Let not the reader make up his mind too suddenly, that I overstrain the writer's meaning; for I will show him, before I have done, that all this is intended by this able expositor of the divine law.

Had the learned Doctor been contented with one definition, or, rather, with setting up one barrier against the letter and spirit of the law of God-had he been satisfied with limiting and abolishing the obligation of love to our neighbour, with the Jewish economy, he would simply have justified his classification with the boldest of Antinomians. But this was not enough. This duty of love to our neighbour must be narrowed down by a far more definite barrier; for, to say a man must love his neighbour as extensively and forcibly as the peculiar design of the Jewish economy would permit, leaves it vastly at random. Some people might be pleased to say that that economy required a great degree of love, whilst others affirmed it required very little. But our author settles this point by another barrier, of a very different material. "The law required," says he, "that a man should love his neighbour as extensively and forcibly as the peculiar character of the Jewish people would permit.”

There can be no doubt what "the peculiar character of the Jewish people" was. They were a people stiff-necked, and uncircumcised in heart, and even during the forty days, while the law was preparing on Sinai-while, as yet, the trumpet had hardly ceased to roar, or the thunders of the voice of God to shake the earth, they revolted into open idolatry, and made an idol to lead them back to Egypt. The law of God, says this writer, required this people to love one another as much as their culiar character would permit."

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Reader, this is plain English: turn to the 104th page of the first volume, and there you will find it. But how much love did" the peculiar character of the Jewish people permit?" I answer NONE; for, as a people, they were a peculiarly rebellious and hardened people. To say the least, as a people they were unregenerate, and void of every degree of that love to God and each other, which his law requires.

Here is no perversion of an equivocal, or intricate sentence, and the fact, on which I predicate the allegation, is in no man

ner constructive, but plain, simple, and obvious, for every one to read.

This exposition of the law of God, seems as much to baffle all comment, as it mocks at all comparison. Men, instead of being required to love God supremely, and their neighbour as themselves, are said to be required to love God with constant solicitude-with slavish, base, and painful anxiety, and their neighbour as much as their depraved nature and character would permit.

Before I proceed further, I think I am justified in calling upon the reader to judge for himself, whether a man who is capable of giving such an explanation of the love of God can be expected to lead the minds of his hearers into correct and just views of truth, or to convey wholesome instructions on the important doctrines of revelation. His personal friends, of which class I surely hope he is not destitute, will probably say, in his vindication, that he sometimes gives a better explanation of this grand article. Does he, indeed?-I wish he always gave a better ;one thing is certain, he cannot give a worse; and, what is peculiarly unfortunate for him, I have my eye on another similar attempt in these sermons to fritter away to nothing the obligation of loving our neighbour as ourselves. This precept of the law comes so fearfully near to the doctrine of disinterested benevolence, that this writer, and all others of his class, must explain it away. They hate the sight and sound of it as much as the Saracens and Turks hated the sight of a monument of Grecian architecture, and have taken as much pains to destroy it; but, as it is too massive to be undermined, they have attempted to dilapidate its columns, architraves, and pilasters, and deface its relievos and inscriptions.

The suggestion, that the Doctor sometimes explains the divine law in a less exceptionable manner, brings to my mind Sir Isaac Newton's optical doctrine of "fits of easy transmission." He supposes that luminous bodies, and particularly the sun, throw out their light in certain sudden vibrations; which, instead of a better term, he is pleased to call fits of easy transmission. The Doctor, in his easy fits of transmission throws out ideas which, in general, he seems willing to conceal. He often speaks of the

infinite purity and eternal obligation of the divine law; which fine flourish leads the incautious reader or hearer into a total mistake. To love God with solicitude, and our neighbour as extensively and forcibly as the design of the Jewish economy, and the character of the Jewish people would permit, neither conveys the idea of infinite purity or eternal obligation, but rather of infinite vileness and eternal stupidity, and especially in the expositor who dares thus to degrade and annihilate the moral law.

For, admitting the law to be still in force, what is it worth requiring men to love God with solicitude, and each other as much as their depraved characters would permit? But its obligation being measured by the design of the Jewish economy, it must have been abrogated and done away with that economy. And this is the author's meaning; to establish which, is not merely once attempted, but is the great labour of his life, and aim of his public instructions.

