Gentile world, unless immediately connected with their own people. Accordingly, the period of the present dispensation, from the destruction of Jerusalem and the dispersion of the Jews, is by them passed over in silence, till the time of their restoration to the Holy Land, yet to take place. This space in the history of the world, the dispensation of the Gentiles, is that which is foreshewn by St. John-the irruptions of the Northern nations, the Saracens and Turks, the rise and fall of the Papacy, the latter spread of Infidelity. But at the close of this period comes the final restoration of the Jews, the great subject on which the Hebrew Prophets dwell; and in that event a junction takes place of the prophecies of the Old with those of the New Testament. When the seventh trumpet is sounded (Rev. xi. 15), then the twenty-four elders, which represent the Jewish church in heaven, alone engage in a song of praise betokening that then is arrived the time of the restoration of the Jews to the promised land. When the first four seals are opened, it is the four living creatures who call the attention of the Evangelist to them; intimating that they relate to the Gentile church, which they personate in heaven. And it is one of the four living creatures which gives the vials (xv. 7) to the seven angels, the judgments inflicted on the enemies of the Christian church.

If the views here submitted should not meet the concurrence of all, they may have the utility of exhibiting this interesting book in some form or light not noticed before, and thus assist to extend the knowledge of its contents.

F.

ON THE GIFTS OF THE HOLY GHOST, COMMONLY CALLED SUPERNATURAL.

(Continued from vol. ii. page 869.)

THE subject of the gifts commonly called extraordinary, and rashly conceived of as given for a local and temporary end, is one of far greater importance than the advocates of either opinion have dared to conceive, or, at least, have ventured to express; being, as I judge, connected in the closest manner with the edification of the church in love and holiness; with her witness among the nations for their conversion unto Christ; with the glory of God, as the Creator of the human soul for his shrine, agent, and interpreter; with the glory of Christ, as the Head of the church, subordinating all the members to himself for the use of the Creator; with the glory of the Holy Ghost, as the very life and mind and substance of Godhead, inhabiting, informing, and manifesting forth the being of God, in such wise as that the church

should be God's manifested fulness, the fulness of God, who filleth all in all. Such a subject to have undertaken would even now appal me, had I to work out the form, or to weave the web of it, from my own reason: but, having expressly given myself up to the guidance of God's own word, in that order in which it hath pleased him to reveal the same, I feel nowise embarrassed; but, following the footsteps of the Holy Ghost in the Old Testament, with the candle of the New Testament in my hand, I feel that I cannot go far astray. And if I should err in my interpretations, the error carries its own correction along with it; for at every turn I appeal to the written word of God, "written for our learning, that we, through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope." And the more easily to fall into the method of God, I have chosen to adopt no method of my own, but simply to follow down in order the scriptural testimonies which are found upon this subject. Of these, twothose in Psa. Ixviii. and Isai. viii.-have already been taken into consideration; and I now proceed to that written in the xxviii th chapter of the same prophet, and applied to the gift of tongues in the xiv th chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians.

The words which the Holy Ghost, in the mouth of the Apostle Paul, hath set his seal to, as a prophecy of the gift of tongues, are as follows: "For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people; to whom he said, This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest, and this is the refreshing yet they would not hear." And the manner of his doing so is this: "In the law it is written, With men of other tongues and other lips will I speak unto this people; and yet for all that they will not hear me, saith the Lord. Wherefore tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them that believe not: but prophesying serveth not for them that believe not, but for them which believe." Nothing therefore can be more distinct, than that the Lord would have us to study the prophecy of the xxviiith chapter of Isaiah by the light of the xiv th chapter of Corinthians, if we would get insight into the mystery of the gift of tongues, which is no where else in the Old Testament individually referred to.

The prophecy begins by denouncing woe upon the drunkards of Ephraim, or the Ten Tribes, represented in that tribe which had the birthright, and spread over the region of Galilee and Samaria, where was the first scene of our Lord's labours, as had been prophesied by Isaiah (ix. 1). Of these drunkards, the utter desolation is foretold by "a mighty and strong one, which as a tempest of hail and a destroying storm, as a flood of mighty waters overflowing, shall cast down to the earth with the hand" (Isai. xxviii. 2). By the Assyrian out of the north

this began to be accomplished upon the same generation whom our prophet rebuked; was consummated upon the generation to whom our Lord addressed the direful woes of Capernaum, Chorazin, and Bethsaida; and still continues, both upon the land and upon the people. Then, after the usual consolation to the residue, and promise of a most glorious restitution of all the things which in wrath and judgment were to be trodden down for a season, the scope of the prophecy passeth over, at ver. 7, to the priests and the prophets, the consecrated guardians of the wisdom and knowledge of the land; upon whom the burden proceedeth until the 14th verse, when it passeth over to the political or regal estate; and concludes with a parable, taken from the art of the husbandman (ver. 23). Of these three portions of the prophecy, it is the middle one with which we have to do; and this consisteth of two parts: the former descriptive of the blindness of mind, the ignorance, error, and uncleanness of spirit, which had come over the learned, studious, and sacred classes of the people; namely, the priests, the scribes, and the doctors; whose state is figuratively set forth in these words: "But they also have erred through wine, and through strong drink are out of the way: the priest and the prophet have erred through strong drink, they are swallowed up of wine, they are out of the way through strong drink; they err in vision, they stumble in judgment. For all tables are full of vomit and filthiness, so that there is no place clean" (vers. 7, 8). This is not the drunkenness and debauchery of the flesh-for in the time of our Lord, who made great use of this prophecy, these classes were mostly of the Pharisees, a self-denying sect, and severe as to the letter of religion and morals-but it is that incapacity of understanding any thing aright which comes from a perverted and dishonest mind, intent not upon God's glory and the conscience of truth, but neglecting these altogether, for sinful ends of ambition and vainglory, or mingling them with the interests of a sect with which we identify ourselves. Such, for example, as are to be found this day among the zealous promoters of the Evangelical sect; which, in respect of its love of party and incapacity of receiving truth, is the very fac-simile of the religious and believing class to whom these words were addressed: "Stay yourselves, and wonder; cry ye out, and cry: they are drunken, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink. For the Lord hath poured out upon you the spirit of deep sleep, and hath closed your eyes: the prophets and your rulers, the seers, hath he covered" (Isai. xxix. 9, 10). The perfect identity of the Evangelical sect with these drunkards of Ephraim is shewn in nothing more than this, that, if any person there abiding come to the knowledge of any truth as it is in Jesus, he is fain to come out from among them; and if he will not, they will move heaven

