is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him" (1 John ii. 20, 21, 26, 27). And our Lord, speaking upon the same subject of "false prophets," giveth their " fruits" as a test by which all men should be able to prove them (Matt. vii.) But while all do, no doubt, possess such a measure of discernment as to reject the falsehood and feed upon the truth, those to whom this gift was specially granted had the higher faculty of being able to expose the sophistry, and the hypocrisy, and subtlety of the devil, with which it comes arrayed: and to these persons the church would always be beholden in a time of trial; and, having reliance upon them, they would minister that caution, consideration, and admonition against the evil, which would be effectual to the preservation of the church from heresies and offences which must needs arise. Moreover, I have little doubt that this gift of detecting false spirits in the speech of men was also accompanied with the power of casting them out, in all such cases as were consistent with the moral responsibility of the man possessed. The prophet, I believe, might be taken at unawares, and, himself deceived, become a deceiver of others: in this case, being undeceived by the faithful discerner of spirits, he would make entreaty to be delivered, and, having faith in the presence and power of Christ in that man, he would be delivered without further delay. But in such a case as that referred to by John-of which those of Simon Magus, and Hymeneus, and Philetus, and Hermogenes are examples-where the wickedness of their own minds, their unfaithfulness to the Spirit of God, their timeserving, worldly, and ambitious dispositions of mind, were the occasions of their being delivered up to such possessions, it is clear, that, until they repented and confessed their sin, and sought the unity of the church again, they could and would receive no such deliverance from the hand of the discerner of spirits. This, surely, was a very precious gift to the church and if, as all Scripture concurreth to predict," the last times," which immediately precede the coming of the Lord, shall be full of "false Christs and false prophets, who shall shew great signs and wonders, insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect," we have need to stir up this gift which is in the church. When we were weak and sickly, and gave him little trouble, Satan suffered us to go on declining, and took himself up with other matters; having administered to us the soporific of a lifeless system of orthodox terms, he went his way about other business: but, now that the church is shaking herself from his bonds, and beginning to seek for her long-lost strength, and is putting it forth in word and deed, and lifting up the banner of truth, "Christ come in Flesh and to come in Lordship ;" behold, he will send his Philistines upon us-spirits from the deep; and we will need the discernment of spirits to withstand him, nor shall we be without it. The church is still the church; her life is still in her, though sorely weakened; now she is beginning to breathe a purer air, and her faculties are returning; her weakened mind is beginning to understand doctrine, her miserable heart is beginning to conceive hope, and her closed lips to be opened with strong and fervent desires after her ancient strength and glory. Let her enemies beware; let the intruders into the fold make ready to depart; let those who have lorded it over her prepare themselves for a day of recompence, because it is at hand, when

she shall come forth " bright as the sun, clear as the moon, and terrible as an army with banners." Moreover, this discernment of spirits is an excellent gift and kind ministry of Christ unto his church, whereby she is able to hold forth the truth before the world,-that her Head hath judged Beelzebub, the prince of the devils; hath judged the prince of this world, the spirit that now ruleth in the children of disobedience: and not only so, but that He hath given to men the dominion over spirits, who through our wickedness have obtained dominion over us; and that his church shall certainly trample Satan under foot, and judge angels, and triumph over all the powers of the enemy. But this brings us upon the vein which we have already opened when treating of the same endowment, as it was laid out in the promise of the Lord, whereof the first particular is, "Ye shall cast out devils." Referring back to what was there said concerning the importance and the bearing of this sign, we now proceed to the eighth of these forms of the manifested Spirit, which is divers kinds of tongues."

This also having handled formerly, in the sense of a sign, and shewn the thing which it signified, we shall add here what light is afforded us as to the manner of its use and occupation. It was first imparted on the day of Pentecost, "when the disciples were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance (Acts ii. 6). Many, indeed almost all, have the notion that the Apostles became all at once learned in, and masters of, foreign languages, so as to be able to express in the various tongues of men the knowledge which they possessed already. This is altogether an erroneous notion, as will apppear; and the true one is contained in the words just quoted. They spoke according as the Spirit gave them to utter, not according to their own previous knowledge; and they spoke it in other tongues than that which was native to them. It was one acting of the Spirit to give them the matter and the word: it came to them clothed in word: not in the form of idea first, to be put by their volition and skill of language into the form of word; but at once, without their knowledge of the matter or of the word, it came to them; the Spirit gave them to utter what they did utter: what it was, they themselves might be ignorant of, or not, as it happened. It was one person's gift to speak the language, it was another's to interpret what was spoken: "To another, divers kinds of tongues; to another, the interpretation of tongues....Do all speak with tongues? do all interpret ? ......Wherefore, let him that speaketh in an unknown tongue pray that he may interpret....If I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful...... Yet in the church I had rather speak five words with my understanding, that by my voice I might teach others also, than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue." These passages, extracted from the xii th and xiv th chapters of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, shew that there was no necessary connexion between speaking with a tongue and understanding what was spoken; but, on the contrary, that the person so speaking in general understood not what he said; and if he did, the interpretation was a matter of as special revelation as was the utterance itself; both speaker and interpreter being alike ignorant of the meaning of any word which had been spoken, so as to be able to translate it into their mother tongue,

