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consistent with themselves. Their own hearts may appear to themselves worst of all, while they consider themselves as saints, and some others as sinners. And if it be the nature of humility to lead Christians to entertain low thoughts of themselves, and to view themselves as the chief of sinners, then those who discard this sentiment, certainly give some reason to apprehend that they have never seen themselves, and been truly convinced of sin, and humbled for it.

Obj. 6. “Is it not an awful truth, that too many ministers and private Christians, who adopt your views of humility, are nevertheless very uncharitable in their feelings and conduct towards Christians of other sects?"

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Ans. If it be a truth, it is unquestionably an awful truth; and if any Christians of our sentiments are uncharitable, it will be granted there are too many. But if this proves any thing against our sentiment, it proves too much; for what sentiment can be named, that has not been 'professed by some charitable persons? Besides, the writer of the letter charitably ad'mits, that those of our sentiments, who feel and act uncharitably, are hypocritical, and do not view themselves as they pretend. For," he adds, "how could this be (how could they be so uncharitable) if they were really in the habit of viewing themselves as more vile than any other people?"

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For the Hopkinsian Magazine.

der, discipline, and purity. But alas! "How is the gold become dim, and the most fine gold changed!" Is it not a lamentable, but notorious, fact, that in a large proportion of these churches, there is not merely a remissness, but an almost total discontinuance of Christian discipline? Nay, is it not even the avowed sentiment of some, who are set as watchmen on the walls of our Zion, that what has generally been understood by Christian discipline, neither can be, nor ought to be, maintained in the churches? Are not those passages of the Christian code, which have been considered as containing the laws, and enforcing the importance of the discipline and order of Christ's house, explained away or disregarded; while the passsage in the memorable parable of the wheat and tares, "Let both grow together until the harvest," is applied in its full latitude, to the church ?* In one word, is it not evidently a design, systematically prosecuted, to abolish, as much as possible, the distinction between the church and the world, and to model the churches completely upon worldly maxims, and in conformity to worldly views? Is it not in pursuance of this design, that the doors of the churches are thrown wide open, and members, after admission, are allowed to walk "after the rudiments of the world," totally exempt from disciplinary restraint? How affecting must this be to all the true children of Zion? With what propriety may they adopt the ancient lamentation, Remember, O Lord, what is come

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DECLENSION IN THE CHURCHES OF upon us, consider and behold our re

NEW-ENGLAND.

[An Extract.]

The declension in these churches has long been viewed with deep concern. Formerly they were disfinguished by their evangelical or

proach. Our inheritance is turned unto strangers, our houses to aliens.”

ble should be applied to the church; * Is it not astonishing, that this parawhen it is expressly applied by Christ, not to the church, but to the world?

How much like burlesque would it appear to apply the description in Canticles, to the body of these churches: "Thou art beautiful, O my love, as Tirzah, comely as Jerusalem, terrible as an army with banners." Alas! where is the beauty, the comeliness, the terror? To what are the churches terrible? Are they like an army in array against error and ungodliness? Do they contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints? Do they impress awe upon the ungod ly? Do they, by their purity, their order, their holy discipline, command respect from the world? Or is it to such only, as wish to walk agreeably to the laws of Christ, that they are terrible?

Having lost their proper character, have not the churches ceased to be regarded as sacred enclosures? And is it not for this reason, that people, who make no pretensions to the power of godliness, and manifest no disposition to conform their lives to the holy and self-denying precepts of the gospel, can approach the Christian mysteries, without compunction, and even claim admission to them, as their imprescriptable right?

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Such being the state of the churches, regarded as the common of the world, or as a city of which all are equally free; the men of the world hold themselves at liberty to interfere in all their concerns. Hence, if any particular church, impressed with the importance of evangelical purity and order, proceeds upon Christian principles, and opens the doors of its communion to such only, as, in a judgment of charity, have been washed with the washing of regeneration, and renewed by the Holy Ghost; it immediately becomes obnoxious to popular odium and hostility. It is told, in an imposing tone, that

other churches do not hold their doors so close; and is denounced as illiberal and bigotted, as arrogant and arbitrary. Such are the consequences of any noticeable act of interior discipline. If a church deal with any of its members, who walk disorderly; the attention, and the animosity of the public mind are immediately roused. Multitudes interest themselves warmly in the cause of the disciplined persons; and the proceedings of the church, however conformable to the spirit and precepts of the gos pel, are blazoned abroad, as intolerably tyrannical, oppressive, and cruel. In a word, if a church do not govern itself by the maxims, and conform to the spirit of the world, but aim to maintain the order and discipline of the gospel, and to exhibit a distinction between the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness; it is sure to be surrounded with enemies and overwhelmed with obloquy. This, indeed, is no more than what should be expected. The kingdom of Christ is not of this world; and therefore, the world hateth it. Whenever it appears in its true light and in its proper character, it will be opposed by all the avowed enemies of the gospel. But, if this were all, complaint should be silent.

