thy misguided weakling, to the law, and to the testimony, to the word of God, the touchstone and standard of Heaven; Did you, or either of you, ever receive the word, not as the word of man, but, as it is indeed and in truth, the word of God? Did it come home to your heart in the demonstration of the Spirit, and of power? Were the thoughts of your hearts made manifest? Was you, or any of you, convinced thereby, and judged thereby; and was your proud heart humbled? Was you brought to fall on your face before God, and to report that God is the supreme and internal speaker of a truth? If you are all strangers to this power, you are deceived, and deceiving one another; and must "err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God." "The kingdom of God is not in word, but in power." The scriptures are clear and conclusive, therefore attend to that divine glass. The scriptures cannot be broken, the Saviour's word shall never pass away; therefore come to this sure guide: the young man must cleanse his way by taking heed thereto. Attend, therefore, to a scriptural pedigree and genealogy of a new creature in Christ. If the word of God never came to your heart with power, you cannot say, "God, of his own will, begat us with the word of truth. And if the sword of the Spirit never cut you to your heart, the caul of your heart, the veil of your heart, was never rent; you have had no true sight nor real sense of sin to humble you; nor can you say, we have received

with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save our souls. The word must come with power, and in the Holy Ghost, to the lifeless soul, before there can be any spiritual life, motion, or activity, toward God. His children are "born again of incorruptible seed, the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever." The word of God, when attended by the Spirit of power, is the word of life. "Faith comes by hearing," while the devil and infidelity oppose themselves to faich, hence come conflicts and soul exercise, attended with slavish fear and torment: "He that feareth, hath torment; he that feareth, is not made perfect in love." "Thine heart," says God, "shall meditate terror." "The pains of a travailing woman shall come upon him;" Zion herself shall be in pain to bring forth." The followers of Christ in his personal ministry, who spoke as never man spake, had sorrow as a woman in labour has sorrow; but he saw them again, and their hearts rejoiced. And Christ must be revealed in you; and, if you are his elect, he will manifest himself to you; and then, but not till then, will perfect love cast out fear; and not till then will the birth be made clear: " Every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God; he that loveth not, knoweth not God, for God is love;" and he that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him." Let no man deceive you, nor deceive one another, "for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience."

Thou must prove thy own work. Christian, and then thou shalt have rejoicing in thyself alone, and not in another. The witness of men is not sufficient; the witness of God is sure. Nor must thy faith stand in man's wisdom, much less in his craftiness; but in the power of God it must stand. Let no Timothy trust in his own heart; let no Timothy deceive thee, Reader. “He that trusts in his own heart is a fool;" and he that trusts a false guide is no better. "Trust ye not in a friend; put ye not confidence in a guide: keep the doors of thy mouth from her that lieth in thy bosom." The saint is begotten by God himself; he is quickened by the word of life and Spirit of power. Corruptions oppose the grace of the Spirit, and grace opposes corruptions: the former must yield, and the latter prevail. "Sin shall not have dominion; grace shall reign," Pardoning love, by the Spirit, casts out fear and torment, enlarges the straitened soul, and ushers it into the glorious liberty of the children of God. Such an one has the earnest and witness of the Spirit; the word is rooted in him, lives, grows, and prevails, as an incorruptible seed. And a principle of grace, wrought by the Spirit from the Saviour's fulness, and lodged in the soul, is the seed of God, which cannot sin; and, with the allowance and consent of which, the believer himself cannot sin, because he is born of God. "It is no more I," says Paul, "but sin that dwelleth in me." This is the man that is a plant of our heavenly Father's planting,

which shall never be plucked up. But, as for Timothy and his Christian, they neither see God nor themselves; they have no views nor experience either of law or gospel, sin or grace: there is neither pulling down nor building up, neither rooting up nor planting, seen or described in all this dark lantern.

Quot. But those whose hearts are changed by grace, see a pleasure in religion superior to any this world can pretend to.

Answ. Timothy's Timothy's Christian, with all his changes, with all his fluxes and refluxes, is allowed no more than an eye; he can only see a pleasure in religion; the feeling part Timothy cannot come at, nor touch on, for the want of quickening grace. He beats about the bush, he gropes about the mount, he peeps here, and mutters there; but, to save his soul, he cannot come to the mark, nor be at a point, in any one truth that is essential to salvation. God resists him, and keeps him at a distance; and his own conscience knows it. Your eyes do not see, Timothy; you see nothing, in comparison to that which some of the ancient hypocrites have seen. Job's seeing eye was not enough; he must feel his captivity turned. The eyes must see, the ears must hear, and the hands must handle, the word of life; eternal life must be laid hold of; Christ must be received into the heart by faith. Seeing is believing, but feeling is the truth.

Quot. That religion must be true that springs

purely from choice, and which is the element the soul can only find real pleasure in.

Answ. Then the religion of Simon Magus, and of the Nicolaitans, and of Arius, and of John Wesley, and of Timothy Priestley, must be true; though there does not appear to me to be a grain of grace or true in either of them; and yet all their religion sprung purely from choice, and from a choice purely their own: for none of all these have ever yet dropped any one hint sufficient to satisfy the righteous that either their religion, or their persons, were of God's choosing. And in the religion that sprung from their own choice they took real pleasure. The scriptures say, such "take pleasure in unrighteousness;" and where else can they find it? Not in God, for the carnal mind is enmity; nor in the truth, for it is hidden from their eyes; nor in the power of religion, for they never felt it; never knew him.

nor in the Saviour, for they

Quot. Fear and terror may, for a season, cause a man to appear as if his motives were heavenly and spiritual; but religion, which comes from no higher a cause than this will soon vanish, and leave a man worse than he was before.

Answ. Then those poor wretches to whom God comes near, in order to bring them to a reckoning, must be badly off; for they tremble even at his word: and yet he says he will look to such, and dwell with such. God's elect, sooner or later, are sure to feel something of this. Fearfulness