the mind and intention of the doer.

It

Cut off then all those things wherein we have regarded our own glory, those things which men do to please men, and to satisfy our own liking; those things which we do by any respect, not sincerely, and purely for the love of God; and a small score will serve for the number of our righteous deeds. Let the holiest and best things we do be considered:- we are never better affected unto God than when we pray;-yet, when we pray, how are our affections many times distracted! how little reverence do we show unto the grand Majesty of God unto whom we speak! how little remorse of our own miseries! how little taste of the sweet influence of his tender mercies do we feel! Are we not as unwilling many times to begin, and as glad to make an end, as if in saying, "Call upon me," he had set us a very burdensome task? may seem somewhat extreme which I will speak; therefore let every one judge of it, even as his own heart shall tell him, and no otherwise. I will but only make a demand: if God should yield unto us, not, as unto Abraham, if fifty, forty, thirty, twenty, yea, or if ten, good persons could be found in a city, for their sakes the city should not be destroyed; but, and if he should make us an offer thus large: search all the generations of men, since the fall of our father Adam; find one man, that hath done one action, which hath passed from him pure, without any stain or blemish at all; and, for that one only man's action, neither men nor angels shall feel the torments which are prepared for both: Do you think that this ransom, to deliver men and angels, could be found to be among the sons of men? The best things which

we do, have somewhat in them to be pardoned; how then can we do any thing meritorious, or worthy to be rewarded? Indeed God doth liberally promise whatsoever appertaineth to a blessed life, to as many as sincerely keep his law, though they be not exactly able to keep it. Wherefore we acknowledge a dutiful necessity of doing well, but the meritorious dignity of doing well we utterly renounce. We see how far we are from the perfect righteousness of the law; the little fruit which we have in holiness, it is, God knoweth, corrupt and unsound; we put no confidence at all in it; we challenge nothing in the world for it; we dare not call God to reckoning, as if we had him in our debt books. Our continual suit to him is, and must be, to bear with our infirmities, and pardon our offences."

I had no sooner read this passage, than I acquired such an insight into the strictness and spirituality of the divine law, and the perfection which a just and holy God, according to that law, cannot but require in all the services of his reasonable creatures; that I clearly perceived my very best duties, on which my chief dependence had hitherto been placed, to be merely specious sins; and my whole life appeared to be one continued series of transgression. I now understood the apostle's meaning, when he affirms, that by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified in the sight of God." All my difficulties in this matter vanished; all my distinctions, and reasonings, about the meaning of the words law and justification, with all my borrowed criticisms upon them, failed me at once. I could no longer be thus amused; for I was convinced, beyond the possibility

"

of a doubt, that all men were so notoriously transgressors of every law of God, that no one could possibly be justified in his sight, by his obedience to any of the divine commandments. I was sensible, that if God should call me into judgment before him according to the strictness of his perfect law, for the best duty I ever performed, and for nothing else, I must be condemned as a transgressor; for, when weighed in these exact balances, it would be found wanting. Thus I was effectually convinced, that, if ever I were saved, it must be in some way of unmerited mercy and grace, though I did not clearly understand in what way till long after. Immediately, therefore, I took for my text Gal. iii. 22. "But

the Scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise, by faith of Jesus Christ, might be given to them that believe." And I preached from it according to Hooker's doctrine; expressing, as strongly as I could, the defilements of our best actions, and our need of mercy in every thing we do; in order the more evidently to show that "salvation is of grace, through faith;-not of works, lest any man should boast."

I had not, however, as yet attained to a knowledge of the foulness of that fountain, whence all these polluted streams flow forth so plentifully into our lives and conversation.—Neither was I then able to receive the following nervous passage concerning justification: (Hooker, page 495:) "The righteousness wherein we must be found, if we will be justified, is not our own: therefore we cannot be justified by any inherent quality. Christ hath merited righteousness for as many as are found in him. In him

God findeth us, if we be faithful: for by faith we are incorporated into Christ. Then, although in ourselves we be altogether sinful and unrighteous, yet, even the man which is impious in himself, full of iniquity, full of sin; him, being found in Christ through faith, and having his sin remitted through repentance, him God upholdeth with a gracious eye, putteth away his sin by not imputing it; taketh quite away the punishment due thereunto by pardoning it; and accepteth him in Jesus Christ as perfectly righteous, as if he had fulfilled all that was commanded him in the law. Shall I say, more perfectly righteous than if himself had fulfilled the whole law? I must take heed what I say; but the apostle saith, 'God made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.' Such we are in the sight of God the Father, as is the very Son of God himself. Let it be counted folly, or frenzy, or fury, whatsoever, it is our comfort, and our wisdom; we care for no knowledge in the world but this, that man hath sinned, and God hath suffered; that God hath made himself the Son of man, and that men are made the righteousness of God.'"

Equally determinate and expressive are these words (page 500): "As for such as hold with the Church of Rome, that we cannot be saved by Christ alone without works, they do, not only by a circle of consequence, but directly, deny the foundation of faith; they hold it not, no, not so much as by a thread." If the "judicious Hooker's" judgment may in this important concern be depended upon, (and I suppose it will not easily be proved erroneous,) I fear

the foundation of faith is held by only a small part of that church which has honoured her champion with this distinction.

Pages 508 and 509, he thus defends his doctrine against the objections of the Papists: (for at that time none but the Papists openly objected to it :) " It is a childish cavil wherewith, in the matter of justification, our adversaries do so greatly please themselves, exclaiming that we tread all Christian virtues under our feet, and require nothing of Christians but faith; because we teach that faith alone justifieth. Whereas, by this speech we never meant to exclude either hope or charity from being always joined, as inseparable mates, with faith in the man that is justified; or works from being added as necessary duties, required at the hands of every justified man: but to show that faith is the only hand which putteth on Christ unto justification; and Christ the only garment, which, being so put on, covereth the shame of our defiled natures, hideth the imperfections of our works, preserveth us blameless in the sight of God; before whom, otherwise, the weakness of our faith were cause sufficient to make us culpable, yea, to shut us from the kingdom of heaven, where nothing that is not absolute can enter."

Had I at this time met with such passages in the writings of the Dissenters, or in any of those modern publications, which, under the brand of methodistical, are condemned without reading, or perused with invincible prejudice, I should not have thought them worth regard, but should have rejected them as wild enthusiasm. But I knew, that Hooker was deemed perfectly orthodox, and a standard- writer, by the