nefits and Patronage towards Men? The Scripture fays the Meffiab or Mediator, fhall make Reconciliation for Iniquity, be cut off, stricken, not for bimself, but for the Tranfgreffion of the People: You contradict it, and maintain that he was cut off upon his own Account. The Scripture fays, if any Man fin we have an Advocate with the Father Jefus Christ the Righteous, and he is a Propitiation for our Sins; and there is certainly fomé defigned Aid, and furtherance from that Faith prefiding over our beft Endeavours, our Repen tance, and Prayers, for getting the Mastery over our Sins, fecuring our Peace with God, and Senfe of his Favour, above what Example can afford. Human Nature is confeffedly in Distress and Defpondency, not knowing how to extricate itself from the Mire and Filth of Sin without fome to lend a Hand to help, and fave: Revelation prefents such a Saviour and Deliverer, qualified in all Refpects to render our own Endeavours comfortable, and make them effectual to that End; but you either out of a Spirit of Contradiction, or Envy, will fuffer nothing to be proposed from this Saviour, but his bare Example or good Advice; as if a Man that was not in, by mere fpeaking and nothing elfe, could help another out of a Ditch. You neither admit him with St. Paul whom you fo much extol, as High Priest of our Profeffion, having a fellow-feeling of our Infirmities, nor that he maketh Interceffion for us, nor that we fhall ftand before his Judgment Seat. Your Character of that Apostle is," That he was the great "Free-Thinker of his Age, the bold and brave "Defender of Reafon against Authority, in op

pofition to those who had fet up a wretched "Scheme of Superftition, Blindness, and

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Slavery,

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that

fet up

"Slavery, contrary to all Reason, and Com: Yet this Apoftle gloried in mon Senfe." the Cross of Chrift, in the faving Benefit of his Death and Refurrection, in his Mediation and Interceffion for us, all which you are afhamed of, and banish out of your New Project: you neither permit Chrift to appear there as a Mediator of Redemption, or a Mediator of Interceffion, and fo totally and compleatly fet afide the Mediatorical Scheme by him, and with that the most valuable Purpose, Truth, and Defign of the Holy Scriptures. What fort of a Thinker are you? or what kind of Reason is it you to defend against the Authority, plain Expreffion, common Apprehenfion of St. Paul, and all the Apostles? You are jealous, but without any Caufe, of your Moral Law of Nature, as if Christianity had any ill Design against it; whereas the true Design of it is known where-ever that is known, I came not deftroy the Law but to fulfil it. Yet your Scheme and Amendments of the Gofpel fhew no Refentment in God for the breach of that Law; which looks as if it was calculated to favour those Breaches of it which are fo agreeable to your new Friends the Deifts; Can that be confiftent with your Zeal for the Moral Law, or is that verbal Zeal any thing more than Affectation, or better than mere Pretence? and yet upon notorious Breaches of it, after the trifling Ceremony of Baptifm, as you reckon it, you are fo unkind, as to drive them into Defpair, and allow them no Repentanee, as I obferv'd above. And you feem to make good another Obfervation that I have formerly made, that the Deift by his Game against Scripture and Christianity, plays * Page 71.

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into

into the Hand of the Papist, in those Parts of your Book where you run down the Doctrine of the Reformers in grofs without diftinction (though they were not all of one Mind) as the greatest and groffeft Abfurdity, and that the learned Jefuits took great Advantage of it, and put a ftop to the Reformation.*

WHILST YOU would fruftrate the most just and generous Religion in the World, drawn as it is both from the true Nature of God, and Man; and therefore equally, and openly confults the Authority, Dignity and Honour of the former, as the Capacity, Frailty, and guilty Fears of the latter; you make no Provifion, prefent no Confolation, or curative Part, but your vain Prefumption upon the natural Goodnefs of God, in defpite of his covenanted Goodnefs and Methods of Mercy in the Mediator, in relief of the Trouble and Anxieties of human Mind for tranfgreffing the Law of Nature, and efcaping the Guilt of paft Iniquity, which yet will be the moft pungent to it, whilst it preferves its Reason. That Chrift Jefus came into the World to fave repenting Sinners, is comfortless and infipid, and worthy of no manner of Acceptation upon your Hypothefis. You feed and ftretch the Hopes of Mankind with eternal Life and Immortality being the Gift of God, but you falfify that very Gofpel, and fupprefs the Truth of its being through Jefus Chrift, in order the better to intercept any Dependance upon him for it, tho he obtain'd it for us. You flatter alfo your own Fears, and the Fears of others, as if the Punishment of Hell was no more to be dreaded than an Annihilation. + But how 津 * Page 404. + Page 400, 401. much

1

much God is averfe to that Experiment of his Power, and ftedfaftly inclin'd to our Continu ance in Being, after he has put us upon the Stage of it, is plain by all the Methods he has taken, and from the conftituent Parts of our Frame. But it is vaftly abfurd in a Philofopher to talk of Annihilation; it is fo with refpect to Matter, whofe Life confifts in its continual Changes and varying Shapes; with refpect to Spirits, we have lefs reafon to imagine that God fhould be reduced to that ftreight, for want of Room in his Univerfe. In fhort, Annihilation is the Fool's Paradife of Infidelity, after that is once made the Retreat of a Life buried in Senfuality. You admit, ftrange Suppofition from a Deift! the Origin of Sin in our World, or the Apoftacy of Man owing to the previous Apoftacy of Angels, and that owing to Idolatry. Here you receive Revelation, for you can have it no where elfe, and stretch it at the fame time to your Fancy you receive and believe the true Hiftory of Man's fpiritual Diftemper, but the Skill of the Physician would have been better feen, in admitting the fubfequent Part of the faid Revelation, as it is a Prescription for healing the fame, without bold Alteration, or equally dangerous Innovation; for it is now the Fashion of diftinguishing the good Judgment of a Phyfician by adhering moft clofely to the moft Ancient, the first, and, in his way, divine Mafter. It can't be juftified to the Faculty, to admit a Book of Health and Salvation in Part, and reject it in Part, when all that read it, perceive the two Parts to be infeparable and effentially connected together. But through your peculiar Art and unhear'd of Prefumption, as before* Page 231. mentioned,

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mention'd, of interpolating + where, and when, and what you pleafe; no Mortal can tell what Part you like, or whether you are really affected to any Part at all, or if you fhould be fo to fome Part To-day, whether you would continue to be fo To-morrow. For by that unbounded Liberty, it is plain, you may make any thing out of any ancient Scripture; and you yourself, by your faftidious Difcernment, and expurgatory Genius, fhall become the Author of all the Books, of all the Sentiments that have exifted before you. This new extraordinary external Advantage that you affume over the Word (written to inftruct and correct you,) to what Purposes you please to press it into your Service, is equivalent to the Quakers internal Advantage of making what they please of the fame, to ferve their turn; and fo renders it as vain to argue with one, as the other, out of the fame Book, with any hopes of Conviction.

VERY much more might be added, if I had not ftinted myfelf in room, and had not, by this time, grown weary of answering an Author of fuch a Temper, and of fo ftrange and unaccountable a Compofition as this Book befpeaks him to be of. If thefe Hints may provoke fome great Genius to enlarge against him, I have my Ends. I have offer'd in the Two Volumes, and this Appendix, what I think fufficient in my Judgment, and hope will appear fo, in the Judgment of others, for convincing any reasonable Man; and that is, and fhall be enough to fay to this Writer.