8. We hold the Scriptures to be a rule to all that have them, so far as they have a right understanding of them, and also that they are adequate to the purpose intended by them; but we can not aver, they are the sole, the primary, and the universal director of mankind in matters of religious duty. 1. They are not the sole director, because the Spirit of God in the heart and conscience of man is also an undeniable director. 2. They are not the primary director; because the illumination of the Holy Spirit that gave them forth is requisite to open the true sense of those numerous parts of them, about which the apprehensions of men so much differ. The Spirit also from which the Scriptures came, is original, and therefore primary to them; and as the Spirit only can open its own true sense included in them, they are secondary to the Spirit, as an instrument in its hand. 3. They are not the universal director; because it is not probable that one in ten, if one in twenty, of mankind, have ever had the opportunity of possessing them. Seeing, therefore, this is the case, they can not properly be pronounced, the complete, adequate, universal rule of mankind.

Hence we esteem them the secondary rule or guide of Christians, which being divinely communicated for the use of all to whom they may come; and also being intrinsically superior in excellence to all other writings, we prefer them above all others, and as thankfully accept, and as comfortably use them, as any people upon earth;-verily believing, with the holy apostle, that they 66 were written for our learning, that we, through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope."*

This is not to depreciate the Scriptures, but to hold them in their proper place, and due superiority to the works of men, and subordination to their Supreme Communicator, and only sure Expounder. For the Holy Spirit is requisite to the right use of them, as the agent to the instrument; and what is an instrument without a hand to guide and enforce it? And which is superior, the agent or the instrument ? The Holy Spirit is the Original Wisdom whence the Scriptures came, and the sole Power that can open, and give right effects to them. The Spirit of Truth is given to guide into all truth,t is the only thing that can do it, and consequently the Supreme Guide afforded to mankind. It is both unwarrantable and irrational, to assert anything else is the sole, or

*Rom. xv. 4. † John xvi. 13.

primary director, while the Spirit of God is communicated for that purpose.

The same scripture truths appear as differently to each person, as their understandings differ one from another. Human intellects, therefore, must be rectified, to enable them to see those truths in the same sense. The Rectifier is the Spirit of Truth, which alone can unite them in the true

sense.

We stick not to style of the Scriptures, collectively, a divine or Christian rule; but we object to call them, the rule of faith and practice, lest that should be understood to imply we are to look to nothing further to be our guide or leader. The Scriptures themselves abundantly testify there is something superior to them, which all ought to look for, and attend unto; that is, the Holy Spirit of the Supreme Legislator of men, and Prime Author of the Sacred Writings, in and by whose light and power they are made instrumentally useful, and adequate to the purposes intended by them. Like a good sun-dial, they are true and perfect in their kind, that is, as writings; but respecting the parts differently understood, they may justly bear the same motto with the dial, Non sine lumine.* For as the dial without the cast of the sunbeams has not its proper use, to tell the time of the day, neither doth the ambiguous text answer its true end, infallibly to communicate the mind of the Holy Spirit to different understandings, except the luminous beams of the Sun of Righteousness discover it to the attentive mind.

9. Our opposers call the Scriptures the primary rule. We allow it is the primary written rule, and in all disputes between them and us we abide by its decision, according to our understanding of the sense of it, which they profess to do-likewise by theirs. In all public differences, therefore, we refer intentionally to the same rule with them. But we have both plain scripture and experience to support our belief, that respecting the particular duty of individuals, every one hath in his own breast, a nearer and more certain rule or guide of conscience than the Scriptures: the manifestation of the Spirit given to every man to profit withal, which duly observed, gives a right interpretation of Scripture, so far as is necessary for them, and also the truest sense of each particular person's duty to him. When a person feels the faithful witness of God in his conscience, condemning him for what is wrong, and approving him for what is right, does he not find it to speak more clear

* Useless without light.

ly, particularly, and convictingly to his case and state, than he can read it in the Scriptures? Can he then conclude, that this truly-distinguishing and most striking witness, is less than that Spirit of Truth or Comforter, which convinceth the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment ?*

Speaking of persons unenlightened, I observed that "every man's sense of Scripture, is his scripture, and when he proposes his opponent shall be determined by Scripture, he means according to his own apprehension of the sense of it." This S. N. applies equally to men's apprehensions of the illuminations of the Spirit within them, and I allow it holds equally against those pretenders to the Spirit's illuminations, who are in reality void of them; but it will by no means conclude against the really enlightened, nor will his following argument prove that no man is enlightened: "For," saith he, p. 10," what John Reeve and Lodowick Mugleton thought to be the mind of the Spirit within them, William Penn and his brethren denied; and what these thought to be the mind of the Holy Ghost, the former rejected as spurious." This shows that the pretensions of both parties could not be right, but not that neither of them were so, any more than it would prove the Apostle Paul, and Elimas the sorcerer,† or Jeremiah and Hananiah‡ equally wrong in their pretensions.

