free will. Thus it appears, that altho' the act of faith is ours, we are fo much indebted to free grace for it, that believers can no more boast of being their own faviours, because they daily believe and work in order to their final falvation; than they can boast of being their own prefervers, because they daily breathe and eat in order to their continued prefervation.

On the other hand, altho' your condemned neighbour's disobedience makes him differ from you, he has no reason to reject the fecond gofpel- axiom, and to exculpate himfelf by charging heaven with capricious partiality and horrid free-wrath; becaufe God, whofe mercy is over all his works, and who is no refpecter of perfons, graciously bestowed a talent of free grace upon him as well as upon you, according to one or another of the divine difpenfations: For the royal mafter, mentioned in the gofpel, gave a pound to the fervant that buried it, as well as to him that gained ten pounds by occupying till his lord came.

"But, upon that footing, what becomes of DISTINGUISHING GRACE?" If by diftinguishing grace you mean calviniftic partiality, I answer, It muft undoubtedly fink together with its infeparable partner, unconditional reprobation, into the pit of error, whence they afcended to fill the church with contentions, and the world with infidels. But if you mean SCRIPTURAL, diftinguishing grace, that is, the manifold wisdom of God, which makes him proceed gradually, and admit a pleafing variety in the works of grace, as well as in the productions of nature if you mean his good pleasure to give the heathens one talent, the jews two, the papifts three, the proteftants four; or if you mean the different methods, which he uses to call finner to repentance, fuch as his familiar expoftulation with Cain-his wonderful warning of Lot's fons-in-lawHis roufing king Saul by the voice of Samuel, and Saul of Tarfus by the voice of Chrift; [Samuel and Chrift coming, or feeming to come from the invifible world for that awful purpofe]-His audibly inviting Judas and the rich ruler to follow him, promifing the

latter

latter heavenly treafure, if he would give his earthly poffeffions to the poor-His fhocking by preternatural earthquakes the confciences of the Philippian jailor, and the two malefactors that fuffered with himHis awakening Ananias, Sapphira, and thoufands more. by the wonders of the day of Pentecoft, when Lydia and others were called only in the common way-If you mean this, by DISTINGUISHING grace, we are agreed: for, grace difplayed in as diftinguishing a manner as it was towards Capernaum, Chorazin, and Bethfaida, greatly illuftrates our Lord's doctrine: "Of him to whom little is given, little fhall be required; but much fhall be required of them, that have received much;" the equality of God's ways not confifting in giving to all men a like number of talents, any more than making them all archangels; but in treating them all equally, according to the various editions of the everlasting gofpel, or law of liberty; and according to the good or bad ufes they have made of their talents, whether they had few or many.

To return to your grand objection: You fuppofe (and this is probably the ground of your mistake) that when a deliverance, or a divine favour turns upon fome thing, which we may do, or leave undone at our option, God is neceffarily robbed of his glory. But a few queries will eafily convince you of your mistake. When God had been merciful to Lot and his family, not looking back made all the difference between him and his wife; but does it follow, that he claimed the honour of his narrow escape? -- Looking at the brazen type of Chrift made fome Ifraelites differ from others, that died of the bite of the fiery ferpents; but is this a fufficient reafon to conclude, that the healed men had not fenfe to diftinguish between primary and fecondary causes, and that they afcribed to their looks the glory due to God, for graciously contriving the means of their cure? One of your neighbours has hanged, and another has poifoned himself; fo that not hanging yourself, and taking wholefome food has fo far made the difference between you and them: but

can

can you reasonably infer, that you do not live by divine bounty, and that I rob the Preferver of men of his glory, when I affirm, that you fhall furely die if you do not eat, or if you take poison ?

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Permit me to make you fenfible of your mistake by one mo e illuftration. An anti-Calvinist, who ob ferves that God has fufpended many of his bleffings upon indufry, diligently plows, fows, and weeds his field. A fatalift over the way, left free grace fhould not have all the glory of his crop, does not turn + one clod, and expects feed to drop from the clouds into furrows made by an invifible plow on a certain day, which he calls "a day of God's power.' veft comes, the one has a crop of wheat, and the other a crop of weeds. Now, altho' industry alone has made the difference between the two fields; who is most likely to give God the glory of a crop, the folifidian farmer who reaps thiftles? or the laborious husbandman, who has joined works to his faith in divine providence, and joyfully brings his fheaves home; faying as St. Paul, By divine bounty I have planted and Apollos has weeded, but God has given the encrease which is all in all ?

