I know several at this present time that have had a savoury experience, and enjoyed spiritual liberty in Christ, who by getting into company with Arminians, and sitting under ministers of the letter, have been brought into bondage again; and have lain withered, both in body and soul, and bound hand and foot, from year's end to year's end. They often look back to the pleasing mount on which they formerly stood, crying out, My leanness! my leanness! Wo unto me! They see their error; but unbelief and the yoke of bondage hold them fast, and refuse to let them go; and they have no life, fervour, or power, in prayer, to wrestle for deliverance. The Spirit of God is grieved; his freedom has been abused; from gospel simplicity, and a simple dependance on Christ, they have been seduced; joy is withered away from them; nothing but complaints, discontent, and murmuring, possess them: they are unfruitful to God; useless in his cause; a stumblingblock to the weak; and, by their perpetual complaints before all ranks of Christians, they spread a legal damp and melancholy gloom over many a healthy conscience and comely countenance: but, alas! they stood not fast in their liberty, and therefore are justly entangled with the yoke of bondage.

These are the effects of cleaving to the law; and my sister is no stranger to them in her present state she sensibly feels a barren heart and a contracted spirit, though she knows not from whence they spring. She may thank the ministers of the

letter for her bondage; and she may depend upon it that nothing but the ministry of the Spirit will ever bring her out of it. Not long since one Fry, a linen-draper in South Moulton Street, a mere novice, lifted up with pride, had a mind to cut a flourish in the pulpit, and to have a stroke at me. He told his audience, that, if he had a thousand souls, he would venture them all upon the law; as if that was the foundation that God has laid in Zion; when we know that " as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse:" and if the sword bathed in heaven is come down on the people of God's curse to judgment, what will become of all the souls ventured there? If God is terrible to the kings of the earth, to whom he has committed the temporal sword, what must he be to such impostors as these, who thrust themselves into the highest office in the church, and pretend to handle the spiritual one?

Thou dost not seem to understand what the scriptures mean by the word, law. Sometimes in the Old Testament, it means the whole scriptures, as the New Testament was not then written: though the substance of it laid in the unaccomplished prophecies, the promises, and the ceremonial law, which was the gospel of the Jewish church; for, "Unto them was the gospel preached as well as unto us; but the word did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it." Even the promise made to Abraham is sometimes called a law: "He hath remembered his covenant

for ever, the word which he commanded to a thousand generations. Which covenant he made with Abraham, and his oath unto Isaac; and confirmed the same unto Jacob for a law, and to Israel for an everlasting covenant; saying, Unto thee will I give the land of Canaan, the lot of your inheritance." This covenant is the covenant of grace. The oath secures the inheritance given to Abraham by promise; and the law was given four hundred and thirty years after. This is manifestly the law of faith; for as many as are of faith are heirs of this promise, secured by this oath, and shall enjoy the inheritance, for they are blessed with faithful Abraham. In this covenant of promise, or law of faith, the Psalmist believed; "I believed, therefore have I spoken."

Had some of our letter preachers ever received the commandment, as Paul, David, and others, have done; and their wicked life and deceitful hearts had been laid open; and they had properly felt the killing power of the letter of the law; and had felt a strong faith in the holiness, justice, and immutability of God in the law; they would have been glad to find out the law of faith as well as David: "Teach me good judgment and knowledge, for I have believed thy commandments,” Psalm cxix. 66. This faith had sunk him, the Psalmist, unless another object had appeared; "I had fainted unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living." This goodness of the Lord which he saw was in Christ,

in whom he believed; whom he calls by that name; "Blessed be the Lord, my strength, my goodness, my fortress, my high tower, my deliverer, and my shield, in whom I trust," Psalm cxliv. 1, 2. Had our present bondministers firmly believed the commandments, as David did, they would have been glad to exercise faith on David's Lord. Had they believed Moses, they would have believed Christ; but, if they believe not his writings, how shall they believe the Saviour's words? Men that are destitute of a saving knowledge of God in Christ Jesus know nothing of the power either of law or gospel, though they may pretend to it. They that handle the law know me not," says God. And men that are destitute of gospel faith in Christ never believed the law of commandments to be what they really are: they believe neither Moses's writings nor the Saviour's words; nor will they, unless God bring them, as he did David, to the Rock higher than themselves; or else sink them in despair, as he did Francis Spira, under the wrath, bondage, and curse, of that fiery dispensation.

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When David says, Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law: I am a stranger in the earth, hide not thy commandments from me;" it was the ceremonial law that discovered wondrous things to him; things which those that are dead, and under the curse of Moses's law, know nothing of; for God does not shew wonders to the dead, Psal. lxxxviii.

10. But in the ceremonial law, which was a part of the Jews' gospel, David saw the Saviour represented; which led his faith to him whose hands and feet he saw, in the vision of faith, pierced for him. In that sacrifice he believed; which broke his heart, and made his soul as a weaned child, Faith in him, a broken heart, spiritual prayer offered up through him, and offerings of praise and thanksgiving for him, he knew pleased God better than a bullock that hath horns and hoofs. These were the wonders that David saw; and these were things that he meditated on, things touching the King. It was not the breadth of the commandment that David was charmed with, but the perfection of beauty beyond it; him that was fairer than the children of men, whom he saw to be the end of the law for righteousness to all that believe; as he says, “I have seen an end of all perfection, but thy commandment is exceeding broad." In that blessed object he believed for the pardon of his sin, and the justification of his soul; and pronounces the man blessed whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. "Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile." The bond-. age of the law held him fast; and he brought forth no more fruit to God's glory under that yoke than my legal accusers do, who say and do not. But, when he got out of his fetters, then he honoured his God, like an adopted son indeed. "O Lord, truly I am thy servant; I am thy servant,