indulgent to my passions, and do not oppose and condemn me in many things, as the Gospel does? Do I, in obedience to it, observe but the will of God? And I suspect, if he has any candour, that he will confess within himself that he is not, as a Christian ought to be, led entirely by the spirit Christ; no more than the souls of our Jews are guided by either of the spirits Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, Judges, David, Solomon, Prophets; and that he has not the faith of a real Christian, though he may be accounted a good Catholic, Protestant, &c. a well-meaning, religious, most respectable man, according to this world. I surmise also that he will perceive that, in thinking himself so great a personage as a Christian, I mean an enlightened spiritual philosopher, in whom the spiritual mind and the human mind, or the spirit and the flesh, are by Christ's doctrine reconciled and united together (Eph. 2. 15, 16), and with one accord work for the glory of God and the good of the neighbour; he will perceive, I say, that he is as much deluded as the Jews of old were, when they imagined that they were the peculiar people of God: though they never had in themselves any of the superior spirits that alone can constitute and manifest that great people. Then with the eyes opened on the condition of his soul, let him part with the specious opinions and systems of this world that had misled him in the way of salvation; let him resolve to take the Scripture for his only guide; let him follow, the best he can, Christ's precepts; praying for assistance, and for the intelligence of them: and I have no doubt that the more he will do it, the more he will learn of the truth, and will be convinced that before he had been erro

neously informed, and that he was not a worthy Christian. I hope also that he will see that it could not be otherwise, since he had not been gradually brought up to the understanding of the Gospel, and to faith in it, by the instructions contained in the Old Testament (Gal. 3. 24), which he will perceive to be, unless of an extraordinary favour from above, Acts, 2. 17.-4. 31.-9. 3.-10. 44.-19. 6. an indispensable step and preparation to the intelligence of the New: so much so, that without it, nobody can, I believe, thoroughly understand and receive the whole of the New. But though none of the systems that are called Christian appears to me to be positively the pure religion of Christ, and though they seem to me, from their being partly founded on a literal understanding of the Sacred Books, so imperfect that no man has any chance of becoming a thorough Christian by them, still I think that they are eminently advantageous to us in our present condition; and that, in their acknowledging Christ as the Light of the world, they are exceedingly preferable to those that reject his heavenly doctrine, and aim not at his holiness, virtues, and perfections.*

It appears to me, from the New Testament, that none are made Christians, but Jews and Gentiles: from which I am inclined to conclude, that it is absolutely necessary to be either, before one can become a Christian. By Jews I mean the Scripture Jews, or the people of God, those who will receive a new life from Abraham's philosophical and righteous knowledge united with Sarah's spiritual knowledge, which I look upon as being an emblem of the spirit of the New Covenant, Gal. 4. 22, &c. Those whom I should consider as imperfect spiritual philosophers, of various degrees; as persons who have cir. cumcised or stript themselves of some of the vanities of the world, and

I have been told that there are persons who, having meditated on the recent and present state of this world,

are partly led by faith in God, and still partly trusting in human works, more than in the goodness of the Omnipotent; philosophers, who have, more or less, of the spiritual and of the philosophical knowledge; and who, in their study of good and of evil, will give the preference to the knowledge of good over that of evil. By the Gentiles mentioned in the Holy Writ, I understand the great, but only human, nation, (Gen. 17. 20,) that will come from Abraham's philosophy, and that called Agar, or that which is to be learned from the first covenant, I understand, I say, the worldly philosophers, who will be unacquainted with the circumcision of the heart, and careless about it; who will be uninstructed in the spirit of the law, (Rom. 2. 13, 14,) the mere children of the flesh or of humanity; (8. 5.-9. 8,) which follow not after righteousness; (9. 30. Eph. 4. 17,) who will be acquainted only with the knowledge of good and evil, and deeper in that which is apt to gender pride, and to prompt one to judge the defects of others, in preference to condemning one's own; deeper, I say, in it than in that wherein there is simplicity and humility; philosophers, whose confidence will seem to be entirely in the unfruitful works of darkness, (Eph. 6. 11); but, however, who will be partly prepared for the reception of Christ's high, eternal doctrine, by what they will have acquired of Abraham's philosophical knowledge; and who will be by it in the way of becoming, with further instructions, Christian philosophers, dead to the pride and vanity of the world; whose regenerate faith and hope are but in God, and whose works, both in spirituality and in humanity, are according to Christ's precepts. Besides Ismael's sons, (Gen. 25. 13, 14, 15, 16,) I take for Gentiles also the souls whose knowledge will proceed from Keturah's human knowledge, (Gen. 25. 2, 3, 4,) and from the generations of the mundane spirit Esau, (ch. 36.) I think that, before their conversion, they will be, from want of the right faith, very inferior to the real Jews, but in point of philosophical knowledge far above the children of chaos, whose present diversity of opinion respecting good and evil, may be looked upon as a proof that in their discernment between right and wrong, they are not guided by any correct information, any steady principle, any well-settled rule, but rather by the prejudices of the

