plainly be called ignorance: and the more effectually to banish vice, and prevent its contagion, (there's a charitable touch for our morality again!) "it should plainly be called vice." So say I; and in order to expose and guard against infidelity, it should plainly be called infidelity; and in order the more effectually to prevent the contagion of a damnable heresy, it should plainly be called a damnable heresy: otherwise, souls may be sent into torments, to curse to all eternity the cruelty of those who, through fear of man, forgot the Lord Jesus their Maker, and did not speak out, and warn them plainly of the wrath to come upon all who deny the Lord that bought them. It is a dreadful thing for a man to dissemble, when he knows from the physician that the plague is in a house, and sees his friends going into it. We know from the great Physician, that heresy is the plague of the soul; and, without repentance, is as inevitably the death of it as the pestilence is of the body. For heresy is damnable, and the heresy that has that epithet in Scripture, is that of denying the Lord, i. e. denying the Divinity of him who is the Lord Jehovah, King of kings, and Lord of lords. In all such cases, the greater the danger is, the stronger ought the terms to be that express it, to keep men from running into it. The language, it is true, must often sound harsh to the parties concerned; for physic is seldom palatable. But, whether they hear or whether they forbear, they must be openly reproved, and the truth must be boldly and undauntedly opposed to their pernicious errors, that others may not fall after the

same example of unbelief. Fear of disobliging here is the greatest of cruelties. It is like suffering a man to drown, for fear you should hurt him in drawing him out of the water. Therefore," Cry aloud" says God to his prophet, " and spare not. Lift

up thy voice like a trumpet, tell my people "their transgressions." Otherwise-" If the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, "and the people be not warned, if the sword come, "and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood will I require "at the watchman's hands:" Ezek. xxxiii. 6. One thing, indeed, must be said; that those, who undertake to do this office to a sinful people (which every minister does undertake when he is ordained), must first determine to expect neither praise nor reward in this world. And, alas! many think "this is a hard "saying;" "who," say they, "can hear it?" May God increase the number of those, who have ears to hear, and a heart to obey their Master! For though -"Take up your cross and follow me," be a hard saying;-" Go, ye cursed, into everlasting fire," is a much harder.

These, I think, are all the general objections I meet with. For, as to those of our preaching Christ as the substance of all the legal shadows, and explaining the spiritual sense of the natural images in Scripture, with the Warburtonian cant, so much in vogue, of cabalistic theologues, typists, allegorists, &c. those who read the Bible want no answer, and none will satisfy those who do not. Only it may be observed, that a mistake in interpreting a particular

does not overthrow the spiritual interpretation in general, any more than a mistake in explaining a doctrine overthrows the creed. All that follows from it is, that the man who makes it is wrong, and should be set right. If those who are able will do this kind office for us, they shall have our thanks. As to the expositions that are peculiar to Mr. Hutchinson, I know not who makes them articles of faith, or terms of communion: I am sure we do not. But it is unreasonable to desire us to quit them, till they are proved to be false. If the gentleman I am at present concerned with (whoever he be), or any body else, can do this, in God's name let the expositions fall, if they cannot stand. Only I must beg of the gentlemen, if they have any thoughts of succeeding in their attempt, to confute before they clamour; because one page of proof is worth twenty of railing: which proves nothing but a want of proof.

I come now to particulars. And here I am almost ashamed to ask the favour of the reader's company, the entertainment is likely to be so very indifferent. But for the sake of many who may be misled and imposed upon by his author's misrepresentations, an answer must be given. For he seems to have regulated his conduct by an old maxim, that where much dirt is thrown, some will stick. Therefore, kind reader, if you have nothing else to do, you and I will try and divert ourselves as well as we can.

The subject of the first complaint is an affair of a very malignant nature. Somebody or other, it seems, has extracted Christianity out of "Samson's "riddle," p. 8. Now I own, for my part, as times

go, I rejoice to hear of Christianity, let it be extracted from whence it will. The history of Samson is a part of those Scriptures which were written for our instruction in the righteousness which is by faith. He was an illustrious figure of the Almighty Saviour of the Israel of God; and never more so than when, through faith in him and his victory over the devil, he "stopped the mouth of the lion," and slew him without any weapon in his hand. Of this act of heroic faith, which was the subject of his riddle, thus speaks St. Jerome (who, by the way, has stolen several of Hutchinson's thoughts, though this is not one of them)-" Venit enim verus Samson "ad Allophylos, et dum pergit Thamnas, ut pauper"culam de gentibus duceret Dalilam, interfecit leo"nem, et illo mortuo comedit mella dulcedinis."Comm. in Nahum, cap. ii. ad fin. And, to come nearer home, thus speaks the homily on the resurrection" This mighty conquest of Christ's resur"rection was signified before, by divers figures of "the Old Testament; as by Samson, when he slew "the lion, out of whose mouth came sweetness and "honey."-It were to be wished that these very learned censurers of our ignorance could be brought to read a little before they write.

But, to show that we are determined never to be easy, as long as there is any religion left, we have a dreadful story in the same page, enough to make one's blood run cold, of somebody else, that had frightened almost his whole parish, men, women, and children, into fits (only indeed they had been pretty much used to be frightened of late) by "abusing

"the Society for propagating the Gospel."-People that find fault with others for printing what is true, should be particularly careful that they print nothing that is false; as this story is, from beginning to end; the gentleman here meant having reflected, not upon the Society, but, upon certain infidels, who, he said, had counteracted the godlike design of the Society, and sent over cargoes of their blasphemy to poison the continent: so that if any of the parish were surprised, it was a surprise altogether of their own manufacture, and a good deal of the same cast with that of an old woman, in King James the Second's time, who, after the minister of the parish had spent several discourses in confuting the errors of the Romanists, said, "She was sure their parson "must be a papidge; for he was always talking "about the Pope."-That what my friend said upon the occasion with regard to the spreading infidel books in our plantations is true, I am assured by some gentlemen lately come from thence; two of whom our university hath created masters of arts by diploma; the Rev. Mr. Johnson, son of the excellent Dr. Johnson, president of the episcopal college in New York; and the Rev. Mr. Fayerweather, a happy convert from the schismatics to the church of England. And indeed, as I have had the pleasure of much conversation with them, I must take this opportunity of saying, they will reflect honour on the university, as they do on the country from whence they came. Their knowledge and piety, their zeal and sincerity, their love of Christ, and contempt of the world, together with their unfeigned

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