BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER: BEING EXTRACTS FROM HIS CHECKS TO ANTINOMIANISM, IN A SERIES OF LETTERS TO REV. MR. SHIRLEY AND MR. HILL. BY REV. T. SPICER, A.M. NEW-YORK: PUBLISHED BY G. LANE & P. P. SANDFORD, FOR THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, AT THE CONFERENCE OFFICE, 200 MULBERRY-STREET. J. Collord, Printer. 1843. " Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1840, by T. Mason and G. Lane, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New- York." BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER. INTRODUCTION. THE Vindication of Mr. Wesley's last Minutes, or, "Checks to Antinomianism," by the celebrated Mr. Fletcher, of Madely, Eng., has been very justly regarded by the Methodist societies, both in Europe and America, as one of the most excellent works of the kind that has ever been published in the English language. This work was first published in London, A.D. 1788, in six duodecimo volumes, and it has passed through four editions in America. It has had a very extensive circulation in this country, and has been read with great pleasure and profit. Many have thereby been led from the mazes of a speculative and vain philo- sophy, and the intricacies of Calvinian subtleties, to a clear and satisfactory view of the plan of salvation as exhibited in the Holy Scriptures. And not a few, who, by means of Calvinism, had renounced the Bible and become skeptical, have, by reading these "Checks," been brought to see a beauty and harmony in the doctrines contained in this sacred volume, and have acknowledged its truth. It is a fact too well known to be denied, that many who have known no other way to understand the Scriptures than as Calvinism teaches, BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER. have seen in Calvinian predestination, election, and reprobation, so many things repugnant to reason and common sense, that they have chosen, rather than be- lieve such doctrines, to renounce the book which they had been taught to believe contained them. Not a few of these have been induced to read these Checks, which exhibit a different view of the divine government, and of the plan of salvation, from that which is exhibited in Calvinism, and have thereby been led to embrace Christianity again, as a system the most lovely and interesting of all the exhibitions of the divine Being. " What is truth ?" This is a very interesting ques- tion : there are, however, many persons in the world like Pilate, who make this important inquiry, but have not sufficient patience to wait for an answer. If a book be large, or if a work consist of several volumes, they cannot endure the thought of perusing the whole in order to ascertain what is truth. This is the case of many who are not accustomed to close thinking or extensive reading. These must be accommodated with a treatise that is brief and directly to the point, or their attention is not gained, nor can we win their assent to truth. In the works of Mr. Fletcher there are many matters contained which may be considered rather of a local character than of general interest. At the time when they were written they were, doubtless, considered very interesting to all concerned, but at this distance of time BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER. 5 and place, few of his readers would feel much interest in them. A kind of abridgment, which shall contain a sketch or outline of these matters, and also present an epitome of the work, will interest, and greatly profit, a very numerous class of readers. Again, many readers there are who feel a repugnance to every thing in the form of controversy, and so great is their aversion that they cannot be persuaded to read any work like this of Mr. Fletcher's ; they would, at least, affect to regard it as a quarrel among ministers about religion. In order that such may embrace the truth, it must be presented in a form which to them may seem less exceptionable than it usually is in works on controversy. The above considerations have induced the compiler of these extracts to undertake the present work. In his estimation, no man has more closely studied the Holy Scriptures in connection with their bearing on these points of doctrine than Mr. Fletcher. In making these extracts, I have selected such arti- cles as are deemed most interesting to the greater part of inquirers after truth at the present day. In some instances I have gathered the writer's remarks on one subject from different volumes, and I have united them in one chapter. And in many cases I have made dis- tinct chapters under appropriate heads, when they did not so exist before. My principal object in the selection and in the arrangement which I have introduced, has 6 BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER. been to present the reader a very distinct view of the most important parts of these controversial writings, consisting of essays and arguments, proofs and illus- trations of divine truth. Here the inquirer after truth will find objections answered, difficulties removed, and explanations of many difficult passages of Holy Scrip- ture. On the whole, I cannot but hope that the reader will receive great benefit from a careful perusal of the work which is here presented to him. BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER. CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION, Page 3 An historical sketch of the circumstances which gave rise to, and were connected with this controversy, - .... 9 CHAPTER I. On the necessity of works. SECTION i. Is it necessary that any thing be done by men in order to justification ?-- 25 SECTION n. An objection answered, ------ 29 CHAPTER II. On the merit of good works. SECTION i. The rewardableness of good works illustrated by a comparison, -----.....31 SECTION n. Calvinistic reasoning respecting reprobation an- swered, 34 SECTION in. Calvinistic reprobation inconsistent with the perfec- tions of God, - -.-.....40 An objection against God's wisdom answered, - - - - 44 CHAPTER III. An answer to several Calvinistic dogmas respecting election, - 44 CHAPTER IV. On the doctrine of a two-fold justification, ..... 53 CHAPTER V. Remarks on the state and character of Judas, 00 CHAPTER VI. Farther remarks on the justification of infants, 69 CHAPTER VII. The doctrine of a believer's justification by works reconciled with a sinner's justification by grace, - - - - - - 72 CHAPTER VIII. Reconciling concessions respecting election and reprobation, 76 CHAPTER IX. The fictitious and the genuine creed, - 83 CHAPTER X. A Scriptural essay on the astonishing rewardableness of works according to the covenant of grace. SECTION I. A variety of plain scriptures, which show that heaven itself is the gracious reward of the works of faith, and that be- lievers may lose that reward by bad works, .... 122 SECTION II. An answer to the most plausible objections of the Solifidians against this doctrine, ...... 135 SECTION in. Some reflections upon the unreasonableness of those who scorn to work with an eye to the reward which God offers to excite us to obedience, -.-..... 156 8 BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER. CHAPTER XI. An essay on truth. Introduction, - - '. ~ . ** a S e 171 SECTION I. A plain definition of saving faith, how believing is the gift of God, and whether it is in our power to believe, - SECTION II. Saving truth is the object of saving faith : what truth is, and what great things are spoken of it. Our salvation turns upon it, 183 CHAPTER XII. The Scripture scales. SECTION I. Three pairs of gospel axioms, - SECTION ii. The glory of faith, and the honour of work*, SECTION in. What is God's work, and what is our own, - CHAPTER XIII. A rational and Scriptural view of St. Paul's meaning in the ninth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, .... - 207 CHAPTER XIV. The absurdity of supposing that there can be any free wrath in a just and good God, 236 CHAPTER XV. Mr. Toplady's Christian and philosophical necessity considered, - 240 CHAPTER XVI. Absurd consequences attached to error. SECTION I. The elect shall be saved, do what they will, and others will be damned, do what they can, SECTION II. Mr. Toplady's inquiries answered, - 249 CHAPTER XVII. A rational account of the origin of evil, CHAPTER XVIII. Difficulties removed. SECTION I. Remarks on 1 Samuel ii, 25, SECTION n. Explanation of Acts iv, 27, 28, .... CHAPTER XIX. A caution against the tenet that Whatever is, is right, - CHAPTER XX. A middle way between Calvinian providence and chance, - - 268 CHAPTER XXI. Christian perfection. Advertisement, - SECTION i. The doctrine of Christian perfection stated, and that they BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER. 247 shall every one be cast into a delightful river, where he has engaged himself, by an eternal covenant of parti- cular redemption, to bring them without fail. The same omnipotent proprietor of the pond has likewise absolutely decreed that all the rest of the fishes, namely, forty, which are properly distinguished by a black mark called reprobation, shall never be caught in the gospel net ; or that, if they are entangled in it at any time, they shall always be drawn out of it, and so shall necessarily continue in the muddy pond till, on a certain day, called the day of his wrath, he shall sweep the pond with a certain net called a LAW net, catch them all, and cast them into a lake of fire and brimstone, where he has engaged himself, by an everlasting cove- nant of non-redemption, to bring them all without fail, that they may answer the end of their predestination to death, which is to show the goodness of his law net, and to destroy them for having been bred in the muddy pond, and for not having been caught in the gospel net. The owner of the pond is wise as well as powerful. He knows, that absolutely to secure the end to which his fishes are absolutely predestinated, he must also absolutely secure the means which conduce to that end : and therefore, that none may escape their happy or unfortunate predestination, he keeps night and day his hold of them all by a strong hook called necessity, and by an invisible line called divine decrees. By means of this line and hook it happens, that if the fishes that bear the mark of election are ever so loth to come into the gospel net, or to stay therein, they are always drawn into it in a day of powerful love ; and if the fishes which bear the mark of reprobation are for a time ever so desirous to wrap themselves in the gospel 248 BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER. net, they are always drawn out of it in a day of power- ful wrath. For though the fishes seem to swim ever so freely, yet their motions are all absolutely fixed by the owner of the pond, and determined by means of the above line and hook. If this is the case, says Mr. Wes- ley, ten fishes shall go into the delightful river, let them do what they will; let them plunge in the mud of their pond ever so briskly, or leap toward the lake of fire ever so often, while they have any liberty to plunge or to leap. And all the rest of the fishes, forty in number, shall go into the lake of fire, let them do what they can ; let them involve themselves ever so long in the gospel net, and leap ever so often toward the fine river, before they are absolutely necessitated to go through the mud of their own pond into the sulphureous pool. The consequence is undeniable, and I make no doubt that all unprejudiced persons see it as well as myself; as sure as two and two make four, or, if you please, as sure as ten and forty make fifty, so sure ten fishes shall be caught in the gospel net, and forty in the law net. Mr. Toplady denies the consequence, and says " Can Mr. Wesley produce a single instance of any one man who did all he could to be saved, and yet was lost? If he can, let him tell us who that man was, where he lived, when he died, what he did, and how it came to pass that he laboured in vain ; if he cannot, let him either retract his consequences, or continue to be posted as a shameless traducer." I answer : 1. To require Mr. Wesley to show a man who did all he could, and yet was lost, is requiring him to prove that Calvinian reprobation is true ! a thing this which he can no more do than he can prove that BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER. 249 God is false. Mr. Wesley never said any man was damned after doing his best to be saved ; he only says that, if Calvinism is true, the reprobates shall all be damned, though they should all do their best to be saved, till the efficacious decree of their absolute reprobation necessitates them to draw back and be damned. 