"does not require more of us than we can do:" And so they think themselves excusable, and are not sensible that it is infinitely vile in them not to love God with all their hearts. Oth ers will say, "I can do nothing of myself: it is Christ that must "do all. I desire to love God, but I cannot : It is the spirit "that must fill my heart with love, and God is the sovereign "dispenser of his grace; so that, if I am dead, and dull, and "senseless, and stupid, I cannot help it :" And so they also think themselves excusable, and are not sensible that it is infinitely vile in them not to love God with all their hearts. But now, how stands the case with you? Have you any secret way of excusing yourself? Or do you see that the law is holy, just, and good, and that you only are to blame, wholly to blame, and altogether without excuse; yea, and exceedingly vile, for all your blindness and deadness, and for every thing wherein you are not just what the law requires you to be? It is this which makes believers sensible of their desert of damnation, all their lives long, and loathe and abhor themselves before the Lord: and it is this which causes them more and more to see their need of Christ and free grace, and admire and prize the glorious gospel. Owretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me? Ithank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord....Rom. vii. 24, 25.

And do you begin to be of a disposition really to love your neighbor as yourself? Are your affections under the government of a spirit of disinterested impartiality, so that you are disposed to value yourself only for those properties in you that are good and excellent, and only in proportion to their worth and excellence; and, by this rule, to esteem your neighbors, your friends, and your foes, and all men? And do you hate a contrary disposition in you? And is your heart full of love, and kindness, and benevolence, wishing well to all, seeking the good of all, and even grieved when your enemies are in adversity?

And to conclude ;-does love to God and to your neighbor govern you in your thoughts, affections, and actions, and daily influence you to live to God, and do good in the world; so

that now you are not your own, but given up to God, to do his will, seeking his glory? A holy life does as naturally proceed from a holy heart, as a stream does from a living fountain.

Once you was darkness: But are you now light in the Lord? Once, as to right spiritual views of God....your neighbor, or yourself....of this world or the next, you had none;-you was blind....your understanding was darkened; and so your apprehensions were wrong, and you loved your wrong apprehensions, ....and took pleasure in error, falshood, and sin....and hated the light-hated truth and duty;-once you was wholly devoid of the divine image, and destitute of all good-yea, and you was wholly averse from God, and full of all evil: And did you ever see and feel this to be your state? And have you, by divine grace, been recovered out of it? Have you been effectually taught that your light was darkness, and your knowledge ignorance, and been made sensible of the blindness of your mind? And have you learnt that all your seeming goodness was counterfeit, and that in you did dwell no good thing-yea, that your seeming goodness was real wickedness, in that your heart was in perfect contrariety to God and his law? Has divine light shined in your heart, and your native darkness, as well as contracted blindnesss, been dispelled from your soul; so that now your views of God-of your neighbor and yourself-of this world and the next, are right, and your apprehensions according to truth? And has the truth made you free? Do you now look upon God, in some measure, according to the capacity of a creature, as he does upon himself, when he takes upon him the character of most high GOD, supreme LORD, and sovereign GOVERNOR of the whole world, and says, I am the Lord....that is my name, and besides me there is no other God? And do you see it is infinitely fit that all the world should love, worship, and adore him? Do you now look upon your neighbors in some measure as God does, when he commands you to love them as yourself; and so see that it is perfectly right that you should? And do you look upon yourself, and every thing in this world, in some measure as God does, when he commands

you to deny yourself, and forsake all things for his sake; and see that it is most fit and reasonable to die to yourself and to this world, and give up yourself to God, to love him, and live to him, and delight in him forever? And do you understand that the things which are seen are temporal, and that the things which are unseen are eternal? And do all possible troubles in the ways of God, in some measure, appear only as light afflic tions, which are but for a moment, and not worthy to be com pared with the glory that shall be revealed? Do you thus know the truth....and has the truth made you free from your old ser vitude; and are you effectually influenced and governed by these views and apprehensions, and this sense of things, to bring forth fruit to God, an hundred-fold, or sixty-fold, or at least thirty-fold? For divine knowledge is efficacious, and the holy and divine effects and fruits are always equal to the degree of knowledge: (I. John iii. 6)... And every branch which bringeth not forth fruit, is cut off and cast into the fire. Are you thus born again, and become a new creature, and learnt to live a new and divine life?

