of the Spirit, by giving heed to an abused precept in the mouth of a palpable impostor. We know the grace of God teaches the saint to have respect to all the commandments, the fourth as well as the rest; a precept in the mouth of a rebel is like a parable in the mouth of a fool. "Six days shalt thou labour and do all thy work." If any will not work neither shall he eat, 2 Thess. iii. 10. "If any provide not for his own, and especially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel." They are to study to be quiet, to do their own business, and work with their own hands, 1Thess. iv. 11, If the hypocrite denies the faith, how can he keep his credit up but by making a noise about the law? for it is the talker and the hearer of the law that is justified by him, not the doer; for he is an Antinomian.

Fourthly, The knowledge that these creatures seem to have of the different sexes of the human species has something very shocking and disgustful in it, They are creatures noted for craftiness, always in mischief, stealing things and hiding them, and the seeming pleasure that they take in doing it, is emblematical enough of the lechery and treachery of hypocrites; witness the counsel of that arch monster, that sworn enemy to God's Israel, namely Balaam, as it is written; "And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive? Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit a trespass against the Lord in the matter of Peor,"

Numb. xxxi. 15, 16. Thus the devil got his end, through the instrumentality of wretched Balaam, which ended in the destruction of the women of Moab as well as the men of Israel. The effects of Balaam's counsel may be gathered from the following passage; "And Israel abode in Shittim, and the people began to commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab. And they called the people to the sacrifices of their gods; and the people did eat, and bowed down to their gods. And Israel joined himself to Baal-peor; and the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel." This old leaven lurked at the root of the Nicolatians, who taught community of wives, which the Saviour complains of to the angel of the church of Pergamos; "Thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to cast a stumblingblock before the children of Israel. So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolatians, which thing I hate." We know there is no escaping the pollutions that are in the world through lust, but by the almighty power and sovereign grace of God; it is true, there is a nation pure in their own eyes, but they are not so in God's eyes till washed from their filthiness. The cunning, artful craftiness, the pilfering tricks, and the pleasure that the ape takes in doing mischief, brought to my mind the subtle proceedings of those professors which Jude compares to natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, who speak evil of the things that they understand not, Jude 10, They are said to

walk in craftiness, and handle the word of God deceitfully. Some of this stamp came to betray the Saviour, but he could penetrate into their craftiness, Luke xx. 23. The pleasure those false professors take in doing mischief to the cause, to the reputation, and usefulness of the saints, by giving offence to them, by staggering the weak, by tripping up the heels of the seeker, by strengthening the hands of evil doers, by emboldening the presumptuous, fortifying the erroneous, and furnishing the contemptuous with arguments against the children of God. Some in Paul's days pretended to love the same Saviour, preach the same doctrine that Paul did, and yet averred that he said, "Let us do evil that good may come," The description Wisdom gives of these is, they are said to sit at the doors, to call passengers who go right on their way, to be loud and clamorous, to watch for the saint's halting, to rejoice when their feet slip, to wait for iniquity, and never to rest at quiet unless they have prejudiced or stumbled some one or other. "They sleep not unless they have done mischief, and their sleep is taken away unless they cause some to fall,"

The brutal fondness of these apes brought to my mind the way in which an hypocrite deceives and plunders a simple believer; there is hardly a sincere soul that I know but in his infant state of

grace has fallen a prey to these.

When they have

a mind to pick your pocket or make a gain of you, they generally take a glass or two of rum, brandy,

or good old Geneva, and the operation of that, sets all the bowels of candour to work; then they will pour you out a whole gill of tears; Joel well understood their way, "Awake, ye drunkards, and weep; and howl, all ye drinkers of wine," Joel i. 5; and so they will until they have got the baubees, and then like the ape with the apple, they set off, as he does, upon the house top, chattering and bidding defiance to all the inhabitants within. Of this stamp were the multitude that followed the Saviour over the sea of Tiberius for the loaves and fishes, whom he sent back, telling them, they must eat his flesh and drink his blood, or die for

ever.

An ape is very odious and dangerous to preg nant women; bad effects have been known to have been produced from women in such cases taking fright at the sight of an ape; and surely nothing is more dangerous to a pregnant or fruitful church than a profound hypocrite, who hates the power of religion and the possessors of it; by their hypocrisy and their errors they have sometimes so injured Zion, and even her pastors also, that her very offspring have appeared improper children, visibly marked, and chattering a wild gibberish, between Hebrew and Ashdod, till sundry fiery trials have melted their spirits, and the divine Potter has put his hand a second time to this work on the wheels, and turned these ill-shaped vessels into a better form; for as the clay is in the hand of the potter, so are we in his hand, and he does with

us as the potter does with his clay, makes us such vessels as please him, namely, vessels of honour; and when done, those that erred come to understanding, and those that murmured learn doctrine; so that those marked ones which seemed to have the face of an ox, come to appear with the face of a man, Ezek. i. 10; when the living creature appears in the wheels, Ezek. x. 17.

I observed in the school of apes, that notwithstanding all their likeness to the human species, their cunning, mimicry, and fondness, they were all chained down to the floor, as not to be trusted, though in the precincts of the Tower; this brought to my mind the state of hypocrites, who notwithstanding their likeness to real saints, their cunning by which they deceive, their seeming fondness of those they flatter, they are all bound down; the wicked is holden with the cords of his sin, says Solomon. Some arê tied down to lust, some to covetousness, some to envy against the saints, some to errors, and some to the dram bottle, insomuch that the carbuncles of their face proclaim the good spirit of candour that ebbs and flows in their bowels; the well known cant of these is, put sugar and brandy, but no wormwood nor gall, in the ministry of the word; all zeal, faithfulness, reproof, warning, caution, and rebuke, is fathered upon the spirit of the devil, as if Satan was divided against himself. Those who make a gain of godliness are noted for candour, and those that God uses to bring sinners to Christ are of the spirit of the