they have said, "Lord, I go," or by "beating their fellow servants" there, instead of working with them; the sooner they are robbed of it the better for if they continue thus free, they will ere long be "bound hand and foot, and cast into outer darkness." It is the very spirit of Antinomianism to represent God's "commandments as grievous," and the keeping of his law "as bondage.". Not so the dutiful children of God: "Their hearts" are never so much "at liberty," as when they "run the way of his commandments, and so fulfil the law of Christ." Keep them from obedience, and you keep them "in the snare of the devil, promising liberty to others, while they themselves are the servants of corruption."

Again: you confound the heavy yoke of the circumcision and ceremonial bondage, with which the Galatians once entangled themselves, with the "easy yoke of Jesus Christ." The former was intolerable, the latter is so " light a burden," that the only way to "find rest unto our souls is to take it upon us." St. Paul calls a dear brother his "yoke fellow." You know the word BELIAL in the original signifies "without yoke." They are sons of Belial who shake off the Lord's yoke; and though they should boast of their election as much as the Jews did, Christ himself will say concerning them, "Those mine enemies that refused my yoke, and would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me!" So inexpressibly dreadful is the end of lawless liberty!

THIRD OBJECTION. "Your doctrine is the damnable error of the Galatians, who madly left Mount Sion for Mount Sinai, made Christ the Alpha, and not the Omega, and after having begun in the Spirit would be made perfect by the flesh.' This is the other Gospel which St. Paul thought so diametrically contrary to his own, that he wished the teachers of it, though they were angels of God,' might be even accursed and cut off."

ANSWER. You are under a capital mistake: St. Paul could never be so wild as to curse himself, anathematize St. James, and wish the Messiah to be again cut off: for he himself taught the Romans, that "the doers of the law shall be justified." St. James evidently maintains a justification by works; and our Lord expressly says, "By thy words thou shalt be justified." Again: the apostle, if he had foreseen how his Epistle to the Galatians would be abused to Antinomian purposes, gives us in it the most powerful antidotes against that poison. Take two or three instances. (1.) He exhorts his fallen converts to the fulfilling of all the law: "Love one another," says he, "for all the law is fulfilled in this one word, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself;" because none can "love his neighbour as himself," but he that "loves God with all his heart." How different is this doctrine from the bold Antinomian cry, "We have nothing to do with the law!" (2.) He enumerates the works of the flesh," adultery, hatred, variance, wrath, strife, envyings, heresies, &c; of which," says he, "I tell you before, as I have told you in time past, that they who do such things" shall not be justified in the day of judgment, or, which is the same thing, "shall not inherit the kingdom of God." How different a Gospel is this from that which insinuates, "impenitent adulterers may be dear children of God, even while such, and in a very safe state, and quite sure of glory!" And VOL. I.

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(3.) As if this awful warning were not enough, he point blank cautions his readers against the Crispian error: "Be not deceived," says he, "whatever a MAN (not whatever CHRIST) Soweth, that shall he also reap. He that soweth to the flesh shall reap corruption, and he that soweth to the Spirit shall reap life everlasting." How amazingly strong therefore must your prejudice be, which makes you produce this epistle to thrust love and good works out of the important place allotted them in all the word of God! And no where more than in this very epistle! FOURTH OBJECTION. "Notwithstanding all you say, I am persuaded you are in the dreadful heresy of the Galatians; for they were, you, for justification by the works of the law;' and St. Paul resolutely maintained against them the fundamental doctrine of justification by faith."

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ANSWER. If you once read over the Epistle to the Galatians without prejudice, and without comment, you will see, that (1.) They had returned to the beggarly elements of this world," by superstitiously "observing days, months, times, and years." (2.) Imagining they "could not be saved except they were circumcised," they submitted even to that grievous and bloody injunction. (3.) Exact in their useless ceremonies, and fondly hoping to be justified by their partial observance of Moses' law, they well nigh forgot the merits of Christ, and openly trampled upon his law, and "walked after the flesh." Stirred up to contentious zeal by their new teachers, they despised the old apostle's ministry, hated his person, and " devoured one another." In short, they trusted partly in the merit of their superstitious performances, and partly in Christ's merits; and on this preposterous foundation they "built the hay" of Jewish ceremonies, and "the stubble" of fleshly lusts. With great propriety, therefore, the apostle called them back, with sharpness, to the only sure foundation, the merits of Jesus Christ; and wanted them to "build upon it gold and precious stones," all the works of piety and mercy that spring from "faith working by love."

Now which of these errors do we hold? Do we not preach present justification by faith, and justification at the bar of God according to what a man soweth, the very doctrine of this epistle? And do we not "secure the foundation," by insisting that both these justifications are equally through the merits of Christ, though the second, as our Church intimates in her twelfth article, is by the evidence of works?

