doing all the good we would, do they not inadvertently fix a blot upon the immaculate character of him who could say; "Which of you convinceth me of sin ?"

4. My pious opponent wishes, no doubt, to praise God as perfectly as an angel; whilst an angel probably desires to do it as completely as an archangel: but in the nature of things this cannot be. Thousands of God's moral vessels, which are perfect in their place and degree, and as such adorn God's universal temple, fall short of each other's perfection, without being sinfully imperfect on that account. When deficiencies are natural, and not moral, if we call them sins, in many cases we charge God with the crea tion of sin. Nor is it any more sin in a man, not to magnify God so vigorously as an angel, or in an angel not to serve his Creator so perfectly as an archangel; than it is a sin in a good soldier, not to do the king such excellent service as an experienced captain, or a consummate general. In the moral world, as well as in the natural, one star may differ from another star in glory, without the least disparagement to its peculiar perfection. The injudicious refinements of Calvinism make a confused jumble of God's works, as they do of God's truths, and of the various perfections which belong to the various classes of his children but a wiser dispenser of the word will do by those various truths and perfections, as Joseph did by his brothers: "he placed them, the first born, according to his birth-right, (or superiority,) and the youngest according to his youth," (or inferiority.)

5. We are not ashamed to assert, that perfection in one respect, and imperfection in another respect, may consistently meet in the same subject: or, that men and things may be perfect in one sense, and imperfect in another. If our opponents ridicule us for it, we will present them with an ocular, and by no means "metaphysical" demonstration of their mistake. Two perfect grains, the one of barley, and the other of wheat, lie before us. I say with the perfectionists, that the grain of barley is perfect in its kind; but imperfect, or inferior in excellence when it is compared to the grain of wheat. But Mr. Martin, at the head of the Imperfectionists, thinks me deluded, and placing himself in his judge ment-seat, gravely says, "I am obliged to conclude that perfection and imperfection, things as contrary to each other as light and darkness, are with such a deluded person considered as one and the same."-"Some are so unaccountably absurd and ridiculous." -Reader, thou art Judge and Jury. Pronounce which of the two deserves best this imputation of "unaccountable absurdity," the author of this Essay, or that of the Essay on Gal. v. 17.

6. With respect to this gentleman's trium

phant question, "Where is the [perfect¡ man?

-Why should his name be concealed?" I hope it has already been satisfactorily answered in Sect. IV. Arg. XII. To what is advanced there, I add the following remark, Inveterate prejudice is blind. If it believe not Reason, Moses, the Prophets, and the Apostles, neither would it be persuaded though one rose from the dead. And were we to point out a person as perfect as Jesus of Nazareth, and to say, "Behold the man!" I should not wonder if the prepossessed professors cry out, as some ancient engrossers of orthodoxy did, "He is a deceiver of the people," teaching perfection throughout all Jewry. And if they did not say, "He is the friend of publicans and sinners, away with him;" it is not improbable they would say, He is a friend of the Pharisees and Arminians, why do you hear him? Would ye also be his disciples? It is in vain to hope that prejudice expired with those who scoffed at Perfection Incarnate, and spit in the face of Jesus Christ; thinking to do God and the Messiah service. Man is man, in London, as well as in Jerusalem. Our author goes on:

Argument III. [Page 18.] "It is not more essential to those who are partakers of the grace of God in truth, to desire this, [the destruction of sin,] than it is for every crea. ture as such, to desire an exemption from pain and shame."-Then follows a dangerous insinuation, that we must say by the cup of indwelling sin, as our Saviour did by the cup of pain and shame; "The cup that my Father giveth me, shall I not drink it?"

Answer. Never was a cup of subtle poison more artfully mixed! And that the reader may not suspect any mischief, the author borrows the very cup which our heavenly Father presented to Christ in the garden of Gethsemane; a cup of pain and shame. Reader, examine this cup before thou drinkest it. Death is in it. Pour out the new wine which makes the poison it contains palatable, and at the bottom thou wilt find this mortal sediment. "It is as absurd absolutely to desire deliverance from sin in this life, as absolutely to desire deliverance from pain and shame." To discover the falsehood of this proposition, we need only weigh the following remarks. 1. Man mixed for himself the moral cup of sin, and God, [to punish him] mixed the natural cup of pain and shame.-2. It is excessively wrong so to confound moral and natural evil, as to say, that, because we cannot with any propriety absolutely pray for deliverance from all natural evil in this life, we ought not absolutely to ask and expect deliverance from all moral evil before death.-3. When the Imperfectionists confound the moral cup of sin, with the natural cup of shame and pain, they are as grossly mistaken, as if they confounded poison, and counter-poison, sin, and its

verbose windings, where I have not leisure to follow it. Crush this snake, and out will come this less viper: The longer sin continues in us, the more God's sovereign love, grace, power, and patience, by which he saves guilty, weak, and ungrateful sinners is manifested to us. Or, if you please, the longer we continue in sin, or the longer sin continues in us, the more is grace manifested and magnified.-Or, if you will speak as the apostolic controvertist, Let us continue in sin that grace may abound.-A notion this, which is the very soul of Antinomianism unmasked.

