captive, held fo long under the killing terrors of the law, and unmerciful ufurpations and infernal affaults of the powers of darkness, fet free and manumitted by the Deliverer of God's elect.

An undone forlorn finner, fhut up under the power of unbelief, who awhile fince would fhun and fly from God, if he knew how, for fear of his frowns, and the curfe due for the breach of his law, now ready to shoot himself into heaven, and whimper and cry like a child till he be lodged in the bofom of God's love.

Oh, my foul! who could have thought of this, when the irons of the law's severity had pierced thee fo deeply, and when the apprehenfions lodged in thee of thy being a reprobate, and forfaken of God, delivered thee up to defperation! the very portal or entrance into hell itself! Where am I? What is the matter? What am I

doing? What

fuch a one as I faved? Is it poffible? Can it be? Am I not under a fatanical dream or delufion? Lord help me to know if it be a delufion, and undeceive me.

Here I was at a stand for a little space; it was occafioned by my calling to mind what a deceitful enemy the devil is, and how near he can go in imitating the Spirit of God, in caufing flashes of joy in the foul of an awakened finner, and thinking, at the fame time, whether mine was not fo. The Spirit of Adoption, who began his good and bleffed work in my foul, did not leave me in

this

this cloud; but by his own elucidating and heartfearching virtue and power, brings to my thoughts and confideration all the objections which either devil or carnal reafon could poffibly make against my being faved by Chrift, and by manifefting the Father's decree and purpose concerning me in eternity, and laying open the nature and design of the covenant of grace, and the every way all-fufficiency of the Lord Jefus to go through with the work he hath undertaken for me. He fully anfwered all objections, and confuted the false and fophiftical reafonings brought in by Satan and corrupt reafon against my being faved, as he most powerfully convinced me of fin, and the misery which thereby I brought upon myself; and that, when he disciplined me with bondage to fit me for the Great Physician, fo likewife, as the Spirit of Adoption, he as powerfully convinced me of that fpotlefs and everlasting righteousness of the Mediator, God-man, by and for which I was justified in the person of my furety, when at his refurrection God the Father juftified and acquitted him from all charge of fin, whereto he became liable and obnoxious when, he ftruck hands with the Father as a furety for me, and the rest of the elect.

The twelve things here following he particularly affured me of, and that as fully and fenfibly as ever I was fenfible that I faw natural light or darkness.

1. He affured me that I was one of that number

whom God the Father elected and chose to himself in Chrift out of the corrupted mafs of fallen mankind, and that before time began; and that my name was recorded in heaven, in the Lamb's book of life.

2. He affured me that my fins and tranfgreffions committed against the law and Majefty of heaven, were all laid to the fcore of Chrift, by God the Father, and by him, as my vademony and furety, born and satisfied for. He made reconciliation for iniquity, and brought in everlasting righteousness.

3. He affured me that the debt which I had contracted both in Adam, my natural and federal head, and in my own perfon, was fully paid and actually discharged by my fponfor and furety, Chrift, by his obeying and keeping the law perfectly for me, and his bearing and undergoing in my nature the curfe and wrath of God, to which by fin I became obnoxious, and thus redeemed me from all iniquity, and from the curfe of the law, by being made a curfe for me.

4. He affured me that God the Father is fully fatisfied with that obedience, active and paffive, of his own Son, and that it is for the worth and merit of that obedience that God juftifies and accepts, as pleafing to him, both me and the reft of his elect, for whom alone that obedience was performed; as it is written, In him shall all the feed of Ifrael be justified, and in him they shall glory.

5. He affured me that all my fins, how many

and

and great foever, are frankly and freely forgiven and pardoned as if they had never been committed; and that not for any act done by me, whether believing on Chrift, or repenting for fin, nor yet for the forrows and miferies I underwent while under the fpirit of bondage, or for any. fervice to which I fhould be called while in a militant ftate, but for his own name and glory's fake, and on the account of what his Son, my mediator and furety, had done and fuffered in my behalf.

6. He affured me that God the Father loved me with a real and an endeared love before I was called out of a state of nature; and that the reafon why he handled me fo roughly by the spirit of bondage was, not because he hated me, as the devil and carnal reason fuggefted, or that he might in any measure fatisfy his vindicative justice for my fins, that being done long before I had a perfonal being; but that he might make me the more fenfible how hateful fin is to him, being fo contrary to his pure, spotless, and blessed nature, and fo repugnant and contradictory to his holy, juft, as alfo fo destructive and moft righteous law; to his elect, whom he fo dearly loves; alfo that I might know, and become for ever fenfible how unspeakably wretched and deplorable that state and condition is, into which by fin man hath brought himself, and out of which no created power could' poffibly fave and deliver him, That I might for

ever hate and loathe fin as the worst of evils, and become for ever fenfible of the greatnefs, goodness, love, mercy, wisdom, and the unconceivable and infinite all-fufficiency of the glorious and tremendous Jehovah, Father, Son, and bleffed Spirit; who himself, without the counsel or help of creatures, hath contrived and found out fuch a way of reftoring to his loft favour his elect and chofen in Christ, as neither they themselves nor the angels could ever think of. And finally, that by his fo sharply handling me, a way may be made into my foul for the manifeftation of his great and inexpreffible love, wherewith he loves me in Christ, to enter and make its abode for ever: and that, from the experience I have now gotten, both by God's wounding me by the fpirit of bondage, and this healing and comforting me by the spirit of adoption, I might be fitted to speak experimentally both to the terrifying and awakening secure and presumptuous finners; as also to heal and comfort inftrumentally poor wounded and bleeding finners, when finking into depths of defpondency and defpair, out of which the out-ftretched arm of God's grace and almightiness hath delivered and refcued poor finful nothing me; as St. Paul fpeaks, And whether we be afflicted, it is for your confolation and falvation. 2 Cor. i. 6.

7. He affured me that I am now in a juftified, fanctified, and adopted ftate; the loft image of God being by his fanctifying operation recovered

in