spired set over the prophets to prescribe to them." No No person presumed to take upon himself the office of presiding over the churches, but such as had received the sanction and appointment of the spiritual members of the same, whether male or female. According, therefore, to the example of the Apostolic ages, there is not a church on earth that is constituted after their model, or a minister that is ordained of God, however he may have been sent by man. To this truth, though in much ignorance, and wholly missing the only true way of getting out of the difficulty, the persons who have laboured so hard to found churches on the Apostolic model have borne testimony. Without going further back than our own immediate days, we have the strict Independents, the close-communion Baptists, the opencommunion Baptists, the Glassites, Walkerites, &c., all labouring with much conscientiousness, and with equal bad success. The first point necessary to establish a true church on the apostolic model, is to have a body of persons filled with spiritual gifts of speaking in unknown tongues, prophesying, working miracles, raising the dead, curing the sick; who shall by the possession of these gifts be fit to declare in God's name, while their own reason is in abeyance, who He, and not they by the exercise of their reason, has chosen to preside over them. In the Apostolic days the appointment to such an office was truly a subject of awe, and the cry of nolo episcopari was not, as now, an hypocritical falsehood." In particular," says Mr. Dodwell," with respect to the call of ministers, it was committed to the Discerner of the thoughts and intentions of the heart. In this matter the Spirit signified his will after divers manners, and sometimes made known to the prophets the future conduct and dispositions and gifts of him who was to be ordained a minister: and the Holy Spirit guided and directed also external things relating to the church, not only by revelations made thereof to the pastors, but to other members of it also, even to some of the most abject and contemptible among the laity for illustration therefore, when the names of men to be ordained for pastors were, after an examination, proposed to the church, and solemn fasting and prayers were on the occasion used, then the prophets, their sentence appeared in it; not that of any certain or prepared persons, but according to the free pleasure of the prophetic Spiritsometimes by the mouth of children, sometimes of grown persons, sometimes of ministers, sometimes of the laics, even just as at that time the rushing power of the Spirit of Prophecy impelled them; for it was the way of God not always to instruct the very Apostles by their own proper revelations, but often by those of other people: and no man was admitted into the public offices of the church but who was approved by the public testimonies of it. Thus that in 1 Cor. xii. 22, 'the less

comely parts' of the body mystical became more necessary; so that the eye, even those who had ordinarily the gift of knowledge, could not say to the hand or feet, We have no need of ye : and thus probably it was disposed by the Framer of the body, lest ministers should be puffed up with their peculiar gifts, or learn to despise those of the laity."

Thus, then, it appears that the real misuse of the gifts of the Holy Spirit arises not so much from vanity on the part of those who possess them, as from the slight put upon them by others, and especially by the elders or ministers of the churches. It is no doubt extremely humbling to the pride, vanity, and conceit of those who have been supposing themselves not only "spiritual persons," but the only spiritual persons, to be shewn that they are not spiritual at all. It is humbling to the pride of those who have been contending for Apostolic succession, and despising their brethren who have only had the hands of the presbytery laid upon them; who thought they had to defend themselves merely against the Popish charge of interruption at the Nag'sHead; to find, that, unless they had the sanction of "the free pleasure of the prophetic Spirit speaking by the mouths of children" or women, they have no sanction of God at all. It is humbling to the pride of sermon-makers, who have drawn large crowds of auditors after them to admire their eloquence; of book-makers and contentious theologians, who have turned all the truths of God into syllogisms for the sharpening of human wit; of speechifiers, who have made the glory of Christ and the salvation of men mere pedestals on which to raise their own renown; of writers in reviews and magazines (by no means excluding ourselves from the full force of these observations), who have treated the things of eternity as affairs to be apprehended by the intellect, instead of abandoning our reason that we might be filled with the Spirit ;-it is humbling to the pride of all such, that unsophisticated women should be putting us all to shame, and uttering the truths of God with a power which the Lord the Spirit alone can use. It is God's intention that we should feel shame and humbling; and we desire to kiss the rod, and humble ourselves accordingly under the mighty and righteous hand of God, that He may lift us up in due time. Above all, we desire to praise and magnify His holy name that He has vouchsafed to pardon our unworthiness, and manifest Himself in some members of His body, although not in us; and by His help we will pray without ceasing that He would adorn His spouse speedily with all the graces which she must have to be worthy of being taken to His throne, and with which He alone can adorn her; and give some gift to us, and to every other member. But we can neither conceal from ourselves, nor desire to withhold from others, our deliberate conviction, that, since the world has never been able to endure the faithful witness of Christ whenever it has been made by His

