CRISP. 473 life was so innocent and harmless from all evil, and so zealous and fervent in all good, that it remed to be designed as a practical refutation of the slander of those who would insinuate that his doctrine tended to licentiousness.".. The celebrated Dr. Twisse observes, " that he had read Dr.. Crisp's sermons, and could give no reason why they were opposed ; but," said he, " because so manywere converted by his ministry, and so few by ours." Mr. Cole, the excel- lent author of a treatise on " Regeneration,' declared, that if he had only one hundred pounds in the world, and Dr. Crisp's book could not be procured' for less than fifty, he would give that sum rather than be without it ; saying, " have foundmore satisfaction in it, than in all the books in the world, except the Bible."t Persons who have embraced sentiments which afterwards appear to them erroneous, often think they can never remove too far from them ; and the more remote they go from their former opinions, the nearer they come to the truth. This was unhappily the case with Dr. Crisp. His ideas of the grace of Christ had been exceedingly low, and he had imbibed sentiments which produced in him a legal and self-righteous spirit. Shocked at the recollection of his former views and conduct, he seems to have imagined that he could never go far enough from them ; and that he could never speak too highly of the grace and love of the Re- deemer, nor in too degrading terms of legality and self- righteousness. But many were of opinion, that he went to such an excess in magnifying the grace of God, as to turn it into wantonness : and that he was so severe against all legality and self-righteousness, that true holiness and obe- dience to the divine will were in danger of being discarded. He was fond of expressions which alarm, and paradoxes which astonish. Many of these, a person skilled in theology will perceive to be capable of a good meaning : but readers uninstructed, who compose the most numerous class, are in danger of misapprehending them, and of being led into pernicious errors. This good man, it is said, perplexed and puzzled himself about the divine purposes. He did not distinguish, as he ought to have done, between God's secret will in his decrees, and his revealed will in his cove- nant and promises ; and in his views of the decrees, he frequently speaks as if he had forgotten that they have respect to the means as well as the end. He alsodiscovered 1, Neal's Puritans, vol. iii. p. 18. + Lifeof Dr. Crisp, p. 9.
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