:-a more If Mr. Hill therefore, will do our doctrine justice, we intreat him to consider, that we are not without law to God, nor yet under a Christless law with Adam; but under a law to Christ, that is, under the law of our Royal Priest, the evangelical law of liberty:gracious law this, which allows of sincere repentance, and is fulfilled by loving faith. Now as we shall be judged by this law of liberty we maintain not only that it may, but also that it must be kept; and it is actually kept by established christians, according to the least and fullest edition of it, which is that of the New Testament. Nor do we think it "shocking" to hear an adult believer say, "The law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus bas made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law [of in nocence, or the letter of the Mosaic law] could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son, condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be [evangelically] fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit," Rom. viii. 2, &c. Reason and scripture seem to us to confirm this doctrine For we think it is far less absurd to say,that the king and parliament make laws, which no Englishman can possibly keep; than to suppose, that Christ and his Apostles have given us precepts, which no christian is able to observe: And St. James assures us, the evangelical law of Christ and liberty is that by which we shall stand or fall in judgment: "So speak ye and so do, says he, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty," Jam. ii. 12. We find the christian edition of that law in all the New Testament, but especially in our Lord's sermon on the Mount, and in St. Paul's description of charity. We are persuaded with St. John and St. Paul, that, as sin is the transgression, so penitential, pure love is the fulfilling of that evangelical law: And therefore, we do not scruple to say with the Apostle, "that he who loveth another bath fulfilled it-and there is no occasion of stumbling," i. e. no sin "in him;" fulfilling the law of Christ and sinning [in the evangelical sense of the word] being as diametrically opposite to each other, as obeying and disobeying,-working righteousness and working iniquity. or the uninterrupted worship of sleepless angels in heaven. We are persuaded therefore, that, for Christ's sake he is pleased with an humble obedience to our present light, and a loving exertion of our present powers; accepting our gospel-services according to what we have, and not according to what we have not. We do not doubt but, as a reasonable, loving father never requires of a child, who is only ten years old, the work of one who is thirty years of age; so our heavenly Father never expects of us, in our debilitated state, the obedience of immortal Adam in Paradise, Nor dare we call that loving exertion of our present powers, sin, lest by so doing we should contradict the Scriptures, confound sin and obedience, and remove all the land-marks which divide the devil's common from the Lord's vineyard. And if at any time we have exaggerated the difficulty of keeping Christ's law, we acknowledge our error, and confess that, by this means, we have calvinistically traduced the equity of our gracious God, and inadvertently encouraged antinomian delusions. To conclude: We believe, that, although adult, established believers, or perfect christians, may admit of many involuntary mistakes, errors, and faults; and of many involuntary improprieties of speech and behaviour; yet, so long as their will is bent upon doing God's will;-so long as they walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit; -so long as they "fulfil the law of liberty," by pure love, they do not sin according to the gospel; because (evangelically speaking)"sin is the transgression, and love is the fulfilling of that law." Far then from thinking, that there is the least absurdity in saying daily, "Vouchsafe to keep me this day without sin," we doubt not but in the believers, who "walk in the light as Christ is in the light," that deep petition is answered, the righteousness of the law, which they are under, is fulfilled; and of consequence, an evangelically sinless perfection is daily experienced. I say evangelically sinless, because, without the word evangelically, the phrase sinless perfection gives an occasion of cavilling to those who seek it, as Mr. Wesley intimates in the fol lowing quotation, which is taken from his Plain account of Christian Perfection, page 60. "To explain myself a little farther on this head: 1. Not only sin, properly so called. that is, a voluntary transgression of a known law, but sin, improperly so called, that is, an involuntary transgression of a divine law known or unknown, needs the atoning blood. -2. I believe there is no such perfection in this life, as excludes these involuntary transgressions, which I apprehend to be naturally consequent on the ignorance and mistakes inseparable from morality.