the key of knowledge, and substitute human acquirements, notions, systems, and performances. They "shut up the kingdom of heaven," and will neither enter into it themselves, nor suffer those that would enter, if they can hinder them; and yet all the time they are seemingly inviting them to enter. "Oh! no," says their deluded admirer, who is thus hindered and kept from the kingdom, and from knowing what the kingdom is, where it is, and what is meant by entering into it," surely these reverend divines are not such doleful creatures. They are certainly pious, godly men, and take a deal of pains for the salvation of souls." But art thou not mistaken? Are not the pains they take for their own profit? They make a trade of preaching; they "teach for hire, and divine for money," false-prophet-like. They crouch and truckle to the inclinations of their feeders. They pervert the doctrines of the gospel, and accommodate their lectures to the taste, liking, and gratification of the people; especially the great and affluent, their great masters. They strike full against the design of the gospel, and maintain the impossibility of overcoming sin on this side the grave; though the destruction of sin is the very work of the gospel, and this side the grave the only scene of conquest over it. They pamper up the proud, ambitious, and martial spirit of man; and, in direct repugnancy to the very genius and spirit of the gospel, blow up the people to wage war with their fellow creatures, and imbrue their hands in the blood of mankind. They are the tools of government and party. They foment, and are applied to, and called upon, to foment, or to soothe and settle, the minds of the people, as suits the will or caprice of their employers. They pray, on one side, for the success of arms, to the destruction or defeat of the adverse party; and, on the other side, those of the same communion pray for success of arms, and destruction or defeat, in direct opposition. They are still in good unity, as brethren, professedly. They pretend to pray to the same God, and in his name, whose unfailing promise is to all his true disciples, that whatsoever they really ask in his name, shall be granted them.

In short, there will never be much true gospel life, or preaching, among men hired to preach; and who undertake it with an

expectation of procuring thereby an outward livelihood. They run of themselves. God doth not send them; nor is it likely he will often qualify them, or bless their labours to the people, otherwise than as he over-rules events, and brings good out of many other evils. I do most seriously consider the standing orders of man-made ministers, as more pregnant with real injury, and as being in itself, and in its train of consequences, a more serious evil, an evil of greater magnitude to mankind, than any one evil beside, under the sun, that I have any knowledge of. Though I suppose some who think with me herein, would scarcely like to have it so bluntly declared in public. But I believe it must, and will be declared. God has determined the downfall of Babylon, and he will have a few faithful testimony-bearers against her. She shall be exposed; and all her harlots, whoredoms, and sorceries detected. And though she may shift sides, change her dress, call herself the Lamb's wife, cry out against Babylon, and affect to abhor her merchandise; yet, through all her arts and evasions, she is seen, and shall be seen by the single-eyed followers of the Lamb, the true leader, who together make war with the beast, and will finally overcome him for the Lamb and his followers shall have the victory.

Our state in this life is a state of probation. Such was the state of man originally, and such it is now. In order to its being such, both then and now, there must have been, and now must be, something to watch against, and wage war with. And in order that man at first, or ever after, might be able to conquer in this war, or be justly punishable for desertion or defeat, he was, is, and must be, armed with armour invincible against all the powers that were or are suffered to assail him. This is just our ground, our state and situation. Subject to vanity, or to many and various temptations; yet being inwardly armed with the spirit of Omnipotence, so far as we stand faithful, and fight valiantly in the strength afforded us, we are sure of victory. Our strength or help is only in God; but then it is near us, it is in us; it is no less than the very life and power of God—nothing inferior to omnipotent aid; a force superior to all possible opposition; a force that never was, nor can be foiled in battle.

We are free to stand in this almighty and unconquerable ability, and defeat the powers of darkness; or to turn from it, and be foiled and overcome. When we stand, we know it is God alone upholds us; and when we fall, we feel that our fall or destruction is of ourselves.

I am very clear in it, that at six and seven years of age, the inward principle, (which is the hand and power of God, lovingly operative upon the soul,) so wrought, and shone, and moved within me, as to give me a sure and distinguishing sense of right and wrong, good and evil, in divers particulars; and in some. things, altogether independent of human information.

I have nothing to boast of in regard to the penetrations of my own mind. I am what I am and it is the rejoicing of my soul, that what I am, I am by the grace of God, in things of religious concernment, and not by human wisdom, or scholastic attainment.

