had received a gift of the Holy Spirit, which had been evidenced by prophesying in a manner that evidently proved the child to be speaking by a power superior to her own. The parents returned home, and on their arrival heard the child speak in the spirit at their accustomed family prayers. Two days afterwards, the little boy also prophesied by a supernatural power. The burden of what they said was to preach a very pure and holy Gospel, calling upon all who heard them to be ready for the coming of the Lord; giving awful denunciations against sin, mixed with precious promises, and declaring the blood of Jesus sufficient for the cleansing of all sin; that God was love, and waiting to receive whosoever would come unto him by Jesus's blood. By this means the parents were led off their guard, and never doubted that the children were speaking by the Holy Spirit; and were greatly delighted, as all pious parents would be. The children were evidently possessed: they spoke as no children, and above all these, are accustomed to speak. They described their sensations in such a manner as to shew that some extraneous power must be influencing them. The boy, who was always sleepy before his bed-time, asked one night who had kept his mouth open while speaking, for he felt that some one had; and was much surprised when he was assured that no one had touched him. At other times, he said, the spirit pushed him in the side; and if he did not attend to that, he felt a pinching pain, until he was compelled to attend. His sister appeared always to be seized with a fit of speaking, and would shrink into her chair and cover her face, and then give utterance. The little boy spoke likewise with unknown sounds, and sang. The spirit called upon them repeatedly to watch and pray against Satan, who was in the midst of them, and desired them to fight him bravely. The spirit having got the parents completely to trust him, began to entice them to do many things which, if not absolutely wrong, were at least foolish; until, at length, the father, and also his curate, was induced to suspect the spirit, in consequence of something which had been said directly contrary to Scripture. They then remembered that they had "believed the spirit" without "trying the spirit," as they were enjoined to do by Scripture, and accordingly determined to do this forthwith. While conversing on this matter, the spirit cried out in the child, "Ye may try the spirits in men, but ye must not try them in babes and sucklings." This alarmed them greatly. The father on the next morning prayed over the word, that the Lord would enable him to try the spirit which spake in his child. The spirit said in a loud voice, "Ye shall not try the spirit." The father said, "I will try the spirit by the word of the living God." The spirit said, "If ye try the spirit, ye shall be chastised." The father then read 1 John iv.

2, 3, adding, it was God's blessed word, and he would not be forbid. Being much overcome, however, by his natural feelings, his friend the curate took the Bible, and, reading the same passage, and laying his hand on the boy's head, said to the spirit, "Thou spirit which possesses this child, wilt thou not confess that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh?" The spirit answered loudly, "I will not." The child looked pale, and was quite cold; and said he felt something in his inside like a cold hand fluttering, and then it left him. After a short time the boy cried out that it was coming again. The curate said, "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." They all prayed together; and the spirit never more returned.

This story is valuable on many accounts. It proves incontestibly a fact which has sometimes been disputed, that a pure and excellent Gospel can be preached by men without the teaching of the Holy Ghost. The profession of Evangelical religion is as successful a road to profit and honour as any other; and where the preacher seeks fame, and finds the knowledge of doctrine necessary to that fame, and desires it for that end, there is no reason to doubt that it may be supplied by Satan. The power of the human intellect, joined to a perception of moral beauty in the Gospel scheme, may give a man great insight into, and ardent love for, that scheme, while he remains perfectly ignorant and personally unacquainted with its Author. There is no proof whatever to be derived from the sermons themselves, that the most eloquent preachers, and those who have the talent of conveying the greatest body of Divine knowledge to others, are partakers of the Holy Ghost: they may or they may not be; that fact is to be determined on other grounds: but we repeat that it is possible for a man to have all the eloquence of Melvill, Armstrong, and McNeile combined, to put forth in each sermon all the concentrated truths of every branch of Revelation, to draw admiring crowds, who shall be all edified or converted to the faith of Christ; and yet do all this in and by their natural powers alone, unaided by the Holy Ghost, and perhaps taught by Satan.

