the body is made up of all its parts. Now, take away any of its parts, and the whole is defective.

If then the

body be effential to natural life, and the whole be deftroyed if any of its effential parts be wanting, life would be destroyed at a blow, if a man want a nofe, a little finger, nay a hair of his head. The body therefore is not effential to animal life; and a man may make a shift to live without a head, or a heart. If here Mr Kershaw would reply, as any man of sense would, that though fome of the members of the body may be wanting, and animal life remain, yet that other members are effential to it; let him reflect, that in like manner fome opinions may be effential to falvation, while others are not. His proving that a man may be faved, who believes not infant-baptifm, would be no proof, that a man can be faved, who believes not that there is a God.

If

Earnest Appeal, p. 113. "Let us examine what matter "of fact fays: Can any one have any effential part of re"ligion, without having fome religion? Surely not. "then any one can be supposed to have a right opinion, "he has an effential part of religion; and therefore con"fequently has fome religion. According to this way of "reasoning it evidently follows, that there may be fome "effential part of religion in the worst of men, and devils "likewife; this therefore proves too much to be true." By the fame medium I prove, that the heart is no effential part of the human body. For an afs must be poffeffed of a human body, if a heart is effential to it, because an ass has a heart. If you reply, that the heart of a man and of an afs differ in their properties and operations; I beg leave to remind you, that so does right opinion in devils, in bad men, and in the truly religious. Perception of an injury done us, is one effential ingredient in forgiveness of injuries. A revengeful perfon has that perception, but it would be ridiculous on that account to afcribe to him that amiablę virtue. A fingle ingredient may be effential to complex moral qualities of the most oppofite nature. ledge of the gospel of Chrift is effential both to a love of that gofpel, and to a malicious oppofition of it.

Soine know.

P. 113. near the foot," Religion fometimes means the "work of God in the foul, and a suitable conduct only;

❝ in

" in this fenfe Mr Wefley uses it." Be it fo: yet ftill enlightning the understanding, or producing there right fentiments of divine things, is an effential part of the work of God in the foul. And right opinion is as effential to fuit. able conduct, as a fountain to the streams, or a foundation to the fuperstructure.

I had faid, "I much question if Mr Wesley will not find "it a tafk too hard for him, to prove, that ignorance and 66 error are as friendly to virtue as just fentiments."

To

this Mr Kershaw replies, p. 115. "It is certainly enough for "Mr Wefley if he can maintain and prove his own pro"pofition: for then, in the next place, the editor hinself "muft prove, that the confequences he has inferred from "these premiffes are fair, natural, and neceffary: but that "he cannot do, till he has overturned what is here faid "in their defence, &c." If right opinion is a flender part of religion, or no part of it at all, then the want of right opinion, or the oppofite to it, must be a flender obftacle to religion, or rather no obstacle at all; and thus ignorance and error may be as friendly to religion as juft fentiments. I have met with nothing in the Earnest Appeal to invali➡ date this confequence.

It is infinuated, p. 118. that they who draw fuch dreadful confequences from Mr Wefley's propofition, perhaps do all they can to murder the cause of God. To fupport this heavy charge, it is afked, p. 119. "Have you not seen "fome thoufands in Britain and Ireland, who were once "openly profane, wicked, irreligious perfons, but are 66 now. as far as man can judge, really converted by the 66 means of Mr Wefley, and those who are with him in the "work, &c. &c.? Is not this the Lord's doing? and can any but God convert finners?" And, p. 120. "Upon "6 a fuppofition that this work is of God, (and is it impof"fible to be true?), when Chrift is in your affemblies, as "he certainly is where two or three are met in his name, " and the minifter founding his alarm as zealously as Paul "when going to Damafcus, Jefus may be faying, Why "perfecuteft thou ME in my members?"

To this I reply, I. I have not fuch evidence of the facts, from which it is concluded, that thousands have been converted by Mr Wesley and those with him in the work; as

I have,

I have, that many of Mr Wefley's opinions are falfe, and fome of them dangerous errors. For the first I have at best the testimony of man, who may be deceived; for the last, the infallible teftimony of God in the facred oracles. 2. There may be a visible change in the conduct to the better, from other caufes than faving grace. 3. Suppose the alledged conversions were all real, will God's blessing his own truths as preached by any, prove, that dangerous errors, mingled by them with those truths, ought to be connived at. The scriptures, not the perfonal character of a minister, or the fuccefs of his ministrations, is the touchftone by which the truth of every particular opinion he advances, ought to be tried. I fuppofe Mr Wefley will not say, that he and his associates have done more to promote the interefts of religion than Calvin and Zuinglius did; and yet he must think, that they who keenly oppofed their doctrine as to predeftination, &c. did right, and were by no means guilty, in confequence of that oppofition, of fighting against God. Peter was the inftrument of converting thousands; and yet Paul, when withstanding him at Antioch, was not fighting against God.