Will you bear with me if I tell you my thoughts? We are all in general condemned by the Epistle to the Galatians, for we have too much dependence on our forms of piety, speculative knowledge, or past experience; and too little heart-felt confidence in the merits of Christ: "We sow too little to the Spirit, and too much to the flesh." But those, in the next place, are peculiarly reproved by it, who “return to the beggarly elements," the idle ways and vain fashions "of this world." Those who make as much ado about the beggarly element of water, about baptizing infants and dipping adults, as "the troublers" of the Church of Galatia did about circumcising their converts," that they might glory in their flesh." Those who "zealously affect others, but not well :" those who now despise their spiritual fathers," whom they once received as angels of God:" those who "turn our enemies when we tell them the truth," who "heap to themselves" teachers, smoother

than the evangelically legal apostle, and would call us blind if we said, as he does, 66 Let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another," Gal. vi, 4. Those who plead for spiritual bondage while they talk of Gospel liberty, and affirm "that the son of the bondwoman” shall always live "with the son of the free;" that sin can never be cast out of the heart of believers, and that Christ and corruption shall always dwell together in this world. And, lastly, those who say there is no" falling away from grace," when they are already fallen like the Galatians, and boast of their stability chiefly because they are ignorant of their fall!

FIFTH OBJECTION. "However, your Pharisaic doctrine flatly contradicts the Gospel summed up by our Lord, Mark xvi, 16, He that. believeth shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned.' Here is not one word about works. All turns upon faith."

ANSWER. Instead of throwing such hints, you might as well speak out at once, and say that Christ in these words flatly contradicts what he had said, Matt. xii, 37, "By thy words thou shalt be justified, or by thy words thou shalt be condemned." But drop your prejudices, and you will see that the contradiction is only in your own ideas. Wẹ steadily assert, as our Lord, that "he who believeth," or "endureth unto the end believing," (for the word implies both the reality and the continuance of the action,)" shall infallibly be saved;" because faith, which continues living, "works" to the last" by love" and good works, which will infallibly justify us in the day of judgment. For when faith is no more, love and good works will evidence, (1.) That we were grafted into Christ by true faith: (2.) That we did not "make shipwreck of the faith;" that we were not "taken away as branches in him which bear not fruit, but abode fruitful branches in the true Vine." And (3.) That we are still in him by HOLY LOVE, the precious and eternal fruit of true persevering. faith. How bad is that cause which must support itself by charging an imaginary contradiction upon the Wisdom of God, Jesus Christ himself!*

*This is frequently the stratagem of those who have no arguments to produce. I bore my testimony against it in the Vindication, and flattered myself that serious writers would be less forward to oppose the truth, and expose the ministers of Christ by that injudicious way of discussing controverted points. Notwithstanding this, I have before me a little pamphlet, in which the editor endeavours to answer Mr. Wesley's Minutes, by extracting from his writings passages supposed to stand in direct opposition to the Minutes. Hence, in a burlesque upon the Decla.. ration, he tries to represent Mr. Wesley as a knave.

I would just observe upon that performance, (1.) That by this method of raising dust, and avoiding to reason the case fairly, every malicious infidel may blind injudicious readers, and make triumphing scoffers cry out, Jesus against Chrsit! Saul against St. Paul! or John the divine against John, the evangelist! as well as Wesley against John! and John against Wesley. (2.) Mr. Wesley having acknow. ledged, in the beginning of the Minutes, he "had leaned too much toward Calvinism," we may naturally expect to meet in his voluminous writings with a few. expressions that look a little toward Antinomianism: and with some paragraphs which (when detached from the context, and not considered as spoken to deep mourners in Zion, or to souls of undoubted sincerity,) seem directly to favour the delusion of the present times. (3.) This may be easily accounted for without flying to the charges of knavery or contradiction. When after working long with. out cheering light we discover the ravishing day of luminous faith, we are all apt, in the sincerity of our hearts, to speak almost as unguardedly of works as Luther

SIXTH OBJECTION. "Your doctrine exalts man, and by giving him room to boast, robs Christ of the glory of his grace. The top stone' is no more brought forth with shouting, Grace! Grace!' but, Works! Works! unto it! And the burden of the song in heaven will be,— Salvation to our works! and no more, Salvation to the Lamb!".

ANSWER. I no less approve your godly jealousy, than I wonder at your groundless fears. To calm them, permit me once more, to observe, (1.) That this doctrine is Christ's, who would not be so unwise as to side with our self-righteous pride, and teach us to rob him of his own glory. It is absurd to suppose Christ would be thus against Christ, for even Satan is too wise "to be against Satan." (2.) Upon our plan, as well as upon Crisp's scheme, free grace has absolutely all the glory. The love and good works by which we shall be justified in the day of judgment, are the fruits of faith, and "faith is the gift of God." Christ is the great object of faith, the Holy Ghost, called the Spirit of faith, the power of believing, the means, opportunities, and will to use that power, are all the rich presents of God's free grace. All our sins, together with the imperfections of our works, are mercifully forgiven through the blood and righteousness of Christ: our persons and services are graciously accepted merely for his sake, and through his merits and if rewards are granted us according to the fruits of righteousness we bear, it is not because we are profitable to God, but because the meritorious sap of the Root of David produces those fruits, and the meritorious beams of the Sun of righteousness ripen them. Thus you see, that, which way soever you look at our justification, God has all the glory of it, but that of turning moral agents into mere machines, a glory which, we apprehend, God does no more claim than you do that of turning your coach horses into hobby horses, and your servants into puppets.