-3. Therefore sinless perfection is a phrase I never use, lest I should seem to contradict myself.-4. I believe a person filled with the love of God, is still liable to these involuntary transgressions. -5. Such transgressions you may call sins, if you please: I do not, for the reasons abovementioned." SECTION II. of fallen man.) "But we do not stand upon such terms as these are with our God. It is Pious Calvinists have had at times, nearly the not so much what our works are, as what same views of christian perfection which we our heart is, that God looks at and will re have. They dissent from us chiefly because ward. Yet know also that if our hearts are they confound the anti-evangelical law of in- perfect and sincere, we shall endeavour to посепсе, and the evangelical law of liberty, the utmost of our power, that our works may peccability and sin, Adamic and Christian be perfect according to the strictness of the perfection: and because they do not consider, law." that christian perfection falling infinitely short of God's absolute perfection, admits of a daily growth; that angels have their "short comings" in heaven; and that Christ had his innocent infirmities upon earth. If it were necessary, we could support the doctrine of christian perfection stated in the preceding pages by almost numberless quotations from the most judicious and pious Calvinists. The sentiments of two or three of them may edify the reader, and give him a specimen of the candour, with which they have written upon the subject, when a spring tide of evangelical truth raised them above the shallows of their system. Bishop Leighton pleads also for the perfection we maintain, and by calvinistically supposing that perseverance is necessary to chris tian perfection, he extols it above Adam's paradisaical perfection. Take his own words abridged: "By obedience sanctification is here intimated: It signifies both habitual and actual obedience, renovation of the heart, and conformity to the divine will: The mind is illuminated by the Holy Ghost to know and believe the divine will; yea this faith is the great and chief part of this obedience, Rom. i. 8. The truth of the doctrine is first impressed on the mind, hence flows out plea sant obedience and full," [he does not say of sin, but]" of love: hence all the affections, and the whole body with its members, learn to give a willing obedience and submit to God; whereas before they resist him, being under the standard of satan. This obedience though imperfect, [when it is measured by the christless law of paradisaical innocence] "If love be sincere, [says pious Mr. Henry] it is accepted as the fulfilling of the law. Surely we serve a good Master, that has sum med up all our duty in one word, and that a short word, and a sweet word, Love, the beauty and harmony of the universe. Loving and being loved is all the pleasure, joy, and yet has a certain, if I may so say,fimperfect happiness of an intelligent being. God is perfection." [It is not legally but evangelically love, and love is his image upon the soul. perfect.] "It is universal" [or perfect] "three Where it is, the soul is well moulded, and manner of ways, (1) In the subject:-It is the heart fitted for every good work." not in the tongue alone, or in the hand, &c. Henry's exposition on Rom. xiii. 10.-Again: but has its root in the heart;-(2) In the ob"It is well for us that by virtue of the cove- ject,-It embraces the whole law, &c. It nant of grace, upon the score of Christ's accounts no command little, which is from righteousness, sincerity is accepted as our God, because he is great and highly esteemgospel perfection." Hen, on Gen. vi. 9.- ed: no command hard, though contrary to [See the note on the word perfection, Section I.] Pious Bishop Hopkins is exactly of the same mind. "Consider," says he, "for your encouragement, that it is not so much the absolute and legal perfection of the work, as the [evangelical] perfection of the worker, that is, the perfection of the heart, which is looked at and rewarded by God. There is a two-fold perfection, the perfection of the work, and that of the workman. The perfection of the work is, when the work does so exactly and strictly answer the holy law of God, that there is no irregularity in it. The perfection of the workman is nothing but inward sincerity and uprightness of the heart towards God, which may be where there are many imperfections and defects intermingled. If God accepted and rewarded no work, but what is absolutely perfect in respect of the law; this would take off the wheels of all endeavours, for our obedience falls far short of legal perfection in this life;" (the Adamic law making nó allowance for the weaknesses the flesh, because all things are easy to love; there is the same authority in all, as St. James divinely argues. And this authority is the golden chain to all the commandments," [of the law of liberty preached by St. James] "which if broke in any link falls to pieces.