the beloved apostle spake these great words of a likeness to Christ with respect to the perfect love which "fulfils the law, abolishes tormenting fear, and enables the believer to stand with boldness in the day of judgment," as being forgiven, and "conformed to the image of God's Son."

If Mr. Hill urge that "the blood of Christ, powerfully applied by the Spirit, cleanses us indeed from the guilt, but not from the filthiness of sin; blood having a reference to justification and pardon, but not to sanctification and holiness:" we reply, that this argument is not only contrary to the preceding answer, but to the text, the context, and other plain scriptures. (1.) To the text, where our being cleansed from all sin` is evidently suspended on our humble and faithful walk: "If we walk in the light as he is in the light, the blood of Christ cleanses us," &c. Now every novice in Gospel grace knows that true Protestants do not suspend a sinner's justification on his "walking in the light as God is in the light." (2.) It is contrary to the context; for in the next verse but one, where St. John evidently distinguishes forgiveness and holiness, he peculiarly applies the word cleansing to the latter of these blessings: "He is faithful to forgive us our sin," by taking away our guilt; "and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness," by taking away all the filth of indwelling sin. And, (3.) It is contrary to other places of Scripture, where Christ's blood is represented as having a reference to purification, as well as to forgiveness. God himself says, “Wash ye; make you clean; put away the evil of your doings; cease to do evil; learn to do well." The washing and cleansing here spoken of, have undoubtedly a reference to the removal of the filth, as well as the guilt of sin. Accordingly we read that all those who "stand before the throne, have both washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb;" that is, they are justified by, and sanctified with his blood.. Hence our Church prays "that we may so eat the flesh of Christ, and drink his blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body, and our souls washed [i. e. made clean also] through his most precious blood." To rob Christ's blood of its sanctifying power, and to confine its efficacy to the atonement, is therefore an Antinomian mistake, by which our opponents greatly injure the Saviour, whom they pretend to exalt.

Should Mr. Hill assert, that "when St. John says, If we walk in the light, &c, the blood of Christ cleanses us from all sin, the loving apostle's meaning is not that the blood of Christ radically cleanses us, but only that it begets and carries on a cleansing from all sin, which cleansing will be completed in a death purgatory:" we answer: (1.) This assertion leaves Mr. Hill's doctrine open to all the above-mentioned difficulties. (2.) It overthrows the doctrine of the Protestants, who have always maintained that nothing is absolutely necessary to eternal salvation, and, of consequence, to our perfect cleansing, but an obedient, steadfast faith, apprehending the full virtue of Christ's purifying blood, according to Acts xv, 9, "God giving them the Holy Ghost, put no difference between them and us, purifying their hearts by faith,"-not by death. (3.) It is contrary to matter of fact: Enoch and Elijah having been translated to heaven, and therefore having been perfectly purified even in body, without going into the Calvinian purgatory. But, (4.) What displeases us most in the evasive argument which I answer, is, that it puts the greatest contempt on Christ's blood, and puts the greatest cheat on weak believers,

who sincerely wait to be now "made perfect in love," that they may now worthily magnify God's holy name.

An illustration will prove it. I suppose that Christ is now in England, doing as many wonderful cures as he formerly did in Judea. My benevolent opponent runs to the Salop infirmary, and tells all the patients there that the great Physician, the Son of God, has once more visited the earth; and he again "heals all manner of sickness and diseases among the people, and cleanses" from the most inveterate leprosy by a touch or a word. All the patients believe Mr. Hill; some hop to this wonderful Saviour, and others are carried to his footstool. They touch and retouch him; he strokes them round again and again: but not one of them is cured. The wounds of some, indeed, are skinned over for a time; but it soon appears that they still fester at the bottom, and that a painful core remains unextracted in every sore. The poor creatures complain to Mr. Hill, "Did you not, sir, assure us upon your honour, as a Christian gentleman, that Christ heals all manner of diseases, and cleanses from all kinds of leprosies?" "True," says Mr. Hill; "but you must know that these words do not mean that he radically cures any disease, or cleanses from any leprosy: they only signify that he begins to cure every disease, and continues to cleanse from all leprosies; but notwithstanding all his cures, begun and continued, nobody is cured before death. So, my friends, you must bear your festering sores as well as you can, till death comes radically to cleanse and cure you from them all." Instead of crying, "Sweet grace! Rich grace!" and of clapping Mr. Hill for his evangelical message, the disappointed patients desire him to take them back to the infirmary, saying, “We have there a chance for a cure before death; but your great Physician pronounces us incurable, unless death comes to the help of his art: and we think that any surgeon could do as much, if he did not do more." (See sec. xii, argument xx.)

