righteousness, and holiness, made for their use wisdom to teach them, righteousness to justify them, and holi ness to sanctify them, yea, he has all things in his fulness for their use, as the free grant speaks, 1 Cor. iii. 21, &c. "All things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or "things present, or things to come, all are yours, and "ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's." Consider, believer, what a large estate this is: thy title to it is good, and thou enterest into possession by faith. See then that thou make use of thine inheritance, and live upor

it.

Do not say, when thou wantest any thing, I know not where to get it: for whatever the God-man has of wisdom, righteousness, holiness, power and glory, he has it, as the head of the body for thee as one of his members, for thy use and benefit, and he has promised it to thee in his word. Make free with him then. Go to him with confidence. Thou canst not do him greater honour than to receive from him what he has to give. That is glorifying him. It is putting the crown upon his head, and confessing him to be a perfect all-sufficient Christ when it pleaseth thee, as it did his Father, that in him should all fulness dwell, and when thou art content to live out of thyself upon his fulness for the supply of all thy needs, in time and in eternity. To live thus upon him is his glory, and it is thy privilege, thy interest, and thy happiness. In every state, spiritual and temporal, and in every circumstance, thou canst possibly be in, thou art commanded to look up to Christ, that thou mayest receive out of his fulness, and to depend upon him to save thee from every evil, and to bestow upon thee every good. In thy walk heavenwards, and in every thing thou meetest with by the way, put thy trust in Christ, and expect from him. the fulfilling of all his promises. He has all power in heaven and earth for that very purpose. Still rely upon. him, and cast thy burdens on him, when thou art tempted, when old corruptions arise, when the world and the devil assault thee, when under a sense of weakness and

dulness in duty, when in darkness and desertion, in persecution and trouble, in pain and poverty, in sickness and death. This is the life of faith. Thou wilt live like a christian indeed, if, being in any of these cases, thou believest that Christ is able, because he is almighty, and willing, because he has promised, to supply thy wants, and then canst trust in him for that supply. Depend upon it thou shalt have it, and it shall be done unto thee according to his word.

After the believer is become one with Christ, and through him has a right to all the riches of grace, and may by faith make use of them as his own, why is he so long in learning this lesson perfectly? Being adopted into the heavenly family, and an heir of the heavenly inheritance, why does not he immediately live up to his privilege, and to his estate? His title is good. The inheritance is sure. All things are become his for all fulness is in Christ, and by virtue of his union with Christ, this fulness is his, and he may by faith be always receiving out of it every grace and blessing, which Christ has promised: why then does not he at once attain to this happy life of faith? Sad experience proves that young believers do not. They meet with so many difficulties, that they grow up slowly into Christ in all things. They do not attain to a solid esta blishment in the faith in a day. Enemies without and within stop their progress, insomuch that they often continue little children for a long time. They have the same right to Christ, the same privileges, and the same promised grace, which young men and fathers in Christ have, but they have not learned by experience how to improve their interest in him, and to make the most of it. The difficulties and temptations which weaken their hold of Christ, and stop their growth in him are many; some of the chief are these:

1. They continue little children and weak in faith, because they do not presently attain a solid acquaintance with the person of Christ, and are not thoroughly satisfied, how able he was and sufficient for every thing

he undertook, and how perfectly he has finished every part of his work.

2. This keeps them ignorant of many things in which the glory of his salvation consists; hence they have not clear believing views of its fulness, and of its freeness.

3. By which means they labour under many doubts about the manner of their receiving this salvation. A legal spirit working with their unbelief puts them upon reasoning continually against being saved freely by grace through faith; and,

4. These legal unbelieving reasonings gain great power from their unskilfulness in their warfare between nature and grace, the old man and the new, the flesh and the spirit; and,

5. All these difficulties are mightily strengthened from their hearkening to sense, and trusting to its reports more than to the word of God. While believers are under these difficulties, their faith meets with many checks in its growth, and until they be enabled to overcome them, they continue to be little children in Christ. Their weak faith receives but little from Christ, and it continues weak, because they have but little dependence upon the effectual working of Christ's mighty power. The exceeding greatness of his power is able to strengthen them, and he has promised it, but they dare not trust him. Consider therefore, reader, if thou art one of these babes, why thou dost not grow up faster into Christ.

