them that would. Are the saints of God to affect a minister of the letter for such conduct as this, when a gracious king, who was a spiritual man, was threatened with the wrath of God, by a faithful prophet, for helping the ungodly, and loving them that hated the Lord? As it is written; "And Jehu, the son of Hanani the seer, went out to meet him; and said to king Jehoshaphat, Shouldest thou help the ungodly, and love them that hate the Lord? Therefore is wrath upon thee from before the Lord." Worse than this, sir, has been your folly; for you have not helped the ungodly with the sword of war, but with the sword of the Spirit; and the prophets have withstood you in it. But thou hast not humbled thine heart, nor received correction; and yet thou complainest of disaffection shewn to thee and thy ministry, when neither thy mind nor thy doctrine is employed in behalf of the house of Israel, but in defence of the ungodly, and to help them that hate the Lord.

'Mark them which cause divisions and offences among you.' In this quotation, sir, you have perverted the first clause of the text to justify your misconduct; and have left out the last clause that condemns yourself, for turning from the holy commandment delivered unto you; "Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences, contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned, and avoid them." But is Mr. Ryland's present doctrine the doctrine that Paul taught? Did he make the work of an evangelist

consist in describing an evangelical rule for the unconverted? Did he offend the church of God to please the world? Did he bring the disciples of Christ into bondage, by making the law their only rule of life? If so, the world used their advocate in a very inhospitable manner. But there was nothing of this doctrine in all the revelation of Jesus Christ to Paul; and as Paul has cursed all them, whether men or angels, that preach any other doctrine than that which he preached, to be offended at Mr. Ryland's doctrine, and to separate one's self from it, and divide as much as possible all the simple in Christ Jesus from it also, is what Paul wished to see in the Galatians, who were zealously affected to the vain janglers of the law, while they aimed to exclude them from Christ, that they might affect them. Mr. Ryland's doctrine is the same as these Judaising preachers was, and worse too; for they only wanted the believers to go to the law, after they had begun in the Spirit, to be made perfect by the flesh; which is making the law the perfecting rule of the begun work of faith. But Mr. Ryland makes the gospel the legal rule of the Pharisee's duty, which is what these deceivers never once thought of; only Mr. Ryland is not so honest in the law as these false brethren were, because he does not preface his doctrine with circumcision; which Paul's supplanters always did, and which should always go with the doctrine of the law being the only rule of life, because it binds all that submit to it, to

become debtors to fulfil the whole law; which is the best bond, I think, that Mr. Ryland can bring to bind their souls to it. But, alas! friend Ryland aims at the duty, though he omits circumcision; which, I think, is not acting the faithful part, even as a minister of the letter.

'We think it very desirable that church members should be nearly of one mind respecting the principal part of Christian doctrine.' I believe, sir, that the members of Christ have all the mind of Christ, and that they are nearly of one judgment respecting truths essential to salvation: but I defy Mr. Ryland to produce one patriarch or prophet, or apostle or evangelist, divine preacher or teacher, pastor or presbyter, disciple or believer, deacon or messenger, prophetess or honourable woman, in all the book of God, old testament or new, that ever was of the same mind, the same judgment, of the same principles, of the same spirit, or of the same faith, with Mr. Ryland, not excluding even Diotrephes himself. He is welcome to pick out which patron he likes best, and to send out his copy or example that he copies after, as soon as he pleases; and we are willing to give him an impartial reading, and to return him an ingenuous answer.

'We consider the notion that have newly you embraced as very erroneous.' This doctrine, sir, which you call a very erroneous notion, is a doctrine enforced and maintained by me; which is, that the law of Moses is not the believer's only

rule of life and conduct: and as you are a man of learning, skilled in planning new schemes, and call this our doctrine a very erroneous notion, we take it for granted that you have well weighed the subject, and have condemned our errors and our notions with the truth of God on your side. Then where shall we find a man so discreet and wise as thou art to set us to rights in this matter? We appeal to Mr. Ryland; and to Mr. Ryland, junior, we will go, to know,

1. Whether the law ever had any other power than to command to do for life, and to condemn to death for not doing? If it ever had any other power than the twofold authority above-mentioned, to shew us what that power is, and whereabouts in God's word that authority stands?

2. If it ever had, since the days of Christ, any commanding power over the believer, to do, from life; where, in God's word, that power stands? “The law and the prophets were until John; but, since that time, the kingdom of God is preached."

3. If the believer is under the law, as a rule of life, which is doing for life, for the law never had any other power, wherein the believer, who is delivered from the law, differs from him that is under it, and under the curse of it?

4. If the believer is under the law, as his rule of life, what advantage doth the believer reap from the surety's perfect obedience to the precept, by the faith of which a man receives justification

unto life, seeing the debtor is still under the yoke of the precept, to do for life?

5. If insisting that we are justified from the commanding precept of the law by the active obedience of the surety, and that we are justified from the execution of the law's sentence by the passive obedience, or blood of the surety, be antinomianism; then what is gospel? seeing the scriptures aver, that he that believeth is justified freely from all things; from his own ungodliness, from the precept and penalty of the law, which are the most material things that he is justified from?

6. If the old covenant be the only rule of the heirs of promise, how we are to understand the promise of God which saith, "A new covenant will I make with the house of Israel; not according to the old," seeing "that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away?" And, if it were ready to vanish away seventeen hundred years ago in the church of Christ, how it comes to be so essential an article of faith in the churches of Christ now?

7. How a soul that is become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that it should be married to another; and the law being dead to that soul, wherein he were held, that he should serve in newness of spirit; can be the commanding husband of this new-married widow; and the only rule of this new service, in the newness of the Spirit?