It is likely, since Christ himself is "the way;" and since himself has truly declared, the way is narrow, and that "few there be that find it;" that seven may profess, to one that comes truly to possess, a living and saving acquaintance with him. I do not mean this in any wise as a calculation, or even as a guess, at the proportion. But is it not true, spiritually, that seven women do lay hold of the skirts of one man. Their choice is, to eat their own bread, and wear their own apparel. They don't like to renounce self, and become wholly dependant for food. and clothing; their own suits them better: and yet they wish to be called by the man's name, to take away their reproach. To be called by his name, they must make at least some profession of espousals; they must seem to be changed. And this they are very fond of; they wish to pass for changed persons, and can readily consent to be changed in name, though wholly unwilling to change either their food or their clothing. They have food of their own, and their table becomes a snare to them. They feed on the tree of knowledge. They are puffed up, and conceited. They clothe themselves with embroidered garments, yet are destitute of that clothing, which the King's daughter, being all-glorious within, is clothed with. "Her clothing is of wrought gold."

In this ignorance of the true riches, and dignity of the bride, the Lamb's wife, and in this fulness of themselves and that which is their own, they are always ready; because they never wait to be made rightly ready, by being fed, filled, qualified, and clothed by the true husband. Here, they seem not at a loss ; they can readily judge in divine things; yea, they would usurp the privilege that belongs only to the truly spiritual man, and judge all things. But as God has hid the mysteries of his kingdom from them, and is determined ever to confound the "wisdom of the wise," and "bring to nought the understanding of the prudent," they err in counsel and stumble in judg ment. They put light for darkness, and darkness for light; bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter. They call the very light of heaven, "that enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world," a natural light, an ignis fatuus, or by some other ignominious epithet; though the scripture declares it to be the very life of the holy "word, that was in the beginning with God, and truly was God." Thus dark and ignorant are all men, in a natural state, notwithstanding all their profession of faith, and regeneration, and calling themselves by the name of Christ. There are many of them, who, under a notion of advocating the true cause and doctrine of Christ, strike violently against the very life of it; and will not allow that the "manifestation of the spirit is given to every man to profit withal," though the scriptures expressly assert it, and experience confirms it to those who rightly profit by the measure received. Many who have, from tradition and education, for a season believed the holy spirit graciously vouchsafed them, was some very inferior thing to the true spirit of the everlasting and most holy God, have at length, by yielding to its dictates, and taking it for their leader, grown wiser than their teachers, and been indubitably instructed and assured that it was indeed the eternal spirit, that, from their infantile days, strove with them, for their reconciliation with God, the eternal source of it, as it did with the old world, for their recovery from their corrupted, alienated state.

We find that when the earth was corrupt before God, and filled with violence;-when "God looked upon the earth, and behold it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted his way upon

the earth," Gen. vi.;when man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil ĉo, tinually ;"—when “it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart;"-at that most totally abandoned and depraved period and state of mankind, when God was just about extirpating from the face of the earth the whole wretched race of man, a few individuals excepted :—at such a season as this," the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man." Surely if his spirit had striven with them until that time, until they were so desperately wicked, and wholly corrupted, that not only some, but every imagination of their hearts was evil, yea, only evil, and that conti ually; we may well believe the express scripture assertion, that a "manifestation of the spirit is given to every man to profit withal."

God saw that the wickedness of

If God's love is such to men, that he follows them by the strivings of his own spirit, and spares them, until by disobedience they become totally abandoned and corrupted, before his spirit ceases striving with them, what greater evidence can we desire to have of the universality of his love, the long-suffering of his patience, and impartial vouchsafement of his holy spirit, not to a few, to the exclusion of the rest, but to all mankind the world over. And what more than all reasoning confirms it to be so, is, the absolute truth of the fact in the individual experience of all. It is true many deny it. The Jews also denied Christ to be the son of God. They did not know who, and what he was, and their insulting query, "Whom makest thou thyself?" was just as natural to proceed from them in their dark and carnal state, as is the confidence wherewith thousands, high in profession of godliness, now utterly disallow the holy spirit that is given to all, to be the holy spirit. But this consolation have all wisdom's children, that "wisdom is justified of them all; and that the unbelief of others can never make void their faith: they are taught of God, and great is their peace."

In regard to my own early acquaintance with the holy spirit's operation, though I then knew not what it was, I have now no more doubt about it than I have about the existence and omniVOL. I.-5