Brother William Law's Most Important Books
The last Eight books that Bro. Law wrote plus his "Appeal" All have been update to modern English to make it easy for the modern reader to truly understand what this spiritual man has to say.
Click on one of the book titles below to read the book
HIGHLIGHTS FROM BROTHER WILLIAM LAW'S WRITINGS
THE SELF LIFE (a small tract)
An Humble, Earnest, And Affectionate Address to the Clergy
By William Law
This book was originally published in 1761, just after William Law went to be with the Lord. This being William Law's last book, you will find it filled with the goodness of God. And by reading it before the living God with your heart, you will find that it can bring you into a wonderful living relationship with our heavenly Father.
Here is a quote from the historian, Mr. Gibbon: "If Mr. Law finds a spark of piety in a reader's mind, he will soon kindle it into a flame."
The reason for naming this book "An address to the clergy," is not because it touches on things of concern only to the clergy, but chiefly to invite and encourage them, as far as I can, to the serious perusal of it; and because whatever is essential to Christian salvation, if either neglected, overlooked, or mistaken by them, is of the saddest consequence both to themselves and the churches in which they minister. I say essential to salvation, for I would not turn my own thoughts, or call the attention of Christians, to anything but the one thing needful, the one thing essential and available to our rising out of our fallen state, and becoming, as we were at our creation, the holy offspring of God, and real partakers of the Divine nature.
If it is asked, what this one thing is? It is the Spirit of God brought again to His first power of life in us. Nothing else is needed by us, nothing else intended for us, by the law, the prophets, and the gospel. Nothing else is, or can be effectual, to making sinful man become again a Godly creature.
Continual Immediate Divine Inspiration
Everything else, be it what it will, however glorious and Divine in "Outward appearance," everything that angels, men, churches, or reformations, can do for us, is dead and helpless, but only so far as it is the immediate work of the Spirit of God breathing and living in it.
All scripture bears full witness to this truth, and the design and end of all that is written, is only to call us back from the spirit of Satan , the spirit of the flesh, and the spirit of the world, and to be again under the full dependence, and obedience to the Spirit of God, who out of love for our souls, seeks to have His first power of life in us. When this is done, all is done that the scripture can do for us. Read whatever chapter, or doctrine of scripture you like, be ever so delighted with it, it will leave you as poor, and as empty and unreformed as it found you, unless a delight proceeds from it, and turns you wholly and solely to the Spirit of God, and strengthens your union with and dependence upon Him. For love and delight in matters of scriptures, while being a delight that is merely human, however saint-like it may appear, is but the self-love of fallen Adam, and cannot have a better nature, until it proceeds from the inspiration of God, bringing to life His own life and nature within us, which alone can have or give forth a Godly love. For if it is an immutable truth, that "No man can call Jesus, Lord, but by the Holy Ghost," it must also be a truth equally immutable, that no one can have any Christ-like temper or power of goodness but so far, and in such a degree, as he is immediately led and governed by the Holy Spirit. The reason is as follows.
All possible goodness that can be named, was in God from all eternity, and must to all eternity be inseparable from Him; it can be nowhere but where God is. As therefore before God created anything, it was certainly true that there was but one that was good, so it is just the same truth, after God has created innumerable hosts of blessed and holy, and heavenly beings, that there is but one that is good, and that is God.
All that can be called goodness, holiness, Divine tempers, heavenly affections, etc., in the creatures, are no more their own, or the growth of their created powers, than they were their own before they were created. But all that is called Divine goodness and virtue in the creature is nothing else, but the one goodness of God manifesting a birth and discovery of itself in the creature, according as its created nature is fitted to receive it. This is the unalterable state between God and the creature. Goodness for ever and ever can only belong to God, as essential to Him and inseparable from Him, as His own unity.
God could not make the creature to be great and glorious in itself; this is as impossible, as for God to create beings in a state of independence on Himself. "The heavens," said David, "Declare the glory of God"; and no creature, any more than the heavens, can declare any other glory but that of God. It could as well be said, that the firmament shows forth its own handy work, as that a holy Divine or heavenly creature shows forth its own natural power.
All that is Divine, great, glorious, and happy, in the spirits, tempers, operations, and enjoyments of the creature, is only so much of the greatness, glory, majesty, and blessedness of God, dwelling in it, and giving forth various births of His own triune life, light, and love, in and through the manifold forms and capacities of the creature to receive them. We may perfectly see the true ground and nature of all true religion, and when and how we may be said to fulfill all our religious duty to God. For the creature's true religion, is its rendering to God all that is God's, it is its true continual acknowledging of all that which it is, it has, and enjoys, in and from God. This is the one true religion of all intelligent creatures, whether in heaven, or on earth; for as they all have the same relation to God, though they may be ever so different in their births, states or offices, they all have the same true religion, or right behavior towards God. Now the one relation, which is the ground of all true religion, and is the same between God and all intelligent creatures, is a total unalterable dependence upon God, an immediate and continual receiving of every kind, and degree of goodness, blessing and happiness, that ever was, or can be found in them, from God alone. The highest angel has nothing of its own that it can offer unto God, no more light, love, purity, perfection, and glorious hallelujahs, that spring from itself, or of its own powers, than the poorest creature upon earth.
If the angel could see a spark of wisdom, goodness, or excellence, as coming from, or belonging to itself, its place in heaven would be lost, as sure as Lucifer lost his. They are ever-abiding flames of pure love, always ascending up to and uniting with God, for this reason, because the wisdom, the power, the glory, the majesty, the love, and goodness of God alone, is all that they see, and feel, and know, either within or without themselves. Songs of praise to their heavenly Father are their delight, because they see, and know, and feel, that it is the breath and Spirit of their heavenly Father that sings and rejoices in them. Their adoration in Spirit and in truth never ceases, because they never cease to acknowledge the goodness of God; the all of God in the whole creation. This is the one religion of heaven, and nothing else is the truth of religion on earth.
The matter therefore plainly comes to this, nothing can do, or be, the good of religion to the intelligent creature, but the power and presence of God really and essentially living and working in it. But if this is the unchangeable nature of that goodness and blessedness which is to be had from our religion, then of all necessity, the creature must have all its religious goodness as wholly and solely from God's immediate operation, as it had its first goodness at its creation. And it is the same impossibility for the creature to help itself to that which is good and blessed in religion, by any contrivance, reasoning, or workings of its own natural powers, we can no more do this of ourselves, than we can create ourselves. For the creature, after its creation, can no more take something to itself that belongs to God, than it could take it, before it was created. And if truth forces us to believe, that the natural powers of the creature could only come from the power of God, the same truth should surely in a fuller way, force us to confess, that that which comforts, that which enlightens, that which blesses, which gives peace, joy, goodness, and rest to its natural powers, can be had in no other way, nor by any other thing, but from God's immediate holy operation found in us.
Now the reason why no work of religion, but that which is begun, continued, and carried on by the operation of the living God, can have any truth, goodness, or Divine blessing in it, is because nothing can in truth seek God, but that which comes from God. Nothing can in truth find God as its good, but that which has the nature of God living in it; only like can rejoice in like; and therefore no religious service of the creature can have any truth, goodness, or blessing in it, but that which is done in the creature, in, and through, and by, a principle and power of the Divine nature of God begotten and breathing forth in it all of God's holy tempers, and affections.
All
true religion is, or brings forth, an essential union and communion of the
spirit of the creature with the Spirit of the Creator: God being in it, and
it being in God, one life, one light, one love. The Spirit of God first
gives, or sows the seed of Divine union in the soul of every man; and
religion is that by which it is quickened, raised, and brought forth to a
fullness and growth of a life in God. Take a similitude of this, as follows,
the beginning, or seed of animal breath, must first be born in the creature
from the spirit of this world, and then respiration, so long as it lasts,
keeps up an essential union of the animal life with the breath or spirit of
this world. In like manner, Divine faith, hope, love, and resignation to
God, are in the religious life, its acts of respiration, which, so long as
they are true, unite God and the creature in the same living and essential
manner, as animal respiration unites the breath of the animal with the
breath of this world.
Divine immediate inspiration
Now as no animal could begin to breathe, or unite with the breath of this world, but because it has its beginning to breathe begotten in it from the air of this world, so it is equally certain, that no creature, angel or man, could begin to be religious, or breathe forth the Divine affections of faith, love, and desire towards God, but because a living seed of these Divine affections was by the Spirit of God first begotten in it. And as a tree or plant can only grow and fructify by the same power that first gave birth to the seed; so faith, hope, and love towards God, can only grow and fructify by the same power, that begot the first seed of them in the soul. Therefore Divine immediate inspiration and Divine religion are inseparable in the nature of the thing.
Take
away inspiration, or suppose it to cease, and then no religious acts or
affections can give forth anything that is Godly or Divine. For the creature
can offer, or return nothing to God, but that which it has first received
from Him; therefore, if it is to offer and send up to God affections and
aspirations that are Divine and Godly, it must of all necessity have the
Divine and Godly nature living and breathing in it. Can anything reflect
light, before it has received it? Or any other light, than that which it has
received? Can any creature breathe forth earthly, or diabolical affections,
before it is possessed of an earthly, or diabolical nature? Yet this is as
possible, as for any creature to have Divine affections rising up and
dwelling in it, either before, or any further, than as it partakes of the
Divine nature dwelling and operating in it.
Self-love, self-esteem, self-seeking, and living wholly to self
A religious faith that is uninspired, a hope, or love that does not proceed from the immediate workings of the Divine nature within us, cannot do any Divine good to our souls, or unite us with the goodness of God, any more than an hunger after earthly food can feed us with the immortal bread of heaven. All that the natural or uninspired man does, or can do in the church, has no more of the truth or power of Divine worship in it, than that which he does in the field, or shop, through having a desire of riches. And the reason is this, because all the acts of the natural man, whether relating to matters of religion or the world, must be equally selfish, and there is no possibility of their being otherwise. For self-love, self-esteem, self-seeking, and living wholly to self, are as strictly the whole of all that is, or possibly can be, in the natural man, as in the natural beast; the one can be no better, or act above this nature, than the other. Neither can any creature be in a better, or higher state than this, until something supernatural is born in it; and this supernatural something, called in scripture the word, or Spirit, or inspiration of God, is that alone from which man can have the first good thought about God, or the smallest amount of ability to have heavenly desires in His Spirit.
A religion that is not wholly built upon this supernatural ground, but solely stands upon the powers, reasoning, and conclusions of the natural uninspired man, has not so much as a shadow of true religion in it, but is a mere nothing, in the same sense, as an idol is said to be nothing, because the idol has nothing of that in it, which is pretended by it. For the work of religion has no Divine good in it, but as it brings forth, and keeps up an essential union of the spirit of man with the Spirit of God; which essential union cannot be made, but through love on both sides, nor by love, but where the love that works on both sides is of the same nature.
No man therefore can reach God with his love, or have union with Him by it, but he who is inspired with that same Spirit of love, with which God loved Himself from all eternity. Infinite hosts of new created heavenly beings cannot begin a new kind of love of God, nor do they have the least power of beginning to love Him at all, but so far as His own Holy Spirit of love, is brought to life in them. This love, that was then in God alone, can be the only love in creatures that can draw them to God; they can have no power of cleaving to Him, of willing that which He wills, or adoring the Divine nature, but by partaking of that eternal Spirit of love; and therefore the continual immediate inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is the only possible ground of our continually loving God. John says of this inspired love, "He that dwells in love, dwells in God." Suppose it to be any other love, brought forth by any other thing but the Spirit of God breathing His own love in us, and then it cannot be true, that he who dwells in such love, dwells in God.
Divine inspiration was essential to man's first created state. The Spirit of the triune God, breathed into, or brought to life in him, was that alone which made him a holy creature in the image and likeness of God. To have no other mover, to live under no other guide or leader, but the Spirit, was that which constituted all the holiness which the first man could have from God. Had he not been like this at the first, God in him and he in God, brought into the world as a true offspring and real birth of the Holy Spirit, no dispensation of God to fallen man would have directed him to the Holy Spirit. For fallen man could be directed to nothing as his good, but that which he had, and was his good, before he fell. And had not the Holy Spirit been his first life, in and by which he lived, no inspired prophets among the sons of fallen Adam would have ever been heard of. For the thing would have been impossible, no fallen man could have been inspired by the Holy Spirit, but because the first life of man was a true and real birth of it; and also because every fallen man had, by the mercy and free grace of God, a secret remains of his first life preserved in him, though hidden, or rather swallowed up by flesh and blood; which secret remains, signified to Adam by the name of a "bruiser of the serpent," or "seed of the woman," was his only capacity to be called and quickened again into his first life, by new breathings of the Holy Spirit in him.
Therefore it plainly appears that the gospel state could not be God's last dispensation, or the finishing of man's redemption, unless its whole work was a work of the Spirit of God in the spirit of man; that is, unless without all veils, types, and shadows, it brought the thing itself, or the substance of all former types and shadows, into a real enjoyment, so as to be possessed by man in Spirit, and in truth. Now the thing itself, and for the sake of which all of God's dispensations have been, is that first life of God which was essentially born in the soul of the first man, Adam, and of which he died. But now, if the gospel dispensation comes at the end of all types and shadows, to bring forth again in man a true and full birth of that Holy Spirit which he had at first, then it must be plain, that the work of this dispensation must be solely and only the work of the Holy Spirit. For if man could in no other possible way have had a holy nature and Spirit at first, but as an offspring or birth of the Holy Spirit at his creation, it is certain from the nature of the thing, that fallen man, dead to his first holy nature, can have that same holy nature again no other way, but solely by the operation of that same Holy Spirit, from the breath of which he had at first a holy nature and life in God. Therefore immediate inspiration is as necessary to make fallen man alive again unto God, as it was to make man at first a living soul after the image and likeness of God. And continual inspiration is as necessary, as man's continuance in his redeemed state. For this is a certain truth, that that alone which begins, or gives life, must of all necessity be the only continuance or preservation of life. The second step can only be taken by that which gave power to take the first. No life can continue in the goodness of its first created, or redeemed state, but by its continuing under the influence of, and working with that powerful root, or Spirit, which at first created, or redeemed it. Every branch of the tree, though ever so richly brought forth, will wither and die, as soon as it ceases to have continual union with that root, which first brought it forth. And to this truth, our Lord appeals as a proof and full illustration of the necessity of his immediate indwelling, breathing, and operating in the redeemed soul of man, saying, "I am the vine, you are the branches, as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, no more can you, except you abide in me. He that abides in me, and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit. If a man abides not in me, he is cast forth as a withered branch; for without me, you can do nothing," John 15.
Now from these words let this conclusion be drawn, That therefore to turn to Christ as a light within us, to expect life from nothing but His holy birth raised up in us, to give ourselves up wholly and solely to the immediate continual influx and operation of His precious Holy Spirit, depending wholly upon it for every kind and degree of goodness and holiness that we need, or can receive, is the very thing God intended!
No one that condemns continual immediate inspiration as fanaticism, can possibly do it with less absurdity, or show himself a wiser, or better man at reasoning, than he that concludes, that because without Christ we can do nothing, therefore we ought not to believe, expect, and depend upon his continual immediate operation in everything that we do. As to the pride charged upon this pretended fanaticism, it is the same absurdity. Christ says, "Without me you can do nothing," this is the same thing as if he had said, as to yourselves, and all that can be called your own, you are merely helpless in sin and misery, and nothing that is good, can come from you, but as it is done by the continual immediate breathing and inspiration of the Spirit, given by God to over-rule your own self-will, to save and deliver you from all your own so-called goodness, your own wisdom, and learning which always has been, and always will be, as corrupt and impure, as earthly and sensual, as your own flesh and blood. Now is there any selfish pride, in fully believing this to be true, and in acting in full conformity to it? If so, then he that confesses he does not have, nor ever can have a single penny, but as it is freely given him from charity, thereby declares himself to be a purse-proud boaster of his own wealth. Such is the spiritual pride of him, who fully acknowledges that he neither has, nor can have the least spark or breathing of goodness, but that which is freely kindled, or breathed into him by the Spirit of God. Again, if it is Spiritual pride to believe, that nothing that we ever think, or say, or do, either in the church, or our prayer closets, can have any truth of goodness in it but that which is wrought solely and immediately by the Spirit of God in us, then it must be said, that in order to have religious humility we must never forget to take some share of our religious virtues to ourselves, and not allow (as Christ has said) that "Without him we can do nothing." It must also be said, that Paul took too much upon himself when he said, "The life that I now live, is not mine, but Christ's that lives in me."
Behold a pride, and a humility, the one as good as the other, and both logically descended from a wisdom, that confesses it does not come from above. For everything in the life, or religion of man, that does not have the Spirit of God for its mover, director, and end, no matter what it is, is only earthly, sensual, or devilish.
The necessity of a continual inspiration of the Spirit of God, both to begin the first, and continue every step of a Divine life in man, is a truth to which every life in nature, as well as all scripture, bears full witness. A natural life, a bestial life, a diabolical life, can subsist no longer, than while they are immediately and continually under the working power of that root or source, from which they sprung. Accordingly it is so with the Divine life in man, it can never be in him, but as a growth of life in and from God. And so it is, that resisting the Spirit, quenching the Spirit, grieving the Spirit, is that alone which gives birth and growth to every evil that reigns in the world, and leaves men, and churches, not only an easy, but a necessary prey for the devil, the world, and the flesh. Nothing but obedience to the Spirit, trusting in the Spirit, walking in the Spirit, praying with and for its continual inspiration, can possibly keep either men, or churches, from being sinners, or idolaters, in all that they do. For everything in the life, or religion of man, that does not have the Spirit of God for its mover, director, and end, no matter what it is, is only earthly, sensual, or devilish. The truth and perfection of the gospel state could not show itself, until it became solely a ministration of the Spirit, or a kingdom in which the Holy Spirit of God was doing all that was done in it.
The Apostles, while Christ was with them in the flesh, were instructed in heavenly truths from His mouth, and enabled to work miracles in His name, yet they were not at this time qualified to know and teach the mysteries of His kingdom. After His resurrection, he conversed with them forty days, speaking to them of things pertaining to the kingdom of God; no, though He breathed on them, and said, "Receive you the Holy Ghost," etc., yet this also would not do, they were still unable to preach, or bear witness to the truth, as it is in Jesus. And the reason is this, there was still a higher dispensation to come, which stood in such an opening of the Divine life in their hearts, as could not be done by an outward instruction of Christ Himself. For though He had sufficiently told His disciples the necessity of being born again of the Spirit, yet He left them unborn of it, until He came again in the power of the Spirit. He breathed on them, and said, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost," yet that which was said and done was not the thing itself, but only a type or outward signification of what they should receive, when He, being glorified, would come again in the fullness and power of the Spirit, breaking open the deadness and darkness of their hearts with light and life from heaven, which light did, and alone could, open and verify in their souls, all that He had said and promised to them while He was with them in the flesh. All this is expressly declared by Christ Himself, when He said to them, "I tell you the truth, it is expedient for you that I go away"; therefore Christ taught them to believe the need, and joyfully to expect the coming of a higher and more blessed state, than that of His bodily presence with them. For He adds, "If I go not away, the comforter will not come"; therefore the comfort and blessing of Christ to His followers could not be had, until something more was done to them, and they were brought into a higher state than they could be by His verbal instruction to them. "But if I go away," He said, "I will send Him to you, and when the Comforter, the Spirit of truth is come, He will guide you into all truth; He shall glorify Me" (that is, shall set up My kingdom in its glory, in the power of the Spirit) "For He shall receive of mine, and shall show it to you: I said of mine, because all things that the Father has are mine," John 16..
Now when Christ had told them of the necessity of an higher state than that which they were in, and the necessity of such a comforting illuminating guide, as they could not have until His outward teaching in human language was changed into the inspiration, and operation of His Spirit in their souls, He commands them, not to bear witness of Him to the world, from what they did and could do, only in a human way, His birth His life, doctrines, death, sufferings, resurrection, etc., but to tarry at Jerusalem, until they were endued with power from on high; saying unto them, "You shall receive power, after the Holy Ghost is come upon you. And then you shall bear witness to Me, both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and to the utmost parts of the earth."
Here are two very important and fundamental truths fully demonstrated, first, that the truth and perfection of the gospel state could not take place, until Christ was glorified, and His kingdom among men made wholly and solely a continual immediate ministration of the Spirit of God: everything before this was but subservient for a time, and preparatory to this last dispensation, which could not have been the last, had it not carried man above types, figures and shadows, into the real possession and enjoyment of that which is the Spirit and truth of a Divine life. For the end is not come until it has found the beginning; that is, the last dispensation of God to fallen man cannot come, until putting an end to the "Bondage of weak and beggarly elements," Gal. 4:9, it brings man to that dwelling in God, and God in him, which he had at the beginning.
Secondly, that as the Apostles could not, so no man, from their birth to the end of the world, can have any true and real knowledge of the Spiritual blessings of Christ's redemption, or have a Divine call, capacity, or fitness to preach, and bear witness of Him to the world, but solely by that same Divine Spirit opening all the mysteries of the redeeming Christ in their inward parts, as It did in the Apostles, evangelists, and first ministers of the gospel.
For why could not the Apostles, who had been eye-witnesses to the entire process and life of Christ, why could they not with their human apprehension declare and testify the truth of such things, until they "Were baptized with fire, and born again of the Spirit"? It is because the truth of such things, or the mysteries of Christ's process, as knowable by man, are nothing else in themselves, but those very things which are done by this heavenly fire and Spirit of God in our souls. Therefore to know the mysteries of Christ's redemption, and to know the redeeming work of God in our own souls, is the same thing; the one cannot be before, or without the other. Therefore every man, be he who he will, however able in all kinds of human literature, must be an entire stranger to all the mysteries of gospel redemption, and can only talk about them like he would of any other tale he has been told, until they are brought forth, verified, fulfilled, and witnessed to by that, which is found, felt and enjoyed of the whole process of Christ in his soul. For as redemption is in its whole nature an inward Spiritual work, that works only in the altering, changing, and regenerating of the life of the soul, so it must be true, that nothing but the inward state of the soul can bear true witness to the redeeming power of Christ. For as it wholly consists in altering that which is the most radical in the soul, bringing forth a new spiritual death to self, and a new Spiritual life, it must be true, that no one can know or believe the mysteries of Christ's redeeming power, by hearing about them, or rationally consenting to that which is said of Him in written or spoken words, but only and solely by an inward experimental finding, and feeling of the operation of them, in that new death, and new life, both of which must be effected in the soul of man, or Christ is not, nor cannot be found, and known by the soul as its salvation. It must also be equally true, that the redeemed state of the soul, being in itself nothing else but the resurrection of a Divine and holy life in it, must as necessarily from first to last be the sole work of the creating Spirit of God, as the first holy created state of the soul was. And all this, because the mysteries of Christ's redeeming power, which work and bring forth the renewed state of the soul, are not creaturely, finite, outward things, that may be found and enjoyed by verbal descriptions, or formed ideas of them, but are a birth and life, and Spiritual operation, which solely belongs to God alone, as His creating power. For nothing can redeem a soul, but that same power which created the soul. Nothing can bring forth a good thought in it, but that which brought forth the power of thinking. And of every tendency towards goodness, be it ever so small, that same may be truly affirmed of it, which Paul affirmed of his highest state, "Yet not I, but Christ that lives in me."
