the Lamb," without giving general disgust; unless, to keep in the good grace of our Nicolaitan hearers, we were to dissent from all sober commentators, and offer the greatest violence to the context, our own conscience, and common sense, by saying, that the righteousness and robes, mentioned in those passages, are Christ's imputed, and not our performed obedience.

How few of our evangelical congregations would bear from the pulpit an honest explanation of what they allow us to read in the desk! We may open our service by saying, that "when the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness, and doth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive;" but wo to us, if we handle the Scripture in the pulpit, unless we wrest it by representing CHRIST as "the wicked man who DOES that which is lawful and right, to save our souls alive," without any of our doings.

Were we to preach upon these words of our Lord, "This Do and thou shalt live," Luke x, 25, the sense of which is fixed by the thirtyseventh verse, "Go and Do thou likewise ;" or only to handle, without deceit, those common words of the Lord's prayer, confirmed by a plain parable," Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us ;" our reputation as Protestants would be in as much danger, from the bulk of some congregations, as our persons from the fire of a whole regiment in the day of battle. How would such a discourse, and the poor blind man that preached it, be privately exclaimed against; or publicly* exposed in a Magazine presented to the world under the sacred name of Gospel!

In short, whoever has courage enough to preach as St. Paul did at Athens, at Lystra, and before Felix, rebuking sin without respect of persons; whoever will imitate St. Peter, and exhort all his hearers to "save themselves from this perverse generation," assuring them that "the promise of the Holy Spirit is unto them, and their children;" must expect to be looked upon as unsound, if not as an enemy of free grace, and a setter forth of Pelagian or Popish doctrines. Moderate Calvinists themselves must run the gantlet, if they preach free grace as St. Peter did. A pious clergyman, noted for his strong attachment to what some call "the doctrines of grace," was, to my knowledge, highly blamed by one part of his auditory, for having preached to the other "repentance toward God," and exhorted them to call on him for mercy. And I remember he just saved his sinking reputation as a sound divine, by pleading, that two apostles exhorted even Simon Magus to "repent of his wickedness, and pray to God, if perhaps the thought of his heart might be forgiven him."

When such professors will not bear the plainest truth, from ministers whose sentiments agree with theirs ; how will they rise against deeper truths advanced by those who are of a different opinion! Some will even lose all decency. Observing, in preaching last summer, one of them remarkably busy in disturbing all around him, when the service was over I went up to him, and inquired into the cause of the dissatisfaction he had so indecently expressed. "I am not afraid to tell it to your face," said he; "I do not like your doctrine. You are a free * This was actually the case some months ago with respect to a sermon preached by Mr. Wesley.

willer.""If I have spoken evil,” replied I, "bear witness of the evil." He paused awhile, and then charged me with praying before the sermon, as if ALL might be saved. "That is false doctrine," added he, "and if Christ himself came down from heaven to preach it, I would not believe him."

I wondered at first at the positiveness of my rigid objector: but, upon second thoughts, I thought him modest, in comparison of numbers of professors, who see that Christ actually came down from heaven, and preached the doctrine of perfection in his sermon upon the mount, and yet will face us down that it is an antichristian doctrine.

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This Antinomian cavilling of hearers against preachers is deplorable; and the effects of it will be dreadful. If the Lord do not put a stop to this growing evil, we shall soon see every where, what we see in too many places, self-conceited, unhumbled men, rising against the truths and ministers of God; men who are not meek doers of the law," but insolent judges, preposterously trying that law by which they shall soon be tried;-men who, instead of sitting as criminals before all the messengers of their Judge, with arrogancy invade the Judge's tribunal, and arraign even his most venerable ambassadors ;-men, who should fall on their faces before all, and give glory to God, by confessing that he is with his ministers," of every denomination, "of a truth;" but who, far from doing it, boldly condemn the word that condemns them, snatch the two-edged sword from the mouth of every faithful messenger, blunt the edge of it, and audaciously thrust at him in their turn ;-men, who, when they see a servant of God in their pulpit, suppose he stands at their bar; try him with as much insolence as Korah, Dathan, and Abiram tried Moses; cast him with less kindness than Pilate did Jesus; force a fool's coat of their own making upon him; and then, from "the seat of the scornful," pronounce the decisive sentence: "He is legal, dark, blind, unconverted; an enemy to free grace. He is a rank Papist, a Jesuit, a false prophet, or a wolf in sheep's clothing."

