passing in a solemn public meeting, in avowed obedience to divine command, and in professed indication of Christian brotherhood. I do not mean at all to degrade the divine authority and wisdom of the institution, by entering into any refutation of the futility of your objections. I would only remark, that your objections go absolutely against the divine obligation of the institution, and not merely against any particular circumstances of observing it. One other observation I would briefly make, in confirmation of this. You have discovered it to be indecent that the different sexes should exchange the salutation with a kiss in the Christian assembly. I have known others who, with at least as much plausibility, have insisted on the indecency of men kissing one another. You and they may settle that question together, if the God of all mercy bring you not to another mind. But those who are so wise as to argue against the wisdom of God, shall be taken in their own craftiness.

Your language, in some parts of your letter, would seem to indicate, that you had been led to see the sin of having allowed your brother to continue so long in disobedience to the command, and that you were proceeding to correct the evil. But it is quite manifest, from the tenor of all the rest of your letter, that though you would have only cunningly covered your sin by an alteration of your practice, it would not have been in any real repentance for it, in any real subjection to the word, or humiliation for your disobedience of it, but because you thought a way was pointed out, in which it might seem to be obeyed decently.

And now, perhaps, you may be ready to ask why I have still addressed you in this letter as a sister, though in the language of plain rebuke. I will tell you. Your letter leaves me in some uncertainty whether brother A- —, and those with him, have proceeded altogether scripturally in their separation. I fear they may have been somewhat over hasty, and not sufficiently patient and yielding, in pursuit of the things that make for peace. Peace certainly cannot be truly pursued by yielding any atom of divine truth or precept. But if the breach could have been prevented, by yielding, even to the weakness and unreasonableness of any, a mere arrangement of the seats, while the divine command should be observed by all, and its binding authority acknowledged by all, I think any such concession ought to have been made. Mark-I say IF this could have been; and I must add that, according to the sentiments avowed in your letter, I could not now cover up the difference with you by yielding any such arrangement, without an explicit profession of repentance on your side, which should mark that you considered that arrangement, not as essential to the observance of the institution, but merely as what you thought more expedient or satisfactory to your feelings. If I came to one of the sister churches, where the sexes sit promiscuously, I should violate the word, if I made this a matter of contention with them; and still more awfully, if I broke off from their Christian fellowship on account of it. But, on the other hand, if one of them came to us, I should think him as unwarrantable if he insisted upon our sitting promiscuously, and we should take him into discipline, if he made that a

matter of strife, but still more if he made it an occasion of breaking the unity. I should thank you to shew this letter, or at least the latter part of it, to A. I commit it to the blessing of Him who alone can make it effectual for good. If there shall be no change of mind in you, there will be no occasion for you to write again. But rather let me hope that I shall hear from you with joy, and so be able still to subscribe myself affectionately yours, and for the truth's sake,

CXXII.

TO MR. J. G. S

Nov. 8, 1827.

*

While in Dublin, I saw a private letter from Mr. T- of L- — (whose pamphlet you shewed me), which in my view quite decides his character as a teacher of lies. He states the sense in which he understands the expression of Christ's having redeemed his people, and explains it as including only this-that he has delivered the Jews from the yoke of the Mosaic law, and the Gentiles from natural death. But the blessedness of the forgiveness of sin to his people, by his being made sin for them, suffering in their place, does not seem at all to enter into his contemplation. His letter also confirms what I had heard before, that he carried off his congregation with him from the Presbyterian Kirk, and is getting a new meeting-house built by them at considerable expense. Indeed, his pamphlet seems to me marked with those characters of acute subtlety and hardy self-confidence, which fit him well for a ringleader of any new-fangled heresy. Well is it for sinners that there is one, who will not suffer his own elect to be deceived by the false Christs and false prophets : and when it is considered how congenial to our own hearts is every thing contrary to the truth, it may well seem more marvellous, that any are brought into and kept in the narrow path, than that they are so few. In you, my friend, it always appears to me a great inconsistency, that while you maintain the sacredness of the heavenly doctrine, which reveals "grace reigning through righteousness by Jesus Christ unto eternal life," you yet object to those who maintain the corresponding sacredness of all the precepts and institutions delivered from heaven to the children of the kingdom. I see not how there can be more forbearance, or tolerance of diversity of mind, in the one than the other, without alike invalidating the authority of that divine word on which all alike rest. I understand that you would not retain in your fellowship any one who does not acknowledge the divine obligation on disciples, of coming together on the first day of the week to shew forth the Lord's death. It would be well to examine the ground on which you would

act in that case; and to consider whether it be not an equally stable ground for similar rigidness in the case of every other real precept and institution of the kingdom of heaven. If you profess to admit this general principle, but object to me as holding things which are not really preceptive, this would alter the question at issue between us, and would call us to consider seriously, in each instance, which of us is adding to or taking from the word. The believer must tremble at the thought of any such interference with the laws of the King of Zion. These few hints you will receive as a token of affectionate interest from your sincere friend,

ΤΟ Α

CXXIII.

Νου. 15, 1827.

DEAR A—,—It was with much pleasure I received your letter of the 8th inst. and I very gladly comply with your wish that I should write to you. I heard of your having been in town, and witnessing one of the meetings of the church in Portsmouth-street. I apprehend that, in the conversation which you had with some of the members, there was a mutual misunderstanding of each other's meaning. But that will easily be removed on a future occasion by a little patient explanation, if (as I hope) we be indeed of one mind on the great truth. That being the one great bond of our union, we of course think it needful to ascertain (as far as we can) that there is unity of sentiment with us upon it, in those whom we receive into our fellowship. We have but one inquiry to make,—namely, whether they believe the testimony sent from heaven in the scriptures concerning Jesus of Nazareth. But all the terms, in which that testimony is conveyed, have been so long and so awfully perverted from their real import, that some sifting of the meaning attached to the words is found needful, and especially in the case of those, who have been much engaged with the religious world. This was not so in the apostolic age; but all who professed to believe that Jesus was the Christ were at once received on that confession into the Christian body; because no diversity of meanings had yet been attached to the words, or had obtained currency among those who bore the Christian name.