But if the belief of the necessity and certainty of immediate continual Divine inspiration, in and for everything that can be holy and good in us, be (as its accusers say) blatant fanaticism, then he is the only sober orthodox Christian, who frankly says, in order to avoid fanaticism, my own power, and not Christ's Spirit living and breathing in me, has done this for me. For if all that is good is not done by Christ, then something that is good is done by self. It is in vain to think, that there is a middle way, and that rational Divines have found it out, as Dr. Warburton has done, who though denying immediate continual inspiration, yet allows that the Spirit's "Ordinary influence occasionally assists the faithful." {sermons, vol. 1.}
Now this middle way has neither scripture nor sense in it; for an occasional influence or concurrence is as absurd, as an occasional God, and necessarily supposes such a God. For an occasional influence of the Spirit upon us supposes an occasional absence of the Spirit from us. For there could be no such thing, unless God was sometimes with us, and sometimes not, sometimes doing us good, as the inward God of our life, and sometimes not, but leaving us to be good from ourselves.
Occasional influence necessarily implies all this blasphemous absurdity. Again, this middle way of an occasional influence and assistance necessarily supposes, that there is something of man's own that is good, or the Holy Spirit of God neither would, nor could assist or cooperate with it. But if there was anything good in man for God to assist and cooperate with, besides the seed of His own Divine nature, or His own word of life striving to bruise the serpent's nature within us, it could not be true, that there is only one that is good, and that is God. And were there any goodness in creatures, either in heaven, or on earth, but that one goodness of the Divine nature, living, working, and manifesting itself in them, as its created instruments, then good creatures, both in heaven and on earth, would have something else to adore, besides God. For goodness, no matter where it is found, is adorable for itself, and because it is goodness; if therefore any degree of it belonged to the creature, it ought to have a share of that same adoration that is paid to the Creator. Therefore, if to believe that nothing Godly can be alive in us, but what has all its life from the Spirit of God living and breathing in us, if to look solely to it, and depend wholly upon it, both for the beginning, and growth of every thought and desire that can be holy and good in us, is to be considered fanaticism, then it must be the same fanaticism to believe in only one God. For he that owns more goodness than one, owns more Gods than one. And he that believes he can have any good in himself, but that one goodness of God, manifesting itself in him, and through him, owns more goodness than one. But if it is true, that God and goodness cannot be divided, then it must be a truth for ever and ever, that when so much of good is in man, then we know that so much of God, must be in the creature, for only God can bring about goodness!
Every religious trust or confidence in anything, but the Divine operation of God within us, is but a sort of idol-worship
And here lies the true unchangeable distinction between God, and the natural creature. Nature and creature are only for the outward manifestation of the inward invisible unapproachable powers of God; they can rise no higher, nor be anything else in themselves, but as temples, habitations, or instruments, in which the supernatural God can, and does manifest Himself in various degrees, bringing forth creatures to be good with His own goodness, to love and adore Him with His own Spirit of love, forever singing praises to the Divine nature of which they partake. This is the religion of Divine inspiration, which being interpreted, is Emmanuel or God within us. Everything short of this, is short of that religion which worships God in Spirit and in truth. And every religious trust or confidence in anything, but the Divine operation of God within us, is but a sort of idol-worship, which though it may deny the form, yet retains the power thereof in the heart. And he that places any religious safety in theological decisions, scholastic achievements, in particular doctrines and opinions, that must be held about the scripture doctrines of faith, justification, sanctification, election, and reprobation, so far departs from the true worship of the living God within him, and sets up an idol of "notions" to be worshipped, if not instead of, yet along with Him. And I believe it may be taken for a certain truth, that every society of Christians, whose religion stands upon this ground, however ardent, laborious, and good their zeal may seem to be in such matters, yet in spite of all, sooner or later, it will be found that nature is at the bottom, and that a selfish, earthly, overbearing pride in their own definitions and doctrines of words, will by degrees creep up to the same height, and become that same fleshly wisdom, doing those very same things, which they exclaim against in popes, cardinals, and Jesuits. Nor can it possibly be otherwise. For a letter-learned zeal has but one nature wherever it is, it can only do that for Christians, which it did for Jews. As it anciently brought forth scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, and crucifiers of Christ, as it afterwards brought forth heresies, schisms, popes, papal decrees, images, anathemas, transubstantiations, so in protestant countries it will be doing the same thing, only with other materials; images of wood and clay, will only be given up for images of doctrines; grace and works, imputed sin, and imputed righteousness, election and reprobation, will have their synods of Dort, as truly evangelical, as any council of Trent.
This must be the case of all fallen Christendom, whether it be popish or protestant, until men, and churches, know, confess, and firmly adhere to this one scripture truth, which the blessed Jacob Behmen prefixed as a motto to most of his epistles, "That our salvation is in the life of Jesus Christ in us." And that, because this alone was the Divine perfection of man before he fell, and will be his perfection when he is one with Christ in heaven. Everything besides this, that is not solely aiming at and essentially leading to it, is but mere Babel in all sects and divisions of Christians, living to themselves, and their own old man under a seeming holiness of Christian strife and contention about scripture works. But this truth of truths, fully possessed, and firmly adhered to, brings God and man together, puts an end to every lo here, and lo there, and turns the whole faith of man to a Christ that can in no other way be a Savior to him, but as He is essentially born in the inmost spirit of his soul, nor possible to be born there by any other means, but the immediate inspiration and working power of the Holy Spirit within him. To this man alone, all scripture gives daily edification; the words of Christ and his Apostles fall like a fire into him. And what is it that they kindle there? Not notions, not itching ears, nor rambling desires after new ideas and new expounders of them, but a holy flame of love, to be always with, always attending to, that Christ and His Holy Spirit within him, which alone can make him to be and do all that, which the words of Christ and His Apostles have taught. For there is no possibility of being like-minded with Christ in anything that He taught, or having the truth of one Christian virtue, but by the nature and Spirit of Christ having become essentially living in us. Read all our Savior's Divine sermon on the mount, consent to the goodness of every part of it, and yet the time of practicing it will never come, until you have that new nature from Christ, and are as vitally in Him, and He in you, as the vine is in the branch, and the branch is in the vine. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God," is a Divine truth, but will do us no Divine good, unless we receive it as saying neither more nor less, than "Blessed are they that are born again of the Spirit, for they alone can see God." For no blessedness, either of truth or life, can be found either in men or angels, but where the Spirit and life of God is essentially born within them. And all men or churches, not placing their all in the life, light, and guidance of the Holy Spirit of Christ, but pretending to act in the name, and for the glory of God, from opinions which their logic and learning have collected from scripture words, or from what a Calvin, an Arminius, a Socinus, or some smaller name, has told them to be right or wrong, all such, are but where the Apostles were, when "By the way there was a strife among them about who should be the greatest." And no matter how much they may say, and boast of their great zeal for truth, and only the glory of God, yet their own open notorious behavior towards one another, is proof enough, that the great strife amongst them is, which shall be the greatest denomination, or have the largest number of followers. A strife, from the same root, and just as useful to Christianity, as that of the carnal apostles, discussing who should be the greatest. For not numbers of men, or kingdoms professing Christianity, but numbers redeemed from the death of Adam to the life of Christ are the glory of the Christian church. And in whatever "Christianity" anything else is meant or sought after, by the profession of the gospel, except a new heavenly life, through the mediatorial nature and Spirit of the eternal Son of God, born in the fallen soul, wherever this Spirituality of the gospel-redemption is denied or overlooked, there the spirit of self, of Satan and worldly subtlety, will be church and priest, and supreme power, in all that is called religion.
Scholastic theology
But to return now to the doctrine of continual inspiration. The natural or unregenerate man, educated in pagan learning, and scholastic theology, seeing the strength of his genius in the search after knowledge, how easily and learnedly he can talk, write, criticize and determine upon all scripture words and facts, he looks at all this as a full proof of his own religious wisdom, power and goodness, and calls immediate inspiration, fanaticism, not considering, that all the woes denounced by Christ against scribes, Pharisees, and hypocrites, are so many woes now at this day denounced against every appearance and show of religion, that the natural man can practice.
And what is well to be noted, everyone, however high in human literature, is but this very natural man, and can only have the goodness of a carnal secular religion, until he is as empty of all, as a newborn child, the Spirit of God then gets a full birth in him, and becomes the one to inspire and do all that He wills, does, and aims at, in his whole course of religion.
Our Divine master compares the religion of the learned Pharisees to "Whitened sepulchers, outwardly beautiful, but inwardly full of rottenness, stench, and dead men's bones."
Now where was it, that a religion, so serious in its restraints, so beautiful in its outward form and practices, and commanding such reverence from all that beheld it, was yet charged by truth itself with having inwardly such an abominable nature? It was only for this one reason, because it was a religion of self. Therefore, from the beginning to the end of the world, it must be true, that where self is kept alive, and has power, and keeps up its own interests, whether in speaking, writing, teaching or defending the most specious number of scripture doctrines and religious forms, there is that very old Pharisee still alive, whom Christ with so much severity of language constantly condemned. And the reason of such heavy condemnation is, because self is the very root, the sum total of all sin; every sin that can be named is centered in self, and the creature can sin no higher, than he can live to self. For self is the fullness of atheism and idolatry, it is nothing else but the creature broken off from God and Christ; it is the power of Satan living and working in us, and the sad continuance of that first turning from God, which was the whole fall or death of our first father, Adam.
And yet, sad and Satanical as this self is, what is so much cherished and nourished with our daily love, fears, and cares about it? How much worldly wisdom, how much laborious learning, how many subtleties of contrivance, and how many flattering applications and submissions are made to the world, that this apostate self may have its fullness, both of inward joys, and outward glory?
But to all this it must yet be added, that a religion of self, of worldly glory and prosperity carried on under the gospel state, has more of a diabolical nature than that of the Jewish Pharisees. It is the highest and last working of the mystery of iniquity, because it lives to self, Satan, and the world, and at the same time it is making a daily profession of denying and dying to self, of being crucified with Christ, of being led by His Spirit, of being risen from the world, and set with Him in heavenly places.
Let then the writers against continual immediate Divine inspiration take this for a certain truth, that by so doing, they do all they can to draw man from that which is the very truth and perfection of the gospel state, and are, and can be, no better than pitiable advocates for a religion of self, more blamable and abominable now, than that which was of old condemned by Christ. For whatever is pretended to be done in gospel religion, by any other spirit or power, but that of the Holy Ghost bringing it forth, whether it be praying, preaching, or practicing any duties, is all, nothing but the religion of self, and can be nothing else. For all that is born of the flesh, is flesh, and nothing is Spiritual, but that which has its whole birth from the Spirit. But man, not ruled and governed by the Spirit, has only the nature of corrupt flesh, is under the full power and guidance of fallen nature, and is that very natural man, to whom the things of God are foolishness. But man boldly rejecting, and preaching against a continual immediate Divine inspiration, is an anti-apostle, he lays another foundation, than that which Christ has laid, he teaches that Christ needs not, must not, be all in all in us, and preaches the folly of fearing to grieve, quench, and resist the Holy Spirit. For when, where, or how could anyone of us be in danger of grieving, quenching, or resisting the Spirit, unless His holy breathings and inspirations were always within us? Or how could the sin against the Holy Ghost have a more dreadful nature, than that against the Father and the Son, but because the continual immediate guidance and operation of the Spirit, is the last and highest manifestation of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the fallen soul of man? It is not because the Holy Ghost is more worthy, or higher in nature than the Father and the Son, but because Father and Son come forth in their own highest power of redeeming love, through the covenant of a continual immediate inspiration of the Spirit, to be always dwelling and working in the soul. Many weak things have been conjectured, and published to the world, about the sin against the Holy Ghost; understand this, the whole nature of it lies here, that it is a sinning, or standing up against the last and highest dispensation of God for the full redemption of man. Christ says, "If I had not come, they would not of had sin," that is, they would not of had such a weight of guilt upon them; therefore the sinning against Christ come into the flesh, was of a more unpardonable nature, than sinning against the Father under the law. So likewise sinning against the Holy Ghost is of a more unpardonable nature than sinning against the Father under the law, or against the Son as come in the flesh, because these two preceding dispensations were but preparatory to the coming, or full ministration of the Spirit. But when Father and Son were come in the power and manifestation of the Spirit, then he that refuses or resists this ministration of the Spirit, resists all that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit can do to restore and revive the first life of God in the soul, and so commits the unpardonable sin, which is therefore unpardonable, because there remains no further, or higher power to remove it out of the soul. For no sin is pardonable, because of its own nature: or that which is in itself, but because there is something yet to come that can remove it out of the soul; nor can any sin be unpardonable, but because it has withstood, or turned from that which is the last and best for the removal of it.
The sin of all sins!
Therefore it is, that grieving, quenching, or resisting the Spirit, is the sin of all sins, that most of all stops the work of redemption, and in the highest degree separates man from all union with God. But there could be no such sin, but because the Holy Spirit is always breathing, willing, and working within us. For what Spirit can be grieved by us, but that which has its will within us disobeyed? What Spirit can be quenched by us, but that which is, and ever would be, a holy fire of life within us? What Spirit can be resisted by us, but that which is, and has its working within us? A spirit on the outside of us cannot be the Spirit of God, nor could such a Spirit be any more quenched, or hindered by our spirit, than a man by being indignant at a storm could stop its raging. Now, dreadful as the above mentioned sin is, I would ask all the writers against immediate continual Divine inspiration, how they could more effectually lead men into an habitual state of sinning against the Holy Ghost, than by such a doctrine? For how can we possibly avoid the sin of grieving, quenching, etc., the Spirit, but by continually reverencing His holy presence within us, by continually waiting for, trusting, and solely attending to that which the Spirit of God wills, works, and manifests within us? To turn men from this continual dependence upon the Holy Spirit, is turning them from all true knowledge of God. For without this, there is no possibility of any edifying, saving knowledge of God. For though we have ever so many word pictures, or descriptions of His being, etc., we are without all real knowledge of Him, until He brings to life His Spirit within us, to manifest Himself, as a power of life, light, love, and goodness, essentially found, vitally felt, and adored in our souls. This is the one knowledge of God, which is eternal life, because it is the life of God made manifest in the soul, that knowledge of which Christ says, no one knows the Father but the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son reveals Him. Therefore this knowledge is only possible to be found in him, who is in Christ a new creature, for so it is that Christ reveals the Father. But if none belong to God, but those who are led by the Spirit of God, if we are reprobate unless the Spirit of Christ is living in us, who needs to be told, that all that we have to trust to, or depend upon, as children of God and Christ, is the continual immediate guidance, unction, and teaching of the Holy Spirit within us? Or how can we more profanely sin against this Spirit and power of God within us, or more expressly call men away from the power of God to Satan, than by ridiculing a faith and hope that looks wholly and solely to His continual immediate breathings and operations, for all that can be holy and good in us?
"When I am lifted up from the earth," says Christ, "I will draw all men unto Me." Therefore the one great power of Christ in and over the souls of men, takes place after He is in heaven; then begins the true full power of His drawing, because it is by His Spirit in man, that He draws. But who can more resist this drawing, or defeat its operation in us, than he that preaches against, and condemns the belief of a continual and immediate inspiration of the Spirit, when Christ's drawing can be in nothing else, nor be powerful any other way?
Now that which we are here taught, is the whole end of all scripture; for all that is said in the scripture, however learnedly read, or studied by Hebrew or Greek skill, fails of its only end, until it leads and brings us to an essential dwelling of God within us, to feel and find all that which the scriptures speak of God, of man, of life and death, of good and evil, of heaven and hell, as essentially verified in our own souls. For all is within man that can be either good or evil to him: God within him, is his Divine life, his Divine light, and his Divine love: Satan within him is his life of self, of earthly wisdom, of diabolical falseness, wrath, pride, and vanity of every kind. There is no middle way between these two. He that is not under the power of the one, is under the power of the other. And the reason is this, man was created in and under the power of the Divine life; so far therefore as he loses, or turns from this life of God, so far he falls under the power of self, which of course really is the power of Satan , and worldly wisdom. When Peter, full of human good and human love towards Christ, advised Him to avoid His sufferings, Christ rejected him with a "Get thee behind me, Satan," and only gave this reason for it, "For you do not savor the things that are of God, but the things that be of men." A plain proof, that whatever is not of and from the Holy Spirit of God in us, however plausible it may outwardly seem to men, to their wisdom, and human goodness, is yet in itself nothing else but the power of Satan within us. And as Paul said truly of himself, "By the grace of God I am what I am"; so every scribe, every disputer of this world, everyone who trusts to the strength of his own rational learning, everyone that is under the power of his own fallen nature, never free from desires of honors and preferment, ever thirsting to be rewarded for his theological abilities, ever fearing to be abased and despised, always thankful to those who flatter him with his distinguished merit, everyone that is such, be he who he will, may as truly say of himself, through my turning and trusting to something other than the grace and inspiration of God's Spirit, I am what I am. For nothing else hinders any professor of Christ from being able truly to say with Paul, "God forbid that I should glory in anything but the cross of Christ, by which I am crucified to the world, and the world to me." Nothing makes him incapable of finding that which Paul found, when he said, "I can do all things through Christ that strengthens me"; nothing hinders all this, but his disregard of a Christ within him, his choosing to have a religion of self, of laborious learning, and worldly greatness, rather than be such a gospel fool for Christ, as to renounce all that which He renounced, and to seek no more earthly honor and praise than He did, and to will nothing, know nothing, seek nothing, but that which the Spirit of God and Christ knows, wills, and seeks in him. Here, and here alone, lies the Christian's full and certain power of overcoming self, the devil, and the world. But Christians, seeking and turning to anything else, but to be led and inspired by the one Spirit of God and Christ, will bring forth a Christendom that in the sight of God will have no other name, than a spiritual Babylon, a spiritual Egypt, and Sodom, a scarlet whore, a devouring beast, and red dragon. For all these names belong to all men, however learned, and to all churches, whether greater or less, in which the spirit of this world has any share of power. This was the fall of the whole church soon after the apostolic ages; and all human reformations, begun by ecclesiastical learning, and supported by civil power, will signify little or nothing, no, it often make things worse, until all churches, dying to their own self-will, all their own wisdom, all their own advancement, seek for no reforming power, but from that Spirit of God which converted sinners, publicans, harlots, Jews, and heathens, into an holy apostolical church at the first, a church which knew they were of God, that they belonged to God, by that Spirit which he had given them, and which worked in them. "You are not in the flesh," says the apostle, "But in the Spirit"; but then he adds, as the only ground of this, "If so be that the Spirit of God dwells in you"; surely he means, if you are moved, guided, and governed by that, which the Spirit wills, works and inspires within you. And then to show the absolute necessity of this life of God in the soul, he adds, "If any man does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His." And that this is the state to which God has appointed, and called all Christians, he declares, "God has sent forth the Spirit of His son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father." Gal. 4:6. The same thing, most surely, as if he had said, nothing in you can cry or pray to God as its Father, but the Spirit of his Son, Christ come to life in you. Which is also as true of every tendency in the soul towards God or goodness; so much as there is of it, so much there is of the seed of the woman striving to bring forth a full birth of Christ in the soul.
"Lo, I am always with you," says the holy Jesus, "Even to the end of the world." How is He with us? Not outwardly, every illiterate man knows; and many a learned doctor of divinity says, not inwardly, because a Christ within us is gross fanaticism. How then shall the faith of the common Christian find any comfort in these words of Christ's promise, unless the Spirit brings him into a belief, that Christ is truly in him, and with him, as the vine is with and in the branch. Christ says, "Without Me you can do nothing"; and also, "If any man loves Me, My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and make Our abode with him." Now if without Him we can do nothing, then all the love that a man can possibly have for Christ, must be from the power and life of Christ in him, and from such a love, so begotten, that man has the Father and the Son dwelling and making their abode in him. What higher proof, or fuller certainty can there be, that the whole work of redemption in the soul of man is, and can be nothing else, but the inward, continual, immediate operation of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, raising up again their own first life in the soul, to which our first father Adam, died?
Again, Christ, after His glorification in heaven, says, "Behold I stand at the door and knock." He does not say, behold you have Me in the scriptures. Now what is the door at which Christ, at the right-hand of God in heaven, knocks? Surely it is the heart, to which Christ is always present. He goes on, if any man hears My voice; how can he hear, but with the hearing of the heart, or with what voice, but that which is the speaking or sounding of Christ within him; He adds, and opens the door, that is, opens his heart for Me, I will come in to him, that is, will be a living holy nature, and Spirit born within him, and I will sup with him, and he with Me. Behold the last finishing work of a redeeming Jesus, entered into the heart that opens to Him, bringing forth the joy, the blessing, and perfection of that first life of God in the soul, which was lost by the fall, set forth as a supper, or feast of the heavenly Jesus with the soul, and the soul with Him. Can anyone justly call it fanaticism to say, that this supping of the soul with the glorified Christ within it, must mean something more heavenly transacted in the soul than that last supper which He celebrated with His disciples, while He was with them in flesh. For that supper of bread and wine was such, as a Judas could partake of, and was only an outward type or signification of that inward and blessed nourishment, with which the believing soul should feast upon, when the glorified Son of God should as a creating Spirit enter into us, bringing to life, and raising up His own heavenly nature and life within us. Now this continual knocking of Christ at the door of the heart, sets forth the case or nature of a continual immediate Divine inspiration within us; it is always with us, but there must be an opening of the heart to it; and though it is always there, yet it is only felt and found by those, who are attentive to it, depend upon, and humbly wait for it. Now let anyone tell me how he can believe anything of this voice of Christ, how he can listen to it, hear, or obey it, but by such a faith, as keeps him habitually turned to an immediate constant inspiration of the Spirit of Christ within him? Or how any heathenish profane person, can do more damage to this presence and power of Christ in his own soul, or more effectually lead others to neglect it, than the minister, or other professing Christian, who mocks the light within, and openly blasphemes that faith, and hope, and trust, which solely relies upon being moved by the Spirit, as its only power of doing that which is right, and good, and pious, either towards God or man. Let every man, whom this concerns, lay it to heart. Time, and the things of time, will soon have an end; and he that in time trusts to anything, but the Spirit and power of God working in his heart, will be ill-fitted to enter into eternity; God must be all and in all, in us here, or we cannot be His hereafter. Time works only for eternity; and eternal poverty must as certainly follow him, who dies only fully stuffed with human learning, as he who dies only full of worldly riches. The folly of thinking to have any Divine learning, except that which the Holy Spirit teaches, or to make ourselves rich in knowledge towards God, by going to school and crowding our minds with learning, will leave us as dreadfully cheated, as that rich builder of barns in the gospel, to whom it was said, "You fool, this night, shall your soul be required of you. And then, whose shall all these things be?" Luke 12. So is every man that treasures up a religious learning that does not come wholly from the Spirit of God. But to return to this inward constant attention to the continual working of the Holy Spirit within us, the apostle calls us in these words, "See that you refuse not Him that speaks; for if they escaped not, who refused Him that spoke on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn from Him, that speaks from heaven," Heb. 12-25. Now what is this speaking from heaven, which is so dangerous to refuse, or resist? Surely not outward voices from heaven. Or what could the Apostle's advice signify to us, unless it be such a speaking from heaven, as we may and must be always either obeying or refusing? James said, "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." What devil? Surely not an outward creature or spirit, that tempts us by an outward power. What better resistance can we make to the devil, but that of inwardly falling away, or turning from the workings of his evil nature and spirit within us? They therefore who tell us to stop waiting for, depending upon, and attending to, the continual secret inspirations and breathings of the Holy Spirit within us, call us to resist God in the same manner as the apostle exhorts us to resist the devil. For God is our only Spiritual good, and the devil our spiritual evil, neither one nor the other can be resisted, or not resisted by us, but so far as their spiritual operations within us are either turned from, or obeyed by us. James having shown us, that resisting the devil is the only way to make him flee from us, that is, to lose his power in us, and immediately adds, how we are to behave towards God, that He may not flee from us, or His holy work be stopped in us. "Draw near," says he, "To God, and God will draw near to you." What is this drawing near? Surely not by any local motion, either in God or us. But the same is meant, as if he had said, resist not God, that is, let His holy will within you have its full work; keep wholly, obediently attentive to that, which He is and has, and does within you, and then God will draw near to you, that is, will more and more manifest the power of His holy presence in you, and make you more and more a partaker of the Divine nature. Further more, what a blindness it is in the aforementioned writers, to charge persons with fanaticism, who hold to the doctrine of continual immediate inspiration, and to attack them as enemies to the established Church, when everybody's eyes see, are taught, and required to believe, and pray for the continual inspiration of the Spirit, as that alone, by which they can have the least good thought, or desire? Thus, "O God, forasmuch as without you, we are not able to please you, mercifully grant that your Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts." Is it possible for words more strongly to express the necessity of a continual Divine inspiration? Or can inspiration be higher, or more immediate in prophets and Apostles, than that which directs, that which rules our hearts, not now and then, but in all things? Or can the absolute necessity of this be more fully declared, than by saying, that if it is not in this degree, both of height and continuance in and over our hearts, nothing that is done by us can be pleasing to God?
