tionably good; and when it moves in an irascible way, it will quarrel with nothing but sin. Here let our zeal busy and exercise itself, every one of us beginning first at our own hearts. Let us be more zealous than we have ever yet been in fighting against our lusts, in pulling down those strong holds of sin and Satan in our hearts. GENTLENESS. Let us endeavour to promote the Gospel of peace, the dove-like Gospel, with a dove-like spirit. This was the way by which the Gospel at first was propagated in the world; Christ did not cry nor lift up his voice in the streets; a bruised reed He did not break, and the smoking flax He did not quench; and yet He brought forth judgment unto victory. He whispered the Gospel to us from Mount Sion, in a still voice; and yet the sound thereof went out quickly throughout all the world. The Gospel at first came down upon the world gently and softly, like dew upon Gideon's fleece; and yet it quickly soaked quite through it; and doubtless this is still the way to promote it still further : sweetness and ingenuity will more powerfully command men's minds than passion, sourness, and severity; as the soft pillow sooner breaks the flint than the hardest marble. When we would convince men of any error by the strength of truth, let us withal pour the sweet balm of love upon their heads. Truth and love are two the most powerful things in the world; and when they both go together, they cannot easily be withstood. The golden beams of truth and the silken cords of love, twisted together, will draw men on with a sweet violence, whether they will or no. As soon may heaven and hell be reconciled together, and lovingly shake hands with one another, as God can be fondly indulgent to any sin, in whomsoever it be as soon may light and darkness be espoused together, and midnight be married to the noon-day, as God can be joined in a league of friendship to any wicked soul. : He that endeavours really to mortify his lusts, and to comply with that truth in his life, which his conscience is convinced of, is nearer a Christian, though he never heard of Christ, than he that believes all the common articles of the Christian faith, and plainly denieth Christ in his life. He that builds all his comfort upon an ungrounded persuasion that God from all eternity hath loved him and absolutely decreed him to life and happiness, and seeketh not for God really dwelling in his soul, he builds his house upon a quicksand, and it shall suddenly sink and be swallowed up. We are no where commanded to pry into these secrets; but the wholesome counsel and advice given us is this-to make our calling and election sure. We have no warrant in Scripture to peep into these hidden rolls and volumes of eternity, and to make it the first thing that we do, when we come to Christ, to spell our names in the stars and to persuade ourselves, that we are certainly elected to everlasting happiness, before we see the image of God in righteousness and true holiness shaped in our hearts. God's everlasting decree is too dazzling an object for us at first to set our eye upon. It is far easier and safer for us to look upon the rays of his goodness and holiness, as they are reflected in our own hearts, and there to read the mild and gentle characters of God's love to us, in our love to Him, and our hearty compliance with his heavenly will, as it is safer for us, if we would see the sun, to look upon it here below in a pail of water, than to cast up our daring eyes upon the sun radiant and scorching for us. itself, which is too The best assurance that any one can have of his interest in God-is doubtless the conformity of his soul to Him. Those Divine purposes are altogether unsearchable and unknowable to us; they lie rapt up in everlasting darkness, and covered in a deep abyss: who is able to fathom the bottom of them? The most gallant and triumphant confidence of a Christian riseth safely and surely upon this foundation, that lies deep under ground. When our heart is once turned into a conformity to the Word of God, when we feel our will perfectly to concur with his will, we shall then presently perceive a spirit of adoption within ourselves, teaching us to cry Abba, Father. We shall not then care for peeping into those hidden records of eternity, to see whether our names be written there in golden characters: no, we shall find a copy of God's thoughts concerning us written in our own breasts. Whereas, on the contrary, though we strive to persuade ourselves never so confidently, that God from all eternity hath loved us and elected us to life and happiness, if we do yet in the mean time entertain any iniquity in our hearts, and willingly close with any lust, do what we can, we shall find many a cold qualm ever now and then seizing us at approaching dangers; and when death itself shall grimly look us in the face, we shall feel our heart even die within us, and our spirits quite faint away, though we strive to raise them never so much with our ungrounded presumptions. Wickedness is a weak, cowardly, and guilty thing, a fearful and trembling shadow. It is the child of ignorance and darkness; it is afraid of light, and cannot possibly withstand the power of it, nor endure the sight of its glittering armour. It is allianced to none but wretched, forlorn, and apostate spirits, that do what they can to support their weak and tottering kingdom of darkness, but are only strong in weakness and impotency. The polity and commonwealth of devils is not so powerful as one child of light, one babe in Christ; they are not all able to quench the least smoking flax, to extinguish one spark of grace. Darkness is not able to make resistance against light, but ever as it comes, flies before it. But if wickedness invite the society of devils to it, so that those |