teaches, or rather infinuates with regard to unbelieving finners, is, that as the performance of religious duties can only tend to gratify their natural pride and presumption, which are more criminal and hurtful than any the lufts of the flesh, it is more dangerous for persons in fuch circumstances to attempt yielding obedience to the divine commands, upon any confideration whatsoever, than to commit the most flagitious enormities, or indulge themselves in the basest and most criminal of all sensual gratifications; and that they may be as profitably, and less hurtfully, employed in doing so, than in praying, reading and hearing the word of God, or in using any other mean of divine appointment with any folicitude and concern about the salvation of their fouls. Yea, he plainly intimates, that it is highly absurd to suppose, that men wholly dead in trespasses and sins should be called to the performance of any duty. " Every one," says he*, " who is born of the " Spirit, lives merely by what he hears, without " his performing any duty at all; unless we shall "say, it was the duty of Lazarus to hear and live, " upon the uttering of the call, come forth." And he ridicules an eminent preacher for exhorting his hearers to effay believing on Chrift in obedience to the command of God, while they were supposed to be yet in a natural state.

This eminent preacher, when addressing men supposed to be yet in an unconverted state, had expressed himself in the following manner: "Do as "the man with the withered hand did; the poor " man minted, or attempted to obey, and in "the attempt of obedience, he got power "to stretch out his hand as he was commanded. "We must be essaying before we find the Spirit

* Letters, p. 88.

" working

" working effectually in us." Upon this pafssage the letter-writer makes the following reflection. " Now you know he might with equaljustice add, "Do as Lazarus did. In obedience to the call,

come forth, he attempted to rise; but happening " to be dead, he was not able fully to rise up and " come forth, till he got more power than his " own*."

Because it would be absurd to suppose, that Lazarus being dead was under any obligation to hear the voice of Christ and live, this Gentleman concludes, that it cannot be the duty of men dead in trespasses to believe on the name of the Son of God: for the divine command enjoining faith in Christ as the duty of all the hearers of the gospel †, it seems, according to him, merits no regard. But if it cannot be the duty of finners to believe, or essay believing in Christ, because of themselves they have no power to do so; for the very fame reafon we may affirm, that it cannot be the duty of men in an unrenewed state to yield, or so much as attempt to yield obedience to any one precept of the moral law: for they being wholly dead in fin, are as unable to perform acceptable obedience to any divine command, as they are to believe on Chrift for falvation, or to hear his voice and live.

It is then abundantly evident, that, according to this method of reasoning, men while dead in fin, or unbelieving finners, can no more be under any law to God, or the obligation of any moral precept, than if they were naturally dead, as Lazarus was when lying in the grave. It is equally certain, that

* Letters, p. 36. † 1 John iii. 23. ‡ It feems, according to our author, Spiritual death, or a death in fin, implies not only utter inability to perform acceptable obedience to the law of God, but a be

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that where there is no law, there can be no tranfgreffior: therefore, according to this doctrine, an unregenerate finner cannot be justly condemned for the guilt of any actual tranfgreffion. If therefore he is a finner, and under guilt, it must only be in confequence of the imputation of the first sin of Adam, or on account of inherent corruption. But if we attentively confider some hints given by the letter writer concerning both these, we shall find little reason to think he allows, that any guilt can arise from either. And therefore, according to his wild hypothefis above-mentioned, men can have no need of any atonement, or imputed righteousness for their juftification. One thing is evident, namely, that he has furnished them with some pleas in their own vindication, which, if just and well managed, would go a great way to answer all charges that can be brought against them in respect to the guilt of any fin, original or actual.

In oppofition to all this vile jargon, we are bold to affirm, because the Scripture makes it evident, that it no way derogates from the perfection and excellency of the divine righteousness, or the glory of the divine sovereignty, to teach that unregenerate finners are under a necessary obligation to yield obedience to every precept of the divine law; and confequently to believe on the name of Christ, repent of their fins, and perform every other duty recommended in the gospel; and to use every mean of divine appointment for attaining to the true knowledge of God, and of Jesus Christ whom he hath sent: and that, though no works truly good and acceptable to God can be performed by them while they remain in an unrenewed state, they ought with the utmost activity, folicitude and concern, to seek the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, or to obtain an interest in Chrift and that falvation he hath purchased*. And it is no less evident, that they have a power to do many things which God in his infinite wisdom does frequently, yea ordinarily make subservient to the execution of his infinitely gracious purposes respecting his chosen people, or to their converfion and salvation, He usually meets with his people, and brings them to himself, in the use of appointed means; though sometimes he is pleased to step as it were out of his ordinary road to meet with a finner, while engaged in a course of open wickedness, and living in a habitual neglect of his institutions; yea, perhaps, pouring contempt upon his word and ordinances. Thus he both manifests his infinite sovereignty, and maintains the honour of his own institutions.

And here we may add, that when any are excited to use the means of grace with the greatest diligence, feriousness and concern, that men in a natural state are capable of, God, in dealing effectu

* Prov. i. 22, 23. viii. 33, 34. Hai. Iv. 6. 7. Matt. vi. 33. Luke xiii. 24, &c.

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ally ally with their hearts, gives them such a discovery of the riches and fovereignty of his grace, and of their own unworthiness, vileness, and utter inability to do any thing for their own relief, with their natural propensity to abuse all the means and ordinances of divine appointment to their greater condemnation; as leaves no room for self-gloriation, or any fuch presumptuous imagination, as, that any folicitude or activity they were capable of, had furnished them with any peculiar claim, or could in the leaft recommend them to the divine favour.

As the author of the letters, the chief strength of whose cause lies in an artful misrepresentation of the sentiments of his adversaries, has endeavoured to impose upon his readers by giving a very false and deceitful view of what his opponents teach with regard to the matter now under confideration, I shall here transcribe a few passages from a well-known treatise, wrote by the learned Dr. Owen, in which, I think, the substance of what Palæmon calls the popular doctrine, on this head, is as clearly and fully expressed as in any of the popular writings I have met with. That judicious divine, having formerly spoken of some things required of unregenerate finners in order to converfion, to perform which lies within the compass of natural abilities, delivers his opinion in the following words.

"These things, viz. an outward attendance " to the dispensation of the word of God, with "those other external means of grace which

accompany it, or are appointed therein, and a " diligent intension of mind, in using the means of "grace, to understand and receive the things re"vealed and declared as the mind and will of God,

are required of us in order unto our regeneration, " and it is in the power of our own wills to comply " with them; and we may observe concerning " them,