to postpone the fulfilment of it beyond the life of Joseph. Joseph died, without the slightest apprehension of any breach of the promise, and in fact, there was no breach; for the promise was, that the Israelites should be brought into the land of Canaan, and they were brought in accordingly. Yet, because the concluding phrase of the thirty-fourth verse, is translated my breach of promise; the passage is recklessly applied to the special, limited, defined, and individual cases of the present pretensions; and when the event falsifies the utterance, the individual is charged with provoking wickedness, and solemnly informed that he has been made to know the Lord's breach of promise, and that his case affords conclusive proof of the spirit of prophecy being indeed revived in the church! Supposing the men who argue thus to be sane, what becomes of their sincerity; and, without sincerity, what becomes of their claim to superior holiness? Thus saith the Lord, "When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass; that is the thing which the Lord

K 2

hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously; thou shalt not be afraid of him."*

Feeling, as it may be presumed, the lack of even the appearance of scriptural evidence in support of their claims, they have lately printed (but not published) and circulated in that sort of underhand way,† which proves at once the existence and the inefficacy of con

*Deut. xviii. 22.

† Mr. Blunt, in an Appendix to his sermons on the trial of the spirits, has given a quotation from another tract, circulated in the same clandestine way, entitled, "A Narrative of the Circumstances which led to the setting up of the Church of Christ at Albury." As I am made to occupy a prominent place in that narrative, and as my ministry is assailed in no common language of denunciation, it may be expected, as it may be right, that I should here say something upon the subject. It need not be much. The manuscript was sent to me, with an invitation to comment upon it. I refused to enter into any details, protesting against the whole strain of the narrative, as a misrepresentation of the facts of the case-facts, many of which were retained in my recollection by a correspondence (then and still lying on my table) which had been carried on during the period referred to. But I forbear: I am anxious to

science and shame, a tract, in which the question is put, "Where is it promised in scripture," that in these last times (i. e. immediately before our Lord's coming) the Holy Ghost is to be poured out in a miraculous manner? And it is answered by a reference to the Latter Rain; in which it is taken for granted, without even an attempt at proof, that the rain upon the land of Canaan means the Holy Spirit, in his miraculous gifts, upon the christian church.

Upon this subject, I must write to you more fully, another time.

I am faithfully yours.

Postscript.-Have you seen Mr. Sargent's

cherish feelings of christian love, and shrink from private personalities, even in self-defence. In truth, the narrative in question is its own best refutation, and I am content, with my fellow sufferer, Mr. Blunt, to leave my ministerial character in higher hands. Most cordially do I join that gentleman in the hope, that few will read even the brief extracts which he has supplied, without "an earnest petition at a throne of pardoning and restraining grace for the writer of them, and for those who are following in his present erratic course."

interesting Memoir of the Rev. Mr. Thomson? In reference to certain popish absurdities practised in the island of Madeira, he makes this striking remark. Enthusiasm possesses a resiliency equal to any pressure: the superincumbent weight of common sense, observation, and experience, fails to crush it, and serves only to increase its spring and reaction. p. 140.

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LETTER VIII.

THE LATTER RAIN.

MY DEAR

EVERY sentence of the Bible is from God, and every man is interested in the meaning of it. Without an appearance of support from the Bible, no opinion can be received by the christian church, and no sect can long maintain its ground. The differences are of interpretation, not of standard. Of course every sect calling itself christian, claims the Bible as on its side. There are, however, some parts of the Bible, so plain, so familiar, so long in use for the support of the good old way; that they cannot, without inconvenient and suspicious wresting, be adduced in support of novelties.