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prophets of his class, and all the wise friends of his bands, and let them help him, and let them single out any one truth which they please, and let them tell us what that truth is in its fountain, which is God the fountain of truth; what it is in divine revelation; how it comes when it comes in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance; what it does in its application, the power of it, the saint's sensations under it, the blessed experience and the happy enjoyment of it; and what support it affords in a trying hour, when the saint is obliged to make full proof of the reality of it, by reducing it to practice. We defy them all to come nigh these things by a thousand leagues. We do not want to know the speech of them that are puffed up, but the power; "For the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power," 1 Cor. iv. 19, 20.

Let Onesimus learn to distinguish between grace and glory; God's copulative, and, makes this distinction: "The Lord will give grace and glory," Psalm 1xxxiv. 11. There is a difference between the heat and burden of the day, and the rest that remains to the people of God; between sowing to the Spirit, and of the Spirit reaping life everlasting in heaven; between the earnest and the future lump; between reaping life by the gospel, and rejoicing to all eternity with the master of the household; between the firstfruits of the Spirit, and the glorious harvest; and between sowing in tears, and reaping in joy; between run

ning, and receiving the prize; between fighting, and dividing the spoil; between the first interview of lovers, and the wedding chamber; between a penny a day, and the exceeding great reward.

Onesimus is in the letter, and no farther. And in all his epistles he never describes one case of a lost sinner; nor is there one description of the Spirit's influences or operations; or of any one grace either in its fruits or effects; no account of a sight or sense of sin, nor of the pardon of sin; no godly sorrow, nor repentance unto life; no contrition, compunction, humility, self-abasement, discoveries of God, or manifestations of his love; no wounding nor healing; no bringing down nor lifting up; no convincing of sin, righteousness, or judgment; no chastening every son, nor scourging those that are received; no begetting, conceiving, quickening, travailing, nor bringing forth; no conversion, regenerating, renewing, reviving, or turning from darkness to light, or from the power of Satan to God; no furnace of affliction, no path of tribulation, no vallies exalted, no mountains made low, no rough places made smooth, no darkness made light, nor crooked things made straight; no labouring and heavyladen, no broken hearts nor contrite spirits; no bondage to the law, fear of death, meditation of terror, torments of guilt, trembling at judgment, nor dread of damnation; no bruised reeds, nor smoking flax to enflame; no prisoners to release,

no mourners in Zion to comfort, no weak to strengthen, no hungry to feed, no strayed sheep to bring back, nor lost sheep to seek and save.

Nor does Onesimus act like the apostles of old, who guarded all their epistles from wolves and goats, by dedicating them to the saints and faithful brethren; to the elect according to the fore-knowledge of God, sanctified in Christ Jesus, and called. All his arrows fly at random. There is not one line drawn; there is no distinction made between the elect and the reprobate; nor between such as Onesimus and a true prophet. Saints and sinners, believers and infidels; possessors and professors; gold, and reprobate silver; foolish and wise virgins; believers and infidels; sincere souls and hypocrites; wheat and tares; sheep and wolves; chaff and wheat; letter ministers, and ministers of the spirit; prating fools, and living souls; are all jumbled promiscuously together. Onesimus can see no difference, Onesimus can make no distinction. No way-side hearers are to be found in his work; no thorny ground, stony ground, or good ground. No gifts, abilities, head-knowledge, temporary faith, miraculous faith, understanding all prophesy, and speaking with the tongues of men and angels, and being destitute of charity, are to be found in all his epistles. All hedges, stone walls, the distinctions of truth, and discriminations of grace, are thrown down by Onesimus. He can discern no difference between serpents and doves; between

servants and sons; nor between the whore of Babylon and the bride of heaven. Onesimus is in his religion a leveller, and for all things common. No mediator, advocate, or intercessor, is wanted to stand in the gap where Onesimus comes. None are to be excluded from the clemency of our Onesimus but those that appear in a pulpit, take a text, preach the word, rightly divide it, and take forth the vile from the precious; all such, being as God's mouth, are the only ones that Onesimus excludes. However, he is not a new threshing instrument having teeth, but a fan: not used to fill the granary, but to collect the chaff; not to establish the saint, but to bolster the hypocrite.

It is now about four years ago since I was observing to my friends at Leicester, that, as long as certain aspiring characters, whom I then mentioned, abode among them, they would never be united, or have the peace or presence of God with them; nor could they expect his blessing among them. And it is remarkable, that not one of those suspected, not one that was prejudged, has continued among the rest. Onesimus has swept them all away to a man, and no more than those; for not one friend to whom I spake these things, and to whom I gave this caution, has been moved away from the hope of the gospel, or seduced by the whims of Onesimus. And the last time that I was at Leicester the friends reminded me of what I had asserted, and of what I said, and admired

the accomplishment.

"There must be heresies,'

says Paul, "that they which are approved may be made manifest."

Nor did Onesimus obtain these proselytes without money, or without price; some cost him seven shillings a head, others a one-pound note. But we know that our Master is no admirer of this sort of converts. His church is not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, for he was determined it should not be converted by such things; and, to prevent this kind of traffick, the apostles were sent out without either purse or scrip.

END OF THE TWENTIETH VOLUME.

T. Bensley, Printer,
Bolt Court, Fleet Street, London.

2 C

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