Here the emancipation has reached the Puritans; but it proceeded from the Church. That Puritanism is yet emancipated from the popular doctrine of justification cannot be asserted. On the contrary, the more it loosens its hold on the doctrine of predestination the more it tightens it on that of justification. We shall have occasion by and by to discuss Wesley's words: '_Plead thou solely the blood of the Covenant, the ransom paid for thy proud stubborn soul!_' and to show how modern Methodism glories in holding aloft as its standard this teaching of Wesley's, and this teaching above all. The many tracts which have lately been sent me in reference to this subject go all the same way. Like Luther, they hold that 'all heretics have continually failed in this one point, that they do not rightly understand or know the article of _justification_:' 'do not see' (to continue to use Luther's words,) 'that by none other sacrifice or offering could God's fierce anger be appeased, but by the precious blood of the Son of God.' That this doctrine is founded upon an entire misunderstanding of St. Paul's writings we have shown; that there is very visible a tendency in the minds of religious people to outgrow it, is true, but where alone does this tendency manifest itself with any steadiness or power? In the Church. The inevitable movement of growth will in time extend itself to Puritanism also. Let it be remembered in that day that not only does the movement come to Puritanism from the Church, but it comes to Churchmen of our century from a seed of growth and development inherent in the Church, and which was manifest in the Church long ago! That the accompaniments of the doctrine of justification, the tenets of conversion, instantaneous sanctification, assurance, and sinless perfection,--tenets which are not the essence of Wesley, but which are the essence of Wesleyan Methodism, and which have in them so much that is delusive and dangerous,--that these should have been discerningly judged by that mixture of piety and sobriety which marks Anglicans of the best type, such as Bishop Wilson,[105] will surprise no one. But years before Wesley was born, the fontal doctrine itself,--Wesley's '_Plead thou solely the blood of the Covenant!_'--had been criticised by Hammond thus, and the signal of deliverance from the Lutheran doctrine of justification given: 'The solifidian looks upon his faith as the utmost accomplishment and end, and not only as the first elements of his task, which is,--_the superstructing of good life_. The solifidian believes himself to have the only sanctified necessary doctrines, that having them renders his condition safe, and every man who believes them a pure Christian professor. In respect of solifidianism it is worth remembering what Epiphanius observes of the primitive times, that _wickedness was the only heresy_, that impious and pious living divided the whole Christian world into erroneous and orthodox.'