heart, the Spirit of Christ, be the doer of them. Thus, says he, _They who are led by the Spirit of God, are the sons of God_. And therefore none else, be they who, or where, or what they will, clergy or laity, none are, or can be, sons of God, but they who give up themselves to the leading and guidance of the Spirit of God, desiring to be moved, inspired, and governed solely by it. Indeed all scripture brings us to this conclusion, that all religion is but a dead work, unless it be the work of the Spirit of God; and that sacraments, prayers, singing, preaching, hearing, are only so many ways of giving up ourselves more and more to the inward working, enlightening, quickening, sanctifying Spirit of God; and for this end, that the curse of the _fall_ may be swallowed up in victory; and a true, real, Christ-like nature formed in us, by the same Spirit, by which it was formed in the holy Virgin _Mary_. Now for the absolute necessity of this turning wholly to God, the spirit of _Satan_, or the spirit of this world, are, and must be, the one or the other of them, the _continual_ leader, guide, and inspirer of every thing that lives in nature. The moment you cease to be moved, inspired by God, you are moved and directed by the spirit of _Satan_, or the world, or both. *As creatures, we are under an absolute necessity of being under the guidance and inspiration of some spirit, that is greater than our own. All that is in our power, is only the choice of our _leader_; but led and moved we must be, and that by the Spirit of God, or the spirit of fallen nature. To seek therefore to be always under the inspiration and guidance of God’s Holy Spirit, and to act by an immediate power from it, is not enthusiasm, but as sober a thought, as to think of renouncing the world and the devil. For they never can be renounced by us, but so far as the Spirit of God is living, breathing, and moving in us. _Academicus._ You have taken from me every difficulty or perplexity that I had. It now appears to me with the utmost clearness, that to look for salvation in any thing else, but the Spirit of God working in us, is to be as carnally minded, as ignorant of God and salvation as the Jews were, when their hearts were set upon the glory of their _temple-service_, and a temporal saviour to defend it, by a temporal power. For every thing but the Spirit of God forming Christ in the soul, has and can have no more of salvation in it, than a temporal, fighting saviour. Upon this ground I stand in the utmost certainty, looking wholly to the Spirit of God for an inward redemption from all the inward evil that is in my fallen nature. All that I now want to know is this, what I am to do, to procure this continual operation of the Spirit of God within me.