The next point of view in which this story is remarkable, is on account of that which we insisted on in our former article on this subject-namely, the importance of adhering to the letter of the word of God. The justice of those observations is strikingly seen in this instance, and, at the same time, the total want of scriptural knowledge, learning, and examination, which has been exhibited by the Record newspaper, Dr. Burns, Mr. Irons, Mr. Pilkington, Mr. Leslie, Dr. Morrison, and every single writer who has exposed himself in print upon this subject. Every one of them has set up some standard of criterion for the nature of the spirit speaking which is not authorized by the Bible; and therefore it follows indisputably, that, had the Lord been pleased

to endow any members in their congregations with His gifts, the Spirit would have been quenched now as heretofore by the ignorance of the pastors. One of these has asserted that the test given for that purpose in Scripture is insufficient, for that the devil can make the confession required: the above story shews that this assertion is not true, and that God is true, for that the devil will not make the required confession. The assertion, however, marks the little esteem in which the letter of the word of God is really held, whenever the reality of that estimation can be brought to proof.

The third and last point of view in which this story is valuable is, the direct proof which has been thereby afforded that those persons who are still speaking in the Spirit, after having been subjected to the same test, are speaking by the power of the Holy Ghost. We were ourselves present when the spirits in several were tried; when they all burst forth with the words, "The Babe in the manger is Jehovah's Fellow: the Lord of glory is the virgin's Child: He who died on Calvary shall come to reign the Man of Sorrows was the Lord of Hosts: He that was in the likeness of sinful flesh is God over all blessed for ever,' &c. &c. Now, though this confession had been made after the spirits had been invoked to confess, it would not have stopped the mouths of those gainsayers who say that an evil spirit could make such a confession, unless there was flat contradiction to be given them by the effect which the same invocation had produced on evil spirits; namely, by casting them Far be it from us, however, to suppose that the tongue of a caviller can be silenced, or a pre-determined opponent convinced.

out.

There is no delusion at present more general by which Satan has induced persons to give him quiet entrance into their souls, than by assuming the form of divination. A lady was firmly persuaded she was filled with the Holy Spirit because the conversation of two persons at the distance of many miles was revealed to her, which, upon inquiry, proved to be correct. It was, however, an evil spirit which possessed her, from which she has been delivered. Two other women prophesied by a supernatural power, and, on being interrogated why they considered the spirit to be the Holy Ghost, gave some remarkable instances of extraordinary occurrences which had been revealed to them by it, and which had actually come to pass. These persons had had some communication with the followers of Joanna Southcote, and were warned that it was a lying "spirit of divination" which possessed them, and that there was no doubt he had brought the things to pass which he had foretold to them.

The power of casting out devils is one of the supernatural powers of the Holy Ghost which the Church of England very

distinctly recognises even to the present day, although the prac tical belief in these her own doctrines has died out of the minds of all her ministers. In the seventy-second Canon, ministers are forbid "to attempt upon any pretence whatever, either of possession or of obsession, by fasting and prayer, to cast out any devil or devils....without licence and direction of the bishop of the diocese first obtained and had under his hand and seal." This canon all ministers of the Church of England still subscribe to; whereby every one confesses, firstly, that there are such things as Satanic possession; and, secondly, that by certain ceremonies they have the power of casting them out. The canon is evidently a portion of Popery still preserved, which makes the unscriptural distinction between laity and clergy; for the priests had not more power or right to cast out devils than any other Christian. The devil is their common enemy, against whom all the soldiers of Christ are equally bound to contend; and that to cast them out was not peculiarly the office of the priest, is incontrovertibly proved by the extract from Tertullian given in our last Number (vol. iv. p. 358).

