ADVERTISEMENT.

THE letter to which the following is an answer, was not directed to the author, but to a friend of his, and of his principles with respect to the subject of this letter.  It was handed to the author, and a desire expressed, that he should offer an observation or two upon the subject.  A short time after this, death removed him, from the controversies and abodes of mortals, to conduct him to the rest that remains for the people of God; and for any thing that appeared, to the disappointing of the expectation of his friends.  But amongst other papers found after his decease, the following was one, and appears to have been nearly the last of the work of his generation which he had to accomplish.  Had the author designed this letter for the public, and lived to revise it, it would, no doubt, have received such a polish, which his masterly pen was sufficient to bestow upon it, as would have rendered it much more acceptable.  But as it is, it needs no apology.  The light which it casts upon the subject it contains, is a sufficient recommendation of it to the lovers of truth.  That it may yield satisfaction to his friends, and conviction to his adversaries, is the earnest desire of the

PUBLISHERS.

DEAR SIR,

ALTHOUGH, to me, your letter on Christian perfection is a matter of lamentation, it is not a matter of surprize; it is a natural effect flowing from the legal spirit of an Arminian.  That I am justified in calling you an Arminian is clear, both from your own doctrine, and from the open avowal of your party, who glory in the name of Arminians.

A few words are not sufficient to strike a sufficient blow at the soul-infatuating doctrine of your “ideal perfection;” and therefore I hope you will bear with me in taking such a broad view of the subject as I may judge most likely to carry conviction to your never-dying soul.  That I may, as far as possible, avoid the confusion into which you evidently run yourself, I shall endeavour to cast into a few distinct observations, what I have to say of your letter, and its connection with your Popish scheme of perfection; which I am fully convinced is another gospel, distinct from and contradictory to that which was taught by our Lord and his apostles.

Our first enquiry shall be to ascertain what you mean by “Christian perfection.”  And for my part, sir, I can form no idea, from your letter, what you mean by it.

You tell me frequently through your letter, that your perfect Christian is a man “who may, a considerable time, nay absolutely must have arrived at such a state that he will commit no sin; that he will perfectly keep the commandments of God; and that if this is not his case, he cannot expect to see God in mercy.”  I believe every word of this to be false—unfounded in the word of God—an awful delusion of satan—and calculated to produce the most fatal slumber in the immortal soul.  And without much reasoning on the absurdity of this proud self-righteous boasting, I shall just ask you a few questions on your own scheme.

Question 1. How long before a man’s death must he be perfect?  You say it must be before death; is it ten minutes, ten days, ten years, or how long?  How long before death was the thief on the cross arrived at methodistical perfection?

Question 2. What do you mean by Christian perfection?  You say in page first of your letter, it is a living a considerable time of life without sin; but in page second, you say it is not a paradisical perfection you mean.  Why, good sir, this is to me quite paradoxical.  What kind of a perfection do you suppose it was which our father and mother had in paradise?  Did they do any thing more than keep the whole law without breach of it in either thought, word, or deed?  It would seem then, with all the pride John Wesley has taught you, you tremble to tell God to his face that you can live without sin in thought, word, and deed.

Question 3. Do you maintain that from the first moment of {2} conversion a man must be without sin, or do you allow that it is a matter which he only arrives at by degrees?  If it be the former, what is the reason that we see so many methodistical saints sinning, like other people, so long in this life?  If it be the latter, why do you make such a mighty out-cry about the Calvinistic doctrine, as if it encouraged men to sin by maintaining the imperfection of grace in this life?  Seeing it would seem you grant sin may dwell many years, and how near even the hour of death, you have not told us, even in a disciple of [John] Wesley or [John] Fletcher.

Question 4. What do you mean by keeping God’s commandments?  Do you mean by keeping them, that a believer has a respect to them all?  So do I.  Do you maintain that it is his resolution to write a fair copy of that law in his heart, words, and actions?  So do I.  Do you believe that every day it is his study to do the whole will of God?  So do I.  Do you believe he comes long before death, to such a degree of exactness that he may boldly say, now I lack nothing?  I believe this to be most damnable presumption.

