An Equal Check to Pharisaism and Antinomianism:

AN EQUAL CHECK TO PHARISAISM AND

ANTINOMIANISM:

PART 1.

CONTAINING

I. An Historical Essay on the Danger of Parting Faith and Works. II. Salvation by the Covenant of Grace, a Discourse preached in the Parish Church of Madeley, April 18, and May 9, 1773.

III. A Scriptural Essay on the astonishing Rewardableness of Works, according to the Covenant of Grace.

IV. An Essay on Truth; or a Rational Vindication of the Doctrine of Salvation by Faith, with a Dedicatory Epistle to the Right Hon. the Countess of Huntingdon.

The armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, 2 Corinthians 6:7.

PREFACE TO EQUAL CHECK.

1. THE first piece of this Check was designed for a preface to the discourse that follows it: but as it swelled far beyond my intention, I present it to the reader under the name of An Historical Essay; which makes way for the tracts that follow.

2. With respect to the discourse, I must mention what engages me to publish it. In 1771, I saw the propositions called the Minutes. — Their author invited me to “review the whole affair.” I did so; and soon found that I had “leaned too much toward Calvinism,” which, after mature consideration, appeared to me exactly to coincide with speculative Antinomianism; and the same year I publicly acknowledged my error in these words: —

“But whence springs this almost general Antinomianism of our congregations? Shall I conceal the sore because it festers in my own breast? Shall I be partial? No: in the name of Him, who is no respecter of persons, I will confess my sin, and that of many of my brethren, &c. Is not the Antinomianism of hearers fomented by that of preachers? Does it not become us to take the greatest part of the blame upon ourselves, according to the old adage, Like priest, like people? Is it surprising that some of us should have an Antinomian audience? Do we not make or keep it so? When did we preach such a practical sermon as that of our Lord on the mount? or write such close letters as the Epistles of St. John?” (Second Check, p. 107, to the end of the paragraph.)

When I had thus openly confessed that I was involved in the guilt of “many of my brethren,” and that I had so leaned toward speculative, as not to have made a proper stand against practical Antinomianism; who could have thought that one of my most formidable opponents would have attempted to screen his mistakes behind some passages of a manuscript sermon, which I preached twelve years ago, and of which, by some means or other, he has got a copy?

I am very far, however, from recanting that old discourse. I still think the doctrine it contains excellent in the main, and very proper to be enforced, (though in a more guarded manner,) in a congregation of hearers violently prejudiced against the first Gospel axiom. Therefore, out of regard for the grand leading truth of Christianity, and in compliance with Mr. Hill’s earnest entreaty, (Finishing Stroke, p. 45,) I send my sermon into the world, upon the following reasonable conditions:

(1.) That I shall be allowed to publish it, as I preached it a year ago in my church; namely, with additions in brackets, [ . . . ] to make it at once a fuller check to Pharisaism, and a finishing check to Antinomianism.

(2.) That the largest addition shall be in favour of free grace.

(3.) That nobody shall accuse me of forgery, for thus adding my present light to that which I had formerly; and for thus bringing out of my little treasure of experience things new and old.

(4.) That the press shall not groan with the charge of disingenuity, if I throw into notes some unguarded expressions, which I formerly used without scruple, and which my more enlightened conscience does not suffer me to use at present.

(5.) That my opponent’s call to print my sermon will procure me the pardon of the public for presenting them with a plain, blunt discourse, composed for an audience chiefly made up of colliers and rustics. And (lastly,) that, as I understand English a little better than I did twelve years ago, I shall be permitted to rectify a few French idioms, which I find in my old manuscript; and to connect my thoughts a little more like an Englishman, where I can do it without the least misrepresentation of the sense.

If these conditions appear unreasonable to those who will have heaven itself without any condition, I abolish the distinction between my old sermon and the additions that guard or strengthen it; and referring the reader to the title page, I publish my discourse on Romans 11:5, 6, as a guarded sermon delivered in my church on Sunday, April 18, &c, 1773, exactly eleven years after I had preached upon the same text a sermon useful upon the whole, but in some places unguarded, and deficient with respect to the variety of arguments and motives, by which the capital doctrines of free grace and Gospel obedience ought to be enforced.

3. With regard to the Scriptural Essay upon the rewardableness, of evangelical worthiness of works, I shall just observe that it attacks the grand mistake of the Solifidians, countenanced by three or four words of my old sermon. I pour a flood of scriptures upon it; and after receiving the fire of my objector, I return it in a variety of Scriptural and rational answers, about the solidity of which the public must decide.

4. The Essay on Truth will, I hope, reconcile judicious moralists to the doctrine of salvation by faith, and considerate Solifidians to the doctrine of salvation by the works of faith; reason and Scripture concurring to show the constant dependence of works upon faith; and the wonderful agreement of the doctrine of present salvation by TRUE faith, with the doctrine of eternal salvation by GOOD works.

I hope that I do not dissent, in my observations upon faith, either from our Church, or approved Gospel ministers. In their highest definition of that grace, they consider it only according to the fulness o! the Christian dispensation: but my subject has obliged me to consider it also according to the dispensations of John the Baptist, Moses, and Noah. Believers, under these inferior dispensations, have not always assurance; nor is the assurance they sometimes have so bright as that of adult Christians; Matthew 11:11. But undoubtedly assurance is inseparably connected with the faith of the Christian dispensation, which was not fully opened till Christ opened his glorious baptism on the day of pentecost, and till his spiritual kingdom was set up with power in the hearts of his people. Nobody therefore can truly believe, according to this dispensation, without being immediately conscious both of the forgiveness of sins, and of peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. This is a most important truth, derided indeed by fallen Churchmen, and denied by Laodicean Dissenters; but of late years gloriously revived by Mr. Wesley and the ministers connected with him. A truth this, which cannot be too strongly, and yet too warily insisted upon in our lukewarm and speculative age: and as I would not obscure it for the world, I particularly entreat the reader to mind the last erratum; without omitting the last but one, which guards the doctrine of initial salvation by absolute free grace.

