authoritative teachers of mankind,—his witnesses, whom he was to accompany with satisfactory credentials, and so to sanction their testimony :-" Then opened he their understandings, that they might understand the Scriptures; and said unto them, Thas it is written, and thus it behoved the Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day; and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name, among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And ye are witnesses of these things. And behold I send the promise of my Father upon you; but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high." Luke xxiv. 45— 49.

This view of the divine procedure makes all sufficiently plain. There were inspired men, to whom the truth was communicated by direct revelation. They were commissioned to be the instructors of others, the medium of communication to the rest of mankind; and their commission was attested by adequate credentials. At the same time, so hostile was the natural mind to the reception of the message they brought, that the agency of the divine Spirit was necessary to its being discerned by any in its truth and excellence, and received in the love of it. And so the case remains. They are still his witnesses. Their inspired writings are the same in authority with what was uttered by their living voice. By these,

"they, being dead, yet speak;" and the Spirit still makes the truth which they have there recorded “the power of God unto salvation."-The language of Barclay, quoted above, implies that, "though it befall not many," yet it does befall some, to be "led inwardly and immediately by the Spirit of God,” not only "in the same manner," but even "in the same measure," with the "saints of old:"—that is, that there are still a few to be found, however rare, who enjoy immediate revelation, in the same degree as the apostles; for he quotes the promise to the apostles in proof of it, about their being "led into all truth!" And, although he does not affirm that there are many who have inspiration in the same measure, he does affirm, that not only many but all believers, under the new economy, have it in the same manner or kind. This, I repeat, arises from confounding the extraordinary with the ordinary operations of the Spirit. The truth is, that none now have either the same measure or the same kind of inspiration; inspiration, properly so called, having ceased, when the canon of revealed truth was completed in the Scriptures. All have the same amount of privilege, in having the full discovery of the Divine Mind in this completed canon; while, in regard to the enlightening, sanctifying, gladdening, directing, and strengthening influences of the Spirit, the command to all is, "Ask, and ye shall receive."

I have to notice, thirdly, that Mr Barclay greatly misapprehends, not to say misrepresents, the sentiments of those whom he opposes.-Thus, in speaking of the sameness of the object of the saints' faith in every age, he writes:-" Such as deny this proposi"tion now-a-days use here a distinction, granting "that God is to be known by his Spirit, but again 'denying that it is immediate or inward, but in and "by the Scriptures; in which the mind of the Spirit

(as they say) being fully and amply expressed, we "are thereby to know God, and be led in all things." -Now the words "immediate or inward" are misleading. The two terms are not synonymous. To deny that spiritual influence is immediate, and to deny that it is inward, are not the same thing. Who amongst us denies the latter? There have been some, I am aware, who held the sentiment, and there are some who hold it still, that the sole agency of the Spirit consists in the inspiration by which the Scriptures were given; and that those Scriptures now operate of themselves, independently of any accompanying influence. But this is not the view held by any who pass under the common designation of evangelical. They are far from maintaining that the operation of the word and the operation of the Spirit are one and the same, or (for to this it amounts) that

there is no operation of the Spirit at all, but only of the word which he has dictated. We hold that there is an operation of the Spirit; an inward operation ; an operation on the mind. But we hold, at the same time, that this operation is with or by the truth, agreeably to the explicit testimonies of inspired apostles-James i. 18, "Of his own will begat he us, by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first-fruits of his creatures:"-1 Pet. i. 23, " Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever:-And this is the word, which by the gospel is preached unto you."-And the same word continues, under the influence of the same Spirit, the instrumental means of progressive sanctification:"When ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of man, but, as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe :"- "He that is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him"-(that is, the incorruptible seed of the word)" and he cannot sin, because he is born of God." 1 Thess. ii. 13. 1 John iii. 9.-In as far, however, as the operation of the Spirit is inward, there is a sense in which it is also immediate :— -that is, it is not an operation upon the truth; for of this it is impossible to form any conception whatever :it is an operation upon the mind, when the truth is,

or has been, presented to it,-an operation, of which the mode is beyond our distinct apprehension, John iii. 8. but the reality of which is evinced in its results. When we deny it to be, in the Quaker sense, immediate, we mean that it does not consist in any direct communication of truth to the mind, independently of the existing revelation in the Holy Scriptures; but only in such a removal of the mind's natural blindness (a blindness arising from moral causes) as imparts a spiritual discernment of the excellence, and suitableness, and glory of the truth there revealed. It is immediate, as being upon the mind; it is mediate, as being by the truth.

A fourth and most glaring exemplification of the confusion arising from the adoption of a fallacious principle, is, Mr Barclay's confounding the truth of what God reveals with the reality of the revelation. No two things, surely, can be more distinct than these: yet mark how he writes, when he is proceeding to answer objections to the second part of his second proposition. In that proposition he had affirmed, in regard to the "divine revelation, “or inward illumination," for which he contends, its independence of any more noble or certain rule and touchstone," whether it be "the outward testimony of the Scrip"tures, or the natural reason of man ;" asserting it to be as "evident and clear of itself," and as assuredly "forcing by its own evidence and clearness, the

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