Heaven is a place of reft; and we that believe do enter into reft. Heaven is a place of peace; and, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jefus Chrift. With joy and rejoicing fhall the church be brought to Chrift, and shall enter into the king's palace; and God fills us now with joy and peace in believing. Heaven is a place of endless day; and the path, of a juft man, who lives by faith, fhines more and more till that perfect day takes place. The gift of God promifed in heaven is eternal life; and be that believeth bath everlasting life, and fhall not come into condemnation. The inheritance above is endless glory; and even this begins in this life.-Arife, fine; for thy light is come, and the glory of God is rifen upon thee. This fills the foul with joy unspeakable and full of glory. All thefe, my beloved fon, are the foretaftes of eternal fulness, the ftreams of grace (which make glad the city) flowing from the river of divine pleafure, the head of which is God, the fountain of life; for unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again. Eccl. i. 7. All these worketh the Holy Spirit of God through Chrift the mediator, from whofe fulness all grace is communicated to us, and through whom all grace flows back again, even to its own proper fountain. What rich fecurity is this, that the heirs of pro mife mife might have a strong confolation! God, with his own finger, writes his laws on the fleshly tables of our hearts, and puts them into our minds. He binds up the teftimony in the bond of love to us; then he feals the law among his disciples with a comfortable affurance; yea, more, the Spirit himself is the feal. He is the divine imprefs of heaven, he stamps the divine image upon us, he affixes the truth and power of it, he makes and maintains a melting impreffion on the foul, he confirms and establishes the heart, he is the atteftation and the ratification of all to us. In his quickening, enlivening, enlarging, and cheering operations, he is the pledge of the first refurrection. In his operations of love, joy, light, and comfort, he is the firstfruits of the glorious harvest; and in all these the earnest of the future inheritance. Well may Paul fay, It is of faith, that it might be by grace, to the end the promise might be sure to all the feed. Matters thus fettled between Father, Son, and Spirit; revealed and made known, ratified and confirmed, by the triune God to his chofen and beloved family; teftified by God's hand-writing upon our hearts, fealed with the broad feal of heaven, and a pledge and earnest given: O this stands faster than mountains of brafs! O the immutability of his counfel, the ftability of his covenant, the fecurity and safety of the bleffed inheritance! An earnest differs nothing from the whole lump in quality, only in quantity. The firft-fruits are the fame as all the reft of the harveft, only they are a very fmall part of an abundant crop: whether, therefore, we glean a handful (like Ruth) or reap a fheaf (like Jofeph in his dream) it will at laft terminate in a barnful.-Gather the wheat into my barn. Matt. xiii. 30. O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unfearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! For of bim, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be all glory, might, majefty, dominion, and power, both now and for ever. So be it, fo be it; fays The chiefeft of all finners, W. HUNTINGTON. P LETTER LETTER XIX. To the Rev. J. JENKINS, at the new Vicarage, Dearly beloved and longed-for, my joy, and the crown of my rejoicing; ftand faft in the Lord, my dearly beloved. METHINKS I hear thee crying out, Haft thou but one bleffing, O my Father? Yes, my fon, I have many bleffings. I have as many spiritual and temporal bleffings from my God, and as many curfes from hypocrites in Zion, as most men living; and the latter is the confequence of the discriminating effects of the former.-Let them curse, but bless thou: when they arife, let them be ashamed; but let thy fervant rejoice. Pfalm cix. 28. I fhall now pro ceed, 17. To take notice of the different diftributions and influences of the Holy Spirit. Now there are diverfities of gifts, but the fame fpirit. And there are differences of adminiftrations [or miniftries], but the fame Lord. And there are diverfities of operations, but it is the fame God which worketh all in all. 1 Cor. xii. 4-6. You fee here the different divine names In the which the Holy Ghoft takes to himself. diftribution of his gifts he ftyles himself the Spirit; in his different miniftries, the Lord; and in his different operations he ftyles himself God. Now these his minifterial gifts the holy apoftle mentions-To one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the fame Spirit; to another faith by the fame Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the fame Spirit; to another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another difcerning of fpirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues. 1 Cor. 8-10. There is nothing in all these gifts that will infallibly affure or fecure everlasting life in heaven to the recipients of them. The kingdom of God stands not in word; neither in the word of wisdom, nor in the word of knowledge. We fee many wife enough in the word that were never made wife unto falvation, or who never had the knowledge of falvation by the forgiveness of their fins; and therefore, however wife they may be in the word, they are ignorant of their own hearts, and of the all-conquering grace of God in Chrift Jefus. Nor doth the word of knowledge, or the greatest gifts of knowledge in the word, fecure the heavenly. inheritance. Knowledge puffeth up. Satan knows more of God, of the works of creation, of the efficacy of divine grace in finners' hearts, by his being fo often caft out by it; yea, and of the fcriptures of truth, the glories of heaven, and of the pains of hell; than |