God and faith in Christ, by whose goodness and spiritual blessing these means have been effectual to the fitting of us for our present enjoyments.

2dly, Their substantial agreement with those of the Patriarchs, Prophets, and Apostles, will appear by paralleling their and our enjoyments. 1st, Then, we have visions of representation, exhibiting spiritual mysteries and truths; so had they, as Zachariah's golden candlestick, and Peter's vessel, &c. 2d, We have visions of angels appearing in brightness and splendour, and particularly of the blessed angel Gabriel, the seraphims, &c.; so had they. 3d, Some of us have seen the vision of Christ in glory; so did some of the ancient pillars of the church. 4th, We have been wrapt up into the third heavens, or paradise, where the majesty and glory of God and the blessed spirits have been beheld; so were some of them. 5th, We are much taught by angelical dreams, and visions in dreams, in which spiritual mysteries are discovered, and future things oft predicted; so were they, as appears by those of Joseph, Daniel, &c. 6th, We see the personal angels, one of another, at a distance; so did some of them.-Now, as to the objects of internal faculties of hearing. 1st, We have internal words, or inspeakings from the Spirit; so had they (Acts vii. xii. xiii. 2). And these inspeakings are oft in the very language and words of Scripture; by which sometimes particular Scriptures are applied to our particular conditions, heavenly mysteries sometimes opened, and directions given in doubtful things. 2d, We hear things spoken by the angels; so did they. 3d, We sometimes hear the harpers upon Mount Sion, and the spiritual songs of the blessed above; so did divine John, and the poor shepherds. 4th, As to other spiritual gifts: 1. We have immediate prophecies, the accomplishment of which, to my knowledge, hath proved the truth of them; so had they.

2.

Immediate revelation, and interpretations of deep mystical Scriptures; so had they. 3. Immediate spiritual hymns and songs, which are accompanied with so much power and reviving virtue, that they clearly speak their author to be the Spirit; such also had the saints of old. Other eminent and extraordinary enjoyments I could here annex; but they shall be discovered in their time, few being yet able to bear them.

3dly, As to the tendency and effects of these enjoyments, they have been, and are suitable to the means through which they were attained, leading to those things which are the chief scope of Scripture: as, 1st, To the giving of us a deep sense of our natural corruption and sad condition in this elemental body. 2d, Of the very great grace of God, in affording us such happy means of redemption by the blood, life, and death of his Son. 3d, Of our necessity of conformity to the death and

sufferings of Christ, in regard that the way to life is through death, and the opposition of devils very great and constant. 4th, They lead us to a continual watchfulness over our inward and outward man. 5th, To the denying ourselves of all enjoyments pleasing to the flesh, which are any way hindrances to the spiritual temper and progress of the soul to God. 6th, To the freeing of us (by such abstinence) from many fleshly entanglements, in which many Christians are sadly ingulphed. 7th, To a constant sense and sight of the presence of God and his holy angels. 8th, To the enjoying of exceeding much spiritual comfort and refreshment. 9th, To the loving of God and our fellow-saints with a pure, strong, and constant love. 10th, To the renouncing of the desires of honour and riches in this world. 11th, To the denying of spiritual pride, and the selfish desire of greatness and honour in the kingdom of God. 12th, To the continual taking up of our cross, and constant pressing forward to the mark, for the prize of the high calling in Jesus Christ: hence we shew the danger of spiritual sloth, and the principles that lead to it, affirining it our duty to labour to be perfect, as our heavenly Father is perfect, and that our business and work in this world is, to return to God and paradise. 13th, To the spiritual opening of Scriptures, more to the advantage of God's kingdom, and our spiritual growth, less to the indulging of the flesh and corrupt principles of old Adam.

I have now performed my work in raising my observations upon the collected Scriptures, and in vindicating those saints whom the Lord hath blessed with a renewal of extraordinary dispensations. And I would have the reader know that my scope was not to discourse particularly of every extraordinary dispensation, but, in general, to treat of them so far as to shew the happiness of them that enjoyed them, and the great advantages and privileges that the church, in general, and many of its members in particular received by them, and the great disadvantages and inconveniences our churches lie under for want of them, together with the springing hopes we have of their resurrection, in regard of those blessed Christians who now enjoy them; and God's promises both to increase and spread them over the church again, and I believe it hath been a great design of the devil to raise up many pretenders to visions and revelations, whose lives and ends have been unsuitable to those blessed saints, who, in the purest times, were eminent for them, that so he might raise prejudices against all that shall enjoy or possess them, though immediately given from that Holy Spirit, which must again be poured out upon the saints, for the pure reformation of the church, the vindication of Scriptures from false glosses, the destruction of Antichrist, and for the preaching of that everlasting Gospel which must yet go forth with mighty

