that I do believe in thee. The trembling hand of my faith holds thee; and though I have ten thousand times grieved thy pardon- fections.

you in remembrance of these things, though ye know them, and be established in the present troth. Yea, I think it meet to stir you up by putting you in remembrance, and giving you some hints, which it is safe for you frequently to meditate upon.

I. Adam, ye know, lost his human perfection in Paradise: Satan lost his angelic perfection in heaven: the devil thrusted sore at Christ in the wilderness, to throw him down from his mediatorial perfection: and St. Paul, in the same Epistles where he professes not only christian, but apostolic perfection also, [Phil. iii. 15: 1 Cor. ii. 6. 2 Cor. xii. 11.] informs us, that he continued to run for the crown of heavenly perfection like a man, who might not only lose his crown of christian perfection, but become a reprobate, and be cast away, 1 Cor, ix. 25, 27. And therefore so run ye also, that no man take your crown of christian perfection in this world, and and that ye may obtain your crown of angelic perfection in the world to come. Still keep your body under. Still guard your senses. Still watch your own heart; and, steadfast in the faith, still resist the devil, that he may flee from you; remember ing that if Christ himself [as Son of man] had conferred with flesh and blood, refused to deny himself, and avoided taking up his cross; he had lost his perfection, and sealed up our original apostacy.

"We do not find," [says Mr. Wesley, in his Plain Account of Christian Perfection] any general state described in scripture, from which a man cannot draw back to sin. If there were any state wherein this was impossible, it would be that of those who are sanctified, who are Fathers in Christ, who rejoice evermore, pray without ceasing, and in every thing give thanks.' But it is not impossible for these to draw back. They who are sanctified, may yet fall and perish, Heb. x. 29. Even Fathers in Christ, need that warning," Love not the world," 1 John ii. 15. They who rejoice, pray, and give thanks without ceasing, may nevertheless quench the Spirit," 1 Thess. v. 16, &c. Nay, even they who are "sealed unto the day of redemption, may yet grieve the Holy Spirit of God, Eph. v. 30."*

The doctrine of the absolute perseverance of the saints, is the first card which the devil

We do not hereby deny, that some believers have a testimony in their own breast, that they shall not tinally fall from God. "They may have it," says Mr. Wesley in the same Tract] and this persuasion that neither life nor death shall separate them from God, far from being hurtful, may in some circumstances be extremely useful." But wherever this testimony is divine, it is attended with that grace which inseparably

connects holiness and good works [the means] with perseverance and eternal salvation [the end: and, in this respect, our doctrine widely differs from that of the

Calvinists, who break the necessary connexion between holiness and infallible salvation, by making room for the foulest falls :-for adultery, inurder, and ineest.

played against man: " Ye shall not surely die, if ye break the law of your perfection." This fatal card won the game. Mankind and paradise were lost. The artful serpent had too well succeeded at his first game, to forget that lucky card at his second. See him "transforming himself into an angel of light on the pinnacle of the temple." There he plays over again his old game against the Son of God. Out of the Bible he pulls the very card, which won our first parents, and swept the stake-paradise-yea, swept it with the besom of destruction. Cast thyself down, says he, for it is written, that all things shall work together for thy good, thy very falls not excepted; "He shall give his angels charge concerning thee, and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone:" the tempter [thanks be to Christ] lost the game at that time; but he did not lose his card: and it is probable that he will play it round against you all; only with some variation. Let me mention one among a thousand. He promised our Lord that God's angels should "bear him up in their hands, if he threw himself down:" and it is not unlikely that he will promise you greater things still. Nor should I wonder if he was bold enough to hint, that, when you cast yourselves down "God himself shall bear you up in his hands, yea in his arms of everlasting love." O ye men of God, learn wisdom by the fall of Adam. O ye anointed sons of the Most High, learn watchfulness by the conduct of Christ. If he was afraid to tempt the Lord his God, will ye dare to do it? If he rejected as poison, the hook of the absolute perseverance of the saints, though it was baited with scripture, will ye swallow it down, as if it were "honey out of the Rock of Ages?"-No: through faith in Christ, the scriptures have "made you wise unto salvation:" you will not only fly with all speed from evil, but from the very appearance of evil: and when you stand on the brink of a temptation, far from entering into it, under any pretence whatever, ye will leap back into the bosom of him who says, "Watch and pray, lest ye enter into temptation; for though the spirit is willing the flesh is weak." I grant that [evangelically speaking] the weakness of the flesh is not sin; but yet the deceitfulness of sin creeps in at this door; and by this means not a few of God's chil dren," after they had escaped the pollutions of the world, through the sanctifying know. ledge of Christ," under plausible pretences, have been again entangled therein and overYe have put on the whele armour of God: 0 come. Let their falls make you cautious. keep it on, and use it with all prayer, that ye may, to the last, stand complete in Christ, and be more than conquerors, through him that has loved you.

