7th chapter, ver. 39th. But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe in him should receive. For the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified. Here most certainly the apostle speaks of the ascension of his Master, and tho' he did not write the history of it, yet, not obscurely, says the thing was to be; which confirms the accounts of St. Luke and St. Mark. And since, in the 14th and 15th chapters of St. John, ver. 16.26. the apostle declares, that Jesus foretold he would send to them, his disciples, the Comforter or holy Spirit from the Father, after his ascension to heaven; and that the apostles demonstrated by miracles, after the death of their Lord, that they had received this Comforter or divine Spirit, it follows, that the ascension and glorification of Jesus is as much asserted and confirmed by the gospel of St. John, as if that apostle, like Luke, had writ the history of it. This is evident to me. I think it is not possible to dispute it.
The sum of the whole is, that the prejudices of the pious, and the arts of the crafty and interested, have defaced the true gospel of Christ, and substituted human notions and consequences in the place of divine revelation: but let us strip the sacred records of the false glosses and systems, with which the theorists have covered it, and allow the

enemy, that the apostles, sometimes wanting the unerring spirit of their Master, were liable to slight mistakes, and inadvertencies, in the representation of ordinary events; that they did, sometimes, by too great an affection for their Master's doctrine, strain some things, and cite prophecies that did not relate to Jesus in any sense at all (44) ; —

let this be done to remove incumbrances, to clear up difficulties, and to answer objections otherwise unanswerable, and the writings of

the apostles will appear to be a globe of light from heaven; to irradiate the human understanding, and conduct the sons of men

to the realms of bliss. Their lessons are the dictates of the Spirit of God: their sanctions are of such force, in a certainty of future judgment and retribution,

that they incline a rational to have a serious regard to them.
In a word, the religion of nature is perfect, but men are imperfect, and therefore

it pleased God to send our Saviour into the world, to republish the law of reason by his preaching, and in the