If it were from the open and avowed enemies of the gospel, if it were from the non-professing world only, that a church, built and ordered upon evangelical principles, had to sustain opposition; its condition would be happy indeed.— But has it not adversaries still more formidable, because more advantageously circumstanced? If churches and ministers, professedly of Christ, are ready to espouse the popular cause in opposition to the obnoxious church, and to avail

themselves of all the advantages of their situation to weaken its hands and to crush it to the dust; how unhappy must be its condition, how arduous its struggle, how discouraging its prospects? If there be churches and ministers, who, symbolized completely with the world, and determined to reduce all others to their own level, are ready, upon every occasion, to combine influence and effort with those who are without and with the disaffected within, to suppress evangelical order and discipline; what can a single church do?-Do? It can stand: And if it hold fast and be faithful, it will stand; for God will hold it up. But its struggle must be arduous and painful indeed.An open enemy upon his own ground, is but little to be dreaded, in comparison with professed friends and allies within the lines, who in the hour of battle will betray the cause and join the hostile standard. And can it be, ought it to be dissembled, that in the present state of things, a church, which wishes to maintain the purity and order, the doctrine and discipline of the gospel, has infinitely more to fear from those, who, according to profession, ought to be more than common friends and allies, than from the whole host of openly avowed infidels, and all the rest of the world combined!

DR. SAMUEL WORCESTER.

on the proper conditions, be forgiven. But the atonement inferred no obligation of justice, on the part of God, to forgive them. They were still sinners, after the atonement, in the same sense, and in the same degree, as before. In no degree were they less guilty, or less deserving of punishment.

The supposition, incautiously admitted by some divines, that Christ satisfied the demands of the law by his active and passive obedience, in the same manner as the payment of a debt satisfies the demand of a creditor, has, if I mistake not, been heretofore proved to be unfounded in the scriptures. We owed God our obedience, and not our property; and obedience, in its own nature, is due from the subject himself, and can never be rendered by another. In refusing to render it, we are criminal; and for this criminality we merit punishment. The guilt, thus incurred, is inherent in the criminal himself; and cannot, in the nature of things, be transferred to another. All that, in this case, can be done by a substitute, of whatever character, is to render it not improper for the lawgiver to pardon the transgressor. No substitute can, by any possible effort, make the transgressor cease to be guilty, or to deserve punishment. This (and I intend to say it with becoming reverence) is beyond the ability of Omnipotence itself. The fact, that he is guilty, is past; and can never be

FULL ATONEMENT AND FREE PAR- recalled.

DON.

Christ in his sufferings and death, made complete atonement for the sins of mankind. In other words, he rendered to the law, character, and government of God, such peculiar honour, as to make it consistent with their unchangeable nature and glory, that sinners should,

Thus it is evident, that the sinner, when he comes before God, comes in the character of a sinner only; and must, if strict justice be done, be therefore condemned. If he

escape condemnation, then; he can derive this blessing from mere mercy only, and in no degree from justice. In other words, every

blessing, which he receives, is a free gift. The pardon of his sins, his acquittal from condemnation, and his admission to the enjoyments of heaven,* are all given to him freely, and graciously; because God regards him with infinite compassion, and is, therefore, pleased to communicate to him these unspeakable favours. DR. DWIGHT.

We admit, that "admission to the enjoyments of heaven" is a favour bestowed freely upon penitent believers; but we see not how it is bestowed graciously, in the proper and strict sense of the term. After believers are fully "pardoned" and "acquitted from condemna tion," why may they not be admitted to heaven, on the same ground, as that of the continuance of the Angels in that happy place? The pardon of the penitent, is of grace; but the reward of justified believers, is of goodness.-EDITOR.

For the Hopkinsian Magazine. HOW TO ADDRESS SINNERS UNDER

CONVICTION.

