are deceived they have also seduced Egypt, even they that are the stay of the tribes thereof."-In this passage, in chaps. xxviii. xxix., and throughout Jeremiah and Ezekiel, the blame of the ignorance of the people, and their guilt, is charged principally on the religious guides, who are denounced with an unsparing universality that is most terrific. We never could conceive until lately how this could be merited we endeavoured to limit the application of such passages to the Papacy, or to the worldly-minded, or to heretics, or to schismatics; but, still, there was no distinction or reserve in the passages to justify such limitation, and we were therefore obliged to leave it for the Lord to vindicate His own word in His own time. Now, however, that we see the whole body of preachers, of every sect, knit together in one band to refuse to admit the voice of the Holy Spirit into their assemblies, we feel the reason of this universality in God's word painfully demonstrated before our eyes.

"The Lord hath mingled a perverse spirit in the midst thereof; and they have caused Egypt to err in every work thereof, as a drunken man staggereth in his vomit."-This verse, and particularly the last clause, ties the denunciation on Egypt again on to Isa. xxviii. xxix., where the drunkenness is declared to be not of wine, but of human wisdom, which considers itself as sufficient without the Spirit of God. Since, therefore, it is clear, not only from the text itself, but also from the analogous passages referred to, that God's controversy with the nation and system characterized under the name of Egypt, is on account of its learning, or human wisdom, in opposition to the sole wisdom in Jesus Christ, which is communicated by the Spirit of Jesus through his members, it becomes us to examine in what this nation is most vain of its wisdom, and the mode in which God is dealing with it at this time in these several kinds.

The universities are the schools of the nation, and the organs and expositors of its intelligence. In these there are three special studies, which qualify the proficients for what are termed Kar εoxην, THE LEARNED PROFESSIONS-namely, medicine, divinity, and jurisprudence. It has been observed in a former number of this Journal, that one obvious end to be attained by that fearful pestilence, the cholera, is the bringing into contempt the skill of the doctors, and the science of medicine. All the modes of treatment have proved equally fallacious: one gives narcotics, and another stimulants; one saline, and another spirituous, medicines; one bleeds, and another injects; and the amount of success and failure is equal with each. They are completely baffled; while the simple-hearted people, who have faith to dismiss all doctors, to reject all medicine, and to cast themselves in utter helplessness on the power of Jesus, have been recovered. Thus, one of the great idols of the wisdom of

Egypt is set at nought. "Go up into Gilead, and take balm, O virgin, the daughter of Egypt: in vain shalt thou use many medicines, for thou shalt not be cured" (Jer. xlvi. 11).

The Spirit of God has caused several young women, in different parts of Great Britain, to condense into a few broken sentences more and deeper theology than ever Vaughan, Chalmers, or Irving uttered in their longest sermons; and, therefore, more than all the rest of the Evangelical pulpits ever put forth in the whole course of their existence. Thus the pride and vanity of preachers, who have been followed by crowds of admirers, has been held up to scorn, and the foolishness of God has been demonstrated to be wiser than the wisdom of man. It is owing to this, among many other causes, that the popular preachers are found so bitterly opposed to the manifestations of the Spirit; and the schools of divinity are seen to be as inferior, when compared with the Spirit, to teach God's mind, as the schools of medicine are to preserve men's bodies, in comparison with faith in Jesus. A woman has no standing in the church but as subservient to the man; therefore she is not allowed to teach in the church; and, even when used by the Holy Ghost to prophesy, was to have her head covered, in token of her subjection to the man. She is, to all church intents and purposes, a "thing that is not ;" and therefore we see why it is that the Lord has used women chiefly as prophets in these days, in order "to bring to nought things that are." The Lord is turning things upside down in the church, as well as in the nation: He will do it, however, in such a way as to glorify Himself in his ordinances whereas man tramples upon God's ordinances, in order to shew his despite of God.

