inward experience, and that spiritual experiences are the main evidences of true grace.

I answer, It is doubtless a true opinion, and justly much received among good people, that professors should chiefly judge of their state by their experience. But it is a great mistake, that what has been said is at all contrary to that opinion. The chief sign of grace to the consciences of Christians being Christian practice, in the sense explained, and according to what has been shewn to be the true notion of Christian practice, is not at all inconsistent with Christian experience being the chief evidence of grace. Christian or holy practice is spiritual practice; and that is not the motion. of a body, that knows not how, nor when, nor wherefore it moves but spiritual practice in man, is the practice of a spirit and body jointly; or the practice of a spirit, animating, commanding and actuating a body to which it is united, and over which it has power given it by the Creator. And therefore the main thing in this holy practice is the holy acts of the mind, directing and governing the motions of the body. And the motions of the body are to be looked upon as belonging to Christian practice, only secondarily, and as they are dependent and consequent on the acts of the soul. The exercises of grace which Christians are conscious of, are what they experience within themselves; and herein therefore lies Christian experience: and this Christian experience consists as much in those operative exercises of grace in the will, immediately concerned in the management of the behaviour of the body, as in other exercises. These inward exercises are not the less a part of Christian experience, because they have outward behaviour immediately connected with them. A strong act of love to God is not the less a part of spiritual experience, because it is the act that immediately produces and effects some self-denying and expensive outward action, which is much to the honour and glory of God.

To speak of Christian experience and practice, as if they were two things, properly and entirely distinct, is to make a distinction without consideration or reason. Indeed all Christian experience is not properly called practice; but all Christian practice is properly experience. And the distinction. that is made between them, is not only an unreasonable, but an unscriptural distinction. Holy practice is one kind or part of Christian experience; and both reason and scripture represent it as the chief, and most important, and most distinguishing part of it. So it is represented in Jer. xxii. 15, 16. Did not

thy father eat and drink, and do justice and judgment?—He judged the cause of the poor and needy:—was not this to know me? saith the Lord. Our inward acquaintance with God, surely belongs to the head of experimental religion; but this God represents as consisting chiefly in that experience which there is in holy practice. So the exercises of those graces of the love of God, and the fear of God, are a part of experimental religion; but these the scripture represents as consisting chiefly in practice, in those fore-mentioned texts.1 John v. 3. This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. 2 John 6. This is love, that we walk after his commandment. Psal. xxxiv. 11, &c. Come, ye children, and I will teach you the fear of the Lord:-Depart from evil, and do good. Such experiences as these Hezekiah took comfort in chiefly, on his sick-bed; when he said, Remember, O Lord, I beseech thee, how I have walked before thee in truth, and with a perfect heart. And such experiences as these the Psalmist chiefly insists upon, in the 119th Psalm, and elsewhere. Such experiences as these the apostle Paul mainly insists upon, as Rom. i. 9. God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son.-2 Cor. i. 12. For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that, by the grace of God, we have had our conversation in the world. Chap. iv. 13. We having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I have believed, and therefore have I spoken: we also believe, and therefore speak. Chap. v. 7. We walk by faith, not by sight. ver. 14. The love of Christ constraineth us. Chap. vi. 4—7. In all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses,—in labours, in watchings, in fastings. By pureness, by knowledge, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned,—by the power of God. Gal. ii. 20. I am crucified with Christ: Nevertheless I live: yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God. Phil. iii. 7, 8. But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea, doubtless, and 1 count all things but loss, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, and do count them but dung that I may win Christ. Col. i. 29. Whereunto I also labour, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily. 1 Thess. ii. 2. We were bold in our God, to speak unto you the gospel of God with much contention. ver. 8-10. Being affectionately desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted unto you, not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were dear unto us. For ye remember, brethren, our

labour and travel, labouring night and day.-Ye are witnesses, and God also, how holily, and justly, and unblamably we behaved ourselves among you. And with such experiences as these this blessed apostle chiefly comforted himself, when he was going to martyrdom, 2 Tim. iv. 6, 7. For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.

And not only does the most important and distinguishing part of Christian experience, lie in spiritual practice; but such is the nature of that sort of exercises of grace, wherein spiritual practice consists, that nothing is so properly called by the name of experimental religion. For that experience, which exercises of grace prove effectual at the very point of trialwherein God proves which we will actually cleave to, Christ or our lusts-is the proper experiment of the truth and power of our godliness; wherein its victorious power and efficacy in producing its proper effect, and reaching its end, is found by experience. This is properly Christian experience, wherein the saints have opportunity to see, by actual experience and trial, whether they have a heart to do the will of God, and to forsake other things for Christ, or no. As that is called experimental philosophy, which brings opinions and notions to the test of fact; so is that properly called experimental religion, which brings religious affections and intentions to the like test.

