was sure to be given to the people. What have we like the testimony of angels or a burning bush? What have we like the miracles of Egypt, and the dividing of the sea?

What guide have we like the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night? What witness have we like the burning and thunderings of Mount Sinai? What witness have we that God regards his people more now than when he gave them bread from Heaven for the space of forty years? What will be to us, the testimony of Samuel, when God spoke to him with an audible voice,twice, and again twice? Is that dispensation removed, and a better exchange made to us by giving us the bible, a dark and intricate volume, which takes seven years to understand; yes, seven years twice told, leave the people as much in the fog, as to the knowledge of the real truth as when they first began. What a miserable exchange is this!

Could we not say, Lord take back the precious book, and give us Moses to go before that we may be no longer doubting about this, that and the other notion, or the interpretation of this or that scripture. Surely I think common sense teaches us that the bible is nothing to be compared with the glory of the law dispensation besides the many difficulties which attend such notions.

If there be no revelation of the Spirit, then there is no knowledge of God, to one more than another, the letter is all, and all who

read may be equally benefitted. It is useless to talk of saint and sinner, and of being born again, seeing there is no Spirit to be born of. This doctrine is inconsistent with the scriptures, for the writings of all the ancient christians bear a testimony of the Spirit. Saying, "It is the Spirit that quickeneth, (John vi. 63.) It was the Spirit that gave them utterance, (Acts, ii. 4.) it was the Spirit by which Stephen spake when the Jews were not able to resist him, (Acts, vi. 10.) it is by walking in the Spirit that christians are free from condemnation, (Rom. viii. 1.) the law of the Spirit of life makes free, (verse 2.) it is by the Spirit of God dwelling in us, that we are redeemed from the flesh; and from the carnal mind, (verse 10.) it is the Spirit of God dwelling in us that quickeneth our mortal bodies, (verse 11.) by the Spirit, the deeds of the body are mortified, and life obtained, (verse 13.) by the Spirit we cry Abba Father, (verse 15.) it is the Spirit that beareth witness with our Spirit, that we are the children of God, (verse 16.) the Spirit maketh intercessions for us, (verse 26.)

It was by the Spirit that both wisdom and knowledge, faith and miracles, tongues and prophecies were obtained. 1 Cor.xii. 8, 9, 10. It is by the Spirit that we are all baptized into one body,(1 Cor. xii. 13.)and," if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.". Rom. viii. 9.

When we once do away the idea of the

Spirit, we may at once put away the belief that there is a good man on the earth; and we may just as well throw away the bible as to perplex ourselves with it. For the promises of life therein, are only to such as abide in Christ whereby they partake of Spiritual sap and nourishment through him,

Feeling that the first opinion, is sufficiently refuted, I pass to notice that opinion which would incorporate the letter with the Spirit. This opinion is as inconsistent (all but,) as the former. For if it takes the letter to make out the one rule, then no person can be a christian without the bible. If it should be acknowledged that there are christians who know nothing about the bible, then we suppose that the Spirit of God is sufficient, independent of the letter; but otherwise, this opinion lays us under obligation to the letter as well as that notion already noticed. These may establish their seminaries of learning as well as others, and though they cry out much against preaching for money, and against the notion of making learning a necessary qualification for a preacher, yet they pillage the labors of the more industrious; for as they say that they could not have a rule without the bible, surely some one must have had learning, or they must have been destitute of a rule. Their own system declares that it is necessary that a knowledge of the letter be preserved, this may as well be done at their

expense as others. The people of this opinion are much opposed to preaching by note, but I confess that for twenty years past, I have never heard one of them preach in any other way. For though they do not take their pen and write down their sermons, they do that which is worse. The man who taketh is pen first chooses his text, and by the help of his concordance,brings such passages as will favor his ideas of the subject; consequently the people hear the scriptures explained to them in order. But these last choose a text but instead of committing the subject to order by the pen, they trust their memory ;consequently their subject is more or less irregular. What they labor about, is the letter, the difference is then,they first transcribe their notes, and the other, (for notes,) read out of the epistles. As both of them acknowledge that they could do nothing without the bible, I infer, that,to take the letter from them, they would have nothing to do.

As every error has its own inconsistency in it,so we may see, by pursuing our subject a little further the inconsistency of blending the letter with the Spirit. It is said that we must try the Spirit by the word (meaning the letter.) Notice, reader, if the bible be a spiritual book, as they say, and cannot be understood, but by the Spirit, then why go to the bible to try the Spirit? for if the bible cannotbe understood but by the Spirit,then it remains that we are under the necessity of knowing that we

have got the Spirit of God,before we go to try ourselves by the bible. Here it is plain that this notion, that the letter and the Spirit are inseparably connected, contradicts itself. I say that I have got the Spirit: is there a possibility that I am deceived? Yes, says one. Then how shall I know that I have the true Spirit? Until this knowledge can be obtained according to their notion, the bible is completely useless. The idea that the letter is incorporated into the Spirit,to help make out the dispensation of the gospel, supposes that men cannot be saved without the bible. I say the scriptures are not so much as one stone in the foundation upon which God has made man's salvation dependant. If so, what has become of all such as have died without the knowledge of the bible? Shall millions and tens of millions of poor souls be damned because they have no knowledge of the scriptures? Shall they be damned for not obtaining a knowledge of that which they did not know was in the world? Shall they be consigned to everlasting misery for want of that, of which they had no knowledge, nor means whereby they might obtain it !! What has become of the multitude of infants and others who have not come to the knowledge and means of understanding the scriptures? Shall all these be damned? This does militate against the wisdom and justice of God, and against the gospel dispensation and it cannot (I think) justly be denied.