this book contains. Such it is, and such I will

make it appear.

Quot. A flaming torch, how useful to a benighted traveller!

Answ. And so is a lamp of salvation to a weak believer; but a watchman that cannot understand a wandering star, and a blind guide, is a most dangerous guide, and a perilous leader: he removes his neighbour's landmark; he causes the blind to wander out of his way. And so does this wretched Looking-glass: there is not one inch of the path to heaven either cleared, cast up, or made plain, in it. This glass "darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge." Here are reasonings with unprofitable talk, and speeches wherewith a man can do no good, Job 15. 3.

Quot. How welcome a safe guide! How fatal a false one!

Answ. My answer to Timothy is; "Thou art the Man!'

Quot. The word of God is like a Dispensary, or Apothecary's Warehouse.

Answ. And a Quack Doctor is a dangerous man in it, for it cannot be expected that he should know one drug from another. False judgment, in the dialect of scripture, is hemlock. The Balm of Gilead is allowed to be a healing medicine by all that have been favoured with a divine application. This Looking-glass abounds with the former, but not the latter.

any.

Quot. I never was forced into this service by

Answ. You own that they were neither the wisest of men, nor the best of men, who wished you to make such a public appearance some years ago and I think your judgment is just; for no man of common sense, none but base men and fools, would ever have advised you to any such thing. And, as to God, the confusion of this glass is sufficient to prove to a demonstration, that he had no hand in it. It is all Timothy's own; he is the sole Author; for we are well assured that God is not the Author of confusion. And, for my own part, it is matter of grief to me, to see the name of so holy and wise a Being appear in it, or stand affixed to it.

Quot. It is an eternal honour to bring an handful of goat's hair into such an infinitely glorious building, which is to stand for ever.

Answ. If such a trifle as an handful of goat's hair, brought into the temple of the Holy Ghost, entitles a man to eternal honour, what honours, suppose you, is he worthy of, though a wolf, who brings such a valuable article as a sheep's skin into the church of God; which, every fellmonger will tell us, is far preferable to the hair of a goat?

Quot. I hope this piece will be as welcome to the great head of the church, who has long exercised compassion himself, as the crawling

forth of Mephibosheth to meet and welcome David, who saw his friendly heart far more nimble than his heels.

Answ. The comparison appears just: but, if the type of Mephibosheth meets with no better reception from Jesus, than the antitype met with from David, it will be but a cold one at best; as it appears on record; "Why speakest thou any more of thy matters? I have said, thou and Ziba divide the land." There is a proverb that says, "A wise servant shall have rule over a son that causeth shame, and shall have part of the inheritance among the brethren." the brethren." But still this sharer of the inheritance is but a servant, not a son; and "the servant abideth not in the house for ever, but the son abideth ever." Judas was one of those servants: he had part of the inheritance; "he took part of this ministry with us;" but a livelihood, the bag, and a gift of speech, was the only part that fell to his share. I hope our friend Timothy will never be found, in the great day, to be only a sharer of the inheritance which fell to the family, or house, of Saul. The household of David, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, differ widely from that: Saul never reigned in Zion, nor in Jerusalem, only at Gibeah.

Quot. Some, who seem to be partakers of this change, give sufficient proof they were never plants of our heavenly Father's planting.

Answ. Our Timothy himself gives us no account in this glass, nor any proof that any change

ever passed upon him; nay, he is so far from it, that he cannot tell us what the change is, nor give a just description of any one part of it, nor of any thing belonging to it; nor the operations of it, the sinner's sensations under it, the effects of it, nor the glorious ends of it.

Quot. That which I wish particularly to aim at is, to demonstrate to the Christian himself, the change made in his understanding is such as is peculiar to a child of God, and that God is the sole author of it.

Answ. Timothy Priestley begins his description of the new birth first at the head, but God begins at the heart. The first thing that appears in a new-born infant is not an understanding: this doth not discover itself properly till the child comes to full age. Nor did the Spirit of God begin his first work at the Apostles head; they received the word of eternal life in their heart, were quickened by the Spirit, believed in the Saviour, were the children of God, and followed their Lord and Master to his death. But it was after his resurrection from the dead that "he opened their understandings, that they might understand the scriptures." This is a bad aim, Timothy. Thou shouldest have begun at the heart, and then have proceeded to the understanding, and at last have finished at the feet. to make bare his arm.

The first thing God does, is

way that they know not.

He brings the blind by a

The next thing is to

give them an understanding: He makes darkness

light before them. And the third is, he prepares their path: He makes crooked things straight. These are the things God has promised to do, and not to leave those in whom they are done.

Quot. All those who are born of the Spirit have their understandings enlightened in such a manner as distinguishes them from all the unregenerate in the world.

Answ. Is this true, Timothy? Does an enlightened understanding distinguish a man from all the unregenerate in the world? Then what a blessed state was Balaam's, and what a glorious end must he have made! The man whose eyes were opened; who heard the words of God, and saw the vision of the Almighty, and knew the knowledge of the Most High, and saw him; falling into a trance, but having his eyes open, Numb. xxiv. 3, 4, 16. But if Balaam, with all his light and understanding, perished, what becomes of Mr. Priestley's criterion? And if Balaam's illumination did not save him, what will become of the Author of this Looking-glass, who is so far from seeing the visions of the Almighty, that he does not appear to have light enough to discern any one mystery, doctrine, or truth, in all the bible; nor even to know what himself says, what he means, what he aims at, or whereof he affirms!

Quot. God, who gives as a Sovereign, gives to all his people such an ability to discern spiritual objects, which the wisest men in the world, in natural things, are totally strangers to.