If Mr. Hill say that I beat the air, and that the text which he quotes in his "Creed for Perfectionists," to show that it is impossible to be cleansed from all sin before death, is not 1 John i, 7, but the next verse; I reply, that if St. John assert in the seventh verse that "Christ's blood," powerfully applied by the Spirit of faith, "cleanses us from all sin," that inspired writer cannot be so exceedingly inconsistent as to contradict himself in the very next verse.

Should the reader ask, “What then can be St. John's meaning in that verse, where he declares that if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us?' How can these words possibly agree with the doctrine of a perfect cleansing from all sin ?”

We answer, that St. John having given his first stroke to the Antinomian believers of his day, strikes, by the by, a blow at Pharisaic professors. There were in St. John's time, as there are in our own, numbers of men who had never been properly convinced of sin, and who boasted, as Paul once did, that touching the righteousness of the law, they were blameless; they served God; they did their duty; they gave alms; they never did any body any harm; they thanked God that they were not as other men; but especially that they were not like those mourners in Sion, who were no doubt very wicked, since they made so much ado about God's mercy, and a powerful application of

the Redeemer's all-cleansing blood. How proper then was it for St. John to inform his readers that these whole-hearted Christians, these perfect Pharisees, were no better than liars and self deceivers; and that true Christian righteousness is always attended by a genuine conviction of our native depravity, and by an humble acknowledgment of our actual transgressions.

This being premised, it appears that the text so dear to us, and so mistaken by our opponents, has this fair, Scriptural meaning :-"If we [followers of Him who came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance] say, We have no sin [no native depravity from our first parents, and no actual sin, at least no such sin as deserves God's wrath; fancying we need not secure a particular application of Christ's atoning and purifying blood] we deceive ourselves, and the truth [of repentance and faith] is not in us."

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That the words are levelled at the monstrous error of self-conceited, and self-perfected Pharisees, and not at "the glorious liberty of the children of God," appears to us indubitable from the following reasons: (1.) The immediately preceding verse strongly asserts this liberty. (2.) The verse immediately following secures it also, and cuts down the doctrine of our opponents; the apostle's meaning being evidently this:"Though I write to you, that if we say' we are originally free from sin, and never did any harm, we deceive ourselves;' yet, mistake me not: I no not mean to continue under the guilt, or in the moral infection of any sin, original or actual. For if we penitently and believingly confess both, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness,' whether it be native or self contracted, internal or external. Therefore, if we have attained the glorious liberty of God's children, we need not, through voluntary humility, say that we do nothing but sin. It will be sufficient, when we are cleansed from all unrighteousness,' still to be deeply humbled for our present infirmities, and for our past sins; confessing both with godly sorrow and filial shame. For if we should say, We have not sinned, [note: St. John does not write, If we should say, WE DO NOT SIN,] we make him a liar, and the truth is not in us;' common sense dictating that if we have not sinned,' we speak an untruth when we profess that Christ has forgiven our sins." This appears to us the true meaning of 1 John i, 8, when it is fairly considered in the light of the context.

III. We humbly hope that Mr. Hill himself will be of our sentiment if he compare the verse in debate with the pure and strict doctrine which St. John enforces throughout his epistle. In the second chapter he says, "We know that we know him, if we keep his commandments, &c. Whoso KEEPETH HIS WORD, in him verily is the love of God PERFECTED. He that abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked, &c. He that loveth his brother abideth in the light [where the blood of Christ cleanseth from all sin] and there is none occasion of stumbling in him."

The same doctrine runs also through the next chapter: "Every one that hath this hope in him, PURIFIETH HIMSELF AS HE (Christ) IS PURE. Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law, &c, and ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins, [i. e. to destroy them root and branch ;] and in him is no sin. Whosoever abideth in him sinneth

not: whosoever sinneth, does not [properly] see him, neither know him; he that does righteousness is righteous, even as he [Christ] is righteous. He that committeth sin, [i. e. as appears by the context, he that transgresseth the law,] is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning for this purpose was the Son of God manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. Whosoever is born of God [whosoever is made partaker of God's holiness, according to the perfection of the Christian dispensation] doth not commit sin, [i. e. does not transgress the law;] for his seed," the ingrafted word, made quick and powerful by the indwelling Spirit, "remaineth in him, and [morally speaking] he cannot sin because he is [thus] born of God. For if ye know that he is righteous, ye know that every one that doth righteousness is born of him ;" and that he that doth not righteousness,―he "that committeth sin," or transgresseth the law,-is, so far, of the devil, for "the devil" transgresseth the law, i. e. "sinneth from the beginning. In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil.* Whosoever does not righteousness, [i. e. whosoever sinneth, taking the word in its evangelical meaning,] is not of God," 1 John iii, 3–11; ii, 29.