I do not desire to provoke my able opponents; but I must own, I should be glad to reap the benefit of my Checks, either by finding an increase of religious sobriety and mutual forbearance among those who make a peculiar profession of faith in Christ; or by seeing my mistakes (if I am mistaken) brought to light, that I might no longer recommend them as Gospel truths. With this view only I humbly entreat my brethren and fathers in the Church to point out by Scripture or argument the doctrinal errors that may have crept into the Equal Check. But if, upon close examination, they should find that it holds forth the two Gospel axioms in due conjunction; and marks out the evangelical mean with strict impartiality; I hope the moderate and judicious, in the Calvinistic and anti- Calvinistic party, will so far unite upon this plan, as to keep on terms of reciprocal toleration and brotherly kindness together; rising with redoubled indignation, not one against another, but against those pests of the religious world, prejudice and bigotry, the genuine parents of implacable fanaticism, and bloody persecution.

MADELEY, May 21, 1774.

PART FIRST. — AN HISTORICAL ESSAY,

Upon the importance and harmony of the two Gospel precepts, believe and obey; and upon the fatal consequences that flow from parting faith and works.

WHEN the Gospel is considered as opposed to the error of the Pharisees, and that of the Antinomians, it may be summed up in the two following propositions:

(1.) In the day of conversion we are saved freely as sinners, (i.e. made freely partakers of the privileges that belong to our Gospel dispensation in the Church militant,) through the merits of Christ, and by the instrumentality of a living faith.

(2.) In the day of judgment we shall be saved freely as saints, (i.e. made freely partakers of the privileges of our Gospel dispensation in the Church triumphant,) through the merits of Christ, and by the evidence of evangelical works.

Whence it follows:

(1.) That nothing can absolutely hinder our justification in a Gospel day but the want of true faith; and,

(2.) That nothing will absolutely hinder our justification in the day of judgment but the want of good works. If I am not mistaken, all the evangelical doctrine of faith and works turns upon those propositions. They exactly answer to the grand directions of the Gospel. Wilt thou enter into Christ’s sheepfold? Believe. Wilt thou stay there? Believe and obey. Wilt thou be numbered among his sheep in the great day? Endure unto the end: continue in well doing; that is, persevere in faith and obedience. To believe then and obey, or, as Solomon expresses it, “to fear God and keep his commandments is the whole duty of man.” Therefore, a professor of the faith without genuine obedience, and a pretender to obedience without genuine faith, equally miss their aim; while a friend to faith and works put in their proper place, a possessor of the faith which works by love, hits the Gospel mark, and so runs as to obtain the prize: for the same “true and faithful Witness” spoke the two following, and equally express declarations: — “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him,” John 3:36. And, “The hour is coming, in the which all that are in their graves shall come forth, they that have done good unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of condemnation,” John 5:29.

See that sculler upon yonder river. The unwearied diligence and watchful skill with which he plies his two oars point out to us the work and wisdom of an experienced divine. What an even, gentle spring does the mutual effort of his oars give to his boat! Observe him: his right hand never rests but when the stream carries him too much to the left; he slacks not his left hand unless he is gone too much to the right; nor has he sooner recovered a just medium than he uses both oars again with mutual harmony. Suppose that for a constancy he employed but one, no matter which, what would be the consequence? He would only move in a circle; and if neither wind nor tide carried him along, after a hard day’s work he would find himself in the very spot where he began his idle toil.

This illustration needs very little explaining: I shall just observe that the Antinomian is like a sculler, who uses only his right hand oar; and the Pharisee, like him who plies only the oar in his left hand. One makes an endless bustle about grace and faith, the other about charity and works; but both, after all, find themselves exactly in the same case, with this single difference, that one has turned from truth to the right, and the other to the left.

Not so the judicious, unbiassed preacher, who will safely enter the haven of eternal rest, for which he and his hearers are bound. He makes an equal use of the doctrine of faith, and that of works, if at any time he insist most upon faith, it is only when the stream carries his congregation upon the Pharisaical shallows on the left hand. And if he lay a preponderating stress upon works, it is only when he sees unwary souls sucked into the Antinomian whirlpool on the right hand. His skill consists in so avoiding one danger as not to run upon the other.

Nor ought this watchful wisdom to be confined to ministers; for though all are not called to direct congregations, yet all moral agents are, and always were, more or less, called to direct themselves, that is, to occupy till the Lord come, by making a proper use of their talents according to the parable, Matthew 25:15-31. God gave to angels and man “remigium alarum,” the two oars, or, if you please, the equal wings of faith and obedience; charging them to use those grand powers according to their original wisdom and enlightened conscience. Or, to speak without metaphor, he created them in such a manner that they believed it their duty, interest, and glory, to obey him without reserve; and this faith was naturally productive of a universal, delightful, perfect obedience. Nor would they ever have been wanting in practice if they had not first wavered in principle. But when Lucifer had unaccountably persuaded himself, in part at least, either that obedience was mean, or that rebellion would be advantageous; and when the crafty tempter had made our first parents believe, in part, that if they ate of the forbidden fruit, far From dying, they should be as God himself: how possible, how easy was it for them to venture upon an act of rebellion! By rashly playing with the serpent, and sucking in the venom of his crafty insinuations, they soon gave their faith a wilful wound, and their obedience naturally died of it. But, alas! it did not die unrevenged; for no sooner had fainting faith given birth to a dead work, than she was destroyed by her spurious offspring. Thus faith and obedience, that couple more lovely than David and his friend, more inseparable than Saul and Jonathan, in their death were not divided. They even met with a common grave, the corrupt, atrocious breast of a rebellious angel, or of apostate man.

Nor does St. James give us a less melancholy account of this fatal error. While faith slumbered, “lust conceived and brought forth sin, and sin finished, brought forth death,” the death of faith, and consequently the moral death of angelic spirits and human souls, who equally live by faith f59 during their state of probation. So fell Lucifer from heaven, to rule and rage in the darkness of this world: so fell Adam from paradise, to toil and die in this vale of tears: so fell Judas from an apostolic throne, to hang himself, and go to his own place.

Nor can we rise but in a way parallel to that by which they fell. For as a disbelief of our CREATOR, productive of bad works, sunk our first parents; so a faith in our REDEEMER, productive of good works, must instrumentally raise their fallen posterity.

