enforced a Roman edict, and enjoined secrecy; but, alas! as it was in the beginning, it is now; the more you charged them, the more they spread it abroad. If God sends his ministers to plead against his own children their reproach, much might have been said against Moses's killing the Egyptian; against Paul, for persecution and bloodshed; and against Peter, for excess of wine, revelling, banqueting, and abominable idolatries. But they left this branch of the work to the accuser of the brethren, and preached the gospel; and it would be no grief of heart to you, sir, in a dying hour if you were to go and do likewise.

Furthermore, if you were kept entirely free and pure from every vice throughout your childhood and youth, all the better: glory in this. I neither envy nor covet either your purity or happiness, any more than the prodigal son, in his ring and robe, envied his elder brother, who had never at any time transgressed the commandment.

But you would never preach in Greenwich Tabernacle while I was permitted to speak there. Be it so. I took no offence at that; nor will I say that you are without a precedent in so doing: other pious souls as well as you, have said "Stand by thyself, come not near to me; for I am holier than thou." And far be it from me to make you less holy than you are. When your absence, sir, and other holy brethren's dislike, had procured my dismission from Greenwich, I took it patiently without gainsaying; and I thought that, when I

had opened a place for myself in another parish, the offence would have ceased, but no: for although you would never appear in Greenwich pulpit while I was admitted there, yet you have never appeared there once since, and left me out of it. I must not go in, yet you carry me in; and, though I may not speak for myself, you are sure always to speak of me.

Your charge to the people to read the fifth chapter of Matthew's gospel before they came to hear me, I have considered; and, lest they should not be obedient to you in all things, and to let you know that I am not afraid to read that chapter, I have published an explanation of those texts that you referred them to, and beg of you to refute me, if think I am wrong.

you

At Mr. T... ... d's meeting, you informed them that, if you should say the law is not a rule of life, you should expect horns to grow out of your head, and your feet to be cloven. Then, sir, what must Paul be, who tells us that the believer is not under the law, but under grace; and that the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in them that believe; and that the grace of God teaches men to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly, in the world?

You quoted a passage out of my Arminian Skeleton in B... . . fields; and said, Before a man got into the pulpit, and advanced such things, he should put on a fool's cap. Does asserting

that God is our Father, and the church our mother, entitle a man to such an ornament? Can you prove the saying to be either false or foolish? If you can, it lies upon you to do it, and upon me to defend it. If you can disprove any doctrine that I hold, you know they are published to the world, do it; and if you cannot, or will not, then leave off calling me antinomian, bad spirit, that fellow, and spiritual blackguard. That first word is sadly matched; for the fifth chapter of Matthew's gospel gives no licence for such hard speeches, especially against a servant of Christ, whose doctrines you cannot overthrow, whose usefulness you cannot deny, and whose life you cannot censure. But I am informed, by one of your own people, that you have long wished that I would take up my pen against you, that you might prosecute me for a libel. If every minister of the gospel, who vindicates his life and doctrine against scandal, who preaches against errors, and who writes against false doctrines, or false evidences, is to be sued at law for libels, we should soon cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before Peter might have prosecuted Paul for this, for he withstood him to the face: and, indeed, the scriptures are full of such libels; and who can escape them, and be faithful? "Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law?" 1 Cor. vi. 1. Indeed, Moses says, an eye for an eye, and tooth for tooth: but I have not injured you at all. Sure I am, that the fifth chapter of

us.

Matthew's gospel gives no licence for such a practice. It tells me to give my cloak to him that sues for my coat; but you shall most surely have both my cloak and coat, without suing at law, if you send for them.

But I trust, reverend sir, that your weapons are not carnal, and that the sword of the Spirit is sufficient for you in all matters of controversy. Flying to the temporal sword, in such cases, is making the law the only rule of life with a witness. But I am persuaded better things of you, sir, though you may have thus spoken; for I cannot believe that a man of such holiness, who refuses even to occupy a pulpit defiled by me, would ever act like the Jewish Pharisees, who provoked the Saviour to speak many things, that they might catch something out of his mouth, in order to betray him into the hands of the governor. That be far from my brother Rowland, and from every other fellow-labourer in the kingdom and patience of Christ.

We are to do as we would be done by. If I have deviated from this rule in my conduct towards you, reverend sir, convince me of it; and if you have acted agreeably to this rule yourself, you will be no more offended at my addressing my sermon to you for your perusal, than I was at your levelling your sermon against me, to represent me as giving licence to sin. For my part, I am willing to come up to my brother Rowland's standard in every good work: if we differ, it shall

only be about words, or about which shall be the greatest; and, if we must strive for mastery, I hope that he, and only he, will be crowned, who strives lawfully. I have this comfort, however, that if all the courts of law in Great Britain were to be moved against me, they would never drive a worse trade with me than Moses did: he took both body and goods; he stripped me, not only of my coat, but of every other covering that I had; he took my cloak of hypocrisy, and my bed from under me; and, at last, took my life also. For, as Paul says, "When the commandment came, sin revived, and I died;" and at length he left me poor, and wretched, and miserable, and blind, and naked; and, though I gained my point in the end, yet this was all that I got by law.

I shall now beg leave to make a few remarks on the discourse that you levelled at my doctrine, and shew you wherein we differ, and submit them to your judgment. This, I trust, can give no offence: for the Spirit of the prophets is subject to the prophets; and those that are instructed in the Word, are to communicate to him that teacheth in all

good things. Your text is; " Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven," Matt. v. 20. What you have said upon the text, may be put into a very small compass, and be answered with a very few words.

Quot. Now I dare venture to say, that some