tongues brings all speculation upon this subject to an end, and presents us with the fact, the experiment which decides the matter, by shewing us the reason void, and the spirit yet filled with edification. Nay, so clearly were the Apostle, and those to whom he wrote, conscious to this thing, that he takes a distinction between praying in the spirit and praying in the understanding, praising in the spirit and praising in the understanding; holding man to be capable of worshipping and serving God then when his understanding is wholly without activity. (See 1 Cor. xiv. 14-17.) Nor could there be any mysticism or self deception in this; for while my spirit was emptying itself of all its prayer and praise to God, my understanding not comprehending a word, if any should think it were but a farce and profanation, another person, understanding the language, will contradict him, and let him know that it is sound sense and pure religion which I am expressing. And yet the words are not necessary for God's ear; and the Apostle recommends, yea, and strongly urges it, that, when no man able to understand the language was present, or no one who had the gift of interpretation, it were better to keep silence, and enjoy the communion with God through the spirit only: "But if there be no interpreter, let him keep silence in the church; and let him speak to himself, and to God" (ver. 28.) What a deep subject of meditation were a man thus employed in secret converse with and enjoyment of God, although his reason be utterly dead! He is not able to communicate thereof to another person: for the world he is as one dead; for all that he holds in common with men he is as one dead: he is in the state of a separate spirit, and he is enjoying the same inward delight with God which I suppose the separate spirits to enjoy. And I might ask, Is not this the essence of all spiritual religion, -the enjoyment and communion of the spirit with God in that capacity which death nowise affecteth? And is not the use of reason altogether for the impartation of this to others, for the edification of the church? But conclusion rises upon conclusion. It is a great subject this of the gift of tongues. I wish some one would retrieve it from the ignorance and folly and mockery of those revilers who have lately so insulted this mystery of our faith, and laughed to scorn this endowment of the church, understanding no more by it than a short-hand way of acquiring languages.

Upon the ninth, and last of these gifts, "the interpretation of tongues," little need added, as it is so intimately connected with the former. It did not consist in their knowledge of the strange words, or the structure of the foreign languages. It was nothing akin to translation; the Spirit did not become a schoolmaster at all; but brought to the man's soul with the certainty of truth, that this which he was giving him to utter was the interpretation of the thing which the other had just spoken. This conviction might be brought to the spirit of the speaker himself, and then he was his own interpreter; but it was more frequent to bestow that gift upon another. This provision of an order who should interpret, as well as an order who should speak with tongues, shews that the gift of tongues had a higher origin than from the variety of languages amongst men. If it had

been merely for preaching the truth to people of other languages, an order of interpreters would never have been required at all. If it had only been given for conveying the truth to foreign nations, then why have so many in each church, like the church of Corinth? If it be said, this was to stir them to go forth to those whose tongues they had received; while I allow that this is so far forth good and true, it is by no means the whole truth; for why, then, have an order of interpreters there also? This shews that the gift was good for that church in itself; that it was resident in the churches for home use, as well as for service abroad; and that God saw such use in it, as to provide another ministry for the purpose of making it available to the uses for which it was given. If the circumstance of the language being foreign would have prompted them to go forth to the heathen, the interpretation being at hand would prompt them to remain with the church; and both being standing orders in the church, we conclude that this gift of speaking with another tongue, and the other gift of interpreting what was spoken, are, being taken together, a constant accomplishment of the church, necessary to her completeness wherever she is, and to be continued with her even though the whole world had been converted to the faith and the office of the missionary were done away with for ever. Let us consider this two-fold ordinance as one, and see what it yieldeth. If there should be in our church an order of men, of whom the Spirit so manifestly took possession as to make them utter the mysteries of godliness in an unknown tongue, and another order of men to whom the Spirit divided the power of interpreting the same, the first impression that would be made by it is, that verily God was in us of a truth, as truly as he was in the Shechinah of the holy place; and the next, that he was speaking forth oracles for our obedience. The unknown tongue, as it began its strange sounds, would be equal to a voice from the glory, "Thus saith the Lord of hosts," or "This is my Son, Hear ye him ;' and every ear would say, "O that I knew the voice;" and when the man with the gift of interpretation gave it out in the vernacular tongue, we would be filled with an awe, that it was no other than God who had spoken it. Methinks it is altogether equal to the speaking with the trumpet from the thick darkness of the Mount, or with a voice as thunder from the opened vault of heaven. The using of man's organs is, indeed, a mark of a new dispensation, foretold as to come to pass after Christ ascended up on high, when he would receive gifts and bestow them upon men, that the Lord God might dwell, might have an habitation, in them. Formerly the sounds were syllabled we know not how, because God had not yet prepared for himself a tent of flesh; which he accomplished to do first in Jesus of Nazareth, and is now perfecting in his church, who are his temple, in whom he abideth as in the holy place, and from whom he speaketh forth his oracles in strange tongues. The strange tongue takes away all source of ambiguity, proving that the man himself hath nothing to do with it, and leaves the work and the authority of the word wholly in the hand of God. And therefore tongues are called a sign to the unbeliever, 1 Cor. xiv. 22: "Wherefore tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them that believe not." Just as the voice given at Bethabara over the baptized Christ was

