"A. About the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth century. About this time the Lord began the gracious work of inspiration in several countries (France, England, and, at last, in Germany), gathered a people by these new messengers of peace, and declared a divine sentence of punishment against the fallen Christian world.
"Q. How were these 'instruments' or messengers called?
"A. Inspired or new prophets. They were living trumpets of God, which shook the whole of Christendom, and awakened many out of their sleep of security."
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"Q. What is the word of inspiration?
"A. It is the prophetic word of the New Testament, or the Spirit of prophecy in the new dispensation.
"Q. What properties and marks of divine origin has this inspiration?
"A. It is accompanied by a divine power, and reveals the secrets of the heart and conscience in a way which only the all-knowing and soul-penetrating Spirit of Jesus has power to do; it opens the ways of love and grace, of the holiness and justice of God; and these revelations and declarations are in their proper time accurately fulfilled.
"Q. Through whom is the Spirit thus poured out?
"A. Through the vessels of grace, or 'instruments' chosen and fitted by the Lord.