Ans. This I say, still respecting your old principle of humanity, and the purity of your nature, the most amounts but to this: Your principle is confined to a liberty of will and affections, with respect to doing of the law of works, which many have professed to have, and do before you, and yet have come short of the glory of God. For as I told you before, I tell you now again, that the gospel-principles are the Holy Ghost and faith, which help that soul in whom they dwell to count believing in Jesus Christ the great and essential part of our Christianity, and our reckoning ourselves pardoned for the sake of him: 'And thus being set free from sin, we become the servants of God, and have our fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life' (Rom 6:22).

Your description of a child of Abraham, you meaning in a New Testament sense, is quite beside the truth. For albeit, the sons of Abraham will live holy lives, and become obedient to the substantial laws; yet it is not their subjection to morals, but faith in Jesus, that giveth them the denomination of children of Abraham. 'Know ye, therefore, that they that are of faith are the children of faithful Abraham: They that are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham: Yea, they that are of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham' (Gal 3:7,9). In p. 284, you say, 'That there is no one duty more affectionately recommended to us in the gospel than is alms-giving.'

Ans. Yes, That there is, and that which more immediately respecteth our justification with God, than ten thousand such commandments; and that is faith in Christ. Alms-deeds is also a blessed command; yet but one of the second table, such as must flow from faith going before. Faith I mean that layeth hold on Christ's righteousness, if it be accepted of God. For before the heart be good the action must be naught; now the heart is good by faith, because faith, by applying Christ's righteousness, makes over [a] whole Christ to the soul, of whose fulness it receiveth, and grace for grace (John 1:16). Many things in this last chapter are worthy reprehension, but because you tell us, in the last two pages thereof, is the sum of all that need to be said, I will immediately apply myself to what is there contained.

You say (p. 296), 'It is not possible we should not have the design of Christianity accomplished in us, and therefore that we should be destitute of the power of it, if we make our Saviour's most excellent life the pattern of our lives.' By our Saviour's life, as by a parenthesis you also express, you mean, as yourself hath in short described it (ch 5) viz., 'The greatest freedom, affability, courtesy, candour, ingenuity, gentleness, meekness, humility, contempt of the world, contention, charity, tenderness, compassion, patience, submission to the divine will, love of God, devoutest temper of mind towards him, mighty confidence and trust in God,' &c.

Ans. Our Saviour's life, in not only these, but all other duties that respected morals, was not principally or first to be imitated by us, but that the law, even in the preceptive part thereof, might be fully and perfectly fulfilled for us. 'Christ is the end of the law for righteousness'; the end, not only of the ceremonial law, but the ten commandments too; for if the word righteousness, respecteth in special them. 'Jesus increased in favour with God' (Luke 2:52; Matt 3:17). This respecteth him as made under the law, and his pleasing of God in that capacity. So also doth that, 'In him I am well pleased.' Now I say, as Jesus stood in this capacity, he dealt with the law in its greatest force and severity, as it immediately came from God, without the advantage of a Mediator, and stood by his perfect complying with, and fulfilling every tittle thereof. Besides, as Jesus Christ had thus to do with the law, he did it in order to his 'finishing transgression, and putting an end to sin' (Dan 9:24), and so consequently as Mediator, and undertaker for the world. For his perfect complying withal, and fulfilling every tittle of the law, respected nothing his own private person, that he for himself might be righteous thereby; for in himself he was eternally just and holy, even as the Father, but it respected us, even us. For US he was made under the law, that we, by his fulfilling the law, might by him be redeemed from under the law, and also receive the adoption of SONS (Gal 4:4,5). For we having sinned, and transgressed the law, and the justice of God, yet requiring obedience thereto, and the law being too weak through our flesh to do it, God therefore sent his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, who himself for us did first of all walk in the law, and then for sin suffered also in his flesh, the sentence, and curse pronounced against us by the law. For it was nothing less necessary, when the Son of God became undertaker for the sin of the world, that he should walk in obedience to the whole of the precepts of the law, to deliver us from the judgment of the law; I say it was no less necessary he should so do, than that he should bear our curse and death. For it would have been impossible for him to have overcome the last, if he had not been spotless touching the first. For therefore it was impossible he should be holden of death, because he did nothing worthy of death; no, not in the judgment of the law, to which he immediately stood. Now as Christ Jesus stood thus to, and walked in the law, it is blasphemy for any to presume to imitate him; because thus to do is to turn Mediator and undertaker for the sin of the world. Besides, whoso doth attempt it, undertakes an impossibility; for no man can stand by the moral law, as it immediately comes from the divine majesty; he having sinned first, even before he goeth about to fulfil it. And in this sense is that to be understood, 'as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse,' held accursed, because they have sinned first; accursed in their performances, because of imperfection, and therefore assuredly accursed at last, because they come short of the righteousness thereof.

1. Christ Jesus did never set himself forth for an example, that by imitating his steps in morals should obtain justification with God from the curse of that law; for this would be to overthrow, and utterly abolish the work which himself came into the world to accomplish, which was not to be our example, that we by treading his steps might have remission of sins, but that through the faith of him, through faith in his blood, we might be reconciled to God.

