Salvation By the Covenant of Grace:

SALVATION BY THE COVENANT OF GRACE:

A DISCOURSE ON Romans 11:5 ROMANS 11:5, 6.

“Even so then, at this present time also, there is a remnant according to the election of grace: and if by grace, then it is no more of works, otherwise grace is no more grace: but if it be of works, then it is no more grace; otherwise work is no more work.” INTRODUCTION AND DIVISION.

THE apostle complains in the preceding chapter that Israel was blinded, and did not see the way of salvation’ “I bear them record,” says he, Romans 10:2, “that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge; for being ignorant of God’s righteousness,” i.e. of God’s way of saving sinners f64 merely through Jesus Christ; “and going about to establish their own righteousness,” that is, endeavouring to save themselves by their own good works [so called, by works which, strictly speaking, deserve rather to be named Pharisaical than good;] “they have not submitted to the righteousness of God:” to that faith in Christ which makes sinners righteous before God: “for Christ,” adds he, “is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth,” Romans 10:4: that is, [since the fall,] it is the very design of the [Adamic] law, [the law of innocence given to sinless Adam; yea, and of the Mosaic law, when it is considered as “written in stones,” and decorated with shadows or types of good things to come,] to bring men to believe in Christ for justification and salvation; as he alone gives that pardon and life which the law [of innocence] shows the want of, [and which the Mosaic law, abstracted from Gospel promises, points unto,] but cannot possibly bestow.

The apostle, resuming the same subject in the chapter out of which the text is taken, comforts himself by considering, that although Israel in general were blinded, yet all were not lost. Old Simeon and Anna had “seen the salvation of God,” and had “departed in peace.” Nicodemus, a doctor in Israel, had received the doctrine of the new birth and salvation by faith. “Three thousand” Jews had been “pricked to the heart” by penitential sorrow, and “filled with peace and joy by believing” in Jesus Christ. And “even at this present time,” says the apostle, “there is a remnant [of my countrymen saved,] according to the election of grace:” that is, there are some of them, who, [like Nathanael and Nicodemus,] casting away their dependence on their own righteousness, [and trusting only in Christ’s merits,] are numbered among the elect, according to that gracious decree of [election in Christ, which] God [has so clearly revealed,] in the covenant of grace, “He that believeth shall be saved,” &c, Mark 16:16.f65 From thence the apostle takes occasion to show, that pardon and salvation are not, in whole or in part, attained by [the covenant of] works, but merely by [the covenant of] grace. A remnant of those self-righteous Pharisees is saved, [not indeed by their self righteousness,] but by [the covenant of] grace, according to which we must equally part with our self righteousness and our sins. “And if by [the covenant of] grace,” then “it is no more [by that] of works,” whether of the ceremonial law [of Moses,] or of the moral law [of innocence perverted to Pharisaic purposes;] “else [the] grace [of Christ] is no longer grace” [bestowed upon a criminal:] the very nature of [Gospel grace f66] is lost. “And if it be [by the covenant] of works, then it is no more [by Gospel] grace: else work is no longer [the] work” [of a sinless creature,] but the very nature of it is destroyed [according to the first covenant, which requires perfect conformity to the law in the work, and perfect innocence in the worker.]

As if the apostle had said, There is something so absolutely inconsistent between being saved by [the covenant of] grace, and being saved by [that of] works, that if you suppose either, you of necessity exclude the other: for what is given to works [upon the footing of the first covenant] is [improperly speaking] the payment of a debt [which God, by his gracious promise, contracted with innocent mankind without the interposition of a Mediator:] whereas [Gospel] grace implies [not only] a favour [strictly speaking] unmerited [by us; but also an atoning sacrifice on the Redeemer’s part, and a damnable demerit on our own:] so that the same benefit cannot, in the very nature of things, be derived from both [covenants.]

Having thus opened the context, I proceed to a more particular illustration of the text; and that I may explain it as fully as the time allotted for this discourse will permit: —

First, I shall premise an account of the two covenants: the covenant of works, to which the Pharisees of old trusted, and [most of] the Roman Catholics, with too many false Protestants, still trust in our days: and the covenant of grace, by which alone a remnant was saved in St. Paul’s time, and will be saved in all ages.

Secondly, I shall prove that the way of salvation by [obedient] faith only, or, which is the same thing, by the covenant of grace, is the only way that leads to life, according to the Scriptures, and the articles of our Church, to whose holy doctrine I shall publicly set my seal.

Thirdly, I shall endeavour to show the unreasonableness and injustice of those who accuse me of “preaching against good works,” when I [decry Pharisaic works, and] preach salvation through the covenant of grace only. Fourthly and lastly, after having informed you why [even] good works [truly so called] cannot f67 [properly] deserve salvation in whole or in part, I shall answer the old objection of [some ignorant] Papists [and Pharisaical Protestants.] “If good works cannot f68 [properly merit us heaven,] why should we do them? There is no need to trouble ourselves about any.” PART FIRST.

I BEGIN by laying before you an account of the two [grand] covenants that God entered into with man. The first was made with Adam, when he was in a state of innocence in paradise. The condition of it, which is excessively hard [nay, absolutely impossible] to fallen man, was easy before the fall. It runs thus: — “Do this [thou sinless man] and live: the [innocent] man that does these things shall live by them,” Romans 10:5: that is, “If thou [who art now a guiltless, holy, and perfect creature] yield a constant, universal, and perfect obedience to the moral law,” now summed up in the ten commandments, “thou shalt be rewarded with glory in heaven. But if thou fail in any one particular, whether it be in thought, word, or deed, ‘ thou shalt surely die,’ Genesis 2:17; for ‘the soul that sinneth it shall die,’ Ezekiel 18:4. ‘The wages of sin is death,’ Romans 6:23. And ‘cursed is every one that continueth not in ALL things written in the book of the law to do them,’” Galatians 3:10.

Nor does this covenant make any allowance for deficiencies, or pass by one transgression, great or little, without pronouncing the threatened curse; [for it made no provision for repentance, neither did it offer sinners the help of a sacrificing priest, or interceding mediator.] Whether therefore the sin be murder and adultery, or only eating some forbidden fruit, its language is,f69 “Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all,” James 2:10: that is, all the curses denounced against those who break the covenant of works hang upon his guilty head, [and will fall upon him in a degree proportionable to the aggravations of his sin.]

This first covenant we have all broken in our first parents, for [“in Adam all die”] “by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned,” Romans 5:12. We are then all born [or conceived] in sin, Psalm 51:5, and consequently “we are by nature children of wrath,” Ephesians 2:3. But this is not all. This root of original sin produces in every man many actual iniquities, whereby, as we imitate Adam’s rebellion, so we make the guilt of it our own, and fasten the curse attending that guilt upon our own souls, Romans 7:24.

Therefore, while we remain in our natural state, [or, to speak more intelligibly, while we continue in sin, guilt, and total impenitency, we not only trample the covenant of grace under foot, but] we stand upon the [broken] covenant of works; and consequently lie under the dreadful curse which is already denounced against every transgressor of the law, Galatians 3:10, [as well as against every despiser of the Gospel, Hebrews 10:27.]

Hence it is that “by the deeds of the law,” i.e. by the [unsprinkled] good works commanded in the law [of innocence: or by the ceremonies prescribed in the law of Moses,] “shall no flesh living [no sinner] be justified: for as many as are of the works of the law [as it stands opposed to the Gospel; yea, as many also as rest, like the impenitent Pharisees, in the letter of the Mosaic law] are under the curse; the Scripture having concluded all under sin,” [i.e. testified that all are sinners by conception and practice] and consequently under the curse [of the first covenant,] “that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty [i.e. may humbly confess their fallen and lost estate] before God,” [and gladly accept his offers of mercy in the second covenant,] Romans 3:19, 20.

In this deplorable state of guilt and danger, we [generally] remain careless and insensible, [when we have once taken to the way of vanity] F making what we call “the mercy of God” a pack horse [if I may use so coarse an expression] to carry us and our sins to heaven, upon the filthy rags f70 of our own [Pharisaic] righteousness, E Here we continue till Divine grace awakens us by the preaching of the Gospel, or by some other means, Ephesians 5:14. Being then roused to a serious consideration of our fallen state in Adam, and to a sensibility of the curse which we lie under, through our numerous breaches of [the second as well as of] the first covenant; after many fruitless attempts to remove that curse, by fulfilling the law [of innocence;] after many [faithless] endeavours to save ourselves by our own [anti-evangelical] works, and righteousness, F we despair at last of getting to heaven, by building a Babel with the “untempered mortar” of our own [fancied] sincerity, and the bricks of our wretched good works, [or rather of our splendid sins.] E And leaving the impassable road of the covenant of works, we begin to seek [as condemned criminals] the way which God’s free mercy has opened for lost sinners in Jesus Christ, Acts 2:37; Philippians 3:6, &c.

