affections; and all this may be called love to Chrift, confidence in him, and the like: and chriftians who neither experience nor pretend to fuch ecftatic feelings may be treated with contempt, and represented as derogating from the glory of Chrift. But fuch a Being as this having, in fact, no real existence, all these affections must be vain and illufory, varying according to the variable fancies of men, and incapable of conflituting wife and permanent principles of action.

But Mr. W. has texts at hand to fupport his doctrine, which to fuperficial readers will probably appear fatisfactory, but which a little attention will eafily reconcile to the general tenor of the scriptures concerning the perfon of Jefus, as a man of like faculties and feelings with other human beings.

"In him," fays the Apoftle*, "dwelleth all the "fulness of the Godhead bodily." But this no more proves the proper deity of Chrift, which is the purpose for which Mr. W. quotes it, than the expreffions, "being filled with all the fulness of "Godt," or "being made partakers of a divine "nature ‡," prove the proper deity of all fincere christians. The meaning is, that a fulness of knowledge and power for the purpose of his miffion was. communicated to him by God..

"Mr. W. alfo produces the text, Phil. ii. 6. 8. "Ha

*Col. ii. 9. + Eph. iii. 19.

2 Pet. i. 4..

"thought

"thought it not robbery to be equal with God," or rather as God or like God. The fenfe of which is, that being endued with miraculous powers, here called "being in the form of God, he did not grafp "at fimilitude to God," did not affect an oftentatious difplay of these powers for his own advantage; "but, affuming the form of a fervant, he was made "in the likeness of men," that is, he appeared weak and helpless like another man*, and fo "became "obedient to death, even the death of the cross." The fubmiffion of Jefus to death is represented in the New Teftament as an act of voluntary obedience, becaufe he always had it in his power to have refcued himself by miracle, as he himself repeatedly declares; a privilege which no human being but himself ever poffeffed.

Mr. W. argues the propriety of trusting in Christ, from Heb. xiii. 8. "Jefus Chrift is the fame yefter"day, and to-day, and for ever." But in this paffage the name of the prophet is put, by a usual figure of speech, for his doctrine, as the context evinces. For the inference which the writer immediately draws from the observation is, "Be not car"ried about with divers and ftrange doctrines."

*

* So Samfon, Judges xvi. 17. tells his mistress, that “if he is fhaven he shall become weak, and be like any man," i. e. as our translators (not being, in this inftance, warped by prejudice) have properly rendered it, like any other man no longer poffeffed of extraordinary powers.

LETTER IX.

The fame fubject continued. Errors concerning the Holy Spirit.

MADAM,

MR. Wilberforce, like a valorous knight, having chafed his invifible opponent, page 98," from his "favourite pofition, and compelled him to acknow"ledge that the religious affections towards our "bleffed Saviour are not unreasonable," determines now to follow up his victory, and to drive him from "his laft retreat, viz. That by the very conftitution "of our nature we are not fufceptible of affections "towards an invisible Being."

Our Author having now advanced pretty far into the wilderness of vifions and chimeras, it is not an eafy matter to follow him over the enchanted ground. To all appearance, however, his prefent attack is made upon a non-exifting adversary. That any - perfon fhould believe that Jefus Chrift is all that Mr. W. reprefents, that is, a God to whom we are under greater obligations than to the Creator himself, having redeemed us from that miferable ftate in which our Maker had left us*, and yet to deny that

Vide Mr. W. p. 123. "The merits and interceffion of Christ, to which we are wholly indebted for our reconciliation with God, and for the will and the power from first to laft to

"work

that this divine perfon is the proper object of religious affection, or that fuch affections are practicable, is to me utterly incomprehenfible. But as Mr. W. labours the point with fo much affiduity, it is to be fuppofed that he may have met with fome reafoners of this extraordinary caft. As for those who are content with the plain and simple account of Jefus Chrift in the New Testament, as a man approved of God, it is plain that to such persons the whole of his reasoning is totally inapplicable; nor does he indeed affect to address it to them.

To profeffed chriftians, who believe that a Divine Perfon affumed human nature, and died to, fave them from eternal mifery, and that he is now continually employed to intercede for them and to defend them, and who, nevertheless, doubt whether it be reasonable or practicable to love and confide in him, Mr. W. addreffes the argument in his following fection. And the tenor of his reafoning is, that invifible beings, when they are made the objects of steady meditation, or, as he quaintly expreffes it, when they are brought into "clofe contact," are capable of exciting the affections-that the relations in which we stand to fuch a Chrift as he defcribes, have a peculiar tendency to awaken the affectionsthat it is the office of the holy fpirit to excite them

"work out our own falvation." In our natural ftate, that is, as God made us, the author defcribes us as "tainted with fin to "the very core," without will or power to help ourselves.

that persons who object to the poffibility of fuch affections have never ufed the proper means of attaining them-and that many eminent chriftians, in all ages, have, by the use of the appointed means, made high attainments in these virtues. The only objection which can be made to this reasoning, as an addrefs to men's profeffed principles, is, that it is proposed to persons who either have no occafion for it, or whofe understandings must be impenetrable to argument.

Mr. W. in order to convince his callous believer of the practicability of love to Chrift, though invifible, affumes as a fact, p. 101, the extraordinary pofition, that " there appears naturally to be a cer"tain ftrangeness between the passion and its ob"ject, which familiarity and the power of habit "must gradually overcome." He adds, “You must "contrive to bring them into close contact." After which he proceeds, at confiderable length, formally to open, as he expreffes it, p. 106, "the doctrine of "close contact," as though it were fome new and important discovery in the philofophy of the human mind—when, in truth, it amounts to nothing more than the old and familiar fact, that the affections are excited, not in proportion to the real value and magnitude of the object, but to the attention, voluntary or otherwife, which is paid to it, and that, whether the object be real or imaginary.

Mr. W. p. 102, to illustrate his propofition that

objects