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or to know it grammatically, or in any way whatever to make use of it, until the Spirit moved again-or, rather, until the person possessed of the Spirit in this form put it forth into use. This idea, which is beyond a question the true one represented in these two chapters of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, is, I think, implied in the words quoted above from the Acts, where the use of the gift is first described: "They spake with other tongues, just as the Spirit gave to them to emit the voice." The word translated "utterance is remarkable, signifying simply to emit a voice,' to sound forth,' and by the ancients was used of prophets, whom they believed to speak by another power than their own. It is only three times used in the New Testament: once over again in this chapter (ver. 14), " But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and uttered," or sounded forth," to them;" and the third time, Acts xxvi. 26, when Paul, being charged with being mad by Festus, probably from the violence of his voice or earnestness of his manner, replies, "I am not mad, most noble Festus, but speak forth (give forth) words of truth and soberness." It was the Spirit which gave the disciples to send forth those sounds in which every nation there assembled heard their native tongue, and in it the wonderful works of God. It was Christ using his church as his organ for declaring to all men in that assembly what God had done for him, and for them whose substitute he was. And no doubt this is one reason of the diversity of tongues in the church, because there is a diversity of tongues in the world to which the church is called to preach the Gospel. But this is only an accidental thing; for the whole world was once of one tongue, and might be so again: still, however, even in that case the Spirit would in the same way bring the thought embodied in word, and force it forth in that embodied form. In such a case, however, it would be prophecy, as carrying its own interpretation; and accordingly the Apostle puts speaking with tongues, when coupled with interpretation, upon the same level with prophecy: "For greater is he that prophesieth than he that speaketh with tongues, except he interpret, that the church may receive edifying." I believe the words were sometimes brought to the prophet's mind, as much as to the mind of him who spake with tongues; and that both did yield themselves in faith to the action of the Spirit, and serve him with their tongue. It is also manifest, with respect to him that spake with tongues, that, though he understood not what he said, it was not on that account without edification to him: he tasted the sweetness and had a first-fruits of the profitableness of that truth which the Spirit was passing through his tongue to the understanding of another man. This is very mysterious, but not the less true on that account. "He that speaketh in an unknown tongue, speaketh not unto men, but unto God; for no man understandeth him, howbeit in the spirit he speaketh mysteries. But he that prophesieth speaketh unto men to edification, and exhortation, and comfort. He that speaketh in an unknown tongue edifieth himself; but he that prophesieth edifieth the church (1 Cor. xiv. 2-4). This edification, which he derived from it to himself, joined to the wonderfulness of it, led some who possessed it to use it rashly and indiscreetly in the midst of the church, where it could not profit; and to correct the selfishness from which this proceeded, and

the confusion to which it gave rise, the Apostle addresseth himself with great zeal. It hath been a subject of great thought with me to understand these things, which are the occasion of so much scoffing and blasphemy to many of my poor misguided countrymen; and I think God hath rewarded my study, of which I will now enumerate the results under their several heads.

First. This gift of tongues in the church doth shew that the work of Christ in the flesh is for all men, and that he wisheth it to be published to all men; and, that his church may not sleep over her vocation, nor be slack in the performance of it, nor sink down into local residences, good quarters, and comfortable settlements, but preserve her missionary spirit, and be a witness to every generation of every speech of men, she is endowed with these diversities of tongues, and goaded on to go forth to the nations, to seek ears for those words which are ever coming with such sweetness over her heart. It is like an ambassador's commission; it is the Spirit saying to the church, Send me this man forth. Paul spoke more abundantly with tongues than they all did (1 Cor. xiv. 18), and Paul was the greatest missionary of them all. And what an assurance to a man's heart, and confirmation to his faith, to have his mission thus ascertained to him, and sealed by the Holy Ghost! Methinks it would be more effectual than a salary of a thousand pounds by the year from the most notable of our missionary societies. I feel assured that these societies have so shamefully and shockingly come short of the mark in their faith and feeling, and performance also, that, if the world is to receive warning before the great and terrible day of the Lord, it must be by the church seeking again for this long-lost endowment; seeking for her trumpet with its many notes, through which to speak to the nations.

