PORTSMOUTH, Nov. 19, 1810.
_Dear Friend_,--I take this method to write to you, with a desire you
would receive it as a friendly admonition. You recollect, no doubt,
that I have heard you make two speeches at funerals, as they are
commonly called, one at the grave and the other at the house of sorrow
and mourning, upon a very solemn and singular occasion. At the grave
you were short, and said, if I mistake not, viewing the grave, "this
is the house appointed for all living," two or three times, and then
said, "what reflection shall we make from it? is it done by an enemy?
has the Almighty suffered the government to be taken out of his
hands?"--and spake as if death was originally designed by the Almighty
for the good of mankind, and made it a very desirable thing. My dear
sir, doth not the bible, which is the word of God, or the scriptures
of truth say, "Wherefore as by one man sin entered into the world, and
death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have
sinned," Rom. v. 12, and Rom. vi. 23, "For the wages of sin is death."
God who is a gracious and holy sovereign "made man upright, but he
sought out many inventions." By listening unto that apostate spirit,
Satan, he transgressed and disobeyed his maker and sovereign, by
eating the forbidden fruit. "God made man in his own image, in the
image of God created he him, male and female created he them. And the
Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden, to dress it
and to keep it; and the Lord God commanded the man, saying, of every
tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat, but of the tree of
knowledge of good and evil, thou shall not eat of it, for in the day
thou eatest thereof, thou shall surely die." Gen. ii. 15, 17. Sin is
that enemy that introduced or was the cause of death, as we may
further see by considering that portion of scripture, I John. iii. 8,
"He that committeth sin is of the devil, for the devil sinneth from
the beginning." For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that
he might destroy the works of the devil. Sin is the work of the devil;
"the soul that sins shall die." If you will read the whole chapter and
seriously consider it, and pray to God through Jesus Christ to open
your understanding, that you may understand the scriptures, you would
not misappply and pervert them as I fear you do. In your speaking at
the house of mourning, you began and spake very eloquently at first
upon death; then you brought forward the same ideas, with respect to
death, as you did before at the grave. I do not remember that you, at
either place, spake one word of the necessity or nature of repentance.
Christ began his personal and public ministry by preaching repentance,
saying, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand"--again, "but
except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish," Luke xiii. 5. And
after his resurrection from the dead he appeared to his disciples and
confirmed them in the certainty of it, and chose them witnesses of the
truth of it, and said "thus it is written, and thus it behoveth Christ
to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day. And that repentance
and remission of sins should be preached in my name among all nations,
beginning at Jerusalem. And ye are witnesses of these things," Luke
xxiv. 46, 47, 48. The apostles, after Christ's ascension, practised as
he commanded them, as we may see by reading the Acts of the apostles,
Peter in particular, in the 2d and 3d chapters; and we do not find
that they ever gave any encouragement that their hearers could or
should be forgiven their sins without faith and repentance. Peter
says, "Repent, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out;"
which presupposes that if they did not repent and be turned to God by
converting grace their sins would not be forgiven. Thus the apostle
Paul preached, see Acts xxvi. 18, 19, 20, which I entreat you to read
and seriously to consider. See likewise 20th chap. of the Acts of the
apostles, how he appealed to the elders of the church; in the 17th
verse it is written, "And from Miletus he sent to Ephesus, and called
the elders of the church; and when they were come to him he said unto
them, ye know from the first day I came into Asia after what manner I
have been with you at all seasons, serving the Lord with all humility
of mind, and with many tears and temptations which befell me, by the
lying in wait of the Jews; and how I kept back nothing that was
profitable unto you, but have shewed you and have taught you publicly
and from house to house, testifying both to the Jews and also to the
Greeks, repentance towards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus
Christ." The apostles spake of the nature of repentance that they
should bring forth fruits meet for repentance, and that Godly sorrow
worked repentance to salvation, not to be repented of; but the sorrow
of the world worketh death. For a minister of the New Testament to
advance such doctrine as will give hopes to their hearers that all
will be happy in a future state, whether they have repented or no, is
not preaching as Christ and his apostles preached. If we know not God,
and obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, what will be the
consequence? See 2 Thes. i. 8, 9. Ministers are directed by the
inspired apostle Paul; see in his epistles to Timothy and Titus. See 2
Tim. 4th chap. from 1st to the end, the 5th verse, which I would
entreat and beseech you to read and seriously consider. He, in some of
those verses referred to, says to Timothy, "Reprove, rebuke, exhort,
with all long suffering and doctrine; for the time will come when men
will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts shall they
heap to themselves teachers having itching ears. And they shall turn
away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. But
watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an
evangelist, make proof of thy ministry." Paul was just about to leave
the world; the time of his departure was at hand; the above were his
dying words to his beloved son Timothy (in the faith.) The blessed and
beloved apostle had through grace kept the faith, that is, the true
faith of the gospel; he had finished his course, he had fought a good
fight, and henceforth he says, there is laid up for me a crown of
righteousness which God the righteous judge shall give me at that day;
and not only to me, but unto all them also, that love his appearing.
