terfeit implies a reality, and had there been no such thing as clear inward openings and manifestations, it is scarcely credible that wicked men, seduced by satan, would so frequently have attempted to impose upon the world with pretended ones.

"Bristol stones," says archbishop Tillotson, "would never pretend to be diamonds, if there never had been diamonds." The remark has much in it. It extends a great way, and I think as it abundantly confutes those sceptics who reject all revealed religion because there are multitudes of pretenders to it and counterfeits of it, who yet know little or nothing about it; so does it also and as amply overthrow their objections who deny any clear inward knowledge of God or infallible intimations of his will, because many have presumptuously pretended to them whilst ignorant of them.

Does any true believer who has, as scripture asserts, "the witness in himself," doubt his own adoption and sonship, or the reality of that inward blessed enjoyment called in sacred record "the love of God shed abroad in the heart," because wicked men and ignorant enthusiasts have the audacity to lay claim to the same thing?

How did Paul know that "the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus" had set him "free from the law of sin and death?" Why, he had the witness, the certain evidence of it in himself, or he never could have known it. Neither reading nor reasoning, without the living certain evidence of the holy spirit, could possibly ascertain him thereof. He was ignorantly once alive, without this law of the spirit of life; and though doubtless a great reader of the outward law, and a great reasoner too, yet thought all was pretty well with him: but when God revealed his son in him immediately, things were brought close home to his real inward state by the coming of the inward commandment, the inward or spiritual law, (for he was well acquainted with the outward before, and strict in its observance,) he found himself in a state of death, being slain thereby to that superficial life he had before falsely gloried in. This stripped him of all his supposed attainments in religion, and brought him to the loss of all things. He died to that state of darkness, and was brought into newness of life; he won Christ and was found in

him, not having on his own righteousness, which was before. thought so highly of in the creaturely ability and performance of the outward law; here he found opened in him a fountain of life and righteousness, and therein a new and divine ability. Now although he knew that of himself he could do nothing, yet he found living, inward help and ability to do all things through Christ, that thus inwardly and powerfully strengthened him. The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus did really, and not feignedly, nor imputatively, but truly and substantially set him free from the law of sin and death.

Now how did Paul know all this was real? Before this he was undoubtedly deceived, mistaken, and thought far otherwise of himself and others than according to the truth and reality of his own and their state. Will it be urged that he was still deceived? that he still knew nothing, because he could not know any thing truly in regard to religion or regeneration, while he was a mere natural man, and strove to know spiritual things of himself, in his own ability, and by his own wisdom and learning? If so, away with all pretence to reality in religion; talk no more of regeneration, divine enjoyment, the love of God shed abroad in the heart, the peace of God that passeth all mere natural understanding! But he was not deceived; when he came to learn in the school of Christ, he found his own utter inability, his need of an inward teacher, and could declare, "1 know nothing by myself;" 1 Cor. iv. 4. and yet being well acquainted with the inward unction, the holy anointing, the divine light, he knew and learned thereby all things necessary to his salvation and duty. The fulness of divine instruction and know. ledge in and by the light, enabled him to testify, that the shining of this true light is expressly intended to give the knowledge of God and divine things; or in his own words, "to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ;" 2 Cor. iv. 6. for he declares positively, that for this very purpose "God, who commanded light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts. 2 Cor. iv. 6. Then surely what is clearly opened in our hearts, by the inshinings of this holy light, giving us according to the express design of its so shining therein, a real knowledge of God, of his glory, of our own

state, and of our duty to him, may be relied upon as matter of certainty.

If it is necessary we should know God and our duty, which will not be questioned, it is certainly attainable: if it is not attainable by all the searchings, conceivings, and reasonings of mere natural wisdom and learning, as it is not, then some other help is necessary; and if necessary, it is certainly afforded, and that through God's shining in our hearts to give us this necessary knowledge.

Here is a ground of certainty; without this we may read, contend, dispute, and reason all our days, and never know God, or ourselves, never know who is right or who or what is wrong.

