“For some years, I have suspected there is more imaginary than _unfeigned faith_ in most of those who pass for believers. With a mixture of indignation and grief, have I seen them carelessly follow the stream of corrupt nature, against which they should have manfully wrestled. When they should have exclaimed against their _Antinomianism_, I have heard them cry out against the _legality_ of their wicked hearts; which, they said, still suggested they were to _do something_ in order to salvation. Glad was I, therefore, when I had attentively considered Mr. Wesley’s ‘Minutes,’ to find they were levelled at the very errors, which gave rise to an evil I had long lamented in secret, but had wanted courage to resist and attack.” “Do not imagine, Rev. Sir, I cry up God’s law, to drown the late cries of _heresy_ and _apostacy_. I appeal to matter of fact and to your own observations. Consider the religious world, and say if ‘Antinomianism’ is not, in general, a motto better adapted to the state of professing congregations, societies, families, and individuals, than ‘_Holiness unto the Lord_.’ “Begin with _congregations_, and cast your eyes upon the _hearers_. In general, they have curious ‘_itching ears_,’ and ‘_will not endure sound doctrine_.’ They say they ‘will have nothing but Christ;’ and who could blame them if they would have Christ in all His offices? Christ, with all His parables and sermons, cautions and precepts, reproofs and expostulations, exhortations and threatenings? Who would find fault with them, if they would have Christ with His poverty and self-denial, His reproach and cross, His spirit and graces, His prophets and apostles, His plain apparel and mean followers? But, alas! it is not so. They will have _what_ they please of Christ, and that too _as_ they please. They admire Him in one chapter, and know not what to make of Him in another. If He asserts His authority as a Lawgiver, they are ready to treat Him with as little ceremony as they do Moses. If He says, ‘_Keep my commandments, I am a King_;’ like the Jews of old, they rise against the awful declaration; or they _crown Him_ as a _surety_, the better to ‘_set Him at nought_’ as a _monarch_. If He adds to His ministers, ‘Go, and teach all nations _to observe all things_ whatsoever I have _commanded_ you;’ they complain, ‘This is _the law_; give us _the gospel_, we can relish nothing but the gospel.’” “Hence it is that some preachers must choose comfortable subjects to please their hearers; just as those, who make an entertainment for nice persons, are obliged to study what will suit their difficult taste. A multitude of important Scriptures can be produced, on which no minister, who is unwilling to lose his reputation as an evangelical preacher, must dare to speak in some pulpits, unless it is to explain away or enervate their meaning.”