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the same way as thou first wentest to him-as a poor, lost, and undone sinner; and tell him that, unless he is pleased to have mercy on thee, thou shalt perish for ever and ever. If he now begins to listen to thy cry, and, as he did with the poor woman in the Gospel, turns and rebukes thee, telling thee "it is not meet to take the children's bread, and cast it unto dogs;" be not even then discouraged nor dismayed; but under the sweet operations of that self-same blessed Spirit, who is now wrestling and pleading within thee, may it still make thee more earnest in thy plea; adopt the poor woman's language; say, "Truth, Lord 'I am a dog-one of the meanest, most contemptible, and unworthy of all the creatures thou hast formed, yet even the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master's table.' Lord, let but one crumb of thy mercy fall upon me-cast one look of compassion towards me as thou didst upon poor Peter; and that look shall break my flinty heart-that crumb of mercy shall melt my stubborn and rebellious will into the sweetest godly contrition."

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The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent taketh it by force." Notwithstanding all thy weakness, sin, and folly, poor soul, Jesus still is, and ever will be thine; like Joseph of old, when seated before his brethren, he longs to make himself known unto thee. Underneath the frown which seems to sit upon his brow, he is regarding thee with all the complacency of divine love. He is now "chastening thee in measure, and not suffering thee to go wholly unpunished;" he is at the same time exercising thy graces-purging thy dross-making thee feel that it is an evil and a bitter thing to sin against him; and by and by, when he heals the breach-binds up thy wounds- and causes thee to feel afresh his pardoning love, thou wilt bless him and praise him for the present trial of thy faith. Thine heart shall be enlarged— thy comforts abound; and while thou shalt have less trust in thyself, and thy continual cry shall be, "Lord, be thou my keeper, preserver, and never-failing guide," thou wilt repose with increasing confidence upon the skilfulness of his hand, and come up out of the wilderness, leaning (more sensibly and feelingly) upon him, thy beloved."

Thus, though faint, poor tempted believer, thou art still pursuingyea, and shalt pursue, until thy cross is exchanged for a crown. Thy warfare will, ere long, be at an end; and after a few more struggles with sin and unbelief within, and a few more combats with thine accursed enemy without, the glorious Captain of thy salvation, under whose banner thou art now fighting, shall appear and bid thee lay aside the weapons of thy warfare, and receive from his own divine hand the palm of victory and eternal triumph over every foe.

Our hearts are full, and, did not the length of the present paper admonish us, we should gladly have pursued the subject, and taken up the cases of others of the Lord's exercised family. If, however, it is laid upon our mind, and meets the approbation of our readers, we hope to return to the subject at some future time.

CRISP'S VIEW OF A ZEAL OF GOD WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE OF, AND SUBMISSION TO THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD IN CHRIST.

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A ZEAL of God proves not a man a child of God. tell you, it is possible a person may have a zeal of God, and yet be far from being a believer. Let that be the first observation. I ground it thus: the Jews, of whom Paul speaks, he himself "bears record, that they had a zeal of God;" but in the next words he says, "They established their own righteousness, and did not submit to the righteousness of God." A zeal of God is not ground or evidence enough that a person is a believer, or that he hath received or submitted himself to Christ. First, beloved, because this may seem to be harsh, I beseech you to consider seriously how undeniable and clear the position I have laid down is-it is founded upon the text itself. I say there may be a zeal of God in an unbeliever; so the apostle bears record of these Jews: there was 66 zeal of God, yet not according to knowledge; " even when they had it, "they established their own righteousness-they did not submit to the righteousness of God." I will not dwell upon this point: all I shall say on it is only that I may undeceive many that are very subject to deceive themselves, and that I may take them off from a sandy foundation; and, so, if it be possible, reduce to a rock those who are apt to build upon the sand.

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I know, beloved, it is cried up much in the hearts of many poor wretches; I say, cried up much, that if they have but a zeal of God in their hearts, it is enough to serve them for ever; they are believers, members of Christ; and it is injurious to the people of God, as they think, to tell them-those that have a zeal of God in their hearts—yet, for all that may "not submit to the righteousness of God," but stumble at the stumbling-stone, and fall for ever.