If Mr. Hill cry out, "Shocking! Who are those men that do not sin?" I reply, All those whom St. John speaks of, a few verses below: "Beloved, if our heart condemn us; [and it will condemn us if we sin, but God much more, for] God is greater than our hearts, &c. Beloved, if our hearts condemn us not, we have confidence toward God, &c, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight,” 1 John iii, 20, &c. Now, we apprehend, all the sophistry in the world will never prove that, evangelically speaking, "keeping God's commandments," and "doing what pleases him," is sinning. Therefore, when St. John professed to keep God's commandments, and to do what is pleasing in his sight, he professed what our opponents call sinless perfection, and what we call Christian perfection.

Mr. Hill is so very unhappy in his choice of St. John, to close the number of his apostolic witnesses for Christian imperfection, that, were it not for a few clauses of his first epistle, the anti-Solifidian severity of that apostle might drive all imperfect Christians to despair. And what is most remarkable, those few encouraging clauses are all conditional : "If any man sin," for there is no necessity that he should; or rather, (according to the most literal sense of the word apaprn, which being in the Aorist has generally the force of a past tense,) "If any man HAVE SINNED: if he have not sinned unto death: if we confess our sins: if that which ye have heard shall remain in you: if ye walk in the light:" then do we evangelically enjoy the benefit of our Advocate's intercession. Add to this, that the first of those clauses is prefaced by these words, My little children, these things I write unto you, THAT YE SIN NOT;" and all together are guarded by these dreadful declarations :-" He that says, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. If any man say, I love God, and loveth not his brother, [note: he that loveth another

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*This doctrine of St. John is perfectly agreeable to that of our Lord, who said that Judas had a devil," because he gave place to the love of money; and who called Peter himself "Satan," when he "savoured the things of men," in opposition to "the things of God."

hath fulfilled the law,] he is a liar. There is a sin unto death, I do not say that he shall pray for it. Let no man deceive you; he that does righteousness is righteous. He that committeth sin [or transgresseth the law] is of the devil." To represent St. John, therefore, as an enemy to the doctrine of Christian perfection, does not appear to us less absurd than to represent Satan as a friend to complete holiness.

SECTION XI.

Why the privileges of believers under the Gospel of Christ cannot be justly measured by the experience of believers under the law of Moses -A review of the passages upon which the enemies of Christian perfection found their hopes that Solomon, Isaiah, and Job, were strong imperfectionists..

Ir Mr. Hill had quoted Solomon, instead of St. John; and Jewish, instead of Christian saints, he might have attacked the glorious Christian liberty of God's children with more success: for "the heir, as long as he is a child, [in Jewish nonage,] differeth nothing from a servant, but is under tutors [and school masters] until the time appointed by the father. Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage: but when the fulness of the time was come, God sent his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons, and stand in the [peculiar] liberty, wherewith Christ has made us [Christians] free," Gal. iii, 1; iv, 1. But this very passage, which shows that Jews are, comparatively speaking, in bondage, shows also that the Christian dispensation and its high privileges cannot be measured by the inferior privileges of the Jewish dispensation, under which Solomon lived: for the "law made nothing perfect," in the Christian sense of the word. And "what the law could not do, God, sending his only Son, condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us [Christian believers] who walk after the Spirit;" being endued with that large measure of it, which began to be poured out on believers on the day of pentecost for that measure of the Spirit was not given before, "because Jesus was not yet glorified," John vii, 39. But after "he had ascended on high, and had obtained the gift of the indwelling Comforter" for believers; they received, says St. Peter, "the end of their faith, even the Christian salvation of their souls:" a salvation which St. Paul justly calls so great salvation, when he compares it with Jewish privileges, Heb. ii, 3. "Of which [Christian] salvation," proceeds St. Peter, "the prophets have inquired, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you [Christians,] searching what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ which was in them [according to their dispensation] did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory [the glorious dispensation] that should fol. low [his return to heaven, and accompany the outpouring of the Spirit.] Unto whom [the Jewish prophets] it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us [Christians] they did minister the things which are now preached unto you, with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven," 1 Pet. i, 9, &c. And, among those things, the Scriptures reckon the