II. Remember that "Every one who is perfect, shall be as his Master." Now if your Master was tempted and assaulted to the last;-if, to the last he watched and prayed; using all the means of grace himself, and enforcing the use of them upon others;-if to the last he fought against the world, the flesh, and the devil, and did not put off the harness till he had put off the body: think not yourselves above him; but go and do likewise.' If he did not regain paradise, without going through the most complete renunciation of all the good things of this world, and without meekly submitting to the severe stroke of his last enemy, death; be content to be perfect as he was; nor fancy that your flesh and blood can inherit the celestial kingdom of God, when the flesh and blood which Emmanuel himself assumed from a pure virgin, could not inherit without passing under the cherub's flaming sword: I mean, without going through the gates of death.

III. Ye are not complete in wisdom. Perfect love does not imply perfect knowledge: but perfect humility, and perfect readiness to receive instruction. Remember, therefore, that if ever ye shew, that ye are above being instructed, even by a fisherman who teaches according to the divine anointing, ye will shew that ye are fallen from a perfection of humility, into a perfection of pride.

IV. Do not confound angelical, with christian perfection. Uninterrupted transports of praise, and ceaseless raptures of joy, do not belong to christian, but to angelical perfection. Our feeble frame can bear but a few drops of that glorious cup. In general, that new wine is too strong for our old bottles: that power is too excellent for our earthen, cracked vessels: but, weak as they are, they can bear a fulness of meekness, of resignation, of humility, and of that love, which is willing to obey unto death. If God indulges you with ecstasies, and extraordinary revelations; be thankful for them; but be "not exalted above measure" by them; take care lest enthusiastic delusions mix themselves with them; and remember, that your christian perfection does not so much consist in building a tabernacle upon Mount Tabor, to rest and enjoy rare sights there; as in resolutely taking up the cross, and following Christ to the palace of a proud Caiaphas, to the judgment-ball of an unjust Pilate, and to the top of an ignominious Calvary. Ye never read in your Bibles, Let that glory be upon you, which was also upon St. Stephen, when" he looked up steadfastly into heaven, and said, Behold I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God." But ye have frequently read there, "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who made himself of no reputation. took upon him the form of servant, and

being found in fashion as a man, humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross."

:

See him on that ignominious gibbet: he hangs abandoned by his friends surrounded by his foes-condemned by the rich-insulted by the poor.-He hangs ;-a worm and no man-a very scorn of men, and the outcast of the people.-All that see him laugh him to scorn. They shoot out their lips, and shake their heads, saying, He trusted in God that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, if we will have him.-There is none to help him :-one of his Apostles denies, another sells him; and the rest run away. Many oxen are come about him ;-fat bulls of Basan close him on every side-they gape upon him with their mouths, as it were a ramping lion-he is poured out like water-his heart in the midst of his body is like melting wax his strength is dried up like a potsherd-his tongue cleaveth to his gums;he is going into the dust of death:-many dogs are come about him-and the counsel of the wicked layeth seige against him :his hands and feet are pierced-you may tell all his bones, they stand staring and looking upon him:-they part his garments among them, and cast lots for the only remains of his property, his plain, seamless vesture. Both suns, the visible and the invisible, seem eclipsed. No cheering beam of created light gilds his gloomy prospect. No smile of his heavenly Father supports his agonizing soul. No cordial [unless it be vinegar and gall] revives his sinking spirits. He has nothing left, except his God. But his God is enough for him. In his God he has all things. And though his soul is seized with sorrow, even unto death: yet it hangs more firmly upon his God by a naked faith, than his lacerated body does on the cross by the clinched nails.-The perfection of his love shines in all its christian glory. He not only forgives his insulting foes and bloody persecutors; but in the highest point of his passion he forgets his own wants, and thirsts after their eternal happiness. gether with his blood, he pours out his soul for them; and excusing them all he says, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." O ye adult sons of God, in this "glass behold all with open face the glory of your Redeemer's forgiving,” praying love: and, as ye "behold it, be changed into the same image, from glory to glory, by the loving Spirit of the Lord."