Question 5. What are the marks by which you know when you have arrived at the point of your perfection?  This is a very essential part of the business, as the course of your devotions must then much vary.  In place of bewailing your corruption you must admire your perfection.  In place of wrestling by prayer for victory over sin, you will thank God you are not like this publican. [Luke 18.11.]

Question 6. Can you produce any saint in scripture who ever hinted that he loved God as well as he ought to love him?  That he desired to be no holier than he then was?  No; such cursed impudence was far from their heart, and far from their tongue.  Not a trace of any such thing is to be found about the most exalted.  But, sir, this is your case, if I understand any thing of the meaning of language.  Oh! to what a height will the Luciferian pride of the human heart rise, when it is not subdued by the humblings of the spirit of all grace.

Question 7. Have you ever duly considered the difference between negative and positive righteousness?  It would seem from the whole scheme of Popish, and methodistical and Moravian perfection, that this was not much in the eye of these ideal perfectionists.  Because they do not commit such outward aggressions as would subject them to censure, they vainly dream of perfection.  Let them consider that unless their perfection exceeds that of the scribes and pharisees, they will never enter the kingdom of heaven. [Matt. 5.20.]

Question 8. As you, sir, in your second page, profess to teach me the true meaning and light of the spirit, I desire you would let me know the precise ideas you annex to 1 John 3.9. [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.]  And I am the more earnest on this subject, as it is a turning point {3} with you, ever in your mouth, and in the mouth of your party.  What do you mean by sin in that text?  Is it the sin against the Holy Ghost, or such sins as believers may commit through infirmity of the flesh?  What do you understand by the word commit?  This word is used in many different senses in scripture; it is however understood in two senses in relation to our controversy.  In Leviticus 5.15, “If a soul commit a trespass and sin through ignorance, then he shall bring his offering to the Lord,” &c.  Here the word is expressive of doing things contrary to the divine law through infirmity of nature, but not with malicious intention.  In Jer. 2.13, the word is expressive of malicious design: “My people committed two evils: They have forsaken me and hewed out to themselves cisterns,” &c.  Now, sir, in which of these senses do you understand the apostle John speaking; if in the first sense, we deny it: and in that sense it would evidently be as much against yourself as against me.  Do you not grant that David committed sin after regeneration: Yea, do you not grant that multitudes of John Wesley’s disciples commit sin after what you call their conversion?  Surely you cannot deny it, when you argue up the abominable doctrine that a man may be called a child of God today, and a child of the devil tomorrow, and the next day a child of God again.  For surely a man will be apt to commit some sin when he is a child of the devil.  If it be in the latter sense you understand the words, I am agreed; but in that sense they are nothing to your purpose.

Question 9. You say none but the pure in heart shall see God.  So do I.  But who told you that a man could not be pure in heart, and also subject to the remainder of corruption.  I believe Paul was a much greater saint than you are, and yet he understood this mystery.  Rom. 7.25, “So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.”  Again, who told you that it was essentially necessary to the seeing of God in glory, that a man should be absolutely able to say on good grounds, a considerable time before his death, that he was as holy as he could desire, and would now wish to be no holier?  Will it not do if we are complete in Christ by justification in the day of our union to him; and if we are a rendering more and more pure, until at last in the hour of death our victory is made complete by the spirit of all grace?  But, sir, there is no doubt with me but the cursed leaven of self-righteousness is at the bottom of all this.  Your arch leader, Wesley, has taught that men are no more justified than they are sanctified; — if this be your notion indeed, it will depend on you to try to get yourselves justified some time before death: but as for me, I as much believe the alcoran of Mahomet as I believe a syllable of this {4} heresy.  I believe justification [is] an act done instantly in God’s day of sovereign grace, purely for the sake of Christ.  I believe sanctification a work carried on progressively until it is finished, not before death as you [warmly] insinuate, but at death as the terminating point ordained by God for the complete deliverance of his children from their last enemy.  Sin is the cause of death, and both cause and effect will cease together.  Christ carried sin to death by imputation, and could not enter into his rest, until in the very act of dying, he got it off his shoulders; and then he instantly entered paradise, with the redeemed thief in his train: And what absurdity is there in supposing that a believer may stand on similar ground in respect to sin inherent.  The law declares that a minor should not enter on his estate until the day of maturity; must he therefore be at maturity 10, 20, or 30 years before he is at maturity?

