APPENDIX.

CONTAINING

"LETTERS BETWEEN THE REV.

"Who passes by the name of John Smith,

"AND THE REV. JOHN WESLEY."

NOW PUBLISHED FOR THE FIRST TIME.

THE labouring to bring all the world to solid, inward, vital Religion,; is a work so truly Christian and laudable, that I shall ever highly esteem those who attempt this great work, even though they should appear to me to be under some errors in doctrine, some mistakes in their conduct, and some excess in their zeal. You may expect therefore in me a candid adversary, a contender for truth and not for victory: one who would be glad to convince you of any error which he apprehends himself to have discovered in you, but who will be abundantly more glad to be convinced of errors in himself. Now the best way to enable you to set me right, wherever I may be wrong, will be by pointing out to you what I have to object to those works of yours which have fallen into my hands: And for order sake I shall reduce my objections to matter of Doctrine, to matter of Phraseology, and to matter of Fact.

1. As to matter of Doctrine, I shall choose to express what I

* See p. 95-99.

take to be your doctrine in my own words rather than in your words, that you may the more readily perceive whether I at any time mistake you. You seem then to me to contend with great earnestness for the following system, viz. That faith (instead of being a rational assent and moral virtue, for the attainment of which men ought to yield the utmost attention and industry) is altogether a divine and supernatural illapse from Heaven-the immediate gift of God-the mere work of Omnipotence, given instantaneously and arbitrarily, not with any regard to the fitness of the recipient, but the absolute will of the Donor: That the moment this faith is received, the recipient's pardon is signed in Heaven, or he is justified. This pardon or justification is immediately notified to him by the Holy Ghost, and that (not by his imperceptibly working a godly assurance, but) by such a perceptible, such a glaring attestation, as is as easily discernible from the dictates of reason or suggestions of fancy, as light is discernible from darkness. Upon this perceptible and infallible notification, the recipient is saved, (i. e. as you explain yourself, is sanctified,) he has immediately the mind and the power to walk as Christ walked, and is become perfect: he has a perfection indeed, admitting of degrees, yet such a perfection, that he cannot sin. Thus, he is in a moment regenerate, upon the first sowing of the seed of faith, which, you say, you cannot conceive to be other than instantaneous, whether you consider Experience, or the Word of God, or the very Nature of the thing.

Now so various are men's understandings, or so unenlightened am I still as to spiritual affairs, that it appears quite manifest to me, that Experience, the Word of God, and the Nature of the thing plainly evince the exact contrary. As to my own Experience, my parents and instructors, from my first infancy, carefully instilled into me such an amiable idea of God, that I cannot remember any time, when I had no more love of God, than a stone: consequently, I cannot go so far back as the time when God first lifted up the light of his countenance upon me;' nor the day of my eating butter and honey, of soaring upon eagles wings, or of riding upon the sky. These (I had like to have said enthusiastic; but I would willingly avoid all offensive words, these) rapturous expressions may pass sometimes in poetry, but are too flighty, me

thinks, for plain prose: Neither can I remember the exact day of my espousals, as you call it ; but yet I am not so carnal a person, as to have no perception of things spiritual. I have a taste for divine intercourse, a relish for the pleasures of devotion; so high a relish, as to think all other pleasures, low and insipid things, compared to those happy moments, when we get disentangled from the world, and lift our souls up unto the calm regions of Heaven. I hope, and believe myself to have as steady a faith in a pardoning God, as you can have; but my faith came by hearing-by hearing the word of God soberly and consistently explained, and not from any momentaneous illapse from Heaven. Thus stands my own Experience. Then, Sir, if I appeal to the Experience of all around me, they assure me, that the case is the same with them; insomuch, that I am not acquainted with one pious person in the world, whose Experience (upon being consulted), is not flatly against you.

As to the Word of God, let me observe to you, it is not the sound of particular texts, but the general tenor of the whole, on which we are to frame doctrines. There are texts whose sounds may favour quite contrary doctrines. Thus St. John says in one place, Whosoever is born of God cannot sin; in another, If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us: Now no doctrine of perfection or imperfection should be founded on the sound of either of these texts; but from both of them, and the whole tenor of Scripture, we are to collect the true Scripture doctrine. In like manner there are Scriptures which declare, we are saved by faith; others, that we are saved by hope; others again, that we are saved by repentance, obedience, holiness, and many other principal parts of religion, which, by a common synecdoche of pars pro toto, are put for the whole of it; here again we are not to be carried away with the sound of particular texts, maintaining that we are saved by Faith alone, or Hope alone, or Obedience alone; but we are to construe one text so as to be consistent with all the rest, and to make one complete body or system of religion. -Again, faith is said in Scripture to be the gift of God, and so riches are said to be the gift of God; and indeed every other good thing, whether spiritual or temporal, is said to descend from Him from whom every good and perfect gift cometh: but then whe