A
LETTER
TO SOME
CHURCH-MEMBERS
OF THE
Presbyterian Persuasion,
IN ANSWER TO
Certain Scruples lately proposed, in proper Queries raised on each Remark.
A
LETTER, &c.
New-York, November 1, 1740.
My dear Friends,
LAST night and this morning I read your queries and scruples. Whether they were compiled by church-members, or ministers of the presbyterian persuasion, I shall not take upon me to determine. I think I may say with David, though on another occasion, “Joab’s hand is in this.” If your ministers were really the authors, and you only their representatives, they have not acted simply. They had better have spoken out. I should as readily have answered them as you. Solomon says, “He that hateth reproof, is brutish.” And if I know any thing of my own heart, I should think myself obliged to any one that convinces me of an error, either in principle or practice. I therefore assure you, that I do not find the least resentment stirring in my soul against those (whoever they be) that proposed the queries, or against the reverend presbytery that advised you to send them to me in a public manner: no, I rejoice in it; because it gives me an opportunity of doing what my friends know I have for some time proposed, the correcting some passages in my printed sermons. I think it no dishonour, to retract some expressions that formerly dropped from my pen, before God was pleased to give me a more clear knowledge of the doctrines of grace. St. Austin, I think, did so before me. The Lord’s dealing with me was somewhat out of the common way. I can say, to the honour of rich free distinguishing grace, that I received the Spirit of adoption before I had conversed with one man, or read a single book, on the doctrine of “Free justification by the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ.” No wonder then, that I was not so clear in some points at my first setting out in the ministry. Our Lord was pleased to enlighten me by degrees; and I desire your prayers, that his grace may shine more and more in my heart, till it breaks forth into perfect day.
But to come to the exceptionable passages in my sermons. You blame me for saying,
Volume II. page 17. “That Adam was adorned with all the perfections of the Deity.” It is a wrong expression: I would correct it thus: “All the moral communicable perfections of the Deity.” Again, “Man was the perfection of the moral and material world: let it stand thus: “The perfection of all the visible world.”
Volume II. page 22 and 23. “Washes the guilt of sin away by the tears of a sincere repentance, joined with faith in the blood of Jesus Christ.” This is false divinity: I would now alter it thus: “Recovers his former peace, by renewing his acts of faith on the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ.”
Volume I. page 79. “And which alone can render any of our actions acceptable in God’s sight.” It should be, “And without which, any of our actions cannot be acceptable in God’s sight.”