ther; but raw, or fodden with water out of their own broken cifterns: If you present him to them as the type of the Lamb of God that taketh away the fin of the world, and maketh an end of it; their hearts heave, they fay, Pray have me excufed from thus feeding upon him; and though it is faid, Ye fhall let nothing of it remain until the morning, you shall eat it in hafe, they poftpone, they beg leave to keep it till the article of death: And if in the mean time you talk to them of bitter herbs, they marvel at your Jewish legal tafte, and complain that you fpoil the gospel feast.

They do not confider we must give every one his portion of meat, or proper medicine in due season; and that sweet things are not always wholefome. They forget we must leave all antinomian refinements to follow Chrift, who fometimes fays to decent pharifees, How can you escape the damnation of hell! And to a beloved difciple that fhuns the crofs, Satan! thou favoureft not the things of God, but the things of men. They will have nothing but the atonement. Nor do they chufe to remember that St. Paul, who did not shun to declare the whole counfel of God, preached Chrift to Felix by reafoning of temperance, righteousness, and judgment to come.

Hence it is that fome preachers muft chufe comfortable fubjects to please their hearers; juft as those who make an entertainment for nice perfons, are obliged to study what will fuit their difficult tafle. A multitude of important fcriptures can be produced, on which no minifter, who is unwilling to lofe his reputation as an evangelical preacher, must dare to speak in fome pulpits, unless it is to explain away or enervate their meaning. Take fome inftances.

The good old Calvinifts (Archbishop Leighton for one) queftioned whether a man was truly converted who did not fincerely go on to perfection, and heartily endeavour to perfect holiness in the fear of God: but now if we only quote fuch paffages with an emphafis, and inforce their meaning with fome degree

́degree of earnestness, the truth of our conversion is fufpected: We even pafs for enemies to Chrift's righteoufnefs.

If we have courage to handle fuch fcriptures as thefe, To do good and to diftribute forget not, for with fuch facrifices God is well pleafed.-Shew me thy faith by thy works.-Was not Rahab juftified by works? By works was Abraham's faith made perfect, &c. The bare giving out of our text prejudices our Antinomian hearers against us, and robs us of their candid attention; unless they expect a Charity-Sermon: For on fuch an occafion they will yet allow us, at the close of our discourse, to speak honorably of good works: just as those who run to the oppofite extreme, will yet, on fome particular days, fuch as Christmas and Good-Friday, permit us to make honorable mention of Jefus Chrift.

The evil would be tolerable, if we were only obliged to select smooth texts in order to gratify an Antinomian audience; but alas! it is grown fo defperate, that unless we adulterate the fincere milk of the word, many reject it as poifon. It is a doubt whether we could preach in fome celebrated pulpits on the good man, who is merciful and lendeth, who hath difperfed abroad and given to the poor, and whose righteousness remaineth for ever,-or on breaking off our fins by righteouf nefs, and our iniquities by fhewing mercy to the poor,för on the righteousness which exceeds the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharifees,―or on the robes washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb, without giving general difguft; unlefs, to keep in the good grace of our Nicolaitan hearers, we were to diffent from all fober commentators, and offer the greatest violence to the context, our own confcience, and common fenfe, by faying that the righteousness and robes mentioned in thofe paffages, are Chrift's imputed, and not our performed obedience.

How few of our evangelical congregations would bear from the pulpit an honeft explanation of what they allow us to read in the defk! We may open our fervice by faying, that When the wicked G

man turneth away from his wickedness, and doth that which is lawful and right, he shall fave his foul alive; but woe to us, if we handle that fcripture in the pulpit, unless we wreft it by representing Chrift as the wicked man who DOES that which is lawful and right, to fave our fouls alive, without any of our

DOINGS.

Were we to preach upon these words of our Lord, This Do and thou shalt live, Luke x. 25; the fense of which is fixed by the 37th Ps. Go and Do thou likewife; or only to handle without deceit those common words of the Lord's prayer, confirmed by a plain parable, Forgive us our trefpaffes, as we forgive them that trefpafs against us; our reputation as Proteftants would be in as much danger from the bulk_ of fome congregations, as our perfons from the fire of a whole regiment in the day of battle. How would fuch a difcourfe, and the poor, blind man that preached it, be privately exclaimed against; or publicly expofed in a Magazine prefented to the world under the facred name of Gospel!

