law on which they build, and to which they look for righteousness and perfection.

I believe that all national religion, all courts of inquisition, all the dignity and authority of spiritual lords over God's heritage, all trains of ceremonies and human forms of godliness have no foundation in the unconditional promise of eternal life, nor in the Spirit's powerful influence on the souls of God's elect: all these things must stand on something like the doctrine of the law being the only rule of life. Hence we hear of a church and of an holy religion, by law established, in distinction from another, which is said to be built, "not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts."

I believe the doctrine of the law being the believer's only rule of life has been of use to several sorts of men, though it has afforded neither life nor help to God's elect. The whole code of tithe laws must be fixed upon some law by which all tithes, revenues, offerings, fees, &c. are extracted, or exacted rather. There is no authority to get these things from carnal men by the gospel; but by law they can get them, if not by fair means by foul; for, like Eli's sons, they can take them by force.

I believe the gospel never allows any true minister to take the charge of a whole parish; nor yet to take carnal things of carnal men, unless freely offered. An ambassador of An ambassador of peace is not to

go from house to house: where he carries peace to a son of peace, there he is to abide, eating and. drinking such things as are set before him; if he sows spiritual things he is to reap carnal things.

When preachers bring men to the name of the Lord our God, the Holy One of Israel, agreeable to the prophecy, the suppliants are to come, bringing their gold and silver with them, Isaiah lx. 9; as was fulfilled in the apostles' days; when they had converted souls to Christ by their ministry, the wealth of their converts was laid at their feet.

I believe the doctrine of the law as a rule of life has been of use to many ministers, fitted, polished, sent out, and ordained, by men: such being sensual, having not the Spirit, they have been obliged to enforce the law as the only rule of life, in order to keep people together: for, if a church be not in the preacher's heart to live and die with them, and if the preacher be not made manifest by God's Spirit in the conscience of the church, they will be renting and splitting; therefore it is needful that uninspired men enforce Moses's law to believers, or else dwell perpetually on the commands of Christ, or on the laws of his house; and, when once they can blind a simple people, benumb their consciences, stifle their convictions, brace them with bigotry, arm them with malice against all others, fix a few gospel notions in their head, and fill them with a carnal rage, under the name of zeal, in behalf of the law as the only rule of life, telling them it is fulfilling all righteousness, the

work is done, and the people are united, not by the girdle of truth, or bond of love, but by the yoke of priestcraft.

I believe that by this yoke of priestcraft legions are shackled and bound to the preacher's pews, his table, his ministry, and his community; and by these means the subscriptions of the people are secured also, without the bond of eternal love, the bond of peace, or the unity of the faith.

I believe that no preacher has any authority or power to confine me to his ministry, meeting, table, or community, any longer than he can shew himself approved unto God, a pastor after God's own heart, who feeds me with knowledge and understanding, and who goes before me both in judg ment and experience; or can say, as Paul did, "Be ye followers of me."

I believe that the yoke of priestcraft is as galling as the yoke of Moses; and keeps men under as great bondage to the fear of man, which brings a snare, as Moses's law does to the fear of vengeance, which brings the fears and snares of death.

I believe that a poor alarmed sinner eagerly catches this kind of doctrine, being; as the wise man says, one of those simple ones who believe every word: but, if ever the Spirit of God comes upon such, these yokes are like Samson's cords, they fly like tow; and, as soon as such a bird is escaped out of the snare of the fowler, the messengers and members of such churches will pursue him, perplex him, and hunt him as much as

ever Saul hunted David, or Moses's law hunts the awakened sinner when under the arrests of divine justice.

I believe nothing to be obedience to the faith but that which is done in faith; nor any thing to be a fruit of the Spirit but that which the Spirit leads a man to, and helps him in the performance of; nor any thing to be a work or fruit of righteousness but that which is done by persons in a justified state, and under the influence of the faith of God's elect, by which the elect are justified.

I believe that every man, who appears in a pulpit among the saints of God in the character of a servant of Christ, a minister of the Spirit, or a steward of the grace of God, while in an unconverted state, is one of the greatest and worst of all impostors, little inferior to Antichrist, Simon Magus, or Balaam.

I believe that he is the greatest enthusiast in this world, who, in a public pulpit, lays claim to the Spirit and grace of God and counterfeits his divine influence to beguile people into the belief of it, while he is altogether destitute of both; for he deceives sinners, he deceives himself, and tries to deceive even the elect of God also.

I believe that a man who allows no claim to be made on Christ or his gospel but on the footing of what he calls a good, meek, or quiet temper, would exclude Jeremiah, Jonah, and Elias, if not Moses, Paul, and Job, and all the elect of God.

I believe that man to be of the most quiet

temper where the strong man armed keeps possession of the palace and his goods in peace, for he is at ease in Zion; but those who are at war with the world, the flesh, and the devil, or, like Jonah, three days and three nights in the deep, are such adversaries to Satan, that he will not let them be at peace in the flesh; such must have tribulation in the world, and seek peace only in. the Saviour.

I believe that every man who boasts of the excellency of his temper, or of any other branch of fleshly perfection, is a stranger to Christ, and destitute of all true holiness. When Job saw the Lord he cried out, "I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes!" When Isaiah saw him he said, "Wo is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips!" When Daniel saw him he said that all his comeliness was turned to corruption, and he retained no strength. And " If any man come to me," says Christ, "and hate not his father and his mother, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple."

I believe that the man who loves his sovereign in his heart, and sincerely prays for him in private, where no eye but God's sees him, is as loyal a subject in God's account as he who rises early and never blesses him but with a loud voice, or any other who continues his circular motion under the sovereign influence of the Regis Donum.

I believe that all persons, who put out their money to build or fit up chapels for the gospel, in