This “new and living way,” [for I may call it by the name which the apostle emphatically gives to the last dispensation of the Gospel,] Hebrews 10:19, 20, is the new covenant, the covenant of grace [in its various editions or dispensations. For, if the Christian edition is called new in opposition to the Jewish, all the editions together may well be.] called new, in opposition to the old covenant, the covenant of works [made with Adam before the fall.] It is also termed Gospel, that is, glad tidings, because [f71 with different degrees of evidence] it brings comfortable news of free salvation in Christ, to all that see they are undone in themselves. F The second covenant, then, or the Gospel, is a dispensation of free grace and mercy [not only to little children, of whom is the kingdom of heaven, but also] to poor, lost, helpless sinners, who, seeing and feeling themselves condemned by the law [of innocence,] and utterly unable to obtain justification upon the terms of the first covenant, come to [a merciful God through] Jesus Christ [the light of men, according to the helps afforded them in the dispensations which they are under,] to seek in him [and from him those merits and] that righteousness which they have not in themselves. For the Son of God, being both God and man in one person; and by the invaluable sacrifice of himself upon the cross, having suffered the punishment due to all our breaches of the law [of works;] and by his most holy life having answered all the demands of the first covenant f72 “God can be just, and the justifier of him that believes in Jesus,” Romans 3:26. E Therefore, If a sinner, whose mouth is stopped, and who has nothing to pay, pleads from the heart the atoning blood of Christ, [and supposing he never heard that precious name, if according to his light he implores Divine mercy, for the free exercise of which Christ’s blood has made way,] not only God will not “deliver him to the tormentors,” but will “frankly forgive him all,” Luke 7:41, &c.

F Herein then consists the great difference between the first and the second covenant. Under the first, an absolute, unsinning, universal obedience in our own persons is required; and such obedience we [in our fallen state] can never perform. Under the second covenant, this obedience [to the law of innocence, payed by, and] in our surety Christ Jesus, when we are united to him by a faith of the operation of God, is accepted instead of our own. E

For [as our sins were transferred upon the Redeemer’s guiltless head,] so his merits are brought home to our guilty souls by the powerful operation of Divine grace through faith; and being thus “complete in Christ,”f73 [with regard to the fulfilling of the FIRST covenant,] we can “rejoice in God, who has made him unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.” [I say, with regard to the fulfilling of the FIRST covenant, to guard against the error of thousands, who vainly imagine that Christ has fulfilled the terms of the second covenant for us, and talk of finished salvation, just as if our Lord had actually repented of our sins, believed in his own blood, and fulfilled his own evangelical law in our stead; a fatal error this, which makes Christians lawless, represents Christ as the minister of sin, and arms the Antinomian fiend with a dreadful axe to fell the trees of righteousness, and cut down the very pillars of the house of God.] From what has been observed, it follows, that before any one can believe [to salvation] in the Gospel sense of the word, he must be “convinced of sin” by the Spirit of God, John 16:8. He must feel himself a guilty, lost, and helpless sinner, unable to recover the favour and image of God by his own strength and righteousness, Acts 2:37, 38.

This conviction and sense of guilt make the sinner “come travelling and heavy laden to Christ,” earnestly claiming the rest which he offers to weary souls, Matthew 11:28. This rest the mourner seeks with the contrite publican in the constant use of all the means of grace; endeavouring to “bring forth fruit meet for repentance,” till the same Spirit, that had convinced him of sin, and alarmed his drowsy conscience, “convinces him also of righteousness,” John 16:8; that is, shows him the all sufficiency of the Saviour’s [merits or] righteousness to swallow up his [former f74 sins and] unrighteousness; and the infinite value of Christ’s meritorious death to atone for his [past f75] unholy life; enabling him to “believe with the heart,” and consequently to feel that he has an interest in the Redeemer’s blood and righteousness; [or, that he is savingly interested in the merit of all that the Son of God suffered, did, and continues to do for us.] This lively faith, this “faith f76 working by love,” is “that which is imputed for righteousness,” Romans 4:3, and that whereby a soul is born of God, [according to the f76 Christian dispensation of the Gospel,] 1 John 5:1. By this faith the [Christian] believer being [strongly] united to Christ, as a member to the body, becomes entitled to [a much larger share in] the benefit of all that our Lord did and suffered; and in consequence of this [strong] vital union with him, who is the source of all goodness, he derives a [degree of] power, till then unknown, to do good works, truly so called; as a graft, which is [strongly] united to the stock that bears it, draws from it new sap, and power to bring forth fruit in [greater] abundance. [O thou that professest the Christian faith, especially,] “show me thy faith by thy works,” says an apostle: that is, show me that thou art grafted in Christ [according to the Christian dispensation] by serving God with all thy strength; by doing all the good thou canst to the souls and bodies of men with cheerfulness; by suffering wrong and contempt with meekness; by slighting earthly joys, mortifying fleshly lusts, having thy conversation in heaven, and panting every hour after a closer union with Christ, the life of all believers. If thou dost not bring forth these fruits, thou art not a Christian; thou art not “in Christ a new creature,” 2 Corinthians 5:17. Thou mayest talk of faith, and suppose that thou believest; but give me leave to tell thee, that [unless thou art in the case of the eunuch, who searched the Scriptures even upon a journey; or of Cornelius, who sought the Lord in alms givings and prayer;] if thou believest at all, [I fear] it is with the drunkard’s faith, the whoremonger’s faith, the devil’s faith, James 2:19. From such a faith may God deliver us, and give us, instead of this counterfeit, the faith once delivered unto the saints, the mystery of faith kept in a pure conscience!” Get it, O sinner, who bearest a Christian name, and Christ and heaven are thine: [but if thou] die without it, [whether it be by continuing in thy present sin and unbelief, or by “making shipwreck of thy faith,”] thou diest the second death; thou sinkest in the bottomless pit for evermore, Mark 16:16.

Having thus given you an account of both covenants, and laid before you the condition [or term] of each, namely, for the first a sinless, uninterrupted obedience to all the commands of the holy, spiritual, [and Adamic] law of God, performed by ourselves without the least [mediatorial assistance:] and for the second a lively faith in Christ, [“the light of the world,” according to the Gospel dispensation we are under;] by which faith, the virtue of Christ’s active and passive obedience to the law [of innocence] being imputed to us, and applied to our hearts, we are made “new creatures, born again,” and “created in Christ Jesus unto good works,” without which there can be no lively faith [under any of the Divine dispensations:] and having [by that important distinction of the two grand covenants] removed a great deal of rubbish out of the way, I hope it will not be difficult to prove, under the

SECOND HEAD,

That the way of salvation by such a lively faith only, or, which is the same, by the covenant of grace [alone,] is the one way that leads to life, according to the Bible and our articles of religion.

If you ask all the Pharisees, all the self-righteous heathens, Turks, Jews, and Papists in the world, which is the way of salvation? [with too many ignorant Protestants] they will answer, [without making the least mention of repentance and faith,] “Through doing good works, and leading a good life:” that is, “through the covenant of works;” flatly contrary to what I have proved in the first part of this discourse, namely, that “by the works of the law,” by the first covenant, “shall no flesh living be justified,” Galatians 2:16. Or if they have yet some sense of modesty, if they are not quite lost in pride, [supposing them Christians,] they will varnish over the blasphemy [which, I fear, is indirectly couched under their boasting speech,] with two or three words about God’s mercy. “Why,” say they, “it is to be hoped we shall all be saved by endeavouring to lead good lives, and do good works: and if that will not do, God’s mercy in Christ will do the rest,” which means neither more nor less than this: “We are still to be saved by the covenant of works, by putting on [sinful and guilty as we are] the robe of our own [Pharisaic, anti-evangelical, Christless] righteousness; and if it happen to be too short, or to have some holes, Christ [whom we are willing to make the Omega, but not the Alpha; the last, but not the first] will, in mercy, tear his spotless robe [of merits] to patch up and lengthen ours.” [And this they say, it is to be feared, without the least degree of genuine repentance toward God, and heart-felt faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.] O how many dream of getting to heaven in this fool’s coat, [this absurd dress of a Christian Pharisee!] How many, by thus blending the two covenants, which are as incompatible as fire and water, try to make for themselves a third covenant, that never existed but in their proud imagination! In a word, how many are there who say or think we must be saved partly by [the covenant of] works, and partly by [the covenant of] grace! giving the lie to God and my text! overturning at once the Gospel and Protestantism! No, no. If “a remnant is saved,” it is by the covenant of grace; and if by grace, then it is no more [by the covenant] of works; otherwise grace is no more [Gospel] grace. But if it be [by the covenant] of works, then it is no more [Gospel] grace; otherwise work is no more work; [for the moment obedience is “the work of faith,” it can no more be opposed to faith and Gospel grace, than the fruit of a tree can be opposed to the tree, and the sap by which it is produced.]

But “to the law and the testimony.” Do the oracles of God, or the writings of our reformers, direct us for salvation to the covenant of works, or to a third covenant of [anti-evangelical f77] works and [evangelical] grace patched up together? Do they not entirely and invariably point us to the covenant of grace alone?

Hear first the word of the Lord: “He that believeth on the Son [according to the light of the dispensation he is under] hath everlasting life. He that believeth not, shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him,” John 3:36. When the trembling jailer cries out, “What must I do to be saved?” Paul and Silas answer, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved,” Acts 16:31. “God so loved the world,” says St. John, “that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life,” John 3:16. “By grace,” says St. Paul, “ye are [initially] saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God: not by [the covenant of] works, [nor yet by the proper merit of any works,] lest any man should boast,” [as the Pharisee; all who despise the way of faith, and put the instrumental causes in the room of the first and properly meritorious cause of our salvation, being no better than boasting Pharisees.] For “to him that worketh [without applying to the throne of grace, as a hell-deserving sinner] is the reward not reckoned of [evangelical] grace, but of [legal] debt. But to him that worketh not” [upon the footing of the first covenant;] to him who sees that he cannot [escape hell, much less] get heaven, by [setting] his good works, [if he has any, on the Redeemer’s throne;] “but believeth [as a lost sinner,] on him that justifieth the ungodly; his faith is counted for righteousness:” he is saved by [obedient] faith, which is the condition of the covenant of grace, Romans 4:4.

