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perfection in the fervice of God. What hope could you find from your duties; when after your beft endeavours, you would fee fo much deadnefs, formality, and hypocrify, in your highest attainments? What hope from your reformations ; when you find fo much fin and corruption gaining ground against all your good purposes and refolutions? What hope from your affections, when fo much hardness of heart, worldly-mindednefs, fenfuality, and carnal difpofitions are feparating between God and you? Can you quiet your foul by impofing upon an omniscient God, with your vain fhews and flattering pretences? No, Sir, if you have any true difcovery of your own heart, these confiderations must continually perplex and distress your foul, with distracting fears and defpondencies, as long as you are thus compafling yourfelf about with fparks of your own kindling. For these defects and imperfections will certainly accompany your best resolutions, endeavours and attainments. But then, on the other hand, if you lie at mercy, and fubmit to God as the fovereign difpofer of his own favours, you have good grounds of encouragement and hope. Are your fins great, and greatly aggravated? The mercy of God exceeds them all. Have you no agreeable qualifi cations, to recommend you to the favour of God? Multitudes of others have found mercy, who had no better qualifications than you have. Have you no special promife to depend upon, as belonging to you, while in an unconverted state? Yet is it not fufficient, that you have. gracious encouragement to leave all in the hands of that mercy, which infinitely exceeds your highest apprehenfions or imaginations? Are you incapable to come up to the terms of grace, propofed in the gospel? There is yet hope in God's omnipotent mercy, that he will work in you both to will and to do, of his own good pleafure. He has done it for thousands of finners no better than you.

Now, Sir, look around you; and fee what refuge you can poffibly betake yourfelf to. You are in the hands. of juftice; and which way can you make your escape? If you attempt to fly from God, you perifh; but if you fly to him, there is hope. He is fovereign in the donation of his favours; you have therefore as good a prof

pect of obtaining falvation (in the ufe of appointed means) as any unregenerate person in the world. Your defects and demerits need not be any discouragement: for his mercy triumphs over the guilt and unworthiness of the greatest finners. Is it therefore not your greatest safety to lie at his foot, in the way of his appointments, where there is a bleffed hope fet before you? In this way you have the infinite mercy of God, the gracious encou ragements of the gofpel, the glorious fuccefs of fo many thousands who have tried this method, to animate your diligence and hope. And there is no other way in which you have any encouragement to expect renewing grace, and pardoning, faving mercy.

Since you wholly depend upon God's free fovereign mercy, you fhould use the more diligent and earnest application, in all the ways of his appointment, that you may obtain it. Since you must obtain mercy of God, or perish; O with what diligence and importunity, with what ardour of foul, fhould you addrefs the throne of grace, for deliverance from your guilt and danger? Since in a way of fovereignty, God is pleafed to beftow his fpecial grace, with an intereft in his Son and his great falvation, at what time and by what means it fhall feem beft in his fight, you should therefore at all times, and in the use of all the means of grace, be seeking the Lord while he may be found, and call upon him while he is near.

Can it be thought juft reasoning, that because you cannot help yourself, and there is none but God can help you, it's therefore in vain to apply to him for help? That because you have no claim to his favour, but lye at his mercy, you will not therefore feek mercy at his hands? Does not this, at the first wiew, appear contrary to all the methods of reafoning we fhould ufe in any other cafe? Can you promise yourself comfort, from fuch reafonings, and fuch conclufions as thefe, in your last expiring moments, when your foul is entering upon its eternal and unchangeable ftate ?

But you object, If God in fovereignty designs mercy for us, we fhall obtain it, whether we seek, or no and if not, it's in vain to strive.' To this it's fufficient anfwer, that God never does in fovereignty appoint falvation for any, in the final wilful neglect of Gofpel

means. He is fovereign in the appointment of the means, as well as of the end. The fame glorious fovereign who affures us, it is not for our fakes that he beftows his special grace upon us, but for his own name's fake, does alfo let us know, that he will be enquired of by the houfe of Ifrael, to do this for them. Whence it follows, that if we have not a heart to feek with earnest diligence, for the gracious influences of the Spirit of God, there is no profpect we fhall ever obtain. For God will make us feel the want of his mercy, and will make us esteem his falvation worthy of our care and pains; or leave us to the unhappy effects of our own madness and folly. But if we have hearts given us, to be humbly and earnestly attending upon the means of grace, it is an encouraging fign, that he who has excited our diligence, intends to crown it with success.

