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that our fouls may be delivered from all corruption at our departure out of this world; that we may have hope of glory in death, and leave the body to reft behind us, in hope of a glorious resurrection, which will be the laft work of hope in this world. Thus we must hope to the end, and no longer; for what a man seeth himself in full posfeffion of why doth he yet hope for?

But because I told you, in my laft, that "I expected fome familiar vifits, love-tokens, confirming renewals, and promised revivals, in the course of my pilgrimage, even to the end, as well as a daily crofs," I have staggered you; and, in the expectation of these things, you say you seem to turn out of my path. No, no, my fifter; I ran to the fame extremes that you do. When in my first love I said, and believed it too, that I should never be moved from the mount, the Lord of his goodness had made my hill fo ftrong; but, when fpiritual desertions came on, and Satan returned with double rage, and every inherent corruption was stirred up, attended with legal bondage and flavith fear, I then concluded, as Job did, my days are swifter than a weaver's fhuttle, and are spent without hope; O remember that my life is wind, mine eye shall no more fee good!" Job vii. 6, 7. David was wrong in his exultation, for God hid his face from him. Job was wrong in his lamentation, for the Lord appeared to him clearer than ever he did before. I was wrong

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alfo, for I have had hundreds of vifits fince I drew thofe fad conclufions; and you are wrong, for he will revive and renew his work on thy foul, and bring it to light, and confirm you in it again and again: "They fhall revive as the corn, and grow as the vine, and fpread forth their roots like Lebanon." If they revive, there must be more life; if they grow, there must be more grace given; and, if they fpread forth their roots, their love must be drawn forth, for we are to be rooted and grounded in love; and, if we are to root like Lebanon, we must be strengthened, ftablished, and fettled, this way. But you inform me that you have no fuch expectations, and that you are confirmed in your opinión by the word of the Lord itfelf, The paffage you allude to in Ezek. xlvi. 9, you do not rightly understand. That the temple spoken of in that chapter was a type of the church of God under the New Teftament is plain, for the church bears the fame name; and that all the furniture of the temple, in its gofpel fignification, is now found in gospel Zion, cannot be denied; and that there are fuch things as north and fouth winds, which blow on the Lord's garden, I hinted to you in a former epistle; and likewife I mentioned Solomon's trees, which he reprefents as falling toward the north and toward the fouth, and of their unalterable state after they are fallen; and no doubt but the north and fouth gates that you allude to have the fame fignification.

fignification. Suppofe a poor finner is feized with a fpirit of bondage to fear, and wrath and guilt work in him till his foul is chilled, and he filled with fear and trembling: this is the north wind, the fpirit of bondage, which is the wrath of God. But at length he is enabled to fly from wrath to come, and to embrace the hope fet before him; and he exercifes faith on the Saviour, and comes fenfibly into his favour, into his grace, and into his finished falvation. He then paffes from death to life, and shall never more come into condemnation. He enters by the north gate. Chrift to him is the gate of life, and the end of the law for righteoufnefs. His faith now works by love; and, as loving-kindness is never to be taken from him, he fhall go out at the fouth gate. But then, what is or can be meant by going out of the church? Why, in one fenfe, the believer can never go out at all; for he that overcometh is made a pillar in the temple of God, and he fhall go no more out." Going out, therefore, can mean nothing but a being tranflated from the militant to the triumphant church by death. Moreover, fuppofe a perfon, at his firft fetting off in a profeffion, is allured and drawn into it by a fenfe of God's goodness, and a believing view of his kind provi dence, as Hezekiah was, and as Job feems to be, and the north wind, or a spirit of bondage, falls upon him, as it did upon thofe two men, that they might see the hand-writing that was against

them,

them, and that they might know the fin of their heart by the application of the law; this alters not the ftate of their fouls; they were members of Chrift before, fo they were when in their troubles, and they were more fure of this when their deliverance came. It remains, therefore, that it cannot, in the worst sense, mean a real believer; for, though he may be exercised in his pilgrimage, and on his death-bed, with legal bondage, yet he cannot go out of the church, and out of the world, under the wrath of God, nor yet in bondage; his end must be peace, not wrath. The covenant, the oath of God, the promise of life, the death of Chrift, and the Spirit's work, all forbid this. To conclude this fubject, in the ftricteft and worst fense of the words, the comer-in at the fouth gate is the way-fide hearer, who has his natural affections and paffions ftirred up; in whom light, joy, gifts, and zeal, fpring up; and who, in time of temptation and perfecution, falls away, and goes out of the church, and into the world, and then out of the world under the wrath and curfe of God. And this character is further described by this prophet in the 16th verfe of this fame chapter; and Christ, in his days, quotes the words, and applies them: "Thus faith the Lord God, If the prince give a gift to any of his fons, the inheritance thereof fhall be his fons; it fhall be their poffeffion by inheritance." Ezek. xlvi. 16, This inheritance is eternal life; and Chrift came

that

that we might have it; and he that hath it, to him fhall be given, and he fhall have more abundance; for Chrift came that we might have life, and that we might have it more abundantly. "But, if he give a gift of his inheritance to one of his fervants, then it fhall be his to the year of liberty; after it shall return to the prince." Ezek. xlvi. 17. Our Saviour's explanation and application of this text is, "Take the talent from him, and give it to him that hath ten talents; for he that hath not (hath not life, but a spiritual gift), it shall be taken away from him, even that which he hath." And it is often seen that a fervant cuts a moft glaring figure in the church of God, until the spirit of love and liberty be poured forth upon fome of the elect of God about him; and, when he fees this, he finks in his foul at the fight, and at the light, and hates it, as Saul did, when he faw that God was with David. Such an one finks in the esteem of fuch heaven-born fouls as much as Saul did in the eyes of Samuel, when he said, "Honour me now before the elders of my people." Nothing difcovers a falfe profeffion, and a falfe profeffor, like the fpirit of love and liberty being poured out upon poor broken-hearted finners about him; and, if it come upon fuch as have looked up to him as fomething great, difcriminating grace difcovers him. At this he is offended, and hates the light, and flees from it, and fights against it; and this withers his joys, it

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