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power, savour, sweetness, relish, and goodness, that is in the things proposed to be known under the dark shades of a blind mind: so to remove both these, the Holy Ghost communicates light to the understanding, whence it is able to see and judge of the truth, as it is in Jesus; and the will being thereby delivered from the dungeon wherein it was, and quickened anew, performs its office, in embracing what is proper and suited to it in the object proposed. The Spirit, indeed, discovereth to every one according to the counsel of his will; but yet in that way whereby the sun gives out his light and heat, the former making way for the latter.

Now, by these works of the Spirit, he persuades the mind concerning the truth and authority of the Scripture, and therein leaves an impression of an effectual testimony within us; and this testimony of his, as it is authoritative, and infallible in itself, so it is of inconceivably more efficacy, power, and certainty to those that receive it, than any voice or internal word can be. But yet this is not the work of the Spirit at present inquired after.

2. There is a testimony of the Spirit, that respects the object, or the word itself; and this is a public testimony, which, as it satisfies our souls in particular, so it may be pleaded in reference to the satisfaction of all others to whom the word of God shall come. The Holy Ghost, speaking in and by the word, imparting to it virtue, power, efficacy, majesty, and authority, affords us the witness, that our faith is resolved into. And thus, whereas there are but two heads to which all grounds of assent belong-namely, authority of testimony, and the

self-evidence of truth; they here both concur in one. In the same word we have both the authority of the testimony of the Spirit, and the self-evidence of the truth spoken by him; yea, so that both these are materially one and the same, though distinguished in their formal conceptions. The Spirit's communication of his own light and authority to the Scripture, as evidences of its original, is the testimony pleaded for.

When, then, we resolve our faith into the testimony of the Holy Ghost, it is not any private whisper, word, or voice, given to individual persons; it is not the secret and effectual persuasion of the truth of the Scriptures, that falls upon the minds of some men, from education, tradition,, and the like, of which they can give no particular account; it is not the effectual work of the Holy Ghost upon the minds and wills of men, enabling them savingly to believe, that is intended, but it is the publit testimony of the Holy Ghost given to the word, by and in the word, and its own divine light, efficacy, and

power.

The Scripture, the written word, hath its infallible truth in itself" Thy word is truth;" from whence it hath its verity and authority; for its whole authority is founded in its truth. Its authority in itself, is its authority in respect of us; nor hath it any whit more in itself, than, in law, it hath over all those to whom it comes; that, in practice, some do not submit themselves to it, is their sin and rebellion. This truth, and consequently this authority, is made known to us, by the public testimony which is given to it by the Holy

Ghost speaking in it, with divine light and power, to the minds, souls, and consciences of men: being therein by itself proposed to us, we being enlightened by the Holy Ghost, (which, in the condition wherein we are, is necessary for the apprehension of any spiritual truth in a spiritual manner,) we receive it, and religiously subject our souls to it, as the word and will of the ever-living, sovereign God, and Judge of all.

Having laid this stable foundation, I shall consider some pretences and allegations for the confirmation of the authority of Scripture, made use of by some to divert us from that foundation, the closing with which will, in this matter alone, bring peace to our souls. I shall, therefore, compare together the testimony of the Spirit before-mentioned, and the other pretences that shall now be examined..

1. Some say, that we have received the Scripture from the church of Rome, who received it by tradition, and this gives a credibility to it. Credibility either keeps within the bounds of probability, or it includes a firm, suitable foundation for faith, supernatural and divine. Have we, in this sense, received the Scripture from that church? Is that church able to give such a credibility to any thing? Or doth the Scripture stand in need of such a credibility to be given to it from that church? Are not the first most false, and is not the last blasphemous? To receive a thing from a church, as a church, is to receive it upon the authority of that church: if we receive any thing from the authority of a church, we do it, not because the thing itself is "worthy of acceptation," but because of the authority alleged.

If, then, we thus receive the Scriptures from the church of Rome, why do we not receive the Apocryphal books also, which she receives? How did the church of Rome receive the Scriptures? Shall we say that she is authorised to give out what seems good to her, as the word of God? No: but she hath received them by tradition; so she pleads, that she hath received the Apocryphal books also: we then receive the Scriptures from Rome; Rome by tradition; we make ourselves judges of that tradition; and yet Rome saith, this is one thing that she hath by the same tradition, namely, that she alone is judge of what she hath by tradition. But the common fate of liars is befallen that harlot : she hath so long, so constantly, so desperately lied in most things that she professeth, pretending tradition for them, that indeed she deserves not to be believed, when she telleth the truth. Besides, she pleads that she received the Scriptures from the beginning, when it is granted that the copies of the Hebrew of the Old, and Greek of the New Testament only were authentic: these she pleads now under her keeping to be wofully corrupted, and yet is angry that we believe not her tradition.

Some add, that we receive the Scripture to be the word of God, on the account of the miracles that were wrought at the giving of the law, and of the New Testament; which miracles we have received by universal tradition. But first, I desire to know whence it comes to pass, that, seeing our Saviour Jesus Christ wrought many other miracles besides those that are written, John xx. 30. xxi. 25. and the apostles likewise, they cannot, by all

their traditions, help us to so much as an obscure report of any one that is not written, (I speak not of legends) which yet, at their performance, were no less known than those that are; nor were less useful for the end of miracles than they. But is it not evident that the miracles of which they speak, are preserved in the Scripture, and no otherwise? And if so, can these miracles operate upon the understanding or judgment of any man, unless they first grant the Scripture to be the word of God; I mean, to the begetting of a divine faith that there were ever any such miracles. Suppose these miracles, alleged as the ground of our believing the word, had not been written, but, like the Sibyl's leaves, had been driven up and down, by the worst and fiercest wind that blows in this world-the breath of man: those who should keep them by tradition, that is, men, are, by nature, so vain, foolish, malicious; such liars, adders, detracters; have spirits and minds so unsuited to spiritual things, so liable to alteration in themselves, and to contradiction one to another; are so given to impostures, and are so apt to be imposed upon; have been so shuffled and driven up and down the world in every generation; have, for the most part, so utterly lost the remembrance of what themselves are, whence they came, or whither they are to go; that I can give very little credit to what I have nothing but their authority to rely upon for, without any evidence from the nature of the thing itself.

Setting aside, then, the testimony given in the Scriptures to the miracles wrought by the prime revealers of the mind and will of God in the word; and no tolerable assurance can be given that ever

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