EVANGELICAL TRUTHS STATED, AND THE CHARGE OF
NOVELTY AS A GROUND OF PREJUDICE AGAINST
THE GOSPEL, REFUTED.

[Preached at Nantwich, July 28, 1782.]

“What new doctrine is this?” Mark, i. 27.

If you look back to the twenty-first verse of the chapter, you find our Lord teaching in a synagogue at Capernaum, and all his hearers filled with astonishment at his doctrine. Truth naked and unadorned has been known often to produce this effect. How irresistibly powerful must have been its efficacy, in the mouth of such a Teacher! whose manner was as engaging, as his wisdom was profound! What seems principally to have struck the audience, while listening to the incomparable doctrines of the Lord Jesus, was, “that he taught them as one that had authority, and not as the scribes.” For, as the origin of truth is divine, it claims the just prerogative of commanding obedience to its sanctions, and gives its advocates an authority in pleading her injured rights, which error can seldom counterfeit.

That our blessed Lord might authenticate his mission, and enforce his doctrine, he took occasion, in the synagogue, to dispossess a demoniac. The unclean spirit that tormented him instantly yielded obedience to the word of Jesus, after having previously acknowledged him to be “the Holy One of God,” verse 24. A miracle, performed upon such an occasion, and attested by a variety of circumstances of public notoriety, excited the amazement of all present; who said, “What thing is this? What new doctrine is this?” Two things were the object of their surprise; the miraculous cure of the demoniac, and the supposed novelty of our Lord’s doctrine. But had they been properly conversant in the writings of their favorite lawgiver Moses, they would have seen, that Jesus came not to reveal truths in their nature absolutely new, and altogether unknown; but only to place in a new light, to communicate by a new style of preaching, and to enforce by motives unfolded with clearer radiance, those original truths, which the divine legation and ritual economy of Moses, as well as the corroborating testimony of all the prophets, were intended to teach from the beginning. See Acts, x. 43, and John, v. 45. But St. Paul accounts for this ignorance in the Jews, and the prejudices which sprung from it, by observing, that “their minds were blinded: for, until this day, remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the Old Testament; which vail is done away in Christ.” 2 Cor. iii. 14. Had not “a vail” of darkness and unbelief “been upon their hearts,” they would have both known and acknowledged, that the doctrines which Jesus preached, were of patriarchal as well as Mosaic antiquity; and that Jehovah himself “preached that gospel unto Abraham,” Gal. iii. 8, which Jesus came to confirm and elucidate by a dispensation, superior in light and glory to any that had preceded it; and that what “God spake at sundry times and in divers manners unto the fathers by the prophets, he spake in the last days by his Son.” Heb. i. 1.

Blindness in the Jews made them fix the charge of novelty on the doctrines of Christ, although so visibly inscribed with the marks of divine authenticity; and the effect of that presumptive and hasty imputation, was an unwillingness to receive his testimony or credit the truth of his mission; and the consequence, a stubborn opposition to truth and a fatal insensibility in sin, terminating, at last, in such judgments as render them now a hissing and a proverb to all the nations of the earth.

But, are such prejudices new? or was the baneful root of them confined only to the regions of JudÆa? No. In this land, and in this day, with all the advantages which we derive from the free circulation of the word of God, and from a national establishment so auspicious to the interests of truth, there are multitudes, who are ready to cry out, when they hear the gospel, as “certain philosophers of the Epicureans and of the Stoics” did, when Paul preached at Athens, “Thou bringest certain strange things to our ears. May we know what this new doctrine, whereof thou speakest, is?” Acts, xvii. 19, 20. Thus, with many, to attribute novelty to a system, is the way to reprobate, and make it odious. And there are not a few, who satisfy themselves with no other argument for their unbelief, than that they may have happened not to hear before, what they contemptuously spurn. As if the nature of truth can be altered, or the credit of it shaken, by the want of previous acquaintance. We should have thought it a strange species of argumentation, had the Athenian philosophers attempted to demonstrate, that St. Paul’s doctrine must have been false, merely because it was new, and they happened not to hear it before. Yet upon this weak ground, do numbers reject the truth, and militate against their own happiness; while their conduct is as grossly repugnant to the dictates of calm reason and common sense, as it is reprobated by the voice of scripture. It will be a poor excuse, for any to make at the tribunal of Christ, that they contemned the great doctrines of revelation, merely because they thought them novel, when they neglected the opportunity of being convinced to the contrary; or that they adopted their ideas, and regulated their practice, by the maxims of the world. Such apologies, with all the mistake and precipitancy on which they are founded, may pass current now with those, who are credulous enough to drink in the monstrous absurdities of infidelity, whether ancient or modern. But, they will never satisfy those, who wishing to investigate truth at the fountain-head, like the noble Bereans, “search the scriptures daily, whether those things are so.” Acts, xvii. 11. And that none here may ignorantly plead such excuses, for their indifference or unbelief on a subject of such vast concern, I will endeavour, First, to show what the doctrine is which we preach, and on which we build our eternal all; and, Secondly, That this doctrine is no more justly chargeable with novelty, than it is with error; and, Thirdly, That other objections brought against the ministers of the gospel, are equally frivolous and undeserved.