spoken as a ground of faith to the unbelieving Jew, and the voice given before his passion was a confirmation to the faith of the inquiring Greek, and of all who heard it so these voices, spoken forth from the breasts of men, by a power not human, but divine, are intended to convince the unbelievers that God really dwelleth in the church; hath chosen the church for his habitation; and that, if they would find him,' they must seek him there, for no where else is he to be found. The Prophet Isaiah, to whom it was given to forewarn men of this particular gift of tongues, doth so speak of it as a fresh evidence which God would give to men for a ground of believing, and which, alas! they would also reject. I take the quotation as the Apostle hath sanctioned it, the Holy Spirit's version of his own words: "With men of other tongues, and other lips, will I speak unto this people: and yet for all that will they not hear me, saith the Lord" (1 Cor. xiv. 21). I cannot but look upon this gift of tongues as sealing up the sum of God's dealings with men for their obedience of faith. It is the very power of God, which to blaspheme is to blaspheme the Holy Ghost. And witness what power it had on the day of Pentecost, when three thousand were added to the church. This is the "greater thing" which was to be done by him that believeth. No one could say that Jesus was the Christ, that God was in him, but by the Spirit leading him into the truth of what he spoke, or convincing him of the Divine nature of the works which he did. God did not manifest himself in Christ in this unequivocal way; for Christ's life was not a witness to himself, but to the Father. Christ came to do the Father's will in our condition, that we in the like case might be assured of power and ability through him to do the same. He was the prototype of a perfect and holy man under the conditions of the Fall, that we, under those conditions, might know there was power and will in God that we should all be perfect and holy. This being accomplished, and Christ ascended up on high, God sets on foot another work, which is to testify that honour to which man had become advanced in the person of the Son of Man, and in all other persons who by faith should be united to him. As God had shewn how far man had fallen in Adam, by the state of the world under sin and suffering and death; so, by the church would he shew how far man had risen in Christ, that all men believing in him might be brought to that exceeding exaltation. Therefore in the church he shews not man's identity with the fallen Adam, but man's identity with the risen Adam. In the incarnation, Christ's identity with the fallen man was shewn, yet without sin in the church, Christ's identity with God is shewn, the power and glory of God in him are exhibited, that all men might believe in his name. This gift of tongues is the crowning act of all. None of the old prophets had it, Christ had it not; it belongs to the dispensation of the Holy Ghost proceeding from the risen Christ: it is the proclamation that man is enthroned in heaven, that man is the dwelling-place of God, that all creation, if they would know God, must give ear to man's tongue, and know the compass of reason. It is not we that speak, but Christ that speaketh. It is not in us as men that God speaks; but in us as members of Christ, as the church and body of Christ, that God speaks. The honour is not to us, but to Christ; not to the Godhead of Christ,

which is ever the same, but to the manhood of Christ, which hath been raised from the state of death to the state of being God's temple, God's most holy place, God's shechinah, God's oracle, for ever and ever. "And yet for all that will they not hear me, saith the Lord." It is most true, O God: they will not hear even this, because total ignorance has benighted them: nor are they capable of apprehending truth; the vanity of their minds hath carried them away: "they are drunken, but not with wine; they stagger, but not with strong drink: for thou hast poured out upon them the spirit of deep sleep, and hast closed their eyes; their prophets and the rulers the seers hath he covered." Then, O Lord, if thou hast given them up, and they may not be convinced, let this strengthen thy children, and against the rest let it turn for a testimony-a testimony to thy truth, a testimony to their falsehood and hypocrisy. "Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the children of the daughter of my people!

