Jacob to make use of such means, but requited him for it, in the matter of Leah instead of Rachel, yet God willed Jacob the blessing before he was born, and confirmed it after he had got it.

I have asserted that God, who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will, did command Israel to borrow the Egyptians' jewels, and spoil them, as they had dealt subtilely with Israel, and spoiled them of their male infants; "for the Lord God of recompense will surely requite."

I have also said that God commanded Moses to make two cherubims, though the law says, "Thou shalt make no graven image, the likeness of any thing in heaven above, or in the earth beneath," to bow down thereto. These things God commanded, though they are not found in the Pentateuch.

God ordered Abraham to offer up his son; approved of his servant's obedience; and received his son in a figure; though the law says, "Thou shalt not kill." And God approved of the pious zeal of his servant Phineas, in the destruction of the adulterer and adultress, notwithstanding the law that says, "Thou shalt do no murder." The Pentateuch knows nothing of repentance; it neither gives nor accepts it; yet God has commanded men every where to repent, and has exalted a Saviour to give repentance to Israel. We are commanded to fly from the wrath to come; which wrath is revealed in the law, though the law says, "Cursed is every one that continueth

not in all things written in the book of the law." Flying from it is not continuing in it.

The law is not of faith, says Paul, yet we are commanded to believe on the Lord Jesus for the forgiveness of sins; and the Author of faith is appointed to give remission.

I have declared, sir, that the whole revealed will of God is the believer's rule. I endeavour to preach this, and I endeavour to live up to it; and I wish you did. For my part, I cannot tie the believer up to a single chapter for his rule, nor will my conscience let me live as you do. I desire to enforce the whole counsel of God from the pulpit, and to preach up good works by my life as far as grace shall enable me.

And, seeing these things cannot be spoken against, you ought to be quiet, and do nothing rashly, especially as you have asserted the very same things in the next head of this wonderful performance that I have to consider. Sometimes indeed you make the Pentateuch all in all, and leave the gospel quite out of the question; and then again you bring in the whole word, and seem to agree with me; but this is not to be wondered at, for Paul says that men who turn aside to vain jangling, and desire to be teachers of the law, know neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm, 1 Tim. i. 6.

However, as you make the law your food, your refreshment, your remote teacher, your yoke, your rule, and expect to take it into heaven with you,

and, as the instrument of Jehovah's government, to be for ever under it, I shall serve you as you have served my sermon. You have laid me and 'my sermon to your rule of judgment; and, according to that, I am a sophist, and my discourse is Antinomianism. Now I shall make bold to lay and your conduct to your own rule, and see how straight you lie with it.

you

Suppose I was to marry two or three old widows, for the sake of a little money and a lazy life; you know a lover of money is a servant of Mammon; a covetous man is an idolater; With such an one, says God, let not the saint eat. If money be an idol, and a covetous man an idolater, how does this square with God's law, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me?" If a man chooses a widow with a rich pocket before a virgin with a gracious heart, has he not got another god before the true one? You have liberty to apply it where you please; I say it is a breach of the first commandment.

A man that conforms to the fashions of the world; aims at worldly titles, worldly preferments, human wisdom, vain oratory, and wants to cut a figure as a rector or a vicar; has got high thoughts and towering imaginations, that exalt themselves against the knowledge of God, which are to be cast down by spiritual weapons, 2 Cor. x. 4, 5. This, sir, is as bad as making a graven image; for all idolatry is conceived and formed in the minds of those sort of men, who are said to be vain in

their imaginations, whose foolish hearts are darkened, Rom. i. 21. Hence man is accused of setting up an idol in his heart. This, sir, is a breach of the second table. He that exalts himself is the worst idolater.

Your asserting that God's law is the food of his people, and that by which he will judge them in the great day, and by which they are to be ruled in heaven, is setting aside the book of life, speaking wickedly for God, and telling lies in his name, which is a breach of the third commandment; "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain."

I do not think you stand fair before the fourth commandment. You have jumped into fancied orders, and crept into God's church, as God's servant, and taken the oversight of his people; and it is well known that you have accumulated two fortunes since you have been in orders, if not by your orders. Now, as your present profession procured you your present possessions, when you was wed at the communion-table of the established church, you ought not to deny nor obscure so profitable a calling at a college, in order to get into a church pulpit. You ought to attend to the charge you have taken. I do not say that God set you at this work, for I am fully persuaded he never did. Yet spending your wives' money on a curate to do your work, while you are loitering about on the Sabbath, and trifling your time away after a scraps of Greek, instead of reading your Bible,

few

and preaching to the people, is a breach of the "Remember that thou keep holy the

Sabbath.
Sabbath day."

In one part of your sermon you call yourself a believer, ranking yourself with God's family. It is well known that God is the father, and Mount Zion, or the heavenly Jerusalem, is the free woman, and the mother of all the freeborn heirs of promise. But you have dishonoured God the Father, by telling lies in his name; and you have dishonoured our mother, by declaring that the binding yoke of the law is upon her neck; debasing her to the servitude and drudgery of Hagar the bondwoman, who never was married. You are to honour your father and mother, but you dishonour both.

You own, in this sermon of yours, that the man who injures his brother's reputation, or hurts his character, is a murderer, because he is angry with his brother; and I am sure you are angry with me without a cause. You charge me with sophistry, cunning, and Antinomianism, when you cannot overthrow one truth that I preach, nor bring any just charge against my life or walk, unless you look for perfection in the flesh, to which I never expect to attain. I believe in my heart that you and your combination are in arms againstme, from no other motive than in behalf of your own honour, and because you evidently see that God blesses my labours without the assistance of connexions, pompous appearances, and the poli