called, must be also added the fruits of obedience to the holy will and commandments of GOD, which Chriftians are enabled to bring forth by the affiftance of the Holy Spirit, on the proper ufe of the means of grace appointed for that purpose. In page 44, you have brought two quotations, one from ST. AUGUSTINE, the other from Bishop BEVERIDGE, to prove in your fenfe, what I venture to fay those great men never meant should be proved from them, namely, that good works are the effect of juftification, and not the qualification for it. It is unneceffary to detain you on this beaten ground, becaufe, I truft, it has already been made appear, that good works are to be seen in both lights; as the effect of justification, and the qualification for it; as both following after justification in one fenfe, and going before it in another. Good works follow after man's firft juftification, because man can do no good works, before he is brought acquainted with the principle, upon which alone good works can be done: in that fenfe, they may be confidered as an effect, proceeding from a caufe. But good works must also go before man's final juftification, otherwife man can perform no good works at all: in that fenfe, they may be confidered as a qualification, preparatory to an event.

Without oppofing, therefore, what I conceive to be the sense of thofe great men, to whose authority you appeal, I decidedly protest against the conclufion you have drawn from them. *There is no protestant

but believes faith, repentance, and univerfal obedience, are neceffary to the obtaining God's favour, and eternal happinefs. This being granted, the rest is but a fpeculative controverfy, a queftion about words, which would quickly vanish, but that men affect not to understand one other. There is no protestant but requires to justification, remiffion of fins; and to remiffion of fins, they all require repentance; and repentance, I prefume, may not be denied the name of a good work, being indeed, if rightly understood, and according to the fenfe of the word in fcripture, an effectual converfion from all fin to all holinefs. They have great reafon to believe the doctrine of justification by faith only, as a point of great weight and importance, if it be rightly underftood; that is, they have reason to esteem it a principal and neceffary duty of a Chriftian, to place his hope of justification and falvation, not in the perfection of his own righteousness, which, if it be imperfect,

VOL. II.

* See CHILLINGWORTH, fol. page 32, 33.

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will not juftify, (1 fhould rather fay, not in his own righteouínes, which, being imperiet, cannot jutty) but only in the mercies of GOD, through CHRIST's fatisfaction; and yet, notwithstanding this, nay the rather for this, may preferve themselves in the right temper of good Chriftians, which is a happy mixture and sweet composition of confidence and fear. If this doctrine be otherwife expounded, I will not undertake the juftification of it; only I will fay, that I never knew any protestant such a soiifidian, but that he did believe these Divine truths-That he must make his calling certain by good works; that he must work out his falvation with fear and trembling;—and that while he does not fo, he can have no well-grounded hope of falvation. I fay, I never met with any one, who did not believe these Divine truths; and that with a more firm and with a more unfhaken affent, than he does that himself is predeftinate; and that he is justified, by believing himself justified. I never met with any fuch who, if he faw there was a neceffity to do either, would not rather forego his belief of thefe doctrines than the former: thefe which he sees difputed, and contradicted, and opposed with a great multitude of very potent arguments; than those which, being the exprefs words of fcripture, whofo

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ever should call in queftion, could not with any modesty pretend to the title of Christian.'

The idea, that where the root exists, the proper fruit will be produced, is contradicted by fact and experience. All trees in a living ftate do not produce fruit. Faith, though not in an actually dead ftate, may be alive to no faving purpose. In our Saviour's parable of the fig-tree, the lord of the vineyard is described as coming three years seeking fruit, and finding none. Had the tree been actually dead, no fruit could have been expected from it; but because its root did exift, the tree was alive, and the branches unfruitful, therefore was the fentence pronounced against it. The general tenour of fcripture accords with this figurative representation of the state of the Jewish nation, which authorises us to difcriminate between fruitful and unfruitful faith; to the want of which neceffary difcrimination, all the difputes on this fubject are to be attributed.

The doctrine of faith without works has indeed of late years been put out of countenance: but though it does not appear fo openly among Christians as it once did, it is ftill, I fear, making its way in difguife. A doctrine neatly related to it is at this day propagated, incompatible, if I understand it, with the grand

œconomy of man's falvation: I mean that doctrine which reprefents the fruits of holinefs as the neceffary produce of Christian faith. Perfons who profefs to write against the grofs corruption of Antinomianifm, may unintentionally promote it, by adopting a mode of reconciling the two Apoftles ST. PAUL and ST. JAMES, to which the Apoftles themselves would not fubfcribe. If, with the view of doing honour to faith, as the root or foundation of Chriftian practice, because no Christian practice can exist independent of it, the fruits of holinefs are to be confidered as its necessary produce; not only a great part of ST. PAUL'S writings would be without meaning, but the supposed attempt of ST. JAMES, to counteract the wrong conclufions that might be drawn from fome parts of them, taken unconnectedly, would have been useless, because in fuch case no fuch conclufion could have been drawn.

According to the plaufible idea adopted on this fubject, which, as it ftrikes me, fubftitutes one erroneous doctrine for another, the duties of Christianity are represented as growing out of the doctrines of it, as the natural and necessary productions of fuch a living root." The fallacy in this cafe proceeds from a fcripture allufion being taken in a too literal fenfe. Allufions are made ufe of to convey fome fimilitude,