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Having thus opened at large the endowment of the church, the body of Christ, and shewn of what it is the first-fruits and the earnest, it may be expected that I should enter into controversy with those who say they have been withdrawn, and are not to be restored again; that they were only intended to abide for a season, until the evidence of the Christian religion should have been securely established, and the canon of Scripture completed. But, before I can think this worth the while, I must first see where they get the grounds of their hypothesis, that they were intended only to continue for that brief season ; in the mean time I pronounce it to be of their own invention, and not at all of the word of God. I have shewn the great purpose and end of this endowment of spiritual gifts; that purpose and end is not temporary, but perpetual, till Christ's coming again; when that which is perfect shall come, and that which is in part shall be done away. If they ask for an explanation of the fact that these powers have ceased in the church, I answer, that they have decayed just as faith and holiness have decayed; but that they have ceased is not a matter so clear. Till the time of the Reformation, this opinion was never mooted in the church; and to this day the Roman Catholics, and every other portion of the church but ourselves, maintain the very contrary. Moreover, it is only of later days that any one hath dared to assert that the gifts of prophecy and healing are no longer to be looked for. Read the lives of the Reformers, of the Puritans, of the Covenanters, written by sound and zealous Protestants; read the histories of the church written more than fifty years ago—our Petrie, for example-and shew me whether these writers hold it blasphemy to say that a man may be, and hath been, gifted with both these gifts, especially that of prophecy. Who has not heard of the prophecies of Huss, and of Wishart? Amongst the Protestants of the elder day, who had in them a good measure of faith, even beyond what their creed expressed, I find no such hard scepticism and mocking scorn as bath been sounded abroad within these months past, to the shame of those who have uttered it, if they be capable of the sense of shame. But if I am called upon to declare why Protestants have not enjoyed the manifestation of these gifts, I not only refer to the general tenour of their creed upon the

subject, which hath leant to the side of their being ceased; but, which is of much more importance than a written creed, I refer to the spirit of their doctrine and their preaching and their practice. And I would say, that this gift hath ceased to be visible in the church, because of her great ignorance concerning that work of Christ at his second coming, of which it is the continual sign; because of her most culpable ignorance of Christ's crowned glory, of which it is the continual demonstration; because of her indifference to the world without, for preaching to which the gift of the Holy Ghost is the continual furnishing and outfit of the church. Since the Reformation, little else has been preached besides the baptismal and eucharistical gift, the work of Christ's death unto the justification and sanctification of the believer. The dignity and office of the church, as the fulness of the Lord of all, hath not been fully preached, or firmly held, and is now almost altogether lost sight of. Church government, bickerings about the proper form of polity, and the standing of the civil magistrate to the church and in the church, have been almost the only things concerning the church which have come into question among Protestants; and there hath been no holding of her up to the heathen as the holy place of God, but on the contrary, the presentation of a Book in the stead thereof. Not but the Reformation was the beginning of a great and a good work; but that, so far from having made progress towards completion, it has gone a great way backward, and in our hands is a poor shred of what it was in the hands of Luther, and Hooker, and the like. But things are taking a turn. Let the church know that things are taking a mighty turn. There is a shining forth of truth in these subjects beyond former days. The power and glory of a risen Lord, as well as the holiness of a Lord in flesh, is beginning to be understood and discoursed of; and the enemy would spread a curtain of thin sophistry between the church and the bright dawn: he might as well hide the morning by drawing before our eyes the spider's cobweb, or the frost-work of the night, which the rising sun quickly dissipates-and so, I trust, may these poor men, who write their unsober and uncharitable revilings in their several parcels of periodical abuse, be themselves, like the frost-work of the morning, absorbed into the glorious light which the rising morn is shedding around them. But be this as it may, now that the inward work of apprehending the glory of Christ is begun, and proceeding apace, we may surely expect that the outward means of convincing the world that it is no cunningly contrived fable, will be afforded to the church; and that she will have her full dignity restored to her of testifying not only to a holy Lord in flesh crucified for all men, but of a risen Lord in power and glory, crowned for his church, and in his church putting forth unto the world a first-fruits of that power and government over all creation which in her he shall ever exercise over all creation. -These gifts have ceased, I would say, just as the verdure and leaves and flowers and fruits, of the spring and summer and autumn, cease in winter, because, by the chill and wintry blasts which have blown over the church, her power to put forth her glorious beauty hath been prevented. But because the winter is without a green leaf or beautiful flower, do men thereof argue that there shall be flowers and fruits no more? Trusting to the word of God, who hath created every thing to