To

V. This lesson is deep: but he may teach you one deeper still. By a strong sympathy with him in all his sufferings, he may call you to know him every way crucified. Stern Justice thunders from heaven!" Awake, Osword, against the man who is my fellow !" The sword awakes-the sword goes through his soul-the flaming sword is quenched in

bis blood. But is one sinew of his perfect faith cut, one fibre of his perfect resignation injured, by the astonishing blow? No, his God slays him, and yet he trusts in his God. By the noblest of all ventures, in the most dreadful of all storms, he meekly bows his head, and shelters his departing soul in the bosom of his God.—“ My God! My God!" says he, though all thy comforts have forsaken me, and all thy storms and waves go over me, yet into thy hands I commend my spirit."" For thou wilt not leave my soul in Hades: neither wilt thou suffer thy holy One to see corruption. Thou wilt shew me the path of life, in thy presence is fulness of joy, and at thy right hand, [where I shall soon sit] there are pleasures for evermore.", What a pattern of perfect confidence! O ye perfect christians, be ambitious to ascend to those amazing heights of Christ's perfection; "For even hereunto were ye called; because Christ also suffered for us: leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps: who knew no sin, who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered he threatened not, but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously." If this is your high calling on earth, rest not, O ye Fathers in Christ, till your patient hope, and perfect confidence in God, have got their last vic tory over your last enemy-the king of

terrors.

"The ground of a thousand mistakes [says Mr. Wesley] is, the not considering deeply, that love is the highest gift of God, humble, gentle, patient, love: that all visions, revela tions, manifestations, whatever, are little things compared to love. It were well you should be thoroughly sensible of this: the heaven of heavens is love. There is nothing higher in religion: there is, in effect, nothing else. If you look for anything but more love, you are looking wide of the mark, you are getting out of the royal way. And when you are asking others, Have you received this or that blessing? If you mean any thing but more love, you mean wrong: you are leading them out of the way, and putting them upon a false scent. Settle it then in your heart, that from the moment God has saved you from all sin, you are to aim at nothing, but more of that love described in the thirteenth of the Corinthians. You can go no higher than this, till you are carried into Abraham's bosom."

dream that this will hurt the cause of God; no, it will further it. Be therefore open and frank, when you are taxed with any thing : let it appear just as it is: and you will thereby not hinder, but adorn the gospel."

St.

Why should ye be more backward in acknowledging your failings, than in confessing that ye do not pretend to infallibility. Paul was perfect in the love which casts out fear, and therefore he boldly reproved the high-priest: but, when he reproved him more sharply than the fifth commandment allows, he directly confessed his mistake, and set his seal to the importance of the duty, in which he had been inadvertently wanting. Then Paul said, "I knew not, brethren, that he was the high-priest: for it is written, Thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler of thy people." St. John was perfect in the courteous, humble love, which brings us down at the feet of all. His courtesy, his humility, and the dazzling glory, which beamed forth from a divine messenger [whom he apprehended to be more than a creature] betrayed him into a fault contrary to that of St. Paul; but far from concealing it, he openly confessed it, and published his confession for the edification of all the churches. "When I had heard and seen, [says he,] I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel who shewed me these things. Then saith he unto me, See thou do it not, for I am thy fellowservant." Christian perfection shines as much in the child-like simplicity, with which the perfect readily acknowledge their faults; as it does in the manly steadiness, with which they "resist unto blood, striving against sin."

VII. If humble love makes us frankly confess our faults, much more does it incline us to own ourselves sinners-miserable sinners before that God, whom we have so frequently offended. I need not remind you, that your bodies are dead because of sin. You see, you feel it, and therefore, so long as you dwell in a prison of flesh and blood, which death [the avenger of sin] is to pull down;

so long as your final justification [as pardoned and sanctified sinners] has not taken place: Yea, so long as you break the law of paradisaical perfection under which you were originally placed, it is meet, right, and your bounden duty to consider yourselves as sinners, who [as transgressors of the law of VI. Love is humble. "Be therefore cloth- innocence and the law of liberty] are guilty ed with humility," says Mr. Wesley: "Let of death-of eternal death. St. Paul did so it not only fill, but cover you all over. Let after he was "come to Mount Sion, and to modesty and self-diffidence appear in all the spirits of just men made perfect." your words and actions. Let all you speak still looked upon himself as the chief of sinand do, shew that you are little, and base, ners, because he had been a daring blasand mean, and vile in your own eyes. As phemer of Christ, and a fierce persecutor of one instance of this, be always ready to own his people."Christ, says he, came to save any fault you have been in. If you have at sinners, of whom I am chief." The reason is any time, thought, spoke, or acted wrong, be plain. Matter of fact is and will be matter not backward to acknowledge it. Never of fact to all eternity. According to the doc

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