AND SMOKING F .LAX . 51 said, they loved God with all their hearts . It must have an evangelical mitigation. The law is sweetened. by the gospel, and becometh delightful to the inner man, Rom. vii. 22. Under this gracious covenant sincerity is perfection. This is the ' death in the pot' .in the Roman religion, that they confound two covenants : and it deadens the comfort of drooping ones, that they cannot distinguish them; and thus they suffer themselves _to be held under bondage, when Christ hath set them free; and continue in the prison, , when Christ bath set open the doors before them. 5. Grace is sometimes so little as to be indiscernible to u.s. The Spirit sometimes hath secret operations in us, which we know not for the present; but Christ knoweth. Sometimes in bitterness of temptation, when the spirit struggles with a sense of God's anger, we are apt to think God an enen1y. A troubled soul is like troubled water : we can see nothing in it; and so far as it is not cleansed, it will cast up mire and dirt. It is full of objections against itself ; yet for the most E2
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