it "shocking" to hear an adult believer say: "The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law [of innocence, or the letter of the Mosaic law] could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be [evangelically] fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit, Rom. viii. 2, &c.

Reason and scripture seem to us to confirm this doctrine: For we think it is far less absurd to say, that the king and parliament make laws, which no Englishman can possibly keep; than to suppose, that Christ and his Apostles have given us precepts, which no Christian is able to observe And St. James assures us, the evangelical law of Christ and liberty is that by which we shall stand or fall in judgment: So speak ye, and so do, says he, " as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty." Jam. ii. 12. We find the Christian edition of that law in all the New Testament, but especially in our Lord's sermon on the mount, and in St. Paul's description of charity.—We are persuaded with St. John and St. Paul, that, as sin is the transgression, so penitential, pure love is the fulfilling of that evangelical law: And therefore, we do not scruple to say with the Apostle, "that he who loveth another hath fulfilled it:-and that there is no occasion of stumbling," i. e. no sin, in him; fulfilling the law of Christ and sinning [in the evangelical sense of the word] being as diametrically opposite to each other, as obeying and disobeying-working righteousness and working iniquity.

We do not doubt but, as a reasonable, loving father never requires of a child, who is only ten years old, the work of one who is thirty years of age. so our heavenly Father never expects of us, in our debilitated state, the obedience of immortal Adam in paradise, or the uninterrupted worship of sleepless angels in heaven. We are persuaded therefore, that, for Christ's sake, he is pleased with, an humble obedience to our present light, and a loving exertion of our present powers; accepting our gospel-services according to what we have, and not according to what we have not. Nor dare we call that loving exertion of our present powers, sin, lest by so doing we should contradict the Scriptures, confound sin and obedience, and remove all the land-marks which divide the devil's common from the Lord's vineyard. And if at any time we have exaggerated the difficulty of keeping Christ's law, we acknowledge our error, and confess that, by this means, we have calvinistically traduced the equity of our gracious God, and inadvertently encouraged antinomian delusions.

To conclude: We believe, that, although adult, established believers, or perfect Christians, may admit of many involuntary mis