wholesome laws than this; and I believe no nation under heaven of its size sends more criminals out of the world by a halter. There are heathen nations destitute of such wholesome laws that do not execute half the number of felons that we do. Be so kind, sir, as to send me word what the law requires that this better testament does not furnish a believer with; when the imperfection or deficiency of this law of the Spirit is made to appear, we shall be able to justify the conduct of those who send numbers that have begun in the Spirit to the law to be made perfect by the flesh. This must be done, or else we shall conclude that this doctrine, of allowing the believer no rule of life but the law, is no better, in the language of the Holy Ghost, than witchcraft. "O, foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that you should not obey the truth! This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?" These people did not intend to give up the Saviour, they were only going to help him; they did not intend to cast off the Spirit, they were only going to perfect that which was lacking in his work; they had begun in the Spirit, and were going to the law to be made perfect. Ah! says Paul, the law belongs to the children of the flesh; to them it speaks; the works of it are the works of the flesh. Your perfection from thence will be only perfection in the flesh, and where you

go for perfection there you must go for righteousness. Christ is our righteousness and sanctification too; go to the law for one, and you must go to the law also for the other; by going for perfection there that yoke will entangle you again, and bring you into bondage. God makes us perfect by the Spirit, which unites to and makes us one with Christ, in whom we are complete. These poor souls were going to be circumcised, and take the law on them as a rule of life, in order to perfect the Spirit's work. These preachers, Paul says, bewitched them, zealously affected them; yea, they would have excluded them from Christ, that they might affect them: " ye are fallen from grace," says Paul, "Christ shall profit you nothing."

Peter on the mount of transfiguration did not intend to exclude the Saviour when he said, "Let us make three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias; which when Moses and Elias heard, they withdrew, as all good servants ought to do. "And a voice came out of the cloud saying, This is my beloved Son, hear him.” Moses resigned his office to the Mediator of the better testament, who is the end of the law for righteousness, to whom Moses had borne witness. And Elias withdrew also, and left the Saviour in his prophetic office, as that great prophet to whom all the prophets gave witness; and I believe that Jesus is, in the highest sense, that Elias that was for to come. And it is said that, suddenly, when the disciples had looked round about, that is, after

Moses and Elias, "they saw no man any more save Jesus only with themselves," Mark ix. 4-8; and he is sufficient; and it is a thousand pities that we have so many in our days who are fetching Moses in again; but they will get neither peace nor good works from him, but rather confusion. The master and the servant must not be coupled together; they are not co-masters, co-rulers, coyokers, co-mediators, co-builders, co-lawgivers, co-husbands, nor co-sovereigns. "The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." There are several of our present divines who, notwithstanding their zeal for Moses, and desire to copy after him, do not at all imitate him in this point; he kept the blessing of Abraham and the curse of the bondwoman apart; he pointed out two different mountains for the blessing and the curse; and different men were named and appointed for each work; these were typical of ministers of the Spirit, and those of the letter; Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin, shall stand on mount Gerizim to bless; and Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali, shall stand on mount Ebal to curse, Deut. xxvii. 12, 13. Zion and Sinai must be kept apart; they are two different mountains, and two different cities are founded on them; "For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children," Gal. iv. 25; and wo be to that man that is found a citizen of this bond city in the great day! Tyre, Nineveh,

Babylon the literal, and Babylon the mystical, may one day understand the awful allegory, when they will be found to belong to the city of destruction, Isaiah xix. 18.

But God hath built his city on the mountain of eternal election, he hath laid his everlasting foundation there, his foundation is in that holy mountain. "The Lord loveth the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob," Psalm lxxxvii. 2. God hath founded this city himself, and the poor of his people shall trust in it, Isaiah xiv. 32. He hath appointed salvation to be her walls and bulwarks; he is known in her palaces for a refuge; his dwelling-place is in Zion; he hath chosen her, she is to be his rest for ever: here will he dwell; for he has desired it. He will abundantly bless her provision and satisfy her poor with bread; he will clothe her priests with salvation, and her saints shall shout aloud for joy, Psal. cxxxii. 13—16. It was this city that Abraham and Isaac had in view; they kept it in the eye their faith, and it made them forget their own country and their native home; they sought a city that hath foundations, whose maker and builder is God, Heb. xi. 10. Upon mount Zion God hath commanded the blessing, even life for evermore, cxxxiii. 3. To this mountain Jacob looked when he was on his deathbed, and knew that God's eternal love was the bounds of this city, and that all his blessings came from thence. "The blessings of thy father have prevailed above the bless

of

ings of my progenitors, unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills." This is Solomon's little city with few men in it, which the great king came to besiege with great bulwarks, which the poor wise man by his wisdom delivered, who is so little regarded for his great deliverance, Eccl. ix. 14-16. This is the only city of refuge under the gospel; and it is near to flee into, and it is a little one; but God will never destroy it, nor the lot of his inheritance who become citizens of it.

In vain men grope in the wilderness to find it, and all religion is vain that doth not bring men to it; "The labour of the foolish wearieth every one of them, because he knoweth not how to go to the city." It is on the holy hill of Zion that God has set his king; and the daughters of Zion are to go forth and behold their King Solomon, whom Zion their mother crowned in the day of his espousals, and in the day of the gladness of his heart, Song iii. 11. This is the city of the great King, of which such glorious things are spoken; it is beautiful for situation, being built upon the Rock of ages; encompassed with a mountain of brass, Zech. vi. 1, A city set on a hill that can never be hid, Matt. v. 14; and is the joy of the whole earth; for God is known in her palaces for a refuge, Psalm xlviii. 3; he hath redeemed her with judgment, and her con、 verts with righteousness; and "out of Zion the perfection of beauty God hath shined." It is his own metropolitan; it is the city of the great King: this mountain brings peace to the people, and the