Remarks on Mr. Hill’s Fourth Letter.

REMARKS ON MR. HILL’S FOURTH LETTER.

I am glad that my honoured opponent, in the beginning of his fourth letter, does Mr. Wesley the justice to admit of the explanation I have given of that misunderstood assertion, “All who are convinced of sin undervalue themselves.” Had you done otherwise, sir, you would have “shown judgment without mercy.” Nevertheless, you still think that explanation forced; while many believe it not only natural and agreeable to Mr. Wesley’s whole plan of doctrine, but so solid that no arguments can overthrow it. If you turn to the Second Check, (pp. 95, 96,) you will see more clearly that you do Mr. Wesley no favour in “dismissing this article of the Minutes.”

But you prepare to attack the next with the utmost vigour. A part of the Minutes which you esteem most contrary to sound doctrine, is, say you, that “we are every hour and every moment pleasing, or displeasing to God, according to the whole of our inward tempers and outward behaviour,” &c. And it is, I own, diametrically opposite to the favourite sentiment which you thus express: “Though I believe that David’s SIN displeased the Lord, must I therefore believe that David’s PERSON was under the curse of the law?” (I suppose you mean under God’s displeasure, for of this Mr. Wesley speaks; nor does he mention the curse of the law in all the Minutes.) You boldly answer, “Surely no. Like Ephraim, he was still a pleasant child, though he went on frowardly,” in adultery and murder, “he did not lose the character of the man after God’s own heart.” You might as well have advanced at once that unguarded proposition of Dr. Crisp: “God does no longer stand displeased, though a believer do sin often. No sin can possibly do him any hurt.” Is this what you call “sound doctrine?” And is that the worst part of the Minutes, which opposes such a dangerous tenet? Then how excellent must the other parts be! Indeed, sir, their vindicator could say nothing stronger to demonstrate their soundness, seasonableness, and importance. But let us consider your arguments; and that with such care as the importance of the subject requires.

I. “David’s SIN displeased the Lord,” but not “his PERSON.” This is what you must mean, if you oppose Mr. Wesley’s proposition. I like your shifting the terms; it is a sign that you are a little ashamed the world should see the good doctor’s scheme without some covering. Erubuisti, salva res est.

(1.) Your intimation, that the Lord was not displeased at David’s person, bears hard upon the equity and veracity of God. David commits adultery and murder in Jerusalem, and Claudius in Rome. God sees them, and says, agreeably to your scheme, “They are both guilty of the same crimes, and both impenitent; but David is a Jew, an elect, a sheep, and therefore, though he sins against ten times more light than the other, I am not at all displeased at him. But Claudius is a heathen, a reprobate, a goat, and my anger smokes against him; he shall surely die.” If this is God’s method, how can he make the following appeal? “O house of Israel, are not my ways equal? Are not your ways unequal? The soul that sinneth it shall die: wherefore, turn ye, why will ye die, O house of Israel?” See Ezekiel xviii, and Second Check, pp. 109, 110.

(2.) Your distinction is overthrown by Scripture: for we read, Genesis 38:10, that “the thing which Onan did displeased the Lord.” “True,” might you say, upon your scheme, “this is the very thing I assert. This mode of speech shows that God was angry at Onan’s sin, and not at his person.” But this would be a great mistake, honoured sir; for the sacred historian adds immediately, Wherefore God slew him also. He showed his heavy displeasure at his person, by punishing him with death, as well as his brother Er, who was wicked in the sight of the Lord.

(3.) But if you will not believe Mr. Wesley when he declares, that God is displeased at the persons of the righteous, the moment they do those things which displease him, believe at least the oracles of God. “God’s anger was kindled against Moses,” Exodus 4:14. “The Lord was very angry against Aaron,” Deuteronomy 9:20; and with all Israel: witness those awful words, “Let me alone, that I may consume them in a moment!” Isaiah, whom you allow to be an elect, says, “Thou wast angry with me.” God himself says, Isaiah 47:6, “I was angry with my people:” and David, who frequently deprecates God’s wrath in his penitential Psalms, observes, that “his anger smokes against the sheep of his pasture,” when they go astray, Psalm 74:1.

(4.) The New Testament inculcates this doctrine as well as the Old. St. Paul having reminded the believers of Ephesus, that “no whoremonger, or covetous person, hath an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God,” subjoins this seasonable caution, “Let no man deceive you;” no, not those good men, Dr. Crisp and the author of Pietas Oxoniensis: “for because of these things the wrath of God cometh upon the children of disobedience.” “Impossible!” say those orthodox Protestants; “you may be ‘children of disobedience,’ not only unto ‘whoredom and covetousness,’ but unto adultery and murder, without, fearing that ‘the wrath of God will come upon you for these things.’ No, no, you will be ‘pleasant children still.’” See Vindication, pp. 59, 60.