In Mr. Boston's fourfold state, are the following passages: "Do what you can; and it may be, while you are doing what you can for yourselves, God will do for you what you cannot." Again, "Let us believe as we can, in obedience to God's command; and while we are doing so, although the act be at the beginning but natural, yet in the very act, promised and purchased grace strikes in and turns it into a supernatural act of believing." Allowing him by "promised grace," in this passage, to mean, that which was promised to Christ on behalf of those who were given him by the Father; yet the language is unscriptural and dangerous, as giving the sinner to understand that his inability is something that excuses him, and that in doing what he can, while in enmity to God, he obeys the divine command, and is at least in a more hopeful way of

obtaining supernatural grace. The apostles exhorted sinners lu repent and believe the gospel, and to nothing short of it; making no account of their inability. If we follow their example, God may honour his own ordinances by accompanying them with his Holy Spirit; but as to any thing being done in concur➡ rence with the endeavours of the idea held out to us in the oracles of unregenerate, we have no such God.

Such

It is God's ordinary method, indeed, prior to his bestowing that supernatural [special] grace, which enables [inclines] a sinner to repent and believe the gospel, by various means to awaken him to reflection, and to the serious consideration of his condition as a transgressor of the divine law. convictions may last for a considerable time, and may issue in true conversion; but they may not: and so long as the way of salvation proposed in the gospel, is rejected, or neglected, in favour of some selfrighteous scheme, there is nothing truly good in them. They are as the noise and, the shaking of the dry bones, but not the breath of life. They are the means by which God prepares the mind for a welcome reception of the gospel; but they contain no advance towards Christ, on the part of the sinner. He is not nearer the kingdom of heaven, nor less in danger of the wrath to come, than when he was at ease in his sins. Nay, notwithstanding the outward reformation, which such convictions ordinarily produce, he is not upon the whole a less sinner in the sight of God, than he was before. On the contrary, "He who continues, under all this light, and contrary to the plain dictates and pressing painful convictions of his own conscience, obstinately to oppose and reject

Jesus Christ, is, on the account of this his impenitence and obstinacy unter this clear light and conviction of conscience (whatever alteration or reformation has taken place, in him, in other respects) more guilty, vile and odious in God's sight, than he was lefore."*

For a minister to withhold the invitations of the gospel till he perceives the sinner sufficiently, as he thinks, convinced of sin, and then to bring them forward as someting to which he is entitled, holding up his convictions and distress of mind as signs of grace, and persuading him on this ground to think himself one of God's elect, and warranted to believe in Christ, is doing worse than nothing. The comfort which the apostles presented to awakened sinners, consisted purely in the exhibition of Christ, and the invitations to believe in him. Neither the company addressed by Peter, nor the Philipian jailor, were encouraged from any thing in the state of their own minds, though each was deeply impressed; but from the gospel only. The preachers might and would take encouragement on perceiving them to be pricked in their hearts, and might hope for a good issue; but it had been at their peril to encourage them to hope for mercy any otherwise, than as believing in the Son of God.

The hyper-calvinists, who set aside the invitations of the gospel to the unregenerate, abound in these things. They are aware that the scriptures do invite sinners of some sort to believe in Christ; but then they conceive them to be sensible sinners only.It is thus that the terms "hunger, thirst, labour, heavy-laden," as used in the invitations of scripture,

DR. HOPKIN's True State of the Unregenerate. p. 6.

are considered as denoting spiritual desire, and as marking out the persons who are entitled to come to Christ. That the invitations of the gospel should be addressed to sinners, as the subjects of those wants and desires, which it is adapted to satisfy, such as the thirst for happiness, peace, rest, &c. is no more than might be expected. It had been strange if living waters had been presented to them who in no sense were thirsty, or rest to them who were in no sense weary and heavy-laden; but it does not follow, that this thirst and this weariness are spiritual. On the contrary, they who are invited to buy and eat without money and without price, are supposed to be "spending their money for that which is not bread," are admonished as "wicked" men, to forsake their way, and invited to return to the Lord under a promise of abundant pardon, on their so returning.The "heavy-laden" also are supposed as yet not to have come to Christ, nor taken his yoke, nor learned his spirit; and surely it could not be the design of Christ to persuade them to think well of their state, seeing he constant ly teaches that till a sinner come to him, or believe in him, he is under the curse. It is also observable, that the promise of rest is not made to them as heavy-laden, but as coming to Christ with their burdens.-There is no proof, that all who were

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pricked in their hearts" under Peter's sermon, and who enquired "what shall we do?" believed and were saved. On the contrary, it seems to be intimated, that only a part of them " gladly received the word, and were baptized." Had they all done so, it would probably have been said, then they gladly received his word, and were baptized. Instead of this, it is said, "then

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