2. As Mr. Toplady's bold request may impose upon his inattentive readers, I beg leave to point out its absurdity by a short illustration. Mr. Wesley says, if there is a mountain of gold, it is heavier than a handful of feathers ; and his consequence passes for true in Eng- land : but a gentleman who teaches logic in mystic Geneva thinks that it is absolutely false, and that Mr. Wesley's "forehead must be petrified, and quite im- pervious to a blush," for advancing it. Can Mr. Wesley, says he, show us a mountain of gold which is really heavier than a handful of feathers ? If he can, let him tell us what mountain it is, where it lies, in what latitude, how high it is, and who did ever ascend to the top of it. If he cannot, let him either retract his consequences, or continue to be posted as a shame- less traducer. SECTION II. MR. TOPLADY'S INQUIRY ANSWERED. Mr. Toplady inquires, " Is salvation due to a man that does not perform those conditions ?" And then he remarks, " If you say yes, you jump hand over head into what you yourself call Antinomianism. If you say that salvation is not due to a man unless he do fulfil the condition; it will follow that man's own 11* 250 BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER. performances are meritorious of salvation, and bring God himself into debt." To this Mr. Fletcher answers The flaw of Mr. Toplady's argument will appear in its proper magni- tude, if we look at it through the following illustration : A whole regiment is led to the left by the colonel, whom the general wanted to turn to the right. The colonel, who is personally in the fault, is pardoned ; and five hundred of the soldiers, who, by the overbearing influ- ence of their colonel's disobedience, were necessitated to move to the left, are appointed to be hanged for not going to the right. The general sends to Geneva for a Tertullus, who vindicates the justice of the execu- tion by the following speech : " Preferment is not due to obedient soldiers, much less to soldiers who have necessarily disobeyed orders ; and therefore your gra- cious general acts consistently with justice in appoint- ing these five hundred soldiers to be hanged, for, as there is no medium between not promoting soldiers and hanging them, he might justly have hanged the whole regiment. He is not bound by any law to give any soldier a captain's commission ; and therefore he is perfectly just when he sends these military reprobates to the gallows." Some of the auditors clap Tertullus's argument: P. O. cries out that it is "most masterly:" but a few of the soldiers are not quite satisfied, and begin to question whether the holy service of the mild Saviour of the world is not preferable to the Antino- mian service of the absolute reprobater of countless myriads of unborn infants. 2. The other flaw of Mr. Toplady's dilemma consists in supposing that gospel worthiness is incompatible with the gospel: whereas all the doctrines of justice, BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER. 251 which make one half of the gospel, stand or fall with the doctrine of evangelical worthiness. We will shout it on the walls of mystic Geneva: they that follow Christ shall walk with him in white, rather than they that follow antichrist ; for they are [more] worthy. Watch and pray always, that you may be counted worthy to escape,, and to stand rewardable before the *SW of man. The doctrine of Pharisaic merit we abhor ; but the doctrine of rewardable obedience we honour, defend, and extol. Believers, let not Mr. Top- lady beguile you of your reward through voluntary humility ; your persevering obedience shall be graciously rewarded by a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give you at that day; and then great shall be your reward in heaven. For Christ himself hath said, Be faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life. lam the author of eternal salvation to them that obey me. What can be plainer than this gospel? Shall the absurd cries of " Popery !" " merit !" &c., make us ashamed of Christ's disciple ; of Christ's words ; and of Christ himself? God forbid ! Let the Scriptures let God be true, though Mr. Toplady should be mistaken. Mr. Toplady says, page 38 : " If he [God] be not obliged, in justice, to save mankind, then neither is he unjust in passing by some men : nay, he might, had he so pleased, have passed by the whole of mankind without electing one individual of the fallen race, and yet have continued holy, just, and good." True ; he might have passed them by, without fix- ing any blot upon his justice and goodness, if by passing them by Mr. T. means leaving them in the wretched state of seminal existence, in which state his vindictive 252 BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER. justice found them after Adam's fall. For then, an unknown punishment, seminally endured, would have borne just proportion to. an unknown sin, semi- nally committed. But if, by passing- some men by, this gentleman means, as Calvinism does, " absolutely predestinating men to necessary, remediless sin, and to unavoidable, eternal damnation :" we deny that God might justly have passed by the whole of mankind : we deny that he might justly have passed by ONE single man, woman, or child. Nay, we affirm that, if we conceive Satan, or the evil principle of Manes, as exerting creative power, we could not conceive him worse employed than in forming an absolute reprobate in embryo ; that is, a creature unconditionally and ab- solutely doomed to remediless wickedness and everlast- ing fire. As the simple are frequently imposed upon by an artful substituting of the harmless word passing by for the terrible word absolutely reprobating to death, I beg leave to show, by a simile, the vast difference there is between these two phrases. A king may, without injustice, pass by all the beggars in the streets, without giving them any bounty; because, if he does them no good in thus passing them by, he does them no harm. But suppose he called two captains of his guards, and said to \h& first, If you see me pass by little dirty beg- gars without giving them an alms, throw them into the mire, or, if their parents, keep them there : then let the second captain follow with his men, and take all the dirty beggars who have been thus passed by, and throw them, for being dirty, into a furnace hotter than that of Nebuchadnezzar: suppose, I say, the king passed his little indigent subjects by in this manner, BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER. 253 would not his decree of preterition be a more than diabolical piece of cruelty ? I need not inform my judi- cious readers, that the passing by of the king repre- sents Calvinian passing by, that is, absolute reproba- tion to death : that the first captain, who throws little beggars into the dirt, or keeps them there, represents the decree of the means, which necessitates the repro- bate to sin, or to continue in sin ; and that the second captain represents the decree of the end, which neces- sitates them to go to everlasting burnings. CHAPTER XVII. A RATIONAL ACCOUNT OF THE ORIGIN OF EVIL. WHEN it pleased God to create a world, his WISDOM obliged him to create upon the plan that was most wor- thy of him. Such a plan was undoubtedly that which agreed best with all the divine perfections taken to- gether. WISDOM and POWER absolutely required that it should be a world of rational, as well as irrational creatures ; of free, as well as of necessary agents ; such a world displayed far better what St. Paul calls Tro/bTRu/aAof ao(j>ia, the multifarious, variegated WIS- DOM of God, as well as his infinite POWER in making, ruling, and overruling various orders of beings. It could not be expected that myriads of free agents, who necessarily fell short of absolute perfection, would all behave alike. Here God's GOODNESS demanded that those who behaved well should be rewarded ; his SOVEREIGNTY insisted, that those who behaved ill should be punished ; and his DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE 254 BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER, and EQUITY required, that those who made the best use of their talents should be entitled to the highest rewards ; while those who abused divine favours most, should have the severest punishments ; MERCY reserv- ing to itself the right of raising rewards, and of allevi- ating punishments, in a way suited to all the other divine attributes. This being granted, (and I do not see how any man of reason and piety can deny it,) it evidently follows : 1. That a world in which various orders of free, as well as necessary agents, are admitted, is most per- fect. 2. That this world, having been formed upon such a wise plan, was the most perfect that could possibly be created. 3. That, in the very nature of things, evil may, although there is no necessity it should, enter into such a world ; else it could not be a world of free agents who are candidates for distributive jus- tice. 4. That the blemishes and disorders of the na- tural world are only penal consequences of disobedience of free agents. 5. That from such penal disorders we may indeed conclude that man has abused free will, but not that God deals in free wrath. Only admit, therefore, the free will of rationals, and you cannot but fall in love with our Creator's plan, dark and horrid as it appears when it is viewed through the smoked glass of the fatalist, the Manichee, or the rigid predestina- rian. But Mr. Toplady inquires, " How came moral evil to be permitted, when it might have been hindered, by a Being of infinite goodness, power, and wisdom ?" Answer 1. When God placed man in paradise, far from permitting him to sin, he strictly forbade him to do it. Is it right then in Mr. Toplady to call God the BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER. 255 permitler of sin, when the Scriptures represent him as the forbidder of it ? Nay, is it not very wrong to pour shame upon the holiness of God, and absurdity upon the reason of man, by making a Calvinistic world believe that forbidding- and threatening is one and the same thing with permitting and giving leave ; or, at least, that the difference is so trifling, that all the sagacity of man will find it difficult, not to say im- possible, clearly to point it out ? 