I am very glad to understand that you have given up the idea of quitting your present situation. It was part of the apostolic advice to Christians " that every man should abide in the same calling wherein he was called." 1 Cor. vii. 20. It would be vain for a Christian to expect, by any change of situation, to escape the

reproach of Christ; and we are taught rather to rejoice if we be counted worthy to suffer shame for his sake, and are called by patient continuance in well-doing to glorify Him before those, who falsely accuse our good conversation in Christ. Indeed, when we are told that "they did spit in his face," that they said he "had a devil and was mad," that "he was a gluttonous man and a wine-bibber," &c. a Christian may well loath himself for the pride and naughtiness of his heart, in thinking much of any scorn or hard speeches to which he may be exposed on account of his Christian profession. You seem to begin to find what a different thing is that charity (or love of the truth) by which faith works, from the thing called charity in the religious world, and which proceeds upon a kind of agreement to hold the persons of men in admiration. Christ was reckoned very uncharitable by those who remarked," in so saying thou reproachest us also." But if he had shewn himself a respecter of the persons of men, he would have been as much a favourite with the scribes and Pharisees, as he was the object of their aversion and contempt. And just so at this day: the Christ who speaks the good and comfortable words of mercy and eternal life to sinners-to those who have before God no character but that of evil and ungodly rebels-that Christ is despised and rejected by the religious and devout of the world; while they are zealously attached to the various false Christs put forward by the false teachers, who make their livelihood by corrupting the gospel. One has well illustrated the nature of the thing called salvation in the popular doctrine, by comparing it to a ladder let down within a short distance of a person at the bottom of a deep pit, by catching at which he has a chance of being extricated. The exertion necessary to avail himself of the means of relief thus offered, some preachers represent as very great, and others as very small. But there is an exertion necessary to be made, and their doctrine is designed to rouse one class of hearers to set about it, to encourage others in making it, and to comfort and animate some, with the consideration that they have made it successfully, and are either clear out of the pit or in a fair way of being so very shortly. And such is the miserable hope and consolation to which the popular preachers lead their deceived hearers, and in which they build them up, while they dress out their several systems in the phrases of scripture, and often speak in high terms of a Christ and his atonement, &c. ; but still as subsidiary to that mental exertion of the sinner which they describe as the act of faith, and by which he must avail himself of the means of relief offered to him in their gospel. Wonderful indeed is the revolution which takes place when a sinner, who has been vainly wearying himself in this unrighteous labour, or as vainly comforting himself with his supposed success in it, is arrested by the mercy and power of God, and given to see HIS salvation as proclaimed from heaven in the Word-that salvation wherewith HE saves his people unto the uttermost; to see that peace which is made for the rebellious-that sacrifice which has taken away sin—that righteousness which is "not of him that willeth or of him that striveth," but is "unto and upon all them that believe" the divine report of it: so that the sinner believing that report finds

himself not put upon any effort to get peace with God, and righteousness, and eternal life, but at peace, invested with perfect righteousness and possessed of eternal life. Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound: they shall walk, O Lord, in the light of thy countenance." Ps. lxxxix. 15. When you say in your letter, "I do trust that God has in mercy given me to see the truth as it really is"—I am led to ask, whether you mean to intimate any degree of uncertainty upon that subject, any dubiousness of what is really the truth in Christ Jesus? Farewell, dear A

&c. &c.

CXXIV.

TO W. C

AND J. M'G·

Jan. 19, 1828.

that attack has gone Let this stand as an But now that I have

DEAR SIRS,-Your letter of the 18th ult. arrived when I was labouring under an attack of gout: and since off, I have been more than ordinarily busy. apology for my not replying to you sooner. taken up my pen for the purpose, I apprehend that my reply will but very imperfectly satisfy the expectations you have formed. You desire a full and scriptural answer to three theological questions which you propose; and I am not at all in the habit of discussing theological questions, nor disposed to discuss them even with those with whom I am in religious fellowship. The objects of a Christian church and of a divinity club are utterly different. In the latter, the Word of God may be employed as an exercise of intellectual subtilty, and (pardon me for saying it) I think Scotland peculiarly abounds with that profanation. But to disciples of Christ that Word is the power of God to lead them walking in the way of peace and righteousness, as the blessed subjects of the kingdom of heaven. While I write this, I fear that my expressions (if sifted) may appear to you very incorrect or ambiguous.

I really can hardly believe you serious in asking me, "Whether Christ's coming into the world was to procure the love of God, or was the effect of that love? I fancy you are well aware that I ever consider and speak of Christ, as the "unspeakable gift of God," while it is only as viewed in him, and redeemed unto God by his blood from deserved wrath, (the sentence of which was irrevocable) that his church is or could be the object of the love and complacency of a holy and righteous God. But really I must check myself from enlarging at present on a topic, on which you are fully aware of my sentiments.

If you believe the plain testimony of scripture, that the people of Christ are saved from wrath through him, (1 Thess. i. 10.) from that wrath which awaits the enemies of God, you can be at no loss for the import of the term reconciliation in such passages as Rom. v. 9, 10, without my laying down any formal definition of it. But perhaps you are of a mind with those, who confine the meaning of