church; and since whenever His gifts have been manifested a time of tremendous persecution has accompanied that manifestation; so do we now believe that the body of Christ would be thrown, by the philosophical Infidels, the idolatrous Papists, and the liberal Evangelicals of 1831, to wild beasts, as it was by the Heathen in the first centuries; to the flames, as it was by the Dominicans and the Jesuits from 530 to 1790; and to the sword and to the deep, as it was by the scoffers of the French Revolution. The church has fallen down into the world, so that she is no longer to be distinguished from it, nor a light enlightening the house. The Holy Ghost in her is smothered: it is sin, and sin alone, in each member, that prevents His being manifested: the old man, instead of being dead, is alive and vigorous, and the new man is feeble and subdued. To those who know any thing of what it is to enter into the mind of God, who can at all appreciate the love of the heart of God as set forth in the work of Jesus, we recommend meditation on the sympathies of the body of Christ, not so much with reference to the members as to the Head. If our body is sick, our head participates in the pain; and Jesus Himself mourns at the low condition, sickness, and paralysis of His body. Oh, is it nothing to you who have tasted of His love, to feel that He weeps! to feel that your miserable state is the cause of His grief! Oh, ye know not how He is longing to bless you; what showers of blessings He is desirous to pour down upon you, would you but trust Him. There is a noise of abundance of rain; open your mouths wide, and He will fill them: cast yourselves upon Him: be content to be counted fools, madmen, and deceivers; be content with any thing, so that ye may set forth Him in His power and holiness before the world. No term can adequately describe the state in which the church is, its powerlessness and its coldness, but that of death.

The body of Christ ought to have continued to do upon the earth all that the Head did during the three years of his sojourn in humiliation; and as the last week of the life of Christ was the most painful of all, so will the closing days of the militant state of his body far exceed in suffering all that have preceded it. It was the last week alone which separated Judas from the rest of the disciples. Out of the select twelve, one was to demonstrate himself a traitor. His treachery was shewn, not in applying opprobrious terms, nor in refusing to his Master the honour that was his due the very consummation of his guilt was accompanied with a delusive kiss, and the affected allegiance-of "Hail, Master!" As great treachery of a similar kind has been developed within these few years: the abettors of it say they cannot think so meanly of their Lord as to suppose that he will ever return to this earth, which has been so long under the curse of God; that it is carnal, and lowering to His dignity, and derogatory to His honour, to suppose that He will: thus they profess more reverence for Him than others, while they discredit His

plainest assertions. Now they have struck another note of the same chord, and say they cannot think so meanly of their Lord' as to suppose that His flesh was made of the same sinful dust that ours is: no! their Lord had a body prepared for him quite unlike anything, except in form, that ever was seen in the earth: their Lord was in the likeness of man indeed, as a statue is the likeness of a man, but containing no more the properties of mortal flesh than does the Parian marble. We must be on our guard against Judases in every quarter: it is time that we cast off all reliance upon every arm but that of Christ alone; trust to no teaching but that of the Holy Ghost; be prepared for every contumely, for every suffering, without a particle of mitigation here, and tolerable only from the certainty of our shortly being taken up to meet the Lord in the air, and so to be for ever with the Lord.

