clod; when the ætherial mansions, the whole universe of the blessed, may be thy glorious contemplation and felicity? O that this wisdom, and dignity of grace, precious soul, may be more and more thine! Canst thou not join in this prayer for thyself, which an unworthy stranger ardently offers up for thee! Art thou not willing to mingle this gracious joy with one, whose soul burns that thy soul and his may participate together the felicity of God's chosen, and the riches of the glory of bis inheritance! O that heart might thus answer heart, and be more spiritually alive to this grace, that the communion of saints below may more perfectly imitate, as well as forerun, the communion of saints above! I. Come, thou OIL OF GLADNSS, shed Bid each faithful heart and head 2. Come, thou OIL OF GLADNESS, pour 3: Make, full fraught with heav'nly lore, Come, thou OIL OF GLADNESS, come, CONCLUSION. EVERAL other titles and ascriptions, belonging to the HOLY SPIRIT, occurred to the author in proof of his divinity; such, for instance, as WITNESS, GIFT, GUIDE, SPIRIT of BURNING, SPIRIT of JUDGEMENT, REST, SPIRIT of GLORY, &c, but the size of the volume will not admit of any further enlargement. It is humbly conceived, however, that the many testimonies, which have been already submitted, under the preceding names, do illustrate, according to the measure and manner of the human capacity, some of the essential glories of the ETERNAL SPIRIT, both in his divine nature, person, and offices. The evidence from the Scriptures, both positive and collateral, appears as full, clear, and convincing; as it is possible for the mind of man fairly to require, or his understanding to receive. Though the point insisted on be not in its essence an object of sense or animal perception, and cannot be such from the pure spirituality of its nature; yet it has been shewn, that God the Spirit has given testimony to this point by some proofs that have even reached the senses, and by circumstances, which might impress them with the most happy and lively demonstration of his being and presence. He hath indeed left all men, who have his word in their reach, without excuse for unbelief concerning himself; and they have no subterfuge in this case from any dif ficulty in his revelation, which is clear enough here; but must recur at once to their own corrupt and positive dislike of its authority, or, not being able to overthrow or get rid of this, must take shelter (as too many in all ages have done). under some wilful perversions and sophistications of the divine record. But, admitting this record to be true, and permitting it to speak its own genuine sense in harmony and analogy with itself (which is allowed in all other writings ;) the doctrine of its AUTHOR's divinity is true also, and from the record is proved to be so. On the other hand, if that book can be demonstrated to be false in principle or authority, and so is an audacious imposition upon the world; it is readi. ly granted, that there is and can be no OTHER proof of this subject, and that all the miracles, or sensible evidences of it, and all the internal operations, either promised or received, which are the experimental evidences; are equally lies, dreams, and delusions. It will be further granted, in that case, that we are exactly in the situation of all the heathens, antient and modern; that there is no assurance, or evidence, of any one thing in the world; that we live without present hope, and must die without future end or purpose of being. It shall be added too, and must be added, that there is neither sin nor goodness, neither religion nor irreligion, neither heaen nor hell; and that all those, who have declared these things to the world, in the shape of patriarchs, prophets, or apostles, have been impudent mountebanks, who have played upon the hopes and fears of mankind, for the advancement of their own designs. It will be allowed also, in this train of consequences, that CHRIST and Mabomet are quite upon a level, and equally detestable impostors; that Judas Iscariot was an honest fellow, for betraying the former; and that all the people, called martyrs, were a set of stupid and inconsiderate simpletons, for believing and dying in the cause of a crucified malefactor. In one word, it must be acknowledged, in this view of things, that there is no hope in life or in death, that we are bewildered in the chaos of our own imaginations, and that Lucretius, and Hobbes, and such like men, were per fectly right, in attempting to banish every trace of religion, as mere mad superstition, from the face of the earth. There are many people who will profess themselves shocked at these consequences, and yet do not see that the prin ciples, on which they proceed concerning religion, naturally and necessarily lead to them. They think without the Bible, in the first instance; and then, in the next, think against it. Nor do some people express much concern, upon the discovery of this consequence; but call their method, with a peculiar ease and confidence, liberality of sentiment and freedom of inquiry. But if those fine words are examined to the bottom, they will be found to merit another title, and will really appear to be only looseness of principle, and scepticism universal. The first point they begin with in religion isa doubt of God's truth in the Bible; forgetting that without this truth there is no religion at all, and that there either must be already such an infallible rule, or there never can be one. If the rule do exist; then it is their wisdom to follow ít: But if it do not, then all the men in the world could not agree to compose one; and consequently all their pretended inquiry must end in uncertainty; if that can be called an end, which is nothing; or that can be good logic, which has no conclusion. However, this doubt (say they) ought to be satisfied. And who is the judge, evidence, and counsel, in the matter? Their answer is, buman reason, which after all, they must own, can judge nothing concerning spiritual existence. And yet the Bible deals chiefly in spiritual existence. If reason were even uncorrupt and undepraved, which it is not; it could be no judge in this case, unless it were infinite and eternal; because here the determination is to be upon an infinite being, and upon eternal concerns. Of course, the