Finally, all the laws which were ever gi ven, by God, to man, agree in this, that, without holiness no man shall ever see the Lord.

This is the substance, I believe, of what I delivered on the text abovementioned. If I have repeated some things over and over, you will attribute this to my anxiety for being understood.

These five letters contain the sum of the doctrines which I have held and taught for near thirty years. And I am more and more convinced of their truth and importance; so that I expect to live and die in the faith of them.

Hoping that these letters may answer the end for which I wrote them, I conclude

Yours, &c.

D. JARRATT.

Thoughts on Christian Holiness..

LETTER I.

SHEWING that the DOCTRINES of IMPUTED? RIGHTEOUSNESS is equally maintained by ARMINIANS and CALVINISTS.

February 6, 1792.

DEAR SIR,

YOU were pleased to inform me that, having read my five letters on Justification, &c. you much approved of the doctrine therein contained; but at the same time wished I would write, by way of suppliment, my thoughts on christian perfection, or gospel holiness, because you think this would add to their usefulness, and render them more acceptable to many of my read..

ers.

After duly considering the expediency of this, I have now sat down to comply with your request; and I am the more inclined to do so because I understand that some, contrary to that heaven-born charity, "Which thinketh no evil," have endeavored to disseminate among the people, a belief, that my letters were published with an hostile design. I think it therefore necessary in the first place, for the removal of all prejudice as much as possible, to declare that I meant no controversy at all. As far as I know my own heart, my sole intention was, and still is, to throw in my mite towards the instruction of the people at large. But as the credit of this assertion ought not to rest on my bare declaration, I shall proceed to evince, that the sentiments contained in my letters were never controverted by sober Calvinists or Arminians, but have been equally embraced by both sides. This, I trust, will be made evident by the following quotations, from Mr. Baxter, a Calvinist, and Mr. Fletcher, an Arminian. Quotations might be made from divers authors on both sides; but to avoid prolixity, I shall confine myself to these two.

Indeed I am indebted to Mr. Fletcher, for my quotations from Baxter's Aphorisms on justification: for I take them from his

preface to his guarded sermon, in the equal check, page 28. The words are, "As there are two covenants with their distinct conditions, so is there a twofold righteousness and both of them absolutely necessary to salvation. Our righteousness of the first covenant is not personal; or consisteth not in any actions performed by us: for we never personally satisfied the law, but it is wholly without us in Christ." "Those only shall be in Christ legally righteous who believe and obey the gospel; and so are in themselves evangelically righteous. Though Christ performed the conditions of the law, and satisfied for our non-performance, yet it is ourselves that must perform the conditions of the gospel. Those two propositions are so clear that I do wonder any able divines should deny them. Methinks they should be articles of our creed, and part of our children's cate chism." Who may not see that these words quoted from Baxter and adopted by Fletcher, contain the sum and substance of my five letters? So far was I then from intending any controversy, that I only strove, to the utmost of my ability, to set in a clear light those two propositions, in order to remove all occasion of controversy,

which might arise from men's mistaking one another.

This one quotation might be sufficient ; but as it has become a matter of serious consequence, I shall shew that Mr. Fletcher embraced the same opinion, not by adoption only, but from words of which he is the immediate father.

He says (equal check, page 39.) "The second covenant then, as the gospel, is a dispensation of free grace and mercy to lost, helpless sinners, who seeing and feeling themselves condemned by the law of innocence, and utterly unable to obtain justifica tion upon the terms of the first covenant, cometoa merciful God through Jesus Christ, to seek in him, and from him, those merits and that righteousness, which they have not in themselves: for the Son of God, by the invaluable sacrifice of himself, 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, God can be just, &c." Again, page 40, he says, "Herein consists the great difference be tween the first and second covenant.

Un

der the first, an absolute unsinning, universal obedience, in our own persons, is required; and such obedience, in our fal