everlasting peace, and the witness of our adoption; he informs the judgment, and inclines the will to choose, embrace, and hold fast, the better part, that cannot be taken from us. Truth, in the love of it, flows in, and the promises flow in with their richest bleffings, in all their fweetness, power, love, and joy unfpeakable; while the bleffed and adorable Comforter opens them up, explains them, and applies them as nails faftened by the Mafter of affemblies. He alfo helps our infirmities in prayer, teftifics of Jefus, and of our intereft in him, and fills both heart and mouth with a thoufand thanks, bleffings, and praises. "This people have I formed for myfelf; they fhall fhew forth my praife."

O could we continue in this mount without the company of Mofes and Elias! This would be heaven on earth. But, alas! how often is this fweet enjoyment of his company interrupted. So fearful is the foul of offending, left he fhould awake and depart; what weeping, praying, cleaving, and ftruggling to hold faft, when he is about to withdraw; and what tormenting anxiety, when gone, for fear he fhould return no more! Then comes that wicked counsellor, that enemy of all rightcoufnefs, with a "Where is now thy God?" But he returns again and again, according to his appointed times of life, and revives and renews his vifits and his work, faying, " For a small moment have I forfaken thee, but with great mercies will I gather

I gather thee; in a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment, but with everlafting kindness will I have mercy on thee, faith the Lord thy redeemer." So fpeaks the great Jehovah; fo fings Philomela; fo I muft fubfcribe.

But the arch enemy will lay many traps for thee in thy new and glorious connexion, in thine exalted ftate, and in the happy enjoyment of that dignity to which thou art fo unexpectedly preferred. And, as thou haft been so long habituated to the legal embraces of Mofes, thou wilt find a felf-righteous fpirit within, that will at all times bend thee that way; and there will be a cleaving to him, notwithstanding all the hard treatment thou haft met with from him. His firft wife was a Cufhite, or Ethiopian; and all are black, but none comely, to this day, that are wedded to him. Contending, finding fault, curfing, and accufing, are all that can be expected by thofe who fue not out a divorce from him. His embraces gender nothing but bondage to fear; and all conception by him is followed with endless foul-travail and fruitless labour; and the whole iffue is "fruit unto death," and nothing elfe.

No wedding garment, no ring, no beautiful feet with fhoes, ornament thofe who abide by the fide of that husband. "A bloody husband art thou unto me," fays the Cufhite, "because of the circumcifion." Then fhe is fent back; and how long the remained in widowhood I know not. However,

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However, her father brought her to him again in the wildernefs; for I do not read that he ever went after her himself; and what became of her afterwards, none know. I think he ftarved her to death for Mofes gave them not the true bread from heaven; they ate manna, and are dead. John vi. 32, 49. And I think that he hath ftarved all the wives that he hath had fince; and, if at any time he gets a little comfort in his own heart, which makes him appear with a bright and cheerful countenance, he is fure to put a veil over his face, that nobody may look to the end of it but himself. 2 Cor. iii. 13. There is no fuch thing as living with him, nor with any of his family. What a life had our poor venerable mother Sarah all the time that Hagar was in her tent! She wanted to be the princess, though she was in bonds; and expected that her fpurious fon would have been heir both of the promises and of the homeftall, till, by an order from the higher powers, they were both banished from the pavilion, which was to be inhabited by the legitimate offspring of the free woman. But, notwithstanding all that I have faid, thou wilt get into these legal embraces, veiled, blinded, bound, ftraitened, barren, lifeless, peevish, fretful, rebellious, hardened; yea, and thou wilt even cleave to these things, as foon as ever the best Beloved hides his face, withdraws, and provokes thee to jealousy, in order to try thy love, thy faithfulness, and thine attachment to him; not that he

may

may know how thou wilt behave, but that thou mayeft know what he hath done for thee; and that, by his going and coming, by his abfence and his prefence, thou mayeft come to a more perfect knowledge of him, and at a more familiar acquaintance with him. At his departure the old man will fhew his head; and when the Lord vifits thee he will creep into his holes; for he is truly a night-bird. He cannot endure the light, nor fhew his head where divine confolations abound. But, as foon as ever the good man takes his bag of money with him, and withdraws from his spouse, then the owls, bats, and evening wolves, creep forth; but, when the fun arifes, they lay themselves down in their dens. At fuch times we muft pray, watch, wait, and look, even " from the lion's dens, and from the mountains of the leopards;" for at these feasons the legal fpirit works in a very unobferved way. The foul fen

fibly feels its lofs; its love, joy, and comfort, abated. Confequently it doth not perceive the Lord, as ufual, working in it both to will and to do. What is it then? Why, if he be not working in us, we must work for him. Then corruptions rife up, and interrupt us in the performance of our task. At this anger rifes; then confcience accufes; then unbelief prevails, and hardness of heart and rebellion follow; and the wrath and the bondage of the law come on, and hold faft; and now we are discontented, and fret at every thing, even against

the Lord himself. The more difcontented we are, in our deferted ftate, the more we strive, being driven with a hafty fpirit; and the more we strive, the fafter we are bound; till the light of his bleffed countenance darts another healing ray, and the voice of peace rebukes and becalms the ftorm. Then the Lord returns with double love, and we diffolve in double gratitude. Now Mofes holds his peace, and is content. The lion fculks off to his thicket, and the old man faints and dies once more, while we look to the cross. The nails pierce him, the fpear lays at him, the cancelled debt-book filences him, and God, fhining reconciled in the face of Chrift, banishes him. Our old man is crucified with him: but crucifixion is a long lingering death, and the old man dies hard. He is of the fame lineage, and in the fame ftate, as the devil his father; both are condemned, both curfed, both are destroyed; and yet both are in being, and we know it to our forrow. God was with Judah, and they drove the Canaanites out of the mountains; but they could not drive them out of the vallies, because they had chariots of iron. To keep them out of the mind and affections is a great thing; but to root them out of the heart is a work not to be done till we engage the last enemy; I mean death: for, though there is no discharge from that war, yet there will be a full discharge when that war is over; and then there fhall be no more the Canaanite in the

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