It pleased God also, in process of time, as the attention of man was led astray by bad customs, by pleasures, by the cares of the world, and other causes, that the same Christ, in addition to this his inward striving with him, should afford him outward help, accommodated to his outward senses, by which his thoughts might be oftener turned towards God, and his soul be the better preserved in the way of salvation.  Christ accordingly, through Moses and the Prophets, became the author of a dispensation to the Jews, that is, of their laws, types, and customs, of their prophecies, and of their scriptures.

But as in the education of man things must be gradually unfolded, so it pleased God, in the scheme of his redemption, that the same Christ, in fulness of time, should take flesh, and become personally upon earth the author of another outward, but of a more pure and glorious dispensation, than the former, which was to be more extensive also; and which was not to be confined to the Jews, but to extend in time to the uttermost corners of the earth.  Christ therefore became the Author of the inspired delivery of the outward scriptures of the New Testament.  By these, as by outward and secondary means, he acted upon men’s senses.  He informed them of their corrupt nature, of their awful and perilous situation, of another life, of a day of judgment, of rewards and punishments.  These scriptures therefore, of which Christ was the Author, were outward instruments at the time, and continue so to posterity, to second his inward aid.  That is, they produce thought, give birth to anxiety, excite fear, promote seriousness, turn the eye towards God, and thus prepare the heart for a sense of those inward strivings of Christ, which produce inward redemption from the power and guilt of sin.

Where, however, this outward aid of the Holy Scriptures has not reached, Christ continues to purify and redeem by his inward power.  But as men, who are acted upon solely by his inward strivings, have not the same advantages as those who are also acted upon by his outward word, so less is expected in the one than in the other case.  Less is expected from the Gentile than from the Jew:  less from the Barbarian than from the Christian.

And this latter doctrine of the universality of the striving of Christ with man, in a spiritually instructive and redemptive capacity, as it is merciful and just, so it is worthy of the wise and beneficent Creator.  Christ, in short, has been filling, from the foundation of the world, the office of an inward redeemer, and this, without any exception, to all of the human race.  And there is even [101] “now no salvation in any other.  For there is no other name under Heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.”

[Footnote 101:  Acts 4. 12.]

From this new statement of the proposition, which statement is consistent with the language of divines, it will appear, that, if the Quakers have made every thing of the spirit, and but little of Christ, I have made, to suit the objectors, every thing of Christ, and but little of the spirit.  Now I would ask, where lies the difference between the two statements?  Which is the more accurate; or whether, when I say these things were done by the spirit, and when I say they were done by Christ, I do not state precisely the same proposition, or express the same thing?