him I am fick of love: Come, my beloved, let us go up early to the vineyards, let us fee if the vines flourish: There will I give thee my loves: Make hafte, my beloved, and be thou like to a roe, or to a young hart on the mountains of spices: How fair and how pleafant art thou, O love, for delights! O my dove-let me fee thy countenance, let me hear thy voice; for fweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely: Thou haft ravibed my heart, my fifter, my spouse, with one of thine eyes, with one chain of thy neck: Turn away thine eyes from me, for they have overcome me.-He that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and manifeft myself to him: If any man love me, he will keep my words, and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him As the Father bath loved me, fo have I loved you, continue ye in my love: If ye keep my commandments, ye fall abide in my love, even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love: The love of Chrift conftraineth us: We love him, because be firft loved us: The love of GOD is fed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghoft given unto us: Whom having not feen, ye love; and whom, tho' now ye fee him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. That ye may with all faints be able to comprehend what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, and to know the love of Chrift that paffeth knowledge: Are thefe, I fay, romances? are thefe fancies, fictions, and forgeries are thefe fables cunningly devifed and told by the nonconformift-preachers? Did the apoftle thunder the great Anathema Maranatha against men for their not having a mere romantick and fancied love to the Lord Jefus? (the executie on of which dreadful doom will be a folid proof of its reality, and a fad reproof for denying it to be fo.) Dare the most proud, petulant, perverfe, and prodigioufly-profane prater, pretending but to the name of a chriftian, fay it? If these moft real love-communications and intercourses betwixt the Lord Chrift and the believing foul be but romances, then the whole bible (whereof these make fo confiderable and fo comfortable a part) may be reckoned a romance (which belike this romantick divine will not fo much demur making small account thereof, audacioufly alledging the English bible to be a book in fome places erroneous, in fome scarce fenfe, and of dangerous conSequences; loth would he be to deal fo by Grand Cyrus, Cleopatra, and his other darling romances :) If there be no real but romantick and feigned love betwixt Chrift and the chri

stian,

ftian, then no real christianity, no real Chrift (whom this new doctor dreadfully debafeth under the poorly palliated pretext of exalting him, affirming, That his unparalleled civility, and the obliging nefs of his deportment, feems to be almoft as high an evidence of the truth and divinity of his doctrine, as his unparalleled miracles were, otherwife he would be a bafe and profligate impoftor. What would this young divine (for old divines, and even great Calvin by name amongst the reft, he defpifeth as a company of filly fyfematicks) have faid and thought of the divinity of the perfon and doctrine of bleffed Jefus, if when on earth he had more frequently (as he might and probably would have done under the fame circumftances) fpoke and dealt fo roughly and roundly as he did when he called Herod a fox, and scourged the buyers and fellers out of the temple, and had feemed to be as uncivil and of as little obliging a deportment as his harbinger John Baptift? He would belike have doubted of his divinity, and deemed him but a bafe impoftor, if not peremptorily pronounced that he had a devil) no real redemption, no real Redeemer; no real mifery, no re al mercy; no real heaven, no real hell; (but ah! the real acting of its story will eafily and quickly refute this romantick concep tion of it) and, in fine, no real God: All is but one intire fine romance, fable and figment. The LORD, against whom this mouth is opened thus wickedly-wide, and is by another Rabbakeb railed on at fuch a rate, rebuke the fpirit which prompteth to the venting this damnable and diabolick, nay, hyperdiabolick doctrine (for devils believe that there is one God, and tremble; and that Jefus Chrift is the Son of God, whom even in his state of humiliation they acknowledged to be fo, and, from the dread of him, deprecated his tormenting them before the time: but this defperado would on the matter drive us to a disbelief of both, and yet droll us out of all dread of being tormented on that or any other account either before the time or at it, because of which its teacher (of late better taught (if he would humble himself to receive instruction) by famous Dr. Owen, by accute Mr. Marvel, and by the grave author of the Fulfilling of the fcriptures, in his fecond part) deeply deferves not only to be caft out of the proteftant churches, but to be hiffed and chafed out of the chriftian world. And as appears finally, by that divinely politick and profoundly wife treatife of Scandal in general, and of fcandalous divifions in particular: which both preachers and profeffors of the gofpel fhould read, and read again, in these fad times, wherein (alas!) there is fo much offence given, and fo great a readiness to take offence. Of none of which treatifes, nor of any other fo brief a treatise on the commands, this piece will, I humbly fuppofe, be found to fall much, if any thing at all, fhort; wherein the light of the glory of the Lord, in the face of Jefus Chrift, that fhined in upon the heart of his servant, hath so brightly and radiantly darted forth its beams, that he hath clearly fhewed us the feven abominations of our hearts; and, by digging, hath discove

