city, and Christian moderation: whom his contemporaries efteemed as moft capable of "teaching learning by inftruction, and virtue "by example;" whom not this University alone, but our Church and Nation, have uniformly esteemed, as one of their brightest luminaries; and to whofe merits the testimony of two fucceffive monarchs has been fanctioned by the approbation of the good, the wife, and the great; who have concurred in adopting the appellation, that his fovereigns had bestowed, and in transmitting his honour to pofterity as "the learned, or judicious, or reverend, or ve"nerable Hookerk."

Virtually difclaiming the modern doctrine of affurance, by declaring that "the ftrongeft" "in faith that liveth on the earth has always "need to labour, ftrive, and pray, that his af"furance concerning heavenly and fpiritual

things may grow, increase, and be augment"ed;" and disclaiming the modern doctrine of perfection by an humble acknowledgment of his own unrighteousness, he bore his testimony to the truths, which I have been endeavouring to establish, even before the opposite herefies had taken root amongst us. With fingular gratification I close the prefent difcourfe by

Ifaac Walton's Life of Hooker. Works, Oxford ed. p. 90, 25, 79, 60.

fuch an atteftation to the foundnefs of the tenets, which I have been deducing from the Oracles of God: for I cannot confider it as a matter of trifling moment, that they are thus incidentally fupported by one, whose heart was the living picture of that poorness of spirit, to which is promised the bleffing of the kingdom of heaven; and whofe mind was of a capacity to trace the operations of law, emanating from the bofom of the Creator, and diffufing harmony throughout his works1.

Now unto "the high and lofty One that in"habiteth eternity, whofe name is Holy; who "dwelleth in the high and holy place, with "him alfo that is of a contrite and humble fpi"rit:" unto Him be glory and dominion for

ever!

'See Eccl. Polity. Conclufion of the first book.

DISCOURSE IX.

1 COR. ix. 16.

Though I preach the Gospel, I have nothing to glory of; for necefity is laid upon me: yea, wo is unto me, if I preach not the Gospel.

AT the commencement of these Lectures, to the conclufion of which we are now rapidly advancing, the words, that have been juft recited, were felected for your attention; becaufe I was defirous that our minds might be impreffed, at the outfet of the propofed inquiry, with a due fenfe of the folemnity of the charge, into the grounds of which it was my defign, with God's bleffing, to examine: a charge, as was then remarked, which, if it were fubftantiated, muft involve us in the guilt of corrupting, or renouncing, "the truth 66 as it is in Jefus;" and which muft in confequence expofe us to the "wo," (as it is expreffed in the text,) to the "curfe," (as St. Paul elsewhere expreffes it,) denounced on

thofe, who "preach not the Gospel" of our Lord and Saviour Jefus Chrift.

Alive to the refponfibility, which attaches to us as minifters of the Gofpel, and to the tremendous punishment which awaits us, if we wilfully pervert or abandon the true evangelical faith; I have endeavoured to give a juft fcriptural expofition of thofe more prominent fubjects, on which the charge in question is principally founded; to detail the particulars of the charge, as alleged by our accufers; to state, what I apprehend to be, the substance of our teaching on the controverted points; and to defend and vindicate our teaching by that, which alone can be pleaded in its defence, namely, the pure and unadulterated word of God. The feveral fubjects of the conditions of man's juftification; of his predestination to life or death; of the efficacy, and perceptibility, of the operations of the Holy Spirit; of regeneration; of converfion; of affurance; and of perfection; have been thus fucceffively propofed to your thoughts: not, (for I would here repeat what was faid in my introductory discourse,) not for the purpose of superfeding, but of encouraging, more full and more minute investigation in thofe, for whofe benefit thefe Lectures appear to have been principally defigned. Whilft, therefore, I attempt to draw the attention of the younger part of my hear

ers to the foregoing topics, in order that, they may be the better enabled to perform their minifterial duties with fuccefs; let me entreat them to profecute the examination by the light of the facred Scriptures; affifted by those human aids, which have been fo largely vouchfafed by a bountiful Providence to this country, and the study of which it is a prominent object of our academical institutions to pro

mote.

A late excellent Prelate, who contributed much to the ornament and fpiritual edification of our Univerfity, in which he occupied a dif tinguished poft, in a difcourfe from this place remarked, that "as herefies make their peri"odical revolutions in the Church, like comets "in the heavens, to fhed a baleful influence

66

65

on all about them, the time feemed to be "coming, when Antinomianifm was to be again rampant amongst us. And what won"der" (he adds) "that this or any other he"refy fhould be introduced and propagated, "if men, instead of having recourse to the "catholic doctors of the ancient Church, and "to fuch of our divines as have trodden in "their fteps, will extract their theology from "the latest and loweft of the modern fectaries, "thus beginning where they should end: if, "instead of drawing living water for the ufe "of the fanctuary from the fresh fprings of K k

8