All holiness is by Divine inspiration
Now the matter is not at all about the different effects or works proceeding from inspiration, as whether by it a man be made a saint in himself, or sent by God with a prophetic message to others, this does not affect the nature and necessity of inspiration, which is just as great, just as necessary in itself to all true goodness, as to all true prophecy. All scripture is of Divine inspiration. But why so? "Because holy men of old spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." Now the above scripture, as well as Christ and his Apostles, oblige us in like manner to believe, that all holiness is by Divine inspiration, and that therefore there could have been no holy men of old, or in any latter times, but solely for this reason, because "They lived as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." Again, a typical church prayer, prays thus, "O God, from whom all good things come, grant that by your holy inspiration we may think those things that be good, and by your merciful guiding may perform them." Now, if in any of my writings I have ever said anything higher, or further of the nature and necessity of continual Divine inspiration, than this church-prayer does, I refuse no censure that shall be passed upon me. But if I have, from all that we know of God, of nature, and creature, shown the utter impossibility of any kind, or degree of goodness to be in us, but from the Divine nature living and breathing in us, if I have shown that all scripture, Christ and his Apostles, over and over say the same thing; that our church liturgy is daily praying according to it; what kinder thing can I say of those churchmen who accuse me of fanaticism, than that which Christ said of his blind crucifiers, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."
It is to no purpose to object to all of this, that these kingdoms are over-run with enthusiasts of all kinds, and that Moravians with their several divisions, and Methodists of various kinds, are everywhere acting in the wildest manner under the pretense of being called and led by the Spirit. Be it so, or not so, it is a matter that I will not interfere with; nor is the doctrine I am upon in the least affected by it. For what an argument would this be; Fanatics of the present and former ages have made a bad use of the doctrine of being led by the Spirit of God, ergo, He is a Fanatic, or at the very least helps forward fanaticism, who preaches the doctrine of being led by the Spirit of God. Now absurd as this is, were any of my accusers as high in genius, as grand in learning, as Colossus was in stature, he would be at a loss to bring a stronger argument than this, to prove me fanatical, or an abettor of them.
But as I do not begin to doubt the necessity, the truth, and perfection of gospel religion, when told that whole nations and churches have, under a pretense of regard to it, and for the sake of it, done all the bad things that can be charged upon this or that leading fanatic, whether you call those bad things, schism, perjury, rebellion, and hypocrisy. So I do not give up the necessity, the truth, and perfection of looking wholly to the Spirit of God and Christ within me, as my promised inspirer, and only worker of all that can be good in me, I do not give this up, because in this, or any other age, both spiritual pride and fleshly lusts have prospered by it, or because Satan has often led people into all the heights of self-glory, and self-seeking under a pretense of being inspired with gospel humility, and gospel self-denial.
Another charge upon me, equally false, and I may say, more senseless, is that I am a declared enemy to the use of reason in religion. And why? Because in all my writings, I teach that reason is to be denied. I admit, I have not only taught this, but have again and again proved the absolute necessity of it. And this, because Christ has made it absolutely necessary, by saying, "Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself." For how can a man deny himself, without denying his reason, unless reason is not a part of himself? Or how can a rational creature whose chief distinction from brutes is that of his reason, be called to deny himself in any other way, than by denying that which is peculiar to himself? Let the matter be expressed in this way, man is not to deny his reason. Well, how then? Why, He is only to deny himself. Can there be a greater folly of words? And yet it is their wisdom of words, who allow the denying of self to be good doctrine, but boggle, and cry out at the denying of reason. For how can a man deny himself, but by denying that which is the life, and spirit, and power of self? What makes a man a sinner? Nothing but the power and working of his natural reason. And therefore, if our natural reason is not to be denied, we must keep up and follow that which works every sin that ever was, or can be in us. For we can sin nowhere, or in anything, but where our natural reason or understanding has its power in us. What is meant in all scripture by the flesh and its works? Is it something distinct, and different from the workings of our rational and intelligent nature? No, it is our whole intelligent, rational nature, that constitutes the flesh or the carnal man, who could not be criminally so, any more than the beasts, but because his carnality has all its evil from his intelligent nature or reason, being the life and power of it. And everything which our Lord says of self, is so much said of our natural reason; and all that the scripture says of the flesh and its evil nature, is so much said of the evil state of our natural reason, which therefore is, and ought, and must be denied, in the same manner and degree as self and flesh is denied.
The height of our calling
And here truth obliges me to say, that scholastic divinity is in as great ignorance about the most fundamental truths of the gospel, as I have again and again shown, in regard to the nature of the fall of man, and all the scripture expressions concerning the new birth; and here also concerning the doctrine, of a man's denying himself, which modern learning supposes to be possible without, or different from a man's denying his own natural reason; which is an absurdity of the greatest magnitude. For what is self, but that which a man is, and has in his natural capacity? Or what is the fullness of his natural capacity, but the strength and power of his reason? How then can any man deny himself, but by denying that which gives self its whole nature, name, and power? If man was not a rational creature, he could not be called to deny himself, he would not need, or receive the benefit and goodness of self-denial: no man therefore can obey the precept of denying himself, or have any benefit or goodness from it, but so far as he denies, or dies to his own natural reason, because the self of man, and the natural reason of man, are strictly the same thing. Again, our blessed Lord said in his Agony, "Not my will, but Yours be done." and had not this been the form of His whole life, He would not have lived without sin. Now to deny our own will, that God's will may be done in us, is the height of our calling; and so far as we keep from our own natural will, so far we keep from sin. But now, if our own natural will, as having all sin and evil in it, is to always to be denied, whatever it costs us, I would like to know, how our natural reason can ever escape, or how we can deny our own will, and not deny that rational or intelligent power, in and from which the will has its whole existence and continual direction? Or how there can be always a badness of our own will, which is not the badness of our own natural intellectual power? Therefore it is a truth of the utmost certainty, that as much as we are obliged to deny our own natural will that the will of God may be done in us, so much are we obliged to deny our own natural reason and understanding that our own will may not be done, or followed by us. For whoever lives to his own natural reason, he necessarily lives to his own natural will. For our natural will, in whatever state it is, is nothing else but our natural reason willing this, or willing that.
Self-seeking, self-esteem, and fleshly wisdom
Now hard as this may seem to the unregenerate nature, and yet harder to the natural man that has been highly exalted, and made great with the glory of all that which, wits, poets, orators, critics, and historians have enriched it with, yet true it is, a truth as certain as the fall of man, that this full denial of our own natural will, and our own natural reason, is the only possible way for Divine knowledge, Divine light, and Divine goodness, to have any place or power of birth in us. All other religious knowledge, received in any other way, let it be as great as it will, is only great in vanity, emptiness, and delusion.
For nothing but that which comes from God, can have anything Godly in it, and all that which comes from self, and natural reason, however wonderful it appears on the outside, can have no better a nature within, than self-seeking, self-esteem, and fleshly wisdom, which are those very works of the devil in us, which Christ came into the world to destroy. For the efforts of natural reason, and self-abilities, to be great in religious knowledge from our own particular talents, are as satanical a thing as any we carry about us, and most of all fix us in the highest contrariety to that state, which our Lord affirms to be absolutely necessary. "Except you be converted, and become as little children, you cannot enter into the kingdom of God." Now as sure as this is necessary, so sure is it, that no one can be converted, or come under the good influence of this childlike nature, until natural reason, self, and self-will, are all completely denied. For all the evil and corruption of our fallen nature consists in this, it is an awakened life of our own reason, self-will broken off from God, and so fallen into the selfish workings of its own earthly nature.
Now whether this self broken off from God, reasons, wills, and contends about the difference of scripture words and opinions, or reasons against them, the same evil state of fallen nature, the same loss of life, the same separation from God, the same evil tempers of flesh and blood, will be equally strengthened and inflamed by the one as by the other. Therefore it is, that papists and protestants are hating, fighting, and sometimes killing one another for the sake of their different excellent opinions, and yet, as to the lusts of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, they are in the best union and communion with one another. And the reason why it must be so, is because bad syllogisms for transubstantiation, and better syllogisms against it, signify no more towards casting Satan out of our souls, than a bad or better taste for paintings.
Hence also it is, that Christendom, full of the nicest decisions about faith, grace, works, merits, satisfactions, heresies, schisms, etc., is full of all those evil tempers which prevailed in the heathen world, when none of these things were ever thought of. A scholar, pitying the blindness and folly of those who live to themselves in the cares and pleasures of this vain life, thinks himself Divinely employed, and to have escaped the pollution's of the world, because he is, day after day, dividing, dissecting, and mending church-opinions, fixing heresies here, schisms there; forgetting all the while, that a carnal self and natural reason have the doing of all that is done by this learned zeal, and are as busy and active in him, as in the reasoning infidel, or worldling. For where self is wholly denied, there nothing can be called heresy, schism, or wickedness, but the need of loving God with our whole heart, and our neighbor as ourselves; nor anything be called truth, life, or salvation, but the Spirit, nature, and power of Christ living and manifesting itself in us, as it did in him. But where self or the natural man is become great in religious learning, there the greater the scholar, the more firmly will they be fixed in their religion, "Whose God is their belly." When Jacob Behmen says "I write not to reason;" The mouth of learning says, fanaticism: and yet Jacob said as sober a truth, as if he had said, I write not to self-will; for natural reason, self and own will, always did, and always must see through the same eyes, and hear through the same ears. Now let it only be supposed, that Jacob Behmen and myself, when we speak of natural reason, mean only the natural man (as is over and over declared by us) and then Jacob Behmen's saying, that he writes neither from reason, nor to the natural reason of others, is only saying that very same thing as Paul said, that "The natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him, Neither can he know them, because they are Spiritually discerned."
But that I may fully show the perverseness of my accusers, in charging me with denying the use of reason in religion, see here a word or two of what I have said, more than twenty-four years ago, which doctrine I have maintained in all that I have since wrote. My words are these. You shall see reason possessed of all that belongs to it. I will grant it to have as great a share in the good things of religion, as in the good things of this life; that it can assist the soul, just as it can assist the body, that it has the same power and virtue in the spiritual, that it has in the natural world; that it can communicate to us as much of the one, as of the other, and is of the same use and importance in the one as in the other. Can you ask more? All which I explain in the following manner. Man, considered as a member of this world, who is to have his share of the good that is in it, is a sensible, and a rational creature, that is, he has a certain number of senses, such as seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, and smelling, by which he is sensible of all that the outward world, in which he is placed, can do for him, or communicate to him, and so is sensible of what kind and degree of happiness he can have from it.
Now besides these organs of sense, he has a power or faculty of reasoning upon the ideas, which he has received from these senses. How are the good things of this world communicated to man? How is he put in possession of them? To what part of him are they proposed? Are his senses, or his reason, the means of his having so much as he has or can have from this world?
Now here, you must degrade reason just as much as it is degraded by religion, and are obliged to set it as low with respect to the things of this world, as it is set with respect to the things of the spiritual world. It is no more the means of communicating the good things of the one, than of the other. And as Paul says, "The natural man cannot receive the things of the Spirit of God," it is for this reason, because they are Spiritually discerned; so you must of necessity say, the rational man cannot receive the things of this world, for this reason, because they are sensibly received, that is, they are received by the organs of sense. Reason therefore has no higher office or power in the things of this world, than in the things of religion; and religion does no more violence to your reason, or rejects it any other way, than all the good things of this world reject it; it is not seeing, it is not hearing, tasting, or feeling the things of this life; it can not supply the place of any of these senses.
Now it is only useless in religion; it can not see, nor hear, taste, or feel of Spiritual things; therefore in the things of religion, and in the things of this world, it has the same insignificance. It is the sensibility of the soul that must receive what this world can communicate to it; it is the sensibility of the soul that must receive what God can communicate: reason may follow after in either case, and view through its own glass what is done, but it can do no more. Reason may be of the same service to us, as when we want any of the enjoyments of this life; it may direct us how and where they are to be had; it may take away a cover from our eyes, or open our window shutters when we want the light; but it can do no more towards seeing, than to make way for the light to act upon our eyes. This is all of its office and ability in the things of religion; it may remove the things that hinder the sensibility of the soul, or prevents the Divine light acting upon it, but it can do no more; because the faculty of reasoning is only the activity of the mind upon its own ideas or images, which the senses have caused it to form from that which has been stirred up in them, but has nothing of the nature of the thing which it speculates upon; it does not become dark, when it reasons upon the cause or nature of darkness, nor does it become light, when it reasons about light; nor does it receive anything of the nature of religion, when it is wholly taken up in descriptions and definitions of religious doctrines and virtues.
For the good of religion is like the good of food and drink to the creature that needs it. And if instead of giving such an one bread and wine, you should teach him to seek for relief by attending to clear ideas of the nature of bread, of different ways of making it, etc., he would be left to die in the need of sustenance, just as the religion of reasoning leaves the soul to perish in the want of that good which it was to have from religion. And yet as a man may have the benefit of food much assisted by the right use of his reason, though reason has not the good of food in it, so a man may have the good of religion much assisted and secured to him, by the right use of his reason, though reason has not the good of religion in it. And as it would be great folly and perverseness, to accuse a man as an enemy to the true use of reasoning about food, because he declares that reason is not food, nor can supply the place of it, so is it equally such, to accuse a man as an enemy to the use of reasoning in religion, because he declares that reasoning is not religion, nor can supply the place of it. We have no need of religion, but because we want to have more of the Divine nature in us than we have in our fallen nature. But if this is the truth of the matter (And who can deny it?) Then we are sure that nothing can be our good in religion, but that which communicates to us something of God, or which alters our state of existence in God, and makes us partakers of the Divine nature, in such a manner and degree as we needed. What a folly it is then to put any trust in a religion of rational notions and opinions logically deduced from scripture words? Do we not see sinners of all sorts, and men under the power of every corrupt passion, equally zealous for such a religion? Proof enough, that it does not have the good of religion in it, nor any contrariety to the vices of the heart; it neither kills them, nor is killed by them. For as pride, hypocrisy, envy or malice, do not take away from the mind its critical abilities; so a man may be most logical in his religion of reason, words, doctrines, and opinions, when he has nothing of the true good of religion in him.
But as soon as it is known and confessed, that all the happiness or misery of all creatures consists only in this, as they are more or less possessed of God, or as they differently partake of this Divine nature, then it must be equally known, that nothing but God can do or be any religious good to us, and also that God cannot do, or be, any religious good to us, but by the communication of Himself, or the manifestation of His own life within us.
Hence may be seen the great blindness both of infidels and Christians; the one in trusting to their own reason dwelling in its own logical conclusions; the other in trusting to their own reason dwelling in learned opinions about scripture words and phrases, and doctrines built upon them. For as soon as it is known and confessed, that God is all in all, that in Him we live and move and have our being, that we can have nothing separately, or out of Him, but everything in Him, that we have no being or degree of being but in Him, that He can give us nothing as our good but Himself, nor any degree of salvation from our fallen nature, but in such degree as He again communicates something more of Himself to us, as soon as this is known, then it is known with the utmost evidence, that to put a religious trust in our own reason, whether confined to itself, or working in doctrines about scripture words, it still has the nature of that same idolatry that puts a religious trust in the sun, a departed saint, or a graven image. And as image-worship has often boasted of its Divine power, because of the wonders of zeal and devotion that have been raised thereby in thousands, and ten thousands of its followers, so it is no marvel, if opinion-worship should often have and boast of the same effects. But the truth of the whole matter lies here: as the word manifested in the flesh or become man, is the one mediator, or restorer of union between God and man, so to seeing eyes it must be evident, that nothing but this one mediatorial nature of Christ, essentially brought to life in our souls, can be our salvation through Christ Jesus. For that which saved and exalted that humanity in which Christ dwelt, must be the salvation of every human creature in the world.
The purpose or job of the Holy Scriptures
But to return. What poor divinity knowledge comes from great scholars and great readers, may be sufficiently seen from the two following judicious quotations in a late dissertation on fanaticism; the one is taken from Dr. Warburton's sermons, the other from a pastoral letter of Mr. Stinstra, a preacher among the Mennonites of Friesland. The one from Dr. Warburton stands thus: "By them (that is, by the writings of the new testament) the prophetic promise of our Savior, that the comforter should abide forever, was eminently fulfilled. For though His ordinary influence occasionally assists the faithful, yet His constant abode and supreme illumination is in the sacred scriptures." {dissertation, page 10.} Dr. Warburton's doctrine is this, that the inspired books of the New Testament is that comforter, or Spirit of truth, and illuminator, which is meant by Christ's being always with his church. Let us therefore put the doctor's doctrine into the letter of the text, which will best show how true or false it is.
Our Lord says, "It is expedient for you that I go away, or that comforter will not come"; that is, it is expedient for you, that I stop teaching you in words, that sound only into your outward ears, that you may have the same words in writing, for your outward eyes to look upon; for if I do not depart from this vocal way of teaching you, the comforter will not come, that is, you will not have the comfort of My words written on paper. But if I go away, I will send written books, which shall lead you into such a truth of words as you could not have, while they were only spoken from My mouth; but being written on paper, they will be My Spiritual, heavenly, constant abode with you, and the most supreme illumination you can receive from Me.
Christ says further: "I have many things to say unto you, but you cannot bear them now: howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He shall guide you into all truth; for he shall not speak of Himself, for He shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you"; that is, though you cannot be sufficiently instructed from My words at present, yet when they shall hereafter come to You in written books, they will give you a knowledge of all truth, for they shall not speak of themselves, but shall receive words from Me, and show them to you. Again, Christ says, "These things have I spoken unto you in proverbs; but the time comes, when I shall no more speak unto you in proverbs, but will show you plainly of the Father." That is, up till now you have only had spoken proverbs from Me, and therefore you have not plainly known the Father; but the time comes when these spoken proverbs shall be put into writing, and then you shall plainly know the Father. Again, Christ adds. "You now therefore have sorrow, but I will see you again, and your hearts shall rejoice, and your joy no man takes from you." That is, you are now troubled at My personal departure from you, but some written books shall be My seeing you again, and in that visit you shall have such joy as cannot be taken from you.
Christ also says, "If any man loves me, my Father will love him, and we will come unto him and make our abode with him." That is, according to the doctor's theology, certain books of scripture will come to him, and make their abode with him; for he expressly confines the constant abode and supreme illumination of God to the holy scriptures. Therefore (horrible to say) God's inward presence, His operating power of life and light in our souls, His dwelling in us, and we in Him, is something of a lower nature, that only may occasionally happen, and has less of God in it than the dead letter of scripture, which alone is His constant abode and supreme illumination. Miserable fruits of a paradoxical genius!
Christ from heaven says, "Behold I stand at the door, and knock; if any man hear my voice, and open unto me, I will come into him and sup with him. "This is His true eminent fulfilling of His prophetic promise of being a comforter, and Spirit of truth to His church to the end of the world. But according to the doctor, we are to understand, that not the heavenly Christ, but the New Testament continually stands and knocks at the door, wanting to enter into the heart, and sup with it; which is no better than saying, that when Christ calls Himself alpha and omega, He means not Himself, but the New Testament. Again, "I am the vine, you are the branches; as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can you, except you abide in Me; for without Me, you can do nothing." Now take the doctor's comment, and then the truth of all these words of Christ was only temporary, and could be true no longer, than until the books of the New Testament were written; for then all this, which Christ has affirmed of Himself, of the certainty and necessity of His life and power in them, ended in Christ, and passed over to the written words of the New Testament, and they are the true vine, and we its branches, they are that without which we can do nothing. For it must be, if, as the doctor affirms, the writings of the New Testament are that, by which we are to understand the constant abode and supreme illumination of God in man. Now absurd, and even blasphemous, as this interpretation of the foregoing text is, it must be evident to every reader, that it is all the doctor's own; for the letter of scripture is only made here to claim that divinity to itself, which the doctor has openly affirmed to be true of it.
"Rabbi," says Nicodemus to Christ, "We know that you are a teacher come from God." Now that which was here truly said of Christ in the flesh, is the very truth that must be said of the scripture teaching in ink and paper; it is a teacher come from God, and therefore fully to be believed, highly reverenced, and strictly followed. But as Christ's teaching in the flesh was only preparatory to His future vital teaching by the Spirit, so the teaching of scripture by words written with ink and paper is only preparatory, or introductory to all that inward essential teaching of God, which is by His Spirit and truth within us. Every other opinion of the holy scripture, but that of an outward teacher and guide to God's inward teaching and illumination in our souls, is but making an idol-God of it: I say an idol-God; for to those who rest in it as the constant abode and supreme illumination of God with them, it can be nothing else. For, if nothing of Divine faith, love, hope, or goodness, can have the least birth, or place in us, but by Divine inspiration, they who think these virtues may be sufficiently raised in us by the letter of scripture, do in truth and reality make the letter of scripture their inspiring God. The Apostles preached and wrote to the people by Divine inspiration. But what do they say of their inspired doctrine and teachings? What virtue and power was there in them? Do they say that their words and teachings were the very promised comforter, the Spirit of truth, the true abode and supreme illumination of God in the souls of men? So far from such a blasphemous thought, that they affirm the direct contrary, and compare all their inspired teachings and instructions to the dead works of bare planting and watering, and which must continue dead, until life comes into them from another and much higher power. "I have planted," says Paul, "Apollos has watered, but God gave the increase." And then further to show that this planting and watering, which was the highest work that an inspired apostle could do, was yet in itself to be considered as a lifeless, powerless thing, he adds, "So then, neither is he that plants anything, nor he that waters, but God that gives the increase." But now, if this must be said of all that which the inspired Apostles taught in outward words, that it was nothing in itself, was without power, without life, and only such a preparation towards life, as is that of planting and watering, must not that same thing be said of their inspired teachings, when left behind them in writing? For what else are the Apostolic scriptures, but those very instructions and teachings put into writing, which they affirmed to be but bare planting and watering, quite powerless in themselves, until the living Spirit of God worked with them? Or will anyone say, that what Paul, Peter, John, etc., spoke by inspiration from their own mouths, was indeed bare planting and watering, in order to be capable of receiving life from God; but when these apostolic teachings and instructions were written on paper, they were raised out of their first inability, and received the nature of God Himself, and then became Spirit and life, and might be called the great bringing to life the Power of God, or, as the doctor says, the constant abode and supreme illumination of His Spirit with us?