All the difficulty, I know, lies in this-what is it for persons to have " a zeal of God?" Or whether there is not 66 a zeal of God" in those who are believers, which is palpably discerned (distinguished) from that in those that do "not submit to the righteousness of God? I grant there is a difference; but, as this zeal of God hath reference to our righteousness, or unto an obedience to the law, you will hardly find a difference. A zeal of God to set up God in Christ, to give Christ the pre-eminence in all, that nothing is to be done with God, but only by Jesus Christ; to throw down everything in the world that offers to come in with Christ to deal with the Father; I say, "a zeal of God," in this kind, is not common to any person who submits not to "the righteousness of God." But to be zealous-that is to say, to be cordial, hearty, real, and that with fervency and earnestness of spirit, towards obedience to the commandments of God, and to have an eye, in such obedience, to God himself, to seek him in it-this, I say, is "a zeal of God" which is common unto such as do "not submit to the righteousness of God;" as

well as to them that do submit to it; therefore, as there is a community in this zeal, so this is not sufficient to clear up to persons, that because they are thus zealous, therefore they are the children of God, and have the righteousness of Christ.

There are many people in the world to whom the mind of God, in the law, is made known. We must not commit adultery, and simply because God commands this thing, they refrain from the evil; they go through all the commandments of God zealously; they look upon it as the will of God revealed to them, and do it for God's sake, thus imparting his own mind; they abstain and refrain from the evil, and perform the good, because God requires it of them: yet all this is no argument of a person's being a real member of Christ; for all this, he may not submit to the righteousness of Christ.

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Observe, that these Pharisees "went about to establish their own righteousness," saith the apostle. This righteousness they went about to establish: what was it? a righteousness according to the law of God? "Christ is the end of the law to everyone that believes:" as if he had said, you, in the zeal of your spirits, think to come to the end of the law yourseles; but mistake not, if you have in your eye the expectation of comfort and peace, and rest in your spirits, from the largeness of spirits in the performance of those duties-this is enough to make miscarry, though it be for the Lord's sake you do it. Let me tell you, that the Lord hath so established Christ, for the rest and life of men, that if they could yield angelic obedience, be perfect throughout in obedience to the whole law of God, and not fail in one point of it; if, I say, from such perfection of obedience they would gather up their own comfort, or conclude their own salvation; these persons should be damned as well as those that sin ever so much; for God hath established Christ and his righteousness only, to be the salvation of man: I say, only the righteousness of Christ; that if a man were ever so perfect, and, in respect of that perfection, would leave the righteousness of Christ and lean to the perfection of his own for his peace and salvation-that man would miscarry and be damned.

Beloved, all I aim at is this, that you build not upon foundations which will fail you when you come to the trial. There is absolutely perfection in the righteousness of Christ alone for your rest and security, that you shall not need to trust to anything you do for peace or life: this is what God calls you to, to go forth from your own righteousness to rest solely and only upon the righteousness of Christ, if ever you mean to have comfort in this world, and in the world to come.

The world is grown to a miserable pass, that obedience, zeal, and seeking after God, must be of no use at all, except a man himself be a gainer by his obedience. It is now as it was in the time of the Psalmist, Psal. iv., everyone will be ready to cry out-" Who will show us any good?" This the common outcry in the world; if anything in the world be proposed to men to be done, they answer, "But what shall I get by it? What! doth the law call me out to such duties and employments, such zeal and fervency, and to have mine eye upon God in the performance of them, and all this do me no good? I had as good sit still

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and do nothing." But there are some good commonwealth's-men indeed who, you know, have, in respect of other's prosperity, put themselves to trouble and charge; and, so far from getting, they shall be losers by their office; and yet, for the commonwealth's good, they will willingly put themselves on, when they are called out to such employments. And I must tell you, except you mind chiefly, that all the duties you perform are for other ends and purposes than your own preferment, and to benefit yourself thereby; namely, the setting forth the praise of the glory of God's free-grace, and the serving the generation in which you live, and the study of good works, because they are profitable to I say, except you will fall upon the performance of duties, for the common good and benefit, without having any such conceits as what shall accrue to you thereby; you are not persons yet come to have that common spirit, and dead to the old spirit, as becomes Christians.

