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able to God, as that law which is the instrument ' of Jehovah's government, and which is delivered 'to us for our instruction, and is food to our minds. 'It is very true that many will not grant what we 'here affirm.'

Whosoever denies your affirmation with respect to yourself is wrong; for a man that is hoodwinked and blinded by Moses' vail, as you are, stumbling on the dark mountains, a stranger to faith, smiting the law for comfort, and calling it the food of your mind, is under the binding power of the law, and its curse too. We know the law is a yoke of bondage to all such, which neither the apostles nor their fathers were able to bear while in a state of nature, as you are; in this sense it is binding indeed, and if you die under the bondage of it, and are accountable to God in the great day for every transgression thereof, according to your doctrine, you will be damned for ever; for it neither gives life, nor shews mercy. And though it is the food of your mind, yet it never was the food of God's saints; they fed upon Christ, the bread of life; but Moses gave them not that bread, but God our Father giveth us the true bread, that we might eat thereof and not die; he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever, John vi. 31-35. This is the spiritual meat that the Israelites of old fed on; they that were left of the sword found grace in the wilderness, Jer. xxxi. 2, and food too.

But you complain that some will not grant what we affirm; if you mean with respect to your

mean,

selves, you say false, for I do grant it; but if you that the saints of God will not allow the law to be the food of their minds and the yoke of their necks, you say true; for there is not a penman in the Bible, nor a believer in all the world, that will grant that the food of eternal life can spring from the sentence of everlasting death and damnation. The bread of life, Christ says, is the gift of God, and is promised to faith; but the law is not of faith; the law gives neither life nor food; both are promised blessings of a covenant of grace. And though you, sir, and the rest of your combination, affirm to the contrary, Christ contradicts you all, and says, "Moses gave you not that bread from heaven;" they that ate of the manna, and they that fed on the law, are both dead together.

After I have shaved off your downy beards, and docked your skirts close by the buttocks, I hope you will tarry at Jericho till beards be grown, before you return again, 2 Sam. x. 4, 5.

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'Paul was aware of this, that men would be ready to charge him with delivering sentiments contrary to the law; so far from establishing the law, they would conclude that he rejected it. Paul states a question, and answers it, Do we then make void the law through faith? So far from it, I have endeavoured to establish it upon ' an immoveable footing, and to represent it to all 'men as a law of infinite importance, and of immutable obligation.'

I wish

you would leave Paul out of your com

bination; for he never taught any man, or men, to bring a railing accusation against the just, nor to belie them that love and fear God, and walk upright before him. Paul says nothing about associations, evangelical societies, boards, benches, or combinations meeting together to foment each others malice, and provoke each others jealousy, in behalf of their own honour, against those that labour in the word and doctrine. Nor does he allow men to spin texts out of their own brains, and make God's truth a nose of wax to fit a fallen countenance, or raise a sinking reputation; nor yet to make it a cloke of maliciousness, to cover their villany, while they are condemning the just by a perversion of the truth. Paul says, professors destitute of grace shall heap to themselves teachers, such as you, having itching ears; that their ears shall be turned from the truth to fables; and that men of corrupt minds shall start up, as you have done, speaking perverse things, to draw disciples after them: that novices will be lifted up with pride, and jump into fancied orders, or skulk to a college, until they fall into the condemnation of the devil; and that they will turn aside to vain jangling, desiring to be teachers of the law, as you do, knowing neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm; which is your case. Paul never tells young coxcombs to stuff their noddles with scraps of Greek, crumbs of Hebrew, and incoherent shreds of dog Latin; he tells us that such are barbarians to the people; that men of fables, as well as old

wives, shall both keep silence in the church; for our faith is not to stand in man's wisdom, but in God's power. Paul never told me to cringe to the heels of old widows, for the sake of a little short stuff to nurse my pride, and indulge my laziness; but bids me beware of that sort of men" which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth."

The irreverend Mr. Belly of Gravesend, in Kent, had no warrant from Paul, nor any other inspired penman, when he charged the word of God with impurity, and me with taking texts that a modest man would blush at. Paul says, "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine," &c. 2 Tim. iii. 16; if so, every word of God must be pure, Prov. xxx. 5. Paul never charges a man with endeavouring to swim a city with blood for adhering to, and attempting to declare, the whole counsel of God to sinners. Nor did he ever command the reverend Mr. Pinnershall to call a saved sinner a balloon filled with inflammable air, that was shortly to burst to pieces, instead of the grace of God. Nor did he ever teach you, sir, to take my sermon to pieces, unless you were able to contradict it, or put a better one together.

As far as I am acquainted with Paul, he is altogether against your proceedings, and as opposite to these your doctrines as the Alcoran is to the

Bible. He tells us, that all are in the flesh, and bond children, that are under the law; which you say is binding to you. He says that no flesh living shall be justified by the deeds of the law; by which you say you are all to be accountable to God in the great day. You get your food where Paul got his death. You say the law is the food of

your minds; but Paul says, I, through the law's commanding and killing power, am dead to the law's empty promise, that I might live unto God, under the Spirit's influence. I am crucified with Christ, by his death in my stead; nevertheless I live, because Christ my life lives; yet not I, but Christ liveth in my heart by faith; " and the life that I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself I do not frustrate the grace of God; for, if righteousness came by the law, then Christ is dead in vain," Gal. ii. 20, 21. This is Paul's food, though it be not yours.

for me.

You establish the law, with all its binding power, upon your own necks, and say you are to be accountable to God by that, which if you are, I say you will be damned; for heaven and earth shall pass away before one jot or tittle of the law shall fail. But the saints of God, who are blessed with faithful Abraham, are not under the law, but under grace; and Paul declares of such as have God's love in their hearts, and the righteousness of God on them, that the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in them, who walk not after the flesh but

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