and of the bondage of meats and drinks, and carnal ordinances of every kind, yea infinitely worse than all these, a solemn admonition to conceal' as much as possible from mankind the blessed and fundamental truth of the Gospel, that "Christ died for the ungodly,"" and that "the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin.

.

But we must not anticipate the discussion of these subordinate points, nor the questions which arise in regard to the extent and identity of the church of Christ upon earth. It may suffice us for the present to have shown, upon undeniable evidence of Scripture, that as a right knowledge of God, and the relation in which he stands to us, and we to him, in Christ Jesus, is impossible without the influence and teaching of the Holy Spirit, so likewise the whole work of God in Christ, and consequently of necessity the personal interest which any individual believer can have in it, is inseparable from the purpose of building up

* See Appendix, No. ii.

1 See No. 80, of the Tracts for the Times, especially Part iii., No. 5. pp. 74-80, where it is broadly maintained that "Socinianism in a subtle shape," is, or at least will be, unless arrested in time, the result of "the extraordinary prevalence of this modern opinion, of the necessity of preaching the Atonement thus explicitly."!!

his own body, the church; and that therefore all attempts on the part of individuals to meddle with, or to appropriate that, which alone deserves the name of Christianity, must for ever remain abortive, until they shall have come to that state of simple obedience of faith which seeks, no matter by what means, provided they be of God's own appointment, incorporation in the body of Christ, and communion with the Holy Ghost.

E

CHAPTER IV.

The Voice of the Spirit a Covenant Grace.

"THERE ARE THREE THAT BEAR WITNESS IN EARTH, THE SPIRIT, AND THE WATER, AND THE BLOOD: AND THESE THREE AGREE IN ONE. IF WE RECEIVE THE WITNESS OF MEN, THE WITNESS OF GOD IS GREATER FOR THIS IS THE WITNESS OF GOD WHICH HE HATH TESTIFIED OF HIS SON. HE THAT BELIEVETH ON THE SON OF GOD HATH THE WITNESS IN HIMSELF: HE THAT BELIEVETH NOT GOD HATH MADE HIM A LIAR, BECAUSE HE BELIEVETH NOT THE RECORD THAT GOD GAVE OF HIS SON."-1 John v. 8-10.

We have advanced so far in our argument as to have ascertained that Christianity, or the truth of the Gospel, is inseparable both from that Holy Spirit of God who is in His substantial Godhead its fountain, and by the office peculiarly appertaining to His blessed person, its standing witness and interpreter; and from that Church, the body of Christ, for the founding and building up of which it was promulgated in this world. We are, therefore, now in a situation to carry our inquiry one step further, and to consider whether the whole work, of which the influence of the Holy Spirit of God upon the hearts and minds of men.

is the operative power, and the edification of the church for God's glory the end, be carried on exclusively in the invisible and spiritual world; or whether it have pleased God to manifest and, so to speak, embody it, in the visible world; and if the latter appear clearly to have been the case, farther to examine into the evidence, upon the ground of which the work of God so embodied in the world may be satisfactorily identified.

That the work which God, through Christ, is carrying forward in his church, although essentially appertaining to an unseen, a spiritual world, has nevertheless from the first been set forth in a visible manner, and embodied in this world of sense, is a proposition which, in an argument addressed to professed believers in revelation, might perhaps be taken for granted. We are hardly called upon to enter the lists specifically against so great an aberration of intellect as that which some mystics have fallen into, who recognise in the historical facts of Scripture nothing more than an extensive allegory. Dismissing, therefore, much that might be said on this subject, if called for, we would only advert to the difference which in this respect has been thought to exist, and which in one sense does exist, between former times and the present. The fact that God, when he put his Spirit upon Moses,

and upon others his prophets of the Old Testament, gave such evidence of his presence in the visible world as could not be mistaken, consisting partly of extraordinary events, announced by the voice of his Spirit and performed by the arm of his power, partly of ordinances in which according to his own appointment he "met with his people and communed with them;"-the farther fact, that when in the fulness of times he spake unto the church by his Son, he was not only in the person of his Son "manifest in the flesh," but made the external evidence of his presence an essential ingredient in the testimony to be borne of him by his disciples, among whom he, who was most deeply acquainted with the divine nature of his master, and with the spiritual realities of the unseen world, expresses himself thus pointedly, "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; (for the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness,

This object is expressly stated in connexion with the ordination of the twelve Apostles; "He ordained twelve, that they should be with him,” (Mark, iii. 14.); he refers to it when about to be separated from them, "Ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning," (John xv. 27). It is a principal point of consideration in supplying the place of the