I. As to the doctrines, which we preach, although we look upon ourselves accountable for them to that most excellent church, whose system of theology is the glory of her establishment, and the sacred depositum of all her ministers; yet, when truth is concerned, we acknowledge ourselves obliged to look from her authority, venerable as it is, to the infallible decisions of the lively oracles of God; since every church and every doctrine must be tried, must stand or fall, by that great standard. To the sacred scriptures we are glad to appeal, as to a divine authority, not superseding, but corroborating the doctrines of our church; without which, no obligation, arising merely from a national establishment, could lie upon the conscience to believe and receive them. And, indeed, the liberality and candor of our church appear in this, that she unites with the state in granting what, it must be confessed, are the natural rights of all who think themselves authorized to dissent from her: and admits in her sixth article, that “whatsoever may not be proved by holy scripture, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of faith.” Taking it for granted, however, that her constitution is founded upon a scripture model, and her articles consonant with the truth as it is in Jesus, while she requires, and has indeed an indisputable right to insist, that her ministers should preach those doctrines, and those only, which she had professedly derived from the fountain of truth in sacred writ; she has manifestly opened to them a fair opportunity of investigating the origin, and examining the tendency, of the system she hath received, and of acting agreeably to the result of their researches. No dissentient, therefore, can plead hardship or injury in this case. If he be out of the church, he is not compelled to come in. And if he should happen to be within the pale of her communion, no compulsion is exercised to keep him there. He was supposed to enter freely and cordially, and is permitted as freely to go out, if his sentiments are inimical to her great distinguishing doctrines. She hath only claimed, what every society in the world hath thought itself warranted to claim for the security of its laws and the benefit of its members; and that is, a liberty of judging for herself. And that judgment she conceives to be obligatory and directory to her ministers, not as set up in opposition to the word of God, but as perfectly coincident with its authority.

In this, view, when a minister of the Church of England is either directly by controversy, or indirectly by secretly-invidious imputations, called upon to declare and vindicate his sentiments; to all the members of the same church with himself, he has a right to quote her authority as a sufficient justification of the tenets he inculcates; and has an equal right to expect, that an unequivocal appeal to her discriminating doctrines ought to be considered as an indirect evidence, at least, of the uprightness of his intentions, if not of the orthodoxy of his sentiments. He thinks himself authorized to expect too, that he should be reputed an honest man, as long as he professes to advance nothing but in subserviency to the scheme of doctrine which he solemnly subscribed at his ordination. And should he happen to err, yet candor should acknowledge, that he is mistaken with the Church of England, since her sentiments he avows as his own. And in such venerable company he is not, and cannot be supposed to be ashamed to declare them, that all may judge for themselves of the inconsistency or validity of his pretensions. And, when interrogated, he might think it a sufficient apology to say, “If you wish to know my sentiments, from any secret supposition of their heterodoxy, I refer you to the 39 articles of that church, of which we are both members. I subscribed to those articles with hand and heart. My assent and consent to them were sincere and unequivocal. I firmly believe them to be agreeable to the word of God; and, while they epitomize the sentiments of the church, they speak my own. As such I believe them, and I preach them. Read over those articles, therefore, and you may then know, what are the leading topics of my ministrations.” Such an answer a minister of the gospel might esteem a reasonable and a sufficient one, to cavillers of every description, when either ignorance censures, or malevolence detracts. But lest, upon the present occasion, such an appeal should be thought to carry too much the appearance of indolence and evasion, I will endeavour, with all the faithfulness and precision in my power, to state the outlines of that system of doctrine, which I verily believe to be according to truth and godliness, and upon which I build my own hopes and prospects for eternity.

1. Although the nature of God, as a Being of infinite wisdom, power, justice, glory, purity, and goodness, surpasses the comprehension of men and angels; yet, according to the revelation which he hath thought proper to give of himself in holy scripture, we think ourselves authorized to believe, and to preach in consequence, that in the divine essence there are three persons, who are incomprehensibly one in all the perfections of the Godhead; and, according to their respective offices in the economy of redemption, are called in scripture, Father, Son, and Spirit; that, though economically and personally three, they are essentially one; that all objections to this doctrine arising from the incomprehensibility of it, apply equally to the truth of the very being of a God; and that a denial of it, is one of those heresies that enter very deeply into an apostacy from the truth and power of godliness. The doctrine of the Trinity, or of three co-equal and co-essential persons in one undivided Godhead, as an object of adoration to men and angels, we look upon as one of the great mysteries of revelation, and as a fundamental article in the Christian faith. If the opponents of this leading tenet think proper, as too many of them have done, to ridicule it as inexplicable, and contrary to reason; we are sorry for their inconsistency, and would remind them, that their sneers might very easily be retorted on themselves, were they only required to account for, and reconcile with reason, a thousand phenomena in nature, the existence of which they dare not dispute, though their occult qualities, origin, and extent of operation, are wrapt up in mystery. And if nature, in some of the most common and sensible objects, abounds with mysteries, which philosophy cannot explore or account for; how incomprehensible must the God of nature be, when his own peculiar mode of existence is the object of contemplation! We believe, therefore, that the impenetrable mystery that envelopes the doctrine of the Trinity from the comprehension of reason, ought to be no bar to the reception of it; and that it ought to be believed upon the simple authority of revelation, like other doctrines equally mysterious, which it would be folly and blasphemy to contradict for a moment.

2. We believe that God made man at first upright, but that he hath sought out many inventions; and that the moral image of the Deity stamped on his heart was obliterated by his disobedience: in consequence of which, he instantly fell into a deplorable state of darkness, bondage, and death.—That all mankind were radically and federally in Adam, and were to stand or fall in him.—That his apostacy affected all his descendants, who inherit his fallen nature, with all the guilt and depravity inherent in it. And, though the disobedience of Adam was not, and could not be the sin of his posterity in point of personal concurrence; yet, as an act of high treason in a nobleman is considered, by an attainder in the law, as affecting his children, and they suffer in their titles and inheritance for what was properly and personally the crime of their ancestors; so an entail of the penalty annexed to the act of original transgression, which is death, proves more forcibly, than a thousand arguments, that there must be also an entail of guilt; and that “in Adam all died,” 1 Cor. xv. 22, because by “his disobedience they were made sinners,” ?atesta??sa? ?a?t????, Rom. v. 19, constituted transgressors. And, therefore, according to the 9th article of the Church of England, that “man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined to evil;” and that although he still possesses all the original faculties, which in their state of primeval rectitude constituted man the image of his Maker, yet they are now so depraved and alienated by the fall, as to require a divine agency to regulate and renew them. Indeed, the dreadful disorder which death hath introduced into the natural world, loudly speaks the prior existence of some fatal evil in the moral world; and evinces, that the cause must be as malignant as the effect is universal. We assert, upon the authority of scripture, that the consequences of the first transgression to Adam and all his descendants, which “were in his loins,” as the sons of Levi are said to have “paid tithes in Abraham,” Heb. vii. 9, 10, appear to have been, a loss of the divine image, a forfeiture of happiness, a death in sin, a subjection to the death of the body, and an obnoxiousness to death eternal of both soul and body; and that all, without exception, that are naturally engendered of the offspring of Adam, “are by nature children of wrath.” Ephes. ii. 1, 3. Rom. v. 14–21. Rom. vi. 23.

