soners out of the pit wherein is no water." And nothing is more sure than this gaoldelivery: "He that believes shall receive the forgiveness of sins. God purifies the heart by faith; and such hold the mystery of faith, which faith stands in a pure conscience, 1 Tim. iii. 9.

5. Faith stands in the blessing of God: "As many as are of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham." And God's blessing on Mount Zion is life for evermore; and, "He that believeth is passed from death unto life;" yea, "He that believeth hath everlasting life."

6. Faith stands in the righteousness of Christ imputed: "To us it shall be imputed if we believe on him that raised Christ from the dead." Yea, this righteousness is to all and upon all that believe: and the sinner is assured of this. "Surely, shall one say, in the Lord have I righteousness and strength."

7. The faith of God's elect stands in the witness of the Holy Ghost witnessing our adoption: "Ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus," and, "He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself," 1 John v. 10.

8. The faith of a saint stands and triumphs in the everlasting love of God, for faith works by love; and to this agrees the beloved disciple: "And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love: and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him."

9. Faith stands in the joy of the Spirit of God,

and in the peace that Christ made by the blood of his cross. God fills us with joy and peace in believing.

10. Faith stands in Christ Jesus revealed in, and manifested to the soul. "He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me; and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him." The above commandments are his word, as he explains it; "If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him and make our abode with him," John xiv. 21. 23. Thus faith stands in the love of God made known, and in Jesus Christ manifested to the soul. "That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith," Eph. iii. 17.

11. Faith sands fast in the filial fear of God; which fear is peculiar to God's children, and which hath the goodness of God for its object: and it emboldens the believer to fly to God, and to expect his protection in every time of trouble, "In the fear of the Lord is strong confidence, and his children shall have a place of refuge." These are the footsteps of genuine faith, and the footsteps of the flock; for, "We walk by faith and not by sight." And by the power of God is the believer kept through faith unto salvation. And these divine bases on which faith stands are more firm than the everlasting hills.

But what is that poor phantom which passes

so current for faith in our days? Just nothing, and worse than nothing; for it is a powerful delusion of the devil, which a just God gives the enemies of his truth up to. "God shall send them strong delusions, that they may believe a lie and be damned," 2 Thess. ii. 11.

This faith in a lie is nothing less than rash presumption; it presumes upon God, and lays a claim upon him, without one scriptural warrant to venture on. And, in the general, the father of lies begets this faith in the minds of poor sinners under the alarming ministry of graceless men, who are ministers of the letter or of the bare word of God, without having either the Spirit or his grace in them. The sentence of death and of condemnation, which are in the preacher, is communicated to such a hearer. "The letter

killeth."

The sinner being by nature a child of wrath, and naturally in bondage to the fear of death, and the curse of God being habitually in the tabernacle of the wicked, these are all stirred up, and natural conscience is terrified, while the devil spreads dismal glooms and horrors on the mind, with which he bewilders and distracts the poor wretch; these pass for convictions, and are just such as Ahab had when Elijah met him, and as Saul had when he fell on the ground before the devil in Samuel's mantle: for with these convictions there is no spirit of life to quicken the soul; no true light shining into the heart to discover

the desperate deceitfulness of it; no spirit of supplication to set the sinner to crying day and night unto God; no hunger and thirst after righteousness, after the bread of life, or after the living God. A sinner under such convictions may be known by the following remarks:

1. He feeds upon the vanities of this world in the midst of all his infernal terrors, and hates the light and truth under all his horrors. "They have not cried unto me with their heart, when they howled upon their beds: they assemble themselves for corn and wine, and they rebel against me. Though I have bound and strengthened their arms, yet do they imagine mischief against me. They return, but not to the Most High: they are like a deceitful bow," Hosea vii. 14-16.

2. It may easily be seen that, as there is no spirit of supplication or crying to God, neither is there any thirst after him; they return, but not to the Most High; as Saul did: he returned, but it was to one of the witches that he had formerly expelled, not to God: and so Judas, he returned, but it was to the priests to whom he confessed his sin; but not to God, nor yet to the master whom he had betrayed.

3. Such souls may be known by their pride; for they are never filled with that self-loathing which a soul feels that is quickened by the Spirit of God; there is the leaven of legal pride working in them under all their convictions, and they

set themselves up as men of wonderful experience, though they are without hope, and without that experience that worketh hope. "Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? Nay," it is never excluded by legal terrors, Rom. iii. 27.

4. Such a sinner holds fast free-will and selfrighteousness under all his convictions. I once knew a preacher who often fell into these legal convictions, till he was like a wild bull in a net; but every time he came out he preached free-will, self-righteousness, and universal redemption, and was looked upon as a man wonderfully taught of God; but it was by the god of this world. I once preached for him at Sheffield in Yorkshire, and disputed with him afterwards till midnight, and began with him the next morning and continued at it till noon, and stopped his mouth, but could not strip him of his spider's web. The last time that I inquired about him I was informed that he had left off preaching for some time, and was confined and mad; which was what I had long expected. "They hold fast deceit, they refuse to return," Jer. viii. 5.

5. Nor do souls under such convictions as these cleave to the children of God, nor to ministers of the Spirit, but to them of the letter: as the prodigal son did under his legal terrors: he joined himself to a citizen of that country; not of the heavenly country, but of this; not to a citizen of Mount Zion, but to a citizen of Jerusalem that now