detailed, and induftriously circulated, with too evident intentions to pre. judife the public, among whom it foon became the topic of general converfation. You may be fure fuch things never lofe in circulation. The letting of feats in our place of worship for a year had been just intimated, and this affair opportunely ferved to deter the people, and was improved to that purpofe. To vindicate truth, and put it in the power of the public to judge for themfelves, I thought proper to give a fhort view, in the following letters, of the leading difficulties that occur in reconciling the common fyftem to divine truth. Thefe letters I intended to fend to the Editor of a certain magazine, in which the Review of Dr Ryland's Sermon appeared; but, extending beyond my first intention, I determined to fubmit them thus to public inspection, the mode of publishing them being quite immaterial. Truth is the great matter in queftion. Having lately made another excurfion to the Highlands for a few weeks, the communion happening to be in town meantime, which many from different quarters attended, feveral of the pulpits rung with violent declamation against the universal doctrine and its abettors. Both were reprefented in the moft odious light, and the people warned to beware of them, as the most dreadful curfe that can infeft any of the human race, You may be fure he who had the temerity to introduce this exotic plant, would be involved in its condemnation. The minds of the audience were agitated, fome inflamed with indignation, others moved with pity, and not a few excited to treat the idea of limited punishment with ridicule. The concourse of people, from various quarters, carried an account of the matter to distant districts, and excited every where a general inquiry and fpeculation about this diabolic doctrine, as it was reputed. By fuch zeal and induftry, the people are prepared to make it the fubject of future intigation. Much has been faid; but, if I may credit fome of the hearers, little proof offered from Scripture. Some people feem to think they have a right to be believed without proof. One of the affifting minifters, whofe bare word commands the veneration of many, urged, in refutation of the hated doctrine, the words of Mofes to the children of Ifrael, upon the everthrow of the Fgyptians, Thefe your enemies, whom ye have seen to day, ye fhall fee no more for ever. It was branded as the devil's doctrine, or coming from that quarter, though it bears none of his features. Those who abet it were reprefented as rending the Bible in pieces, and atheists at bottom, whatever they may profefs. If well informed, tokens of admiffion to the ordinance were given to feveral, upon exprefs condition of never hearing your correspondent more, as this would be denying the faith, and acting worse than infidels. In judging of your correfpondent's motives and fervice hitherto in preaching the gofpel, and even of his ftate before God, charity found no place: The whole was fet in the very worft light, and afcribed, by fome, to the worst of causes. Are these the fruits of that faith which worketh by love? May our Father in heaven forgive them. Thefe are heavy charges; but mere affertion or declamation furnish no argument or proof, though they often pafs as fuch with fome, in the mouth of those whom they are accustomed to revere as an oracle. Can the fpirit of God fiuence any to judge men or things in direct oppofition to the exprefs injunctions of his word? Does he authorise frail mortals to invade the tribunal of their Judge, and there pronounce on what passes in the recesses of the human heart? This is the province of God alone. Long before one word was spoken of the universal doctrine in public, fome of the feif-conftituted guardians and directors of a rifing generation charged the children, of whom they took the overfight, upon their peril, not to hear me, and threatened to turn off fome of their colleagues from affisting in teaching the fabbath-evening schools, if they did not defift from treading on fuch forbidden ground. No doubt they are the men, and fuch a privilege their monopoly ; but unbridled zeal is no mark of genuine Christianity, which, like its Author, pities and courts thofe that are out of the way. But even admitting the doctrine to be an error, is it of all others the most odious and dangerous? Can these men, who so rail at it, connive at what they themselves deem errors in their own church? Is any attempt to open the gates of mercy on mankind, beyond the narrow bounds of this mortal life, the only fin or error which should find no mercy? One of these gentlemen was heard to afsert to a large audience, that not above one in ten thousand was ordained to eternal life, or would be faved. Which of the two doctrines does moft honour to God and is moft friendly to man? To fuch as think and preach fo, no wonder the doctrine of the Reftoration is obnoxious. Many were the invidious and groundless things that were faid, that deserve not a place on paper :-Strange concomitants of a feast of love! Some of the clergy here, however, fo far as I can learn, took no part in this fray, rightly judging, I fuppofe, truth would main. tain its ground without the aid of fuch weapons. And as for the other, they should remember our Lord's admonition, "Judge not that ye be not judged: For with what judgment ye judge, ye fhall be judged; and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again," Mat. vii. 1. 