"and so am apt to forget God....to warp off from him, and to "have selfish and worldly views and designs secretly creep in"to my mind, and steal away my heart from God-and so am "daily led into captivity. O that sin was entirely dead-that a "disposition to disrelish God....to forget him....to go away "from him....to live without him, and to seek content in that "which is not God, was entirely slain! O, wretched man that "I am, who shall deliver me ?"....Rom. vii. 14-24.

If grace and corruption were not so contrary the one to the other....so diametrically opposite, there might possibly be an accommodation between them, and both quietly dwell together in the same heart; but now they are set for each other's ruin, and seek each other's destruction-and, like fire and water, will never rest till one or the other be entirely destroyed....Gal. v. 17.

If grace could be wholly killed, or corruption wholly slain, then the conflict of believers might wholly cease in this life; but grace is immortal, like a living spring that shall never dry, (John iv. 14.)—like a root that will ever grow, (Mat. xiii. 20— 23,) and Christ is always purging believers, that they may bring forth more fruit, (John xv. 2.): So that he that is born of God cannot sin as others do, (I. John iii. 9.)—cannot sin, but against the grain of his heart, the gracious nature continually resisting, (Gal v. 17.); so that it is certain, from the nature of things, that David and Solomon neither of them felt, in their worst frames, as graceless men do. Grace resisted within, (Gal. v. 17.) hating their proceedings; nor did it cease inwardly to struggle and torment them, till the one cries out, My bones wax old through my roaring all the day long....Psalm lii. 3: For his sin was ever before his eyes....Psalm xxxi. 3: And the other, Vanity of vanities, all is vanity and vexation of spirit...Eccle. i. 2.

Many stony-ground hearers, who were once filled with light and joy, do, when their religion is all worn out, and they lie dead, and blind, and stupid, whole months and years together, cry, the best are dead sometimes; and have recourse to David and Solomon: and many a hypocrite, whose religion is only by fits and pangs, sometimes floated as the streets in summer,

by a sudden shower, and then, in a few days, as dry as ever, deceive themselves here; and many take natural conscience to be a principle of grace, and the war between that and their corruptions to be a gracious conflict: But as all counterfeit religions are specifically different from the true, as has been alrea dy shown, so, by consequence, their conflict is different from that which believers have, in its very nature. They fight, from different principles, and for different ends, and about different things, and in a different manner, just as their religions differ from one another.

11. If this be the nature of conversion and holiness, and the manner wherein they are wrought-and if true religion be thus specifically different from all counterfeits, then may believers be infallibly certain that they have true grace. A man cannot but perceive his own thoughts, and know what views he has, and be intuitively acquainted with his own designs and aims; so every man knows it is with him, as to the things of this world. Much less is it possible that there should be so great a change in a man's heart and life, thoughts, affections, and actions, as there is made by conversion, and yet he know nothing about it. For a man to be awakened, out of a state of security in sin, to see what a sinful, guilty, helpless, lost, undone state he is in, and yet not to perceive any thing of it, evidently implies a contradiction, and so is, in the nature of things, impossible: For a man to be brought to see God in his infinite glory, so as to be disposed to love him supremely, live to him ultimately, and delight in him superlatively, and yet not to perceive it, i. e. not to be conscious of his views and affections, also implies a contradiction, and so is impossible: For a man to lose his selfish and worldly views more and more, from year to year, and die to himself, the world and sin-and for a man to live a life of communion with God, perfecting holiness in the fear of the Lord, and yet not at all to perceive it, is utterly impossible; for the mind of man is naturally conscious of its own exercises: So, from the nature of things, it is evident that grace is perceptible; yea, in its own nature, it must be as perceptible as corrup

tion....love to God as love to the world....sorrow for sin as sorrow for affliction....aiming at God's glory as aiming at our own honor and interest: But if true grace be, in its own nature, perceptible, and if it be also specifically different from all counterfeits, it is self-evident that a good man may know that he has true grace. I cannot see why, extraordinary cases excepted, a good man, who lives a life of communion with and devotedness to God, and in the daily exercise of every grace, may not come to know that he has grace. Surely he must be conscious of the exercises of his own mind; for this is natural: And surely he may see the difference between his religion and all counterfeits, when the difference is so great and plain: so that, if the scriptures did not expressly teach us that assurance is attainable, it is yet evidently demonstrable from the nature of things.

