idols; and breathe into their souls the breath of divine life, that they may "live, and stand upon their feet an exceeding great army."*

Holy Father, Son, and Spirit! dissolve the vissionary fabrics, and magic spells, by means of which Satan would chain our affections to this polluted earth, and bruise him under our feet; that, arrayed in white robes, with palms in our hands, we may sing the song of salvation in heaven, to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and to the Lamb for ever and ever!-Amen and Amen.

And now, my dear friends, I have done. I leave my poor petition in the hands of our glorious Melchizedek, and, if he should vouchsafe to cast but a small fragment of it, cleansed with his precious blood, into his golden censer, with the much incense of his own infinite merits, it will ascend as a sweetsmelling savour before God; and my labour of love in the Lord will not prove barren and unfruitful; though it falls far short of its object. Human language is too feeble and contracted, to describe, adequately, the transcendent glories and beauties of that matchless unblemished Pearl, which constitutes our only true riches; and, without it, we are "wretched and miserable, poor, blind, and naked." Believe me, my dear friends, yours sincerely in the impeccable Immanuel, the glorious Elder Brother of the everlasting covenant.

"Also, of your ownselves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them."Acts, xx. 30.

"If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamner of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them, thou shall not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams for the Lord your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the Lord your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul."-Deut. xiii. 1—3.

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Ephraim also is like a silly dove without heart; strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not; yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth it not. He feedeth on wind, and followeth after the east wind: he daily increaseth lies and desolations.”. Hos. vii. 11, 9; xii. 1.

"It is the masterpiece of Satan's policy to entice people away from the waters of Siloam that flow softly, and to destroy men by the very principles of their religion, by poisoning the fountains out of which they should drink the water of life.' He cannot compel to sin, fore, his method is to deceive."-LIGHTFOOT.

there

APPENDIX.

LETTER OF THE REV. EDWARD IRVING.

"To the Flock of God, which the Lord Jesus Christ hath given into my hand, to keep and to bless them, with the Elders and Deacons.

"Dearly beloved Ministers and Members of the Lord Jesus Christ,

"It well becometh me, who was the chief instrument of bringing in that sin, for which the hand of the Lord hath long lain heavy upon us, to do my utmost part to remove the same, that He may again lift upon us the light of his countenance: and, because no sin can be removed otherwise than by the confession of it, and our confessions are greatly helped by our knowledge, discernment, and hatred of our sin which we would confess, I think that I shall best serve my God, and my flock, and the quiet of my own soul, and the health of my body also, by endeavouring to lead you into the nature and aggravation of that sin of ours, which the Lord nameth, and describeth by the making of a calf.

"You will understand then, my dearly beloved, that the Lord in his great grace towards London, the city of our habitation, hath purposed, for the good of the whole

church, to set therein a complete and perfect pattern of what the church should be, endowed with a fulness of the Holy Ghost: (A) that is, having no lack of any gift or grace, or fruit of the Spirit, to shine with holy beauties not only through this land, but unto the whole earth, that his people may come up thither as heretofore they did to Zion and Jerusalem, in order to learn the way and the word of the Lord. (B) This is the great purpose of good, which our God is slowly, but surely, accomplishing unto the faith and prayers of all his children who call upon his name. (C)

"Of this purpose we have dared to hinder him: we have plotted against it, to bring another to pass: and it is of his mercy, that we have not been dashed to pieces in the kindlings of his wrath. (D) It is true, we did it in ignorance: but we should not have been ignorant of the way of our God; having prophets to reveal it, and apostles to dispense and to order it, according to the mind of the Holy Ghost, who speaketh by them; and having pastors to break down the revelations of God in simple and faithful ministrations unto the people; and having moreover the Holy Unction of the body of Christ, by which we should be able to know the truth, and to be kept from all seducers. But our fatness of heart, our fulness of bread, and our misrule of the Lord's most blessed gift of his word spoken in the midst of us, brought it to pass that we fell easily into the snare of the Devil, by which he thought to mar, and to thwart the purpose of our God. (E) Oh! I came far short in the office of the good Shepherd, not to have been your watchman, and your guardian in that day: for which I now do taste the bitterness of sorrow in my heart, and the hand of the Lord upon my flesh.

But to return to the purpose of showing you cur sin. Understand, dearly beloved, that such a fulness of the

(A) See p. 83. (B) p. 86. (C) Ibid. (D) p. 88. (E) p. 90.

Spirit as our God purposeth to give to his church in London, can only stand under the headship, government, and administration of the Lord Jesus. No apostle, prophet, evangelist, nor pastor, no angel of any church, no man, nor creature, hath more than a measure of the Spirit, nor can occupy, nor administer more than a measure or proportion of the Spirit. To Jesus alone pertaineth the fulness, and to the church over which he ruleth. And seeing He hath given it forth as his purpose, to give unto his church in London a fulness of the Spirit, He himself must rule over it. He that sitteth between the cherubims alone ruleth over them. But we were beguiled to think that the full measure of the tabernacle of the Lord would be given to that church over which I preside as angel, which was no less than the exalting of the angel of the church into the place of Christ. I tremble when I think of the awfully perilous place into which I was thrust. Now the figure by which the eldership is known in Scripture is the calf; and the exaltation of the angel of the church to sit head over the fulness of the Spirit, was truly the making of the calf to worship it, instead of worshipping Him who sitteth between the cherubims. (F) I speak not at present of the injury and dishonour done to the other ministers of Christ by this setting up of one. I am contemplating our sin as it beareth upon Christ himself, upon the person of the Son of God; and I do see it as nothing less than a cunningly contrived plot to take out of his hands the dearest and noblest of all His prerogatives, that of Head of the Church, and giving it to another. In the same light do I see the naming of evangelists by me, which pertains not to any one, but to the Second Adam; His it is, to give names to every beast, and every tree in the spiritual Eden. And of this also, I do repent, and call upon the whole flock to repent with me.

(F) p. 91.