was this covenant ratified and established, Jehovah interposing himself therein, and, through the divided flesh and spirit of the Messiah, satisfying his law and justice for the remission of sins.

By this new testament in the blood of the Saviour, his people are not only admitted into fellowship with himself as their brother, yea, as flesh of their flesh, and bone of their bone, in a more than espoused nearness; but they are also entitled by a gracious right to approach unto God as their father. They are adopted into his family; and the covenant, established in the hands of the Mediator, is the testimony and the pledge of it. Hence they are no more strangers and foreigners, and much less slaves and enemies, but sons and heirs, children and heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ Jesus; and so, when they look up and pray, they do not take God's name in vain, and speak falsely, when they call Jehovah himself, Abba, Father; but they utter what they have a right and privilege to utter, and what the Lord delights to hear.

O my soul, thou canst not be in a ten thousandth part so ready to be joyful in this matter, as thy God is to rejoice over thee. If he could regard thee so much, when thou wert dead in condemnation, and an alien, as to give up his Son for thy sake, how much more, when thou art reconciled by such expensive means, will he pour forth his com

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passions upon thee? If he was kind to thee, when he stood as thy Judge and smote thySubstitute for thy sins; will he, can he, cease to be kind under the character of thy Father, thy merciful and gracious Father, in Christ Jesus?-Lord, remove so wicked a thought, so diabolical a notion of unbelief from my mind! It is treason against thy love, thy justice, thy truth, and all those attributes, which are the shining rays of thy nature, to harbour so foul an opinion: it is atheism, madness, yea, the very falsehood and blasphemy of hell. Holy Father, drive by thy Spirit such base and abominable suggestions from my heart; and let me claim the privilege of my adoption, let me call myself thy child, though an unworthy child, and thus honour thy faithfulness and truth by living in the sense of my nearness and dearness to thee!

When my soul can most ascend to this its proper station; then time and the things of time are most under my feet; the world and all its bustles annoy me less ; my heart beats more freely for heaven; and I can look down from the hill, seeing the vanities, and pitying the follies beneath, which carry men away in an over-bearing stream from God, and too often drozen them in ruin and perdition.

CHAP. XVII.

THE LOVE OF THE SPIRIT.

If God be love, then the Spirit is love, because the Spirit is God. He manifests himself as the God of love, by unfolding and bestowing such love as only God himself could have, and from himself could pour forth unto others.

The Holy Spirit, as one of the parties in the everlasting covenant, loveth his people with an everlasting love. By him they are spiritually circumcised, and so admitted into the bond or privileges of the covenant; that is, they are cut off from the state of nature and the world, and are brought into a new fellowship with God, and all that belongs to him. By him also they are made sensible of the love of the Father and of the Son, when he sheddeth forth his own love upon their hearts; for it is He who enables each of them to cry, Abba, Father, under the taste of his mercy, and to say to Christ, "Thou art my Saviour, my Lord, and my God,” in the rich experience of his grace. Without the love of the Spirit, as they could not know, so they could not come up to the love of the Trinity; for by him alone is this love shed abundantly upon all that are his, both in earth and heaven.

If I were left to love God by my own fallen powers, and had not the continual help

of the Spirit of love: I should fear, that I eeld do notting but hate him entirely. The carnal mind is enmity itself against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. The law of God is the pure life and love of God; and only by his Spirit can I delight therein, and then only after the inner man. Hence it must follow, that, if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. Without him, every man must remain as he was born, earthly, sensual, devilish.

O how deeply then am I indebted to this divine Agent, for taking up his holy resi dence in my unworthy soul! What loving kindness and mercy have I not felt and enjoyed by his blessed power within me !

How is it, that he, whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain, should vouchsafe to take up his abode in a poor sinner's breast? What marvellous love is this, that he should stoop to dwell with one, whose heart hath been the residence of the evil spirit, and the eage of every unclean bird! Surely, it must be infinite love, which could cleanse so unholy a tenement for himself, and keep it in any degree clean, against the manifold attempts to pollute it on every side.

Whatever I may lose then, O thou blessed Spirit, may I never lose the love of thee! Fame, riches, and other temporal things, are but of small account in themselves, and can soon be made up by thy power; but the loss

of thee is the loss of more than life itself, the parting with the very anchor of my soul, and turning me adrift into a dark ocean of doubt and despair. O then forsake not thine own, who could never have been thine own but from thy mere love and bounty, and perfect all the work of grace in me, that, before men and angels, I may give indubitable proof that indeed I am thine!

CHAP. XVIII.

THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT.

THE nature of man, since the FALL, is carnal and prone to evil; nor hath it power or inclination to raise up itself to the desire and enjoyment of heavenly things, but, on the contrary, shuns and abhors them. It savoureth not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men, and of the world.

Now, as whatsoever is born of the flesh is flesh, and as flesh and blood cannot inherit nor even know the kingdom or grace of God, it is not marvellous that Christ should say, Ye must be born again, or that it is absolutely necessary for a man to be renewed in the spirit of his mind, before he can apprehend or enjoy the things of God. We see this plain necessity proved by the case of all men; for no man seeks and knows God by his own natural abilities; and every ene, who doth know him, freely confesses,