fication is to counteract these. Now we gain more faith whereby we stand firmer on the focting of what Christ hath done and suffered for us; now more hope; whereby we are less cast down, amidst bereavements of Providence, or hidings of God's face for a season; and though we feel as sensibly the hidings of God's face, we more patiently wait for a renewed visitation, peevishly chiding not God for long delays: now we drink deeper of those streams which make us glad, and with more faith apply the merits of Christ's blood as the grand antidote to satan's devices; now we are enabled by:, God's Spirit, to keep our hearts closer to God, and oftener, (if not longer at once) in communion with him; now we despise the threatenings of the

law, seeing how Christ hath fulfilled the law for us; now we learn not to rest for a moment in peace, whilst sins lay with dead weight on the conscience, unrepented of and unforgiven.

2d. Sanctification is an heart work. " Sanctify " (saith the apostle) the Lord God in your hearts," 1 Pet. iii. 15. Now the heart is by nature the seat of all wickedness; a nest of ungodliness, and the storehouse of pollutions; and what proceedeth froin thence, doth tend to defile the whole man: "Those "things, (saith Christ) which proceed out of the " mouth, come forth from the heart; and they de"file the man. For out of the heart proceed evil. "thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, "false witness, blasphemies: these are the things

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" which defile a man," Matt. xv. 18, 19, 20. Now in regard to the love of God, which must be the main spring of all true sanctification; this is natural to man as well as angels in a state prior to the fall. Did not man love his Cod, when that God walked among the trees of the garden of Eden, and most probably held converse with his creatures ?-But passing this by: man by the fall hath lost that love of God, and doth now in his fallen nature, hate all the adorable attributes of God; yet both the law and the gospel equally demand supreme love to God from man: the law ordains, "Thou shalt love "the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with "all thy soul, and with all thy might," Deut. vi. 5. x. 12. xi. 1, &c. the gospel re-echoes it. " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy "heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy "mind. This is the first and great command"ment;" to which another is added springing from the first: "And the second is like unto it, Thou " shalt love thy neighbour as thyself;" Matt. xxii. 37 to 39. Mark xii. 30.33. Luke x. 27. Now as to the love of God, seeing all men have lost that love to him; seeing also that he can no longer love us, but in Christ, so neither can we love him, but as we feel the love of Christ, shed by the Spirit, in belief of his name, abroad in our hearts. "We "love him (says the beloved disciple) because he "first loved us," 1 John iv. 19. Now what greater motive to stimulate our love to God, than the con

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sideration of his exceeding love to us; as first, we receive from him life, breath and being, which life is forfeited in its first commencement to his justice, as the demerit of our transgressions: we receive also the numerous bounties of Providence, preservation in life, &c. from him; and these are instances of the general love or universal good-will which he beareth to all mankind. But these constitute not, nor are any part of the dealings of his grace. God loveth all in a way of Providence; but he loveth in grace those only whom he hath chosen in Christ. What! say some are we to consider not the benevolence and mercy of the deity, as too great to lead him to love some and hate others? Let such hear the word of God. They " are not all Israel, which are of Israel. Neither " because they are the seed of Abraham, are they "all children; but in Isaac shall thy seed be "called. That is, they which are the children of "the flesh, these are not the children of God; " but the children of the promise are counted for "the seed. For this is the word of promise, At "this time will I come, and Sarah shall have a son. " And not only this, but when Rebecca had also "conceived by one, even by our father Isaac; "(For the children being not yet born, neither " having done any good or evil, that the purpose " of God according to election might stand, not " of works, but of him that calleth). It was said "unto her, The elder shall serve the younger.

“As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau " have I hated," Rom. ix. 6 to 13. A few things must be very briefly observed on these few verses. All are not children, because they are the seed of Abraham: and why? Because he hath been pleased to limit the sonship and adoption to Isaac's seed, from which Christ lineally descended, whose type Isaac was as being a child of promise; as being typically slain, and received again by his Father in a figure, as St. Paul observes, Heb. xi. 19.

Now the children of fleshly Abraham are not sons, for Ishmael is rejected, and it is spoken of him, "Ishmael will be a wild man; his hand will "be against every man, and every man's hand " against him; and he shall dwell in the presence "of all his brethren," Gen. xvi. 11, 12. The meaning of this passage I must wave, as I have not time in this little work, to treat it fully; as it does not immediately belong to my subject, and as it is handled by Bishop Newton in his Dissertations on Prophecies, Vol. I. pages 20 to 35. But the children of believing Abraham are sons; and such a son was Isaac, both of whom were of Christ's spiritual seed, which Christ was to spring from them in lineal descent. Now the children of the promise are the seed, and Isaae was a child of promise, Ishmael was not. So Christ's seed are the children of promise; the seed of the devil are not. The ties of flesh and blood join not in grace: Jacob have I loved, and Esau I have hated. Why was this love

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and hatred so settled in the mind of God? was it for some good work? No. "For the children " were not yet born, and had done neither good

or evil." Why then was this? It was a pure act of sovereignty in God: "That the purpose of "God according to election might stand." Now what kind of a purpose is this in the mind of God, by which " hath he mercy on whom he will have

mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth," ver. 18. It is an eternal purpose; "According unto "the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ "Jesus our Lord," Ephes. iii. 11. Hence the love of God towards his chosen is everlasting: it is in Christ a living head: the emphatic seed of the woman; in whom all the chosen seed are blessed. Now if God hath loved his people in Christ from everlasting; what a handle hath faith to lay hold of, strong as the horns of the altar, from which not all the force or malice of satan can drag the believing soul. And here the believer stands, and thinks within himself, if God loved me from everlasting; from everlasting pitched upon his Son as the only fit ranson for me; if the Son willingly from everlasting offered to die for me; if I am chosen thus, whilst numbers, who are not so vile sinners as myself, are doomed to perish everlastingly: if the Holy Spirit is given me as a part of this covenant, to work in me repentance, faith, hope, love, and every christian grace: what shall I