ration from the Apostles, breathed on them and said, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost," they did receive the Holy Ghost, and therewith some real power as distinguished from a mere formal commission. And yet it would be difficult to point out any part of their subsequent conduct, in which this real power visibly displayed itself. The miracles which they performed, they did by virtue of powers committed to them long before, when they were first chosen as Apostles, and commanded among other things to "heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead cast out devils." The gift of tongues was not con ferred on them till afterwards, "when suddenly

possession; and said unto Him then, even as M. Harding saith now unto us, Whoever taught us these things befor Thee? What ordinary succession and vocation hast Thou What Bishop admitted Thee? Who confirmed Thee? Wh allowed Thee?" Ibid.

"This is M. Harding's holy succession. Though faith fall yet succession must hold. For unto such succession God hat bound the Holy Ghost. For lack of that succession, for tha in our sees in the Churches of England, we find not so man idolaters, heretics, necromancers, &c. &c. as we may easily fin in the Church of Rome; therefore, I trow, M. Harding saith we have no succession; we are no Bishops; we hear no Churc at all....S. Paul saith, Faith cometh, not by succession, bu by hearing; and hearing cometh, not of legacy or inheritanc from Bishop to Bishop, but of the word of God.... By Succes sion, Christ saith, Desolation shall sit in the holy place; an Antichrist shall press into the room of Christ." Ibid.

"As touching the Bishop of Rome;....except he go so t work, as men's consciences may be made pliant, and subdue to the word of God, we deny that he doth either open or shut or hath the Keys at all." Apol. part ii. c. 7. div. 5.]

there came a sound from Heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting, and then appeared to them cloven tongues like as of fire, and sat upon each of them." Nor was it till this time, or at any rate till after Christ had departed from them and gone to the Father, that they received the promised Comforter, who was "to guide them into all Truth," "to show them things to come,” and “to bring all things to their remembrance." If then it is still maintained that a power in order to be real, must be visible, some other manifestation of such power must be discovered in the Apostles, besides those of speaking with tongues, or raising the dead, or knowing all truth, or seeing things to come: or else it must be maintained also that, when Jesus Christ breathed on them and said "Receive ye the Holy Ghost," they received nothing.

2. It will probably be admitted that the hearts of all persons in covenant with God are continually acted on by a real power: the very power of the Holy Ghost, who is ever calling us day and night to repentance and salvation, inviting, warning, rebuking, succouring us; yet let any one fairly ask himself whether this is a visible power? Let him turn his thoughts on that desolate wilderness, his own conscience, and say what he sees there. I do not say, that at the end of a long life, or even after the lapse of any very considerable period of years, a man may not, by looking back, detect here and chere, on putting various things together, faint

traces of the mighty influence to which he has been subjected; he may track them out like a path over the mountains, more distinctly as the prospect becomes distant. But that at any given time, at the moment, for instance, when the greatest effects are being wrought in us, these can in any sense be called perceptible effects, is what few but enthusiasts will maintain. But even supposing (what is not at all to be supposed,) that the influences of the Spirit were in some cases perceptible, nay that they were generally so, still, if they ever were not perceptible, if ever there has been any single case in which they have not been so, that single case is sufficient for the present purpose: it proves that power, though invisible, may nevertheless be real.

3. It will hardly be denied, that the power which good Christians have, of interceding with God for others, is a real power, and prevails with God for the good of those for whom they intercede. Yet what are the visible effects of this power? I believe it would be quite as easy to point to the blessings procured by the ordained Clergy for their flocks, as to show that the prayers of one Christian are, as such, ever beneficial to another.

4. Were we uninformed of the fact, which Scripture teaches us, that our souls are thus acted on by real, though imperceptible powers, still even Reason would teach us to apprehend that such might be the case. For with regard to the state of our own hearts, and the means by which they are urged, whether towards good or evil, it is evident to com

mon sense that we are in a state of entire gUITENCE. Thoughts come into our minds we know not bow, and pass away as unaccountably. The TETT SLIDE things presented to us at diferent times affert us so differently, as to make it quite clear that the thing presented furnishes us with no account of the affection consequent upon it: at one time we are moved with fear, compassion, wooder, at the co2templation of the very same objects which

another time we have surveyed with apathy: we make resolutions and abandon them, we devise schemes and reject them, we pursue or avoid. Like or dislike, approve or again disapprove, with a very incomplete knowledge of the motives that actuate us. In all this then there is infinite room for the intervention of powers, which day and night may act upon our hearts, and yet altogether escape our observation. Indeed, so entire is our incapacity for forming any opinion on our own state and the causes that affect it, that we may make almost indefinite progression either towards good or evil, and yet hardly be aware of any important change taking place within us; the best men know they are very far from what they ought to be, and the very worst think that, if they were but a little better, they should be as good as they need be1. It is then distinctly conceivable, not merely that we may be acted on unconsciously by real powers,

1“Les élus ignorent leur vertus, et les reprouvés leur crimes. Seigneur, diront les uns et les autres, quand nous avons vous vu avoir faim," &c. Pascal, Pensées, 17. 23.

impelling us whether to good or evil, but that these powers should effect changes in us indefinitely great, and yet our consciousness be never the more awakened. Reason therefore furnishes us with ample ground for apprehending that all may be true which Scripture intimates, respecting the influence of good and evil spirits over the souls of men; nay, perhaps, without any reference to Scripture, it might teach us to believe the fact that we are so influenced. For if we adopt the maxim of natural philosophers, that all effects are referable to some cause, then all the unaccountable phenomena above noticed may be regarded as so many indications of a cause at work which is as yet undiscovered; and the operation of good and evil spirits upon the human heart will become as supposable, nay as probable, as the agency now commonly attributed to magnetism and electricity in bringing about many of the seeming irregularities of nature. Even common sense then, leaving Scripture out of consideration, might sufficiently warn us against the assumption, that the power to convey spiritual graces to the human heart, if real, must also be perceptible.

5. But lastly, even were we without any such warning, it would be plain enough that such an assumption was mere folly. The considerations, which have been suggested, prove it to be a false assumption: but setting them entirely aside, what is there to make us think it true? It is a mere random proposition, and, till proved, is as worthless