city, and Christian moderation: whom his contemporaries efteemed as most capable of "teaching learning by inftruction, and virtue 66 by example;" whom not this University alone, but our Church and Nation, have uniformly esteemed, as one of their brightest lu minaries; and to whofe merits the teftimony 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 tranfmitting his honour to pofterity as "the learned, or judicious, or reverend, or ve→ "nerable Hooker k." Virtually disclaiming the modern doctrine of affurance, by declaring that "the ftrongest "in faith that liveth on the earth has always "need to labour, ftrive, and pray, that his af"furance concerning heavenly and spiritual "things may grow, increase, and be augment"ed ;" and disclaiming the modern doctrine of perfection by an humble acknowledgment of his own unrighteoufnefs, he bore his teftimony to the truths, which I have been endeavouring to establish, even before the oppofite 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 foundness 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, whofe heart was the living picture of that poornefs of fpirit, to which is promised the bleffing of the kingdom of heaven; and whose 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 neceffity 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 just recited, were felected for your attention; becaufe I was defirous that our minds might be impreffed, at the outfet of the proposed 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 "as it is in Jefus;" and which muft in confe quence 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 Gofpel" of our Lord and Saviour Jefus Christ. Alive to the responsibility, 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 those more prominent fubjects, on which the charge in queftion 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 difcourfe,) not for the purpose of fuperfeding, but of encouraging, more full and more minute investigation in those, for whose 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 prosecute the examination by the light of the facred Scriptures; affifted by thofe 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 inftitutions to pro mote. A late excellent Prelate, who contributed much to the ornament and spiritual edification of our University, in which he occupied a diftinguished poft, in a discourse 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 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 recourfe 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 use "of the fanctuary from the fresh springs of k k |