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fruits of the Spirit, which are love, joy, peace, long-fuffering, gentlenefs, goodness, faith, meeknefs, temperance, hereby you know that he abideth in you, by the Spi rit which he hath given you, 1 John iii. 24. Labour likewife to clear up this difficulty, not only by the life, but by the growth of grace. If you grow more humble, felf abafing and felf-condemning: if you grow more penitent, and more paffionately groan under the burthen of, and mourn for deliverance from all your fins: if your love to God increases, and you take more delight in him and in his ways; or at least long after a life of nearer communion with him, with more ardent defire: if you are more fpiritual in your thoughts, meditations, and af fections, more heavenly in your converfation; and more careful of your refpective duties both to God and man, then you may know that Christ abideth in you and you in him; in that you bring forth much fruit, John xv. 5.

If you get fatisfying evidences of your union to Chrift, adore, admire, and praise the infinite condefcenfion, and the aftonishing love of the glorious Redeemer, in taking fuch duft and afhes, fuch fin and pollution, into union with himself. Contemplate the amazing transaction of love with admiration, and let the love of Chrift conftrain you, to live to the praife of the glory of that grace, by which you become accepted in the beloved.

That Chrift may abide in you and you in him, that you may win Christ, and be found in him at his appearance and kingdom, and that you may reign with him for ever, is the prayer of,

Sir,

Yours, &c.

LETTER XVIII. Wherein fome ANTINOMIAN ABUSES of the Doctrine of Believers union to Christ, or Pleas from it for LICENTIOUSNESS and SECURITY in finning, are confidered and obviated.

SIR,

LLOW me the freedom to tell you, that confequences you draw from the doctrine of our

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union to Chrift, as I have reprefented it, are without any foundation; and that a just view of the cafe muft convince you, that this doctrine gives no advantage to • licentious and latitudinarian principles,' but the direct contrary. I fhall therefore endeavour according to your defire, to confider the Antinomian principles you are pleafed to propofe; and fee whether they naturally

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follow from what I taught in my laft.'

You do not fee (you tell me) if the principles I teach are allowed, how the Antinomians can be charg⚫ed with error, in fuppofing that the true believer has no cause to repent of his fins, or to entertain any dif quietment of mind with refpect to them, fince he is " united to Chrift, and all his fins are charged to Chrift's account, whereby he has fatisfied for them all. Why therefore fhould the believer be concerned about a debt, which is fully difcharged? Juftice is fatisfied with refpect to him; Chrift delights in him, as a member of his own body: the Spirit of God dwells in him, ⚫ notwithstanding any of his fins and imperfections. Why may he not therefore be perfectly eafy with refpect to • fin; and look upon it (as a modern Antinomian expreffes himself) unworthy of our least regards?' To this I anfwer.

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1. That no man who is practically conformed to this Antinomian principle, can know himself to be a believer; and therefore there can be no foundation for this reasoning, in any perfon whatsoever. Were your ar guing allowed to be juft, it can take place with none, but those who have infallible evidence of their union to Chrift; which it is impoffible any man should have, who is not burthened with his fins, who does not hate them, and groan after deliverance from them. Repentance is the genuine and neceffary fruit of a true faith. They fhall look upon me whom they have pierced, and fhall mourn,' Zech. xii. 10. That thou mayest remember, and be confounded, and never open thy mouth any more, because of thy fhame, when I am pacified towards thee for all that thou haft done, faith the Lord God,' Ezek. xvi. 63. And ye fhall be my people, and I will be your God. Then fhall ye remember your own evil ways and your doings which

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were not good; and fhall loathe yourselves in your own fight, for your iniquities and for your abomina'tions,' Ezek. xxxvi. 28. 31. It is the true believer, and he only, that is capable aright to mourn for fin, truly to hate it, and to groan under the burthen of it. Unbelievers may mourn under a fense of their guilt and danger, but this is not to repent of fin. It is the believer only, who forrows for fin as fin; who hates all fin; who groans, being burthened, from a fenfe of his finfulnefs; and who cries out with the apostle, O wretched man that I am, who fhall deliver me from the body of this ' death! What room can there then be for those licenti ous conclufions you speak of? Who is the person that can thus rock his confcience to fleep, under the preva lence of his lufts, from the doctrine of our union to Chrift, as I have described it? Muft it be fuppofed to be one who is united to Chrift? Or one who is not united to Chrift? Surely not the former; for how can he be indolent, careless and fecure in the commiffion of fin, from the doctrine of our union to Chrift, who has no evidence of this being his cafe; nor can have any fuch evidence, till he is poor in fpirit, and is thereby qualified for the kingdom of heaven, Matth. v. 3. till he is one that mourns for his fins, and comes under the promife of comfort, ver. 4. and untill he is of a contrite and humble spirit; for with fuch, and only with such, has the high and lofty one who inhabits eternity, promised to dwell? Ifa. lvii. 15. And I think, I need not endeavour to prove, that he who is not united to Christ, has no shadow of a plea or pretence to make for careleffnefs and fecurity in fin, from the doctrine before us. Whence it follows, that all pretences of this kind are without any rational foundation. They only proceed from men's delight in fin, in a life of fen fual ease and carnal fecurity; and not at all from the precious truth before us. This facred truth may indeed be perverted and abused; and fo may all the other doctrines of the Gofpel, 2 Pet. iii. 16. Butthey who thus turn the grace of God into wantonnefs, do it at the peril of their fouls; and will find but little comfort in it, when they come to make up their accounts. Whatever extravagant pretences men's licentious difpofitions may prompt them to, they muft in the conclufion find it true, that

