Letter 1.
LETTER 1.
HONOURED AND REVEREND SIR, — I cordially thank you for the greatest part of your Narrative. It confirms me in my hopes that your projected opposition to Mr. Wesley’s’ Minutes proceeded in general from zeal for the Redeemer’s glory. And as such a zeal, though amazingly mistaken, had certainly something very commendable in it, I sincerely desire your Narrative may evidence your good meaning, as some think my Vindication does your mistake.
In my last private letter I observed, Rev. sir, that if your Narrative was kind, I would buy a number of copies, and give them gratis to the purchasers of my book, that they might see all you can possibly produce in your own defence, and do you all the justice your proper behaviour at the conference deserves. But as it appears to me there are some important mistakes in that performance, I neither dare recommend it absolutely to my friends, nor wish it in the religious world the full success you desire. I do not complain of its severity; on the contrary, considering the sharpness of my fifth letter, I gratefully acknowledge it is kinder than I had reason to expect. But permit me to tell you, sir, I look for justice to the Scriptural arguments I advance in defence of truth, before I look for kindness to my insignificant person; and could much sooner be satisfied with the former than with the latter alone. As I do not admire the fashionable method of advancing general charges without supporting them by particular proofs, I shall take the liberty of pointing out some mistakes in your Narrative, and by that means endeavour to do justice to Mr. Wesley’s declarations, your own sermons, my Vindication, and, above all, to the cause of practical religion.
Waiving the repetition of what I said in my last, touching the publication of my Five Letters to you, I object first to your putting a wrong colour upon Mr. Wesley’s declaration. You insinuate, or assert, that he, and fifty-three of the preachers in conference with him, give up the doctrine of “justification by works in the day of judgment.” “It appears,” say you, “from their subscribing the declaration,” notwithstanding Mr. Olivers’ remonstrances, “that they do not maintain a second justification by works.” Surely, sir, you wrong them. They might have objected to some of Mr. Olivers’ expressions, or been displeased with his readiness to enter the lists of dispute; but certainly so many judicious and good men could never so betray the cause of practical religion, as tamely to renounce a truth of that importance. If they had, one step more would have carried them full into Dr. Crisp’s eternal justification, which is the very centre of Antinomianism; and without waiting for the return of the next conference, I would bear my legal testimony against their Antinomian error. Mr. Wesley I reverence as the greatest minister I know, but would not follow him one step farther than he follows Christ.
Were he really guilty of rejecting the evangelical doctrine of a second justification by works, with the plainness and honesty of a Suisse I would address him, as I beg you will permit me to address you.
1. Neither you, Rev. sir, nor any divine in the world, have, I presume, a right to blot out of the sacred records those words of Jesus Christ, St. James, and St. Paul: “Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life. Not every one that says to me, Lord! Lord! shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that does the will of my Father. Be ye therefore doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For we are under the law to Christ. Not the hearers of the law shall be just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified. Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire, and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.” His very words shall undergo the severest scrutiny. “I say unto you, [O how many will insinuate the contrary!] that every idle word that men shall speak they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment, for by thy words shalt thou [then] be justified, and by thy words shalt thou [then] be condemned.”
Can you say, sir, that the justification mentioned by our Lord in this passage is the same as that which St. Paul speaks of as the present privilege of all believers, and has no particular reference to “the day of judgment” mentioned in the preceding sentence? Or will you intimate our Lord does not declare we shall be justified in the last day by works, but by words? Would this evasion be judicious? Do not all professors know that words are works in a theological sense; as being both the signs of the “workings” of our hearts, and the positive “works” of our tongues? Will you expose your reputation as a divine, by trying to prove, that although we shall be justified by the works of our tongues, those of our hands and feet shall never appear for or against our justification? Or will you insinuate that our Lord “recanted” the legal sermons written Matthew 5, and 12? If you do, his particular account of the day of judgment, chap. 25, which strongly confirms and clearly explains the doctrine of our second justification by works, will prove you greatly mistaken, as will also his declaration to St. John, above forty years after, “Behold, I come quickly, and my reward is with me, to give to every man as his work [not faith] shall be.” O, if faith alone turn the scale of justifying evidence at the bar of God, how many bold Antinomians will claim relation to Christ, and boast they are interested in his imputed righteousness! How many will say, with the foolish virgins, “‘Lord! Lord! we are of faith, and Abraham’s children. In thy name’ we publicly opposed all legal professors, traduced their teachers as enemies to thy free grace; and, ‘ to do thee service,’ made it our business to expose the righteousness, and cry down the good works of thy people; therefore ‘Lord! Lord! open to us!’” But, alas! far from thanking them for their pains, without looking at their boasted faith, he will dismiss them with a “Depart from me, ye that work iniquity!” As if he said — “Depart, ye that made the doctrine of my atonement a cloak for your sins, or ‘sewed’ it as a ‘pillow under the arms of my people,’ to make them sleep in carnal security, when they should have ‘worked out their salvation with fear and trembling.’ You profess to know me, but I disown you. My sheep I know: them that are mine I know. The seal of my holiness is upon them all: the motto of it, (Let him that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity,) is deeply engraven on their faithful breasts, — not on yours, ye ‘carnal, ye sold under sin!’
