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argument which, to the eye of their intellect, has exceedingly bedimmed the question, and put it on an elevation, which, be it sound or be it fanciful, they regard as being hopelessly and inaccessibly above them. And so they incline to keep by the position which they at present occupy, and to attempt nothing higher-leaving this adventurous flight to others, but satisfied themselves with the more palpable reasonings of Leslie and Littleton and Butler and Lardner and Paley.

18. Our first reply to this is, that they do not set aside the rational, when they enter on the consideration of the spiritual evidence, or when they attempt in their own persons to realise it. They need not forego a single advantage which they have gained. The spiritual evidence does not darken or cast an uncertainty over the rational evidence no more unsettles, for example, the historical argument for the truth of the Christian religion, than it unsettles any of the demonstrations of geometry. If by this new opening they do not feel themselves led forward, and so as to approximation to the truth than b assuredly are not thrown back by from prophecy does not obscure miracles; and as little does the

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where it found them.

They discharge the same

function as heretofore. The pleadings of the very authors on the deistical controversy, whom we have quoted remain as good as ever; and, if we are not admitted by them into the glories of the inner temple, they one and all of them have at least strengthened the bulwarks of the faith.

19. But moreover. What ought to abate the formidableness of this evidence (regarded by them as if it were a secret of free-masonry and only for the initiated) and make it less repulsive in their eyes, is, that, however lofty and remote from every present view and vision of theirs, there is a series of patent and practicable steps by which they and all others might be led to the perception of it. There is one most obvious principle, clear of all mysticism, and which they will not refuse-that if once convinced on rational, or on any evidence, of the Bible being indeed a message from the God of gent, their imperative duty to

fter having studied and been dentials of the book, now to y and labour the contents of other principle of an equally which they cannot refuse to refuse to act upon-that, ranscendental the light of ay appear in their eyes, of conscience within them low, so as to accompany ding of the Scriptures tion of all which this be right, and as

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spiritual nature; nor is it, as it is evidence, inferiour to, but upon many accounts preferable to that which results from the impression made by sensible objects. And this, as was observ'd of the former, is also greater or less, according and in proportion unto the view we have of that objective light above-mentioned. This self-evidencing power is a resultancy from, and in degree keeps pace with that self-evidencing light."

"This light whereby the written Word evidences itself unto the minds of those who have spiritual ears to hear and apply them, is nothing else, save the impress of the majesty, truth, omniscience, wisdom, holiness, justice, grace, mercy, and authority of God, stamped upon the scriptures by the Holy Ghost, and beaming or shining into the minds, of such persons upon their hearing or perusal, and affecting them with a sense of these perfections, both in what is spoken, and in the majestick and God-becoming way of speaking: they speak as never man spake; the matter spoken, and the manner of speaking, has a greatness discernible by a spiritual understanding, that satisfies it fully, that God is the speaker. And all the impressions of God's wisdom, faithfulness, omniscience, and majesty that are stamped upon the matter contain'd in the scriptures being convey'd only by the Word, do join the impressions that are upon the Word, and strengthen the evidence they give of their divine original, since these impressions do not otherwise appear to our minds, or affect them, than by the Word. The Word by a God-becoming manifestation of the truth, that scorns all these

little and mean arts of insinuation, by fair and enticing words; and artificially dress'd-up argumentations, with other the like confessions of human weakness, that are in all humane writings, commends itself to the conscience, dives into the souls of men, into all the secret recesses of their hearts, guides, teaches, directs, determines, and judges in them, and upon them, in the name, majesty and authority of God. And when it enters thus into the soul, it fills it with the light of the glory of the beamings of those perfections upon it; whereby it is made to cry out, The voice of God, and not of man.'

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17. But we can imagine certain minds to be unsettled, if not repelled, by the whole of this contemplation. Many may feel that, instead of bringing the subject nearer, it has in truth distanced them from Christianity. They could apprehend the rational evidence for the truth of the gospel; and perhaps rejoiced as they were trying the strength of it, in the solidity of that ground upon which they were standing. But they have no taste and no understanding for this spiritual evidence— nor can they at all sympathize with those men of another conformation who seem regaled, in the study of it, as if by a splendour and a richness to them incomprehensible. To them it appears like the substitution of an imaginary for a real basis— the quitting of a firm vantage-ground, with no other compensation for the loss of it, than a certain visionary and viewless mysticism in its place. They refuse, therefore, to enter on this impracticable region; or to entertain at all that shadowy

spiritual nature; nor is it, as it is evidence, inferiour to, but upon many accounts preferable to that which results from the impression made by sensible objects. And this, as was observ'd of the former, is also greater or less, according and in proportion unto the view we have of that objective light above-mentioned. This self-evidencing power is a resultancy from, and in degree keeps pace with that self-evidencing light."

"This light whereby the written Word evidences itself unto the minds of those who have spiritual ears to hear and apply them, is nothing else, save the impress of the majesty, truth, omniscience, wisdom, holiness, justice, grace, mercy, and authority of God, stamped upon the scriptures by the Holy Ghost, and beaming or shining into the minds, of such persons upon their hearing or perusal, and affecting them with a sense of these perfections, both in what is spoken, and in the majestick and God-becoming way of speaking: they speak as never man spake; the matter spoken, and the manner of speaking, has a greatness discernible by a spiritual understanding, that satisfies it fully, that God is the speaker. And all the impressions of God's wisdom, faithfulness, omniscience, and majesty that are stamped upon the matter contain'd in the scriptures being convey'd only by the Word, do join the impressions that are upon the Word, and strengthen the evidence they give of their divine original, since these impressions do not otherwise appear to our minds, or affect them, than by the Word. The Word by a God-becoming manifestation of the truth, that scorns all these

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