work who had purified their hearts by faith, and sent his Spirit to govern and lead them into all truth; as if the Holy Ghost was not sufficient to make them obedient, nor God's purifying their hearts a sufficient purification, nor faith a sufficient rule, without yoking them with the killing letter as the only rule of life. And as it was then so it is now; every man that refuses to tempt God, and that will not bring forth this yoke, and that does not affirm that the killing letter is the living man's only rule of life, is an Antinomian, a licentious person, a man in errors, one that makes void the law, and is cried down by every blind watchman, though they cannot bring one text to prove that the believer is under the law as a rule of life; nor one text that calls Moses' law the believer's rule of life; nor one text from God's book to overthrow this doctrine, this everlasting gospel: Paul says, they know not what they say, nor whereof they affirm.

If it be urged that the command, thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, is still a yoke upon the believer's neck: it is answered, the believer is not under the law, but under grace; not an heir of wrath, nor of the commandments, but an heir of promise: and he is to take the commandment to the promise, which belongs to the better covenant; and he will find that God has promised to circumcise his heart, and that he shall love the Lord that he may live. Paul makes a difference between the commandment and Christ;

"I have loved thee with an everlasting love, and therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee," is in a promise, and is better than a command: they shall love me is safer and better than do love me; it comes from the better covenant, established upon better promises than conditional ones, and is sure to all the chosen seed.

I have considered Solomon's conclusion of the whole matter, "Fear God and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man," and have deliberately considered all that you have drawn from the text; and I have likewise considered Paul's comment on Solomon's words, which differs much from yours. "Now the end of the commandment is charity, out of a pure heart and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned; from which some having swerved have turned aside unto vain jangling; desiring to be teachers of the law; understanding neither what they say, nor whereof they affirm," 1 Tim. i. 5-7. What Solomon calls. the conclusion of the whole matter, Paul calls the end of the commandment; James calls the perfect law of liberty; Peter calls the gift of the Holy Ghost and of purifying faith; which is the Saviour's easy yoke and springing well; which is Paul's law of the Spirit of life; Solomon's law of the wise; the prophets' law that went forth out of Zion; the apostles law of faith; Peter's holy commandment delivered unto us; and that the end of the commandment, which is charity, out of an heart purified by faith, attended with a good

conscience, which all turn from who end in the flesh, and give themselves up to vain jangling, or to talking about things which they understand

not.

If my friend objects, and enforces the commands of Christ concerning hearing the word, attending the Lord's supper, &c. &c. it is answered, the Spirit shall lead them into all truth; and if the Spirit lead them not it is serving in the oldness of the letter, contrary to the apostle's doctrine, which he received not of men, nor was he taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ, Gal. i. 12. And if purifying faith be not the rule of the believer's actions or obedience to the commands of Christ, and if he be not fully persuaded by the Spirit of faith in his own mind, his works are sin; "whatsoever is not of faith is sin;" to the unbelieving there is nothing pure, their mind and conscience is defiled, Titus i. 15. Nor does their obedience spring from that charity which is the end of the commandment, out of a pure heart, of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned; but is a swerving from it. This is gospel that can never be overthrown; gospel which God ever has and ever will set his seal to; gospel which no hypocrite ever knew in the power thereof; gospel that shall never pass away, even when heaven and earth are both removed.

It will be expected that my unknown friend will send me, in his answer to this, from the word of God, an account of the bad effects, licentious

practices, and libertinism, that this doctrine has produced in the saints of God; and likewise an account from Scripture of the superior holiness, fruitfulness, or usefulness, that has demonstrated itself in those who have tempted God, putting the commanding yoke of the law upon the disciples' necks; or, as Paul says, swerved from this end of the commandment, which is charity out of a pure heart, to the study and practice of vain jangling, or desiring to be teachers of the law, knowing neither what they say nor whereof they affirm.

It is not to be wondered at that men love or desire to be teachers of the law; the letter is more superficial, it lays nearer home, and is within the compass of nature. But as for this mystery, to an unenlightened, unquickened, uninspired, unrenewed minister of the letter, it is too profound a depth; the natural man receives it not, nor can he know it, because it is spiritually discerned, and by the saints powerfully felt; but it will ever remain a parable in the mouth of fools, Prov. xxvi. 7. These are the great things of God's law, and they are accounted a strange thing, Hos. viii. 12. It contains all the weighty matters of the law, judgment, mercy, faith, and the love of God, and teaches a man to do the lesser matters in faith, and under the constraining power of the Spirit of love and of a sound mind; sound in the faith, and inspired with love, which will make a man obedient unto death; "love is strong as death;" and so those saints found it who "loved not their lives

unto the death," Rev. xii. 11. I come now to another branch of this perfect law of liberty, which is to be continued in, if a man will be blessed in his deed.

"Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law), how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth? For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead she is loosed from the law of her husband. So then, if while her husband liveth she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress; but if her husband be dead she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress though she be married to another man. Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God." If Paul has any meaning I think it amounts to this; that the law has the same dominion over the sinner, that expects life or help from it by his own obedience to the rules of it, as the husband has over his wife by the law of marriage; and the law communicates bondage to the soul, which the soul naturally genders to, until the soul be pregnant with horror, despair, and misery, just as a man communicates seed to a wife, who brings forth a still-born or dead child, which is the worst of labours without any heir to satisfy the husband, as Paul aims to prove. "For, when we were in