To fill the pious reader with a just detestation of this doctrine, I need only unfold it thus. If the continuance of indwelling sin magnifies God's sovereign grace, and patience, in saving ungrateful sinners; the continuance of outward sin will do this much more: for, the greater our outward sins are, the greater will God's patience appear in bearing with us; and his grace in forgiving us; seeing "he fainteth not, neither is he weary." Thus we are come almost to the top of Antinomianism; and, to reach the highest step of the fatal ladder, we need only declare, as the author of the five letters has done, that a grievous fall [into sin, which he has instanced in adultery, robbery, murder, and incest] will make us sing louder to the praise of restoring grace throughout all the ages of eternity. [See the fourth of those letters.] Now if a grievous fall will infallibly have that happy effect, it follows that ten such falls will mul tiply ten times the display of God's power and patience. What a boundless field opens here, to run an Antinomian race, and to enlarge our wickedness as hell! What a ladder is lent us to descend to the depth of the abomination of desolation, in order to reach the loudest notes of praise in heaven! If this Solifidian gospel is not one of the depths of Satan, and the greatest too, I am not capable of discerning midnight gloom from noon-day brightness.

Argument V. Page 41. "To save the guilty in such a manner as, &c. effectually to hum ble them who are saved, displays the manifold wisdom of God.-Does it not seem necessary to attain that great end, to make believers experimentally know what an evil and bitter thing sin is, &c. If so, when can the objects of salvation see this with becoming shame and sorrow? Not while they are "in the galt of bitterness," &c. for in that state, "so abominable is man, that he drink eth in iniquity like water."-On the other hand, this cannot be after they are brought to glory. For then, all the painful and shameful memorials of sin will be finally removed. --It must be while desh and spirit dwell in the same man."

Granted: but what has this argument to do with the question? Did we ever deny,

that, as long as we live, we must repent, or be deeply conscious what an evil and bitter thing sin is? The question is, whether indwelling sin is an incentive to true repentance; and whether God has appointed that this supposed incentive should remain in our hearts till death, lest we should forget "what an evil and bitter thing sin is," or lest we should not remember it "with becoming shame and sorrow?" The absurdity of this plea has already been exposed in Sect. III. Obj. viii. and ix. And, to the arguments there advanced, I now add those which follow. 1. Does not experience convince imperfect believers, that the more fretfulness, self-will, and obstinacy they have in their hearts, the less they do repent? How absurd is it then to suppose that the remains of these evil dispositions will help them to feel "be coming shame and sorrow" for sin!-2. Do not our opponents tell their hearers, that we get more becoming shame and sorrow by looking one moment at him whom we have pierced, than by poring upon our corruptions for an hour? If so why will they plead for indwelling sin, that "becoming shame and sorrow" may abound? And why do they pretend, that they exalt Christ more than we, who maintain that our most becoming shame and deepest sorrow flow from his ignominy and sufferings, and not from our indwelling sin and conflicting corruptions?— Did not Job abhor himself and repent in dust and ashes, when he saw his redeeming God by faith, much more than when he just kept his head above the bitter waters of impatience and murmuring ?-3. The pleaders for the continuance of indwelling sin tell us, "That as the sight and attacks of a living and roaring lion, will make us dread lions more than all the descriptions and pictures which represent their destructive fierceness; so the feeling the onsets of indwelling sin, will make us abhor sin more than all the descriptions of its odious nature, and the accounts of its fearful' consequences: because a burnt child naturally dreads the fire."-To this we answer; a burnt child, who pleads for the keeping of a burning coal upon his breast to make him. dread the fire, has hitherto been burned to little purpose. Who had ever less to do with indwelling sin and its cursed attacks, than the holy Jesus, and faithful angels? And yet, who is more filled with a perfect abhorrence of all iniquity? On the other. hand, who has been more distracted, and longer torn by indwelling sin, than the devil? and who, nevertheless is better reconciled to it? Or who is more plagued by the continual rendings, and bitings of the lions and vipers within, than those passionate, revengeful people, who say with all the positiveness of Jonah and Absalom, I do well to be angry, and Revenge is sweet? Experience therefore demonstrates the inconclusiveness of this argu

