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to an offended God. From that text above-men

tioned the covenant of God's free grace in Chrift was explained and laid open before the eyes of my enlightened understanding; the terms whereof I found were as far wide of, or contrary to, the way to which the covenant of works directs for attaining life eternal, as the east is from the weft, or as heaven is from hell.

The work of the Spirit in difcovering Chrift to me from that text, and his drawing me to clofe with Chrift, fo difcovered, was fo full of amazing and aftonishing wonderment and surprising ravishment of foul, that I am no more able to express or relate the fame, than I am able to find out the dimenfions of the fun, or to give an exact account of the number of the ftars.

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There was held, as it were, a court of inquiry in my foul. The Holy Ghoft, the spirit of love and liberty, delivered me from that legal fpirit of bondage by which I was chained, to the wounding, killing, and terrible fentence of the law, and ope rated as the spirit of adoption, to confummate a fweet and blessed marriage between the Lord Jefus Chrift, God's only Son by eternal and ineffable generation, and a poor loft and undone prodigal, who, as Adam's child, was born heir of the curfe, partaker of a nature as vile and polluted as hell itfelf could make it; and whofe case and condition, in refpect of inward horror and defpair of foul, differed

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differed but little, at least as I thought and believed, from that of the damned in hell,

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Six things this bleffed fpirit of adoption did effect, in order to confummate this match:

First, He discovered and made known to me who the Lord Jefus, held forth in the gospel, was, from whence he came, and to what end the Father fent him.

Secondly, He made plain difcoveries to me of Chrift's almightiness to fave, and reconcile to God, the worst and most wretched of finners; and that the righteoufnefs which he, as mediator between God and finners, hath wrought, is the alone righteousness by which a finner is to be justified and accepted of God; and that in a way of believ ing, though not for believing, that God, for the fake and merit of his Son's obedience to the law, both active and paffive, doth frankly and freely pardon and forgive the poor rebel's tranfgreffions committed against the moral law, as if he had never committed them; and accounting the whole of that righteoufnefs of Chrift, both active and paffive, as truly the finner's as if the finner had perfonally performed the fame himself, and that in a way of free imputation.

Thirdly, He perfuaded my heart that God the Father, against whofe law I had finned, and whofe anger and curfe for the fame I feared, was really willing and defirous that I fhould be reconciled to himself, by the virtue of his Son's mediation; and

that,

that, by my betaking myfelf to him, and cafting my weary and finking foul on him, to be introduced into his prefence; and, by his fpotless comeliness put on me, I might be made amiable and acceptable in the fight of God.

Fourthly, He difcovered to me, and perfuaded my heart of, the full and complete provision made by God, and made known in the covenant of grace, for the making completely and eternally happy thofe fouls who are enabled to believe and rely on Chrift Jefus for life and falvation.

In respect of these and the like discoveries which the Holy Ghoft makes to the elect in effectual calling, and between that and their arriving at glory, he is ftiled the fpirit of manifeftation and of revelation. 1 Cor. xii. 7. John xvi. 14. xvii. 6. Ephef. i. 17.

Fifthly, He interrogated or queried of my foul as follows:

1. Art thou become truly and thoroughly fenfible and convinced that thou art, by departing from and finning against God, an undone, miferable, and guilty creature, having loft his blessed image ftamped on thee in Adam, thy natural and federal head, in the firft creation? and being now become obnoxious to God's curfe and the wrath to come, and partaker of fuch a spiritual impotency as renders thee utterly incapable of doing any thing whereby thou mayeft be delivered out of thy prefent forlorn condition? Art thou convinced

that

that this thy mifery is of thy own bringing upon thee?

Sinner anfwers: O thou moft holy, juft, and. tremendous God! by the light now fprung from thee, the fountain of all light, into my dungeonlike foul, I plainly fee what a wretch I am become, no way like what thou at first made me in Adam. I am likewife fully convinced, that this my mifery was brought on me by my every way voluntary defection and apoftacy, when, in Adam's loins, I firft yielded to the motion of the tempter.

2. Art thou convinced of what the real defert and merit of thy finning against a holy and righteous God is? What canft thou fay against God's cafting thee into hell, for that hellifh rebellion of thine against his holy and righteous law.

Sinner anfw. O thou most holy and everlastingly righteous God, who canft not poffibly act amifs in any thing thou doft with thy creatures! I am, by the convincing power of thy holy fpirit, made fenfible that, by my departing from and rebelling against thy Majefty, I have forfeited that right I had in Adam to all good, fpiritual and temporal. And shouldst thou caft me into hell, and affign me my portion with the apoftate angels, whofe conduct and wretched example I followed when I turned my back on thee, thou art and wilt for ever be and remain a just, a holy, and a most righteous God; my mifery is of my own procurement; and fo far am I from reflecting on thee as unjust, shouldst thou

throw

throw me from thee for ever, that I am amazed and aftonished to think I should be fo long out of hell: the place where I fometimes even longed to be, to try whether there was any fpecial difference be tween the torments and miferies of ther place, and what I felt in myself while fhut up in thy law's prifon, under the fharp and killing pedagogue

thereof.'

3. Haft thou viewed and taken notice of that Mediator, which I have propofed and discovered to thee in the gofpel? Doft thou think, or canft thou be perfuaded, that he can do thy work for thee, fave thee from the curfe and wrath to come; and not only fo, but to restore thee, and bring thee back again to the favour and fellowship of God? Doft thou fee in him an adequate fuitableness to anfwer all thy neceffities?

Sinner anfwers: O Lord, my eyes are fo intent and fixed on that Mediator, that I can have no leisure, or fpare time, to look on any other object in heaven or earth; never did, neither can men or angels, behold or fee fuch an object, except himself.

The angels, and all the glory of the whole creation, are but darknefs and deformity when compared to his furpaffing and incomparable ainiablenefs and lovelinefs, fince I had the firft glimpfe of him, as held forth and discovered by thy divine and efficacious manifeftation. I have forgotten my mifery; and the fearful thoughts of hell and damnation are swallowed up of the thoughts and

appre

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