“‘And why called ye me, LORD! LORD! and did not the things which I said?’ Why did you even use my righteousness as a breastplate, to stand it out against the word of my righteousness; and as an engine to break both tables of my law, and batter down my holiness? Your heart condemns you, ye ‘sinners in Zion! Ye salt without savour!’ Ye believers without charity! And am not I ‘greater than your heart?’ And ‘know’ I not ‘your works?’ Yes, ‘I know that the love of God is not in you,’ for you despised one of these my brethren. How could you think to deceive me, ‘ the Searcher of hearts and Trier of reins?’ And how did you dare to call yourselves by my name? As if you were my people? my dear people? mine elect? Are not all my peculiar people ‘ partakers of my holiness,’ and’ zealous of good works? Have not I chosen to myself the man that is godly,’ and protested that ‘the ungodly shall not stand in judgment, nor sinners,’ though in sheep’s clothing, ‘in the congregation of the righteous?’ And say I not to the wicked, though he should have been one of my people, Lo ammi, Thou art none of my people now. ‘What hast thou to do with taking my covenant in thy mouth?’ You denied me in works, and did not wash your hearts from iniquity in my blood; therefore, according to my word, ‘I deny you,’ in my turn, ‘before my Father and his holy angels.’ Perish your hope, ye hypocrites: and utter darkness be your portion, ‘ye double minded! Let fearfulness surprise you,’ ye tinkling cymbals! Let the fall of your Babels crush you, ye towering professors of my humble faith! Fly, ‘ye clouds without water; ye chaff,’ fly before the blast of my righteous indignation! ‘Ye workers of iniquity! Ye Satans transformed into angels of light! Ye cursed, depart!’”
II. Nor is our Lord singular in his doctrine of justification, or condemnation, by works in the day of judgment. If it is a heresy, the patriarchs, prophets, and apostles are as great heretics as their Master. Enoch, quoted by St. Jude, prophesied, that when the Lord shall “come to execute judgment upon all men,” he will “convince the ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds and hard speeches.” This conviction will no doubt be in order to condemnation; and this condemnation will not turn upon unbelief, but its effects, “ungodly deeds and hard speeches.” Solomon confirms the joint testimony of Enoch and St. Jude, where he says, “He that knoweth the heart, shall render to every man according to his works;” and again, “Know, O young man, that for all these things, for all thy ways, God shall bring thee into judgment.”
St. Paul, the great champion for faith, is particularly express upon this anti- Crispian doctrine. “The Lord,” says he, “in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, will render to every man according to his deeds; to them that continue in well doing,” (here is the true perseverance of the saints!) “eternal life! Indignation upon every soul of man that does evil, and glory to every man who worketh good; for there is no respect of persons with God. We shall all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in the body,” not according to that he hath believed, whether it be true or false, but “according to that he hath done, whether it be good of bad.” St. Peter asserts, that the Father, “without respect of persons, judgeth according to every man’s work.” And St. John, who, next to our Lord, gives us the most particular description of the day of judgment, concludes it by these awful words: “And the dead were judged out of the things written in the books, according to their works.” It is not once said, “according to their faith.”
Permit me, sir, to sum up all these testimonies in the words of two kings and two apostles. “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter,” says the king who chose wisdom, “Fear God, and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man; for God shall bring every work into judgment, whether it be good or evil.” “They that have done good,” says the King who is wisdom itself, (and the Athanasian creed after him,) “shall go into everlasting life; and they that have not done good,” or “that have done evil, to everlasting punishment.” “You see then,” and they are the words of St. James, “that a man is justified by his works, and not by faith only.” By faith he is justified at his conversion, and when his backslidings are healed. But he is justified by works,
(1.) In the hour of trial, as Abraham was when he had offered up Isaac:
(2.) In a court of spiritual or civil judicature, as St. Paul at the bar of Festus: and,
(3.) Before the judgment seat of Christ, as every one will be whose faith, when he goes hence, is found working by love; for there, says St. Paul, as well as in consistoral courts, “circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God,” 1 Corinthians 7:19.
III. This doctrine is so obvious in the Scriptures, so generally received in all the Churches of Christ, and so deeply engraven on the consciences of sincere professors, that the most eminent ministers of all denominations perpetually allude to it; yourself, sir, not excepted, as I could prove from your sermons if you had not recanted them. How often, for instance, has that great man of God, the truly reverend Mr. Whitefield, said to his immense congregations, “You are warned; I am clear of your blood; I shall rise as a swift witness against you, or you against me, in the terrible day of the Lord! O, remember to clear me then!” or words to that purpose. And is not this just as if he had said, “We shall all be ‘justified or condemned in the day of judgment’ by what we are now doing: I by my preaching, and you by your hearing?”
And say not, sir, that” such expressions were only flights of oratory, and prove nothing.” If you do, you “touch the apple of God’s eye.” Mr. Whitefield was not a flighty orator, but spoke the words of soberness and truth, with Divine pathos, and floods of tears declarative of his sincerity. Instead of swelling this letter into a volume, (as I easily might,) by producing quotations from all the sober Puritan divines, who have directly or indirectly asserted a second justification by works, I shall present you only with two passages from Mr. Henry. On Matthew 12:37, he says, “Consider how strict the judgment will be on account of our words. ‘ By thy words thou shalt be justified or condemned,’ — a common rule in men’s judgment, and here applied to God’s. Note the constant tenor of our discourse, according as it is gracious or not gracious, will be an evidence for us, or against us, at that day. Those that ‘seemed to be religious, but bridled not their tongue,’ will then be found to have put a cheat upon themselves with a vain religion. It concerns us to think much of the day of judgment, that it may be a check upon our tongues.” And again: Upon those words, Romans 2:13, “Not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified;” the honest commentator says, “The Jewish [Antinomian] doctors bolstered up their followers with an opinion that all that were Jews, [the elect people of God,] how bad soever they lived, should have a glorious place in the world to come. This the apostle here opposes. It was a very great privilege that they had the law, but not a saving privilege, unless they lived up to the law they had. We may apply it to the Gospel: it is not hearing, but doing that will save us,” John 13:17; James 1:22. Who does not perceive that Mr. Henry saw the truth, and spoke it so far as he thought his Calvinistic readers could bear it? Surely, if that good man dared to say so much, we, who have “done leaning too much toward Calvinism,” should be inexcusable if we did not say all.