You, my friend, once professed the true faith of the gospel--have you
kept it? I think not. I fear you have fallen from it. You are now
preaching a doctrine which pleases the world, but it makes against
you, according to scripture; the apostle John says, in 1st epistle,
4th chap, 5th and 6th verses, "They are of the world; therefore the
world heareth them. We are of God; he that knoweth God heareth us; he
that is not of God heareth not us; hereby know we the spirit of truth,
and the spirit of error." I beseech you again, my friend, examine and
seriously consider the first five verses of that chapter, and pray God
through Jesus Christ that he would open it to your understanding:
Solomon says, "My son, lean not to your own understanding." I could
not but observe with what an _emphasis_ you at the grave mentioned
those selected texts of scripture which you supposed would confirm
your hearers in the doctrine of Universal Salvation. Would Christ or
the apostles preach Universal Salvation in one place of scripture, and
in another contradict it? I believe they would not. I am an _old man_,
and have studied the scriptures twenty or thirty years; yea, I may say
more or less from my youth up; I find it the best way of study, to
compare scripture with scripture; to consider the preceding and
following context; to be self-diffident; and to be much in prayer,
that it would please God, by his holy spirit, to lead and guide us
into all necessary truth; and I do not think it amiss to use sound
authors, for as we are in some measure dependant on one another for
temporal, so I think we may, under God, be for spiritual assistance;
though by no means to put our trust in an arm of flesh.
We may observe how earnest David in prayer to God was in the 25th
Psalm. He was a prophet as well the royal Psalmist, yet he comes in a
very humble manner to God in prayer that he would shew him his ways,
and teach him his paths; and in that Psalm, 8th verse, says, "good and
upright is the Lord: therefore will he teach sinners in the way. The
meek will he guide in judgment; and the meek he will teach his way."
But if men will undertake to explain scripture in their own strength
and wisdom, what must we expect but to have them mangled and made
havoc of, or explained in a mere mystical or literal sense? "The
natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God: for they
are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them, because they are
spiritually discerned." See I Cor. ii. 14.
As you did not say any thing about the resurrection of the dead in
either of your speeches, I began to query in my mind whether you
believed it or no. I think, yea, I know, it was preached by Christ,
and explained so as to confute the Sadducees. Our Lord says, "Marvel
not at this, for the hour is coming in the which all that are in their
graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done
good unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto
the resurrection of damnation." St. Paul in his defence before the
Roman governor when accused by an orator, whom the Jews employed, as
he was allowed to speak for himself, said, "they cannot prove the
thing, whereof they now accuse me; but this I confess after the way
which they call heresy; so worship I the God of my fathers, believing
all things which are written in the law and the prophets, and have
hope towards God, which they themselves also allow; that there shall
be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust; and herein
do I exercise myself to have always a conscience void of offence
toward God, and toward man." We may observe what an influence the
belief of a future state of rewards and punishments had on the blessed
apostle to excite him to live a godly and self-denying life. In 2 Cor.
v. 10, 11, speaking of a day of judgment, "when every one must give an
account for himself as the deeds have been done in the body, that
every one may receive the things done in his body according to that he
hath done whether it be good or bad;" and says, "knowing the terror of
the Lord, we persuade men." My friend, is there the least room for us
to believe from this scripture and many others, that the wicked who
have died impenitent and in a disbelief of the gospel or without the
true knowledge of God and Jesus Christ, whom God hath sent, have
eternal life, in the fruition and enjoyment of God? Heaven consists in
being made like God, and enjoying him: hence it is, that the pious
thirst for God, the living God, saying, when shall I come and appear
before him? Again, "Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none
upon earth I desire besides thee. My flesh and heart fail me, but God
is the strength of my heart and portion forever." These pious
breathings are the exercises of the children of God. O may they be
ours.