TO ALL WHO FEAR GOD.

MEN AND BRETHREN,

YOUR attention has been often defired, and is fill wifhed for. Truth is now working its way through - darkness into light; it is making fure progrefs, like the rays of the morning; yet error, where it hath held its empire long, will give place to truth but through invincible neceffity. The writer of the following Letters is not altogether ignorant of the influence of prejudice, and of firong prepoffeffions. He might well defpair of fuccefs, in his prefent labours, were it not that truth is stronger than all things.

All fuch as fear God, have feafons in which their heart is warmed with love to God, to truth, and to duty. In fuch precious moments, truth will be permitted to speak. When it is thus with the godly, I wish for their attention to what I here prefent them.

Should you think that the author of the following pages has rebuked Mr. Worcester more sharply than Paul did Peter, then, I pray you, think again-Hath not Mr. Worcefter done worse than diffembling Peter did?

I am not offended at Mr. Worcester's perfon, but I am offended at the liberties which he hath taken, against the word and church of the living GOD. If I do not mistake, every candid Chriftian will be offended at the fame things, before he shall have carefully perufed all thofe falfe and delufory arguments, affertions, and infinuations, of Mr. Worcefter's, by which he would keep in credit his Judaizing scheme,

and retain the vail on many who begin to fee. My prayer to the Father of Lights is, that he will speedily rend the vail from off the hearts of his own people. Truth, and not victory, is my object. Whether the reader be a friend to the writer, or the reverse, is not a matter of fo much folicitude to me, as that the reader be a friend to himself then will he feek for truth, and receive it, though it prove, for the prefent, painful, and destructive to his errors.

1

The fire of love and truth must burn up our errors, or we and they must be destroyed together.

Such as fear God, cannot be displeased with the request, that they will not be fo fwayed by prejudice and cuftom, as to believe Mr. Worcester without evidence, and difbelieve me, when the evidence is fully before them. If I have not fairly and fully proved his Sermons to be erroneous and unfounded, I afk not to be believed; but if I have, I afk this fimple queftion-Why will you not believe me? If the truth be fet in full view, can you difbelieve and yet be innocent ? Defiring that truth may prevail, to the speedy ruin of my orun and the reader's errors,

I am his, with affection,

SEDGWICK, OCTOBER 27, 1806.

THE AUTHOR.

LETTERS, &c.

ADDRESSED TO THE PUBLIC.

We appeal to the Bible, to stubborn facts, and ta common fenfe.

LETTER I.

MEN, BRETHREN, AND FATHERS,

GIVE audience, for truth will foon go forth as brightness, and falvation as a lamp which burneth. Many are now running to and fro, and knowledge is increasing.

The oppofition of Herod, and the difputings of the Jewifh doctors and priests, all united to direct the attention of men to the child Jefus. In like manner, the oppofition of the interested, and the difputings of the Judaizing doctors and preachers in our day, will forcibly call the public at

tention to what is written of the church of Christ.

God, who turns the hearts of kings at his pleasure, and directs the affairs of mortals, hath the means at command, and can effect every purpose.

Great events are taking place daily, and fomething greater is expected. For more than twelve hundred and fixty years, there hath been, in what is ftyled the Christian world, a church, which is formed much after the model of the Jewish national church.

This church hath a Pope anfwering to the Jewish high priest, seventy cardinals for the feventy ellers in Ifrael: a national antichriftian church, anfwering to the national Jewith church. Infant baptism for Jewish infant circum

cifion. Baptifm administered to those who bring forth no fruits, as evidence of repentance, and to fuch only, fave in thofe inftances where heathens are converted; juft as circumcifion was among the Jews, &c. &c.

This church is declared by her works, and by the united voice of Proteftants, to be the man of fin, the antichrist, spoken of by Paul and the beloved difciple John However, many, if not moft Proteftants, whilft they have renounced the power of antichrift, have yet retained more or lets of her abominations. Of thefe, the Rev. Samuel Worcester appears to poffefs a full share; for no one of all the individuals who would be thought a Protestant, appears more inclined to fupport, with his full ftrength, the broad yet fandy foundation of popery.

Popery is little else, but Christianity changed into Judaifm, or pretended Christianity Judaized. Judaism was once, good, for once it was fupported by the laws of Heaven. But now fo far as it is practifed, it is but will-worship, God no where commanding it.

The principal idea which runs through Mr. Worcester's Two Sermons on Gal. iii. 29. is, The vifible church formed in Abraham's family, and which for many generations was the Jewish, is now the gospel church.

What we fhall, in the following pages, fee, if the Lord give light and opportunity, is,

I. That the vilible church formed in Abraham's family, is not the gospel church, but quite a different thing.

II. That Mr. Worcester hath, to give his Judaizing fcheme a femblance of truth and confiftency, dared to mifapply the word of God, add to it, and to take from it, and mistate, or to mifreprefent, almost every thing which came within his eager grasp.

It is difagrecable to the writer, and it may be equally fo to the reader, that a person of Mr. Worcester's general reputation fhould so commit himself before the public, as to make it an indifpenfable duty to rebuke him before all, that others alfo may fear.

of truth.

My purpofe is, not to fpare Mr. Worcester at the expenfe At the fame time, my wifh is, not to expofe him in a fingle inflance, where the caufe of Chrift does not demand it.

Before we attend particularly to what Mr. Worcester has written, we will establish the ift. Propofition; That the vifible church, formed in Abraham's family, is not the gospel church, but quite a different thing.

This is evident, 1. From the confideration, that the New Teftament gives us no intimation, that any gospel church was ever formed after that in Abraham's family.

There

One man of great faith, and hundreds without any faith, formed into a church in Abraham's house. is nothing like this in all the gofpel. Not the leaft hint, that a gospel church was ever formed upon this principle. 2. The fame thing is evident from what God tells us by Mofes, that when the Prophet, Jefus Chrift, fhould come, all, who would not hear him, fhould be cut off, (that is, excluded) from the church, or be deftroyed from among the people, Deut. xviii. and Acts iii. Hence the church in Abraham's family, and the gospel church, are quite different things. One compofed of a great and good man, with his unbelieving household; the other made up of believers, and of believers only.

3. From the following confideration, it is manifeft, that the visible church in Abraham's family is not the gofpel church, but quite another thing. Ifai. liv. 13. Ix. 2. fpeaking of the gospel church, tells us, That they fhall be all taught of God, that they fhall be all righteous. The meaning, no doubt, is, that Chrift's vifible church fhall all profefs, and appear to be fo. It was not thus in the church formed in Abraham's family.

The fame thing is true from the confideration, that the two churches were founded upon different covenants, one was in the flesh, the other is in the heart, Gen. xvii. Jer. xxxi. If a vifible church was founded in Abraham's family, it was formed altogether upon the covenant of circumcifion. For, afide from this covenant, there was no more appearance of a vifible church in his family, than there was in Lot's, or in Job's. If we call Abraham's circumeifed family a church, though it be no where fo called from Genefis to Revelation, it fhould be carefully observed of what it was made up, of Abraham a good man, of a mocking Ifhmael, of an infant Ifaac, of all the men fervants whom Abraham had bought with his money, and of all who were born in his house, from the oldest to the new. born infant.

It ought alfo to be well remembered, that not one of the feed of thefe fervants, or infants, continued a member of the visible church, fave Jacob, the fon of Ifaac. Hence it is manifeft, that, notwithstanding the covenant of circumcifion was in the flesh of Abraham's family, yet the