It would be great folly and perverseness, to charge me here with slighting, or lessening the true value, use, and importance of the inspired Apostolical scriptures; for if the charge was just, it must lie against Paul, and not against me, since I say nothing of them, but that which he says, and in his own express words, i.e., that all their labor of preaching, instructing, and writing by Divine inspiration, had in themselves no other nature, use, or power, than that of such planting and watering as could not fructify until a higher power than was in them gave life and growth to that which they planted and watered.
I exceedingly love, and highly reverence the Divine authority of the sacred writings of the Apostles and evangelists, and would gladly persuade everyone, to be as deeply affected with them, and pay as profound a regard to them, as they would to an Elijah, John the Baptist, or Paul whom they knew to be immediately sent from heaven with God's message to them. I reverence them as a literal truth from God, as much the greatest heavenly blessing that can be outwardly bestowed upon us. I reverence them as doing, or fitted to do all that good amongst Christians now, which the Apostles did in their day, and as of the same use and benefit to the church of every age, as their planting and watering was to the first.
But now, if this is not thought to be that fullness of regard that is due to the holy messengers of God; if anyone will still be so learnedly wise, as to affirm, that though Paul's preaching in his epistles, while he was alive, was indeed only bare planting and watering, but the same epistles, being published after his death, received another nature, and became full of Divine and living power. I shall now only add this friendly hint to the doctor, that he has a remedy at hand in his own sermon, how he may be delivered from so grossly mistaking the Spirit of the gospel, as well as the law of Moses. Paul, (says the doctor) had a quick and lively imagination, and an extensive and intimate acquaintance with those masters in moral painting, the classic writers, all which he proudly sacrificed to the glory of the everlasting gospel. {sermons, vol i., page 229.}
O vainest of all vain projects! For what is Christianity, but that which Christ was while on earth? What can it be, but that which it is, and has from Him? He is a king, who has all power in heaven and on earth, and His kingdom, like Himself, is not of this world. Away then with the projects of popish pomp, and pagan literature to support it; they are as wise contrivances, as a high tower of Babel to defend it against the gates of hell.
This is proof enough, that as soon as any man trusts to natural abilities, skill in languages, and commonplace learning, as the true means of entering into the kingdom of God, a kingdom, which is nothing else but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, he gives himself up to certain delusion, and can escape no error that is popular, or that suits his state and situation in the learned, religious world. He has sold his birthright in the gospel state of Divine illumination, to make a figure and noise with the sounding brass and tinkling cymbals of the natural man.
Why is it, that we see genius and natural abilities to be equally pleased with, and equally contending for the errors and absurdities of every system of religion, under which they are educated? It is because genius and natural abilities are just the same things, and must have the same nature now, as they had in the ancient schools of the peripatetic, academic, stoic, and atheistical philosophers. "The temptation of honor, which the academic exercise of wit (as Dr. W. Says) was supposed to bring to its professor, {Divine legation of Moses} has still its power among church disputants." Nor can it possibly ever be otherwise, until our capacity and genius, etc., do, as the blind, the deaf, the dumb, and lepers formerly did, and that is to go to be healed of their natural disorders by the inspiration of that oracle, who said, "I am the light of the world, he that follows Me, walks not in darkness." "No man comes unto the Father but by me." Well therefore might Paul say, "I have determined to know nothing among you, but Christ, and Him crucified." And had it not been for this determination, he would have never known, what he then knew, when he said, "The life that I now live, is not mine, but Christ's that lives in me." Did the apostle overstretch the matter? Was it a spirit of fanaticism, and not of Christ living in him, that made this declaration? Was he here making way for ignorance and darkness to extinguish the light that came down from heaven, and was the light of the world? Did he here undermine the true ground and rock on which the church of Christ was to stand, and prevail against the gates of hell? Did he by setting up this knowledge, as the best and only knowledge that an apostle need to have, break down the fences of Christ's vineyard, rob the church of all its strongholds, leave it defenseless, and a ready prey to infidels? Who can say this, but that spirit of anti-Christ, that did not confess that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh? For, as Christ's intending nothing, knowing nothing, willing nothing, but purely and solely the whole course of His crucifying process, was the whole truth of His being come in the flesh, was His doing the whole will of Him that sent Him, was His overcoming the world, death, and hell, so he that embraces this process, as Christ embraces it, who is wholly given up to it, as Christ was. He has the will of Christ, and the mind of Christ, and therefore may well desire to know nothing else. To this man alone, is the world, death, and hell, known to be overcome in him, as they were in Christ; to him alone has Christ become the resurrection and the life; and he that knows this, knows also with Paul that all other knowledge may, and will be cast away as dung. Now if Paul, having rejected all other knowledge but that of a crucified Savior, which to the Jew was a stumbling-block, and to the Greek foolishness, if he had afterwards wrote three such large volumes as the doctor has done, for the food and nourishment of Christ's sheep, who can have no life in them but by eating the true bread that came down from heaven, must they not have been called Paul's full recantation of all that he had taught of a crucified Christ?
The other instance of delusion from book-learning, relates to Mr. Green, who wanting to write on Divine inspiration, runs from book to book, from country to country, to pick up reports wherever he can find them, concerning Divine inspiration, from this and that judicious author, so that he might be sure of compiling a judicious dissertation on the subject. All which he might have known to be mere delusion and lost labor, had he but remembered, or regarded any one single saying either of Christ or His Apostles concerning the Holy Spirit and his operations. For not a word is said by them, but that fully shows all knowledge or perception of the Spirit is nothing else but the enjoyment of the Spirit, and that no man can know more of Him than that which the Spirit Himself is, and does, and manifests of His power in man.
"The things of God," says Paul, "Knows no man, but the Spirit of God." Is not this decisive upon the matter? Is not this proof enough, that nothing in man but the Spirit of God in him, can know what the Spirit's work in man is and does? The fruit of the Spirit, so often mentioned in scripture, are not different things, or separate from the Spirit; and if the Spirit is not always working in us, His fruits must be as absent from us as He is. John says, "Hereby we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit which He has given us." A demonstration, that the Spirit can in no other way make Himself known to us, but by His dwelling and working in us. James says, "Every good and perfect gift comes from above": but now does he not in reality deny this, who seeks for the highest gift of knowledge from below, from the poor contrivance of a common-place book? Again, "If any man lacks wisdom, let him ask of God"; James does not say, let him go ask Peter, or Paul, or John, because he knew that Divine wisdom was nothing else, but Divine inspiration. But Mr. Green has put together his ingenious, eminent writers, his excellent, learned, judicious authors, his calm and cool, rational-morality doctors (a set of men whose glorious names we read no more of in the gospel, than of the profound Aristotle, or the divine Cicero) and these are to do that for him, that which the whole college of Apostles could not do for anyone. Now this doctrine, that nothing but the Spirit can know the things that be of God, and that the enjoyment of the Spirit, is all the knowledge that we can have of Him, is a truth taught us, not only by all scripture, but by the whole nature of things. For everything that can be seen, known, heard, felt, etc., must be manifested by itself, and not by another. It is not possible for anything but light to manifest light, nor for anything but darkness to make darkness known. Yet this is more possible, than for anything but Divine inspiration to make Divine inspiration to be known. Hence there is a degree of delusion still higher, to be noted in such writers as Mr. Green; for his collection of ingenious, eminent, rational authors, of whom he asks counsel concerning the necessity or certainty of the immediate inspiration of the Spirit, are such as deny it, and write against it. Therefore the proceeding is just as wise, as if a man was to consult some ingenious and eminent atheists, about the truth and certainty of God's immediate continual providence; or ask a few selected deists, what he was to believe of the nature and power of gospel faith. Now there are the Holy Spirit's own operations, and there are reports about them. The only true reports, are those that are made by inspired persons; and if there were no such persons, there could be no true reports of the matter. And therefore to consult uninspired persons, persons who deny and reproach the pretense to inspiration, to be rightly instructed about the truth of immediate continual Divine inspiration, is a degree of blindness greater than that which could be charged upon the old Jewish scribes and Pharisees.
Deaf, dumb and blind to the kingdom of God
The reports that are to be acknowledged as true concerning the Holy Spirit and His operations, are those that are recorded in scripture; that is, the scriptures are an infallible history, or relation of that which the Holy Spirit is, and does, and works in true believers; and also an infallible direction as to how we are to seek, and wait, and trust in His good power over us. But then the scriptures themselves, though true and infallible in these reports and instructions about the Holy Spirit, yet they can go no further than to be a true history; they cannot give to the reader of them the possession, the sensibility, and enjoyment of that which they relate. This is plain, not only from the nature of a written history or instruction, but from the express words of our Lord, saying, "Except a man be born again of the Spirit, he cannot see or enter into the kingdom of God." Therefore the new birth from above, or of the Spirit, is that alone which gives true knowledge and perception of that which is the kingdom of God. The history relates truths about it; but the kingdom of God, is nothing else but the power and presence of God, dwelling and ruling in our souls, this can only manifest itself, and can manifest itself to nothing in man but to the new birth. For everything else in man is deaf, dumb and blind to the kingdom of God; but when that which died in Adam is made alive again by a birth of the Spirit of God from above, this being the birth which came at first from God, and by being made a partaker of the Divine nature, this knows, and enjoys the kingdom of God.
"I am the way, the truth, and the life,"
Says Christ: this record of scripture is true; but what a delusion, for a man to think that he knows and finds this to be true, and that Christ is all this benefit and blessing to him, because he mentally assents, consents, and contends, that those words are true. This is impossible. The new birth here again is the only power of entrance; everything else knocks at the door in vain: "I know you not," says Christ to every thing, but the new birth. "I am the way, the truth and the life"; this tells us neither more nor less, than if Christ had said, I am the kingdom of God, into which nothing can enter, but that which is born of the Spirit. Here again may be seen, in the highest degree of certainty, the absolute necessity of immediate Divine inspiration through every part of the Christian life. For if a birth of the Spirit is that alone which can enter into, or receive the kingdom of God that has come among men, is alone that which can find Christ to be the way, the truth, and the life. Then a continual life or breathing of the Spirit in us, must be as necessary as the first birth of the Spirit. For a birth of the Spirit only makes a beginning of a life of the Spirit: birth is only in order for life to begin; if therefore the life of the Spirit does not continue, the birth is lost, and the cessation of its breathing in us is nothing else but death again to the kingdom of God, that is, to everything that is or can be Godly. Therefore the immediate continual inspiration of the Spirit, as the only possible power and preservation of a Godly life, stands upon the same ground, and is as absolutely necessary to salvation, as the new birth.
Take away this power and working life of the Spirit from being the one life of all that is done in the church, and then, though it be ever so outwardly glorious in its extent, or ever so full of learned members, it can be nothing else in the sight of God but the wise Greeks and the carnal Jews having become a body of water-baptized Christians. For no one can be in a better state than this, the wisdom of the Greek, the carnality of the Jew, must have the whole government over them, until he is born of and led by the Spirit of God; this alone is the kingdom of God, and everything else is the kingdom of this world, in which Satan is declared to be the prince. Poor, miserable man! That strives, with all the laboriousness of human wit, to be delivered from the immediate continual operation and governance of the Spirit of God, not considering, that where God is not, the devil is, and where the Spirit does not rule, there all is the work of the flesh, though nothing but Spiritual and Christian matters be talked about. I say talked of; for the best ability of the natural man can go no further than talk, and notions, and opinions about scripture words and facts; in these, he may be a great critic, an acute logician, a powerful orator, and know everything of scripture, except the Spirit and the truth!
How much then is it to be lamented, as well as impossible to be denied, that though all scripture assures us, that the things of the Spirit of God are and must, to the end of the world, be foolishness to the natural man, yet from one end of learned Christendom to the other, nothing is thought of as the true and proper means of attaining Divine knowledge, but that which every natural, selfish, proud, envious, false, conceited, worldly man can do. Where is that divinity student who thinks, or was ever taught to think, of partaking of the light of the gospel any other way, than by doing with the scriptures that which he does with pagan writers, whether poets, orators, or comedians, i.e., exercise his logic, rhetoric, and critical skill, in descanting upon them? This done, he is thought by himself, and often by others, to have a sufficiency of divine apostolic knowledge about God and the Scriptures. What a wonder it is therefore, if it should sometimes happen, that the very same vain, corrupt, proud literature, that raises one man to be a poet-laureate, should set another in a divinity chair?
Where does the logical, critical, learned deist get his infidelity? Why just by the same help of the same good powers of the natural man, as many a learned Christian comes to know, embrace, and contend for in the faith of the gospel. For, if you drop the power and reality of Divine inspiration, then all is dropped that can set the believer above, or give him any Godly difference from the infidel. For the Christian's faith has no goodness in it, but that which comes from above, and is born of the Spirit; and the deist's infidelity has no badness in it, but because it comes from below, is born of the will of the flesh and the will of men, and rejects the necessity of being born again out of the corruption of fallen nature. The Christian therefore that rejects, reproaches, and writes against the necessity of immediate Divine inspiration, pleads the whole cause of infidelity; he confirms the ground, on which it stands; and has nothing left to prove the goodness of his own Christianity, but that which equally proves to the deist the goodness of his infidelity. For without the new birth, which is the same thing as saying, without immediate continual Divine inspiration, the difference between the Christian and the infidel is quite lost; and whether the uninspired unregenerate son of Adam is in the church, or out of the church, he is still that child of this world, that fallen Adam, and mere natural man, to whom the things of the Spirit of God are and must be foolishness. For a full proof of this no more needs be seen, than that which you cannot help seeing, that the same shining virtues, and the same glaring vices are common to them both. For the Christian, not made such by the Spirit of God, continually inspiring and working in him, has only a Christianity of his own making, and can have only an appearances of virtues, and will have as many realities of vices, as natural self wants to have. Let him therefore renounce what is called natural religion as much as he will, yet unless he is a new born and Divinely inspired Christian, he must live and die in all his natural corruption.
Through all scripture nothing else is aimed at or intended for man, as his Christianity, but the Divine life, nor anything hinted at, as having the least power to raise or bring him to a holy birth, but the holy life-giving Spirit of God. How great therefore is that blindness, which while reading the gospel, and the history of gospel Christians, cannot see these two fundamental truths, (1) "That nothing is Divine knowledge in man, but the Divine life": (2) "That the Divine life is nothing else but a birth of the Divine nature within him"?
But this truth being lost or given up, has been replaced with a vain learning and worldly spirit, and being in possession of the gospel-book, he sets up kingdoms of strife and division. Now, why does he do this? Why, that the unity of the church may not be lost! Multiply systems of empty notions and opinions: for what? Why, that words and forms may do that for the church now, which to the first church, of Christ's own forming, could only be done by being born of the Spirit; by being endued with that power from on high!
Therefore it is, that the scripture-scholar is looked upon as having Divine knowledge of its matters, when he is as ready at chapter and verse, as the critic is at every page of Cicero. And nothing is looked upon as defective in divinity knowledge, but such supposed mistakes of the genius of the Hebrew, or Greek letter, as the sublime students of the immortal words of a Milton, or a Shakespeare, charge as blunders upon one another.
A very good example!
Now to call such scripture skill Divine knowledge, is just as true and judicious, as if a man was said, or thought to know, that which apostle John knew, because he could repeat his whole gospel and epistles by heart, without missing a word of them. For a literal knowledge of scripture is but like having all scripture in the memory, and is so far from being a Divine perception of the things spoken of, that the most vicious wicked scholar in the world may attain to the highest perfection in it. But Divine knowledge and wickedness of life are so inconsistent, that they are mutual death and destruction to one another; where the one is alive, the other must be dead. Judas Iscariot knew Jesus Christ, and all that he said and did up to the point of His crucifixion; he knew what it was to be at the Lord's table, and to partake of His supper of bread and wine. But yet, with much more truth it may be said, that he knew nothing of this at all, and that he did not have any better knowledge of it than Pontius Pilate had. Now all knowledge of Christ, but that which is from Divine inspiration, or the new-birth, is but as poor and profitless, as Judas's knowledge was. It may say to Christ, as he did, hail Master; but no one can call Jesus Lord, but by the Holy Spirit. This empty letter-learned knowledge, which the natural man can as easily have of the sacred scripture and religious matters, as of any other books of human affairs. When this has been taken for Divine knowledge, it has spread great darkness and delusion over all Christendom, and will do this every time this terrible mistake is made! It may be reckoned no less than a general apostasy from the gospel state of Divine illumination. For the gospel state is in its whole nature nothing else; it has but one light, and that is the Lamb of God; it has but one life, and that is by the Spirit of God. Whatever is not of and from this light, and governed by this Spirit, call it by what great name you will, it is no more a part of the gospel state, nor will have a better end, than that which enters into the mouth, and corrupts in the belly.
That one light and Spirit, which was only one from all eternity, before angels or any heavenly beings were created, must to all eternity be that one and only light and Spirit, by which angels or men can ever have any union or communion with God. Every other light is but the light by which beasts receive their subtlety; every other spirit, is but that which gives to flesh and blood all its lusts and appetites. Nothing else but the loss of the one light and Spirit of God turned an order of angels into devils. Nothing else but the loss of that same light and Spirit took from the Divine Adam his first crown of Paradisaical glory, and stripped him more naked than the beasts, then left him a prey to devils, and in the jaws of eternal death. What therefore can have the least share of power towards man's redemption, but the light and Spirit of God creating again a birth of Himself in man, as He did in His first glorious creation? Or what can possibly bring forth this return of his first lost birth, but solely that which is done by this eternal light and Spirit. Consequently it is, that the gospel state is by our Lord affirmed to be a kingdom of heaven at hand, or come among men, because it does not have the nature of any worldly thing or creaturely powers, it serves no worldly ends, can be helped by no worldly power, receives nothing from man but man's full denial of himself, stands upon nothing that is finite or transitory, has no existence but in that working power of God that created and upholds heaven and earth, it has become a kingdom of men united to God, through a continual immediate Divine illumination. What scripture of the New Testament can you read, that does not prove this to be the gospel state, a kingdom of God, into which none can enter but by being born of the Spirit, and none can continue to be alive in it, but by being led by the Spirit, in which not a thought, or desire, or action, can be allowed to have any part in it, but as it is a fruit of the Spirit?
"Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." What is God's kingdom in heaven, but the manifestation of what God is, and what He does in His heavenly creatures? How is His will done there, only by His Holy Spirit becoming the life, the power, and mover of all that live in it. We often read this prayer, we extol it under the name of the Lord's prayer, and yet (for the sake of orthodoxy) preach and write against all that is prayed for in it. For nothing but a continual, essential, immediate Divine illumination can do that which we pray may be done.
For where can God's kingdom truly come, but where every other power but His is at an end, and driven out of it? How can His will only be done, but where the Spirit that wills in God wills in the creature?
What can literature, and the natural abilities of man, the things man can do here on earth accomplish? Just about as much as they can do at the resurrection of the dead; for all that is to be done here, is nothing else but resurrection and life. Therefore, that which gave eyes to the blind, cleansed the lepers, cast out devils, and raised the dead, that alone can and must do all that is to be done in this gospel kingdom of God. For even the smallest work or fruit of grace must be as solely done by God, as the greatest miracle in nature; and the reason is this, because every work of grace is the same overcoming of nature, as when the dead are raised to life. Yet vain man would be thought to be something, to have great power and ability in this kingdom of grace, not because he happens to be born of noble parents, is clothed in purple and fine linen, and fares sumptuously every day, but because he has happened to be made a scholar, has run through all languages and histories, has been long exercised in conjectures and criticisms, and has his head as full of notions, theological, poetical, and philosophical, as a dictionary is full of all sorts of words.
Now let this simple question decide the whole matter here: has this great scholar any more power of saying to this mountain, "Be thou removed, and cast into the sea," than the illiterate Christian has? If not, the scholar is just as weak, as powerless, and little in the kingdom of God as he is. But if the illiterate man's faith should happen to be nearer to the size of a grain of mustard-seed, than that of the prodigious scholar, the illiterate Christian stands much above scholar in the kingdom of God.
Look now at the present state of Christendom, glorying in the light of Greek and Roman learning (which an age or two ago broke forth) as a light that has helped the gospel to shine with a luster, that it scarce ever had before. Look at this, and you will see the fall of the present church from its first gospel state, to have as much likeness to the fall of the first Divine man from the glory of Paradisaical innocence and heavenly purity into an earthly state, and bestial life of worldly craft and serpentine subtlety.
In the first gospel church, heathen light had no other name than heathen darkness; and the wisdom of words was no more sought after, than that friendship of the world which is enmity with God. In that new born church, the tree of life, which grew in the midst of paradise, took root and grew up again. In the present church, the tree of life is hissed at, as the visionary food of deluded fanatics; and the tree of death, called the tree of knowledge of good and evil, has the eyes and hearts of ministers, priest, and people, and is thought to do as much good to Christians, as it did evil to the first inhabitants of paradise. This tree, that brought death and corruption into human nature at the first, is now called a tree of light, and is day and night well watered with every corrupt stream, however distant, that can be drawn to it.
The simplicity indeed, both of the gospel letter and doctrine, has the shine and polish of classic literature laid thick upon it. Cicero is in the pulpit, Aristotle writes Christian ethics, Euclid demonstrates infidelity and absurdity to be the same thing. Greece had but one Longinus, Rome had but one Quintilian; but in our present church, they are as common as patriots in the state.
But now, what follows from this new risen light? Why Aristotle's atheism, Cicero's height of pride and depth of dissimulation, and every refined or gross species of Greek and Roman vices, are as glaring in this new enlightened Christian church, as they ever were in old pagan Greece or Rome. Could you find a gospel-Christian in all this mid-day glory of learning, you may as well light a candle, as the philosopher did in the mid-day sun, to find an honest man.
And indeed, if we consider the nature of our salvation, either with respect to that which alone can save us, or that from which we are to be saved from, it will be plain, that the wit and elegance of classic literature, brought into a Christian church to make the doctrines of the cross have a better salvation-effect upon fallen man, is but like calling in the assistance of balls and masquerades, to make the Lord's supper go deeper into the heart, and more effectually drive all levity and impurity out of it. How poorly was the gospel at first preached, if the wisdom of words, and the gifts of natural wit and imagination had been its best genuine help? But alas, they stand in the same contrariety to one another, as self-denial and self-gratification. To know the truth of gospel salvation, is to know that man's natural wisdom is to be equally sacrificed with his natural folly; for they are but the same thing, sometimes called by one name, and sometimes by the other.
This is every man's short lesson of life
His intellectual faculties are, by the fall, in a much worse state than his natural animal appetites, and need a much greater self-denial. And when our own will, our own understanding, and our own imagination have their natural strength indulged and gratified, and are made seemingly rich and honorable with the treasures acquired from study, they will just as much help poor fallen man to be like-minded with Christ, as in the art of cookery, daily studied, will help a professor of the gospel to the Spirit and practice of Christian abstinence. When you know this to be the truth, no more needs be known, than these two things:
(1) That our salvation consists wholly in being saved from ourselves, or that which we are by nature;
(2) That in the whole nature of things, nothing could be this salvation, or Savior to us, but the humility of God manifested in human nature, as is beyond all expression. Hence, the first unalterable term of this Savior to fallen man, is this,
"Except a man deny himself, forsake all that he has, yes and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple."