Paul, unconverted Paul, was very confident that he was right, but when stripped of all his creaturely confidence and reduced to the loss of all things, he found, confident as he had been, that he knew nothing: and hence he saw that every man, who thinks he knows or can possibly know any thing clearly of God, or the things of God, of himself as a mere man, without divine light in his own soul, certainly knows nothing about them as he ought to know. He learned these things in a way that greatly humbled and brought down his former boasted ideas, abilities, and self-sufficiency. He saw that all he was, or profitably could be in religion and divine knowlege, was alone by the grace of God. He saith," By the grace of God, I am what I am." He knew he could be nothing good or useful, by any other means. Here by the law, influence, and teaching of this very principle of divine grace, all boasting was excluded, and will be whenever man knows himself, and his inability, and absolute dependance on superior help, both for instruction and strength in religion, for the knowledge of God, and the performance of every duty : for indeed all works performed by man merely, are but the works and deeds of the law, by which no flesh can be saved. It is but the old man with his deeds, trying to obey, trying to climb up to heaven some other way than by Christ, or by the ability which he giveth, whereby they that are his can do all things through his strengthening influence. Here is the mystery of law and gospel.

Many high professors of Christianity, who value themselves greatly upon their rejection of "works, and upon what they call faith in Christ, are yet as "ignorantly going about to establish their own righteousness," as 'ever the Jews were; and so do not" submit themselves to the righteousness of God." Such the apostle described formerly, and such there are now; they profess great veneration for this very doctrine of the apostle, and are as ignorant of his meaning, as the Jews were of that righteousness which they rejected in order to establish their own.

It was not only after Christ came in that outward body, that the Jews, by going about to establish their own, did not submit to the righteousness of God: (read Rom. x. 3,) it was long before also; it was whenever they depended on the mere creaturely, or outward performance of those things which God had instituted among them: for the letter without the life will kill. The offering of incense will be as offering swine's blood, unless it be done under a sense that the preparation of the heart and answer of the tongue are of the Lord.

Every religious work, done merely in man's ability, is a work or deed of the law, by which no flesh shall be justified, and yet the doers of the law shall be justified, though not by the deeds of the law. The deeds of the law can never redeem the soul from sin, nor quicken it to God. But he that is a real doer of the law, must be therein helped by a principle of divine life, must know the inward righteousness of Christ, and without being a doer of the divine law, in this ability, no man is saved; for the hearers of the law, talk what they will of faith and imputation, if they are not doers of it in this sense, shall not, as Paul says, be justified: but the full bringing in of the better hope justifies; for Christ is then alive in us, he is our hope of glory, and by him we livingly draw nigh unto God, feel after him, and find him, know our souls made alive in him, and united to him; this does indeed make perfect even touching the very

conscience.

Here the conscience is made clean, being washed with pure spiritual water, thoroughly and really cleansed by the inward spiritual blood and cleansing. Here the soul is baptized into Christ, and livingly puts on Christ, is baptized with him into

real death to all evil, else there would be no possibility of rising with him into newness of life; for where evil is lived in and lives in us, there full newness of life is not and cannot be known: for this, with all the daubings of untempered mortar, all the crying of peace, peace, through belief in a mere imputed righteousness, is still the old man with his deeds; who is and will be in the alienation and separation from God. But where the better hope is fully brought in and our whole man is under the influence of Christ, our inward hope of glory, here the only true doer of the law is brought forth, who never fails of divine justification, because every jot and tittle of God's law is fulfilled in the soul; and indeed nothing can pass away of it, till it be thus fulfilled; it remains and will remain in force against or upon us until we thus know it fulfilled.

"We are

Christ came not and comes not to destroy, but to fulfil it; and none can say they are not under the law, but under grace, who do not know the law fulfilled in them. Paul says, not without law to God;" but that man who is not under the law, nor yet has known it fulfilled in him, is far from being under grace. Grace teaches the denial of all, not part only, but all ungodliness, and worldly lusts, and also to live soberly, righteously, and godly, even here in this present world. How then can he that lives otherwise, and disregards or submits not to these teachings of grace, be under grace? No, no; some men have strange notions of grace, and think a state of grace consistent with a life of pollution; but Christ has told us, "whosoever committeth sin, is the servant of sin," John viii. 34. and his apostle, that," his servants ye are to whom ye obey." Rom. vi. 16. Grace allows of no iniquity, requires a clean heart, a pure conscience, the denial of all ungodliness; and where Christ rules, it must be so, for his fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor and burn up all the chaff, in those who know the full work of his fiery baptism, with unquenchable fire. This is the state of one who is not under the law, but under grace; for though he is not without law to God, yet he has passed from under it; for it is he who still in degree transgresseth it, though he may desire to know it fulfilled in him, that is under it and in condemnation; but there is no condemnation to VOL. II.--41