SECTION IV. 103 cal method of preaching most frequently : But another person who follows a different way may tell me, he came by his turn of thoughts the same way as I did by mine and my charity demands that I believe it. Yet while both sides maintain those great truths, wherein I mentioned the general agreement of our protestant confessions of faith, I cannot conceive that either of them can lead sinners astray from salvation, and that is the fourth proposal I made, viz. IV. To spew the real safety of each of these methods in ministering the gospel both to saints and sinners, and that is evident, because they agree in the most necessary and essential parts of it. Both of them preach grace and duty, justification by Christ, and sanctification by the Holy Spirit, and teach men all that is of necessity to be believed and practised in order to salvation. If two men sitting under adifferent ministry are brought sin- cerely to repent of all sin, and to love God with all their heart, can I imagine that one shall be damned, becausehe tellsme he repents in obedience to the commands of the gospel ? Or the other, be- cause he doth it in obedience to the moral law in the hand of Christ, supposing the pure gospel to have no command in it ? Iftwo sinners are persuaded to accept of Christ Jesus for their Lord and Saviour, can I ever believe that God will condemn one of them, because he first resolved to obey Christ as his Lord, and thereby took encouragement to trust him as a Saviour ? Qr that God will punish the other for ever, because he first trusted in Christ as a Saviour, and thereby found his will sweetly inclined to submit to him as his Lord ?, Where all duties required in the gospel are sincerely performed, can I ever be persuaded men shall be ever sent to hell, merely because they do not agree about the -logical relations that these duties have one to another, or to their salvation, while both agree to lay the Lord Jesus Christ, and his righteousness, or his obedience and death, as the only foundation of all their hopes ? If either of these ways of preaching the gospel, were so contrary to scripture, and such abominable and pernicious errors in the sight of God, as angry and quarrelling men of both sides represent them, I cannot persuade myself that God would so far have favoured both, in these instances following, viz. I. If either of these ways of preaching were so criminal and dangerous as some have supposed, I cannot think the Spirit of God would have used those expressions in scripture, which sometimes seem to represent the covenant of grace in one form, and sometimes in another : nor that he would have suffered the penmen of his holyword to have given occasion so suchdifferent sentiments on this subject among hisfavourites, his holyworship- pers, and those who have sought his directions and hisgrace with muchimportunity and perseverance.
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