Precious faith considered in its nature, working, and growth

Again, thou sayest thou hast the revelation of the holy spirit, but how or in what manner doth it reveal it self in thee? I suppose thou dost not pretend to a Revelation made by visions or dreams or audible voices, as it was wont to be of old, but to a revelation intellectual; and that is double, the one extraordinary in Prophets and Apostles, the other ordinary in all true believers. In the first revelation made to Prophets and Apostles, the holy spirit did immediately infuse the species intelligibiles into their minds, and thereby did internally speak, and in a proper sense reveal things unto them. What we translate the beginning of the word of the Lord by Hosea, Hos. 1.2. is in the original the beginning of the speech of Jehovah ⟨p. 58⟩in Hosea, pointing out an internal locution to the Prophet. In the second revelation made to believers, there is no such thing as in the first, no immediate infusion of species, no internal voice or locution, saying this or that is so, and therefore no revelation properly so called; but the holy spirit doth enlighten their minds to make them capable, and then they hear what the holy spirit in the Scriptures speaks unto them: thus S. Paul on the behalf of the Ephesians prays for the spirit of wisdom and revelation, not that they might have extraordinary inspirations, but that the eyes of their understanding might be enlightened, Eph. 1.17, 18. To know the witness of God in the Gospel, the holy spirit doth not speak to their enlightened understandings immediately, but in and by the Scripture-medium, which is as it were Epistola Dei, Gods letter unto man. In the first revelation to the Prophets and Apostles, the holy spirit did so totally and in such an extraordinary way govern them in their speaking and writing, that therein there was nibil suum, nothing of their own, not only the matter, but quaevis vocula, every little word was of God: hence S. Peter saith, that they were [Greek or Hebrew] moved or carried upon the wings of the spirit above humane frailty, 2 Pet. 1.21. In the second revelation to believers, the holy spirit is as an holy anointing to their minds, and thereby puts them into a capacity to hear what God speaks in the Scripture, but it doth not so totally carry and rule them, as to make their words purely divine and free from all mixture of their own.