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A MEDITATION ON THE HEAVENLY GLORY.

of its object becomes more known and appreciated. And as every degree of attainment capacitates the mind for greater attainments, and the object to be known passeth knowledge, there is reason to believe that the things which God hath prepared for them that love him, include nothing less than an eternal accumulation of blessedness.

ANTINOMIANISM

CONTRASTED WITH THE RELIGION TAUGHT AND
EXEMPLIFIED IN

THE HOLY SCRIPTURES.

INTRODUCTION.

WHEN We consider the awful strides which irreligion has lately made in the Christian world, it is almost enough to induce us to think favourably of any thing that bears the name of Christ; of any thing, however, which professes to embrace the leading principles of the gospel; but thus it must not be. Irreligion is not so dangerrous as false religion; the one is an enemy at a distance, the other at home. The more we are threatened by the former, therefore, the more necessary it is that we detect the latter. The friends of Christ, though they be but few, had better be by themselves. A little band, girt with truth, and strengthened by the Lord of hosts, will do more execution than a heterogeneous mixture of friends and enemies.

It is one of the arts of the wily serpent, when he cannot prevent the introduction of the gospel into a place, to get it corrupted; by which means it is not only deprived of its wonted efficacy, but converted into an engine of destruction. In the early ages of the church, men rose up who advanced depreciating notions of the person, work, and grace of the Redeemer. These, however, were repelled, and a stigma fixed upon them by the labours of the VOL. IV.

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faithful; and though they have had their advocates in all succeeding ages, yet men have not been wanting who have exposed thei fallacy; so much so, that the serious part of professing Christians have in a good measure united against them. But of late we have been taken as it were by surprise; while our best writers and preachers have been directing their whole force against Socinian, Arian, or Arminian heterodoxy, we are insensibly overrun by a system of false religion, which has arisen and grown up among us under the names and forms of orthodoxy.

Several circumstances have concurred to render this system but little noticed. One is, its having been embraced, not so much by the learned, as by the illiterate part of professing Christians. Some of its principles, it is true, are common to every unrenewed mind; but considered as a system, it is especially calculated for the vulgar meridian. On this account it has been treated as beneath the notice of the ablest writers. There is also something so low, foul, and scurrilous in the generality of the advocates of this sys tem, that few have cared to encounter them, lest they should bring upon themselves a torrent of abuse. But though it is far from agreeable to have to do with such adversaries, yet it may be dangerous to treat their opinions with contempt. The Roman empire was overturned by a horde of barbarians. An apostle did not think it beneath him to expose the principles of men who crept in unawares, and turned the grace of God into lasciviousness.

The distinguishing feature of this species of religion is SELFISHNESS. Such is the doctrine, and such the spirit which it inspires. The love of God as God, or an affection to the Divine character as holy, is not in it. Love as exemplified in the scriptures, though it can never be willing to be lost, (for that were con trary to its nature which ever tends to a union with its object,) yet bears an invariable regard to the holy name or character of God. How excellent is thy NAME in all the earth!—0 magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his NAME together.Let them that love thy NAME say continually, The Lord be magnifed,-Blessed be his glorious NAME for ever and ever; and let the whole earth be filled with his glory Amen and amen. But love, as exemplified in the patrons of this system, is mere favouritism. God having, as they conceive, made them his favourites, he be

comes on that account, and that only, a favourite with them. Nor does it appear to have any thing to do with good-will to men as men. The religion of the apostles was full of benevolence. Knowing the terrors of the Lord, they persuaded men, and even besought them to be reconciled to God. They had no hope of sinners complying with these persuasions of their own accord, any more than the prophet had in his address to the dry bones of the house of Israel: nor of one more being saved than they who were called according to the divine purpose: but they considered election as the rule of God's conduct-not theirs. They wrote and preached Christ to sinners as freely as if no such doctrine had existed. These things are written, said they, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, and that believing ye might have life through his name. Jesus wept over the most wicked city in the world; and Paul, after all that he had said of the doctrine of election in the ninth chapter of his Epistle to the Romans, protested that his heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel was that they might be saved. He did not pray for them as reprobates, but as fellow sinners, and whose salvation, while they were in the land of the living, was to him an object of hope.-In his treatment of the most decided enemies of the truth, though he sometimes rebuked them sharply, and used an authority which was committed to him extraordinary character; yet there is no malignant bitterness, or low abuse, in his language. But the religion of which I speak is, in all these respects, the very opposite. It beseeches not the unconverted to be reconciled to God, because it is God only who can turn their hearts. It refuses to pray for their salvation, as not knowing whether it would not be praying for the salvation of the non-elect. It has no tears to shed over a perishing world; but consigns men to perdition with unfeeling calmness, and often with glee. And as to its adversaries, it preserves no measures of decency with them: personal invective, low scurrillity, and foul abuse, are the weapons of its warfare. Tell any of its advocates of their unchristian spirit towards all who are not of themselves, and you may expect to be answered in some such terms as these-'I wish they were in hell: every one should be in his own place, and the sooner the better!"

Nor is it less a stranger to the love of Christians as Christians The religion of the New Testament makes much of this .It is that by which men were known to have passed from death to life ; for the love of him that begat and of those who were begotten of him, were inseparable. But the love which this species of religion inspires is mere party-attachment, the regard of publicans and heathens, any of whom could love those that loved them. If any man oppose their opinions, whatever be his character for sobriety, righteousness, and godliness, he is without hesitation pronounced graceless, a stranger to the new-birth, and an enemy of Christ. Even an agreement in principles, among the patrons of this religion, provided there be any competition in their worldly interests, produces not union, but rivalship; and every low method is practised to supplant each other in the esteem of the people. In various other systems, though you have to dig through whole strata of error and superstition, yet you will occasionally discover a vein of serious and humble piety: but here all is naught. (I speak of the system as carried to perfection, and which in the present day it is to be hoped it is.) Here nothing is to be met with that resembles love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, meekness, or temperance; on the contrary, the fruits of this spirit are selfishness, pride, spleen, and bitterness, which, like the bowels of Vesuvius, are ever collecting, or issuing in streams of death.

The origin of this species of religion in individuals, will commonly, I fear, be found in a radical defect in their supposed conversion. True scriptural conversion consists in repentance towards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ. But in many of these conversions, there is no appearance of one or the other. With regard to repentance, the system goes in a great measure to preclude it. The manner in which it represents and dwells upon the fall of Adam, so as nearly to remove all accountableness from his posterity, together with its denial, in effect, of the divine authority over the heart, leaves no room for repentance, unless it be for a few gross immoralities. The sins of not loving God and neglecting his great salvation, are entirely kept out of sight. Hence, though you may sometimes see in such conversions great terror of mind, and great joy succeeding to it; yet you will