spirit of bondage, is barred up against the saints, and the ministers of the Spirit, and against the evangelical doctrines of the gospel; so it is closed, straitened, and shut up against Christ himself; no extended thoughts are hovering about him, nor meditating on him; no extended views and fresh discoveries of his glorious person, offices, and wondrous undertakings; no faith in exercise, dealing with his blood for peace, with his obedience for righteousness, with his arm for strength, and with his fulness of grace for help in time of need; no affections running out after him, nor placed at the right hand of God, where he sitteth. Hence the kind and endearing entreaties; "Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled.”

A soul that has lain long in this bondage does not care to move or stir itself in wisdom's ways. It gets cloyed with reading, hearing the word, and with private and family prayer. It is like a rickety child, ruined for the want of nursing; it is death to move it, much more to shake it; it had rather sit still all its days than move its limbs. A soul thus influenced walks not in the Spirit, but in the wrath of the law. "O, thou that art named the house of Jacob, is the Spirit of the Lord straitened? Are these his doings?" Micah ii. 7. Job reasoned with unprofitable talk, and restrained prayer before God, instead of looking constantly to Jesus, confessing, and praying; which, in order to obtain enlargement, ought to have been done. "Even so would he have removed thee out of the

strait into a broad place where there is no strait

A soul thus legalized is straitened at a throne of grace; he has not the whole church of God in his heart, nor yet in his mouth; he prays only for himself, and that in a very cold, lifeless, sparing manner, as if God was as poor, and his heart as narrow, as his own. Jehoshaphat seeks the Lord by Elisha only for water for his army. The prophet tells him to dig the valley full of ditches, and there shall be neither dew nor rain, yet that valley shall be full of water: and this is but a light thing in the eyes of the Lord; hinting thereby that the Lord had more weighty blessings to bestow than these. But this was all that was wanted. "Ask a sign of the Lord thy God," saith the prophet Isaiah to Ahaz, "ask it either in the depth, or in the height above. I will not ask," saith he, "neither will I tempt the Lord." Ye have wearied men, saith the prophet, and will ye weary my God also? "Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign," without asking, "behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son." Hence the kind exhortation to such a poor straitened, narrow soul, "I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt; open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it."

A soul thus straitened is barred against all good counsel, advice, and comfort. He thinks that every person who labours to enlarge him only wants to heal his wounds slightly, and to cry,

Peace, peace, where there is no peace; and so to set him down short of the promised rest. They are even afraid of light, love, and liberty. "My soul refused to be comforted," says one; "Look away from me, labour not to comfort me," saith another, Isaiah xxii. 4. I come now,

Fourthly, To treat of the wrath that works in us, which is this spirit of bondage. "The law worketh wrath." All that the broken law ministers, reveals, or works, in a man, is the anger, displeasure, indignation, and wrath, of God at the sins of men; which wrath is revealed in the law against all ungodliness, and is treasured up there. "Fury is not in me," saith the Lord. It is not in him as considered and viewed by the eye of faith in Christ. Here God cannot, God will not, be wroth with us; but get back to the law, and there we are sure to feel it, as nothing but wrath and death can be found in that broken covenant, which is a killing letter, for God ministers not the Spirit by it. Furthermore, God's wrath can never work where there is no sin; but where sin is there it will work, if we go to it. It got a sad hold of Christ; it melted his heart in the midst of his body, while he bore our sins upon the tree. When he got rid of our sin he got rid of his Father's wrath. And it works sadly in the conscience of a believer, and stirs up his old man, when he loses sight of Christ, and gets back to that old yoke; for the burden of that precept was

yoke of bondage ever light.

never easy, nor the Hence the sad com

plaints of many gracious souls when influenced by it. "I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath. Surely against me is he turned; he turneth his hand against me all the day. My flesh and my skin hath he made old; he hath broken my bones. He hath made my chain heavy; when I cry and shout he shutteth out my prayer. He was unto me as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places. He hath filled me with bitterness; he hath made me drunk with wormwood; he hath broken my teeth with gravel stones, and covered me with ashes; he hath moved my soul far from peace, and I forget prosperity." "Because there is wrath, beware lest he take thee away with his stroke, then a great ransom cannot deliver thee," Job xxxvi. 18. "For in my wrath I smote thee, but in my favour have I had mercy on thee." "For the iniquity of his covetousness was I wroth, and smote him; I hid me, and was wroth. I have seen his ways, and will heal him, and restore comforts unto him." "In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with great mercies will I gather thee," &c. &c. "Thou wast angry with me; but thine anger is turned away, and thou comfortest me." Hence it appears plain that the law stirreth up the corruptions of the human heart, the enmity of the carnal mind, the old man of sin; and works the wrath and anger of God in the conscience; so that there is wrath, fear, and torment, And the workings of

this anger and wrath of the law stir up the anger and wrath of man against both God and man.

Sarah, under this bondage, deals hardly with her maid, drives her from the tent, and makes her fly from her presence; quarrels with Abraham.

My wrong be upon thee, and the Lord judge between me and thee." No peace can be had while this Hagar, this mount Sinai in the figure, is working in the heart. Job finds fault with all his friends; calling them miserable comforters, forgers of lies, and physicians of no value; and there was not a wise man among them.

Asaph, while this chastening rod was upon him, was envious at the prosperity of the wicked, because they are not in trouble as other men, and because they had no bands in their death. Jeremiah finds fault with the man who brought tidings to his father, saying, "A man child is born unto thee, making him very glad. And let that man be as the cities which the Lord overthrew, and repented not; and let him hear the cry in the morning, and the shouting at noontide; because he slew me not from the womb; or that my mother might have been my grave, and her womb to be always great with me," Jer. xx. 15-17.

The best and most even tempered person upon earth, under the workings of this bondage, will hiss like a viper. It is a leaven that will ferment, and stir up every corruption of the heart, set all in confusion, and fill the soul with nothing but wrath and indignation. And if such an one has got no