Question 10. When you say we teach that a man may and must live in sin, do you know that you are acting the part of the accuser of the brethren?  If by may you understand what the law allows us; if by must you mean what we allow as a duty, you know in your conscience, you are a false accuser.  We shall set you to contend with Paul on this subject; hear him if you will not hear me; Rom. 7.21, “I find a law that when I would do good evil is present with me; for I delight in the law of God after the inward man; but I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.”  And to this agrees the experience of every true saint this day on earth; all others are either knaves or fools, even should Wesley and Fletcher be in their train.

Question 11. When you say you believe as much as I do that we are indebted to the free grace of God in Christ for salvation and eternal life, what do you mean?  For my part, on methodist principles, I am at a loss to know what you mean; and you either are not a methodist of John Wesly’s fraternity, or your views of grace are very low indeed.  Read Abraham Booth’s Reign of Grace, and if you believe the doctrine there laid down, you will blush to the last day of your life that you ever raked so deeply in the dunghill of Arminianism.  Is it not to your own free will that you sacrifice in accepting Jesus?  Do you not rest it merely on the will of man, whether we begin, carry on, or crown with success, the work of our redemption?  When a methodist comes to heaven, were any of them ever to come there, he would, on his own principles, easily and speedily turn grace out of doors.  When that question would be put to him, “Who made thee, O man, to differ,” [1 Cor. 4.7,] he might instantly answer, “My own free will made me to differ.”  I will venture to prove, in the face of {5} the sun, that this is a native consequence from methodistical principles; and is this thy kindness to thy friend grace.  Indeed free grace has no such proud boasters in her train; to them all she says, “get ye hence, I know you not.”

Question 12. What do you mean when you tell me the grace of God has appeared to every man, but that we are not forced: and accordingly grieve the spirit, and so perish?  All this, if justly and evangelically understood, might admit of a just construction.  But from the mouth of an Arminian, and in their perverted sense of Christ’s oblation and the spirit’s operation, is gross absurdity.  On this head let me further ask you, did Christ die equally for all the sins of all men without exception?  Why then are not all saved?  You say because they will not come to Christ?  Is this unwillingness to come to Christ a sin or is it none?  If a sin, was it satisfied for?  Why then should it stand in the way more than any other?  If it was not satisfied for, how then can you say that all sins were satisfied for?  Or will you say some of their sins were satisfied for, but not all?  How then did Christ, by one offering, for ever perfect them that are sanctified? [Heb. 10.14.]  And is this your tribute to free grace?  Alas! if you are one of her friends she has sorely suffered in your house.  We believe that all the father gave the son shall come unto him. [John 6.37.]

When you come to your expository work, you are at your old authority, 1 John 3.9, “He that is born of God cannot commit sin.”  Now, sir, although I have already cut you out work on this text, I will cut you out some more.  And for the moment granting that the meaning is that no regenerate person sins any more after regeneration, I have a

