stead of loving, God should require us to hate him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and our neighbour likewise?

Gaius. This would require us to be both wicked and miserable; and the idea is sufficient to shock any person of common sense. Crispus. But suppose God were to require us to love him and one another, only in a less degree?

Gaius. That would be the same as requiring a part of our affection, and allowing us to be of a divided heart. Our powers cannot be indifferent: If they are not applied to the love of God and man, they will be applied to something opposite, even the love of the world. But as the love of the world is enmity to God, if this were allowed, it were the same as allowing men, in a degree, to be at enmity with him and each other; that is, to be wicked and miserable.

Crispus. I have several more questions to ask you on this important subject, but shall defer them to another opportunity.

Gaius. Farewell then, Crispus: God grant that this divine law may be found written upon each of our hearts!

Crispus. Amen!

DIALOGUE VII.

ON ANTINOMIANISM.

Crispus. OUR conversation on the moral law has led me to think of some other subjects nearly related to it. I have observed, that many people have been called Antinomians; yet very few call themselves so. What is antinomianism?

Gaius. Enmity, or opposition, to the law of God.

Crispus Are not all men then by nature Antinomians?

Gaius. I believe they are; for the carnal mind is enmity against God: it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed an be.

Crispus. By this passage, it should seem that God and his law. are so united, that a non-subjection to the one is enmity to the other.

Gaius. How should it be otherwise?

The sum of the law is love; and in this case, not to love is to be enmity.

Crispus. All men, however, do not profess to be at enmity, either with God, or his law.

Gaius. True; but many men are very different, you know, from what they profess to be, and even from what they conceive of themselves.

Crispus. I can easily conceive of various wicked characters being enemies to the divine law, whatever they may say in its favour.

Gaius. And have you not observed, that all the different species of false religion agree in this particular?

Crispus. I do not know whether I have sufficiently-To what do you refer?

Gaius. I refer to the different forms in which mankind quiet their consciences, and cherish their hopes, while the love of

God and man are neglected. What is superstition, but the substitution of something ceremonial; something that may be done consistently with a heart at enmity with God, in the place of that which is moral? the tithing of mint and cummin, and various things of the kind, were much more agreeable to the ancient Pharisees, than judgment, mercy, and the love of God. The modern Jews are greatly attached to ceremony; but the shocking indevotion which distinguishes their worship, and the mercenary spirit which too generally pervades their dealings, sufficiently discover their aversion from that law of which they make their boast. Impiety and cruelty are prominent features in the faces of our modern Heathens, with all their refinement; and the same is observable in others who are less refined: gods and weapons of war are to be found in the most barbarous Heathen nations. Ignorant as they are, they have all learned to violate the two great branches of the moral law.* Beads, and pilgrimages, and relics, and all the retinue of Popish ceremonies are but substitutes for the love of God and our neighbour. The formal round of ceremonies attended to by pharisaical professors of all communities is the same. Let an attentive reader examine the system of Socinus, and even of Arminius and he will find them agreed in opposing the native equity and goodness of the moral law. The former claims it as a matter of justice, that allowances be made for human error and imperfection; and the latter, though it speaks of grace, and the mediation of Christ, and considers the gospel as a new, mild, and remedial law, yet would accuse you of making the Almighty a tyrant, if this grace were withheld, and the terms of the moral law strictly adhered to. All these, as well as that species of false religion which has more generally gone by the name of antinomianism, you see, are agreed in this particular. This last, which expressly disowns the moral law as a rule of life, sets up the gospel in opposition to it; and substitutes visionary enjoyments as the evidence of an interest in gospel blessings, in place of a conformity to its precepts. This last, I say, though it professes to be greatly at

* This reflection was made by a friend of mine on visiting The British Museum, and seeing vavious curiosities from Heathen countries; among which were a number of idols and instruments of war.

variance with several of the foregoing schemes, is nearer akin to them than its advocates are willing to admit. If the love of God and man be left out of our religion, it matters but little what we substitute in its place. Whether it go by the name of reason or superstition, religious ceremony or evangelical liberty, all is delusion; all arises from the same source, and tends to the same issue. Good men may in a degree have been beguiled, and for a time carried away with these winds of false doctrine; but I speak of things, and their natural tendencies, not of persons. In short, we may safely consider it as a criterion by which any doctrine may be tried if it be unfriendly to the moral law, it is not of God, but `proceedeth from the father of lies.

Crispus. What you have observed seems very clear and very affecting but I have heard it remarked, that some of these systems naturally attach their adherents to the works of the law.

Gaius. This is very true; but there is a wide difference between an attachment to the law, and an attachment to the works of the law as the ground of eternal life; as much as between the spirit of a faithful servant, who loves his master, loves his family, loves his service, and never wishes to go out free; and that of a slothful servant, who though he hates his master, hates his family, hates his employment, and never did him any real service, yet has the presumption to expect his reward.

Crispus. This distinction seems of great importance, as it serves to reconcile those scriptures which speak in favour of the law, and those which speak against an attachment to the works of it.

Gaius. It is the same distinction, only in other words, which has commonly been made respecting the law as a rule of life, and

as a covenant.

Crispus. Will you be so obliging as to point out a few of the consequences of denying the law to be the rule of life, and representing it as at variance with the gospel?

Gaius. First: This doctrine directly militates against all those scriptures which speak in favour of the moral law, and afford us an honourable idea of it; such as the following:-O how I love thy law!-The law is holy, and the commandment is holy, just, and