upon a rock: And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, who built his house upon the sand.'— Nay, this is Christ's explicit doctrine: No words can be plainer than these: They that are in their graves shall hear his voice and come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of condemnation.' (John v. 29.) All creeds, therefore, like that of St. Athanasius, and all faith, must end in practice. This is a grand article of what might, with peculiar propriety, be called the catholic faith-the faith that is common to, and essential under all the dispensations of the everlasting gospel, in all countries and agesthe faith, which except a man believe faithfully,' i. e., so as to work righteousness, like the good and faithful servant, he cannot be saved.'

PART SECOND.

As some difficulties probably rise in the reader's mind against the preceding doctrine, it may not be amiss to produce them in the form of objections, and to answer them more fully than I have yet done.

1. OBJECTION. "All the scriptures that you have produced, are nothing but descriptions of those who shall be saved or damned: You have therefore no ground to infer from such texts, that in the great day our works of faith shall be rewarded with an eternal life of glory, and our bad works punished with eternal death."

ANSWER. Of all the paradoxes advanced by mistaken divines, your assertion is perhaps the greatest. You have no more ground for it, than I have for saying, that England is a lawless kingdom, and that all the promises of rewards, and threatenings of punishments, stamped with the authority of the legislative power,

are no legal sanctions. If I seriously maintained, that the bestowing of public bounties upon the inventors of useful arts;-that the discharge of some prisoners, and the condemnation of others, according to the statutes of the realm, are things which take place without any respect to law;-that the acts of parliament are mere descriptions of persons, which the government rewards, acquits, or punishes without any respect to worthiness, innocence, or demerit,—and that the judges absolve or condemn criminals merely out of free grace and free wrath :—If I maintained a paradox so dishonourable to the government and so contrary to common sense, would you not be astonished ? And if I gave the name of Papist to all that did not receive my error as gospel, would you not recommend me to a dose of Dr. Monro's hellebore?—And are they much wiser, who fix the foul blot upon the divine government, and make the Protestants believe, that the sanctions of the King of kings, and the judicial dictates of Him who judges the world in righteousness, are not laws and sentences, but representations and descriptions?

A comparison will shew the frivolousness of your objection: There is, if I mistake not, a statute that condemns an highwayman to be hanged, and allows a reward of forty pounds to the person that takes him. A counsellor observes, that this statute was undoubtedly made to deter people from going upon the highway, and to encourage the taking of robbers. "Not so," says a lawyer from Geneva; "though robbers are hanged according to law, yet the men that take them are not legally rewarded; the sum mentioned in the statute is given them of free, gratuitous, undeserved, unmerited, distinguishing grace."— Nay, says the counsellor, if they do not deserve the forty pounds more than other people, that sum might as well be bestowed upon the highwaymen themselves, as upon those who take them at the hazard of their life."And so it might," says the Geneva lawyer ; • for although poor, blind legalists make people believe,

that the promissory part of the law was made to excite people to exert themselves in the taking of robbers; yet we know better at Geneva; and I inform you, that the clause you speak of is only a description of certain men, for whom the government designs the reward of forty pounds gratis." The admirers of Geneva logic clap their hands and cry out, "Well said! down with legality!" but an English jury smiles and cries, "Down with absurdity!" (See Fourth Check, Vol ii. p. 76.)

II. OBJ." You confound our title to, with our meetness for heaven, two things which we carefully distinguish. Our title to heaven being solely what Christ has done and suffered for his people, has nothing to do with either our holiness or good works; but our meetness for heaven supposes holiness, if not good works. Therefore God's unconverted sinful people, who have, in Christ, a complete title to heaveu by right of finished salvation,' shall all be made meet for heaven in the day of his power."

ANS. 1. I understand you, and so does Mr. Fulsome. You insinuate, that, till the day you speak of comes, unconverted sinners and backsliders may indulge themselves like the servant mentioned in the gospel, who said, My master delayeth his coming, and began to drink with the drunken; but alas! instead of "a day of power," he saw a day of vengeance, and his "finished salvation," so called, ended in weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth.

