reasons are often brought forth against the King of Jacob. Ifa. xli. 21. Faith must reason, if any good be done by reasoning. Faith, like a good fervant, goes when she is bid, and comes when she is called. By faith Abraham obeyed, and went out, not knowing whither he went-which to depraved rationality is a wild-goofe chafe, and to carnal reason foolishness. All our thoughts must be brought into captivity to the obedience of Chrift, or else we fhall never think foberly, as we ought to think. "Rationality, with her grand reasonings and thinkings," must be kept within bounds, like a reftive horfe; and that not by a moral precept, but by restraining grace, if ever the finner be admitted to fellowship with Chrift. The gospel is calculated and published to ftain the pride of all glory, to take the wife in their own craftinefs, to bring into contempt all the honourable of the earth, and to puzzle the wife and prudent; and, though it is the wisdom of God in a mystery, yet it is to them that perish foolishness. This wisdom is to difplay the riches of divine grace, to the glory of God and the humiliation of the finner; and not to aggrandize Rationality, with her train of vain reafonings and free-thinking; but to put her at the footftool, as altogether incapable of the chair in thefe matters: If any man will be wife, let him become a fool, that he may be wife-which to the carnal reafoner and free-thinker is a contradiction in terms, and an irrational fpeech. My reader must take these treble obligations together, and then he will fee what the

wife

wife man's threefold cord, which is not quickly broken, means; which in this book is called the bands and cords of Zion's King, which the pharifees broke afunder, and caft from them. Pfal. ii. 2, 3But furely, if it had been the threefold cord of the wife man, they would not have broken it so easily. Fallen nature, however, furnishes out the main band; the broken law the next; and, as for grace, that only brings up the rear. Fallen nature, in her low estate, contributes her cord towards the support of this kingdom, which is not of this world: the law, which is weak through the flesh, affords great affiftance to the kingdom of grace, which is not of works, either in whole or in part; nor in word, much less in a killing letter: and, though the fpiritual obligation is brought in laft, yet the dominion of grace is not of this world, nor is the first obligation from men: nor is the moral law any band of it, for the kingdom is fpiritual, not legal: it is not in word, but in power; in righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghoft; neither of which is from flesh and blood, nor from Sinai, but from fovereign grace in Chrift.

QUOT. And, thirdly, a fpiritual obligation.

ANSW. The firft, the grand, and the most noble tie of the kingdom of grace, is here represented to be "A natural obligation"-our being creatures formed out of the duft. This is the law of heathens;

who

who are a law to themselves, and who fin without the moral law, and fhall perish without law: and those heathens who cleaved to this law were the greatest enemies to the gofpel. The fecond is the law of Mofes, which the bond-woman and her children are under, who fin in the law, and fhall be judged by the law. The pharifees, who cleaved to this obligation, were the people that imagined a vain thing, who broke Zion's bands afunder, and caft her cords from them. The third is a Spiritual obligation. This is of grace and truth, which came by Jefus Chrift. And I believe that the bond of the covenant of grace, and perfect liberty by the law of truth, will produce more good fruits, in one faint, to the glory of God, than ten thoufand volumes of fuch doctrines as these will in the whole bulk of

Maria's gentle readers. The covenant of grace makes a minister fruitful in good works, and fruitful in spiritual converts; as is declared by the testimony of God: My covenant of life and peace was with Levi; and I gave them to him, for the fear wherewith he feared me, and was afraid before my name. The law of truth was in his mouth, and iniquity was not found in his lips. He walked with me in peace and equity, and did turn many away from iniquity. Mal. ii. Mal. ii. 5, 6. Hence it appears that the covenant of life and peace, and the law of truth, did not lead him to licentioufnefs, but made him a good and useful man. Neither the law of heathens, nor the law of Mofes, is the rod

of

of Chrift's ftrength, which was fent out of Zion, and by which he rules in the midst of Jerufalem. Neither of these obligations make his fubjects a willing people, Pfal. cx. 2, 3; but the power of grace difplayed..

QUOT. As for me, fays Paul, I am determined to know nothing but Jefus Chrift. God forbid that I fhould glory, fave in the cross of my Lord Jefus Chrift. But he alfo adds-I am not without law to God, but under the law to Chrift.

ANSW. But what law was that which Paul had to God? Was it the law of works?" No," faith Paul; "we are delivered from the law; we are not under the law, but under grace." And fo faith the apoftle's quotation-I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; and their fins and iniquities will I remember no more. Heb. x. 16, 17. And what laws are thefe ? Are they the law of Mofes or the law of heathens?"Nay," faith Paul, neither of them." For God, finding fault with them, faith, Behold, the days come when I will make a new covenant with the boufe of Ifrael, and with the boufe of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the band, to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, faith the Lord. Here is a new covenant;

and, in that he faith, a new

covenant, he hath made

the firft old. Heb. x. 8-13. The law and the pro

phets were until John, faith Christ: fince that time the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it. Luke xvi. 16. And it is thofe, and only thofe, who feel the terrors of the moral law, and the accufations of the law of nature, that press into this kingdom.

QUOT. I am under the law to Christ, faith Paul.

ANSW. But what law was that, in Christ, that Paul was under? He is of age; he shall speak for himself: For the law of the Spirit of life in Chrift Jefus bath made me free from the law of fin and death. Rom. viii. 2. Here Paul tells us that the Holy Spirit hath a law, as the gospel is called the ministry of the Spirit; and that this law of the Spirit is in Chrift Jefus; and that the operation of it on Paul's heart made him free from the deftroying power of the law of fin, and from the binding and damning power of the law of death, engraven on tables of ftone: or, in other words, this law of the Spirit made Paul free from what you call natural and moral obligations; which are the miniftrations of death.

Quor. For I delight in the law after the inner man.

ANSW. Paul was renewed in the spirit of his mind. The new covenant (not the old) was put into Paul's heart, and in his mind had the Lord written it and with his renewed mind he ferved this law of God; for Paul ferved in newness of the

Spirit,