Should you ask which is most necessary to salvation, faith or works? I beg leave to propose a similar question: Which is most essential to breathing, inspiration or expiration? If you reply, that “the moment either is absolutely at an end, so is the other; and therefore both are equally important:” I return exactly the same answer. If humble faith receive the breath of spiritual life, obedient love gratefully returns it, and makes way for a fresh supply. When it does not, the Spirit is grieved: and if this want of co-operation is persisted in to the end of the day of salvation, the sin unto death is committed, the Spirit is quenched in his saving operation, the apostate dies the second death, and his corrupt soul is cast into the bottomless pit, as a putrid corpse into the noisome grave. Again: if faith has the advantage over works by giving them birth, works have the advantage over faith by perfecting it. “Seest thou,” says St. James, speaking of the father of the faithful, “how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?” And if St. Paul affirms that works without faith are dead, St. James maintains, “faith without works is dead also.”

Once more: Christ is always the primary, original, properly meritorious cause of our justification and salvation. To dispute it is to renounce the faith, and to plead for antichrist. And yet to deny that, under this primary cause, there are secondary, subordinate, instrumental causes of our justification, and consequently of our salvation, is to set the Bible aside, and fly in the face of judicious Calvinists, who cannot help maintaining it, both from the pulpit and from the press.f60 Now, if in the day of our conversion faith is the secondary, subordinate cause of our acceptance as penitent sinners; in the day of judgment works, even the works of faith, will be the secondary, subordinate cause of our acceptance as persevering saints. Let us therefore equally decry dead faith and dead works, equally recommend living faith and its important fruits.

Hitherto I have endeavoured to check the rapid progress of speculative Antinomianism that perpetually decries works, and centres in the following paragraph, which presents without disguise the doctrine of the absolute, unconditional perseverance of adulterous believers, and incestuous saints: —

Saving faith, being immortal, can not only subsist without the help of good works, but no aggravated crimes can give it a finishing stroke. A believer may in cool blood murder a man, after having seduced his wife, without exposing himself to the least real danger of forfeiting either his heavenly inheritance, or the Divine favour; because his salvation, which is finished in the full extent of the word, without any of his good works, cannot possibly be frustrated by any of his evil ones.

It will not be improper now to attempt a check to Pharisaism, which perpetually opposes faith, and whose destructive errors, collected in one position, may run thus: — If people perform external acts of worship toward God, and of charity toward their neighbour, their principles f61 are good enough: and should they be faulty, these good works will make ample amends for that deficiency. Upon this common plan of doctrine, if the filthy sepulchre is but whitewashed, and the noisome grave adorned with a flowery turf, it little matters what is within, whether it be a dead man’s bones, a dead heart swelled with pride, or all manner of corruption. It is hard to say who do Christianity most disservice, the Solifidians, who assert that works are nothing “before God;” or the Pharisees, who maintain that certain religious ceremonies, and external duties of morality, are the very soul of religion. O thou true believer, bear thy testimony against both their errors; and equally contend for the tree and the fruit, the faith of St. Paul and the works of St. James; remembering that if ever the gates of hell prevail against thee, it will be by making thee overvalue faith and despise good works, or overrate works, and slight “precious faith.” The world, I grant, is full of Gallios, easy or busy men, who seldom trouble themselves about faith or works, law or Gospel. Their latitudinarian principles perfectly agree with their loose conduct: and if their volatile minds are fixed, it is only by a steady adherence to such commandments as these: — “Be not righteous overmuch: get and spend: marry or be given in marriage: eat and drink: lie down to sleep, and rise up to play: care neither for heaven nor hell: mind all of earth, but the awful spot allotted thee for a grave,” &c. However, while they punctually observe this decalogue, their conscience is sometimes awakened to a sense of corroding guilt, commonly called uneasiness, or low spirits: and if they cannot shake it off by new scenes of dissipation, new plunges into sensual gratifications, new schemes of hurrying business; if a religious concern fastens upon their breasts, the tempter deludes them, by making his false coin pass for the “gold tried in the fire:” if his dupes will have faith, he makes them take up with that of the Antinomians. If they are for works, he recommends to them those of the self righteous. And if some seem cut out to be brands in the Church — fiery, persecuting, implacable zealots — he gives them a degree in the university of Babel. One is a bachelor of the science of sophistry; another a master of the liberal art of calumny; and a third a doctor in human, or diabolical divinity. But if all these graduates have not as much faith as Simon Magus, or as many works as the conceited Pharisee, yet they may have as much zeal for the Church as the bigot, who set out from Jerusalem for Damascus in pursuit of heretics. They may sometimes pursue those who dissent from them, even “unto strange cities.”

Has not the world always swarmed with those devotees, who, blindly following after faith without loving obedience, or after obedience without loving faith, have “made havoc of the Church,” and driven myriads of worldly men to a settled contempt of godliness: while a few, by equally standing up for true faith and universal obedience, have alone kept up the honour of religion in the world? Take a general view of the Church, and you will see this observation confirmed by a variety of black, bright, and mixed characters.

The first man born of a woman is a striking picture of perverted mankind. He is at once a sullen Pharisee, and a gross Antinomian: he sacrifices to God, and murders his brother. Abel, the illustrious type of converted sinners, truly believes, and acceptably sacrifices.

Faith and works shine in his life with equal lustre; and in his death we see what the godly may expect from the impious Church and the pious world. Protomartyr for the doctrine of this Check, he falls the first innocent victim to Pharisaical pride and Antinomian fury. “The sons of God” mix with “the daughters of men, learn their works,” and “make shipwreck of the faith.” Enoch nevertheless truly believes in God, and humbly walks with him: faith and works equally adorn his character. The world is soon full of misbelief, and the earth of violence. Noah, however, believes and works: he credits God’s word, and builds the ark. This WORK “condemns the world, and he becomes heir of the righteousness which is by FAITH.” Consider Abraham; see how he believes and works! God speaks, and he leaves his house, his estate, his friends, and native country. His faith works by love; he exposes his life to recover his neighbour’s property; he readily gives up to Lot his right of choice to prevent a quarrel; he earnestly intercedes for Sodom; he charitably hopes the best of its wicked inhabitants; he gladly entertains strangers, humbly washes their feet, diligently instructs his household, and submissively offers up Isaac, his favourite son, the child of his old age, the hope of his family, his own heir, and that of God’s promise. By these “works his faith is made perfect,” and he deserves to be called the “father of the faithful.”