Thus speak the Scriptures, and blessed be God! thus speak also our liturgy and articles. In the absolution the priest declares that [in the day of conversion] “God pardoneth and absolveth,” that is, sayeth, F not those [moralists] who [being ashamed to repent, and scorning to believe the Gospel, endeavour to] lead a good life, to get a pardon [by their own merits,] E but “all those who truly repent, and unfeignedly believe in his holy Gospel;” that is, all those who, by “true repentance,” renounce [together with their sins] all dependence upon the covenant of works; and by a “faith unfeigned” flee for refuge only to [God’s mercy in Christ, which is so kindly offered to sinners in] the covenant of grace. Hence it is that, in the communion service, we are commanded to pray, that “by the merits and death of Christ, and through faith in his blood, we and all the whole Church may obtain remission of sins, and all other benefits of his passion.” This holy doctrine is most clearly maintained, and strongly established in the ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth of our articles of religion. And upon these five pillars it will remain unshaken as long as the Church of England shall stand.

The ninth shows that since the fall of Adam “the corruption of our nature deserves God’s wrath and damnation;” so that [being considered without the free gift that came upon all men in Christ unto justification of life, Romans 5:18,] we are, of ourselves, evil trees ready for the axe of death, and the fire of hell.

The tenth adds that we cannot consequently get grace and glory, that is, save ourselves by bearing good fruit, [through our original powers, according to the first covenant,] because an evil tree can only produce evil fruit: [and that “we have no power to, do works acceptable to God without the grace of God by Christ preventing us,” according to the second covenant.]

The eleventh affirms that we are saved, that is, accepted of God, changed, and made good trees, trees of the Lord’s planting, “only for the merit of our Lord Jesus Christ, by faith, and not for our own works and deservings;” F as we can do no good works before we are [at least] in a state of [initial] salvation. E “Make the tree good,” says our Lord, “and its fruit shall be good.” [In our infancy we are freely blessed with the seed of light from “Christ, the light of men;” and at the same time we are freely justified from the damning guilt of original corruption. As we grow up, and personally repent and “believe in the light” after a personal fall, we are again freely pardoned. Thus, so long at least as “the accepted time,” and “the day of salvation” last,] God has first respect to our persons in Christ, and then to our sacrifices or works, [of faith,] Hebrews 11:4; Genesis 4:4, 5.

The twelfth declares that good works, works which necessarily follow free justification, do not serve “to put away [or atone for] sins;” but to declare the truth of our faith: “insomuch that by them a lively faith may be as evidently known as a tree discerned by the fruit.” A tree is first planted, and then it brings forth fruit. F A believer is first saved, [i.e. freely made partaker of initial salvation,] and then he does good works. E [A lively faith necessarily produces them, though a believer does not necessarily persevere in a lively faith.] If he do them not, his faith is dead; it is not [now a living and] saving faith; he is no [longer an obedient] believer; [but an Antinomian or an apostate, a Demas or a Judas.]

The thirteenth insists upon that point of doctrine which confounds the Pharisees in all ages, and lays our virtuous pride in the dust before God: namely, that [when we have sinned away the justification f78 of infants] F “works done before [that] justification, [is restored,] before faith” alone has put us [again] into a state of [initial] salvation not only “do not fit us to receive grace, but have in themselves the nature of sin,” [nay, the worst of sins, spiritual pride and Pharisaic hypocrisy,] and consequently deserve death, the wages of sin, so far [are they] from meriting grace and glory. E This is agreeable to reason as well as to Scripture; for if, “of ourselves,” as says our Church, [i.e. before any degree of grace is instilled into our infant hearts, or before God freely visits us again when we have personally fallen away from him,] “we cannot by our good works [so called] prepare ourselves to faith: if we are such crab trees as can bring forth no apples [Without the grace of God by Christ preventing us, that we may have a good will, and working with us when we have that good will,” it is plain that] by producing as many crabs [i.e. as many works of unbelief] as [blaspheming] Paul before his conversion; and of as fine a colour and as large a size as those which the self-righteous Pharisee bore; we cannot change our own nature, nor force from ourselves the sweet fruit of one [truly] good work. “Many who have not the true faith,” says our Church, “yet flourish in works of mercy. But they that shine in good works [so called] without faith, are like dead men, who have goodly and precious tombs:” or, to carry on the allegory of our reformers, the fine crabs which such people produce please the eye of the spectator, who thinks them good apples; but God, who sees their hearts, tastes in the deceitful fruit nothing but the sourness of a crab. Such crabs are the alms of whoremongers, the prayers of unjust persons, the public worship of swearers and drunkards, the tithes and fasts f79 of Pharisees, Isaiah 1:11, &c. F Having thus shown you how self-righteous, unawakened sinners dream of salvation, either by the covenant of works or by a third imaginary covenant, in which two incompatible things [Pharisaical] works and [evangelical] grace, [antichristian] merits and mercy [in Christ] are jumbled together; and having proved by plain, unanswerable passages, and by the thirty-nine articles, that the Gospel and our Church show us salvation cannot be attained but under the second covenant, that is, by [obedient] faith only, and not by [the covenant of] works; I beg leave to recapitulate the whole in three articles, which contain the sum of the Gospel, and of the doctrine that I have constantly preached among you, and am determined to preach, God being my helper, till my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth f80 [unless a flaw can be found] in any of them, by the word of God or the articles of our Church. E

Upon the proofs before advanced, I solemnly declare, and publicly affirm:

1. That there is no salvation to be attained by [the covenant of] works since the fall. The best man, having broken a hundred times the first covenant, deserves a hundred times damnation by his works, and can no more be saved from hell by his obedience to God’s law [of innocence] than a thief can be saved from the gallows, by the civil law which condemns him to be hanged.

2. Respecting the primary and properly meritorious cause of our salvation, [from first to last,] “we are saved,” as it is written in our eleventh article, “only for the merit of our Lord Jesus Christ by faith, and not for our works or deservings: and that [in the day of conversion] we are justified by faith only, is a most wholesome doctrine, and very full of comfort:” yea, the only doctrine that can melt down the hearts of sinners, and make them constantly zealous of all sorts of good works, [if it be not made to supersede justification of believers by the evidence of works, both in the day of trial and in the day of judgment. A doctrine this, which few Antinomians are daring enough directly to oppose.]

3. As all mankind are condemned by the covenant of works, “he that believeth not [in the light of his dispensation] being condemned already;” F and as by the covenant of grace there is no salvation to be had but in Christ through faith: so there is no mixing these two covenants without renouncing Christ and his Gospel. He that stands with one foot upon the covenant of works, and with the other foot upon the covenant of grace; [he that talks of Divine mercy, while his heart continues as regardless of it as if he were sinless; he that ends his prayers by the name of Christ, while he remains unconcerned about his fallen state,] is in the most imminent danger of eternal ruin. E He that says, “I will do first what I can to merit heaven — I will do my best — and Christ, I hope, will do the rest; and God, I trust, will have mercy upon me,” is yet without God, and without Christ in the world; he knows neither the nature of God’s law nor that of Christ’s Gospel.

[This is, my dear hearers, the substance of the three articles which eleven years ago I publicly laid down in this church, as the ground of the doctrine which I had preached, and was determined still to preach among you. And I solemnly declare, that to this day I have not seen the least cause to reject any one of them as erroneous: though I must confess that I have found abundant reason particularly to guard the second against the daring attacks that Antinomians in principle, or in practice, make upon St. James’ undefiled religion. To return:]

We are undoubtedly obliged to do what we can, and to use the means of grace at all [proper] times and in all [convenient] places; but to rest in those means [like the Pharisees;] to suppose that they will save us; and upon this supposition to be easy without the experience of [converting] grace in our hearts, is very absurd. It is a mistake as foolish as that of the man who supposes that his garden will be the most fruitful for pipes which convey no water; or that his body can be refreshed by empty cups. The language of the penitent sinner is, “Lord, I pray, and hear [thy word!] I fast, and receive [the commemorative tokens of thy passion;] I give alms, and keep the Sabbath: but after all ‘I am an unprofitable servant.’ [I must ‘work out my salvation with fear and trembling,’ and yet] ‘without thee I can do nothing,’ I cannot change my heart; I cannot root up from my breast the desire of praise, the thirst of pleasure, and the hankering after gold, vanity, beauty, or sensual gratifications, which I continually feel; I cannot force my heart to repent, believe, and love: to be meek and lowly, calm and devout. Lord, deliver me from this body of death; Lord, save, or I perish.”

Christ will have all the glory [worthy of him] or none. We must be f81 wholly saved by him, or lost for ever: [for although we must be “co-workers with him,” by walking religiously in good works; and if we are not, we shall have our portion with the “workers of iniquity;” yet it is he that “worketh in us,” as in moral agents, “both to will and to do of his good pleasure.” It is he that appoints and blesses all the inferior means of our salvation; therefore all the glory properly and originally belongs to him alone.]

[All our pardons flow down to us in the streams of his precious blood. All our life, light, and power, are nothing but emanations from Him who is “the fountain of life, the Sun of righteousness, the wisdom and the power of God,” and, in a word, “Jehovah our righteousness.” All that gracious rewardableness of the works of faith, all that aptitude of our sprinkled obedience unto eternal life, all that being worthy which he himself condescends to speak of, Revelation 3:4, and Luke 20:35, spring not only from his gracious appointment, but from his overflowing merits. A comparison will illustrate my meaning.]

