* vilify the moral law, and make it contemptible, "drefling it up as a fcare-crow, and reprefenting it as an intolerable yoke of bondage. Moreover, they choose comfortable fubjects and select smooth texts, to please their hearers, and to gratify an "antimonian audience: and being unwilling to lofe "their reputation as evangelical preachers, they dare "not preach upon fome important fcriptures, unless "it be to explain away or enervate their meaning. "Thus they help their unregenerate hearers to think they may be God's children without God's image, "provided they get evangelical phrases concerning Jefus's love in their mouths, and a warm zeal for party in their hearts: and tell them that if they " can but believe their election, it is a fure fign they "are interested in the gofpel falvation, though they "live in all manner of fin, and never feed the hungry, "clothe the naked, vifit the fick and imprisoned, "and go on in the total neglect of fafting, prayer,

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&c. They give as confident accounts of the cove"nant between the perfons in the trinity, as if God "had admitted them on his privy council, but feldom fpeak of the covenant in a practical manner; they "put doctor Crifp's coat on the apoftle, cut through "law and gofpel, footh murderers, adulterers, idolaters, and incestuous perfons in their abominations, fight for rank antinomianism, and do the devil's work, till they and their congregations all go to hell together [A]."

Thefe, Sir, are the exact colors in which Madely meekness, and Helvetic bluntnefs have painted all the eminent gospel minifters of the day; therefore if the pictures resemble the originals they may with much greater propriety be called your impious than your pious Calvinift brethren. But though I have begged you fo earnestly in my Review to point out by name who these wretches are, and have told you that without this the charge of flander must for ever

[A] Second Check, p. 97, 103.

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lie at your door; ftill neither they nor their converts áre produced, no nor one quotation from their fermons or writings in order to prove these black charges upon them. Can you wonder then, Sir, that we look upon you as a fpiritual calumniator, and that we accuse you of vile falfhood and grofs perverfion [B]? Let me befeech you for a moment to break through the cloud of party prejudice and candidly to confider the manner in which you have always been treated by thofe very ministers you now fo rafhly inveigh against ;

[B] Though I hope that the conduct of the affertors of free grace is very oppofite to the reprefentation given of it by Mr. Fletcher, yet if he have a mind to fee fome of the fruits which the doctrines of free will, univerfal redemption, denial of imputed rightecufnefs and finlefs perfection have produced; I can and will fhew him a long black lift of deluded creatures, (fome of whom have been principal leaders in Mr. Wefley's claffes, if they are not at prefent) and will also produce their names and places of abode, who have truly verified Mr. Whitefield's words, by turning Out temporary monfters." And I can bring fuch perfons to their faces, as fhall prove the abominations and wicked practices upon them, which they have been carrying on under the mask of religion. This I fay I both can do and will do if required. Not for any pleasure I take in expofing these things, but becaufe I hope it may be a means of wiping off fome of those unhappy prejudices which Mr. Fletcher has conceived in favor of thofe perfons and of their principles.

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And if we come to the pofitive part of a Chriftian's duty which is certainly to abound in every good work, we have already feen by a letter quoted in the Review, from Mr. Wefley's laft journal, p. 108. that if he puts out of his focieties all, who neglect to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, vifit the fick, &c. that there would "be fcarcely perfons enough left in them to carry his body to the "grave."

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The Lord God knows that I do not mention these things in a way of ill-natured triumph, but in order to fhew the unreasonableness of your uncharitable exclamations against thofe men and doctrines which from the time of Edward the VIth, till the late inundation of Arianifm, Socinianifm, Pelagianifm, and Arminianifm, have ever been most highly esteemed among real Chriftians. And though you are kind enough to bear a much more honorable tef timony of my conduct in all your checks than it really deferves, yet I confefs I feel a fort of reluctance at being fugared over by fo many appellations of dear Sir, and honor'd Sir, &c. &c. when those very principles on which I build my everlasting hopes, and thofe perfons who I am perfuaded are among the excellent, of the earth, are made the fubject of reproach, fatire and ridicule.

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they reverenced your character, they admitted you with pleasure to their pulpits, and they rejoiced in your labors for the good of fouls. But alas! alas! what returns have you made to their brotherly love? When for no other reason than because they teftified their difapprobation of fuch tenets as ftruck at the very root of proteftantifm, and fuch as you yourself only a few years ago declared an equal abhorrence of, you brand them as abettors of that moft wicked and diabolical herefy "making Chrift the minifter of fin."

