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alculation, it will caufe the whole fum to turn out a falfehood, however painfully the operations are carried on afterwards; or, as the phyficians fay, an error in the firft concoction cannot be rectified in any after process of digeftion. But when the Pfalms are confidered as fpoken of Chrift, or as Chrift fpeaking in them, we behold the love of God, furrounded and guarded with all the terrors of his wrath, blazing forth in the face of Jefus; in whom we fee God all light, and no darkness at all, even perfectly well pleafed through the blood of the atonement; fo that we may come boldly forward, and worship with enlarged hearts.

Had our critics and commentators laboured with equal diligence, to find out and fhew the relation the Pfalms have to the New Teftament, as they have done to edify us with the penmen, and particular occafions and times when they were written, and the fenfe which either ancient or modern Jews, and thofe called primitive fathers, have put upon them, the church might have rejoiced in their labours; but, as they now ftand forth fo many maskers (alas! there are few exceptions) of the face of Jefus, if you have got a glimpse of that face, how can you look upon thofe who have been endeavouring to hide the glory theres of from your view, by cafting on the ancient vailsbut with the greatest thankfulness to him, who, commanding the light to shine out of darkness, hath enlightened your own mind with his glory! while, at the fame time, you cannot but look upon them with the fame kind of emotion, as if you had stood in the days of Solomon in the court of the temple, at the dedication thereof, beholding the offerings accepted, and the glory of the Lord filling the whole houfe; and then beheld a band of drunken priefts, running, raking and fcavenging together, with might and main, all the afhes about the place, with the filth and dung of the flain beafts, and then throwing them

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all in a heap upon the altar, fmothering the heavenly fire, and polluting the facrifices! Their defign perhaps was to feed the fire with fuel, and lay on more facrifices according to the law; but what of that, if in their madness and wine they caft on dung? Let God be true, and every man a liar. If this method of interpretation hold, which allows only the apoftles to give their fenfe of the Pfalms, holding every other fenfe whatfoever foreign and fpurious, as many as hold it, not to speak of many obvious advantages. they may enjoy, will be delivered from two great evils; t, That countenance and authority alledged from the Pfalms to establish the righteoufnefs of a finful creature, where the Holy Ghoft had established the everlasting righteousness of God. 2dly, They will be delivered from that manifold kind of confufion which has been established on a falfe view of the Pfalms, where the Holy Ghoft had established that faith which is of his own gift and operation, which he defines and manifefts where it is, the evidence or affurance of things not feen, the substance of things hoped for. Where is this evidence, where is this fubftance to be found? Even in the hearts where they are, and no where elfe. What a general abfurdity, then, is that which they call a general faith? Is not the truth of God, or object of faith, one parti. cular individual truth or object? Is not all faith particular? fixed and determined to the particular individual fubject wherein it is, however extenfive the truth or object of belief be? Certainly. You believe, and fee, and hear, and love, and live, in yourself alone, and not in another: neither indeed can it be otherways. If this be fo, is it not truly an affecting thing to fee thofe, whom in many respects you would incline to fay God fpeed' to-ranking themfelves under different heads and denominations; maintaining on the one fide, That juftifying and faving faith is a perfuafion, that Chrift died for you in particu

lar, and that you through his blood fhall be faved-. and this fame is their appropriating act, whereby, they fay, Chrift becomes theirs! as if the Scripture had any where faid foas if you could be faved through the belief of any thing but what the Scripture hath faid; which is true, whether you believe it or not-as if a blind perfon could receive his fight, a deaf person his hearing, a dead perfon his life, (the cafes are quite parallel), by a perfuafion that they faw, heard, and lived-while, in oppofition to this falfe doctrine, it is as falfely as zealously maintained on the other fide, That a perfon may be very well affured or perfuaded of the truth of the teftimony concerning Jefus, (which perfuafion or affurance they compare to one end of an arch founded upon a rock), and yet at the fame time remain in great doubt concerning his own particular interest in Jefus; which latter thing they compare to the other end of the forefaid arch founded upon the fand-Well, how fhall this end also be established? By your felf-denied obedience, fay they; by your continued fubjection to the gofpel. How fhall I know this fame felf-denied obedience, this continued fubjection to the gospel, except I know the principle from whence they proceed? for if I do not bring forth my fruits to the glory of my own Father and God, in the name of the Lord Jefus, as fanctified, washed, justified, and by the Spirit of adoption crying, Abba, Father,' L can never conclude they are proofs of my obedience and fubjection to the gofpel. These fruits do nor flow merely from the relation fubfifting between God and me, but from that relation known; and the fruits are not the means whereby the relation is known, but acknowledged; as it is written, Hereby acknowledge we,' (as it may be rendered), that we have paffed from death to life, because we love the brethren.' Take away the knowledge, the certain knowledge of my own perfonal relation, union,