You fee, Sir, I have obeyed your commands; and have addreffed you with as much plainnefs and familiasity as the cafe requires, and you yourself have demanded.. That God may effectually bring you to submit to the: terms of his grace, and enable you fo to run, as that you may obtain, is the prayer of,

Sir,

Yours, &c..

LETTER VIII. Wherein the DIFFERENCE. between a true faving FAITH, and a dead tem porary FAITH, is diftinctly confidered.

SIR,

un

YOUR complaints do exactly anfwer my expecta tions. It is not your cafe alone, to have • worthy apprehenfions of God, vain trifling imaginations, and strange confufion of mind, accompanying the exercifes of religion.' It is no new thing for those who are setting out in earneft in a religious courfe to find by experience, that their progrefs in religion. bears no proportion to their purpofes: And that their good defigns and refolutions, come to but little more. than outfide appearances, and no way answer their

hopes.' It's matter of thankfulness, that you have a feeling fenfe of this. I hope, if no other arguments will convince you of the truth of what was infifted on in my laft, you will at leaft be convinced by your own experience, that you lie at mercy.

You thank me for my plainnefs and faithfulness to a poor wretched infidel, who yet breathes, out of hell, by the mere patience of an affronted Saviour.' I had not only the warrant of your commands, but the vast importance of the concern before us, to embolden me to lay by all referves: and even to tranfgrefs the common rules of decorum and respect, in my former letters. And you need not conjure me to retain the fame freedom.' I am no courtier; nor am I at all acquainted with the fashionable methods of the Beau Monde. I fhall therefore apply myfelf, according to my capacity, in my accustomed methods of addrefs, to anfwer your defires.

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You Obferve, that I infinuate as if men may believe the truth of the Gospel, without a faving faith in • Chrift, without an intereft in him, or a claim to the ⚫ benefits of his redemption. You therefore defirel would · give you the diftinguifhing characters of a faving faith, and fhew you wherein the difference lies, between a " true faith, and that which is common to hypocrites, as well as to Christians indeed,'

I do indeed infift upon it, that men may notionally and doctrinally believe the truth of the Gofpel, without a faving faith in Christ, and without an intereft in him, or a claim to the benefits of his redemption. This is a truth clearly taught in the fcriptures; and abundantly evident from the reafon and nature of things. If any therefore fhould expect falvation, from amere doctrinal and historical faith in Chrift, they will in the conclufion find themselves difappointed, and afhamed of their hope.

We read (John xii. 42, 43.) of many of the chief rulers who believed in Christ, but dared not confefs him: for they loved the praise of men, more than the praife of God. And will any man imagine, that fuch believers who dare not confefs Chrift before men, fhall be confeffed by him before his heavenly Father and his holy an gels, in the great day of retribution? Will any man ima

gine, that our bleffed Lord will own such for his fincere difciples and followers, who love the praife of men, more than the praife of God? Here then is a clear inftance of a doctrinal and historical faith, which was not faving; and could give no claim to the promise made to true believers. We have this matter further illustrated and confirmed by the apostle James, in the second chapter of his epiftle; where we are fhewn, that fuch a faith is dead, being alone; that it is but a carcafe without breath. As the body without the spirit is dead, fo faith without works, is dead also. Of such a faith we may therefore fay with the fame apostle, what doth it profit, though a man fay that he has faith? can faith fave him?

But I need not multiply fcripture-quotations in this cafe. It is what is continually confirmed to us by our own obfervation. How many do we fee every day, who acknowledge the truth of the gofpel, and yet live worldly, fenfual, and vicious lives; who profefs they know Chrift, but in works deny him; who call themselves by his name, and yet value their lufts and idols above all the hopes of his falvation; and even run the venture of eternal perdition, rather than deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow him? Now there can be nothing more certain, than that thefe men are utterly unqualified for the kingdom of God; and that they can have no fpecial intereft in him, who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.

As on the one hand, there is a gracious promife of final falvation, to all who believe on the Lord Jefus Chrift. He that believeth, and is baptized, foall be faved: be that believeth on the Son, hath everlasting life. So on the other hand, there is a fort of believers, who can have no claim to this promife, nor any intereft in the falvation by Chrift. It must therefore be of infinite confequence, that we have indeed the faith of God's eleft, that we may become the children of God by faith in Jefus Chrift; and therefore that our faith be distinct, in its nature and operations, from fuch an empty, lifeless, and fruitless belief, with which the formal, worldly, and fenfual profeffor may deceive and deftroy his own foul. From whence it appears, that your question is moftim

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