ful or helpful? No. Christ is the hope set before us, and all help is laid upon him; all grace and truth, pardon and righteousness, life and peace, came by Jesus Christ. "Had there been a law given which could have given life, verily righte ousness should have been by the law." Does faith come by the law? No, "The law is not of faith;" nor is faith of the law; nor does God minister the spirit by the works of the law, but by the hearing of faith, Gal, iii. 5. Both we ourselves, and those who reproach us,

are zealous of

the law. Or to give our opposers the heavenly names which they take to themselves, and to take quietly the opprobrious name which they have given us, and by which we shall be better understood; for none are so backward to take the characters and titles that heaven gives as those who answer to them, and to whom they belong. While the children of this world take them all and add many more of their own. The Jews to this day call themselves God's Israel; but they call us heathens. A Jew once told me to my face that we heathens never had but one prophet, and that was Balaam. The Turks call us infidels; the Papists call us heretics, and the gospel in this island the northern heresy; and the ministers of the letter call us Antinomians. But then these godfathers and godmothers, who give us these names, find better names for themselves. The Jews call themselves the people of God, the Turks style themselves true believers; the Papists

are the holy catholic church; and our letter men are all Evangelists; and for the future I shall use these two names. We Antinomians and the Evangelists are all zealous of the law; only they contend for the letter, we for the power; they for the law which commands love, and we for the promise of love which fulfils the law. But the question is, Which goes the truest way to work, in order to obtain love? Which fulfils the law? they exact it from Hagar, we from Sarah; they from Jerusalem that now is, and is in bondage, we from Jerusalem above, which is the mother of us all; they exact it from Sinai, we enforce it from Zion; they from the commandment, we from the promise; they from the letter, we from the Spirit; they from the ministry of death, we from the covenant of life; they from notion, we from experience; they from the head, we from the heart; they from legal bondage, we from gospel liberty. But the main question is, On whose side does the promise, presence, and approbation of God appear? We think he appears on the Antinomians side, for God gives testimony to the word of his grace. But does he never give testimony to the letter of the law? Yes, in telling us that the letter killeth, both the preacher and the bond children. God distinguishes them thus, calling one ministers of the spirit, the other of the letter. "The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life." The minister is carnal, not having

the spirit; dead, having only the letter, not the promise; and, as the letter from the dead preacher killeth, he ministers death to all that hear him. Hence every false professor, who confides in the flesh, is said to remain in the congregation of the dead, Prov. xxi. 16. I know of no congregations destitute of life who sit under the ministry of the Spirit. If God condemns to death by the ministry of the letter, and gives testimony by the Spirit to the word of his grace, and to no other, it appears to me the Antinomians are right.

On which side does the command and commission of Christ appear? I should think on the side of the Antinomians; for his command is, "Preach the gospel to every creature." This is, "The commandment of the everlasting God, made known unto all nations for the obedience of faith," Rom. xvi. 26. But does God never cherish, nourish, or feed, his people by the ministry of the letter? No. What Paul calls the comforts of love, which feed the heirs of promise, come not from Hagar. Sarah is the covenant of grace in the allegory; the covenant of grace is the heavenly Jerusalem, which is the mother of us all; and the promises of the covenant are her breasts. "That ye may suck of the breasts of her consolations, that ye may milk out and be delighted with the abundance of her glory. As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you; and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem," Isai.

lxvi. 11. 13. In the covenant of grace, or within the bond of that covenant, are we to receive the Spirit and his comforts.

I have proved that every branch of the penal part of the law is applied to God's elect when he chastens and teaches them out of his law. I have proved that every branch of the morality of the law is fulfilled in them who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. And is not this establishing the law for evermore? And can this be called making void the law through faith, when it is faith that embraces the divine love of God, Read 1 John iv. 16: Rom. viii. 38; and love is the fulfilling of the law, and charity never faileth in this world or the next? And did any one legislator, either divine or human, ever aim at any thing higher than to have his own power and authority submitted to, his own person regarded and loved, and his revealed will in his public laws obeyed and fulfilled? And God himself declares that all this is done in the souls of all his saints, whose faith worketh by love: and he has borne his testimony to this for upwards of five thousand years, to those who have obtained a good report through faith; when not one letterman has ever obtained a good word from him, much less a good report; for without faith God cannot be pleased. And sure I am that if this be Antinomianism, it is not after man; for I learned it not of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.

It pleased

God, without any instrument, to reveal his dear Son in me. Nor can I be persuaded to believe that the most high and eternal God would speak by his Spirit to a poor blind naked worm, like me, when labouring alone in a gentleman's garden, telling me to get out from all my company and acquaintance, and to have no more fellowship with the men of this world, and give me a heart immediately to obey his voice, and go out; and for this call to be attended with the sweetest sensations of meekness, humility, compunction, and tender fear, so as to keep me mourning and weeping, confessing and praying, all the day long, and that for many months together; till I could scarcely bear the sight, much less the company, of any human being; and, when through ignorance, I took these heavenly and divine sensations, and joined them to my own performances, in order to patch up a righteousness of my own, it pleased God in one moment to send his law, with all its dreadful contents, and in all its spiritual meaning, into my soul, which discovered every corruption of my nature, with every thought of my heart, and brought all my crimes from my cradle fresh to my mind and memory, and set them all in order before my eyes; and the same moment Satan was permitted to assault me with all imaginable filth and foulness, enmity, rage, infamy and blasphemy, desperation and rebellion; which drove me into such distraction and confusion as not to know one person from another;