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If faith on earth gives Christ the glory of all our salvation, you need not fear that love (a superior grace) will rob him in heaven: for "love is not puffed up, seeketh not her own, and does not behave herself unseemly" toward a beggar on earth; much less will she do so toward did; but when the fire of Antinomian temptations has frequently burned us, and consumed thousands around us, we justly dread it at last; and ceasing to lean toward Crisp's divinity, we return to St. James, St. John, and St. Jude, and to the latter part of St. Paul's Epistles which we too often overlooked, and to which hardly two ministers did, upon the whole, ever do more justice than Mr. Baxter and Mr. Wesley., (4.) A.man who gives to different people, or to the same people. at different times, directly contrary directions, does not always contradict himself. I have a fever, and my physician, under God, restores me to health by cooling medicines; by and by I am afflicted with the cold rheumatism, and he prescribes fomentations and warming remedies, but my injudicious apothecary opposes him, under the pretence that he goes by no certain rule, and grossly contradicts himself. Let us apply this to Mr. Wesley and the Versifier, remembering there is less dif ference between a burning fever and a cold rheumatism, than between the case of the trifling Antinomian and that of the dejected penitent. (5.) Whoever considers without prejudice what our satiric poet produces as contradictions, will find some of them do not so much as amount to an opposition, and that most of them do not seem so contradictory as numbers of propositions that might be extracted from the oracles of God. If the editor of the Answer to the Minutes will compare this note with the 28thpage of the Vindication, I hope he will find his performance answered, his direct attack upon the Minutes frustrated, and Mr. Wesley's honesty fully vindicated. •

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the Lord of glory, when she has attained the zenith of heavenly perfection. Away then with all the imaginary lions you place in your way to truth! Notwithstanding Crisp's prohibitions, like the Bereans, receive Christ in his holy doctrine, and be persuaded that in the last day you will shout as loud as the honest doctor, Grace! Grace! and Salvation to the Lamb! without suggesting, with him, to those on the left hand, the blasphemous shouts of, Partiality! Hypocrisy! Barbarity! and damnation to the Lamb! Thus shall you have all the free grace he justly boasts of, without any of his horrid reprobating doctrine. SEVENTH OBJECTION. "How will the converted thief, that did no good works, be justified by works?"

ANSWER. (1.) We mean by WORKS "the whole of our inward tempers and outward behaviour ;" and how do you know the outward behaviour of the converted thief? Did not his reproofs, exhortations, prayers, patience, and resignation, evidence the liveliness of his faith, as there was time and opportunity? (2.) Can you suppose his inward temper was not love to God and man? Could he go into paradise without being born again? Or could he be born again and not love? Is it not said, "He that loveth is born of God;" consequently, he that is born of God loveth? Again: does not he who "loveth, fulfil all the law," and do, as says Augustine, all good works in one? And is not "the fulfilling of the law of Christ" work enough to justify the converted thief by that law?

EIGHTH OBJection. “You say, that your doctrine will make us zealous of good works;' but I fully discharge it from that office for 'the love of Christ constraineth us to abound in every good word and work.'"

ANSWER. (1.) St. Paul, who spoke those words with more feeling than you, thought the contrary; as well as his blessed Master, or they would never have taught this doctrine. You do not, I fear, evidence the temper of a babe when you are so exceedingly "wise above what" Christ preached, and "prudent above what" the apostle "wrote." (2.) If the love of Christ in professors is so constraining as you say, why do good works and good tempers bear so little proportion to the great talk we hear of its irresistible efficacy? And why do those who have tasted it "return to sin as dogs to their vomit?" Why can they even curse, swear, and get drunk? Be guilty of idolatry, murder, and incest? (3.) If love alone is always sufficient, why did our Lord work upon his disciples' hearts, by the hope of "thrones and a kingdom," and by the fear of a "worm that dieth not, and a fire that is not quenched?" Why does the apostle stir up believers to "serve the Lord with godly fear," by the consideration that "he is a consuming fire?" Illustrating his assertion by this awful warning, "If they (Korah and his company) escaped not," but were consumed by fire from heaven, because they "refused him (Moses) that spake on earth; much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven!" Why did St. Paul himself, who, no doubt, understood the Gospel as well as Crisp and Saltmarsh, "run a race for an incorruptible crown, and keep his body under, LEST he himself should be a castaway?" O ye orthodox divines, and thou ludicrous versifier of an awful declaration! instead of attempting to set St. Paul against St.