only that I was not to turn this liberty into a cloak of maliciousness, or of sensuality.

Though all these details of my errors, and various absurdities, with many more which I have suppressed, are trifling and tedious in themselves, yet I trust that my Christian readers will see that they were to me instructive lessons, absolutely necessary to correct my strongly legal and self-righteous tendency. But though I was thus harassed incessantly, and, like a person supposed to be bewitched, stumbled at every straw; yet exclusive of the instruction which I gradually acquired by my experience, I was not without wonderful and divine consolations.

In the first place, I firmly believed, that all would end well. Secondly, I was amazingly comforted by the precious promises held out in the Scriptures to those who, by perseverance in well doing, seek for eternal life. Thirdly, I was daily delighted, ravished, transported, with the views of infinite wisdom, goodness, beauty, and power, which I enjoyed at the fountain of light and life, the word of God, and in the shadows of them, His works of Creation. These so confirmed each other's testimony, that I could not persist to disbelieve their universal analogy, without being a prodigy of incredulity in myself.

There was no part of Scripture more delightful to me than the Psalms of David; for

they described my own situation, the dangers I had gone through, and the deliverances which I had experienced, as exactly as if they had been composed expressly to describe my own case. Thus in the 118th Psalm, he says, "The "Lord is my strength and my song, and is be"come my salvation! I shall not die, but live, "and declare the works of the Lord. The same "stone which the builders refused is become the "head stone of the corner. This is the Lord's "doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes."

Before my poor conversion to Christianity, and even so far back as when I was a boy in England, I had a great dislike to the Psalms in general; partly on account of the writer, whom I considered as an impious, cruel, hypocritical tyrant; and partly because I did not understand what connexion David, or the Jews, or their affairs, had with the people of Great Britain. Neither did I at all approve of David's bitter curses, and harsh treatment of his enemies, which I considered as strange exercises of religion, and very opposite to the morality of Christianity; and therefore I concluded, that he was not inspired by any thing, except cruelty, ambition, revenge, and hypocrisy. But now, the eyes of my understanding being opened and enlightened by the amplitude of my own experience, and by the grace of the Holy Spi rit, I clearly perceived, and practically felt, that

3

those enemies of David whom he so curses, were the very same, which had so bitterly persecuted me all my life; that is to say, the flesh and the devil; and that all the Psalms were figurative, spiritual, and inspired compositions*.

I perceived that the true Israel of God (Gal. vi.) were the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, or of faith, hope, and charity, or love, through Jesus Christ, in every man's heart who has them by grace. For who is Abraham, but the father of the faithful? And who is Isaac, but the seed of promise, or in other words hope? And who is Jacob, that springs from them, but love, the fruit of faith and hope? Examine their characters, and they will be found answerable to the analogy of their names, or titles. I also perceived, that the heathen, who knew not God, were really, or spiritually, the evil carnal passions of the unregenerate heart and mind, which are "the "children of the wicked one; the enemy that

* That is to say, figurative and spiritual always, and intended literal sometimes. "Doth God take care for oxen?" The most literal expressions have always a figurative meaning. Thus every painted portrait has or had a living original. Thus all prophecies being spiritual in their ultimate scope, must be spiritually fulfilled; but not being all literal or carnal in their ultimate scope, it seems not necessary that they should all be literally fulfilled.

N

"sowed them is the devil," (Matt. xiii. 38, 39.) I therefore now joined very heartily with the Psalmist in cursing my enemies, and praying to God to destroy and root them out of the soil of my heart.

Hence I saw and felt that every man was a little world in himself, containing all nations spiritually in himself. I saw and felt that the history of the children of Israel, from first to last, was typical of what had been spiritually performed, and was still performing, in myself and all believers, who in like manner were brought out of Egypt, or the bondage of the elements of this world, by almighty power!

From this coincidence, which I now concluded must be general and total*, between natural and spiritual things, it was again clearly confirmed to me, agreeably to the above evidence, that the whole external world, or natural creation in our planet, was nothing more or less than a great image of man; and that all the things of it, of what kind soever, were only shadows of what was contained in the soul and body of man. That the Deity in His infinite wisdom

* If any one asks, why I concluded that it must be general and total? I answer, for the same reason that I conclude, that all the propositions of Euclid's twelve books (I have seen no more) must be true if you admit that the first The proportions of truth are universal and infinite. + Thus Solomon says, Ecclesiastes, iii. 11. "Also He

is so.

had so ordained the course of external nature, as to be perfectly descriptive of, and parallel to, the course of human life both natural and spiritual.

By this means the whole world, both visible and invisible, (including the soul and body of man) was neither more nor less than a grand magazine of testimony to the divine truths of the Bible, divided into two distinct parts; whereof one was body, or shadow, or image, and the other was the spirit, the living substance; and that the whole course of these parallels together, with equal pace, had ever been, was now, and ever must be to the end, a continual demonstration of the truths of the law and the Gospel, by literal matter of fact, as well as by the analogy of their forms.

Thus the light of the word of God, and particularly of the New Testament, became to me as the sun of my soul; and human nature became as the earth, which it enlivens and enlightens. Whatever shadow or image I examined in the latter, reflected a light which plainly proceeded from the former; and I often found by experience, (and therefore supposed that it was always the case,) that every com

"hath set THE WORLD IN THEIR HEART, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh, from the beginning " to the end."