IV. These testimonies will, I hope, make you weigh with an additional degree of candour the following arguments, which I shall produce as a logician, lest any should be tempted to call me a bold metaphysician, or almost a magician: —
The voice that St. John heard in heaven did not say, “Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord, for their FAITH follows them:” no, it is their works. Faith is the hidden root, hope the rising stalk, and love, together with good works, the nourishing corn: and as the king’s agents, who fill a royal granary, do not take in the roots and stalks, but the pure wheat alone; so Christ takes neither faith nor hope into heaven, the former being gloriously absorbed in sight, and the latter in enjoyment.
If I may compare faith and hope to “the chariot of Israel and the courser thereof,” they both bring believers to the everlasting doors of. glory, but do not enter in themselves. Not so love and good works; for love is both the nature and element of saints in glory; and good works necessarily follow them, both in the books of remembrance which shall then be opened, and in the objects and witnesses of those works, who shall then be all present; as it appears from the words of our Lord, “You have done it,” or “You have not done it, to one of the least of these my brethren;” and those of St. Paul to his dear converts, “You shall be ‘my joy and my crown’ in that day.” Thus it is evident, that although faith is the temporary measure according to which God deals out his mercy and grace in this world, as we may gather from that sweet saying of our Lord, “Be it done to thee according to thy FAITH;” yet love and good works are the eternal measures, according to which he distributes justification and glory in the world to come. On these observations, I argue,
We shall be justified in the last day by the grace and evidences which shall then remain.
Love and good works, the fruits of faith, shall then remain. Therefore we shall then be justified by love and good works, that is, not by faith, but by its fruits.
V. This doctrine, so agreeable to Scripture, the sentiments of moderate Calvinists, and the dictates of reason, “recommends” itself likewise “to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.” Who, but Dr. Crisp, could (after a calm “review of the whole affair,”) affirm, that in the day of judgment, if I am accused of being actually a hypocrite, Christ’s sincerity will justify me, whether it be found in me or not?
Again: suppose I am charged with being a drunkard, a thief, a whoremonger, a covetous person; or a fretful, impatient, ill-natured man; or, if you please, a proud bigot, an implacable zealot, a malicious persecutor, who, notwithstanding fair appearances of godliness, would raise disturbances even in heaven if I were admitted there: will Christ’s sobriety, honesty, chastity, generosity: or will his gentleness, patience, and meekness, justify me from such dreadful charges?. Must not I be found really sober, honest, chaste, and charitable?. Must I not be inherently gentle, meek, and loving? Can we deny this without flying in the face of common sense, breaking the strongest bars of Scriptural truth, and opening the flood gates to the foulest waves of Antinomianism? If we grant it, do we not grant a second justification by works? And does not St. Paul grant, or rather insist upon as much, when he declares, that “without holiness no man shall see the Lord?”
VI. You will probably ask, what advantage the Church will reap from this doctrine of a second justification by works? I answer, that, under God, it will rouse Antinomians out of their carnal security, stir up believers to follow hard after holiness, and reconcile fatal differences among Christians, and seeming contradictions in the Scripture.
1. It will re-awaken Antinomians,f5 who fancy “there is no condemnation to them,” whether they “walk after the Spirit” in love, or “after the flesh” in malice; whether they “forsake all” to follow Christ, or like Judas and Sapphira “keep back part” of what should be the Lord’s without reserve. Thousands boldly profess justifying faith, and perhaps eternal justification, who reverence the commandments of God just as much as they regard the scriptures quoted in Mr. Wesley’s Minutes.
Upon their doctrinal systems they raise a tower of presumption, whence they bid defiance both to the law and Gospel of Jesus. His law says, “Love God with all thy heart, and thy neighbour as thyself, that thou mayest live” in glory. “If thou wilt enter into the life” (of glory,) “keep the commandments.” But this raises their pity, instead of commanding their respect, and exciting their diligence. “Moses is buried,” say they: “we have nothing to do with the law! We are not under the law to Christ! Jesus is not a lawgiver to control, but a Redeemer to save us.”
The Gospel cries to them, “Repent and believe!” and just as if God was to be the penitent, believing sinner, they carelessly reply, “The Lord must do all; repentance and faith are his works, and they will be done in the day of his power;” and so without resistance they decently follow the stream of worldly vanities and fleshly lusts. St. Paul cries, “If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die.” “We know better,” answer they; “there are neither ifs nor conditions in all the Gospel.” He adds, “This one thing I do, leaving the things that are behind, I press toward the mark for the prize of my high calling in Christ Jesus — the crown of life. Be ye followers of me. Run also the race that is set before you.” “What!” say they, “would you have us run and work for life? Will you always harp upon that legal string, Do! do! instead of telling us that we have nothing to do, but to believe that all is done?” St. James cries, “Show your faith by your works; faith without works is dead already, much more that which is accompanied by bad works.” “What!” say they, “do you think the lamp of faith can be put out as a candle can be extinguished, by not being suffered to shine? We orthodox hold just the contrary: we maintain both that faith can never die, and that living faith is consistent not only with the omission of good works, but with the commission of the most horrid crimes.” St. Peter bids them “give all diligence to make their election sure, by adding to their faith virtue,” &c. “Legal stuff!” say they, “The covenant is well ordered in all things and sure: neither will our virtue save us, nor our sins damn us.” St. John comes next, and declares, “He that sinneth is of the devil.” “What!” say they, “do you think to make us converts to Arminianism, by thus insinuating that a man can be a child of God to-day, and a child of the devil to-morrow?” St. Jude advances last, and charges them to “keep themselves in the love of God;” and they supinely reply, “We can do nothing.” Beside, “We are as easy and as safe without a frame as with one.” With the seven-fold shield of the Antinomian faith they would fight the twelve apostles round, and come off, in their own imagination, more than conquerors. Nay, were Christ himself to come to them incognito, as he did to the disciples that went to Emmaus, and say, “Be ye perfect, as your Father who is in heaven is perfect:” it would be well if, while they measured him from head to foot with looks of pity or surprise, some were not bold enough to say with a sneer, “You are a perfectionist, it seems, a follower of poor John Wesley! are you? For our part, we are for Christ and free grace, but John Wesley and you are for perfection and free will.” Now, sir, if any doctrine, humanly speaking, can rescue these mistaken persons out of so dreadful a snare, it is that which I contend for. Antinomian dreams vanish before it, as the noxious damps of the night before the rising sun. St. Paul, if they would but hear him out, with this one saying, as with a thousand rams, would demolish all their Babels: “Circumcision is nothing, uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God:” or, to speak agreeable to our times, “Before the tribunal of Christ, forms of godliness, Calvinian and Arminian notions are nothing: confessions of faith and recantations of error, past manifestations and former experiences ‘are nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God;’” the very thing which Antinomians ridicule or neglect!
