God impresses the mind with, and leaves the impression as legible upon the fleshly tables of the believer's heart, as ever he did on the two tables of stone, 2 Cor. iii. 3. The devil is never more to be suspected than when he appears in a pulpit in a large wig and long bands, with a grave countenance, an audible voice, ambiguous speech, zeal mixed with candour, enforcing moral virtue, and bringing in Christ as an example, but not as the root of the matter; nor yet enforcing the need of his Spirit, nor of union with him. These things, and a few zealous strokes at the power of religion, under the name of enthusiasm, and a candid application to those blind and bond children who cannot see through their mask, have been of very great use to the devil, because it has served to stumble the faithful and establish the Pharisee. Such as these have sent my soul bleeding home many a time swaddled with the spirit of bondage; and sin has taken occasion by the commandment, until the corruption of my heart and carnal enmity have been stirred up against God, my mind begloomed with horror, and terrors have driven my feet; wrath then seemed to pursue me; Christ and comfort were gone; my sins, that had been long pardoned, came afresh to my remembrance; and my heart was filled with hard thoughts of the Saviour; the devil suggesting that Christ had left me, and was become my enemy, as a proof of which, he was now pursuing me with fire and sword. But, when the Lord again appeared and delivered me,

I saw the bondage was from the law, not from the Saviour; and that it was the devil pursuing me, not the Lord. I could then see the difference between the tempter and my great Deliverer. And all this was communicated to my soul from the pulpit, and that by the devil himself in a large wig and a long band. Christ calls the scribes, notwithstanding their long robes, a generation of vipers; and says they were of their father the devil, and his works they did, in binding grievous burdens on men's shoulders, which they never touched, though others laboured hard under them. If Satan can get preachers to obscure the gospel and enforce the law, he knows the old vail will gather on the minds of the people; and when a man is blinded you may lead him any where; and he shall never know the want of a leader while Satan can furnish the world with blind guides: for it is by these men that he leads them into the ditch. Such preaching drives many poor distressed souls from all religion; they hear of nothing but wrath and duty : and the more they labour the worse they get, and then they shake off all, and are glad to get out so; and such become the greatest enemies to religion afterwards: and the instruments of all this mischief are legal preachers; for without Christ man can do nothing, John xv. 5. It is looking to Jesus that enlightens us; abiding in the cleft of the rock that shelters us from Satan's rage. Souls flying here are compared to doves flying to their windows, where they are sure of light; but going to the law is

going to blackness, and darkness, and tempest, and to the burning fire, Heb. xii. 18; which pursues the sinner. Satan is not displeased at men's dressing up the law, calling it the believer's rule of life, the law of love, the law of kindness, &c. He knows the law is the snares of death, that has entangled all the prey which that artful fowler has caught. This law is the sinner's adversary that entangles him in his sin, and delivers him to the judge; and the just judge delivers him by the law to the tormentor, Matt. xviii. 34. Are there souls in hell? it was the law that cast them, condemned them, and fixed them there. Are they holden with the cords of their sin? the strength of those cords is the law, 1 Cor. xv. 56. Are they under the curse? then they are under the law, Gal. iii. 10. Are they under the dominion of eternal death? they received it from the law, which is the ministration of death, 2 Cor. iii. 7. Are their souls boiling with desperate indignation against God? the motions of sin are by the law. Are they under the wrath of God? the law worketh that wrath, Rom. iv. 15. Are they in utter darkness? it came from the law, which is blackness and darkness, Heb. xii. 18. Are they in hell fire? they received it from the fiery law, Deut. xxxiii. 2. Can they never come out of the bottomless pit? the immutable sentence of the law is the gulf fixed; let the law be repealed, and nothing can detain the prisoner: but not a jot or tittle of that law can fail, therefore no gaoldelivery can ever take place; what

God doth, it is done for ever. The devil has not a greater friend in this world than a blind legal preacher; nor the children of God a greater enemy. I have sorely felt the effects of such a ministry; and I know where such ministers are better than they do themselves. Those that are spiritual, says Paul, judge all things, but themselves are judged of no man, 1 Cor. ii. 15.

If the covenant of grace does not afford the believer a rule of life, it must be very deficient; however, Paul could bring a rule from thence sufficient for the believer to live by, walk by, worship by, and converse by. God's sovereign will is man's rule; and to the saints God makes known the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which runs thus; "This is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day." This mystery is called, by way of distinction from the law, God's good will towards men, which brings peace upon earth, and glory to God in the highest, Luke ii. 14; and it is the good will of him that dwelt in the bush, Deut. xxxiii. 16. When this is revealed to men's hearts by the Holy Ghost it is called the mystery of faith in a pure conscience, 1 Tim. iii. 9; and this is the saints' all-sufficient rule; by faith the just man is to live; by faith, and not by sight, is the just man to walk; in the Spirit, not in the letter, is the just man to serve; in spirit and in truth is the just man to worship: he that is faith

ful unto death shall have the crown of life; the end of faith is the salvation of the soul. Let the law be what it may, and aim at what it pleaseth, "the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned;" he that swerves from this turns aside to vain jangling; knows not what he says, nor whereof he affirms. God tells us to hold faith and a good conscience, which some having put away, concerning faith have made shipwreck, 1 Tim. i. 6, 19. Let men bring what rules they please from the law; let them drive their flocks with that storm as much as they can; I know the real believer, though he be not to make haste, in one sense, will hasten his escape from that stormy wind and tempest, for he knows that whatsoever is not a fruit of the Spirit is a work of the flesh; whatsoever service be performed, if not done under the influence of the Spirit of life, it is a dead work; and if not done in faith it is sin; for "whatsoever is not of faith is sin;" for "without faith it is impossible to please God." We read of ministers of the Spirit and of ministers of the letter; and if there be any such things as ministers, and a ministration of the Spirit, I think these things belong to that ministration, and to preach them is doing the work of an evangelist, and making full proof of the gospel ministry.

No man ever heard me say or hint a syllable against the goodness of the law; the law is good, and it works death in us by that which is good, Rom. vii. 13. I suppose no nation hath more.