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cial and moral duty be neglected. Sir, I fpeak, by woeful experience. I fpeak with an aching heart, a weeping eye, and a trembling hand. And I fpeak truth, which is not to be controverted, and which I am ready at any time to atteft in the most folemn manner. Not long fince, ftrong in health, and found in mind, I was able to fulfil the bufinefs of my station, and to get my bread with chearfulness and peace: I had a wife, very dear to me; beloved children around me; a comfortable house to receive me, and content to foften my pillow. But now, alas! afflicted even beyond the affliction of Job. -I am deprived of each, of all thefe! My body is diftracted with an intolerable nervous diforder; and I have no reft night or day my mind is in torments infinitely more dreadful than those I endure in body, though they are intenfe, and without intermiffion; I am no longer able to get my bread, but languish in poverty and distress: I have no wife to comfort me, fhe has abandoned me in my fore calamity; and with her I have no children are gone: my where to hide my head; my goods have been feized by the cruelty of her, who ought to have been my comforter; and as I am not a native of this kingdom, (where the poor may remain unnoticed, in the moft exquifite fufferings for ever,)-I have neither friend nor counfellor ; nor any to alleviate; though I have many to aggravate

gravate my dreadful fufferings. Sufferings of which religion no, let me not wrong the name -of which enthusiasm, antinomianism, have been

the fatal cause.

It is fcarce to be conceived, and many perhaps who read this, will not believe, that rational creatures fhould by any means be brought to fancy themselves in the highest degree of the divine favour, while they are neglecting, nay, trampling upon, the most facred of God's laws; that any should apprehend, they are peculiarly interested in the bleffed Redeemer's blood, while they live in that fin, and contemn that holiness; the former of which his blood was fhed to expiate, the latter of which it was given to promote. But forry am I to say, there are numbers; forry I am to say, I have myself conversed with numbers,—but most forry am I to fay, that their minifters of Satan, have made my wife one of that number, and taught her to defpife the duties of the wife, of the mother, of the friend, of the woman, for the fuperlative happiness, as they esteem it, of a spiritual union with that dear Jefus, upon whom the now rolls herself, and in whom he now wraps herself, as in a garment. Pardon me, good Sir, for ufing thefe expreffions; I almoft fhudder while I use them; but blafphemy of them will be excufed me, when I declare, that they are fuch as are most familiar in the mouths of this deluded people.

One of these enthufiafts, with her religious prating, firft enveigled my wife, to attend her to the tabernacle, and fhe quickly caught the fatal and contagious fire. A change in my family affairs was foon difcernible. When I ufed to return from office to dinner, weary my with writing, and expecting a little comfortable refreshment at home, disappointment generally chagrin'd me; my wife was abroad; my two poor little infants were dirty, ragged, neglected; no preparations were making for dinner; and I had nothing to feed upon, but difcontent and uneafinefs. If I remonftrated, as my poor wife was rather of a warm temper, the confequences were always unpleafing: fhe would tell me, "that the care of the foul was the one thing needful: that this was more precious than all things befide; that she must and would go, where the could hear about her fweet Saviour; and that fhe wished, I was as mindful of this grand concern as fhe." I would tell her in return, "that I had no less a regard for my foul than herself, and was as well convinced of its fuperlative value that I had an esteem and love for the ever adorable Redeemer, equal to any thing fhe could pretend to ; and that he was well convinced I had ever lived, as one that looked for a better world. That I conceived an attendance upon our parish church, where we had excellent minifters, twice every Sunday, was fuffi

cient,

cient, efpecially as we took care to have family devotion in our house twice a day, and frequently read approved books of piety. I hinted, that hearing seven or eight fermons every day (which was very commonly her cafe) could not, in my judgment, produce any good effect: it was overcharging the head. And I used to conclude, with telling her, that St. Paul, against whofe advice fhe could have no objection, enjoins it upon wives and mothers, to do the duties of those relations."

But alas, Sir, all my remonftrances were vain For my wife had imbibed principles, which utterly fuperfeded all these confiderations. She had deferted her first friends, at the Tabernacle, &c. as too legal for her-though, God knows, they had fet her loose enough to duty! -And was now admitted, as a member, in a congregation of Antinomians, the head of which is as fubtle and fophifticated as his doctrine is diabolical and peftiferous. Their grand principle is, that Chrift, being the reprefentative of mankind, or rather the aggregate of all mankind in his own perfon, took upon him all the fins, and fuffered for them, as well as performed all the obedience, neceffary for all men. Infomuch that every man as much obeyed in him, as if he had himself perfonally done what Chrift did. So that now no man has any thing more to do than to believe, that Chrift, as his

representative, lived, obeyed and died; and, in confequence of that, he is entitled to all he hath done. "What should we pray for," say they? Chrift prays for us, and he is always heard? What should we obey for? Christ obeyed, and his obedience is complete. We are in him, our fins are his, done away by him; they are no fins in us: our life is hid with him in heaven. Here below we are incumbered with flefh, it is true; but that flesh is nothing to us. We believe, and are entered into rest."

Thefe, Sir, are the precious tenets my wife imbibed; and to teach me thefe, fhe brought to my house, and dragged me to the meetings of, R-y and C-th: And these worthies applied all their jefuiftical arts to convert me. I remember one day, when I told R-y," Sir, Chrift as plainly delivers precepts, and enjoins duties, in his divine word, as the fun fhines in the heavens." "Yes, replied he, with a fmile of contempt, he does fo; but do you confider to whom he delivers them, not to you or to me, but to HIMSELF! To his own glorious felf! He preached to himself, as our representative, and as only capable to fulfil those precepts for us, which we could never fulfil. This is a point univerfally mistaken." "In truth, faid I, well it might, and it had been good for mankind, if they had never been fet right in it by fuch gentlemen as you." Sir, I could fill twen

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