2. I pretend to a very little share of all the sagacity of man; and yet, without being nonplused at all, I hope to show, by the following illustration, that there is a prodigious difference between not hindering, and design, in the case of the entering in of sin. A general wants to try the faithfulness of his soldiers, that he may reward those \vhoivill fight, and punish those who will go over to the enemy ; in order to dis- play, before all the army, his love of bravery, his hatred of cowardice, his remunerative goodness, and his im- partial justice. To this end he issues out a proclama- tion, importing that all the volunteers who shall gallantly keep the field in such an important engagement shall be made captains ; and all those who shall go over to the enemy shall be shot. I suppose him endued with infinite wisdom, knowledge, and power. By his om- niscience he sees that some will desert ; by his omni- potence he could, indeed, hinder them from doing^ it ; for he could chain them all to so many posts stuck in the ground around their colours: but hisinfinite wisdom does not permit him to do it ; as it would be a piece of madness in him to defeat, by forcible means, his design of trying the courage of his soldiers, in order to reward and punish them according to their gallant or cow- 256 BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER. ardly behaviour in the field. And therefore, though he is persuaded that many will be shot, he puts his procla- mation in force, because, upon the whole, it will best an- swer his wise designs. However, as he does not desire, much less design, that any of his soldiers should be shot for desertion, he does what his wisdom permits him to do to prevent their going over to the enemy ; and yet, for the above-mentioned reason, he does not absolutely hinder them from doing it. Now in such a case, who does not see that the difference in not absolutely hin- dering and designing is as discernible as the differ- ence between reason and folly or between wisdom and wickedness ? By such dangerous insinuations as that which this illustration exposes, the simple are imperceptibly led to confound Christ with Belial, and to think there is little difference between the celestial Parent of good, and the Manichean parent of good and evil ; the Janus of the fatalists, who wears two faces, an angel's face and a devil's face; a mongrel, imaginary god this, whose fancied ways are, like his fancied na- ture, full of duplicity. 3. To the preceding illustration I beg leave to add the following argument. No unprejudiced person will, I hope, refuse his assent to the truth of this proposi- tion. A world wherein there are rational free agents, like angels and men ; irrational free agents, like dogs and horses ; necessary agents, like plants and trees ; and dead matter, like stones and clods of earth : such a world, I say, is as much superior in perfection to a world where there are only necessary agents and dead matter, as a place inhabited by learned men and curious beasts contains more wonders than one which is only stocked with fine flowers and curious stones. BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER. 257 If this be granted, it necessarily follows that this world was perfect, calculated to display His infinite power and manifold wisdom. Now, in the very nature of things, rational free agents, being capable of knowing their Creator, owe to him gratitude and obedience ; and to one another, assistance and love ; and therefore they are under a law, which [as free agents] they may keep or break, as they please. " But could not God necessitate free agents to keep the law they are under ?" , Yes, says Calvinism, for he is endued with infinite power : but Scripture, good sense, and matter of fact say no : because, although God is endued with infinite power, he is also endued with infinite wisdom. And it would be as absurd to create free agents in order to necessitate them, as to do a thing in order to undo it. Besides, [I repeat it,] God's distributive justice could never be displayed, nor could free obedience be paid by rationals, and crowned by the Rewarder and Judge of all the earth, unless rationals were free-willing crea- tures ; and therefore, the moment you absolutely neces- sitate them, you destroy them as free agents, and rob God of two of his most glorious titles that of Re- warder and that of Judge. Thus we account for the origin of evil in a Scriptural and rational manner, with- out the help of fatalism, Manicheeism, or Calvinism. 258 BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER. CHAPTER XVIII. DIFFICULTIES REMOVED. SECTION I. REMARKS ON 1 SAMUEL II, 25. THEY [THE SONS OF ELl] HEARKENED NOT TO THE VOICE OF THEIR FATHER, BE- CAUSE THE LORD WOULD SLAY THEM. THIS passage is introduced by Mr. Toplady to show that the Lord secures the end by securing the means. By the decree of the means the Lord secured the disobe- dience of these wicked men, in order to accomplish the decree of the end, that is, their absolute destruction. To this Calvinian insinuation Mr. Fletcher answers : 1. That the sons of Eli, who had turned the taberna- cle into a house of ill fame, and a den of thieves, had personally deserved a judicial reprobation ; God, there- fore, could justly give them up to a reprobate mind, in consequence of their personal, avoidable, repeated, and aggravated crimes. 2. The word killing does not here necessarily imply eternal damnation. The Lord killed, by a lion, the man of God from Judah, for having stopped in Bethel : he killed Nadab and Abihu for offering strange fire: he killed the child of David and Bathsheba : he killed many of the Corinthians for their irreverent partaking of the Lord's supper : but the sin unto [bodily] DEATH is not the sin unto eternal death ; for St. Paul informs, that the body is sometimes given up to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord, 1 Cor. v, 5. BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER. 259 3. The Hebrew particle, o, which is rendered in our translation because, means also therefore : and so our translators themselves have rendered it after St. Paul and the Septuagint, Psa. cxvi, 10. I believed, o, and therefore will I speak : see 2 Cor. iv, 13. If they had done their part as well in translating the verse quoted by Mr. Toplady, the doctrine of free wrath would have gone propless, and we should have had these edifying words: They [the sons of Eli] hearkened not to the voice of their father, and therefore the Lord would slay them. Thus the voluntary sin of free agents would be represented as the cause of their deserved reprobation ; and not their undeserved reprobation as the cause of their necessary sin. SECTION II. EXPLANATION OF ACTS IV, 27, 28. For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were ga- thered together, for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done. With respect to this text, if it be rightly translated, it is explained by these words of St. Peter, Acts ii, 23, which declare that Christ was delivered by the deter- minate counsel and foreknowledge of God: '-de- livered" as a ransom for all. If rightly translated with Episcopius, and some other learned critics, I doubt it is not why should it not be read thus ? For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, (both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of 260 BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER. Israel, were gathered together,} for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined to be done. By putting the clause both Herod, &c. } in a parenthesis, you have this evangelical sense, which gives no handle for the pleaders for sin : Both Herod and Pilate, fyc., were gathered together against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed for to do whatsoever thy hand and counsel determined to be done. I prefer this reading to the common for the following reasons : 1. It is per- fectly agreeable to the Greek ; and the peculiar con- struction of the sentence is expressive of the peculiar earnestness with which the apostle prayed. 2. It is attended with no Manichean inconveniency. 3. It is more agreeable to the context. For if the Sanhedrim was gathered by God's direction and decree, in order to threaten the apostles, with what propriety could they say, [verse 29,] Now, Lord, behold their threatening ? And, 4. It is strongly supported by verse 30, where Pe- ter [after having observed, verses 27, 28, according to our reading, that God had anointed his holy child Jesus to do all the miracles which he did on earth] prays, that now Christ is gone to heaven, the effects of this power- ful anointing may continue, and signs and wonders may be done by the name of his holy child Jesus. This passage then, and all those which Mr. Toplady has produced, or may yet produce, only prove, 1. That God foresees the evil which is in the heart of the wicked, and their future steps in peculiar circumstances, with ten thousand times more clearness and cer- tainty than a good huntsman foresees all the windings, doublings, and shifts of a hunted fox : and that he over- rules their wicked counsels to the execution of his own wise and holy designs. a.s a good rider overrules the BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER. 261 mad prancings of a vicious horse, to the display of his perfect skill in horsemanship, and to the treading down of the enemy in a day of battle. 2. That God catches the wise in their own craftiness; and to punish the wicked, he permits their wicked counsels to be defeated, and their best concerted schemes to prove abortive. 3. That he frequently tries the faith and exercises the patience of good men, by letting loose the wicked upon them, as in the case of Job and Christ. 4. That he often punishes the wickedness of one man by letting loose upon him the wickedness of another man ; and that he frequently avenges himself of one wicked na- tion by letting loose upon it the wickedness of another nation. Thus he let Absalom and Shimei loose upon David. Thus the Lord let loose the Philistines upon disobedient Israel, and the Romans upon the ob- durate Jews. 5. That he sometimes lets a wicked man loose upon himself, as in the case of Ahithophel, Na- bal, and Judas, who became their own executioners. 