Again—­“those who perfect holiness in the fear of God, have a degree of divine knowledge more than we can discourse of, and more certain than the demonstration of Geometry; brighter than the sun, and indeficient as the light of heaven—­A good man is united to God—­As flame touches flame, and combines into splendour and into glory, so is the spirit of a man united to Christ by the spirit of God.  Our light, on the other hand, is like a candle; every word of doctrine blows it out, or spends the wax, and makes the light tremulous.  But the lights of heaven are fixed and bright and shine for ever.”

Cudworth, in his intellectual system, is wholly of the same opinion:  “All the books and writings which we converse with, they can but represent spiritual objects to our understanding, which yet we can never see in their own true figure, colour, and proportion, until we have a divine light within to irradiate and shine upon them.  Though there be never such excellent truths concerning Christ and his Gospel, set down in words and letters, yet they will be but unknown characters to us, until we have a living spirit within us, that can decypher them, until the same spirit, by secret whispers in our hearts, do comment upon them, which did at first indite them.  There be many that understand the Greek and Hebrew of the scripture, the original languages in which the text was written, that never understood the language of the spirit.”

CHAP.  III.

Neither can a man, except he has a portion of the same spirit which Jesus and the Apostles and the Prophets had, know spiritualty that the scriptures are of divine authority, or spiritually understand them—­Explanation of these tenets—­Objection, that these tenets set aside human reason—­Reply of the Quakers—­Observations of Luther—­Calvin—­Owen—­Archbishop Usher—­Archbishop Sandys—­Milton —­Bishop Taylor.

As a man cannot know spiritual things but through the medium of the spirit of God; or except he has a portion of the same spirit, which Jesus and the Prophets and the Apostles had, so neither can he, except he has a portion of the same spirit, either spiritually know that the writings or sayings of these holy persons are of divine authority, or read or understand them, to the promotion of his spiritual interests.

These two tenets are but deductions from that in the former chapter, and may be thus explained.

A man, the Quakers say, may examine the holy scriptures, and may deduce their divine origin from the prophecies they contain, of which many have been since accomplished; from the superiority of their doctrines beyond those in any other book which is the work of man; from the miraculous preservation of them for so many ages; from the harmony of all their parts, and from many other circumstances which might be mentioned.  But this, after all, will be but an historical, literal, or outward proof of their origin, resulting from his