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mplicity, it is said: "Almighty Father, * * grant us in this world _knowledge of Thy truth_, and in the world to come, life everlasting." Never has the loftiest purpose of prayer been more completely stated. This it was that had been promised them by Him, to whom they looked as an Intercessor for their petitions, who had said: "I will send unto you the Comforter. * * When he, the Spirit of Truth, is come, he will guide you unto all truth." The belief that this answer is at all times attainable has always been recognized by the Christian Church, Apostolic, Catholic, and Protestant. Baptism was called by the Greek fathers, "enlightenment" (~Photismos~), as by it the believer received the spirit of truth. The Romanist, in the dogma of infallibility, proclaims the perpetual inspiration of a living man; the Protestant Churches in many creeds and doctrinal works extend a substantial infallibility to all true believers, at least to the extent that they can be inspired to recognize, if not to receive divine verity. The Gallican Confession of Faith, adopted in 1561, rests the principal evidence of the truth of the Scriptures on "_le temoignage et l'interieure persuasion du Saint Esprit_," and the Westminster Confession on "the inward work of the holy spirit." The Society of Friends maintain it as "a leading principle, that the work of the Holy Spirit in the soul is not only immediate and direct, but perceptible;" that it imparts truth "without any mixture of error;" and thus is something quite distinct from conscience, which is common to the race, while this "inward light" is given only to the favored of God.[138-1] The non-juror, William Law, emphatically says: "The Christian that rejects the necessity of immediate divine inspiration, pleads the whole cause of infidelity; he has nothing to prove the goodness of his own Christianity, but that which equally proves to the Deist the goodness of his infidelity."[139-1] That by prayer the path of duty will be made clear, is a universal doctrine. The extent to which the gift of inspiration is supposed to be granted is largely a matter of church government. Where authority prevails, it is apt to be confined to those in power. Where religion is regarded as chiefly subjective and individual, it is conceded that any pious votary may become the receptacle of such special light. Experience, however, has too often shown that inspiration teaches such contradictory doctrines that they
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