tre. Now he arises and shines, for his light is come, and the glory of God is risen on him; this man knows what spiritual meekness is; Christ crucified, and his broken spirit have had a meeting; he knows something of the meek and lowly Jesus experimentally: but those that are strangers to all these things have no more of this meekness about them than those that Christ calls weepers and wailers in hell. Such a soul as this cannot give an account of the goodness of God to him without being sensibly and deeply affected. "But sanctify the Lord in your hearts, and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear," 1 Peter iii. 15.

But the hypocrite goes another way to work; he calls for meekness and candour; and if you ask him a reason of the hope that is in him, he waves the subject, being conscious that it is experience that worketh hope; and knowing he has no experience, he is afraid of his hypocrisy being discovered; for if his false hope be taken away, his countenance, profession, and reputation, all fall together. These call for meekness, but not for a reason of our hope; meekness without hope, is like the full assurance of faith without a spiritual birth; one contends for the bowels, and the other for the feet of the new man; yet can give us no reason of this hidden man of the heart, or of Christ in them the hope of glory. They have yielded up the palace by a profession, but they

cannot tell us, whether the strong man armed keeps it, or he that is mighty to save; but I suppose the former, because Christ says, he keeps it in peace; and if so, he chooses not to be disturbed with a perpetual outery about power of religion, but to be rocked to sleep with gentleness and candour. These serve us as Talkative served Bunyan's Christian; he was all knowledge and candour, until Christian began at his heart; then, says John,

Like the moon

That's past the full, into the wane he goes;

And so will all but he that heart-work knows.

This is a truth, John, and I can set my seal to it, for I have seen it verified in numbers of professors. John tells us, he knew nothing of the burden falling from his back at the cross; he had met with no difficulties at the wicket gate; he was a stranger to those things that make the gate so strait, at the head of the path of regeneration. John says, he came in of himself, and he will go out of himself, which is another truth. This meekness, that I have described, lays in the hidden man; is a fruit of the blessed Spirit of God, which makes the newborn soul behave itself before God as a weaned child; nothing afflicts it so much as the loss of the breasts of consolation, after which it will pine like the dove, until the sounding of God's bowels is felt again towards the believer. A clear discernment of the depravity of nature, and the desperate evil of sin, together with the long suffering, mercy,

and immutable love of God in Christ Jesus, will perpetually draw forth in private before God these bowels of spiritual meekness in a believer. Moses found grace in God's sight, and dwelt perpetually in his favour, and none so meek; but this did not destroy his faithfulness; he was zealous for his God, and faithful in his house. But nothing of this is to be found in unregenerate men; they may be quiet and shew something like it, but there is a wo to them that are at ease in Zion; sinners at ease are not troubled like other men, nor plagued like them; they can talk about the meek and lowly Jesus, and well they may; for he has never met them as a bear bereft of her whelps, nor rent the caul of their hearts, Hosea xiii. 8; therefore they feel no plague, fear no wrath, nor see any danger; they are alive to sin, without the law, and dead to God, being without the power of the gospel; strangers to divine inspiration, and to divine instruction; hence they always run counter to the spiritual man's judgment, both in preaching and conversing; nor can they ever touch upon, or run parallel with, the tender feelings, or keen sensations, of a quickened and 'new-born soul. I have given you a description of the meekness of the Lord's servant, and how he came by it, together with the manner how he receives the law, and the gospel also. This man knows by experience the righteous attributes of God; he knows the righteousness of the law, and the blessedness of an imputed one; and to such souls as these God

speaks, and for their attention he calls. "Hearken unto me, my people, and give ear unto me, O my nation; for a law shall proceed from me [not from old women] and I will make my judgment to rest for a light of the people. My righteousness is near, my salvation is gone forth, and mine arm shall judge the people; the isles shall wait upon me, and on mine arm shall they trust. Hearken unto me ye that know righteousness; fear ye not the reproach of men, neither be ye afraid of their revilings. For the moth shall eat them like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool; but my righteousness shall be for ever, and my salvation from generation to generation."

Reader, whenever thou hearest a man talk about the law being the only rule of a believer's life, ask him, how he came by the law, and whether it proceeded from God to him? How it operated on his heart? What it discovered within and without him? What his sensations were under the operation? What occasion or advantage sin took by its rigorous demands? What it wrought in him, love or hatred? Whether it did bring him as a schoolmaster to Christ, or whether it drove him from him, revealing forbidding wrath, instead of attracting love and mercy? and whether he did not flee before it in his soul, as far as the very gates of hell would let him go, instead of coming by it to Christ? or to speak in scripture language, whether he did not find an hatred to the light, and skulk from it rather than approach it, seeing it reproved

him for his sinful deeds; and try all that he says, not only by thy judgment, but by the powerful and lively oracles of thine own conscience; for the believer has both law and gospel there, and if he cannot touch thy feelings, have nothing to do with him; he has not got the law, it is not written on his heart, he knows nothing of righteousness, he has not passed under the rod, nor is he brought into the bond of the covenant. Pay no regard to the speech of them that are puffed up, but inquire and feel after the power; "The kingdom of God is not in word, but in power." Saints are to speak of the glory of God's kingdom, and to talk of the power; they are to make known to the sons of men the mighty acts that have passed on their souls, and the glorious majesty of the kingdom, when Christ sets it up in their hearts. If they are strangers to these things, they are the subjects of Satan; he reigns under their veil, never was discovered by the light of God, nor cast out by his power; under a mask of religion, under the veil of ignorance, and in the centre of an impenitent heart, the prince of darkness reigns, rules, and triumphs. Is my reader a believer in Christ? if he is, I tell him the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power. Was it words of candour that laid affliction on thy loins at first, and kept thee impending on the brink of hell, or was it power? Was it the cant of hypocrites that brought thee up out of the horrible pit, or was it power? Was it empty words that wrought faith in thee, or was it