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The last of the sciences is jurisprudence that system which protects the acquired wealth of industry to the helpless, transmits it to impotent infancy, and secures by quietness that which could not be so well effected by powerful arms. This is likewise the science which defines and punishes crimes, measures the amount of their heinousness, and appropriates their punishment. The first table of the law of God must be the most sacred in every human, as it is in the Divine, code; and where that is purposely outraged, the sanction of the latter will be little regarded. God is publicly derided in the streets of London, and permitted to be so by our rulers: it is laid down as a maxim of government, that blasphemers are not to be prosecuted, if they are sincere in their blasphemy. Since, therefore, the wisdom of England's laws will not vindicate the honour of God, neither shall they protect England's idol, its property; and the most sacred rights of property, based upon the most ancient and on the best-established laws, shall be trampled under foot; and no law found to be valid against the caprice of a maddened people.

If there be one description of title more sacred than another, it was that which was founded upon a Royal Charter. In all disputes between the kings and their subjects, the violation of a charter by either party was considered a most heinous offence. Charters were held, in many instances, to be irrevocable even by an Act of Parliament: yet the Reform Bill at one fell swoop dashed into the sanctuary, and treated every charter in the kingdom with less deference than is shewn in ordinary cases to property resting on the most precarious tenure.

Thus will the wisdom of Egypt be proved to be folly in all its strongest holds. There is yet, however, another branch of the mystery of Egypt which it is necessary to consider; and that is, the darkness which is constantly ascribed to it. Wisdom is usually described as light; but God, who seeth not as man seeth, knows that the wisdom of Egypt is its darkness-is the cause of its not seeing the work of his Holy Spirit. Satan, the prince or ruler of darkness, the denier and opposer of Christ, has given men a light which he has contrived to make them believe will guide them better than the Spirit of Christ; so that the more of the light of Egypt they possess, the more are their eyes holden from seeing Christ working by his Spirit. This is a masterpiece of delusion; and we cannot sufficiently adore our God and wonder when we see any delivered from it. While this darkness pervades all Egypt, there is light in the dwellings of the children of Israel they who have taken Jesus for their wisdom and for their light, measure all things by His standard, and are enabled to perceive how all is darkness around them: yet men say they see, and therefore it is their sin remaineth. Out of this Egyptian darkness, and false wisdom, does God call every one of his sons (Hosea xi. 1). "By a prophet the Lord brought Israel out of Egypt, and by a prophet was he preserved" (Hosea xii. 13). It has been by the voice of the Spirit of prophecy being restored to the church that we have now been delivered from Egyptian wisdom, which is Egyptian darkness. This mystery is declared by the Apostle in 1 Cor. i. 19-29, ii. 5-16, where we are taught that the discernment of spiritual things is not by the intellect, but by the Spirit.

The form which the delusion takes amongst some of the opposers of the present work of the Holy Spirit is this,-They refuse to place themselves under its teaching, or examine into it personally, but say, "Give me an external evidence, a sign that I can see; and then it is time enough for me to consider the character of the present manifestations: in the mean time I am pursuing a Christian course, and exhibiting the love which hopeth all things, by denouncing those in whom the work is going on, as maniacs or impostors." The error which deludes such persons is that of supposing a work of the Holy Ghost is

to be apprehended by the intellect, and not by the spirit of a man. The error is fatal to their whole Christianity, but it was not developed till now. The doctrines of Christianity have served to augment the stock of intellectualism, and to change the current of their reason; but they have left them as far off from the life of God as they were before. These men are the true tares in the midst of the wheat; resembling so closely the genuine grain, that the accurate eye of the Omniscient Husbandman alone could discern the difference. This is one way by which the separating process of the harvest is carried on: the intellectual and spiritual were to man's eye alike; nay, the former appeared the better Christian of the two: God applies a test, which attracts the one, and repels the other; and thereby separation is produced.

