of God's love, being the spring from whence our love flows, such as is our love, such will be our assurance also: if then our love be strong in its actings, it must needs cast out fear; because it flows from that assurance, with which tormenting fear is utterly inconsistent.

But there is another kind of fear, that is not tormenting: and that is an awful frame of heart, struck with reverential apprehensions of God's infinite majesty, and our own vileness and unworthiness: and this, perfect love doth not cast out; but it perfects this awful, sedate, calm fear of God. The angels and the glorified saints in heaven, whose love is so perfect, that it can neither admit of an increase nor abatement, yet stand in awe and fear of the terrible majesty of the Great God: the same infinite excellencies of the Divine Nature, that attract their love, do also excite their fear. See how the Prophet makes this an argument to fear God: Jer. x. 7. Who would not fear thee, O King of Saints? for, said he, in all the earth there is none like unto thee: one would rather think that God's unparalleled excellencies and perfections should be a motive to love: "Who would not love thee, O King of Saints, since there is none in all the earth like thee?" yea, but filial fear and filial love are of so near a kind and cognation, that they may well be enforced by one and the same argument: Who would not fear thee?....for, in all the earth, there is none like unto thee. This is the excellency of divine love: it is an attractive of love, and it is an excitement unto fear.

Well, then, though we have no chilling fear of a hot and scorching hell; yet let us have an awful, reverential fear of the glorious God, whose excellencies are such as cannot be matched, nor scarcely imitable by any in heaven or in earth.

iii. The Fear of God is NOT CONTRARY TO THAT FREE SPIRIT OF ADOPTION, WHICH WE RECEIVE IN OUR FIRST CONVERSION,

It may, perhaps, seem to some, that the Apostle opposeth them in Rom. viii. 15. Ye have not received the Spirit of Bondage again to fear; but....the Spirit of Adoption, whereby you cry Abba, Father.

To this I answer: That, by the Spirit of Bondage here, the Apostle means the legal work of the Holy Ghost in conviction, that is preparatory to conversion: which work, usually, is accompanied with dreadful terrors, apprehending God not as a reconciled Father, but as an incensed and severe Judge. Now,

says the Apostle, ye have not received this Spirit of Bondage again thus to fear: this is not that fear, that the consideration of God, as your God and Reconciled Father, excited in you: this is not that fear, that the Apostle exhorts Christians unto; but an awful, reverential fear of God, whereby we should stand in awe of his dread majesty, so as to be preserved from whatever may be an offence to his purity. And if, in any night of desertion, it should happen that the hearts of true believers should be overwhelmed with dismal fears, apprehending God as enraged and incensed against them, standing in doubt of the goodness of their spiritual condition; if this seize upon them after they have had the Spirit of Adoption, let them know that this fear is not from a work of the Holy Ghost in them: they have not received the Spirit of Bondage again so to fear: it is not a work of the Holy Ghost to excite in them doubts and fears of their spiritual condition, after they have once had assurance of the goodness thereof; but it ariseth either from some ignorance, or from some sin that they have committed, that interposeth betwixt them and the clear sight of the discoveries of God's love.

Now for the better understanding of this place, because I judge it pertinent to my present purpose, I shall open it to you somewhat largely in these following particulars.

1. The preparatory work of Conversion is usually carried on in the soul by Legal Fears and Terrors.

I call that a Legal Fear, that is wrought in the soul by the dread-threatenings and denunciations of the Law. The Law, if we take it in its native rigour, without the merciful qualification of Gospel-grace, thundered out nothing but execrations, wrath, and vengeance against every transgressor of it; representing God armed also with his almighty power to destroy them. This is that glass, that shewed them their old sins in most ugly shapes: now they see them stare ghastly upon their consciences, that before allured them: the scene is quite changed, and there are nothing but dreadful apparitions of death and hell fleeting now before them; and God brandishing his flaming sword over them, ready to rive their hearts asunder. They, who lately were secure and fearless, now stand quaking under the fearful expectations of that fiery wrath and indignation, that they neither have hope to escape, nor yet have strength or patience to endure. This is that Legal Fear, which the curse and threatenings of the Law, when set home in their full acrimony, work in the hearts of convinced sinners.

2. This Legal Fear is slavish, and engenders unto bondage. There is a bondage, under the reigning power of sin; and there is a bondage, under the terrifying power of sin. The former makes a man a slave unto the Devil, and the latter makes a man a slave unto God. And such slaves are all convinced sinners, that have not yet arrived to the free and filial Spirit of Adoption; but are kept under bondage under the wrath of God, and manacled in the fetters of their own fears. So saith the Apostle: Heb, ii. 15. to deliver them, who, through fear of death, and of hell that follows after it, were all their life-time subject to bondage.

3. This Slavish Fear is wrought in the soul by the Spirit of God, though it be slavish.

For it is his office, to convince, as well as to comfort; and to cast down by the terrors of the Law, as well as to raise up by the promises of the Gospel: John xvi. 8. He shall convince the world of sin; and therefore it is said in this place, Rom. viii. 15. We have not received the Spirit of Bondage again to fear; implying, that those terrors, that seize upon the conscience, are the work of the Holy Ghost: we bring ourselves into bondage, under sin; and he brings us into bondage, under fear. If therefore, at any time, thou, who art a secure sinner, art suddenly surprized with fearful and trembling thoughts concerning thy present state of sin and thy future state of wrath, beware thou listen not to any that would persuade thee it is nothing but a fit of melancholy, or a temptation of Satan to drive thee to despair; but know assuredly, that thy conscience is now under the hand of the Holy Ghost himself: he raiseth those tempests of fear in thee; and, as usually it is fatal to divert and hush them, so is it no less than ignorant blasphemy, to impute his works to melancholy, or to the temptations of Satan.

