burneth with fire and brimstone;' for as with the heart man believeth unto righteonsness,' or disbelieveth to unrighteousness, so with the mouth confession is made to salvation,' or 'hard speeches' are uttered to 'damnation.' Reserve, therefore, Rev. Sir, your public praises for a more proper occasion than that which cansed their breaking out in your Narrative. "Blessed be God!" say you, (page 16,) "Mr. Wesley and fifty-three of his "preachers do not agree with Mr. Olivers in the "material article of a second justification by works." Indeed, Sir, you are greatly mistaken, for we do agree with him; and shall continue so to do, till you have proved he does not agree with Jesus Christ, or that our doctrine is not perfectly consistent both with the scriptures and the Declaration.

2. Your second objection is not so formal as the first; it must be made up of broad hints, scattered through your Narrative, and they amount to this, "Your pre"tended difference between justification by the merit of

works, by the evidence of works, and between a first "and a second justification, is founded upon the sub"tilties of metaphysical distinctions: If what you say "wears the aspect of truth, it is because you give a new "turn to error, by the almost magical power of meta66 physical distinctions." (Pages 16, 20, 21.)

Give me leave, Sir, to answer this objection by two appeals, one to the most ignorant collier in my parish, and the other to your own sensible child; and if they can at once understand my meaning, yon will see that my 'metaphysical distinctious," as you are pleased to call them, are nothing but the dictates of common sense. I begin with the collier.

Thomas, I stand here before the judge, accused of having robbed the Rev. Mr. Shirley, near Bath, last month, on such an evening; can you speak a word for me? Thomas turns to the judge, and says, "Please your honour, the accusation is false, for our parson 66 was in Madeley wood; and 1 can make oath of it, "for he even reproved me for swearing at our pit's "mouth that very evening." By his evidence, the

judge acquits me. Now, Sir, ask cursing Tom, whether I am acquitted and justified, by his merits, or by the simple evidence he has given, and he will tell you," Ay, to be sure by the evidence; though I am no scholar, I know very well that if our Methodist parson is not hanged, it is none of my deservings." Thus, Sir, an ignorant collier, as great a stranger to your metaphysics as you are to his mandrell, discovers at once a material difference between justification by the evidence, and justification by the merits, of a witness.

My second Appeal is to your sensible child. By a plain comparison I hope to make him at once understand, both the difference there is between our first and second justification, and the propriety of that difference. The lovely boy is old enough, I suppose, to follow the gardener and me to yonder nursery. Having shown him the operation of grafting, and pointing at the crabtree newly grafted, "My dear child," would I say, "though hitherto this tree has produced nothing but crabs, yet by the skill of the gardener, who has just fixed in it that good little branch, it is now made an apple-tree: I justify and warrant it such. (Here is an emblem of our first justification by faith!) In three or four years, if we live, we will come again and see it : if it thrives and bears fruit,' well; we shall then by that mark justify it a second time, we shall declare that it is a good apple-tree indeed, and fit to be transplanted from this wild nursery into a delightful orchard. But if we find that the old crab-stock, instead of nourishing the graft, spends all its sap in producing wild shoots and sour crabs; or if it is a tree whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, (dead in the graft and in the stock,) plucked up by the root,' or quite cankered, far from declaring it a good tree,' we shall pass sentence of condemnation upon it, and say, Cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground? For every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire.' Here is an emblem of our second justification by works, or of the condemnation that will infallibly overtake those Laodicean professors and wretched apostates,

whose faith is not shown by works, where there is time and opportunity.

Instead of offering an insult to your superior understanding, in attempting to explain by "metaphysical distinctions," what I suppose your sensible child has already understood by the help of a grafting-knife, I shall leave you to consider whether Scripture, Reason, and Candour, do not join their influence to make you acknowledge, at least in the court of your own conscience, that you have put a wrong construction upon Mr. W.'s Declaration as upon his Minutes, and by that mean inadvertently given another rash touch to the ark of practical religion, and to the character of one of the greatest ministers in the world.

I am, with due respect, Hon. and Rev. Sir,

Your obedient Servant, in the bond of

the practical Gospel of Christ,

THE VINDICATOR.

LETTER II.

