“Other instances (you say, page _ibid._) there are, wherein he shews it to be his custom to attribute any common turn of his mind to a motion of the Holy Spirit upon him, without any more reason than any man may, any recollections of his memory, or sudden suggestion of his own understanding. Such a one you have, Journal from _Gibraltar_ to _Savannah_, page 3. ‘I went to bed with _unusual thoughts_ and _convictions_ that GOD would do some great things at _Gibraltar_.’” But, Gentlemen, if I say, I went to bed with unusual thoughts and convictions, how is this an instance of “my attributing any common turn of my mind to a motion of the Holy Spirit.” You endeavour to prove it further, page 6. by a second passage taken out of another Journal from _Savannah_ to _England_, page 22. where it is said, “That the lesson before he left _Savannah_, being St. _Paul_’s shipwreck: and that before his leaving _Charles-Town_, being the first of _Jonah_, made such a deep impression upon him, that he wrote to his friend to acquaint him, he was apprehensive he should have a dangerous voyage; and it happening to be bad weather accordingly, he says, ‘GOD hath now shewed me wherefore he gave those previous notices.’” But, Gentlemen, how is this an instance of my attributing any common turn of my mind to a motion of the Holy Spirit? Was it a common turn of my mind to have _Paul_’s shipwreck, and the first of _Jonah_ powerfully pressed upon me? I do not know that it was. But you are pleased to draw this further inference from the quotation, page ibid., “So that every scripture that came to his view, was received as the _bath-kol_ of the _Jews_, and he plainly shews himself as much directed by this way of finding out the will of GOD as he calls it, as the old heathens were by their _sortes Homericæ Virgilianæ_.” But how does this prove, that every scripture that came to my view, was received as the _bath-kol_, &c. I think I mentioned only the first of _Jonah_, and the xxviith of _Acts_: but you say of this, (my receiving every scripture that came to my view as the _bath-kol_) we have a very full instance, same Journal, page 38, where you “have a particular application of the words which appeared upon the Doctor’s first opening the Common Prayer, ‘The LORD hath visited and redeemed his people’.” But how is this a very full instance, when these words did not appear to my view at all, but to the Doctor’s? It was he that was reading, not I; only as you are pleased to express yourselves, “I wisely observed that so it was, for about eight o’clock the men saw land.” Was there any thing unwise in such an observation? Or was there any thing enthusiastical in saying, that GOD had visited and redeemed his people, when after we had been pinched with hunger, and almost starved, he was pleased to give us a sight of land?
You proceed, page 6, to lay something more to my charge: “Sometimes he speaks as if he had communications directly from the Spirit of GOD.” And is it a crime for a believer, and a minister of JESUS, to speak of his having communications directly from the Spirit of GOD? I thought that was no new thing to the ministers and people in _New-England_, especially since such a remarkable revival of religion has been vouchsafed unto them. How are believers sealed; or how is the divine life begun and carried on, if there be no such thing as having divine communications directly from the Spirit of GOD?