To the Congregations at Providence Chapel,

Monkwell Street, and Richmond

in Surry.

Dear Brethren and Sisters in Christ,

GRACE and peace be multiplied. I here send you what you desired, after a long and impatient waiting for it. A multiplicity of engagements made the wheels drag so heavily, or else I should have been with you before now; besides, part of the subject being a matter of much debate, it took me the more time in laying all to the rule; that, as there was nothing crooked or perverse intended, so nothing crooked and perverse may appear. Putting the discourse since delivered from Rom. viii. 3, 4, as a supplement to this, would look too much like a garment of linen and woollen together; yet, to oblige you, I have scattered here and there a little, some in the warp and some in the woof, that it might come out all of apiece. May the Lord give you eyes to see for yourselves; and, as it contains what I believe to be real gospel, and what some call dangerous errors, I hope you will try it by the same rule that I did; and, if it

lies straight with that, may the promised blessings attend it, and the readers of it. "As many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God."

Amen, says thy willing servant to command,

W. H.

A SERMON.

ROMANS iii. 31.

"Do we then make void the law through faith? God. forbid: yea, we establish the law."

THE

HE Apostle, having been slanderously reported for preaching up free grace, and unconditional salvation through faith in Christ, endeavours to vindicate his evangelical doctrine against their false charge, and to stop the mouths of his legal accusers. He insisted upon it that the truth of God had abounded to the glory of God by his. ministry, whether he was a true preacher or a false one; and, as the truth of God had abounded to God's glory by him, he ought not to have been judged as a sinner.

His accusers called him a liar, and his doctrine of free grace a lie; and others had avouched that he was such an enemy to good works, that he even preached up wickedness; and these were the words that they affirmed he dropped, "Let us do evil that good may come." Paul, on the other hand,

VOL. III.

insisted on it that, if he was a liar, and his doctrine of free grace a lie, he had lied to the glory of God; and that the truth of God had abounded by his lie. Indeed it is not very likely that the truth of God should be abundantly manifested, and its power displayed, in the destruction of false doctrine, and subjecting sinners to gospel obedience, so as for God to get a tribute of glory from the recipients of his doctrine, while Paul, the minister of it, preached nothing but lies. As though Paul would say, 'Let my doctrine be lies or truth, God owns and blesses it, sets his seal to it, and gets glory by it; and, as God is glorified, and truth to sinners abundantly manifested, you ought to be silent, and do nothing rashly; for certainly God can get no glory by your slander, noise, and tumult.' Paul, finding that these advocates for the law carried on all their storm of raillery, lying, and rage, in the behalf of good works, brings forth the sentence of the law, and its execution against them, and declares it just. "For, if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory, why yet am I also judged as a sinner? and not rather (as we be slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say,) Let us do evil that good may come? whose damnation is just."

If this be the case, says Paul, then we are all ón a level for we have before proved that both Jews and Gentiles are all under sin; and, if we are all in one state, why am I called, instructed,