2. I foon discovered, in the places whither I had gone to preach the gof. pel of Jesus Christ, that word had been fent to the people, intreating them not to hear me for the Lord's fake, for that I was propagating the most damnable herefies. It was whispered among them, that I denied any punishment of the wicked after the day of judgment; that I said Judas would be as happy in the world to come as Peter; and many other things equally unfounded. Having refolved to speak nothing there of the fubject in public, my filence excited their furprife: But I found it necessary to explain myself in private, laying before a few the evidence of the truth, which some received with joy, taking a note of the texts referred to till they could find leisure to examine them. In their Gaelic hymns, which are fanctioned by the authority of the established church, they could foon point out many paffages, which appeared to them to countenance the doctrine. And I appeal to you, and to the reader, if the following pafsages, among others to the fame effect, in the Assembly's hymns, do not clearly convey fuch fentiments. With me dwells no relentless wrath Against the human race : The fouls which I have made fhall find A refuge in my grace. Glad tidings of great joy I bring To you, and all mankind. His gracious hand fhall wipe the tears And pains, and groans, and griefs, and fears, The iron fetters fall; And gladiome light and liberty But univerfal nature prove Thefe mighty zealots, who discover fuch paftoral care for the poor peo-. ple, have not traveled into their bounds to give them one fingle fermon, though their lack of true knowledge is very great. The laws of men, which forbid this, feem to weigh more with them than the law of God, which commands it; and yet they profefs to be zealous for the purity of his truth. One of the people who was here at the communion, remarked, Your return, Sir, to Gk is like a man going into a garden full of bees, or putting his head into a bee-hive; fuch is the odd ferment among the people. Their mode of procedure, however, has lefs honey than poifon. If men are confcious they are defending a good caufe, why have recourse to Satan's magazine for weapons? Truth must reject their aid. We are told that Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil about the body of Mofes, durft not bring against him a railing accufation; and furely they who believe the univerfal doctrine are entitled to as much civil ufage from fellow men as that adverfary. May we not apply the exclamation of the Latin poet in another cafe, of which I give almost a literal verfion, making free to fill up the couplet. In heavenly minds can fuch fierce paffions dwell? Laft Lord's day the audience were refpectable, and in the evening, throng, notwithstanding all the thunders from the vatican. I felt my mind not a little imprefsed at the beginning of the fervice; but integrity and truth are a valuable fhield, fword, and buckler. May the Lord grant mercy to be faithful to the end, and caufe his truth to triumph. It is no bad fign of the truth of a doctrine when it makes manifeft the latent corruptions of the heart, and produces effects fimilar to thofe of the gofpel at its first promulgation. Some who would be thought pious zealots for truth, are often heard fcoffingly to fay, " O, we may now fin as we pleafe, we'll foon get out of hell!" What idea can thefe men have of their Ma-, ker, who can thus fneer at the terrors of his wrath, if their antichriftian views of it are not retained? But they think they are pleading the cause of religion, and that their intemperate zeal will cover a multitude of fins, and procure a pafsport for heaven, without once tafting of the second death. It is not a little remarkable, that both profefsors and profane are equally hoftile in general to the doctrine. In my little intercourse with mankind, I could not help fometimes wondering how fuch crooked, rough, knotty pieces of timber, as many of them are, could be formed into vefels of honour, fitted for the mafter's ufe. And indeed many, under a fmoother furface, are equally diftant from fuch a change; for though polished as marble, yet are they alfo like marble hard; but to God all things are poffible. It is eafy to give ill names to perfons and things; the bleffed Author of truth has had his own fhare of this ufage, and truth itself has often passed through the fame ordeal. Peter speaks of the restitution of all things, the great truth contended for; but instead of calling it by that name, many brand it with the most odious epithets, fuch as the doctrine of devils, and the like. I would not trouble you, dear Sir, or the reader, with these things, to which many more of a fimilar nature might be added, were it not that they serve, in my opinion, along with what has been experienced by others, to place the nature of that oppofition which is ufually given to the doctrine of univerfal restoration, and its defenders, in a triking light. Whatever proceeds from God carries its own conviction along with it, and it is little, if at all fhort of blafphemy, to father on him the wild effufions of intemperate zeal. Thefe may impofe upon fuperficial obfervers, and procure their authors reputation for doing God eminent fervice; but we have an unerring rule by which to try them, to which we do well to give heed. The native effects of zeal without knowledge, or of a party spirit, partake too much of the nature of briars and thorns, to be mistaken for what they are