I know, Sir, that it was a warm attachment to your friend, which occafioned you to run the lengths you have done. But dear as that friend is to you, truth ought to be dearer ftill; yet the maxim which you feem all along to purfue, is, that Mr. Wefley must be vindicated; yea, though all the minifters in the kingdom, your felf not excepted, fhould fall to the ground.

But what makes us ftill more fenfibly feel the power of your pen is, that our tenets are most fhamefully (would I could fay unintentionally) mifreprefented, in order to prejudice the world against us, and to make them believe we hold fentiments, which from our inmoft fouls we moft cordially deteft; particularly with regard to the doctrines of election and perfeverance, which you have made to ftand upon a pillory as high as Haman's gallows, dreffed up in a frightful garb of your own invention, and then pelted them till all your mud and dirt was exhausted.

For the better carrying on of your design, you have recourse to illuftrations; but however these may ftrike weak minds, which cannot fift them to the bottom; you are generally very unhappy in the choice of them; to inftance only in the following.

"An illuftration will, I hope, expofe the empti"nefs of the pleas, which fome urge in favor of "unconditional reprobation, or if you pleafe, non"election.-A mother conceives an unaccountable

"antipathy for her fucking child. She goes to the "brink of a precipice, bends herself over it with the ¢ paffive

t]

* paffive infant in her bofom, and withdrawing her "arms arms from under him, drops him upon the craggy "fide of a rock, and thus he rolls down from rock

to rock, till he lies at the bottom, beaten to "pieces, a bloody inftance of finished deftruction. "The judge afks the murderer what he has got "to fay in her own defence. The child was mine, replies fhe, and I have a right to do what I please "with my own. Befides, I did neither throw him

down nor murder him. I only withdrew my arms "from under hinr, and he fell of his own accord. "In myftic Geneva, fhe is honorably acquitted; "but in England the executioner is ordered to rid *the earth of the cruel monster. So may God give "us commiffion to rid the church of your Diana, "who teaches that the Father of mercies, does by "millions of his paffive children, what the barbarous "mother did by one of her's: affirming that he un"conditionally withholds grace from them; and that *by abfolutely refufing to be the author and finisher "of their faith, he is the abfolute author and finisher "of their unbelief, and confequently of their fin and damnation !"

Now this illustration as you call it, is totally foreign to the purpofe; and the leaft that can be faid againft it, is that it proves the writer of it to be ftrongly tainted with the Pelagian leaven: for you go all along upon the fuppofition that fallen guilty man who is by nature a child of wrath and born under the curfe, has no more forfeited all right and title to the favor of God, by his fall in Adam, than a young fucking infant has forfeited all right and title to its mother's care. And to prove that this is not an hafty conclufion against you, we have the very fame idea adopted, p. 148, where you mention the doctrines of limited grace and UNPROVOKED WRATH. What then is there nothing provoking to the God of infinite purity in fin? Has the tranfgreffion of our first parent entailed no condemnation upon his pofterity? If you believe it has not, why did you fubfcribe to the 9th article of our church, which fays that in B 4

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every man born into the world it deferves God's wrath and damnation? As therefore we choose rather to abide by the oracles of truth, and by the plain declarations of the church of England, than by the novel chimeras of the fourth Check, we muft beg to difmifs both your illustration and your doctrine; together with all the poor fneers at Geneva logic, with which they are decorated. And as you are pleased to cry out "fbame on the man who firft called ours the doctrines of grace," we in return, muft cry Shame on the man who thus grofsly mifreprefents them.

AS to the doctrine of a twofold juftification, I fhall fay but little more on that head: however I will give you in few words my own fentiments, and if as you would infinuate, there is no difference between us, then pray let there be an end of the difpute.

Firft. I believe that every one who comes weary and heavy laden to Chrift, is freely juftified by faith only, as the hand or inftrument whereby Chrift is received.

Secondly. That this faith (when genuine) will always manifeft its reality by bringing forth good works and all the fruits of an holy life and converfation.

Thirdly. That thefe works and fruits are evidential before men here, and will be evidential before affembled men and angels at the day of judgment, of a true converfion of the heart to God.

Fourthly, I believe that there is no new act of juftification paffes at the great day, upon the perfon of him who is once interested in the blood and righteoufnefs of Christ.

Fifthly. I deteft the notion of the works even of a believer being meritorious. And I declare that if God is pleafed to reward them, it is owing wholly to his own free rich grace and undeferved favor. And therefore to affirm there is no difference between reward and merit is a very great error; and the confounding of thefe two, muft neceffarily open the door for the doctrine of works of fupererogation.

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