II. You proceed: “Shall I believe, that, because David was ungrateful, God, whose gifts and callings are without repentance, was unfaithful?” And shall I believe that God is not as faithful when he accomplishes his threatenings, as when he fulfils his promises? You reply, “God’s gifts and callings are without repentance.” And does this prove that God’s warnings are without meaning, and his threatenings without truth? St. Paul spoke those words of the election of the Jews; and, it is certain, God does not repent that he formerly called them, and gave them the land of Canaan; any more than he repents his having now rejected them, and taken from them the good land which he gave their fathers: for as he had once sufficient reasons to do the one, so he has now to do the other. But if you will make this passage mean, that the Divine favour and blessings can never be forfeited through any fall into sin, I beg you will answer these queries. Had not God given all angels a place in his favour and glory? and did not many of them lose it by their fall? Was not innocent Adam interested in the Divine favour and image? and did he not lose both, together with paradise, when he fell into sin? Did not King Saul forfeit the crown which God had given him, and the throne to which he had called him? Were not Judas’ calling and apostleship forfeited by his unfaithfulness, as well as one of the twelve thrones which Christ had promised him? What will you say of the unprofitable servant from whom his lord took the talent unimproved? Lost he not a blessing given, and his calling to occupy with it? And can you assert that the man who took his fellow servant by the throat did not lose the forgiveness of a debt of ten thousand talents? Or that those apostates, who “tread under foot the blood of the covenant wherewith they were sanctified,” do not forfeit their sanctification by doing despite to the Spirit of grace? Is it right thus to set the author of the Epistle to the Romans against the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews?

III. Your bringing in “backsliding Ephraim, the pleasant child,” as a witness of the truth of your doctrine, is a most unhappy proof. “Rejoice not, O Israel, as other people,” says the Lord, Hosea 9:1, “for thou hast gone a whoring from thy God.” This whoring Israel is called Ephraim, verse 13. Ephraim, the pleasant child, is planted as a pleasant plant. Notwithstanding, “Ephraim shall bring forth his children for the murderer. All their wickedness is in Gilgal: for there I hated them. For the wickedness of their doings I will drive them out of mine house: I will love them no more.” Hence the prophet observes immediately after, “Ephraim is smitten; my God will cast them away because they did not hearken unto him.”

IV. However, my honoured friend still affirms, that “David, notwithstanding his horrible backslidings, did not lose the character of the man after God’s own heart.” But you will permit me to believe the contrary.

1. Upon the testimony of the Psalmist himself, who says, in your favourite Psalm, “Thou hast cast off and abhorred, thou hast been very wroth with thine anointed; thou hast made void the covenant of thy servant; thou hast profaned his crown by casting it to the ground,” Psalm 89:38.

2. Where is David called the man after God’s own heart, while he continued an impenitent adulterer? How much more guarded is the Scripture than your Letters? “David did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord, and turned not aside, SAVE only in the matter of Uriah,” 1 Kings 15:5. Here you see the immoral parenthesis of ten months spent in adultery and murder, expressly pointed at, and excepted by the Holy Ghost.

3. David himself, far from thinking that sin could never separate between God and a just man who draws back into wickedness, speaks thus in the last charge which he gave to Solomon: “And thou, Solomon, my son, know the God of thy father, and serve him with a perfect heart. If thou seek him, he will be found of thee; but if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off for ever,” 1 Chronicles 28:9. Hence it appears that the God of Solomon’s father is very different from the picture which Dr. Crisp draws of David’s God! The former can be so displeased at an impenitent backslider, as to cast him off for ever; while the latter accounts him a pleasant child still. But let us come to matter of fact.

4. Displeasure, anger, or wrath in God, is not that disturbing, boisterous passion so natural to fallen man; but an invariable disapprobation of sin, and a steady design to punish the sinner. Now God severely manifested his righteous displeasure at David’s person, when he punished him by not restraining any longer the ambition of his rebellious son. How remarkably did his dreadful punishments answer his heinous crimes! He wanted the fruit of his adultery to live, but inflexible justice destroys it. “The crown of righteousness was fallen from his head,” and his royal crown is “profaned and cast to the ground.” He had not turned out “the way faring man,” the hellish tempter; and he is turned out of his own palace and kingdom. He flees beyond Jordan for his life; and, as he flees, Shimei throws stones at him; volleys of curses accompany the stones; and the most cutting challenges follow the curses: — “Come out, thou bloody man,” said he, “thou man of Belial! The Lord hath delivered thy kingdom into the hand of Absalom thy son; and behold, thou art taken in thy mischief, because thou art a bloody man.” To which David could answer nothing, but “‘Let him curse; for the Lord,’ by not restraining his wickedness, hath permissively ‘said unto him, Curse David.’ I see the impartial justice of a sin-avenging God, through the cruel abuse of this raging man.” This was not all. He had secretly committed adultery with Uriah’s wife, and his son publicly commits incest with his wives. And, to complete the horror of his punishment, he leaves the most dreadful curse upon his posterity. “Thou hast slain Uriah with the sword of the children of Ammon,” says the Lord, “now therefore the sword shall never depart from thy house,” and thy own children shall murder one another. What a terrible punishment was this! And how strong must be the prejudice of those who maintain that God was not displeased at David’s person!

V. Pass we now to an argument which you seem to consider as one of the main pillars of your doctrine: “If one believer sin by an unclean thought,” say you, “and another by an unclean act, does the former continue in a state of grace, and the other forfeit his sonship? Take heed lest you should be forced to go to Rome for an answer to this query.”