[You see the cheerful light that flows in upon us through those windows, and renders the glass as bright as this spring day. You know that this brightness in the glass is not from the glass, which was totally dark some hours ago; a fit emblem THEN of “the works of darkness,” the works of unbelief; such works being as much devoid of rewardableness, as those panes were of light at midnight. Let us not forget, then, that if our works are graciously rewarded, it is only when they are the works of faith, whose peculiar property it is freely to admit the merits of Christ, and the beams of the “Sun of righteousness;” just as it is the property of the transparent matter, which composes these windows, necessarily to admit the genial warmth and cheerful rays of the natural sun.]

[If I admire a poor widow, gladly casting her last mite into the treasury; or a martyr, generously giving his body to blood-thirsty executioners; it is only because their lively faith receives, and their pure charity reflects, the light of Him who, for our sake, became poor; and, for our sake, joyfully surrendered to his bloody murderers. But although this image of our Lord’s meritorious holiness and sufferings does great honour to the saints who reflect it; yet the praise of it originally and properly belongs to him alone.]

[An illustration will make you sensible of it. You have seen a glass perfectly reflecting the beauty of a person placed over against it; you have admired the elegant proportion of features which composed her beauty: but did you ever see any man so void of good sense as to suppose that the beauty was originally in the glass which reflected it; or that the lovely appearance existed without depending on its original; or that it robbed the living beauty of her peculiar glory? And shall any, on the one hand, be so full of voluntary humility as to maintain that Christ is dishonoured by the derived worthiness of the works of faith, whose office it is to receive, embrace, and trust in the Redeemer’s original and proper merit? Shall any, on the other hand, be so full of Pharisaic pride as to fancy that the distinguishing excellence of our good works, if we have any, springs from, or terminates in ourselves? No, my brethren. As rivers flow back to the sea, and lose themselves in that immense reservoir of waters, whence they had their origin; so let all the “rewardable condecency” f82 of our evangelical obedience flow back to, and lose itself in the boundless and bottomless ocean of our Lord’s original and proper merits.] He, he alone is worthy — properly worthy! Worthy, — supremely “worthy is the Lamb that was slain!” Let us then always say, with the humble men of old, “Our goods are nothing unto thee,” our good works cannot possibly benefit thee. “What have we,” great God, “that we have not received” from thy gracious hand? And shall we keep back part of thy incontestable property, and impiously wear the robes of praise? Far be the spiritual sacrilege from every pious breast! As “thine is all the kingdom and power; so thine be all the glory for ever and ever!”

[If, therefore, my brethren, we have the honour of “filling up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in our flesh, for his body’s sake, which is the Church: if we are even offered upon the sacrifice of each other’s faith;” let us dread as blasphemy the wild thought of completing, and perfecting our Lord’s infinitely complete and perfect atonement. As God, who is infinite in himself, was not made greater by the immense bulk of created worlds; nor brighter by the shining perfections of countless myriads of angels and suns: so the infinite value of that “one offering, by which Christ has for ever perfected [in atoning merits] them that are sanctified,” is not augmented by the works of all the saints, and the blood of all the martyrs. And as the heat of the fire adds nothing to the nature of the fire, or the beams of the sun to the sun; so the righteousness of the saints does not increase that of Christ, nor adds their holiness any thing to his personal excellence.]

[Keep we then at that awful distance from the gulf which self-righteous Pharisees set between themselves and the Justifier of those who, like the contrite publican, are sensible of their ungodliness. With indignation rise we against the delusions of the Romanists, who countenance the absurd and impious doctrine of indulgences, by the worse than Pharisaic doctrine of their works of supererogation. Let us not only receive and defend in a Scriptural manner the important articles of our Church which I have already mentioned; but with undaunted courage before men, and with penitential contrition before God, let us stand to our fourteenth article, which teaches us, after our Lord, to say before the throne of inflexible justice, refulgent holiness, and dazzling glory, “We are unprofitable servants,” even “when we have done all that is commanded us.” In point of strict equivalence, our best works of faith, our holiest duties, cannot properly merit the least heavenly reward. But, O! may the humbling truth keep us for ever in the dust! in point of strict justice our every bad work properly deserves infernal torments.]

[Therefore, while we earnestly contend for practical, pure, undefiled religion, take we the greatest care not to obscure the genuine doctrines of grace. With meekness let us maintain, unto blood, the honour of our Saviour’s merits, against the hypocritical sons of virtuous pride, who cast the destructive veil of unbelief over the invaluable sacrifice of his body. And in our little sphere let every one of us testify, with the beloved disciple, “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, in whom he is well pleased” with us; and for whose sake he works in us to repent, believe, and obey; when we yield to the drawings of his grace, and concur with his Spirit in the work of our salvation.]

[Through that dear Redeemer, then, we receive all the favours which the Father of mercies bestows upon us. Are our hearts softened? It is through the influence of his preventing grace. Are our sins blotted out? It is through the sprinkling of his atoning blood. Are our souls renewed? It is by the communications of his powerful righteousness. Are we numbered among God’s adopted children, and made partakers of his loving Spirit? It is through a faith that receives him as the “light of the world,” and the “life of men.”]

[The very graces which the Spirit works in us, and the fruits of holiness which those graces produce in our hearts and lives, are accepted only for Christ’s sake. It is he who presents them to God, sprinkled with his precious blood, and perfumed with his meritorious intercession. Nor are the defects of our holiest things any other way atoned for than by the full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction which he made upon the cross for the sins of the whole world.]

[For Christ’s sake God has annexed certain rewards of grace and glory to the works of faith which Christ’s Spirit excites us to; and, I repeat it, for the sake of Christ only we receive the rewards promised to humble, evangelical, spinkled obedience. All Christian believers say, “Not we but the grace of God in Christ.” So far as their tempers and actions have been good, they cry out, “Thou hast wrought all our works in us.” They all shout, “Christ for us,” and “Christ in us, the hope of glory.” They all ascribe “salvation to the Lamb:” and while they “cast their crowns of righteousness” and glory at his feet, they join in the grand chorus of the Church: “To him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father, to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever.” Thus all is Christ; nothing without, nothing beside him. In a word, he is to believers, as the apostle justly calls him, “ALL IN ALL.”]

[Indeed, in maintaining the doctrine of free grace he cannot but go even farther than our mistaken brethren, who suppose themselves the only advocates for it. They must forgive me if I cannot be of their sentiment, when they insinuate that they shall absolutely and necessarily be saved: for as reason dictates that absolute necessity vanishes before free grace; so Christ charges his dearest elect to “fear God” as a righteous Judge, who “CAN cast body and soul into hell;” yea, who can do it justly. No gracious promise therefore is made them, whose fulfilment in heaven, as well as upon earth, is not all of grace as well as of truth, and all through the merits of Christ.]

[O ye precious merits of my Saviour, and thou free grace of my God! I, for one, shall want you as long as the sun or moon endureth. Nay, when those luminaries shall cease to shine, I shall wrap myself in you; my transported soul shall grasp you; my insatiate spirit shall plunge into your unfathomable depths; and while I shall run the never-ending circle of my blessed existence, my overflowing bliss shall spring from you; my grateful heart shall leap through your impulse; my exulting tongue shall shout your praise; and I shall strike my golden harp to your eternal honour.] [Nay, this very day I publicly set my seal again to the important truths contained in the following scriptures:] “There is no other name [no other deserving person] under heaven, given to men whereby we may [properly] be saved” in whole or in part, but only the name [or person] of Jesus Christ. “He trod the wine press of God’s wrath alone, and of the people there was none with him. He alone is a Saviour, and there is none beside him.” [“If he that converts a sinner” is said to “save a soul from death,” it is because he has the honour of being the Saviour’s agent, and not because he is “the original cause” of any man’s salvation.]

F Wo then to those who teach sinners the double way, the Pharisaic way, the f83 [self-righteous] way of salvation, partly by man’s [anti-Christian] merits, [according to the first covenant,] and partly by the [proper] merits of Jesus Christ [according to the second.] “If we, or an angel from heaven,” says St. Paul, “preach any other Gospel unto you than that which we have preached,” namely, that “we are saved [i.e. pardoned, absolved, and sanctified] by grace, through faith, [which worketh by love,] and that not of ourselves, [not without an atoning priest and the Spirit helping our infirmities,] it is the gift of God — let him be accursed,” Galatians 1:8. E

F He really denies his Saviour, and tears the seamless robe of Christ’s righteousness, who patches it with the rags of his own [anti-evangelical, faithless] righteousness. [Or, to speak without metaphor, he denies our Lord’s meritorious fulfilling of the law of innocence, he despises the Saviour’s complete observance of the Adamic law of works, who, being forgetful of his aggravated guilt, and regardless of his palpable impotence, refuses to submit to the law of faith, and to embrace the covenant of grace with an ardour becoming a poor, self-condemned, lost, and undone sinner. Nay, I go farther still:] he takes away [or obstructs] all the efficacy of Christ’s atoning blood, who pretends to mend it by adding thereto the filthy drops of his own [fancied] goodness, [in order to make a more complete satisfaction to Divine justice.] E

“It is mere blasphemy against Divine mercy,” says our Church, “and great derogation from the blood shedding of our Saviour, to suppose that our works can deserve, or purchase to us remission of sins,” and consequently salvation. No: “it is bestowed on believers of the free grace and mercy of God, by the mediation of the blood of his Son Jesus Christ, without merit or deserving on their part,” [although their final justification is not without the evangelical worthiness which their faith derives from that dear Redeemer.] (Homily on Fasting.)