b

red great abominations, and greater,and yet greater than these. He that fearcheth Jerufalem with candles, hath, by putting the candle of the true meaning of the law of the Lord into his hand, made him go down and fearch into the very inward parts of the belly, and bowels of the corruption of our nature, and to ranfack the moft retired corners of the clofs cabinet of the deep deceitfulness, and defperate wickednefs that is lodged and locked up in our hearts: He hath given to him, as it were, the end of the clew of fearch, whereby he hath followed and found us out, in thofe many turnings and traverfings, windings and wandrings of the labyrinth of this great mystery of iniquity that worketh in us: He hath therein alfo marveloufly helped him with exquifite skill, as it were, anatomically to defect, even to fome of the very smalleft capillar veins, a great part of the vast body of the many and various duties fuccinctly fummed up in thefe ten words of this holy law; a tranfumpt and double whereof was as vively written, and deeply ingraven, upon the fleshly tables of the author's heart, and on the whole of his vifible deportment, as readily hath been on many of the finful fons of Adam. Not to detain thee long, let me, for provoking and perfwading to confider what the bleit author, being now dead, yet speaketh in this choice treatise (and more especially to the inhabitants of Glasgow, now the fecond time) only fay, That, amongst many other diftempers of this declined and degenerated generation, there is a great itching after fome new and more notional, and a lothing of old and more folid and fubftantial things in religion; whereof this is a demonftration, that tho' there be very few fubjects more neceffary and ufeful than what is treated of here, yet there is almoft none more generally flighted, as being a very common and ordinary fubject, and but the Ten commands, fitter to be read and got by rote by children, or at beft to be studied by rude and ignorant beginners, by apprentices and chriftians of the lowest form in Chrift's school, than by profeffors of greater knowledge and longer ftanding, who fuppofe themselves, and are it may be fuppofed by others, to have paffed their apprenticeship, to be grown deacons in the trade of religion, and to have commenced mafters of art therein, who fomeway difdain and account it below them to stay a while and talk with Mofes at the foot of Mount Sinai, as if they could per faltum, or by one falcon-flight, come at the top of Mount Zion, and there converfe with, and make ufe of Jefus Chrift: Whence it cometh to pass that not a few are lamentably ignorant of the very letter of the law, and many more but little infighted in the fpiritual meaning thereof, which ignorance is waited with many unfpeakably great prejudices (that are to be confidered with respect to the various ftates of men, as regenerate or unregenerate, and to the feveral degrees of their ignorance) 1. It very much incapacitateth for felf-fearching and examination, a confiderable piece, yea, a fort of fpring of the exercife of godliness. How, pray, can a perfon to any purpose fearch and try his heart and