Moses treads in his steps: he believes, quits Pharaoh’s court, and suffers affliction with the people of God. Under his conduct the Israelites believe, obey, and cross the Red Sea with a high hand; but soon after they murmur, rebel, and provoke Divine vengeance. Thus the destruction, which they had avoided in Goshen through obedient faith, they meet in the wilderness, through “the works of unbelief.” Nature is up in arms to punish their backslidings. The pestilence, the sword, earthquakes, fiery serpents, and fire from heaven, combine to destroy the ungrateful, Antinomian apostates. In the days of Joshua, that eminent type of Christ, faith and works are happily reconciled; and while they walk hand in hand, Israel is invincible, the greatest difficulties are surmounted, and the land of promise is conquered, divided, and enjoyed.

Under the next judges faith and works seldom meet; but as often as they do, a deliverance is wrought in Israel. Working believers carry all before them: they “can do all things through the Lord strengthening them.” They are little omnipotents. But if they suffer the Antinomian Delilah to cut off their locks, you may apply to them the awful words of David, (spoken to magistrates who forsake the way of righteousness,) “I have said, Ye are gods, and all of you are children of the Most High; but ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes;” like Zimri or Korah, Dathan or Abiram.

The character of Samuel, the last of the judges, is perfect. From the cradle to the grave he believes and works: he serves God and his generation. His sons, like those of Eli, halt in practice, and their faith is an abomination to God and man. David believes, works, and kills the blaspheming Philistine. He slides into Antinomian faith, wantonly seduces a married woman, and perfidiously kills an honest man. Solomon follows him in the narrow path of working faith, and in the broad way of speculative and practical Antinomianism. The works of the son correspond with those of the father. Happy for him, if the repentance of the idolatrous king equalled that of his adulterous parent!

In the days of Elijah the gates of hell seemed to have prevailed against the Church. Queen Jezebel had “cut off the prophets of the Lord,” and appointed four hundred chaplains to his majesty King Ahab, who shared the dainties of the royal table, and therefore found it easy to demonstrate, that “pleading for Baal” was orthodoxy, and prosecuting honest Naboth as “a blasphemer of God and the king,” was an instance of true loyalty. But then all were not lost: seven thousand men showed their faith by their works: they firmly believed in Jehovah, and steadily refused bowing the knee to Baal.

In the days of Isaiah and Jeremiah, wickedness, persecution, and imaginary good works prevailed, under a show of zeal for the temple, and of regard for the people of God. But even then, also, there was a small remnant of believing and working souls, who set fire to the stubble of wickedness during the pious reign of Hezekiah and Josiah.

Follow the chosen nation to Babylon. They all profess the faith still: but how few believe and work! Some do, however: and by their “work of faith” and “patience of hope” they “quench the violence of fire,” and” stop the mouths of lions.” And what is more extraordinary still, they strike with astonishment a fierce tyrant, a Nebuchadnezzar; they fill with wonder a cowardly king, a Darius: and disarming the former of his rage, the latter of his fears, they sweetly force them both to confess the true God among their idolatrous courtiers, and throughout their immense dominions. In the days of Herod the double delusion is at the height. John the Baptist boldly bears his testimony against it in the wilderness, and our Lord upon the mount, in the temple, and every where. But, alas! what is the consequence? By detecting the Antinomianism of the Pharisees, and the Pharisaism of Antinomians, he makes them desperate. The spirit of Cain rises with ten-fold fury against an innocence far superior to that of Abel. Pharisees and Herodians must absolutely glut their malice with his blood. He yields to their rage; and while he “puts away sin by the sacrifice of himself,” he condescends to die a martyr for the right faith, and the true works: he seals as a dying priest the truth of the two Gospel axioms, which he had so often sealed as a living prophet, and continues to seal as an eternal Melchisedec.

The apostles, by precept and example, powerfully enforce their Lord’s doctrine and practice. Their lives are true copies of their exhortations. Their deepest sermons are only exact descriptions of their behaviour. It is hard to say which excite men most to believe and obey, their seraphic discourses, or their angelic conduct. Their labours are crowned with general success. Judaism and heathenism are every where struck at, and fall under the thunder of their words of faith, and the shining power (might I not say the lightning?) of their works of love. Thus the world is “turned upside down” before faith and works; “the times of refreshing come from the presence of the Lord;” and earth, cursed as it is, becomes a paradise for obedient believers.

Hell trembles at the revolution; and before all is lost Satan hastens to “transform himself into an angel of light.” In that favourable disguise he puts his usual stratagem in execution against the believing, working, and suffering Church. He instils speculative faith, pleads for relaxed manners, puts the badge of contempt upon the daily cross, and gets the immense body of the Gnostics and Laodiceans into his snare. Sad and sure is the consequence. The genuine works of faith are neglected: idle works of men’s invention are substituted for those of God’s commandments: and fallen Churches, through the smooth way of Antinomianism, return to the covert way of Pharisaism, or to the broad way of infidelity. Such was the deplorable condition of the western Church when Luther appeared. True faith was dethroned by superstitious fancy: and all the works of the former were well nigh choked by the thorns that sprang from the latter. The zealous reformer, with his sharp scythe, justly cut them down through a considerable part of Germany. His terribly successful weapon, which had already done some execution in the Netherlands, France, and Italy, might have reached Rome itself, if the effects of his unguarded preaching had not dreadfully broke out around him in the north. There the balance of the evangelical precepts was lost. Solifidians openly prevailed. Our Lord’s sermon upon the mount, and St. James’ Epistle, were either explained away, or wished out of the Bible. The amiable, practicable law of Christ was perpetually confounded with the terrible, impracticable law of innocence; and the avoidable penalties of the former were injudiciously represented as one with the dreadful curse of the latter, or with the abrogated ceremonies of the Mosaic dispensation. Then the law was publicly wedded to the devil, and poor Protestant Solifidians were taught to bid equal defiance to both.

