hath made glad? how many diftreffed ones go with back bowed down always through the influence and burden of your ftrange doctrines? How came ye to rob them of their peculiar privileges and titles, call ing them defponding believers, whom their God and Father had filled with the Holy Ghoft, and all his divine confolations and fruits, love, peace, hope, joy, Joy unfpeakable and full of glory?

How came ye to overlook, that the infirmity, or weaknefs, which ye attributed to them, was their trength, their glory, their crown? What elfe mean fuch paffages as thefe? He was crucified through weakness; but raifed again by the power of God Put to death in the flesh; but quickened by the Spirit. And the years of the right hand of the Moft High, which he faid he would remember, are They not explained by fuch paffages as thele? For

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the joy that was fet before him, he endured the crofs, and defpifed the fhame, and is now fet down } again on the right hand of the Majefty on high.-I have glorified thee, upon earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou me with the glory which I had with thee before the world was;' which glory is fpòken of in the book of Proverbs, The Lord poffeffed me in the beginning of his way, before his works offöld. I was fet up from everlafting. Then I was d by him as one brought up with him and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him: rejoicing in the habitable parts of his earth, and my delights were with the fons of men. Was it not for the joy of bringing many fons and daughters to glory, that he came into the world, made of a woman, made under the law, made the curfe?" Yea verily; for their fakes, in the days of his flesh, he offered up prayers and fupplications, with ftrong crying and tears, to him that was able to fave him from death;' which he was then undergoing, and

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was heard according to all his defire, and exalted for his fubmiffion and obedience to his Father. It was he who funk in the miry clay; and was raifed, and fet upon a rock. The waves of wrath went over him, the deep waters broke in upon his foul, and his foul, was troubled; fo that he cried, My foul is forrowful, exceeding forrowful,' forrowful round about, forrowful even to death.' His fpirit was distracted, torn asunder by the terrors of Jehovah. The arrows of God ftuck faft in him: the mercy of God went clean from him; and the judgments of God refted, upon him, for a light to the nations of them who are faved; that they might have the boldnefs, and, not the amazement, through the blood of their Lord,, the atonement; who obtained for them the remiflion, and kingdom, not in the way of favour or mercy to himself, but in the way of strict abfolute juftice, as the due wages of his own most absolute perfect obedience in their ftead.

But alas! though all this true doctrine concerning the fufferings of the Lord and following glory be ftrenuously maintained by thofe men we fpeak of, yet they have not thought of it in fuch as the abovementioned paffages of the Pfalms; and therefore, according to the fofteft thing that can be faid, they have inadvertently made all they maintain of the truth in fo far of none effect, by pouring into the hearts of God's children the vinegar, wormwood, and gall of God's wrath, which their Surety drank wholly up to their immortal confolation. Wherefore, to afcribe to them any part of the expiatory fufferings of their Lord, as described in the words of the Holy Ghoft; what is it, let candour fay, but implicit blafphemy? defigned, or undefigned, does not alter the cafe of those who are wounded, when they ought to be' healed.

The question here is not, whether there be fuch a doctrine or no, as those men plead for; but whe

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ther it be to be found in thofe advanced proofs of theirs from the Pfalms, which, it is alledged in oppofition to their fentiments, have a fenfe of their own, quite feparate from, and abfolutely unconnected with, if not altogether everfive of theirs?

If they would allow any weight at all to their po fitions, and not expofe themfelves with their tenets to ridicule, they ought to thew the world the fealed authority of the Lord fupreme, the only Judge of fuch controverfies. Let them carry the cause to the only lawful court which binds the confcience of the Chriftian, and hear what the apoftles of Chrift fay, whom he commiffioned his ruling and judging Princes over all the Ifrael of God, to bind and loose on earth all those things which he himself hath bound and loofed in heaven. We behold them endowed for this purpose with power from on high, fhortly after the afcenfion of the Lord, and not before; upon their decifions, therefore, from the beginning of their acts to the end of their teftimony, let us reft all our matters: neither does this make void Mofes and the Prophets, any more than the Lord made void his own parables by his interpretations of them; or the prophecies and the law, by fulfilling them.

