the recital of the life, death, and sufferings of Christ.

It may indeed be questioned to which of these modes or kinds of Revelation is to be assigned, that pre-eminent manifestation of the Divine nature or will, which has been vouchsafed to man in the person of the blessed Jesus. For "God who at sundry times and in divers manners, spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days, spoken unto us by his Son." It was indeed by his Eternal Word, even the Spirit of his Son, that God thus spake in times past through his servants the prophets; as He has spoken in times subsequent to his appearance in the flesh, by the evangelists and apostles. But his speaking by his Son, in that personal appearance upon earth, in whom "dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily," was indeed distinguishable from all other ways; seeing, in this union of the Divinity with the humanity, He spake to our whole nature, as consisting of body soul, and spirit; to our outward and inward faculties: so that the refusing to hear Him who spake both from heaven and on earth, must

He "I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin; but now have they both seen and hated both Me and my Father." "Though ye believe not Me, believe the works, that ye may know and believe that the Father is in Me, and I in Him."

Section II.

REVELATION IN ITS MOST EXTENSIVE IMPORT.

What is the primary import of the term Revelation ?

In its most general and extensive sense, "Revelation" appears to be synonimous with the terms manifestation, unfolding, unveiling, either partially or perfectly, of things that had been previously hidden; and always implies the idea of an agent or a revealer to others, and not of a selfdiscoverer. As He who is the Source and Author of Essential Truth, is the alone Revealer of every emanation of it which can be imparted to mankind, whether immediately or instrumentally; so the term "Revelation," when applied to the subjects of religious truth, to which it is most appropriate, may be justly defined to be the supernatural communication of Divine and spiritual truths, and of such important facts connected therewith, as could not have been discovered by the natural, unassisted faculties of man.

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Revelation may be considered under the following divisions or distinctions, primary and secondary, internal and external, original and instrumental.

PRIMARY REVELATION is that which may be so termed, because communicated by its Divine Author, to one or more individuals, without the intervention of any human agent; and is therefore usually identified with Immediate Revelation. But it does not appear that this primary and original Revelation, is always conveyed in an immediate manner only; that is, without some correspondent medium, or accompanying outward symbol, which might render it cognizable by the outward as well as by the inward senses. Witness the Divine appearances to the patriarchs and prophets under former dispensations; and, even under the Christian and more purely spiritual one, the Descent of the Holy Ghost-the Transfiguration on the mount-the sight of the Redeemer by Stephen, by Paul, and by the Apostle John as recorded by him in the Revelations.

Thus angels in the form of men, and even appearances in the character of Jehovah, as well as various others of visible glory, and also by voices

and miraculous visions, have often been the appointed vehicles and corroborating evidences of primary, original Revelation.

Let none however mistakenly conclude, either that it never has been, or may not ever again be afforded in a wholly immediate manner; or that these external Revelations of the Divine presence and power, were not accompanied with an internal, spiritual impression proportionally unequivocal, and producing an awful sense of their Divine reality. For not only are the instances numerous, of this primary, immediate, and internal communication of the Father of spirits to the spirit of man, in the testimony of Sacred Scripture, most especially indeed under the Christian dispensation; but this inward and immediate "communion of the Holy Ghost," is that abiding promised privilege, which is the perfection of that glorious dispensation; through which the subjects of it should not need to "teach any more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying: Know the Lord;" for all should know Him "from the least to the greatest of them;" which can only be by the immediate manifestation and communication of His own nature, to their spiritual perception and participation.