2. This doctrine is not less proper to animate feeble believers in their pursuit of holiness. O if it were clearly preached and steadily believed, — if we were fully persuaded, we shall soon “appear before the judgment seat of Christ,” to answer for every thought, word, and work, for every business we enter upon, every sum of money we lay out, every meal we eat, every pleasure we take, every affliction we endure, every hour we spend, every idle word we speak, yea, and every temper we secretly indulge, — if we knew we shall certainly “give account” of all the chapters we read, of all the prayers we offer, all the sermons we hear or preach, all the sacraments we receive; of all the motions of Divine grace, all the beams of heavenly light, all the breathings of the Spirit, all the invitations of Christ, all the drawings of the Father, reproofs of our friends, and checks of our own consciences, — and if we were deeply conscious, that every neglect of duty will rob us of a degree of glory, and every wilful sin of a jewel in our crown, if not of our crown itself; what humble, watchful, holy, heavenly persons should we be! How serious and self denying! How diligent and faithful! In a word, how angelical and divine, “in all manner of conversation!”
Did the woman, the professing Church, cordially embrace this doctrine, she would no more stay “in the wilderness, idly talking of her beloved;” but actually “leaning upon him,” she would “come out of it,” in the sight of all her enemies. No more wrapped up in the showy cloud of ideal perfection or imaginary righteousness, and casting away her cold garments, her moonlike changes of merely doctrinal apparel, she would shine with the dazzling glory of her Lord; she would burn with the hallowing fires of his love: once more she would be “clothed with the sun, and have the moon under her feet!”
Ye lukewarm talkers of Jesus’ ardent love, if you were deeply conscious that nothing but love shall enter heaven, instead of judging of your growth in grace by the warmth with which you espouse the tenets of Calvin or Arminius, would you not instantly try your state by the thirteenth chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians, and by our Lord’s alarming messages to the falling or fallen Churches of Asia? Springing out of your Laodicean indifference, would you not earnestly pray for the “faith of the Gospel, the faith that works by burning love?” If the fire be kindled, would you not be afraid of putting it out by “quenching the Spirit?” Would you not even dread “grieving” him, lest your love should grow cold? Far from accounting the “shedding abroad of the love of God in your hearts” an unnecessary frame, would you not be “straitened” till you were baptized, every one of you, with “the Holy Ghost and with fire?”
Ye who hold the doctrine of perfection without “going on to perfection,” and ye who explode it as a pernicious delusion, and inconsistently publish hymns of solemn prayer for it, how would you agree, from the bottom of your reawakened hearts, to sing together, in days of peace and social worship, as you have carelessly sung asunder,
O for a heart to praise our God!
A heart from sin set free!
A heart in every thought renew’d,
And fill’d with love divine!
Perfect, and right, and pure, and good,
A copy, Lord, of thine. —
Bigotry from us remove,
Perfect all our souls in love, &c.
O ye halcyon days! Ye days of brotherly love and genuine holiness! if you appeared to pacify and gladden our distracted Jerusalem, how soon would practical Christianity emerge from under the frothy billows of Antinomianism, and the proud waves of Pharisaism, which continually break against each other, and openly “foam out their own shame!” “What carefulness” would godly sorrow work in us all! “What clearing of ourselves,” by casting away our dearest idols! “What indignation” against our former lukewarmness! “What fear” of offending either God or man! “What vehement desire” after the full image of Christ! “What zeal” for his glory! And “what revenge” of our sins! “In all things we should approve ourselves,” for the time to come, “to be clear” from the Antinomian delusion. Then would we see, what has seldom been seen in our age, distinct (not opposed) societies of meek professors of the common faith walking in humble love, and supporting each other with cheerful readiness, like different battalions of the same invincible army. And if ever we perceived any contention among them, it would be only about the lowest place and the most dangerous post. Instead of “striving for mastery,” they would strive only who should stand truest to the standard of the cross, and best answer the neglected motto of the primitive Christians: Non magna loquimur sed vivimus; “Our religion does not consist in high words, but in good works.”