HONOURED AND REVEREND SIR,

HAVING endeavoured in my last to do justice to the practical gospel of Christ, and Mr. W.'s awful Declaration; I pass on to the other mistakes of your Narrative. That which strikes me next is-"The public recantation of your useful sermons, in the face of the whole world." (Page 22.)

Wilt

1. Oh! Sir, what have you done! Do you not know that your Sermons contain not only the legally evangelical doctrine of the Minutes, but likewise all the doctrine which moderate Calvinists esteem as the marrow of the gospel? And shall all be treated alike? thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked? That be far from thee to do after this manner! Thus did a good man formerly plead the cause of a wicked city, and thus I plead that of your good sermons, those twelve

valuable, though unripe fruits of your ministerial labours. Upon this plea the infamous city would bave been spared, had only ten' good men been found in it. Now, Sir, spare a valuable book for the sake of a "thousand" excellent things it contains. But if you are inflexible, and still wish it "burned," imitate at least the kind angels who sent Lot out of the fiery overthrow, aud except all the evangelical pages of the unfortunate volume.

Were it not ridiculous to compare wars which cost us only a little ink, and our friends a few pence, to those which cost armies their blood, and kiugdoms their treasures, I would be tempted to say to you, Imitate the Dutch in their last effort to balance the victory, and secure the field. When they are pressed by the French, rather than yield, they break their dykes, let in the sea upon themselves, and lay all their fine gardens and rich pastures under water: But before they have recourse to that strange expedient, they prudently save all the valuable goods they can. Why should you not follow them in their prudential care, as you seem to do in their bold stratagem? When you publicly lay your useful book under the bitter waters of an anathema, why do you save absolutely nothing? Why must gospel truths, more precious than the wealth of Holland and the gold of Ophir, lie for ever under the severe scourge of your recantation? Suppose you had “recanted” your Third Sermon, The way to eternal life, in opposition to Mysticism; and "burned" the Fourth, Salvation by Christ for Jews and Gentiles, in honour of Calvinism, could you not have spared the rest?

If you say, you may do what you please with your own; I answer, Your book publicly exposed to sale, and bought perhaps by thousands, is, in one sense, no more your own; it belongs to the purchasers, before whom you lay, I fear, a dangerous example: For when they shall hear that the author has " publicly recanted it in the face of the whole world," it will be a temptation to them to slight the gospel it contains, and perhaps to ridicule it "in the face of the whole world.”

You add, “It savours too strongly of Mysticism.” Some passages are a little tainted with Mr. Law's capital error, and you might have pointed them out; but if you think Mysticism is intrinsically bad, you are under a mistake. One of the greatest Mystics, next to Solomon, is Thomas a Kempis, and, a few errors excepted, I would no more burn his "Imitation of Jesus Christ," than the Song of Solomon, and Mr. Romaine's edifying “ Paraphrase of the 107th Psalm."

You urge also, your Sermons savour too much of free-will." Alas! Sir, can you recant "free-will?" Was not your will as free when you recanted your Sermons as when you composed them? Is there not as much free-will expressed in this one line of the gospel as in all your sermons, I would have gathered you, and ye would not?' Do not free-will offerings, with an holy worship,' delight the Lord more than forced, and, if I may be allowed the expression, bound-will services? Is not the free-will with which the martyrs went to the stake, as worthy of our highest admiration, as the Mysticism of the Canticles is of our deepest attention? If all that strongly "savours of free-will" must be "burned," ye heavens! what Smithfield work will there be in your lucid plains! Woe to saints ! Woe to angels! for they are all free-willing beingsall full of free-will: Nor can you deny it, unless you suppose they are bound by irresistible decrees, as the Heathens fancied their deities were hampered with the adamantine chains of an imaginary something they called "fate;" witness their Fata vetant, and Fata jubent, and ineluctabile Fatum.

Pardon, Rev. Sir, the oddity of these exclamations. I am so grieved at the great advantage we give infidels against the gospel, by making it ridiculous, that I could try even the method of Horace, to bring my friends back from the fashionable refinements of Crisp, to the plain truth as it is in Jesus.

Ridiculum acri

Fortius ac melius stultas plerumque secat res.