3. It is of the highest importance to the system of Christianity, to maintain the doctrine of human guilt and depravity, because it is such an advantageous foil to set forth the unbounded love and glorious redemption of the Lord Jesus Christ; which, without an acknowledgment of the apostacy of man, must of course be reputed a solemn redundancy, if not an absolute nonentity. And it always happens, that they who deny the fall reject some of the capital doctrines of revelation, that are concomitant with it, and are generally convicted of entertaining low and blasphemous thoughts concerning the person and salvation of the Son of God. But as we take for granted, that that original sin, which some have dared, in derision, to call original nonsense, is a most melancholy and humiliating matter of fact, we assert, that the only person qualified for rescuing man from the consequences of that depraved and helpless condition into which he was plunged by sin, was the eternal Son of God. Of him we believe, that his qualifications for the high office of Mediator between God and man depend entirely upon the truth of his divinity; that when the scriptures call Jesus God, they give him that divine title in the proper sense of the word; that he is, as Mediator, subordinate and delegated, and sent; but not, as God. We believe the inspired writers continually mean to represent him, under that name of divinity, as one with the Father in the essence of the Godhead, because he claims all the other incommunicable attributes peculiar to it; such as omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence, eternity of existence a parte ante, &c. We cannot conceive that Jehovah would be the infringer of his own law, in commanding “all the angels of God to worship” the Son, Heb. i. 6, if the Son were not by nature God; since a subordinate Deity, as an object of inferior adoration, is an idea expressly repugnant to the very letter of that law, which enjoins the worship of one God, and condemns the translation of it to any other being: and to worship any creature, whether a seraph or a quadruped, whether angelic or superangelic, is idolatry; that since the great Lawgiver could never intend to violate his own law, which is as unchangeable as his own nature, in commanding homage to be paid to the Messiah, he meant to proclaim to all the earth, that “in him dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, pa? t? p????a t?? ?e?t?t?? s?at????” Col. ii. 9.We preach Jesus, therefore, as very God; as the agent, and end of all things; for by him and for him were all things in heaven and earth created. Col. i. 16. We preach his blood as deriving all its efficacy to atone for sin, and purge the conscience, from the infinite dignity of his divine nature. We believe his righteousness to be “the righteousness of God” in all respects consummate, and divinely glorious; 2 Cor. v. 21; and that, abstracted from the fulness of the Godhead, it could have no more availed towards the justification of a sinner before God, than the righteousness of Gabriel. We believe that it was the incomprehensible yet real union of the divine nature to the human, in the person of the Lord Christ, that enabled him to make “a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for sin,” to bruise the serpent’s head, to conquer death, and to tread the wine-press of the wrath of God. We believe Jesus to be God-man, and point lost sinners to him as the object of their trust and adoration; and we are fully persuaded, that, take away the truth of our Lord’s proper Deity, and you discard the rock on which the church is built, and subvert the foundation of his people’s hopes. If unbelievers start the old trite objection of proud reason, that this doctrine too is unworthy of acceptation, because incomprehensible, our answer is in the words of the apostle, “Great is the mystery of godliness, God was manifest in the flesh.” 1 Tim. iii. 16.

4. As to the decrees and dispensations of Almighty God, which originate in “the good pleasure of his will,” Ephes. i. 5, and are made subservient to his glory, I would wish to think of them with caution and humility, and to speak of them with the most profound reverence: And though I cannot but acknowledge that my thoughts recoil with horror at the idea of God’s dooming sinners to hell by a positive decree of reprobation, or of his taking a delight and complacency in the misery of any of his creatures; yet I cannot withhold my hearty assent to that authority, which declares, that believers were “chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world;” Ephes. i. 4; that they are “elect according to the fore-knowledge of God;” Pet. i. 2; that they are “chosen to salvation,” 1 Thes. ii. 13, as the certain end of that choice; and, as the 17th article says, “that the godly consideration of our election in Christ is full of sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort to such as feel in themselves the working of the spirit of Christ.”

The adversaries of this doctrine, who, in the warmth of their zeal, apprehend, that a discriminating election of sinners to salvation, irrespective of any moving or meritorious cause in the creature, is an impeachment of the divine justice, seem to forget, that to form a judgment of God’s dispensations from our ideas of equity, is fallacious and dangerous; since, “as the heavens are above the earth, so are his thoughts above our thoughts, and his ways above our ways.” Isa. lv. 9. For “who hath known the mind of the Lord? or, being his counsellor, hath directed him?” Rom. xi. 34. Since the wisdom of God hath appeared foolishness to the world, why may not the very equity of his proceedings to the same incompetent and partial judges be construed into injustice? Yet who would argue, that the conclusion in either case is according to truth? Rather, who would not conclude, that the same false reasoning that has deluded mankind into an error, respecting the wisdom of God’s dispensations, should also incline them to arraign the justice of them too? A race of beings suffering for their apostacy under the hand of God, must, of course, view the dispensation that inflicts their punishment, in a very malignant light, and cannot be looked upon as competent judges in a case, wherein torment excites rebellion, and prompts them to blaspheme the hand of the Most High, merely because it holds the vengeful rod of chastisement. The angels that left their first estate, no doubt, think it hard, that they should be “reserved in chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day;” and, while they are suffering justly, are, probably, ready enough to curse God as an arbitrary tyrant, because their remediless condition leaves them in that power of his wrath for ever? Yet what is the opinion of such unhappy beings, but the impotent rage of rebels against the just dispensations of the Holy One of Israel?