There is a sort of external religious practice, without inward experience; which in the sight of God is esteemed good for nothing. And there is what is called experience, without practice, being neither accompanied, nor followed with a Christian behaviour; and this is worse than nothing. Many persons seem to have very wrong notions of Christian experience, and spiritual discoveries. Whenever a persons finds a heart to treat God as God, at the time he has the trial, and finds his disposition effectual in the experiment, that is the most proper, and most distinguishing experience. And to have at such a time that sense of divine things, that apprehension of the truth, importance and excellency of the things of religion, which then sways and prevails, and governs his heart and hands; this is the most excellent spiritual light, and these are the most distinguishing discoveries. Religion consists much in holy affection; but those exercises of affection which are most distinguishing of true religion, are these practical exercises. Friendship between earthly friends consists much in

affection; but yet those strong exercises of affection, that actually carry them through fire and water for each other, are the highest evidences of true friendship.

There is nothing in what has been said, contrary to what is asserted by some sound divines; when they say, that there are no sure evidences of grace, but the acts of grace. For that doth not hinder but that these operative, productive acts, those exercises of grace, which are effectual in practice, may be the highest evidences. Nor does it hinder but that, when there are many of these acts and exercises, following one another in a course, under various trials of every kind, the evidence is still heightened; as one act confirms another. A man by once seeing his neighbour, may have good evidence of his presence; but by seeing him from day to day, and conversing with him in a course, in various circumstances, the evidence is established. The disciples, when they first saw Christ after his resurrection, had good evidence that he was alive but by conversing with him for forty days, and his shewing himself to them alive, by many infallible proofs, they had yet higher evidence *.

The witness or seal of the Spirit consists in the effect of the Spirit of God in the heart, in the implantation and exercises of grace there, and so consists in experience. And it is beyond doubt, that this seal of the Spirit is the highest kind of evidence of the saints' adoption, that ever they obtain. But in these exercises of grace in practice, God gives witness, and sets to his seal, in the most conspicuous, eminent, and evident manner. It has been abundantly found to be true in fact, by the experience of the Christian church, that Christ commonly gives by his Spirit the greatest and most joyful evidences to his saints of their sonship, in those effectual exercises of grace under trials, of which we have spoken; as is manifest in the

The more these visible exercises of grace are renewed, the more certain you will be. The more frequently these aetings are renewed, the more abiding and confirmed your assurance will be. A man that has been assured of such visible exercises of grace, may quickly after be in doubt, whether he was not mistakeu. But when such actings are renewed again and again, he grows more settled and established about his good estate. If a man see a thing once, that makes him sure; but if afterwards he fear he was deceived, when he comes to see it again, he is more sure he was not mistaken. If a man read such passages in a book, he is sure it is so. Some months after, some may bear him down, that he was mistaken, su as to make him question it himself: but when he looks, and reads it again, he is abundantly confirmed. The more men's grace is multiplied, the more their peace is multiplied; 2 Pet. i. 2. "Grace and peace be multiplied unto you, through the knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord."-STODDARD'S Way to know sincerity and hypocrisy.

full assurance, and unspeakable joys of many of the martyrs. Agreeable to 1 Pet. iv. 14. If ye are reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the Spirit of glory, and of God resteth upon you. And Rom. v. 2, 3. We rejoice in hope of the glory of God, and glory in tribulations. And agreeable to what the apostle Paul often declares of what he experienced in his trials. When the apostle Peter, in my text, speaks of the joy unspeakable, and full of glory, which the Christians to whom he wrote, experienced; he has respect to what they found under persecution, as appears by the context. Christ thus manifesting himself, as the friend and saviour of his saints cleaving to him under trials, seems to have been represented of old by his coming and manifesting himself to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, in the furnace. And when the apostle speaks of the witness of the Spirit, in Rom. viii. 15—17. he has a more immediate respect to what the Christians experienced in their exercises of love to God, while suffering persecution; as is plain by the context. He is, in the foregoing verses, encouraging the Christian Romans under their sufferings, that though their bodies be dead because of sin, yet they should be raised to life again. But it is more especially plain by the verse immediately following, ver. 18. For I reckon, that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us. So the apostle has evidently respect to their persecutions, in all that he says to the end of the chapter. So when the apostle speaks of the earnest of the Spirit, which God had given to him, 2 Cor. v. 5. the context shews plainly that he has respect to what was given him in his great trials and sufferings. And in that promise of the white stone, and new name, to him that overcomes, Rev. ii. 17. it is evident Christ has a special respect to a benefit that Christians should obtain by overcoming, when tried, in that day of persecution. This appears by ver. 13. and many other passages in this epistle to the seven churches of Asia.

Object. 2. Some also may be ready to object against what has been said of Christian practice being the chief evidence of the truth of grace, that this is a legal doctrine; and that this making practice a thing of such great importance in religion, magnifies works, and tends to lead men to make too much of their own doings, to the diminution of the glory of free grace, and does not seem well to consist with that great gospel-doctrine of justification by faith alone.

But this objection is altogether without reason. Which