each fection of our Scripture-fcales, they hang firmly, and can no more, upon the whole, be invalidated, than the fcripture itself, which, as our Lord informs us, cannot be broken. John x. 35.

I take the Searcher of hearts, and my judicious, unprejudiced readers to witnefs, that, through the whole of this Controverfy, far from concealing the moft plaufible objections, or avoiding the strongest arguments which are, or may be advanced against our reconciling doctrine, I have carefully fearched them out, and endeavoured to encounter them as openly as David did Goliah. Had our opponents followed this method, I doubt not but the Controverfy would have ended long ago in the deftruction of our prejudices, and in the rectifying of our mistakes.--Oh, if we all preferred the unspeakable pleasure of finding out the truth, to the pitiful honour of pleafing a party, or of vindicating our own mistakes; how foon would the ufeful fan of fcriptural, logical, and brotherly controverfy, purge the floor of the church! How foon would the light of truth, and the flame of love, burn the chaff of error, and the thorns of prejudice with fire unquenchable! May the past triumphs of bigotry fuffice! and, inftead of facrificing any more to that deteftable idol, may we all henceforth do whatever lies in us, to haften a general reconciliation, that we may all fhare toge ther in the choiceft bleffings, which God can bestow upon his peculiar people ;--the Spirit of pure, evangelical truth; and of fervent, brotherly love!

An E X PLANATIO N

THE

Of fome Terms used in thefe Sheets.

HE word Solifidian is defined, and the characters of Zelotes, Honeftus, and Lorenzo, are drawn in the ADVERTISEMENT prefixed to the first part of this work. It is proper to explain here a few more words of characters.

PHARISAISM is the Religion of a Pharifee.

A PHARISEE is a loose or strict profeffor of natural or revealed religion, who fo depends upon the fyftem of religion which he has adopted, or upon his attachment to the school or church he belongs to; (whether it be the school of Plato, Confucius, or Socinus ;whether it be the church of Jerufalem, Rome, England, or Scotland)--who lays fuch a ftrefs on his religious or moral duties, and has fo good an opinion of his present harmleffnefs and obedience, or of his future reformation and good works, as to overlook his natural impotence and guilt, and to be infenfible of the need and happiness of being juftified freely [as a finner] by God's grace through the redemption that is in fefus Chrift, Rom. iii. 24.-You may know him: (1) By his contempt of, or coldness for, the Redeemer and his free-grace-(2) By the antichriftian, unfcriptural confidence, which he repofes in his beft endeavours, and in the felf-righteous exertions of his own free-will : -Or (3) by the jefts he paffes upon, or the indifference he betrays for, the convincing, comforting, af fifting, and fanctifying influences of God's Holy Spirit.

ANTINOMIANISM is the Religion of an Antinomian.

per

An ANTINOMIAN is a chriftian who is antinomon, against the law of Chrift, as well as against the law of Mofes: he allows Chrift's law to be a rule of life, but not a rule of judgment for believers, and thus he deftroys that law at a ftroke, as a law; it being evident that a rule, by the personal observance or non-observance of which Christ's fubjects can never be acquitted, or condemned, is not a law for them. Hence he afferts that christians shall no more be justified before God by their perfonal obedience to the law of Chrift, than by their perfonal obedience to the ceremonial law of Mofes. Nay, he believes, that the best chriftians petually break Chrift's law; that no body ever kept it but Chrift himself; and that we fhall be juftified or condemned before God in the great day, not as we fhall perfonally be found to have finally kept or finally broken Christ's law; but, as God fhall be found to have before the foundation of the world arbitrarily laid, or not laid to our account, the merit of Chrift's keeping his own law. Thus, he hopes to fland in the great day, merely by what he calls, Chrift's imputed righteoufnefs" excluding with abhorrence, from our final juftification, the evangelical worshinels of our own perfonal, fincere obedience of repentance and faith;-a precious obedience this, which he calls ing, drefs, and filthy rags, juft as if it was the infincere obedience of felf-righteous pride, and phaifaic hypo crify. Nevertheless, though he thus excludes the evangelical, derived worthiness of the works of faith from our eternal juftification and falvation, he does good works, if he is (in other refpects; a good man. Nay, in this cafe, he piques himself to do them; thinking he is peculiarly obliged to make people believe, that, immoral as his fentiments are, they draw after them the greatest benevolence and the ftriétest morality but Fulfome fhows the contrary. : VOL. V.

B

FULSOME

FULSOME reprefents a confiftent Antinomian-that is, one who is fuch in practice, as well as in theory. He warmly efpoufes Zelotes's doctrine of finished falvation ; believing that, before the foundation of the world we were all Calviniftically, i. e. personally ordained to eternal life in Chrift, or to eternal death in Adam, without the leaft refpect to our own works, that is, to our own tempers and conduct. Hence he draws this just inference: "If Chrift never died for me, and I am Calvinifically reprobated, my beft endeavours to be finally juftified, and eternally faved, will never alter the decree of reprobation, which was made againft me from all eternity. On the other hand, if I am Calvinifically elected, and if Chrift abfolutely fecured, yea, finished my eternal falvation on the crofs; no fins can ever blot my name out of the book of life. God, in the day of his almighty power, will irresistibly convert For reconvert my foul; and then, the greater my crimes fhall have been, the more they will fet off divine mercy and power in forgiving and turning fuch a finner as me; and I fhall only fing in heaven louder than lefs finners will have caufe to do." Thus reasons Fulfome, and like a wife man, he is determined, if he is an abfolute REPROBATE, to have what pleasure he can before God pulls him down to hell in the day of his power: or, if he is an abfolute ELECT, he thinks it reafonable comfortably to wait for the day of God's power, in which day he fhall be irrefiflibly turned, and abfolutely fitted to fing louder in heaven the praises of Calvinftically-diftinguifbing love :-a love this, which if the Antinomian gofpel of the day be true) eternally juftifies the chief of finners, without any perfonal or inherent worthinefs.

INITIAL SALVATION is a phrafe which fometimes occurs in these fheets. The plain reader is defired to understand by it, Salvation begun, or, an inferion Itate of acceptance and prefent falvation: in this ftate fin

ners

ners are actually faved from hell, admitted to a degree of favour, and graciously entrulled with one or more talents of grace, that is, of means, power, and ability ta qwork out their own [eternal] falvation, in due fubordination to God, who, confiftently with our liberty, works in us both to will and to do, according to the difpenfation of the Heathens, Jews, or Chritians, of bis good plenfure.

By the ELECTION of GRACE, underftand the free, and merely gratuitous choice, which God (as a wife and fovereign Benefactor) arbitrarily makes of this, that, or the other man, to bestow upon him one, two, or five talents of Free-grace.

Oppofed to this election, you have an ABSOLUTE REPROBATION, which does not draw damnation after it, but only rejection from a fuperior number of talents. In this fenfe God reprobated Enoch and David: Enoch, with refpect to the peculiar bleffings of Judaifm; and David, with regard to the fill more peculiar bleffings of Chriftianity. But although neither of them had a fhare in the election of God's moft peculiar grace; that is, although neither was chofen and called to the bleffings of Chriflianity; their loc was never caft with thofe imaginary poor creatures,' whom Calvin and his followers affirm to have been from all eternity reprobated with a reprobation, which infallibly draws eternal damnation after it. For Enoch and David made their election to the rewards of their difpenfations fure, by the timely and voluntary obedience of faith. And fo might all thofe who obftinately bury their talent or talents to the last.

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By FUTURE CONTINGENCIES, underftand thofe things which will, or will not be done; as the free, unneceffitated will of man fhall chufe to do them or