And to show, that this is but the beginning, of man's salvation, the Savior adds, "Learn of Me, for I am meek, and lowly of heart." What a light we have here, for those that love the light! Self is the whole evil of fallen nature; self-denial is our capacity of being saved; humility is our savior. This is every man's short lesson of life; and he that has well learned it, is scholar enough, and has had all the benefit of a most profound education. Then old Adam with all his ignorance is cast out of him; and when Christ's humility is received, then he has the very mind of Christ, and that which brings him forth as a son of God.
Who then can wonder enough at the bulk of libraries, which has taken the place of this short lesson of the gospel, or at the number of champion disputants, who from age to age, have been all in arms to support and defend a set of opinions, doctrines, and practices, all which may be most cordially embraced, without the least degree of self-denial, and most firmly held, without receiving the least degree of humility by it?
What a grossness of ignorance, both of man and his Savior, to run to Greek and Roman schools to learn how to put off Adam, and to put on Christ? To drink at the fountains of pagan poets and orators, in order more divinely to drink of the cup that Christ drank of? What can come of all this, but that which has already come, a Ciceronian-gospel preacher, instead of a gospel-penitent? Instead of the depth, the truth and spirit of the humble publican, seeking to regain paradise, only by a broken heart, crying, "God, be merciful to me a sinner," The high-bred classic will live in daily transports at the enormous Sublime of a Milton, flying here and there on the un-feathered wings of high sounding words.
This will be more or less the case with all the salvation-doctrines of Christ, while under classical acquisition and administration. Those Divine truths, which are no further good and redeeming, but as they are Spirit and life in us, which can have no entrance, or birth, but in the death of self, in a broken and contrite heart, will serve only to help the classic painters to lavish out their colors on their own paper monuments of lifeless virtues.
How did the educated heathens come by their pride and vanity, was it because they could not come under the humility of the cross? It is because the natural man shines in the false glory of his own cultivated abilities. Does wit, and elegant taste, have any more good or redeeming virtue in Christians, than they had in heathens? As well might it be said, that self-will is good, and has a redeeming virtue in a Christian, but is bad and destructive in a heathen. I said a redeeming virtue in it; because nothing is or can be a religious good to fallen man, but that which has a redeeming virtue in it, or is, so far as it goes, a true renewal of the Divine life in the soul. Therefore, said our only redeemer, Jesus, "Without me, you can do nothing." Whatever is not His immediate work in us is at best but a mere nothing with respect to the good of our redemption. A tower of Babel may to its builder's eyes seem to hide its head in the clouds, but as to its reaching to heaven, it is no nearer to that, than the earth on which it stands. It is so with all the building of man's wisdom and natural abilities in the things of salvation; he may take the logic of Aristotle, add to that the rhetoric of Tully, and then ascend as high as he can on the ladder of poetic imagination, yet no more is done in reviving the lost life of God in his soul, than is done by a tower of brick and mortar to reach heaven.
Self-love, self-esteem, and self-seeking
Self is the root, the tree, and the branches of all the evils of our fallen state. We are without God, because we are in the life of self. Self-love, self-esteem, and self-seeking, are the very essence, and life of pride; and the devil is the father of pride, and is never absent from them, nor without power in them. To die to these essential properties of self, is to make the devil depart from us. But as soon as we want to have self-abilities take a share in our good works, the Satanic spirit of pride is in union with us, and we are working for the maintenance of self-love, self-esteem, and self-seeking.
All the vices of fallen angels and men have their birth and power in the pride of self, or I may better say, in the atheism and idolatry of self; for self is both atheist and idolater. It is atheist, because it has rejected God; it is an idolater, because it is its own idol. On the other hand, all the virtues of the heavenly life are the virtues of humility. Not a joy, or glory, or praise in heaven, but is what it is, through humility. It is humility alone that bridges the un-passable gulf between heaven and hell. No angels are in heaven, but because humility is in all their breath; no devils are in hell, but because the fire of pride is their whole fire of life.
Pride and humility are the two master powers
In what lies the great struggle for eternal life? It all lies in the strife between pride and humility: all other things, no matter what they are, are but as under workmen; pride and humility are the two master powers, the two kingdoms of strife for the eternal possession of man.
And here it is to be observed, that every son of Adam is in the service of pride and self, no matter what he is doing, until a humility that comes solely from heaven has been his redeemer. Until then, all that he does will be only done by the right hand, that the left hand may know of it. And he that thinks it possible for the natural man to have a better humility than this from his own right reason (as it is often miscalled) refined by education, shows himself quite ignorant of this one very plain truth of the gospel, namely, that there never was, nor ever will be, but one humility in the whole world, and that is the one humility of Christ, which man since the fall of Adam never had the least degree of, except from Christ. Humility is one, in the same sense and truth, as Christ is one, the mediator is one, redemption is one. There are not two lambs of God that take away the sins of the world. But if there was any humility besides that of Christ, there would be something else besides Him that could take away the sins of the world. "All that came before Me," says Christ, "Were thieves and robbers": We are used to confining this to persons; but the same is as true of every virtue, whether it has the name of humility, charity, piety, or anything else; if it comes before Christ, however good it may pretend to be, it is but a cheat, a thief, and a robber, under the name of a Godly virtue. And the reason is, because pride and self have all of man, until man has his all from Christ. He therefore only fights the good fight, whose strife is, that the self-idolatrous nature which he has from Adam may be brought to death, by the supernatural humility of Christ brought to life in him.
The enemies to man's rising out of the fall of Adam, through the Spirit and power of Christ, are many. But the one great dragon-enemy, called anti-Christ, is self-exaltation. This is his birth, his pomp, his power, and his throne; when self-exaltation ceases, the last enemy is destroyed, and all that came from the pride and death of Adam is swallowed up in victory.
There has been a lot of discussion, as to where and what anti-Christ is, or by what signs he may be known. Some say he has been in the Christian world ever since the gospel times, yes, that he was even then beginning to appear and show himself. Others say he came in with this, or that pope; others that he is not yet come, but near at hand. But to know with certainty, where and what anti-Christ is, and who is with him, and who is against him, you need only read this short description which Christ gives of Himself.
(1) I can do nothing of myself.
(2) I came not to do my own will.
(3) I seek not my own glory.
(4) I am meek and lowly of heart.
Now if this is Christ, then self-ability or self-exaltation, being the highest and fullest contrariety to all this, must be alone the one great anti-Christ, that opposes and withstands the whole nature and Spirit of Christ.
What therefore has everyone so much to fear, to renounce and abhor, as every inward sensibility of self-exaltation, and every outward work that proceeds from it. But now, at what things shall a man look, to see that working of self which raises pride to its strongest life, and most of all hinders the birth of the humble Jesus in his soul? Shall he call the pomps and vanities of the world the highest works of self-adoration? Shall he look at the painted ladies, to see the pride that has the most of anti-Christ in it? No, by no means. These are indeed marks, shameful enough, of the vain, foolish heart of man, but yet, comparatively speaking, they are but the skin-deep follies of that pride which the fall of man has brought forth in himself. If you would like to see the deepest root, and iron-strength of pride and self-adoration, you must enter into the dark chamber of man's fiery soul, where the light of God (which alone gives humility and meek submission to all created spirits) being extinguished by the death which Adam died, Satan, or self-exaltation, which is the same thing, became the strong man that kept possession of the house, Until a stronger than he should come upon him. In this secret source of an eternal fiery soul, glorying in the astral light of this world, a swelling kingdom of pomp's and vanities is set up in the heart of man, of which, all outward pompous vanities are but its childish transitory play-things. The inward strong man of pride, the diabolical self, has his higher works within; he dwells in the strength of the heart, and has every power and faculty of the soul offering continual incense to him. His memory, his will, his understanding, his imagination, are always at work for him, and for no one else. His memory is the faithful repository of all the fine things that self has ever done; and lest anything of them should be lost or forgotten, she is continually setting them before his eyes. His will, though it has all the world before it, yet goes after nothing, but as self sends it. His understanding is ever searching for new projects to enlarge the dominions of self; and if this fails, imagination comes in, as the last and truest support of self, she makes him a king and mighty Lord of castles in the air. This is that full-born natural self, that must be pulled out of the heart, and totally denied, or there can be no disciple of Christ; which is only saying this plain truth, that the apostate self-idolatrous nature of the old man must be put off, or there can be no new creature in Christ.
All that it has or does, will be either the glory of God manifested in it, or the power of hell in full possession of it!
Now what is it in the human soul that most of all hinders the death of this old man? What is it that above all other things strengthens and exalts the life of self, and makes it the master and governor of all the powers of the heart and soul? It is the fancied glitter of genius, the flights of imagination, the glory of learning, and the self-conceited strength of natural reason: these are the strong holds of fallen nature, the master-builders of pride's temple in the heart of man, and which, as so many priests, keep up the daily worship of idol-self. And here let it be well observed, that all these magnified talents of the natural man are started up through his miserable fall from the life of God in his soul. Wit, genius, learning, and natural reason, would never have had any more of a name among men, than blindness, ignorance, and sickness, had man continued, as at first, an holy image of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Everything then that dwelt in him, or came from him, would have only said so much of God, and nothing of himself, have manifested nothing to him but the heavenly powers of the triune life of God dwelling in him. He would have had no more sense or consciousness of his own wit, or natural reason, or any power of goodness in all that he was, and did, than of his own creating power, at beholding the created heavens and earth. It is his dreadful fall from the life of God in his soul, that has furnished him with these high intellectual riches, just as it has furnished him with the substantial riches of his bestial appetites and lusts. And when the lusts of the flesh have spent out their life, when the dark thick body of earthly flesh and blood shall be forced to let the soul go loose, all these bright talents will end with that system of fleshly lusts, in which they begun; and that which remains of man will have nothing of its own, nothing that can say, I do this, or I do that; but all that it has or does, will be either the glory of God manifested in it, or the power of hell in full possession of it. The time of man's playing with wit, and abilities, and of fancying himself to be something great and considerable in the intellectual world, may be much shorter, but can be no longer, than he can eat and drink with the animals of this world. When the time comes, that fine houses, rich settlements, acquired honors, and rabbi, rabbi, must take their leave of him, all the stately structures, which genius, learning, and flights of imagination, have painted inwardly on his brain and outwardly on paper, must bear full witness to Solomon's vanity of vanities.
Let then the high accomplished scholar reflect, that he comes by his wit, and acute abilities, just as the serpent came by his subtlety; let him reflect, that he might as well dream of acquiring angelic purity to add to his animal nature by multiplying new invented delights for his earthly passions and tempers, as of raising his soul into Divine knowledge through the well exercised powers of his natural reason and imagination.
The finest intellectual power, and that which has the best help in it towards bringing man again into the region of Divine light, is that poor despised thing called simplicity. This is that which stops the workings of the fallen life of nature, and leaves room for God to work again in the soul, according to the good pleasure of His holy will. It stands in such a waiting posture before God, and in such readiness for the Divine birth, as the plants of the earth wait for the inflowing riches of the light and air. But the self-assuming workings of man's natural powers shut him up in himself, closely barred up against the inflowing riches of the light and Spirit of God.
Yet so it is, in this fallen state of the gospel church, that with these proud endowments of fallen nature, the classic scholar, fully weighed down with pagan light and skill, comes forth to play the critic and orator with the simplicity of the salvation mysteries; mysteries which mean nothing else but the inward work of the triune God in the soul of man, nor any other work there, but raising up a dead Adam into a living Christ of God.
However, to make way for division, criticism, and language-learning, to have the full management of salvation doctrines, the well-read scholar declares, that the ancient way of knowing the things of God, taught and practiced by fishermen-Apostles, is obsolete. They indeed needed to have Divine knowledge from the immediate continual operation of the Holy Spirit, but this state was only for a time, until genius, and learning entered into the church. Behold, "The abomination of desolation standing in the holy place!" For as soon as this doctrine is set up, that man's natural elements and acquired learning have full right and power to sit in the divinity chair, and to guide men into that truth which was once the office and power of the Holy Spirit, as soon as this is done, and so far as it is received, it may with the greatest truth be said, that the kingdom of God is entirely shut up, and only a kingdom of scribes, Pharisees, and hypocrites, can come instead of it. For by this doctrine the whole nature and power of gospel religion is much more denied, than by setting up the infallibility of the pope; for though his claim to infallibility is false, yet he claims it from and under the Holy Spirit; but the protestant scholar has his divinity knowledge, his power in the kingdom of truth, from himself, his own logic, and learned reason. Christ has nowhere instituted an infallible pope; and it is as certain, that He has nowhere spoken one single word, or given the least power to logic, learning, or the natural powers of man, in His kingdom. He didn't say to them, "It is also expedient for you that I go away, that your own natural abilities and learned reason may have the guidance of you into all truth?" This is nowhere said, unless logic can prove it from these words, "Without Me you can do nothing," and, "Lo, I am with you to the end of the world."
The first and main doctrine of Christ and His apostles was, to tell the Jews, "That the kingdom of God was at hand," or was come to them. Proof enough surely, that their church was not that kingdom of God, though by God's appointment, and under laws of His own commanding. But why not, when it was thus set up by God? It was because it had human and worldly things in it, it consisted of carnal ordinances, and had only types, and figures, and shadows of the kingdom of God that was to come. Of this kingdom, Christ says, "My kingdom is not of this world"; and as a proof of it, he adds, "If it was of this world, then would My servants fight for Me"; which was saying, that it was so different in kind, and so superior in nature to this world, that no sort of worldly power could either help, or hinder it. But of this world, into which the kingdom of God was come, the holy one of God says, "In the world you shall have tribulation, but be of good comfort, I have overcome the world." Now how was it that Christ's victory was their victory? It was, because He was in them, and they in Him,
"Because I live, you shall live also; in that day you shall know that I am in the Father, and you in Me, and I in you."
This kingdom of God that was come to them, was the same kingdom of God in which Adam was born and began his first glorious life, when the image and likeness of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit had an outward glory, like that which broke through the body of Christ, when on "Mount Tabor His face did shine as the sun, and His raiment was white as the light." To the children of this kingdom, says its Almighty King, "When they bring you before magistrates and powers, take no thought how, or what you shall answer, or what you shall say unto them, for the Holy Ghost shall teach you in that same hour what you ought to say. For it is not you that speaks, but the Spirit of your Father that speaks in you."
No higher, or other thing is said here, than in these other words, "Take no thought, what you shall eat, or drink, or wherewithal you shall be clothed, but seek first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." This is the truth of the kingdom of God, come unto men, and this is the birth-right privilege of all that are living members of it, to be delivered from their own natural spirit which they had from Adam, from the spirit and wisdom of this world, and through the whole course of their lives only to say, and do, and be that, which the Spirit of their Father works in them.
But now, is it not true that this kingdom has gone away from us, are we not left comfortless, if instead of this Spirit of our Father speaking, doing, and working everything in us and for us, we are left again to our own natural powers, to run to every lo here, and lo there, to find a share in that kingdom of God, which once was, and never can be anything else but God, the wisdom and power of God manifested in our flesh? Would it not have been as well, no, better for us, to have been still under types and figures, sacrificing bulls and goats by Divine appointment, than to be brought under a religion that must be Spirit and life and then be left to the interests of the wisdom of the Greek, and the carnality of the Jew, and we are taught how to be living members of it? For where the Spirit of God is not the continual immediate governor of Spiritual things, nothing better can come of it. For the truth and full proof of this, no more need be looked at, but all the libraries and churches of Christendom for the past many ages and even to this very day.
What is the difference between man's own righteousness and man's own light in religion? They are exactly the same thing, and do the same work, namely, they keep up and strengthen every evil, every vanity, and corruption of fallen nature. Nothing saves a man from his own righteousness, but that which saves and delivers him from his own light. The Jew that was most of all set against the gospel, and unable to receive it, was he that trusted in his own righteousness; this was the rich man, to whom it was as hard to enter into the kingdom of heaven as for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. But the Christian, that trusts in his own light, is this very same Jew that trusted in his own righteousness; and all that he gets from the gospel, is only that which the Pharisee received by the law, namely, to be further from entering into the kingdom of God than publicans and harlots. Why is that so, that a beast, a scarlet whore, a horned dragon, and the most horrible descriptions of diabolical power, were made by the Spirit of God when describing the Christian church? Why is it, that the Spirit describes the gospel-church as driven into a wilderness; the two faithful witnesses, Moses and Jesus, as prophesying so many ages in sackcloth, and slain in the streets of Spiritual Sodom and Egypt? It is because man's own natural light, man's own conceited righteousness, his serpentine subtlety, his self-love, his sensual spirit and worldly power, have seized the mysteries of salvation that came down from heaven, and built them up into a kingdom of envious strife and contention, for learned glory, spiritual merchandise, and worldly power. This is the beast, the whore, and dragon, that has governed, and will govern in every Christian, and every church, till, dead to all that is self, they turn to God; not to a God that they have only heard of with their ears, and their fathers have told them about, but to a God of life, light, and power, found living and working within them, as the essential life, light, and power of their own lives. For God is only our God, by a birth of His own Divine nature within us. This, and nothing but this, is our whole relation to, our only fellowship with Him, our whole knowledge of Him, our whole power of having any part in the mysteries of gospel-salvation. Nothing can seek the kingdom of God, or hunger and thirst after His righteousness, nothing can cry, Abba Father, nothing can pray, "Thy kingdom come," nothing can say of Christ, "My Lord, and my God," but that which is born of God, and is the Divine nature itself having become born in us. Nothing but God in man can be a Godly life in man. Hence the apostle declares, "The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life." But you will say, can this be true of the Spiritual Divine letter of the gospel? Can it kill, or give death? Yes, it kills, when it is rested in; when it is taken for Divine power, and supposed to have goodness in itself; for then it kills the Spirit of God in man, quenches His holy fire within us, and is set up instead of the Spirit of God. It gives death, when it is built into systems of strife and contention about words, notions, and opinions, and makes the kingdom of God to consist, not in power, but in words. When it is used in this way, then of necessity it kills, because it keeps us from that which alone is life and can give life. This then is the whole of the matter; all the literal truths, and variety of doctrines and expressions of the written word, have but one nature, one end, and one errand, they all say nothing else to man but that one thing which Christ said, in these words, "Come unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest"; just the same, as when it is said, "Jesus Christ, who is of God made unto us wisdom, righteousness, and sanctification"; this is the only refreshment from Christ. Again, "But you are washed, but you are cleansed in the name of our Lord Jesus"; just the same as when it is said, "Except you abide in Me, and I in you, you have no life in you." Again, "By grace you are saved, through faith," all of this says neither more nor less than this, "He that eats My flesh, and drinks My blood, has eternal life"; the same as when Christ says, "Without Me you can do nothing"; the same as when Paul said, "Yet not I, but Christ that lives in me"; the same as "Christ in us the hope of glory; if Christ is not in you, you are reprobate. Therefore to come to Christ, to have our heavy laden, fallen nature refreshed by Him, to be born Spirit of His Spirit, to have His heavenly flesh and heavenly blood made living in us, before we put off the bestial body and blood of death which we have from Adam, is the one and only thing taught and meant by all that is said in the scriptures of the merits and benefits of Christ to us.
Fallen man needs only one thing!
It is the Spirit, the body, the blood of Christ within us that is our whole peace with God, our whole adoption, our whole redemption, our whole justification, our whole glorification; and this is the main thing said, and meant by that new birth, of which Christ says, "Except a man be born again from above, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." Now, the true ground why all that is said of Christ in such a variety of expressions has only one meaning, and points only to one and the same thing is this, it is because the whole state and nature of fallen man needs only one thing, and that one thing is a real birth of the Divine nature made living again in him, as at the first, as it was in Adam; and then all is done, that can be done, by all the mysteries of the birth, and whole process of Christ, for our salvation. All the law, the prophets, and the gospel are fulfilled, when there is in Christ a new creature, having life in and from Him, as really as the branch has its life in and from the vine. And when all scripture is understood in this way, and all that either Christ says of Himself, or His Apostles say of Him, are all heard, or read, only as one and the same call to come to Christ, in hunger and thirst to be filled and blessed with His Divine nature made living within us; then, and then only, the letter does not kill, but is a sure guide, and leads us directly to life. But grammar, logic, and criticism, knowing nothing of scripture but its words, bring forth nothing but their own wisdom of words, and a religion of wrangling, hatred, and contention, about the meaning of words.
But lamentable as this is, the letter of scripture has been so long the usurped province of school-critics, and learned reasoners, making their markets of it, that the difference between literal, notional, and living Divine knowledge, is almost quite lost in the Christian world. So that if any awakened souls are found here or there among Christians, who think that more must be known of God, of Christ, and the powers of the age to come, than every scholar can know by reading the letter of scripture, immediately the cry of fanaticism, whether they are ministers, or people, this cry is sent after them. A procedure, which could only have some excuse, if these critics could first prove, that the apostle's text ought to be thus read, the Spirit kills, but the letter gives life.
The true nature, and full distinction between literal and Divine knowledge, is set forth in the highest degree of clearness in these words of our Savior, "The kingdom of God is like a treasure in a field": thus far is the true use and benefit, and utmost power of the letter, it can tell us of a treasure that we need, a treasure that belongs to us, and how and where it is to be found; but when it is added, that a "Man goes and sells all that he has, and buys that field," then begins the Divine knowledge, which is nothing else, but the treasure possessed and enjoyed. Now what is said here, is the same that is said in these other words of Christ, "Except a man denies himself and forsakes all that he has, he cannot be My disciple"; that is, he cannot partake of My mind, My Spirit, and My nature, and therefore cannot know Me; he is only a hearer of a treasure, without entering into the possession and enjoyment of it. And so it is with all scripture, the letter can only direct to the doing of that which it cannot do, and give notice of something that it cannot give.
Now clear and evident as this distinction is, between a mere literal direction to a thing and a real participation of it, which alone is a true perception of it, most Christians seem quite insensible of any other religious perception, or knowledge of Divine things, but such ideas or notions of them, as a man can form from scripture words. Whereas good and evil, the only objects of religious knowledge, are an inward state and growth of our life, they are in us, are a part of us, just in the same manner as seeing and hearing are in us, and we can have no real knowledge of them any other way, than as we have of our own seeing and hearing. And as no man can get or lose his seeing or hearing, or have less or more of them, by any ideas or notions that he forms about them, just so it is with that which is the power of good, and the power of evil in us; notions and ideas have no effect upon it. Yet no other knowledge is thought of, or sought after, or esteemed of any value, but that which is notional and the work of the brain.
Thus, as soon as a man of speculation can demonstrate that, which he calls the being and attributes of God, he thinks, and others think, that he truly knows God. But what excuse can be made for such an imagination, when plain scripture has told him, that to know God is eternal life, that is, to know God is to have the power, the life, and the Spirit of God manifested in him, and therefore it is eternal life. "No man knows the Father, but the Son, and he to whom the Son reveals Him." Because the revelation of the Son is the birth of the Son in the soul, and this new creature in Christ alone has knowledge of God, what He is, and does, and works in the creature.