The effects soon answered the cause. Lawless believers, known under the name of Anabaptists, arose in Germany. They fancied themselves the dear, the elect people of God; they were complete in Christ; their election was absolutely made sure; all things were theirs; and they went about in religious mobs to deliver people from legal bondage, and bring them into Gospel liberty, which, in their opinion, was a liberty to despise all laws, Divine and human, and to do every one what was right in his own eyes. Luther was shocked, and cried out: but the mischief was done, and the reformation disgraced. Nor did he perseveringly apply the proper remedy pointed out in the Minutes, “Salvation, not by the merit of works, but by the works of faith as a condition.”

Nevertheless, he was wise enough to give up the root of the mischief in the Lutheran articles of religion, presented to the Emperor Charles the Fifth at Augsburg, whence they were called, The Augsburg Confession. In the twelfth of those articles, which treats of repentance, we find these remarkable words: “We teach, touching repentance, that those who have sinned after baptism may obtain the forgiveness of their sins as often as they are converted,” &c. Again’ “We condemn the Anabaptists, who say that those who have been once justified can no more lose the Holy Spirit.” This doctrine clearly opened, and frequently enforced, might have stopped the progress of Antinomianism. But, alas! Luther did not often insist upon it, and sometimes he seemed even to contradict it. In the meantime Calvin came up; and though I must do him the justice to acknowledge that he seldom went the length of modern Calvinists in speculative Antinomianism, yet he made the matter worse by advancing many unguarded propositions about absolute decrees, and the necessary final perseverance of backsliding believers.

This doctrine, which, together with its appendages, so nicely reconciles Baal and free grace; a little, or (if the backslider is so minded) a good deal of the world and heaven; this flesh-pleasing doctrine, which slily parts faith and works, while it decently unites Christ and Belial, could not but be acceptable to injudicious and carnal Protestants. And to make it pass with others, it was pompously decorated with the name of the doctrine of grace; and free grace preachers, as they call themselves, insinuated that St. James’ doctrine of “faith being dead without works,” was a doctrine of wrath, an uncomfortable, anti-christian doctrine, which none but “proud Justiciaries” and rank Papists could maintain. Time would fail to mention all the books that were indirectly written against it; or to relate all the abuse that was indirectly thrown upon these two propositions of St. Paul, “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap,” and, “If ye live after the flesh ye shall die.”

Let it suffice to observe, that by these means the hellish sower of Antinomian tares prevailed. Thousands of good men were carried away by the stream; and, what is more surprising still, not a few of the wise and learned, favoured, embraced, and defended the Antinomian delusion. Thus what Luther’s Solifidian zeal had begun, and what Calvin’s predestinarian mistakes had carried on, was readily completed by the synod of Dort; and the Antinomianism of many Protestants was not less confirmed by that assembly of Calvinistic divines, than the Pharisaism of many Papists had been before by the council of Trent.

It is true, that as some good men in the Church of Rome have boldly withstood Pharisaical errors, and openly pleaded for salvation by grace through faith; so some good men in the Protestant Churches have also steadily resisted Antinomian delusions, and publicly defended the doctrine of salvation, not by the proper merit of works, but by the works of faith as a condition. But, alas! As the popes of Rome crushed or excommunicated the former almost as fast as they arose; so have petty Protestant popes blackened or silenced the latter. The true Quakers, from their first appearance, have made as firm a stand against the Antinomians, as the Valdenses against the Papists; and it is well known that the Antinomians, who went from England to America with many pious Puritans, whipped the Quakers, men and women, cut off their ears, made against them a law of banishment upon pain of death, and upon that tyrannical law hanged four of their preachers, three men and one woman,f62 in the last century for preaching up the Christian perfection of faith and obedience, and so disturbing the peace of the elect, who were “at ease in Sion,” or rather in Babel.

I need not mention the title of heretic with which that learned and good man, Arminius, is to this day dignified, for having made a firm and noble stand against wanton free grace. The banishment or deprivation of Grotius, Episcopius, and other Dutch divines, is no secret. And it is well known that in England Mr. Baxter, Mr. Wesley, and Mr. Sellon, are to this day “an abhorrence to all Antinomian flesh.”

I am sorry to say, that, all things considered, these good men have been treated with as much severity by Protestant Antinomians, as ever Luther, Melancthon, and Calvin were by Popish Pharisees. The Antinomian and Pharisaic spirit run as much into one, as the two arms of a river that embraces an island. If they divide for a time, it is only to meet again, and increase their mutual rapidity. I beg leave to speak my whole mind. It is equally clear from Scripture and reason that we must believe in order to be saved consistently with God’s mercy; and that we must obey in order to be saved consistently with his holiness. These propositions are the immovable basis of the two Gospel axioms. Now if I reject either of them, it little matters which. If I blow my brains out, what signifies it whether I do it by clapping the mouth of a pistol to my right or to my left temple? Error moves in a circle: extremes meet in one. A warm Popish Pharisee, and a zealous Protestant Antinomian, are nearer each other than they imagine. The one will tell you that by going to mass and confession he can get a fresh absolution from the priest for any sin that he shall commit. The other, whose mistake is still more pleasing to flesh and blood, assures you that he has already got an eternal absolution, so that “under every state and circumstance he can possibly be in, he is justified from all things, his sins are for ever and for ever cancelled.”

But, if they differ a little in the idea of their imaginary privileges, they have the honour of agreeing in the main point. For, although the one makes a great noise about faith and free grace, and the other about works and true charity, they exactly meet in narrow grace and despairing uncharitableness. The Pharisee in Jerusalem asserts, that “out of the Jewish Church there can be no salvation,” and his companions in self election heartily say, Amen! The Pharisee in Rome declares, that “there is no salvation out of the apostolic, Romish Church,” and all the Catholic elect set their seal to the antichristian decree. And the Antinomian in London insinuates, (for he is ashamed to speak quite out in a Protestant country,) that there is no salvation out of the Calvinistic Predestinarian Church. Hence, if you oppose his principles in ever so rational and Scriptural a manner, he supposes that you are “quite dark,” that all your holiness is “self made,” and all your “righteousness a cobweb spun by a poor spider out of its own bowels.” And if he allows you a chance for your salvation, it is only upon a supposition, that you may yet repent of your opposition to his errors, and turn Calvinist before you die. But might not an inquisitor be as charitable? Might he not hope that the poor heretic, whom he has condemned to the flames, may yet be saved, if he cordially kiss a crucifix, and say, “Ave, Maria!” at the stake?

