tarry at Jerusalem, "till they were endued with power from on high;" saying unto them, "Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you; and then shall ye bear witness unto me, both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and unto the utmost part of the earth."

Here are two most important and fundamental truths fully demonstrated, First, That the truth and perfection of the gospel state could not take place till Christ was glorified, and his kingdom among men made wholly and solely a continual immediate ministration of the Spirit. Every thing before this was but subservient for a time, and preparatory to this last dispensation, which could not have been the last, had it not carried man above types, figures, and shadows, into the real possession and enjoyment of that which is the spirit and truth of a divine life. For the end is not come till it has found the beginning; that is, the last dispensation of God to fallen man cannot be come, till putting an end to the "bondage of weak and beggarly elements," Gal. iv. 9. it brings man to that dwelling in God, and God in him, which he had at the beginning.

Secondly, That as the apostles could not, so no man, from their time to the end of the world, can have any true and real knowledge of the spiritual blessings of Christ's redemption, or have a divine call, capacity, or fitness, to preach, and bear wit

ness of them to the world, but solely by that same divine Spirit opening all the mysteries of a redeeming Christ in their inward parts, as it did in the apostles, evangelists, and first ministers of the gospel.

For why could not the apostles, who had been eye witnesses to all the whole process of Christ, why could they not, with their human apprehension, declare and testify the truth of such things, till they "were baptised with fire, and born again of the Spirit " It is because the truth of such things, or the mysteries of Christ's process, as knowable by man, are nothing else in themselves but those very things which are done by this hea venly fire and Spirit of God in our souls. There fore, to know the mysteries of Christ's redemption, and to know the redeeming work of God in our own souls, is the same thing; the one cannot be before or without the other. Therefore, every! man, be he who he will, however able in all kinds of human literature, must be an entire stranger to all the mysteries of gospel redemption, and can only talk about them as of any other tale he has been told, till they are brought forth, verified, fulfilled, and witnessed to by that which is found, felt, and enjoyed, of the whole process of Christ in his soul. For as redemption is, in its whole nature, an inward spiritual work, that works only in the altering, changing, and regenerating the life

of the soul, so it must be true, that nothing but the inward state of the soul can bear true witness to the redeeming power of Christ. For as it whol ly consists in altering that which is the most radical in the soul, bringing forth a new spiritual death, and a new spiritual life, it must be true that no one can know or believe the mysteries of Christ's redeeming power, by historically knowing, or rationally consenting, to that which is said of him and them in written or spoken words, but on. ly and solely by an inward experimental finding and feeling the operation of them in that new death and new life, both of which must be effected in the soul of man, or Christ is not, cannot be, found and known by the soul as its salvation. It must also be equally true, that the redeemed state of the soul, being in itself nothing else but the resurrection of a divine and holy life in it, must as necessarily, from first to last, be the sole work of the breathing creating Spirit of God, as the first holy created state of the soul was. And all thi because the mysteries of Christ's redeeming power, which work and bring forth the renewed state of the soul, are not creaturely, finite, outward things, that may be found and enjoyed by verbal descriptions, or formed ideas of them, but are a birth and life, and spiritual operation, which as solely belongs to God alone, as his creating power. For nothing can redeem, but that same power which cre

ated the soul; nothing can bring forth a good thought in it, but that which brought forth the power of thinking. And of every tendency towards goodness, be it ever so small, that same may be truly affirmed of it, which St Paul affirmed of his highest state, "yet not I, but Christ that liveth in me."

But if the belief of the necessity and certainty of immediate continual divine inspiration, in and for every thing that can be holy and good in us, be (as its accusers say) rank enthusiasm, then he is the only sober orthodox Christian who, of many a good thought and action that proceed from him, frankly says, in order to avoid enthusiasm, my own power, and not Christ's Spirit living and breathing in me, has done this for me. For if all that is good is not done by Christ, then something that is good is done by myself. It is in vain to think that there is a middle way, and that rational divines have found it out, as Dr Warburton has done, who, though denying immediate continual inspiration, yet allows that the Spirit's "ordinary influence occasionally assists the faithful *.”

Now this middle way has neither Scripture nor sense in it; for an occasional influence or concurrence is as absurd as an occasional God, and necessarily supposes such a God; for an occasional

* Sermons, vol. i.

influence of the Spirit upon us, supposes an occasional absence of the Spirit from us; for there could be no such thing unless God was sometimes with us, and sometimes not; sometimes doing us good, as the inward God of our life, and sometimes do ing us no good at all, but leaving us to be good from ourselves. Occasional influence necessarily implies all this blasphemous absurdity. Again, this middle way of an occasional influence and assistance necessarily supposes, that there is something of man's own that is good, or the Holy Spi rit of God neither would nor could assist or cooperate with it. But if there was any thing good in man for God to assist and co-operate with, besides the Seed of his own divine nature, or his own Word of life striving to bruise the serpent's nature within us, it could not be true that there is only "one that is good, and that is God." And was there any goodness in creatures, either in heaven or on earth, but the one goodness of the divine nature, living, working, and manifesting itself in them, as its created instruments, then good creatures, both in heaven and on earth, would have something else to adore besides, or along with God; for goodness, be it where it will, is adorable for itself, and because it is goodness; if, therefore, any degree of it belonged to the creature, it ought to have a share of that same adoration that is paid to the Creator. Therefore, if to believe that nothing godly can be alive in us,