make them love to harp upon this string. I have not been much in insisting on this duty in my own pulpit, where it would especially concern my own temporal interest, and blessed be God, that I have had no more occasion. But whatever any judge of the secrets of my heart, with regard to the principles by which I have been influenced, in what I have now said; it is enough for you, to whom I have spoken, that I have demonstrated what I have delivered to be the mind of God; and also, if there be any truth in his word, that what I have recommended is not only for the temporal interest of your minister, but also for your own interest, both temporal and spiritual. thereby excused from paying their tithes, for the support of the Levites, and so robbed God of his due but got nothing by it, for God cursed them with a curse; they made that scarcity and want the excuse for their backwardness to support God's ministers, which was its punishment, and God tells them by the prophet, that if they would cheerfully do their duty, in that respect, it would be a sure way to have their wants plentifully supplied. Mal. iii. 1-9. "Ye are cursed with a curse, for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation. Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in my house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it." What can God say more to encourage a peo-yourselves, by contention. You ple cheerfully to run the venture of expending what is necessary, for the comfortable and honourable support of the ministry? And here let me warn you, in particular, that you do not only do pretty well by your minister, for a while, at first, while the relation between you and him is a new thing, and then, afterwards, when your minister's necessities are increased, begin to fail, as it too frequently happens. Another article of advice that I would now give you, is, to beware that you do not weaken your minister's hands,and wound are but a small people, and you them There are two sorts of contention, against which I would warn you. Some may be ready to say, (1.) Avoid contention among It is no wonder ministers should yourselves about your own tembe forward to urge such a duty poral affairs. This will exas this, wherein their temporal ceedingly tend to render a miinterest is so much concern-nister's labours ineffectual; and ed; a covetous disposition will is what greatly damps the spirit VOL. VII. 2 P and discourages the heart of a be unkind and unfriendly tominister, to see his people di-wards their own ministers, and vided into parties, and envying to make difficulties for them. one another, and entertaining But I do not believe there is mutual prejudices, jealousies, a true christian upon earth that and grudges, and so backbiting is of this character; on the and reproaching one another, contrary, the feet of them that and carrying on secret plots bring good tidings, and publish and designs against one ano- the gospel of salvation, are beautiful in the eyes of the true children of Zion; and every one that receives Christ, and whose heart is governed by a supreme love to him, has a disposition to receive, love, and honour his messengers. It was the distinguishing mark by which God manifested the person he had chosen to be the ther. (2.) Avoid quarrelling with your minister in matters of church discipline. This is a common thing, but a most un- | christian thing, which tends greatly to weaken the hands of a minister in the whole of his work, and to render all to no purpose. The exercise of the discipline of God's house is the | most difficult part of that great work which a minister has to do, and it becomes a christian people, to their utmost, to strengthen their minister's hands in this difficult business; and to say, as the people said to Ezra the priest, with respect to the affair of purging the church of Israel from the scandal of those that had married strange wives, Ezra, x. 4. "Arise; for this matter belongeth to thee; we also will be with thee: be of good courage, and do it." wife of Isaac, that type of Christ, that it was the damsel that should give the kind and friendly entertainment to Abraham's servant, or steward, who was sent to espouse her, and bring her home to Isaac, and who therein was a type of the gospel ministry. See to it, that you thus entertain the steward of the house of God, who comes on this blessed errand to you. If you and your minister thus live in peace, it will be the way for you to be a happy society; To conclude, if you would to flourish and prosper with have your minister successful all manner of prosperity; to among you, and a blessing to have Christ dwelling among you; and if you would be a you; and for things to be happy people, then love one brought to so blessed an event another, and love your minister. at last, as that he who is the There are some professors in great Shepherd of the sheep, some of our towns, that are who purchased the souls of antiministerial men; they seem men with his blood; and your to have a disposition to dislike pastor, who has the care of men of that order; they are your souls committed to him; apt to be prejudiced against and yourselves, and your chilthem; to be suspicious of them, | dren, should all rejoice toand to talk against them; together in another world, agree ably to John, iv. 36. "And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal: that both he that soweth, and he that reapeth, may rejoice together." THE ALLIANCE OF INFIDELITY AND SOCINIANISM. My Dear Friend, ordinary means, and, to accom plish this, should raise up a succession of inspired writers, supposes that ordinary means are insufficient. And any system which teaches that the knowledge of salvation is attainable by the strength of reason, or the dictates of nature, is hostile to the necessity of revelation. But, my dear friend, socinianism, to which you lean, looks very coldly on the great principles, on which the necessity of a revelation from heaven must rest. 1. She denies human depra all men are born children of wrath, dead in sins, and alienated from the life of God, from their ignorance. No, in her creed, men have suffered little from the fall of Adam, and are able to keep themselves from wilful transgression, and to per The subject of your last letter has much occupied my mind. You avow your unqualified be-vity. She does not credit, that lief of revelation, and express your decided opposition to infidel principles, but unite with both a declaration of partiality to what you call unitarian sentiments. You are much conversant with the deistical controversy, and have perused the best writers on it, in the Eng-form the duties, to God and lish and German languages. It surprises me, that my friend, who is so acute and penetrating, has not observed the proximity of socinian and deistical views. This proximity must surely