And now, candid reader, look around, and see what these seemingly opposite errors have done for Christ’s Church. Before the reformation Christendom was overspread with superstition and fanaticism; and since, with lukewarmness and infidelity. But let us descend to particulars. What has Pharisaism done for the Church of Rome? It has publicly rent from her all the Protestant kingdoms, and secretly turned against her an innumerable multitude of Deists: for while bigots continue ridiculous bigots still; men of wit, headed by ingenious infidels, continually pour undeserved contempt upon Christianity, through the deserved wounds which they give to Popery. They represent Christ’s rational and humane religion as one of the worst in the world, unjustly charging it with the persecuting spirit, and horrible massacres of those Catholics, so called, who, mangling the truth, and running away with one half of the body of Christian divinity, disgrace the whole by childish fooleries, and worse than barbarian uncharitableness. And what does Pharisaism for the Protestant Churches? So far as it prevails, spreads it not around its fatal leaven, a general indifference about heart-felt religion? Turns it not the lively oracles of God into a dead letter, the sacraments into empty ceremonies, the means of grace into rattles, to quiet a guilty conscience with; the precious blood of Christ into a common thing, his hallowed cross into an inglorious tree, external devotion into a cloak for secret hypocrisy; and some acts of apparent benevolence into the rounds of a ladder, the bottom of which reaches hell, and behold spiritual fiends (all manner of diabolical tempers) are seen continually “ascending and descending on it?”

Does it not incline us to despise those who are eminently pious, as if they were out of their senses; to despair of those who are notoriously wicked, as if they were absolute reprobates: and to prefer a popular imitator of Barabbas to a meek follower of Jesus? Does it not prompt us to lay an undue stress upon trifles, and make an endless ado about some frivolous circumstance of external worship, while we “pass over judgment, mercy, and the love of God?” And by that means does it not confirm modern Herodians in their Antinomianism, and modern Sadducees in their infidelity? In a word, does it not render the stiff neck stiffer, the blind understanding blinder, the hard heart stouter, the proud spirit more rebellious, more indifferent about mercy, more averse to Gospel grace, more satanical, readier for all the curses of the law, and riper for all the woes of the Gospel?

But let us consider the other extreme. What has Calvinism done for Geneva? Alas! It has in a great degree shocked and driven it into Arianism, Socinianism, and infidelity. See the account lately given of it in the French Encyclopedia, article Geneva. “Many of the clergy of Geneva (says judicious Mr. D’Alembert) no longer believe the divinity of Jesus Christ, of which Calvin their leader was a zealous defender, and for which he had Servetus burned, &c. They believe that there are punishments in another world, but only for a limited time. Thus purgatory, which was one of the chief causes of the reformation, is now the only punishment which many Protestants admit after death. A new proof this that man is a being full of contradictions. To sum up all in one word, the religion of many pastors at Geneva is perfect Socinianism.”

What good has Calvinism done in England? Alas! very little. When a bow is bent beyond its proper degree of tension, does it not fly to pieces? When you violently pull a tree toward the west, if it recovers itself, does it not violently fly to the east? Has not this generally been the case with respect to all the truths of God, which have been forced out of their Scriptural place one way or another? Calvinism, in the days of Oliver Cromwell, was at the very same height of splendour at which Popery had attained in the days of King Henry the Eighth, and they share the same downfall. Mole ruunt sua. At the reformation, the first grand doctrine of Christianity, (salvation by grace through faith,) which had been forced out of its place, and almost broken by the Papists, flew back upon them with such violence that it shook the holy see, frightened the pope, and made some of the richest jewels fall from his triple crown. In like manner the second grand doctrine of Christianity, (salvation, not by the proper merit of works, but by the works of faith as a condition,) which had been served by the Antinomians just as the first Gospel axiom by the Papists, recovering itself out of their hands, flew back upon them with uncommon violence at King Charles’ restoration; by an indirect blow shook two thousand Calvinistic ministers out of their pulpits; and getting far beyond its Scriptural place, began to bear hard upon, and even thrust out the grand doctrine of salvation by grace. Thus the absurdity and mischief of Antinomianism began to drive again the generality of English Protestants into Pharisaism, Arianism, Socinianism, or open infidelity; that is, into the state in which most of the learned are at Rome and Geneva.

I grant that near forty years ago some clergymen from the university of Oxford returned to the principles of the reformation, and zealously contended again for salvation by grace, and for universal obedience. By the Divine blessing upon their indefatigable endeavours, faith and works met again, and for some time walked undisturbed together. A little revolution then took place: practical Christianity revived, and leaning upon her fair daughters, truth and love, took a solemn walk through the kingdom, and gave a foretaste of heaven to all that cordially entertained her. She might, by this time, have turned this favourite isle into a land flowing with spiritual milk and honey, if Apollyon, disguised in his angelic robes, had not played, and did not continue to play his old game. Nor does he do it in vain. By his insinuations men of a contrary turn rise against practical Christianity. Many of the devout call her heresy, and many of the gay name her rank enthusiasm. In the meantime she drops a tear of tender pity, prays for her mistaken persecutors, and quietly retires into the wilderness. Lean obedience is soon driven after her, to make more room for speculative faith, who is so highly fed with luscious food and wild honey that she is quite bloated, and full of humours. Nay, in some she is degenerated into an impatient, quarrelsome something, which calls itself orthodoxy, or the truth, and must be treated with the greatest respect; while charity, cold, sickly, and almost starved for want of work, is hardly used with common good manners.