Again, another, forming of an opinion of faith from the letter of scripture, straightway imagines that he knows what faith is, and that he is in the faith. Sad delusion! For to know what faith is, or that we are in the faith, is to know that Christ is in us of a truth; it is to know the power of His life, His sufferings, His death, His resurrection and ascension, made good in our souls. To be in the faith, is to be finished with all notions and opinions about it, because it is found and felt by its living power and fruits within us, which are righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. All which are three names or powers peculiar to Jesus Christ; He alone is our righteousness, our peace, our joy in the Holy Ghost. And therefore faith is not in us, by reason of this or that opinion, assent or consent, but it is Christ, or the Divine nature in us; or its operations could not be righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. By faith you are saved, has no other meaning than by Christ you are saved. And if faith in its whole nature, in its root and growth, was anything else but Christ, or a birth of the Divine nature within us, it could do us no good, no power could be ascribed to it, it could not be our victory, it could not overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil. Every faith that is not Christ in us is but a dead faith.
How trifling therefore that learning is, which sets up a difference between faith and its works, between a justification by faith, and justification by its works. Is there any difference between Christ, as a redeemer, and His redeeming works? Can they be set above one another in their redeeming efficacy7? If not, then faith and its works, which are nothing else but Christ in us, can have no separation from, or excellence above one another, but are as strictly one, as Christ is one, and are no more two things, than our Savior and our salvation are two different things in us. Everything that is said of faith, from Adam to this day, is only so much said of the power, and life of the one redeeming Christ, working within us; so that to divide faith from its works is as absurd, as to divide a thing from its self, or a circle from its roundness. No salvation would have ever been ascribed to faith, but because it is, in the strictest sense, Christ Himself, the power of God, living and working in us. It never would have been said of faith, that every power of the world, the flesh, and the devil, must yield to it, but because it is that very Christ within us, without whom we can do nothing. But if without Christ we can do nothing, and yet all things are possible to our faith, can there be a fuller demonstration that our faith is nothing else but Christ, born, and living within us? Whatever therefore there is of power within us, that tends to salvation, call it by what name you will, either faith, or hope, or prayer, or hunger after the kingdom of God and His righteousness, it is all but one power, and that one power is Christ within us. If therefore faith and its good works are but one and the same Christ living in us, the distinction between a good faith and its good works, and all the contentious volumes that have been written about it, are as mere ignorant terminology, as a distinction made and contended for, between life and its living operations.
When the holy church of Christ, the kingdom of God came among men, was first set up, it was the apostle's boast, that all other wisdom or learning was sunk into nothing. "Where," says he, "is the wise, the scribe, the disputer of this world? Has not God made them foolishness?" But now, it is the boast of all churches, that they are full of the wise, the scribes, the disputers of this world, who sit with learned pomp in the apostle's chair, and have the mysteries of the kingdom of God committed to them.
Therefore it is, that from a religion of heavenly love, built upon the redeeming life and doctrines of a Son of God dying to save the whole world, division, bitterness, envy, pride, strife, hatred, and persecution, and every outrage of war and bloodshed, breathe and break forth with more strength in learned Christendom, than they ever did from a religion of pagan idolatry, set up by Satan .
It may perhaps be asked, must there then be no learning or scholarship in the Christian church? Must there be nothing thought of, or received by the gospel, but salvation? Must its ministers know nothing, teach nothing, but such salvation-doctrines as Christ and His Apostles taught; nothing but the full denial of self, poverty of spirit, meekness, and humility, and unwearied patience, a never ceasing love, an absolute renunciation of the pomp's and vanities of the world, a full dependence upon our heavenly Father; no joy or rejoicing but in the Holy Ghost; no wisdom but that which God gives; no walking but as Christ walked; no reward or glory for their labors of love, but that of being found in Christ, flesh of His flesh, bone of His bones, Spirit of His Spirit, and clothed with the wedding-garment when the bridegroom comes, "When the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first?"
To this the first answer is, happy, very happy are they, who are the preachers of the gospel accordingly learned, who through all their ministry, seek nothing for themselves or others, but to be taught of God; hunger after nothing but the bread of life that comes down from heaven, owning no master but Christ, no teacher but His Holy Spirit; as unable to join with those that dig in pagan pits of learning, as with those that "Labor for the wind, and give their money for that which is not bread."
Secondly, with regard to the demand of learned knowledge in the Christian church, it may be answered, that all that has been said above, is only for the increase and promotion of it, and that all ignorance and darkness may be driven quite out of it. The church of Christ is the seat or school of all the highest knowledge that the human nature is capable of in this life. Ignorance is everywhere but in the church of Christ. The law, the prophets, and the gospel, are the only treasures of all that can be called the knowledge either of God or man; and he in whom the law, the prophets, and the gospel are fulfilled, is the only well-educated man, and a true first-rate scholar. But now, who is he, that has this wisdom from these rich treasures? Who is he, in whom all is known and fulfilled which they teach? The lip of truth has told us, that it is he, and he alone, "Who loves God with all his heart, with all his soul, with all his mind, and with all his strength, and his neighbor as himself." This is the man that is all wisdom, all light, and has come into full possession of all that is meant by all the mysteries contained in the law, the prophets, and the gospel. Where this Divine love is needed, and a diabolical self sits in its place, there may be great wits, shining critics, orators, poets, etc., as easily as there may be a profound Machiavel, a learned Hobbs, or an atheistic Virtuoso. But would you Divinely know the mysteries of nature, the ground and reason of good and evil in this world, the relation and connection between the visible and invisible world, how the things of time proceed, and depend upon the things and powers of eternity, there is but one key of entrance; nothing can open the vision, but seeing with the eyes of that same love, which began and carries on all that is and works in visible and invisible nature. Would you Divinely know the mysteries of grace and salvation, would you go forth as a faithful witness of gospel truths, then stand still until this fire of Divine love has had its perfect work within you. For until your heart is an altar, on which this heavenly fire never goes out, you are dead in yourself, and can only be a speaker of dead words, about things that never had any life within you. For without a real birth of this Divine love in the essence of your soul, you may be as learned and polite as you will, but still, your heart is but the dark heart of fallen Adam, and your knowledge of the kingdom of God will be like that which murdering Cain had. For everything is murder, but that which love does. If love is not the breath of your life, the Spirit that forms and governs everything that proceeds from you, everything that has your labor, your allowance and consent, you are broken off from the works of God, you have left His creation, you are without God, and your name, and nature, and works, can have no other name, or nature, but that which is called pride, wrath, envy, hypocrisy, hatred, revenge, and self-exaltation, under the power of Satan in his kingdom of darkness. Nothing can possibly save you from being the certain prey of all these evil spirits, through the whole course of your life, but a birth of that love which is God Himself, His light, and Spirit within you.
There is no knowledge in heaven, but what proceeds from this birth of love, nor is there any difference between the highest light of an angel, and the horrid darkness of a devil, but that which love has made. But now, since Divine love can have no beginning, but from a birth of the Divine nature in us, therefore says John, "We love Him because He first loved us," the same as saying, we desire God, because He first desired us; for we could not desire God, but because He first desired us, we could not turn to God, but because He first turned to us. And so it is, that we could not love God, but because He first loved us, that is, because He first by our creation brought forth, and by our redemption continued and kept up that same birth of His own Spirit of love in us. For as His Holy Spirit must first be a gift to us, or born in us, and then we have that which can worship God in Spirit, so His love must of all necessity be a gift to us, or be born in us, and then we have that of God in us which alone can love Him with His own love. A truth absolutely asserted in these words; "Love is of God, and he that loves, is born of God."
Let this be my excuse to the learned world, for owning no school of wisdom, but where the one and only lesson is Divine love; and the one and only teacher, the Spirit of God. Let no one call this wild or extravagant; it is no wilder a step, no more injurious to man, to truth and goodness, than the owning of only one God. For to be called from everything but Divine love and the Spirit of God, is only being called from everything that has the curse of fallen nature in it. And no man can come from under this curse, until he is born again of Divine love and the Spirit of God. For to be born in this way, is as much the sole happiness, joy, and glory of men, both now and forever, as it is the sole joy and glory of angels eternally in the heavens. Believe me then, you great scholars, that all that you have received of wisdom or learning, day after day, in any other school but this, will stand you in as much stead, fill you with as high a heavenly comfort at the hour of death, as all the long dreams, which night after night, you have ever had in your sleep. And until a man knows this, with as much fullness of conviction as he knows the vanity of a dream, he has his full proof, that he is not yet in the light of truth, not yet taught of God, nor like-minded with Christ.
One of Christ's followers said, "Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father"; Jesus answered, "Let the dead bury their dead, follow Me." Another said to Him, "Let me first go bid them farewell, that are at home in my house"; Jesus answered, "No man having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God." Now let it be supposed that a third had said, Lord, I have left several books at home, written by the greatest masters of grammar, logic and eloquence, allow me first to go back for them, lest losing the light which I had from them, I might mistake the depth and truth of your heavenly doctrines, or be less able to prove and preach them powerfully to others. Would not such a request as this have had a folly and absurdity in it, not chargeable upon those two other requests which Christ rejected? And yet, what can scholastic, classic, and critical divinity say for itself, but that very same thing, which this man here had said?
The holy Jesus said, "I am the light of the world, he that follows Me, walks not in darkness." Here Spiritual light and darkness are as immutably fixed, and separated from one another, as the light and darkness of this world were divided on the first day of the creation. Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, is the one and only light both of men and angels. Fallen nature, the selfish will, proud attitudes, the highest abilities, the natural shrewdness, cunning arts and subtleties, that are or can be in fallen men and angels, are nothing else but their fullness of Spiritual darkness, from which nothing but works of darkness can come forth. In a word, darkness is the whole natural man; light is the new born man from above. Therefore says the Christ of God, "I am the light of the world," because He alone is the birth of heaven in the fallen souls of men. But now, who can reject this Divine light more, or more plainly choose darkness instead of it, than he who seeks to have his mind enriched, the faculties of his fallen soul cultivated by the literature of poets, orators, philosophers, sophists, skeptics, and critics, born and bred up in the worship and praises of idol gods and goddesses? What is this, but like going to the serpent to be taught the innocent Spirit of the dove; or to the elegant lusts of Anacreon and Ovid, to learn purity of heart, and kindle the flame of heavenly love in our souls? Look where you will, this is the wisdom of those who look to pagans for skill to work in Christ's vineyard who from long labors in restoring the grammar, and finding out hidden beauties of some old vicious book, set up for qualified artists to polish the gospel pearl of great price. Surely this is no better a proof of their savoring the things that are of God, than Peter gave, when his Master said to him, "Get thee behind Me, Satan." A grave ecclesiastic, bringing forth out of his closet skillful meditations on the commentaries of a murdering Caesar, or the sublime rhapsody of an old Homer, or the astonishing beauties of a modern Dunciad, has as much reason to think that he is walking in the light of Christ, and led by the Spirit of God, as they have who are only eating and drinking, and rising up to play.
But to see the exceeding folly of expecting ability in Divine knowledge, from anything that is the wit, wisdom, or spirit of the natural man, you need only read these words of the holy messenger of God, the Ezekiel that was to come. "I indeed," says he, "Baptize you with water, but He that comes after me, whose shoe latchet I am not worthy to unloose, He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire." Now if this which John the Baptist said of Christ is not our faith, if we do not receive it as the truth in which we are firmly to stand, then, be as learned as we can, we have no better a faith, or higher wisdom, than those blind rabbis who did not receive the testimony of John. A fire and Spirit from above was the news which he published to the world; this, and nothing else, was His kingdom of God that was at hand. Now if this fire and Spirit from above has not baptized us into a birth of the life of God in our souls, we have not found, that Christ, and kingdom of God, to which John bore witness. But if (what is still worse) we are so bewitched through the sorcery of learning, as to turn writers and preachers against this inward, and only redeeming heavenly fire and Spirit, we are baptized with the spirit of those, to whom our Lord said, "Woe unto you scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, for you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, neither suffer you them that are entering to go in."
For what is, or can be the fall of Adam under the power of sin, Satan , and hell, but the extinction of that heavenly fire and spirit, which was his first union with God and all heavenly beings. If you say, that he did not have this heavenly fire and Spirit at the first, that nothing lived or breathed in him but that astral fire and spirit which is the life and spirit of all earthly animals, then you have a religion as divine as that of the Sadducees of old, who allowed of no resurrection, angel, or spirit. For, deny the truth and fullness of a Divine life in the first man, and then his fall and redemption are equally empty sounding words about nothing. For what can he be fallen from, or redeemed to, if he has now all that fire and Spirit of life which he ever had, or ought to have. Tell me, why that burning and shining light, that man that was more than a prophet, should come with his water, and the Son of God, should come with His fire-baptism, if man neither needed, nor could receive a higher water, and fire of life, than that which he has in common with the beasts of the field? Why is there all this stir about religions, expiations and atonements, why all these ordinations, consecrations, churches, sacraments, and prayers? For if the fire and spirit of this world is the only life, and highest life, both of man and beasts, we have it without asking, and on the same terms as the beasts have it, and can only lose it, as they do when they lose their existence.
But if fire and Spirit from heaven can alone make heavenly creatures, and make us, to be the children of our heavenly Father; if the Son of God took our fallen nature upon Him, that the first heavenly fire and Spirit might again come to life in us, if Divine life, Divine light, and Divine goodness, can only come from them, and only in such degree, as they are kindled in our souls, what a poverty of sense is it in those, who are called to a resurrection of the first Divine life, where a new creature is taught by that same unction from above, from where all the angels and principalities of heaven have their light and glory, what a poverty of sense, I say, in such, to set themselves down at the feet of a master Tully, and a master Aristotle, who only differ from the worst of all other corrupt men, as the teaching serpent differed from his fellow animals, by being more subtle than all the beasts of the field.
Behold then your state, you ministers, that wait at Christian altars, who will have neither faith, nor hope, nor desire of heavenly fire kindled in your souls, you have a priesthood, and an altar not fit to be named with that, which in Jewish days had a holy fire from God descending upon it, which made priest and sacrifice acceptable to God, though only a type and pledge of that inward celestial fire, which Christ would kindle into a never ceasing, burning, in the living temples of His newborn children from above.
Do not complain anymore of atheists, infidels, and such like open enemies to the gospel kingdom of God; for while you call heavenly fire and Spirit, kindled into the same essential life in us as they are in holy angels, frenzy, and mystic madness, you do all that work of infidelity within the church, which they do on the outside of it. And if through a learned fear of having that done to your earthly reason, which was done to Enoch when God took him, you will own no higher a regeneration, no more birth of God in your souls, than can be had by a few cold drops of water sprinkled on your head, any of the heathen Gods of wood and stone are good enough for such an elementary priesthood. For let this be told you, as a truth from God, that until heavenly fire and Spirit have a fullness of a birth within you, you can rise no higher by your highest learning, than to be elegant orators about scripture words.
Our Lord has said, "The kingdom of God is within you," that is, the heavenly fire and Spirit, which are the true kingdom and manifestation of God, are within you. And indeed, where else can it be? Yet what learned pains are taken to remove the literal meaning from these words, as too visionary a thing for learned ears. And yet it is a truth obvious to common sense, that even this outward world of stars and elements, neither does, nor can belong to us, or we to it, but so far as it is, literally speaking, a kingdom within us. For the outward kingdom or powers of this world signify nothing to a worldly man that is dead; but no man is dead, but for this reason, because the kingdom of this world, with all its powers of fire, light, and spirit, stands only outwardly about him, and has lost its life and powers within him.
Say now, out of reverence to sound literature, and abhorrence of fanaticism, that the kingdom of God is not really and virtually within, that its heavenly fire, light, and Spirit, are not, ought not to be born in a sober right-minded follower of Christ, and then you have a good disciple of Christ, as absolutely dead to the kingdom of heaven, as the corpse that has nothing of the fire, spirit, and light of this world in it, is dead to all the outward world round about it.
What a soberness of faith and sound doctrine is it, to preach up a necessity of being living members of the kingdom of heaven, and at the same time the necessity of "orthodoxy" holding, that a heavenly birth neither is, nor can, nor ought to be within us! For if it either is, or could, or ought to be within us, then it could not be a brain-sick folly to believe, that the literal words of Christ had no deceit, falsity, or delusion in them, when He said, "Except a man be born again from above, he cannot see, or enter into the kingdom of God." That is, he cannot possibly have any Godlike or Divine goodness, he cannot be a child of the heavenly Father, but from the nature and Spirit of his heavenly Father brought to a real birth of life in him. Now if, without this Divine birth, all that we have in us is only fallen Adam, a birth of sin, flesh, and the devil, if the power of this heavenly birth is all the power of goodness that is or was, or ever can be in a son of Adam; and if logic, learning, and criticism, are almost everywhere set in high places, to pronounce and prove it to be mere fanaticism and Spiritual frenzy, what wonder is it, if folly of doctrine, wickedness of life, lusts of the flesh, profaneness of spirit, wantonness of wit, contempt of goodness and profession of Christianity, should all of them seem to have their full formation among us?
What wonder, if sacraments, church-prayers, and preaching, leave high and low, learned and unlearned, men and women, ministers and people, as unaltered in all their age old vices, as they leave children unchanged in their childish follies? For where the one and only fountain of life and goodness is forsaken, where the seed of the Divine birth is not alive, and going forwards in the birth and light, all the difference between men is as nothing with respect to the kingdom of God. It does not matter what name is given to the old earthly man of Adam's bestial flesh and blood, whether he is called a zealous churchman, a stiff-necked Jew, a polite civilized heathen, or a grave infidel; under all these names, the unregenerate old man has but one and the same nature, without any other difference, but that which time, and place, education, complexion, hypocrisy, and worldly wisdom, happen to make him. By such a one, whether he be papist, or protestant, the gospel is only kept as a book, and all that is within it is only so much condemnation to its keeper, just as the old man, the Jew, has kept the book of the law and the prophets, only to be more fully condemned by them.
That the Jewish and Christian church stand at this day in the same kind of apostasy, or fallen state, must be manifest to everyone, that has not shut his eyes. Why are the Jews in a fallen state? It is because they have refused Him, who in His whole process was the truth, the substance, the life, and the fulfilling of all that which was outwardly taught, and prescribed in their law and prophets.
But is it not as easy to see, that the whole Christian church is in a fallen state, and for the same reason, because they are fallen or turned away from that Holy Spirit who was promised, and given to be the one and only power, life, and fulfilling of all that which was outwardly taught, and prescribed by the gospel. For the Holy Spirit to come is the fulfilling of the whole gospel, as a Christ to come was the fulfilling of the law. The Jew therefore with his Old Testament, not owning Christ in all his process to be the truth and life, and the fulfiller of their law, is just in that same apostasy, as the Christian with his New Testament, not owning the Holy Spirit in all His operations, to be his only light, guide, and governor. For as all types and figures in the law were but empty shadows without Christ being the life and power of them, so all that is written in the gospel is but a dead letter, unless the Holy Spirit in man is the living reader, the living one to remember, and the living doer of them. Therefore, where the Holy Spirit is not in this way owned and received, as the whole power and life of the gospel state, it is no marvel, that Christians have no more of the virtues of the gospel, than the Jews have of patriarchal holiness, or that the same lusts and vices which prosper amongst Jews, should break forth with as much strength in fallen Christendom. For the New Testament, if it does not end in the coming of the Holy Spirit, with the fullness of power over sin and hell, and the devil, is but the same, and no better a help to heaven, than the Old Testament without the coming of a Messiah. Need I now say any more, to demonstrate the truth of that which I first said was the one thing absolutely essential, and the only thing available for man's salvation, namely, the Spirit of God brought again to His first power of life in us. This was the glory of man's creation, and this alone can be the glory of his redemption. All besides this, that passes for a time between God and man, be it what it will, shows only our fall and distance from God, and in its best state has only the nature of a good road, which is only good, because that which we need is at the end of it. While God calls us by various outward dispensations, by creaturely things, figurative institutions, etc., it is a full proof, that we are not yet in our true state, or that union with God which is intended by our redemption.
God said to Moses, "Put off your shoes, for the place whereon you stand is holy ground." Now this which God said to Moses, is only that very same thing, which circumcision, the law, and sacrifices say to man. They are in themselves nothing else but outward significations of inward impurity, and lost holiness, and can do no more in themselves but intimate, point, and direct to an inward life and new birth from above, that is to be sought after.
But here lies the great mistake, or rather idolatrous abuse of all God's outward dispensations. They are taken for the thing itself, for the truth and essence of religion. That which the learned Jews did with the outward letter of their law, this is the same thing that learned Christians do with the outward letter of their gospel. Why did the Jewish church so furiously and obstinately cry out against Christ, "let Him be crucified?" It was because their letter-learned ears, their worldly spirit and temple-orthodoxy, would not bear to hear of an inward Savior, would not bear to hear of being born again of His Spirit, of eating His flesh, and drinking His blood, of His dwelling in them, and they in Him. To have their law of ordinances, their temple-pomp sunk into such a fulfilling Savior as this, was to them fanatical jargon to their ears, as did then force their sober, rational theology, to call Christ, Beelzebub, His doctrine, blasphemy, and all for the sake of Moses and rabbinic orthodoxy.
Need it now be asked, whether the true Christ of the gospel is less blasphemed, less crucified, by that Christian theology which rejects an inward Christ, a Savior living and working in the soul, as its inward light and life, generating His own nature and Spirit in it, as its only redemption, whether that which rejects all this as mystic madness is not that very same old Jewish wisdom that has sprung up in Christian theology, which said of Christ when teaching these very things, "He is mad, why hear you Him?" Our blessed Lord in a parable sets forth the blind Jews, as saying of Himself, "We will not have this man to reign over us." The sober-minded Christian scholar has none of this Jewish blindness, he only says of Christ, we will not have this Man to reign in us, and so keeps clear of such mystic absurdity as Paul fell into, when he enthusiastically said, "Yet not I, but Christ that lives in me."
Christian doctors reproach the old learned rabbis, for their vain faith, and carnal desire of a glorious, temporal, outward Christ, who should set up their temple-worship all over the world. Vanity indeed, and learned blindness enough? But nevertheless, in these condemners of rabbinic blindness, Paul's words are remarkably verified, i.e., "Wherein you judge another, you condemn yourself, for you that judge do the same thing." For, take away all that from Christ which Christian doctors call fanaticism, suppose Him not to be an inward birth, a new life and Spirit within us, but only an outward, separate, distant heavenly Prince, no more really in us, than our high cathedrals are in the third heavens, but only by an invisible hand from His throne on high, some way or other raising and helping great scholars, or great temporal powers, to make a rock in every nation for His church to stand upon; suppose all this (which is the very heart of modern divinity) and then you have that outward Christ, and that outward kingdom, which the carnal Jew dreamed of, and for the sake of which the Spiritual Christ was then nailed to the cross, and is still crucified by the new Jew which has risen in the Christian church. If it now be asked, where, or from what, comes all this spiritual blindness, which from age to age mistakes and defeats all the gracious designs of God towards fallen mankind? Look at the origin of the first sin, and you see it all. Had Eve desired no knowledge but that which came from God, paradise would have been the habitation of her and all her offspring. If after paradise lost, Jews and Christians had desired no knowledge but that which came from God, the law and prophets would have kept the Jew close to the first tree of life, and the Christian church would have been a kingdom of God, and communion of saints to this day.