No one, who believes that the church ought always to have exhibited the power which belongs to its risen Head the Godman Jesus Christ, can doubt the imminent risk she now runs, if the present manifestation be the work of the Holy Ghost, of having the Spirit quenched. Her doctors, with almost one voice, ignorant of the doctrine of Scripture, ignorant of the facts of the case, and ignorant of the only criteria by which to judge, have united to deny that the power of Christ in the Person of the Holy Ghost ought to be in the church at all-whereby they give the lie direct to the plainest and last assertions of our Lord while on earth-and have proceeded to load with the foulest vituperation and malignant aspersions all the individuals who are manifesting these supernatural gifts; asserting, but not mourning over, nor endeavouring to give relief, that it is a Satanic possession that is working in them. A very small number among them do, indeed, believe their Lord's words, and acknowledge that it is their sin and secularity and absorption by worldly principles which alone have prevented His power from always appearing; but even these are so ignorant of the voice of their Lord that the utmost they can do is to stand in doubt whether it be His, or the voice of Satan : asleep in the temple, indeed, these Samuels cannot tell who calls to them; so that, if God be speaking, He is speaking as uselessly to them as to the rest-though, doubtless, when they do know, far different will be the result. There is so little faith in God himself, that they wait for some Eli to confirm Him: they cannot take God at His word, and be content to try the Spirit by the tests which God has given in His word, and they wait for some other test, something that shall commend itself to their reason. But such test never shall they have. It is to put reason to shame that God has now appeared; and proud reason must lay its mouth in the dust, or it can never hear, it has a moral incapacity for hearing, God. We admit, indeed, that it is more important that men should be sound in the doctrine than assent to any particular

manifestation; but we know from experience, that until the mind is satisfied on that, there is no unwavering prayer that we may have the gifts ourselves. Without the gifts-that is, the power of the Holy Ghost; without the power of God speaking in, to, by, and through us-we know not our sin, we are unfit to be His witnesses, we are incapable of setting forth the Gospel of the kingdom in the demonstration of the Spirit, however skilled we may be in man's wisdom and excellency of speech. Some, indeed, fear to possess the power of the Holy Ghost, because they perceive the holiness which it must induce: to all such we would say, "If you dread any thing that can make you as holy as Christ is holy, you are unfit for heaven, and into it you can never enter." The problem which such men are trying to solve is, "How dissimilar can I be to Christ, and yet be saved?"

We cannot conclude without again pressing upon our readers the importance of attending to the plain instructions and letter of the written Word, as the sole guide in all pretended manifestations; by which alone they can be determined to be of God, or of Satan. The author of " the Delusions" quoted above, was himself ensnared in the horrid abominations of the fanatics known under the name of the French Prophets. "The Warnings,' also, to which we have referred, were given by some who were dupes of that imposture. It would be too much to say that there was no work of God going on amongst any of those who are indiscriminately included in the just detestation which their impieties and pollutions excited; but we have no account of any of the pastors of the Presbyterian, Independent, and Baptist churches, amongst which the greater part of their disciples were found, "trying the spirits" by the tests given in Scripture for that purpose. The more probable case is, that there was a work of God going on at the beginning; and that Satan forthwith began a work also; by which he contrived to get the two confounded together, and mistaken for one and the same; and in this manner, also, will he assuredly act now. Since those who profess spiritual gifts are responsible for their use, as much as men are responsible for the use of any other gift; so they who pervert spiritual gifts to an unholy purpose, will be drowned in double perdition: wherefore, let those who earnestly desire them, be still more earnest to be enabled to use them aright. One great danger to the church now arises from the habit, which the Evangelical preachers have taught men, of handling deceitfully the word of God, under the system which they call spiritualizing; by which they have imbibed a moral incapacity of believing such a plain thing as that land means land, and not sky; and, on the present question, that the words, "These signs shall follow them that believe," and, " Lo, I am with you all the days, even to the completion of the dispensation," do not mean that the signs were to cease at the beginning of the dispensation.