ways,

ways, being altogether, or in a great measure, ignorant of the rule according to which the fearch ought to be accomplished? 2. It keepeth men much unacquainted with, and great ftrangers to, the knowledge of themselves, of their ftate, frame and walk; fo that they can feldom or never be in cafe to make a knowing, distinct and feeling reprefentation of the pofture of their spiritual affairs to God. 3. It is the mother and nurfe, not of any true de votion (as Papifts ignorantly or impioufly aver) but of much carnal fecurity and falfe peace, the un-informed or ill-informed confcience of the finner being mifconcede from, and fadly fecured against the most just and best-grounded challenges; being often ignorant when fin is committed, and when duty is omitted or unduly performed. Every fin being a tranfgreffion of this law, and every duty a piece of conformity to it; How can a man, ignorant altogether, or in a great part, of the juft extent and fpiritual meaning thereof, be, as he ought, challenged and accused by his own confcience, either for the commiffion of the one, or for the omiffion or mifperformance of the other? 4. It notably obftrus eteth the exercise of humiliation, repentance, and felf-lothing; for, how can the breaches of this law, in omiffions and commiffions, be diftinctly and particularly repented of, and mourned for, when they are not fo much as known to be breaches of the law in general, let be of what particular command thereof? And, tho' they were fomeway confufedly known to be breaches of it in general, if there be not a distinct knowledge of the command that is broken, the conviction will not readily be fo quick, nor the for row fo pricking. We have need, for our humbling, to be bound with the convincing and undeniable evidence of our being guilty of the breach of fuch and fuch a command in particular, that we may not get it fhifted nor fhaken off. 5. It manifeftly standeth in the way of serious and effectual endeavours in the ftrength of grace to amend what is amifs, and speedily without delay to turn our feet unto his commandments; there being no ground to expect that men will in good earnest think of righting wrongs, where of they are ignorant, or not fo throughly perfwaded. 6. It hath a mighty tendency to the cherishing of fpiritual pride, and that good opinion and conceit of mens own righteoufnefs, which is as natural to us, as 'tis for sparks of fire to fly upwards: And when men know not often when they fin, nor how much they fin, they will be the more eafily induced to think they are not fo great finners, not have fo much reafon as is talked of, to be fo very far and altoge ther out of conceit with themselves; and what may here be the death-ill of a natural unrenewed man, may be the dangerous di ftemper of a child of God. 7. (which as the grand prejudice doth natively and neceffarily refult from all the fix preceeding prejudi ces thereof, and maketh it appear to be exceedingly and out of measure prejudicial) It keepeth much from the thorow conviction and kindly fenfe of the abfolute and indifpenfible neceflity, great ufefulness and fteadableness, and matchlefs worth of precious

fus Chrift the Saviour, and of his imputed righteoufnefs; from having daily recourfe to him, and making ufe of him, as made of God unto his people both righteousness and fanctification; from lying conftantly a-bleaching, as it were, at the fountain opened to the boufe of David, and to the inhabitants of Jerufalem, for fin, and for uncleanness, from foul-edifying, refreshing, and fomeway tranfporting admiration at the abfolute perfection of his righteousness, that can cover, and make as if they had never been, fo very many and various violations of the holy law of God; from new and fresh convictions on all occafions of the unfpeakable obligation the people of God ly under,to him who hath perfectly fulfilled this law, and in their stead taken on his bleffed felf the curfe thereof; from excitements and provocations to thankfulness, and from expreifing the fame in a greater care and folicitude to conform thereto as the rule of our obedience; and finally, from fuitable longings and pantings of foul to be, according to his gracious undertaking in the covenant of redemption, put in cafe to do his will perfectly in our own perfons, and never any more to tranfgrefs this his law, and to be brought under the full accomplishment of these exceeding great and precious promifes, He ball redeem Ifrael from all his iniquities, and his fervants hall serve him. O that we could, by what is faid, perfwade all to a more diligent and accurate study of the law of God, and to the reading and ruminating upon this folid and foul-searching tractate; and prevail with feveral perfons (which in reafon and confcience might be prefumed would not be fo very hard a bufinefs to bring to pafs with men and women profeffing themselves to be Chriftians, nay, to have immortal fouls that are to be eternally and unalterably either happy or miferable) to take but as much time to the reading, perufing and pondering of it, and other fuch pieces, as is taken to the reading of amorous books and romances, to idle vifits, and to vain and empty complements; to over-coftly, curious, vain and conceity dreffing and decking of the body, and fetting of the hair now after one mode, now after another (wherein, as in other vanities, many men, fomewhat unmanning themfelves, do now contend with women, partly by their unnaturally nourished long hair, and horrid bushes of vanity (as Mr. Bolton calls them) and partly by their variously and ftrangely metamorphofing modes and colours of periwicks) which made Tertullian in the 7th chapter of his book, De cultu mul. to expoftulate with the women of his time after this manner; What doth this cumbersom dreffing of the head contribute to your health? why will ye not fuffer your hair to be at reft and ly quiet? which is fometimes tied up, fometimes relaxed and made to hang down, fometimes frizled and curled, fometimes tyed clofs and preft down, fometimes put under a strict reftraint (of plaits, knots, and otherwife) and fometimes fuffered to efcape and flide out from that restraint, and to flitter and fly at nom? And ye affix moreover to your heads I know not what ener

of hair fewed and woven now this way, now that way, if