freedom from sin," adds Hervey, "is a noble prerogative of the beatific vision." "No," replies Wesley, "it would then come too late. If sin remains in us till the day of judgment, it will remain forever." Sin, it seems, may remain in us till we get to paradise [or purgatory], but no longer: then, "if not sooner," it must be cured! A good old Popish way of salvation, which might have been traveled to heaven safely, for aught that appears, without any atonement.

LETTER XII.

SINLESS PERFECTION.

REV. SIR-The discussion of what you are pleased to call "Christian Perfection," i. e. the entire freedom of many Christians from all sin, in thought, word and deed, for years prior to the great change of death, introduces some of the more practical features of your scheme of religion.

Wesley, it is worthy to be premised, traces this unscriptural sentiment as far back at least as Pelagius, in the fourth century. "I verily believe," he says, "the real heresy of Pelagius was neither more nor less than this, the holding that Christians may, by the grace of God, go on to perfection." And lest such suspicious ancestry should bring the doctrine into disrepute, he adds of Pelagius, "I would not affirm that he was not one of the holiest men of the "'*

age.'

But Mr. Wesley might have commenced the genealogy of Perfectionism at a much earlier period. "In most of the false religions of the world, the doctrine of human perfection,

*Of Pelagius we learn from the best authorities that he "denied original sin, maintained man's plenary ability, the moral purity of infants, justification by our own righteousness," with some other unscriptural tenets. And yet of this heretic, Wesley says, "I guess he was both a wise and a holy man." "A fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind." Serm. vol. ii. p. 323. Misc. Works, vol. iii. p. 259.

manifested in some favored instances, has, if we mistake not, formed an essential article of belief. A kind of perfection has been claimed for Greek and Roman sages, for Hindoo devotees and for Mohammedan saints. Pantheism, the philosophical basis of most of the popular systems of idolatry, assumes as a fundamental position, such a union of man to the Deity as constitutes the leading principle of modern Perfectionism. This Pantheism is supposed by many to date farther back than the universal deluge. The Gnostics of primitive times, the New Platonists of Egypt, the brethren and sisters of the Free Spirit at a later day, the primitive Quakers, the French Prophets, the Shakers, and all the great body of the Mystics, were all strenuous advocates of Perfectionism.* Let us inquire into the theological relations of this distinguishing characteristic of so many forms of both ancient and modern error.

VI. THE DIFFICULTIES OF ARMINIAN METHODISM, IN REFERENCE TO "SINLESS PERFECTION."

We shall be met at the threshold of this discussion with a stout denial that this is a doctrinal feature of modern Methodism. It is a matter both of surprise and regret, that the advocates of the system should seem to expose themselves to the charge of a want of candor in the occasional debates which take place upon this question. Would it ever be imagined by an honest, upright, conscientious man, that when it is so often and so vehemently denied that Methodists maintain the doctrine of "Sinless Perfection," all that is meant is, that they reject the phraseology, the words, not that they do not hold and teach the sentiment? Yet that this is the simple verity, is proved by a reference to their standard authors. Thus: "We are all agreed that we may be saved from all sin before death; i. e. from all sinful tempers and desires.” "Grown Christians are in such a sense

* Biblical Repertory, July, 1842.

perfect as to be freed from evil tempers and desires. Every one of these can say, I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, &c.; words that manifestly describe a deliverance from inward as well as from outward sin." Doct. Tracts, pp. 293, 296. These extracts are made from a volume which, as we are told in the advertisement, was originally bound and published with the Form of Discipline, and is now "stereotyped," for the benefit of the church. Many parallel passages might be added, from the sermons of Wesley and others, but these will enable us to understand what is meant when "sinless perfection" is disclaimed with so much vehemence.

It is not surprising, therefore, that Mr. Wesley, as Whitefield tells us, "thought meanly of Abraham, though eminently 'the friend of God,' and of David, the man after God's own heart." Much less that he affirmed, as we learn from the same testimony, "that no Baptist or Presbyterian writer he had ever read, knew any thing of the liberties of Christ!" "What," replies Whitefield, "neither Bunyan, Henry, Flavel, Halyburton, nor any of the New England and Scotch divines? See, my dear sir," adds Whitefield, "what narrowspiritedness and want of charity arise from your principles. Do not, henceforth, say aught against election, as destructive of meekness and love."