To conclude: by the covenant of works man has all the glory of his own salvation. Faith [in a Redeemer] is made of no effect, Christ is entirely set aside, and works are placed in the Mediator’s throne. According to the imaginary, mixed covenant of salvation by our own good works, [so called, or, to speak with propriety, by our own faithless, hypocritical works] mended, [as we think,] with [some unscriptural notions and expressions about] Christ’s merits; man has the first share of the glory; Christ has only man’s leavings: [the Redeemer is allowed to be the last, but not the first: the Omega, but not the Alpha: the two covenants are confounded;] works and faith, [or rather, faithless works and faith, graceless works and grace] contrary to my text, and indeed to common sense, come in together for a part of the honour [as if they were the primary, meritorious cause of our salvation; whereas the good works of faith themselves are at the best only the secondary, evidencing cause of our final salvation. f84] But by the Gospel all is set in a most beautiful order and exquisite harmony. The merits and sufferings of Christ, the Redeemer of the world, are the only meritorious, [or, as says our Church, “original] cause” of our salvation. The glory is entirely ascribed to him; and he alone sits upon the throne as a Saviour; while proud man has his mouth stopped, or opens it only in the dust to extol redeeming love. — Faith, whose office it is continually to borrow the merits of Christ, and to receive the quickening power of his Spirit; F faith, I say, is the only instrumental cause of our free salvation, [in the day of conversion;] it receives Christ and salvation as the hand of a beggar receives an alms. E And as for good works, [properly so called,] so far are they from being left out of the Gospel plan, that they have a MOST EMINENT place in it. F They are the DECLARATIVE CAUSE f85 of our free justification [both in the day of trial and in the day of judgment:] a constant, uniform course of all sorts of good works, with a holy and heavenly-minded conversation, being the only evidence of a lively and saving faith, [when it has time to show itself by external works.] Thus, [to sum up all in one sentence,] Christ alone [properly] merits, faith alone [properly] apprehends, and good works alone [properly] evidence salvation. Yea, they are the fruit of salvation [begun:] E for [all works meet for repentance spring from the free justification and initial salvation in which We are put in our infancy; and] “the love of God shed abroad in a believer’s heart by the Holy Ghost given unto him,” is salvation itself; this love being the tree on which all [the external] good works [of real Christians] grow, and making our gracious heaven below, as it will make our glorious heaven above.

PART THIRD.

[SINCE I give good works, as I have just observed, a most eminent place in the Gospel plan, even the place of the evidences that will, under Christ, cause our eternal salvation, I may well] proceed to show the injustice or unreasonableness of those who accuse me of preaching against good works. For “he exclaims against good works; he runs down good works,” is an objection [which is still at times] urged against my ministry. [Although I confess with sorrow that, some years ago, when I had more zeal than prudence, I dropped among you some unguarded expressions, and did not always clearly distinguish between the “good works,” so called, of unhumbled Pharisees, and the genuine obedience of penitent believers; yet I should wrong the truth, and undervalue my character as your minister, if I did not observe that, as professed Antinomians have always loathed the doctrine of a believer’s justification by works, so the Pharisaical world has always abhorred the doctrine of a sinner’s justification by faith. Hence it is that] the above-mentioned aspersion with abundance of cruel mockings, and pitiful false reports, have been in all ages the lot of all those who have [steadily] preached the Gospel of Christ, that is, the glad news of free salvation through [obedient] faith in his blood.

“We preach Christ crucified,” says St. Paul, “to the Jews a stumbling ‘block, and to the Greeks foolishness; but to them that believe, Christ the power and wisdom of God,” 1 Corinthians 1:23. It is plain from this and several other passages in the epistles, that the primitive Christians suffered much reproach on this account. St. Peter exhorts them thus: “Have your conversation honest among the Gentiles, that whereas they speak against you as evil doers, they may glorify God by your good works, which they shall behold; for it is his will, that with well-doing ye put to silence the ignorance of foolish men, and make them ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ,” 1 Peter 2:12, 15; and 3:16. St. Paul had the same objection continually cast in his face.f86 “Do we then make void the law through faith?” says he in his own defence, Romans 3:31; that is, by preaching salvation through faith do we hinder people from doing the good works commanded in the law? “God forbid! yea, we establish the law:” i.e. our preaching is so far from superseding good words, that it [enforces them by the greatest variety of motives, and] puts our hearers into [the best, not to say] the only method of doing them: for it shows them how, being “sprinkled from an evil conscience,” and having their “heart purified by faith,” they shall naturally [i.e. spontaneously] produce all’ sorts of good works, instead of bringing forth a few counterfeit ones.

The apostle answers the same objection, Romans 6:1. “Shall we then,” who are saved by grace through faith, “continue in sin that grace may abound?” Shall we omit doing good works; shall we do evil works because salvation is not [by the covenant] of works, [but by that] of grace? “God forbid! How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein!” As if he had said, Is not the faith which we preach a “faith of the operation of God?” Is it not a powerful and active principle, that turns f87 the heart from all sin to all righteousness? Is it not a faith by which we are made new creatures, and “overcome the world?” 1 John 5:1, 4. [When people “lie in darkness,” doing “the works of darkness,” which in the dark pass either for good works that Divine justice will reward, or for trifling offences that Divine mercy will overlook; then heart-felt repentance is totally neglected, and deep mourning for sin passes for despair. Few know what it is to “look on him whom they have pierced and mourn.” Very few, if any, can experimentally say, “Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.”]

[Suppose the lot of a minister, acquainted with the privileges of the Christian dispensation, is cast in a place where these Pharisaic and common delusions generally prevail: the first thing he has to do is undoubtedly to uncover and shake the false foundations on which his awakened hearers build their hope. He must show them that their partial, external, faithless obedience will never profit them. He must decry their imaginary good works, tear off their filthy rags of fancied righteousness, sweep away “their refuges of lies,” and scourge their consciences with the curse of the law, till they see their nakedness, feel their guilt, and “receive the sentence of death in themselves.” Then, and not till then, will they stand on a level with the poor contrite publican, and

Groan the sinner’s only plea,

“God be merciful to me.”]

[When a preacher is engaged in that important and thankful business, how natural is it for him, especially if he be yet young and inexperienced, or if he be heated by the opposition of obstinate Pharisees and bigoted Papists, to drop some unguarded expressions against good works; or at least not to make always a proper distinction between the Pharisaical works of unbelief, which Isaiah calls filthy rags, and the works of faith, which our Lord calls good and ornamental works? And how glad are his adversaries to have such a plausible pretence for throwing an odium upon him, by affirming that he explodes all sorts of works, even those for which our “reward will be great in heaven!”]

F The devil fought against our reformers with such weapons. All the books that the Papists wrote against them rang with the charge of their turning good works out of Christianity. E Hear good Bishop Latimer, one of the best livers that ever were: — “You will say now, Here is all faith, faith; but we hear nothing of good works: for some carnal people make such carnal objections like themselves,” &c. (Sermon on Twelfth Day.) Of the same import is the following passage out of the Homily on Fasting: — “Thus much is said of good works, &c, to take away so much as may be from envious minds and slanderous tongues all JUST occasion of slanderous speaking, as though good works were rejected.”

Thus St. Peter, St. Paul, and our reformers were accused of despising good works, because they exalted Christ, [and with a holy indignation trampled upon the works of unbelief, which are the foundation of all Pharisaic hopes,] and [so far as I have not, by unguarded expressions, given a just cause of offence to those who are glad of any occasion to decry the fundamental doctrine of salvation by faith,] I own that I rejoice to be counted worthy of suffering the same reproach with such a cloud of faithful witnesses. Nevertheless, as the Scriptures say that we must “not let the good that is in us be evil spoken of,” I shall advance some arguments, which, by God’s blessing, will either convince or shame my accusers. You say, [and this I speak particularly to you that are fully set against the doctrine of salvation by faith,] you say, “that I preach against good works — that I run down good works,” &c: but pray, do you know what good works are? I am afraid you do not, or else you would f88 [not accuse me so rashly.] Give me leave therefore to instruct you once in this point. All divines agree that good works are of three sorts:

(1.) Works of piety toward God.

(2.) Works of charity toward our neighbour; and,

(3.) Works of self denial toward ourselves.

[To say nothing now of the good works of the heart, such as good thoughts, good tempers, and internal acts of repentance, faith, hope, and love;] in the first class, [of external good works,] which includes “works of piety,” divines rank public prayer in the Church, family prayer in private houses, and [meditation and] private prayer in one’s closet: singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs: reading the Bible and other good books: hearing the word preached or expounded: receiving the sacraments: keeping the Sabbath day and festivals holy: confessing Christ before a wicked world: and suffering the loss of one’s estate, of one’s good name, or life itself, for the Gospel’s sake.

Now I appeal to every impartial hearer, yea, and to thy own conscience, O man, who accusest me of preaching against good works, whether I ever taught, directly or indirectly, that we ought not constantly to attend public worship in the house of God, as well as private worship in our own houses, and to perform secret worship in our closets: whether I ever spoke against singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs; or against reading the Bible and other good books: whether I ever so much as hinted that we ought not to endeavour so to despatch our worldly business, as to hear [if possible] the word preached or expounded both on Sundays and working days: whether I have intimated f89 that we can live in the neglect of God’s ordinances, and break his Sabbaths, without bringing upon ourselves “swift destruction:” and, lastly, whether at any time I cried down suffering reproach for Christ, and parting with all things, even life itself, to follow him and his doctrine. Nay, do not you know in your own breasts that my insisting upon these good works, and encouraging all I can to do them, is what makes me to be despised and rejected by many, and perhaps by yourself?