Secondly. This gift of tongues doth put beyond all doubt the unity of Christ and his members, inasmuch as it shews him in his people doing whatever their own soul within them can do. Speech is the means by which an embodied spirit doth manifest its existence; distinguishing man, a living soul, from every other living thing upon the earth. Speech is the manifestation of reason; and by our capacity of uttering, and understanding the words uttered, is proved the commonness, the oneness of that reason, in which many persons have their being. Now when Christ doth occupy the place of my reasonable spirit, and with my tongue doth express whatever I am capable of expressing, he is proved to be in me as truly as I am in myself. If my body is known to be the habitation of my soul by its obeying all the desires of the soul, and expressing them in form of word; then, by the same method of conviction is Christ proved to be in me, when he doth through the organs of my body express his own mind to those whom I can by no means reach by any expression of my own. This same truth, of an indwelling Christ, is proved by any other of the gifts to the experience of him who hath them; but by the gift of tongues it is proved to others besides ourselves, even to all who hear in their own language the testimony of God and of Christ. It is seen that God is in me of a truth, when that power within me doth testify to no other person but to Christ, in his work of humiliation and exaltation, in his flesh and in his lordship. Now, if it be considered what a point of

doctrine the union of Christ with believers is, the importance of the gift of tongues will the more appear. By the truth, that the Spirit of a Man out of the world dwells in many men in the world at one and the same time, and continues this inhabitation from age to age, what less is proved but that this person is also God? For who but God can thus connect that which is not in the world with that which is in the world; who but God can keep up the communication and the intercourse between the Father's throne and the world? But, then, Christ's soul being a limited substance, with which the Godhead continually acts, another question ariseth, How can this limited substance, which is now out of the world, be yet in the world, in the souls of many men, in all ages of the world? This can only be by means of another Being, proceeding from Christ to the bounds of all space and time, and able to unite them into oneness with him. But in order that this may be, he must be of one substance with Christ; and also he must be a person, in order to comprehend a person, and inform many persons with the same spirit. And thus is the Divinity and the Personality of the Comforter made to appear through this great truth of Christ the inhabiter of his people; which, again, is proved by his using their organs in a way in which they themselves are not able to do. Moreover, this power of Christ in the Spirit to speak all the diversities of speech, shews him to be the fountain-head of speech, the Word, by whose endowment man is a word-speaking creature: while by his power to enter into all the forms of reason, and deliver God in such a way as all diversities of reason shall apprehend, he is proved to be The one Reason, of whose fulness we have all received, who lighteth every man that cometh into the world. What doth this inhabitation of my reason by another than myself, at his will, and using it in a way which unequivocally proves that he is another than myself; what doth this prove less than that I am but the tenant of that other's domain, who thus masterfully can occupy his own, and for the while suspend my vicegerency? Thirdly. But there is something deeper still, than this oneness of reason and lordship of reason resident in Christ, proved by these gifts of tongues-namely, That a person is something more than that community of reason which he doth occupy as the tenant of him whose name is The Logos, or The Reason. For it clearly appeareth, from the xivth chapter of the First of Corinthians, that when the man's reason is wholly without fruit, when he understandeth nothing that is spoken, he doth yet receive great edification in his own spirit "he edifieth himself" (ver. 4)--and holdeth, independent of reason, a communication with God-"he speaketh unto God" (ver. 2.) Doth not this prove that all forms of the reason within, which speech expresseth outwardly, may be inactive-as if it were dead, "fruitless' and barren- and yet the spirit itself be receiving great edification from God, through means which are wholly independent of intelligence? Indeed, to deny this, is to deny the possibility of direct communication between God and the soul otherwise than by speech or books which address us through the reason; it is to set aside the subject of spiritual gifts altogether: and methinks it takes away that personality from a man, by means of which it is that he informs, awakens, and occupies the gift of reason. The gift of