The charge of injustice comes with a very ill grace too from the mouth of rebels incarnate. They have no claim upon Jehovah for a single favor. Having forfeited all by sin, their real desert is death eternal. So that, had Jehovah thought proper to have passed by the whole human race, they would have had no more real cause to blame, as unjust, this judicial pretention, than the angels have, who are unexceptionably and eternally lost. Instead of quarrelling, therefore, with his dispensations and his truths, which, like his own nature, are inscrutable; it becomes us, as sinners, to fall down at his footstool with self-abhorrence, and to adore that great mystery of redemption that hath opened a way of salvation for any; and, instead of indulging a proud and disputatious temper, “to give all diligence to make our calling and election sure.” If a contrary spirit were carried to its full extent, there would be no end of impeaching the divine justice in the affairs of the universe. The same pride that actuated the Jews to kill the Son of God, because he pleaded the divine sovereignty in choosing Naaman and the woman of Sarepta as objects of his favors, above all the lepers or widows in Israel, Luke, iv. 27, would lead men to inquire with arrogance, why this man is born to riches and honors, while another inherits poverty and wretchedness;—why some are idiots, and others adorned with bright and cultivated understandings;—why some inherit disease from their birth, and drag on a miserable life for years in torture and pining sickness, while others enjoy an unintermitted portion of health through every period of their lives, and go down to their graves without any pain, save that of dying, which, with such, is often a short and easy transition;—why it is the fate of some to be the unhappy subjects of insanity, that torturing disease of the mind, which secludes them from society, and makes them dreaded as the most furious animals; while others, by the free and vigorous exertion of their mental powers, are ornaments to society, and preside in the management of states and empires;—why multitudes are condemned to the galleys, or, for no other crime but that of defenceless and impoverished condition, are sold for slaves, and, by an inhuman traffic, become the property of Christian tyrants, who often treat them more barbarously than the beasts that perish, while others enjoy the protection of law, and all the blessings of civil and religious liberty;—why one country is burnt up with heat, another is a region of inhospitable deserts, or inaccessible mountains; a scene of barrenness and desolation; and a third is visited with the pestilence, or shaken with continual earthquakes; while other parts of the globe are crowned with perpetual verdure, are blessed with plenty and fertility, and enjoy that constitutional peace, and unanimity, to which those nations are strangers, that are torn with faction and depopulated by the sword;—why some countries are visited with that first of all national blessings, the light of the gospel, while others are suffered to lie for ages buried in paganism and superstition;—why, in particular, the Jews should have been God’s favorite people for more than half the period of the world’s present existence, and the Gentiles excluded from their privileges, till the set time for their incorporation arrived;—and why the gospel meets with a more favorable reception in some places than in others, where there is no reason to suppose that the difference arises from any superior disposition in the hearts of the inhabitants, all being alike dead in sin. These are phenomena in the dispensations of providence, which, according to the principles of some, ought to be made a subject of curious and querulous investigation, as well as the mysterious dealings of divine grace. But, if God hath a right to do what he will with his own, in dispensing temporal favors, why should he not be equally a sovereign in bestowing spiritual ones? since, among all the children of men, there does not exist a single claimant deserving for his own sake either the one or the other, in the smallest degree of vouchsafement? “Who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again?” Rom. xi. 35. And, if any, viewing the goodness and severity of God with a curious eye, should still persist in reiterating objections, and ask, “Why doth he yet find fault? for, who hath resisted his will?” Our answer is in the words of St. Paul, “Nay, but, O man! who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?” Rom. ix. 20.

While we assert the eternal sovereignty of God in choosing sinners to salvation, we would not insinuate that any compulsion is exercised over the will. The freedom of that is eminently preserved by the grace that restores it to the original object of its choice. The will is not compelled, but drawn, suavi omnipotenti et omnipotenti suavitate, by a sweet and all-powerful at traction; and then the sinner is “made willing in the day of God’s power.” Psal. cx. Neither has this great truth the least tendency to relax the obligation of personal holiness, or to affect the interests of morality in the world; since the people of God are said to be “chosen in Christ, that they should be holy and without blame before him in love.” Ephes. i. 4. The invidious charge, that, “if persons are chosen to salvation they may live as they list,” has no foundation in truth and facts; and there is no position more abominable in our view, than that by which some accommodate to us, “Let us do evil, that good may come.” And to sin, because grace abounds, we esteem a species of the most detestable and first-rate wickedness. If some have abused these doctrines to purposes of licentiousness; it should be remembered, that the world in general use the opposite ones as an opiate to lull them asleep in fatal supineness. So that, if any argument be founded on the number of those who are influenced by these tenets respectively, an immense majority will be on the side of opposition both to truth and godliness; and the argument must, of course, preponderate in favor of those, who, by partial judges, are supposed to be most affected by it. But as we admit of no election, but such as hath holiness for one of its salutary streams, and look for no perseverance, but such as implies the habitual practice of good works, and a continuance in them even to the end; so we insist, that, without the election of grace, the power to perform them would be wanting, and the hopes of salvation rest on a very precarious foundation. It is the everlasting spring, from whence floweth that river of God, which is full of water, that gladdens the church with its perennial source and inexhaustible supplies. Built upon this rock, the people of God are secure; and their salvation as great a certainty, as the purposes, dispensations, covenant, promises, and blood of Jesus, can make it.