*

In short, whoever has courage enough to preach as St. Paul did at Athens, at Lyftra, and before Felix, rebuking fin without refpect of perfons: whoever will imitate St. Peter, and exhort all his hearers to SAVE THEMSELVES from this perverfe generation, affuring them that the premise of the Holy Spirit is unto THEM, and their CHILDREN; muft expect to be looked upon as unfound, if not as an enemy to free grace, and a fetter forth of Pelagian or Popish doctrines. Moderate Calvinists themselves must run the gauntlet, if they preach free grace like St. Peter. A pious clergyman, noted for his ftrong attachment to what fome call the doctrines of grace, was, to my knowledge, highly blamed by one part of his auditory, for having preached to the other repentance towards God, and exhorted them to call on him for mercy: And I remember he just faved his finking

This was actually the cafe fome months ago, with respect to a fermon preached by Mr. Wesley.

reputation

reputation as a found divine, by pleading, that two Apostles exhorted even Simon Magus to repent of bis wickedness, and pray to God, if perhaps the thought of his heart might be forgiven him.

When fuch profeffors will not bear the plainest truth, from minifters whofe fentiments agree with theirs; how will they rife against deeper truths advanced by those who are of a different opinion! Some will even lofe all decency. Obferving, in

preaching laft fummer, one of them remarkably bufy in difturbing all around him, when the fervice was over I went up to him, and inquired into the eause of the diffatisfaction he had fo indecently expreffed. "I am not afraid to tell it to your face, faid he; I do not like your doctrine: You are a free-willer." If I have fpoken evil, replied I, bear witnefs of the evil. He paufed a while, and then charged me with praying before the fermon, as if all might be faved. That is falfe doctrine, added he, and if Christ himself came down from heaven to preach it, I would not believe him;"

6.

I wondered at first at the pofitivenefs of my rigid objector; but upon fecond thoughts, I thought him modeft, in comparifon of thofe numbers of pro. feffors, who fee that Chrift actually came down from heaven, and preached the doctrine of perfection in his fermon upon the mount, and yet will face us down that it is an Anti-Chriftian doctrine.

This Antinomian cavilling of hearers against preachers is deplorable; and the effects of it will be dreadful. If the Lord does not put a stop to this growing evil, we fhall foon fee every where, what we fee in too many places; felf-conceited, unhumbled men, rifing against the truths and minifte's of God,-men who are not meek doers of the law, but infolent judges, prepofterously trying the law by which they fhall foon be tried-men, who inftead of fitting as criminals before all the meffengers of their Judge, with arrogancy invade the Judge's tribunal, and arraign even his moft venerable

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rable ambaffadors-men who fhould fall on their faces before all, and give glory to God, by confeffing that He is with his minifters of every denomination of a truth; but who, far from doing it, boldly condemn the word that condemns them, fnatch the two-edged fword from the mouth of every faithful meffenger, blunt the edge of it, and audaciously. thruft at him in their turn- -men who, when they fee a fervant of God in the pulpit, fuppofe he stands at their bar; try him with as much infolence as Corah, Datkan and Abiram tried Moses; caft him with lefs kindness than Pilate did Jefus; force a fool's coat of their own making upon him; and then, from the feat of the fcornful, pronounce the decifive fentence: "He is legal, dark, blind, unconverted; an enemy to free grace:-He is a rank Papift, a Jefuit, a falfe Prophet, or a wolf in fheep's clothing."

II.

But whence springs this almoft general antinomianifm of our congregations? Shall I conceal the fore becaufe it fefters in my own breast? Shall I be partial? No, in the name of Him who is no reSpecter of perfons, I will confefs my fin, and that of many of my brethren. Though I am the least, and (I write it with tears of fhame) the most unworthy of them all, I will follow the dictates of my confcience, and ufe the authority of a Minifter of Chrift. If Balaam, a falfe Prophet, took in good part the reproof of his afs, I fhould wrong my honored Brethren and Fathers, the true Prophets of the Lord, if I feared their refenting fome wellmeant reproofs, which I firft level at myself, and for which I heartily with there was no occafion.

Is not the antinomianism of hearers fomented by that of preachers? Does it not become us to take

the