in the day of judgment. But you must also granit us, that if he lives, and turns from his righteoufnefs or, which is the fame, if his faith, inftead of working by love and obedience, works by luft and malice, by adultery and murder, it is no longer a living faith it is the dead faith, of which St. James fays, What does it profit, though a man fay he hath faith, and have not works? Can that faith fuve him? Faith if it hath not works is dead.-You fee then, how that, in what you call the intermediate state, as well as in the last day, by works a man is juftified, and not by faith only. Jam. ii.

Page 6, you affert, that my "favourite fcheme is rather overthrown than fupported by the inftance of the collier," on whofe evidence I fuppofed myself acquitted in a court of judicature.

His teftimony, fay you, proves indeed your innocence, but it does in no degree conftitute him innocent, expreffions of the fame import? Nay, fome believe, that when God juftifics returning prodigals at their converfion, he does not conftitute them innocent, but for Chrift's fake mercifully pardons their manifold fins, and gracioufly accepts their guilty perfons; and that when Chrift fhall juftify perfevering faints in the laft day, he will conftitute them innocent, but only declare, upon the evidence of their laft works, that they are pure in heart, and therefore qualified to fee God, and worthy to obtain that world, where the children of the refurrection are equal to angels.

To fhew that the inftance of the grafted tree overthrows alfo the doctrine of a two-fold juftifi-cation, you quote that great and good man Mr. Hervey. But you forget that his bare affertion is no better than your own. I appeal from both your affertions to the common fenfe of any impar tial man, whether there is not a material difference. between declaring that a CRAB-STOCK is properly. grafted; and pronouncing that an APPLE-TREE is not cankered and barren, but found and fruitful. Mr. Hervey's mistake appears to me fo much the

more

more furprizing, as the diftinction which he explodes, is every where obvious.

now

Look on our orchards, and you will fee fome trees that were once properly grafted, but are blasted, dead, rotten, and perhaps torn up by the roots, Confider our congregations, and you will cry out as the pious * divine under whole miniftry you fit at prefent, "O what fad inftances does the prefent ftate of the church afford us of perfons, who fet out with a moft vehement zeal at the beginning, feemed to promife great things, and carry all before them; who are now like the fnuff of an extinguished taper, devoid of any apparent life! We fwarm with flumbering virgins on the right hand and on the left. The Delilah of this world has fhorn their locks, their former ftrength is gone, their frame is totally enervated, and the Philiftines are upon them."

But above all, fearch the Oracles of God, and there you will fee various defcriptions of apoftates, that is, of men who to the laft, tread under foot the Son of God, and account the blood of the covenant, wherewith they were fanctified, and confequently juftified, a common despicable thing. Thefe, in a dying hour, have no right to fay, I have kept the faith for alas! by putting away a GOOD confcience, concerning faith they have made shipwreck. Thefe, like withered branches of the heavenly vine, in which they once bloffomed, fhall be taken away, caft forth, and burned, in the laft day, together with the chaff, for not bearing fruit, and ending in the FLESH; agreeable to that awful claufe of the golpel charter: The works of the FLESH are adultery, fornication, uncleannefs, idolatry, hatred, variance, wrath, ftrife, envying, murder, drunkennefs, revellings, and fuch like: of which I tell you, juftified believers, as I

*The Rev. Mr. De Courcy, in his "Delineation of true and falfe zeal," a little edifying tract, which does juflice to St. James's pure religion, and hews, that fome pious Calvinifty elearly fee the growth, and honeftly check the progrefs of Antinomia fin, fo far as their principles will allow.

have told you in time paft, that they who DO fuch things SHALL NOT inherit the kingdom of heaven. Thus, the numerous tribes of apoftates, after having been juftified by faith in the day of their conversion, shall be condemned by works in the day of judgment. So real, fo important is the dif tinction, which Mr. Hervey looks upon as needlefs, and you, Sir, as "full of deadly poifon !"

However, fays Bishop Cowper, "This diftinction confounds two benefits, juftification and fanctification." To this affertion, which, according to a grand rule of your logic, is alfo to pass for proof, I anfwer, that our fanctification will no more be confounded with our juftification in the last day, than our faith is confounded with our acceptance in the day of our converfion. When you shall demonftrate, that the witneffes upon whofe testimony a criminal is abfolved, are the fame thing as the sentence of abfolution pronounced by the judge, you will be able to make it appear, that fanctification is the fame thing as juftification in the last day; or, which is all one, that there is no difference between an inftrumental cause, and its proper effect.May both our hearts lie open to the bright beams of convincing truth! And may you believe, that my pen expreffes the feelings of my heart, when I subscribe myself,

Honoured and dear Sir,

Your most obedient Servant in Him,

who will juftify us by our words,

J. F.

ETTER

A

LETTER ILI

To RICHARD HILL, Efq;

Honoured and dear Sir,

N affertion of your's feems to me-of greater moment, than the quotation from Bishop Cowper, which I anfwered in my laft. You maintain (p. 11.) that the doctrine of a two-fold justification is not to be found in any part of the liturgy of our Church.

I. Not to mention again the latter part of St. Athanafius's Creed; permit me, Sir, to afk you, if on the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Sundays after Trinity you never confidered what is implied in thefe and the like petitions? "Grant that we may fo faithfully ferve thee in this life, that we fail not finally to attain thy heavenly promises, through the merits of Jefus Chrift.. -Make us to love that

which thou doft command, that we may obtain that which thou doft promife." Again on St. Peter's day, "Make all paftors diligently to preach thy holy word, and the people obediently to follow the fame, that they may receive the crown of everlafting glory, through Jefus Chrift." And on the Third Sunday in Advent, "Grant that thy minifters may fo prepare thy way, by turning the hearts of the difobedient, that at thy fecond coming to judge the world, we may be found an acceptable people in the fight."

St. James's juftification by works confequent upon juftification by faith, is defcribed in the Service for Afh-Wednesday; "IF from henceforth we walk in his ways; we follow him in lowli

nefs,

nefs, patience, and charity, and be ordered by the governance of his Holy Spirit, fecking always his glory, and serving him duly with thanksgiving."

Then comes the defcription of our final justification, which is but a folemn and public confirmation of St. James's juftification by works,"This if we do, Chrift will deliver us from the curfe of the law, and from the extreme malediction which fhall light upon them that shall be set on the left hand; and he will fet us on his right hand, and give us the gracious benediction of his Father, commanding us to take poffeffion of his glorious kingdom." Commination.

I flatter myself, honoured Sir, that you will not fet thefe quotations afide, by juft faying what you do on another occafion: "As to the quotation you have brought from Mr. Henry in defence of this doctrine, for any good it does your caufe, it might as well have been urged in defence of extreme unction." I hope you will not object, that the WORDS, fecond juftification by works, are not in our Liturgy; for if the THING is evidently there, what can a candid enquirer after truth require more? Should you have recourse to fuch an argument, you will permit me to ask you, what you would fay to those who affert, that the DOCTRINE of the Trinity is not found in the Scripture, because the woRD Trinity is not read there? And the fame answers, which you would give to fuch opponents, I now beforehand return to yourself.

II. As final juftification by the evidence of works is clearly afferted in our Liturgy, fo it is indirectly maintained in our Articles. You know, honoured Sir, that the Eleventh treats of juftification by faith at our converfion; and you yourself very juftly obferve, (p. 11.) "That our Reformers feemed to have had an eye to the words of our Lord-The tree is known (i. e. is evidenced) by its fruit, when they drew up our Twelfth Article, which afferts, that a lively faith may be as evidently known by good works, as a tree difcerned by its fruit." This, ho

noured