tion I faid, that new obedience was neceffary to 'falvation.'

·

Page 360, 361, he quotes thefe words of Zanchius: • Works are neceffary: 1.To juftify our faith [coram Deo] before God, &c. 2. They are neceffary to the obtaining eternal life, &c. 3. They are neceffary to inherit juftification as CAUSES, &c. 4. They are profitable to conferve and increase faith: alfo to PROMERIT of God and obtain many good things both fpiritual and corporal both in this life and in another.' The words of Zanchius are, Opera utilia funt, &c. ad multa bona tum spiritualia tum corporalia, tum in hac vita tum in alia a Deo PROMERENDA et obtinenda.' Zanch. Tom. 8, p. 787. loc: de juft. fidei. How much more tenderly did Mr. Wesley fpeak of merit than the orthodox, whom Mr. Toplady has lately rendered famous among us! I hope, that if this gentleman ever opens his favourite book to the above-quoted page, he will drop his prejudices, and confefs, that his dear Zanchius himself nobly contends for the Wefleian " herefy,"

Page 462, Baxter concludes his book by praying for thofe, who had mifreprefented him to the world, and obliged him to fpend fo much time in vindicating his doctrine. I moft heartily join him in the laft paragraph of his prayer, in which I beg the reader would join us both. The Lord illuminate and fend forth fome meffenger, that may acquaint the churches with that true, middle, reconciling method of theological verities, which must be the means of healing our divifions. Let men be raised of greater fufficiency for this work, and of fuch bleffed accomplishments as fhall be fit to cope with the power prejudice: and let the fury of blind contradiction be fo calmed, that TRUTH may have opportunity to do its work.'

of

End of the APPENDIX to the SCRIPTURAL ESSAY..

AN ESSAY

AN

ESSAY ON TRUTH,

BEING A

RATIONAL VINDICATION

Of the Doctrine of Salvation by Faith:

WITH A

DEDICATORY EPISTLE

To the Right Hon. the Countess of HUNTINGDON.

Without Faith it is impoffible to pleafe God, Heb. xi. 6. Whatsoever is not of Faith is fin, Rom. xiv. 23. Faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone, (it is mere folifidianism.) James ii. 17. Good works Spring out necessarily of a true and lively faith. XII. Art. In Chrift Jefus, &c. nothing availeth but FAITH, which WORKETH by love. Gal. v. 6. He that believeth, and is baptized [baptism, the first and capital work of evangelical obedience, being here mentioned for all other good works, which we engage to do when we are baptized] fhall be faved: but be that believeth not shall be damned, Mark xvi. 16.

A DEDICATORY EPISTLE To the Right Hon. the Countess of HUNTINGDON, My LADY,

B

ECAUSE I think it my duty to defend the works of faith against the triumphant errors of the Solifidians, fome of your Ladyfhip's friends conclude, that I am an enemy to the doctrine of Salvation by faith, and their conclufion amounts to fuch exclamations as thefe: How could a Lady, fo zealous for God's glory and the Redeemer's grace, commit the fuperintendency of a feminary of pious learning to a man, that oppofes the fundamental doctrine of proteftantifm! How could he put her fheep under the care of fuch a wolf in sheep's clothing! This conclufion, my Lady, has grieved me for your fake; and to remove the blot that it indirectly fixes upon you, as well as to balance my Scriptural Effay on the rewardableness of the works of faith, I publifli, and humbly dedicate to your Ladyfhip, this laft piece of my EQUAL CHECK to pharifaim and antinomianifm. May the kindness, which enabled you to bear for years with the coarfeness of my miniftrations, incline you favourably to receive this little token of my unfeigned attachment to proteftantifm, and of my lafting refpect for your Ladyship!