Without going even to the convent of the Benedictine monks in Paris, I answer, It is evident from Scripture that an adulterous thought, delighted in, is adultery. He that entertains such a thought is an adulterer, one who is absolutely unfit for the presence of a holy God. “Be not deceived,” says St. Paul, “neither fornicators nor adulterers shall inherit the kingdom of God.” Therefore adultery of heart certainly excludes an impenitent backslider out of heaven; though it will not sink him into so deep a hell, as if he had drawn another into the commission of his intended crime. You add: “But if David had only had an angry thought, he had still been a murderer in the sight of God.” Not so: for there is a righteous anger, which is a virtue and not a sin; or else how could Christ “have looked round about on the Pharisees with anger,” and continued sinless? You mean, probably, that if David had only hated Uriah in his heart, he would have been a murderer. If so, your observation is very just, for, “he that hateth his brother,” says St. John, “is a murderer; and you know,” adds he, “that no murderer,” though he were a royal psalmist, “hath eternal life abiding in him.” But what do you get by these arguments? Nothing at all. You only make it easier to prove that your doctrine is erroneous. For if David would have forfeited heaven by “looking on Uriah’s wife, to lust after her in his heart,” or by intending in his breast to murder her husband; how much more did he forfeit it when mental sin fully ripened into outward enormities! “Ye are of your father the devil, whose works ye do,” said Christ to some of the chosen nation. And if adultery and murder are works of the devil, it follows from those words of our ‘Lord, that while David continued impenitent, he was not “a man after God’s own heart,” as my honoured opponent too charitably supposes; but a man after the own heart of him “who abode not in the truth, and was a murderer from the beginning.”

VI. But you add, “Sin did not reign in him as a king, it only for a time usurped as a tyrant.” Nay, sir, sin is a tyrant wherever he reigns, and he reigns wherever he usurps. “Where will you draw the line” between the reign and tyranny of sin? Are not both included under the word dominion? “Sin,” says St. Paul, “shall not have DOMINION over you that are under grace.” Had I made such a distinction as this, some Protestants would deservedly have called it metaphysical; but as it comes from the orthodox author of Pietas Oxoniensis, it will probably pass for evangelical. Very different, however, is St. Peter’s orthodoxy. “Of whom a man is overcome,” says he, “of the same is he brought into bondage. For if after they have escaped the pollution of the world through the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.” Nevertheless, even such apostates, so long as the day of their visitation lasteth, may again repent and believe; for, as you justly observe, they have still “an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”

VII. You try to prove your point by Scripture. “There is,” say you ‘no condemnation to them who are in Christ.” True: but it is while they “walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit;” a clause which you prudently keep out of sight. And, surely, David walked after the flesh, when in the act of adultery and murder. You proceed: “Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect?” Nobody, if God’s elect are penitent believers, “who walk not after the flesh;” but if they are impenitent adulterers and hypocritical murderers, — Jews and Gentiles, law and Gospel, prophets and apostles, God and their own conscience, ALL will agree to lay their crimes to their charge. You urge, that “Christ, by one offering, hath for ever perfected them that are sanctified.” True! But not those who are unsanctified: and, certainly, such are all adulterers and murderers. These ought rather to be ranked with those who “tread under foot the blood of the covenant wherewith they WERE sanctified.”

It is said, however, “Ye,” believing, loving, fruitful Colossians, see Colossians 1:4, 6, “are complete in him.” It is so; but not, ye impenitent backsliders, ye unclean defilers of another’s bed. Such are “complete” in evil, not in good, in Belial, not in Christ. Alas, for the prostitution of the sacred and pure word of God! Can it also be pressed into the service of profaneness and impurity? To rescue at least one sentence from such manifest abuse, I might observe, the original may with the greatest propriety be rendered, filled with (or by) him, instead of “complete in him;” and I think the context fixes this sense upon it. The apostle is cautioning the Colossians against vain philosophers, whose doctrine was empty and deceitful. Now, that he may do this the more effectually, he points out a more excellent Teacher, whose character and qualifications he describes when he says, “In him dwelleth the fulness, Greek wlhrwma, of the Godhead.” He immediately adds, weplhrwmenoi en autw (a verb of the same etymology with the noun, and undoubtedly of a similar import,) “ye are filled with (or by) him.” As if he had said, “Christ is filled with the Godhead of the Father, and ye with the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of wisdom, righteousness, and strength. Plenitudo Christi, says the learned and pious Bengelius on the passage, redundat in ecclesiam, “The fulness of God dwelleth in the Mediator, and overflows upon his Church.” The very sense our translators have given the very same two words in Ephesians 3:19 Why they rendered them differently here is hard to say. VIII. You go on: “No falls or backslidings in God’s children can ever bring them again under condemnation, because the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made them free from the law of sin and death.” A most dangerous proposition, exposed, (First Check, p. 59,) and contrary to the very Scripture by which you try to support it.

(1.) To the context, where those to whom “there is no condemnation,” are said to be persons “who walk not after the flesh,” and are therefore very different from impenitent adulterers and murderers, who bring forth the most execrable fruits of the flesh.

(2.) To the text itself: for if “the law, or power of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, hath made the believer free from the law or power of sin,” how can he be represented as the same “servant of sin;” as “sold under sin;” sold under adultery and murder for ten months! But you are at a loss for an answer.