How can you then, without wounding f90 [your own conscience,] accuse me of preaching against good works? Are you not rather the person who speaks against them? Are you not yourself one of these [loose moralists] who say, that “for their part they see no need of so many sermons, lectures, and sacraments in the Church; no need of so much singing, reading, praying, and godly conversation, in private houses: no need of such strictness in keeping the Sabbath day holy,” &c.

If you are one of them, you add [I fear] detraction to infidelity, and bearing false testimony to open profaneness, [or Laodicean lukewarmness.] You decry good works yourself by your words, your practice, and your example; and when you have done, you lay the sin at my door; you say that I preach against them! O how will you reconcile this conduct, I shall not say to Christianity, but to good manners, good sense, or even to heathen honesty!

In the second class of good works, divines place works of [justice and] charity; and these are of two sorts: such as are done to the bodies, and such as are done to the souls of men. The former are, [for the most part,] enumerated by our Lord, Matthew 25. They consist in being true and just in all our dealings; in “providing things honest in the sight of all men,” for us and ours; in paying our just debts as soon as possible; in protecting widows and fatherless children; in giving food to the hungry and drink to the thirsty; in entertaining strangers, easing the oppressed, clothing the naked, attending the sick, visiting the prisoners, [and burying the dead, from Scriptural and not Pharisaic motives.]

Now will any one, who scruples advancing an untruth, dare affirm, that I ever spoke a word against doing any one of these good works? Against doing them at improper times, from bad motives, in a wrong manner, and to wrong ends, I have often spoken; and so have all the preachers who do not “daub the wall with untempered mortar:” Christ first, Matthew 6:2; St. Paul next, 1 Corinthians 12:1, 2, 3; and our Church after them. (See the Homily on Fasting.) But I ask it again, Who ever heard me speak one word against doing them? On the contrary, have I not declared again and again that even “a cup of cold water, given in Christ’s name, shall in no wise lose its reward” — should certainly be rewarded in eternal life? [And do not some of you know, that within these two years I have lost many of my religious friends, by making a stand for the evangelical worthiness of the works of faith?]

As for works of mercy done to the souls of men, such as [giving a Christian education to our children and apprentices,] comforting the afflicted, encouraging the dejected, strengthening the weak, exhorting the careless, succouring the tempted, instructing the ignorant, sympathizing with mourners, warning the stubborn, [detecting hypocrisy,] reproving sin, stopping immorality, rebuking profaneness, and helping each other in the narrow way; it is known to many that my name is cast out as evil by many Sabbath breakers, swearers, and drunkards, for endeavouring to walk in these good works myself, and to induce others to walk in them. And yet you, [I still address myself to the inveterate enemies of salvation by faith,] you, who possibly ridicule all those good works, and dream of being saved without them; you, who do perhaps just the reverse of them, strengthening one another’s hands in licentiousness and profaneness, in Sabbath breaking, sweating, or scoffing at every thing that looks like seriousness; you accuse me of despising or discountenancing good works! O tell it not in Gath, publish it not in Askelon, lest the very Philistines laugh at the glaring inconsistency of your words and conduct!

Good works of the third class relate to keeping under the flesh, and all its sinful appetites. The chief of these works are a moderate use of meat, drink, and sleep; self denial [in apparel, furniture, and equipage;] chastity [in all its branches; subduing our slothful, rebellious flesh, by] early rising, abstinence, fasting: and, in a word, “by taking up our daily cross,” and following our abstemious, and yet laborious Lord.

[Permit me to do as St. Paul — “to speak as it were foolishly in this confidence of boasting.”] Have I not enforced the necessity of these good works both publicly and from house to house? Have you not sometimes even gone away from this place of worship, secretly displeased at my insisting so much upon them; complaining, perhaps, “that I went too far, or that nobody could live up to what I preach;” and making a hundred such remarks, instead of meditating upon these words of our Lord, “With man indeed it is impossible, but with God all things are possible?” And yet you now complain that I do not preach up good works. Pray, my brethren, be consistent; keep to one point, and do not say and unsay. I can no more be too strict, and yet make too little of good works, than I can go east and west at the same time. Only think — and you will perceive that your very complaints justify me, that your sayings overturn one another, and that “your own mouths prove you perverse.”

You will probably say, “Have we not heard you affirm, more than once, that nobody can be saved by his works: yea, that a man may go as constantly to church as the f91 Pharisee did to the temple, be as virtuous as he was, pay tithes exactly as he did, and be damned after all? Can you deny having preached this doctrine twenty times?”

Deny it! By no means. It is a doctrine for which, God being my helper, I am ready to go to the stake. It is the very doctrine that I have established in the former part of this discourse. How, then, can I deny it? Here methinks a Pharisee replies in triumph: “Well, then, you plead guilty to the charge: you confess that you have preached twenty times against good works.”

I deny the conclusion. Have you not understanding enough to see there is a vast difference between preaching f92 against the [proper] merit of good works, and preaching against good works themselves? Between saying that obedience to the king will never get us the crown of Great Britain, and affirming that we owe the king no obedience? In a word, between saying that good works will never procure us heaven, [as the primary, and, strictly speaking, meritorious cause of our salvation,] and declaring that we ought not to do good works? Surely your rational faculties are not so impaired but you may perceive those propositions are by no means of the same import.

If I say that eating will never make me immortal, that drinking will never turn me into an angel, and that doing my work will never take me to the third heaven, do I so much as hint that eating is useless, drinking Of no service, and doing my business unprofitable? O how does prejudice blind even men of reason and religion! How hardly does truth go down with us, when we do not love it! How gladly do we dress it up in a fool’s coat, that we may have some pretence to despise and reject it!

If you would speak according to strict truth, my brethren, you would not say that I “preach against good works, that I run down good works,” &c, which is a mistake, as! showed just now: but you would say, that I preach against the [proper] merit of good works in point of salvation. This is very true, so I do, and so I am determined to do, by God’s grace, as long as I live. So did Christ and his apostles; so do our articles and homilies; and so the children of God have done in all ages. F Those of the Old Testament f93 [far from mentioning any proper merits of their own, cried out, “Now mine eye seeth thee, I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes,” Job 43:5. “Wo is me, for I am undone, because I am” by nature, and have been by practice, “a man of unclean lips,” Isaiah 6:5.] Those of the New prayed to “be found in Christ, not having their own [Pharisaic] righteousness which is of the law of works, but the [evangelical] righteousness which is by faith in Jesus Christ,” Philippians 3:9. And those of our Church profess, that they “are not worthy to gather the crumbs under the Lord’s table,” and that they “do not come to it, trusting in their own righteousness,” or good works, “but in God’s manifold and great mercies through Jesus Christ;” so far are they from thinking that they [properly] merit salvation [either in whole or in part.] (See Communion Service.) F Yea, I declare it as, “upon the house-top,” of all the false doctrines that ever came out of the pit of hell, none has done such execution for Satan in the Church of God [as the Pharisaic conceit that we have, or may have any proper, original merit.] Stealing, drunkenness, and adultery have slain their thousands: but this damnable error, which is the very root of unbelief, its ten thousands. E It blinded the Pharisees, and hardened the Jews against Christ.f94 It plunges into everlasting fire all nominal Christians,” who have a form of godliness, but deny the power thereof.”

Yea, strange as the assertion may seem to some, this [pernicious error] feeds immorality and secretly nourishes all manner of vice. The Scripture tells us, 1 Corinthians 6:9, that “neither fornicators, nor effeminate, neither thieves nor covetous, neither drunkards nor revilers, neither unrighteous nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.” Now, how comes it to pass that so many, who are guilty of one or another of these abominations, remain as easy as if they were guiltless? Why, this damnable notion, that the merit of their works will atone for the guilt of their sins, makes them think that they shall do well enough in the end. “I get drunk now and then,” says one, “but I am honest.” “I oppress or cheat my neighbour,” says another, “but I go to church and sacrament.” “I love money or diversions above all things,” says a third, “but I bless God, I am neither a thief nor a drunkard.” “I am passionate, and swear sometimes,” says a fourth, “but my heart is good, and I never keep malice in my breast; beside, I’ll repent and mend some time or other before I die.” Now the sum of all those pleas amounts to this: “I do the devil’s work, but I do good works too. I am guilty of one piece of wickedness, but not of all: and I hope that through the merit of the good which I do, and of the evil which I have left undone hitherto, or purpose to leave undone by and by, Christ will have mercy upon me.”

F Thus all our [Pharisaic f95] delays of conversion, and all our [self-righteous] remorseless going on in sin and wickedness, are founded upon the doctrine of [Pharisaic] merits. Well then may our Church call it “a devilish doctrine, which is mere blasphemy against God’s mercy:” a doctrine which turns Christ out of his throne [by refusing him the honour of being the primary and the properly meritorious cause of our salvation.] A doctrine which [by crooked ways] leads first to [worldly mindedness or] licentiousness, as the conduct of many who cry up the [self-righteous] merit of good works [so called] too plainly shows; and next to Pharisaic morality and formality; and from both, except [a timely submission to] converting grace prevent it, into endless misery: for “no doubt,” says Bishop Latimer, in his sermon on Twelfth Day, “he that departeth out of this world in that opinion [or, as he expresses it in the same paragraph, those who “think to be saved by the law,” by the first covenant] shall never come to heaven.” E For they set their hearts against Christ; and, like the Pharisees of old, not only mistake the words of unbelief for good works; but give them also the place of the primary, meritorious cause of eternal salvation; when, if they were the works of faith, they would only be a secondary evidencing cause of it. Now as such men cannot possibly do this, without the greatest degree of spiritual pride, impenitency, and unbelief, it is plain that, if they die confirmed in this grand antichristian error, they cannot be saved: for St. Paul informs us that pride is “the condemnation of the devil;” and our Lord declares that “except we repent we shall all perish,” and that “he who believeth not shall be damned.” FOURTH PART.

