Now we would seriously ask, Who will believe one word of what he says relative to the conduct of Mr. Wesley and some other person, at the house of some clergyman, where they lodged; and who will give him the least credit when he asserts. that Mr. Wesley told somebody that he had lived most deliciously "on boiled maize, sauced with the ashes of oak leaves," and that he intended to return to Georgia, and "cast off his English dress, and wear a dried skin like the savages ?"

In reading these letters, it may be suspected that the haughty temper of this man, unrestrained by religious principle, so disurdered, at particular times, the moral sense, as to extinguish the power of discriminating between truth and falshood, right and wrong. At any rate, these letters in the estimation of every person of piety and veracity, will at once settle the question how far Warburton's religious opinions, or his assertions concerning religious persons, are deserving of notice; and while these letters and his other works are mouldering "to dusty nothing," the benevolent mind will regret the perversion of such talent as might have been beneficial to mankind, if properly directed. Warburton's practice as an attorney, might have been of greater public utility, and have obtained him much more respect than bis conduct as a bishop.

It is, undoubtedly, true, that "Every fault of the mind becomes more conspicuous, and more guilty, in proportion to the rank of the offender;" and if what Warburton has written would have been indecent and degrading in a person in the lowest class of society, it is much more so in a clergyman, and must greatly degrade his character in the just judgment of pious and sensible men.

Warburton's favourite abusive terms, Fanatic, Wretch, Scoun drel, Devil, may be arranged in regular gradation,

"Still rising in a climax, till the last,

Surpassing all is not to be surpast;"

And at the top of the climax may be placed the "Devil of a tice," the epithet which he applies to the great and learned Bishop Lowth, + the well-known author of "The Prælections on Hebrew Poetry," and of "The New Translation of the Prophecy of Isaiab." Warburton, in an Appendix to the Divine Legation of Moses, attacked Lowth in the insolent tone which characterized his controversial writings. Lowth, who was much his superior in Christian temper, and Biblical learning, defended himself, with great ability, in a letter which deserves to be generally known, in which he accuses Warburton of great duplicity of conduct, and great ignorance of the subjects on which he had written, and gives the true character of the man, when he says,

Omne animi vitium tanto conspectius in se

Crimen habet, quanto major qui peccat habetur.-JUVENAL, Sat. 8.

+ Vide Letters of Warburton to Hurd, p. 274.

"I did not care to question your Investiture in the high office of Inquisitor-General, and Supreme Judge of the opinions of the learned, which you had so long before assumed, and had exercised with a ferocity and despotism without example in the Republic of Letters, and hardly to be paralleled among the disciples of Dominic; exacting their opinions to the standard of your Infallibility, and prosecuting with implacable hatred every one that presumed to differ from you" *

We will take our leave of Bishop Warburton's writings, by giving, in a few words, Bishop Lowth's opinion of Warburton's voluminous work, The Divine Legation of Moses, demonstrated: "You give yourself out as a Demonstrator of the Divine Legation of Moses this subject you look upon as your exclusive property; by what title I cannot say surely not as first occupier; for the Divine Legation of Moses had been often demonstrated before; and it would be no presumption even in a young student in Theology, to undertake to give a better, that is, a more satisfactory and irrefragable Demonstration of it, in five pages, than you have done in five volumes."-Lowth's Letter, p. 12.

THE WORD OF GOD ILLUSTRATED.

EXPOSITION OF 1 JOHN iii. 9.

Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin.

THE apostle, at the 4th verse, lays down a plain proposition, which is as self-evident as an axiom, and may serve as a key to open and unfold the purport and extent of the doctrine contained in the passage under consideration; and by which the clear distinction between a state of sin and righteousness is ascertained; viz. "Sin is the transgression of the law."

Here we have a broad line of distinction drawn between sin and righteousness: the former being an evident moral defection of the life, when subjected to an infallible rule; the latter, a spiritual affection of the renovated mind, influencing both the heart and life to a conformity to that Divine rule; from a pure principle of love to God and man. Hence the apostle infers, (v. 7,)" He that doeth righteousness is righteous even as Christ is righteous:" the characteristic righteousness of the Christian being the same in kind, though not in degree, is an emanation produced from the Original Source of righteousness, in some such proportion and manner as the glimmering beams which mark the approach of morning, being derived from the sun, are of one nature and essence with him; and do not at all, upon any philosophical principle, partake of the nature of darkness. Hence it appears that the analogy will plainly hold in the

* Lowth's Letter to Warburton, p. 9.

Christian life; since the true believer, who, in right of his title and vocation, is partaker of the spirit of Christ; (Rom. viii. 9,) being partaker of the spirit of Christ, he is partaker of the spirit of holiness; (1 Thes. iii. 13, Heb. xii. 10.) And admitting this, the Divine nature, after which he is formed and fashioned anew (v. 6.) is averse to sin; and of course, he acts upon principles of an irreconcileable contrariety to all unrighteousness; so that it is as easy to unite light and darkness, as to reconcile the real Christian to the love or practice of iniquity.

Here then we arrive, by a fair gradation of sound reasoning, founded on the essential nature and properties of things, to the full and clear sense of the passage under consideration "Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him; and he cannot sin because he is born of God."