3. I observed that this doctrine will likewise reconcile seeming contradictions in the Scriptures, and fatal differences among Christians. Take one instance of the former: What can those who reject a second justification by works make of the solemn words of our Lord, already quoted, “By thy words thou shalt be justified, or by thy words thou shalt be condemned?” Matthew 12:37. And by what art can they possibly reconcile them with St. Paul’s assertions, Romans 4:5, “To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is imputed to him for righteousness?” and Romans 5:1, “Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Accept an example of the latter. In the Antinomian days of Dr. Crisp arose the honest people we call Quakers. Shocked at the general abuse of the doctrine of justification by faith, they rashly inferred it never could be from God; and seeing none “shall be justified in glory but the doers of the law,” they hastily concluded there is but one justification, namely, the being made inherently just, or the being sanctified, and then declared holy. Admit our doctrine, and you have both parts of the truth, — that which the Antinomians hold against the Quakers, and that which the Quakers maintain against the Antinomians. Each alone is dangerous; both together mutually defend each other, and make up the Scriptural doctrine of justification, which is invincibly guarded on the one hand by FAITH against Pharisees, and on the other by WORKS against Antinomians. Reader, may both be thy portion! So shalt thou be eternally reinstated both in the favour and image of God.
VI. But while I enumerate the benefits which the Church will reap from a practical knowledge of our second justification by works, an honest Protestant, who has more zeal for, than acquaintance with the truth, advances, with his heart full of holy indignation, and his mouth of objections, which he says are unanswerable. Let us consider them one by one.
FIRST OBJECTION. “Your Popish, antichristian doctrine I abhor, and could even burn at a stake as a witness against it. Away with your new-fangled Arminian tenets! I am for old Christianity; and with St. Paul, ‘determined to know nothing for justification but Christ, and him crucified.’” ANSWER. Do you, indeed? Then I am sure you will not deny both Jesus Christ and St. Paul in this old Christian doctrine; for Christ says, “By thy words shalt thou be justified;” and St. Paul declares, “Not the hearers, but the doers of the law (of Christ) shall be justified.” Alas, how often are those who say they “will know” and have “nothing but Christ,” the first to “set him at nought” as a prophet, by railing at his holy doctrine: or to reject him as a king, by trampling upon his royal proclamations! But “I wot that through ignorance they do it, as do their rulers.”
SECOND OBJECTION. “This legal doctrine robs God’s dear children of their comforts and Gospel liberty, binds Moses’ intolerable burden upon their free shoulders, and ‘entangles them again in the galling yoke of bondage.’” ANSWER. If God’s dear children have got into a false liberty of doing the devil’s works, either by “not going into the vineyard” when they have said, “Lord, I go,” or by “beating their fellow servants” there, instead of working with them; the sooner they are robbed of it the better: for if they continue thus free, they will ere long be “bound hand and foot, and cast into outer darkness.” It is the very spirit of Antinomianism to represent God’s “commandments as grievous,” and the keeping of his law “as bondage.” Not so the dutiful children of God: “Their hearts” are never so much “at liberty,” as when they “run the way of his commandments, and so fulfil the law of Christ.” Keep them from obedience, and you keep them “in the snare of the devil, promising liberty to others, while they themselves are the servants of corruption.”
Again: you confound the heavy yoke of the circumcision and ceremonial bondage, with which the Galatians once entangled themselves, with the “easy yoke of Jesus Christ.” The former was intolerable, the latter is so “light a burden,” that the only way to “find rest unto our souls is to take it upon us.” St. Paul calls a dear brother his “yoke fellow.” You know the word BELIAL in the original signifies “without yoke.” They are sons of Belial who shake off the Lord’s yoke; and though they should boast of their election as much as the Jews did, Christ himself will say concerning them, “Those mine enemies that refused my yoke, and would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me!” So inexpressibly dreadful is the end of lawless liberty!
THIRD OBJECTION. “Your doctrine is the damnable error of the Galatians, who madly left Mount Sion for Mount Sinai, made Christ the Alpha, and not the Omega, and after ‘ having begun in the Spirit would be made perfect by the flesh.’ This is the other Gospel which St. Paul thought so diametrically contrary to his own, that he wished the teachers of it, though they were ‘angels of God,’ might be even ‘ accursed and cut off.’” ANSWER. You are under a capital mistake: St. Paul could never be so wild as to curse himself, anathematize St. James, and wish the Messiah to be again cut off: for he himself taught the Romans, that “the doers of the law shall be justified.” St. James evidently maintains a justification by works; and our Lord expressly says, “By thy words thou shalt be justified.” Again’ the apostle, if he had foreseen how his Epistle to the Galatians would be abused to Antinomian purposes, gives us in it the most powerful antidotes against that poison. Take two or three instances.
(1.) He exhorts his fallen converts to the fulfilling of all the law: “Love one another,” says he, “for all the law is fulfilled in this one word, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself;” because none can “love his neighbour as himself,” but he that: “loves God with all his heart.” How different is this doctrine from the bold Antinomian cry, “We have nothing to do with the law!”
(2.) He enumerates the works of the flesh, “adultery, hatred, variance, wrath, strife, envyings, heresies, &c; of which,” says he, “I tell you before, as I have told you in time past, that they who do such things” shall not be justified in the day of judgment, or, which is the same thing, “shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” How different a Gospel is this from that which insinuates, “impenitent adulterers may be dear children of God, even while such, and in a very safe state, and quite sure of glory!” And
(3.) As if this awful warning were not enough, he point blank cautions his readers against the Crispian error: “Be not deceived,” says he, “whatever a MAN (not whatever CHRIST) soweth, that shall he also reap. He that soweth to the flesh shall reap corruption, and he that soweth to the Spirit shall reap life everlasting.” How amazingly strong therefore must your prejudice be, which makes you produce this epistle to thrust love and good works out of the important place allotted them in all the word of God! And no where more than in this very epistle! FOURTH OBJECTION. “Notwithstanding all you say, I am persuaded you are in the dreadful heresy of the Galatians; for they were, like you, for ‘justification by the works of the law ;’ and St. Paul resolutely maintained against them the fundamental doctrine of justification by faith.” ANSWER. If you once read over the Epistle to the Galatians without prejudice, and without comment, you will see, that
(1.) They had returned “to the beggarly elements of this world,” by superstitiously “observing days, months, times, and years.”