6. That when wicked men are going to commit some atrocious wickedness, he sometimes inclines their hearts so to relent that they commit a less crime than they intended. For instance : when Joseph's brethren were going to starve him to death, by providential circum- stances God inclined their hearts to spare his life : thus, instead of starving him, they only sold him into Egypt. BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER. CHAPTER XIX. A CAUTION AGAINST THE TENET THAT "WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT." THAT " whatever is, is right, or will answer some great end in relation to the whole," says Mr. Toplady, " is a first principle of the Bible and of sound reason." Whatever the true God works is undoubtedly right. But if the Deity absolutely works all things in all men, good and bad, it evidently follows, 1. That the two-prin- cipled Deity preached by Manes is the true God. 2. That the bad principle of this double deity works wickedness in the wicked, as necessarily as the good principle works righteousness in the righteous. And, 3. That the original of wickedness being divine, wick- edness is as right as the Deity from whom it flows. Error is never more dangerous than when it looks a little like truth. But when it is imposed upon the sim- ple as a first principle of the Bible and sound reason, it makes dreadful work. How conclusively will a rigid predestinarian reason if he says, "Whatever is, is right ; and therefore sin is right. Again : it is wrong to hinder what is right: sin is right; and therefore it is wrong to hinder sin. Once more : we ought to do what is right : sin is right ; and therefore we ought to commit sin." Now, in opposition to Mr. Toplady's first principle, I assert as a first principle of reason, that, though it was right in God not absolutely to hinder sin, yet sin is always wrong. "O, but God permitted it, and will get himself glory by displaying his vindictive justice in BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER. 263 punishing it : for ' the ministration of condemnation is glorious} " This argument has deluded many a pious Calvinist. To overthrow it, however, I need only ob- serve, that the ministration of righteousness exceeds in glory the ministration of condemnation. In what respect is sin right? Can it be right in respect of God, if it brings him less glory than right- eousness? Can it be right in respect of man, if it bring temporal misery upon all, and eternal misery upon some? Can it be right in respect of the Adamic law, the law of Moses, or the law of Christ? Certainly no : for sin is equally the transgression of all these laws. " O, but it is right with respect to the evangelical pro- mise." By no means : for the evangelical promise, vul- garly called the gospel, testifies of Christ, the destroyer of sin, and offers us a remedy against sin. Now if sin were right, the gospel which remedies it, and Christ who destroys it, would be wrong. I conclude then, that if sin be right, neither with respect of God, nor with respect of man ; neither with regard to the law, nor with regard to the gospel; it is right in no shape, it is wrong in every point of view. " But why did God permit it ?" Indeed, he never did properly permit it. unless to forbid in the most sol- emn manner, and under the severest penalty, is the same thing as to permit. But, Why did not God ab- solutely hinder sin ?" I answer, 1. Because his wisdom saw that a world where free agents and necessary agents are mixed, is better [all things considered] than a world stocked with nothing but necessary agents, i. e., creatures absolutely hindered from sinning. 2. Be- cause his distributive justice could be displayed no other way than by the creation of accountable free 264 BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER. agents, made with an eye to a day of judgment. 3. Because it would be as -absurd to necessitate free agents, as to bid free agents be, that they might not be free agents ; as foolish as to form accountable crea- tures, that they might not be accountable. And, 4. Be- cause when God saw that the free agency of his creatures wpuld introduce sin, he determined to over- rule it, or remedy it in such a manner as would, upon the whole, render this world, with all the voluntary evil and voluntary good in it, better than a world of necessary agents, where nothing but necessary good would have been displayed : an inferior sort of good this, which would no more have admitted of the exer- cise of God's political wisdom and distributive justice, than the excellence of precious stones and fine flowers admits of laws, rewards, and punishments. Should the reader ask how far we may safely go to meet the truth which borders most on Mr. Toplady's false principle, that " whatever is, is right .?" I answer, 1. We may grant, nay, we ought to assert, that God will get himself glory every way. Evangelical grace and just wrath minister to his praise, though not equally : and therefore God willeth not primarily the death of his creatures. Punishment is his strange work; and he delighteth more in the exercise of his remunerative goodness than in the exercise of his vin- dictive justice. 2. Hence it appears, that the wrath of man and the rage of the devil will turn to God's praise: but it is only to his inferior praise. For though the blessed will sing loud hallelujahs to divine justice when vengeance shall overtake the ungodly ; and though the consciences of the ungodly will give God glory, and testify that he is holy in all his works, and righteous in BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER. 265 all his vindictive ways ; yet, this glory will be only the glory of the ministration of condemnation : a dispen- sation this which is inferior to the dispensation of right- eous mercy. Hence it appears, that those who die in their sins would have brought more glory to God by choosing righteousness and life, than they do by choos- ing death in the error of their ways. But still, this inferior praise, arising from the condemnation and punishment of ungodly free agents this inferior praise, I say, mixed with the superior praise arising . from the justification and rewards of godly free agents, will far exceed the praise which might have accrued to God from the unavoidable obedience and absurd re- wards of necessitated agents of angels and men abso- lutely bound to obey by a necessitating grace, like that which rigid bound-vvillers preach ; were we even to sup- pose that this forcible grace had Calvinistically caught all rational creatures in a net of finished salvation, and had drawn them all to heaven as irresistibly as Simon Pe- ter drew the net to land full of great fishes, a hun- dred and fifty and three. For, before the Lawgiver and Judge of all the earth, the unnecessitated, volun- tary goodness of one angel, or one man, is more excel- lent than the necessary goodness of a world of creatures as unavoidably and passively virtuous as a diamond is unavoidably and passively bright. With respect to the second part of Mr. Toplady's doctrine, that whatever is, is right, because^' it will answer some great end, fyc., in relation to the whole;" it is nothing but logical paint put on a false principle to cover its deformity ; for error can imitate Jezebel, who laid natural paint on her withered face to fill up her hideous wrinkles, and impose on the spectators. I 12 266 BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER. may perhaps prove it by an illustration. I want to de- monstrate that cheating, extortion, litigiousness, break- ing the peace, robberies, and murders are all right ; and I do it by asserting "that they answer some great ends in relation to the whole; for they employ the parliament in making laws to prevent, end, or punish them; they afford business to all the judges, magis- trates, lawyers, sheriffs, constables, jailers, turnkeys, thief-catchers, and executioners in the kingdom: and when robbers and murderers are hanged, they reflect praise upon the government which extirpates them : they strike terror into the wicked ; and their untimely, dreadful end, sets off the happiness of a virtuous course of life, and the bliss which crowns the death of the righteous. Besides, many murderers and robbers have been brought to Christ for pardon and salvation, like the dying thief, who by his robbery had the good luck to meet Christ on the cross: so that his own gallows, as well as our Lord's cross, proved the tree of life to that happy felon." The mischievous absurdity of these pleas for the excellence of wickedness puts me in mind of the arguments by which a greedy publican in my parish once exculpated himself, when I reproved him for encouraging tippling and drunkenness. " The more ale we sell," said he. " the greater is the king's revenue. If it were not for us the king could not live ; nor could he pay the fleet and army : and if we had neither fleet nor army, we should soon fall into the hands of the French." So great are the ends which tippling answers in its relation to the whole British empire, if we may believe a tapster, who pleads for drunkenness as plausibly as some good mistaken men do for all manner of wickedness. BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER. 267 From the whole, if I am not mistaken, we may safely conclude that, though all God's works are right, yet sin, the work of fallen angels and fallen men, is never right ; and that, though the universe, with all its sin- fulness, is better than a sinless world necessitated to be sinless by the destruction of free agents, yet, as there is so much sin in the world, through the wrong use which free agents make of their powers, Mr. T. advances an unscriptural and irrational maxim when he says, that whatever is, is right. And he imposes upon us an Antinomian paradox when he asserts that this dangerous maxim " is a first principle of the Bible and of sound reason." I repeat it : it was right in God to create free agents, to put them under a practicable law, and to determine to punish them according to their works, if they wantonly broke that law ; but it could never be right in free agents to break it, unless God had bound them to do it by making Calvinian decrees necessarily productive of sin and wickedness. And supposing God had forbid free agents to sin by his law, and had necessitated [which is more than to enjoin] them to sin by Calvinian decrees ; we desire Mr. T. to show how it could have been right in God to forbid sin by law, to necessitate men to sin by a decree, and to send them to eternal fire for not keeping a law which he had necessitated them to break. 268 BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER. CHAPTER XX. A MIDDLE WAY BETWEEN CALVINIAN PROVIDENCE AND CHANCE. MR. TOPLADY, after charging Pelagianism on Mr. Wesley, says, " I defy the Pelagian to strike out a middle way between providence and chance." This challenge is too important to be disregarded. There are two opposite errors with respect to provi- dence. The first is that of the Epicurean philosophers, who thought that God does not concern himself about our sins, but leaves us to go on as we please, and as chance directs. The second is that of the rigid pre- destinarians, who imagine that God absolutely predes- tinates sin, and necessarily brings it about to accom- plish his absolute decrees of eternally saving some men through Christ, and eternally damning all the rest of mankind through Adam. Of these two erroneous sen- timents the latter appears to us the worse, seeing it is better to represent God as doing nothing than to repre- sent him as doing wickedness. The truth lies between these two opinions; God's providence is peculiarly concerned about sin, but it does by no means necessa- rily bring it about. By this reasonable doctrine we answer Mr. T.'s challenge, and strike out the middle way between his error and that of Epicurus. If you ask how far God's providence is concerned about sin ? we reply, that it is concerned about it four ways : First, in morally hindering the internal com- mission of it before it is committed ; secondly, in pro- videntially hindering [at times] the external commis- BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER. 269 sion of it, when it has been intentionally committed ; thirdly, in marking, bounding, and overruling it while it is committed ; and fourthly, in bringing about means of properly pardoning or exemplarily punishing it after it has been committed. Dwell we a moment on each of these particulars. 