The serpent's voice within every man
But now corruption, sin, death, and every evil of the world, have entered into the church, the spouse of Christ, just as they had entered into Eve, the spouse of Adam in paradise, in the same way, and from the same cause, i.e., a desire of more, or other knowledge, than that which comes from God alone. This desire is the serpent's voice within every man, which does all that to him, and in him, which the serpent at the tree did to Eve. It carries on the first deceit, it shows and recommends to him that same beautiful tree of his own will, own wit, and own wisdom, springing up within him, which Eve saw in the garden; and yet so blind is this love of wisdom as not to see, that his eating of it is in the strictest truth his eating of the same forbidden fruits as Eve did, and keeping up in himself all that death and separation from God, which the first knowledge-hunger brought forth.
Let then the eager searcher into words for wisdom, the book-devourer, the opinion-broker, the exalter of human reason, and every builder of religious systems, be told this, that the thirst and pride of being learnedly wise in the things of God, is keeping up the grossest ignorance of all, and is nothing else but Eve's old serpent, and Eve's evil birth within them, and does no better work in the church of Christ, than her thirst after wisdom did in the paradise of God. "Speak, Lord, for your servant hears," is the only way by which any man ever did, or ever can attain Divine knowledge, and Divine goodness. To knock at any other door but this, is but like asking life of that which is itself dead, or praying to him for bread who has nothing but stones to give.
Now strange as all this may seem to the labor-learned possessor of far-fetched book-riches, yet it is saying no more, nor anything else, but that which Christ said in these words, "Except you be converted, and become as little children, you cannot enter into the kingdom of God." For, if classic gospel linguist critics, scripture-logicians, salvation orators, able dealers in the grammatical powers of Hebrew, Greek, and Roman phrases, idioms, tropes, figures, etc., etc., can show, that by raising themselves high in these attainments, they are the very men that have become Christ's little children of the kingdom of God, then it may be also said, that he who is laboring, scheming, and fighting for all the riches he can get from the Indies, is the very man that has left all to follow Christ, the very man that "Labors not for the meat that perishes."
Show me a man whose heart has no desire, or prayer in it, but to love God with his whole soul and spirit, and his neighbor as himself, and then you have shown me the man who knows Christ, and is known of Him; the best and wisest man in the world, in whom the first Paradisiacal wisdom and goodness are come to life. All of the precepts in the gospel, are the precepts of his own heart, and the joy of that new-born heavenly love which is the life and light of his soul. In this man, all that came from the old serpent is trod under his feet, not a spark of self, of pride, of wrath, of envy, of covetousness, or worldly wisdom, can have the least abode in him, because that love, which fulfills the whole law and the prophets, that love which is God and Christ, both in angels and men, is the love that gives birth, and life, and growth to everything that is either thought, or word, or action in him. And if he has no share or part with foolish errors, and cannot be tossed about with every wind of doctrine, it is because, to be always governed by this love, is the same thing as to be always taught by God.
Literal learning, verbal contention, and critical strife about the things of God
On the other hand, show me a scholar as full of learning, as the Vatican is of books, and he will be just about as likely to give all that he has for the gospel-pearl, as he would be, if he was as rich as Croesus. Let no one here imagine, that I am writing against all human literature, arts and sciences, or that I wish the world to be without them. I am no more an enemy to them, than to the common useful labors of life. It is literal learning, verbal contention, and critical strife about the things of God, that I charge with folly and mischief to religion. And in this, I have all learned Christendom, both popish and protestant on my side. For they both agree in charging each other with a bad and false gospel-state, because of that which their learning, logic, and criticism has done for them. Do not say then, that it is only the illiterate enthusiast that condemns human learning in the gospel, kingdom of God. For when he condemns the blindness and mischief of popish logic and criticism, he has all the learned protestant world with him; and when he lays the same charge to protestant learning, he has a much larger kingdom of popish scholars, logically and learnedly affirming the same thing. So that the private person, charging human learning with so much mischief to the church, is so far from being led by fanaticism, that he is led by all the church-learning that is in the world.
The two points
Again, all learned Christendom agrees in the same charge against temporal power in the church, as hurtful to the very being and progress of a salvation-kingdom that is not of this world, as supporting doctrines that human learning has brought into it. And true it is and must be, that human power can only support and help forward human things. The protestant brings proof from a thousand years of learning and doctrines, that the pope is an unjust usurper of temporal power in the church, which is Christ's Spiritual spouse. The papist brings the learning of as many ages to show that a temporal head of the church is an anti-Christian usurpation. And yet he who holds Christ to be the one, and only head, heart, and life of the church, and that no man can call Jesus, Lord, but by the Holy Ghost, passes with the learned of both these people for a fanatic. Is it not then high time to look for some better ground to stand upon, than learning such as this? Now look where you will, through all of the nature of things, no Divine wisdom, knowledge, goodness, and deliverance from sin, are anywhere to be found for fallen man, but in these two points; (1) A total entrance into the whole process of Christ; (2) A total resignation to, and sole dependence upon the continual operation of the Holy Ghost, or Christ come again in the Spirit, to be our never-ceasing light, teacher, and guide into all those ways of virtue, in which He Himself walked when in the flesh. All besides this, call it by what name you will, is but dead works, a vain labor of the old man, to newly create himself. And here let it be well observed, that in these two points consists the whole of that mystic divinity, to which the Jewish orthodoxy at this day is so great an enemy. For nothing else is meant, or taught by it, but a total dying to self (called the process of the cross of Christ) that a new creature (called Christ in us, or Christ come in the Spirit) may be born in the purity, and perfection of the first man's union with God. Now, let the Christian world forget, or depart from this one mystic way of salvation, let anything else be thought of or trusted to but the cross of Christ, and the Spirit of Christ, and then, though churches, and preachers, and prayers, and sacraments are everywhere in plenty, yet nothing better can come of it than a Christian kingdom of pagan vices, along with a mouth-belief of an holy church, and communion of saints. To this melancholy truth, all Christendom both at home and abroad bears full witness. Who needs to be told, that there is not a corruption or depravity of human nature, no kind of pride, wrath, envy, malice, and self-love; no sorts of hypocrisy, falseness, cursing, swearing, perjury, and cheating; no wantonness of lust in any kind of debauchery, but are as common, and can be found in the many different denominations all over Christendom? But to pass these by, I shall only point out two or three particulars, which though only slightly observed, and even less condemned, yet fully show that the beast, the whore, and the fiery dragon, are in possession of protestant and popish churches.
First of all, can it be said that mammon8 is less served by Christians, than by Jews and infidels? Or can there be a greater proof that Christians, Jews, and infidels, are equally fallen from God and true Divine worship, since truth itself has told us, that we cannot serve God and mammon? Is not this as unalterable a truth, and of as great an importance, as if it had been said, you cannot serve God and Baal? Or can it with any truth or sense be affirmed, that the mammonist has more of Christ in him than the Baalist, or is more or less an idolater for being called a Christian, a Jew, or an infidel? Look now at all those things which Christ charged upon the Jewish priests, scribes, and Pharisees, and you will see them acted over again, in the fallen state of Christendom. And if God's prophets were again in the world, they would have just the same complaints against the fallen Christian church, as they had against the old carnal stiff-necked Jews, namely, "That of their silver and gold they had made themselves idols," Hos. 8:4. For though idol-Gods of gold are not now worshipped either by Jews or Christians, yet silver and gold with that which belongs to them is the mammon god, that sits and reigns in their hearts. How else could there be that universal strife through all Christendom, of who should stand in the richest and highest place, to preach up the humility of Christ, and offer spiritual sacrifices unto God? What god but mammon could put into the hearts of Christ's ambassadors, to make, or want to make a gain of that gospel, which from the beginning to the end means nothing else but death to self, and separation from every view, temper, and affection, that has any connection with the lusts of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life? Our blessed Lord said a word to the Jews, that might well have made their ears tingle, He told them that they "Had made His Father's house a den of thieves"; because sheep and oxen were sold, and money-changers were sitting in the outer court of the temple. Now if you will say, that mammon has brought forth no profanation like this in our Christian church, your best proof must be this, because our church-sale, is not oxen and sheep, but holy things, cures of souls, parsonages, vicarages, etc., and our money-changers, our buyers, and sellers, are chiefly consecrated persons, that use the church to further their own business.
Look at Spiritual things, and temporal things, and say if you can, that the same talents, the same passions, and worldly wisdom, are not as visibly active in the one, as in the other. For if Christ at leaving the world had said to His disciples, "Labor to be rich; make full provision for the flesh; be conformed to the world; court the favor and interest of great men. Clothe yourselves with all the worldly honors, distinctions, and powers you can get"; I appeal to every man, whether popish and protestant churches need do anything else, than that which they now do, and have done for ages, to prove their faithfulness to such a master, and their full obedience to his precepts. And now, what is all this in truth and reality, but the same whore riding upon the same beast, not here or there, but through all fallen Christendom, where God has only, in every age, people, and language, His seven thousands, who have not bowed the knee to mammon?
Again, secondly, "You have heard," says our Lord, "That it has been said by them of old; you shall not renounce your oaths, but shall perform unto the Lord your oaths." The Jews practiced promissory oaths, and thought all was well, when there was a performance of them. But this, with numbers of other Jewish practices, were not to be allowed in this kingdom of God, that had come into the world. Christ totally rejects, and absolutely forbids it, saying, "I say unto you, swear not at all." But instead of it, He appoints and absolutely demands a most perfect simplicity of language, to support and adorn the mutual communication of those, whom He had created again unto righteousness, and given power to become sons of God saying, "Let your communication be yes, yes, and no, no, for whatsoever is more than this, comes of evil." What more could have been done by Christ to prevent the use, or hinder the entrance of an oath into His church? What then shall we say of this present universal Christendom? For if Christ had commanded the direct contrary, had He said, behold I give you this new commandment, let not a simple yes or no be of any avail in all your communication, but let oaths be required of all that bear My name, as a proof that they belong to Me, and act in all their dealings as it becomes saints; for whatsoever is less than this, comes of evil. Had this been Christ's new commandment, all the churches of Christendom, as well popish and protestant, and these reformed kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland, might have much to boast of their obedience to it. For through town and country, in all ignorant villages, in all learned colleges, in all courts Spiritual and temporal, what with law-oaths, corporation-oaths, trade-oaths, qualification-oaths, bribery-oaths, election-oaths, etc., there is more swearing and forswearing, than all history can report of in any idol-worshipping nation. It was said of old, "Because of swearing, the land mourns"; it is as true to say now, because of swearing, the land rejoices in iniquity, is full of profaneness, and without any fear or awe of the Divine majesty, daily swallowing down all manner of oaths, in the same good state of mind, and with as much serious reflection, as drunkards swallow down their liquor.
"He that despises Me," says Christ, "Despises not Me, but Him that sent me." Can that church, which absolutely requires that which Christ has absolutely forbidden, be free from the most open and public despising of Christ, which in full contrariety to His express word, refuses the sufficiency of that yes and no, which He has commanded to be sufficient; and what is still more astonishing, compels all orders of Christians to swear by that very book the Bible, with their hand upon it, which says to all, whether high or low, prince, priest, or people, swear not at all?
"Let God pardon me in this one thing"
If the swearing law was to order, that instead of kissing the Bible, or laying their hand upon it, the person making the oath should say, "In remembrance of, and in regard to the words of Christ, forbidding me to swear, I make this oath." Who would not see the open contempt of Christ and His gospel? The devil must have had many laughs at this! But the contempt of both is as truly there, when the Bible is kissed by the person making the oath; for the book has nothing relating to oaths, but those words of Christ, which absolutely forbid the use of them. Instead, therefore, of a "So help me God," it might have been much better, if every swearing law through all Christendom had obliged every person making an oath to finish his oath with these words, "let God pardon me in this one thing."
If it here be asked, whether I would have all private Christians to beggar themselves, and lose all their right and title to house and land, which by the laws of Christendom, cannot be preserved without certain promissory oaths? I say no. But my answer is, that as the Jews were of old carried captive into Babylon, so as real a captivity, and fully as great, must happen to all private Christians, born and living under a fallen state of governing Christendom. For whether it be a pope, or a Nebuchadnezzar, popish, or protestant church governors, that make the goods and properties of private Christians, only possible to be possessed by obedience to their swearing laws, the captivity is the same. And as God bore with the needs of a Jerusalem-worship in those Jews, whose captivity suffered them not to perform it, so it may well be hoped and believed, that he will bear with that need of gospel purity, in the yes and no of private Christians, which their captivity under a fallen state of Christian government does not allow them constantly to adhere to. And also, that the piety of private Christians, loving and longing after gospel-purity of communication, under the church-captivity, will be as acceptable to God, as the piety of captive Jews was, who though living under heathen laws, and forced to say their prayers in Babylon, yet had always their eyes turned towards, and their hearts longing after Jerusalem and its holy worship.
What I write, is not to show that Christendom's oaths, and the manner of them, are not to be submitted to by any private good Christian, but to show in the plainest manner, that the laws of Christendom, which make them necessary, are a full proof that the spirit which governs all Christendom, is fallen away from the Spirit of Christ. And also to show, that if gross impiety runs through all the Christian world, if much the greatest part of swearing Christians have lost all pious fear of oaths and swearing, it is because the necessity of swearing comes at every man, in almost everything, at the peril of losing all that he has, or can have, unless he will swear9.
When the matter of an oath is a manifest lie, or an engagement to do some wicked thing, all is to be suffered, rather than take it. But where there is nothing false or bad, affirmed or promised, nor any blame chargeable, but that of going further than our Lord's yes and no, it is plain from Christ's words, that the evil is only in that, from which the oath comes.
When a person swears of his own accord, or wantonly, then the oath comes from the evil of his own heart. But when a Christian, in whose heart the simplicity and purity of gospel-language is written and loved, when he submits to use more than a yes or no, compelled by that authority which makes the refusal to be the loss of goods, and bodily imprisonment, then such departure from gospel-language comes of and from the evil in that power which required it, whether it be a pope, a church, an assembly of Divines, or a Nebuchadnezzar. All this, I say, is plain from Christ's own words. "Let your yes be yes, and your no, no." But why so? It is because whatsoever is more than this comes of evil, that is, is caused by evil. Therefore the evil that is in the use of an imposed oath, is by the words of Christ, charged upon and confined to that, which causes or forces it to be done. For that which the oath comes from, is that which our Savior calls the evil of it but the oath comes from that which causes it, therefore, that which causes swearing, is by our Savior's words charged with all the evil of the oath. But all this supposed freedom from the evil of an imposed oath, in the private Christian's submission to the use of it, is only then and there, where what is affirmed, or denied by the oath, has all that innocence, truth, or righteousness in it, which the true yes or no of Christ might justly affirm, or deny.
But here let it be well observed, that nothing that has here been said, is intended to blame the piety of those, who on no account whatsoever will be prevailed upon to take any kind of oath, because our Lord and Master has said, "Swear not at all." I am so far from blaming this, or looking upon it, as the effect of a false or blind piety, that I wish with all my heart, it may come to be the piety of all the three estates of this kingdom; and that all swearing, whether in secular or religious matters, may by all the authority of the nation be as utterly condemned, as absolutely renounced, and declared to be as anti-Christian, as the pope's supremacy.
In a word, that which calls for, and requires oaths among Christians, requires that which Christ forbids; but governing Christendom everywhere establishes, requires, and even compels Christians to swear, therefore governing Christendom is fallen from Christ, and acts by and through that spirit, which being contrary to Christ, is and must be called anti-Christ.
But to proceed now to a third and last instance, which I shall mention, of the full power of anti-Christ in and through every part of governing Christendom. In the darkest ages of Romish superstition, a martial spirit of zeal and glory for the gospel, broke forth in kings, cardinals, bishops, monks, and friars, to lead the sheep of Christ, saints, pilgrims, penitents, and sinners of all kinds, to proceed in battle array, to kill, devour, and drive the Turks from the land of Palestine, and the old earthly Jerusalem. These bloodthirsty expeditions were called a "holy war," because it was fighting for the holy land; they were called also crusades, because crosses and crucifixes made the greatest glitter among the sharpened instruments of human murder, and under the banner of the cross went forth as an army of church wolves, to destroy the lives of those, whom the Lamb of God died on the cross to save.
The light which broke out at the reformation, abhorred the bloody superstitious zeal of these catholic heroes. But what followed from this new risen, reforming light, what came forth instead of these holy crusades? Why wars, if possible, still more diabolical. Christian kingdoms with bloodthirsty piety, destroying, devouring, and burning one another, for the sake of that which was called popery, and that which was called Protestantism.
Now who can help but to see, that Satan , the prince of the powers of darkness, had here a much greater triumph over Christendom, than in all the holy wars and crusades that went before? For all that was then done, by such high-spirited fighters for old Jerusalem's earth, could not be said to be so much done against gospel-light, because not one in a thousand of those holy warriors were allowed to see what was in the gospel. But now, with the gospel opened in everyone's hands, papists and protestants make open war against every Divine virtue that belonged to Christ, or that can unite them with that "Lamb of God, that takes away the sins of the world": I say against every Divine, redeeming virtue of the Lamb of God, for these are the enemies which Christian war conquers. For there is not a virtue of gospel-goodness, but that has its death-blow from it. For no virtue has any gospel-goodness in it any further, than as it has its birth and growth in and from the Spirit of Christ; where His nature and Spirit is not, there is nothing but the heathen to be found, which is but saying the same truth, as when the apostle said, that "He who has not, or is not led by the Spirit of Christ, is none of His."
Now fancy to yourself Christ, the Lamb of God, after His Divine Sermon on the Mount, putting himself at the head of a blood-thirsty army, or Paul going forth with a squadron of fire and brimstone, to make more havoc in human lives than a devouring earthquake.
But if this is too blasphemous an absurdity to be supposed, what follows, but that the Christian who acts in the destroying fury of war, acts in full contrariety to the whole nature and Spirit of Christ, and can no more be said to be led by His Spirit, or be one with Him, than those His enemies who "Came forth with swords and staves to take Him."
Blinded Protestants think they have the glory of slaughtering blind papists; and the victorious papist claims the merit of having conquered the troops of heretics: but alas! The conquest is equally great on both sides, both are entitled to the same victory; and the glorious victory on both sides, is only that of having gospel goodness equally trampled under their feet.
When a most Christian majesty, with his catholic church, sings a te deum at the high altar, for rivers of protestant blood poured out; or an evangelic church sings praise and glory to the Lamb of God, for helping them from His holy throne in heaven, to make popish towns burn like Sodom and Gomorrah, they blaspheme God as much as Cain would have done, had he offered a sacrifice of praise to God for helping him to murder his brother. Let such worshippers of God be told this, that the field of blood gives all its glory to Satan, who was a murderer from the beginning, and will to the end of his reign be the only receiver of all the glory, that can come from it.
A glorious Alexander in the heathen world is a shame and reproach to the human nature, and does more mischief to mankind in a few years, than all the wild beasts, in every wilderness upon earth, have ever done from the beginning of the world to this day. But the same hero, making the same ravage from country to country with Christian soldiers, has more thanks from the devil, than twenty pagan Alexanders would ever have had. To make men kill men, is meat and drink to that roaring adversary of mankind, who goes about seeking whom he may devour. But to make Christians kill Christians for the sake of Christ's church, is his highest triumph over the highest mark, which Christ has set upon those whom he has purchased by his blood. "This commandment," says He, "I give to you, that you love one another. By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you love one another as I have loved you."
Can the duelist, who would rather sheathe his sword in the bowels of his brother than stifle that which he calls an affront, can he be said to have this mark of belonging to Christ? And may not he that is called his second, more justly be said to be second to none in the love of human murder? Now, what is the difference between the haughty duelist with his provided second, meeting his adversary with sword and pistol behind a hedge, or a house, and two kingdoms with their high-spirited regiments slaughtering one another in the field of battle? It is only the difference that is between the murder of one man, and the murder of a hundred thousand.
Now imagine the duelist fasting and confessing his sins to God today, because he is engaged to fight his brother tomorrow; fancy again the conqueror going into his closet, on his bended knees, lifting up hands and heart to God for blessing his weapons with the death of his brother; and then you have a small picture of the great piety, that begins and ends the wars all over heavenly Christendom.
What blindness can well be greater, than to think that a Christian kingdom, as such, can have any other goodness, or union with Christ, but that very goodness, which makes the private Christian to be one with Him, and a partaker of the Divine nature? Or that pride, wrath, ambition, envy, covetousness, resentment, revenge, hatred, mischief, and murder, are only the works of the devil, while they are committed by private or single men; but when carried on by all the strength and authority, and all the hearts, hands, and voices of a whole nation, that the devil is then quite driven out of them, loses all his right and power in them, and they become a holy matter of church thanksgivings, and the sacred oratory of pulpits.
Look at that which the private Christian is to do to his neighbor, or his enemy, and you see that very thing, which one Christian kingdom is to do to another. Look at that which proves a man to be not led and governed by the Spirit of Christ, and you see that, which proves a kingdom to be under the dominion and power of Satan. Wherever pride is, there the devil is riding in his first fiery chariot; and wherever wrath is, there he has his murdering sword at work. What is it, that fallen man needs to be redeemed from, but pride and wrath, envy and covetousness? He can have no higher separation or apostasy from God, no fuller union with Satan and his demons, than he has of the spirit of these tempers: they constitute that, which whether you call it self, or Satan in him, the meaning is the same. Now suppose man had not fallen into this self or Satan, and then there could be no war or fighting left in him, than there was in the Word made man in our flesh.
Love, goodness, and communication of good, is the unchallengeable glory and perfection of the Divine nature, and nothing can have union with God, but that which partakes of this goodness. The love that brought forth the existence of all things, does not change through the fall of its creatures, but is continually at work, to bring back all fallen nature and creatures to their first state of goodness. All that passes for a time between God and his fallen creature, is but this one thing, God always works for this one end; and though this is called wrath, that called punishment, curse, and death; it is all from the beginning to the end, nothing but the work of the first creating love, and means nothing else, does nothing else, but those works of purifying fire, which must, and alone can burn away all that dark evil, which separates the creature from its first created union with God. God's providence, from the fall to the restitution of all things, is doing the same thing, as when he said to the dark chaos of fallen nature, "Let there be light"; He still says, and will continue saying the same thing, until there is no evil of darkness left in all that is nature and creature, God creating, God illuminating, God sanctifying, God threatening and punishing, God forgiving and redeeming, is but one and the same essential, immutable10, never ceasing working of the Divine nature. That in God which illuminates and glorifies saints and angels in heaven, is that very same working of the Divine nature, which wounds, pains, punishes, and purifies sinners upon earth. And every number of destroyed sinners, whether thrown by Noah's flood, or Sodom's brimstone, into the terrible furnace of a life, insensible of anything but new forms of raging misery until judgment's day, must through the all-working, all-redeeming love of God, which never ceases, come at last to know what they had lost, such a God of love as this.
And if long ages of fiery pain, and tormenting darkness, fall to the share of many, or most of God's apostate creatures, they will last no longer, than until the great fire of God has melted all arrogance into humility, and all that is self has died in the long agonies and bloody sweat of a lost God, which is that all-saving cross of Christ, which will never give up its redeeming power, until sin and sinners have no more a name among the creatures of God. And if long ages hereafter can only do that for a soul, departing this life under a load of sin, which days and nights might have done for a hardened Pharaoh, or a wicked Nero, while in the body, it is because, while the soul is in the body, it has only the nature and state of fallen Adam, but when flesh and blood are taken from it, the strong apostate nature of fallen angels is found in it, which must have its state and place in that blackness of a fiery wrath, that burns in them and their kingdom.
