shew their wisdom, in being forward to talk; they are diligent in their will worship, and put on the garb of voluntary humility, Coloss. ii. 18. 23; which completes the spiced or perfumed hypocrite, who hath been sweetened and embalmed by an empty profession, and appears to be changed by the gospel just as lemon peel is by clarified sugar; hence their flummery or candour is called a sweet spirit; and such a disguised perfumed hypocrite is called a candid person. There were great numbers of old women in Jerusalem who made a livelihood by such meekness and candour as this; they were called mourning women, and used to be hired at burials to weep and mourn when the survivors could not; you might have enough of it if you had but money to pay them for it. God talks of these hypocrites: "Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Consider ye, and call for mourning women, and send for cunning women that they may come, and let them make haste and take up a wailing for us." But what has all this to do with a saint of God? he is quite another thing; the law proceeds from God to him; he receives it at his mouth, and lays up his words in his heart; the commandment comes with power, sin revives and he dies, and then rises with Christ under the operations of the Spirit of God; such walk in newness of life, and serve in the newness of the Spirit, follow Christ in the regeneration, and go from strength to strength till they appear before God in Zion; "and as many as walk according to this rule,

mercy on them and peace, and upon the Israel of God."

From what has been said, it is plain, there is nothing in this text that militates against a labourer in the Lord's vineyard, or against a good soldier of Christ Jesus; nor is there any thing in it that countenances or encourages sensual men or mourning women, to vilify, slander, or ridicule the servants of God as being destitute of candour. The same God that tells me to be gentle, tells me to use sharpness where it is wanted; to be gentle to all men, yet to reject an heretic after the first or second admonition; to be apt to teach, and yet to stop the mouths of gainsayers; to reprove and rebuke, as well as comfort and encourage; to honour widows that are widows indeed; but not to suffer idle, tattling, canting women to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man; to insist upon such women's using the spindle and distaff, instead of eating the bread of idleness and living upon the labour of others. "Behold this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness," Ezek, xvi. 49; and it is women that give themselves over to the same lazy life, that are bringing the same fiery judgments on their own souls; who, rather than work with their hands, will pretend even to the Spirit of grace, counterfeit religion, injure the ministry, oppose the servants of God, and expose the worshippers of him to contempt at the doors of the congregation, and set the uncircumcised to tri

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umph, in order to pick up a few pence, to indulge their idleness rather than stoop to the needle, or to the honest calling of gathering a few rags, or selling laces and pins. Such set themselves up for prophetesses and teachers, and so blind the eyes of poor simple people, and mump a livelihood out of them, while these poor honest souls think they are serving Christ, by housing and feeding his saints; whereas they are only serving the devil, nursing his hypocritical family, and bringing themselves to poverty. God says, if they will not work neither shall they eat; keep such tattling hypocrites as these out of your houses; inquire after the experience of their religion, and keep your pantry door locked, and they will soon have done with you, when they find you destitute of candour. Remember, a real believer thinks it is more blessed to give than to receive; a true christian is diligent in business and fervent in spirit. Such idle, tattling, graceless women, who pretend to the Spirit of God, while they are destitute of his operations, and act so diametrically opposite to the word of the Lord, sin with a higher hand than I did when in a state of nature; for even then there appeared something so sacred and awful in the name Holy Spirit, or Holy Ghost, that I never cared even to mention it unless in reading; but these hardened hypocrites are more undaunted than Simon Magus; he offered to buy the Spirit with money, and these pretend to be influenced by him in order to get money. God shall discover this woman, whom I

believe to be destitute of all reverence of God or fear of him. And Mr. Holywellmount, who bought ninety twopenny volumes to circulate in order to injure me in the work of the Lord, knows nothing of the plague of his own heart, nor of a spiritual birth; and as for Sir Ham Cottish and Mr. Belly, God never sent them at all to preach his word. As I have obtained mercy, I hope to be found faithful, to try the spirits whether they are of God, and to try them which say they are apostles or evangelists, and to prove them liars if they are not. This is a work that belongs to the Lord's servants, and God in his own time shall bring forth our righteousness as the light, and our judgment as the noon day; and then it shall be made manifest who are his and who not. Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God our Saviour, be glory, majesty, dominion, and power, now and for ever. Amen and Amen.