13th Question to ask you.  Of what use is this text to your purpose?  You grant that after regeneration many of you sin, and only get on to perfection after much exertion; then, according to this text your regeneration must have been only imaginary; for had it been real, you would not have committed sin; and indeed it is much to be doubted [questioned whether] this has most commonly been the case from the days of John Wesley to the present hour of our new falling down conversions.  But even placing your argument on this text on the most favorable ground you can wish, of what avail is it to you?  Suppose one of your senseless perfectionists to be arrived at his meridian, you admit he may even fall from grace, and become a child of the devil.  How can this be?  The text says, he that is born of God cannot sin; how then did it come that your son, born of God, did commit sin, seeing the text says such cannot commit sin?  It is clear then that either your supposed sons, who fall from grace, were never sons, or else that this text has some other meaning than you annex to it; and perhaps both these things are true.  But I have not done with this {6} most abused text of holy writ.  I mean to hold your dim eyes a little moment longer at its light, if peradventure God may give you repentance for all the violence you have committed against it: admitting for a moment the imaginary doctrine of perfection to be true, (whereas it is grossly false,) How then does your perfectionist become a child of the devil, as you allow is sometimes the case?  When he was perfect there was neither sin imputed nor inherent attaching to him while he continued in that state; how then did he come to sin, even to sin himself into a state of damnation, while his seed remained in him?  You say he could not sin; had his seed then forsaken him before he could sin?  But if his seed of grace forsook him before he sinned, why did it forsake him, he still continuing in his perfection?  This would be to suppose that either God took away grace while the man was walking in perfect holiness; or else that the man cast away his own seed of grace; yet being holy, that a way might be prepared for his committing sin; i.e. a holy man, perfectly so, and in that capacity destroyed the seed of grace in his heart, that he might have an opportunity of committing sin.  Alas! that ever any of the human family who have heard the joyful sound of salvation should ever be left to pervert the sacred oracles at such a rate!  I beseech you, sir, by all that should be dear to men, that you consider this matter with seriousness.

Question 14. When you are commenting on Eccl. 7.20, [For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not,] on which you have not uttered a word to the purpose, you conclude by saying that we teach that men must live in sin in spite of all the power that God can exert to the contrary.  Do you not know that there is in this saucy taunt blasphemy against God and truth, and calumny against his church?  Where, I ask you, has God any where promised that he will do all he can to have sin removed a considerable time before death, out of the souls of his children?  Is the power of God the only attribute of his nature that he discovers in bringing many sons to glory?  You may as well say that because God has said that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven, therefore we must put off this mortality a considerable time before we go to heaven; and then you will perhaps in the interval send us to purgatory to get your Christian perfection.  The truth of this matter is, God exercises justice, mercy, love, sovereignty, wisdom, faithfulness, and long-suffering, as well as power, about his church; and all these are displayed in suffering the remains of indwelling sin to exercise the faith, patience, and self-abasement of his saints during their stay in this world.  Who doubts but in point of power God might as well have created the world and all its hosts in a moment as in six days, but his wisdom saw meet it should be otherwise.  God, in point of power, could have crushed satan’s {7} interest in the world, and redeemed his church from all evil long since, had such a plan comported with the mystery of his counsels.  Who then art thou, O man, that repliest? [Rom. 9.20]

You have in your remarks on James 3.2, entirely yielded the point, for you there confess that even the most upright offend in many things; but how can this be, if those who are born of God cannot sin?

In your remarks on Matth. 26.72,74, you are even worse than childish.  You say Peter’s cursing was no evidence against your doctrine; and that for this memorable reason, that he did not go on cursing, but had doubtless many weeping spells for it.  But sir, let me tell you, this is not like a man that could enlighten me or any other man in the scriptures, as you pretend to do.  Observe that the use for which this text was produced, was to shew from the examples of the greatest saints, and even of those who still continue united to Christ, that they actually do commit sin; and that therefore there must be some other sense in that text, 1 John 3.9, than your mistaken scheme will allow.  Besides, this was not the only instance of sinning imputable to Peter; he was long afterwards guilty of such dissimulation as drew on him sharp reproof from Paul.  And if such was the case of this eminent man, we have little reason to expect saints among the methodists of a mere perfect mould.  You justly, though weakly, add that this text does not prove any thing but our frailty when left to ourselves.  Could you always continue to say nothing worse than this, you and I would have few disputes.

