bindeth fheaves his bofom." But God's choice of his people is made manifest to them in the furnace of affliction. When temptation and perfecution began to fall heavy upon the apostles and primitive faints, when the fun waxed hot, and the fiery trial came on, the wayfide hearers, the ftony and thorny-ground hearers, those who went a warfare at their own coft, and those who began to build and were not able to finish; all went back and fell away. But God will bring his own elect through fire and through water: the former fhall not kindle upon them, nor fhall the latter drown them; in the furnace their election is made fure to them; "I will bring the third part through the fire, and will purify them as filver is purified, and try them as gold is tried; they fhall call upon my name, and I will hear them, and I will fay, It is my people, and they fhall fay, The Lord is my God.". Here is God's acknowledgment of them; he is not afhamed to be called their God: and here is their warrantable and compulfive claim upon him. By the faith of God's elect they fhall fay, The Lord is my God. And would my dear fifter escape the furnace? Would fhe wish to all her drofs and tin with her? Would the defire a whole heart that needs no phyfician? Doth not the Lord promife to look to, and dwell with, them that are of an humble and a contrite heart, and tremble at his word? to revive the heart of the humble, and the spirit of the contrite ones?

carry

Come,

Come, old girl, thou hast been compaffing the old mount, and poring over the old fretting leprofy long enough; look once more, with Jonah, towards the holy temple. Jonah did more by looking than he did by kicking. Looking at the brazen ferpent had better effect than looking at the bite, or complaining of the pain. Manoah and his wife did nothing but look on while the angel did wonderously before them; and this was all that the disciples did when the great work was finished. There was none to help, there was none to uphold. The difciples followed to fee the end. Matt. xxvi. 58. And what did we do when the great work was wrought in us? We looked to him, and were faved; we looked to him, and overcame him. And we must continue at this; we must not look at the things which are seen, for they difcourage us, but at the things which are not feen. We must look at the eternal things that Chrift is in full poffeffion of for us; yea, we must run the race fet before us, looking to the great poffeffor, the author and finisher of our faith.

If accused by Satan, law, or confcience, where can we look but to the advocate? If exercised with God's chaftening rod, or the reflections of fatherly anger, there is no where to look but to the great Mediator. If iniquities prevail against us, there is no hope but in the fountain opened by Christ, and in the fulness of grace treasured up in Chrift.

8

Chrift. If fick, we must look to the great Phyfician; if our own heart condemn us, to the end of the law for righteoufnefs; and, if weak, to the hope of his people, and to the ftrength of the children of Ifrael. Doft thou believe, my fister, that the whole body myftical, from the least to the greatest, is complete in the everlasting Father, Head, and Representative, of the church? Canft thou believe what the divine Bridegroom afferts, that those who are called to the fellowship of him are all fair, and that there is no spot in them? Doft thou believe that, when God laid our fins upon him, his righteoufnefs became ours? that when he was apprehended we were let go? that when he died we fuffered the law in him, who is a part of ourselves? that we were crucified with Christ, and with his dead body we arose? that for our juftification he left the tomb, and we were raised up, and made to fit together in heavenly places in Chrift Jefus; accepted in the beloved, and bleffed with all fpiritual bleffings in him, and in him without fault before the throne? Hold faft then the head, to which the whole body is knit and joined, and from which the divine unction defcends which every joint fupplieth. All the bands of love and peace which hold us together, and all the joints of union, friendship, judgment, and affection, and all the confirmation and renewing of these, are of him and from him. This bleffed head ministers nourishment to the whole body,

which body is bound up in the bundle of life, or in the bond of eternal love with the Lord our God.

common to men.

The temptations and trials which have lately fallen to thy fhare are no other than such as are After I had been for a confiderable time much indulged with the Lord's prefence, and with fuch tender mercy and loving-kindness as is unfpeakable, and with the fulleft affurance of the reality of the work, and of my interest in his everlasting falvation, infomuch as not a fear, a fcruple, or even the fhadow of a doubt, remained about it, it pleased the Lord to try me forely; not only with the loss of these heavenly vifits, bleffings, and never-to-be-forgotten fenfations, but all my corruptions appeared in all their infernal vigour. This funk me; and peevishness, rebellion, and fretfulness, followed: then I went to ftriving against fin in my own ftrength; and this betrayed me into the fhackles of legal bondage, till an army of unexpected terrors furrounded me, and the apparent anger of God, as I then fuppofed, pursued me on every fide; and Satan, with his evil infinuations, fuggefted to me that all was a delufion; that God had done it to extort confeffions of my own vileness and just deserts from my own mouth, that he might condemn me by them. And here I was almoft ready to caft away all my confidence, defpond, and get into madness. But the Lord fulfilled his promife again and again; Q

for

for he revived the work, and was as fure to shine upon it, and bring it forth to the light again, as ever Satan and unbelief were to call it in question. And fo wilt thou find it, and fo thou haft often found it already. The fentence of justification paffes through the court of confcience at once, and fenfibly filences every accufer that the poor condemned finner has. Upon this both law and justice, fin, Satan, and confcience, let us go; and from that hour the tree of righteousness ftands complete in the Lord, having both righteousness and ftrength. This work is perfect, and is not by any inquifition to be brought into court in order to be fifted up and canvaffed over again. This would reflect difhonour upon the omniscient and impartial Judge. No: but when God hides his face it is for the trial of our faith, and that by his going and coming he may familiarize himself to us, and be the better known by us, and that we may be led to diftinguish between flesh and fpirit. The adverfary takes advantage of these our desertions, and confules us, and cafts us into a hafty fpirit, that he may confound and baffle our judgment; and when we are filled with confufion he fpreads a difmal gloom over the mind, and obfcures our evidences; and in our hurry the Spirit's witness is not attended to. But when the Lord comes he brings us forth to the light again, and we behold his righteousnefs. Then for our fhame we receive double, and for confufion we rejoice in our

portion;