In the first edition of "The Booke of the Common Praier and Administracion of the Sacramentes.. after the Use of the Churche of England," printed by Grafton in 1549, we have, in the office for "Publike Baptisme," the following form used in common for the exorcising of evil spirits at every celebration of that rite; and so continued in our Prayer-Books to the time of Queen Anne, when it, together with the service for touching for the evil, was omitted:-"Then let the priest, lokyng upon the children, saie, I commaunde thee, uncleane spirite, in the name of the Father, of the Sonne, and of the Holy Ghoste, that thou come out, and depart from these infantes, whom our Lorde Jesus Christe hath vouchsaved to call to his holy baptisme, to be made membres of his body, and of his holy congregacion. Therefore, thou curssed spirite, remembre thy sentence, remembre thy judgementes, remembre the daie to be at hande wherein thou shalt burne in fire everlastyng, prepared for thee and thy angelles; and presume not hereafter to exercise any tyranny toward these infantes, whō Christ hath bought with his precious bloudde, and by this his holy baptisme called to be his flocke." Bishop Hall mentions, in his Life, that he had an argument with Father Costerus, a Jesuit at Brussels, on the respective merits of Popery and Protestantism. The Papist, he says, "slipped into a choleric invective against our church, which, as he said, could not yield one miracle; and when I answered, that in our church we had manifest proofs of the ejection of devils by fasting and prayer, he answered, that if it could be proved that ever any devil was dispossessed in our church he would quit his religion." (vol. i. p. xxix.) He has also a letter upon the subject,

in which are some very sound observations on miracles; particularly, that they are not proofs of doctrine, but that the doctrine of those who work them proves whether they are operated by the power of God or of Satan; adding, "the dreamer or prophet must be esteemed, not by the event of his wonder, but by the substance and scope of his teaching. The Romanists argue preposterously, while they would prove the truth of their church by miracles; whereas they should prove their miracles, by the truth" (vol. vii. p. 135). There is not one single writer who has appeared against the miraculous cures which have lately taken place, or against the revival of the spirit of prophecy, who has had the wisdom to see the truth of this remark; while, on the other side, Mr. Irving has put forth Bishop Hall's view very powerfully and frequently. It is obvious, therefore, that if the prophetic spirit were to have been revived in any of the congregations over which those preachers preside, the spirit would have been suppressed, or misdirected, through their ignorance. An instance of ignorance how to treat any miraculous occurrence, is no where more remarkable than in the following cure, mentioned in the History of the Edict of Nantes:

"Pierre Charpentier étant mort à Vançai dans la maison d'un Réformé, son parent, à qui il avoit donné quelques marques de dégout pour la religion Romaine, on le fit enterrer au cimetière des Réforméz. Cette action passa pour un attentât, dont la plainte étant portée au Sénéchal de Poitiers, il y eut sentence le quatorzième de Mars, qui portoit que ce corps seroit tiré de terre, et porté par ceux qui l'avoient enterré devant la porte de l'église de la paroisse, afin que le curé le fit inhumer au cimetière des Catholiques. Ce déterrement fut fait avec cérémonie le vingt-huitième du mois. On dit que le corps fut trouvé sans mauvaise odeur; et qu'il étoit sorti du cercueil quelques goutes de sang, qu'on remarquoit sur la terre. Les Catholiques en firent un miracle, qui fut attesté par le curé et six ou sept prêtres : et ils prétendoient que c'étoit là une preuve que ce corps avoit été mis dans une terre indigne de le corrompre. Mais comme les accidens de cette nature sont fort équivoques les Reformez tiroient aussi l'incorruption de ce corps à leur avantage; et disoient que ce sang crioit vèngeance contre l'inhumanité des Catholiques, qui ne pouvoient se résoudre à laisser les hommes en répos même dans le tombeau" (Vol. iii. p. 63).

Now, in the first place, there seems to be no miracle at all, nor even any thing very remarkable: but even if there were, the inference drawn by the Protestants was quite as unwarrantable as that deduced by the Papists. The foundation of the Popish error is, that miracles prove doctrines: and this error some of the most loud, and at the same time ignorant, antagonists of Popery have adopted; and it seems now to be generally revived