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fied, till you are crucified with him; till the body of sin is destroyed, and you feel eternal life abundantly circulating through all your sanctified powers.

And ye uncorrupted, self-denying follow ers of Jesus, whom love and duty still compel to bear your cross after him, join to pray that the Watcher and his holy ones may come down from heaven, and cry aloud, Hew down the tree of Antinomianism: cut off its branches, shake off its leaves, scatter its fruit, and let not even the stump of its roots be left in the earth. Your prayer is heard:

He comes! he comes! the Judge severe ! The seventh trumpet speaks him near. "Behold he appears in his glory, with ten thousands of his saints, to execute judgment upon all. The thrones are cast down; the ancient of days doth sit, whose garment is white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool: his throne is like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire. A fiery stream issues, and comes forth from before him: Thousands thousands minister unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stand before him. The trumpet sounds: The sea gives up the dead which are in it, death and hades deliver up the dead which are in them. The just are separated from the unjust; and while the earth and the heaven flee away from the face of him that sits on the great resplendent throne, and there is found no place for them; the judgment is set, the books are opened, and the dead, small and great, are judged every one according to their works."

"Fear not, ye righteous. Ye are in the hand of the Lord, and there shall no torment touch you. In the sight of the unwise ye seemed to die, they laughed at your dying daily but ye are in peace, and your joy is full of immortality. Having been a little chastised, you shall be greatly rewarded; for God proved you and found you worthy for himself. And now that the time of your visitation is come, judge the nations, and reign with your Lord for ever; for such as are faithful in love shall abide with him; grace and mercy are to his saints, and he careth for his elect:" He sets his sheep on his right hand, and stretcheth it towards them with ravished looks of benignity and love, he finally justifies by works, those whom he freely justified by faith. How sublime and solemn is the sentence !

"Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty and ye gave me drink; I was a stranger and ye took me in; naked and ye clothed me: I was sick and ye visited me; I was in prison and ye came to me."-And do not ask with astonishment when you gave me all these tokens of your love; for whatever you did out of regard

to me, my law, and my people, you did it in my name; and whatever you did in my name to the least of my creatures, and in particular to "the least of these my brethren, you did it unto me.'

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As if he said, "think not that I'am biased by lawless partiality. No: I am the au thor of eternal salvation to them that obeyed me, and made a right use of my sanctifying blood. Such are the blessed of my Father; and such are ye. Your faith unfeigned produced unfeigned love: you loved not in word only, but in deed and in truth; witness the works of mercy that adorned your lives, or the fruits of the Spirit that now replenish your souls. You, of all the families of the earth, have I known with approbation. Ye have not denied me in works; or if ye have, bitter repentance, and purifying, renovating faith, followed your denial; and by keeping that faith, ye continued in my covenant, and endu red unto the end.

"Thou seest it, righteous Father, for to thee the books are always open. Thou readest my laws in their mind, and beholdest my loving precepts written in their hearts: I therefore confess them before thee; and before you my Angels who have seen them ago. nize, and follow me through the regeneration. I take the new heavens and the new earth to witness, that I am to them a God, and they are to me a people. They walked worthy of God, who called them to his kingdom and glory; therefore they are worthy of me."

"I have confessed your persons, O ye just men made perfect. Ye precious jewels of my mediatorial crown; let me next reward your works. In the days of my flesh I declared, that a cup of water given in my name (and my name, ye know, is Mercy, Goodness, and Love,) should in no wise lose its reward; and that whosoever should forsake earthly friends or property for righteousness' sake, should have an hundred-fold, and everlasting life. The pillars of heaven have given way; but my promise stands firm as the basis of my throne. Triumph in my faithfulness, as you have in my forgiving love. I bestow on all, crowns of blissful immortality; I appoint unto each a kingdom which shall not be destroyed. Be Kings and Priests unto God for ever. pare to follow me to the realms of glory, and here whatsoever is right (dikatov) that shall ye receive : in just proportion, to the various degress of perfection, with which you have obeyed my law, and improved your talents."

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Thus are the persons of the righteous accepted, and their works praised in the gate of heaven, and regarded in the kingdom of their Father. Thus they receive crowns of life and glory; but it is only to cast them, to all eternity, with unutterable transports, grateful humble love, at the feet of him who was crowned with piercing thorns, and

hung bleeding upon the cross, to purchase their thrones,

While they shout "Salvation to God and the Lamb!" the Judge turns to the left hand, where trembling myriads stand waiting for their fearful doom. O how does confusion cover their faces, and guilty horror rack their breasts, while he says with the firmness of the eternal Lawgiver, and the majesty of the LORD of Lord's; "Depart from me ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels! For I was hungry, and ye gave me no meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in; naked, and ye clothed me not; sick and in prison, and ye visited me -not *!"

