nefs of the letter: and he feeketh fuch to worship him as fhall worship him in Spirit and in truth.

4. These averfe parties are called fin and grace: "Sin fhall not have dominion over you, grace fhall reign." Sin fhall not have the dominion over the believer, nor ever make any inroads into the kingdom of God; God's fovereign love through Christ shall reign over hellish hate and reign to eternal life through the second Adam, as fure as ever fin has reigned unto death through Adam the first.

5. These warriors are called the old man and the new. Put off the old man with his deeds, and put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness, Ephef. iv. 24. Sin is called the old man, being derived from Adam by natural generation; grace is called the new man, being derived to us from the fulness of Chrift, by the Spirit.

6. Paul calls the one a body; Put off the body of the fins of the flesh: and the other he calls Chrift; Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and walk in him. And

7. The apoftle exprefsly calls it, the flesh lufting against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and thefe are contrary the one to the other, fo that ye cannot do the things that ye would. Here the apoftle tells us plainly, that this war of the flesh is carried on against the moft holy Spirit of God; that thefe luft against

each other; that these are contrary the one to the other; and that to will is prefent with us, but a power to perform is not; and this lies at the bottom of every crofs; namely, a capability to. will, but an inability to perform, fo that you cannot do the things that you would. But God the Spirit is the agent both of willing and doing: he works in us both to will and to do; and often gives the one, when he withholds the other: we can will, but not work; but let the work be what it may, if there be firft a willing mind, it is ac cepted, because even this is of God.

The faints must fill up the measure of Chrift's fufferings, which are behind in their flesh, that is, while they abide in the body; and finners, whether they be bad angels or bad men, must their meafure alfo. Hence we often will

fill up and are as often hindered. I would have come to Corinth, even I Paul, once and again, but Satan hindered; they that are not with Chrift must be againft Chrift, and they that do not gather to Christ muft labour to fcatter from Him; both parties must do their work, and fill up their measure, before the talent of lead be thrown into the mouth of the ephah, Zach. v. 7, 8. This is one great reason why the power of doing is abfent when the power of willing is prefent; it is also intended to fhew us our frailty, and that it is the grace of God that labours in us, and not us; that without Chrift man can do nothing, but

that all things may be done, and are done, through Chrift ftrengthening us; but there are times and feafons fixed in the mind of God, for the putting forth and difplaying his power; and this may be feen in the Saviour's days, and as difplayed by him: when he had foiled Satan and all his wiles in the wilderness, he returned in the power of the Spirit. Again we read of a multitude of impotent folks being about the Saviour, and of the power of the Lord being present to heal. He tells his fcoffing brethren to go up to the feaft; I go not up yet unto this feaft: "My time is not yet come; but your time is always ready." He gives the fame anfwer to his mother at the marriage in Cana; "Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come." Hence it is plain that there are appointed times and feafons for every purpofe; and it well becomes. the fervants of God to pray, to watch, and to wait; and he that waiteth upon his master fhall be honoured, and not confounded by disappointment, for they fhall not be afhamed that wait for me.

I believe that many of our mifgivings of heart, especially when we are young in God's ways, fpring from ignorance. We do not know what the Holy Spirit means by the word flesh;-we think the body, abftracted from the foul, is what is meant. Hence when believers find rebellion working in their will, and carnal enmity in the mind, and unhallowed defires difcovering them

selves in their affections; this they think (and I once thought the fame) can never ftand with a genuine work of grace; and finding that neither prayers nor tears; refolutions nor vows; the deepest humility, nor the highest felicity; no, not the furnace of affliction, nor the mount of transfiguration, will either root up or eradicate these; no, neither fubdue them, nor abolish them; not hide them from our fight, nor chase their bane from our fenfes. We conclude that the work of fanctification is not begun, much less going on in us. Anfwer: if it be true that God chofe us in Chrift before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before God in love, then it follows, that the more we love, the more we are fanctified: and when perfected in love, our fanctification must be complete; for our holinefs and blameleffness are to be complete before God in love. And as for me, I have often found, when in the furnace of affliction, every corruption has risen to its higheft pitch; which has made me tremble, and fear even to approach God, expecting the divine refentment to the uttermoft; and instead of this, fuch unexpected and unparallelled indulgence, as has reduced me to lefs than nothing; and fure I am that nothing ever endeared God to me, or raised my foul in love to him like this; and this, according to my views, is no less than real fanctification, for it is love without diffimulation..

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The word flesh means the corruption of the foul, more than the body of flesh abftractedly confidered. The apostle calls the whole mass of corruption the body of this death. It is man's corrupt affections that are the law of fin; these lead the finner captive, and the carnality of the mind, being enmity against God, goes hand in hand with corrupt affections; for luft is conceived in the mind before fin is finished in the act, and death brought forth in the conscience. Hence the apostle couples the mind and the flesh as working jointly together in the whole courfe of finning. "Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of difobedience; among whom also we all had our conversation in times paft, in the lufts of our flesh fulfilling the defires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath even as others," Ephef. ii. 2, 3. The carnality of the mind is this enmity to God; it is alienated from the life of God, it is wholly bent upon evil; it lufteth to envy, and is called a fleshly mind; and the members of the body are no more than the inftruments of unrighteousness unto fin; these are the things which the carnal mind is bent upon, and which corrupt affections labour in. And this I firmly believe, that if I had no remains of the old veil upon my underftanding, no rebellion in my will, no corrupt