are compassing Mount Sinai, whom the Lord is proving by the spirit of judgment, and the spirit of burning.' Isaiah iv. 4; xxxi. 9. While these things were rolling over my mind, I was sometimes enabled to pour out my complaints before the Lord, in his own words, Hosea xiv. 2. O Lord, rebuke me not in thine anger, neither chasten me in thine hot displeasure; have mercy upon me, O Lord, for I am weak, O Lord heal me, for my bones are vexed; my soul is also sore vexed, but thou, O Lord, how long?' Psalm vi. 'I am troubled; I am bowed down greatly; I go mourning all the day long, thine arrows stick fast in me, and thy hand presseth me sore.' Psalm xxxviii. 2 6. Be pleased O Lord to deliver me, O Lord make haste to help me.' Ps. xl. 13.

Thus I roared, by reason of the disquietness of my heart.' Instead of answers of peace and deliverance, by the pardon of my sins, godly sorrow, and humility to walk with God, which I longed to possess-came heavy, dark, afflicting, and distressing providences, which crossed me in every thing I proposed. My purposes are broken off, even the thoughts of my heart.' Job xvii. 11. At which my wretched heart and nature manifested the most awful rage and rebellion; like a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke,' or 'a wild bull in a net, being full of the fury and rebukes of the Lord God.' Jer. xxxi. 18. Isa. li. 20.

While labouring and waiting under these distresses, all that I heard was bondage and misery. I was told to cultivate faith, love to God, repentance, humility, meekness, resignation, universal and sincere obedience to all the commands of God, love to the brethren, &c. without these things there was no salvation for me. All my nature being corrupt, sinful, and desperately wicked, and laden with sin, all that I heard only tended to seal my condemnation, and to make my life bitter. Alas! what could I cultivate but sin and misery! If one good thought could have delivered me from my wretched condition, or

gained me the favor of God, I could not have produced it. That which was exacted from me, and required of me to cultivate, in a way of duty, or sort of bondage, or as it were law-work, I now find sweetly flowing from the infinite and abundant fulness of my dear and gracious Lord Jesus Christ, (Col. i. 19; Eph. i. 3, 22, 23; iv. 13; John i. 16; Deut. xxviii. 12 ;) and from the blessed testimonies, witnessing, and working of the Holy Ghost, (John xvi. 14; Deut. xxx. 6; Rom. v. 5; xv. 13; Heb. xiii. 20, 21; Col. i. 1 to 13;) the Lord fulfilling 'all the pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power.' 2 Thess. i. 11, 12.

As I could hear of no experience, nor of any mercy or refuge for one so entirely helpless, lost, ruined, and undone, I concluded there never was one in my case that ever had mercy or deliverance given him. I then thought I would try the people called the church, if ever any of them had felt as I did. When I opened my mouth, and began to tell of my wretched depraved heart and nature, my sin, darkness, hardness of heart, helplessness, ignorance, unbelief, rebellion, &c. some told me I was bound to love God for what he was in himself; I told them, I saw nothing in him but wrath and terrible majesty, and could not love him; skin for skin, all that I could do, or think of, or hear, or read, could not produce love, or deliver me from my condemnation. Others told me to appropriate Christ to myself, and to apply the promises. Others said I should not give way to such thoughts and feelings, but meditate on Christ. Others said they never heard of any one being in such a condition. Some advised me to join the church and to drink of the conduitpipes, (the means of grace,) and my mind would be more settled and established; and as that was what I greatly longed for, I joined what is called the church, with much prayer and trembling, lest I should turn out a Judas or Esau among them.

But alas! the pipes were all dry pipes; as the God

of grace and the everlasting covenant of grace and peace made for me in Christ, was neither known nor preached. There was no grace in the means. Sometimes at ordinances my mind has been driven almost to distraction with these words : Therefore, thus saith the Lord God, behold, my servants shall eat, but ye shall be hungry; behold, my servants shall drink, but ye shall be thirsty ; behold, my servants shall rejoice, but ye shall be ashamed; behold, my servants shall sing for joy of heart, but ye shall cry for sorrow of heart, and shall howl for vexation of spirit; and ye shall leave your name for a curse unto my chosen, for the Lord God shall slay thee, and call his servants by another name.' Isa. lxv. 13, 14, 15; lii. 5. Oh! the bitter anguish and vexation, what lamentation and howling of soul, as it were the echoes of the bitter howling of the damned, shaking all within me. While all about me were eating, drinking, receiving, and singing for joy of heart, my heart and mouth were sealed up.