Of what avail is a pompous concession of the infinite purity and eternal obligation of the law, after such an exposition of that law as we have before us? But, independent of this exposition, even had this writer expounded the import and spirit of the law never so correctly, his notion of the gospel places his scheme precisely on the Antinomian ground. Christ has paid the sinner's debt; taken the sinner into a mystical union with himself; made over his righteousness to the sinner; and as he is "of full weight and measure, perfectly conformable to the law, he makes them (the sinner) just, or of full weight before God, by clothing them with his righteousness.”

He then adds, p. 69. "This doctrine of righteousness through a Redeemer, otherwise called the righteousness of faith, is the radical principle of revealed religion, from Genesis to Revelation." I put his words in italics that they may not be overlooked. And he closes this wonderful paragraph by saying, "THIS IS THE

I beg the reader to follow me with a little patience, and I will ferret the serpent from the crevices of his rock. By the serpent I do not mean the man, but his monstrous error.

Reader, you now have before you the Doctor's view of the law

and the gospel. The great precept on which hangs all the law and the prophets, under his transforming pen, is made to say, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with unceasing solicitude, i. e. with painful and depressing anxiety and perturbation, and thy neighbour, as much as the design of the Jewish economy, and the depraved character of the Jewish people would permit. And, it seems, taking them together, they permitted none at all.

His obvious motive for measuring our love to our neighbour, by the design of the Jewish economy, and the character of the Jewish people, was to exclude it wholly from the religion of Christ; accordingly, he declares, p. 69. that "this doctrine of righteousness through a Redeemer, otherwise called the righteousness of faith, is the radical principle of revealed religion, from Genesis to Revelation, and is the substance of the Gospel.

In this statement of the law and gospel, I perceive a wretched specimen of the unwearied endeavours, which have for years been made in this city, to establish a loathsome system of selfishness and Antinomianism; to pervert the faith of Christians, and to sap the foundations of truth. I beg the reader to notice, that this view of these fundamental truths involves the following errors, and I shall leave him to estimate their magnitude.

1. The law of God requires no creature to love God with solicitude. If the Doctor mistook the meaning of the term solicitude, and thought it conveyed the idea of supreme love of God, I would recommend it to him to recall and suppress this edition of his sermons, till he can have time to study the import of language; or, at any rate, to defer publishing the remaining volumes, of which there seems to be a dignified hint in his preface, till he can peruse Johnson or Walker. I think either of these steps would save him some solicitude. He speaks of Christ's exact conformity to the law. I hope he does not imagine that Christ loved God with " unceasing solicitude," &c. &c.

2. The law of God required that a man love his neighbour as himself; and so far from limiting the extensiveness and force of that affection, by the peculiar design of the Jewish economy, which would suppose the duty to expire with that economy, and be vague and unmeaning while it lasted-or, by the peculiar character of the Jewish people, which would absolutely reduce it to nothing, would annihilate it altogether; the require

ment had no relation to the Jewish economy, or character of the Jewish people. And no pretence was ever more absurd or false, than the one here set up, for the purpose of cancelling the second great command in the law, or destroying its obligation.

3. The Antinomian is known for his opposition to all moral virtue; and for setting up faith, as every thing in religion: and yet his faith, as much as he makes of it, is but a wretched patch of mysticism, and a suitable instrument of self-deception. How many degrees from this is the Doctor's idea of gospel religion? He allows the Christian no righteousness but imputed righteousness. He allows, indeed, that before man fell he was bound by an obligation of moral or personal holiness, but as a sinner he strips him of all ability-and, as a redeemed sinner, removes him infinitely distant from the department of moral virtue;-describes that whole department in the most degrading, loathsome, and sickening terms, as consisting in base and selfish love to God, and a love to men circumscribed by the narrow and perishing barriers of the Jewish economy, and the still worse character of the Jewish people: in short, he profanes the temple of rational, moral virtue and holiness, by something worse than swine's flesh; fills it with loathsome deformity, and disgusting filth, to prevent all return to it for ever-and then most pompously declares, that the righteousness of faith is the radical principle of revealed religion, from the beginning of the Bible to the end, and the substance of the gospel.

I ask the stated hearers of this gentleman, how long it is since they have heard him, in an elaborate pulpit effort, endeavour to show that religion does not consist in love, but in faith?—in which he strove, with all his might, to make out that love to God and men is a merely legal, antiquated, Old Testament, "Jewish economy" affair?-in which he was at much pains to scatter over the fair and glorious field of moral virtue the crudities of Antinomian pollution? Many intelligent persons, who are not only judges of doctrine, but of logic and sermonizing, who may chance to see these remarks, will, I trust, remember something about that sermon.

How long shall the blind be led by the blind? How long shall prejudice and error usurp the throne of reason; nay,