any one does not perceive in his heart these fruits of the Spirit, and the indwelling of Christ by faith, let him humbly entreat the Lord, and that with tears and groans, that he may obtain them. I would not be understood, however, as saying that a Christian in this life could attain to perfect and absolute holiness; for even the greatest saints are still sensible of their infirmities; of which the book of Psalms and the Lord’s Prayer fully convince us. God therefore requires that our righteousness, by which we are to please him, should be entirely apprehended by faith; and lest we should act the hypocrite he wills that his righteousness should be stamped on our very heart, and on the inmost centre of our souls; and likewise that all the fruits of faith and righteousness should proceed from a living and sound principle seated within the mind. According to this inward and leading principle, God judges all our works, whether they be true and genuine, or false and hypocritical. 2. Here again, we do not assert that perfection can be found in this present world, but only require that a Christian should walk in newness of life, and approve himself by such works as are cleared from guile and hypocrisy. For it is by no means possible that the fruits of the Spirit enumerated by St. Paul, in Gal. 5:22, 23, should not be found in that man in whom the Spirit of God himself dwells (Gal. 5:22); or that a good tree should not be known by its fruits, though they may not be altogether so perfect and angelic as could be wished, but be stained and often obscured by various frailties and imperfections. Nevertheless, all hypocrisy and insincerity, are utterly to be banished from a regenerate state; nor are the fruits of a Christian to proceed from an empty profession, or a lifeless appearance of things, but possess truth and reality. I do not deny, on the one hand, that the Christian Church may be fitly compared to a hospital crowded with all manner of sick; or to a house inhabited by sinners as well as by saints. I believe also that many, like feeble children, have not yet attained to the ability of walking alone; but that they gradually learn to walk steadily. Hence it is necessary to “bear one another’s burdens” (Gal. 6:2), and never rashly to judge or condemn those who by reason of their weakness halt behind. Rom. 14:1. We ought rather to restore in the spirit of meekness those that stumble, and with great tenderness to rectify what is amiss in them. Thus we learn to read our own imperfections in the infirmities of our brother. But on the other hand, Christians ought to labor to make continual advances in the spiritual life. They ought not to continue always in a state of infancy and weakness, how difficult soever it be to conquer the carnal mind that obstructs our growth. They ought to be fervent in the practice of “charity, out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned” (1 Tim. 1:5); and bear this in perpetual remembrance, that all