from one caufe or other are of difficult explication. To found fentiments contrary to the manifeft dictates of that reafon and fenfe of equity wherewith the Almighty hath infpired us, irreconcileable to the moral perfections of the divine nature, fubverfive of that unchangeable, eternal law of righteousness, engraven on the heart of man by the finger of God, and inconfiftent alfo with the plaineft, moft obvious and folemn declarations, even with the whole ftrain and current of the facred oracles; I fay, to found fentiments of this kind upon any dark, figurative and obfcure paffages, is to treat the word of God in a moft prepofterous, and fhockingly abufive manner and yet, it is too notorious to be denied, and too great an evil to be disguised or concealed, that the divine fcriptures have been very much treated in this manner.

It is a pretty fevere, yet, I apprehend, but too just an obfervation relating to the scripture expofitors, that they have not been feeking in fcripture what ought to be believed, but what they themselves believe: they have not looked upon it as a book containing the doctrine they ought to receive, but as a work that might give fanction and authority to their own conceits, being preengaged, having formed their opinions previously to the proper ufe either of reafon or the word of God. I mean by blindly following fome human fyftem, they have come to the divine oracles not

with

with a defign to learn what they teach, but to teach them to speak according to their preconceived notions, and to make them, whether they will or no, patronize their peculiar fcheme of principles: and having made obfcure and figurative passages fpeak their own language, by being very pofitive and confident that they have their true fenfe, that revelation may not contradict itself, nor their own favourite fyftem, they have also found out ftrange methods of explaining away, and throwing darknefs and confufion upon what is indifputably plain and clear. This has made them corrupt the fcriptures in every part, wrack, torture, and pervert almost every individual paffage of the word of God. But whither does fuch treatment of the facred fcriptures tend? Is it not the most effectual method to extinguifh the light both of reafon and revelation? There have indeed, in moft ages of the chriftian church, been fome rational and judicious interpreters of the divine oracles, and fome late expofitors have nobly rescued the fcriptures from fuch abuse and proftitution. None need be impofed upon in this way, but fuch as are willing to deceive them felves, and defirous that SAVING RELIGION fhould be what it is not: for whatever paffage of fcripture may feem to contain a principle, contrary to the manifeft dictates of our own understandings, oppofite to what is elsewhere clearly expreffed; we may be abfolutely certain it does contain no fuch principle: we may be as certain

of

of this, as we can be, that the word of God is confiftent with itself, and alfo with that reason of our own minds, which is the candle of the Lord, and the inspiration of the Almighty.

It is, indeed, a shocking abuse of scripture, to make difficult paffages contradict plain ones, or revelation to contradict reafon. If any paffages seem to affert the fufficiency of faith alone to falvation; we are by no means to understand them as afferting the fufficiency of any kind of faith, without virtue whether we can abfolutely fix upon the true and precife meaning of them all or not; we may be abfolutely certain they cannot have a meaning that excludes the neceffity of virtue and obedience.

Where faith alone is laid fo much ftrefs upon, it muft intend only the fufficiency of the gospel (the whole of which is frequently ftiled faith) in contradiftinction to the Mofaic difpenfation, or that chriftianity is fufficient without Judaism. And this was a thing particularly neceffary to be afserted in the first ages, as fo great a number of Jewish converts, were for mixing Judaism and Christianity together, and would have had the Gentile converts compelled to be circumcifed, affirming that otherwife they could not be faved. Or where faith in Chrift is reprefented as the great and neceffary condition of falvation; it must be extended only to fuch as have heard of Chrift, and had the opportunity to learn his religion: and with reference

reference to fuch as enjoy the gospel, and profefs themselves chriftians, it must be understood as including in it its proper effect, fincere obedience to the gospel, without which it is not better, but worse than infidelity. When therefore St. Paul ufes fuch expreffions as thefe, the just fhall live by faith, a man is juftified by faith without the deeds of the law; we are furely to understand him in a way confiftent with St. James's doctrine, that faith alone cannot fave, but is dead being without works, and with his own declaration, that without holiness no man fhall fee the Lord, and his numerous affertions of the abfolute neceffity of an holy life, with which indeed all his epiftles abound: we are to understand him as only afferting the fufficiency of the gospel, without the law of Mofes. Such phrafes are by no means intended to infinuate the fufficiency of faith, without regard to God's moral law. Perfons are not hence to conclude, that a confidently believing and steadily maintaining that Chrift died for them, that they are interested in his merits, that God can fee no fin in them because they are believers, will bring them to falvation, without any care to conform their temper and life to the moral law of God and rule of the gospel.

Such texts as connect faith and falvation, mean the whole of chriftianity, principle and practice, and manifeftly comprize in them that obedience of faith, that fincere practice of moral righteousness

and

and true holiness, which the gospel fo clearly teacheth and so powerfully enforces, and calls the righteousness of God through Christ or the moral righteousness which God above all things requires, principally approves, and which he has fo plainly taught mankind through Chrift, or by the gofpel, the very thing wherein all its precepts and motives center, and which by way of diftinction from rituals and externals, is in fcripture ftiled true holiness.

When St. Paul fays, Chrift is made unto us righteousness and fanctification, we are not to imagine this means, that the righteoufnefs of Chrift himself, will, or can, be imputed to us, or that we shall, or can be, accounted as righteous, merely because he was righteous, or because we fancy, that, through an unaccountable kind of persuasion, we have clothed ourfelves with his righteousness. This is all abfurdity, and contrary to the very nature of things. The apoftle only means, that the doctrine of the gospel, the motives and affiftances of the gofpel of Chrift, duly improved, and properly applied, will actually turn men from vice to virtue and make them truly righteous and holy. When it is faid we are faved by grace; we are by no means to understand this, or any other fimilar paffages, as fuperfeding the neceffity of fincere obedience and a holy life. We are faved only to any valuable purpose by the gospel of God's grace, when we are faved by it from our vices and actually