light which enlightens every man that comes into the world. And the works that a penitent does in order to the fubfequent juftifications, fuch as ceafing to do evil, learning to do well, repenting, believing, and perfevering in obedient faith, are all done in a state of initial, progreffive, or perfected grace; not under the Adamic law which did not admit of repentance, but under the gospel of Chrift which fays, Let the wicked forfake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord who will abundantly pardon his fins, cleanfe him from all unrighteoufnefs, and even fill him with the fulness of God.

II. You proceed: if a man in a state of nature does works in order to juftification, they "cannot please "God because he is in a state of utter enmity against "him.". What Sir, do you think, that a man "in a ftate of utter enmity against God" will do any thing in order to recover his favour? When Adam was in that state, did he fo much as once afk pardon? If he had, would he not have evidenced a desire of reconciliation, and confequently a degree of apoftacy fhort of what you call utter enmity?

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III. You quote fcripture: " He that does fomething in order to juftification cannot please God, becaufe he is alienated from the life of God, thro' the ignorance that is in him, beaufe of the blindness of his heart. unhappy quotation this: for the apoftle did not fpeak thefe words of thofe honeft Heathens, who, in obedience to the light of the world. did fomething in order to juftification; but of thofe abandoned Pagans, who, as he obferves in the next verse, bein; paft feelin, had given themfelves over unto lafervroufnefs, to work all uni Leannefs with reed nefs. Thus to prove that men have not a talent of power to work the works of God, you produce men who have buried it, that they might work all uncleannefs without control, yea with greedinefs.

You would have avoided thi mistake, if you had confidered that the Heathens mentioned there by St.

Paul,

Paul, were of the stamp of thofe whom he defcribes, Rom.. and whom he reprefents as given up by God to a reprobate mind, BECAUSE when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, and did not like to retain him in their knowledge. Here we may obferve (1. that thofe reprobate Heathens had once fome knowledge of God, and of courfe fome life; for this is eternal LIFE to KNOW God. (2.) That if they were given up, BECAUSE they did not ufe that talent of divine knowledge, it was not because they were eternally and unconditionally reprobated; whence I beg leave to conclude, that if eternal unconditional reprobation is a mere chimera, fo is likewife eternal unconditional election.

You might have objected with much more plaufibility, that when the Ephefians were in the flesh they were without hope, without Chrift, and without God in the world: And if you had, I would have replied that these words cannot be taken in their full latitude, for the following reafons, which appear to me unanfwerable. (1.) The Ephefians before their converfion were not totally without hope, but without a GOOD hope. They probably had a prefumptuous a hope as David in Uriah's bed, or Agag when he thought the bitterness of death was paft. (2.) They were without Chrift, just as a man who has buried his talent is without it. But as he may dig it up, and ufe it, if he fees his folly in time; fo could, and fo did the Ephefians. (3.) If they were in every fenfe without Chrift, what becomes of the doctrine maintained in your fourth letter, that they were for ever and for ever compleat in Chrift?" (4.) They were not entirely without God; for in him they lived, moved, and had their being; nor were they without him as abfolute reprobates, for they knew the day of their vifitation before it was over. It remains then that they were without God, as the prodigal fon was without his father, when he fed fwine in the far country; and that they could and did return to their heavenly Father as well as he.

IV. You go on: "He who does fomething in "order to juftification, not being grafted in Christ "the true vine, cannot bring forth any good fruit; "he can do nothing at all." I beg, Sir, you would produce one man, who has not finned the fin unto death, that can abfolutely do nothing, that cannot cease from one fin, and take up the practice of one duty. You will as foon find a faint in hell as fuch a man upon earth. Even those who in their voluntary humility say perpetually, that" they can do nothing," refute their own doctrine by their very confeffions; for he who confeffes his nelpleffnefs, undoubtedly does fomething, unless by fome new rule in logic it can be de monftrated, that confeffing our impotence, and com> plaining of our mifery, is doing nothing."

When our Lord fays, Without me ye can do nothing, does he fay that we are totally without him? When he declares that no man cometh unto him unless the Father draw him, does he infinuate that the Father does not draw all or that he draws all irrefiftably? or that those who are drawn at one time may not draw back at any other? Is it right to prefs fcripture into the fervice of a fyftem, by ftraining its meaning so far be yond the import of the words?