1. Before sin is committed, divine providence is engaged in morally hindering the internal commission of it. In order to this, God does two things : First, he forbids sin by natural, verbal, or written laws ; and secondly, he keeps up our powers of body and soul ; enduing us with liberty, whereby we may abstain, like moral agents, from the commission of sin ; furnishing us besides with a variety of motives and helps to resist every temptation to sin. A great variety this, which includes God's threatenings and promises ; all his ex- hortations and warnings ; all the checks of our con- sciences and the strivings of the Holy Spirit ; all the counsels of good men, and the exemplary punishments of the wicked ; together with the tears and blood of Christ, and other peculiar means of grace, which God has appointed to keep Christians from sin, and to strengthen them in the performance of their duty. 2. When sin is committed in the intention, God frequently prevents the outward commission, or the full completion of it, by peculiar interpositions of his provi- dence. Thus he hindered the men of Sodom from injuring Lot, by striking them with blindness ; he hin- dered Pharaoh from enslaving the Israelites, by drown- ing him in the Red Sea ; he hindered Balaam from cursing Israel, by putting a bridle in his mouth; he hindered Jeroboam from hurting the prophet who came out of Judah, by drying up his royal hand when he 270 BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER. stretched it forth, saying, "Lay hold on him? he hindered Herod from destroying the holy child Jesus, by warning Joseph to flee into Egypt, &c., &c. The Scriptures and the history of the world are full of ac- counts of the ordinary and extraordinary interpositions of divine providence, respecting the detection of intended mischief, and the preservation of persons and states, whom the wicked intended to destroy. And to go no farther than England, the providential discovery of the gunpowder plot is as remarkable an instance as any that God keeps a watchful eye upon the counsels of men, and confounds their devices whenever he pleases. 3. During the commission of sin, God's providence is engaged in marking it, in setting bounds to it, or over- ruling it, in a manner quite contrary to the expectation of sinners. When Joseph's brethren contrived the get- ting money by selling him into Egypt, God contrived the preservation of Jacob's household. Thus, when Haman contrived a gallows to hang Mordecai, the Lord so overruled this cruel design that Haman was hung on that very gallows. Thus, when Satan wanted to de- stroy Job, God set bounds to his rage, and bid the fierce accuser spare the good man's life. That envious fiend did his worst to make the patient saint curse God to his face ; but the Lord so overruled his malice that it worked for good to Job : for when Job's patience had had its perfect work, all his misfortunes ended in double prosperity, and all his tempestuous tossings raised him to a higher degree of perfection. Thus, again, to pre- serve the seed of the righteous, God formerly kept a hundred prophets, and seven hundred true Israelites, from the cruelty of Jezebel ; and for the sake of the sincere Christians in Judea, he shortened the great BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER. 271 tribulation spoken of Matt, xxiv, 22. When the un- godly are most busy in sinning, the providence of God is most employed in counterworking their sin, in put- ting bounds to their desperate designs, and in making a way for the godly to escape out of temptation, that they may be able to bear it : for the rod of the un- godly cometh not [with its full force] into the lot of the righteous, lest the righteous put forth their hand into iniquity ', through such powerful and lasting temptations as would make it impossible for them to , stand firm in the way of duty, Psa. cxxv, 3. 4. When sin is actually committed, the providence of God, in conjunction with his mercy and justice, is employed either in using means to bring sinners to repentance, confession, and pardon, or in inflicting upon them such punishments as seem most proper to divine wisdom. To be convinced of it, read the history of man's redemption by Jesus Christ ; mark the various steps by which providence brings the guilty to convic- tion, the penitent to pardon, the finally impenitent to destruction, and all to some degree of punishment. By what an amazing train of providential dispensations were Joseph's brethren, for instance, brought to remem- ber, lament, and smart for their cruel behaviour to him ! And how did God, by various afflictions, bring his re- bellious people to consider their ways, and to humble themselves before him in the land of tlieir captivity ! Wha; an amazing work had divine providence in checking and punishing the sin of Pharaoh in Egypt, that of the Israelites in the wilderness, that of David and his house in Jerusalem, and that of Nebuchad- nezzar and Belshazzar in Babylon ! Evangelically and providentially opening the way for 272 BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER. the return of sinners, and repaying obdurate offenders to their faces, make one half of God's work, as he is the gracious and righteous Governor of men. We can- not doubt it, if we take notice of the innumerable means by which conversions and punishments are brought about. To touch only upon punishments : some ex- tend to the sea, others to the land ; some spread over particular districts, others over whole kingdoms ; some affect a whole family, and others a whole community ; some affect the soul, and others the body; some fall only upon one limb, or one of the senses, others upon the whole animal frame and all the senses ; some affect our well-being, others our being itself; some are con- fined to this world, and others extend to a future state ; some are of a temporal and others of an eternal nature. Now, since providence, in subservience to divine justice, manages all these punishments and innumerable con- sequences, how mistaken is Mr. T. when he insinuates that our doctrine supposes God to be an idle spectator while sin is committed. 5. With respect to the gracious tempers of the right- eous, we believe that they all flow [though without Calvinian necessity] from the free gift which is come upon all men, and from the light which enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world. And as to their good works, we are so far from excluding divine grace and providence, in order to exalt absolute free will, that we assert, Not one good work would ever be begun, continued, or ended, if divine grace within us, and divine providence without us, did not animate our souls, support our bodies, help our infirmities, and [to use the language of our church] "prevent, accompany, and follow us" through the whole. And yet in all BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER. 273 moral, and in many natural actions, we are as free from the laws of Calvinian necessity as from those of the great mogul. 6. With regard to the families and kingdoms of this world, we assert that God's providence either baffles, controls, or sets bounds to the bad designs of the wicked ; while it has the principal hand in succeeding the good designs of the righteous, as often as they have any success: for, except the Lord keep the city, as well as the watchman, the watchman waketh but in vain. And with respect to the course of nature, we believe that it is ordered by his unerring counsel. With a view to maintain order in the universe, his providen- tial wisdom made admirable laws of attraction, repul- sion, generation, fermentation, vegetation, and dissolu- tion. And his providential power and watchfulness are, though without either labour or anxiety, continually engaged in conducting all things according to those laws ; except when, on proper occasions, he suspends the influence of his own natural decrees ; and then fire may cease to burn, iron to sink in water, and hungry lions to devour their helpless prey. Nay, at the beck of Omnipotence, a widow's cruise of oil and barrel of meal shall be filled without the help of the olive-tree, and the formality of a growing harvest ; a dry rod shall suddenly blossom, and a green fig-tree shall instantly be dried up ; garments in daily use shall not wear out in forty years ; a prophet shall live forty days without food ; the liquid waves shall afford a solid walk to a believing apostle ; a fish shall bring back the piece of money which it had swallowed ; and water shall be turned into wine without the gradual process of vege- tation. 19* 1^ 274 BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER. If Mr. T. do us the justice to weigh these six obser- vations upon the prodigious work which God's provi- dence carries on in the moral, spiritual, and natural world, according to our doctrine, we hope he will no more intimate that we atheistically deny, or heretically defame, that divine attribute. To conclude : we exactly steer our course between rigid free-willers, who suppose they are independent on God's providence, and rigid bound-willers, who fancy they do nothing but what fate or God's provi- dence absolutely binds them to do. We equally detest the error of Epicurus and that of Mr, Toplady. The former taught that God took no notice of sin ; the latter says that God, by efficacious permissions and irre- sistible decrees, absolutely necessitates men to commit it. But we maintain, that although God never abso- lutely necessitated his creatures to sin, yet his provi- dence is remarkably employed about sin in all the above described ways. And if Mr. Toplady will call us defamers of divine providence and Atheists, be- cause we dare not represent God, directly or indirectly, as the author of sin, we rejoice in so honourable a reproach; and humbly trust that this, as well as all manner of similar evil, is rashly said of us for right- eousness 1 sake. *. BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER. 275 CHAPTER XXI. CHRISTIAN PERFECTION. ADVERTISEMENT. THE following extracts are taken from Mr. Fletcher's " Last Check to Antinomianism ; a polemical essay on the twin doctrines of Christian imperfection and death purgatory." The compiler finds it exceedingly difficult to make extracts from this volume agreeably to the plan he has proposed, without doing an injury to the writer ; on account that the whole essay is so excellent, and each part so connected, the whole must be read in order to understand the subject, or duly appreciate the talents of the author. In this selection he has done the best he could, and can only hope that what he has here presented will serve to show the reader that Mr. Fletcher is an admirable writer on this as well as on the fore- going subjects, and induce him to procure and read the essay in its original form. But especially he hopes to furnish the reader with a condensed view of the argu- ments by which the doctrine of holiness is supported, and the practicability of answering the objections which are usually urged against it. He hopes, also, that such will be the force with which the arguments will strike the reader, that he will be induced to see what is his duty and privilege as a Christian, and be excited earnestly to seek for the attainment, in his own per- sonal experience, of all the heights and depths of PERFECT LOVE. T. S. - 276 BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER. SECTION I. THE DOCTRINE OF CHRISTIAN PERFECTION STATED. WHEN a late fellow of Clare Hall, Cambridge, at- tacked the doctrine of sincere obedience which 1 defend in the Checks, he said with great truth, " Sincere obe- dience, as a condition, will lead you unavoidably up to PERFECT obedience" What he urged as an argu- ment against our views of the gospel is one of the reasons by which we defend them, and perhaps the strongest of all : for our doctrine leads as naturally to holiness and perfect obedience, as that of our opponents does to sin and imperfection. If the streams of Mr. Hill's doctrine never stop till they have carried men into a sea of indwelling