RECOMMENDATORY PREFACE TO A VOLUME OF HYMNS, Composed by the late Rev. B. Beddome, M. A. FAR be it from me to indulge the presumptuous idea of adding to the merited reputation of Mr. Beddome by my feeble suffrage. But having had the pleasure of a personal acquaintance with that eminent man, and cherishing a high esteem for his memory, I am induced to comply the more cheerfully with the wishes of the editor, by prefixing a few words to the present publication. Mr. Beddome was on many accounts an extraordinary person. His mind was cast in an original mould; his conceptions on every subject were eminently his own; and where the stamina of his thoughts were the same as other men's (as must often be the case with the most original thinkers), a peculiarity marked the mode of their exhibition. Favoured with the advantages of a learned education, he continued to the last to cultivate an acquaintance with the best writers of antiquity, to which he was much indebted for the chaste, terse, and nervous diction, which distinguished his compositions both in prose and verse. Though he spent the principal part of a long life in a village retirement, he was eminent for his colloquial powers, in which he displayed the urbanity of the gentleman and the erudition of the scholar, combined with a more copious vein of attic salt than any person it has been my lot to know. As a preacher, he was universally admired for the piety and unction of his sentiments, the felicity of his arrangement, and the purity, force, and simplicity of his language, all of which were recommended by a delivery perfectly natural and graceful. His printed discourses, taken from the manuscripts which he left behind him at his decease, are fair specimens of his usual performances in the pulpit. They are eminent for the qualities already mentioned; and their merits, which the modesty of the author concealed from himself, have been justly appreciated by the religious public. As a religious poet, his excellence has long been known and acknowledged in dissenting congregations, in consequence of several admirable compositions inserted in some popular compilations. The variety of the subjects treated of, the poetical beauty and elevation of some, the simple pathos of others, and the piety and justness of thought which pervade all the compositions in the succeeding volume, will, we trust, be deemed a valuable accession to the treasures of sacred poetry, equally adapted to the closet and to the sanctuary. The man of taste will be gratified with the beautiful and original turns of thought which many of them exhibit; while the experimental Christian will often perceive the most secret movements of his soul strikingly delineated, and sentiments portrayed which will find their echo in every heart. Considerable pains have been taken to arrange the hymns in such a manner as is best adapted to selection, from a persuasion, which we trust the event will justify, that they will be found the properest supplement to Dr. Watts that has yet appeared. A PREFACE ΤΟ ANTINOMIANISM UNMASKED, BY THE REV. SAMUEL CHASE. [Written in 1819.] It is with considerable reluctance that I have complied with the request of the highly esteemed author of the following work, by prefixing a short preface; not from the slightest hesitation respecting the excellence of the work itself, but from an aversion to the seeming arrogance of pretending to recommend what might rest so securely on its own merits. The reader, if I am not greatly mistaken, will find in this treatise a train of close and cogent reasoning from the oracles of God sufficient to overturn from their foundation the principles which compose the antinomian heresy; which, he will be at no loss to perceive, are as much opposed to the grace as to the authority of the great Head of the church. The fundamental tenet of the system to which this treatise is opposed consists in the denial of the obligation of believers to obey the precepts of Christ, in supposing that their interest in the merits of the Redeemer releases them from all subjection to his authority; and as it is acknowledged on all hands that he is the sole Lord of the Christian dispensation, the immediate consequence is, that as far as they are concerned, the moral government of the Deity is annihilated—that they have ceased to be accountable creatures. But this involves the total subversion of religion: for what idea can we form of a religion in which all the obligations of piety and morality are done away; in which nothing is binding or imperative on the conscience? We may conceive of a religious code under all the possible gradations of laxness or severity of its demanding more or less, or of its enforcing its injunctions by penalties more or less formidable;—but to form a conception of a system deserving the name of religion, which prescribes no duties whatever, and is enforced by no sanctions, seems an impossibility. On this account it appears to me improper to speak of antinomianism ás a religious error; religion, whether true or false, has nothing to do with it: it is rather to be considered as an attempt to substitute a system of subtle and specious impiety in the room of Christianity. In their own estimation, its disciples are a privileged class, who dwell in a secluded region of unshaken security and lawless liberty, while the rest of the Christian world are the vassals of legal bondage, toiling in darkness and in chains. Hence, whatever diversity of character they may display in other respects, a haughty and bitter disdain of every other class of professors is a universal feature. Contempt or hatred of the most devout and enlightened Christians out of their own pale seems one of the most essential elements of their being; nor were the ancient Pharisees ever more notorious for " trusting in themselves that they were righteous, and despising