May not this also, my Lords, serve as an answer to our author’s 10th _query_, page 12th. “Whether it be for the service of religion, to discourage people from reading Archbishop _Tillotson_’s Sermons and the _Whole Duty of Man_? to whom our Methodists might have added many more of our best writers after the restoration. For, all these (together with explaining the whole work of our redemption by CHRIST) endeavoured to turn the minds of people to the practice of moral duties, and to cure them of that madness and enthusiasm into which they had been led by the Antinomian doctrines, and others of the like tendency, during the times of anarchy and confusion?” Undoubtedly; for are they not both wrong in their foundation? The latter indeed lays no foundation by justifying faith at all, and therefore may be more properly termed _Half the Duty of Man_; and the former, like our author, contrary to the laws of church and state, makes good works a _condition_ of our acceptance with GOD, and of our being justified in his sight. And though I might have spared my _borrowed comparison_ of putting the Archbishop on a level with _Mahomet_, (for which I ask the public pardon, though perhaps even this confession may be turned to my reproach) yet I can by no means agree with our author in this same _query, page 13th_, that either his Grace, or the author of the _Whole Duty of Man_, explained the whole work of our redemption by CHRIST. For how can that be possibly done, without explaining the doctrine of justification by faith alone? And therefore, whatever good the Archbishop, and many other of our best writers after the Restoration (as this author stiles them) might design by endeavouring “to turn the minds of people to the practice of moral duties, and to cure them of that madness and enthusiasm into which they had been led by the Antinomian doctrines, and others of the like tendency, during the times of anarchy and confusion,” may I not appeal to your Lordships, whether that of the Poet be not too applicable to his Grace, to the Author of the _Whole Duty of Man_, and to writers of that stamp:
_Incidit in syllam, qui vult vitare Charibdin?_
For, is there no way, my Lords, of turning people’s minds to the practice of moral duties, without turning their minds from the doctrine of justification by faith alone, without which, moral duties cannot be acceptable to GOD at all? What is this, my Lords, but, ♦_Pharaoh_ like, to command GOD’s _Israel_ to make brick without giving them straw? And supposing it be true, that the people before the restoration had been led into madness and enthusiasm, by Antinomian doctrines, was there no other way, my Lords, of curing them of this madness, but by preaching down the most fundamental article of the church of _England_, and so by preaching up the doctrine of justification in the sight of GOD, partly _by works_, and partly _by faith_, bring them half way to the church of _Rome_? Do not these itinerants, my Lords, by laying down faith as the foundation, and building the superstructure of universal obedience as the fruit of it thereon, keep a proper medium, and take the most effectual method of preserving people from Antinomianism on the one hand, or madness and enthusiasm, anarchy and confusion on the other? And is not this, my Lords, the constant tenor of their sermons? Do they not first labour to bring people to a real faith in CHRIST as the LORD their righteousness, and then exhort those that believe, to be careful to maintain and shew forth their faith, by a constant uniform performance of all manner of good works?
♦ “Pharoah” replaced with “Pharaoh”
How disengenuous then is this Author’s _9th query_, page 12. “Whether it does not savour of self-sufficiency and presumption, when a few young heads, without any colour of a divine commission, set up their own schemes, as the great standard of christianity: and, how can it be reconciled to christian humility, prudence, or charity, to indulge their own notions to such a degree, as to perplex, unhinge, terrify, and distract the minds of multitudes of people, who have lived from their infancy under a gospel ministry, and in the regular exercise of a gospel worship; and all this, by persuading them, that they have never yet heard the true gospel, nor been instructed in the true way of salvation before: and that they neither are, nor can be true christians, but by adhering to _their doctrines_ and _discipline_, and embracing christianity upon _their schemes_? All the while, for the sake of those schemes, and in pursuance of them, violating the wholesome rules, which the powers spiritual and temporal have wisely and piously established, for the preservation of peace and order in the church.”