TREATISES ON JUSTIFICATION AND REGENERATION. BY J. WITHERSPOON, D. D. WITH AN INTRODUCTORY ESSAY, BY WILLIAM WILBERFORCE, ESQ. 1759-167 AUTHOR OF PRACTICAL VIEW OF CHRISTIANITY. AMHERST: PUBLISHED BY J. S. & C. ADAMS, AND CO. S. BUTLER AND SON, NORTHAMPTON: AND JONATHAN LEAVITT, NEW YORK. RS63 W82 1830a 144283 INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. Ir is a trite remark, but a remark which, from its importance, no less than from our too general disposition to forget it, we should strive to keep continually present in our remembrance, that, as every state of life, so every condition of Christianity has its own peculiar dangers. And in the one case, no less than in the other, those circumstances are not always the least favourable, which may appear so on the first view; especially to an inexperienced observer. Times of persecution press severely on the weak and timid; but experience has decisively proved, that so far from these being the circumstances from which true religion has the most to apprehend, the very contrary is undeniable. The constancy with which the victims of bigotry bore their bodily sufferings, though heightened by all the ingenious devices which the most devilish malignity could invent, and the divine support which they manifestly experienced under the severest tortures, operated more powerfully in favour of Chris IN 99 tianity, than all the terrors of a cruel death against it; so that it even passed into an axiom, "The blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church." In seasons of persecution men are naturally driven to fundamentals. They are necessarily prompted to examine their own hearts, and to endeavour to ascertain their title to the blessed hopes and privileges of true Christians. On the other hand, in seasons of the church's external prosperity, when the profession of Christianity, so far from subjecting any one to privation or suffering, becomes creditable, and even necessary to entitle a man to a fair character in the world, there is always danger lest the regard for human estimation, which is commonly the grand governing principle of mankind, should become, in reality and at heart, the main spring also the vital and actuating principle of the professed Christian. The danger is here the greater, from the very nature and effects of the precepts and character of Christianity. Had our divine Master required his followers to retire from the world, as some devotees have done, and to live in the solitude of the desert, or in the seclusion of a monastery; or had he prescribed to us a course of life, or the formation of a character, which must necessarily have rendered us odious and unpopular, except within our own circle, there would have been less danger of our being misled, and being seduced from our allegiance to our blessed Master, by our acceptance and credit in the world at large: but as Christianity prescribes no duties, and requires no observances, which are not |