When Christ, after his resurrection, opened the understandings of his disciples that they might understand the Scriptures,|| was not the divine illumination in their understandings a more clear, certain, and superior evidence of the sense of them, than all their reading and study could have afforded them, without such illumination? Are mankind now become so much more wise and penetrating, than those who for years had the benefit of hearing Him who is perfect in wisdom, that they have no need of his assistance to open their understandings? Or is their school and college learning so perfect, as to render God's illuminations quite needless? Are the innumerable clashings and janglings of the book-learned about the sense of Scripture, a proof of the unity of their sentiments, and the verity of their sense of disputed texts? If so, discord may be a proof of harmony, and fighting of agreement. From what is past, I trust, it will appear that our opposer's more certain criterion, p. 3, is only such in his own imagination. How can that be the certain criterion, about the meaning of which all the uncertainly arises? It is certain, without divine illumination, every reader of texts of a dubious * John xvi. 8. † Acts xiii. 8. Jer. xxviii. Luke xxiv. 45.

sense, accepts them in the sense his preposessions make for him, which is the cause of the innumerable differences among professing Christians. R. Barclay, therefore, justly denies that divine inward revelations are to be subjected to the test either of the outward testimony of the Scriptures, or of the natural reason of man, as to a more noble or certain rule or touchstone

CHAPTER XII.

1. S. N.'s. Reasoning not pertinent.-2. His charging me with Mistake, an Error of his own.-3. His Observations answered.-4. His Misconstruction and Misapplication of 2 Tim. iii. 15, &c., and its Antinomian Consequences refuted.-5. What true gospel Faith comprehends.

The

1. PAGE 7. To introduce a weak argument, S. N. queries, "Is the real nature of the Spirit to be known either by mere feelings, or metaphysical speculations ?". Answer. divine nature which the faithful, in measure, have been made partakers of, they have known by a divine sensation of its influence, communicated only by itself; as nothing but the sun itself can reveal and impart its own life and warmth.

Ibid. "They must tell us what these feelings are like ?" Answer. They are not like anything the natural man is acquainted with. "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."*

Ibid. "It is not conceived, however, that they can find out his essence. Answer. They do not presume to find out his essence. They are content with, and thankful for, the dispensations he is pleased to make of his influence; which this author, p. 8, injudiciously jumbles together with views, sentiments, effects, production, creature, &c. Whereas the influence shed by the essence is not of its creation, but an emanation of its own nature, power, and quality, which produceth those effects in the creature, as the potential influence of the sun, is of the nature and quality of the sun, producing its salutary effects in external nature, and sensibly operating upon sensitive creatures, so as to enable them to see by its light, and to feel the comforting warmth of its presence, as well as truly to discover its productions in and around them.

1 Cor. ii.

Having indiscriminately confounded things that differ, S. N. proceeds thus to syllogize upon it.

"That which is not known, felt, or discerned, in its real nature, can not be a rule of action to any one, superior to its own influence, effects, or productions.

"The Holy Spirit is not known, felt, or discerned, in his real nature, by any Quaker or others, but only his influence, effects," &c.

"Therefore he can not be in his own real nature a rule of action to them, superior to his own productions, effects, and influence."

This demonstrates how void of truth and probability logic may be in a sophistical hand. For, how should anything be a rule superior to its influence, when its influence is that by which it rules? And with what propriety is its influence, and the effects and productions of that influence placed under the same predicament? This argument evidently insinuates, 1. That the influence of the Holy Spirit is no more of its real nature than the works and effects produced by it; which is the same thing as to say, The influence of the sun in the firmament, that is, his beams, which irradiate his distinguishing light, and shed his animating warmth, are no more of his real nature than the wax he softens, or the clay he hardens. 2. That the rational soul feels and discerns the influence of the Spirit, without any real sense of the nature of the Spirit. This appears to me just as true as that we see by the light of the sun, without any perception of that light, and are corporeally animated by its warmth, without ever feeling it. 3. That if the essential fulness of the Divine Being do not come into immediate contact with the soul of man, he can not have any sensible perception of God's nature by his divine influence; which is like asserting, that the powerful influence of the sun can not be sensibly perceived by a man, unless the body of the sun immediately touch his body.

2. Having noted in my observation, pp. 14, 15, from John v. 39, that the Pharisees rested upon the Scriptures, and would not apply to Christ, my opponent answers, p. 11: "Our Savior, however, seems to give a different account of the matter; for he frequently tells them, Matt. xv. 6, Mark vii. 13, that they made the Word of God of none effect, through their traditions; how then could they be said to rest upon it ?" Answer. The reason our Savior gives, why they should or did search the Scriptures, is, "For, in them ye think ye have eternal life." If they thought to have eternal