Some are not yet speechless; they only falter. With the trembling insolence of Adam, not yet driven out of Paradise, they even dare to plead their desperate cause. While stubborn sons of Belial say, “Lord, thy Father is merciful; and if thou didst die for all, why not for us?" While obstinate Pharisees plead the good they did in their own name, to supersede the Redeemer's merit: methinks I hear a bold Antinomian addressing thus the Lord of glory:

"Lord, when saw we Thee hungry, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister to Thee? Had we seen thee, dear Lord, in any distress, how gladly would we have relieved thy want! Numbers can witness how well we spoke of thee, and thy righteousness: It was all our boast. Bring it out in this important hour. Hide

Should some sincere followers of Christ read these lines, and be convinced they never visited Christ in prison, never entertained him as a stranger, &c. it is proper they should be humbled for having overlooked this important part of pure religion; and consider next how far it is in their power literally to practice it. Some live at a great distance from prisons, and are necessarily detained at home. Some (as women) could not, in many places, visit prisoners with decency. Others are altogether unable to do good to the souls or bodies of the sick and captives, being themselves sick, poor, and confined. If thou art in any of these cases, believer, canst not thon influence others to do, what is out of thy

power? Canst thou not send the relief thou art unable to carry, and shew thy good-will by cutting off thy superfluities, sparing some of thy conveniences, and at times a little of thy necessaries, for thy sick, naked, hungry, or imprisoned Lord ? If thou art so indigent and infirm, that thou canst absolutely do nothing for the bodies of thy fellow-creatures, endeavour to do works of mercy for their souls; exhort, reprove, comfort, instruct, as thou canst, all around thee, in meek

ness of wisdom. If thou canst do works of mercy, neither with thy tongue, hands, nor feet, then be the more diligent to do them with thy heart. In spirit, visit prisons and sick-beds. If thou hast no house to take in strangers, open to them thy heart; earnestly recommend them to God, who can supply all their wants, and open to them the Gate of Heaven, when they lie under a hedge; as he once did to Jacob in the fields of Bethel. Give thy heart continually to the Lord, and thou givest more than a mountain of gold; and the moment thou canst give a cup of water in his name, bestow it as freely as he did his blood; remembering, "God loves a cheerful giver, and that it is accepted according to what a man hath, and not according to what he hath not."

not the gospel of thy free grace. We always delighted in pure doctrine, in "Salvation without any condition; especially without the condition of works." Stand, gracious Lord, stand by us, and the Preachers of thy free grace, who "made us hope thou wouldst confirm their word."

"While they taught us to call thee Lord, Lord, they assured us that love would constrain us to do good works; but finding no inward constraint to entertain strangers, visit the sick, and relieve prisoners, we did it not; supposing we were not called thereto. They continually told us, "human righteousness was mere filth before thee; and we could not appear but to our everlasting shame, in any righteousness but thine, in the day of judgment." As to works, we were afraid of doing them, lest we should have worked out, abominations instead of our salvation.

"And indeed, Lord, what need was there of our working it out? For they perpetually assured us, it was finished; saying, if we did any thing towards it, we worked for life, fell from grace like the bewitched Galatians, spoiled thy perfect work; and exposed our selves to the destruction which awaits yonder trembling Pharisees.

"They likewise assured us, that all depended on thy decrees; and if we could but firmly believe our election, it was a sure sign we were interested in thy salvation. We did so; and now, Lord, for the sake of a few dung-works we have omitted, let not our hope perish! Let not electing and everlasting love fail! Visit our offences with a rod, but take not thy loving kindness altogether from us; and break not David's covenant, ordered in all things and sure, of which we have so often made our boast."

"May it please thee also to consider, that if we did not love and assist some of those whom thou callest thy Brethren, it was because they appeared to us so exceeding legal; so strongly set against free grace, that we judged them to be obstinate Pharisees, and dangerous reprobates. We therefore thought that in hating and opposing them, we did thee service, and walked in thy steps. thou hast said, "It is enough if the servant is as his Lord;" and supposing thou didst hate them, as thou dost Satan; we thought we need not be more righteous than thou, by loving them more than thou didst.

