pentance, as well as faith, and in no other way. If any are not in that way, they are not in Chrift's way and have therefore reafon to fufpect their union to Chrift, and to conclude, that they are not in the path of life. Their eternal intereft does therefore loudly call upon them, to mourn for their fins, to hate and forfake them, left they perish eternally. True believers will not finally perifh; for whom God juftifies, he will alfo glorify. But then the believer's perfeverance is fubferved by a fear of caution; nor are there any true believers, but penitent believers: and therefore, whoever are habitual. ly careless in their walk, and impenitent for their fins, will fall fhort of falvation, whatever pretences to faith in Christ they may make. There is but one way to heaven; and whoever gets there, must attain the glorious falvation, by obtaining afliftance, from the powerful influences of divine grace, to keep that way. They must be enabled to go weeping and mourning, with their faces toward Zion. They must offer to God the facrifice of an humble and contrite fpirit. They must loath themfelves in their own fight, for their iniquities and abomi nations. Every other road but this leads down to the chambers of death. Believers therefore as well as others, have cause to pass the time of their fojourning here in fear. They have not cause indeed (as is before obferved) of a legal and flavish fear: but they have cause of a jealoufy of themfelves, left they mifs their way and fall fhort of their hope. They have cause to watch and pray, that they enter not into temptation, Matth. xxvi. 41. They have cause to keep under their body, and bring it into fubjection, left by any means they themselves should be caft-aways, 1 Cor. ix. 27. And to judge themselves, that fo they may not be condemned with the world, chap. xi. 31, 32. They have cause to follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man fball fee the Lord, Heb. xii. 14. They have cause to repent and turn themselves from all their tranfgreffions, that their iniqui ty do not prove their ruin, Ezek. xviii. 30. Believers themselves would fall into condemnation, and their ini. quities be their ruin, fhould they live careless, finful, im penitent lives. There is no falvation promised, there is no falvation poffible, to any who live fuch lives. They

who are kept by the power of God, are kept through faith (an operative faith, which is accompanied with all the graces of the bleffed Spirit) unto the faluation which fhall be revealed in the last time, 1 Pet. i. 5. The doctrine of our union to Chrift does therefore allow no plea for licentioufnefs, fince Chrift is a prince, as well as a Saviour, to all who are in him, to give them repentance, as well as forgiveness of fins, Acts v. 31. And they who do not live in the exercise of repentance, whatever pretences they may make unto an union to Chrift by faith, have not the faith of God's elect, are none of his; nor are they likely ever to partake of his falvation. It therefore concerns fuch filthy dreamers to awake, and confider their danger, who are at eafe in Zion, who flatter themselves in their own eyes: for their iniquities must firft or laft be found hateful.

You go on to argue; it appears a contradiction, to teach, that the believer is perfectly righteous in the fight of God, by virtue of his union to Chrift, and by the imputation of his righteoufnefs; and yet that he is finful and polluted in God's fight, at the fame time. If he be united to Chrift and interested in his righte ⚫oufnefs, he is perfectly righteous: and if he be perfect. ⚫ly righteous, he cannot be finful: and therefore cannot

have cause to repent for his fins, to grieve for them, or feek pardon for them.' In answer to this, I would in treat you to confider,

1. That this is to blend together justification and fanctification, as if they were the fame thing. There is not the leaft fhadow of a confequence, that because believers are interested in a perfect righteousness, and are thereby perfectly juftified in the fight of God, there fore their fanctification is compleat, and they perfectly holy. God may blot out our tranfgreffions as a cloud, and caft our iniquities into the depths of the fea, by a gra cious pardon, when yet we have caufe to acknowledge ourfelves altogether as un unclean thing, and that if he fbould mark iniquity, we could not ftand; that if he bould contend with us, we could not answer him one of a thou fand. And is that an argument why we should be bold and careless in finning, becaufe God has been infinitely gracious in pardoning our fin? Is it an argument why

