lasting love, with the Son in his salvation, and with the Holy Ghost in his gracious gifts and consolations, he receives and enjoys some of the sweetest exprefsions of everlasting love, which can be communicated on this side Heaven, and which can never be exceeded till time is swallowed up in eternity, and earth exchanged for Heaven. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed for evermore, is the believer's God and Father also; and he blefses him, so that his title is, "The blefsed "of the Lord, which made Heaven and "earth"." God, as his own God, lifts up the light of his reconciled countenance on him, causes his face to shine on him in his beloved Son, and reflects it so powerfully and divinely on his mind as to make him truly happy. His heart is filled with a sweet enjoyment of the Father's everlasting love, his mind with a divine persuasion of his mercy, and he hath an enjoyment of his peace which surpasseth all understanding, so that he finds himself in the suburbs of Heaven, favoured with a foretaste of eternal glory. The same sun of everlasting righteousnefs, whose shine makes Heaven what it is, and whose continual shine is the heaven of heavens to saints in glory, shines also on and within him.

b Psalm cxv. 15.

The person of Jesus is the glory of Heayen. He is the holy of holies. The vision of him is the perfection of endless blifs. The believer has a view of him by faith. The salvation of Christ he glories in. The victories and triumphs of Jesus afford him unutterable joy. The same Eternal Spirit dwells in him which dwells in saints in glory. The difference between him and his brethren is this. He is in a state of grace in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ: they are in a state of glory. The believer in the state of grace hath communion with Christ and the Father in him through the spirit, suitably to his case, wants, miseries, corruptions, temptations, trials, and experiences. In the state of glory communion with the Eternal Three is carried on agreeably to the state the child of God is in, and there it consists more immediately in the vision of Christ's person, and in giving him unceasing praise and glory for his finished salvation. Here on earth, as no state or frame of mind fits the believer for communion with Christ more than a total and perfect renunciation of self, accompanied with deep loathing and abhorrence of all that he is in himself, abstracted from Christ; so nothing fits the soul more for glory and a blefsed immortality than a will, wrought in the

soul by the Spirit of God, to give the entire glory of salvation-work to JEHOVAH JESUS; rejoicing in his wearing the crown and receiving the whole praise of saving from sin, satan, the world, death, and hell, for ever and ever. Our Jesus, who by his expiatory oblation, bloody sweat, soul-sorrows, bloodshedding, and obedience unto death, hath blotted out the sins of his people, saith to the believer, "I am

the Lord that healeth thee." Yea, blessings on him! Virtue goes forth continually from him to heal every wound in his believing children, that sin hath made or can pofsibly make. This the believer hath some sweet experience of. He believes the blood of Christ is his everlasting purity,-that the righteousnefs of Christ is his everlasting perfection before God, and that, as in Christ and as one with him, he could not be more blefsed by him, or safe in him, if he was in eternal glory : believing this causes him to rejoice in the Lord and to be exceeding joyful in Jesus, the rock of his salvation. spirit of adoption is given unto him, he calls God his Father, and is led to praise him for his pardoning mercy, which even in his own particular case is above the earth and Heavens. Such is Jehovah's love in pardoning sin, that it ex

The

eeeds the power of all the elect to eternity to thank him equally to the greatnefs of the benefit received. Whilst the child of God is sweetly encompassed in the arms of everlasting mercy, and his mind entertained and richly feasted with spiritual apprehensions of Christ's love and sacrifice, looking to the glori fier of Jesus to be led and guided by him into all truth, satan looks on with envy, rage, and malice. It is the Lord's revealed will, that his beloved and called ones should honour him chiefly in a way of believing his testimony, receiving his record concerning his Son, and setting their seal to his immutable and infallible truth. Therefore he permits them, in the course of their walking with him, as their reconciled God and Father, to be opposed, afsaulted, and resisted by satan, to the intent they may have full experience, and learn practically, that salvation is wholly out of themselves, that it resides wholly in the person, that it is contained in the finished work of Christ, that it is treasured up with all its blessings in the fulness of him, who. filleth all in all, and that they are to receive the whole of it, and be happy in the enjoyment of it, entirely in believing on Jesus to the saving of the soul. When this love hath been manifested to a poor sinner, it draws out the impla

cable malice and hatred of the devil. It is a sufficient motive with him to hate with a peculiar hatred those whom the Lord loves. When a sinner is turned from darkness to light and from the power of satan unto God, all hell is alarmed. Satan immediately begins to rage; and though for a season he may be restrained from making a formal attack, and entering into a personal and formal combat with the new-born person, yet he only forbears, because under restraint, or, that he may work the more craftily and succefsfully against him. It pleases the Lord for a season to screen his child, newly brought into his family, from satan's temptations and afsaults, to the end he may be the better prepared for them, when he shall be exercised with them. At the believer's first entrance into the state of grace, and on the enjoyments of those blefsings which belong to the called of God in Christ Jesus, he knows but little of that body of sin and death, which he is the subject of. It is with him when newly converted and turned to the Lord, as though all sin were entirely dead in him. He feels no stirrings of corruptions. God is his exceeding joy. He draws near to him, approaches the throne of grace with great frequency and delight,-prays with great freedom and affection,-en