The first thing that stops thee is the ignorance which is in thy mind about his person, and the prejudice against him, which is in thy carnal heart. These are in all men by nature; and these Satan will work upon in order to hinder the increase of thy faith. He will use all his cunning, and his power to keep thee from growing in that knowledge of Christ, which is eternal life. He will inject into thy heart blasphemous thoughts against his Godhead, and when thou art reading in scripture, or hearing about his being God manifest in the

flesh, he will try to puzzle and perplex thy imagination with a How can these things be? He will represent the union of the two natures in Christ as a thing not to be understood, and as if they, who believed it with the clearest evidence of God's word and Spirit, had only some fancy about it. He has an old grudge against Christ, and will not scruple to tell any lies of him. He was a liar from the beginning and abode not in the truth. Regard him not. Mind what the word of truth says, and pray thou mayest understand it: for the more thou knowest of the Lord Christ, that blessed God-man, the more wilt thou be settled, and established in him. It is written of him, first, that he is God, true and very God, in the holy blessed and glorious Trinity, a person co-equal and co-eternal with the Father, and the Holy Spirit, Isa. ix. 6. Unto us a child is born, who is the mighty God; secondly, that he is Jehovah, which signifies the self-existent essence, Isa. xliii. 11: I, even I am Jehovah, and beside me there is no Saviour; from whence it is evident, that the Saviour is Jehovah, and that he exists in a manner independant of, and distinct from, all other beings and things. Jude makes the opposition to this fundamental truth the condemning sin of certain heretics, who denied Jesus Christ to be the only Lord God, and our Lord. In the covenant of grace this divine Person undertook to be made man. He who was true and very God was made true and very man; he had a reasonable soul and human flesh, and was in all points like other men, sin excepted. And as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so God and man is one Christ. This is the glorious Person, who undertook in the covenant of grace to be man's surety. St. Paul calls him the surety of the New Testament; and what could there be wanting in him for this high office? He is every way qualified to be the surety for man, who is himself true and very man, who is also God as well as man, and therefore has all the perfections of Jehovah to render what he did and suffered as man's surety infinitely and everlastingly meritorious.

St.

This is the blessed object of faith, God and man united in one Christ. Consider then, reader, what the scripture says of his wonderful person, in order that thy faith in him may be established. be established. That very self. existent God, who spake and all things were made, who commanded and they stand fast to this very hour, was made flesh. He came to be the surety for his people, to obey and suffer in their stead. What could not his almighty power effect? Is any thing too hard for the Lord God? What obedience can his Father's law demand, which he is not infinitely able to pay? What sufferings can satisfy his Father's justice, which he is not absolutely qualified to endure? for he has every perfection and attribute equal with the Father. On this truth thou must rest; and is it not a sure foundation? In the certainty of it thou must seek to be more grounded every day because as thou growest in the knowledge of his divine person, thou wilt become more satisfied of his infinite sufficiency to save; and fully convinced of this, thou wilt be enabled from scripture to answer and silence thine own unbelieving thoughts, and reject the blasphemous suggestions of satan against the Lord Christ. Observe then that he is God, and that he is Jehovah. Read and meditate on what the scripture says of his Godhead, and pray that thou mayest be taught of God to understand it: for no man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost. It is his office to glorify Jesus, by enabling thee to believe him to be Lord and God, and to call him thy Lord and thy God, and to prove he is so, by thy humble dependence upon him for every blessing both in time and in eternity.

:

It is much to be lamented, that believers in general take so little pains to get a clear knowledge of the doctrine of the ever-blessed Trinity: for want of which their faith is unsettled, and they are liable to many errors both in judgment and practice. I would therefore most earnestly recommend it to all that are weak in faith, to be diligent in hearing and reading what in scrip