— (3) In the duration, the whole man is subjected to the whole law, and that constantly. That this threefold perfection of obedience is not a picture drawn by fancy, is evident in David, Psalm 119" Archbishop Leighton's com. on St. Peter, Page 15. That learned Prelate, as a pious man, could not but be a perfectionist; though as a Cal vinist, he frequently spoke the language of the imperfectionists. Take one more quotation, where he grants all that we contend for. "To be subject to him, (God) is truer happiness than to command the whole world. Pure love reckons thus: Though no farther reward were to follow; obedience to God (the perfection of his creature, and its very happiness) carries its full recompense in its own bosom. Yea love delights most in the hardest services, &c. It is love to him indeed to love the labour of love, and the service of it; and that not so much because it leads to rest and ends it, but because it is service to him whom we love: yea, that la bour is in itself a rest: it is so natural and sweet to a soul that loves, as the revolution of the heavens which is a motion in rest, and rest in motion; changes not place, though running still; so the motion of love is truly heavenly, and circular still in God; beginning in him, and ending in him; and so not ending, but moving still without weariness, &c. According as the love is, so is the soul; it is made like to, yea, it is made one with that which it loves, &c. By the love of God it is made divine, is one with him, &c. Now though fallen from this, we are again invited to it; though degenerated and accursed in our sinful nature, yet we are renewed in Christ, and this commandment is renewed in him, and a new way of fulfilling it" ["even the way of faith in our Redeemer']"is pointed out." Select works of Arch. Leighton, page 461. Where has Mr. Wesley ever exceeded this high description of christian per fection? I grant that this pious prelate frequently confounds our celestial perfection of glory with our progressive perfection of grace, and on that account supposes that the latter is not attainable in this life: but even then he exhorts us to quit ourselves like sincere perfectionists. 66 Though men, says he, fall short of their aim, yet it is good to aim high: they shall shoot so much the higher, though not full so high as they aim. Thus we ought to be setting the state of perfection in our eye resolving not to rest content below that, and to come as near it as we can, even before we come at it. Phil. iii. 11, 12. This is to act as one that has such a hope, such a state in view, and is still advancing towards it." Ibid. page 184. The mistake of the Archbishop will be particularly pointed out, where I shall show the true meaning of Phil. iii. 11, the passage, behind which he skreens the remains of his Calvinian prejudi ces. By the preceding quotations, and by two more from the Rev. Messrs. Whitefield and Romaine, which the reader will find at the I think I have said in one of the Checks, that Bishop Leighton doubted whether those, who do not sin cerely aspire after perfection, have saving grace: That doubt (if I now remember right.) is Mr. Alleyne's: Though this qoutation from the Archbishop shews, that he was not far from Alleyne's sentiment, if he was not in it. Pious Dr. Doddridge is explicit on this head. "To allow yourself," says he," deliberately to sit down satisfied with any imperfect attainments in religion, and to look upon a more confirmed and improved state of it as what you do not desire, nay as what you secretly resolve that you will not pursue, is one of the most fatal signs we can well imagine, that you are an entire stranger to the first principles of Doddridge's Rise and Progress, Chap. xx. end of Section IX. it appears, that pious Calvinists come at times very near the doctrine of Christian perfection; and if they do not constantly enforce it, it is [we apprehend] chiefly for the following reasons. 1. They generally confound the Christless law of innocence with the evangelical law of Christ; and, because the former cannot be fulfilled by believers, they conclude that pure obedience to the latter is impracticable. 2. They confound peccability with sin :-the power of sinning with the actual use of that power. And so long as they suppose, that a bare natural capacity to sin is either original sin, or an evil propensity, we do not wonder at their believing, that original sin, or evil propensities, must remain in our hearts till death removes us from this tempting world. But on what argument do they found this notion ? Did not God create angels and men peccable? Or, in other terms, Did he not endue them with a power to sin, or not to sin, to disobey or obey, as they pleased? Did not the event show that they had this tremendous power? But would it not be "blasphemous" to assert, that God created them full of original sin, and of evil propensities ?