blood of thy covenant I have fent forth thy prifoners out of the pit wherein is no water." And nothing is more fure than this jail delivery: "He that believes fhall receive the forgiveness of fins." God purifies the heart by faith; and fuch hold the mystery of faith, which faith ftands in a pure confcience. 1 Tim. iii. 9.

5. Faith ftands in the bleffing of God: "As many as are of faith are bleffed with faithful Abraham." And God's bleffing on Mount Zion is life for evermore: and "he that believeth is paffed from death unto life;" yea, "he that be-: lieveth hath everlafting life."

6. Faith ftands in the righteousness of Chrift imputed: "To us it fhall be imputed if we be-lieve on him that raised Chrift from the dead." Yea, this righteousness is to all and upon all that believe and the finner is affured of this. "Surely, fhall one fay, in the Lord have I righteousness and ftrength." Ifa. xlv. 24.

7. The faith of God's elect ftands in the witnefs of the Holy Ghoft witneffing our adoption:" "Ye are all the children of God by faith in Chrift Jefus," and "he that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself," 1 John v. 10.

8. The faith of a faint ftands and triumphs in the everlasting love of God, for faith works by love; and to this agrees the beloved disciple: "And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwell

eth

eth in love dwelleth in God, and God in lim." 1 John iv. 16.

9. Faith ftands in the joy of the Spirit of God, and in the peace that Chrift made by the blood of his cross. God fills us with joy and peace in believing.

10. Faith ftands in Chrift Jefus revealed in, and manifefted to the foul. "He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is thatloveth me; and he that loveth me fhall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will ma-. nifeft myself to him." John xiv. 21. The above commandments are his word, as he explains it:. "If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him." John xiv. 23. Thus faith ftands in the love of God made known, and in Jefus Chrift manifefted to the foul. “That Chrift may dwell in your hearts by faith.": Eph. iii. 17.

11. Faith ftands faft in the filial fear of God; which fear is peculiar to God's children, and which hath the goodnefs of God for its object:" and it emboldens the believer to fly to God, and to expect his protection in every time of trouble. "In the fear of the Lord is ftrong confidence, and his children fhall have a place of refuge." Prov. xiv. 16. These are the footsteps of genuine faith, and the footsteps of the flock; for "we walk by faith and not by fight." And by the power of God

is the believer kept through faith unto falvation. And thefe divine bafes on which faith ftands are more firm than the everlasting hills.

But what is that poor phantom which paffes fo current for faith in our days? Juft nothing, and worse than nothing; for it is a powerful delufion of the devil, which a juft God gives the enemies of his truth up to. "God fhall fend them strong delufions, that they may believe a lie and be damned." 2 Theff. ii. 11.

This faith in a lie is nothing less than rafh.prefumption; it prefumes upon God, and lays a claim upon him, without one fcriptural warrant to venture on. And, in the general, the father of lies begets this faith in the minds of poor finners under the alarning miniftry of graceless men, who are minifters of the letter, or of the bare word of God, without having either the Spirit or his grace in them. The fentence of death and of condemnation, which are in the preacher, is com municated to fuch a hearer. "The letter killeth.”

The finner being by nature a child of wrath, and naturally in bondage to the fear of death, and the curfe of God being habitually in the ta bernacle of the wicked, thefe are all ftirred up, and natural confcience is terrified, while the devil fpreads difmal glooms and horrors on the mind, with which he bewilders and diftracts the poot wretch; these pass for convictions, and are juft fuch as Ahab had when Elijah met him, and as

Saul

Saul had when he fell on the ground before the devil in Samuel's mantle: for with these convic tions there is no fpirit of life to quicken the foul; no true light fhining into the heart to discover the defperate deceitfulness of it; no fpirit of fupplication to fet the finner to crying day and night unto God; no hunger and thirft after righteous nefs, after the bread of life, or after the living God. A finner under fuch convictions may be known by the following remarks:

1. He feeds upon the vanities of this world in the midst of all his infernal terrors, and hates the light and truth under all his horrors. "They have not cried unto me with their heart, when they howled upon their beds: they affemble themselves for corn and wine, and they rebel againft me. Though I have bound and ftrengthened their arms, yet do they imagine mischief against me. They return, but not to the Most High they are like a deceitful bow." Hofea vii.

14, 15.

2. It may eafily be feen that, as there is no fpirit of fupplication or crying to God, neither is there any thirst after him; they return, but not to the Moft High; as Saul did; he returned, but it was to one of the witches that he had formerly expelled, not to God: and fo Judas, he returned, but it was to the priests, to whom he confefied his fin; but not to God, nor yet to the mafter whom he had betrayed.

4

3. Such

3. Such fouls may be known by their pride; for they are never filled with that self-loathing which a foul feels that is quickened by the Spirit of God; there is the leaven of legal pride work ing in them under all their convictions, and they fet themselves up as men of wonderful experience, though they are without hope, and without that experience that worketh hope. "Where is boafting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works?" Nay, it is never excluded by legal terrors: Rom. iii. 27.

4. Such a finner holds faft free-will and felfrighteousness under all his convictions. I once knew a preacher who often fell into thefe legal convictions, till he was like a wild bull in a net; but every time he came out he preached free will, felf-righteoufnefs, and univerfal redemption, and was looked upon as a man wonderfully taught of God; but it was by the god of this world. I once preached for him at Sheffield in Yorkshire, and difputed with him afterwards till midnight, and began with him the next morning and continued at it till noon, and ftopped his mouth, but could not strip him of his fpider's web. The laft time that I inquired about him I was informed that he had left off preaching for fome time, and was confined and mad; which was what I had long expected. "They hold faft deceit, they refufe to return." Jer. viii. 5.

5. Nor do fouls under fuch convictions as thefe