ticism prevailed, and many of all ranks united themselves to these false prophets, until Satan's purposes were abundantly answered by the Papists being led to attribute the excesses of these misguided men to the pure and holy spirit of the blessed Reformation, declaring contemptuously, "This is the fruit of the new doctrine; this is the fruit of Luther's gospel."* We may judge from this result, what was at least one of the objects for which Satan laboured; viz., by erecting, for a time, a false standard, ultimately to cast contempt upon the pure and undefiled religion of the Gospel. And thus it is in every age, only let the devil prevail upon men to receive error instead of truth, and he will contrive, in many cases at least, that when they discover the error, they shall discard indiscriminately both error and truth together.

Let us for a moment place in juxtaposition with these false prophets the ex* Milner, vol. v. p. 216, note.

perience of that truly great and eminent servant of God, Martin Luther.

Ob

If there have been an individual, from the days of the Apostles to the present hour, whose peculiar dangers and difficulties might have needed, and whose wonderful faith and exalted piety might have claimed a supernatural manifestation of the Divine power, or a peculiar endowment of miraculous gifts, I imagine that the whole Protestant Church would, as with one voice, exclaim, Such a man was Martin Luther. serve, then, not only how plainly, how boldly, how convincingly, he opposed all pretenders to extraordinary gifts, but how completely he disavowed any such pretensions on his own part. He says, not indeed in a spirit of boasting, but as St. Paul before him had been compelled to do, to clear himself from the charges of false teachers, "I stood forward, in a very critical and dangerous moment, as a public disputant at Leipsic before a numerous

audience. At Augsburg I appeared before my enemies without a safe conduct; and at Worms I looked both the emperor and the whole German nobility in the face, though I knew the public faith had been violated on a former not very dissimilar occasion. Yet I made no pretence of hearing voices from heaven, or of being possessed of supernatural talents, or of having any thing of that spirit which has appeared at Alsted."* How valuable a testimony is this to the Church of God! The most exalted believer, probably, who has appeared during the last fifteen centuries, not only decidedly condemns the assumption of extraordinary powers in others, but completely and most unhesitatingly disavows them for himself. Surely we have cause to thank God that he permitted these pretenders to trouble the Church in the ages that are past, that his people might possess so invaluable a testimony to meet all similar pretensions in the ages to come.

* Milner, vol. v. p. 208.

*

About a century later precisely the same pretensions were advanced in Silesia, where both men and women, apparently pious and devoted persons, asserted that they spake by immediate inspiration from God. Happily, however, they ventured upon predictions, of which a short time proved the falsehood, and their leader was banished his country as a false prophet,† and the sect dispersed.

But perhaps the pretender to divine inspiration, resembling most closely those of the present day, appeared in our own country in the days of the Commonwealth, in the person of George Fox, the founder of the sect of the Friends. This man does not hesitate in his Journal expressly to

*A.D. 1626.

† See "Modern Claims," &c., p. 154, and for many other similar instances.

"A Journal, or historical account of the life, travels, sufferings, Christian experiences, and labour of love, in the work of the ministry, of that ancient, eminent and faithful servant of Jesus Christ, George Fox." Fol. 1765, p. vii.

C

assume to himself the same power which was bestowed upon the Apostles and Prophets of old, and which is claimed by so many at present. These are his words, "These things I did not see by the help of man, nor by letter . . . but I saw them in the light of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by his immediate Spirit and power, as did the holy men of God, by whom the Holy Scriptures were written."* He also instructs his followers not to let "the sons and daughters, nor the handmaids be stopped in their prophesyings, nor the young men in their visions, nor the old men in their dreams, but let the Lord be glorified in all." Distinctly asserting that both he and his people" had the same power and spirit that the Apostles had and were in," and that "in that power and spirit the Lord gave them dominion over all."+

This pretender declared that all the great events of his time were revealed to

* Vide Fox's Journal, p. 24.

+ Ibid. p. 249.

Ibid. p. 331.