5. On the doctrine of justification, the scriptures teach us, that the only meritorious cause or primary ground of it before God, is the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, which includes his obedience to the moral law, and the satisfaction he made to divine justice by his expiatory sufferings:—that this righteousness is transferred to the believer by a gratuitous imputation, and being apprehended by faith, constitutes the ground of his peace, as well as the matter of his justification before God:—that it is given “unto all,” as a free and unmerited donation, and is “upon all them that believe,” Rom. iii. 22, as a rich and immaculate garment of salvation:—that the moment a sinner believes in Jesus with ever so weak a faith, his justification before God is complete, because he lays hold on the perfect righteousness of Christ. And by him all that believe are justified from all things. Acts, xiii. 39. “There is no condemnation to them.” Rom. viii. 1.—And that the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ being, in all respects, consummate and glorious, cannot want, and will not admit of, any works of the sinner as auxiliary to his justification. For, “by the obedience of One many are made righteous.” Rom. v. 19. And “to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted to him for righteousness.” Rom. iv. 5.

The faith that apprehends the righteousness of Christ, is the gift of God; and, before it exists, no works deserve the name of good, because, until a man’s person is accepted, his works cannot be well-pleasing in the sight of God; and till the tree is made good, the fruit cannot be good. No good works can precede justification by faith; and therefore the 13th article properly observes, that “works done before the grace of Christ, and the inspiration of his Spirit, are not pleasant to God, for as much as they spring not of faith in Jesus Christ.” Which truth St. Paul confirms, by declaring, that “without faith it is impossible to please God.” Heb. xi. 6. Good works, therefore, are subsequent to justification, and are not the matter, but the evidences of it. They justify a believer before men, but his faith justifies him before God; because, the fruits of righteousness, though deserving commendation from man, are open with all their imperfection before the eye of omniscience; and “in his sight can no man living be justified.” Psal. cxliii. 2. And in order that this part of the subject may be summed up in as perspicuous and concise a manner as possible, I close it with laying before you the following distinction; viz. A believer is justified meritoriously by the righteousness of Christ, instrumentally by faith, and declaratively by works. In the first sense, he is justified before God; in the second, in his own conscience; and in the third, before the world. These several truths are equally inimical, by this distinction, to the pride of self righteousness, and the licentious pleas of Antinomianism. And, by this arrangement, the truth is so guarded on all sides, that Christ, and faith, and works, have their respective place, without any injury or dishonor to one or the other. For, though Christ hath, and will have in all things the pre-eminence, and both faith and works act in subordination, and lay all their honors at the Redeemer’s feet; yet both are indispensably necessary, since without faith there is no pleasing God, and that faith which hath not works can save no man. This distinction, and the truths which arise from it, you will find vindicated in the 11th, 12th, and 13th articles of the Church of England.

6. As to faith and repentance, if men, when they call them the conditions of salvation, only mean, that we cannot be saved without them, in this point of view we perfectly agree. But if, under these terms, is conveyed an insinuation, either that they are performed by any power of the creature, or possess such a degree of merit, as to be intrinsically conditional of salvation, which I fear is often intended, we then enter our protest against not only the inaccuracy, but the dangerous error, couched under the expression. Both repentance and faith are the gifts of God. What is given, cannot be a condition of the love of the giver; but must be the effect of it. It is the greatest solecism in divinity and common sense, to say, that the favors bestowed are the conditions of antecedent affection. As well might we argue, that the effects produced in the earth by the sun’s rays, are the condition of his existence as the source of light and heat. Whereas the very reverse is true. The light of the universe, and the fertility of the earth, depend upon the influence of that great luminary; without which, the world would be a dungeon, and all creation a blank. Thus the Lord Jesus Christ shines in the firmament of his church as the Sun of Righteousness. The light of faith and the renovating influence of repentance, are those beneficial rays which he emits, as tokens of his love and power. The effects produced prove to individuals that this Sun shineth; but they do not make him shine. His glory is independent, as his goodness is undeserved. Besides, as the power to believe and repent, is from God, Acts, v. 31, John, vi. 29, these acts of the mind can possess no merit or proper conditionally, unless it can be supposed that a sinner has a right to expect heaven for what is not his own. And when so much is attributed to faith and repentance, the great object of both is forgotten. And that object is the Lord our righteousness; whose obedience and death were the great conditions of reconciliation; without which, one sinner could not have been saved. When we talk of the conditions of salvation, we should, therefore, remember, that “to do the will of the Father,” which implies the performance of these conditions, is represented in Psal. xl. 6, and Heb. x. 9, as the sole work of the Redeemer.

7. We conceive it to be of the utmost importance, as well for the consistency of the gospel plan, as the happiness of sinners, to maintain the necessity of a divine inspiration; not for the purpose of working miracles, as some absurdly imagine that expression always implies; but for the purpose of effecting that great change in the heart, without which, none can enter the kingdom of heaven. A change so difficult to produce, that it is called in scripture a new birth, John, iii. 7; a new creation, 2 Cor. v. 17; a translation from darkness to light, and from the kingdom of Satan to the kingdom of Christ; and that requires an exertion of the same omnipotent power that brought light out of darkness in the beginning, and arranged the universe itself. When St. Paul says, that “if any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of his,” Rom. viii. 9, we apprehend the apostle declares an awful truth, that not only affected his cotemporaries, but in which all are concerned to the end of time. And since the world as much wants now to be “convinced of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment,” John, xvi. 8, as in the day that our Lord promised to send the Holy Ghost for these important purposes; it is reasonable to conclude, that his inspiration is still continued with the church, notwithstanding the opposition which this truth meets with from multitudes, many of whom call that enthusiasm, which they are taught to pray for in the services of the church. But the misfortune is, they make their own stupid feelings a comment upon those of others; and the force of their arguing centres entirely in this, that the influences of the spirit must have ceased, because they never felt them. Which is reasoning, just as wise and conclusive, as if a man born blind should insist that there is no such colour as scarlet, because he never saw it.

