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THE CHILD OF LIBERTY IN LEGAL

BONDAGE,

OR THE

SON AND HEIR IN THE SERVANT'S YOKE;

A SERMON PREACHED AT MONKWELL STREET MEETING, SEPT. 9, 1794.

I AM SHUT UP, I CANNOT COME FORTH.

PSALM lxxxviii. 8.

JER. XXXI. 18.

THOU HAST CHASTISED ME, AND I WAS CHASTISED, AS A BULLOCK UN

ACCUSTOMED TO THE YOKE.

VOL. XVII.

B

To MR. HUNTINGTON.

REV. AND DEAR SIR,

London, Sept. 10, 1794.

As I understand you are frequently troubled, and put to unnecessary expense, with impertinent and unedifying letters, I humbly beg excuse for troubling you again at this time, hoping you will not have reason at least to complain of the impertinence of this letter, however much of its ignorance, and none at all of its expense. I had the happiness last night, as in the good providence of God I have often had before, to hear you at Monk. well street Chapel on the text "Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free," &c. with much satisfaction, and, I hope by the blessing of God, with some edification. I think, if, after such a sermon, and the doctrines contained in and enforced by it, your adversaries continue to insist upon the danger of your doctrines, and the error of your judgment as a minister of the gospel, they must form an hypothesis by malice and prejudice, and use the arguments from falsehood and slander. There is no doubt but that if a man be made an offender for a word, or his own

natural mode of expression, who among men (all of whom are, at the best, but imperfect), who among them shall escape judgment and condemnation? only, however, as it is happy for them, by their own brethren, fallible as themselves, and accountable to the judgment, and liable to the condemnation, without repentance, of him who is only impartial and just. According to my weak judgment, you fully settled the dispute with your adversaries respecting antinomianism, and removed the smallest doubt, to any one, of the orthodoxy of your principles respecting the believer's freedom from the law as a covenant of works, and of subjection to it as a rule of obedience for life, or as a rule of obedience at all, only as a transcript of the moral perfections of God, and perfect standard of righteousness; which is wrought out by Jesus Christ for all whom the Father has given him, and applied to them through the faith of the operation of his Spirit, which works by love; and, as it is perfect and pure, and abounds to God and man, is a fulfilling of the law. Your correspondent, whom you mentioned last night, appears to me to be just such a man in principle as your adversaries mistake you for. According to what you mentioned of him, as appears to me, he is an antinomian in the proper sense of the word. When he is once freed from the sensible bondage of the law, he seems to flatter himself he has nothing to fear from its power, as to bondage, for ever again. But I am

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