Christ also says, "If any man love me, my Father will love him, and we will come unto him and make our abode with him :" That is, according to the Doctor's theology, certain books of Scripture will come to him, and make their abode with him; for he expressly confines the constant abode and supreme illumination of God to the Holy Scriptures. Therefore, (horrible to say) God's inward presence, his operating power of life and light in our souls, his dwelling in us, and we in him, is something of a lower nature, that only may occasionally happen, and have less of God in it than the dead letter of Scripture, which alone is his constant abode and supreme illumination. Miserable fruits of a paradoxical genius!

Christ from heaven says, "Behold I stand at the door, and knock; if any man hear my voice, and open unto me, I will come in to him, and sup with him." This is his true eminent fulfilling of his prophetic promise of being a Comforter, and - Spirit of truth to his church to the end of the world. But according to the Doctor, we are to understand, that not the heavenly Christ, but the New Testament, continually stands and knocks at the door, wanting to enter into the heart, and sup with it; which is no better than holding, that when Christ calls himself Alpha and Omega, he means not himself, but the New Testament. Again, I am the vine, ye are the branches; as the

branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can ye, except ye abide in me,. for without me, ye can do nothing." Now takę the Doctor's comment, and then the truth of all these words of Christ was only temporary, and could be true no longer, than till the books of the New Testament were written; for then all this, which Christ had affirmed of himself, of the certainty and necessity of his life and power in them, ended in Christ, and passed over to the written words of the New Testament; and they are the true vine, and we its branches; they are that without which we can do nothing. For thus it must be, if, as the Doctor affirms, the writings of the New Testament are that, by which we are to understand the constant abode, and supreme illumination of God in man. Now absurd, and even blasphemous, as this interpretation of the foregoing text is, it must be evident to every reader, that it is all the Doctor's own; for the letter of Scripture is only made here to claim that divinity to itself, which the Doctor has openly affirmed to be true of it.

"Rabbi," says Nieodemus to Christ, "we know that thou art a teacher come from God:" Now that which was here truly said of Christ in the flesh, is the very truth that must be said of the Scripture teaching in ink and paper; it is a teacher come from God, and therefore fully to be believed;

highly reverenced, and strictly followed. But as Christ's teaching in the flesh was only preparatory to his future vital teaching by the Spirit, so the teaching of Scripture by words written with ink and paper is only preparatory, or introductory toall that inward essential teaching of God, which is by his Spirit and truth within us. Every other opinion of the Holy Scripture, but that of an outward teacher and guide to God's inward teaching, and illumination in our souls, is but making anidol-god of it; I say an idol-god, for to those who rest in it, as the constant abode and supreme illumination of God with them, it can be nothing else. For, if nothing of divine faith, love, hope, or goodness, can have the least birth, or place in us, but by divine inspiration, they who think these virtues may be sufficiently raised in us by the letter of Scripture, do in truth and reality make the letterof Scripture their inspiring God. The apostles preached and wrote to the people by divine inspiration. But what do they say of their inspired doctrine and teachings? What virtue or power was there in them? Do they say, that their words and teachings were the very promised comforter, the spirit of truth, the true abode and supreme illumination of God in the souls of men ? So far from such a blasphemous thought, that they affirm the direct contrary, and compare all their inspired teachings and instructions to the dead works of bare

crease.

planting and watering, and which must continue dead till life, come into them from another and much higher power. "I have planted," says St. Paul, "Appollos has watered, but God gave the increase.” And then farther to shew that this planting and watering, which was the highest work that an inspired apostle could do, was yet in itself to be considered as a lifeless, powerless thing, he adds, "So then, neither is he that planteth any thing, nor he that watereth, but God that giveth the inBut now, if this must be said of all that which the inspired apostles taught in outward words, that it was nothing in itself, was without power, without life, and only such a preparation towards life, as is that of planting and watering, must not that same be said of their inspired teachings, when left behind them in writing? For what else are the apostolical Scriptures, but those very instructions and teachings put into writing, which they affirmed to be but bare planting and watering, quite powerless in themselves, till the living Spirit of God worked with them? Or will any one say, that what Paul, Peter, John, &c. spoke by inspiration from their own mouths, was indeed but bare planting and watering, in order to be capable of receiving life from God; but when these apostolical teachings and instructions were written on paper, they were raised out of their first inability, got the nature of God himself, became

spirit and life, and might be called the great quickening power of God, or, as the Doctor says, the constant abode and supreme illumination of his Spirit with us.

It would be great folly and perverseness to charge me here with slighting or lessening the true value, use, and importance of the inspired apostolical Scriptures; for if the charge be just, it must lie against Paul, and not against me, since I say nothing of them but that which he says, and in his own express words, viz. that all their labour of preaching, instructing, and writing by divine inspiration, had in themselves no other nature, use, or power, than that of such planting and watering, as could not fructify till a higher power than was in them gave life and growth to that which they planted and watered.

I exceedingly love, and highly reverence the divine authority of the sacred writings of the apostles and evangelists, and would gladly persuade every one to be as deeply affected with them, and pay as profound a regard to them as. they would do to an Elijah, a St. John, or a Paul, whom they knew to be immediately sent from heaven with God's message to them. I reverence them as a literal truth of and from God, as much the greatest heavenly blessing that can be outwardly bestowed upon us. I reverence them as do ing, or fitted to do, all that good among Chris