Again, though a man may not be "grafted in Chrift" according to the Jewish or Chriftian difpenfation; may he not partake of his quickening fap, according to the more general difpenfation of that faving grace, which has appeared to all men? May not the branches in which that faving grace appears, have fome connexion with Chrift the heavenly vine, and bring forth fruit meet for repentance, as well as Job and his friends, Melchifedec, Plato, the wife men, Cornelius, fome of his foldiers, and many more who brought forth fruits according to their difpenfation ? Does not the first general juftification fo graft all men in him, that if they bear not fruit during their accepted time, they are juftly taken away, caft forth, and burned as barren branches?

V. Your

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V. Your knowledge of the fcripture made you fore fee this answer, and to obviate it you fay: if you "tell me that I mistake, that although we muft ceafe "from evil, repent, &c. yet you are far from suppofing we can perform these things in our own na"tural ftrength, I afk then, in whofe ftrength are "they performed? You fay, in the ftrength of Chrift, "and by the power of the Holy Ghoft, according to thefe fcriptures, I can do all things through Chrift ftrengthening me, being ftrengthened with might in the

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inner man.

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Permit me to tell you, honored Sir, that I do not admire your quoting fcripture for me. You take care to keep out of fight the paffages I have quoted, and to produce thofe which are foreign to the queftion. To fhew that even a finful Heathen may work for, as well as from life, I could never be so destitute of common fenfe as to urge the experience of St. Paul, a father in Chrift: and that of the Ephefians, who were Chriftians fealed unto the day of redemption.

To do juftice to free grace, inftead of the above* mentioned improper fcriptures, you should have produced those which I have quoted in the vindicationChrift is the light of the world, which enlightens every man that cometh into the world-I am come that they might have life-Ye will not come unto me that ye might have life.. The grace of God which bringeth falvation hath appeared unto all men, God's fpirit ftrives with man, even with. those who perifh. He commands all men every where to repent; nor does he defire to reap where he has not fown.

VI. Such fcriptures as these would have been to the purpofe; but I excuse your producing others; for if thefe had appeared, you would have raifed more duft in fix lines, than you could have laid in 60. pages; and every attentive reader would have de tected the fallacy of your grand argument: as foon may we expect living actions from a dead corpfe; "light out of darknefs; fight out of blindnefs; love

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"out of enmity; wisdom out of ignorance; fruit out "of barrennefs, &c. &c. &c. as look for any one "good work or thought from a foul who is not" (in fome degree)" quickened by the Holy Ghoft, and "who has not yet found favor with God:" fo far at least as to be bleffed with a day of faluation, and to be a partaker of the free gift which is come upon all men.

But, I pray, who is guilty of these abfurdities ? who expects living actions from a dead corpfe, &c. &c.? you or we? You who believe that the greateft part of mankind are left as graceless as devils, as help lefs as corpfes; and yet gravely go and preach to them repentance and faith, threatening them with an ag gravated damnation if they do not turn? Or we who believe that Chrift by the grace of God tafted death for every man; and that his faving, quickening grace hath appeared unto all men? Who puts foolish fpeeches in the mouth of the only wife God? You, who make him expoftulate with fouls as dead as corpses, and say ye will not come unto me that ye might have life? Or we, who affert upon the teftimony of the Holy Ghoft, that God, by working in us both to will and to do, puts us again in a capacity of working out our falvation with fear and trembling? Will not our impartial readers fee that the abfurdity which you try to fix upon us, falls at your own door; and, if your doctrine is true, at the door of the fanctuary itself?

VII. You purfue: "it is most clear that every foul "who works in the ftrength of Chrift, and by the "power of the Holy Ghoft, is already a pardoned"and juftified foul; he already has everlasting life.” Here is fome truth and fome error; let us endeavour to separate them. Every foul who works in the ftrength of Chrift's preventing grace, and by his Spirit convincing the world of fin, is undoubtedly interefted in the first degree of juftification: he is juftified from the guilt of original fin, and from the guilt of his own actual fins; and it is abfurd to fuppofe he is juftified in the day of judgment, when that day is

not