suit a Jew, Mahometan, or Pagan, as well as a Christian.

In order to shew the humble inquirer the impropriety of adding to the word of God in this sort, let us read a few verses of the 53d chapter of Isaiah, giving it the additions necessary to make it suit the freewill scheme. We will begin at the 10th verse-Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin he shall see his seed-if any will be willing to believe he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand—and it is the pleasure of the Lord to save all mankind. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and be satisfied with as many as he can get; and weep over them that he cannot get. By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many-if any should be willing to believefor he shall bear their iniquities-if any of them continue faithful unto the end. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the great-if any of them should be willing to come to him, and continue with him-and he shall divide the spoil with the strong-if the strong should not be too strong, and keep all those willing to go with him, who are taken captive by him at his will.* All this the Father promised the Son he should have (provided he could get it) because he had poured out his soul unto death.

* Tim. ii. 26.

The reader may perceive, that this would be a ridiculous, wicked addition to the word of God. Yet it is no more than what would be necessary, in order to make it comport with the freewill scheme. Besides, it is not the one-fourth part as much as Mr. Wesley himself has added to the New Testament, in order to get along with his plan; neither do these additions alter the natural meaning of the word any more than many of his do. Supposing, then, we were to go through the Bible, and read it all in this manner; what would be the consequence? We answer; there would not be one certain promise left in it to the church, or to the people of God, either in time or eternity because both men and angels are changeable creatures; and the saints, according to the Methodist plan, are as liable to change their minds and wills in heaven, as they are which are here on earth; and if they do, and thus become the enemies of God, they will be thrust out of that paradise, as those angels were who changed their minds and wills and we need not add half as many ifs to the Bible, in order to prove that the saints are liable to change in heaven, and be finally lost, as Mr. Wesley hath added to prove that they are liable to do so while here on earth.

But the truth is, that these fallen angels never stood on the same foundation for happiness which the saints do. The saints were given to Christ the Mediator in the covenant of redemp

tion. Of them the Lord says, "this people have I formed for myself, and they shall send forth my praises." Accordingly, in due time, they are called with an holy calling-awakened-converted-quickened while dead in trespasses and sins; therefore their lives are hid with Christ in God: the same unchangeable God who, by his almighty power, first made them willing to forsake sin and love holiness, has engaged for ever to preserve that disposition within them. Hence, says the apostle, "if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more being reconciled we shall be saved by his life." This reasoning of the apostle we think is much more conclusive than Mr. Wesley's.

"I am

8thly. Mr. Wesley, in his notes on the seventh chapter of Romans, appears to labour under great difficulty to maintain his doctrine of sinless perfection among the saints here on earth, and at the same time not let the honest reader discover that he was again contradicting the word of God. When Paul says, carnal, sold under sin. I find then a law, that when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members;" and then exclaims, "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the

body of this death?"-in all this, and much more to the same effect, Mr. Wesley says the inspired apostle was personating some other man. If so, why did not Paul say so? and not first tell us in the chapter what he had been, or how he felt in his mind in the days of his thoughtlessness, and how he felt when he was first awakened; putting both in the past tense, that his readers might know that these things were past. And then, in his story, change the past tense into the perfect, and tell them how he felt, or how it was with him then while he was writing; every way calculated to make the honest reader believe that he meant himself, and meant just as he said. This would be a kind of duplicity which Saint Paul never practised, to tell us that it was himself, when he meant another man. If any man among us were to do this, we would all say that he was not a man of truth.

Consequently, those who profess to have attained to that degree of perfection in this life, as to live without sin, they must be either strangers to their own hearts, and the spirituality and extent of God's holy law; or else they have attained to a greater degree of saintship and holiness than the great apostle Paul had when he wrote his epistle to the Romans. Besides, this daily experience does not accord with that of the primitive Christians, of whom Paul says, "the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh and these are

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contrary the one to the other; so that ye cannot do the things that ye would."* Solomon, in his prayer, says to the Lord concerning his people, "if they sin against thee, for there is no man that sinneth not. With this accords the words of Saint John : 'If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”‡ Therefore, while we acknowledge that there is a sense in which every true Christian is perfect that is, they possess true faith and repentance, and every Christian grace-thus they are perfect Christians; as the child is said to be perfect when it possesses all its natural parts. And they are perfect in Christ, his perfect righteousness being imputed to them for their justification. Neither do they sin with the same wicked temper, nor with the same unhallowed, unrestrained disposition with which the wicked sin. They all desire to be perfectly holy; but yet, according to the Bible, we have reason to fear, that in the day of the Lord it will be found to have been with these sinless professors of religion, as Paul said it was once with him. Said he, I was alive without the law once; that was, when he was in a state of carnal security, he neither understood the spirituality and extent of God's holy law, nor the workings of his own heart, nor yet the gospel plan of salvation, notwith

* Gal. v. 17. † 1 Kings viii, 46. Eccles. vii. 20.