to his God, let him cut what figure he may in the world, his own soul is barren, nor does joy and peace in believing operate upon him. Those that called me a Pythagorean, because I talked of a change wrought on my soul, seemed to be as far from enjoying God's presence as those who made no profession at all.

Cushi. Let men make what stir they may about religion, if they have not the love of God in their hearts, they are dead. The Spirit says, If a man hath all knowledge, and understand all mysteries, and speak with the tongue of men and of angels, and hath not charity, it profiteth him nothing, 1 Cor. xiii. 1, 2.

And if ever a man be brought to love God, it will be because God hath pardoned his sin: This woman's sins were many, and they are forgiven her, and she loveth much; but where little is forgiven the same loveth little, Luke vii. 47. Love is therefore the blessed effect of pardon, or the consequence of it,

Ahimaaz. O how wonderful is the enlarging, enflaming, and attracting power of divine love on the soul! it swallows up all, and God is all in all to such an happy soul. But, alas, this love is little insisted on in our days; indeed it is rather opposed.

Cushi. He that labours only at the letter, is not a minister of the Spirit, 2 Cor. iii. 6; nor does he exalt the kingdom of God, for that stands not in word, but in power, 1 Cor. iv. 20.

Ahimaaz. Pray what do you think of David's strong affection for Absalom? David knew that he was not a good man; nay, he was a rebel against his father, and against God, who anointed him; and he that opposed David's kingdom, opposed the kingdom of the Messiah, for that was included in it, and prefigured by it. Absalom could be no type of the Messiah, who is called the fruit of David's body.

Cushi. The great Messiah is the father of all flesh by creation, as David was of his own family, which consisted of bad and good. "Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us?" Mal. ii. 10. But in an especial manner he is the everlasting father of all his spiritual children, Isa. ix. 6. Absalom was David's son after the flesh, though not a partaker of his father's grace; but Solomon, the beloved of the Lord, 2 Sam. xii. 24; was a partaker of his father's grace, as well as a partaker of his nature. And David's weeping over Absalom, and crying out, O my son Absalom, my son, my son, 2 Sam. xviii. 33, may prefigure the sympathetic feelings of the Messiah's humanity for Israel after the flesh, when he wept over Jerusalem, and said, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Matt, xxiii. 37; Luke xix, 41.

Ahimaaz. Poor David was 'much perplexed with hypocritical professors in his days; Joab was a bitter plague to him through all his reign, as well as Ahithophel.

Cushi. I believe Joab prefigured every false

leader of the Lord's saints; and Ahithophel represented Judas; one you know hung himself as Judas did, and the other was killed at the foot of the altar, as many are, by the sword of justice in a false profession.

Ahimaaz. I have often wondered that Joab should fly for refuge to the horns of the altar.

Cushi. The altar typified the Saviour, who is a refuge for the distressed; and Joab might falsely construe the privileges that God granted to the manslayer; but Joab's crime was not manslaughter, for he killed Amasa with his sword while he was kissing of him, 2 Sam. xx. 9, 10; and so shed the blood of war in peace, 1 Kings ii. 5. A wilful murderer has no benefit from the laws granted to the manslayer. God says of such, "Thou shalt take him from mine altar," Exod. xxi. 14. Pray, my brother, have you ever heard of a man that goes by the name of Prodigality?

Ahimaaz. Yes, I think I have; he is one of a singular character, if he be the person that I mean.

Cushi. Yes, he is; and it is a name that he has assumed, because its wretched signification is so applicable to himself; for, as he says, he has been a prodigal from his childhood, and a desperate rebel against Christ under it.

Ahimaaz. Why he has acted as Naomi did, who in a fit of unbelief fled from Bethlehem to Moab, in order to secure her property, a famine then reigning in Israel; but, instead of saving all, she lost all; for she came home childless, in widow

hood and beggary; she had lost both her sons, her husband, and her property; and then she calls herself Mara, and desires them to call her Naomi no more; hinting thereby, that what she had took pleasure in was gone, and bitterness had succeeded; "For the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me. I went out full, and the Lord hath brought me home again empty; why then call ye me Naomi, seeing the Lord hath testified against me?" Ruth i. 20, 21.

Cushi. She could see that the hand of the Lord was gone out against her, but she could not see that her feet went out against him. If there were no protection for her in Israel, she could not expect it in Moab. Thus the "foolishness of man perverteth his way, and his heart fretteth against the Lord."

Ahimaaz. Pray what countryman is this Prodigalis? I think I have heard that the Lord has called him by grace, if he be the man that I have heard of.

Cushi. I believe he was born within the walls of salvation, and is, as you have heard, called to the knowledge of the truth; he came of religious parents, but he was a most wretched despiser of religion; indeed, he is a singular monument of mercy; he had a strong memory to contain what he heard, was a man of good understanding in the Scriptures, and he had pious parents to copy after. But all these will not produce grace. Repentance unto life is the gift of God; it is in no man's

power to repent of himself, nor can a true penitent infuse repentance into another. Notwithstanding his hating of religion, he had many severe checks of conscience at times, which he could not hide even from his parents; they kept a strict hand over him in a religious way, and made him attend them at public ordinances, though full sore against

his will.

He was their only child, and I believe a child of many prayers and tears; for the state of his soul lay with a perpetual weight on his parents, and I believe they travailed hard to see Christ formed within him.

Ahimaaz. If he was so wickedly bent in heart, the more he knew of religion the greater was his sin; men in a state of rebellion, with their heads fraught with religious knowledge, are like the renowned ones in the antediluvian world; or like the Pharisees, who drew near to God with their lips, and honoured him with their tongues, while their hearts were far from him.

His poor parents must have grief enough to see an only child such an enemy to God. Pray, did his parents live to see their prayers answered in his conversion? I have no doubt but they were answered in their own bosom.

Cushi. Their prayers were wonderfully answered in their son's conversion, but they did not live to see the pleasing sight.

Ahimaaz. But is it not astonishing that a child should display such a wretched bent to wicked