sin, where he leaves them to struggle with waves of immorality, or with billows of corruption, all the days of their life ; it is evident that our doctrine, which is the very reverse of his, must take us to a sea of indwelling holiness, where we calmly outride all the storms which Satan raised to destrov Job's perfection, and where all our pursuing corrup- tions are as much destroyed as the Egyptians were in the Red Sea. Reader, I plead for the most precious liberty in the world heart liberty ; for liberty from the most galling of all yokes, the yoke of heart corruption. Let not thy prejudice turn a deaf ear to the important plea. If thou candidly, believingly, and practically receive the truth as it is in Jesus, it shall make thec free, and thou shall be free indeed. Most of the controversies which arise between men who fear God spring from the hurry with which some BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER. 277 men find fault with what they have not yet examined. Why does Mr. Hill, at the head of the Calvinists, attack the doctrine of Christian perfection which we contend for? Is it because he and they are sworn enemies to righteousness, and zealous protectors of iniquity ? Not at all. The grand reason, next to their Calvinian prejudices, is their inattention to the question, and to the arguments by which our sentiments are supported. If producing light is the best method of opposing darkness, setting the doctrine of CKristian perfection in a proper point of view will be the best means of opposing the doctrines of Christian imper- fection and of a death purgatory. Christian perfection! Why should the harmless phrase offend us? The word perfection comes from the Latin perficio, to perfect, to finish, to accomplish. We give the name Christian perfection to that ma- turity of grace and holiness which established adult believers attain to under the Christian dispensation ; and thus we distinguish that maturity of grace both from the ripeness of grace which belongs to the Jews below us, and from the ripeness of glory which belongs to departed saints above us. Hence it appears, that by Christian perfection we mean nothing but the cluster and maturity of the graces which compose the Christian church militant. In other words, Christian perfection is a spiritual constellation made up of these gracious stars, perfect repentance, perfect faith, perfect humility, perfect meekness, 1 perfect self-denial, perfect resignation, perfect hope, perfect charity for our visible enemies as well as for our earthly relations ; and, above all, perfect love for our invisible God, through the explicit 278 BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER. knowledge of pur Mediator, Jesus Christ. And as the last star is always accompanied by all the others, as Jupiter is by his satellites, we frequently use, as St. John, the phrase perfect love instead of the word per- fection, understanding by it the pure love of God shed abroad in the hearts of established believers. SECTION II. IS CHRISTIAN PERFECTION A SINLESS PERFECTION ? SHOULD Mr. Hill ask if the Christian perfection which we contend for is a sinless perfection, we reply, Sin is the transgression of a divine law, and man may be considered either as being under the anti- evangelical, Christless, remediless law of our Crea- tor, or as being under the evangelical, mediatorial, remedying law of our Redeemer ; and the question must be answered according to the nature of these two laws. With respect to the first, that is, the Adamic, Christ- less law of innocence and paradisiacal perfection, we utterly renounce the doctrine of sinless perfection, for three reasons : 1. We are conceived and born in a state of sinful degeneracy, whereby that law is already virtually broken ; 2. Our mental and bodily powers are so enfeebled that we cannot help actually breaking that law in numberless instances, even after our full con- version ; and, 3. When once we have broken that law, it considers us as transgressors for ever : nor can it any more pronounce us sinless than the rigorous law which condemns a man to be hanged for murder can absolve BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER. 279 a murderer, let his repentance and faith be ever so perfect. But Christ has so completely fulfilled our Creator's paradisiacal law of innocence, that we shall not be judged by that law, but by a law adapted to our pre- sent state and circumstances a milder law, called the law of Christ, i. e., the Mediator's law, which is, like himself, full of evangelical grace and truth. We are, therefore, not without law to God, nor yet under a Christless law with Adam, but under a law to Christ, that is, under the law of our royal Priest, the evangeli- cal law of liberty. A more gracious law this, which allows a sincere repentance, and is fulfilled by loving faith. Now, as we shall be judged by this law of liberty, we maintain not only that it may, but also that it must, be kept ; and that it is actually kept by established Christians, according to the last and fullest edition of it, which is that of the New Testament. Nor do we think it " shocking 1 " to hear an adult be- liever say, The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me. free from the law of sin and death. For what the law [of innocence, or the Mosaic law] could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending his own Son, condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be [evangelically] fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. It is this view of the law under which we are placed that St. James takes when he says, So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty, James ii, 12. Now, as a reasonable father never requires of his child who is only ten years old the works of one who is thirty years of age, so our 280 BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER. heavenly Father never expects of us, in our debilitated state, the obedience of immortal Adam in paradise, or the uninterrupted worship of sleepless angels in heaven. We are persuaded, therefore, that for Christ's sake he is pleased with an humble obedience to our present light, and a loving exertion of our present powers; accepting our gospel services according to what we have, and not according- to what we have not. Nor dare we call that loving exertion of our present power sin, lest by so doing we should contradict the Scrip- tures, confound sin and obedience, and remove all the landmarks which divide the devil's common from the Lord's vineyard. Although adult, established believers, or perfect Christians, may admit of many involuntary mistakes, errors, and faults, and of many involuntary improprie- ties of speech and behaviour ; yet, so long as their will is bent on doing God's will so long as they walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit so long as they fulfil the law of liberty by pure love, they do not sin according to the gospel : because (evangelically speak- ing) sin is the transgression, and love is the fulfilling' of the law. Far, then, from thinking that there is the least absurdity in saying daily. Vouchsafe to keep me this day without sin, we doubt not but in the believers who walk in the light as Christ is in the light, that deep petition is answered ; the righteousness of the law, which they are under, is fulfilled ; and, of consequence, an evangelically sinless perfection is daily experienced. I say evangelically sinless, because, without the word evangelically, the phrase sinless perfection gives occa- sion for cavilling to those who seek it, as Mr. Wesley intimates in the following quotation, which is taken BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER. 281 from his Plain Account of Christian Perfection: " 1. Not only sin, properly so called, that is, a volun- tary transgression of a known law, but sin, improperly so called, that is, an involuntary transgression of a divine law, known or unknown, needs the atoning blood. 2. I believe there is no such perfection in this life as excludes these involuntary transgressions, which I apprehend to be consequent on the ignorance and mistakes inseparable from mortality. 3. Therefore, sinless perfection is a phrase I never use, lest I should seem to contradict myself. 4. I believe a person filled with the love of God is still liable to these involuntary transgressions. 5. Such transgressions you may call sins, if you please : I do not." SECTION III. SEVERAL PLAUSIBLE OBJECTIONS TO CHRISTIAN PERFEC- TION ANSWERED. "!T will supersede the use of mortification and watchfulness ; for if sin be dead, what need have we to mortify it and watch against it ?" This objection has some plausibility ; I shall there- fore answer it various ways. 1. If Adam, in his state of paradisiacal perfection, needed perfect watchfulness and perfect mortification, how much more do we need them, who find the tree of knowledge of good and evil planted, not only in the midst of our gardens, but in the midst of our houses, markets, and churches? 2. When we are delivered from sin, are we delivered from peccability and temptation ? When the inward man of sin is dead, is the devil dead? Is the cor- 282 BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER. ruption that is in the world destroyed ? And have \ve not still our five senses, and our appetites, to keep with all diligence, as well as our hearts, that the tempter may not enter into us, or that we may not enter into his temptations ? Lastly, Jesus Christ, as son of Mary, was a perfect man. But how was he kept so to the end 1 Was it not by keeping his mouth with a bridle while the ungodly were in his sight, and by guarding all his senses with perfect assiduity, that the wicked one might not touch them to his hurt ? And if Christ, our head, kept his human perfection only through watchfulness and constant self-denial, is it not absurd to suppose that his perfect members can keep their perfection without treading in his steps ? " Your doctrine of perfection makes it needless for perfect Christians to say the Lord's prayer, 'Forgive us our trespasses.' " We answer, 1. Though a perfect Christian does not trespass voluntarily, and break the law of love, yet he daily breaks the law of Adamic perfection, through the imperfection of his bodily and mental powers : and he has frequently a deeper sense of these involuntary tres- passes than many weak believers have of their volun- tary breaches of the moral law. 2. Although a perfect Christian has a witness that his sins are now forgiven in the court of his conscience, yet he knows the terrors of the Lord : he hastens to meet the awful day of God : he waits for the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ in the character of a righteous Judge: he keeps an eye to the awful tribunal before which he must soon be justified or condemned by his words: he is conscious that his final justification is not yet come : and there- fore he would think himself a monster of stupidity and BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER. 283 pride, if, with an eye to his absolution in the great day, he scrupled saying, to the end of his life, " Forgive us our trespasses." 