not satisfy me concerning the things that fit. God grant he may not go out of the world with this confusion in his heart! if he does it is to be feared that he will find the ministration of death, and his carnal mind, when they come to gripe one another in a dying hour, will not fit so easy as he imagines. Paul delighted in the law of God after the inward man, Rom. vii. 22. And, according to Paul, the law of God and the inward man are things that will fit; a new heart and a new spirit are things that join well; a sense of God's love to us, and a pure love to him, brings about an union that fits sweetly." Believe," says the Saviour, "that I am in you and you in me:" and when Christ crucified and a broken heart come together, they are things that fit as exactly as the branch in the vine, or as the foundation with the superstructure. And if the author of this sermon dies a stranger to the fitness of these things, as he seems to be at present, it had been good for him if he had never been born. Persons who are strangers to an union with Christ by the Spirit know nothing savingly of the spiritual fitness of things; they may make a noise about the law just to blind folks, but they bring forth no more fruit to God's glory than a branch that is not in the vine, John xv. 4.

A friend of mine once asked a certain divine in London what he thought of the law as the believer's only rule of life? He replied 'The believer must look with one eye to Christ, and with the other to the law.' But he brought no more proof

from the word of God than this author has, who attempts to prove it by the fitness of things. My friend replied Then every believer must squint.' However, there is no call for squinting in this matter; Christ says, "Look unto me, and be saved, all ye ends of the earth;" and adds, " I will keep that man in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on me:" and Paul tells us to "run the race set before us looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith." Looking with one eye to the law, and with the other to Christ, is erring from wisdom's rule of direction; which is, "Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee. Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established."

The printed letter that you sent me is a discord upon the same string I perceive; but the author will never be able to prove from the Scriptures of truth, that the ten commandments in the letter are called the believer's rule of life. He tells us that it is implied; this brings to my mind an old woman, who had been long contending for this letter rule; being asked to give a reason of the hope that was in her; on suspicion of her having none, replied; You will find my experience in such a verse of Jeremiah's prophecy;' hinting that it was implied there. Which served to convince the inquirer that she had no hope but what stood on the paper. I suppose all the experience of the devil is implied in four texts of Scripture: one says, he is cursed above all cattle; another, that

he believes and trembles; another, that he is cast down to hell; and another, that he is "reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day." But the devil has another experience beside this, which will stick close to him, and be like a thousand hells within him, when every letter of Scripture text will be burnt up. When the killing letter has slain the reprobate, it has done it's office; the living Word that abides for ever, which is in the hand of the Spirit, and which dwells in the saints of God, will be settled in heaven, and abide for ever there. The professor must have Christ in him the hope of glory, if ever he arrives safe to the happy enjoyment of God in heaven. People, who have no hope but in the written letter of Scripture, will find that the flood of wrath and the final conflagration will leave them without an anchor in that storm; and I am persuaded that the believer's rule of life must be found in his heart also, if ever he lives with God in heaven. If the believer's rule be implied in the ten commandments, according to this gentleman's letter, I believe it would lie there long enough before he would find it out. To put on the Lord Jesus and walk in him; to put off the old man daily, and to put on the new man, which is created in righteousness and true holiness; to follow Christ in the regeneration; to mortify the deeds of the body by the Spirit; to deny self, and take up the cross daily; to stand fast in gospel liberty, and not be entangled with

the yoke of bondage; to renounce all confidence in the flesh, and rejoice in Christ Jesus; to hate one's own life, or be unworthy of the Saviour; to walk in the Spirit, in order to escape the fulfilling of the lusts of the flesh; to know that the strength of sin is the law, and that it is the ministration of death and condemnation; are things that, if they are implied in the ten commandments, would lay there, concealed from the believer, to all eternity, if the mystery of faith had not revealed them, or the gospel, that brings life and immortality to light, had not brought them to light also. "When Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart." By the law is the knowledge of sin, but it brings not the path of life to light; that is the new and living way, Heb. x. 20; and is revealed from another quarter; "God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ."

I cannot find it in my heart to criticise the reasons that you assign, because you have not addressed me, as some have, with insolence and lies; but you seem as desirous of information, as you are to inform me, or set me right; therefore, without taking much of your letter to pieces, I will endeavour to make it appear, that the believer in his liberty is in no sense of the word an outlaw, nor yet without law; for he is in no wise excluded from any benefit that arises from the law,

and yet he is not under the law, but under grace, Rom. vi. 14.

Paul says, "To them that are without law I became as without law, being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ.” Hence it appears that the believer is not without law to God. And, as I have long made it my study to consider the believer's laws, I will endeavour to bring them forth, and set them in as fair a light as I am capable of, and see whether they amount to what is called Antinomianism, or whether they amount to real divinity; because Paul says, we do not make void the law through faith.

Wisdom affirms, “Whoso despiseth the word shall be destroyed; but he that feareth the commandment shall be rewarded;" and then tells us that “the law of the wise is a fountain of life, to depart from the snares of death,” Prov. xiii. 13, 14. Let it be observed that Wisdom's wise man, who is always opposed to the fool, is, in New Testament language, the believer, who is opposed to the infidel; and this law is emphatically called the law of the wise, which is the same as the household of faith, being their law in particular, as belonging to none else; and it is called a fountain of life.

A fountain is supplied from its own spring, and yields its contents to supply the poor and needy when they seek water and there is none elsewhere, and their tongue faileth for thirst, that they may drink and not famish, or die by famishing. So