[HAVING thus laid before you the destructive nature of self righteousness,] it is time to come to the last thing proposed, which was to show why good works cannot [properly speaking] deserve salvation in whole or in part; and to answer the old cavil, “If good works cannot save us,f96 why should we trouble ourselves about them?” [In doing the former I shall attempt to give Pharisaism a finishing stroke; and in doing the latter I shall endeavour to guard the Scriptural doctrine of grace against Antinomianism, which prevails almost as much among professed believers as Pharisaism does among professed moralists.]

And first, that good works cannot [strictly speaking] merit salvation in part, much less altogether, I prove by the following arguments: —

1. We must be wholly saved by the covenant of works or by the covenant of grace; my text showing most clearly that a third covenant made up of [Christless] merits [according to the first,] and Divine mercy [according to the second,] is as imaginary a thing in divinity as a fifth element made up of fire and water would be in natural philosophy.f97

2. There is less proportion between heavenly glory and our works, than between the sun and a mote that flies in the air: therefore to pretend that they will avail toward [purchasing, or properly meriting] heaven, [see the fifth note,] argues want of common sense, as well as want of humility.

3. God has wisely determined to save proud man in a way that excludes boasting. “God is just and the justifier of him that believes in Jesus. Where is boasting then?” says the apostle. “It is excluded,” answers he. “By what covenant,” does he ask? Is boasting excluded by the covenant of works? No, “but by the law of faith,” by the covenant of grace, whose condition is [penitential, self-abasing, obedient] faith in Jesus Christ. “Therefore we conclude,” says he, “that a man is justified by faith without the works of the law,” Romans 3:27, 28. If our good works [properly speaking] deserve the least part of our salvation, we may justly boast that our own arm has got us that part of the victory; and we have reason to glory in ourselves, contrary to the Scriptures, which say that” every mouth must be stopped,” that “boasting is excluded,” and that “he who glories must glory in the Lord.”

[If St. Paul glories in his sufferings and labours, it is not then without Christ before God, but with Christ before the Corinthians, and under peculiar circumstances. He never imagined that his works were meritorious according to the first covenant; much less did he imagine that they had one single grain of proper merit. He perfectly knew that if they were rewardable, it was not from any self excellence which he had put into them; but merely from God’s gratuitous promise in the second covenant; from Christ’s grace, by which they were wrought; from his atoning blood, in which they were washed; and from his proper merits with which they were perfumed.]

[To suppose that Adam himself, if he had continued upright, would have gloried in his righteousness as a Pharisee, is to suppose him deeply fallen. In paradise God was all in all; and as he is also all in all in heaven, we may easily conceive that with respect to self exaltation, the mouth of Gabriel is not less shut before the throne than that of Mary Magdalene. Therefore, if any out of hell Pharisaically glory in themselves, it is only those self-righteous sons of Lucifer and pride, to whom our Lord says still, “You are of your father the devil, whose works ye do,” when “ye seek to kill me,” and “glory in yourselves.”]

4. Our evil works far overbalance our good works, both in quantity and quality. Let us first then pay a righteous God the debt [the immense debt of ten thousand talents that] we owe him, by dying the second death, which is the wages of our bad works; and then we may talk of buying heaven with our good works.

5. Our best works have such a mixture of imperfection that they must be atoned for and made acceptable by Christ’s blood; so far are they from atoning for the least sin f98 [and properly meriting our acceptance] before God [even according to the second covenant.]

6. If ever we did one truly good work, the merit f99 is not ours, but God’s, who, by his free grace, “prevented, accompanied, and followed us” in the performance. For it is God, who “of his good pleasure worketh in us both to will and to do,” Philippians 2:12. “Not I,” says the apostle, after mentioning his good works, “but the grace of God in me,” 1 Corinthians 15:10, compared with James 1:17.

7. We perpetually say at church, “Glory be to the Father,” as Creator, “and to the Son,” as Redeemer, “and to the Holy Ghost,” as Sanctifier. Christ is then to have all the glory of our redemption: but if our good works come in for any share in the purchase of heaven, we must come in also for some share of the glory of our [redemption.f100] Thus Christ will no longer be the only Redeemer. We shall be co-redeemers with him, and consequently we shall have a share in the doxology; which is a blasphemous supposition.

8. Our Lord himself decides the question in those remarkable words, F “When you have done all that is commanded you;” and where is the man that [according to the law of innocence f101 ] has done, I shall not say all, but the one half of it? say, “We are unprofitable servants.” E Now it is plain that unprofitable servants do not [properly] merit, in whole or in part, to sit down at their master’s table, and be admitted as children to a share of his estate. Therefore, if God gives heaven to believers, it is entirely owing to his free mercy, through the merits of Jesus Christ, and not at all through the [proper] merits of our own works.

9. I shall close these observations by St. Paul’s unanswerable argument: “If righteousness come by the law,” if salvation come by [the covenant of works,] “then Christ died in vain,” Galatians 2:21. Whence it follows, that if it come in part by the works of the law, part of Christ’s sufferings were vain, a supposition which ends in the same blasphemy against the Mediator.

10. That man might deserve any thing of God upon the footing of proper worthiness, or merit of equivalence, God should stand in need of something, which it is in man’s power to bestow: but this is absolutely impossible. For God, being self sufficient in his infinite fulness, is far above any want; and man, being a dependent creature, every moment supported by his Maker and Preserver, has nothing to which God has not a far greater right than man himself. This is what the apostle asserts where he says, “Who has given him first, and it shall be recompensed unto him again?” But much more in this remarkable passage: “Who maketh thee to differ from another?” If thou sayest, The number of my talents, and the proper use I have made of them: I ask again, Who gave thee those talents? And who superadded grace, wisdom, and an opportunity to improve them? Here we must all give glory to God, and say with St. James, “Every good gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights.” Upon this consideration the apostle proceeds to check the Christian Pharisee thus’ “What hast thou that thou didst not receive? Now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it?” Whence it follows that, though St. Paul himself glories in, and boasts of his disinterestedness, yea, solemnly declares, “No man shall stop me of this boasting,” yet he did not glory in that virtue, “as if he had not received it.” No, he gave the original glory of it to “Him of whom, through whom, and to whom are all things.” The glory of bestowing original gifts upon us belongs then to God alone; and the original glory of the humility with which we receive, and of the faithfulness with which we use those gifts, belongs also to him alone; although in the very nature of things we have such a derived share of that glory as gives room to the reasonableness of Divine rewards. For why should one be rewarded more than another; yea, why should one be rewarded rather than punished, if derived faithfulness does not make him more rewardable?

Observe, however, that although by this derived faithfulness, one man makes himself to differ enough from another, for God to reward h im reasonably rather than another; yet no man can say to his Maker, without satanic arrogance, “I have made myself to differ from such a one, therefore I make a lawful demand upon thy justice: thus much 1 have done for thee; do as much for me again.” For while God dispenses punishments according to the rules of strict justice, he bestows his rewards only according to the rules of moral aptitude and distributive equity, in consequence of Christ’s proper merits, and of his own gracious promise; all men on earth and all angels in heaven being far less capable of properly deserving at God’s hands, than all the mites and ants in England are of properly meriting any thing at the hands of the king.]

[Lastly, what slaves earn is not their own, but the masters to whom they belong; and what your horses get is your property, not theirs. Now, as God has a thousand times more right to us than masters to their slaves, and you to your horses; it follows that, supposing we were sinless and could properly earn any thing, our profit would be God’s, not ours. So true it is that, from the creature to the Creator, the idea of proper merit is as contrary to justice as it is to decency.] As the preceding arguments [against the proper merit of works] will, I hope, abundantly satisfy all those [modern Pharisees] who have not entirely cast away the Christian revelation, I pass to the old objection of [some ignorant] Papists [and injudicious Protestants.] “If good works cannot [merit us heaven, (see fifth note,) or properly] save us, why should we trouble ourselves about them?” [And in answering it I shall guard the doctrine of obedience against the Antinomians.]

As this quibbling argument may puzzle the simple, and make the boasting Pharisees that use it triumph as if they had overturned the Protestant doctrine of salvation by faith, without [the] works [decried by St. Paul;] I beg leave to show its weakness by a comparison.

Suppose you said to me, “Your doing the work of a parish priest will never [merit] you an archbishopric;” and I answered with discontent, “If doing my office will never [merit] me the see of Canterbury, why should I do it at all? I need not trouble myself about preaching any more:” would you not ask me whether a clergyman has no reason to attend his flock but the wild and proud conceit that his labour must [deserve f102] him a bishopric. And I ask, in my turn, Do you suppose that a Christian has no motive to do good works, but the wilder and prouder notion that his good works must [properly speaking] merit him heaven?. (See fifth note.)

If therefore t can show that he has the strongest motives and inducements to abound in good works, without the doctrine of [proper] merits; I hope you will drop your objection, You say, “If good works will never [properly merit us salvation,] why should we do them?” I answer, For six good reasons, each of which [in some degree f103] overturns your objection.