have escaped your notice, or you would have embraced your present sentiments with greater caution. My regard for your welfare,-my desire to draw you from the whirlpool of error into which I believe you have fallen, compels me to perform an unpleasing task, in stating the alliance of infidelity and socinianism, in several momentuous particulars→→→ man, enjoined in the divine law. Men are such as God has made them, and are criminal in his sight, only when they comply with appetites, which ought to be rejected, and with examples which ought to be shunned.If such be the condition of hu→ man nature, the Bible may be useful, but cannot be necessary to our eternal interests. Pause, my dear sir, and consider whether the whole frame of christianity does not involve the humiliating fact, that men have destroyed themselves, so that, without regeneration by the Spirit, and justification by the faith of Christ, none can be I. Socinianism undermines the necessity of revelation. saved. That the all-wise God should 2. Socinianism allows the impart his will to us by extra-sufficiency of natural religion to lead men to the enjoyment ed to point out, with all hu mility, some trifling errors into, which reason, from the imperfections inseparable from all created things, has inadver tently fallen. Beware, dear sir, of mounting the seat of judgment to correct the inaccuracies of revelation by the infallible dictates of reason! of the divine favour. I grant you that nature and providence do reveal, to every creature, the power and godhead of their Author. And the work of God's law is so deeply written on every heart, that all men know, or may know, the essential differences of moral good and evil. If the character of the Supreme, and the rule of duty, were not thus unequivocally made known to them, men could not be accountable to their Maker, nor the subjects of retribution in another world. But if men by nature, can follow the light which shines in God's works, and can fulfil the law written on their hearts, so as to please their Governor and Judge, the atonement and Spirit of Jesus Christ may be dispensed with, and that book which reveals them, may be unknown with perfect safety.* 3. Socinianism exalts reason even above revelation. Is it not so when she employs reason not merely to examine the evidences of revelation, and to ascertain what tenets are there disclosed, which are legitimate and commendable exercises, but even to judge of the truths discovered in the scriptures? Yes, socinianism erects a tribunal for reason, to which all the truths of God's word are summoned, and their claims on our belief are canvassed and decided. Reason, then, is our chief guide, and the inspired volume is a handmaid design a 2. Socinianism weakens part of the evidence on which the truth of christianity is built. As you are a decided enemy to infidelity, I expect you to examine what I advance on this charge with great severity. It shall be stated to you in all the simplicity of friendship. 1. According to evangelical writers, judaism and christianity make constituent parts of one system. The altar, the sacrifice, the priest, the temple, the incense, under the law, were shadows of the priesthood of the true Messiah. They were shadows of a substance to be found in the sufferings and mediation of God's Son. Now, socinianism, by denying the atonement and intercession of Christ, sets aside the corres-' pondence between the ceremonial law and the work of the Redeemer; removes the truth of the figure, the original of the prophetic profile, the substance of the jewish shadows.—She destroys the grand uniting links of that chain which binds together the Old and New Testament churches. 2. The miracles of Christ and his apostles are another * They can, if they will; but their depravity consists in such a radical love of sin, and hatred of God, as Divine Agency alone can cure. Remove this, and the scriptures fall to a level with the compositions of pious and intelligent men; of their superiority to all other writings, in the decisions of truth and duty. Let a man's faith in the inspiration of the sacred volume be shaken, and he is launched into a boundless ocean of conjecture. mere human intellect and taste. Others contend that the facts, and the leading doctrines, were evidence of their inspiration. One class of these miracles is the expulsion of demons from the bodies of men. You need not be informed, my dear sir, that some leading socinians have adopted such sentiments respecting demoniacs as are, at least, hard to be reconciled with the plain language of the New Testament. Is not our Lord Some writers admit a partial, introduced, in the gospels, as and explode a plenary inspira"addressed by these depraved tion; the thoughts were sugspirits, who tremble before him,gested by the Spirit; the landeprecate his wrath, and sub-guage was the offspring of mit without an attempt to resist the decisions of his power." When this apostle, John, gives an epitome of his Master's un-communicated by the divine dertaking, is not this his style, Spirit, but that the minor parts, "the Son of God was mani- the reasonings, the deductions, fested to destroy the works of the exhortations, were mingled the devil." Infidels laugh at with the imperfections of their the devil and hell, and demo- authors. By the aid of a criniacs, modern illuminati, look tical apparatus, they often exdown with contempt on the communicate a stubborn text, ignorance and fanaticism of a or paragraph, or chapter, which Jewish Carpenter, who cast out cannot be melted down in their demons from the bodies of his theological crucible. If such countrymen. They place the things be so, how shall plain narrations of the evangelists, on illiterate men separate the unthis topic, upon a level with inspired from the inspired parts popular tales of fairies, and of the scriptures; the mind of witches, and apparitions-be- God, from the blunders of his ware, sir, of the scorner's chair! penmen? Some modern critics and socinians should seriously have done more service to the consider, whether, by their pride and sophistry of infidelity, forced comments on the evan- than can be expressed in modegelists, they do not expose them-rate terms of disapprobation. selves to the sneer of the deist, Socinianism injures the mafor impenetrable obscurity, or jesty of revelation in another popular error. way. It admits christianity as III. Socinianism attacks the a whole, and explains away very life and soul of revelation. every part in detail. The unity If the scriptures be a revela- of the Godhead is credited; tion from heaven, and be the the Trinity rejected: the divistandard of faith and practice,nity of the Redeemer denied; inspiration must, necessarily, his humanity defended: the be the basis of this authority. righteousness is separated from VOL. VII. 22 |