Thus have I endeavoured to give you a summary of the truths of God, which, like the several links in a chain, are so closely connected, that whatever affects one, endangers more or less the whole system; while, to maintain the distinct authority of each, and to point out its coherence with every concomitant link in the golden chain of evangelical truth, must necessarily tend to the preservation of the whole. But it remains now that I shew that,

II. The system of doctrine I have laid down, is no more justly chargeable with novelty than with error.

To urge antiquity alone, as a sufficient recommendation of any doctrine, is often the refuge of superstition driven to its last resource. And it is well known how much this plea is maintained by the Church of Rome, as a covert for all the errors, impositions, and pious frauds, that for centuries have banished purity and truth from her communion. The plea of antiquity is but a fallacious one at best; since error is very old as well as truth, and in every age of the church men have always called in the suffrage of their ancestors as a sort of sanction for their own blasphemies; imputing to antiquity a certain virtue to make error venerable, or to stamp a dignity on folly, merely because it may have happened to be folly before the flood. Equally inconclusive and fallacious too, are either the objections started against any doctrine, or the countenance sought in favor of it, merely because it may be new. People are apt, in most cases, to be strangely wedded to antiquity; insomuch, that a friendly effort to rescue them even from nonsense, or to liberate them from slavery, has been at different times construed into a dangerous innovation. When men have been habituated to an old track, they become in time so reconciled to it, that what with indolence and a stupid predilection in favor of antiquity, they discover an unwillingness to be driven out of it. And the man that has courage enough to make the attempt, does it often at his peril. The person that first declared there were any such beings as antipodes, was put to death as a monster of wickedness. The discovery was new; and the mere novelty was enough, in the opinion of a sage pope, to constitute him a heretic, and judge him worthy of death. Yet, it seems necessary to guard with proper caution against the pretensions of novelty. Men are often ambitious of making new discoveries in religion, as well as in other sciences. And when long established truth in the scriptures checks them in their bold attempts to advance any thing absolutely new, they will often put ingenuity upon the rack, at least, to devise some new refinement upon an old error, that they may set themselves at the head of a party, and rear their own consequence upon the ruins of truth and peace. A bigot of this class has more than once complained bitterly, that, “in the Church of England, there is nothing new left to be found out in religion; but that the 39 articles tell all.” As if religion were a fluctuating system, that requires to be changed and improved like fashions of a day.

From these observations it is plain, that the pleas, both of antiquity and novelty, either for or against any thing, are indecisive, and may be dangerous; and that when any doctrines are proposed to us, our principal inquiry should be, not whether they are new or old, but whether they are true. It is not the date of a bond that gives it its validity in law, but the sign manual, and the attestation of witnesses. Who ever thought of inquiring, when a piece of money was coined, provided the metal were pure, and its currency legal. Gold is the same in every age; and none would think it more intrinsically valuable, either for the antiquity or novelty of its coinage. So, the nature of truth cannot be affected by any accidental circumstances of date, time, and place; and all, who are in search of it, merely for its own sake, will make no account of such trivial considerations. However, as prejudices are sometimes best removed by being a little humoured in their requisitions, capricious as they are, I will endeavour to shew that the truths I have stated, claim antiquity as well as purity for the ground of their excellency.

1. If the writings of Moses may be considered among the most venerable and authentic records, I think I can prove my point even from the Pentateuch. A plural substantive and verb singular in the very first verse in the Bible, united in a description of the act and agent in creation, convey, if not a direct proof, yet a very strong intimation, of a plurality of persons in the Godhead, and of their oneness in point of essence. But that truth is more expressly declared, when upon the fall of man Jehovah says, “The man is become as one of us.” Gen. iii. 22.—The history of the first transgression is recorded in the same chapter. And the effects of it soon appeared in the murder committed by Cain against his own brother, and in the flagrant wickedness of one of his descendants, that infamous polygamist Lamech. The communication of the original taint from father to son is so expressly recorded by Moses, that when St. Paul says, that “by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners,” he does not speak more intelligibly, than when the Jewish Lawgiver says, that “Adam begat a son in his own likeness;” Gen. v. 3,—“in his own,” as contradistinguished from the divine image, in which he had been created. What words can more forcibly describe the total and desperate apostacy of the human heart, than the following? “And God saw that every imagination of the thoughts of man’s heart was only evil continually.” Gen. vi. 5. And what was the universal deluge, but a tremendous comment on this humiliating truth? And, lest it should be presumed, that postdeluvian wickedness was less flagrant than that which provoked God to destroy the inhabitants of the earth with a flood, or, that human nature was materially altered for the better, David says, that “God looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand and seek God. But, behold! they are all gone aside, there is none that doeth good, no not one.” Psal. xiv. 2, 3. A passage of scripture this, which the Apostle Paul quotes in Rom. iii. “to prove that both Jews and Gentiles are all under sin.” Rom. iii. 9.

2. The appointment of sacrifices, as typifying the way of salvation through Christ, appears to have been one of Jehovah’s earliest institutions after the fall. For the flesh of those animals, with the skins of which the Lord God clothed our first parents, was probably offered up as a sacrifice; the one, prefigurative of the expiatory death of Christ, and the other, of the imputation of his righteousness, that best robe, with which the nakedness of guilty sinners is covered from the eye of God’s justice. This supposition respecting the appointment of sacrifices immediately after the fall, appears to be confirmed by the conduct of Abel. The great characteristic of his piety consisted in the presenting to the Lord “of the firstlings of the flock.” Gen. iv. 4. This act, which implied a consciousness of his guilt, and a dependence on the great propitiation of the Messiah, was done in faith; and, therefore, “Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain.” Heb. xi. 4. The same institution, which Jehovah appointed to Adam and his household, and was continued through the patriarchal Æra, became at last one of the principal ceremonies in the law of Moses. The necessity of an atonement for sin was promulgated in every beast that was slain; and the great truth was not only kept up by the solemnity of an annual festival, but also by a daily sacrifice. The blood poured forth upon these occasions was called the blood of atonement. The constant repetition of sacrifices was intended to preach that unalterable maxim, common both to the law and the gospel, that “without shedding of blood is no remission.” And what the economy of Moses exhibited in shadowy types, was at last illustrated substantially in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, who “hath offered one sacrifice for sin, and hath put it away by the offering of himself once for all.” Heb. x. 12. So that both law and gospel unite in proclaiming to the inhabitants of the earth, that “there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved;” but the all-meritorious name of the Lamb of God. Acts, iv. 12.