In a word, Antinomian Christianity is come, and makes her public entry in the professing Church. A foolish virgin, who assumes the name of free grace, walks before her, and cries, “Bend the knee, bow the heart, and entertain the old, the pure, the only Gospel.” An ugly black boy, called free wrath, bears her enormous train, and with wonderful art hides himself behind it. While thousands are taken with the smiles and cheerfulness of wanton free grace, (for that is the virgin’s right name,) and for her sake welcome her painted mother, a grey-headed seer passes by, fixes his keen eyes upon the admired family, sees through their disguise, and warns his friends. This is highly resented, not only by all the lovers of the sprightly, alluring maid, but by some excellent people, who, in the simplicity of their hearts, mistake her for the celestial Virgin Astrea. Mr. H. and Mr. T., two of her champions, fall upon the aged monitor; and to the great entertainment of the Pharisaic and Antinomian world, who do the best to tread down his honour in the dust.

While they are thus employed, a rough countryman, who had taken the seer’s warning, throws himself full in the way of Antinomian Christianity, and tries to stop her in her triumphal march. Wanton free grace is a little disconcerted at his rudeness, she reddens, and soon shows herself the true sister of free wrath. To be revenged of the clown, she charges him with — guess what — a rape? No: but with being great with “the scarlet whore,” and concerned with the Romish “man of sin.” If he is acquitted of these enormities, they say that she is determined to indict him for murder or “forgery;” and if that will not do, for highway robbery, or “execrable Swiss slander.” The mountaineer, who “counts not his life dear,” stands his ground, and in the scuffle discovers the black boy, lays fast hold of him, and notwithstanding the good words that he gives one moment, and the floods of invectives which he pours out the next, he drags him out to public view, and appeals to the Christian world. Et adhuc sub judice lis est. But leaving England, the scene of the present controversy, I ask, What does Calvinism at this day for Scotland, where national honours are paid to it, and where for some ages it has passed for the pure Gospel? Alas! not much, if we may depend upon the observations of a gentleman of piety and fortune, who went last year with an eminent minister of Christ to inspect the state of spiritual Christianity in the north, and brought back this melancholy account: — “The decay of vital religion is yet more visible in Scotland than in England.”

Should, by this time, some of my readers be ready to ask what Arminianism has done for Holland and England, I reply: If by Arminianism you mean the pure doctrine of Christ, especially the doctrine of our free justification through Christ, by the instrumentality of faith in the day of a sinner’s conversion, and by the evidence of the works of faith afterward: if you mean, as I do, a system of evangelical truth, in which the two Gospel precepts, believe and obey, are duly balanced, and faith and works kept in their Scriptural place; I answer: That under Christ it has done all the good that has been done, not only in Holland and England, but in all Christendom.

Be not then mistaken: when ministers, leaning toward speculative Antinomianism, have done good, it has not been by preaching wanton free grace, and by shackling the free Gospel, but by powerfully enforcing “the truth as it is in Jesus;” by crying aloud, “Believe, thou lost sinner, and be saved by grace: obey, thou happy believer, and evidence thy salvation by works: and whosoever will, let him come and take of the water of life freely, for all things are now ready.” So far as they have started aside from this guarded, and yet encouraging Gospel, they have pulled down with one hand what they built with the other; they have tried to make up the Pharisaic, by widening the Antinomian gap; they have departed from what we call Christianity, and what you are at full liberty to call Arminianism, Baxterianism, or Wesleyanism.

To return: I observed, just now, that Antinomianism drives us into Pharisaism, Socinianism, and infidelity: but might I not have added fatalism, the highest degree of fashionable infidelity? And after all, what is fatalism, in which the greatest infidels unanimously shelter themselves in our day? Is it not the beginning or the end of high Calvinism, whose emblematical representation may be a serpent forming a circle while it bites its tail, with this motto, In sese volvitur error, “After a large circuit error ends where it began?” If high Calvinism is the head, is not fatalism the tail? For my part I shall not wonder if some of our high Predestinarians find themselves, before they are aware, even at Hobbes’ or Voltaire’s feet, humbly learning there the horrible lessons of fatalism. Nay, if I am not mistaken, they perfectly agree with the French philosopher in the capital point. One might think that they have converted him to their orthodoxy, or that he has perverted them to his infidelity. Candid reader, judge of it by the following extract of his lecture on destiny: —

“Homer (says he) is the first writer in whose works we find the notion of fate. It was then in vogue in his time. Nor was it adopted by the Pharisees till many years after: for these Pharisees themselves, who were the first men of letters among the Jews, were not very ancient, &c. But philosophers needed neither the help of Homer, nor that of the Pharisees, to persuade themselves that all things happen by immutable decrees, that all is fixed, that all is necessary.” Now for the proof: “Bodies (adds he) tend to the centre; pear trees can never bear pine apples; a man cannot have above a certain number of teeth.” And directly flying from teeth to ideas, he would have us infer, that we can no more arrange, combine, alter, or dismiss our ideas, than our grinders; and that an adulterer defiles his neighbour’s bed as necessarily as a pear tree produces pears. He even adds, “If thou couldst alter the destiny of a fly, thou shouldst be more powerful than God himself.” (See Dictionaire Philosophique Portatif, Londres, 1764, pp. 163, 164.) This ingenious infidel is quite as orthodox (in the Calvinistic sense of the word) in his article on liberty: — “What does then your free will consist in, (says he,) if it is not in a power to do willingly what absolute necessity makes you choose?” Nay, he is so staunch a Predestinarian, so complete a fatalist, that he maintains no one can choose even or odds without an irresistible order of all-directing fate. And he concludes by affirming that all “liberty of indifference,” that is, all power to do a thing, or to leave it undone at our option, without the necessitating agency of fate, “is arrant nonsense.” (See the same book, page 243, &c.)

Thus the most subtle, self. righteous infidel in France, by going full east, and the most rigid, thorough-paced Antinomian in England, by going full west in the ways of error, meet at last face to face in the antipodes of truth. O may the shock caused by their unexpected encounter wake them both out of their fatal dreams, to call upon Him, who “takes the wise in their own craftiness,” imparts true wisdom to the simple, and crowns the humble with grace and glory.

