hope or expectation of making eight, ten, fifteen, or twenty per cent. of their money, are the worst of usurers, and are trading with a commodity that will one day sink them in eternal insolvency; for if a usurer is excluded from the citizens of Zion, Psalm xv. what must his state be who waters the root of all evil with unlawful interest, by making merchandise of the bounties of heaven!

I believe there never were but two ways to heaven and glory; the one by works, the other by faith. The first is, "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments." The second is, "We that believe do enter into rest." These are the only two ways that ever God opened. The man therefore that attempts a middle one walks in a way not cast up, Jer. xviii. 15; or wanders in a wilderness where there is no way.

I believe that telling country tales and old wives' fables in a pulpit is not feeding people with knowledge and understanding, nor bringing things from God's treasures new and old, but has a tendency to make people more like Athenians than Christians, seeing they are trained up to hear and tell some new thing.

I believe that all spouting-clubs, alias disputing societies, kept up by graceless men for the sake of sixpence per head, can never be vindicated by the account we have of Paul's disputing in the school of one Tyrannus; it is casting pearls before swine; it is calling for the judgment of this world upon those mysteries which God has hid from the wise

and prudent. No good man dares thus to tempt God; and a fool of no understanding is forbidden to take God's covenant in his mouth. It is making sport, clapping hands, and causing clamorous shouts, where faith and reverence should act, which it is to be feared will one day end in weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth.

I believe that it is one thing for a man to begin in the Spirit, and another thing for the Spirit to begin in the man.

I believe that every man who begins in the Spirit, or with the gospel, will certainly end in the flesh, and under the law. Man makes nothing perfect, and the law makes nothing perfect: the law will ever veil the carnal man, and the carnal man will ever veil the gospel: the gospel is a lamp that burneth, and they must be children of light that bear it. There were but three hundred in Gideon's days, out of thirty thousand, that were allowed to bear the lamps and pitchers, and cry, The sword of the Lord and Gideon; and these were men that would not bow their knees for a draught of water, much less to Baal or Mammon.

I believe that wherever the Spirit of God begins a work of grace he carries it on. What God doth, it is done for ever; all his work is perfect. The Spirit is a well of living water in the believer, that springs up into everlasting life; the Comforter abides for ever; he shall never depart from the chosen seed world without end.

I believe that real morality, according to Paul's

doctrine, is charity; "The end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, a good conscience, and faith unfeigned;" and, though to have pity on the poor and relieve their distresses are the best performances the children of nature are capable of, yet a man may give all his goods to feed the poor, and his body to be burnt, and be destitute of charity, consequently destitute of real morality.

I believe that Paul could boast of human performances as much, if not more, than any man living; he was an Hebrew of the Hebrews, one of the strictest sect of the Pharisees; touching the law, blameless; concerning zeal, he persecuted the church. And these things he counted gain; but, when grace reached his heart, he counted these things loss, yea, dung and dross, and palms them upon his ignorance and unbelief; but neither ignorance nor unbelief is the root of real morality.

I believe that it is one thing for the holy commandment to be delivered unto a man, 2 Peter ii. 21; and another thing for God to put the holy commandment in his mind, and write it on his heart: the former stands by his own faithfulness, to what is delivered to him; the latter stands on the faithfulness of God to Christ and his seed, being within the bond of the everlasting covenant: the former must keep the holy commandment delivered unto him; the latter is kept by the mighty power of God through faith to salvation.

I believe that Herod heard the preaching of John gladly, and did many things; but those make a better end than Herod who hear the gospel with sadness, and are convinced that they can do nothing, seeing the God of truth declares that without him we can do nothing; but through him Paul could do all things.

I believe that the man who preaches up the redemption of all the world is a stranger to the application of any redemption. If he were to preach particular redemption, or the redemption of Zion only, he would exclude himself; but universal redemption takes in all the human race, consequently the preacher among the rest; yet it is but a tottering foundation after all, because we read of some being in hell already, and every one there gives the doctrine of universal redemption the lie.

I believe that our present forgers of the doctrine of the restoration of devils are a kind of mediators that require very extraordinary qualifications. The Jewish mediators, such as Moses, the high priests, the judges, prophets, &c. were Jews; they were of the Jewish religion, and stood not between God and the world, but between God and Israel only. God appointed them to the office, and qualified. them by his Spirit to stand in the gap.

I believe that Christ took on him the seed of Abraham; the children of promise being flesh and blood, Jesus himself took part of the same. was made sin for us, and made perfect through.

He

sufferings, and became a most blessed and suitable mediator between God and his elect Israel; not between God and the world, for his mediatorial kingdom is not of this world; he prayed not for the world; he has not revealed his mysteries to the world; he redeemed his sheep, not the world, nor does he intercede for the world..

I believe that all the mediators whom the papists have made were of their own faith and profession, and that none of them were ever empowered by the Pope to stand between God and heretics; their intercession or mediation is confined to the whore of Babylon only.

I believe therefore, that the forger and defender of the restoration of devils must be qualified for his mediatorial office by being partaker of the nature of devils; he must be of the profession of devils; he must have fellowship not only with the unfruitful works of darkness, but with the workers also; he must have fellowship with devils, 1 Cor. x. 20, if he becomes a mediator and a minister of a congregation that is in the depths of hell, Prov. ix. 18. Without the above qualifications he is not fit for his office; for he cannot be touched with a feeling of the devil's infirmities; nor can he have universal charity enough to sympathize with and condole them. All the earthly mediators that God appointed were.compassed with infirmities as well as the people.

I believe it will be a hard task to find one text in the Bible which allows a man to take upon him