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"O suffer us to speak on, and tell thee, we were champions for thy free grace. true Protestants, we could have burned against the doctrine of a second justification by works. Let then grace justify us freely without works. Shut those books * filled

This plea is excellent when a man comes to Christ, his High Priest, as a sinner for pardon and holiness, or for his first justification on earth; but it will be absurd when he stands before the throne of Christ as a rebellious subject, or before his judgment-seat; criminal in the last day.

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with the account of our deeds, open the arins of thy mercy, and receive us just as we

are.

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If free grace cannot justify us alone, let faith do it, together with free grace. We do believe finished salvation, Lord; we can join in the most evangelical creeds, and are ready to confess the virtue of thy atoning blood. But if thou sayest we have trampled it under foot, and made it a common thing, grant us our last request, and it is enough.

"Cut out the immaculate garment of thy righteousness, into robes that may fit us all, and put them upon us by imputation: So shall our nakedness be gloriously covered. We confess we have not dealt our bread to the hungry; but impute to us thy feeding 5000 people with loaves and fishes. We have seldom given drink to the thirsty, and often put our bottle to those who were not athirst; but impute to us thy turning water into wine, to refresh the guests at the marriage-feast in Cana; and thy loud call, in the last day of the feast at Jerusalem; "If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink!" We never supposed it was our duty to be given to hospitality; but impute to us thy loving invitations to strangers, thy kind assurances of receiving all that come to thee; thy comfortable promises of casting out none, and of feeding them even with thy flesh and blood. We did not clothe the naked as we had opportunity and ability: but impute to us thy patient parting with thy seamless garment, for the benefit of thy murderers. We did not visit sick-beds and prisons, we were afraid of fevers, and especially of the jail-distemper: But compassionately impute to us thy visiting Jairus's daughter, and Peter's wife's mother, who lay sick of a fever; aud put to our account thy visiting putrefying Lazarus in the offensive prison of the grave.

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"Thy imputed righteousness, Lord, can alone answer all the demands of thy law and gospel. We did not dare to fast; we should have been called legal and Papists if we had; but thy forty days' fasting in the wilderness, and thy continual abstinence imputed to us, will be self-denial enough to justify us ten times over. We did not take up our cross; but impute to us thy carrying THINE and even fainting under the oppressive load. did not mortify the deeds of the flesh, that we might live: This would have been evidently "working for life" but impute to us the crucifixion of thy body, instead of our crucifying OUR flesh with its affections and lusts. We hated private prayer; but impute to us thy love of that duty, and the prayer thou didst offer upon a mountain all night. have been rather hard to forgive, but that defect will be abundantly made up, if thou imputest to us thy forgiving of the dying thief: and if that will not do, add, we beseech thee, the merit of that good saying of thine, "For

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give, and you shall be forgiven." We have cheated the king of his customs; but no matter, only impute to us thy exact paying of the tribute-money, together with thy good ad vice, "Render unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's."

"It is true, we have brought up our children in vanity, and thou never hadst any to bring up. May not thy mercy find out an expedient, and impute to us instead of it, thy obedience to thy parents? And if we have received the sacrament unworthily, and thou canst not cover that sin with thy worthy receiving, indulge us with the imputation of thy worthy institution of it, and that will do yet better.

"In short, Lord, own us freely as thy children. Impute to us thy perfect righteousness. Cast it as a cloak upon us, to cover "We our filthy souls and polluted bodies. will have no righteousness but thine:" make no mention, we beseech thee, of our righte ousness and personal holiness; they are but filthy rags, which thy purity forbids thee to take into heaven; therefore accept us without, and we shall shout free grace, imputed righteousness, and finished salvation, to eternity."

While the bold Antinomian offers, or prepares to offer, this most impious plea, the Lord, who "is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity," casts a flaming look upon all the obstinate violators of his Law. It pierces their conscience, rouzes all its drowzy powers, and restores their memory to its original perfection. Not one wish passed their heart, or thought their brain, but is instantly brought to their remembrance: the books are opened in their own breast, and every character, has a voice which answers to the voice of the Lion of the tribe of Judah.

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"wrath

"Shall I pervert judgment, says he, and justify the wicked for a bribe? The bribe of your abominable praises? Think you, by your base flatteries, to " escape the righte ous judgment of God?" revealed from heaven against all ungodliness, and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness?" Much more against you, ye Vessels of wrath; who hold an impious absurdity in matchless insolence.

"Said I not to Cain himself at the beginning, If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?" Personal holiness, which ye scorned, is the wedding garment I now look for. "I swear in my wrath that, without it, none shall taste of my heavenly supper.' "Ye have rejected my word of commandment, and I reject you from being kings." "Ye cried unto me, and I delivered you. Yet have ye forsaken me and served other gods; therefore I will deliver you no more: go and cry unto the gods whom ye have chosen. I wound the hairy scalp of such as have gone on still in their wickedness.