(2.) Imagining they “could not be saved except they were circumcised,” they submitted even to that grievous and bloody injunction.
(3.) Exact in their useless ceremonies, and fondly hoping to be justified by their partial observance of Moses’ law, they well nigh forgot the merits of Christ, and openly trampled upon his law, and “walked after the flesh.”
Stirred up to contentious zeal by their new teachers, they despised the old apostle’s ministry, hated his person, and “devoured one another.” In short, they trusted partly in the merit of their superstitious performances, and partly in Christ’s merits; and on this preposterous foundation they “built the hay” of Jewish ceremonies, and “the stubble” of fleshly lusts. With great propriety, therefore, the apostle called them back, with sharpness, to the only sure foundation, the merits of Jesus Christ; and wanted them to “build upon it gold and precious stones,” all the works of piety and mercy that spring from “faith working by love.”
Now which of these errors do we hold? Do we not preach present justification by faith, and justification at the bar of God according to what a man soweth, the very doctrine of this epistle? And do we not “secure the foundation,” by insisting that both these justifications are equally through the merits of Christ, though the second, as our Church intimates in her twelfth article, is by the evidence of works?
Will you bear with me if I tell you my thoughts? We are all in general condemned by the Epistle to the Galatians, for we have too much dependence on our forms of piety, speculative knowledge, or past experience; and too little heart-felt confidence in the merits of Christ: “We sow too little to the Spirit, and too much to the flesh.”But those, in the next place, are peculiarly reproved by it, who “return to the beggarly elements,” the idle ways and vain fashions “of this world.” Those who make as much ado about the beggarly element of water, about baptizing infants and dipping adults, as “the troublers” of the Church of Galatia did about circumcising their converts, “that they might glory in their flesh.” Those who “zealously affect others, but not well:” those who now despise their spiritual fathers,” whom they once received as angels of God:” those who “turn our enemies when we tell them the truth,” who “heap to themselves” teachers, smoother than the evangelically legal apostle, and would call us blind if we said, as he does, “Let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another,” Galatians 6:4. Those who plead for spiritual bondage while they talk of Gospel liberty, and affirm “that the son of the bondwoman” shall always live “with the son of the free;” that sin can never be cast out of the heart of believers, and that Christ and corruption shall always dwell together in this world. And, lastly, those who say there is no “falling away from grace,” when they are already fallen like the Galatians, and boast of their stability chiefly because they are ignorant of their fall!
FIFTH OBJECTION. “However, your Pharisaic doctrine flatly contradicts the Gospel summed up by our Lord, Mark 16:16, ‘He that believeth shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned.’ Here is not one word about works. All turns upon faith.”
ANSWER. Instead of throwing such hints, you might as well speak out at once, and say that Christ in these words flatly contradicts what he had said, Matthew 12:37, “By thy words thou shalt be justified, or by thy words thou shalt be condemned.” But drop your prejudices, and you will see that the contradiction is only in your own ideas. We steadily assert, as our Lord, that “he who believeth,” or “endureth unto the end believing,” (for the word implies both the reality and the continuance of the action,) “shall infallibly be saved;” because faith, which continues living, “works” to the last” by love” and good works, which will infallibly justify us in the day of judgment. For when faith is no more, love and good works will evidence,
(1.) That we were grafted into Christ by true faith’
(2.) That we did not “make shipwreck of the faith;” that we were not “taken away as branches in him which bear not fruit, but abode fruitful branches in the true Vine.” And
(3.) That we are still in him by HOLY LOVE, the precious and eternal fruit of true persevering faith. How bad is that cause which must support itself by charging an imaginary contradiction upon the Wisdom of God, Jesus Christ himself!f6
SIXTH OBJECTION. “Your doctrine exalts man, and by giving him room to boast, robs Christ of the glory of his grace. ‘The top stone’ is no more ‘ brought forth with shouting, Grace! Grace!’ but, Works! Works! ‘ unto it!’ And the burden of the song in heaven will be, — Salvation to our works! and no more; Salvation to the Lamb!”
ANSWER. I no less approve your godly jealousy, than I wonder at your groundless fears. To calm them, permit me once more to observe,
(1.) That this doctrine is Christ’s, who would not be so unwise as to side with our self-righteous pride, and teach us to rob him of his own glory. It is absurd to suppose Christ would be thus against Christ, for even Satan is too wise “to be against Satan.”
(2.) Upon our plan, as well as upon Crisp’s scheme, free grace has absolutely all the glory.
The love and good works by which we shall be justified in the day of judgment, are the fruits of faith, and “faith is the gift of God.” Christ is the great object of faith, the Holy Ghost, called the Spirit of faith, the power of believing, the means, opportunities, and will to use that power, are all the rich presents of God’s free grace. All our sins, together with the imperfections of our works, are mercifully forgiven through the blood and righteousness of Christ: our persons and services are graciously accepted merely for his sake, and through his merits: and if rewards are granted us according to the fruits of righteousness we bear, it is not because we are profitable to God, but because the meritorious sap of the Root of David produces those fruits, and the meritorious beams of the Sun of righteousness ripen them. Thus you see, that, which way soever you look at our justification, God has all the glory of it, but that of turning moral agents into mere machines, — a glory which, we apprehend, God does no more claim than you do that of turning your coach horses into hobby horses, and your servants into puppets.