Your averfion to all that looks like controverfy, can never make you think, that an Equal Check to the two grand delufions, which have crept into the church, is needlefs in our days. I flatter myfelf therefore, that tho' you may blame my performance, you will approve of my defign. And indeed what true christian can be abfolutely neuter in this controverfy? If God has a controverfy with all pharifees and antinomians, have not all God's children a controverfy with pharifaifm and antinomianifm? Have you not for one, my Lady? Do you not check in private, what I attempt to check in public? Does not the religious world

know

know that you abhor, attack, and pursue pharifaism in its moft artful difguifes? And have I not frequently heard you exprefs in the ftrongest terms your deteftation of antinomianism, and lament the number of fleeping profeffors, whom that Delilah robs of their ftrength Nor would you, I am pe. fuaded, my Lady, have countenanced the oppofition, which was made against the minutes, if your commendable, tho' (as it appears to me) at that time too precipitate zeal against pharifaism, had not prevented your feeing, that they contain the fcripture truths, which are fittest to ftop the rapid progrefs of antinomianifm.

However, if you ftill think, my Lady, that I miftake with refpect to the importance of thofe propofitions; you know, I am not mistaken, when I declare before the world, that a powerful, practical, actuallyfaving faith, is the only faith, I ever heard your Ladyship recommend, as worthy to be contended for. And fo long as you plead only for fuch a faith; fo long as you abhor the winter-faith that faves the folifidians in their own conceit, while they commit adultery, murder, and inceft, if they chufe to carry antinomianifm to fuch a dreadful length; fo long as you are afraid to maintain either directly or indirectly, chat the evidence and comfort of justifying faith may indeed be fufpended by fin; but that the righteousness of faith, and the juftification, which it inftrumentally procures, can never be loft, no not by the moft enormous and complicated crimes; whatever diverfity there may be between your Ladyfhip's fentiments and mine, it can never be fundamental. I preach falvation by a faith, that actually works by obedient love: and your Ladyfhip witneffes falvation by an actually-operative faith: nor can I, to this day, fee any material difference between those phrafes: for if I profefs a faith that is actually operative, I cannot with propriety find fault with a faith that actually operates: I cannot with decency facrifice its works to "antinomian dotages."†

Permit me alfo to obferve, that the grand questions debated between my opponents and me, are not [as I

The name which Flavel gives to Dr. Crifp's modifh tenets.

fear

1

fear your Ladyfhip apprehends] whether pharifaic merit fhall eclipfe the Redeemer's worthiness; or, whether the doctrine of falvation by a lively faith fhall be given up to mere moralifts: I no more plead either for the one or the other, than I do for placing the pretender upon the British throne, and for facrificing the great charter to arbitrary power. No my Lady What we contend about is: (1) Whether Chrift's law is not perfectly confiftent with his blood: (2) Whether we are to fet him at nought as a PROPHET, a KING, and a JUDGE; under pretence of exalting him as a PRIEST, an ADVOCATE, and a SURETY of the better covenant, that threatens fallen believers with a forer punishment than that, which was inflicted upon the defpifers of the Mofaic covenant: (3) Whether the evangelical worthiness, which a true believer really derives from Chrift, is not abfolutely neceffary to falvation: (4) Whether fuch a worthiness is not as confiftent with Chrift's original and paramount merit, as the light, that fhines in your apartment, is confiftent with the original and tranfcendent brightness of the fun: (5) Whether that faith is living, which evidences itself by grofs immoralities: (6) Whether it is not rather the "dead faith" that St. James exclaims against And (7) Whether the folifidians do not fet up the abomination of defolation in the holy place, when they directly or † INDIRECTLY teach, that all believers may go any length in fin without lofing their heavenly thrones, or the divine favour that a man can have the juftifying, faving, operative faith, which your Ladyfhip pleads for, while he adds idolatry to incontinence, murder to adultery, and curfes to the repeated denial of Jefus Christ: that fallen believers, who have returned to their fins as a fow that is washed, does to her wallowing in the mire, fland immaculate before God in a robe of imputed righteoufnefs, even while they turn God's

grace

+ Mr. H-1 has done it directly in the fourth of the five letters which he has infcribed to me, and all the Solifidians do it indirectly.