ses and hurries of the mind; but is
distinctly understood in a retired frame. Jesus loved and chose
solitudes, often going to mountains, gardens, and sea sides, to avoid
crowds and hurries: to show his disciples it was good to be solitary, and
sit loose to the world. Two enemies lie near your states, imagination
and liberty; but the plain, practical, living, holy truth, that has
convinced you, will preserve you, if you mind it in yourselves, and bring
all thoughts, inclinations, and affections, to the test of it, to see if
they are wrought in God, or of the enemy, or of your ownselves: so will a
true taste, discerning, and judgment, be preserved to you, of what you
should do and leave undone. And in your diligence and faithfulness in
this way, you will come to inherit substance; and Christ, the eternal
wisdom, will fill your treasury. And when you are converted, as well as
convinced, then confirm your brethren; and be ready to every good word
and work, that the Lord shall call you to: that you may be to his praise,
who has chosen you to be partakers, with the saints in light, of a
kingdom that cannot be shaken, an inheritance incorruptible in eternal
habitations.

And now, as for you that are the children of God's people, a great
concern is upon my spirit for your good and often are my knees bowed to
the God of your fathers for you, that you may come to be partakers of the
same divine life and power, that have been the glory of this day: that a
generation you may be to God, a holy nation, and a peculiar people,
zealous of good works, when all our heads are laid in the dust. O! you
young men and women, let it not suffice you, that you are the children of
the people of the Lord; you must also be born again, if you will inherit
the kingdom of God. Your fathers are but such after the flesh, and could
but beget you into the likeness of the first Adam; but you must be
begotten into the likeness of the second Adam, by a spiritual generation,
or you will not, you cannot, be of his children or offspring. And
therefore look carefully about you, O ye children of the children of God;
consider your standing, and see what you are in relation to this divine
kindred, family, and birth. Have you obeyed the light, and received and
walked in the Spirit, which is the incorruptible seed of the word and
kingdom of God, of which you must be born again? God is no respecter of
persons. The father cannot save or answer for the child, or