-If an adult believer yields to temptation, and falls into sin as our first parents did, is it a proof that he never was cleansed from inbred sin? If sinning necessarily demonstrates that the heart was always teeming with depravity, will it not follow, that Adam and Eve were tainted with sin before their will began to decline from original righteousness? Is it not however indubitable, from the nature of God, from scripture, and from sad experience, that after having been created in God's sinless image, and holy likeness, our first parents, as well as some angels, were drawn away of their own selfconceived lust, and became evil by the power of their own free-agency? Is it reasonable to think, that the most holy christians, so long as the day of their visitation and probation lasts in this tempting wilderness, are in that respect above Adam in Paradise, and above angels in heaven? And may we not conclude, that as Satan and Adam insensibly fell into sin, the one from the height of his celestial perfection, and the other from the summit of his paradisaical excellence, without any previous bias inclining him to corruption: so may those believers, whose hearts have been completely purified by faith, gradually depart from the faith, and fall so low as to account the blood of the cove nant, wherewith they were sanctified, an unholy thing? 3. The prejudices of our opponents, are increased by their confounding Adamic* place the gracious • Between Adamic and Christiau perf etion we nocence of little children They are not only full of peccability like Adam, but debili and Christian perfection: two perfections these, which are as distinct as the garden of Eden and the christian church. Adamic per fection came from God our Creator in Paradise, before any trial of Adam's faithful obedience and Christian perfection comes from God our Redeemer and Sanctifier in the Christian Church, after a severe trial of the obedience of faith. Adamic perfection might be lost by doing despite to the preserving love of God our Creator; and Christian perfection may be lost by doing despite to the redeeming love of God our Saviour. Adamic perfection extended to the whole man: his body was perfectly sound in all its parts: and his soul in all its powers. But Christian perfection extends chiefly to the will, which is the capital, moral power of the soul; leaving the understanding ignorant of ten thousand things, and the body dead be cause of sin. 4. Another capital mistake lies at the root of the opposition which our Calvinian brethren make against Christian perfection. They imagine, that upon our principles, the grace of an adult Christian, is like the body of an But adult man, which can grow no more. this consequence flows from their fancy, and not from our doctrine. We exhort the strongest believers to grow up to Christ in all things; asserting that there is no holiness, and no happiness in heaven [much less upon earth] which do not admit of a growth, except the holiness and the happiness of God himself: because, in the very nature of things, a Being absolutely perfect, and in every sense infinite, can never have any thing added to him. But infinite additions can be made to beings every way finite, such as glorified saints and holy angels are. Hence it appears, that the comparison which we make between the ripeness of a fruit, and the maturity of a believer's grace, cannot be carried into exact parallel. For a perfect Christian grows far more than a feeble believer, whose growth is still obstructed by the shady thorns of sin, and by tated in all their animal and rational faculties, and of consequence, fit to become an easy prey to every temptation, through the weakness of their reason, and the corruption of their concupiscible and irascible powers. Nevertheless, till they begin personally to prefer moral evil to moral good, we may consider them as evangelically or graciously innocent. I say, graciously innocent, be cause, if we considerthem in the seed of Fallen Adam, we find them naturally children of wrath, and under the curse; but if we consider them in the seed of the woman which was promised to Adam and to his posterity, we find them graciously placed in a state of redemption, and evangelical salvation. For the free gift, which is And come upon all men to justification, belongs first to them, Christ having sanctified infancy first. therefore we do not scruple to say after our Lord, Of such is the kingdom of heaven." Now the king dom of heaven is not of sinners as sinners: but of little children, as being Innocent through free-gift: or of adults as being penitent, that is, turned from their sins to Christ. Besides, a the draining suckers of iniquity. Does a well-meant mistake defile the con- Once more: does not St. Paul's rule hold in spirituals, as well as in temporals: It is accepted according to what a man hath, and not according to what he hath not? Does our Lord actually require more of believers than they can actually do through his grace? And when they do it to the best of their power, does he not see some perfection in their works, insignificant as those works may be? -Remove this immense heap of stones, says an indulgent father to his children; and be diligent according to your strength. While the