Imatges de pàgina
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to you therefore which believe he (i. e. Chrift) is precious. 2 Pet. i. 1, 12. Peter defcribes those to whom he writes, as having obtained like precious faith with the apoftles, as knowing religion, and as established in the prefent truth: and iii. 1. represents it as the defign of both his epiftles, to ftir up their pure minds by way of

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1 John ii. 12, 13, 14. I write unto you, because your fins are forgiven you, because ye known him that is from the beginning, because ye have overcome that wicked one, and because ye are ftrong, and the word of God abideth in you. Ib. ver. 27. But the anointing, which ye have received of him, abideth in you, and you need not that any man teach you. But as the fame anointing teacheth of all things, and is truth, and no lie; and even as it hath taught you, ye fhall abide in him. iv. 4. Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.

But to multiply particular citations is needlefs. The spirit and frame of the epiftles would be perfectly unaccountable, fhould we suppose them partly addreffed to hypocrites and felf deceivers, who had the form, but were ftrangers to the power of godliness, and thus were every moment in danger of dropping into the pit of deftruction. Doubtlefs, had that been the cafe, they would have been calculated, as fermons recorded in other parts of fcripture directed to fuch people are, to awaken in them a fenfe of their hazardous condition, and to excite them to fly from the wrath to come.

Every particular church mentioned in the New Teftament, is defcribed as confifting of perfons united to Chrift by faith and love, and inwardly holy. We must either fay, that in thefe times, no hypocrites were intermixed with the church; or that, tho' intermixed with it, they were no part of it. The firft is improbable. The inftance of Simon the forcerer proves, that in admitting men to the church, the apoftles did not always act by the gift of difcerning fpirits. Paul confiders it as poffible, that men might give all their goods to feed the poor, and their bodies to be burned, who yet wanted charity, 1 Cor. xiii. 3. Ananias and Sapphirah, Hymenæus and Alexander were for a time deemed fincere by their fellow profeffors. Peter does not pretend to an abfolute knowledge of Sylvanus's uprightness, but only fays of him, By Sylvanus a faithful brother to you as I fuppofe, 1 Pet. v. 12. Since then the apoftles addreffed focieties in different places outwardly affociated for divine worfhip, by properties peculiar to good men, it follows, that they confidered none elfe as members. of these focieties.

I am aware, that in reproving or commending, the facred oracles fometimes fpeak as if all were intended, when they only mean the greater part, e. g. Gen. vi. 12. 1 Chr. xiv. 17. Jer. ix. 26. Matth. xxi. 26. But if accounting in that way for the favourable character given the members of the apoftolic churches, would remove the present objection to Dr. Taylor's fcheme, let it be remembered, it would alfo deprive that scheme of its chief fupport, the argument I mean from whole churches being defcribed as elected, faved, fanctified, &c. Befides it is far from being certain,

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that even in the apoftolic churches, the greater part was always true believers. The state of the primitive churches was not fo pure, as many paint it, when Paul wrote thus to the Philippians, fpeaking of Timothy, Phil. ii. 20, 21. For I have no man like minded, who will naturally care for your state. For all feek their own, not the things which are Jefus Chrift's..

After all, we are not left to conjecture the caufe, of the afcribing the graces of the spirit to whole churches, in the epiftles. 1 John ii. 19. plainly folves this doubt, and affures us, that these only, who have an abiding principle of holiness, are true members of the church. The heathens seem to have accufed the chriftian church, as harbouring in her bofom, men of the moft corrupt fentiments and abandoned lives, meaning probably the Gnoftics, who a little before had separated from the church. To this the apoftle replies, "They went out from us, but they "were not of us; for if they had been of us, "they would no doubt have continued with 66 us but they went out, that they might be "made manifeft, that they were not all of us." These men were never true church members. They have indeed unjustly intermingled themfelves with the fociety of Chriftians. But their leaving that fociety evidences, that they never had a juft claim to make a part of it, altho' for a season they wore the garb of it, and seemed to belong to it in the eyes of the world. For every true member of the church, is by faith united to Chrift, and thereby fecured from apoftacy. These therefore who apoftatize, manifeft by their apoftacy, that they were never true members of the church. Agreeably to this, we

are told, Heb. iii. 6. that they only are Chrift's house, who hold faft the confidence and the re-. joicing of the hope firm unto the end.

Our communion therefore with profeffed Chriftians, is only conditional. We account them members of Chrift's myftical body, and love and esteem them as fuch, on fuppofition, that their profeffion is genuine. Churches therefore ought to put away from among them, thofe whofe profeffion is discovered by their practice to have been unfincere. To renounce fellowship with fuch, chriftian charity forbids not, nay duty requires. On the other hand, in feparating from a corrupt church, we only feparate from it, in fo far as it is corrupt, and ftill maintain inward fellowship with fuch of its members, as love our Lord Jefus in fincerity, tho' with their errors we have no fellowship.

Imagine not then, that to be in the church is to be in fuch or fuch a place or company. No. It is to be members of the mystical body of Chrift, united by faith to him, and by love to our fellow chriftians. If Chrift dwells in our hearts by faith, and we are rooted, and grounded in love, we belong to the church, tho' we were banished to the moft folitary wilderness. If faith and love are not in us, we belong not to that facred fociety, tho' we had associated ourfelves with the apoftles; nay, tho' as Judas, we had attended Chrift during the whole of his public miniftry.

5. Thus I have fufficiently proved, that they only were confidered by the apoftles, as true members of the church, who were endued with the temper and spirit of Chrift, and thereby fe cured against total and final apoftacy. The cau

tions in the epiftles against apoftacy, neither prove that bad men were confidered as chriftians, nor that good men may finally fall away. They were proper however on two accounts: to awaken from carnal fecurity, hypocrites and felf deceivers, intermingled with, tho' not truly members of the church and to promote the good behaviour, and fecure the perfeverance of real Chriftians. An event may be abfolutely fecured by the divine decree, and yet in order to bring it about, a particular mean may be abfolutely neceffary. Paul had affured those in the fhip with him, that there fhould be no lofs of any man's life among them, Acts xxvii. 22— 25. and yet when the fhipmen were about to Ay from the fhip, he fays to the centurion, and to the foldiers, except thefe abide in the fhip, ye cannot be faved, ib. ver. 31. In like manner tho' Chrift gives to his fheep eternal life, and they fhall never perish, yet diligence and watchfulness are neceffary as means of their preservation.

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SECTION VII.

HIS much fhall fuffice in answer to Dr. Taylor's general arguments. Tho' my caufe does not require it, yet for the fuller conviction of fincere enquirers after truth, I fhall now fubjoin fome pofitive evidences, that election, vocation, falvation, adoption, and other bleffings which the Doctor terms antecedent, are not to be understood in the low fenfe in which he represents them.

I begin with Election. Peter fays, I epift. v. 13. The church that is at Babylon elected to

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