1. F We are to do good works to show our obedience to our heavenly Father. E As a child obeys his parents, not to purchase their estate, but because he is their child, [and does not choose to be disinherited:] so believers obey God, not to get to heaven for their wages, but because he is their Father, [and they would not provoke him to disinherit them. f104 ]

2. F We are to abound in all good works, to be justified before men [now, and before the Judge of all the earth in the great day;] and to show that our faith is saving. St. James strongly insists upon this, James 2:18. E “Show me thy faith without thy works,” says he, “and I will show thee my faith by my works:” that is, thou sayest thou hast faith, [because thou wast once justified by faith;] but thou doest not the works of a believer; thou canst follow vanity, and conform to this evil world: thou canst swear or break the Sabbath; lie, cheat, or get drunk; rail at thy neighbour, or live in uncleanness; in a word, thou canst do one or another of the devil’s works. Thy works therefore give thee the lie, and show that thy faith is [now like] the devil’s faith; for if “faith without works be dead,” how doubly dead must faith with bad works be! f105 [And how absurd is it to suppose that thou canst be instrumentally justified by a dead faith, or declaratively justified by bad works, either before men or in the sight of God!] But “I will show thee my faith by my works,” adds the apostle: i.e. by constantly abstaining from all evil works, and steadily walking in all sorts of good works, I will make thee confess that I am really “in Christ a new creature,” and that my faith is living and genuine.

3. Our Saviour told his disciples that they were to F do good works, not to purchase heaven, but that others might be stirred up to serve God. You, then, that have found the way of salvation by Christ, “let your light so shine before men, that even they,” who speak evil of the doctrine of faith, “seeing your good works, may f106 glorify your Father who is in heaven,” E Matthew 5:16.

4. F We are to do good works out of gratitude and love to our dear Redeemer, who, having [conditionally] purchased heaven for us with his precious blood, E asks the small return of our love and obedience. “If you love me,” says he, “keep my commandments,” John 14:15. [This motive is noble, and continues powerful so long as we keep our first love. But, alas! it has little force with regard to the myriads that rather fear than love God: and it has lost its force in all those “who have denied the faith,” or “made shipwreck of it,” or “cast off their first faith,” and consequently their first love and their first gratitude. The multitude of these, in all ages, has been innumerable. I fear we might say of justified believers what our Lord did of the cleansed lepers: — “Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine?” Alas! like the apostates mentioned by St. Paul, they “are turned aside” after the flesh, after the world, “after fables,” after Antinomian dotages, after “vain jangling, after Satan” himself, 1 Timothy 5:15.]

5. We are to be careful to maintain good works, [not only that we may not lose our confidence in God, 1 John 3:19, &c, but also] that we may nourish and increase our faith or spiritual life: [or, to use the language of St. James, that faith may work with our works, and that by works our faith may be made perfect.] As a man [in health who is f107 threatened by no danger] does not walk that his walking may procure him life, [or save his life from destruction,] but that he may preserve his health, and [add to] his activity: so a believer does not walk in good works to get [an initial life of grace, or a primary title to an] eternal life [of glory,] but to keep up and increase the vigour of his faith, by which he has [already a title to, and the earnest of] eternal life. For as the best health without any exercise is soon destroyed, so the strongest faith without works will soon droop and die. Hence it is that St. Paul exhorts us to “hold faith and a good conscience, which some having put away,” by refusing to walk in good works, “concerning faith have made shipwreck.”]

6. F We are not to do good works to obtain heaven by them, [as if they were the properly meritorious cause of our salvation.] This proud, f108 antichristian motive would poison the best doings of the greatest saints, if saints could thus trample on the blood of their Saviour: such a wild conceit being only the Pharisee’s cleaner way to hell. But we are to do them because they shall be rewarded in heaven.f109 E To understand this we must remember that, according to the Gospel and our liturgy, God “opens the kingdom of heaven to all believers:” [because true believers are always true workers; true faith always working by love to God’s commandments. Next to Christ, then, to speak the language of some injudicious divines,] faith alone, when it works by love, takes us to heaven: [or rather, to avoid an apparent contradiction, faith and its works are the way to heaven.] But as there are stars of different magnitude in the material heaven, so also in the spiritual. Some who, like St. Paul, have eminently shined by “the works of faith, the patience of hope, and the labour of love,” shall shine like the brightest stars, [or the sun:] and F others, who, like the dying thief and infants, have had [little f110 or] no time to show their faith [or holiness] by their works, shall enjoy a less degree of glorious bliss. But all shall ascribe the whole of their salvation only to the mercy of God, the merits of Christ, and the efficacy of his blood and Spirit, E according to St. John’s vision: “I beheld, and lo a great multitude of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, with palms in their hands, clothed with robes that they had washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb: and” [while our Lord said to them by his gracious looks, according to the doctrine of secondary, instrumental causes, “Walk with me in white, for you are worthy, and inherit the kingdom prepared for you, for I was hungry and ye gave me meat,” &c,] they cried [according to the doctrine of primary and properly meritorious causes] not “salvation to our endeavours and good works;” but “salvation to our God, who sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.”

[Thus, by the rules of celestial courtesy, to which our Lord vouchsafes to submit in glory, while the saints justly draw a veil over their works of faith, to extol only their Saviour’s merits, he kindly passes over his own blood and righteousness to make mention only of their works and obedience. They, setting their seal to the first Gospel axiom, shout with great truth, “Salvation to God and the Lamb:” and He, setting his seal to the second Gospel axiom, replies, with great condescension, Salvation “to them that are worthy! Eternal salvation to all that obey me,” Revelation 3:4; Hebrews 5:9.]

[Therefore, notwithstanding the perpetual assaults of proud Pharisees, and of self-humbled Antinomians, the two Gospel axioms stand unshaken upon the two fundamental, inseparable doctrines of faith and works — of proper merit in Christ, and derived worthiness in his members. Penitent believers freely receive all from the God of grace and mercy, through Christ; and humble workers freely return all to the God of holiness and glory, through the same adorable Mediator. Thus God has all the honour of freely bestowing upon us a crown of righteousness, in a way of judicious mercy, and distributive justice; while we, through grace, have f111 all the honour of freely receiving it in a way of penitential faith and obedient gratitude. To him, therefore, one eternal Jehovah in Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, be ascribed all the merit, honour, praise, and dominion, worthy of a God, for ever and ever.]

APPENDIX.

I FLATTER myself that the preceding discourse shows,

(1.) That it is very possible to preach free grace, without directly or indirectly preaching Calvinism and free wrath: and

(2.) That those who charge Mr. Wesley and me with subverting the articles of our Church, which guard the doctrine of grace, do us great wrong. Should God spare me, I shall also bear my testimony to the truth of the doctrine of conditional predestination and election, maintained in the seventeenth article, to which I have not had an opportunity of setting my seal in this work.

As I have honestly laid my Helvetic bluntness and Antinomian mistakes before the public in my notes, I am not conscious of having misrepresented my old sermon in my enlarged discourse. Should, however, the keener eyes of my opponents discover any real mistake in my additions, &c, upon information, I shall be glad to acknowledge and rectify it. Two or three sentences I have left out, merely because they formed vain repetitions, without adding any thing to the sense. — But whenever I have, for conscience’ sake, made any alteration that affects, or seems to affect the doctrine, I have informed the reader of it, and of my reason for it in a note; that he may judge whether I was right twelve years ago, or whether I am now: and where there is no such note at the bottom of the page, there is an addition in the context, directing to the fifth note, where the alteration is acknowledged and accounted for according to the reasonable condition which I have made in the preface.

I particularly recommend the perusal of that note, of the first, and of the twenty-first, to those who do not yet see their way through the straits of Pharisaism and Antinomianism, through which I have been obliged to steer my course in handling a text, which, of all others, seems at first sight best calculated to countenance the mistakes of my opponents.

Sharp-sighted readers will see by my sermon that nothing is more difficult than rightly to divide the word of God. The ways of truth and error lie close together, though they never coincide. When some preachers say that “the road to heaven passes very near the mouth of hell,” they do not mean that the road to heaven and the road to hell are one and the same. If I assert that the way of truth runs parallel to the ditch of error, I by no means intend to confound them. Let error therefore come, in some things, ever so near to truth, yet it can no more be the truth, than a filthy ditch, that runs parallel to a good road, can be the road.

You wonder at the athletic strength of Milo, that brawny man, who stands like an anvil under the bruising fist of his antagonist. Through the flowery paths of youth and childhood trace him back to his cradle; and, if you please, consider him unborn: he is Milo still. Nay, view him just conceived or quickened, and though your naked eye scarcely discovers the punctum saliens by which he differs from a non-entity or a lifeless thing; yet even then the difference between him and a non-entity is not only real, but prodigious; for it is the vast difference between something and nothing, between life and no life. In like manner trace back truth to its first stamina; investigate it till you find its punctum saliens, its first difference from error; and even then you will see an essential, a capital difference between them, though your short-sighted or inattentive neighbour can perceive none. It is often a thing little in appearance that turns the scale of truth; nevertheless, the difference between a scale turned or not turned is as real as a difference between a just and a false weight, between right and wrong. I make this observation,

(1.) To show that although my opponents come very near me in some things, and I go very near them in others, yet the difference between us is as essential as the difference between light and darkness, truth and error. And

(2.) To remind them and myself that we ought so much the more to exercise Christian forbearance toward each other, as we find it difficult, whenever we do not stand upon our guard, to do justice to every part of the truth, without seeming to dissent even from ourselves. However, our short sightedness and twilight knowledge do not alter the nature of things. The truth of the anti-Pharisaic and anti-Crispian Gospel is as immutable as its eternal Author; and whether I have marked out its boundaries with a tolerable degree of justness or not, I must say as the heathen poet: — Est modus in rebus, sunt certi denique fines,

Quos ultra citraque nequit consistere rectum.f112