Perhaps no publication (if we except the writings of the first apostle of Methodism,) is more popular among modern Arminians, than the labored and superficial work of Fletcher, which he entitles, "Checks to Antinomianism;" the object of which is to cry down Calvinism by an unpopular epithet. It is a fact, strictly analogous to past experience of human weakness and fallibility, that those who urge this unfounded charge of Antinomian tendencies, are themselves most guilty. This truth is aptly illustrated in the doctrine under review. It is not that these perfectionists imagine they live without transgressing the "moral law," but they regard it as no longer in force. Christians are not under law, but under grace;

under a milder code of legislative requirement than the Decalogue; a form of obligation suited to man's impaired ability; brought down to his capacity as a fallen creature, and to which he may and can yield a perfect obedience, and is therefore sinlessly perfect. Hear upon this topic the standards of Methodism :* "Christ is the end of the law-1. The Mosaic law. 2. The Adamic law, called the law of works," which required that man should use to the glory of God all the powers with which he was created, and which "was proportioned to his original powers, and required that he should always think, speak and act precisely right, in every point whatever." “He was well able to do so, and God could not but require the service he was able to pay." Then what follows? Why, "Adam fell;" and in consequence, “no man is able to perform the service which the Adamic law requires." And now for the conclusion: "And no man is obliged to perform it. God doth not require it of any man. Christ is the end of the Adamic as well as the Mosaic law. By his death he put an end to both. He hath abolished both the one and the other, with regard to man; and the obligation to observe either the one or the other is vanished away. Nor is any man living bound to observe the Adamic more than the Mosaic law." This, I should suppose, is Antinomianism of sufficient "proof" to suit the appetite of the grossest devotee of sensuality. This is the modern method of perfection-not by ascending the steep of moral obligation, but by bringing the requirements of the Divine law down to a level with the sinner's convenience!

But as if to render the doctrine absurd as well as licentious, Mr. Wesley tells us that "faith working or animated by love is all that God now requires of man, and that he has substituted (not sincerity) but love in the room of angelic (and Adamic) perfection." "This love," he adds, "is the loving the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength,

*Doct. Tracts, pp. 330, 332.

and our neighbor as ourselves, i. e. every man as our own souls."* But this is entirely up to the standard of both an

gelic and Adamic perfection.

So also in his “Plain Account of Christian Perfection,” he defines it, "the loving God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. This implies (he says,) that no wrong temper, none contrary to love, remains in the soul; and that all the thoughts, words and actions are governed by pure love." But what more than this does the moral law require? Could Adam before his fall do more than this? Can saints and angels in heaven?t Yet he admits that a perfect Christian is not freed from "infirmities, ignorance, and mistake;" but "where every word and action springs from love, a mistake is not properly sin." Still he further assures us, these sinless mistakes "need the atoning blood." Such is a fair specimen of the jargon everywhere current among the followers of this great Arminian !

Be it remembered, therefore, that although "no man living is obliged to observe" the moral law, yet "Christian perfection" surpasses the limits of moral obligation, and performs works of supererogation, more than can righteously be demanded. Every perfect Methodist "loves God with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength," and "all his thoughts, words, and actions, are governed by pure love ;" and nothing more was ever required by the "moral law."

But that we may more fully comprehend the mysteries of this singular subject, let us dwell a few moments further upon its theological relations. Mr. Fletcher (after Wesley,) admits that the most advanced Christian falls short, in this life, of the obedience required by the moral or Adamic law, which he calls "the Creator's anti-evangelical, paradisaical law of innocence," and which he thinks has been abolished.

*Doct. Tracts, p. 333.

† Wesley himself affirms-"The loving God with all the heart," "is the most exalted height of man or angel." Misc. Works, vol. i. p. 228.