Whosoever hath sinned against me [to the last] him do I blot out of my book: and this have you done, "ye serpents, ye generation of vipers," awake to everlasting shame! "Will ye set the briars and thorns against me in battle," and make them pass for roses of Sharon, and lilies of the valley? "I will go through them with a look, and consume them together. The day is come that burneth like an oven: All that have done wickedly are stubble, and must be burnt up root and branch. Upon such I rain snares, file and brimstone; storm and tempest: this is the portion of their cup. Drink the dregs of it. Ye hypocrites, depart! And wring them out in everlasting burnings.

"Said I not, "He that does good is of God, but he that does evil is not of God: Be faithful unto death and I will give you the crown of life; for he that overcometh, [and he only] shall be clothed in white rai ment, and I will not blot his name out of the book of life." And shall I keep your name in that book for having continued in doing evil? Shall I give you the crown of life for having been unfaithful unto death: and clothe you with the bright robes of my glory, because you defiled your garments to the last? Delusive hope!"Because your mind was not to do good, be ye rather clothed with cursing, like as with a garment! Let it come into your bowels like water, and like oil in your bones!"

VII. If these shall go into eternal punishment;" if such will be the dreadful end of all the impenitent Nicolaitans; if our churches and chapels swarm with them, if they crowd our communion-tables, if they are found in most of our houses, and too many of our pulpits: if the seeds of their fatal disorder are in all our breasts; if they produce Antinomianism around us in all its forms; if we see bold Antinomians in principle, barefaced Antinomians in practice, and sly pharisaical Antinomians, who speak well of the law, to break it with greater advantage; should not every one "examine himself whether he is in the faith," and whether he has a holy Christ in his heart, as well as a sweet Jesus upon his tongue; lest he should one day swell the tribe of Antinomian reprobates? Does it not become every Minister of Christ to drop his prejudices, and consider whether he ought not to imitate the old Watchman, who 15 months ago, gave a legal alarm to all the watchmen that are in connexion with him? And should we not do the church excellent service, if agreeing to lift up our voices together against the common enemy, we gave God no rest in prayer, and our hearts in preaching, till we all did our first works, and our latter end, like Job's, exceeded our beginning?

Near forty years ago, some of the Minis

ters of Christ, in our church, were called out of the extreme of self-righteousness. Flying from it, we have run into the opposite, with equal violence. Now that we have learned wisdom by what we have suffered, in going beyond the limits of truth both ways, let us return to a just Scriptural medium. Let us equally maintain the two evangelical axioms on which the gospel is founded; (1.)“ All our salvation is of God by free grace, through the alone merits of Christ." And (2.)" All our damnation is of ourselves, through our avoidable unfaithfulness."

This second truth, as important as one half of the Bible, on which it rests, has not only been set aside as useless by thousands, but generally exploded as unscriptural, dangerous, and subversive of true Protestantism. Thus has the gospel-ballance been broken, and St. James's pure religion despised. What we owe to truth in a state of oppression, hath engaged me to cast in two mites into the scale of truth, which Mr. W. has the courage to defend against multitudes of good men, who keep one another in countenance, under their common mistake. I do not want his scale to preponderate to the disadvantage of free grace: if it did, far from rejoicing in it, I would instantly throw the insignificant weight of my pen into the other scale; being fully persuaded that Christ can never be so truly honoured, nor souls be so well edified, when we overdo, on either eide of the question, as when we scripturally maintain the whole truth as it is in Jesus.

"But are we not in as much danger from overdoing in pharisaic works, as in Antinomian faith?"

Not at present the stream runs too rapidly on the side of lawless faith, to leave any just room to fear we shall be immediate. ly carried into excessive working. There would be some ground for this objection; if we saw most professors of religion obstinate. ly refusing to drink any thing but water, eat any thing but dry bread or cheap vegetables: fasting themselves into mere skeletons; wearing sack-cloth instead of soft-linen; lying on the bare ground, with a stone for their pillow; imitating Origen, by literally “making themselves Eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's

sake;" turning hermits, spending whole nights in contemplation in churches and church-yards; giving away all their goods, the necessaries of life not excepted: allowing themselves only three or four hours sleep, and even breaking that short rest to pray or praise; overpowering their bodies the next day with hard labour, to keep them under; scourging their backs unto blood every day; or forgetting themselves in prayer for hours in the coldest weather, till they have almost lost the use of their limbs. But I ask any unprejudiced person, who knows what

is now called, " gospel liberty," whether we are in danger of being thus made righteous over-much, or legal to such an extreme ?

