The manner of my preaching you seem, page 12. “as much to dislike, and bound to bear a testimony against, as the man himself.” And why? because it is extempore preaching. This, to use your own words, page _ibid._, “We think by no means proper; for that it is impossible that any man should be able to manage any argument with that strength, or any instruction with that clearness in an extempore manner, as he may with study and meditation.” But, Gentlemen, does extempore preaching exclude study and meditation? _Timothy_, I believe, was an extempore preacher, and yet the Apostle advises him to give himself to reading: and I am of _Luther_’s opinion, that study, prayer, meditation, and temptation, are necessary for a minister of CHRIST. Now you say, “Mr. _W――――_ evidently shows, that he would have us believe his discourses are _extempore_.” And so they are, if you mean that they are not written down, and that I preach without notes: but they are _not extempore_, if you think that I preach always without study and meditation. Indeed, Gentlemen, I love to study, and delight to meditate, when I have opportunity, and yet would go into the pulpit by no means depending on my study and meditation, but on the blessed Spirit of GOD, who I believe now, as well as formerly, frequently gives his ministers utterance, and enables them to preach with such wisdom, that all their adversaries are not able to gainsay or resist. This, I think, is so far from being a _lazy manner_ of preaching, and the preacher in doing thus, is so far from offering that which _cost him nothing_, as you object, page _ibid._ that I have generally observed, extempore preachers are the most fervent, laborious preachers, and I believe (at least I speak for myself who have tried both ways) that it costs them as much, if not more close and solemn thought, as well as faith and confidence in GOD, as preaching by notes. And however you are pleased to add, page _ibid._ that this way of preaching “is little instructive to the mind, still less cogent to the reasonable powers,” yet, I believe it is the preaching which GOD hath much honoured, and has been frequently attended with very great success in many ages of the christian church. And if we may pray, I see no reason why we may not preach extempore. The rashness of some of my expressions, as well as the dangerous errors, which you are pleased to say, page 13, have been vented in my extempore discourses, I humbly apprehend, are no sufficient objections against extempore preaching itself; because we often see, that those who preach by notes, and write too, as may be supposed, with study and meditation, are guilty of as rash expressions, and vent as dangerous errors, as those who, you say, preach either without study or meditation. What the dangerous errors are, that have been vented in my extempore discourses, you have not thought proper to specify, unless it be that once or twice through mistake I said, “That CHRIST loves unregenerate sinners with a love of complacency; nay, and that GOD loves sinners as sinners.” These were indeed unguarded expressions; but I recalled it publicly as soon as I was made sensible of my mistake: and I think too before your testimony against me was published. Were these my settled principles, I would agree with you in your enlargement upon it, page 13, “Which, if it be not an unguarded expression, must be a thousand times worse; for we cannot look upon it as much less than blasphemy, and shows him to be stronger in the _Antinomian scheme_, than most of the professors of that heresy themselves.” But as it was only a _lapsus linguæ_, and the whole current of my preaching and writing was, and is directly contrary to such principles, I would not have you, Gentlemen, by thus representing me as an Antinomian, enroll yourselves in the number of those “that make a man an offender for a word, and lay a snare for them that speak in the gate.” Indeed, Gentlemen, I utterly detest _Antinomianism_, both in principle and practice. And though you are pleased to say, “That it is not unlikely, and that it is to be suspected, (that I am an Antinomian) because the expression was repeated; and when he was taxed with it by a certain gentleman, he made no retraction:” yet I did, ♦I thought, what amounted to it: for when he told me of my mistake, (if we understand the same gentleman) I bowed and thanked him for his kind information: as I would willingly do all, who at any time are so kind as to come in the spirit of meekness, to tell me of my faults, and freely converse with me face to face.
♦ removed duplicate “I”