they ought to possess, and to be able to afford, certain proofs of their ordination. They have not these convictions, nor these testimonials. They cannot, either scripturally or reasonably, be believed in their assertion of inspiration, without these evidences, These evidences they neither possess, nor have the power of giving. There is an end, then, to all sound pretensions of comparison; and to believe there is a similitude of authority, is a faith not agreeable to Scripture, which is our rule. And the claimants of equal inspiration, on the ground of precedent, are, in fact, guilty of the wickedness of arrogating higher authority than the Apostles, or even Christ himself,

Others will depend much on their feelings, as an indication of their call; but these are evidently inconclusive, and opposed to Scripture and to reason, as a sufficient evidence of the fact, equally with the ground which we have just been examining.

But, secondly, to commence another step in our argument, the claimants of immediate inspiration and internal calls, exclusively of all other modes of instruction, do not rest all their credibility on, mere alleged apostolic precedent: they extract from Scripture more special arguments. And the discussion of one of them, to which we next proceed, will necessarily occupy a large portion of our pages. It is that derived from Acts ii. 17, 18, which we noticed in the beginning of chapter the seventh, and which is maintained, not only by the illiterate among the methodists, but the more erudite followers of Fox. "And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy; and

on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit, and they shall prophesy."

The first prevailing opinion, among certain of our opponents, with respect to this passage, is, that the days mentioned in it are our own. Men might certainly doubt, if they considered whether the times in which we live were, in the popular sense, the last days of the world; whether we are bordering on the end of time. And if these were the last days, agreeably to the true purport of St. Peter's words, we might also inquire, with some suspicion, whether much of the preaching with which this country is pervaded were such as is intended by the extract before us. To multitudes, however, the idea of these being the last days, is the most obvious. They are no less certain, that the preaching of such as "know not letters, having never learned," is the prophesying foretold. Is it not, say they, as plainly written as possible, that, in the last days, God would pour out of his Spirit on all flesh, and that our sons and our daughters were to preach? Are not these the last days? Are there not many of both sexes, in all directions, destitute of all human learning, proclaiming, by their ministerial labours, the vanity of education? Are not these persons, beyond all question, taught only by the Spirit of God? And do we not here behold the prophecy fulfilled? The prophecy thus understood is indeed most probably the cause of its own fulfilment,-if for a moment we dare imagine the eloquence of the illiterate to be its completion. Those who believe that in these days men and women were to be moved, and taught

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to preach by the immediate influence of the Spirit, and that nothing whatever is requisite but this inspiration, may expect the blessing to be conferred upon themselves. And if they once feel a desire to be the messengers of salvation, they may assume it instantly to be that identical gift: they are under the operation, not of their own spirit, but of God's; and their prophesying is commenced.

The better informed of those who contend for a continuation of the prophesying of the apostolic age to our own days, argue, that the period signified in the passage of St. Peter's oration, is the entire period of the christian dispensation. There is some apparent foundation for this opinion in two or three portions of the prophetic writings, "The last days" may signify in Isaiah ii. 2, and Micah iv. 1, various times from the commencement to the termination of the Christian era. The matter for our determination is the interpretation of the expression in the verses under review: towards which it will be advisable to make a few preparatory observations.

In almost all countries visited by the traveller, he beholds the wandering or the sojourning Israelite. On the face of all the earth, where is there a nation to compare with the Jews? In nearly every land are they settlers,-in nearly every land but (with almost one exception in particular) their own; from that they are banished well nigh altogether. The whole commonwealth, as it were, are outcasts from Sion. And needless must it be to inform the christian reader, that this banishment from their home, from that land which they love, and to which they would fain return, but which such is God's decree

they cannot yet regain, is, in part, a judgment of the Almighty upon them for crucifying the Lord of life. But this is far from all the punishment which fell upon that devoted nation, for that deed of horror. The most signal vengeance which God inflicted was displayed in one of the most stupendous incidents in the history of mankind-the destruction of the city of Jerusalem and its inhabitants. Their cry had been, "His blood be on us, and on our children." And it was upon them. It chills our veins to read the narrative of its protracted siege. God had commanded the sword and the famine to do their work to the full. Perhaps more than half the nation expired in the agonies of war. The lives of thirteen hundred thousand human victims, and some of them sacrificed in the most appalling horrors, were a small retribution for the blood of the incarnate Son of God. But also, what deserves particularly to be noted, their city became an heap, and their magnificent temple was laid in ruins, razed even with the ground. So bent on destruction were the Roman soldiery, that its very foundation was not suffered to go undisturbed, and the plough-share was driven where it had reposed. And with the structure departed all its glories and its treasures. The priesthood and sacrifices came to an end. one great sacrifice had been offered; an overruling destiny deprived the people of the mockery of its prefiguration. The holy of holies, and the ark of the covenant, vanished from their sight. The beauty of the land was gone. A period was put to the national polity. The once favoured people of the Lord became his abhorred inheritance, and the per

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secutors of the Christians were humbled even to the dust.

"It might be imagined, that an event of such awful import to the Jewish nation, and that a deliverance of the believers in Christ from its oppressions, would make a conspicuous figure in the records of our religion. Recollecting the relation which the religion of the Jews bore to the Christian; how one was to give place to the other, and how that other was established by a Jew in his human nature, amongst the Jews themselves; recollecting too that it was a visitation for denying their promised king; it can hardly be supposed that the subversion of the ancient religion would not occupy a prominent place in the sacred annals.

And this is the real state of the case. Not only is the destruction of Jerusalem predicted by their prophets of old, but in three of the gospels it is written that Christ foretold it with much pomp of imagery, and with many circumstantial directions and promises to his followers. The twenty-fourth chapter of St. Matthew's gospel, the thirteenth of St. Mark's, and the twenty-first of St. Luke's, are almost all filled with a description of this awful event, and instructions to the Christians for their conduct at that particular crisis. In St. Luke's gospel, who writes more circumstantially than the rest, it is related "As some spake of the temple, how it was adorned with goodly stones and gifts, he said, As for these things which ye behold, the days will come in the which there shall not be left one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down. And they asked him, Master, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming?" He tells