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QUOT. "We have no ground for repentance, but under ❝a sense of our fins, and a feeling that our fins are deteft"able, damnable, and abominable.-Then a man will "repent."

ANSW. Repentance is not of the will of man, Sir; nor of the will of the flesh, but of God. Judas felt his fins deteftable and damnable, and he repented himself, and hanged himself. Repentance is the grant of the Father, and the gift of the Son; and is produced, under the operations of pardoning love, by the Spirit; and it is reflecting with inward contrition on the long forbearance of God, that leads to it. Pardon must be fealed, love felt, God muft appear pacified, (Ezek. xxxvi. 31.) and the finner raised to hope, before any evangelical repentance, fuch as needs not to be repented of, can take place. When God appeared to Job, in order to turn his captivity, "he abhorred himself, and repented." When God "turned Ephraim, and called him his dear fon," Ephraim repented: and when the prodigal got the kifs, the ring, and the robe, then he repented. Man is not driven to repentance by a fenfe of fin, but drawn to it by a fenfe of pardon. When man's mifery and God's mercy meet together on the foul; when the self-defpairing child and the loving parent meet; there is repentance indeed.

QUOT. "If God has cleanfed our hearts by his Holy "Spirit, we shall feel an abhorrence of those fins that are "C near to us; nay, the nearer they are to us, the more we "abhor them."

ANSW.

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ANSW. What proof do you give, Sir, of this doctrine being practifed by you?" Is going to Green"wich, Uxbridge, Bristol, &c. &c. telling the people "that, if ever they admitted me into their pulpit, cc you would never appear there any more," doing the work of a peace-maker? or is this abhorring evil? Doth not envy, hatred, and malice, against me, lie near to you, and that without caufe? And can cafting the vileft names-fuch as you have cast upon me be any proof of an inward abhorrence of evil? or can fuch a difcourfe as this be called the produce of Divine Inspiration?

QUOT. "Our Lord talks-It does not fignify, he "preached the Gofpel. I do believe he preached a great "deal about holinefs-" Think not that I am come to deftroy the Law or the Prophets." Nobody will come to do that but the Devil."

ANSW. I cannot think that the Devil would wifh to destroy the Law which God has given to men, if he had it in his power; for, had there been no Law in Paradife, Satan could not have tempted our parents to a tranfgreffion of it; for where there is no Law, there can be no tranfgreffion. He took an advantage of the Law, and tempted to a breach of it; at which breach Sin and Satan came in, and took poffeffion of the disobedient; and they have worked in the children of difobedience ever fince. It is the Law, Sir, that delivers the finner to the Judge, and

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the Judge delivers him to the Officer, to be caft into prifon. The Officer could have no prisoners to wreak his rage upon, if there were no Law to curfe the finner. Satan is not divided against himself. Thofe preachers who oppofed Paul's Gospel with Circumcifion and the Law of Mofes, are expressly called Satan's own minifters transformed, 2 Cor. xi. 14, 15. The Galatians, who turned their backs upon Chrift, and went to the Law to be made perfect by the flesh, are declared to be bewitched; and we know that all witchcraft comes from Satan. All the finners that ever this trading Juftice has got into his difmal cave, have died under the Law; and all the flaves that Satan ever has loft, have been delivered from the Law, and faved from fin and hell, by the Grace of God revealed in the everlasting Gofpel. The Saviour did preach up bolinefs. He pronounced the bleffing of Juftification upon his elect followers, which abfolved and acquitted them from all penal evil: "Now ye are clean through "the word that I have fpoken unto you." He gave them notice that he would cleanfe them from all future defilement by his blood and Spirit, which he fignified by washing their feet; and he promised to fend the "Holy Ghoft to abide with them for 66 ever, and bid them abide in him as the branch "does in the vine; and that fuch fouls fhould bring "forth much fruit: but without him they could do "nothing." But the holiness preached up in this

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Sermon

Sermon has little or no resemblance of this. Let us now see how you preach it up.

QUOT. "If you cannot ftand behind your counter un"der the influences of the Holy Spirit, ftand there no "more; if you cannot eat your food with a fingle eye to

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glorify God, rather starve than feed; if you cannot lie "down upon your beds to reft with a defire that (by your "reft) you may be recruited to ferve God, reft no more."

ANSW. If none but fuch perfons as are here defcribed were to stand behind a counter, there would not be fhopkeepers enough in all the world to serve the inhabitants of London, fo as for every one to get one article in a week; and were none but fuch perfons to eat, as you describe, the world would be thin enough of inhabitants in fix weeks. From all felfmurder, and from fudden death, good Lord, deliver us!

QUOT. "Though a man, in his carnal, unconverted "ftate, will hardly keep himself from anger yet he can "eafily keep himself from murder

ANSW. That a man can easily keep himself from murder, appears plain by Hazael. Elifha told him, that he should" flay the young men of Ifrael, dash "their children, and rip up their women with "child:" who answered-" Is thy fervant a dog, "that he should do this great thing?" And the next day he killed his own fovereign; and foon after

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acted all the rest of the bloody tragedy, 2 Kings, Chap. 8. To make men their own keepers is a poor doctrine: they are better kept that God keepeth.

QUOT." People, if they are ever so vile, can keep them"felves from outward actions; and generally do, for fear "of the confequences that attend them. The thievifh "man may keep himself from thievifh actions through fear "of punishment. Man may reftrain himself from many "outward acts of violence."

ANSW. This doctrine of Self-keeping, Sir, has a tendency to keep men from looking to Him who is "called Jefus, because he shall save his people from "their fins." The Scriptures fay, that "the ftrong "man, armed, keeps poffeffion of the palace;" and that "the Devil takes the finner captive at his will.” If fo, where is the finner's power to keep himself, if God leaves him? And furely we have few empty' gaols, maiden-affizes, or barren banging-days, to prove the truth of this doctrine.." Except the Lord keep "the city, the watchman waketh but in vain:" and if God takes off his restraint, the finner runs to mifchief; the fear of bell-fire is not enough to deter him, much less the fear of a gallows.

QUOT. "A man may fubfcribe to his meeting, and come "to his meeting; he may pay his tithes, and go to his "church; he may go to a fhop, and pay his debts," &c.

ANSW.

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