I grant however we are not absolutely safe from any quarter : let us therefore continually stand on our guard. The right wing of Immanuel's army, which defends living faith, is partly gone over to the enemy, and fights under the Nicolaitan banner. The left wing, which defends good works, is far from being out of the reach of those crafty adversaries. Therefore, as we are, or may be attacked on every side, let us faithfully use "the word of truth, the power of God, and the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left." Let us gallantly fly where the attack is the hottest, which now, in the religious world, is evidently where gross Crispianity (if I may use the word) is continually obtruded upon us as true Christianity: I say, in the religious world; for, in this controversy, "what have I to do to judge them also that are without? Do not ye judge them that are within," and represent them as opposers of free grace?

Should Pharisees, while we are engaged in repelling the Nicolaitans, try to rob us of present and free justification by faith, under pretence of maintaining justification by works in the last day; or should they set us upon unnecessary, and unscriptural works, we shall be glad of your assistance to repel them also.

If you grant it us, and do not despise ours, the world shall admire in the Shulamite (the Church at unity in herself) the company of two armies, ready mutually to support each other against the opposite attacks of the Pharisees and the Nicolaitans; the Popish workers who exclude the Gospel, and the modern gnostics, the Protestant Antinomians, who explode the Law.

"May the Lord God help us to sail safely through these opposite rocks, keeping at an equal distance from both, by taking Christ for our Pilot, and the scripture for our compass! So shall we enter full sail the double haven of present and eternal rest. Once we were in immediate danger of splitting upon Works, without faith; now we are threatened with destruction from faith without works: May the merciful Keeper of Israel save us from both, by a living faith, legally productive of all good works, or by good works, evangelically springing from a living faith!

Should a divine Blessing upon these sheets, bring one single Reader a step towards that good old way, or only confirm one single believer in it, I shall be rewarded a hundred fold for this little labour of love; and I shall be even content to see it represented as the invidious labour of malice: for what is my reputation to the profit of on blood-bought

soul !

Beseeching you, dear Sir, for whom these letters are first intended, to set me right where I am wrong; and not to despise what may recommend itself in them to reason and conscience, on account of the, blunt and Helvetic manner in which they are written, I remain, with sincere respect, Hon. and Rev. Sir, your affectionate and obedient servant in the practical gospel of Christ. J. F.

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P. S. Since these Letters were sent to the press, I have seen a pamphlet, intitled, A conversation between Richard Hill, Esq; the Rev. Mr. Madan, and Father Walsh," a Monk at Paris, who condemned Mr. Wesley's Minutes as "too near Pelagianism," and the author as a Pelagian;" adding, that "their doctrine was a great deal nearer that of the Protestants.” Hence the editor concludes, that "the principles in the extract of the minutes are too rotten even for a Papist to rest upon, and supposes that Popery is about the midway between Protestantism and Mr. J. Wesley.” Ishall just make_a few strictures upon that performance.

1. If an Arian came to me, and said : You believe that "Jesus Christ is God over all, blessed for ever." "Pelagius, that heretic who was publicly excommunicated by the whole Catholic Church," was of your sentiment; therefore you are a Pelagian; give up your heresy: Should I, upon such an assertion, give up the Godhead of our Saviour? Certainly no. And shall I, upon a similar argument, advanced by the help of a French Monk, give up truths with which the practical gospel of Jesus Christ must stand or fall? God forbid !

2. We desire to be confronted with all the pious Protestant Divines, except those of Dr. Crisp's class who are a party: But who would believe it? The suffrage of a Papist is brought against us! Astonishing! That our opposers should think it worth their while to raise one recruit against us in the immense city of Paris, where fifty thousand might be raised against the Bible itself!

3. So long as Christ, the Prophets, and Apostles are for us, together with the multitude of the Puritan Divines of the last century, we shall smile at an army of Popish Friars. The knotted whips that hang by their side, will no more frighten us from our Bibles, than the ipse dixit, of a Benedictine Monk will make us explode, as heretical, propositions, which are demonstrated to be Scriptural.

4. An argument which has been frequently used of late against the Anticalvinist Divines is, "This is downright Popery! This is worse than Popery itself!" And honest Protestants have been driven by it to embrace doctrines, which were once no less contrary to the dictates of their conscience, than they are still to the word of God.

It is proper

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