LETTER XXIII.
“And set up false witnesses, which said, this man ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words against this holy place and the law.”
In my last to you I have only objected to the mere obsolete and unmeaning phrase—the moral law a believer’s rule of life. I beg you to bear in mind, I do not say it is not a rule, but I maintain it is an insufficient rule of conduct for a believer under the gospel dispensation. If it had been a sufficient rule, why all the laws of Christ given as set forth in the preceptive parts of the New Testament? The doctrine of the gospel are the rules of our faith, and the precepts delivered to the churches, the rules of our conduct: this is a truth which cannot be overthrown—for asserting the above, it is surprising the enmity of the advocates of the law of Moses, as they call themselves, manifest against those who differ from them; yea, they would persecute them to bonds and to death. This is evident in the life of the late truly experimental, devout, and faithful Mr. W. Huntington, a man truly devoted to God; nor could his vigilant enemies find a single fault in his moral deportment, although they tried for it all his days; those serpents were disappointed of their food in this particular; God blessed and kept him—owned his message to thousands; and, while the Lord has a church upon earth, most of his writings will be of signal service to God’s own family; yet he was made the butt of spite and malice, ridicule, and contempt; nor could the rage of an empty professor be ever so excited, than to hear of persons attending his ministry; workmen and servants discharged from their situations by great professors; wives, husbands, neighbours, and relations, persecuting each other on this account; pastors cutting off members without mercy, when they had been starved under their ministry, and went in search of food under the ministry of that man of God. Preachers, when sadly off for a subject, had only to introduce the frightful Antinomian, and this filled up the time. A very rev. gentleman loaded him with every ill-natured and low-life name he could; like Esau of old, whose conduct is strongly reprobated in the book of Obadiah, to which I must refer you. This elder brother fled from town to town, place to place, and house to house, to oppose, traduce, misrepresent, and vilify the Lord’s servant; but, as Mr. H. was a brother in Christ, in the faith of the gospel, and the love of the Spirit, sad must be the state of that man who manifests such hatred? See the epistles of John, then draw an inference. What a mercy for us, who are dubbed Antinomians, that the civil sword is not in the hands of these Balaams; [114] you may partly judge how they would serve such asses as we are. It is a good remark I have met with—the name Antinomian, we view as a kind of scare-bird, which the devil hangs up in the pulpits of hypocrites, on purpose to keep the Lord’s doves from flying to their windows; and it has happened to this figure, as it often does to an image set up in a cherry-tree, it will frighten the birds for a while, but when the little creatures come to discover the cheat, you will see them sit upon the head of it. But why all this opposition? Take it in Mr. H.’s own words, in his “Essay on Divine Law,” p. 275.
“The good man who has distinguished himself as my godfather, and who has palmed the name of Antinomian upon me, and upon all that are in connection with me, and who has, without intermission, slandered and loaded we with reproach for five and twenty years, is an evangelist of the first magnitude; though I never spoke to him but once in my life. He is most exceeding zealous for the law of Moses, and of its being the only rule of life for believers. My not holding this assertion has filled him with all this holy indignation against me; that, although he often forgets his text, and sometimes loses himself, even in the pulpit, yet he never forgets nor loses sight of the filthy Antinomian; and he is so violent for his own holiness and sanctification, that he would be glad to send me to the devil, in defence of it. And I doubt not but the Lord has set him at this work to ripen him, as was the case when he bid Shimei curse David, that God might curse him. And I am as fully persuaded as David was, ‘That the Lord will requite me good for his cursing.’ 2 Sam. xvi. 12. He has called me a spiritual monkey, a spiritual blackguard; confessing that, if he was to see the devil flying away with me, he could not find in his heart to cry, ‘stop thief!’ believing the devil had only got his own property. And he has publicly confessed there are three creatures in this world that his pious soul hates; namely, the devil, Dr. Priestley, and Huntington; but that he hates Huntington the worst of the three. Part of this is true, and part false. It is true that he hates Huntington; but the other two have received no damage by him in any thing. And I may say of my godfather as the prophet says of Jacob’s brother, that, ‘He did pursue his brother with the sword, and did cast off all pity, and his anger did tear perpetually, and he kept his wrath for ever.’—Amos, i. 2. My reader may believe me when I say, that I esteem his indignation and his reproach a greater treasure to me than either his affections or his prayers; for we are to be hated of all men, and especially of all such men, for Christ’s name sake.—Matt. x. 22. And this is so far from offending me, that I am pleased with it, and make myself merry at the reports of his zeal, which hath almost eaten him up; and he may go on, for his whole warfare is in defence of his own honour; and the more the Lord enlarges me, the more he is enlarged also.”
