EXCOMMUNICATION, &c.

'TO THE

REV. JOHN RYLAND, JUN.

REVEREND SIR,

OF NORTHAMPTON.

HAVING perused and considered the Letter that you sent to Mr. Adams, mine host; and finding myself frequently brought in, as that stranger, that minister, a man of such a spirit and principles: it evidently demonstrates you culpable, with respect to all the charges of calumny and reproach which you have brought against, and for which you have excommunicated Mr. Adams. "Thou therefore that teachest another, teachest thou not thyself also?" As I am a party concerned, I hope a few remarks on your spirit and principles will be no more offensive to you, than your letter is to me. We are to do as we would be done by, for this is the law and the prophets.

The gentleman that received me into his house at Northampton, is since that time, I find, excommunicated from your church; and his reception of me seems to be the chief cause of that dreadful sentence, though the curse, causeless, shall never

come. I went to him, sir, in the spirit of love and meekness, and you have been to him with a rod; and I have no doubt but, under the blessing of God, both will be of use to his soul, the former to attract his affections to the gospel of Christ; and the latter to raise an holy indignation against the doctrines and commandments of men; and teach him, not to settle his faith on human wisdom, but on divine power.

you

If you do sincerely wish to meet the gentleman have cut off in the kingdom of heaven, prove your wish to be genuine, by doing as Christ bids you preach the kingdom of God to him; and lay aside extorting evangelical obedience to the gospel of Christ from the unconverted, which is not fighting, but a beating the air. This obscures the gospel, starves the flock, and shuts up the kingdom of God against men; for the shepherd's labour is spent on the serpent's seed, while the subjects of grace are neglected. The blessing, sir, is not on him who preaches the evangelical duties of the unconverted; but blessed is that servant whom his Lord hath made ruler over his household, to give them a portion of meat, in due season, Luke xii, 42. The household, not the unconverted, are to have the meat.

You bring in Mr. Adams as having covenanted to walk with you in church-fellowship, by lifting up his hand, and subscribing his name. And likewise the church's choice of you as their pastor,

after a trial of ten years; and no apparent opposi

tion was made at the election. But pray, sir, did you, at your ordination, confess, or make it the chief article of your confession before the church, that you should set the law of Moses before every member of Christ, as his only rule of life and conduct? and that you should enforce the everlasting gospel as the only rule of duty for the unconverted? Or was the instant preaching of these things, in season, and out of season, the cause of Mr. Adams joining your church at first? Were these things mentioned in your confession of faith? or, was passive obedience and non-resistance, with respect to these things, required of Mr. Adams at his admission into your church? If not, who is to blame? If a minister goes from his confession to the church, no wonder if members go from their professed subjection to him. If he departs from the faith, the faithful should depart from him. Their faith is not to stand in his wisdom, but in God's power. He has no dominion over their faith, but is, or should be, a servant of the church, and a fellow-helper of their joy; for by faith they stand. If you have gone into these things since your ordination, or since the admission of Mr. Adams, you are the first offender. You have no warrant from Christ to feed the household of God. with husks, nor to give the children's bread to dogs. If Mr. Adams exclaimed against these things, he did his duty in opposing walking in craftiness, and handling the word of God deceit

fully. And, had you been Peter the apostle, you ought to have been withstood to the face.

The minority must submit to the majority. True, sir: and, when a pastor is going to leave the holy commandment delivered unto him, and to turn aside to vain jangling, he generally circulates his new leaven in a private way, and biases the minds of all he can, before he brings the dregs of his heart out: and, if the majority seems against him, the church door is often thrown open a little wider than common, and numbers are admitted who come to spy out the saints' liberty, and to bring them into bondage: by which means Christ is often turned out of doors; and, when he is gone, the faithful, by degrees, go after him; till, in process of time, nothing is left behind but stubble, the refuse of the harvest. "The congregation of

hypocrites shall be desolate.”

The most weighty charge against Mr. Adams, is said to be disaffection to the pastor. In this, I think, Mr. Ryland was the first aggressor, and is by far the most culpable. When Mr. Ryland was first chosen pastor of that church, he professed the occupation of a shepherd, not a herdsman. He took the oversight of the flock, not of the herds. He took charge of the Lord's household, not of the world; to feed the Lord's family with knowledge and understanding, as a pastor after God's own heart: and, doubtless, they expected that you would have laboured in the Lord's vineyard, not in the forest; that you would have preached the

gospel to the faithful, not the law; that they should have had the word of life, not the killing letter; that you would have appeared as a steward of the grace of God, not a frustrater of it; that you would have declared the whole counsel of God, not obscured it; that you would have done the work of an evangelist, not of a blind watchman, or a foolish shepherd; and that, like Christ, you would have sought and fed the lost sheep of the house of Israel; or, like Paul, have endured all things for the elect's sake, that they might obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory. But, instead of this, you appeared to be zealously affected to the unconverted. The gospel, from month's end to month's end, was set before the Hagarenes, as their only rule of duty; while the children of Zion were to bow their necks to the law of Moses: the children of wrath were sent to the promise, and the heirs of promise to the law. And, after many had shewed their dissatisfaction with it, and their disapprobation of it, and borne their protest against it; yea, and after some ministers had borne a faithful testimony against it, you persisted in it; which has been a grief of mind and an offence to hundreds, if not to thousands, of Christ's little ones. And what could the children of God gather from such conduct, but that your heart and affections were wholly alienated from the household of faith; for you would sacrifice the favour and affections of many ministers, and members of Christ, rather