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When this end is Who could express This is the view Till believers are

end is accomplished, the rod will be used. accomplished, it will no more be used." the sentiment of the sacred writer better? which gives all its force to the argument. made partakers of God's holiness, the rod is used. When this is fully accomplished, the rod is no more used. Who now has this evidence of complete conformity to the divine holiness? Has Mr. Mahan, or Mr. Fitch, or any who agree with them? Are they free from affliction? Can they say that the rod is no more used with them? But would they any longer endure chastisement, if sanctification, which is the object of it, were fully accomplished? If any of them are indeed " without chastisement" what does the Scripture say of them? Now chastisement, if just, always implies some fault in the one who is chastised. When you see a wise and good father correcting his children, you know that he sees something amiss in them. And as divine chastisement is continued to all believers, as long as life lasts, it must be that God sees in them some fault to be corrected, or some moral deficiency to be supplied. When the end of chastisement is fully accomplished, Mr. Mahan says, "it will no more be used."

Now, the last and generally the greatest affliction which believers suffer, is death. And why may not this, as well as all preceding afflictions, be intended, by a wonder-working God, for their benefit, that they may, in a higher degree than before, be partakers of his holiness? Being the last, and a most remarkable case of suffering, why may it not be the means of completing their sanctification; and so the means of working out for them, in the last instance, a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory? On the very principle laid down by Mr. Mahan, as well as by the sacred writer, why is it not reasonable to conclude, that the whole end of suffering is not accomplished before death, but is accomplished at death; and that this is the reason why there is no affliction after death? And how common it has been for the wisest and best of men to look upon death in this light, and to anticipate the event, however painful, as a blessing-a means of delivering them from all remains of depravity, and of finishing in them the work of preparation for heaven! So long as they are in this tabernacle, they groan, being burdened. And what burden so great as sin? The time when they expect to be like Christ, that is, perfectly so, is the time when he shall appear, and when they shall see him as he is.

I marvel that Mr. Mahan treats this common view of the subject as he does. See Disc. p. 47. He calls it absurd, and thinks he can dispose of it by a single stroke. To overthrow the doctrine that the work of sanctification is completed at which sanc"First, the grave, death, he uses two arguments. tifies believers amid the gloom and wreck and distraction of dissolving nature, would, if applied, have sanctified him at an earlier period." Undoubtedly it would have done it, "if applied." But what if it was not applied? And how does Mr. Mahan know that it may not have seemed good in the sight of God to apply it at the time of dissolution, rather than before? May not this be one of the unsearchable things in the divine dispensation? And why did not Mr. Mahan see how easily he might disprove the Scripture doctrine which he believes,that Christians are sanctified by means of the common afflictions of life? He might say: "The same grace which sanctifies the believer amid the gloom" and distress of heavy affliction, "would, if applied, have sanctified him before." And by this argument he might prove, in opposition to the sacred writers and to himself, that God does not sanctify believers by means of affliction;-yes, he might verily prove, that God does not sanctify believers by means of chastisement, because the grace, which sanctifies them by such means, would, if applied, have sanctified them before. In the same way, he might prove sinners are not, in any case, converted by means of preaching, because the grace which converts them by that means, would, if applied, have converted them at an earlier period! His second argument is this: "No other reason can be assigned for this grace (the grace which would wholly sanctify believers before death) being withheld, but the supposition that God can better glorify himself, and his kingdom be better advanced by saints partially, than wholly sanctified." The argument, plainly stated and carried out, stands thus: There is no reason why God should not bestow the grace which would wholly sanctify believers during the present life, but the supposition, that he is better glorified by their partial, than by their entire sanctification. And as this supposition is inadmissible, therefore, God does not withhold, but actually bestows the grace which wholly sanctifies believers during the present life. Now try this arguWould not ment, and see how it would work in other cases. God be more glorified, if all Christians should be perfectly holy to-day, than if they should remain partially holy? Must he not

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then actually give them the grace, which will make them perfectly holy to-day? Again, would not God have been better glorified, if Mr. Mahan and other Christians had been converted at an earlier period of their life? If so, then there was no reason why he should withhold the grace which would have converted them earlier. And as he does nothing and omits nothing without reason, it must be that he actually bestowed the grace which converted them earlier; that is, bestowed the grace which converted them before they were converted. Once more. Mr. Mahan thinks that he was a wanderer from the right way, while he was a member of this Seminary; and in his charitable judgment, all his fellow-students were in so low and lamentable a state, that "not a single individual," out of so large a number, "enjoyed daily communion and peace with God." Surely Mr. Mahan thinks God would, at that time, have been more glorified by his complete holiness and that of his brethren, than by their very partial holiness. Must it not then have been the fact, that God did actually give them the grace which made them completely holy? But as this grace was not given, and as he thinks there could have been no other reason for not giving it, than the one he mentions, must not his conclusion be, that it was withheld without any reason?

