wrought in him by divine power? What a firmness and fortitude must be inspired by the following passage of the prophet Isaiah, and other promises in the same strain!" Hast thou not known, hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? There is no searching of his understanding. He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. But they that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary, and they shall walk and not faint."

But now perhaps, after all the advantages of this doctrine, pointed out in the preceding discourse, some will be ready to ask me, if it cannot possibly be applied to the encouragement of impiety, or serve to foster a supine sloth and negligence? To this I am ready to answer, By some who profess it, it may ; but by those who really believe it, it never can. There is no part of the word or providence of God that may not be, or that hath not frequently in fact been abused to bad purposes, by wicked men under the dominion of their lusts. But, in order to remove ambiguity, it is proper to observe, that wherever there is a national profession of any religious principles, there must be many who are not believers, in any other sense than that they have been accustomed to hear such and such things asserted, have never inquired into, nor doubted, seldom even thought of them, and so do not disbelieve them. But there is a great difference between such a traditionary belief as may produce a customary profession, and such a real and inward persuasion as will change the heart and influence the practice. That there may be some of the first sort of believers in the doctrine of imputed righteousness, who are not holy, or perhaps abuse it, ill understood, to un

holiness, I am willing to allow; but that all those who believe it upon real and personal conviction, must be most conscientious in the practice of every moral duty, I hope hath been clearly made to appear in the proceeding pages.

The above is all that was first intended in the prosecution of this argument; but perhaps it will not be improper, before dismissing the subject, to make a few reflections upon the reception which it hath met with, and must still expect to meet with in the world; upon its importance and proper application.

It is very certain, being neither denied by friends, nor enemies, that this doctrine hath, in all ages, not only been attacked with the weapous of human wisdom, but generally also loaded with much reproach and contempt. After, therefore, it hath been so far defended as may satisfy every impartial mind, and its influence upon practice demonstrated, I observe, that whatever impression this fact may make upon others, it seems to me no small confirmation of its truth as coming from God, that it is contrary to the spirit of the world. This is both agreeable to Scripture and to sound reason. The doctrine of "Christ crucified," the apostle Paul tells us, 66 was to the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness." And, speaking of the effect of the publication of this doctrine, he says, "Ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called; but God hath chosen the foolish things of this world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that This we are not to understand as if the apostle yielded that the gospel was not agreeable to true wisdom, or that the proper and legitimate use of human wisdom would not lead us to embrace it; but it con

are."

tains a strong intimation of a truth not commonly attended to, that great natural abilities have pretty much the same influence on the moral character, with great wealth or temporal prosperity. They are both apt to intoxicate the mind and lead to pride, arrogance, and self-conceit and perhaps intellectual pride is as great an obstructon to the discovery of truth, as any bad disposition whatsoever. We are also taught, that God ordered and disposed of things in this manner, for the wise ends of his providence, for the subjection of the arrogance and boasted wisdom of men; or, in the words of the apostle, "That no flesh should glory in his presence." The reception, then, which this doctrine usually meets with, should be so far from remaining as a prejudice or objection against its truth or utility, that, on the contrary, it should contribute to satisfy us, that it is the real and genuine doctrine of Christ, since it meets with the same sort of opposition, and from the same quarter, with which this was encountered at its first publication.

And indeed, besides this exact correspondence between the event and what the Scripture gives us reason to expect, as to the reception of the gospel in the world, I apprehnd it ought to be a general prejudice in favour of its truth, considering the original it claims, that it doth not carry on it any of the marks of human wisdom. It seems to lie (if I may so speak) quite out of the way of human imagination and the contrivance, and is diametrically opposite in its whole tendency, to the most prevailing human inclination, namely, self-esteem, pride, and vain glory. This indeed is the true reason why this doctrine is so unacceptable to the world, especially the ambitious part of it, that is directly levelled against their corrupt affections. It gives a view of the holiness, purity, and justice of God, which is intolerable to all those who are not willing to break their league with sin and vanity. And when it is truly complied with, it not only divorces men from

their former attachment to sin and sensuality, but will not suffer them to glory, even in their new character. All who submit unfeignedly to the gospel both feel and confess themselves wholly indebted for forgivness and acceptance, for their present holiness and their future happiness, to the free, unmerited grace of God. How hard such a sacrifice is, none can conceive who have not some acquaintance with vital, experimental religNow, what is the most natural inference from Is it not, that we have not the smallest reason to suspect this doctrine to be a cunningly devised fable," but may rest assured, that it is "the wisdom and the power of God for salvation, to every one that believeth?"

ion. this?

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This leads me to observe, "That if the reasoning which the reader hath perused upon this subject be just an conclusive, there is one circumstance in which this "doctrine according to godliness" essentially differs from all other schemes or systems of morality. It is, that any of these systems a man may understand, embrace, defend, without having his heart made better, or his morals secured or improved by it at all; whereas it is impossible that any man can really, and from the heart, embrace the doctrine of Christ's imputed righteousness, without being sanctified by it "dead to sin, and alive to God." That the first of these assertions is true, the lives and characters of some noted writers on the foundation of morality, have been, and are an undeniable proof. Some of them do indeed expressly yield it; and it is evidently yielded by impli cation, in all the late writings, where there is so frequent mention of the small influence that speculation has upon practice. On this is founded what a late acute and eminent writer* justly calls the master prejudice of this age, namely, "The innocence of error."

Mr. Warburton.

This may as well be expressed by its counterpart, the unprofitableness or inefficacy of the truth, which surely ought to be but a weak recommendation of what is called truth, by those who hold such an opinion.

That the other assertion is just, hath been the point undertaken to be made out in this Essay; and whoever will but consider how unacceptable this doctrine is to mankind in general, may be satisfied that there can be no effectual inducement to embrace it, till there be such a discovery and sense of the evil and danger of sin, as is utterly inconsistent with a voluntary continuance in it. The apparent state of the visible church, in which vice and wickedness so shamefully abound, will be no objection to this, if what I hinted above be recollected,* that there is a great difference between a nominal or customary profession and real belief. As to the few more zealous and eminent assertors of this doctrine, who sometimes greatly dishonour their profession, the answer is easy: They are hypocrites, by whom indeed great offences do come; and the weak and unstable fall over the stumbling-block, and are tempted to doubt the reality of religion, by this discovery of the falsehood of its professors. But such can never be fairly ranked among believers, whose garb and habit they only treacherously wore, for some time, while they were in the interest of another master. We may say of them as the apostle John says, "They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us."

But this is not all; for the reception of the doctrine of imputed righteousness is not merely to be considered as the best means, comparitively, of producing, preserving, and increasing our sanctification and puri

* See page 65.