III. But whence springs this almost general Antinomianism of our congregations? Shall I conceal the sore because it festers in my own breast? Shall I be partial? No, in the name of Him who is "no respecter of persons," I will confess my sin, and that of many of my. brethren. Though I am the least, and (I write it with tears of shame) the most unworthy of them all, I will follow the dictates of my conscience, and use the authority of a minister of Christ. If Balaam, a false prophet, took in good part the reproof of his ass, I should wrong my honoured brethren and fathers, the true prophets of the Lord, if I feared their resenting some well-meant reproofs, which I first level at myself, and for which I heartily wish there was no occasion.

Is not the Antinomianism of hearers fomented by that of preachers? Does it not become us to take the greatest part of the blame upon ourselves, according to the old adage, "Like priest, like people?" Is it surprising that some of us should have an Antinomian audience? Do we not make or keep it so? When did we preach such a practical sermon as that of our Lord on the mount, or write such close letters as the epistles of St. John? Alas! I doubt it is but seldom. Not living so near to God ourselves as we should, we are afraid to come

near to the consciences of our people. The Jews said to our Lord, "In so saying thou reproachest us;" but now the case is altered, and our auditors might say to many of us, " In so saying you would reproach yourselves."

Some prefer popularity to plain dealing. We love to see a crowd of worldly-minded hearers, rather than "a little flock, a peculiar people zealous of good works." We dare not shake our congregations to purpose, lest our five thousand should, in three years' time, be reduced to a hundred and twenty.

Luther's advice to Melancthon, Scandaliza fortiter, "So preach that those who do not fall out with their sins may fall out with thee," is more and more unfashionable. Under pretence of drawing our hearers by love, some of us softly rock the cradle of carnal security in which they sleep. For "fear of grieving the dear children of God," we let "buyers and sellers, sheep and oxen," yea, goats and lions, fill "the temple" undisturbed. And because "the bread must not be kept from the hungry children," we let those who are wanton make shameful waste of it, and even allow "dogs," which we should "beware of," and noisy parrots that can speak shibboleth, to do the same. We forget that God's children are led by his Spirit," who is "the Comforter" himself; that they are all afraid of being deceived, all "jealous for the Lord of hosts ;" and therefore prefer a preacher who "searches Jerusalem with candles," and cannot suffer God's house to be made a "den of thieves," to a workman who "whitewashes the noisome sepulchres," he should open, and "daubs over with untempered mortar the bulging walls" he should demolish.

The old Puritans strongly insisted upon personal holiness, and the first Methodists upon the new birth; but these doctrines seem to grow out of date. The Gospel is cast into another mould. People, it seems, may now be "in Christ," without being "new creatures," and "new creatures" without casting "old things" away. They may be God's children without God's image; and "born of the Spirit" without "the fruits of the Spirit." If our unregenerate hearers get orthodox ideas about the way of salvation in their heads, evangelic phrases concerning Jesus' love in their mouths, and a warm zeal for our party and favourite forms in their hearts; without any more ado, we help them to rank themselves among the children of God. But, alas! this self adoption into the family of Christ will no more pass in heaven than self imputation of Christ's righteousness. The work of the Spirit will stand there, and that alone. Again:

Some of us often give our congregations particular accounts of the covenant between the persons of the blessed Trinity, and speak of it as confidently as if the King of kings had admitted us members of his privy council; but how seldom do we do justice to the Scriptures, where the covenant is mentioned in a practical manner! How rarely do the ministers, who are fond of preaching upon the covenant between God and David, dwell upon such scriptures as these! "Because they continued not in my covenant, I regarded them not; because they have transgressed the law, changed the ordinances, and broken the everlasting covenant, therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate: therefore the inhabitants of the earth

are burned, and few men left. I say to the wicked, What hast thou to do to take my covenant in thy mouth? They kept not the covenant of God, and refused to walk in his law;" they would not be evangelically legal, "therefore a fire was kindled in Jacob, the wrath of God came upon them, he slew the fattest of them, and smote down the chosen, the elect of Israel!"

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We frequently keep back from our hearers the very portions that honest Nathan or blunt John the Baptist would have particularly enforced. The taste of many is perverted; they " loathe the manna of the word," not because it is light, but heavy food. They must have "savoury meat, such as their soul loveth ;" and we "hunt for venison," we minister to their spiritual luxury, and feast with them on our doctrinal refinements. Hence "many are weak and sickly among us." Some that might be "fat and well-liking, cry out, My leanness! My leanness!" And "many sleep" in a spiritual grave, the easy prey of corruption and sin.