If faith on earth gives Christ the glory of all our salvation, you need not fear that love (a superior grace) will rob him in heaven: for “love is not puffed up, seeketh not her own, and does not behave herself unseemly” toward a beggar on earth; much less will she do so toward the Lord of glory, when she has attained the zenith of heavenly perfection. Away then with all the imaginary lions you place in your way to truth! Notwithstanding Crisp’s prohibitions, like the Bereans, receive Christ in his holy doctrine, and be persuaded that in the last day you will shout as loud as the honest doctor, Grace! Grace! and Salvation to the Lamb! without suggesting, with him, to those on the left hand, the blasphemous shouts of Partiality! Hypocrisy! Barbarity! and damnation to the Lamb! Thus shall you have all the free grace he justly boasts of, without any of his horrid reprobating doctrine.
SEVENTH OBJECTION. “How will the converted thief, that did no good works, be justified by works?”
ANSWER.
(1.) We mean by WORKS “the whole of our inward tempers and outward behaviour;” and how do you know the outward behaviour of the converted thief? Did not his reproofs, exhortations, prayers, patience, and resignation, evidence the liveliness of his faith, as there was time and opportunity?
(2.) Can you suppose his inward temper was not love to God and man? Could he go into paradise without being born again? Or could he be born again and not love? Is it not said, “He that loveth is born of God;” consequently, he that is born of God loveth? Again does not he who “loveth, fulfil all the law,” and do, as says Augustine, all good works in one? And is not “the fulfilling of the law of Christ” work enough to justify the converted thief by that law?
EIGHTH OBJECTION. “You say, that your doctrine ‘will make us zealous of good works;’ but I fully discharge it from that office: for ‘the love of Christ constraineth us to abound in every good word and work.’”
ANSWER.
(1.) St. Paul, who spoke those words with more feeling than you, thought the contrary; as well as his blessed Master, or they would never have taught this doctrine. You do not, I fear, evidence the temper of a babe when you are so exceedingly” wise above what” Christ preached, and “prudent above what” the apostle “wrote.”
(2.) If the love of Christ in professors is so constraining as you say, why, do good works and good tempers bear so little proportion to the great talk we hear of its irresistible efficacy? And why do those who have tasted it “return to sin as dogs to their vomit?” Why can they even curse, swear, and get drunk? Be guilty of idolatry, murder, and incest?
(3.) If love alone is always sufficient, why did our Lord work upon his disciples’ hearts, by the hope of “thrones and a kingdom,” and by the fear of a “worm that dieth not, and a fire that is not quenched?” Why does the apostle stir up believers to “serve the Lord with godly fear,” by the consideration that “he is a consuming fire?” Illustrating his assertion by this awful warning, “If they (Korah and his company) escaped not,” but were consumed by fire from heaven, because they “refused him (Moses) that spake on earth; much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven!” Why did St. Paul himself, who, no doubt, understood the Gospel as well as Crisp and Saltmarsh, “run a race for an incorruptible crown, and keep his body under, LEST he himself should be a castaway?” O ye orthodox divines, and thou ludicrous versifier of an awful declaration! instead of attempting to set St. Paul against St. Paul, and to oppose Wesley to Wesley, answer these Scriptural questions; and if you cannot do it without betraying heterodoxy, for the Lord’s sake, for the sake of thousands in Israel, keep no more from the feeble of the flock those necessary helps which the “very chief of the apostles,” evangelical Paul, without any of your Crispian refinements, continually recommended to others, and daily used himself. And for your own souls’ sake, never more prostitute these awful words, “The love of Christ constraineth us;” never more apply them to yourselves, while you refuse to treat the most venerable ambassador of Christ, I shall not say, with respected love, but with common decency.
NINTH OBJECTION. “All the formal and Pharisaical ministers, who are sworn enemies to Christ and the Gospel of his grace, preach your legal doctrine of justification by works in the day of judgment.” ANSWER. And what do you infer from it? That the doctrine is false? If the inference be just, it will follow there is neither heaven nor hell; for they publicly maintain the existence of both. But suppose they now and then preach our doctrine without zeal, without living according to it, or without previously preaching the fall, and a present justification by faith in Christ, productive of peace and power, what can be expected from it? Would not the doctrine of the atonement itself be totally useless, if it were preached under such disadvantages? The truth is, such ministers are only for the roof, and you, it seems, only for the foundation. But a roof, unsupported by solid walls, crushes to death; and a foundation without a roof is not much better than the open air. Therefore, “wise master builders,” like St. Paul, are for having both in their proper places. Like him, when the foundation is. well laid, “leaving the first principles of the doctrine of Christ, they go on to perfection;” nor will they forget, as they work out their salvation, to shout, Grace! Grace! to the last slate that covers in the building; or to “the top stone,” the key that binds the solid arch. TENTH OBJECTION. “Should I receive and avow such a doctrine, the generality of professors would rise against me; and while the warmest would call me a Papist, an antichrist, and what not; my dearest Christian friends would pity me as an unawakened Pharisee, and fear me as a blind legalist.”
ANSWER. “Rejoice, and be exceeding glad when all men (the godly not excepted) shall say all manner of evil of you falsely for Christ’s sake,” — for preferring Christ’s holy doctrine to the loose tenets of Dr. Crisp: and remember, that, in our Antinomian days, it is as great an honour to be called legal by fashionable professors, as to be branded with the name of Methodist by the sots who glory in their shame.
VII. As I would hope my objector is either satisfied or silenced, before I conclude, permit me a moment, Rev. sir, to consider the two important objections which you directly, or indirectly, make in your Narrative.
1. “I should tremble,” say you, (page 21,) “lest some bold metaphysician should affirm, that a second justification by works is quite consistent with what is contained in Mr. Wesley’s declaration; but that it is expressed in such strong and absolute terms as must for ever put the most exquisite refinements of metaphysical distinctions at defiance.”
