hearers might be fixed in this power of God, and not in the private interpretations of men's wisdom. His fellow-laborers preached under the influence of the same Divine power, which pricked their hearers in their heart ;* and so must all that ever truly preach the gospel. The apostle declares, he would know not the speech of them that are puffed up, but the power. For the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power. This everlasting power is the Spirit of the gospel, wherein it mainly and most essentially consists; as the essentiality of the man doth of the rational soul; and the words and matters preached or written, are as the body or present outside.2 Tim. iii. The apostle describes what kind of men those would be who "having a form of godliness, would deny the power;" and directs, "from such turn away."

Page 155, S. N. supposes two cases, which are briefly these: First, If I and some of my brethren were confined for rebellion, without any prospect but that of death before us, and a royal messenger brought a proclamation to the gate for our pardon and enlargement. Or, second, if we were actually brought to the place of execution, and the king's son, in his father's name, there declared a free and full pardon to us, on practical conditions. Upon these suppositions he queries, whether these declarations would not be gospel, or glad tidings to us? I answer, Yes, if the real fulfilment of them certainly ensue; but if not, they would soon prove sad tidings, and depress us the more upon a disappointment. Will he say, that the whole is done only by reading the proclamation? Is not the material part to follow? Are we delivered by hearing? Is it not necessary that we should fulfil the terms required, and then be unfettered and unbound, or the prison doors set open to us? And is not this the essential part? The words declare the kind offer and the good intent, but the executive power sets at liberty; and which is preferable if considered apart. Which would any man choose, to hear of liberty, or to enjoy it? To resolve the whole of the gospel into mere tidings, and to reduce it into bare report, is to exclude the powerful reality which gives deliverance from any share in the title; as though the report was the Savior, and the notion the salvation. This is what we can not admit as an article in our creed. We know no Savior but Christ, nor any salvation without his power.

S. N. was too sanguine in asserting in his letter, page 34, and repeating it in his present publication, p. 149, that Bar

*Acts ii. 37. † 1 Cor. iv. 19, 20.

clay's treating the gospel in like manner, was a distinction of his own devising. I showed him the contrary, from William Thorpe, the protestant martyr, John Smith, of Cambridge, and Dr. Smith, and I will now show him further, that Tertullion wrote to the same purpose, fifteen hundred years ago. In his Apology, chap. xvii. he saith, "Surely the soul was before the letter, and the word was before the book." And in his Carminum Advers. Marion. Lib. ii., he saith:

66

-non verba Libri, sed missus in orbem ipse Christus evangelium est, si cernere vultis."

In English thus :-

"If you are disposed to understand, not the words of the Book, but Christ himself, who is sent into the world, is the gospel." We likewise read, 2 Cor. iv. 3, &c: "If our gospel be hid, it is hid (in eos) in them that are lost; in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus's sake. For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." Here the apostle teaches, that the gospel they preached was Christ, showing his face, or manifesting himself as the image of God in their hearts; and that it was only hid or obscured in the minds of those, who through unbelief therein, or unfaithfulness thereto, were become blinded toward it by him who is called the God of this world, because he is obeyed by those who walk according to the course of this world.*

3. Page 162, S. N. acknowledes, that John the Evangelist asserts, the Logos, or Word, was God, the Creator of all things, the Life and Light of men; to which he adds, "It was the source of all true knowledge of God, and a future state, that had ever been, or was then revealed to any of his people, for the life and happiness of their souls."

All this, understood of the eternal word, we readily acquiesce in; as it accords with the nature of truth, and the prophecy of the gospel covenant. "I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts."- "For they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them." This could not intend the knowledge of Christ incarnate; for that appearance was too exterior, and of too short Eph. ii. 2. † Jer. xxxi. 33, 34,

*

duration. Nor could it mean the knowledge of the Scriptures; for a man may know them from beginning to end, believe them to be true, and frame his practice according to his apprehensions of the sense of them, and yet not know the Lord. The Jews had the law, the prophets, and the Scriptures extant in their time; yet the Almighty, by the mouth of the same prophet declares, "My people are foolish, they have not known me.' Nor was it possible they should without divine assistance; therefore he saith, I will give them a heart to know me."+ And in Ezekiel, "A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you.”— "I will put my Spirit within you." Thus the true knowledge of God is to be received by the internal writing of the Divine Word in the heart, which puts the law of light and life within man, and thereby lighteth every man coming, or that cometh into the world.

