the dictates of the Spirit to you above the dictates of the Spirit to the Scripture writers. Barclay says -and he says it when he is speaking of the Holy Scriptures, of the place they hold and the uses they serve "For though God doth principally and chiefly "lead us by his Spirit, yet he sometimes conveys to

us his comfort and consolation through his children, "whom he raises up and inspires to speak or write a "word in season, whereby the saints are made in"struments in the hands of the Lord to strengthen "and encourage one another, which doth also tend "to perfect and make them wise unto salvation; and "such as are led by the Spirit cannot neglect, but "do naturally love, and are wonderfully cherished "by, that which proceedeth from the same Spirit in "another; because such mutual emanations of the "heavenly life tend to quicken the mind, when at

any time it is overtaken with heaviness. Peter "himself declares this to have been the end of his "writing, 2 Pet. i. 12, 13. Wherefore I will not be "negligent to put you always in remembrance of "these things, though ye know them, and be estab"lished in the present truth. Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up "by putting you in remembrance.

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"God is teacher of his people himself; and there " is nothing more express than that such as are un"der the new covenant need no man to teach them;

"yet it was a fruit of Christ's ascension to send "teachers and pastors for perfecting of the saints. "So that the same work is ascribed to the Scriptures "as to teachers; the one to make the man of God "perfect, the other for the perfecting of the saints. "-As, then, teachers are not to go before the teach

(6

ing of God himself under the new covenant, but to "follow after it, neither are they to rob us of that "great privilege which Christ hath purchased unto

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us by his blood: so neither is the Scripture to go "before the teaching of the Spirit, or to rob us of "it."*

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Here comes out the truth, the marrow of your system on the present point. For here we have-1. The communications of the Spirit in the Scripture writers placed on the same level, in authority and in use, with those communications now, whereby the saints are made instruments in the hand of the Lord to strengthen and encourage one another;" such communications, equally with those of the Scriptures, coming from such of God's children as he still "raises up and inspires to speak or write a word in season: 1:" -2. Ordinary teachers placed on the same level with prophets and apostles, and the writings of the latter made to occupy the same subordination to the supposed new covenant privilege of immediate revela

* Apol. pages 83, 84.

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tion, with the lessons and exhortations of the former; so that the Scriptures have no other and no higher use than that of the addresses, written or spoken, of ministers now, the use namely, of helping forward the influence of immediate revelation in ourselves, this being superior to both :-3. The Holy Scriptures quoted, to disprove the necessity of their own instructions:- "God is teacher of his people himself”. that is, directly, by the immediate communications of his Spirit" and nothing can be more express than that such as are under the new covenant need no man to teach them." Is not this to declare new covenant believers, and that on the authority of Scripture itself, independent of Scripture teaching? Does it not follow from this, that the chief lesson taught by the New Testament Scriptures, is the lesson that they themselves, though useful, are not necessary? And can any lesson be conceived more directly calculated to discourage the study of them? Can any thing tend more to produce neglect of them, than to tell a man that he can do without them, that he has a higher teacher than they, by whom he is rendered independent of them? I appeal to yourselves, if this be not the inevitable tendency of such a principle? If I believe the Scriptures not only to have been "given by inspiration of God," but to contain a complete revelation of the divine mind and will, and to be the only source of authentic and saving

instruction in divine things, I then value them accordingly; I feel the necessity of "searching them as for hidden treasures;" I say of them, "The law of thy mouth is better unto me than thousands of gold and silver," "O how love I thy law! It is my meditation all the day." But if I once admit the conception, that the Scriptures are not to me the only fountain of truth; that there is another and a higher from which I may draw directly and independently of them, even the fountain from which they have themselves been derived;-that moment, the necessity for the study of them ceases to be felt, and the force of the inducement to it is proportionally paralyzed.

They become a mere collection of streams, from the same source whence other streams, equally sacred, flow directly to myself. They become mere helps to a higher teacher; and who will choose going to the usher or monitor, when he can have his lessons immediately from the Head Master?

But what then, you may perhaps ask,-what will you make of the explicit declaration quoted by Barclay from the Apostle John-" Ye need not that any man teach you?"—I must answer, after the manner of some old divines, in the first place, negatively; and the negative answer, indeed, should, in such a case, be sufficient. Whatever it does mean, there is one thing which it plainly cannot mean; and that is

the very thing which, to be at all to Barclay's purpose, it would require to mean;-it cannot mean that they stood in need of no further instruction :-for if this were the meaning, how could it be made to comport with the very fact of John's addressing to them the epistle where the words stand? Why does he write to them? Is it not to "teach and admonish" them? It cannot, then, mean this.-Neither can it mean, that the knowledge which they already possessed the knowledge of the facts and doctrines of the Gospel-had come to each and all of them by direct communication from the Spirit of truth, without the intervention of any human teacher. That neither the words quoted, nor those in the same context-"Ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things"-have any such meaning as this,-John himself puts beyond a doubt by expressly affirming the contrary: "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, and show unto you that Eternal Life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us)—that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ." Chap. i. 1-3.-They re