In your remarks on Job 9.20, [If I justify myself, mine own mouth shall condemn me: if I say, I am perfect, it shall also prove me perverse,] you have left the argument untouched, and have taken no notice of the severe reprimand that God gives Job for his rashness in the time of his affliction, and only wrap yourself up in that undefined word, perfect or perfection, concerning which I grant every believer is perfect in parts; as it is said of Moses, he was a perfect child, but not in degrees; and so it could not be said of Moses he was a perfect man, neither can it be so said of us, until we arrive at the state of perfect men in Christ, when death is swallowed up in victory. [1 Cor. 15.54.]

In your remarks on Phil. 3.12, you have fairly yielded the point in express words.  1. You grant that when Paul penned that, he was not perfect.  This then proves that Paul committed sin, or in other words, was not made perfect, after he had been 30 years a disciple of Christ.  2. You think it likely that he afterwards obtained perfection, but you are not sure.  All you guess from is because he said he had run the race, fought the fight, and kept the faith, and so had assurance of God’s love, peace of conscience, and joy in the Holy Ghost, which you say is what constitutes your Christian perfection. {8}  Strange!  And in very deed is it come to this, sir, that you have at last let go your darling idol? Who ever denied that believers might attain these things in this life, and yet be far short of sinless perfection?  But I am more and more convinced you know not what you say, nor whereof you affirm when you talk of this charming fancy.

The last text you think proper to remark on, is Rom. 3.9,10; and in your close you have these remarkable words, “This text does not prove that there is none made righteous through the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, imputed to them, and received by faith alone.”  On these memorable words let me observe, that no Calvinist ever thought that these words ever proved any such thing.  2. It is not, sir, about the imputation of Christ’s righteousness that any part of this dispute is concerned; and were you sound in the faith on that article, it is likely you would hold better principles about the business in hand.  We will readily grant that all believers are complete in Christ from the moment of union with him in point of justification: but it is about the imparted holiness which is wrought gradually in our hearts by the Holy Spirit that the whole of this controversy is engaged; which we say shines more and more unto the perfect day. [Prov. 4.18.]

Sir, if heresy be a work of the flesh, was there even such a thing as perfection in this life, methodists have but a poor claim to it, as they have much debased our holy religion in many of its essential articles.  Many large volumes would not contain the blasphemy which has, for better than 60 years, been vented against the doctrine of election alone, by Wesley and his followers; not to say anything of their false doctrines on original sin—the efficacy of grace—freedom of the will—the extent of Christ’s death—the nature of faith, of justification and sanctification—the perseverance of the saints and their Christian perfection.[1]

Although, sir, I may seem sharp, I bear you no personal ill will, I wish you may be saved in the day of the Lord, whilst I earnestly pray your idols may be cast to the moles and bats. [Isa. 2.20.]  If you take any notice of this letter, answer my questions distinctly, and then I promise if any thing is a-wanting, to add many arguments from scripture to overturn your dagon.

I believe it one of the most dangerous pieces of presumption that ever any of Adam’s family fell into, as it cuts off the soul from using nay of God’s means for the purpose of changing the soul from dead works, or perfecting holiness in the fear of God; and is so far from being an enemy to sin, that it locks up the strong man, armed to keep the house, until the hour of the midnight cry.

I am, &c. &c.

Footnotes:

1. To be distinct about these doctrines, the Wesleyan Methodists corrupted and effectively denied the Biblical doctrine of Original Sin, contradicted and denied the Efficacy of God’s grace, and asserted such a Freedom of the Will which gave to man an autonomy in his conversion and corresponding invasion of the glory of God in the work of man’s salvation.  Further, they dreamed that the extent of Christ’s death or work of redemption was equal towards all men, though not all men are saved thereby; they corrupted the Biblical doctrine concerning the nature of saving faith, and the doctrines of justification and sanctification.  Lastly, as has been common with Arminians through many centuries, they denied the perseverance of the saints, and advocated the ridiculous paradox that men could attain to a real moral perfection, from which they might yet fall away, as addressed in the foregoing letter.  With all of these things so much concerning the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and his glory as our Redeemer, it can be little wonder that the above author would speak in words which might, as he says, seem sharp.—JTK.