4. To imagine the universal light and life of the immortal Word, is at all meant of the Scriptures, is absurd. For it appears to have been, at least, two thousand four hundred years after the creation, before any part of the Scriptures were written, and the several pieces that compose them, were occasionally written at divers times, and by different penmen, taking up about sixteen hundred and thirty years more, from the publication of the first of them by Moses, to the last by John the divine; considering also, that the abundantly greater part of mankind in these latter ages, since they have appeared in Christendom, have never yet had them, and how many millions therein, have been wickedly debarred from the use of them in their own language, by an interested and designing priesthood, it undeniably appears that a vast majority of mankind never had the benefit of them. And, among those who are favored with them, the variety, and even contrariety of opinions and practices which have all along subsisted, especially among the high pretenders to, and possessors of literature, all contribute to demonstrate, that through the Sacred Records, opened by the spiritual key of David, are profitable and excellent above all other writings, yet a more adequate universal Guide than themselves, ever hath been, and now is, absolutely necessary to the salvation of mankind.

5. Page 164, S. N. understands the word erchomenon rendered coming, or that cometh, as referring to the light rather than to man. But as Maldonatus observes, man being the next noun, may more properly challenge the participle * Jer. iv. 22. f Ibid xxiv. 7. Ezek. xxxvi. 26, 27. || John i. 9.

coming to itself. Thus it is in the Syriac, Arabic, and Ethiopic versions; in the Latin, by Luther, Erasmus, Beza, Drusius, and others; also in the French, Spanish, Italian, German, Low Dutch, and Anglosaxonic translations. In the same sense it was understood by Nazianzen, Chrysostum, Lactantius, &c. Of all which instances are produced in William Penn's Spirit of Truth vindicated, published about a century ago, in answer to a learned Socinian. But apart from other authorities, the context appears sufficient to clear the point.

John i. 1. The evangelist shows first, what the Word, Christ, was in himself, and asserts, he was God; and next what he was in and to the world. First, He was the Creator of all things; and second, the Light of men ;* and both these he was in the beginning, or early part of time to this creation, four thousand years before his coming in the flesh. As he then began to be the Light of men, he hath all along continued to be so. As he made the sun to be the light of our external world, whether people keep their eyes open, or shut them against its shining, so is the true Light of the Spirit of men, whether they open to him or not. This he is by the inward manifestation of his Spirit in every man's conscience. "In Him was life, and the Life was the Light of men." This was in the beginning, and hath been from the beginning. It is the one living eternal Word, or energetic Spirit, appearing in both modes, when truly believed in, and properly received.

may

But,

6. "The light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not." "This," saith S. N., page 163, more particularly, as some think, refer to the Jews." why so? Were the Gentiles less dark than the Jews? Or doth the term world include the Jews only, who were but a handful compared to the Gentiles? How does that comport with verse 10: "He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not." Are not the Gentiles included in the world that was made by him, as well, and as much as the Jews? Or, is he the God of the Jews only and not of the Gentiles also ?|| I take the darkness to be the corrupt state of mankind; Gentiles as well as Jews.

He says, page 164, "The phrase coming into the world, seems plainly to denote a pre-existent state; but neither Scripture nor reason, support any such notion concerning * Verses 3, 4. † Verse 4. John i. 5. Rom. iii. 29.

mankind in general." I agree with him in the latter part, but differ from him in the former, i. e. that coming into the world seems plainly to denote a pre-existent state, in any other sense than the pre-existence of all men in their mother's womb, before they may properly be said to come forth into, or to make their appearance in the visible world.* I apprehend the phrase no more denotes any other pre-existence of mankind, than the coming of the great day implies the pre-existence of that day. Nor do I see with what propriety this expression can be applied to Christ, more than to any one of the species. For he was always in the world,† which was made, and continually subsists by his power; hence all that can be meant by his coming thereinto, is that he assumed a different manner of appearance, or mode of manifestation in it than he had done before.

7. Page 166. "Those who did not receive him, and were not born of him, could not therefore be described as enlightened unto salvation." Those who did not receive him, could never be born of him; for he that is born of him is both enlightened and quickened by his Spirit. The Savior, as the Light of the world, dispenseth of his light to every man that cometh into the world, to give him a sight of his captive condition; this sight producing that godly sorrow which worketh repentance, salvation ensues. So, though the light of the Savior ariseth upon all, in order that all may come to repentance, and be saved, yet those who are so attached to their evil courses, that they love darkness rather than light, shut it out from them, and therefore do not come to the saving knowledge of him, who is the Author of eternal salvation to all that obey him.||

If my opposer intends by the phrases savingly enlightened, enlightened unto salvation, and such like, that we mean the saving power is nothing in the work but a mere illuminator, and that illumination is salvation, I must tell him we entertain no such ideas, for they are void of truth and reality. When we speak of the light's being of a saving nature, we do not intend, that salvation is effected merely by light abstractedly considered, though it is the Light of life. The eternal Word operates both as light and as life. It gives true discovery and discrimination as light, and empowers to live and act suitably as life. life. This light and life, being the very nature of the Savior, are properly said to be of a saving nature. Men may be so enlightened as to see the way of salvation, and yet

Jer. xx. 18. ↑ John i. 10. 2 Cor. vii. 10. | Heb. v. 9.