believed, or debated amongst them, and not to make in any one of these a single mistake, which is quite inconceivable: yet, when these performances came into the hands of these persons, pretending in the title to have been sent to them or their fathers, not many years before, can it be imagined, they will all agree to receive them as such, though till then they had neither original, nor copy, nor memory, nor tradition of them? A false history may creep silently into the world, and obtain credit by degrees. A false collection of letters may impose on strangers, remote in place or time: but that the very men, or body of men, to whom they declare themselves to have been written a little while ago, and who absolutely know nothing of their ever being written to them at all, should believe in them, is utterly inconceivable and still more so, if these letters affirm such extraordinary things to be then doing amongst them, as could not have been forgotten, if they had been done, and yet are not remembered. Now it never was, or can be denied, that St. Paul's epistles were admitted as his, and honoured as sacred, were continually read and quoted both in private and public, by those churches, of which they bear the names, not some ages after his death, for then there might have been colour for a charge of imposition, but from his own days downwards. Nay, if we allow the testimony of early and venerable writers, his originals themselves were preserved there (a thing by no means unlikely) to following generations.

Now in these epistles, thus proved authentic, the miraculous operations of the Holy Ghost appear to have been common amongst Christians. The workers of miracles, they who spoke with tongues, who prophesied, who had the gift of healing, are men

tioned there as familiarly as the Apostles, elders and teachers. Nay farther, as the exercise of some of these powers in the church, it seems, was irregular sometimes, and made confusion, there are many directions laid down by the Apostle for the regulation of it. And farther still, because the persons endued with them were too apt to value themselves, and be valued by others, immoderately on account of them, he insists very much, in the true spirit of Christianity, on the preferableness of charity, that is, of love to God and man, before speaking with the tongues of men and angels, before prophecy, before the faith that could remove mountains *. Is it possible now that all this should be written to, and received and respected by persons, who had no such gifts amongst them? Is it possible also, that St. Paul, when, as we find in these very letters, he had rivals and enemies in these churches, men of interest and influence, of art and subtlety, should, in the face of them all, appeal, as he doth, to miracles performed by himself and others, for a proof of his authority and doctrine, before their eyes, if in reality neither he, nor any one else, had ever performed any? Observe, how he expostulates with the Galatians, on the danger of their apostatizing from the Gospel to the law. O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that you should not obey the truth? This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit, the extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost, by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? He that ministereth the Spirit to you and worketh miracles among you, doth he it by the works of the law, or the hearing of faith? Again, he boldly pleads to the Judaizing Roman converts, those things which Christ had + Gal. iii. 1, 2. 5.

* 1 Cor. xiii. 1, 2.

wrought by him to make the Gentiles obedient, by word and deed, through mighty signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God*. And when, amongst the Corinthians, his apostleship had been questioned by some, his answer is, Truly the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in wonders and mighty deeds and from the consciousness which he had of the assistance of the Spirit, he threatens to come to them again shortly, and know, not the speech of them, which are puffed up, but the power. For the kingdom of God, he adds, is not in word, but in power ‡: agreeably to what he had told them in a preceding chapter; that his own preaching had not been with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit of power, that their faith might stand, not in the wisdom of men, but in the power of Gods. Now as it must be, not only imprudence, but madness in him, to speak of these things, if they were not true; so his speaking of them could not but have produced the entire rejection of his epistles and himself, if the several churches had not known them to be true. And therefore, since these churches did continue to reverence him and them as of more than human authority, it follows, that these operations and miracles were both real and frequent amongst all Christians in general. For even when he was congratulating the illustrious church of Corinth on her gifts, he doth not hint to her (many and great as we know they were) that she was before, but only not behind others in that respect ||.

And now what remains is, that being satisfied of the certainty of these things, we lay seriously to heart the proper inferences from them; which are indeed

* Rom. xv. 18, 19. † 2 Cor. xii. 12. § 1 Cor. ii. 4, 5.

1 Cor. iv. 19, 20.

|| 1 Cor. i. 7.

too many to be enlarged on at present, but happily too plain to need it. In general it follows, that the religion, which we profess, is no other than the truth of God: the doctrines of it, however mysterious, reasonable objects of firm belief; the precepts, however difficult, matter of indispensable duty; its glorious rewards, secure to every good person; its dreadful punishments, unavoidable by every bad one. More particularly in regard to that Spirit, which testifies these things, it follows, that we should honour him, as possessed of those divine attributes, which they imply, and which the Scripture ascribes to him. repeatedly; that we should make our thankful acknowledgments for these his outward manifestations, and pray for his inward and saving influences on our souls; that we should receive the Gospel more submissively, and obey it more diligently, for his having ratified and confirmed it in so unparalleled a manner; often recollecting for this purpose that awful admonition: if the word spoken by angels, the law of Moses, was stedfast, and every transgression received a just recompense of reward; how shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him; God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost? To whom, with the Father and the Son, &c.

Heb. ii. 2. 34.

SERMON IX.

JOHN XIV. 15, 16, 17.

If ye love me, keep my commandments.

And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for

ever:

Even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him, for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.

OUR blessed Lord might very possibly design to comprehend in this promise all the benefits, which the Holy Ghost was to confer on his followers. But his expressions plainly shew, that he had chiefly in view, not the miraculous gifts of the Spirit, but the directing and comforting influences of his grace. For these alone are given to all, who love Christ and keep his commandments: these alone were to abide with Christians for ever: these alone the world could not receive, because they would not suffer themselves to see or know them: and though, in appearance, a less illustrious, they are, in reality, a more important gift, than those of tongues and miracles. Bor though the latter were powerful means of making religion believed, the former only can bring it to be practised; and therefore it is highly necessary to teach and inculcate the doctrine of in