3. If we require the testimony of the prophets, their unanimous suffrage is ready to confirm the truths I am pleading for.—Can the doctrine of original sin be more explicitly or feelingly taught, than in the confession of the Royal Psalmist? “Behold I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me!” Psal. li. 5; or, than in the description of the human heart by Jeremiah? “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; who can know it?” Jer. xvii 9. The glory of the Lord of hosts in Isaiah’s vision, (chapter vi. compared with John, xii. 41, and Acts, xxviii. 25,) was the glory of the Trinity: and what words can more expressly or more sublimely delineate the divine nature of Jesus, than those of this enraptured prophet, when he styles him “Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.” Isa. ix. 6. The same inspired writer, who is very justly styled the evangelist of the prophets, declares, in language equally intelligible and sublime, the doctrine of our Lord’s vicarious satisfaction, of the translation of our guilt to him, and of his righteousness to us, in his 53d chapter. “And the Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all—for the transgression of my people was he smitten—by the knowledge of him shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.” Verse 6, 8, 11. The same truth is taught by Daniel, when he prophesies, that “Messiah should be cut off, but not for himself; that he should make reconciliation for iniquity, and bring in everlasting righteousness.” Dan. ix. 24, 26. Zechariah speaks of the sword of justice as drawn against the “man that was Jehovah’s fellow,” and of the “fountain of his blood opened for sin and uncleanness.” Zech. xiii. 1, 7. When we assert that sinners are justified before God, only by the righteousness of the Lord Jesus, apprehended by faith, to the exclusion of all works in point of merit, we think ourselves authorized to do so by the authority of the prophets and of the apostles. “This is his name,” says Jeremiah, “whereby he shall be called the Lord our Righteousness.” Jer. xxiii. 6. And Habakkuk speaks the same truth, when he says, that “the just shall live by faith,” Habak. ii. 4, compared with Heb. x. 38. The work of the Holy Ghost, for the purpose of cleansing the heart from the love of sin and the dominion of inward idols, is described by Ezekiel under the similitude of applying clean water to the body. “Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean—a new heart also will I give you—and I will put my spirit within you.” Ezek. xxxvi. 25–27. The same divine agency is by Malachi compared to the operation of fire on metal, to purify it from any adherent dross: Mal. iii. 3. And our blessed Lord himself hath compared the Spirit’s influence to the effects produced by these two elements respectively. To all these, we may superadd the testimony of Joel: “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh.” Joel, ii. 28. For though this promise, as quoted by Peter in Acts, ii. 17, relates principally to the miraculous effusion of the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost, yet it comprehends also a prediction of his saving influences to all that believe among Jews and Gentiles.

4. That God hath loved his people from everlasting, Jer. xxxi. 3,—that he will “rest in his love,” Zeph. iii. 17, without variableness or shadow of turning—that “he knoweth,” with a peculiar and discriminating knowledge, “them that trust in him,” Nab. i. 7,—that “he delighteth in mercy, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage,” Mic. vii. 18,—that “salvation is of the Lord,” Jonah, ii. 9, and must be a glorious certainty, since its contrivance and execution are both the Lord’s—that he will “bring again the captivity of his people,” Amos, viii. 14, and “heal their backslidings, and love them freely,” Hos. xiv. 4,—that “the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed, but that the kindness of the Lord shall not depart from his people, nor the covenant of his peace be removed,” Isa. liv. 10,—are glorious truths, expressed in scripture language, and corroborated by the concurring testimony of the prophets Jeremiah, Zephaniah, Nahum, Micah, Jonah, Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah.

As I have already made an appeal to the inspired writers of the New Testament, I shall not reiterate their testimony; though, as it is so very copious, it would be no difficult matter to produce new and additional evidence to authenticate the great doctrines which I have undertaken to defend. Suffice it to observe, that if revelation had been confined to the contents of the 6th, 10th, and 17th of St. John’s gospel; from those three chapters alone we might collect materials sufficient for laying the foundation, and rearing the superstructure, of the temple of truth. In that small portion of sacred scripture you have the whole gospel epitomized; and that, not by the opinion of an apostle, but by the infallible authority of that great Prophet, “who spake as never man spake,” and from whose judgment there can lie no appeal.

