his regularity, and make a jeft of his precifeness. And thinking no man can be good, because they are naught, and that all muft needs fall by thofe temptations they will not refift, they conftrue fobriety to be a trick to decoy mankind, and put a cheat upon the world. If they hear any one fay, Such a man is a fober and juft perfon,' they have learned, by themselves, to call him knave; that he has a defign upon fomebody, by being just in little things, to cheat in things of more moment. This man is very unfashionable among men of immoral principles; for his very looks and life carry a reproof with them upon vicious men, who, as if virtue were their common enemy, are in combination against the lovers and entertainers of her: the reason is, because such true virtuofo will neither do the ill things they would have them, nor flatter them in the ill they do; and therefore where ill men have the power, good men are fure to be made the common enemy.

But the reproaches that men of morality receive at the hands of lewd men, are more their honour than their fuffering: that which is most of all anxious, is, that Morality is denied to be Chriftianity; that virtue has any claim to grace; and that those who glory to ' be called Chriftians, can be fo partial and cruel as to renounce a mere just man their fociety, and fend him packing among the heathen for damnation.' And pray what is the matter? Why! though this person be a fober liver, yet he is but a general believer; his 'faith is at large. It is true, he believes in God, but I hear little of his faith in Christ. Very well, does he not therefore believe in Chrift? or muft he therefore be without the pale of falvation? Is it poffible that a man can truly believe in God, and be damned? But as he that believes in Chrift, believes in God, so he that believes in God, believes in Chrift: "For he that "believes on him that raised up Jefus from the dead, " his faith fhall be imputed to him for righteousness," and fays Chrift himself: "He that believeth my word, " and believeth on him that fent me, hath everlasting VOL. IV.

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"life:"

"life" has he that believes in God no intereft in this expreffion? But more particular is that place of the apostle to the Hebrews, viz. "For he that cometh "to God, muft believe that he is, and that he is a re"warder of them that diligently feek him." Now if those who fo believe can come to God, the moral man's condition is not dangerous, even in the ftricteft fenfe of the word; not only fuch as have a general faith of Christianity, and never adhered to any particular party, (a fense we shall anon confider) but even those who never heard the hiftory of Chrift, nor had a distinct knowledge of him, as we profefs him.

For it seems a moft unreasonable thing, that faith in God, and keeping his commandments fhould be no part of the Chriftian religion: but if a part it be, (as upon serious reflection who dare deny it?) then those before and fince Chrift's time, who never had the external law nor history, and have "done the things contained " in the law, their confciences not accufing, nor hearts "condemning, but excufing them before God," are in fome degree concerned in the character of a true Chriftian. For Chrift himself preached and kept his Father's commandments, and came to fulfil, and not to destroy, the law; and that not only in his own perfon, but "that the righteousness of the law might be alfo fulfilled in us."

Let us but foberly confider what Chrift is, and we fhall the better know whether moral men are to be reckoned Christians. What is Chrift, but meekness, justice, mercy, patience, charity, and virtue in perfection? Can we then deny a meek man to be a Chriftian; a just, a merciful, a patient, a charitable, and a virtuous man to be like Chrift?" By me kings reign, and princes "decree juftice," faith wifdom; yea, the "wisdom "that is from above;" fo may I fay here, By Christ men are meek, juft, merciful, patient, charitable, and virtuous;' and Chriftians ought to be diftinguished

by their likeness to Chrift, and not their notions of Chrift; by his holy qualifications, rather than their own lofty profeffions and invented formalities. What shall we fay then of that extravagancy which those men are guilty of, who, upon hearing a fober man commended, that is not of any great visible profession, will take upon them to caft him off from this fentence; Tufh! he is but a moral man; he knows nothing of faving grace; he may be damned for all his morality.' Nay, fome have gone fo far, as to fay and preach, if not print, That there are thousands of • moral men in hell.'

f

But it is worth our while to confider, that he that fins is not faved by grace in that ftate, and that the virtuous man is the gracious man; for it is the nature and end of true grace to make men fo. Unanswerable is that paffage of the apoftle to the Romans, "Therefore if the uncircumcifion keep the righteouf"nefs of the law, fhall not his uncircumcifion be "counted for circumcifion? And fhall not uncircum"cifion, which is by nature, if it fulfil the law, judge "thee, who by the letter and circumcifion doft tranf

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grefs the law? For he is not a Jew, who is one out

wardly, neither is that circumcifion, which is out"ward in the flesh; but he is a Jew, which is one in"wardly, and circumcifion is that of the heart, in the "fpirit, and not in the letter, whofe praise is not of "men, but of God." So that he who keeps the law of God, and abstains from the impurity of the world, is the good man, the juft liver; he is the apoftle's true Jew and circumcifion.