IX. “We are very apt,” say you, “to set up mountainous distinctions concerning the various degrees of sin, especially of sins after conversion.” This, together with your placing “an angry thought” upon a level with deliberate murder, seems to insinuate, that you make very little difference between an atrocious crime and a sin of surprise; so that, upon your scheme, a bloody murderer may plead that he is not more guilty than a man who has felt a motion of impatience; and the latter may be hurried out of his wits, as if he had committed murder. To remove this mistake, I need only observe, that if all are Papists who make a material difference between various sins, or between the same sins variously aggravated, my worthy opponent is as sound a Papist as myself: for when he acts as a magistrate, he does not promiscuously pass the same sentence upon every one. He commits one to prison, and dismisses another with a gentle reprimand. Our Lord himself sets you the example. Pharisees shall receive “the GREATER damnation,” and it shall be “more tolerable for Sodom than for Chorazin in the day of judgment.” Whence we may justly infer, that the sin of some is more “mountainous” than that of others.

But as you have made choice of David’s case, permit me to argue from his experience. He was once, you know, violently angry with Nabal; but as he seasonably restrained his anger, and meekly confessed his sin, God forgave him without “breaking his bones.” Not so when the unrestrained evil of his heart, in the matter of Uriah, produced the external fruits of treachery and murder. For then the Lord inflicted upon him all the dreadful punishments which we have already considered. “Hear the rod,” therefore, and learn what vast difference the Lord makes between sins, whether committed after, or before conversion.

X. What follows is a sweet and smooth Antinomian pill, so much the more dangerous as it is gilt with gold taken from the sanctuary, from the golden altar itself. Hence it is that multitudes swallow it down as rich grace, without the least scruple or suspicion. Lord, dart a beam of thy wisdom into the mind of thy servant, that I may separate the precious from the vile, and expose the dangerous ingredient without depreciating the gold that covers it!

“What is all sin,” do you say, “before the infinitely precious atoning blood of Jesus?” Nothing at all, when that blood is humbly apprehended by penitent believers, who depart from all iniquity. But when it is “accounted a common thing, and trodden under foot” by impenitent apostates; or wantonly pleaded in defence of sin, by loose Nicolaitans or lukewarm Laodiceans, it does not answer its gracious design. On the contrary, “How shall we escape,” says St. Paul, “if we thus neglect such great salvation?” And “of how much sorer punishment than others shall they be thought worthy, who do such despite to the Spirit of grace?” See Hebrews 2:5; 10:29. You go on: —

“If Christ has fulfilled the whole law and borne the curse, then all debts and claims against his people, be they more or be they less, be they small or be they great, be they before or be they after conversion, are for ever and for ever cancelled. All trespasses are forgiven them. They are justified from all things. They already have everlasting life.” What! before they repent and believe? A bold assertion this! which sets Jesus against Christ, — our Priest against our Prophet. For Christ himself teaches us, that many for whom his “fatlings are killed, and all things are now ready,” through an obstinate refusal of his sincere (I hope nobody will say hypocritical) invitation,” shall never taste of his supper.” And as if this were not enough to arm us against your doctrine, he commissioned an apostle to assure his Church, that some who have tasted of his Gospel supper, that is, who “have been enlightened, have tasted the heavenly gift, the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, do crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh,” and, by that means, so totally fall away, that “it is impossible to renew them again to repentance.” A clear proof this that those who “once truly repented” and were even “made partakers of the Holy Ghost,” may “quench the Spirit, and sin against the Holy Ghost;” may not only fall, but fall finally, Hebrews 6:4.

2. Your doctrine sets also our High Priest against our heavenly King, who declares, that if he who was once his faithful servant, “begins to beat his fellow servants,” much more to murder them, he will, as Judge of all, command him to be “bound hand and foot, and delivered to the tormentors.” See Second Check, [p. 71.]

3. Your doctrine drags after it all the absurdities of eternal, absolute justification. It sets aside the use of repentance and faith, in order to pardon and acceptance. It represents the sins of the elect as forgiven, not only before they are confessed, but even before they are committed; a notion which that strong Calvinist, Dr. Owen himself, could not but oppose. It supposes, that all the penitents who have believed that they were once “children of wrath,” and that God was displeased at them when they lived in sin, have believed a lie. It makes the preaching of the Gospel one of the most absurd, wicked, and barbarous things in the world. For what can be more absurd than to say, “Repent ye, and believe the Gospel. He that believeth not shall be damned,” if a certain number can never repent or believe, and a certain number can never be damned? And what can be more wicked than to distress elect sinners, by bidding them “flee from the wrath to come,” if there is absolutely no wrath, neither past, present, nor to come, for them; if all their sins, “be they more or less, be they small or great, are for ever and for ever cancelled?” As for the reprobates, how barbarous is it to bid them flee, if adamantine chains, eternal decrees of past wrath perpetually bind them down, that they may never escape the repeated, eternal strokes of” the wrath to come!”

4. But what shocks me most in your scheme, is the reproach which it unavoidably fixes upon Christ. It says, The elect “are justified from all things,” even before they believe. In all their sins “God views them ‘without spot, wrinkle, or any such thing.’ They stand always complete in the everlasting righteousness of the Redeemer.” “Black in themselves, they are comely through his comeliness:” so that when they commit adultery and murder, He, “who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity,” can, nevertheless, address them with “Thou art ALL FAIR, my love, my undefiled, there is no spot in thee.”

