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LETTER, &c.

My dear Friends,

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New-York, Nov. 1, 1740.

AST night and this morning I read your queries and scruples. Whether they were compiled by churchmembers, or minifters of the prefbyterian perfuafion, I shall not take upon me to determine. I think I may say with David, though on another occasion, " Joab's hand is in this." If your minifters were really the authors, and you only their representatives, they have not acted simply. They had better have spoken out. I should as readily have answered them as you. Solomon says, " He that hateth reproof, is brutish." And if I know any thing of my own heart, I should think myself obliged to any one that convinces me of an error, either in principle or practice. I therefore assure you, that I do not find the least resentment stirring in my soul against those (whoever they be) that proposed the queries, or against the reverend prefbytery that advised you to send them to me in a public manner: no, I rejoice in it; because it gives me an opportunity of doing what my friends know I have for some time proposed, the correcting some passages in my printed sermons. I think it no dishonour, to retract fome expressions that formerly dropped from my pen, before God was pleased to give me a more clear knowledge of the doctrines of grace. St. Austin, I think, did so before me. The LORD's dealing with me was fomewhat out of the common way. I can say, to the honour of rich free distinguishing grace, that I received the Spirit of adoption before I had conversed with one man, or read a single book, on the doctrine of "Free juftification by the imputed righteousness of JESUS CHRIST." No wonder then, that I was not so clear in some points at my first setting out in the miniftry. Our LORD was pleased to enlighten me

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by degrees; and I defire your prayers, that his grace may shine more and more in my heart, till it breaks forth into perfect day.

But to come to the exceptionable passages in my sermons. You blame me for faying,

Vol. II. page 17. "That Adam was adorned with all the perfections of the Deity." It is a wrong expression: I would correct it thus : "All the moral communicable perfections of the Deity." Again, "Man was the perfection of the moral and material world: let it stand thus: "The perfection of all the visible world."

Vol. II. page 22 and 23. "Washes the guilt of fin away by the tears of a fincere repentance, joined with faith in the blood of JESUS CHRIST." This is false divinity: I would now alter it thus: "Recovers his former peace, by renewing his acts of faith on the perfect righteousness of JESUS CHRIST."

Vol. I. page 79. "And which alone can render any of our actions acceptable in God's fight." It should be, " And without which, any of our actions cannot be acceptable in GOD's fight."

Vol. I. page 16. "Who vainly depend on their own righteousness, and not on the righteousness of JESUS CHRIST, imputed to, and inherent in them, as necessary for their eternal salvation." To avoid all mistakes, I would express myself in this manner, "Who have neither CHRIST's righteoufness imputed to them, for their justification in the fight, nor holiness wrought in their fouls as the consequence of that, in order to make them meet for the enjoyment of GOD."

Vol. I. page 7. For, "To qualify us for being savingly in CHRIST," read, "To qualify us for living eternally with CHRIST."

The feeming contradiction in my fermon, Vol. II. p. 128. compared with p. 137. I think may be reconciled by that paffage of the Apostle, "After you believed, you were fealed by the Spirit of promife." Your arguing on this head, p. 21. fection vii. I think is not so clear. Might you not as reasonably have blamed JESUS CHRIST for faying to a dead man, " Lazarus, come forth?" However, instead of quickening Spirit, vol. II. p. 137. let it be read, "fanctifying Spirit."

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Vol. II. p. 33. "The man CHRIST JESUS is spiritually formed in your hearts." I would alter it thus, "That CHRIST is formed within you."

Vol. I. p. 53. "The many fouls that are nourished weekly by the spiritual body and blood of JESUS CHRIST by your means." Let it be altered for these words, "Nourished weekly at the LORD's supper by your means.

I fee no reason to alter my explanation of the words, "Baptizing them into the nature of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost;" and, "CHRIST spiritually conceived in the heart of Eve:" I mean no more by these expressions than the Apostle, when he says, "Know ye not that CHRIST is in you, unless you be reprobates?" And again, "No one can call CHRIST, Lord, but by the Holy Ghost." And again, "We are made partakers of a divine nature." Vol. II. p. 128. these words [in the Lord's prayer] may be left out: though, if the word name fignifies God's attributes, according to your own confeffion, why may it not fignify his essence? What are God's attributes but GOD himself?

Vol. I. p. 14. After, " effential ones too," infert, " if persons are capable of performing them."

These, if I mistake not, are all the passages in my fermons, which you object against. And now to convince you, that I am not ashamed to own my faults, I can inform you of other passages as justly exceptionable. In my fermon on juflification, I seem to affert universal redemption, which I now absolutely deny. In my almost christian, I talk of works procuring us fo high a crown. In my fermon on the marks of the new-birth, I fay, "We shall endure to the end, if we continue fo. These, and perhaps some other passages, though capable of a candid interpretation, I now dislike; and in the next edition of my fermons, God willing, I propose to alter them. In the mean while, I shall be thankful to any that will point out my errors; and I promise, by divine assistance, they shall have no reason to say, "That I am one who hates to be reformed." "Let the righteous smite me, it shall be a kindness; and let him reprove me, and it shall be an excellent oil, which shall not break my head: for yet my prayer also shall be in their calamities."

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As for your infinuating, that I countenance Mr. Wesley in his errors, it is no such thing. I prefaced Halyburton's Memoirs before I saw what Mr. Wesley had written; and since I have seen it, have more than once said, " If I had known what Mr. Wesley had written, I would not have prefaced Halyburton at all. I do not understand Mr. Wesley in his interpretation of these words, " He that is born again of God, finneth not;" and therefore have torn off that part of his preface, out of several of those books which I have given away lately, and have acquainted him in what I think in this particular he errs, by sundry letters.

You wrong me, if you think I am an Antinomian. For when I say, "God made no second covenant with Adam," I mean no more than this: "GOD made no second covenant with Adam in his own person in behalf of his pofterity; nor did man's acceptance in the fight of God, after the fall, depend, either wholly or in part, on his works, as before the fall." Whoever reads the author of The Whole Duty of Man, will find he thinks otherwise; and I believe your friends in Scotland will not thank you for defending that book, as you seemingly have done in your late queries.

Your objections, concerning my favourable opinion of some particular quakers that I have conversed with; and also about some particular promises, which I think have been made me, you may find fatisfied in my "Answer to the Bishop of London's last Paftoral Letter," and in a "Letter to the Bishop of Gloucester."

I am no friend to casting lots; but I believe, on extraordinary occafions, when things can be determined no other way, God, if appealed to, and waited on by prayer and fafting, will answer by lot now, as well as formerly.

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Do not condemn me for preaching extempore, and for faying, I am helped often immediately in that exercise; when thousands can prove, as well as myself, that it has been so. Neither should you cenfure me as one that would lay afide reading. I am of Bishop Sanderson's mind : Study without prayer, is atheism; prayer without study, presumption." Blame not me, for the warmth of some of my adherents, as you call them. One of your ministers knows, how sharply I rebuked one of them for his warmth, at Forks-Manor. I am for loving as brethren, and with all would copy after the lowly JESUS.

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