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grace in the court of our own confcience. When we are arraigned by a juft God, at the bar of the law written in our hearts, we foon fee our fins, and feel the fentence of death due to us on that account; and are brought at length to own it juft. Then we begin to hear a still, fmall voice, found behind us in an act of fovereign grace; God turns our face towards it, and the Holy Ghoft enlightens our understandings to fee Chrift crucified, the end of the law for righteousness, clearly revealed, and freely held forth in an unconditional promife. We fee a fuitableness in him, and feel our need of him; but the Spirit convinceth us of unbelief; therefore we eagerly catch at him, but cannot bring him in. We fee what a lovely, fweet, bleffed friend of finners he is, to those who are interested in him; we fix our longing eyes on him, woo him, but he appears coy, and stands at a distance; then the thoughts of our having finned againft him, and fear of miffing him, lays our fouls on the rack, and we perpetually keep finking, until the Spirit of God influences the mind with divine confidence. Then again we at tempt to feel after him; and finding ftrength in the hand of faith, catch faft hold of him, crying out, I will not let thee go except thou blefs me. The hand of faith holds this Jew by the fkirt, and the eye of faith peeps up at his face; and there we fee a reconciled God glorified and appeafed, in the marr'd vifage of a crucified Saviour. But he feeming to hang back, the Spirit of God helps our infirmities, and dictates a petition: O Lord forfake me

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not utterly.-At last he yields, faying, Turn away thine eyes from me, for they have overcome me nd into the heart we bring him, with all that he has and is, crying out, I had utterly fainted, unless 1 had believed to fee the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. And from that moment we are as fure never to be damned, as we are that there is a God in heaven. And now our eyes prevent the night watches, that we may converse with him in his word; fearing to fleep, left he fteal away unawares; and if at any time we chance to fleep, and in the morning find him gone, we are like Samfon when he fhook himself, and found that his God was departed, because the tempter comes in his room. This fets us to fearch the fcriptures for armour and artillery; and imputed righteoufnefs we foon find is a breaft-plate fufficient to repel the force of every condemning sentence. A little of this experience makes a man a found preacher of imputed righteoufness and gospel faith.

Put in the breaft-plate urim and thummim, Lev. viii. 8, light and perfection. To confult God by urim, is to go, by the light of the Spirit, to the Father of lights, and fountain of light; and fo to pray to him by the Spirit, and with the understanding alfo. A preacher of the gospel must be turned from darkness to light, before his light can shine before men, or he be called with any propriety, a burning and a fhining light; and thou must have thy candle lighted by a coal from Chrift the true altar; no strange fire, no; nor any flame kindled by the

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devil, who fears the finner's confcience as with a hot iron; this, and a ftony heart, under his influence, caft the fparks of pride into a fleshly mind; vainly blowing it up like a jack-o'lantern: fuch are the Arminians, wandering flars, now fhining here, now there; how is a veffel of mercy to make her port under fuch wavering planets? However, this I clearly fee, the farther they go the darker they get. I know feveral who are funk fo deep in defpondency, that neither fun, moon, nor stars have appeared on their fouls for many years together; and no fmall tempeft lays on them; but it is meet that fuch, who keep hacking the cable of truth, fhould feel the need of an anchor of hope; and thofe that wilfully depart from realities, fhould end in a fable. But the path of the just is as a shining light, which fhines brighter and brighter unto the perfect day.

Thummim (Lev. viii. 8) fignifies perfection. To confult God by thummin, is to go to him in a perfect Saviour; viewing one's felf complete in Christ, and stripped of all confidence in the flesh to be like Noah, perfect in his generation, is to be of the spiritual fraternity of God by regeneration.-To be perfect as our heavenly father is perfect, is to be changed, and renewed by the Holy Ghoft, and to bear the spiritual image of God the Son; our heavenly Father being spirit only, and not flesh and blood as we are. All perfection in the flesh, which we daily hear of, is an absolute denial of the dreadful fall of man; a giving God the lie in his word of truth, and a contradiction of the whole cloud of

witnesses.

witneffes. It leads us, firft, to felf-admiration; fecondly, to independency of God; thirdly, to felfconfidence ; and, fourthly, to felf-deification. Thefe were the leading steps that Satan took, when he left his own habitation; and when truth detected him for trufting in a lie he rebelled, and aimed at Divine fovereignty; adding this rebellion to his fin, all holiness and happiness left him; he was arraigned, and charged with folly, Job iv. 18; caft out of heaven into the bottomless pit; bound with the chains of his fin; and referved to take a final judgment, with all his angelic affociates; and with all that part of the human race, who fhould credit his fuggestions, tread in his fteps, and believe and die in his lie, Jude verse 6, Isaiah xiv. 12, Job iv. 18, Heb. ii. 5-8, Prov. v. 22, Job viii. 44.

By what I have faid, we may fee who is the author of this wonderful doctrine of finlefs perfection. Howbeit, let us walk in the Spirit; and mind the things of the Spirit; and he fhall change our vile bodies, and fashion them like the glorious body of Chrift: then all mortality shall be swallowed up, when he who only hath immortality fhall appear; all that die in gofpel faith, leave their flesh to reft in hope, Pfalm xvi. 9. Flesh and blood can never inherit the kingdom of God; therefore all who are made perfect in the flesh, all who truft in the flesh, glory in the flesh, walk in the flesh, and die in the flesh, shall awake in the image of Satan, Pfalm lxxii. 20; and that to everlafting fhame and contempt, Dan xii. 2. Such doctrines are difhonourable to

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the divine fanctifying unction from above, who alone anoints, fanctifies, and makes fouls meet for heaven. However, if these dead flies, by self-holinefs, endeavour to render the Divine Physician's unction unfavoury, it is just in God to let them fly into the devil's web, Ecclef. x. 1. But you, my fon, have not fo learned Christ.

I will fend thee the reft of my thoughts in the next letter; fare thee well may the God of Abraham, before whom I have walked, bless thee with the precious things of heaven; even the precious fruits brought forth by the Sun of Righteousness; and the precious things put forth by the moon-the church; and the chief things of the ancient mountains of eternal èlection; and the precious things of the lafting bills of glorification; and the precious things of the earth, and fulness thereof; together with the breafts of divine confolation, and the bleffings of Zion's fruitful womb; and may the good will of him that dwelt in the buh be on the top of the head of him who, by grace, is separated from his fleshly brethren, Deut. xxxiii. 13-16; while I remain thy joyful and affec tionate father in Chrift Jefus.

W. H.

LETTER

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