What a prostitution of the word of God is here! We blame a wild youth for dropping some bold innuendoes about Jupiter, in a play composed by a poor heathen. But I acquit thee of indecency, O Terence, if a vindicator of Christian piety has a right to represent our holy and righteous God as saying to a bloody adulterer, in flagranti delicto, “Thou art all FAIR, my love, my undefiled, there is no spot in thee.” And are these the fat pastures and limpid waters where Gospel preachers “feed the sheep?” Where then! O where are the “barren pastures and muddled waters” in which barefaced Antinomians feed the goats? Is not this “taking the children’s bread to cast it to the dogs?” I had almost asked, Is it not “the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place?” See ye not the Lord, O ye mistaken Christians, looking down from the habitation of his holiness? And do ye not hear him thunder this expostulation from heaven? How long will ye blaspheme mine honour, and have such pleasure in deceit! Know ye not that I have chosen to myself the man that is godly; and that him who delighteth in iniquity doth my soul abhor?

5. And plead not that you have quoted Scripture in defence of your point. If the Church says, in a mystical song, “I am black in the eyes of the world, because the sun of affliction and persecution hath looked upon me, while I kept the vineyards; but I am comely in the sight of God, whose Spirit enables me with unwearied patience to bear the burden and heat of the day;” you have absolutely no right, either from divinity or criticism, to make those words mean as they do upon your scheme, “I am black by the atrocious crimes which I actually commit, black by the horrors of adultery and murder: but no matter; I am comely by the purity and chastity of my Saviour. My sins, be they small or be they great, are for ever and for ever cancelled; I am justified from all things.” Again: if God says to a soul actually “washed, walking with him as Enoch, and walking in white as the few names in Sardis, who had not defiled their garments,” Thou art all fair, my undefiled; is it right to take those gracious words, and apply them to every lukewarm Laodicean we meet with; and to every apostate, who not only “defiles his garment, but wallows in the mire like the sow that was washed?”

6. Another great, and, if I am not mistaken, insurmountable difficulty attends your scheme. You tell us that “a believer’s person stands absolved and always complete in the everlasting righteousness of the Redeemer.” But I ask, Was he absolved before he was a believer? If you answer, “No, he was absolved the moment he began to believe,” it follows, that he does something, that is, he believes toward his absolution. And thus your main pillars, “that faith is not previous to justification, that there is no wrath in God for the elect, and that all claims against his people before or after conversion are for ever cancelled,” are not only broken, but ground to powder. Add to this, that if the believer be justified in consequence of his faith, it is evident that his justification, while he is on earth, can stand no longer than his faith, and that if he “make shipwreck of faith and a good conscience, as Hymeneus, he must again come into condemnation.” But supposing, that to avoid these inconsistencies, you boldly say, “He was justified from the time ‘the Lamb was slain, that is, from the beginning of the world;’” you point blank contradict Christ, who says, that “he who believeth not is condemned already.” Thus, either the veracity of our Lord, or the truth of your doctrine, must go to the bottom. A sad dilemma this, for those who confound Crispianity with CHRISTIANITY.

XI. You reply, “As soon shall Satan pluck Christ’s crown from his head as his purchase from his hand.” Here is a great truth, making way for a palpable error, and a dreadful insinuation.

Let us, FIRST, see the great truth. It is most certain, that nobody shall ever be able to pluck Christ’s sheep, that is, penitent believers, who “hear his voice and follow him,” John 10:27, out of his protecting, almighty hand. But if the minds of those penitent believers are “corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ: if they wax wanton against him, turn after Satan, end in the flesh, and draw back to perdition;” if, “growing fat with kicking,” like Jeshurun, they “neigh,” like high-fed horses, “after their neighbours’ wives,” we demand proof that they belong to the fold of Christ, and are not rather goats and wolves in sheep’s clothing, who cannot, without conversion, enter into the kingdom of heaven. SECONDLY: The palpable error is, that none of those for whom Christ died can be cast away and destroyed; that no “virgin’s lamp can go out;” no promising harvest be “choked with thorns;” no “branch in Christ cut off” for unfruitfulness; no pardon forfeited, and no “name blotted out of God’s book:” that no “salt can lose its savour, nobody receive the grace of God in vain, bury his talent, neglect such great salvation, trifle away a day of visitation, look back after setting his hand to the plough, and grieve the Spirit” till he is “quenched, and strives no more.” This error, so conducive to the Laodicean case, is expressly opposed by St. Peter, who informs us, that some “deny the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.” Christ himself, far from desiring to keep his lukewarm purchase “in his hand,” declares he will “spew it out of his mouth,” Revelation 3:16.

Pass we on, THIRDLY, to the “dreadful insinuation.” While you perpetually try to comfort a few elect some of whom, for aught I know, comfort themselves already with their neighbours’ wives, yea, and the wives of their fathers; please to tell us how we shall comfort millions of reprobates, who, for what you know, try “to save themselves from this adulterous generation?” Do ye not hear how Satan, upon a supposition of the truth of your doctrine, triumphs over those unhappy victims of what some call God’s sovereignty? While that old murderer shakes his bloody hand over the myriads devoted to endless torments, methinks I hear him say to his fellow executioners of Divine vengeance, “As soon shall Christ’s crown be plucked from his head as this his free gift from my hand. Let yonder little flock of the elect commit adultery and incest without any possibility of missing heaven. I object no more. See what crowds of reprobates may pray, and reform, and strive, without any possibility of escaping hell. Let those gay elect shout, Everlasting love! Eternal justification! and Finished salvation! I consent! See, ye fiends, see the immense prey that awaits us, and roar with me, beforehand, Everlasting wrath! Eternal reprobation! and Finished damnation!”

