the Judge delivers him to the Officer, to be caft into prifon. The Officer could have no prisoners to wreak his rage upon, if there were no Law to curfe the finner. Satan is not divided against himself. Those preachers who oppofed Paul's Gospel with Circumcifion and the Law of Mofes, are exprefsly called Satan's own minifters transformed, 2 Cor. xi. 14, 15. The Galatians, who turned their backs upon Christ, and went to the Law to be made perfect by the flesh, are declared to be bewitched; and we know that all witchcraft comes from Satan. All the finners that ever this trading Justice has got into his difimal cave, have died under the Law; and all the faves that Satan ever has loft, have been delivered from the Law, and faved from fin and hell, by the Grace of God revealed in the everlasting Gofpel. The Saviour did preach up holiness. He pronounced the bleffing of Juftification upon his elect followers, which abfolved and acquitted them from all penal evil: "Now ye are clean through "the word that I have spoken unto you." He gave them notice that he would cleanse them from all future defilement by his blood and Spirit, which he fignified by washing their feet; and he promised to fend the "Holy Ghoft to abide with them for 66 ever, and bid them abide in him as the branch "does in the vine; and that fuch fouls should bring "forth much fruit: but without him they could do "nothing." But the holiness preached up in this

Sermon

Sermon has little or no resemblance of this. Let us now see how you preach it up.

QUOT." If you cannot stand behind your counter un<der the influences of the Holy Spirit, ftand there no << more; if you cannot eat your food with a single eye to "glorify God, rather starve than feed; if you cannot lie "down upon your beds to reft with a defire that (by your "reft) you may be recruited to ferve God, réft no more."

ANSW. If none but fuch perfons as are here described were to stand behind a counter, there would not be shopkeepers enough in all the world to ferve the inhabitants of London, so as for every one to get one article in a week; and were none but fuch perfons to eat, as you describe, the world would be thin enough of inhabitants in fix weeks. From all felfmurder, and from fudden death, good Lord, deliver us!

QUOT. "Though a man, in his carnal, unconverted "ftate, will hardly keep himself from anger; yet he can "cafily keep himself from murder."

ANSW. That a man can easily keep himself from murder, appears plain by Hazael. Elifha told him, that he fhould " flay the young men of Ifrael, dash "their children, and rip up their women with "child:" who answered-" Is thy fervant a dog, "that he should do this great thing?" And the next day he killed his own fovereign; and foon after

acted all the reft of the bloody tragedy, 2 Kings,

Chap. 8. To make men their own keepers is a poor doctrine: they are better kept that God keepeth.

QUOT." People, if they are ever fo vile, can keep them"felves from outward actions; and generally do, for fear "of the confequences that attend them. The thievish "man may keep himself from thievish actions through fear "of punishment. Man may reftrain himself from many ❝ outward acts of violence."

ANSW. This doctrine of felf-keeping, Sir, has a tendency to keep men from looking to Him who is "called Jefus, because he shall save his people from

their fins." The Scriptures fay, that "the strong "man, armed, keeps poffeffion of the palace;" and that "the Devil takes the finner captive at his will." If fo, where is the finner's power to keep himself, if God leaves him? And furely we have few empty gaols, maiden-affizes, or barren banging-days, to prove the truth of this doctrine. "Except the Lord keep "the city, the watchman waketh but in vain:" and if God takes off his restraint, the finner runs to mifchief; the fear of bell-fire is not enough to deter him, much less the fear of a gallows.

QUOT. "A man may subscribe to his meeting, and come "to his meeting; he may pay his tithes, and go to his "church; he may go to a shop, and pay his debts," &c.

ANSW.

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ANSW. I do not agree with my friend Rowland in these affertions. Providence must have a hand in all this. If a man fubfcribes to a meeting, God must give him money and inclination. The gold and filver is the Lord's, and fo is a heart to do good therewith. A man cannot pay tithes unless God enable him to keep a farm, give him crops, and a good market. And, if he pays his debts, God's providence muft favour him; for Mofes fays, it is God that gives him power to get wealth. Read Deut. Chap. viii.

QUOT. "Where I preach one fermon upon Juftifica"tion, I hope I fhall preach half a dozen upon Sanctifi<<<cation."

ANSW. If you were to preach twelve dozen, Sir, -upon the fubject, unless you are more explicit than you are in this, there is not a foul living that would understand your meaning. Without a distinction in the founds, we cannot tell what is piped or harped. A man may as well preach upon Multiplication as Mortification, unless he gives us the explication or fignification.

What I have here quoted is pretty nearly all the matter that is drawn from the text. The other parts will hardly bear tranfcribing. "Smiting the empty

fugar-tub, which makes a famous fine found-Send"ing the cleanly perfon into the pigs pound-The card-player's dexterity at the fight of friend Row

b 4

"land

"land-And the man in a comfortable frame turbling over the threshold, drunk, into the meeting," (which I take to be an oblique throw at the comforts of the Gospel)—are things that will not bear public infpection: and therefore, to let friend Rowland know that I bear lighter upon his folly than he does on my character, I only touch them. But, if he proceeds with his falfe charges and unjust flander, I may in time fend the whole of them forth, and my diffection of them-for be that fins openly, is to be rebuked before all, that others may fear. And I afk farther, Whether the above-mentioned stories can be called found fpeech, that cannot be condemned; or, Speaking as the oracles of God, or doing the work of an evangelift? By no means. And I think friend Rowland himself was aware of this; otherwife, why should he threaten me with a profecution for a libel, but from a consciousness that what he has said in fecret would not bear the house-top?

To conclude, friend Rowland. Should you, at any future period, happen to come out of any street or lane, and unexpectedly clap your eyes upon me, as you once did by St. Paul's Church, do not leap up and run from me at that diftracted rate you then did. Never fly, Sir, unless you are purfued. As yet I do not understand the way in which you go; and, till I do, you may depend upon it that I never shall become a follower of you: The wisdom of the wife is to understand his way.

That