3. He is surrounded with sinners who daily trespass against him, and whom he is daily bound to forgive; and his praying that he may be for- given now, and in the great day, as he forgave others, reminds him that he may forfeit his pardon, and binds him more to the performance of the important duty of forgiving his enemies. And, 4. His charity is so ardent that it melts him, as it were, into the common mass of mankind. Bowing himself, therefore, under the enor- mous load of all the wilful trespasses which his fellow- mortals, and particularly his relatives and his brethren, daily commit against God, he says, with a fervour that imperfect Christians seldom feel, " Forgive us our tres- passes" &c. We are heartily sorry for our misdo- ings : [my own and those of my fellow sinners :] the remembrance of them is grievous unto us : the burden of them is intolerable. Nor do we doubt but when the spirit of mourning leads a numerous assembly into the vale of humiliation, the person who puts the shoul- der of faith most readily to the common burden of sin, and heaves the most powerfully in order to roll the enormous load into the Redeemer's grave, is the most perfect penitent the most exact observer of the apos- tolic precept. Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ; and, of consequence, we do not scruple to say, that such a person is the most perfect Christian in the whole assembly. "Your account of Christian perfection represents adult believers as free from sin : now sin is that which humbles us, and drives us to Christ, and therefore if we 284 BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER. were free from indwelling sin, we should lose a most powerful incentive to humility." We answer : Sin never humbled any soul. Who has more sin than Satan ? And who is prouder ? Did sin make our first parents humble? If it did not, how do our brethren suppose that its nature is altered for the better ? Who was humbler than Christ ? But was he indebted to sin for his humility? Do we not see daily, that the more sinful men are, the prouder they are also ? If sin be necessary to make us humble, and to keep us near Christ,, does it not follow that glorified saints, whom all acknowledge to be sinless, are all proud despisers of Christ ? See we not sin enough, when we look ten or twenty years back, to humble us to the dust for ever, if sin can do it 1 Need we plead for any more of it in our hearts and lives? If the sins of our youth do not humble us, are the sins of our old age likely to do it? Lastly, what is indwelling sin but indwelling pride? At least, is not inbred pride one of the chief ingredients of indwelling sin ? And how can pride be productive of humility ? Can a serpent beget a dove ? And will not men gather grapes from thorns sooner than hu- mility of heart from naughtiness of spirit? SECTION IV. THE ABSURDITY OF SAYING THAT ALL OUR CHRISTIAN PERFECTION IS IN THE PERSON OF CHRIST. IF by being perfect only in Christ be meant that we can attain to Christian perfection no other way than by being perfectly grafted in him : the true vine, and by deriving, like vigorous branches, the perfect sap of his BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER. 285 perfect righteousness to enable us to bring forth fruit unto perfection, we are entirely agreed : for we perpetu- ally assert, that nothing but Christ dwelling in our hearts by faith, or, which is all one, nothing but the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus can make us free from the law of sin^ and perfect us in love. But as we never advanced that Christian perfection is at- tainable any other way than by a faith that roots and grounds us in Christ ; we doubt some mystery of ini- quity lies hid under the equivocal phrases, " All our per- fection is in Christ's person We are perfect in him, and not in ourselves." Should those who use them insinuate by such lan- guage that we cannot be perfect by an inherent per- sonal conformity to God's holiness, because Christ is thus perfect for us ; or should they mean that we are perfect in him just as country freeholders, entirely strangers to state affairs, are perfect politicians in the knights of the shire who represent them in parliament ; as the sick in a hospital are perfectly healthy in the physician that gives them his attendance ; as the blind man enjoyed perfect sight in Christ when he saw walking men like moving trees ; as the filthy leper was perfectly clean in our Lord before he had felt the power of his gracious words, / will, be thou clean; or as hungry Lazarus was perfectly fed in the person of the rich man at whose gate he lay starving should this, I say, be their meaning, we are conscience-bound to oppose it, for the reasons contained in the following queries : 1. If believers are perfect because Christ is perfect for them, why does the apostle exhort them to go on to perfection ? 286 BEAUTIES OP FLETCHER. 2. If all our perfection be inherent in Christ, is it not strange that St. Paul should exhort us to perfect holi- ness in the fear of the Lord, by cleansing ourselves of all filthiness of flesh and spirit 1 Did not Christ perfect his own holiness ? And will his personal sanc- tity be imperfect till we have cleaned ourselves from all defilement ? 3. If Christ be perfect for us, why does St. James say, Let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect? Is Christ's perfection suspended on the perfect work of our patience 1 4. Upon the scheme which I oppose, what does St. Peter mean when he says, After ye have suffered a while, the Lord make you perfect ? What has our suffering a while to do with Christ's perfection ? Was not Christ made perfect through his own suffering 1 5. If believers were perfect in Christ's person, they would all be equally perfect. But is this the case? Does not St. John talk of some who were perfected, and others who are not yet made perfect in love? Besides, the apostle exhorts to be perfect, not in Anti- nomian notions, but in all the will of God, and in every good work; and common sense dictates that there is some difference between our good works and the person of Christ. 6. Does not our Lord himself show, that his per- sonal righteousness will by no means be accepted in- stead of our perfection, where he says, "Every branch in me that beareth not fruit [or whose fruit never grows to any perfection, see Luke viii, 14] my Father taketh it away," far from imputing it to his perfect fruit- fulness ? 7. In the nature of things, can Christ's perfection BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER. 287 supply the want of that perfection which he calls us to ? Is there not a more essential difference between Christ's perfection and that of a believer, than there is between the perfection of a rose and that of the grass of the field ? between the perfection of a soaring eagle and that of a creeping insect ? If our Lord is the head of the church, and we the members, is it not absurd to suppose that his perfection becomes us in every respect ? Were I allowed to carry on a Scriptural metaphor, I would ask, Is not the perfection of the head very dif- ferent from that of the hand? And do we not take advantage of the credulity of the simple when we make them believe that an impenitent adulterer and murderer is perfect in Christ ; or, if you please, that a crooked leg and cloven foot are perfectly handsome, if they do but somehow belong to a beautiful face ? 8. Let us illustrate this a little more. Does not the Redeemer's personal perfection consist in being God and man in one person ; in his being eternally begot- ten by the Father as the Son of God, and unbegotten in time by a father, as the son of man ; in having given his life a ransom for all ; in his having taken it up again ; and his standing in the midst of the throne, able to save to the uttermost all that come unto God through him ? Consider this, candid believer, and say if any man or angel can decently hope that such an incommunicable perfection can ever fall to his share. 9. As the Redeemer's personal perfection cannot suit the redeemed, no more can the personal perfection of the redeemed fee found in the Redeemer. A believer's perfection consists in such a degree of faith as works by perfect love. And does not this high degree of faith chiefly imply uninterrupted self-diffidence, self-denial, 288 BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER. self-despair ? a heartfelt, ceaseless recourse to the blood, merits, and righteousness of Christ? and a grate- ful love to him, because he first loved us, and fervent charity to all mankind for his sake? Three things these which, in the very nature of things, either cannot be in the Saviour at all, or cannot possibly be in him in the same manner in which they must be in believers. 10. Is not the doctrine of our being perfect in Christ's person big with mischief? Does it not open a refuge of lies to the loosest ranters in the land ? Are there none who say, We are perfect in Christ's person ? In him we have perfect chastity and honesty, perfect temperance and meekness; and we should be guilty of Pharisaic insolence if we patched his perfection with filthy rags of our personal holiness? And has not this doctrine a direct tendency to set godliness aside, and to countenance gross Antinomianism ? Lastly. When our Lord preached the doctrine of per- fection, did he not do it in such a manner as to demon- strate that our perfection must be personal? Did he ever say, If thou wilt be perfect, only believe that I am perfect for thee ? On the contrary, did he not declare, If thou wilt be perfect, sell what thou hast, [part with all that stands in thy way,] and follow me in the way of perfection ? and again, Do good to them that hate you, that ye may be the children of your Father who is in heaven : Be ye perfect, even as your Father who is in heaven is perfect ? Who can read these words and not see that the perfection which Christ preached is a perfection of holy dispositions, productive of holy actions in all his followers ? and that, of consequence, it is a personal perfection, as much inherent in us, and yet as much derived from him, and dependant on him, BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER. 289 as the perfection of our bodily health ? the chief differ- ence consisting in this, that the perfection of our health comes to us from God in Christ, as the God of nature; whereas our Christian perfection conies to us from God in Christ, as the God of grace. CHAPTER XXII. OBJECTIONS TO THE DOCTRINE OF CHRISTIAN PER- FECTION, TAKEN FROM CERTAIN PASSAGES OF HOLY SCRIPTURE, ANSWERED. SECTION I. EXPOSITION OF 1 KINGS VIII, 46 : " IF THEY SIN AGAINST THEE, (FOR THERE IS NO MAN THAT SINNETH NOT.) AND THOU BE ANGRY WITH THEM," &C. No unprejudiced person who, in reading this pas- sage, takes the parenthesis (" for there is no man that sinneth not") in connection with the context, can, I think, help seeing that the Rev. Mr. Toplady. who, if I remember right, quotes this text against us, mistakes Solomon as much as Mr. Hill does St. John. The meaning is evidently, there is no man who is not liable to sin, and that a man actually sins when he actually departs from God. Now peccability, or a lia- bleness to sin, is not indwelling sin for angels, Adam, and Eve, were all liable to sin, in their sinless stale. And that there are some men who do not actually sin, is indubitable: 1. From the hypothetical phrase in the context, if any man sin, which shows that their sinning is not unavoidable. 