against the other: this is commanded, and commended. And, on the other hand, receive no man into your affections, nor into your house, who brings not the doctrine of Christ, nor bid him God speed: for they who do, are co-sharers in all the iniquity and mischief that he commits. Be not a partaker of other men's sins. Keep thyself pure. Farewell.

Thine to serve,

In the gospel of Christ,

LETTER III.

W. H.

To Mr. RINGER, and his Company, Silver Street, Southwark.

SIR,

You need not be at any trouble to procure me the book you talked of: the whole works of those two false witnesses are in my possession.

It is, doubtless, my duty to endeavour to

deceive the deceived, and to convert the sinner from the error of his way; and to submit my endeavours to God, and leave it to his sovereign will and pleasure, whether to make his own word a savour of life unto life, or of death unto death. I am fully persuaded that, if God sends a strong delusion, that a man may believe a lie, and be damned, all attempts to recover him will prove ineffectual; nevertheless, I shall be unto God a sweet savour of Christ in them that perish, as well as in them that are saved. It is not a matter of indifference whether a man believes truth or falsehood; seeing Christ declares, that nothing shall enter into the heavenly Jerusalem that loveth or maketh a lie. And I must tell you, sir, that you are, at this time, given up to believe a lie. You feed upon ashes: a deceived heart hath turned you aside; so that you cannot deliver your soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand? Isa. xliv. 20. The unerring Spirit of God, and the scriptures of truth, are our infallible guides. He that speaks not according to God's word, has no light in him; and he that teaches any other gospel than that which is revealed in the scriptures, is to be held accursed, whether man or angel.

The doctrines of Muggleton and Reeve are, in scripture style, damnable delusions; and that of the mortality of the soul, and of the death of the sonl of Christ, is an infernal lie. I shall attempt all confutation of this point, and prove these

two witnesses to be joint liars, from their book intituled, 'Joyful News from Heaven; or The Last Intelligence:' hoping the title will prove true, and that we shall have no more such false intelligence delivered in the name of the God of heaven.

Does Christ's saying, "I lay down my life, that I might take it again," prove the mortality, or death of his soul, as these men have asserted page the first?

in

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Moreover, because many of the blessed ones are not fully satisfied concerning Christ's soul dying with his body, therefore I shall write 'somewhat from his own words spoken upon that ' account. John the 12th, it is thus written:

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Except a corn of wheat fall in the ground, and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth 'forth much fruit."

Page the 2d. So likewise, had not Christ's 'divine life been wholly dead and buried in the 'heart of the grave, with the body of his flesh, 'what spiritual advantage of a glorious increase ' to himself, through the spirits of elect men and angels, could have been attained to in the least?'

How can any of God's blessed ones give credit to, or be satisfied with, such lies as these? Does Christ's saying; "I lay down my life," imply an extinction, or an annihilation of his soul, that it should be dissolved, fall asleep, or die, so as to be buried with his body in the heart of the earth? In no sense whatsoever. The soul is a spirit, and

is spiritual, and therefore it cannot be mortal. Nor is death an extinction, or a dissolving the soul into nothing; but it is a dissolving of the union between the body and the soul; as it is written, "The body, without the spirit, is dead." At death, the body goes one way, and the soul another. The soul of Christ went into the hands of his Father, while his body was hanging on the cross: "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." And, having said thus, he gave up the ghost to his Father; while his body went into the hands of Joseph of Arimathea, who begged the body of Jesus, and laid it in his own sepulchre, Luke xxiii. 52. At the Lord's resurrection, a re-union took place: the body which, without the spirit, was dead, being put to death in the flesh, was quickened by the Spirit, and re-united to the soul of Christ. The body being quickened, raised, and re-united to the soul, the whole of the human nature, consisting of body and soul, appeared in union with the person of the Son of God, who is, "Declared to be the Son of God with power, according to [the testimony of] the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead," Rom. i 4.

And as to Christ's divine life being wholly dead and buried in the heart of the grave, &c. that is a most dreadful absurdity. Christ, as God, is eternal life in the abstract. He told Moses, that he lifts up his hand, and says, I live for ever. He is the quickening Spirit, the Lord

expiring, or

from heaven. The same divine person who said, "A body hast thou prepared me;" said also, "I lay down my life, and I take it again." The divine I AM did not expire with the body, though the body expired in union with him; nor did his human soul go into the tomb, but into the hand of God the Father. He was put to death in the flesh, not in his divine nature; and quickened by the Spirit, which can never die. To talk of divine, eternal, or everlasting life, dying, is a contradiction in terms. he was the Lord of life and glory when he was put to death, yet immortal life and glory died not that text proves the union between the Godhead and manhood of Christ; which union stood firm in death: he was no less than God's Holy One, when he laid in the grave; omnipresence did not leave the body, nor did omnipotence suffer it to see corruption, though the union of body and soul was dissolved for three days.

For, though

Nor does the soul of man, whether of a saint or a sinner, die, so as to be extinct, dissolved to nothing; or to be put to sleep with the body in the grave. The spirit of Adam was immortal breath in the mouth of the Most High, before it was breathed, as a living soul, into his body. His body was formed of the dust of the ground, but the breath of life was breathed into his nostrils from the mouth of God, Gen. ii. 7. One is manifested to be of heavenly extraction, while the other is altogether of earthly: and, at dissolu