As high Calvinism on the left hand falls in with fatalism, so on the right hand it runs into the wildest notions of some deluded mystics, and ranting Perfectionists. Judicious reader, you will be convinced of it by the following propositions, advanced by Molinos f63 the Father of the mystics and Perfectionists, who are known abroad under the name of Quietists. These positions, among many others, were condemned by the pope as “rash, offensive to pious ears, erroneous, scandalous,” &c. I extract them from the bull of his holiness, given at Rome, 1687, and published by the archbishop of Cambray at the end of his book called Instruction Pastorale, printed at Amsterdam, 1698. (See page 192, &c.)

“Velle operari active est Deum offendere, qui vult esse solus agens, &c. To be willing to be active and work, is to offend God, who will be the sole agent, &c. Our natural activity stands in the way of grace, and hinders the Divine operation and true perfection, quia Deus vult operari in nobis sine nobis, because God will work in us without us. The soul ought not to think upon rewards and punishments. We must leave to God the caring of all that concerns us, that he may do in us, without us, his Divine will. He that will be resigned to God’s will, must not ask him any thing, because petitions savour of our own will, and therefore are imperfect,” or, to speak in the Calvinistic way, sinful.

Again: “God, to humble and transform us, permits and wills that the devil should do violence to the bodies of some perfect souls, [i.e. established believers,] and should make them commit carnal actions against their will. God now sanctifies his saints by the ministry of devils, who, by causing in their flesh the above-mentioned violent impulses, makes them despise themselves the more, &c. St. Paul felt such violent impulses in his body: hence he wrote, ‘The good that I would, I do not: and the evil which I would not, I do.’ These violent impulses are the best means to humble the soul to nothing, and to bring it to true holiness and the Divine union: there is no other way, et hæc est via facilior et tutior, and this is the easier and the safer way. David, &c, suffered such violent impulses to external impure actions,” &c.

Who does not see here some of the most absurd tenets or dangerous consequences of Calvinism? Man is a mere machine in the work of salvation. The body of holy Paul is sold under sin. David in Uriah’s bed is complete and perfect in Christ. Actual adultery humbles believers, and is an excellent mean of sanctification, &c.

When we see Antinomianism thus defiling the sounder part of the Romish and Protestant Churches: when the god of this world avails himself of these “Antinomian dotages” to confirm myriads of stiff Pharisees in their self-righteous delusions; and when the bulk of men, shocked at the glaring errors of both, run for shelter to Deism and gross infidelity; who would not desire to see the doctrines of faith and works, grace and obedience, so stated and reconciled, that men of reason might no longer be offended at Christianity; nor men of religion one at another?

This is again attempted in the following discourse, the substance of which was committed to paper many years ago, to convince the Pharisees and Papists of my parish that there is no salvation by the faithless works of the law, but by a living faith in Jesus Christ. With shame I confess that I did not then see the need of guarding the doctrine of faith against the despisers of works. I was chiefly bent upon pulling up the tares of Pharisaism: those of Antinomianism were not yet sprung up in the field which I began to cultivate; or my want of experience hindered me from discerning them. But since, what a crop of them have I perceived and bewailed! Alas! they have in a great degree ruined the success of my ministry. I have seen numbers of lazy seekers enjoying the dull pleasures of sloth on the couch of wilful unbelief, under pretence that God was to do all in them without them. I have seen some lie flat in the mire of sin, absurdly boasting that they could not fall; and others make the means of grace, means of idle gossiping or sly courtship. I have seen some turn their religious profession into a way of gratifying covetousness or indolence; and others their skill in Church music, their knowledge and their zeal into various nets to catch esteem, admiration, and praise. Some have I seen making yesterday’s faith a reason to laugh at the cross to-day; and others drawing from their misapprehensions of the atonement arguments to be less importunate in secret prayer, and more conformable to this evil world, than once they were. Nay, I have seen some professing believers backward to do those works of mercy, which I have sometimes found persons, who made no professions of godliness, quite ready to perform. And O! tell it in Sion, that watchfulness may not be neglected by believers, that fearfulness may seize upon backsliders, and that trembling may break the bones of hypocrites and apostates; I have seen those who had equally shined by their gifts and graces strike the moral world with horror by the grossest Antinomianism; and disgrace the doctrine of salvation through faith by the deepest plunges into scandalous sin.

Candid reader, I need say no more to make thee sensible of the necessity of the additions and notes, by which I have strengthened and guarded my old discourse, that it might be an EQUAL Check to Pharisaism and Antinomianism, an equal prop to faith and works. If it afford thee any edification, give God the glory, and pray for the despised author. Ask, in the words of the good Bishop Hopkins, that I may so “BELIEVE, so rest on the merits of Christ, as if I had never wrought any thing; and withal so would, as if I were only to be saved by my own merits.” And O! ask it again and again, for I find it a difficult thing to give to each of these its due in my practice. It is the very depth and height of Christian perfection. POSTSCRIPT.

MADELEY, Jan. 10, 1774.

ABOVE fifteen years ago I looked into Baxter’s Aphorisms on Justification, and through prejudice or sloth I soon laid them down, as being too deep for me. But a few days since a friend having brought me Mr. Wesley’s extract of them, I have read it with much satisfaction, and present my readers with a compendium of my discourse in the words of those two judicious and laborious divines.

“As there are two covenants, with their distinct conditions, so there is a two-fold righteousness, and both of them absolutely necessary to salvation. Our righteousness of the first covenant is not personal, or consisteth not in any actions performed by us; for we never personally satisfied the law, [of innocence,] but it is wholly without us in Christ. In this sense every Christian disclaimeth his own righteousness or his own works. Those only shall be in Christ legally righteous who believe and obey the Gospel, and so are in themselves evangelically righteous. Though Christ performed the conditions of the law [of innocence] and satisfied for our non-performance, yet we ourselves must perform the conditions of the Gospel. These two [last] propositions seem to me so clear, that I wonder any able divines should deny them. Methinks they should be articles of our creed, and a part of children’s catechisms. To affirm that our evangelical or new-covenant righteousness is in Christ, and not in ourselves, or performed by Christ, and not by ourselves, is such a monstrous piece of Antinomian doctrine as no man, who knows the nature and difference of the covenants, can possibly entertain.” (Bax. Aphor. Prop. 14-17.)