works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me." (John x. 25.) And not provoked by their obstinate infidelity and personal violence to abandon them to their hardness of heart, but continuing his discourse with the tenderest solicitude for their conversion, he added, "If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not; but if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works, that ye may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in Him." (John x. 37, 38.)

Further extracts from Scripture would be superfluous to establish the facts, that the Apostles enjoyed, through the medium of their senses, the most indisputable evidence of their inspiration and authority; and that Christ himself, as well as they, performed works of a miraculous nature, for the express purpose of inducing the belief of their doctrines in their hearers thus reason and Scripture deny that the knowledge of the truth is a warrant to preach. (See pp. 73-75.)

Now, bearing constantly in mind the scriptural precedents which we have just examined, it is for us to inquire into the credibility of those pretenders to inspiration, who, with a very moderate degree of learning, or without even the knowledge of letters, offer themselves to the people as chosen vessels to bear the name of Christ, on the ground that the Apostles were poor unlearned men, and that, like them, they obtain their knowledge of the gospel, their power, and their call to preach it, by direct and immediate instruction from heaven,-not through the teaching of man, but only by infusion of the Spirit.

It is well known, that the ministers of the church

do not lay claim to this exclusive preparation of the Spirit. We also deny that the Apostles were taught solely by the Holy Ghost, without any instruction from preaching, or from any human teacher. The Scriptures supply no positive evidence of the Apostles, or of any of their compeers, being taught to preach the word of God by immediate inspiration. They were assured that they should be directly inspired, to answer the temporal authorities before whom they should be arraigned; and some of them were enabled, in such a supernatural manner, to perpetuate the word of God in written records: but, farther than this, clear proof is wanting of their receiving the truth otherwise than by the examination of the Old Testament, their teachers, and particularly our Saviour's oral instruction; that disposition to imbibe true doctrine, and that application of it to the mind and the heart, which is the ordinary office of the third person in the Godhead. It is, however, probable that it was given them what they were to speak, on occasions when they had not received instructions in other ways; and we shall assume the fact. Still they were, to a certainty, not taught entirely by immediate illapses. On the contrary, their education for the ministry was, in great measure at least, received by the easy course of attending to His verbal instructions, who, before his ascension, commissioned them to teach all nations to observe all things whatsoever he had commanded them. (Matt. xxviii. 19, 20.) It is, besides, untrue that all the Apostles were illiterate men: St. Paul and St. Luke possessed, particularly the former, very considerable learning for the times in which they lived.

All of them probably knew Greek, and had known the Jewish Scriptures, which were able to make them "wise unto salvation ;" and all of them, who were not learned, had enjoyed the advantages of Christ's preaching and conversation. These facts

are alone sufficient to show, that they make false pretensions who compare themselves to the Apostles: if they are ignorant of the alphabet, and claim to have been taught only by the Spirit, they pretend indeed to being more wonderfully taught than the Apostles themselves. And the very pretence of being taught like the Apostles, is at best an illusion: it is impossible they can have been so taught. But, passing by this unintended assumption of superiority over these distinguished persons, we will imagine, for the sake of argument, that the Apostles were ignorant mechanics, or labourers of an inferior class, and that they received their knowledge of the gospel solely by an effusion of light from heaven. Are these men, according to Scripture, to be believed in their assertion, that they are called and sent to preach the gospel as the Apostles were? Their argument, which we are now to consider, that they are inspired to preach in the same manner as the poor and ignorant fishermen of Galilee, is simply this :-because the Apostles were such men, and were so inspired, they affect to be like, in this respect, to these first missionaries of our religion. The question is, are they to be believed? Is it not possible that they may be as the false prophets of old, who followed their own spirits, and said, "The Lord saith, when the Lord hath not sent them." (Ezek. xiii. 6.) Are their inspiration and their vocation facts so certain to themselves and others,

that it is impossible to be a self-deception, and that it is incumbent on the people to concur in their opinion? We will here take up the favourite, but misunderstood and abused argument of the dissen

ters.

We must have every conformity to the Scriptures. These men claim a commission and an inspiration, similar to those of the Apostles. Then they must, according to Scripture, have as certain proofs of their not being self-deceived, and of their appointment to the ministry, as the Apostles had. They must have had some delegation of authority from Christ by word of mouth; and they must be able to perform miracles, both as evidences to themselves and to the people. Have they any such proof to themselves and to others? Certainly not. Then, according to Scripture, they are not to be believed. They take upon themselves more than apostolic claims, by assuming authority to preach without a sensible commission, and by requiring us to believe their word without miraculous attestations.

But very possibly there may be enthusiasts nothing loth to imagine themselves taught in a more direct manner from above, than the most constant companions of the Saviour. Perhaps they see no impropriety in supposing they are exalted, in this respect, above the first human teachers; they may conceive they are instructed differently from them, and therefore need not their credentials. But there is one

degree of impiety which few men probably will dare to transcend to vindicate to themselves as perfect inspiration as that possessed by Christ himself; and exalt themselves above the Saviour, and arrogate more than his authority. Yet this would be the

case, did such men as affect immediate inspiration from heaven, demand credit, on scriptural precedent, without the most convincing testimony to their truth by supernatural agency. Even the Son of God himself, whom we are commanded to honour even as we honour the Father, He did not come before the people, and require to be believed without working miracles, in condescension to human infirmities and to rational principles. But those who pretend to immediate inspiration in these days, and give us no proof of their truth, except that such inspiration was afforded to man in the apostolic times, and then expect us to believe that they are so inspired,-aspire to higher authority than was exercised by Christ. They are setting themselves up above Him. Christ did not require men to believe Him merely on his word. These preachers, according to the argument from precedent, do. They exact greater faith in themselves, than Christ demanded for his own words. What wickedness must those persons be guilty of, in thus preferring a stronger claim to confidence than the Son of God; and what must be our folly and our crime, if we confer upon them, by admitting it, a superior degree of honour!

We have seen then, according to Scripture and to reason, that it is not to be believed, from the precedents alleged, that these men are called and instructed only by the Spirit: because they are unlike, very essentially unlike, to persons, mentioned in Scripture, who were so called and instructed; and are, at the same time, destitute of those circumstances of credibility of which reason warrants the expectation. According to Scripture and reason,