a most admirable manner and degree, commendeth his love towards us, while we were yet sinners, who therefore as such, could have done nothing to deserve it. Herein is love; not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be a propitiation for

our sins.

All this ensued according to the covenant of grace, which was settled between the divine Persons upon the throne of heaven; and when the Lord Jesus was sacrificed, then was this covenant ratified and established, Jehovah interposing himself therein, and through the divided flesh and spirit of the Messiah, satisfying his law and justice for the remission of sins.

By this new testament in the blood of the Savior, his people are not only admitted into fellowship with himself as their brother, yea as flesh of their flesh, and bone of their bone in a more than espoused nearness; but they are also entitled, by a gracious right, to approach unto God as their Father. They are adopted into his family; and the covenant, established in the hands of the Mediator, is the testimony and the seal of it. Hence, they are no more strangers and foreigners, and much less slaves and enemies, but sons and heirs, children and heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ Jesus; and so when they look up and pray, they do not take God's name in vain and speak falsely, when they call Jehovah himself, Abba, Father; but they utter what they have a right and privilege to utter, and what the Lord delights to hear.

O my soul, thou canst not be in a ten thousandth part so ready to be joyful in this matter, as thy God is to rejoice over thee. If he could regard thee so much when thou wert dead in condemnation and an alien, as to give up his Son for thy sake, how much more, when thou art reconciled by this very means, will he pour forth his compassion upon thee: If he was kind to thee, when he stood as thy Judge, and smote thy Sub

stitute for thy sins; will he, can he, cease to be kind under the character of thy Father, thy merciful and gracious Father, in Christ Jesus? Lord, remove so wicked a thought, so diabolical a notion, of unbelief from my mind! It is treason against thy love, thy justice, thy truth, and all those attributes in thee, which are the shining rays of thy nature, to harbor so foul an opinion: It is atheism, madness, yea, the very falsehood and blasphemy of hell. Holy Father, drive by thy Spirit such base and abominable suggestions from my heart; and let me claim the privilege of my adoption, let me call myself thy child, though an unworthy child, and thus honor thy faithfulness and truth by living in the sense of my nearness and dearness to thee!

When my soul can most ascend to this its proper station, then time and the things of time are most under my feet; the world and all its bustles annoy me less; my heart beats freely for heaven; and I can look down from the hill, seeing the vanities and pitying the follies, which carry men away from God, and too often drown them in ruin and perdition.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE LOVE OF THE SPIRIT.

IF God be love, then the Spirit is love, because the Spirit is God. He manifests himself as the God of love, by unfolding and bestowing such love, as only God himself could have, and from himself could pour ➡forth unto others.

The Holy Spirit, as one of the parties in the everlasting covenant, loveth his people with an everlasting

love. By him also they are made sensible of the love of the Father, and of the Son, when he sheddeth forth his own love upon their hearts; for it is He, who enables each of them to cry Abba, Father, under the taste of his mercy, and to say to Christ, Thou art my Savior, my Lord, and my God, in the rich experience of his grace. Without the love of the Spirit, as they 'could not know, so they could not come up to the love of the whole Trinity; for by him alone it is shed abundantly upon all that are his, both in earth and heaven.

If I were left to love God by my own fallen powers, and had not the continual help of the Spirit of love; I should fear, that I could do nothing but hate him entirely. The carnal mind is enmity itself against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. The law of God is the pure life and love of God; and only by his Spirit can I delight therein, and then only after the inner man. Hence it must follow, that, if any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. Without him, every man must remain as he was born, earthly, sensual, devilish.

O how deeply then am I indebted to this divine Agent, for taking up his holy residence in my unwor thy soul! What loving kindness and mercy have I not felt and enjoyed by his blessed power within me!

How is it, that He, whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain, should vouchsafe to take up his abode in a poor sinner's breast? What marvellous love is this, that he should stoop to dwell with one, whose heart hath been the residence of the evil spirit, and the cage of every unclean bird? Surely, it must be infinite love, which could cleanse so unholy a tenement, and keep it clean for himself against the manifold attempts to pollute it on every side.

Whatever I may lose then, O thou blessed Spirit, may I never lose the love of thee! The loss of fame,

of riches, and of all things here, are but of a small account in themselves, and can soon be made up by thy power; but the loss of thee is the loss of more than life itself, the parting with the very anchor of my soul, and turning me adrift into a dark ocean of doubt and despair. O then, forsake not thine own, who could never have been thine own but from thy mere love and bounty, and perfect all the work of grace in me, that, before men and angels, I may give indubitable proof, that indeed I am thine!

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT.

THE nature of man, since the fall, is carnal and prone to evil; nor can it raise up itself to the desire and enjoyment of heavenly things, but rather shuns and abhors them. It savoreth not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men and of the world.

Now, as whatsoever is born of the flesh is flesh, and as flesh and blood cannot inherit, nor even know the kingdom of God; it is not marvelous that Christ should say, ye must be born again, or that it is absolutely necessary for a man to be renewed in the spirit of his mind, before he can apprehend or enjoy the things of God. We see this plain necessity proved by the case of men; for no man seeks and knows God by all his own natural power; and every one, who doth know him freely confesses, that it is by grace alone he obtained that knowledge.

The first work of the Spirit, then, in a sinner, is "a new birth unto righteousness." As this is the Spirit's

office in the covenant of grace, so believers under it are said to be born of the Spirit. This is their entrance into the knowledge of themselves and of God. They are united unto God in Christ by the act of his Spirit, and so partake a new life, with new functions, faculties, and affections; which life is in all things opposite to the carnal life of their fallen nature, and creates, from the time of its birth, a constant warfare in them against the being and power of evil.

As this generation in its essence is the sole work of the Spirit; so is it likewise in all its effects. When the Christian begins to live spiritually, he is soon enabled to think and act spiritually. And as the views and objects of this life are out of the creature, and rest in God and in Christ; the Holy Spirit leads up the heart to a dependence on the divine persons for the attainment of them. This is faith: And thus it appears, that it is the gift and operation of the Spirit.

By this faith, the Christian desires, and attains what he desires by this he prays, and hopes, and waits, and expects: by this he wrestles against sin, and satan, and the world: by this he looks with an holy contempt on all dying things, and beholds those delightful realities, which are invisible to sense: by this he knows himself to be a child of God, and the purchase of Christ by this he sees a glorious immortality provided for him, and longs often to enjoy it: by this he suffers the will of God, as well as obeys it, knowing that it must work together for his good: by this he welcomes death itself, and at length obtains the victory over it through Jesus Christ his Lord. All this work of faith is carried on by the effectual agency of the Holy Spirit. It is an action upon the Spirit of a man, which none but the God of spirits either would or could perform.

He is called the Spirit of Christ, because he not only is one with him in Jehovah, but also takes of the