others." Of the force of legitimate argument they seem to have little or no perception, having contracted an inveterate and pernicious habit of shutting their eyes against the plainest and most pointed declarations of the word of God. The only attempt they make to support their miserable system is to adduce a number of detached and insulated passages of Scripture, forcibly torn from their context, and interpreted with more regard to their sound than to their meaning, as ascertained by the laws of sober criticism. Could they be prevailed upon to engage in serious dispassionate controversy, some hope might be indulged of reclaiming them; their errors would admit of an easy confutation: but the misfortune is, they seem to feel themselves as much released from the restraints of reason as of moral obligation; and the intoxication of spiritual pride has incomparably more influence in forming their persuasions than the light of evidence. As far as they are concerned, my expectation of benefit from the following treatise is far from being sanguine. To others, however, who may be in danger of alling a prey to their seduction, it may prove an important preservative; to the young and inexperienced it will hold out a faithful warning, by unmasking the deformity, and revealing the danger of that pretended doctrine of grace which is employed to annul the obligation of obedience. They will learn from this treatise, that the authority of Christ as Legislator is perfectly compatible with his office as the Redeemer of his people; that the renewal of the soul in true holiness forms a principal part of the salvation he came to bestow; that the privileges of the evangelical dispensation are inseparably combined with its duties; and that every hope of eternal life is necessarily presumptuous and unfounded, whieh is not connected with "keeping the commandments of God." They will perceive the beautiful analogy subsisting between the Mosaic and Christian dispensations; and that the redemption wrought out upon the cross is just as subservient to the spiritual dominion of Christ over his people, as was the deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt to the erection of a theocracy in the Holy Land: in a word, they will plainly see that the regal authority of Christ over his church belongs to the very essence of the evangelical economy, considered as an annunciation of the kingdom or reign of God. To trace the progress of antinomianism, and investigate the steps by which it has gradually attained its fearful ascendency, though an interesting inquiry would lead me far beyond the limits of this preface. Suffice it to suggest a few circumstances which appear to me to have contributed not a little to that result. When religious parties have been long formed, a certain technical phraseology, invented to designate more exactly the peculiarities of the respective systems, naturally grows up. What custom has sanctioned in process of time becomes law; and the slightest deviation from the consecrated diction comes to be viewed with suspicion and alarm. Now the technical language appropriated to the expression of the Calvinistic system in its nicer shades, however justifiable in itself, has, by its perpetual recurrence, narrowed the vocabulary of religion, and rendered obsolete many modes of expression which the sacred writers indulge without scruple. The latitude with which they express themselves on various subjects has been gradually relinquished; a scrupulous and systematic cast of diction has succeeded to the manly freedom and noble negligence they were accustomed to display; and many expressions, employed without hesitation in Scripture, are rarely found, except in the direct form of quotation, in the mouth of a modern Calvinist. In addition to this, nothing is more usual than for the zealous abetters of a system, with the best intentions, to magnify the importance of its peculiar tenets by hyperbolical exaggerations, calculated to identify them with the fundamental articles of faith. Thus, the Calvinistic doctrines have often been denominated by divines of deservedly high reputation, the doctrines of grace; implying, not merely their truth, but that they constitute the very essence and marrow of the gospel. Hence persons of little reflection have been tempted to conclude that the zealous inculcation of these comprehends nearly the whole system of revealed truth, or as much of it, at least, as is of vital importance; and that no danger whatever can result from giving them the greatest possible prominence. But the transition from a partial exhibition of truth to the adoption of positive error is a most natural one: and he who commences with consigning certain important doctrines to oblivion will generally end in perverting or denying them. The authority of the laws of Christ, his proper dominion over his people, and the absolute necessity of evangelical obedience in order to eternal life, though perfectly consistent in my apprehension with Calvinism, form no part of it, considered as a separate system. In the systematic mode of instruction they are consequently omitted, or so slightly and sparingly adverted to, that they are gradually lost sight of; and when they are presented to the attention, being supported by no habitual mental associations, they wear the features of a strange and exotic character. They are repelled with disgust and suspicion, not because they are perceived to be at variance with the dictates of inspiration (their agreement with which may be immediately obvious), but simply because they deviate from the trains of thought which the hearer is accustomed to pursue with complacency. It is purely an affair of taste; it is neither the opposition of reason nor of conscience which is concerned, but the mere operation of antipathy. The paucity of practical instruction, the practice of dwelling |