And is it not now most manifest to you that all this is so far from having been the product of nature, that all that is in nature ....every natural propensity of the heart, has, from first to last, been utterly against the change, and made a constant and mighty resistance? And do you not plainly perceive, that, from first to last, the work has been begun and carried on by God himself?

And does it not appear to you as the most astonishing good. ness in God, and owing to nothing but his sovereign free grace, that you have thus been called out of darkness into marvellous light-turned from the power of sin and satan, to serve the liv ing God? And do you not plainly see there is nothing but the same infinite goodness and free grace to move God to carry on and complete this work in your heart, and that so, if ever you get to heaven, the whole of your salvation, from fret to last, will be absolutely and entirely to be attributed to free grace? And have you not hence learnt to live upon free grace, through Jesus Christ, for all things?

And do you not perceive that he, who has begun, does ac tually carry on the work of grace in your hearts? And that all the external dispensations of providence and internal influences of the spirit concur in their operation, to humble you, and wean you from the world, and imbitter sin-to bring you nearer to God, and to love him, and to live to him, and to live upon himand to make you more serious....more spiritually-minded and heavenly-minded....more watchful and prayerful, and more loving, and kind, and tender-hearted, and obliging to all mankind, both friends and foes-and to make you daily attend upon the duties of your particular calling, and upon all the common bu siness of life, as a servant of God, in singleness of heart, doing service to the Lord?

And although you was once dead in sin, and wholly without strength, yet do you not now feel that you are spiritually alive, and so put into a capacity for a spiritual activity, and that you are engaged to be active for God?....Not that your sufficiency is of yourself, as once you thought it was: for you are not suf ficient of yourself, as of yourself; but your sufficiency is of God: Yet do you not find that, through Christ's strengthening, you can do all things? And do you not, from the heart, hate the way of lazy, dead-hearted hypocrites, who sit still, and carelessly cry, "We can do nothing-it is Christ that must do all;" and, under a notion of not doing any thing in their own strength, gratify their laziness, and do nothing at all! Accursed laziness! Accursed hypocrisy !-Do you not feel, I say, that you are put into a capacity for spiritual activity? And are you not engaged to be active for God? For you are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, that you might walk in them.While the spirit of God is taking down the power of sin in your heart, and slaying your corruptions, are you not also crucifying the flesh with the affections and lusts? While God is working in you to will and to do, are you not working out your salvation with fear and trembling....with filial fear and holy concern?While the spirit of God gives you might in the inner man, do not you put on the whole armour of God, and fight with flesh and

blood....with principalities and powers? This is the way of believers. And the spirit does not come upon them by fits, as it did upon Balaam, but dwells in them and abides in them forev er-to purify them from all iniquity, and make them a peculiar people, zealous of good works.

Finally, do you not experience that your religion is something real and perceptible, and see that it is specifically different from any thing that possibly can arise merely from a principle of self-love? You perceive your views of God, and sense of his greatness, glory, and beauty; and you perceive your sense of the world's emptiness, and of your own natural vileness and wretchedness; and your love to God....your weanedness from the world, and your mourning for sin are perceptible: And is it not easy to perceive why you love God-are weaned from the world, and mourn for sin; namely, because God is infinitely lovely, the world empty and worthless, and sin the greatest evil? And while these views and affections effectually influence you to all holy living, their genuineness is made still more evident and plain: and, from the whole, you arise to a rational and scriptural knowledge of your gracious state.

From what has been said upon this subject, a great variety of other questions might be put to the believer; but the whole has been treated so plainly and practically, that I need add no more And if graceless persons had it in their hearts to be honest and impartial, they might easily know that they are strangers to real religion: But if they have not the thing itself, they will either work up something like it, or else deny that there is any such thing: for he that doth evil, hateth the light; and so does he who has a rotten heart. And hence some cry, "The "best have their failings;" and they watch and catch at the failings of such as are accounted godly, and dwell upon them, and magnify them; and so quiet their consciences, and go on in their sins Others cry, "The best are dead sometimes ;" and so maintain their hopes, although they lie dead whole months and years together, and live in sin, and never come to sound repentance Others cry, "You will discourage weak christians;"