in their minds.  Now, that they may not stumble and fall amidst this agitation and perplexity, let them know that the apostles in their day experienced the same things that now befall us.  There were “unlearned and unstable” men, Peter says, who “wrested” the inspired writings of Paul “to their own destruction."[49] There were despisers of God, who, when they heard that “where sin abounded grace did much more abound,” immediately concluded, Let us “continue in sin, that grace may abound.”  When they heard that the faithful were “not under the law,” they immediately croaked, “We will sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace."[50] There were some who accused him as an encourager of sin.  Many false apostles crept in, to destroy the churches he had raised.  “Some preached” the gospel “of envy and strife, not in sincerity,” maliciously “supposing to add affliction to his bonds."[51] In some places the Gospel was attended with little benefit.  “All were seeking their own, not the things of Jesus Christ."[52] Others returned “like dogs to their vomit, and like swine to their wallowing in the mire."[53] Many perverted the liberty of the spirit into the licentiousness of the flesh.  Many insinuated themselves as brethren, who afterwards brought the pious into dangers.  Various contentions were excited among the brethren themselves.  What was to be done by the apostles in such circumstances?  Should they not have dissembled for a time, or rather have rejected and deserted that Gospel which appeared to be the nursery of so many disputes, the cause of so many dangers, the occasion of so many offences?  But in such difficulties as these, their minds were relieved by this reflection that Christ is the “stone of stumbling and rock of offence,"[54] “set for the fall and rising again of many, and for a sign which shall be spoken against;"[55] and armed with this confidence, they proceeded boldly through all the dangers of tumults and offences.  The same consideration should support us, since Paul declares it to be the perpetual character of the Gospel, that it is a “savour of death unto death in them that perish,"[56] although it was rather given us to be the “savour of life unto life,” and “the power of God to” the “salvation” of the faithful;[57] which we also should certainly experience it to be, if we did not corrupt this eminent gift of God by our ingratitude, and prevert to our destruction what ought to be a principal instrument of our salvation.

But I return to you, Sire.  Let not your Majesty be at all moved by those groundless accusations with which our adversaries endeavour to terrify you; as that the sole tendency and design of this new Gospel—­for so they call it—­is to furnish a pretext for seditions, and to gain impunity for all crimes.  “For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace;"[58] nor is “the Son of God,” who came to “destroy the works of the devil, the minister of sin."[59] And it is unjust to charge us with such motives and designs, of which we have