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intereft, communion with God; and you dry up, at the fame time, all the fprings of my felf-denial and obedience, or painful labour of love. Can I obey, unless I love? Can I love, unlefs I am loved, and know that I am loved? Says one, Would to God, I were as certain of my own particular intereft in Chrift, as I am of the truth of the gofpel in general! Did that man know what he was faying, he would have precifely the fame affurance and certainty of his own particular intereft in Chrift, as of the general truth of the gofpel: for is it not written, Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.' Believeth! what? even what is there faid, that Chrift is the end of the law.' Do you know you believe or understand, according to the teftimony, what you call the general truth? the conclufion is as direct upon you for your own particular intereft therein: for they who believe, believe not in general, but in particular; even as no perfon ever faw the light in general for others, and was blind himfelf: fo no perfon has any ground to believe there Is falvation for others, but he has the fame evidence it is to himfelf. And thofe people, who fay they be lieve there is falvation for others, according to the gofpel, and fay they doubt of their own intereft therein, do evidently lie; they do not understand what they pretend to believe: for no perfon can believe, without being confcious or certain, that he himself in particular believes. They afk you, Is affurance of the effence of faith? They might as well afk you, if the fun be of the effence of the fun? for what is faith but the affurance God gives one through his word by the Spirit? and this being particular in a perfon's own felf, and not in another, he has as much affurance that he believes, when he believes, as that he fees, hears, lives, loves, hates, defires, rejoices, &c. when he is in very deed fo affected; which affections he hath no manner of evidence for, but that he is con

fcious of his being fo affected and yet it is not by perfuading himself that he is so affected, that he realTy is fo; but, being fo affected, it is impoffible but he muft have a confciousness or perfuafion of his be ing fo. Says another, in one of his differtations lately published, All faith muft indeed include fomething particular in the nature of it. He gives you an inftance in the believer of the law and its threatenings, which, fays he, ftrike the person in particular, as if he himself were the very one pointed at; even fo with regard to the gofpel he believes-not that his fins are actually forgiven him, and that he fhall be favedbut that there is mercy and forgiveness with God for finners in general, and that he may be faved, or fomething to that purpofe. Who taught him to fay fo of a believer of the gospel? Not the Holy Ghost: for he fays, 1 John ii. 12. I write unto you, little ⚫ children, because your fins are forgiven you for his name's fake-and verfe 21. I have not written to you, becaufe ye know not the truth, but because < ye know it, and that no lie is of the truth.'-Says another, the patron of his own ftory, about an official Saviour to all mankind who fhall be faved and damned; These words, 1 Cor. i. 30. Chrift made

to you of God wisdom, righteoufnefs,' &c. are not abfolutely to be understood of the faints and faithful at Corinth and other places, but in a qualified fense: thus, he is made fo by office; if you apply to him, he will be made fo; not that he is already actually made -fo; but he is fo officially to all mankind finners indefinitely, their Goel, their Kinfman-Redeemer. God deliver whom he will deliver from fuch abominations! which are the more dangerous, the liker they are to the truth; even as forged money or bills receive all their currency from their being the more exactly counterfeited.-Thefe forgeries and counterfeits of faith bad not been mentioned in this place, but for the fake of the truth, which, by their currency, is

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