“Improper! See how doctors differ! I conceive nothing can possibly be more proper. If Mr. R. did indeed tell his congregation, some of whom disliked his attacking my poor text before, ‘Let who will be vexed, I do not care; I will not justify Balaam while I live’; yet, others imagine nothing would be more suitable than for Balaam junior to use the words of his forefather; especially, as he did not apply them to Mr. Whitefield, but to himself. Surely a poor reprobate may, without offence, _wish_ to die like one of the elect! And I dare say, every one understood me to mean this, the moment he heard the text. If not, the very hymn I sung showed to whom I applied the words-- ‘Oh that, without a lingering groan, I might the welcome word receive! My body with my charge lay down, And cease at once to work and live!’ “But the main attack is on the sermon itself; in which I am charged with asserting a gross falsehood, in the face of God and the congregation, and that knowing it to be such, namely, that ‘the grand fundamental doctrines which Mr. Whitefield everywhere preached, were those of the new birth and justification by faith.’ No, says Mr. R., not at all: the grand fundamental doctrines, which he everywhere preached, were the everlasting covenant between the Father and the Son, and absolute predestination flowing therefrom. “I join issue on this head. Whether the doctrines of the eternal covenant, and of absolute predestination, are the grand fundamental doctrines of Christianity, or not, I affirm again--(1) that Mr. Whitefield did not everywhere preach these; (2) that he did everywhere preach the new birth, and justification by faith. “1. He did not everywhere preach the eternal covenant, and absolute predestination. In all the times I myself heard him preach, I never heard him utter a sentence either on one or the other. Yea, all the times he preached in West Street chapel, and in our other chapels throughout England, he did not preach these doctrines at all, no, not in a single paragraph; which, by the bye, is a demonstration that he did not think them the fundamental doctrines of Christianity. “2. Both in West Street chapel, and all our other chapels throughout England, he did preach the necessity of the new birth, and justification by faith, as clearly as he has done in his two volumes of printed sermons. Therefore, all that I have asserted is true, and provable by ten thousand witnesses.