P. 120, 121. "Can any man imagine that Mr Wesley "should avow a principle, from which it might easily be "inferred, that he supposes both ignorance and error are " as friendly to virtue as juft fentiments? Are not "Mr Wesley's whole life and labours a confutation of "this incongruous inference? Pray to what end has "Mr Wefley indefatigably laboured above thirty years, "in tranflating, extracting, abridging, and compofing "books of experimental and practical divinity, &c.” I charge not Mr Wesley with afferting, that ignorance and error are as friendly to virtue as juft fentiments: but if this is a juft inference from a proposition maintained by him, he is bound to defend it, or elfe to renounce the propofition too. Mr Kershaw might have seemingly enforced his argument from Mr Wefley's pieces on predeftination and juftification; but they would only farther prove, that there are inconsistencies in his writings and conduct.

P. 122.-124. Odium is endeavoured to be caft on the prefacer, as maintaining, that all who believe not abfolute and unconditional predestination shall be damned. To

this

this I would only fay, that few Calvioifts affert predeftination to be abfolute and unconditional, in the sense in which their opponents understand these phrases. They affert, that the falvation of some and damnation of others, is fo determined in the divine decree, that the event is not sufpended on any precarious condition, but is infallibly certain: but they don't affert that the divine decree is founded on no wife reasons to us unknown, but on mere arbitrary will; nor do they say, that an end is so fixed that it shall be obtained without the means; but teach, that where the end is ordained, the means are ordained alfo. Neither are the bulk of Calvinifts uncharitable to those who differ from them. While almost all the Lutherans pronounce the Calvinift doctrine of predeftination a fundamental error, the Calvinifts as generally and justly maintain, that the difference betwixt them and the Lutherans is not fundamental. For my own part, I gratefully acknowledge my obligations to many Lutheran divines, who write in a ftrain remarkably evangelical, and I think have been excelled by none in explaining and defending juftification through the obedience and sufferings of Chrift; yet still the Calvinist doctrine of predeftination appears to me revealed in fcripture, which it would not have been, had the belief of it been of no importance: and Mr Wesley's va riation from that doctrine is, as I apprehend, much more dangerous than thofe of the Lutheran churches.

Yet this is not the worst error vented by Mr Wesley. He afferts juftification by faith as fulfilling the condition of a new covenant, as obeying a new law, or as the great mafter-duty of the gospel, which includes every other act of new obedience. I question not that good men, by a becoming zeal against Antinomianifmm, have been betrayed into fuch affertions, without confidering their full import; while, in the mean time, they have looked for eternal life, not on account of their own virtues, or good works, but on account of the merits and sufferings of Jefus ; yet in these modes of expreffion they have grofsly deviated from the form of found words. And it is a melancholy fymptom of a falling, or rather a fallen church, when the method of acceptance with God, implied in these affertions,

is

is generally taught and believed. See Jer. xxxiii. 16. Gal. i. 6.-9. & ii. 21.

The charge in Mr Kerfhaw's appendix of first-rate fundamental mistakes in Afpafio vindicated, is fo poorly fupported, that it deferves no reply. And thus I think I have anfwered Mr Kershaw in the manner he defires, p. 130, except that I have not fet my name to the performance. That circumstance is of no confequence to the public, fince I affert no facts without appealing to my vouchers. If I had published my name, an artful answerer might have led away the attention of his reader from the charge against Mr Wesley, to fome leffer points, in which, on other occafions, I have declared my diffent from certain commonlyreceived opinions. However, to gratify Meff. Wesley and Kershaw, I now acquaint them, that they are right in their conjecture as to the author of the preface; and therefore that my opinions appear, by my former publications, to differ in fome particulars from Mr Hervey's; tho' there was no medium in the preface from which this fact could be fairly concluded, and Mr Kershaw's logic blundered in drawing from it that inference.

I fhall now conclude with fome remarks on Mr Wesley's writings, which could not be properly introduced in the preceding defence.

Sermons, vol. I. p. 173. he explains Rom. vii. of the ftruggle betwixt legal convictions and depraved inclinations; and, ib. p. 193. explains the teftimony of the Spirit, as an inward impreffion upon the foul, whereby the Spirit of God directly witneffes to my fpirit that I am a child of God. The first of thefe interpretations is well refuted in Dickinson's familiar letters, and the fecond in Edwards on religious affections *. Many judicious divinęs have indeed fallen into both these mistakes; yet they are not without their danger. The firft may greatly discourage the humble Chriftian, who groans under the workings of indwelling corruption; and the fecónd may ftrengthen the wicked in his wickednefs, while he concludes, that a falfe and enthufiaftical impreffion is the witnefs of the Spirit.

*It feems to me a strong proof of the bad taste of the age, that the republishing so judicious a treatise has not met with due encouragement.

D

Sermons,