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How few Calebs, how few Joshuas are found among the many spies who bring a report of the good land! The cry is seldom, "Let us go up and possess it," unless the good land be the map of the Gospel drawn by Dr. Crisp. On the contrary, the difficulties attending the noble conquest are magnified to the highest degree. "The sons of Anak are tall and strong, and their cities are fenced up to heaven." "All our corruptions are gigantic. The castle where they dwell shall always remain a den of thieves. It is an impregnable citadel, strongly garrisoned by Apollyon's forces: we shall never love God here with all our souls: we shall always have desperately wicked hearts."

How few of our celebrated pulpits are there, where more has not been said at times for sin than against it! With what an air of positiveness and assurance has that Barabbas, that murderer of Christ and souls, been pleaded for! "It will humble us, make us watchful, stir up our diligence, quicken our graces, endear Christ," &c. That is, in plain English, pride will beget humility; sloth will spur us on to diligence; rust will brighten our armour; and unbelief, the very soul of every sinful temper, is to do the work of faith! Sin must not only be always lurking about the walls and gates of the town of Man's Soul, (if I may once more allude to Bunyan's Holy War,) but it shall dwell in it, in the King's palace, " in the inner chamber," the inmost recesses of the heart; there is no turning it out. Jesus, who cleansed the lepers with a word or a touch, cannot, with all the force of his Spirit and virtue of his blood, expel this leprosy. It is too inveterate. Death, that foul monster, the offspring of sin, shall have the important honour of killing his father. He, he alone is to give the great, the last, the decisive blow. This is confidently asserted by those who cry, Nothing but Christ! They allow him to lop off the branches; but death, the great saviour death, is to destroy the root of sin. In the meantime "the temple of God shall have agreement with idols, and Christ concord with Belial: the Lamb" of God shall" lie down with the roaring lion" in our hearts.

Nor does the preaching of this internal slavery, this bondage of spiritual corruption, shock our hearers. No: this mixture of light and darkness passes for Gospel in our days. And what is more asto

nishing still, by making much ado about "finished salvation," we can even put it off as "the only pure, genuine, and comfortable Gospel :" while the smoothness of our doctrine will atone for our most glaring inconsistencies.

We have so whetted the Antinomian appetite of our hearers, that they swallow down almost any thing. We may tell them St. Paul was, at one and the same time, "carnal, sold under sin," crying, "Who shall deliver me from this body of death?" and triumphing that he did "not walk after the flesh, but after the Spirit, rejoicing in the testimony of a good conscience," and glorying that "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus had made him free from the law of sin and death!" This suits their experience; therefore they readily take our word, and it passes for "the word of God." It is a mercy that we have not yet attempted to prove, by the same argument, that lying and cursing are quite consistent with apostolic faith; for St. Paul speaks of his "lie," and St. James says, "With our tongues curse we men.

We may make them believe, that though adultery and murder are damning sins in poor blind Turks and heathens, yet they are only the spots of God's children in enlightened Jews and favoured Christians: that God is the most partial of all judges; some being accursed to the pit of hell for breaking the law in the most trifling points; while others, who actually break it in the most flagrant instances, are richly "blessed with all heavenly benedictions:" and that, while God beholds "no iniquity in Jacob, no perverseness in Israel," he sees nothing but odious sins in Ishmael, and devilish wickedness in Esau; although the Lord assures us, “The wickedness of the wicked-shall be upon him,” and that "though hand join in hand the wicked shall not go unpunished," were he as great in Jacob as Korah, and as famous as Zimri in Israel. We may tell our hearers, one hour, that "the love of Christ sweetly constrains" all believers to walk, yea, to "run the way of God's commandments," and that they cannot help obeying its forcible dictates: and we may persuade them, the next hour, that "how to perform what is good they find not; that they fall continually into sin; for that which they do they allow not, and what they would, that do they not; but what they hate, that do they." And that these inconsistencies may not shock their common sense, or alarm their consciences, we again touch the sweet-sounding string of "finished salvation:" we intimate we have the key of evangelical knowledge, reflect on those who expect deliverance from sin in this life, and "build up" our congregations in a most comfortable, I wish I could say, "most holy faith."

In short, we have so used our people to strange doctrines, and preposterous assertions, that, if we were to intimate, God himself sets us a pattern of Antinomianism, by disregarding his own most holy and lovely law, which inculcates perfect love,-if we were even to hint that he bears a secret grudge, or an immortal enmity to those very souls whom he commands us to "love as Christ has loved us ;" that he feeds them only for the great day of slaughter, and has determined, (so inveterate is his hatred!) "before the foundation of the world" to "fit" them as "vessels of wrath," that he might eternally fill them with his fiery vengeance, merely to show what a great and sovereign God he is; I doubt whether some would not be highly pleased, and say we