2. Your distinction is contrary to the scriptures, which represent all impenitent workers of iniquity as having a full title to hell according to both law and gospel; so far are the oracles of God from supposing, that some workers of iniquity have a full title to heaven, absolutely independent on the obedience of faith.

3. It is contrary to reason; for reason dictates that whosoever has a full title to a punishment, or to a reward, is fully meet for it. Where is the difference

between saying, that a murderer is fully meet for, or that he has a full title to the gallows? If a palace richly furnished was bestowed upon the most righteous man in the kingdom, and you were the person; would it not be absurd to distinguish between your title to, and your meetness for that recompence? Or, if the king, in consequence of a valuable consideration received from the prince, had promised a coronet to every swift runner in England, next to the Prince's interposition and his Majesty's promise, would not your running well be at once your title to, and meetness for that honour? And is not this the case, with respect to the incorruptible crowns reserved in heaven for those who so run that they may obtain ?

4. Your distinction draws after it the most horrid consequences: For if a full title to heaven may be separated from a meetness for the lowest place in heaven, it necessarily follows: That Solomon had a full title to heaven when he worshipped Ashtaroth; and the incestuous Corinthian, when he defiled his father's bed; in flat opposition to the dictates of every man's conscience, (if you except Mr. Fulsome and his fraternity:) It follows that St. Paul told a gross untruth, when he said, This ye know, that no idolater, and no unclean person, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.'-in a word, it follows that believers' sanctified with the blood of the covenant, who draw back to perdition,' (such as the apostates mentioned Heb. x. 29,) may have no title to heaven in all their sanctifying faith; while some impenitent murderers, like David and Manasses, have a perfect title to it in all their crimes and unbelief.

5. This is not all : ( Our Lord's mark, By their fruits ye shall know them,' is absolutely wrong if you are right: For your distinction abolishes the grand characteristic of the children of God, and those of the devil, which consists in not committing or committing iniquity, in doing or not doing righteousness, according to these plain words of St. John, 'He that committeth sin is of the devil.-In this the children of

God are manifest, and the children of the devil: Whosoever does not righteousness, is not of God, neither he that loveth not [much less he that murders] his brother.' (1 John iii. 8, 10.)-Thus the Lord's sacred enclosure is broken down, his sheepfold becomes a fold for goats, a dog-kennel, a swine-stye.— Nay, for what you know, all bloody adulterers may be sheep in wolves' clothing;' while all those that have escaped the pollution that is in the world,' may only be wolves in sheep's clothing;' it mattering not, with regard to the goodness of our title to heaven, whether filthiness to Belial," or holiness to the Lord' be written upon our foreheads. O Sir, how much more dangerous is your scheme than that of the primitive Babel-builders! They only brought on a confusion of the original language; but your doctrine confounds light and darkness, promises and threaten· ings, the heirs of heaven and those of hell, the seed of the woman and that of the serpent.

6. As to your intimation that holiness is secured by teaching, that God's people shall absolutely be made willing to forsake their sins, and to become righteous in the day of God's power, that so they may have a meetness for, as well as a title to heaven; it drags after it this horrid consequence: The devil's people, "in the day of God's power," shall absolutely be made willing to forsake their righteousness, that they may have a meetness for, as well as a title to hell: bitter reverse this of your "sweet Gospel!"

A

To conclude: If by your distinction you only want to insinuate, that Christ is the grand, and properlymeritorious procurer of our salvation, from first to last; and that the works of faith are only a secondary, instrumental, evidencing cause of our final salvation, you mean just as I do. But if you give the world to understand, that election to eternal glory is unconditional, or, which comes all to oue, that no sin can invalidate our title to heaven; from the preceding observations it appears, that you deceive the simple,