kingdom of God is within him, he is under the reign of grace, and is well acquainted with his rightful fovereign. All short of this is nothing but word; this ftands in power. The other is head notions; this is heart religion, and can never be rooted up or deftroyed.

QUOT. Procuring redemption and remiffion of fins through the effufion of his blood, offering himself up a facrifice to God, to make reconciliation, and purchase an

atonement.

ANSW. I believe the elect were redeemed by the blood of Chrift; that an atonement was made by his facrifice alone; that peace was made by the blood of his crofs; that we are pardoned, reconciled, and made nigh, by the fame; and that the church was bought with that price: but, as to a purchased atonement, the bible knows nothing

about it.

"Who this ftinking Antinomian is; who needs no inward holiness; nor Chrift in his heart, the hope of glory; nor fruits of the Spirit; and whofe faith takes in all the world, and who denies that there is any elect at all;" I know not. Thefe wretches are no relations of mine: I will fcrape no acquaintance, I will claim no kindred, with finners and hypocrites in Zion; nor with them that hold the truth in unrighteoufnefs; nor with them who contend for the law as the only rule of life (which requires love to God and the neighbour), and pretend to a great measure

B 3

measure of both, and appear in friendship; give you the right-hand of fellowship, bless your labours, declare publicly their great love and high opinion of you, as a lover of the Lord Jefus; and, at the same time, are working under ground with all manner of guile, deceit, hypocrify, and deceivableness of unrighteousness, on purpose to blow up both your reputation and usefulness. Friend Confcience, make thy application! This is no part of my religion: I am no friend to bufh-fighting, or fhooting in fecret; I love plain dealing. God dealt plainly with me; and in my office he makes me deal plainly with others. Open rebuke is better than fecret love-then how much better than fecret guile, which is fo contemptible, that a perfon accused of it is rendered an unfit member of a fociety of pick-pockets, and condemned as a traitor by a gang of thieves! However wrong the Antinomian may be, this book is not likely to fet him right.

QUOT. He denies vital, experimental, perfonal union, wrought in the foul by faith.

ANSW. This any man may do, and be found in the truth too. If faith can work a vital, experimental, perfonal union, in the foul, one would think that faith itself must be a divine perfon, because it is the efficient or working agent of vital union, which is what none but God can work. The bond of union is God's everlasting love to us in Chrift Jefus ; and even Christ, and faith too, are the bleffed ef

fects

fects of God's love to us: and none but God can: work this union in us; as it is written-And the Lord thy God will circumcife thine heart, and the heart of thy feed, to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy foul, that thou mayeft live. Deut. xxx. 6. At the time of this circumcifion the love of God is fed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghoft, which is given to us; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. This is bringing the finner fenfibly into the bond of the covenant; which bond is the bond of eternal union with the covenant Head: for it is under the influence of divine love that the believer is joined to the Lord, and made one spirit with him. The bond of all perfectness is not our faith in God, but God's eternal love to us. The former is not the efficient caufe, but the effect, of the latter. Love and faith are both fruits of the Spirit; but, as charity is greater than either faith or hope, it is not likely the leffer should work the greater. Faith is the evidence of things not feen, and the fubftance of things hoped for; but full poffeffion wants no evidence, and things feen and enjoyed need no hope. The bond of union will be the sweeteft, and in full perfection, when thefe ceafe; for faith works by love, and the exercise of it works or produces patience; but it never works union. Mr. Ryland must know better than this.

QUOT. The Lord Jesus Christ is made of God fanctification to his people, as he is their great Head of Influence ; who imparts to every member of his myftical body, by vir

tue of his kingly office, his Holy Spirit, to fanctify and make them holy in their own proper persons.

ANSW. Jefus Chrift is made fanctification to his people in his priestly office. He affumed our nature, he bore our names; and, by his offering, made an atonement for us as a priest. He bore our fins, he removed our fins, he blotted out our fins, he purged our fins, and that in his priestly office, to which the making atonement belonged. Chrift is made fanctification to us by executing his Father's will in the offering up of himself as a facrifice. By the which will we are fanctified through the offering of the body of Jefus once for all. For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are fan&tified. Wherefore Jefus, that be might fanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate. If all this be true, then Chrift is, in his priestly office, by virtue of his one offering, the fanctification of his people, and that by the will of God: and, if he hath by one offering perfected for ever them that are fanctified, it must follow that, in his prieftly office, he is the perfect fanctification of his people; and they, were made nigh by the blood of Christ before they were brought nigh by effectual calling. This work was finished upon the cross; and the believer is complete in him that finished it, and without fault before the throne: on which account he is faid to be fanctified in Chrift Jefus, I Cor. i. 2.

Hence it appears that, if not by imputation made

fancti

fanctification, he is by the will and purpose of God, who, in the bond of an everlasting covenant united us together and made us one, as furety and debtor are one. Chrift was made a curfe, but we were bleffed in him; he was held by the hand of Juftice, but we were let go free; the chastisement fell on him, and peace fell to us; he was ftriped, and we were healed; our old man was crucified with him, and we were viewed new creatures in him; he died, but we lived; he was the facrifice, and the atonement was ours. Thus, by the will and purpose of God, he was made fanctification; and by his one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are fan&tified. But, as to internal fanctification, it is the work of the third person in the trinity: as it is written, That the offering up of the Gentiles might be acceptable, being fanctified by the Holy Ghoft. Rom. xv. 16.

QUOT. By his justifying righteousness he faves them from the guilt and condemnation of fin-which are the two first propofitions I laid down-and this relates to his priestly office, and is that which gives them a title to

heaven.

ANSW. Why is the juftifying robe of righteoufnefs, which the Saviour wrought out, confined to his priestly office? A priest under the law was not bound by his office to clothe the tribes of Ifrael, nor to pay their debts: it was wrought out by Chrift, in his office as furety, who undertook to pay the debt of perfect obedience to the law; and the imputation of

it.