expect from the signs of the times, that we are not far from a great change in it, and from a happy period which

country they live in, and by the fashion of their age, which, in approving and disapproving, seems to be led more by fancy than by sound judgement. I believe such would not be our case, if we had been taught clearly in what good and evil consist; as will be those who, by God's mercy, will pass from the now existing state of mental chaos, I mean respecting right and wrong, to the philosophical state that will be the Scripture world; wherein they will be shown the real difference and distinction between both, so as to be saved from mistaking one for the other: and to be enabled to judge themselves rightly, and to repent for some of the thoughts and actions, which now from ignorance they value as good, and which they will learn to be evil. In the mean time, fortunate are those who, from piety, look upon the Word of God as the safest guide through the deep and intricate science or knowledge of good and evil; those who perceive in it that the good lies in humility of heart, and in faith in God, and the evil in a proud opinion of oneself, and in belief and trust in self and in this figurative, erroneous world; those who, with prudence and simplicity, keep the watch on their thoughts, words, and deeds, endeavouring to conform them to the Holy Writ, and who pray the Merciful Almighty to improve them in the good, and to deliver them from the evil. The custom, which I imagine to be ancient, of preaching on successive Sundays, from texts, between which it would be sometimes difficult to discover a connexion, being taken indistinctly anywhere, as it suits the ministers of instructions, does not appear to me the best calculated for the enlightening of their congregations, touching good and evil; because it deviates from the progressive mode of teaching, which is evident in the Sacred History: the method of which I regret that it has not been adopted and followed among us, and also that is not to be found in the books that speak of good and evil, the knowledge of them not being, I am afraid, treated in any of them methodically, as sciences are in general. But it could not be otherwise, since, as it seems, it has been the will of the Omnipotent that His degenerate creatures should pass through a condition of ignorance of right and wrong, previous to His setting into their hearts the unknown philosophical knowledge, system, order, or spirit, which I

they designate under the name of millenium, and take literally for the thousand years prophesied in Rev. 20. I am inclined to agree with them as to the proximity of a most important revolution in our minds; but I differ with their opinion that the reign of Christ is at hand. I would rather think, that the strange circumstances that have taken place during the last forty years, and those that probably will follow, have had, and will have, for object, to prepare us by new ideas, by various reflections, and by the destruction of many long-existing errors and vanities, to a most fortunate revolution in our hearts, a revolution from evil to good; and to the coming of the first regenerate man, and of the woman whose soul would be a part of his: disposing us to hear them, and to receive reverently their wise instructions, by which the desirable change will be begun in us; and which would give us a new soul or life, or to the imperfect soul which we may have at present, a different life from that which she has; a life that would partake of their philosophical and spiritual knowledges, of their superior qualities and virtues. The general opinion is that they have been on this earth long ago, and that

understand will be the world, in which will occur for their regeneration the marvellous circumstances that are foretold in God's word. Humble and unceasing thanks to Divine Providence, for the useful knowledges, the opinions, sentiments, qualities, and consolations, which He has given us, and gives daily in alleviation of the state of degradation into which He has put us for a short time, and I hope for the purification of our former faults, of which we have no remembrance, (Eccle. 1. 11,) which state might be thought too mean and too inferior for the creatures of the Great God, were not His ways past finding out! Rom. 11. 33.