a life of continued repentance of fin, a life of continued felf abafement and felf-judging, and a life of repeated and renewed mourning after pardon of and victory over our remaining corruptions, is a neceffary fruit and evidence of our union to Chrift; and belongs to the way which leadeth to life eternal, and in which the faints walk to heaven. If therefore we would not too late be found with a lie in our right hand, we must with Daniel, pray to the Lord, and make our confeffion, Dan. ix. 4. We muft, with the church, acknowledge ourselves as an unclean thing, Ifa. lxiv. 6. We muft, with Job, even abhor ourselves, and repent in dust and afbes, Job xlii. 6. We muft, with Ephraim, bemoan ourselves, Jer. xxxi. 18. And with David, have our hearts fail us, on account of the number and aggravations of our fins, Pfal. xl. 12. For thefe are the characters, thefe are the dif pofitions of fuch, who are indeed united to Chrift.

2. There is greater guilt in the fins of believers than in the fins of others. They have therefore greater cause to be humbled for them, and to lament them before God. They are indeed united to Chrifl, reconciled to God, freed from all condemnation, and made heirs ac• cording to the hope of eternal life, the fatisfying evidences of which bleffed ftate muft carry them above any tormenting fears of hell and eternal perdition; and deliver them from that legal repentance, which is the product of defponding thoughts, and a fear of amazement. But is there no other motive to repentance, but flavish, fears of hell? Does not a true repentance and a genuine forrow for fin always flow from an affecting sense of the contrariety of fin to the nature and will of God; from a fenfe of the ingratitude there is in fin, to a bountiful benefactor and a compaffionate Saviour; and from a fenfe of the difhonour to God's name, the violation of his law, the abuse of his mercy and love, the affront and provocation to his holy Spirit, the diftance procured between God and us; and the prejudice to others, as well as to our own fouls, occafioned by our finning against God. Now in all these respects, the fins of believers are more aggravated than the fins of other men. They are diftinguished from the most of the world, by renewing and faving grace: and must it not cut them to the

heart, to think of their vile ingratitude to fuch an infinitely kind and beneficent friend; and of their horrid abuse of such an unmerited mercy and love! They are united to Chrift, washed in his precious blood, and juftified by his righteousness; and can they be content to load him with indignities, who has not thought his own blood too dear a ranfom for their fouls; and who has by the power of his grace plucked them out of the guilt and danger of a perifhing world, and made them heirs of the eternal inheritance! They have felt the divine influences and confolations of the bleffed Spirit; and have tafted that the Lord is gracious, and fhall they by their fins grieve the Spirit of God, provoke him to with. draw, and to with-hold his quickening and comforting influences from them? They are the friends and children of God, the fworn fubjects of the eternal majefty; yea, even the fpoufe of Jefus Chrift. And fhall fuch make little account of fin! Is this thy kindness to thy friend? Is it a light thing for a child to rebel againit his compaffionate Father; for a fubject to take up arms against his prince; or for a wife to violate her marriage Vows? Certainly the fins of believers are aggravated, in proportion to the various obligations they are under, and though they have no cause of defponding and discouraging fears, they have the greatest cause to groan under the burden of their fins, and to groan after deliverance from them. Their union to Chrift is fo far from extenuating their fins, that it renders them more heinous in the fight of God; and is the strongest reason why they should watch against them, lament and hate them. For this. reafon, God may justly expoftulate with them upon their finning against him, as in Deut. xxxii. 6. Do ye thus requite the Lord, O foolish people and unwife? Is not he thy Father that hath bought thee? Hath he not made thee, and established thee?

3. It is true of believers, as well as of others, that except they repent they fhall furely perish. They are indeed fafe in the hands of Chrift; and none fhall pluck them out of his hands: he will preferve them to his heavenly kingdom. But then, he will fave them in his own way, in the way of a repeated renewed exercife of re

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