I have dwelt so long on this point, to show that this mode of reasoning involves the most glaring falsities, and leads to the most dangerous results. What shipwreck will any one make of the truth, who argues in this manner! It is going beyond our province, and attempting to intrude ourselves irreverently into those secret things which belong only to God. Why should we take upon us to determine, by our own fallible judgment, what the dispensations of God will be? We know what the Lord requires of us,-that we should glorify him by constant and entire obedience. But how he will see fit to glorify himself, in his sovereign Providence, is another question. And who is able to compare the different ways in which God may do this, and to determine, by his own reason, which God will prefer? Who is authorized to say, that God will not overrule the sinfulness which remains in his own children to the end of life, so as to make it the means of honoring, in the highest degree, his own infinite wisdom and grace? By this and all the other acts of his government, he will cause the world to know, that he is God. How admirable will his forbearance and mercy appear to his people hereafter, when they remember that they

carried with them, to the very gate of heaven, so much that was offensive in his sight! What wonder, love and praise will fill their illuminated and purified souls, when they call to mind their own deficiencies, and the long continued perverseness of their hearts, and then think of that redeeming grace, the aboundings of which rose so far above the aboundings of sin!

Finally. I make my appeal to the consciousness of the most advanced Christians,-the Baxters, the Mathers, the Brainerds, the Edwardses, the Martyns and the Paysons,-Christians who have probably risen as high in their spiritual attainments, as the most favored of those who maintain the doctrine of Perfection; and I could show, from their own repeated and humble confessions, that they all had a deep and growing sense of remaining depravity; that they always abhorred themselves on account of indwelling sin, and felt the need of pardoning and sanctifying grace, even to the end of life. And the sacred writers show, in the various ways above mentioned, and in other ways, that they had the same conviction as to their own state, and the state of all the saints on earth. I might refer to John, who asserts that it would be false for believers to say, they have no sin, and immediately speaks of their confessing their sins, and of the readiness of God to pardon and cleanse them ;-all showing that he meant to speak of what they were at the time he wrote. The writers of the New Testament manifestly had the same views with Solomon, who said, in the midst of a solemn, public prayer: "there is no man that sinneth not," and who afterwards repeated the same sentiment: "there is not a just man on earth who doeth good and sinneth not."

Such is the examination which we have pursued in order to ascertain the true meaning of the texts which seem, at first view, to favor the doctrine of "Perfection." I have not presumed to determine this in a moment; but have felt it to be necessary, in so important a matter, to search the Scriptures, and to compare one part with another, so that, if possible, I might be able to determine exactly what is the mind of the inspired writers, and what is the doctrine they mean to teach respecting the subject under consideration.

In this examination we have found, 1. That the Scriptures, in other cases, frequently employ terms similar to those used in these texts, in a restricted sense. We conclude, therefore, that they may proceed on the same principle here. The most literal, absolute sense may not be the sense intended. 2. As to some

of the texts referred to, we have found that the circumstances of the case clearly forbid us to understand them in the literal and absolute sense. And our conclusion is, that the same may be true in respect to the other texts, though for reasons less obvious. 3. We have found, that the terms used in some of the texts are evidently designed to express the integrity of true believers, in distinction from hypocrites, or their freedom from particular sins which were charged upon them by others, or to which they were exposed; or the maturity of their religious character, compared with its commencement; or perhaps the fact, that they had all the essential parts of the new man, though in an imperfect state. In no case is the highest sense of the words absolutely required. 4. The current language of the sacred writers, in a variety of respects, implies that the piety of believers during the present life is progressive. 5. Complete holiness is represented as an object of desire to believers, desire, from its very nature, fixing upon a future good-a good not yet possessed. 6. Complete holiness is an object of the prayers, which the saints offered up for themselves and for one another; implying that it was regarded as a good, not yet obtained. 7. Affliction, or chastisement, which is intended as a means of sanctification, is continued to believers up to the very close of life; implying that, so long as life lasts, they have remaining sinfulness which calls for it. 8. The most advanced saints have always been conscious of the imperfection of their holiness.

Now do not all these plain instructions and representations, both separately and unitedly, make known the real spiritual state of the people of God during the present life? Do they not show very satisfactorily, that it was not the design of the sacred writers to teach the doctrine, that the saints as a body, or any part of them, actually attain to sinless perfection here? And must we not, therefore, understand all the texts which, at first view, seem to favor the doctrine of " Perfection," in a qualified or comparative sense, a sense corresponding with the general teachings of the Bible, as to the actual state of believers in the present world?

To guard against every thing which might appear questionable or inconclusive, I have thus far framed my argument without any reference to Rom. 7: 14-25. And yet, if the Apostle intends to speak of himself in his renewed state, the passage affords an argunent of the first importance in support of the

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