20% ¡GAiNST UNCHARITABLENESS. other gospel to you than that ye have received, let hinz beaccursed, and yet he owns, verse 7. that it is not another gospel, but merely a perversion of the gospel of Christ ; and is this enough,to be accursed for? Anse. Let Moinus consider how grossly the gospel must be perverted, when it is turned into such a sense as the Galatians seem to have been taught by these troublera of their church, verse 7. it is such an error as would have carried them again into Judaism, with all its yokes of bondage, Would have obliged them to be circumcised and to observe the Jewish festival days, months and years; Gal. iv. 10. chapter v. 2. Such an error as shews them to have run back to theceremonies of the Jewish law of justification and acceptance with God, verse 4. Such an error as gave occasion to the apostle to charge them, if ye pursue it ye are fallen from grace, that is, from the gospel of grace : And that Christ would profit them nothing, would become of no effect to them, verses 2, 4. And after all it must be said these are the words of scrip- ture, and of the Spirit of God, and not merely of St. Paul him- self as a private writer ; and will the .man deal thus with scrip- ture ? You see to what lengths . this temper will carry a man. But still he pursues his accusation against the apostles, and makes St. John to be grossly guilty of want of charity in his second epistle, verses 9, 10. If there come any unto ,you, and bring not this doctrine, that is, the doctrine of Christ mentioned in the foregoing verse, receive him not intò your house, nor bid himGod speed; for he that biddeth him, God speed, is partaker of his evil deeds. Now toanswer the unreasonable censure of this Momus, let us enquire what this doctrineof Christ is ; and where should we find the most important parts of it but in the samewriter ? Chap- ter i. verse 7. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth usfrom all sin ; Chapter ii. verse 2. Jesus Christ, the righteous, is not only our advocate with the Father, but he is also the propitiation for our sins. Chapter iv. verse 10. God loved us, and sent his Son to be tlze_ propitiation for our sins, and that every true christian is born of God, chapter v. 1, 4. that is, as other verses of this holy writer in his gospel explain it, he is born of the spirit of God; John i. 13. and iii. 5, 6. It appears then that the errors óf such whom the apostle would here exclude from our friendship, are such as do not acknowledge Jesus Cbrst to be the Messiah, or not to be apropitiatory sacrifice for the sins of men, nor allow that every true christian is regenerated and born of God, or of his Spirit, that is, by the powerful, renewing and sanctifying in- fluences thereof, as other scriptures explain it, particularly John i. 12, 13. John iii. 3, 5. and as St. Paul expresses it; Eph. i. 19,. 40. By such a mighty power which he wrought in Christ when he raisedhimfrom the dead.
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