XII. “Our twelfth article maintains, that good works necessarily spring out of a lively faith, insomuch that by them a lively faith may be as evidently known as a tree discerned by its fruits.” “This,” you say, “I most firmly believe:” and nevertheless, to prove just the contrary — to show that when David committed adultery and murder, he had “a lively faith, and was in a state of justification and sanctification,” you quote a verse of a hymn, composed by the Rev. C. Wesley, which only confirms what I say of undervaluing, Vindication, p. 55. But you mistake him, if you suppose that, when “not one bud of grace appears to ourselves, many may not appear to others;” and if you apply to outward enormities greedily committed, what the poet means of inward motions of sin cordially lamented and steadily opposed. Nevertheless, as some expressions in this hymn are not properly guarded, the pious author will forgive me, if I transcribe part of a letter which I lately received from him: — “I was once on the brink of Antinomianism by unwarily reading Crisp and Saltmarsh. Just then, warm in my first love, I was in the utmost danger, when Providence threw in my way BAXTER’S treatise, entitled, A hundred Errors of Dr. Crisp demonstrated. My brother was sooner apprehensive of the dangerous abuse which would be made of our unguarded hymns and expressions than I was. Now I also see and feel we must all sink, unless we call St. James to our assistance. Yet let us still insist as much, or more than ever, on St. Paul’s justification. What God has joined together let no man put asunder. The great Chillingworth saw clearly the danger of separating St. James from St. Paul. He used to wish, that whenever a chapter of St. Paul’s justification was read, another of St. James might be read at the same time.”

XIII. When my honoured correspondent has endeavoured to prove, by the above-mentioned scriptures, arguments, and quotations, that an impenitent adulterer and murderer, instead of being under God’s displeasure, is “a pleasant child still;” to complete his work, he proceeds to show the good that falls into sin do to believers. Never did the pious author of Pietas Oxoniensis employ his pen in a work less conducive to piety! “God,” says he, “often brings about his purposes by those very means, which to the human eye would certainly defeat them. He has always the same thing in view, his own glory and the salvation of his elect by Jesus Christ. This Adam was accomplishing when he put the whole world under the curse.” Hail, Adam, under the fatal tree! Pluck and eat abundantly, for “thou accomplishest the salvation of the elect!” O the inconsistency of your doctrine! If we insist upon “doing the will of God,” in order to “enter his kingdom,” we are boldly exclaimed against as proudly sharing the glory of our redemption with Christ. But here Adam is represented as his partner in the work of salvation, and a share of his glory positively assigned to the fall, that is, to his disobedience to the Divine will. St. Paul asserts, that “by one man [Adam] came death, and sin the sting of death; and so death [with his sting] passed upon all men.” But you inform us, that Adam by his sin “accomplished the salvation of the elect.” If this is not plucking a jewel from Christ’s crown, to adorn the most improper head in the world, next to that of Satan, I am very much mistaken.

But if God “brought about his purpose” concerning “the salvation of the elect” by the fall of Adam; tell us, I pray, who brought about the purpose concerning the damnation of the reprobates? Had the Lord “always this thing in view” also? On the brink of what a dreadful abyss hath your doctrine brought me? Sir, my mind recoils; I fly from the God whose unprovoked wrath rose before the beginning of the world against millions of his unformed, and therefore guiltless creatures! He that “tasted death for every man” bids me fly! and he points me from Dr. Crisp to God, “whose mercy is over all his works,” till they personally forfeit it by obstinately trampling upon his richest grace.

XIV. As if it was not enough to have represented our salvation in part “accomplished” by the transgression of our first parents, you bring in “Herod and Pontius Pilate,” and observe, to the honour of the good which sin does to the elect, that those unrighteous judges did whatsoever God’s hand and counsel determined before to be done! If you quote this passage to insinuate that God predetermined their sin, you reflect upon the Divine holiness, and apologize for the murderers of our Lord as you have for the murderer of Uriah.

I grant that when God saw, in the light of his infinite foreknowledge, that Pilate and Caiaphas would absolutely choose injustice and cruelty, he “determined” that they should have the awful opportunity of exercising them against his Anointed. As a skilful pilot, without predetermining, and raising a contrary wind, foresees it will rise, and predetermines so to manage the rudder and sails of his ship, as to make it answer a good purpose; so God overruled the foreseen wickedness of those men, and made it subservient to his merciful justice in offering up the true Paschal Lamb. But, as it would be very absurd to ascribe to the “contrary wind” the praise due to the “pilot’s skill;” so it is very unevangelical to ascribe to the sin of Pilate, or of Joseph’s brethren, the good which God drew from some of its extraordinary circumstances.

