The bad use that ungodly men may make of the truth of the Christian's liberty in the Spirit is not to silence spiritual ministers; Christ's yoke must be brought forth; the children of God must be fed; the gospel must be preached; the saints liberty must be shewed, and they cautioned not to abuse it, and counselled to stand fast in it; notwithstanding the villany of those that come in privily to spy it out. Ungodly men will abuse the most High God, and even the Bible itself; therefore no wonder if they abuse the sermons or writings of his servants. The impenitent infidel, whose mind and conscience both are defiled; to whom there is nothing clean; who are condemned already, and under the wrath of God; will turn every thing to bane. But are we to muzzle the truth, yoke the saints of God with Moses' law, and call the snares of death rules of life, to please them? No; this is putting stumblingblocks before the eyes of the blind, and making men stumble at the law, Mal. ii. 8; this is not declaring the whole counsel of God; this is not leaving the work with the Lord, who has power over all flesh, that he may give eternal life to as many as are ordained to it. We are not to make such men as these the objects of our fear in the pulpit, nor keep back God's word from his people on account of their abusing it: they called the master himself Belzebub; and what can be expected from such men but sin? ministers are a savour of death unto death to them, and are sent to preach the gospel for a

witness against them; and their desperate wickedness against the gospel serves to shew us that they were before of old ordained to this condemnation, Jude 4.

I have considered the text you refer me to, "if ye love me keep my commandments;" and I find his commandments are joyous, not grievous; for the commands are that we should believe on him and love one another. But those that call the law the believer's rule of life, and me an Antinomian, shew but very little of this love. He keeps the Saviour's commandments who receives the word in an honest and good heart, and keeps it; such receive the word with power in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance; such and only such keep the word of Christ's patience, and he will keep them from the hour of temptation, Rev. iii. 10. He that keeps the Lord's commandments is united to him by the bond of love in the Spirit; he that keepeth his commandment dwelleth in him and he in him; he that is a stranger to this union is alive without the law; alive to sin and dead to God; for "hereby we know that he abideth in us, by the [quickening] Spirit which he hath given us."

I have had a world of legal duties formerly pressed upon me, and I know what effect such preaching had; and I see it has the same in others that fear God. It serves to nurse the pride of those that know nothing of the power of godliness. I have heard misers, persecutors, and hypocrites, ap

plaud and admire the doctrine, but they have been dreadfully exasperated at some who are called Antinomians, if they have happened to enforce the necessity of the Spirit's assistance in the performance of these things, and of their being done in faith. Men may load people as much as they please with moral, relative, and church duties; but if they spring not from union with the true vine; if not performed under the influence of the Spirit of God; if they are not done in faith, and with an eye to God's glory; they amount to nothing more than the works of the flesh, or dead works; while the legal performer is as proud as Satan himself; and, by resting in these things, is further from God's kingdom than publicans or harlots.

A devil transformed into an angel of light is more dangerous than when he comes in character; that is, as an accuser, a thief, or a robber; nor does Satan do the seeking sinner so much hurt when he throws him down and rends him, Mark ix. 20; as he does when he points us to legal preachers, or ministers of the letter, crying out "these men are the servants of the Most High God, that shew unto us the way of salvation," Acts xvi. 17. He was as much a devil when he promised this world and the glory of it to Christ as he was when he wished him to throw himself from the pinnacle of the temple, Luke iv. 9. Satan sometimes turns reformer in times of danger; when the gospel makes a stir in his territories, then is

the time that he fires the zeal and increases the numbers of moral preachers; he knows what the law can do; if that had never appeared in the world, the devil had never got one human soul into hell: "the law worketh wrath; for where no law is, there is no transgression," consequently no transgressors. He knows that "the strength of sin is the law," better than we do; and he knows that those who are under the law of death are under the law of sin; hence it is that he never stirs men up to reproach, revile, belie, scandalize, or persecute, a graceless preacher of moral duties; for it is by the instrumentality of such men that he has brought thousands to his dark dominions: by such preachers as these the devil keeps both the pulpit and the pew; he stirs up the preacher to blind the people, and the people to applaud their blind guide; and thus the god of this world holds both the leader and the led. When he stirred up the Jewish priests to reject Christ, and cast out his disciples, he became head ranger both of the temple and the synagogue. The doctrine that routs the devil is preaching the kingdom of God, which consists in righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost; telling Zion that her King is come. When the disciples preached this the Saviour saw "Satan as lightning fall from heaven." He cast abroad the rage of his wrath and set the world in a blaze. This sort of preachers are the only adversaries that the devil has got, he gains ground by the others. He was very nigh bringing over the whole church

of Galatia by the instrumentality of moral preachers. If God does not uphold his people with his free Spirit, Psalm li. 12, I much question if any other yoke will do when trials come on; for my part, I never found any doctrine that would beget souls to God, keep them alive, make their minds heavenly, their conversation pure, keep their consciences tender, or make their lives exemplary, but that of enforcing regeneration, or a spiritual birth; justification by faith; union and fellowship with Christ by love; and a walk in the testimony and liberty of the Holy Ghost. However, this I can say, that the religion that God has taught me has been sufficient to make me industrious and willing to live honestly; and I must declare, and will with my dying breath, that I never knew what happiness, peace, rest, quietude, comfort, joy, or pleasure, meant until Jesus Christ appeared to my soul: in him I have seen the perfection of all beauty; I have felt him to be the foundation of all real happiness the light of his countenance, and the anticipation of his love, is the quintessence of all that is called pleasure; and to have him is to be possessed of an immortal, incorruptible, undefiled, and never-fading inheritance; which has so crucified me to this world, and to the pleasures of it, that I have just as much desire to return to it again as Abraham had to return to Er of the Chaldees, when God had promised to be his shield and everlasting reward in the land of Canaan.

Whatever the law of God enforces the Spirit of

VOL. VIII.

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