Mr. Hill leave out the two last as ridiculous tautology? Or, at least, to remove from our Church the suspicion of popery, should he not pray every Sunday that God would forgive us all our sins, sins, and sins!

From the nine preceding remarks, and the quotations made therein, it appears, if I mistake not, that our important distinction between wilful sin and infirmities, or involuntary offences, recommends itself to reason and conscience; that it is supported by the law of Moses, and the Gospel of Christ; by the Psalms of David, and the epistles of St. Paul; by the writings of judicious Calvinists, and the liturgy of our Church; and therefore it is as absurd to call it a popish distinction, because the Papists are not injudicious enough to reject it, as it is absurd to call the doctrine of Christ's divinity "a doctrine of devils," because devils acknowledged him to be the Son of God, and their omnipotent Controller.

Should Mr. Hill reply, that if this distinction cannot properly be called popish, it deserves to be called " Antinomian," and "licentious;" because it countenances all the men who give to their grossest sins the soft names of " innocent infirmities;" we can answer: (1.) It has been proved that Moses and Jesus Christ held this distinction; and therefore to call it Antinomian and licentious, is to call not only Christ, the holy one of God, but even "legal" Moses, an Antinomian, and an advocate for licentiousness. See what these Calvinian refinements come to! (2.) The men who abuse the doctrine of the distinction between sins and infirmities, abuse as much the doctrine of God's mercy, and the important distinction between working days and the Lord's day but is this a proof that the doctrines of God's mercy, and the distinction between the Lord's day and other days, are "licentious tenets, against which all that wish well to the interest of Protestantism should protest in a body?"

If Mr. Hill try to embarrass us by saying, "Where will you draw the line between wilful sins and [evangelically speaking] innocent infirmities?" We reply, without the least degree of embarrassment, Where Moses and the prophets have drawn it in the Old Testament; where Christ and the apostles have drawn it in the New; and where we draw it after them in these pages. And, retorting the question to show its frivolousness, we ask, Where will Mr. Hill draw the line between the free, evangelical observing of the Lord's day, and the superstitious, Pharisaic keeping of the Sabbath; or between weak, saving faith, and wilful unbelief? Nay, upon his principles, where will he draw it even between a good and a bad work; if all our good works are really dung, dross, and filthy rags? However, as the question is important, I shall give it a more particular answer. An infirmity is a breach of Adam's law of paradisiacal perfection, which our covenant God does not require of us now: and (evangelically speaking) a sin for Christians is a breach of Christ's evangelical law of Christian perfection; a perfection this, which God requires of all Christian believers. An infirmity (considering it with the error which it occasions) is consistent with pure love to God and man: but a sin is inconsistent with that love. An infirmity is free from guile, and has its root in our animal frame: but a sin is attended with guile, and has its root in our moral frame, springing either from the habitual corruption of our hearts, or from the momentary perversion of our tempers. An infirmity unavoidably results from our unhappy circumstances, and from the necessary infelicitics of our present state: but a sin flows from the

avoidable and perverse choice of our own will. An infirmity has its foundation in an involuntary want of power: and a sin in a wilful abuse of the present light and power we have. The one arises from involun. tary ignorance and weakness, and is always attended with a good meaning; a meaning unmixed with any bad design, or wicked prejudice: but the other has its source in voluntary perverseness and presumption, and is always attended with a meaning altogether bad; or, at best, with a good meaning, founded on wicked prejudices. If to this line the candid reader add the line which we have drawn (section vi) between the perfection of a Gentile, that of a Jew, and that of a Christian, he will not easily mistake in passing a judgment between the wilful sins, which are inconsistent with an evangelically sinless perfection, and the innocent infirmities which are consistent with such a perfection.

Confounding what God has divided, and dividing what the God of truth has joined, are the two capital stratagems of the god of error. The first he has chiefly used to eclipse or darken the doctrine of Christian perfection. By means of his instruments he has perpetually confounded the Christless law of perfect innocence, given to Adam before the fall; and the mediatorial, evangelical law of penitential faith, under which our first parents were put, when God promised them the seed of the woman, the mild Lawgiver, the Prince of Peace, the gentle King of the Jews, who "breaks not the bruised reed, nor quenches the smoking flax," but compassionately tempers the doctrines of justice by the doctrines of grace; and instead of the law of innocence, which he has kept and made honourable for us, has substituted his own evangelical law of repentance, faith, and Gospel obedience, which law is actually kept, according to one or another of its various editions, by all "just men, made perfect;" that is, by all the wise virgins, who are ready for the midnight cry, and the marriage of the Lamb.

