2. Who can then be surprized, if many reasonable men, seeing the dreadful effects of this delusion, and labouring to keep at the utmost distance from it, should sometimes lean toward another extreme? If they are not forward to believe any who speak of having this witness, concerning which others have so grievously erred? If they are almost ready, to set all down for _Enthusiasts_, who use the expressions which have been so terribly abused. Yea, if they should question, whether the witness or testimony here spoken of, be the privilege of _ordinary_ Christians, and not rather, one of those _extraordinary_ gifts, which they suppose belonged only to the apostolic age. 3. But is there any necessity laid upon us, of running either into one extreme or the other? May we not steer a middle course? Keep a sufficient distance from that spirit of error and enthusiasm, without denying the gift of God, and giving up the great privilege of his children? Surely we may. In order thereto, let us consider, in the presence and fear of God, First, What is this _witness_ or _testimony of our spirit_? What is the _testimony of God’s Spirit_? And how does he _bear witness with our Spirit, that we are the children of God_? Secondly, How is this joint testimony of God’s Spirit and our own, clearly and solidly distinguished, from the presumption of a natural mind; and from the delusion of the devil? I. 1. Let us first consider, what is the _witness_ or _testimony of our spirit_. But here I cannot but desire all those who are for swallowing up the _testimony of the Spirit of God_, in the _rational testimony_ of our own spirit, to observe, that in this text the apostle is so far from speaking of the testimony of our own spirit _only_, that it may be questioned, whether he speaks of it _at all_? Whether he does not speak, _only_ of the testimony of God’s Spirit? It does not appear, but the original text may be fairly understood thus. The apostle had just said, in the preceding verse, _Ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba, Father_, and immediately subjoins Αὐτὸ τὸ πνεῦμα· (some copies read τὸ αὐτὸ πνεῦμα) συμμαρτυρεῖ τῷ πνεύματι ἡμῶν, ὅτι ἐσμεν τέκεν Θεοῦ. Which may be translated, _The same Spirit beareth witness_ to _our spirit, that we are the children of God_ (the preposition σὺν only denoting, that he witnesses this _at the same time_ that he enables us to cry Abba, Father!) But I contend not; seeing so many other texts, with the experience of all real Christians, sufficiently evince, that there is, in every believer, both the testimony of God’s Spirit, and the testimony of his own, that he is a child of God.