XV. “The Lord has promised to make ‘all things work for good to those that love him;’ and if all things, then their very sins and corruptions are included in the royal promise.” A siren song this! which you unhappily try to support by Scripture. But,

(1.) if “this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments,” how will you prove that David loved God when he left his own wife for that of Uriah? Does not our Lord declare, that those who will not “forsake husband, wife, children, and all things for his sake, are not worthy of him,” either as believers or lovers? And are those “worthy of him” who break his commandment, and take their neighbours’ wives? Again: if St. John, speaking of one who does not relieve an indigent brother, asks with indignation, “How dwelleth the love of God in him?” May not I, with greater reason, say, “How dwelt the love of God in David?” who, far from assisting Uriah, murdered his soul by drunkenness, and his body with the sword! And if David did not love God, how can you believe that a promise made to “those who love God,” respected him in his state of impenitency?

(2.) When we extol free grace, and declare, that “God’s mercy is over all his works,” you directly answer, that the word ALL must be taken in a limited sense: but when you extol the profitableness of sin, all, (“in all things working for good,”) must be taken universally, and include “sin and corruption,” contrary to the context.

(3.) I say, contrary to the context; for, just before the apostle declares, “If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die,” ye shall evidence the truth of Ezekiel’s doctrine, “When the righteous turneth away from his righteousness, in his sin that he hath sinned shall he die;” and at the end of the chapter, “the things that work for good” are enumerated, and they include “all tribulations and creatures,” but not our own sin, unless you can prove it to be God’s creature, and not the devil’s production.

(4.) It is nowhere promised, that sin shall do us good. On the contrary, God constantly represents it as the greatest evil in the world, the root of all other temporal and eternal evils: and as he makes it the object of his invariable disapprobation, so, till they repent, he levels his severest threatenings at sinners without respect of persons. But the author of Pietas Oxoniensis has made a new discovery. Through the glass of Dr. Crisp, he sees that one of the choicest promises in Scripture respects the commission of sin, of thefts and incest, adultery and murder! So grossly are threatenings and promises, punishments and rewards, confounded together by this fashionable divinity!

(5.) I grant that, in some cases, the punishment inflicted upon a sinner has been overruled for good: but what is this to the sin itself? Is it reasonable to ascribe to sin the good that may spring from the rod with which sin is punished? Some robbers have, perhaps, been brought to repentance by the gallows, and others deterred from committing robbery by the terror of their punishment; but by what rule in logic, or divinity, can we infer from thence, either that any robbers love God, or that all robberies shall work together for their good?

But “Onesimus robbed Philemon his master; and flying from justice, was brought under Paul’s preaching and converted.” Surely, sir, you do not insinuate that Onesimus’ conversion depended upon robbing his master! Or that it would not have been better for him to have served his master faithfully, and stayed in Asia to hear the Gospel with Philemon, than to have rambled to Rome for it in consequence of his crime! The heathens said, “Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.” It will be well if some do not say, upon a fairer prospect than theirs, “Let us steal and rob, for to-morrow we shall be converted.”

XVI. You add, that “The royal and holy seed was continued by the incest of Judah with Tamar, and the adultery of David with Bathsheba.” And do you really think, sir, God made choice of that line to show how incest and adultery “work together for good?” For my part, I rather think that it was because, if he had chosen any other line, he would have met with more such blots. You know that God slew David’s child conceived in adultery; and if he chose Solomon to succeed David, it was not because the adulterous Bathsheba was his mother, but because he was then the best of David’s children: for I may say of God’s choosing the son, what Samuel said of his choosing the father, “the Lord looketh on the heart,” 1 Samuel 16:7.

XVII. You proceed in your enumeration of the good that sin does to the pleasant children. “How has many a poor soul, who has been faithless through fear of man, even blessed God for Peter’s denial!” Surely, sir, you mistake: none but the fiend, who desired to have Peter “that he might sift him,” could bless God for the apostle’s crime; nor could any one, on such a horrible account, bless any other God but “the god of this world.” David said, “My eyes run down with water, because men keep not thy law;” but the author of Pietas Oxoniensis tells us, that “many a poor soul has blessed God” for the most horrid breaches of his law! Weep no more, perfidious apostle! thou hast “cast the net on the right side of the ship;” thy three curses have procured God multitudes of blessings! Surely, sir, you cannot mean this! “Many a poor soul has blessed God” for granting a pardon to Peter, but never for Peter’s denial. It is extremely dangerous thus to confound a crime with the pardon granted to a penitent criminal. XVIII. Upon the same principle you add, “How have many others been raised out of the mire, by considering the tenderness shown to the incestuous Corinthian!” I am glad you do not say, “by considering the incest of the Corinthian.” The good received by many did not then spring from this horrid crime, but from the tenderness of the apostle. This instance, therefore, by your own confession, does not prove that sin does any good to believers.

But as you tell us with what “tenderness the apostle restored that man, when he was swallowed up in godly sorrow, you will permit me to remind you of the severity which he showed him while he continued impenitent. “In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,” said he, “when ye are gathered together, deliver such a one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.” Hence it appears, the apostle thought his case so desperate, that his body must be solemnly delivered to Satan, in order, if possible, to bring his soul to repentance. Now, if the incestuous man’s sins “had been for ever and for ever cancelled;” if he had not forfeited the Divine favour, and cut himself off from “the general assembly of the first born” by his crime; what power could the apostle, who acted under the influence of the Spirit, have had to cut him off from the visible Church as a corrupt member? What right to deliver the body of one of God’s pleasant children” to destruction? Was this “finished salvation?” For my part, as I do not believe in a two-fold, I had almost said Jesuitical, will in God, I am persuaded he would have us consider things as they are; an impenitent adulterer as a profligate heathen; and a penitent believer as his “pleasant child.”