The apostles, the apoftles alone, are the voice of God to the Chriflian churches; and not Mofes and the Prophets. Let nothing therefore be imprinted on our hearts, but the hand-writing of the apofties. The hand-writing of the apofiles is God's imprima

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you believe, then, O friends, and freely allow us, that the Spirit of Chrift in his apoftles is his own, his only interpreter, exclufive of you and of all the univerfe? You muft either give up your argument, take fhame to yourfelves, and give God, the glory, or advance fome other guife kind of proofs than thofe from the Pfalms, from Job, or even those fo much infifted upon by you all, ever and anon in

fifted upon, from Ifaiah, chap. 1. Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his fervant, that walketh in darkness and hath no light? let him truft,' &c. Is this a description of a believer in darkness, and without light (as your argument fuppofeth) concerning his fpiritual ftate, or his intereft in the love of God? According to the prophetic ftyle, one would naturally think in this place of a perfon in fome temporal calamity, who was affured of his eternal happiness, but uncertain as to the particular event of his earthly affairs, which his heavenly Father had kept in his own hand, for \the daily exercise of faith, whereby such a one was affured all would be well upon the whole, though for the prefent he had in himself no affurance of his way, but only in his God, whom he could truft in all events; as if a fon, deftitute of all things, in the midst of a dreary wilderness, not knowing one inch of his way towards fafety, fhould there, upon the fpot, meet with his own father, friend, and guide, who had come forth to feek him, with power, and will, and great defire, to conduct him to his ow abode. But you have other things in your head.

Feareth! and obeyeth!' Are fear and obedience, then, marks with you of one that knoweth not whether the Lord loveth him or not? The apostles would have taught you, that there can be no fuch fear, or reverence and, obedience, as here fpoken of, without love for their principle; and no fuch love without the perfon's knowledge of God's love to him. 'Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us.- -We love him, because he first loved • us; and manifefted his love to us. Obedience is the expreffion of this love: thus the debtor and Mary loved much, becaufe they knew their Lord, their creditor, had forgiven them much. But you join creeds with one who daringly faid, God can read

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the truth of love in thy heart towards him, when thou canst not read the truth of love in his heart towards thee.' But, fays another, whofe creed is rather more fterling, as being one whom God hath confirmed, and upheld for a pattern to all them, who fhould afterwards believe, I know whom I have believed-Who loved me, and gave himself for me.'

Your allegation from Song ii. is answered by thefe femarks: for, whatever the fpoufe fought her Lord, her Beloved, for, it was not for clearnefs about her intereft in his love; for fhe loved him because the knew her intereft in his love. But how abfurd is your application of this place? is it poffible for you to afcertain your fenfe of it? might you not as well, as fome of you have done, have alledged thefe words of the Lord in proof of your point, that the children of God are fometimes forfaken, and know not his love to them; therefore they cleave to him by the faith of adherence, as you fpeak, while they want what you call the faith of affurance; and fo cry in their mournful moods, when they are without the fun, with their Lord on the crofs, My God, my

God, why haft thou forfaken me?' Dare you ftand by this interpretation? fee where it will lead you; being, if it be any thing at all in your way, a con、 clufion against the Son of God, that he was for a time without the knowledge of his intereft in his Father's love. But why was he forfaken? was it not that those who believe on him might never be forfaken?

Again, Ifaiah xlii. 3. A bruifed reed fhall he not break; and the fmoking flax fhall he not quench,' makes nothing for your purpose, being defcriptive of the character of the Meffiah, going on in the fteadiness of his heart, fulfilling his Father's counfels, upholding his own elect, and all things for the elect's, fake, till he has called, prepared, and

presented