adopting for their rule a mixture of law and Gospel, so very different from the Gospel St. Paul preached, that they openly expressed an abhorrence both of his person and writings.

We have an account likewise of some pretended teachers, who opposed the important doctrine of the Resurrection. Some expressly maintained that there was no resurrection; i whom St. Paul confutes at large in his first Epistle to the Corinthians. Others affirmed the resurrection is passed already. Perhaps they pretended that a moral change was designed by the metaphorical expression of a resurrection: the philo sophers had used the word in this sense; and this would be sufficient to gain it admittance with some, who would willingly reconcile their profession to the wisdom of the world. In either way, the very foundations of hope were removed. If this point is denied, the whole system of Christian doctrine falls to the ground, and that dreadful train of consequences must be admitted, which the apostle enumerates: "If there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen, then is our preaching vain and your faith also vain, ye are yet in your sins; then they also who are fallen asleep in Christ are perished." Since the fertile resurrection of ancient mistakes, which is the sin and scandal of the present age, we have been gravely told, that the word signifies no more than the soul's awaking from the long sleep into which they suppose the period we call Death will plunge it; and that the body has no share in the revival, but dies without hope. But we may thank God for the Scripture, which brings comfort where philosophy gives up the cause as desperate. Faith in Christ is so closely con

11 Cor. xv. 12. * 2 Tim, ii. 18. 11 Cor. xv. 14—18.

nected with the doctrine of a resurrection, that it is common with those who oppose the former, to use all their address to explain the latter quite away; and whether they say it is past already, or it will never come, their motives, their design, and their manner of reasoning, are the same.

That there were persons who abused the doctrines of grace, as an encouragement to continue in the practice of sin, may be inferred from the Epistle of St. James, and several passages of the other apostles. Such, in our modern phrase, are styled Antinomians; a name, it must be confessed, of very indeterminate application; it is an epithet which many would fix indiscriminately upon all who preach a free salvation by faith in the blood of Jesus. "If it is all of grace, and we can do nothing of ourselves, if it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy; then we may live as we please, endeavours are useless, and obedience unnecessary." These are the inferences which the unenlightened heart charges as unavoidable consequences from the Gospel doctrine; and from hence we obtain a corroborating proof, that we do not mistake St. Paul's sense, or preach a Gospel different from his, because he foresaw that the same objections would seem to lie against" himself, and he guards and protests against such a perversion," "Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid!" It seems to have been upon this account that he was slandered, and by some affirmed to have taught, "Let us do evil, that good may come,”—that is, in modern language (and such things are not spoken in corners amongst us), "If any man would be a proper subject of what they call m Rom. xi. 6.; 2 Cor. iii. 5.; Rom. ix. 16. Rom. iii. 7.; ix. 19. • Rom. vi. 1.

P Rom. iii. 8.

Grace, let him become still more vile, and plunge into the most atrocious wickedness, for the greater the sinner the better qualified for mercy." We are content to be reproached (as St. Paul was in his time) for the truth's sake; and we would be chiefly concerned for the unhappy scoffers, who, unless God is pleased to give them repentance unto life, will one day wish they had been idiots or lunatics, rather than have vented their malicious wit against the grace and Gospel of the Lord Christ. But it must be allowed we have seen Antinomians in the worst sense of the word, men who have pleaded for sin, and, while they have laid claim to faith, have renounced and blasphemed that holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. We cannot wonder that even candid and well-meaning persons have been greatly prejudiced, and discouraged in their inquiries after truth, by the presumption and wickedness of such pretended Christians. But no period of the church, in which the Gospel doctrine was known and preached, has been free from offences of this sort. It was so in the apostles' days. "There were then many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, who subverted whole houses, teaching things which they ought not; who professed that they knew God, but in works denied him, being abominable and disobedient, and to every good work reprobate;" "who pretended to faith, but were destitute of those fruits which true faith always produces." These are described "as clouds without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, twice dead, plucked up by the roots; raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for James, ii. 14.

a Tit. i. 10, 11.

r Tit. i. 16.

ever:" "sporting themselves with their own deceivings, and beguiling unstable souls."u In opposition to such deceivers it is written, "If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth."w "He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him;"* for " every man that hath this hope in him, purifieth himself, even as he is pure." "The foundation' of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his; and let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity."

St. Paul, writing to the Thessalonians concerning the " man of sin," who was to be fully revealed in the following ages, reminds them, that the mystery of iniquity, though at that time restrained from a full manifestation, did already work; teaching us, that the seeds of that grand apostasy, which at length overspread the whole professing church, were sown, and springing up, at the time of his writing. And he mentions several particulars in his Epistle to the Colossians, such as a voluntary or self-devised humility, in worshipping angels as mediators or intercessors, a dogmatic inhibition of things which God had left free, and a specious scheme of will-worship and mortification, which, under pretence of selfdenial, did really gratify pride, vanity, and selfrighteousness. The progress of our history will show what a harvest of dreadful and wide spreading evils were produced from these principles, until at length the Gospel of Christ was wholly obscured, and the lives and consciences of men w 1 John, i. 6. 2 Tim, ii. 19.

* Jude, 12, 13.

* 1 John, ii. 4.

a

2 Thess. ii. 3-10.

u 2 Pet. ii. 13, 14.
1 John, iii 3.

b Col, ii. 18-23.

were given up to the power of antichrist, who, as god, insolently sat down in the temple of God, and exalted himself above all laws, human and divine. It is sufficient to my purpose, at present, to take notice, that the beginnings of that spiritual infatuation, which so long detained the world in chains, and darkness, and slavery, under the tyranny of the church of Rome, were observable in St. Paul's time, and therefore deserve a place in the list of those pestilent heresies by which the enemy of souls attempted to defile the faith, and disturb the peace, of the primitive church.

Many other things are alluded to, which, for want of authentic records of the first century, we cannot with certainty explain. Besides the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, already mentioned, we read of the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but of the Synagogue of Satan, of them who held the doctrine of Balaam, and of the woman Jezebel, who called herself a prophetess. These were certainly heretics, for our Lord severely rebukes the churches for not opposing them to the utmost; and, as he gives them different names, they probably differed from each other, though their ultimate tendency was the same, to pervert the faith of the bearers, and to introduce licentiousness of practice. The Gospel truth is a doctrine according to godliness, and has a sanctifying influence; for the grace of God teaches all who are partakers of it, to forsake all ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present world. But errors and heresies, in whatever degree they prevail, have a poisonous effect upon those who admit them. Some are calculated to set aside the whole frame of obedience which we owe to our God and Saviour, and the most rec Rev. iii. 9. a Rev. ii. 14, 20. e Tit. ii. 11, 12.