evidence it can produce, or the counsel it might bring, being alike depraved, limited, and irregular, stand exactly in the same predicament. The fallacy of these people is; they presuppose, that all things are in doubt, and that therefore there is no such matter as truth revealed; and yet absurdly enough they hold, that both these conclusions of their own are to be believed. That principle in man, which doubts, is, according to them, to procure evidence out of itself, in order to convert itself into a believing principle, or rather to frame a believer in nothing beyond it. The sea might just as soon make itself dry, the fire emit a cooling fiame, or a man scoop up the occan with a shell; as any of these can turn this Ethiopian unbelief into the fair complexion of holy faith. Their itch is to dispute every thing, and to believe nobody but themselves, who own at the same time that they know nothing with precision. They are quite sure, that nothing is true, which is not agrecable to their own reason; and yet often this rea son doth not agree with itself upon the most trifling subjects within its immediate scrutiny; but it pretends to be very exact, however, in the everlasting concerns above it. Thus our reasoners venture to go on, as though they were omniscient beings, who could see through all spiritual and abstracted nature, could comprise all that is to be known universally, and could determine upon the whole with perfect judgment and infallibility. They are sceptics towards God, but the most implicit believers in themselves. In this high sentiment, they determine upon what angels veil their faces to bebold, with an air of importance and authority, and are not ashamed to conclude, that what they themselves know not, is and must be, therefore, unknown. Their sentiments are indeed liberal, and their inquiries free; for they are by no means limited by the strait line of truth, but make copious excursions enough in the regions on either side of it. Truth is too low and fixed a subject for such unfettered speculatists, as disdain to take any settled foundation; but love to soar above all certain boundaries, and the narrow apprehensions of those pitiful mortals, who humbly believe in God: And so, -their sail-broad vans They spread for flight, and in the surging smoke A vast VACUITY. MILTON. But, for people of this order, these imperfect Essays were not designed. Written, as they are, for the most part, without any labored attention to method; they are calculated, principally, for those who receive the Bible as the truth of God, and who wish to be more truly acquainted with it as such and for some others likewise, who, not weighing the sense of its words nor that analogy of principle which runs through the whole, have been led into perplexities, which the Bible does not contain in itself, but which have been brought to it by the false reasonings of its readers. That book, indeed, is a parable, and (according to Christ's own words) intended to be so: consequently, it hath its mysteries, or (if the world will call it by that name) its obscurities. It is no shallow composition, but contains the words and the mind of God. If men do not perfectly understand these words, it is no wonder: They do not understand the most ob vious and most ordinary works of God. And it is the less to be wondered at, because it is expressly said, that none can understand the Scriptures but those to whom it is given; and very apostles understood them, only according to that dis pensation. Luke xxiv. 45. Of course it will follow, that none can understand them farther than it is given. This measure, or bound, also must rest entirely with HIM, who imparts this understanding itself, which is a principle superior to hu man reason, though working upon and by it. Reason of itself cannot determine in spiritual things what are truths,but at most conceives only their connexion and agreement: But the gift of spiritual understanding is imparted, that reason might be informed, and from that information proceed, in a manner analogous to its nature, to combine, connect, or conclude, not its own ideas, but ideas from the word of God as the ground on which they are to be raised, and which the Spirit of God, as the agent, alone raises from that ground. The word itself doth not and cannot raise ideas truly spiritual and divine: as we may see in thousands who frequently read it, but to whom it is a book sealed impenetrably: Nor does the Spirit act but by the word, or in perfect concord with it. So that here is the strongest fence, on the one hand, against absurd or enthusiastic reveries, because the written word checks all fanciful excursions and all idle opinions ; as, on the other hand, there is the fullest implication of the necessity of divine grace, to help the ignorance or check the infidelity of man. This grace is a gift, afforded according to the will of its author, and allotted and diversified with respect to the purposes of glory and salvation, which are to be brought forth in his people.-Proud reason quarrels with this; and yet without reason. Grace in all its parts or distinctions, whether of holiness, knowledge, faith, &c. is the donation of God and a free donation, because it could not be earned by a creature. A creature might just as soon earn its own natural life, before it had life. It must first live, then act; and a man must have the grace or faculty for divine knowledge, before he can presume to know the things divine. I Cor. ii. II. The ground of all human error is in the fall and apostasy of our nature from God: and yet men profess to think and act, as though they were not fallen. They advance upon this mistaken ground; and consequently, the farther they push their conclusions, or speculations, upon divine subjects, the wider they are from the truth of God, and it may be added, from the God of truth. Nor, till they are brought back to see this origin of their error, and are enabled to keep it constantly in sight, can they make any excursions, in which they do not stray. The Scriptures are entirely written upon this great idea of the FALL. They keep it ever in view. All the terms, with relation to man, are formed upon this very principle; the combination of those terms into fuller detail amply expresses it; and the whole purpose of revelation proves, en |