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