not. Our Lord's rule in all fuch cafes is, "Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thiftles." The spirit of the Lord, which is a fpirit of love and peace, never moves men to a conduct forbidden in his word; and to pretend he does, is lying on the Holy Ghoft. When the enemy comes in like a flood, he lifts up the ftandard of truth in the word, and not that of invective, mifreprefentation, and uncharitable cenfures, which are not of the Father, but of the evil one, who was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth. Such oppofition to any doctrine that has fo much to fupport it in facred writ, instead of stumbling, fhould rather serve to confirm us in the truth of it; for fimilar was the oppofition to the word of God in the mouth of our blessed Saviour, and his apostles, and that from thofe who were reputed the most religious of the age. Of our Lord himself fome faid "He is a good man; others, nay, but he deceiveth the people. He has a devil, and is mad, why hear ye him?" And when Paul came to touch the leading prejudice of his audience, the cry was, "Away with fuch a fellow from the earth, it is not meet that he should live." If we find mercy to copy fuch examples, we may lay our account with fimilar treatment, while human nature remains in its present state. Some think it a crime in a minifter of the gospel, of which he has as much reafon to be ashamed as of theft or adultery, to add to his faith the knowledge and profeffion of any point in religion that he did not formerly fee and profefs; but the wisest and best of men have been of a different mind. One of three things which that eminent reformer Luther thought necefsary in a minister of the gofpel is. That he be always learning. And the faying of a certain heathen is worthy, in my opinion, of being adopted as a Chriftian maxim, Life's eve I fpend in learning fomething new." Our Lord faid to his difciples, " Every fcribe which is inftructed unto the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, who bringeth forth out of his treasure things new, and old,” Matth. xiii. 22. Are the mines of divine truth yet exhaufted, that this fhould ceafe to be the duty and the privilege of any gofpel minifter? But Chriftians are now grown fo wife, (I wish it be not merely in their own conceits) that they feem to think there is nothing new left for them to learn, and that they are already mafters of all the myfteries of the kingdom of heaven. The veffel which Peter faw in vifion defcending from the opened heaven to the earth, like a great sheet, knit at the four corners, contained all manner of four footed beafts of the earth, and wild beafts, and creeping things, and fowls of the air; and with all thefe was received up again into heaven, Acts x. What a reprefentation have we here, inftructing us, that as all things are from God as Creator, so they shall all be restored to him again; and if the voice of divine truth from heaven, more than twice or thrice, call them thus clean, who has a right to pronounce them common or unclean? "What God has cleanfed, that call ye not common," left ye be found contradicting your Maker. Here God fpeaks as to our eyes and ears, and the import of his fymbolic language is not hard to be understood, if the word of truth at large is allowed to be the interpreter. Difficulties there are, and will be found in Scripture, even by the most learned and intelligent; and, every thing confidered, is this furprifing? But the chief, if not the fole difficulties that occur in expounding the doctrinal parts of Scripture, arife, I may venture to affert, from the liberties unhappily taken with the plain language in which our heavenly Father addreffes his children. In order to understand that language, as commonly explained, we must study fome famed human fyftem, or refign our judgment to the guidance of thofe who profefs they have done fo, and acquired licence to be the public inftructors of others. Thefe privileged guardians and directors of our faith, and their admirers and abettors, block up the highway to heaven with fo many turnpikes, at which we muf give up our reafon, and our right and duty of examining and judging for ourfelves the grounds of our faith, for a ticket entitling us to purfue our journey heavenward. In our nation turnpikes require an act of Parliament fanctioned by royal authority; but thefe turnpikes are establifhed in direct oppofition to the royal law of liberty revealed in the oracles of truth, which makes it the duty and privilege of every man to fearch the facred records for himself, and receive and profefs whatever he believes in his confcience, upon mature enquiry, and humble prayer to the Father of lights, and dependance on him, to have his mind and will therein revealed. Be the points of a man's faith what they may, if not thus acquired, they bring neither glory to God, nor falvation to himself. Eut implicit faith, or believing as the church believes, and for that reafon, has been always highly efteemed among men, though an abomination in the fight of God; and that faith which he highly efteems is too often reputed execrable by the wife and prudent in Ifrael, who will not learn at Chrift's fect, unless fome brother fage be admitted as the authoratative interpreter of his words. Having new get Dr Ryland's famed fermon into my poffeffion, I interded to offer a few farther remarks upon it; but having already encreached too far, and learning that a review of it will be published in |