comes into this mind; he is a despiser of them that are good; such are heady and high-minded, and lovers of themselves, as may be seen in Paul's Epistles both to the Corinthians and the Galatians; where they abuse and traduce even the great Apostle, in order to exalt themselves. Hence the Apostle's threatening, "But I will come, and will know not 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. So far were these from esteeming every believer better than themselves, that they esteemed themselves better than the great Apostle.

4. The soul that is under divine teaching is one that is swift to hear and slow to speak; he does not want to be a leader, but to be led; he lies down at the foot of the lamb, and a little child may lead him; for he is so followed up and watched over by Satan, and pursued with such misgivings of heart, that, if he even speaks without a full persuasion of its being right, or any thing that he has not seen or felt, it is all sifted up, and canvassed over by Satan, insomuch that he is often afraid to open his lips, unless faith or love constrain him. "I believed; therefore have I spoken;" says David. fore speak;" says Paul.

"We believe, and thereFaith in the heart leads

the van, and the confession of the mouth brings up the rear. But not so the temporary believer: he is not swift to hear and slow to speak, but

swift to speak and slow to hear; for it is not by his

silence that he is to be known, but by his noise. "A fool's voice is known by a multitude of words.'

5. The chosen vessel, under the tuition of the Spirit, is brought into such self-abhorrence as no hypocrite can ever counterfeit; for the more propitious God appears to him, the more such a soul hates and loaths himself; nor is he ever more sweetened in his spirit than when in such a frame of mind: "Ye shall loath yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities when I am pacified towards you, saith the Lord God." Not so the hypocrite in Zion, for our Lord opposes him to this selfabased one in the following words; "For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted," Luke xiv. 11.

6. Another nut which the coming sinner has to crack is, that the Holy Spirit of God stains the pride of all his glory; he baffles and confounds his wisdom, and makes all his knowledge foolishness; all his purposes are broken: all his plots and contrivances are marred; his strength is made perfect weakness; his mind becomes bewildered and confused, so that he appears a mere idiot; he forgets to eat his bread, and his right hand forgets its cunning. "If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool that he may be wise."

7. God teaches us that the heavenly race is not to the swift; which no hypocrite ever believes. He is sure to strive for the mastery; though he is never crowned, because he strives not lawfully,

2 Tim. i 5. He has no inward war, no opposi tion from Satan; no weights nor chains; no doubts, fears, nor despondings; no heart-failings or misgivings; he sees no mountains of difficulty, nor vallies of the shadow of death; no crooked paths, but straight ones; no rough places, but plain; no ground to dispute with Satan; no supplications nor bitter weeping: and such may well run. The child of God meets with all these, and thinks every hypocrite before him, and himself the last of all. But, "The last shall be first, and the first last; for many be called, but few chosen," Matth. xx. 16.

8. The next thing that a chosen vessel, taught of God, relinquishes, is his supposed strength. While this lasts he will vow, promise, and strive; and, though he is continually foiled, and comes, short, yet he renews the attack against the world, Satan, the flesh, his besetting sins, and inward lusts; he strives, in order to subdue them, make his heart clean, and work himself up into a better frame, and into holy dispositions; but all in vain, for he is just like Jonah's mariners: "Nevertheless the men rowed hard to bring the ship to land, but they could not; for the sea wrought, and was tempestuous against them," Jonah i. 13. So it is with the poor awakened sinner; and this often makes him desist, and give all up for lost, till fresh terrors, fears, and torments, spur him to it again. This fruitless toil at length leads him to self-despair, or to despair of all help in himself,

which is what God aims at; so that he is terrified at the very thoughts of vows and promises; he sees that his heart deceives him, and so does his arm: and this is what God leads him to: for, "He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool,' Prov. xxviii. 26; and he is cursed of God that "Let the weak say, I am

maketh flesh his arm.

strong," Joel iii. 10. This is a strange riddle, a hard nut to crack; but the Spirit of God will convince the sinner that he hath not power even to think. "Not that we are sufficient of ourselves, to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God," 2 Cor. iii. 5. When this working arm fails us help is at hand, for Christ's strength is made perfect in weakness, 2 Cor. xii. 9. The hypocrite is a stranger to this lesson; his high arm and stout heart are not broken by this soul-distressing and soul-discouraging labour: his spirit is not wounded, bruised, made sore, soft, or contrite; he is inwardly sound and whole; all his religion floats in his mind, his will, and his understanding; not in a change of heart, affections, and conscience: he is vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, in will worship, or a voluntary humility in his will, with self-pleasing joys from the stirrings of natural affections, and some light in the understanding: nothing of all which makes him weak, broken, or contrite. Hence the prophet calls such youths, and young men; because, as the wise man says, "The glory of young men is their strength." And their strength is their

ruin; "He giveth power to the faint, and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint," Isai. xl. 29-31.

9. The ninth hard nut, that the poor coming sinner has to crack, is the mortifying state of insolvency: but it is such, and only such, who stand in need of the surety of the better testament. God's children must be made poor in spirit. No discharge of debts but by the gospel surety; no bread of life but what the sinner begs; no covering for his nakedness but the gift of righteousness; no refuge nor resting-place but in the Son of God; no true riches but the ransom of a man's life, Prov. xiii. 8; no meetness for heaven but by the gift of the Spirit. Poor and needy, a pauper, a beggar, and a momentary dependant upon the bounty of heaven, he must become, who obtains. the forgiveness of sins, and an inheritance among all them that are sanctified. "A certain creditor had two debtors; the one owed him five hundred pence, and the other fifty; and, when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me, therefore, which of them will love him most?" Luke vii. 41, 42. There is a peculiar emphasis laid upon the words, and when they

had nothing to pay;' which shews a deep sense of