It would be a task far from difficult to collect the opinion of the primitive Fathers on these subjects, and to point out their coincidence with the doctrines of the established church. Those of them that flourished nearest to the days of the apostles, such as Tertullian, IrenÆus, Justin Martyr, &c. and those venerable ecclesiastics that presided at the council of Nice in Bithynia, and united, at the instance of Constantine the Great, in condemning the heresy of Arius; or the not less respectable names of Augustin and Hierom, who so ably defended the truth against the subtleties and errors of Pelagius;—are authorities in our favor, not only venerable for their antiquity, but, what is more valuable, for the purity and consistency of those systems, in which they guard the truth and combat error, even when abetted by such herÆsiarchs as Arius and Pelagius; the former at the head of those, who blaspheme the Deity of the Son of God; and the latter, of those that deny the fall. But, to come nearer home. In the reign of James I. several of our English bishops were sent over by that monarch to the synod of Dort, which was convened for the purpose of examining and condemning the tenets of Arminius. Among these the names of Bishop Hall, and Davenant, shine with distinguished lustre. In the reigns of Edward the VIth, and Queen Elizabeth, the doctrines contained in the 39 articles, and the two books of homilies, received the sanction of both houses of parliament; and the former were compiled expressly for the purpose of “avoiding diversity of opinions.” The doctrines contained in them receive no small recommendation from such excellent reformers as Cranmer, Latimer, Ridley, Hooper; men that sealed the truth with their blood. Let any man of common honesty and candor but read over the homilies and articles, and then say, whether they do not avow, as consonant to the sacred scriptures, those tenets, which, by many, and even by persons that have subscribed them, are, in the present day, branded with terms the most opprobrious. I appeal to the common sense of any man, whether the 1st Article does not expressly and unequivocally receive the doctrine of the Trinity—the 2d, the divinity and consubstantiality of the Son with the Father—the 9th, the doctrine of original sin—the 10th, the inability of the human will without the prevenient operation of the grace of Christ—the 11th, the nature of justification, not by works, but by the merits of Christ—the 13th, the inefficacy, and even sinfulness, of works antecedent to “the grace of Christ and the inspiration of his Spirit”—whether the 15th does not disavow the notion of impeccability in this life—and whether the 17th does not as expressly, but more copiously, and, if possible, more unambiguously, state the doctrine of election.

A solemn subscription, and as unequivocal as solemn, to these doctrines, is required of every man that commences a minister in the establishment. As long as we preach these doctrines, we act consistently with the sincere attachment which we promised to her interests. And will any person be bold enough to assert that these doctrines are new? when they manifestly claim, at least, the Æra of the reformation as a sanction for their antiquity? Whether they be true or false, is not the question immediately under consideration. That has been discussed already. But are they new? Or, are they not the discriminating doctrines of the Church of England? If they are not, how came a number of the clergy a few years ago to associate at a tavern, and there to project a petition to parliament for easing their consciences from the burden of subscribing them? And why do their brethren among Arians and Socinians at this time so bitterly regret the existence of these doctrines amongst us? I grant that to two sorts of people they may appear new; either to those, who never heard them before, or to such as “are lost” to all the light and power of truth, “in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them that believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.” 2 Cor. iv. 4. Or they may be reputed so, by those who never took the trouble to read the articles of their own church. And it is not a little remarkable, that they are most forward to bring this charge, who are the most incompetent judges of the matter.

In order to do the work of Satan, and prejudice people’s minds against the truth, it has been the industrious contrivance of some to call certain systems by some obnoxious epithet of novelty, enthusiasm, or fanaticism. Whether these words have some meaning, or none at all, is never inquired by the vulgar. Nor does it appear to be ever the wish of those who use them, to give any explanation of them. If they can only frighten men from the truth, and the preachers of it, by the bugbear of some obnoxious appellation; they are satisfied, and so is the devil too. But the application of hackneyed epithets, we esteem the effect of ignorance, want of politeness and candor, and often the refuge of enmity against the gospel; which, when disarmed of arguments, and stript of every plea for its unreasonable opposition, at last flies to the scorner’s chair to call names, and vent the poison of asps in calumniating and traducing, when it can do nothing more. But “none of these things move us; neither count we our lives dear unto us, so that we might finish our course with joy; and the ministry, which we have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God.” Acts, xx. 24.We beg, however, brethren, it may be remembered, that the application of any name, by which the laborious and faithful ministers of Christ are distinguished from those who live in indolence and luxurious ease, we esteem an honor; because we recollect, that even the blessed Jesus himself, who “went about doing good,” was nevertheless stigmatized with names of the most diabolical import, and his apostles branded as men “that turned the world upside down.” But, any epithet that conveys the most distant idea of propagating doctrines repugnant to those, which our reformers have given us in the articles, homilies, and liturgy of our church; or any name that implies any infringement on the constitution or discipline of our most excellent establishment, we totally disavow; and I must be excused, if I add, that to call men, who are so warmly attached to the interests of the Church of England, by names that imply the contrary, is both unjust and invidious. Although we honor many, who happen not to be within the pale of the establishment, and love all, who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity, by whatever denomination they may be distinguished, (for, difference in non-essentials ought to be no bar to Christian Catholicism among the common friends of truth,) yet we profess to be of no party, and to call no man master upon earth, but the great Prophet and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus the Lord. The very summit of our ambition is to acquit ourselves as faithful embassadors of the Prince of Peace, and to see the interests of the everlasting gospel crowned with prosperity, in the conversion of sinners. Compared with this great end of our function, the consideration of worldly emoluments, or human applause, is lighter than vanity itself: for, to an enlightened minister of Christ, the salvation of immortal souls from sin and hell, is an event of infinitely greater moment than the temporal salvation of kingdoms and empires. To this great event he wishes to direct all his studies, prayers, and exhortations; and rejoices to spend and be spent, if haply he may be instrumental in saving one sinner from the damnation of hell. If, in the delivery of his message, any thing should seem new, as to matter or manner, the novelty is rather eventual than real. When the cause of God, and the interests of souls, are under consideration, who can help being in earnest? The highest degree of pathos, which sentiment, expression, and gesture united, can arrive at, will always fall far below the dignity of our subject, and the solemnity of our charge, when called to address an assembly of dying mortals, and to declare to them the whole counsel of God. However, without controverting the objections made to a particular manner of conveying gospel truths, we do insist that the matter is agreeable to the system we solemnly subscribed at our ordination; and we defy any man living to prove, that the doctrines I have this day delivered, are new; unless the charge of novelty can be brought against the doctrines of the reformation. Examine them, brethren, with care and coolness of temper. Compare them with the scriptures, first; and then read over the 39 articles. If you love truth, you will do the first. If you love the Church of England, you will do the last. And if you have any pretension to candor of inquiry, or solicitude about your everlasting interests, you will not desist; till you have found an answer to Pilate’s question, “What is truth?”

“Consider what I say; and the Lord give you understanding in all things!” 2 Tim. ii. 7.