This is not spoken of pious Calvinifts, for some of them are remarkably diligent in good works. They are Solifidians by halves in principle, but not in practice. Their works outshine their errors. I lay nothing to their charge but inattention, prejudice, and glaring inconfiftency. I compare them to diligent, good-natured druggifts, who among many excellent remedies fell fometimes arfenic. They would not for the world take it themselves, or poison their neighbours; but yet they freely retail it, and in fo doing they are inadvertently the cause of much mischief, Mr. Fulfome, for example, could fay which of our gospel minifters taught him, that good works are dung, and have nothing to do with eternal falvation. He could inform us, who lulled him afleep in his fins with the Syren-fongs of "" ur conditional election," and "finished salvation in the full extent of the word;" that is, he could let us know who gave him his killing dofe and numbers of deifts could tell us, that a bare taste or smell of calvinifm has made them loath the genuine doctrines of grace, juft as tafting or smelling a tainted partridge has for ever turned fome people's stomachs against partridge.

THIRD PART.

Flattering myself, that the preceding anfwers have removed the reader's prejudices, or confirmed him in his attachment to genuine free-grace, which ftands at an equal distance from wantonness and free wrath; I fhall conclude this Effay by fome reflections upon the pride, or prejudices of thofe who fcruple working with an eye to the rewards, that God offers to promote the obedience of faith.

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If heaven [fay fuch mistaken perfons] if the enjoyment of God in glory, is the reward of obedience; and if you work with an eye to that reward, you act from felf, the bafest of all motives. Love, and not felf-intereft, fets us, true believers, upon action work from gratitude, † and not for profit; from life, ‡ and not for life. To do good with an eye to a reward, tho' that reward fhould be a crown of life, is to act as a mercenary wretch, and not as a duteous child, or a faithful fervant."

This fpecious error, zealously propagated by Molinos, Lady Guion, and her illuftrious convert, archbishop Fenelon [tho' afterwards renounced by him] put a stop to a great revival of the power of godliness abroad in the last century; and it has already struck a fatal blow at the late revival in thefe kingdoms. I reverence and love many that contend for this fentiment; but, my regard for truth overbalancing my refpect

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The reader is defired to obferve, that we recommend working from life and gratitude as well as our opponents. Life and thankfulnefs are two important fprings of action, which we ufe as well as they. We maintain, that even thofe, who have a name to live and are DEAD in trefpaffes and fins, cannot be faved without frengthening the things that remain and are READY TO DIE; and that thankfulness for being out of hell, and for having a day of falvation thro' Chrift fhould be ftrongly recommended to the chief of finners. But thankfulness and life are not all the fprings neceffary, in our imperfect ftate, to move all the wheels of obedience; and we dare no more exclude the other fprings, because we have these two; than we dare cut off three of our firgers, because we have a little finger and a thumb.

refpect for them, I think it my duty to oppofe thei mistake, as a pernicious refinement of Satan trans formed into an angel of light: I therefore attack i by the following arguments.

(1) This doctrine makes us wife above what r written. We read, that hunger, and want of bread brought back the prodigal fon. His father knew it but instead of treating him as an hired fervant, he entertained him as a beloved child,

(2) It fets afide at a ftroke a confiderable part the bible, which confifts in threatenings to deter evi workers, and in promises to encourage obedient be lievers: For, if it is base to obey in order to obtain a promifed reward, it is bafer ftill to do it in order t avoid a threatened punishment. Thus the preciou grace of faith, fo far as it is exercised about divin promifes and threatenings, is indirectly made void.

(3) It decries godly fear, a grand spring of action and prefervative of holiness in all free agents, th are in a fiate of probation; and by this means it i directly charges God with want of wisdom, for pu ting that fpring in the breast of innocent man in p radife, and for perpetually working upon it in h word and by his Spirit, whom St. Paul calls the Spir of bondage into FEAR; because he helps us to belie the threatenings denounced against the workers iniquity, and to fear left ruin fhall overtake us, if w continue in our fins.

If ever there was a vifible church without spot and wrinkle, it was when the multitude of them that believ ed, were of one heart and of one foul. The worldly mindednefs of Ananias and Sapphira was the fir blemish of the Chriftian, as Achan's covetoufnefs hac been of the Jewish Church on this fide Jordan. Go made an example of them as he had done of Achan, and St. Luke obferves, that upon it, GREAT FEAP came upon ALL THE CHURCH; even fuch fear as kept them from falling after the fame example of unbelief. Now were all the primitive chriftians mean-f -fpirited people, because they were filled with great fear of