After this I tried the minister, to see if he could know any thing about me, or give me any directions. I had many a long conversation with him, and after opening my mind a little, he told me that I was very nervous, and that the weather had great effect upon me, which I knew; but I said my heart and nature were the same in all weathers. At other times he asked me if I could not arise and shake myself from these feelings? I told him I had neither strength nor power to lift up myself; my experience was that exactly described in the lxxxviii. Psalm, 4-6; cvii. 10. Bound in affliction and iron, &c.' By his answers, I found he knew nothing of my case, and I often told him so; but he said he did. The next time we were in conversation together, I told him, I thought my heart grew worse and worse, and like the troubled sea was continually casting up rebellion, enmity, unbelief, and all manner of evil: when he, (with all the solemnity and gravity of a judge passing sentence) said, 'I tell you upon my very soul, that without love to God there is no

such thing as being a Christian.' I knew that, but I wanted to know how to come at it; this he never told me. After much conversation, I asked him if ever he was in my state? and, if he was, how did he get out of it? how he obtained faith, love, &c.? But I could obtain no satisfactory answer; there was nothing said of the sweet work of God the Holy Ghost, in shedding abroad the love of God in the heart, and opening and showing the precious things of Christ, or the work of faith with power, &c. The next time I saw him, I said, It is of no use to talk with you, for you do not understand what ¦ I feel or what I want, unless you can understand this scripture, "But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered awhile, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you.' 1 Peter v. 10. This is what I want.' He said, 'Ah, I perceive! you are looking for what you will never have.' I said, 'Then, if I have not that, I have nothing, I am lost for ever.' The Lord has mercifully proved his own word, and stablished my soul in an everlasting covenant of peace in the Lord Jesus Christ, as the Lord my righteousness and my salvation.

After this, there came in September, 1818, a minister, and preached from Jer. 1. 5. After speaking of the covenant in his way, he said, 'We must have faith and repentance to cement our souls in the covenant.' This being the way proposed for my entering into covenant with God, it completely closed the door and shut me out of the covenant; as I had nothing, and could cultivate nothing, being entirely helpless and wretched; my distress and misery was greatly increased by this sermon, as I find written in a paper after hearing the sermon: There is no straw given unto thy servants, and they say to us, make brick, go ye, get you straw where you can find it and fulfil your works, &c.' See Exodus v. throughout. Thus do those bondmen scatter bondage and death, and 'speak to the grief of those whom the Lord has wounded.'

Psalm lxix. 26. For the vile person will speak villany, and his heart will work iniquity, to practise hypocrisy and to utter error against the Lord, to make empty the soul of the hungry, and he will cause the drink of the thirsty to fail.' Isaiah xxxii. 6, 7. They turn the needy out of the way; they cause the naked to lodge without clothing, they pluck the fatherless from the breast; they take away the sheaf from the hungry; they are of those that rebel against the light; they know not the ways thereof; nor abide in the paths thereof.' Job xxiv. • Woe be unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! saith the Lord. I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran; I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied; how long shall this be in the hearts of the prophets that prophesy lies? yea, they are prophets of the deceit of their own hearts, &c.' Jer. xxiii.

Those who have not been brought down under the conviction of sin, cannot enter into the experience of those who are exercised with it, nor the sweet experience of deliverance from it by the love and power of the Holy Ghost, in manifesting or showing the Lord Jesus Christ, and what are the exceeding riches of the Father's grace and everlasting love, in choosing, predestinating, accepting, and blessing; nor of Jesus betrothing in eternal union; nor of the sweet communion and fellowship really and truly enjoyed in the soul, with all the persons of the Godhead; nor of following the Lord in a sweet life of faith, and holiness of conversation becoming the gospel, while receiving of his fulness grace for grace, (Rev. iii. 17; Rom. vii.; John xvi. 14; Ephe. i. 3— 6, ii. 7; Hos. ii. 19, 20; 1 Johni. 3; Eph. ii. 10; v. 1 ; John i. 16.)

It is very grievous to pervert the gospel by a legal spirit, in setting forth a system of duties-instead of leading the afflicted soul to Christ and the fulness of his redemption, to receive from him all that will adorn his name and gospel. That is a very awful charge against the