Wherefore it is not ill expreffed by that extraordinary man J. Hales of Eton: The moral man,' fays he, is a Chriftian by the furer fide:' as if he had faid, Speculations may fail, notions be mistaken, forms wither, but truth and righteoufnefs will ftand the teft; and the man that loves them will not be moved. tells us, That the fathers had that opinion of the

£ Rom. ii. 26, 27, 28, 29,
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• fincerity

fincerity of the life of fome heathens, that they be lieved God had in ftore for fuch even his faving grace, and that he would make them poffeffors of his everlasting kingdom.' And measuring your fatisfaction by the pleasure I took in reading what the author both quotes and comments upon this fubject, I will venture to transcribe him at large, whofe authority ought to go as far as his reason, and he claims no more; nor indeed does any reasonable man, fince God himself feems to fubmit to that method of overcoming us, to wit, conviction, viz.

* Let it not trouble you,' faith he, that I intitle them to fome part of our Chriftian faith, and there'fore without fcruple to be received as weak, and not to be cast forth as dead. Salvianus difputing what faith is; Quid eft igitur credulitas vel fides ? faith, • Opinor fideliter bominem Chrifto credere, id eft, fidelem Deo effe, hoc eft, fideliter Dei mandata fervare. What might this faith be?' faid he, I fuppofe it is nothing elfe, but faithfully to believe in Chrift; and this is to be faithful unto God; which is nothing else • but faithfully to keep the commandments of God. Not • therefore only a bare belief, but the fidelity and ⚫ truftinefs of God's fervants, faithfully accomplishing the will of our mafter, is required as a part of our 'Chriftian faith.

Now, all thofe good things which moral men by the light of nature † do, are a part of God's will written in their hearts: wherefore fo far as they were ⚫ confcientious in performing them (if Salvianus's rea

* J. Hales of Eton, Golden Remains, of dealing with erring • Chriftians,' page 36, 37.

+ Or the light which comes with us into the world, and grows up with us, as we are of a capacity to difcern the teachings of it. See John i. 9. chap. viii. 12. Rom. i. 19. Ephef. v. 13. 1 John i. 7. All agree in it, as to its univerfality; but the beloved difciple inftructs us of its original, nature and ufe, in the firft chapter of his Evangelical History, deeply and clearly: they had it before Christ's coming, as may be feen Job xviii. 5, 6. chap. xxi. 17. chap. xxiv. 13. 16. Pfalm xxvii. 1. 36. 9.

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fon be good) fo far have they title and interest in our faith. And therefore Regulus, that famous Roman, when he endured infinite torments, rather than he would break his oath, may thus far be count⚫ed a martyr and witness for the truth. For the crown ' of martyrdom fits not only on the heads of those who ' have loft their lives, rather than they would cease to profefs the name of Chrift; but on the head of every one that fuffers for the teftimony of a good confcience, and for righteoufnefs fake. And here I cannot pafs by one very general and grofs mistake of our age. For in our difcourfes concerning the notes of a Chriftian man, by what figns we may know a man to be one of the visible company of Chrift, we have fo tied ourselves to this outward profeffion, that if we 'know no other virtue in a man, but that he hath 'conned his creed by heart, let his life be never so profane, we think it argument enough for us to ac'count him within the pale and circuit of the church. On the contrary fide, let his life be never fo upright, if either he be little feen in, or peradventure quite ignorant of, the mystery of Chrift, we esteem of him but as dead. And those who conceive well of those 'moral good things, as of fome tokens giving hope of life, we account but as a kind of Manichees, who ' thought the very earth had life in it. I must confefs that I have not yet made that proficiency in the ⚫ schools of our age, as that I could fee why the fecond ' table, and the acts of it, are not as properly the parts ' of religion and Christianity, as the acts and obferva'tions of the first? If I mistake, then it is St. James that hath abused me; for he, defcribing religion by its proper acts, tells us, that "Pure religion and "undefiled before God and the Father, is, to visit "the fatherless and the widows in their affliction, and "to keep himself unspotted of the world." So that the thing which is an especial refined dialect of the 'new Christian language, fignifies nothing but morality and civility, that, in the language of the Holy Ghost, imports true religion. Thus far J. Hales.