we should fecurely and ungratefully abuse our heaven' ly Father, because he has laid us under the strongest obligations to love and ferve him? But it feems to be the drift of thofe whom you would perfonate in this argument, that the believer's violation of the law of God is no fin, that their not being under the law, but under grace, makes it no ways criminal (in them to tranfgrefs the law; and their being united to Chrift legitimates even the groffeft tranfgreffions both of the law and gofpel. If this be intended, I muft obferve to you, that in order to a juft deducing of this conclufion, it must be fuppofed, that the law of God is wholly vacated, and ceases to be a rule of life; though the apoftle affures us, that the law is not made void by faith, but established, Rom. iii. 31. It must alfo be fuppofed, that holiness of life is not required by the gospel of Chrift; though the whole defign of the gofpel is to promote holiness; and we are exprefly told, that the grace of God which brings fal· vation, teaches us, that denying ungodliness, and worldly lufts, we should live foberly, righteously, and godly in this prefent world, Tit. ii. 11, 12. And it must even be fuppofed, that the nature of the glorious God himself must be changed; that he can look upon fin with appro bation; and be pleased with what is moft oppofite to his own purity and rectitude. It must be fuppofed that David's murder and adultery, that Peter's denying his Lord, with curfing and fwearing, &c. were acceptable to God. What blafphemy, what fubverfions of the very light and law of nature are contained in fuch principles as thefe! But you will fay perhaps, that it does not obviate the difficulty,.to fhew the inconfiftency and incongruity of thefe principles, while the question yet remains, whe• ther they do not (how wicked foever) neceffarily follow from my doctrine of our union to Chrift. To which it is fufficient anfwer, that by virtue of a believer's union to Chrift, his righteousness is imputed, to answer the demands of the juftice and law of God; and thereby to reconcile the believer to God: but not to legitimate his finful actions. It is to procure him a pardon for past fins; and not a license for future tranfgreffions. It is to free him from the guilt and condemning power of fin: but not to change the nature, and deftroy the infepa

rable effential defert of fin. It is true, that the believer is hereby interested in God's covenant mercy and love; therefore fecure of a gradual fanctification, whereof his repentance, hatred of and forrow for fin, is a peculiar and principal part. Whence it follows, that we muft mourn for our fins, repent of and hate them, in order to evidence our union to Chrift and intereft in him; and not live contentedly in fin from a vain dream of our union to him. There can be no fuch thing in nature, as an impenirent true believer; and therefore all conelufions of this kind are groundless and impious.

2. It is a fact most notorious, and admits of no difpute, that believers have not a perfect personal and inherent righteousness in the fight of God; and therefore the doctrine under confideration affords no handle for fuch licentious pleas, as you have fuggefted. Chrift's righteoufnefs imputed to us, it is true, is perfect; and therefore our juftification is perfect too, by virtue of our intereft in it, fo that on that account we have no caufe of any disquietment and uneafinefs. But what is our own perfonal righteousness? It is filthy rags, Ifa. Ixiv. 6. It is lofs and dung, Phil. iii. 8. And if we fay we have no fin, we deceive ourselves; and the truth is not in 215, I John i. 8. Have we no caufe therefore to lament the imperfection of our own righteoufnefs, becaufe Chrift's righteoufnefs is perfect? Have we no cause to lament the great defects of our fanctification, because our juftification is perfect? Have we no matter of uneafinefs on account of our non-conformity to the holiness of God, because his vindictive juftice is fatisfied? Have we no occafion to lament, that we are no more prepared and ripened for heaven, because we hope to escape hell? Have we no reason to lament the difhonour we do to God, because he has in infinite mercy been pleased to pardon our fins, and make us heirs of glory? And in fine, have we no fins to repent of, when in many things we all offend, and when our offences are peculiarly aggravated, by our diftinguishing privileges and obligations? I fpeak these things upon the fuppofition that we have an affurance of a juftified ftate; which (as I have before proved) no man ever had, or can have, while he makes light of finning. It is little likely, that they

are true believers, who believe in Chrift for a pardon only or that they are true penitents, whofe only motive is the penalty, and not the turpitude of fin, which fhould make us loath it, and ourselves for it, though conscious of a pardon.

You further obferve, that the Antinomians argue 'from the doctrine of our union to Christ, as I have ⚫ propofed it, that the fins of believers do really belong to Chrift, as the fins of the hand really belong to the head, unto which thofe hands are united. Accord-" ingly he actually bare our fins, fuffered for us, and God laid upon him the iniquities of us all. The fins that the believer commits, do therefore truly belong to Chrift, and not to the believer himself. They are his fins, not ours. They are already accounted for by him, and confequently are not now to be repented of by us. You fufpect (you say) that there are too many among us, which quiet themfelves with fuch dangerous pretences, while going on in finful practices; that these feem to found their erroneous principles ' upon the doctrine taught in my laft: and you defire me to confider, whether they do not naturally flow ⚫ from it.'

There needs no other answer to this, than to fhew you, that our fins are to be confidered in a threefold refpect. They are to be confidered with respect to their pollution, or contrariety to the holinefs of God; with refpect to their innate guilt, or contrariety to the preceptive will of God; and with refpect to their defert, or relation to the penalty denounced against them by the juftice and law of God. It is in the latter fenfe only, that our bleffed Saviour bare our fins, and was made fin for us; and that our fins are by virtue of our union to Chrift imputed to him, and efteemed as his. If this be diftinctly confidered, the cafe will appear moft plain and evident.

If we confider fin with respect to its blot or pollution, it is the abominable thing, which God's foul hates. It is what he is of purer eyes than to behold; and what he cannot look on but with abhorrence and deteftation. Now it were the greateft blafphemy, to fuppofe, that our Lord Jefus Chrift did in this fenfe take our fins upon