eldest, a strong man, removes rocks; the youngest, a little child, is as cheerfully busy as any of the rest in carrying sands and pebbles. Now, may not his child-like obedience be as excellent in its degree, and, of consequence, as acceptable to his parent, as the manly obedience of his eldest brother? Nay, though he does next to nothing, may not his endeavours, if they are more cordial, excite a smile of superior approbation in his loving Father, who looks at the disposition of the heart more than at the appearance of the work? Had the believers of Sardis cordially laid out all their talents, would our Lord have complained that he did not find their works perfect before God? Rev. iii. 2. And was it not according to this rule of perfection, that Christ testified, the poor widow, who had given but two mites, had nevertheless cast more into the treasury than all the rich, though they had cast in much; because our Lord himself being judge, she had given all that she had? Now could she give, or did God require more than her all? And when she thus heartily gave her all? did she not do [evangelically speaking] a perfect work, according to her dispensation and circumstan. ces ? We flatter ourselves that if these scriptural observations, and rational queries, do not remove Mr. Hill's prejudice, they will at least make way for a more candid perusal of the following pages. SECTION III. Several Objections raised against our Doctrine are solved, merely by considering the nature of Christian Perfection.—It is absurd to say, that all our Christian Perfection is in the person of Christ. I Repeat it, if our pious opponents decry the doctrine of Christian perfection, it is chiefly through misapprehension; it being as natural for pious men to recommend exalted piety, as for covetous persons to extol great riches. And this misapprehension frequently springs from their attention to the nature of Christian perfection. To prove it, I need only oppose our definition of Christian perfection to the objections, which are most commonly raised against our doctrine. I. "Your doctrine of perfection leads to pride,"-Impossible! if Christian perfection is "perfect humility." "II. "It exalts believers; but it is only to the state of the vain-glorious pharisee."-Impossible! if our perfection is perfect humility," it makes us sink deeper into the state of the humble, justified publican. III." It fills men with the conceit of their own excellence, and makes them say to a weak brother, stand by, I am holier than thou." Impossible again! We do not teach pharisaic, but christian perfection, which consists in" perfect poverty of spirit," and in that" per fect charity, which raunteth not itself, honours all men, and bears with the infirmities of the weak." IV. "It sets repentance aside."-Impossi. ble !: for tis" perfect repentance." V." It will make us slight Christ."-More and more improbable! How can "perfect faith" in Christ, make us slight Christ? Could it be more absurd to say, that the perfect love of God will make us despise God? VI. "It will supersede the use of mortification and watchfulness; for, if sin is dead, what need have we to mortify it, and to watch against it?" This objection has some plausibility: I shall therefore answer it various ways.-1. If Adam, in his state of paradisaical perfection, needed perfect watchfulness and perfect mortification; how much more do we need them, who find the tree of the knowledge of good and evil planted, not only in the midst of our gardens, but in the midst of our houses, markets, and churches ?-2. When we are delivered from sin, are we delivered from peccability and temptation? When the inward man of sin is dead, is the devil dead? Is the corruption that is in the world destroyed ? And have we not still our five senses to keep with all diligence, as well as our hearts, that the tempter may not enter into us, or that we may not enter into his temptations?-Lastly: Jesus Christ, as son of Mary, was a perfect man? But how was he kept so to the end? Was it not by "keeping his mouth with a bri dle, while the ungodly was in his sight," and by guarding all his senses with perfect assiduity, that the wicked one might not touch him to his hurt? And if Christ our head kept his human perfection only through watchfulness, and constant self-denial, is it not absurd to suppose, that his perfect members can keep their perfection, without treading in his steps? VII. Another objection probably stands in Mr. Hill's way: It runs thus: "Your doctrine of perfection makes it needless for per fect Christians to say the Lord's prayer: For if God vouchsases to keep this day without sin, we shall have no need to pray at night, that God would "forgive us our trespas. ses, as we forgive them that trespass against us.' We answer: 1. Though a perfect Christian does not trespass voluntarliy, and break the law of love, yet he daily breaks the law of Adamic perfection, through the imperfection of his bodily and mental powers and he has frequently a deeper sense of these in |