:

Nothing, I think, is more common among theologians, than to attempt to lower the standard of Christian holiness here laid down, by glosses, comments, and concessions, which I have neither time nor inclination to notice. I am always conscious that, in many cases, where sin finds a strenuous advocate, the love of sin has not been fully dispossessed from its "strong hold." It should seem, however, the part of prudence never to espouse the suit, nor plead the cause of so mortal an enemy. A just and holy God is implacable to sin: let the traitor then be abandoned, and if possible totally subdued. And why not possible? He bath long since received his death's wound on Mount Calvary ! And my firm belief is, under the infallible authority of St. John, and the whole college of apostles, that if we are "not faithless but believing," God will not suffer such an enemy to abide in our tent: he may for a time tempt and harrass, but he "shall not have dominion over us. (Rom. vi. 14.)

The misfortune seems to have been, that many Christian Divines, who, as such, are worthy of honour, seem, on this point of doctrine, to have erected their own experience as the standard of truth; and it must be acknowledged, that by this way of reasoning, truth is reduced to a low and fallible standard: Whereas they ought to pay a paramount and unbiassed regard to what God hath said; and to the circumstances and cases to which his word referred. Many apply texts to this subject, which primarily referred to a very different state of things from what St. John has here in his eye.-Not distinguishing between a state of nature and a state of grace; between the dispensations of Moses and Christ; between the comparatively dark and inferior state of the Jewish economy, and the luminous era which introduced the heavenly charter and privileges of the Christian Church, they lower the standard of Christianity: whereas they ought to have adverted to the consideration that its true members have the Lord for their king, his Messiah for their law-giver and

intercessor; the "blood of sprinkling" for their purification; and the Holy Spirit for their sanctifier. What good then is too much to be bestowed; what privilege too high to be hoped, in such a state of things as this?

Much hath been argued upon "in-dwelling sin," and "sins of infirmity." That sins of infirmity are attached to human nature, and to the very general state of experience among Christians, is undeniable. But that physical infirmities are not of the nature of sin, every one knows; and it may seem equally agreeable to reason to argue, that there may be many cases of infirmity connected with imperfect knowledge, education, mental debility and affections, which, militating against no laws, human or Divine, are not strictly analogous to the nature of sin. It is very clear, that the perpetration of sin consists in an act of the will; it being a voluntary transgression, under rationality, either of the laws of the realm, the law of nature, or the law of God, which in the final result are all one.

Now here again we arrive, by antithetical reasoning, at a character of sin which is clear and definite, and falls in direct opposition to the true portrait given by St. John of the Christian: "Whosoever is born of God does not commit sin," by any voluntary act, for his seed remaineth in him," a seed of active faith and obedient love, "and he cannot sin because he is born of God." He can no more reconcile a single act, much less a deliberate habit of committing sin, with the holy profession of Christ, than he can blend light and darkness in one united focus. And since it cannot be denied that sin and holiness are morally as irreconcileable, as light and darkness; they, therefore, cannot both hold the empire of the human heart.

Will it be said, that this is a glossary of the doctrines of Mystics and Perfectionists. Let it first be candidly considered, that it is the doctrine of St. John. If the sense meant to be applied to the term "Christian Perfection"--be marked and defined in a rational, sober, scriptural manner; I shall never shrink from the espousal of a doctrine so consistent with the honour of God, and so connected with the peace and happiness of man. It should seem the part of wisdom, "neither to add to, nor diminish from it." At the same time, let me not be understood to sanction and espouse the use of the phrase Christian Perfection, as synonymous with "Sinless Perfection;" which phrase has given offence, and excited jealousies, upon points of orthodoxy, among many Christians; and appears, in its strictly logical application, to be neither scriptural nor appropriate to man. Absolute perfection, being an incommunicable attribute of God, never can be applicable to any other being. In the true sense of the 15th article of our church, "Christ alone (is) without sin." He alone is inherently, pre-eminently, absolutely impeccable. For

when we take into account the whole range of Christian obligations and duties, we may well and truly say, "We are all unprofitable servants:" and estimating the precise limits of the subject after the full extent and spirituality of the Divine laws, which render omissions as well as commissions culpable in God's account; it is most truly and equitably decided that, "In many things we offend all."

That the degree of Christian perfection then, to which St. John seems here to refer, which the text under consideration unequivocally announces, is not the perfection of God; nor yet of an angel; but of a Christian: consisting in a fixed and determined opposition to, and renunciation of all unrighteousness;" and a sincere, and pre-eminent "love of God," and "benevolence to man."

And since it must seem incongruous in a Christian to harbour, or plead for, an enemy, which by his very profession he is pledged to resist, to combat, to hate; it will follow that all sober and scriptural Divines, whether they espouse the doctrine of Christian perfection or not; by whatever terms or phrases they exhibit their ideas on these points, will be found to approximate very nearly to the same thing. They all consider sin a deadly evil; they all strive against it, and look for victory over it; and all ascribe that victory to CHRIST. There is no difference of sentiment on these points in heaven; and there ought to be none on earth. All, then, are agreed as to the end; but many seem to differ about the time when this event is to be completed. Some refer it to the period of death, while others rightly ascribe it to the power and influence of the Divine Spirit during life, in the work of sanctification. It is certain that, "without holiness no man shall see the Lord:" and it is equally certain, that holiness comprises sanctification. And since no time is fixed in God's word for the execution of his purposes and promises of grace, during the term of man's probation; it becomes man not to be wise beyond what is written; or attempt to fix terms and limits to the unbounded mercy and love of God. CLERICUS.

THE WORKS OF GOD DISPLAYED.

VIRTUES OF THE GUACO-PLANT. Copied from the COLONIAL JOURNAL, for March, 1817. It is an observation made by Pliny, (Nat. Hist. lib. 7,) that nature has, in one sense, been more liberal to brutes than to man, by providing the former with natural clothing, and gifting them with sufficient sagacity to know and defend themselves against VOL. XLI. JANUARY, 1818. *F*