and earth to cast him out. The latter part of the prophecy is the judgment of these men, consisting in making a void of the way of wisdom, and adopting a new way in its stead; which is, the foolishness of preaching; rejecting the way of the wise and the prudent, of the scribe and the disputer of this world; and adopting in its stead the way of babes. "Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? Them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts. For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little: for with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people" (Isai. xxviii. 9-11). They would not take the gift of God for its own preciousness, or for the dignity and excellency of the Giver; but must have it set out with the arts of the sophist, or in the forms of traditionary learning. God said to them, "This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing: yet they would not hear. But the word of the Lord was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little; that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken' (vers. 12, 13). They would accept of no heavenly boon which would not defer to their notions of manly wisdom; and God would not give it in any other form than what is proper to us as children. They stood upon their attainments; God stood upon their foolishness: they would not give way to God, and so they lost the boon of rest and refreshment; and were cast into a restless bed, to pass a long and dreary night: "For the bed is shorter than that a man can stretch himself on it; and the covering narrower than that he can wrap himself in it" (ver. 20).

1. Such is the prophecy as a whole; and now I proceed to point out the use of it made in general by the Lord, and in particular by the great teacher of the Gentiles. The xith chapter of St. Matthew is nothing more than a running commentary upon it; where the Lord, after denouncing woe upon the cities of Ephraim (the ten tribes), vers. 20-24, for their unbelief of his discourses and miracles, doth receive (Luke viX17-21) the account from his unlearned disciples, the seventy, how wonder fully they, who were but babes, had prospered; and instantly he beheld the fulfilment of this prophecy, and rejoiceth "that those things were hidden from the wise and prudent, and revealed unto babes." And then he preaches the rest and the refreshment to the weary, "Come unto me," &c. The Apostle Paul also, in the outset both of the Epistles to the Romans and to the Corinthians, doth shew that misuse of knowledge on the part of the heathen which had led to the rejection of that method for the innovation of preaching: and especially in the latter of these Epistles, which chiefly concerneth our subject, is he at great pains to

shew the Corinthian church how studiously he had refrained from the wisdom of words, giving it forth as a grand revolution which God had introduced into the world in the matter of teaching, for the end of making void the pride of human learning and natural understanding. And in confirmation of this, as an ancient purpose of the Father, he referreth to a passage in the next chapter of Isaiah, which is but a continuation and enlarge+ ment of the passage before us (1 Cor. i. 19). At the same time he asserteth for the church an higher wisdom, "wisdom from God" (1 Cor. i. 30); which cometh through revelation of the Spirit and in no other way (1 Cor. ii. passim): and accordingly the first two manifestations of the Spirit are "the word of wisdom, and the word of knowledge" (1 Cor. xii. 8). It appears, therefore, that the words drawn out of this prophecy and ap plied by the Apostle to the gift of tongues, are part of a dis pensation of judgment upon the pride of intellect and the glory of learning, which cannot find out God, but are ever worshipping idols of their own invention and imagination: wherefore God, after long probation taken, both among the Jews and Gen+ tiles, did introduce the method of babes, "of those who are weaned from the milk and drawn from the breast." The Gospel ever saith, Put away your natural gifts and acquirements, and become as little children, in order to inherit the kingdom of heaven; and it further saith, The natural man understandeth not the things of the Spirit of God, which are spiritually discerned: therefore ye must be born again of the Spirit, and, like new-born babes, ye must desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby.'

Of this continuous rebuke and judgment, which the foolishness of the Gospel of Christ bringeth against the most noble attainments of unregenerate and unsanctified reason, the speaking "with stammering lips and another tongue" is a part, and a chief part and another part is, the way of reiterating, and reiterating the simplest truths as nurses do to little children, until they enter into the mind, and grow with its growth and strengthen with its strength. No one knows at present much about the gift of tongues, because, where it has been given, interpretation hath been refused, and therefore over the words spoken there resteth a deep veil of darkness; but I will undertake from this passage to declare my conviction, that, when interpretation shall be given, the words spoken will be found to con tain no more than the simplest, most elementary, and most nutricious truths of the Spirit. It further appears, from the very words quoted by St. Paul, at least from a clause in the heart of those quoted, that the things spoken is concerning the rest and refreshing. "To whom he said, This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest, and this is the refreshing; yet