and what does a carnal man know of a fpiritual law? I know it is common among Arminians to fay, Up, and be doing; arife, and shake yourselves from the duft; as if they were the refurrection and the life, and could command the dead. However, Peter went another way to work; he told finners, such as he had he gave them; he lent them his hand of faith, and told them Jefus made them whole; he declared the faith of Jefus gave them their foundnefs. To cry, Up, and be doing, to fouls twice dead, is fetting people to work without victuals or tools; and how fuch will perform their task, eyery true believer knoweth, because he hath tried his ftrength, but never found the ftrength of God's grace made perfect in him till he had spent his own ftrength, and become nothing but weakness, Deut. xxxii. 36. Thefe gentlemen, when they get into Mofes' chair, are little better than Pharaoh's taskmafters-bind grievous burdens on others, but will not lend a finger to help them up with the load; and I know fome of those burden-bearers are ready to cry out with Cain, it is too heavy for me to bear. If the Spirit of God doth not lead a man into truth, he must err; and every time an erroneous man takes a paffage from God's book, he is guilty of a breach of God's command—thou shalt not steal, Jerem. xxiii. 30. Falfe preachers multiply curses to themselves; every fuch preacher, who wilfully perverts any plain text of Scripture, or doctrine in it, to support an error, is curfed for removing his neighbour's land mark; and he that

makes

makes not Chrift the door of entrance, the way alfo, and the end, brings another curfe on his own head, for causing the blind to go out of his way; and all thefe curfes fhall come on him who takes away the plain meaning of God's word, (if grace prevent not) yea, all the plagues in the book, Rev. xxii. 19.

If my fon be anointed with the unction of God the Holy Ghoft, he will leave a sweet favour of Christ behind him in every place; therefore be ye filled with the Spirit, and as the scripture hath faid, out of thy belly fhall flow rivers of living water. All divinity got by ftudy and kept up by reading commentators, without the Spirit, is a well without water, 2 Peter ii. 17; but, if the Spirit be in thee, he fhall be a well of water fpringing up into eternal life. Thou mayeft wade in these holy waters until thy ancle bones receive ftrength; then thou wilt be able to walk by faith: it makes the lame man leap as an hart, Ifaiah xxxv. 6, 7. It will fpring up until it comes to thy knees; then thou wilt not stagger at the promise through unbelief; for it ftrengthens the weak hands, and confirms the feeble knees. It will fpring up to thy loins:—when the loins of our mind are ftrengthened by the Spirit's might, and we are renewed in the spirit of our minds by him, then Chrift becomes our meditation day and night; our minds are in heaven, and we are ftrengthened to bear the cross-and it will fpring up into eternity, and carry us into the fountain of living waters from whence it came; and there we may fwim in the

river of pleasure; but eternity is a river that we can never swim over, Ezek. xlvii. 1-6. And thus the Holy Ghoft is called water, because he purifies and refreshes; oil, because he fupples, heals, and burns; may God wash and anoint my son more and more, Ezek. xvi. 9.

If this water be in thee, then men of understanding will draw it out, Prov. xviii. 4; xx. 5, 7. If thy heart be established with grace, thou wilt be a good fteward of the manifold grace of God, 1 Pet. iv. 10. If this anointing be upon thee, thou wilt anoint others in the name of the Lord, James v. 14. If the quickening word and Spirit reft on thy foul, thou wilt hold forth to others the word of life, Phil. ii. 16. If thou art fatisfied with the breasts of confolation, thou wilt be a fon of consolation, and comfort others with that comfort with which thou art comforted of God, 2 Cor. i. 4. If the Holy Ghoft hath made thee free, thou mayeft preach liberty to others without being a fervant of corruption, 2 Peter ii. 18, 19. A man must be born again, before he can be a minifter of the Spirit; he must have the hidden treasure in his earthen veffel, before he can bring good treasure out of the heart, Matt. xii. 35; he muft feel the motions of the Spirit, before he can be faid to speak as he is moved by the Holy Ghost, 2 Peter i. 21; he must be a partaker of the fruits, before he can be a keeper of the vineyard, 2 Tim. ii. 6 :-mind what I fay, and the Lord give tbee understanding in all things.

Pardon my honeft dealing with thee; it is an awful thing to be an instrument without fpiritual

life,

life, giving uncertain found, 1 Cor. xiv. 8. A lamp without oil is the law of Mofes; and this, attended with a blind zeal and pharifaic pride, makes a falfe preacher like him who is transformed into an angel of light, 2 Cor. xi. 14, 15. A false dauber, without establishing, cementing grace, will fink the deepeft under the greatest of ruins, Luke vi. 49. A myftical cloud, without rain, only obfcures the Sun of Righteousness, Jude ver. 12. A well without water only aggravates the foul's thirft, 2 Peter ii. 17. Believe me, there is a falfe zeal, Rom. x. 2; a false gift, Prov. xxv. 14; a falfe light, Luke xi. 35; a falfe fpirit, Micah ii. 11; a falfe minifter, 2 Cor. xi. 13; a falfe flock of profeffors, 2 Cor. xi. 26; a falfe Christ, Matt. xxiv. 24; and a false God, 2 Theff. ii. 4. Let not what I have faid discourage my fon : no; I have complied with thy request as far as I have gone; I have written it just as it came flowing on my mind; it may shake thy confidence, but thou wilt only root the deeper: I know Chrift will heal thine ear again, if I have cut it. The fword of the Spirit never gives a mortal or a deadly wound to a living foul.

Thou mayeft perhaps fee in these letters, as in a glafs, many falfe preachers, when I am dead and gone; but I am perfuaded better things of you, though I thus write; and things that accompany falvation. I have never been permitted from the first to entertain a fingle doubt of thy intereft in Christ Jefus; I am exceeding glad to think God has given me a hope of feeing two of my own fons

in the faith appearing in the vineyard of Chrift, before I go hence and be no more feen. O! tread in the fteps of thy father, my fon; go forth in a plain unaffected way. It has vexed my very foul when I have seen poor men, of low rank, in powdered hair, filk breeches, popish robes, long bands, cramp words, affected actions, wanton eyes, and borrowed matter;-attended by a company of light, frothy, dreffy profeffors, as void of humbling grace as the devil is of hope.-It is fuch who creep into houfes, and lead captive filly women; led away with divers lufts and pleasures; ever learning, but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth, 2 Tim. iii. 6.

I defire thee to go once a-week to those poor fouls at G. and I will pay thee for thy time when I come down; deny not this my requeft, and look for no inftruction to be effectual but the teaching of the Holy Ghoft, 1 Cor. ii. 13. Gospel minifters, fitted by carnal inventions, are just as uferul as the prophets' fons we read of, 2 Kings ii. 16; fifty of whom had got strength enough at the schools to catch the prophet Elijah, if the Holy Ghost fhould let him flip, or the flaming equipage break down on the airy road. Surely a chariot paved with everlafting love, covered with atoning blood, axle-treed with Omnipotence, and conveyed on the wheels of eternal election, is ftrong enough to carry a foul to Abraham's bofom, without the pliable fpring of an arm of flesh.-Elifha the poor ploughman, who was but a few days old in grace, blufhed

at