4. When the soul is prepared for the work of grace by the work of conviction, when it is prepared for comfort by the work of humiliation, the same Spirit, that was before a Spirit of Bondage, becomes now a Spirit of Adoption.

That is, the Holy Ghost persuades and assures us of the love and favour of God; and enables us, through divine light beaming in upon our consciences, to behold him as a gracious and a reconciled Father, whom before we trembled at as a stern and terrible Judge. The same wind, that, in a raging storm, tosseth the sea to and fro in restless heaps, in a calm doth only gently move and fan it with pleasing purles. So is it here. That Spirit

of God, that, in conviction, raiseth a tempest in the conscience, afterwards breathes forth a sweet calm of peace and comfort upon it the same Spirit, that, before, was a Spirit of Bondage, when the soul is sufficiently thereby prepared for grace, becomes a Spirit of Adoption. This is that Spirit of Adoption, that is here spoken of: and it is called so, because it witnesseth with our spirits, that we are the children of God by adoption. God hath but one Son by eternal generation, and that is Jesus Christ; called, therefore, the only-begotten of the Father, John i. 14. He hath many sons by creation; even all mankind: so Adam is called the son of God: Luke iii. 38. He hath many sons also by adoption; even all, that are effectually called according to the purpose of his grace; all, that are sanctified, who are of strangers made heirs of God, and co-heirs with Jesus Christ himself, who is the natural son of God; as it is Rom. viii. 17. Now because it is the work of the Holy Ghost to testify to us this our great privilege, that we are enrolled in the family of heaven and become the children of God, therefore he is called the Spirit of Adoption; that is, the Spirit, that witnesseth to us our adoption.

5. To whom the Spirit hath once been a Spirit of Adoption, it never more becomes to them a Spirit of Bondage and Fear.

That is, it never again proclaims war, after it hath spoken peace it never represents God as an enraged enemy, after it hath represented him as a Reconciled Father. It is true, the Spirit of God always keeps up his convincing office in the soul of the most assured saint: it convinceth him of sin, and of wrath due to him for sin. There is a twofold conviction: there is a conviction of the evil of particular actions, and there is a conviction of the evil of our state and condition: now, though, upon particular miscarriages of God's children, the Holy Ghost secretly smiteth their consciences, shewing them the guilt and evil of their sins, thereby bringing them to repentance and a godly sorrow; yet the Holy Ghost never again testifieth to them, that they are in a graceless, unregenerate, and sinful estate and condition, and in a state of wrath and condemnation: it brings them to a deep humiliation, by convincing them of the evil of their actions; but it never brings them into legal terrors, by convincing them of a sinful state. Neither, indeed, can it be so: for the Spirit of God is a Spirit of Truth; and, to witness that we are yet children of wrath, who are indeed the adopted children of God, this were a false testimony, and therefore

utterly abhorred by the Spirit of God, who is a Spirit of Truth. Doth the same fountain send forth sweet water and bitter? Doth there proceed from one and the same mouth, blessings and curses? Certainly, the same Spirit, that hath once pronounced us to be in the love and favour of God, never after pronounceth us to be cursed, and under the wrath of God.

But you will say, " Have not the best of God's children sometimes concluded themselves to be reprobated and cast away? Have they not lain under sad and fearful apprehensions of God's wrath? Have not some of them, who formerly walked in the light of God's countenance and flourished in their assurance, yet afterwards been so dejected, that they would not entertain any comfort, or hopes of mercy and salvation?”

To this I answer: It is true, it may indeed so happen, that those saints, whose joys and comforts are at one time fresh and verdant, at another time wither and drop off; so that they look upon themselves as rotten trees, destinated to make fuel for hell. Whence proceeds this? It is not from the Spirit of God: but, as carnal men are apt to mistake the first work of conviction for melancholy or for temptation, so this really proceeds from one of these two causes. When the children of God, after full assurance, come again not only to entertain doubts of their condition, but also to despair of themselves, looking on themselves as persons that God hath singled out to destruction; this proceeds not from the Holy Ghost, but from melancholy or temptation. Sometimes, natural Melancholy obstructs the sense of divine comfort: as it is in clear water, when it is still and transparent the sun shines to the very bottom, but if you stir the mud, presently it grows so thick that no light can pierce into it; so is it with the children of God, though their apprehensions of God's love be as clear and transparent sometimes as the very air that the angels and glorified saints breathe in, in heaven, yet, if once the muddy humour of melancholy stirs, they become dark, so that no light or ray of comfort can break in to the deserted soul. And then, sometimes, the Devil causeth these tragedies by his Temptations, that so, if it were possible, he might drive them to despair: he hates their graces, he envies their comforts; and therefore he would persuade them that all their former joys were but delusions, proud dreams and presumptuous fancies, and that they are still in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of