A woe is denounced, in chap. xxx., "on the rebellious children, that take counsel, but not of God;.......that walk to go down into Egypt, and have not asked at My mouth; to strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh, and to trust in the shadow of Egypt! Therefore shall the strength of Pharaoh be your shame, and the trust in the shadow of Egypt your confusion." Since men will trust to human reasonings in the things of the Spirit of God, to those reasonings shall they be left; and under such guidance they can only end in perdition. The same is reiterated in chap. xxxi.: "Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help, and stay on horses, and trust in chariots, because they are many; and in horsemen, because they are very strong; but they look not unto the Holy One of Israel, neither seek the Lord. Yet he also is wise "-(this expression clearly proves that they thought themselves so very wise that they did not need the wisdom of God)-" yet he also is wise, and will bring evil, and will not call back his words; but will arise against the house of the evil-doers, and against the help of them that work iniquity. Now the Egyptians are men, and not God; and their horses flesh, and not spirit," &c. The point of distinction throughout is between God and Egypt, Spirit and flesh, as a place of trust and discovery of wisdom. In Ezekiel xvi. 26 the ground of God's complaint against Judah is, that "thou hast committed fornication with the Egyptians thy neighbours, great of flesh; and hast increased thy whoredoms, to provoke me to anger. Behold, therefore, I have stretched out my hand over thee, and have diminished thine ordinary food" (that is, the provision of the wife), " and delivered thee unto the will of them that hate thee," &c. The Spirit of God, the fountain of living water, has been diminished to the adulterous church; for she has despised it, and sought to fill her cisterns from the wisdom of Egypt: her ministers have ministered the letter, and not the Spirit: they have ministered a thing that was worse.

even than the Law: and she is delivered into the hands of those that hate her, the O'Connells, Joseph Humes, &c. &c.

There is another series of prophecies respecting Egypt which it is necessary briefly to notice in these, the king individually is addressed, and not the country: pride is still the offence, and the erecting itself into an equality with God: the root, however, of that pride is not, as heretofore, the wisdom of science and learning, and commercial prosperity, but the power arising from the antiquity and fixedness of established institutions. For an illustration of these remarks we shall take Ezekiel xxix. to xxxii. At the commencement of the prophecy Pharaoh is called "the great dragon" (D): by this term the destruction of Pharaoh in the Red Sea is spoken of in Psa. lxxiv. 13, 14: and the past deliverance at that time, and a future deliverance, of which that was a type, is mentioned by the same expressions in Isa. xxvii., and li. 9, 10. The dragon is the symbol by which Satan is described in the Apocalypse as the secret instigator of all authority and power that is used against the church of the living God wherefore, in calling Pharaoh by that term, the Holy Spirit intimates to us that he is but the visible representative and agent of the devil," the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience;" the spirit of pride, that sets itself up in competition with Jesus; the father of "the sons of pride." The pride and insolence of this prince expresses itself in saying My river is my own, and I have made it for myself.” The river of Egypt was its sole cause of greatness. The country is truly a plain of barren land; but the banks of the river, which were overflowed regularly, produced sufficient corn for all the inhabitants; and so much more than they could consume, that Egypt was the great granary which fed all the then known world; and received back, instead of corn, the treasures of surrounding nations. This, therefore, is the most perfect figure of the stability and fixedness of institutions upon which the permanence of a crown and continuance of power to the state could be built. It would seem to be beyond the chance of change; for that as long as the world endured, so long would the river endure, and continue its periodical overflowings; and so long must the greatness of the empire dependent upon it last. But God takes this, the most improbable instance to man's sight, in order to shew that no dominion, founded even upon things as durable as the works of his own hand, shall stand, when the things are trusted in, and He is forgotten.

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The river was of God's appointment, and therefore an apt emblem of institutions ordained by him for promoting the prosperity of any people. The whole history of the Egyptians illustrates this subject yet more forcibly, for its fundamental laws were established by Joseph. He entirely changed the