power and authority through the world; and this plot of the devil's is the same he invented and set on foot before the first pouring out of the Spirit upon the Apostles, after Christ's Ascension, as you may see (Acts v.) by Gamaliel, that learned and sober Pharisee's speech, in which he shews how, before that time, one Theudas had started up, boasting of great things, who, drawing four hundred after him, was slain, and all his disciples scattered; and, after him, Judas of Galilee, in the days of the taxing, who likewise drew away many people, yet, afterward, perished, with the dispersion of all his adherents. These instances he applied to the Apostles, who, at that time, were called before the Jewish Council, for their miracles, and preaching the Gospel; yet he did not so apply them, as positively to conclude that the Apostles were such deceivers, and that their works and miracles were from the devil; for then he had rashly blasphemed the Holy Ghost, even as they do now, who conclude from the many miscarriages of persons, who pretended to extraordinary things, that all our extraordinary enjoyments, being the very effect of the Holy Ghost, are either pretensions only, or delusions of the devil. But all such should learn charity of wise Gamaliel, who, after these instances, thus concluded his speech to the embittered Jews: "Refrain from these men, and let them alone for if this counsel, or this work, be of men, it will come to nought; but if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it, lest haply ye be found even to fight against God."

And I know the day will come, when it shall be powerfully demonstrated, that they who now oppose and judge that Spirit which lives in us, and affords extraordinary gifts to us, oppose and fight against the Spirit of the living God; though ignorantly, as poor Paul once did. And as to the interpretation of those Scriptures, in which we differ from the common road, we may take notice, that our interpretation is more to the advantage of God's spiritual kingdom; more to the killing of the flesh; to the calling of us out of the world; to the fitting us for heaven and eternity, and the state of perfection, than the expositions of others: yea, exactly agreeable to Christ's own practice, who came to set us a copy without blur, which we ought to imitate. And is it any wonder, if this last dispensation of Christ's second coming in Spirit be more spiritual, pure, and glorious, than any that have yet been generally embraced? Especially considering that it hath been God's usual way to make latter dispensations, exceed former in glory; as the temple did the tabernacle; Evangelical prophets, that of the law; Christ's dispensation in the flesh, that of the prophets; the pouring out of the Holy Ghost, that of his corporeal presence. And is it not agreeable to Divine wisdom, that this dispensation which is now coming forth, to disperse all the clouds of Antichrist, should be

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more bright and glorious, than that upon which Antichrist prevailed? Which carrying so great evidence of truth with it, may teach us to beware of setting limits to God's Spirit, or of confining the Holy One of Israel, in reference, either to his abolishing of any shadows, or to the revealing the substance of truth more clearly, and vindicating it when sadly misapprehended, by a more spiritual and powerful effusion of glory.

Isai. xlviii. 20: "Go ye forth of Babylon, flee ye from the Chaldeans, with a voice of singing, declare ye, tell this, utter it even to the end of the earth: Say ye, the Lord hath redeemed his servant Jacob."

Isai. lxvi. 15, 16: "For behold the Lord will come with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire; for by fire and by his sword, will the Lord plead with all flesh; and the slain of the Lord shall be many."

Jer. li. 37. “And Babylon shall become heaps, a dwelling place for dragons; an astonishment, and an hissing, without an inhabitant."

Isai. xlv. 17. "But Israel shall be saved in the Lord, with an everlasting salvation: ye shall not be ashamed nor confounded world without end."

Isai. lv. 12: "For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace, the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field, shall clap their hands.

Joel iii. 16: "The Lord also, shall roar out of Sion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem, and the heavens, and the earth shall shake; but the Lord will be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel."

Joel iii. 17: "So shall ye know that I am the Lord your God, dwelling in Sion, my holy mountain: Then shall Jerusalem be holy, and there shall not pass strangers through her any

more.

Joel iii. 18: "And it shall come to pass in that day, that the mountains shall drop down new wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and all the rivers of Judah shall flow with waters, and a fountain shall come forth of the house of the Lord, and shall water the valley of Shittim."

Dan. vii. 18: "But the saints of the Most High, shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom for ever, even for ever and ever."

Rev. xix. 4. " And the four and twenty elders, and the four beasts fell down and worshipped God, that sat on the throne, saying, Amen."