Again, p. 296—
“I wish these gentlemen would lay by the old thread-bare text, which is of their own forging, and give us a few practical discourses upon the law, shewing us how to love God, and love to the neighbours fulfils it; for, ‘On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’—Matt. xxii. 40. And again; ‘Therefore all things, whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do you even so to them; for this is the law and the prophets.’ This last text would try my pious godfather to the quick; for, although he is so very fond of calling others blackguards, yet he cannot bear it himself. If others were to pursue him for twenty-five years, as he has chased me, and work him out of every pulpit, loading him with charges of error, loose living, deceiving sinners, &c. &c. all of which, and in a language equal to that of Billingsgate, his pious soul has thought fit to heap upon me; I say, were others to treat him so, he would weep like a child, fawn like a cat, and run to every counsellor in London to plead his cause, and appeal to the world in behalf of his innocency and the respectability of his family. Preachers that have nothing to stand upon but the testimony of hypocrites, and the applause of fools, can bear but little of this sort of scandal; for their sandy foundation soon gives way, and, not being able to face either God or conscience in the closet, they are sure to go down; and, ‘Woe to him that is alone when he falleth.’ However, if these laws of retaliation are not put into practice by my pious godfather aforesaid, I have no doubt but the Law giver will put them in full force himself, according to his own promise; ‘For with what judgment ye judge ye shall be judged; and with what measure ye meet it shall be measured to you again.’—Matt. vii. 2. He has not only loaded me with reproach and scandal himself; but being a man noted for wisdom, experience, and soundness of doctrine, he is much looked up to, and therefore others have been emboldened to join him in the same work.”
All this opposition to that late man of God was undeserved; nor should I have introduced the subject, but only to shew how far the rage of man may go in his false zeal for the law [117] in these professing times. As it respects myself, I would to God I had been like Mr. H. in almost every branch of my conduct; it would have saved me many a painful and distressing hour. However, it is evident the hand of God brought me into this neighbourhood, and has kept me many years amidst so many storms; my enemies themselves being judges. Our music and dancing has indeed offended our elder brethren, Luke xv. who boast they never transgressed the commandment at any time; yet their pride of heart is not a little mortified in beholding the hand of God towards me. God declared to the pharisaic Jews—“By a foolish nation will I anger you.” This is the case now; what I have erred in at any time is matter of the deepest grief to my heart, and I will most readily confess it before God, and if there were any necessity for it, I would to the church of God, in this little work; but there is no occasion for that, as every believer feels the sin of his own heart to be a plague and a sore—yet prudence dictates to him not to acknowledge it. Nevertheless I have no authority to confess or acknowledge what I never did—what I never was guilty of. Reader, would you? With all the faults with which the believer is guilty, as a sinner in Adam, he never does, he never can sin, that grace may abound. He cannot sin as a believer; when he sins at all, it is not upon the free-grace principles of the gospel. God forbid; these teach him to deny all ungodliness, but to his grief he carries about with him a body of sin; and the scriptures declare there is not a just man upon the earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not. In many things, said the holy James, we all offend, and the venerable, aged, and holy John, says the same—“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” If the saints of old were free from sin and sinning, what can all their confessions, groans, tears, and sighs mean? And if my opponents, who have represented me so bad so many years, are themselves quite innocent, quite holy, or pure—how can they daily read the church service, in her general confession, litany, collects, communion service, and, indeed, throughout the whole. I say not this to encourage sin—to charge me with this, is to charge the whole Word of God with it. Foolish worldlings, who can be no judges of what either constitutes or characterises a Christian, vainly suppose that to be a Christian is in every respect to be a spotless person: and surely this is the wish of a Christian; this is the desire of his heart—but who upon earth ever attained it—none but the Divine Saviour. The Lord grant us increasing conformity to his own image. Amen. I have sometimes reflected upon the various enemies I have had, and am surrounded with now, who are every day waiting, watching, and longing for my halting, as in Jeremiah, xx. 10th verse.—“For I heard the defaming of many, fear on every side.—Report, say they, and we shall report it; all my enemies watched for my halting, saying, peradventure, he will be enticed, and we will prevail against him.” But who are they? Perhaps some pious, mistaken, good-meaning people, to whom I have been misrepresented—some envious, pharisaic preachers and professors, who in heart hate the truth, as it is in Jesus, and long for an opportunity to degrade it, by the bad conduct of some who profess it. Some, hypocrites, who are secretly living in diabolical sins; these are anxious to catch hold of some fault, on purpose to harden their own hearts in sin, and ripen themselves for hell.—Some, worldlings, either to furnish themselves with matter for ridicule against religion—or to gain something by it, as many have gained many pounds by coming forth to curse Israel. But enough of this. A little more than four years rolled away, while the enemy took breath. We were so quiet, that my name did not, for a long time, occur in the daily papers; yea, they had forgotten me in the “Sunday News.” I was as a dead man, almost out of mind: but this did not last long. As God had new mercies in store for me, so he had also new trials and new deliverances.
Yours, J. C.
Of his deliverance I will boast,
Till all who are distrest,
From my example comfort take,
And charm their griefs to rest.