2 From God's anger against those that sin, which is immediately mentioned. Hence 13 $90 BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER. it appears that so certain as God is not angry with all his people, some of them do not sin in the sense of the wise man. And, 3. From Solomon's intimating that these very men who have sinned, or have actually de- parted from God, may bethink themselves, repent, and turn to God with all their heart, and with all their soul, that is, may attain the dispensation ; the two poles not being more opposed to each other than sinning is to repenting, and departing from God to returning to him with all our heart and with all our soul. Take, therefore, the whole passage together, and you have a demonstration that where sin hath abounded, there grace may much more abound. And what is it but a demonstration that our doctrine is not chimerical ? For if Jews, [Solomon himself being judge,] instead of sin- ning and departing from God, can repent and turn to him with all their heart, how much more Christians, whose privileges are much greater! If Mr. Hill will consult the original of this passage, " There is no man, &c.," he will find that the word translated sinneth is in the future tense, which is often used for an indefinite tense in the potential mood, be- cause the Hebrews have no such mood or tense ; there- fore our translators would only have done justice to the original, as well as to the context, if they had rendered the whole clause, There is no man that may not sin. instead of, There is no man that sinneth not. BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER. 291 SECTION II. EXPOSITION OF ECCLES. VII, 20 I " THERE IS NOT A JUST MAN UPON EARTH THAT DOES GOOD AND SINNETH NOT." 1. WE are not sure that these are to be regarded as the words of Solomon ; for he may introduce here the very same man who, four verses before, says, Be not righteous overmuch, &c. ; and Mr. Toplady may mistake the meaning in one text, as Dr. Trapp has done in the other. But, 2. Supposing Solomon speaks, may not he in general assert what St. Paul does, Rom. iii, 23, All have sinned and come short of the glory of God, the just not excepted ? Is not this the very sense which Canne, Calvinist as he was, gives to the wise man's words when he refers the reader to this assertion of the apostle ? And did we ever speak against this true doctrine ? 3. If you take the original word s-in in the lowest sense which it bears ; if it mean here what it does Judges xx, 16, namely, to miss a mark, we shall not differ ; for we maintain that, according to the standard of paradisiacal perfection, there is not a just man upon earth that does good and misses not the mark of that perfection, that is, that does not lessen the good he does by some involuntary, and therefore (evan- gelically speaking) sinless defect. 4. It is bold to pre- tend to overthrow the glorious liberty of God's children, which is asserted in a hundred plain passages of the New Testament, by producing so vague a text as Eccles. vii, 20. 292 BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER. SECTION EQ. THE TRUE MEANING OF GAL. V, 17 : " THE FLESH LUSTETH AGAINST THE SPIRIT, AND THE SPIRIT AGAINST THE FLESH, SO THAT YE CANNOT DO THE THINGS THAT YE WOULD." 1. ST. PAUL wrote these words to the carnal, fallen Galatians. To them he said, So that ye cannot do the things that ye would : and there was good reason why they could not do what they had a weak desire to do. They were bewitched by the flesh, and by car- nal teachers, who led them from the power of the Spirit to the weakness of the letter; yea, to the letter of Judaism too. But did he not speak of himself to the Philippians in a very different strain? Did he riot declare, I can do all things through Christ who strengthened me? And cannot every believer who steadily walks in the Spirit say the same thing ? Who does not see the flaw of this argument 1 The disobe- dient, fallen, bewitched believers of Galatia, of whom St. Paul stood in doubt, could not but fulfil the lusts of the flesh, when they were led by the flesh : neither hot nor cold, like the Laodiceans, they could neither be perfect Christians nor perfect worldlings, because they fully sided neither with the Spirit nor with the flesh ; or, to use the apostle's words, they could not do the things that they would, through the opposition which the flesh made against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh ; neither of these principles being yet fully victorious in their halting, distracted hearts: therefore this must be also the miserable case of all obedient, BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER. 293 faithful, established believers through all ages, all the world over ! What has this Antinomian conclusion to do with the Scriptural premises ? When I assert that those who have put out their knees cannot run a race swiftly, do I so much as intimate that no man can be a swift racer ? The sense which is affixed to this text by our oppo- nents is entirely overturned by the context. Read the preceding verse, and you will find a glorious though conditional promise of the liberty which we plead for : This I say, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the [sinful] lusts ofthejlesh; that is, far from harbouring either outward or inward sin, ye shall, with myself, and as many as are perfect, steadily keep your body under, and be in every thing spiritually minded, which is life and peace. 2. It appears that the genuine meaning of Gal. v, 17, when considered in the light of the context, is fairly expressed in the following lines : " The flesh and the Spirit are two contrary principles. They that are in, or walk after, thefiesh, cannot please God. And ye are undoubtedly in the flesh, and walk after the flesh, while ye bite and devour one another. This I say, then, Walk in the Spirit ; be led by the Spirit ; and ye shall not fulfil the lusts ofthejlesh, as ye now do. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and prevails in all carnal people ; and the Spirit lusteth against the flesh in all spiritual people ; and these two, far from nestling together, as Antinomian teachers make you believe, are contrary to each other. They are irreconcilable enemies; so that, as obedient, spiritual believers, while they are led by the Spirit, cannot do what they would do if they were led by the flesh, ye 294 BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER. bewitched, carnal, disobedient Galatians, who are led by the flesh, cannot do what ye would do if ye were led by the Spirit, and what ye have still some desire to do, so far as ye have not yet absolutely quenched the Spirit. Would ye then return to your liberty ? Return to your duty ; change your guide ; forsake the carnal mind ; let Christ be formed in you ; be led by the Spirit ; so shall ye fulfil the law of Christ, and it shall no more condemn you. For if ye be led by the /Spirit, ye are not under the curse of the law : ye are equally free from the bondage of the Mosaic law and from the condemnation of the law of Christ," Gal. v, 16, 17, 18. 3. If I am not greatly mistaken, the preceding re- marks prove, 1. That when our opponents pretend to demonstrate the necessary indwelling of sin in all be- lievers from Gal. v, 17, they wretchedly tear that text from the context, to make it speak a language which St. Paul abhors. 2. That the text, fairly taken toge- ther with the context, and the design of the whole epistle, is a proof that obedient, spiritual believers can do what the bewitched Galatians could not do. SECTION IV. ST. PAUL, WHILE AN APOSTLE, WAS NOT CARNAL AND SOLD UNDER SIN. TRUE MEANING OF ROM. VII, 14. 1. ST. PAUL no more professes himself actually a carnal man in Rom. vii, 14, than he professes himself actually a liar in Rom. iii, 7, where he says. But if the truth of God has more abounded through my lie, BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER. 295 why am T yet judged as a sinner? He no more pro- fesses himself a man actually sold under sin, than St. James and his fellow-believers profess themselves a generation of vipers, and actual cursors of men, when the one wrote, and the others read, The tongue can no man tame: it is full of deadly poison : therewith curse we men. 2. When St. Paul reproves the partiality of some of the Corinthians to this or that preacher, he introduces Apollos and himself; though it seems that his reproof was chiefly intended for other preachers, who fomented a party spirit in the corrupted church at Corinth. And then he says, These things, brethren, I have in a figure transferred to myself and Apollos, for your sakes ; that ye might learn in us not to think of men above that which is written. By the same figure he says of himself, what he might have said of any other man, or of all mankind, Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass. Thrice in three verses he speaks of his not having charity : and suppose he had done it three hundred times, this would no more have proved that he was really uncharitable, than his saying, Rom. vii, 14, / am sold under sin, proves that he served the law of sin with his body, as a slave is forced to serve the master who bought him. 3. It frequently happens also, that by a figure of rhetoric, which is called hypotyj)osis, writers relate things past or things to come in the present tense, that their narration may be more lively, and may make a stronger impression. Thus, Gen. vi, 17, we read, Be- hold, I, even I, DO bring [that is, I will bring, one hundred and twenty years -hence] a flood upon the 296 BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER. earth. Thus also 2 Sam. xxii, 1, 35, 48, When the Lord had delivered David out of the hands of his ene- mies, and had given him peace in all his borders, he spake the words of this song : He teacheth [i. e., he taught] my hands to war, so that a bow of steel is [i. e., was] broken by mine arms. It is God that avengeth [i. e., that hath avenged] me, and that bringeth [i. e., hath brought] me forth from mine enemies. A thousand such expressions, or this figure continued through a thousand verses, would never prove that King Saul was alive, and that King David was not yet delivered for good out of his bloody hands. Now, if St. Paul, by a similar figure, which he carries through- out part of a chapter, relates his past experience in the present tense ; if the Christian apostle, to humble him- self, and to make his description more lively, and the opposition between the bondage of sin and Christian liberty more striking ; if the apostle, I say, with such a design as this, appears upon the stage of instruction in his old Jewish dress, a dress this in which he could serve God day and night, and yet, like another Ahab, breathe threatenings and slaughter against God's chil- dren ; and if in this dress he says, / am carnal, sold under sin, &c. ; is it not ridiculous to measure his growth as an apostle of Christ by the standard of his stature when he was a Jewish bigot, a fiery zealot, full of good meanings and bad performances ? 4. The states of all souls may, in general, be reduced to three : 1. The state of unawakened sinners, who quietly sleep in the chains of their sins, and dream of self-righteousness and heaven ; 2. That of awakened, uneasy, reluctant sinners, who try in vain to break the galling chains of their sins ; and 3. That of delivered BEAUTIES OF FLETCHER. 297 sinners, or victorious believers, who enjoy the liberty of God's children. This last state is described in Rom. vii, 4, 6. The rest of that chapter is judiciously brought in, to show how the unawakened sinner is roused out of his carnal state, and how the awakened sinner is driven to Christ for liberty by the lashing and binding commandment. The apostle shows this by observing [ver. 7, &c.] how the law makes a sinner [or, if you please, made him] pass from the unawakened to the awakened state. I had not known sin, says he, but by the law, &c. 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