Hence it appears that Pelagius and Augustine were both right in some things, and wrong in a capital point. Pelagius, the father of the rigid perfectionists and rigid free willers, asserted that Christ's law could be kept, and that the keeping of that law was all the perfection which that law requires. So far was Pelagius right; having reason, conscience, and Scripture on his side. But he was grossly mistaken if he confounded Christ's mediatorial law with the law of paradisiacal perfection. This was his capital error, which led him to deny original sin, and to extol human powers so excessively as to intimate that by a faithful and diligent use of them, man may be as innocent, and as perfect as Adam was before the fall.

On the other hand, Augustine, the father of the rigid imperfectionists and rigid bound willers, maintained that our natural powers, being greatly weakened and depraved by the fall, we cannot, by all the helps which the Gospel affords, keep the law of innocence; that is, always think, speak, and act, with that exactness and propriety which became immortal man, when God pronounced him very good in paradise: he asserted that every impropriety of thought, language, or behaviour, is a breach of the law of perfection, under which God placed innocent man in the garden of Eden; and he proved that every breach of this law is sin: and that of consequence there can be no Adamic, paradisiacal perfection in this life. So far Augustine was very right: so far reason and Scripture

support his doctrine: and so far the Church is obliged to him for having made a stand against Pelagius. But he was very much mistaken when he abolished the essential difference which there is between our Creator's law of strict justice, and our Redeemer's mediatorial law of justice, tempered with grace and mercy. Hence he concluded that there is absolutely no keeping the law, and consequently no performing any perfect obedience in this life; and that we must sin as long as we continue in the body. Thus, while Pelagius made adult Christians as perfectly sinless as Adam was in paradise, Augustine made them, so completely sinful as to make it necessary for every one of them to go into a death purgatory, crying, "There is a law in my members, which brings me into captivity to the law of sin. Sin dwelleth in me. With my flesh I serve the law of sin. I am carnal, sold under sin. O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me?"

The Scripture doctrine, which we vindicate, stands at an equal dis. tance from these extremes of Pelagius and Augustine. It rejects, with Augustine, the Adamic perfection which Pelagius absurdly pleaded for ; and it explodes, with Pelagins, the necessary continuance of indwelling sin and carnal bondage, which Augustine no less absurdly maintained. Thus adult believers are still sinners, still imperfect according to the righteous law of paradisiacal inuocence and perfection: and yet they are really saints, and perfect according to the gracious law of evangelical justification and perfection: a law this, which considers as upright and perfect, all the godly heathens, Jews, and Christians, who are "without guile" in their respective folds, or under their various dispen sations. Thus by still vindicating the various editions of Christ's me. diatorial law, which has been at times almost buried under heaps of Pharisaic and Antinomian mistakes, we still defend practical religion. And, as in the Scripture Scales, by proving the evangelical marriage of free grace and free will, we have reconciled Zelotes and Honestus with respect to faith and works; so in this essay, by proving the evangelical union of the doctrines of grace and justice in the mild and righteous law of our Redeemer, we reconcile Augustine and Pelagius, and force them to give up reason and Scripture, or to renounce the monstrous errors which keep them asunder: I mean the deep, Antinomian errors of Augustine with respect to indwelling sin and a death purgatory; and the high-flown, Pharisaic errors of Pelagius, with regard to Adamic per fection, and a complete freedom from original degeneracy.

The method we have used to bring about this reconciliation is quite plain and uniform. We have kept our Scripture Scales even, and used every weight of the sanctuary without prejudice; especially those weights which the moralists throw aside as Calvinistic and Antinomian; and those which the Solifidians cast away as Mosaic and legal. Thus, by evenly balancing the two Gospel axioms, we have reunited the doc. trines of grace and of justice, which heated Augustine and heated Pelagius have separated; and we have distinguished our Redeemer's evangelical law, from our Creator's paradisiacal law; two distinct laws these, which our illustrious antagonists have confounded; and we flatter ourselves that, by this artless mean, another step is taken toward bringing the two partial gospels of the day to the old standard of the one complete Gospel of Jesus Christ.

I have done unfolding our reconciling plan: but the disciples of Augustine, rallied by Calvin, have not done attacking it. I hope that I have answered the objections of Mr. Hill, Mr. Toplady, and Mr. Martin, against the evangelical perfection which we defend; but another noted divine of their persuasion comes up to their assistance. It is the Rev. Mr. Matthew Henry, who has deservedly got a great name among the Calvinists, by his valuable "Exposition of the Bible," in five folio volumes. This huge piece of ordnance carries a heavy ball, which threatens the very heart of our sinless Gospel. It is too late to attempt an abrupt and silent flight. Let then Mr. Henry fire away. If our doctrine of an evangelically sinless perfection is founded upon a rock, it will stand; the ponderous ball, which seems likely to demolish it, will rebound against the doctrine of indwelling sin; and the standard of Christian liberty which we waive, will be more respected than ever.