XIX. You add,

(1.) A “grievous fall serves to make believers know their place.” No, indeed, it serves only to make them forget their place; witness David, who, far from knowing his place, wickedly took that of Uriah; and Eve, who, by falling into the condemnation of the devil, took her Maker’s place, in her imagination, and esteemed herself as wise as God.

(2.) “It drives them nearer to Christ.” Surely, you mistake, sir; you mean nearer the devil: for a fall into pride may drive me nearer Lucifer, a fall into adultery and murder may drive me nearer Belial and Moloch; but not nearer Jesus Christ.

(3.) “It makes them more dependent on his strength.” No such thing. The genuine effect of a fall into sin, is to stupify the conscience and harden the heart: witness the state of obduracy in which God found Adam, and the state of carnal security in which Nathan found David, after their crimes.

(4.) “It keeps them more watchful for the future.” Just the reverse: it prevents their watching for the future. If David had been made more watchful by falling into adultery, would he have fallen into treachery and murder? If Peter had been made more watchful by his first falling into perjury, would he have fallen three times successively?

(5.) “It will cause them to sympathize with others in the like situation.” By no means. A fall into sin will naturally make us desirous of drawing another into our guilty condition. Witness the devil and Eve, Eve and Adam, David and Bathsheba. The royal adulterer was so far from sympathizing with the man who had unkindly taken his neighbour’s favourite ewe lamb, that he directly swore, “As the Lord liveth, the man that has done this thing shall surely die.”

6. “It will make them sing louder to the praise of restoring grace throughout all the ages of eternity.” I demand proof of this. I greatly question whether Demas, Alexander the coppersmith, Hymeneus, Philetus, and many of the fallen believers mentioned in the Epistles of our Lord to the Churches of Asia, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, and in those of St. Peter, St. James, and St. Jude, shall sing restoring grace at all. The apostle, far from representing them all as singing louder, gives us to understand, that many of them shall be “thought worthy of a much sorer punishment” than the sinners consumed by fire from heaven; and that “there remaineth therefore no more sacrifice for their sins;” (a sure proof that Christ’s sacrifice availed for them, till they “accounted the blood of the covenant an unholy thing;”) for, adds the apostle, “The Lord will judge his people;” and, notwithstanding all that Dr. Crisp says to the contrary, “there remaineth [for apostates] a certain fearful looking for of judgment, and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. Weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth,” and not “louder songs,” await “the unprofitable servant.”

But supposing some are “renewed to repentance, and escape out of the snare of the devil;” can you imagine they will be upon the footing of those who, standing “steadfast and immovable, always abounded in the work of the Lord?” Shall then “the labour of these be in vain in the Lord?” Are not our works to follow us? Shall the unprofitable servant, if restored, receive a crown of glory equal to his, who, from the time he listed, has always “fought the good fight, and kept the faith?” The doctrine you would inculcate, at once bears hard upon the equity of the Divine conduct, and strikes a fatal blow at the root of all diligence and faithfulness, so strongly recommended in the oracles of God.

You will be sensible of your error, if you observe, that all the fine things which you tell us of a fall into sin, belong not to the fall, but to a happy recovery from it: and my honoured correspondent is as much mistaken, when he ascribes to sin the effects of repentance and faith, as if he ascribed to a frost the effects of a thaw, or to sickness the consequence of a recovery.

And now that we have seen how you have done a pious man’s strange work, permit me, sir, to tell you, that, through the prevalence of human corruption, a word spoken for sin generally goes farther than ten thousand spoken against it. This I know; that if a fall, in an hour of temptation, appears only half so profitable as you represent it, thousands will venture after David into the whirlpool of wickedness. But alas! facilis descensus Averni, &c: it is easier to follow him when he plunges in, than when he struggles out, with his eyes wasted, his flesh dried up, and his bones broken.

XX. I gladly do you the justice, honoured sir, to observe, that you exclaim against sin in the next page; but does not the antidote come too late? You say, “Whatever may be God’s secret will, we are to keep close to the declaration of his own written word, which binds us to resist sin.” But, alas, you make a bad matter worse, by representing God as having two wills, a secret, effectual will that we should sin, and a revealed will, or written word, commanding us to resist sin! If these insinuations are just, I ask, Why should we not regard God’s secret, as much as his revealed will? Nay, why should we not regard it more, since it is the more efficacious, and consequently the stronger will?

You add, “He would be mad who should wilfully fall down, and break a leg or an arm, because he knew there was a skilful surgeon at hand to set it.” But I beg leave to dissent from my honoured opponent. For, supposing I had a crooked leg, appointed to be broken for good, by God’s secret will intimated to me; and supposing a dear friend strongly argued, not only that the surgeon is at hand, but that he would render my leg straighter, handsomer, and stronger than be fore; must I not be a fool, or a coward, if I hesitate throwing myself down?