especially as I have considered many as preachers thereof who differ remarkably from each other; and particularly as I have ranked among them Mr. WESLEY who may justly be reckoned one of the most virulent reproachers of that God whose character is drawn by the apostles, that this island has produced. To remove all doubt concerning my meaning, I shall thus explain myself. Throughout these letters I consider all those as teachers of the popular doctrine who seek to have credit and influence among the people by resting our acceptance with God, not simply on what Christ has done, but more or less on the use we make of him, the advance we make towards him, or some secret desire, wish or sigh to do so; or on something we feel or do concerning him, by the assistance of some kind of grace or spirit; or lastly on something we employ him to do, and suppose he is yet to do for us. In sum, all who would have us to be conscious of something else than the bare truth of the gospel; all who would have us to be conscious of some beginning of a change to the better, or some desire however faint, toward such change in order to our acceptance with God; these 1 call the popular preachers, however much they may differ from each other about faith, grace, special or common, or about any thing else.-My resentment is all along chiefly pointed against the capital branch of the popular doctrine, which while it asserts almost all the articles belonging to the sacred truth, at the same time deceitfully clogs them with the opposite falsehoods."

Again, "That the saving truth is effectually undermined by this confusion, may readily be seen

in the following easy view."—(This is what I call his grand argument) HE WHO MAINTAINS THAT

WE ARE JUSTIFIED ONLY BY FAITH, AND AT THE SAME TIME AFFIRMS, WITH ASPASIO, THAT FAITH IS A WORK EXERTED BY THE HUMAN MIND, UNDOUBTEDLY MAINTAINS, IF HE HAS ANY MEANING TO HIS WORDS, THAT WE ARE JUSTIFIED BY A WORK EXERTED BY THE HUMAN MIND.

"I have all along studied to make use of every form of expression I could think of, for evincing in the most clear, palpable, and striking manner, a difference of the last importance, which thousands of preachers have laboured to cover with a mist. If I have made that difference manifest to those who have any attention for the subject, my great end in writing is gained, on whatever side of it men shall chuse to rank themselves. It has frequently appeared to me a thing no less amazing than provoking, when the great difference between the ancient gospel here contended for and the popular doctrine, has been pointed out as clear as words could make it, to find many, after all, so obstinately stupid, as to declare they saw no real difference. This I cannot account for by assigning any other cause than the special agency of the prince of darkness "*

After this it may be thought an act of temerity to complain of not understanding Mr. SANDEMAN; and indeed I shall make no such complaint, for I think I do clearly understand his meaning; but whether he has fairly represented that of his opponents, I shall take the liberty to inquire.

Lett, on Ther. and Asp. vol. II. p. 480, 483.

God on account of it; and here begins his godliness: "It all consists in love to that which first relieved him.” *

If he had represented the doctrine of Christ as giving relief to the guilty creature irrespective of any consciousness of a change in himself; or as furnishing him with a ground to conclude that God can be just and the justifier of him if he believes in Jesus, this had accorded with Paul's gospel: + but for a sinner to perceive himself justified, implies a consciousness that he is a believer, and such a consciousness can never be separate from a conscious love to the divine character. If indeed the gospel were an expedient merely to give relief to sinners, and no regard was had in it to the glory of God, a sinner full of enmity to God, might receive it, and derive peace from it but if it be an essential property of it to secure the glory of the divine character, the belief of it must include a sense of that glory which cannot consist with enmity against it.

Let it also be seriously considered whether it be true that a sinner is justified "ungodly as he stands?" If it be, he must have been so either antecedently to his "seeing" it to be so, and then it must be equally true of all ungodly sinners; or it becomes so when he sees it, and by his seeing it, which is the very absurdity which Mr. S. fastens on the popular preachers.

Mr. S. and many others have caught at the phrase of the apostle Paul, of "God's justifying the ungodly; but unless they can prove that by ungodly the apostle meant one who was at the time † Rom. iv. 24.

Epis. Cor. p. 8.

an enemy of God, it makes nothing in their favour. The amount is, Mr. S's relief arises from his "seeing" what is not to be seen; viz. God to be just in justifyfying him ungodly as he stands: and his relief being founded in falsehood, all his godliness, which confessedly arises from it, must be delusive. The root is rollenness, and the blossom will go up as the dust.

From the leading principles of the doctrine above stated, it is easy to account for almost all the other peculiarities of the system. Where the root and substance of religion is placed in knowledge, exclusive of approbation, it may be expected that the utmost stress will be laid on the former, and that almost every thing pertaining to the latter, will be run down under the name of pharisaism, or some other odious appellation. Thus it is that those who have drank into this system generally value themselves on their clear views; thus they scarcely ever use any other phrase by which to designate the state of a converted man than his knowing the truth; and thus all those scripture passages which speak of knowing the truth are constantly quoted as being in their favour, though they seldom, if ever mean knowledge as distinguished from appro bation, but as including it.

Farther, I do not percieve how a system whose first principle is "notion," and whose love is confined to "that which first relieves us," can have the love of God in it. It cannot justify God as a lawgiver by taking blame and shame to ourselves, for it necessarily supposes, and even professes, an abhorrence to both law and justice in every other view than as satisfied by the cross of Christ. The

reconciliation to them in this view therefore, must be merely on the ground of their becoming friendly to our interests. But if God be not justified as a lawgiver, Christ can never be received as a Sa viour. There is no more grace in justification, than there is justice in condemnation; nor is it possible we should see more of the one than of the other, for we cannot see things otherwise than as they are to be seen. But surely a system which neither justifies the lawgiver, nor receives the saviour as honouring him, cannot be of God. The love of God as God is not in it. Conversion on this principle is not turning to the Lord.. It professes indeed to love God, but it is only for our own sake. The whole process requires no renovation of the spirit of the mind; for the most depra ved creature is capable of loving himself and that which relieves him.

Is it any wonder that a religion founded on such a principle should be litigious, conceited, and censorious towards all who do not come into it? It is of the nature of a selfish spirit to be so. If God himself be loved only for the relief he affords us, it cannot be surprising that men should; nor that under the cover of loving them only for the truth's sakc, all manner of bitterness and contempt should be cherished against every one who dares to dispute our dogmas.

Farther, the love of God, being in a manner excluded from the system, it may be expected that the defect will be supplied by a punctilious attention to certain forms; of which some will be found to arise from a misunderstanding of the scriptures, and others which may not, yet being regarded to