trates through and opens these doors, and the understanding receives the light, and goes forth in it, and we begin, the doors being opened, with open face to behold, as in a glass, the glory of the Lord, 2 Cor. iii. 18. But, though the understanding is gone forth, the soul is not wholly enlarged: "Light is given to him that is in misery, and life to the bitter in soul."

Then Wisdom leads us to another door, saying, "Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her. And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope," Hosea ii. 14, 15. Now hope enters in, and expectation goes forth; and the cry of Wisdom at this door is, "Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is; for he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, which spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh; but his leaf shall be green, he shall not be careful in the year of drought, nor shall he cease from yielding fruit." Thus Wisdom rends the veil, and opens the doors of death's shadow, and lets the understanding look out of obscurity, and out of darkness. Then she banishes black despair, and opens the door of hope, when hope enters the soul, and expectation of better times goes forth.

And next she leads us to another door, saying, "They rehearsed all that God had done by them, and how he had opened the door of faith unto

the Gentiles," Acts xiv. 27. The seat, or proper place, of faith is the heart: "With the heart man believeth unto righteousness," &c. Obdurate hardness and unbelief are the doors that keep the word and faith out of the heart, till a divine power attends the voice of wisdom. But she cries at this door, and her powerful voice is, "As soon as they hear of me they shall obey me." Now faith goes into the heart by hearing, and hearing by the word of God; then our obdurate hardness gives way, the door of faith opens, and the right hand of the Lord makes the injurious bolt of cursed infidelity fly back. The opening of this door dissolves the soul: "My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels

were moved for him," Song v. 4. But still we are not enlarged; for this is but the hole of the door. The bowels move for him, but he is not come in the promised and glorious manifestation of himself. Faith is come, as it was to the blind man healed; but the object of faith is not yet discovered: "Dost thou believe on the Son of God? Who is he, Lord, that I might believe on him? Thou hast both seen him, and it is he that talketh with thee. Lord, I believe. And he worshipped him."

The next door that wisdom opens is the door of the strong-hold of Satan. And her voice at this door is, I am sent "to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison-house,”

Isa. xlii. 7. "Son, daughter, thy sins are forgiven thee." And this is a full discharge. Guilt flies, the yoke of our transgression is broken, Satan vanishes, pardoning love flows in, and fear and torment are cast out; the chains of our sins are knocked off, the prison garments are laid aside, and the wedding garment is put on. He puts off our sackcloth, and girds us with gladness.

The next door is the door of mercy. This opens almost of its own accord, as soon as we escape the prison. By Jesus we have access with confidence into this grace wherein we stand. And the cry of Wisdom at this door is, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep. All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door : by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out and find pasture," John x. 7-9. Now this door, that admits us into the presence of God, and into communion and fellowship both with the Father and the Son, is God's lifting up the light of his countenance upon us, and giving us the light of the knowledge of the glory of himself in the face of Jesus Christ, and a full enjoyment of God's everlasting love through Christ, which is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost. This is the door; for, if God hides his face, who can behold him? and, without being drawn by his love, who can come to him? And, if he leaves a man in his own guilt, and under the wrath of the law, by these things "He

shutteth up a man, and there can be no opening," Job xii. 14. Hence it appears that a man must have the light of the Lord's countenance, attended with his love, before he can enter into the joy of the Lord.

The next door that wisdom cries at is the door of the wedding-chamber: "And they that were ready went in with him to the marriage; and the door was shut," Matt. xxv. 10. Wisdom's cry at this door will be, "Come, ye blessed of my Father, enter the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." This door will be opened at the first resurrection, after the living saints are changed, and the dead in Christ raised; in which they will be safe, while the wicked are burnt up, and the world with them. And this will be Wisdom's last cry, "Thy dead men shall live; with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust; for thy dew is as the dew of herbs; and the earth shall cast out the dead. Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast. For, behold, the Lord cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain," Isa. xxvi. 19—21.

Now will the Master be risen up, and have shut the door, after which all knocking and call

ing will meet with no regard, for there can be no admittance.

Thus, dearly beloved Philomela, have I endeavoured to shew thee something of the paths of Wisdom, together with her mystical gates and doors, as well as I could, and as far as I have been led through them; and through which all regenerate souls pass who follow the Lamb in the regeneration. This "is a path which no fowl knoweth, and which the vulture's eye hath not seen the lion's whelps have not trodden it, nor the fierce lion passed by it," Job xxviii. 7, 8. The lion of the bottomless pit never walked here, nor were any whelps of his ever found there. And to this agrees the prophet: "And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called the way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it, but it shall be for those : the wayfaring men, through fools, shall not err therein. No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon, it shall not be found there; but the redeemed shall walk there. And the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with songs, and everlasting joy upon their heads," Isa. XXXV. 8-10. Numbers are searching to find this path, who never had so much as their face Zionward, but stumble upon the dark mountains in a way not cast up: "The labour of the foolish wearieth every one of them; because he knoweth not how to go to the city." This is the way that