2. Besides, thus to imitate Christ, is to make of him a Saviour, not by sacrifice, but by example. Nay, to speak the whole, this would be to make his mediatorship wholly to center, rather in prescribing of rules, and exacting obedience to morals, than in giving himself a ransom for men; yea, I will add to imitate Christ, as you have prescribed, may be done by him, that yet may be ignorant of the excellency of his person, and the chief end of his being made flesh: For in all these things which you have discoursed in that fifth chapter of him, you have only spoken of that, something of which is apprehended by the light of nature; yea, nature itself will teach that men should trust in God, which is the most excellent particular that there you mention. Wherefore our Lord Jesus himself foreseeing, that in men there will be a proudness, to content themselves with that confidence, he intimateth that it would be in us insignificant, if it stand without faith in himself. 'Ye believe [naturally] in God [saith he] believe also in me' (John 14:1). Faith in Jesus is as absolutely necessary as to believe immediately in the divine being. Yea, without faith in Jesus, whosoever believeth in God is sure to perish and burn in hell. 'If you believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins' (John 8:24). And to take Jesus in morals for example, is nowhere called believing in him, neither is there one promise of eternal life, annexed to such a practice. But you say, 'If we tread in his blessed steps, and be such, according to our measure and capacity, as we have understood he was in this world' (p. 296).

Ans. I say, for a man to confine himself only to the life of the Lord Jesus, for an example, or to think it enough to make him, in his life, a pattern for us to follow, leaveth us, through our shortness in the end, with the devil and his angels, for want of faith in the doctrine of remission of sins; for Christ did nowhere make another mediator between God and him, nor did he ever trust to another man's righteousness, to be thereby justified from the curse of the law; neither did he at all stand in need thereof, without which, we must be damned and perish. Now I say, these things being nowhere practised by him, he cannot therein be an example to us. And I say again, seeing that in these things, by faith in them, is immediately wrapped up our reconciliation with God; it followeth, that though a man take the Lord Christ in his whole life, for an example in the end, that notwithstanding, he abideth unreconciled to God. Neither will that clause, 'and be such,' help such a person at all: For justification with God, comes not by imitating Christ as exemplary in morals, but through faith in his precious blood. In the law I read, that the Paschal Lamb was neither to be eaten sodden nor raw, but roast with fire, must it be eaten (Exo 12). Now to make salvation principally to depend upon imitating Christ's life, it is to feed upon him raw, or at most, as sodden, not sanctified and holy: But the precept is, 'Eat it roast with fire'; is to be the antitype, as accursed of God for sin, and enduring the punishment for it (Exo 19; Deu 33:2; Mal 4:1). The law is compared to fire, and its curse to a burning oven. Now under the curse of this fiery law, was the Lord Jesus afflicted for the sins of the world: wherefore, as so considered, our faith must lay hold upon him, for justification with God. 'This is the law of the burnt-offering: [which was the offering for sin;] It is the burnt-offering, because of the burning upon the altar all night unto the morning, and the fire of the altar shall be burning in it' (Lev 6:9). But now I would inquire: Had Israel done the commandment, if they had eaten the passover raw, or boiled in water? Or if they had offered that offering, that was to be burnt as a sin-offering, otherwise than it was commanded? Even so, to feed upon Christ, as he is holy, and of good life only; and also, as taking him therein for an example to us, to follow his steps for justification with God; this is, to eat the passover raw, and not as roast with fire; this is, to feed upon Jesus, without respecting him as accursed of God for our sin, and so consequently to miss of that eternal life, that by his blood he hath obtained for every one that believeth on him. I have been pleased with this observation: That none of the signs and wonders in Egypt, could deliver the children of Israel thence, till the Lamb was slain, and roast with fire (Exo 12:31). And I have been also pleased with this: That the Father, not Moses, gave the manna from heaven, which was a type of the flesh, and blood of Christ, that whoso feedeth on, shall live for ever (John 6:32). Yea, circumcision also, which was a type of inward, and heart-holiness, was not of Moses, but of the Fathers, and principally a consequence of the faith of Abraham (John 7:22). Whence I gather, that no wonder, but the blood of Christ can save; that no kindness, but the mercy of God, can give this to us; and that no law, but the law of faith, can make us truly holy in heart. But you add, 'Those that sincerely, and industriously, endeavour to imitate the holy Jesus in his Spirit and actions, can never be ignorant what it is to be truly Christians.' Those that follow Jesus in his Spirit, must first receive that Spirit from heaven, which Spirit is received, as I have often said, by applying first, by faith, the merits of Christ to the soul, for life and justification with God. The Spirit is not received by the works of the law, but by the hearing of faith; neither comes it in the ministry, or doctrine of morals, but in and by the ministry of faith; and the law is not of faith. Wherefore seeing you have, in p. 223 of your book, forbidden sinners to come first to Jesus for justification with God; the Spirit you talk of, however you call it the Spirit of Jesus, can be no other than the spirit of a man; which you also yourself, in p. 7, 8, 9 call 'the purity of human nature, a principle of reason, the first principles of morals, or those that are originally dictates of human nature.' Wherefore by these words, 'in his Spirit,' you do but blaspheme the Holy Ghost, and abuse your ignorant reader; calling now, Quaker-like, the dictates of your humanity, and your Socinian compliances therewith, the Spirit of Holy Jesus. I conclude therefore, that the way of salvation, or the design of Christianity as prescribed by you, is none other than the errors of your own brain, the way of death, the sum and heart of Papistical Quakerism, and is quite denied by the Lord Jesus, and by his blessed Testament. And now go your ways, and imitate the Lord Jesus, and take the whole history of his life for your example, and walk in his steps, and be such as much as you can, yet without faith in his blood, first; yea, and if you stand not just before God through the imputation of his righteousness, your imitating will be found no better than rebellion, because by that, instead of faith in his blood, you hope to obtain remission of sins, thrusting him thereby from his office and work, and setting your dunghill righteousness up in his stead.

[Fowler's false and dangerous conclusions.]

I come now to your conclusion. First, in p. 298 'You press men to betake themselves to find [that which you call] the design of Christianity, accomplished in their hearts and lives.'