"Corruption," saith that illustrious commentator, "is left remaining in the hearts of good Christians, that they may learn war, may keep on the whole armour of God, and stand continually upon their guard." "Thus corruption is driven out of the hearts of believers by little and little. The work of sanctification is carried on gradually: but that judgment will at length be brought forth into a complete victory:" namely, when death shall come to the assistance of the atoning blood, and of the Spirit's power. That this is Mr. Henry's doctrine, is evident from his comment on Gal. v, 17: "In a renewed man, where there is something of a good principle, there is a struggle between, &c, the remainders of sin, and the beginnings of grace; and this, Christians must expect, will be their exercise as long as they continue in this world;" or, to speak more intelligibly, till they go into the death purgatory.

Not to mention here again, Gal. v, 17, &c, Mr. Henry builds this uncomfortable doctrine upon the following text: "The Lord thy God will put out those nations before thee by little and little; thou mayest not consume them at once, lest the beasts of the field increase upon thee," Deut. vii, 22. And he gives us to understand that "pride and security, and other sins," are "the enemies more dangerous than the beasts of the field, that would be apt to increase" upon us, if God delivered us from indwelling sin, i. e. from the remains of pride and carnal security, and other sins. This exposition is backed by an appeal to the following text :-"Now these are the nations which the Lord left to prove Israel by them-to know whether they [the Israelites] would hearken to the commandments of the Lord," Judges iii, 1, 4. (See Mr. Henry's exposition on these passages.)

To this we answer:-1. That it is absurd to build the mighty doc. trine of a death purgatory upon a historical allusion. If such allusions were proofs, we could easily multiply our arguments. We could say, that sin is to be utterly destroyed, because Moses says, "The Lord delivered into our hands Og and all his people, and we smote him until none was left unto him remaining," Deut. iii, 3. Because "Joshua smote Horam, king of Gezer, and his people, until he had left him none remaining," Deut. iii, 33. Because Saul was commanded "utterly to destroy the sinners, the Amalekites," and lost his crown for sparing their king: because, when God "overthrew Pharaoh and all his host,

there remained not so much as one of them," Exod. xiv, 28. Because, when God rained fire upon Sodom and Gomorrah, "he overthrew all their [wicked] inhabitants;" and because Moses says, “I took your sin, the calf which ye had made, and burnt it with fire, and stamped it, and ground it very small, even until it was as small as dust, and cast the dust thereof into the brook," Deut. ix, 21. But we should blush to build the doctrine of Christian perfection upon so absurd and slender a foundation. And yet such a foundation would be far more solid, than that on which Mr. Henry builds the doctrine of Christian imperfection, and of the necessary indwelling of sin in the most holy believers; for,

2. Before God permitted the Canaanites to remain in the land, he had said, "When ye are passed over Jordan, then ye shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land before you, and destroy all their pictures; for I have given you the land to possess it. But if ye will not drive out the inhabitants of the land before you, then it shall come to pass, that those which ye let remain of them shall be pricks in your eyes, and thorns in your sides, and shall vex you in the land wherein you dwell. And moreover I shall do unto you, as I thought to do unto them," Num. xxxiii, 51, &c. Hence it appears, that the sparing of the Canaanites was a punishment inflicted upon the Israelites, as well as a favour shown to the Canaanites, some of whom, like Rahab and the Gibeonites, probably turned to the Lord, and as "God's creatures," enjoyed his saving mercy in the land of promise. But is indwelling sin one of "God's creatures," that God should show it any favour, and should refuse his assistance to the faithful believers, who are determined to give it no quarter? Can indwelling sin be converted to God, as the indwelling Canaanites might, and as some of them undoubtedly were? 3. But the capital flaws of Mr. Henry's argument are, I apprehend, two suppositions, the absurdity of which is glaring :-" Corruption," says he, is left remaining in the hearts of good Christians, that they may learn war, may keep on the whole armour of God, and stand con tinually upon their guard." Just as if Christ had not learned war, kept on the breastplate of righteousness, and stood continually upon his guard," without the help of indwelling sin! Just as if the world, the devil, the weakness of the flesh, and death, our last enemy, with which our Lord so severely conflicted, were not adversaries powerful enough to prove us, to engage us to learn war, and to make us "keep on and use the whole armour of God" to the end of our life! The other absurd. supposition is, that "pride, and security, and other sins," which are supposed to be typified by "the wild beasts" mentioned in Deut. vii, 22, will increase upon us by the destruction of indwelling sin. But is it not as ridiculous to suppose this, as to say, Pride will increase upon us by the destruction of pride; and carnal security will gather strength by the extirpation of carnal security, and by the implanting of constant watchfulness, which is a branch of the Christian perfection which we contend for?

4. With respect to the inference which Mr. Henry draws from these words, "Thou mayest not consume them at once: the Lord will put them out before thee by little and little ;" is it not highly absurd also? Does he give us the shadow of an argument to prove that this verse was spoken of our indwelling corruptions; and suppose it was, would this prove that VOL. II.

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