Yet notwithstanding all these advantages, after having known (yvovтes) God, they glorified Him not as God: so that the Apostle concludes his estimate of their state by saying, "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God." (Rom. iii.) And on this fact he grounds the necessity of the "ministry of reconciliation."

It is true, that he who has disobeyed, not knowing his master's will, shall be beaten with few stripes; and that it shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the judgment than for many other cities: but this does not tell us that Sodom and Gomorrah, or the disobedient servant will be justified. It is a fearful thing if we are found speculating upon the "secret things of the Lord," so as in any degree to nullify the practical bearing of the words of the angel to Cornelius,‚—“Call for Simon, whose surname is Peter, who shall tell thee words, whereby thou and all thy house shall be saved."

CHAPTER XVI.

THE HEATHEN ENABLED TO

PROPHESY BY THE LIGHT

OF CHRIST IN THEM.

"Though their light did not tell them the express names Christ "should be called by, yet they foresaw and prophesied of His "coming; And how he should come of a virgin, and both what he "was and the work he came to do. The Cumean, so called from

"her city, was a Sybil who lived about 600 years before Christ "and prophesied of him."

He then quotes from the fourth Eclogue of Virgil, which refers to the words of the Sybil, and adds,—

"I query if the Jews themselves had so positive a sense of the Messiah's coming." (Penn, vol. i, p. 231.)

REMARKS.

Tradition, communication with the Jews, and possession by devils, are the three modes by which we can account for all that was supernatural among the Gentiles, who did not acknowledge the God of Israel. Of the last we have an instance, in the case of the girl from whom an unclean spirit was cast out by the Apostle Paul. (Acts xvi.) And the case of the Sybils, when there really was anything supernatural, was doubtless parallel to this. But the same doctrine respecting "Christ in all men," which led William Penn to identify morality with christian grace, and to speak of the writings of the heathen sages as “very Scripture itself," does here again lead him to speak of the sayings of a Sybil, as emanating from the same source, as the words of those who "spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." And the distinguishing privilege of the Jews, viz. "That unto them were committed the oracles of God," (Rom. iii.) is virtually set aside. (See last chapter.)

CHAPTER XVII.

RESPECTING THE HOLY SCRIPTURES.

"No book, writing, or engraving or visible and perishable "matter, can be the rule now." (Penn, vol. i, p. 298.).

"Such as the faith is, such must the rule be, but the faith is "inward and spiritual which no mere book can be." (Idem.)

"How are the scriptures the rule? or which of the scriptures are the rule? Are the whole scriptures the rule, from Genesis "to Revelations ?" &c. &c. (Pennington vol. i, p. 262.)

"The scriptures are an inferior or secondary rule." (Claridge, Posthumous works, p. 56.)

“The scriptures are not the chief rule.” (Barclay, p. 79.)

REMARKS.

There are two passages in the epistle to the Hebrews, which firmly establish the scriptures upon that basis, from which it is the endeavour of these writers to cast them down. "The Holy Ghost saith," is followed by a quotation from the Psalms, (Heb. iii, 7.) and the writings of Jeremiah are called the witness or testimony of the Holy Spirit. (Heb. x. 15 and following verses.) It would be quite useless to reason with any one who would say that there could be any higher rule than the testimony of the Holy Spirit.

A faithful servant would esteem the letters of his master as equal in authority with his verbal commands. To

attempt a contrast between the authority of the person who wrote, and the authority of the letter written, would be mere deceit and sophistry, for the authority of both must be the same.

Eelievers are as children separated from their parent, in a distant land. Yet, having the spirit of their father, they are able to understand and apply many things in the letters of their parent, which would be unintelligible to a stranger.

Whilst remaining in the distant land, they are enjoined to try all things by the commandments which have been written. "If any man (says the Apostle) think himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I WRITE unto you are the commandments of the Lord." "Though we or an angel from Heaven preach any other gospel unto you, than that which we have preached unto you, let him he accursed." (Gal. i, 8.)

It is asserted by these writers, that the scriptures have become of less importance since the New Covenant was introduced. But this is remarkably refuted by the following considerations.

First-The most striking exhortation to the study of the scriptures, is given in the epistle to Timothy, and that when the Apostle was professedly contemplating the increasing evil of the last days.

Secondly-It was said to Daniel, "Go thy way Daniel, for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end-none of the wicked shall understand, but the wise shall understand."

Thirdly-The last book in the bible, which was writ

ten long after the Pentecostal dispensation commenced, is that which is pressed with most earnestness on our attention. **Blessed is he that readeth and they that hear the words of this prophecy."

CHAPTER XVIII.

BARCLAY RESPECTING THE SCRIPTURES.

"We may not call the scriptures the principal fountain of all "truth and knowledge, nor yet the first adequate rule of faithi "and manners; because the principal fountain of truth must be "the Truth itself-i. e. that whose authority and certainty depends "not upon another. When we doubt of the streams of any river

or flood, we recur to the fountain itself and having found it there "we desist, we can go no further, because there it springs out of "the bowels of the earth, which are inscrutable. Even so the wri“tings and sayings of all men we must bring to the Word of God,

I mean the Eternal Word, and if they agree thereunto, we stand "there. For this Word always proceedeth and doth eternally pro"ceed from God, in and by which the unsearchable wisdom of God "and unsearchable counsel and will conceived in the heart of God "is revealed unto us." (p, 71.)

REMARKS.

The first part of this extraordinary passage has been already noticed in the preceding chapter. If a servant in a distant land received from his master a letter of instructions, that letter would be to him practically the source of