ANSWER. “For ever at defiance!” You surprise me, sir: I, who am as perfect a stranger to “exquisite refinements” as to Dr. Crisp’s eternal justification, defy you (pardon a bold expression to a bold metaphysician) ever to produce out of Mr. Wesley’s declaration, I shall not say (as you do) “strong and absolute terms,” but one single word or tittle denying or excluding a second justification by works; and I appeal both to your second thoughts and to the unprejudiced world, whether these three propositions of the declaration, “We have no trust, or confidence, but in the alone merits of Christ for justification in the day of judgment. Works have no part in meriting or purchasing our justification from first to last, either in whole or in part. He is not a real Christian believer, (and consequently cannot be saved,) who does not good works where there is time and opportunity.” I appeal to the unprejudiced world, whether these three propositions are not highly consistent with this assertion of our Lord, “By thy words thou shalt be justified,” that is, “although from first to last the merits of my life and death purchase, or deserve, thy justification; yet in the day of judgment thou shalt be justified by thy works; that is, thy justification, which is purchased by my merits, will entirely turn upon the evidence of thy works, according to the time and opportunity thou hast to do them.” Who does not see, that, “to be justified by the evidence of works,” and “to be justified by the merit of works,” are no more phrases of the same import than minutes and heresy are words of the same signification? The latter proposition contains the error strongly guarded against, both in the declaration and the Minutes: the former contains an evangelical doctrine, as agreeable to the declaration and Minutes as to the Scriptures; a doctrine of which we were too sparing when we “leaned too much toward Calvinism,” but to which, after the example of Mr. Wesley, we are now determined to do justice.
Whosoever is “ashamed of Christ’s words,” we will proclaim them to the world. Both from our pulpits and the press we will say, “By thy words thou shalt be condemned.” Yea, “Whoever shall say to his brother, Thou fool! shall be in danger of hell fire; and whosoever maketh a lie shall have his part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone;” for as “with the heart man believeth unto righteousness,” or disbelieveth to unrighteousness, so “with the mouth confession is made to salvation,” or “hard speeches” are uttered to “damnation.” Reserve, therefore, Rev. sir, our public praises for a more proper occasion than that which caused their breaking out in your Narrative. “Blessed be God!” say you, (page 16,)” Mr. Wesley and fifty-three of his preachers do not agree with Mr. Olivers in the material article of a second justification by works.” Indeed, sir, you are greatly mistaken, for we do agree with him; and shall continue so to do, till you have proved he does not agree with Jesus Christ, or that our doctrine is not perfectly consistent both with the Scriptures and the declaration.
2. Your second objection is not so formal as the first; it must be made up of broad hints scattered through your Narrative, and they amount to this: “Your pretended difference between justification by the merit of works, by the evidence of works, and between a first and a second justification, is founded upon the subtilties of metaphysical distinctions. If what you say wears the aspect of truth, it is because you give a new turn to error, by the almost magical power of metaphysical distinctions,” [pages 16, 20, 21.] Give me leave, sir, to answer this objection by two appeals, one to the most ignorant collier in my parish, and the other to your own sensible child; and if they can at once understand my meaning, you will see that my “metaphysical distinctions,” as you are pleased to call them, are nothing but the dictates of common sense. I begin with the collier.
Thomas, I stand here before the judge, accused of having robbed the Rev. Mr. Shirley, near Bath, last month, on such an evening; can you speak a word for me? Thomas turns to the judge, and says, “Please your honour, the accusation is false, for our parson was in Madeley Wood; and I can make oath of it, for he even reproved me for swearing at our pit’s mouth that very evening.” By his evidence, the judge acquits me. Now, sir, ask cursing Tom whether I am acquitted and justified, by his merits, or by the simple evidence he has given, and he will tell you, “Ay, to be sure by the evidence; though I am no scholar, I know very well that if our Methodist parson is not hanged, it is none of my deservings.” Thus, sir, an ignorant collier, as great a stranger to your metaphysics as you are to his mandrel, discovers at once a material difference between justification by the evidence, and justification by the merits of a witness.
My second appeal is to your sensible child. By a plain comparison I hope to make him at once understand, both the difference there is between our first and second justification, and the propriety of that difference. The lovely boy is old enough, I suppose, to follow the gardener and me to yonder nursery. Having shown him the operation of grafting, and pointing at the crab tree newly grafted, “My dear child,” would I say, “though hitherto this tree has produced nothing but crabs, yet by the skill of the gardener, who has just fixed in it that good little branch, it is now made an apple tree: I justify and warrant it such. (Here is an emblem of our first justification by faith!) In three or four years, if we live, we will come again and see it: if it thrives and ‘bears fruit,’ well; we shall then by that mark justify it a second time, we shall declare that it is a good apple tree indeed, and fit to be transplanted from this wild nursery into a delightful orchard. But if we find that the old crab stock, instead of nourishing the graft, spends all its sap in producing wild shoots and sour crabs; or if it is a ‘ tree whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, (dead in the graft and in the stock,) plucked up by the root,’ or quite cankered, far from declaring ‘it a good tree,’ we shall pass sentence of condemnation upon it, and say, ‘Cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground? For every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire.’” Here is an emblem of our second justification by works, or of the condemnation that will infallibly overtake those Laodicean professors and wretched apostates, whose faith is not shown by works, where there is time and opportunity. Instead of offering an insult to your superior understanding, in attempting to explain by “metaphysical distinctions,” what I suppose your sensible child has already understood by the help of a grafting knife, I shall leave you to consider whether Scripture, reason, and candour do not join their influence to make you acknowledge, at least, in the court of your own conscience, that you have put a wrong construction upon Mr. Wesley’s declaration as upon his Minutes, and by that mean inadvertently given another rash touch to the ark of practical religion, and to the character of one of the greatest ministers in the world.
I am, with due respect, Hon. and Rev. sir, your obedient servant, in the bond of the practical Gospel of Christ,
THE VINDICATOR.