But the scriptures do plainly teach this doctrine, in II. Pet. i. 10-I. John v. 13-I. John ii. 3, and iii. 14, &c. &c.-Besides, all those promises, that are made for the comfort and support of God's people in this world, suppose that they may know that they are the people of God: for, unless a man knows that he is a child of God, he cannot rationally take comfort in those promises which are peculiar to such. It is true, brazen hypocrites will do so, but they act very presumptuously. It is folly and madness for me to flatter myself that God has promised to do so and so for me, unless I know that I am one to whom the promises belong For instance, it is folly and madness for me to believe that God will make all things work together for my good, according to that promise in Rom. viii. 28, unless I know that I love God; for this promise plainly respects such, and no other: But there are very many precious promises made to believers in the word of God, which are evidently designed for their comfort and support. It is certain, therefore, that God thinks that believers may know they are such-without which knowledge, all these promises cannot attain their end.

Besides, to suppose that to be a servant of God, and a servant of the devil....to be going the way to heaven, and the way to hell....to be travelling in the narrow way, and to be travelling

in the broad way, are so near alike, as that even good men themselves cannot possibly know them asunder, and which way they are going, is, on every account, intolerably absurd; nor could the christian world have possibly drunk in such a notion but that true grace is so very rare a thing.

I may here, by the way, just observe these three things:-1. That the way for a man to know that he has grace, is not to try himself by fallible signs, but intuitively to look into himself and see grace. A thousand signs of grace will not prove that a man has grace. There is no sign of grace to be depended upon, but grace itself; for every thing but grace a hypocrite may have: And what grace, holiness, or true religion is, I have already endeavored to show.-2. That the way for a man to know that he has grace, is not to judge himself by the degree and measure of his religious frames and affections, or the height of his attainments ; but by the special nature of them: for as there is not any one grace but a hypocrite may have its counterfeit, so hypocrites may rise as high in their religion as any true believer does in his. Was Elijah, the prophet, jealous for the name and worship of the true God, and against false religion?...So was Jehu: and he appeared as full of zeal, and more courageous, and did greater exploits. There was scarcely a more zealous saint than Elijah, in Old-Testament times; but yet Jehu, that hypocrite, made a much greater show and noise-seemed to be fuller of zeal and courage, and actually did greater exploits, setting aside the miracles which God wrought by Elijah, (I. Kings xviii. and xix. chap. II. Kings ix. and x. chap.) And we do not read of one saint in all the Bible that fasted in a constant way, twice every week, as the Pharisee did, (Luke xviii.) And there is not one saint in all the Bible that ever did, externally and visibly, any higher acts of self-denial, than to give all his goods to feed the poor, and his body to be burnt; and yet St. Paul intimates that a man may do this, and still have no grace in his heart....I. Cor. xiii. 3: It is no certain evidence, therefore, that a man is a good man, because he has a great deal of religion-more than the most, and full as much as the best-yea, more than any in all

the country....yea, or in all the whole world; for, in Jehu's time, there was not perhaps, for a while, one like him upon the face of the earth: A man, therefore, cannot know that he is a good man, by the degree of his religion, but only from the special nature of it: And wherein true religion specifically differs from all counterfeits, I have already shown.-3. Since grace is, in its own nature, perceptible, and specifically different from all coun terfeits, there is no need of the immediate witness of the spirit, in order to a full assurance. If the spirit of God does but give us a good degree of grace, and enlighten our minds to understand the scriptures, and so to know the nature of true grace, we may then perceive that we have grace; and the more grace we have, the more perceptible will it be, and its difference from all counterfeits will be the more plain: And if a believer may know and be certain that he has grace, without the immediate witness of the spirit, then such a witness is altogether needless, and would be of no advantage: but God never grants his spirit to believers, to do things needless and to no advantage; and therefore. there is no such thing as the immediate witness of the spirit in this affair And besides, it is plain the scriptures every where direct us to look into ourselves, to see whether we love God and keep his commands-to see whether Christ, in his holy nature, be formed in us to see whether the spirit, as an enlightener and sanctifier, dwells in us, and influences and governs us; but never once directs us to look for the immediate witness of the spirit, in order to know whether we have grace.

ОвJ. But the text says expressly, The spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God....Rom. viii. 16.

ANS. But the text does not in the least intimate that the spir it witnesses immediately. The spirit bears witness; but how? The spirit makes it evident that we are the children of God; but in what way? By immediate revelation? No; the scripture no where tells us to look for such revelations, or lays down any marks whereby we may know which come from God, and which from the deyil. How then does the spirit make it evi