young debauchee made once to me: "I kept (said he) drinking and dozing in such a tav ern, without ever going to bed, or being ever sober one hour for twenty-three days. I never had so remarkable an occasion to discover the strength of my body, and the excel. lence of my constitution."However in a few months, while he continued in the occasion to discover his strength, a mortal disor der seized upon him, and, by removing him into eternity, taught me, that if Fulsome, the professor, speaks the truth, when he says, Once in grace always in grace: Nabal, the sot, was mistaken, when he hinted, Once in health always in health. To make the Imperfectionists ashamed of this argument, I hope, I need only observe:-1. That nothing ever shewed more the strength of grace than the conflicts which the man Christ Jesus, went through, though he never conflicted a moment with indwelling sin -2. That the strength and excellence of a remedy, is much better discovered by the removal of the disorder, which it is designed to cure, than by the conflicts which the poor patient has with pain, till death come to terminate his misery. —And 3. That the argument I refute, indirectly represents Christ as a physician, who keeps his patients upon the rack to render himself more necessary to them, and to show the strength of the anodyne mixture, by which he gives them now and then a little ease under their continued, racking pain.

Our author adds, page 49, “If those who bear the heaviest burdens are sometimes esteemed the strongest men, they who are thus engaged in this warfare," (I wish he would speak quite out and say, They who bear the heaviest burdens of indwelling sin) “have that evidence of the strength of grace, &c. which is peculiar to themselves." A great mistake this: for, if we may believe Ovid, when Medea murdered her own child, under a severe conflict with indwelling sin, she had that fatal evidence of what is here preposterously called the strength of grace; but what I beg leave to call, the obstinacy of freewill. Sed trahit invitam nova vis, &c. "Passion," said she, "hurries away my unwilling, reluctant mind." Judas, it seems, was not an utter stranger to this conflict (any more than to the burden of guilt,) when he hurried out of it into a death-purgatory. Nor do I blame him for having chosen strangling rather than life, if death can terminate the misery which accompanies indwelling sin, and do more in that respect for fallen believers, than Christ himself ever did. But, supposing that the saving grace of God, which has appeared to all men, never appeared to Medea and Judas:supposing these two sinful souls never conflicted with indwelling sin, it will however follow from our author's insinuation, that, in case David had defiled half a dozen married women, and killed their

husbands to enjoy them without a rival, we should esteem him six times, stronger in grace, if he had not fainted under his six-fold burden, like Judas; because "in this [Antinomian] warfare, those who bear the heaviest burdens are esteemed the strongest" believers; and because "they have that testimony of their love to Christ, which is peculiar to themselves." If Satan was to trans. form himself into an angel of light, could he preach a more dangerous and immoral gospel to an Antinomian and perverse gener. ation!

Argument IX.-Our author's last argument in favour of the necessary continuance of sin in us, occurs page 51, and runs thus, "I will only add, that by this warfare, the Lord weans his people from the present evil world, and makes them long for the land of promise, as the land of rest, &e. I know, some will say, This is impossible; and be ready to ask, Are we then debtors to the flesh ?"-(A very proper question which the author answers thus :) By no means, &c..

In our flesh dwells no good thing, &c. Nevertheless-he [God] can and does make the presence of evil so irksome to the believer, that it makes him ardently long for complete deliverance from it.”—That is, in plain English, he keeps his patients so long upon the rack of their indwelling sin, that at last they are forced to long for death, the great cleanser from heart-iniquity. This argument would have been complete, if it had been supported by these two passages, I do well to be angry even unto death:-In those days, men, [plagued by the locusts which ascend out of the bottomless pit] shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them. show its absurdity I need only make two or three remarks upon it.

To

1. Mark the inconsistency of our oppo. nents. When they hear us press obedient faith upon a fallen or wavering believer, by mentioning to him the terrors of the Lord, the fear of losing the divine favour, and the danger of being even spued out of Christ's mouth, and condemned without mercy, if they show no mercy; they say that enforcing the love of Christ on a disobedient believer, will abundantly answer all the good ends which we propose by thus preaching Christ's law: but, when they plead for the continuance of sin, they forget their own doctrine, and tell us that indwelling sin is necessary to keep us in the way of duty, namely, in an ardent longing for heaven. They blame us for making use of Christ's law to spur believers : and yet they, (See to what astonishing height their partiality is grown!) they do not blush to preach openly the law of sin to believers; insisting that its working in their members is necessary to "make them long for the land of promise as the land of rest-and for the speedy possession of that great good, which