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Believers that have the temper of Christ's true-bred children indeed, they, in the Gospel of Christ, find all things that appertain to life and godliness; they find them all so passed over by God's goodness and free grace to them, that the lions shall want and suffer hunger before they shall lack anything that is good. Must they now labour to gain these things as if they were in agitation, and as if they were yet referred to their good or evil walking, that as they walk so they shall speed? This is to argue that God is yet to determine within himself, how to dispose of the good things that he will bestow upon his people, and that he gives good things according to their good or evil carriage; and so the goodness of God to his people must depend upon their goodness to him; and that, as men's works will prevail with God, so God will pour out his bounty unto them.

But without respect to good or evil, as I said before, the Lord hath everlastingly established all that ever he meant to do; and no more will he do, to the end of the world, to any people he hath chosen in his Son. The Lord in Christ from everlasting hath set down peremptorily what he will do for you; and there are no intervening acts and carriages of yours that make any alteration in him at all to cross out what he hath written, and to put in what he hath left out. He doth nothing to his people upon conditions in them, as if he referred himself still to those conditions, and suspended what he meant to do to them, till he perceived how they would carry themselves to him.

Now, know, that there is no submitting to the righteousness of God while there is an establishing of the righteousness of the law of Moses-namely, to do righteousness that you may live; to refrain from evil to the end that you may not be cursed. He that proposeth cursing or life (cursing if he do not do, and life if he do the will of God)—he that proposeth this, "is under the law, and not under grace.'

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Christ, as you hear in the next verse, "is the end of the law for righteousness, to everyone that believes." What is that? He is the end of the curse of the law; he is also the end of the life of the law. There is no curse to be pronounced on a believer when he breaks the law; there is no life to be expected by the believer upon his obedience to it. Christ is the end of the life, and curse of the law; "He himself

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being made a curse for us, as it is written, cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree." Secondly, "Our life is hid with Christ in God;" he is the life, no life but in the Son; "he that hath the Son hath life; he that hath not the Son, hath not life," saith the Apostle. All this argues plainly, that all that life that is to be expected, whether it be life itself, or the conducing of things that appertain to the comforts of it: all this is to be expected from the Son of God, and not from any obedience of the law. If thou at any time need a curse to thyself, upon any transgression of the law, and darest to receive it against thyself in respect of that transgression, Christ is not the end of the law to thee; namely, thy soul takes not Christ as the full curse of the law, taking it all away, that otherwise the law would pronounce and execute upon thy person.

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Beloved, I need not apologise; you know what the apostle speaks (2 Cor. v. 19) "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed to us the word of reconciliation;" upon which, saith the apostle, we are the ambassadors of Christ, beseeching you, in Christ's stead, to be reconciled unto God." I think I need not make an apology; he that is a minister of the Gospel ought to proclaim and declare this reconciliation to you, by God's own Son Jesus Christ, peace through him, and atonement through his blood alone. Either we are the ministers and messengers of Christ, or the ministers of Moses: we are either the ministers of the covenant of works, or the messengers of the covenant of grace; so far as we urge upon you as you do, you shall live, and as you do evil you shall be accursed; so far, we are the ministers of the covenant of works. But when we come and say that "God is in Christ reconciling the world to himself:' that is, if we say that Christ bore the curse, and that you need not fear it, though you fall into sin;* you may be sure that God hath so reconciled you in his Son, that your falls (being believers) shall not break peace between God and you; this peace is everlasting, it is unchangeable; God is not a friend to-day with his people, and falls out with them to-morrow; "whom he loves he loves to the end;" now this is our business to draw people unto Christ.

Lord, give unto thy people a spirit of discernment, that they may distinguish between persons and things which differ, and that they may be kept from deceiving of others and being deceived themselves.

May 24th, 1840.

A LAYMAN.

* [Reader, we warn thee not to misinterpret this remark, and charge its author (and ourselves for inserting it) with Antinomianism, or making light of sin. Crisp knew, and we know it likewise, by painful experience, that if a child of God is overcome by temptation (be it of what sort it may) it will, for a season, close the channel of communion between him and his God; darken his understanding; becloud his prospects; and bring such a load of guilt and misery upon his conscience, as nothing but a fresh application of the precious blood of a dear Immanuel can remove. Talk of a child of liberty, an heir of eternal glory, a soul made meet to be partaker of the inheritance of the saints in light,

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