O poor sinner, whoever you are, repent and turn to God, while you have Adam's flesh upon you; for as long as that lasts, the kingdom of God is near at hand; but if you die without Adam's repentance, black lakes, bottomless pits, ages of a gnawing worm, and a fire that never will cease to burn, will stand between you and a kingdom of heaven afar off, and this will be your state forever.
To prevent all this, and make you a child of the first resurrection, Jesus Christ, God and man, the only begotten Son of this infinite love, came into the world in the name, and under the character of infinite pity, boundless compassion, inexpressible meekness, bleeding love, nameless humility, never ending patience, long suffering, and bowels of redeeming mercy, called the Lamb of God, who with all these supernatural virtues takes away the sins of the world.
Now from this view of God's infinite love and mercy in Christ Jesus, willing nothing, seeking nothing through all the regions of His providence, but that sinners of all kinds, the boldest rebels against all His goodness, may have their proper remedy, their necessary means of being fully delivered from all that hurt, mischief, and destruction, which in full opposition to their God and Creator, that they have brought upon themselves; from this view, I say, of God and Christ, using every miracle of love and wisdom to give recovery of life, health and salvation to all that have rebelled against them, look at the murdering monster of war, and what can its name, or nature be, but a fiery great dragon, a full figure of Satan broke loose, and fighting against every redeeming virtue of the Lamb of God?
The temporal miseries and wrongs which war carries along with it, wherever it goes, are neither to be numbered or expressed. What thievery bears any proportion to that, which with the boldness of a drum and trumpet plunders the innocent of all that they have? And if they are left alive with all their limbs, or their daughters are left un-ravished, they have many times only the ashes of their consumed houses to lie down upon. What honor has war not gotten from its tens of hundreds or thousands of men slaughtered on heaps, with as little regret or concern, as of loads of rubbish thrown into a pit? Who, but the fiery dragon, would put wreaths of laurel on such heroes' heads? Who but he could say unto them, "Well done, good and faithful servants?"
But there is still an evil of war much greater, though less regarded. Who have reflected upon how many hundreds of thousands, no millions of young men, born into this world for no other end, but that they may be born again of Christ, and from sons of Adam's misery become sons of God, and fellow heirs with Christ in everlasting glory; who reflects, I say, what untold numbers of these are robbed of God's precious gift of life to them, before they have known the one sole benefit of living; who are not permitted to stay in this world, until age and experience have done their best for them, have helped them to know the inward voice and operation of God's Spirit, helped them to find, and feel that evil, curse, and sting of sin and death, which must be taken from within them, before they can die the death of the righteous; but instead of all this, they have been either violently forced, or tempted in the fire of youth, and full strength of sinful lusts, to forget God, eternity, and their own souls, and rush into a kill or be killed, with as much furious haste, and goodness of spirit, as a tiger kills another tiger for the sake of his prey?
That God's providence over his fallen creatures is nothing else but a providence of love and salvation, turning through ways of infinite wisdom, sooner or later, turns all kinds of evil into a new good, making that which was lost to be found, that which was dead to be alive again; not willing that one single sinner should want that which can save him from eternal death, is a truth as certain, as that God's name is, I am that I am.
Among un-fallen creatures in heaven, God's name and nature is love, light, and glory. To the fallen sons of Adam, that which was love, light, and glory in heaven, becomes infinite pity and compassion on earth, in a God clothed with the nature of His fallen creature, bearing all its infirmities, entering into all its troubles, and in the meek innocence of a Lamb of God living a life, and dying a death, of all the sufferings due to sin. Hence it was, that when this Divine pity suffered its own life-giving blood to be poured on the ground, all outward nature made full declaration of its atoning and redeeming power; the strength of the earth did quake, the hardness of rocks was forced to split and long-covered graves had to give up their dead. A certain passage, that all that came by the curse into nature and creature must give up its power; that all kinds of hellish wrath, hardened malice, fiery pride, selfish wills, tormenting envy, and earthly passions, which kept men under the power of Satan, must have their fullness of death, and fullness of a new life, from that all-powerful, all-purifying blood of the Lamb, which will never cease washing red into white, until the earth is washed into the crystal purity of that glassy sea, which is before the throne of God, and all the sons of Adam clothed in such white, as fits them for their many mansions in their heavenly Father's house.
Sing, O you heavens, and shout all you lower parts of the earth, this is our God that does not vary, whose first creating love knows no change, but into a redeeming pity towards all His fallen creatures.
Look now at warring Christendom, what smallest drop of pity towards sinners is to be found in it? Or how could a spirit all hellish, more fully contrive and hasten their destruction? It stirs up and kindles every passion of fallen nature that is contrary to the all-humble, all-meek, all-loving, all-forgiving, all-saving Spirit of Christ. It unites, it drives, and compels nameless numbers of unconverted sinners to fall, murdering and murdered among flashes of fire, with the wrath and swiftness of lightning, into a fire infinitely worse than that in which they died. O sad subject for thanksgiving days, whether in popish or protestant churches! For if there is a joy of all the angels in heaven for one sinner that repents, what a joy must there be in hell over such multitudes of sinners, not allowed anymore to repent? And if they who have "Converted many to righteousness, shall shine as the stars in the firmament forever," what woe may they not fear, whose proud wrath and vain glory have robbed such numberless troops of poor wretches, of all time and place of knowing what righteousness they needed, for the salvation of their immortal souls.
Here my pen trembles in my hand; but when, o when will one single Christian church, people, or language, tremble at the share they have in this death of sinners!
"For the glory of his majesty's arms," said once a most Christian king: now if at that time, his catholic church had called a solemn assembly to unite hearts and voices in this pious prayer, "O blessed Jesus, dear redeeming Lamb of God, who came down from heaven, to save men's lives, and not destroy them, go along, we humbly pray thee, with our bomb-vessels and fire-ships, suffer not our thundering cannon to roar in vain, but let Your tender hand of love and mercy direct their shells to more heads and hearts of Your own redeemed creatures, than the poor skill of man is able to do itself ": does not such prayers have more of the man of the earth, more of the son of perdition in them, than the Christian king's glorying in his arms?
Again, would you further see the fall of the universal church, from being led by the Spirit of Christ, to be guided by the inspiration of the great fiery dragon, look at all European Christendom sailing round the globe with fire and sword, and every murdering art of war, to seize the possessions, and kill the inhabitants of the Indies. What natural right of man, what supernatural virtue which Christ brought down from heaven, was not trodden under foot here? All that you ever read or heard of heathen barbarity, was here outdone by Christian conquerors. And to this day, what wars of Christians against Christians, blended with scalping heathens, still keep staining the earth and the seas with human blood, for a miserable share in the spoils of a plundered heathen world! A world, which should have heard, or seen, or felt nothing from the followers of Christ, but a Divine love, that had forced them from distant lands, and through the perils of long seas, to visit strangers with those glad tidings of peace and salvation to all the world, which angels from heaven, and shepherds on earth, proclaimed at the birth of Christ.
Here now, let the wisdom of this world be as wise as ever it will, and from its learned throne condemn all this as fanaticism; it shouldn't trouble anyone, to be condemned by that wisdom, which God Himself has condemned as foolishness with him. For the wisdom of this world has all the contrariety to salvation-wisdom, That the flesh has to the Spirit, earth to heaven, or damnation to salvation. It is a wisdom, whose spirit and breath keep all the evil that is in fallen man alive, and which in its highest excellence has only the full grown nature of that carnal mind, which is enmity against God. It is a wisdom that is sensual, and devilish, that hinders man from knowing, and dying all those deaths, without which there can be no new life. It is a wisdom that turns all salvation-truths into empty, learned tales, that instead of helping the sinner to confess his sins, and feel the misery that is hid under them, helps him to an art of hiding, no, worse yet, of defending them. For that which the lusts and passions do contrary to the wisdom from above, is proved to be right reason by this wisdom from below, whose greatest skill is shown, in keeping all the powers and passions of the natural man in peace and prosperity; and so the poor blinded sinner lives and dies in a total ignorance of all that light, blessing, and salvation, which could only be had by a broken and contrite heart. For with respect to conscience, this is the chief office of worldly wisdom; it is to keep all things quiet in the old man, and that whether busied in things Spiritual, or temporal, he may keep up the lusts of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, without any disturbance from religious phantoms, and dreams of mystic idiots, who for want of sober sense and sound learning, think that Christ really meant what he said in these words, "Except a man be born again of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." For this wisdom, when it comes to its highest perfection, is a classic moral painter, which though it cannot alter the nature, yet can change the colors of everything; it can give to the most heavenly virtue such an outward form and color, as will force the stoutest of aged and learned men to run away from it; and to a vice of the greatest deformity it can pencil such charming features, as will make every child of this world, wish to live and die with it. Its next perfection is that of a flattering orator, who has praise and dispraise at his own free disposal; for as they are all of his own making, he can dispose them on whom, and on what he will; not only as outward interesting occasions call for, but also as the inward necessities, the ups and downs of his own poor self wants them. For self, however willing to be always strong, has its weak hours, and would be ever tottering, unless this orator kept him everyday (though perhaps not every night) free from the disturbing whispers of a seed of God in his soul. Now join (if you please) learning and religion to act in fellowship with this worldly wisdom, and make their best of it, and then you will have a depravity of craft and subtlety as high as flesh and blood can carry it, which will bring forth a glittering Pharisee, with a hardness of heart, greater than that of the publican sinner.
"Demas," says Paul, "Has forsaken me, having loved this present world." Here you see all the good and blessing that is inseparable from the wisdom of this world, it always does the same thing, and has the same effect wherever it is; it will do to high and low, learned or unlearned, clergy or laity, the same unavoidably as that which it did to Demas; it will make them forsake Christ, turn their backs on every grace and virtue of his Holy Spirit, as certainly as the love of the world made Demas forsake Paul.
This wisdom has asked me, how it is possible for Christian kingdoms in the neighborhood of one another to preserve themselves, unless the strength and weapons of war are everyone's defense, against such invasions, encroachments, and robberies, as would otherwise be the fate of Christian kingdoms from one another.
This question is so far from needing to be answered by me, that it is actually on my side of the discussion; it confesses all, and proves all that I have said of the fallen state of Christendom, to be strictly true. For if this is the governing Spirit of Christian kingdoms, that no one of them can subsist in safety from its neighboring Christian kingdoms, but by its weapons of war, are not all Christian kingdoms equally in the same un-Christian state, as two neighboring bloody cutthroats, who cannot be safe from one another, but as each other's murdering weapons preserve and protect them? This plea therefore for Christendom's wars, proves nothing else but the need of Christianity all over the Christian world, and stands upon no better a foundation of righteousness and goodness, than when one murdering cutthroat kills another that would have killed him.
Now the true state of the world turned Christian, is thus described by the great gospel-prophet, who showed what a change it was to make in the fallen state of the world. Isaiah 2:2 "It shall come to pass," says he, "In the last days," that is, in the days of Christendom, "That the mountain of the Lord's house" (His Christian kingdom) "Shall be established in the top of the mountains, and all nations shall flow into it; and many people shall say, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord's house, and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths,".
Now what follows from this going up of the nations to the mountain of the Lord's house, from His teaching them of His ways, and their walking in His paths? The holy prophet expressly tells you in his following words, "They shall beat their swords into plough-shares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up its sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore." This is the prophet's true Christendom, with one and the same essential Divine mark set upon it, as when the Lamb of God said, "By this shall all men know that you are My disciples, if you love one another as I have loved you." Christ's kingdom of God is not come, but where the works of the devil are destroyed, and men are turned from the power of Satan unto God. God is only another name for the highest and only good; and the highest and only good means nothing else but love with all its works. Satan is only another name for the whole of evil, and the whole of evil is nothing else but its whole contrariety to love. And the sum total of all contrariety to love is contained in pride, wrath, strife, self, envy, hatred, revenge, mischief, and murder. Look at these with all their fruits that belong to them, and then you see all the princely power that Satan has in this fallen world.
If you want to see when the kingdoms of this fallen world become the kingdom of God, the gospel prophets tell you, that it is when all enmity ceases. Isaiah 11:6. "The wolf," says he, "Shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid. The calf and the young lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall feed, and their young ones shall lie down together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The suckling child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice's den." For, "They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain," that is, through all holy Christendom.
See here a kingdom of God on the earth; it is nothing else but a kingdom of love, where all hurt and destroying is done away, and every work of enmity changed into one united power of heavenly love but observe again and again, when this comes to pass, that God's kingdom on earth is, and can be nothing else, but the power of reigning love; the prophet tells you, it is because in the day of His kingdom, "The earth shall be as full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." Therefore, O Christendom, your wars are your certain proof, that you are as full of an ignorance of God, as the waters cover the sea.
As to the present fallen state of universal Christendom, working under the spirit and power of the great fiery dragon, it is not my intention, in anything I am here upon, to show how any part of it can subsist, or preserve itself from being devoured by every other part, but by its own dragon weapons.
So many lesser Babels
But the Christendom which I mean, that neither wants, nor allows war, is only that where Christ is king, and His Holy Spirit the only governor of the will, affections, and designs of all that belong to it. It is my complaint against, and charge upon all the nations of Christendom, that this necessity of murdering arms is the dragon's monster, that is equally brought forth by all and every part of fallen Christendom; and that therefore all and every part, popish as well as protestant, are at the same distance from the Spirit of their Lord and Savior the Lamb of God, and therefore all need the same entire reformation. In these last ages of fallen Christendom, many reformations have taken place; but alas! Truth must be forced to say, that they have been in all their variety, little better than so many run-away births of the same mother, so many lesser Babels come out of Babylon the Great. For among all the reformers, the one and only true reformation has never yet been thought of. A change of place, of governors, of opinions, together with new formed outward models, is all the reformation that has yet been attempted.
The wisdom of this world, with its worldly spirit, was the only thing that had overcome the church, and had carried it into captivity. For in captivity it certainly is, as soon as it is turned into a kingdom of this world; and a kingdom of this world it certainly is, as soon as worldly wisdom has its power in it. Not a false doctrine, not a bad discipline, not an usurped power, or corrupt practice ever has prevailed, or does prevail in the church, but what has had its whole birth and growth from worldly wisdom.
This wisdom was the great evil root, at which the reforming axe should have been laid, and must be laid, before the church can be again that virgin spouse of Christ, which it was at the beginning "If any man," says Paul, "Will be wise, let him become a fool in this world." this admits of no exception, it is a maxim as universal and unalterable, as that which says, "If any man will follow Christ, let him deny himself." for no man has any more to deny than that, which the wisdom and spirit of this world are, and do in him. "For all that is in this world, the lusts of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life," are the very things in which alone the wisdom of this world lives, and moves, and has its being. It can be no other, can rise no higher, nor be any better, than they are and do. For as heavenly wisdom is the whole of all heavenly goodness, so earthly wisdom has the whole evil of all the earthly nature.
Paul speaks of a natural man, that cannot know the things of God, but to whom they are mere foolishness. This natural man is only another name for the wisdom of this world; but though he cannot know the things that are of God, yet he can know their names, and learn to speak that which the saints of God have spoken about them. He can make profession of them, be eloquent in their praise, and set them forth in such a desirable view, as shall make them quite agreeable to the children of worldly wisdom. This is the natural man, who having got into the church, and church power, has turned the things of God into things of this world. Had this man of the world been kept out of the church, the church would have kept its first purity to this day; for its fallen state is nothing else but its fall into the hands of the natural man of this world. And when this is the state of the church, the wisdom of this world (which always loves its own) will be in love with it, will spare no cost to maintain it, will make laws, fight battles in defense of it, and condemn every man as a heretical, who dares speak a word against this glorious image of a church, which the wisdom of this world has set up.
This is the great anti-Christ, which is neither better nor worse, nor anything else, but the spirit of Satan working against Christ, in the strength and subtlety of earthly wisdom.
To sin or not to sin, that is the question!
If therefore you take anything to be a church-reformation, but a full departure from the wisdom of this world, or anything else to be your entrance into a salvation-church, but the nature, Spirit, and works of Christ, living in you, then, whether you are a papist or protestant, whether reformation or no reformation, all will be just as much good to you, as when a Sadducee turns publican, or a publican becomes a Pharisee. For the church of Christ, as it is the door of salvation, is nothing else but Christ Himself. Christ in us, or we in His church, which is the same thing. When that is alive, wills, and works in you, which was alive in Christ, then you are in His church; for that which He was, that must they be who are His. Without this, it matters not what pale you are in. To everything but the new creature, Christ says, "I know you not"; and to every virtue that worldly wisdom puts on, "Get behind Me, Satan , for you savor not the things that are of God." And the reason why it must be so, why worldly wisdom, though under a religious form, is and can be nothing else, but that which is called Satan, or anti-Christ, is because all that we are, and have from this world, is that very enmity against God, that whole evil which separates us from him, and constitutes all that death and damnation that belongs to our fallen state. And so sure as the life of this world is our separation from God, so sure it is, that a total departure from every subtlety and prosperity of worldly wisdom, is absolutely necessary to change an evil son of Adam into an holy son of God. And here it is well to be observed, that the church of Christ is solely for this end, to make us holy as He is holy. But nothing can do this, but that which has full power to change a sinner into a saint. And he who has not found that power in the church, may be assured that he is not yet a true son of that church. For the church brings forth no other births, but holy children of God; it has no other end, no other nature or work, but that of changing a sinner into a saint. But this can only be done, just as the change of night into day is done, or as the darkness is quite lost in the light. Something as contrary to the whole nature of sin, as light is to darkness, and as powerful over it, as the light is powerful over darkness, can alone do this. Creeds, canons, articles of religion, stately churches, learned ministers or priests, singing, preaching, and praying in the best contrived form of words, can no more raise a dead sinner into a living saint, than a fine system of light and colors can change the night into day. For, that which cannot help you to all goodness, cannot help you to any goodness, nor can anything take away even one sin but that which can take away all sin.
The true forgiveness of sins
On this ground it is, that the apostle said, "Circumcision is nothing, and un-circumcision is nothing"; and on the same ground it must be said, that Popery is nothing, and Protestantism is nothing, because all is nothing, as to salvation, but a sinner changed into a saint, or in the apostle's words, a new creature. Call nothing therefore your holy, salvation-church, but that which takes away all your sins; this is the only way not to be deceived with the cry about churches, reformations, and divisions. If it be asked, what is meant by taking away all our sins? The whole is fully told us in these words, "To as many as believed, to them He gave power to become sons of God." This is the true taking away, or forgiveness of sins; not a strong imagination, even though on such an hour, on such a day, you felt and knew assuredly that all your sins were forgiven you: but what good are such thoughts about having your sins forgiven, if that fountain of sin is not destroyed, for you will have each and everyday the same necessity of confessing yourself a miserable sinner, as you had just done, that morning, or evening, etc., when your sins were forgiven you, until of course, you sinned again, and that on the same day, you asked your forgiveness! The true forgiveness of sins is only then, when that which sinned in us is done away with, or becomes powerless in us; but nothing can do this, but that power by which we become sons of God. A blind man has only a deliverance from his blindness, when he is put in full possession of eyes that see; this and this alone, is the doing away of his darkness. Just so, and in no other way, are our sins forgiven us, or done away, when the power by which we become sons of God, or the new creature, is given to us, so possessed by us, as seeing eyes are given to and possessed by the man, who before that was blind. And as our old man can only then be said to be truly put off, when the new man in Christ is raised to life in his stead, so our sins are only then truly blotted out, or done away, when an un-sinning nature, or a birth of God that sins not, is come to be the ruling life in us.
Many are the marks, which the learned have given us of the true church; but be that as it will, no man, whether learned or unlearned, can have any mark or proof of his own true church-membership, but his being dead unto all sin, and alive unto all righteousness. This cannot be more plainly told us, than in these words of our Lord, "He that commits sin, is the servant of sin"; but surely that servant of sin, cannot at the same time be a living member of Christ's body, or that new creature, who dwells in Christ, and Christ in him. To suppose a man born again from above, yet under a necessity of continuing to sin, is as absurd as to suppose, that the true Christian is only to have so much of the nature of Christ born in him, as is consistent with the same amount of the power of Satan still dwelling in him. "If the son," says Christ, "Shall make you free, then you shall be free indeed." what is this, but saying, if Christ is come to life in you, then a true freedom from all necessity of sinning is given to you. Now if this is hindered, and cannot come to pass in the faithful follower of Christ, it must be, because both the willing and working of Christ in man is too weak to overcome that, which the devil wills and works in him. All this absurdity, and even blasphemy, is necessarily implied in that common doctrine of books and pulpits, which teaches, that the Christian can never stop sinning as long as he lives. It is not well therefore that Christendom sleeps as securely as it does, under the power of sin, without any thought, hope, or desire of doing God's will on earth, as it is done in heaven; without any concern at their being pure, as He who has called them is pure, or walking as He walked.
The scripture knows no Christians but saints, who in all things act as becomes saints. But now if the scripture saint did not mean a man that hates all evil, and was holy in all his conversation, saint and no saint would have only such difference, as one carnal man will always have with another. Preachers and writers comfort the half Christians or the Christian in name only, with telling them, that God requires not a perfect, sinless obedience, but accepts the sincerity of our weak endeavors instead. Here, if ever, the blind truly lead the blind. For Paul, comparing the way of salvation to a race, says, "In a race all run, but one obtains the prize: so run that you may obtain." Now if Paul had seeing eyes, must not they be blind who teach, that God accepts all that run in the religious race, and does not require that any obtain the prize. How easy was it to see, that the sincerity of our weak endeavors was quite a different thing from that, which alone is, and can be the required perfection of our lives. The first God accepts, that is, bears with. But why or how? Not because he seeks or requires no more, but he bears with them, because though at as great a distance as they are, towards that perfection, or new creature, which he absolutely requires, which is the fullness of the stature of Christ, and is that which Paul says, is the one that obtains the prize. The same which Paul says, is said by Christ in other words, "Strive," says he, "To enter in at the strait gate." Here our best endeavors are called for, and therefore accepted by God, and yet at the same time he adds, "That many shall strive to enter in, but shall not be able." Why so? It is because Christ Himself is the one door into life. Here the strivers mentioned by Christ, and those which Paul calls runners in a race, are the very same persons; and Christ calling Himself the one door of entrance, is the same thing as when Paul says, that only one receives the prize, and that one, which alone obtains the prize, or that enters through the right door, is that new creature in whom Christ is truly born. For whether you consider things natural or supernatural, nothing but Christ in us, can be our hope of glory.
The pleader for imperfection further supports himself by saying, no man in the world, Christ excepted, was ever without sin. And so say I too; and with the apostle I also add, "That if we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar." But then it is as true to say, that we make Him a liar, if we deny the possibility of our ever being freed from a necessity of sinning. For the same word of God says, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." But surely he that is left under a necessity of sinning as long as he lives, can no more be said to be cleansed from all unrighteousness, than a man who must be a cripple to his dying day, can be said to be healed of all his lameness. What weaker conclusion can well be made, than to infer, that because Christ was the only man that was born and lived free from sin, therefore no man on earth can be raised to a freedom from sinning; no better than concluding, that because the old man is everyone's birth from Adam, therefore there can be no such thing as a new man, created unto righteousness, through Christ Jesus, living and being all in all in him; no better sense or logic, than to say, that because our Redeemer could not find us anything else but sinners, therefore He must of all necessity leave us to be sinners.
Of Christ it can only be said, that He is in Himself the true vine; but of every branch that is His, and grows in Him, it must be as truly said, that the life and Spirit of the true vine, is the life and Spirit of its branches, and that as is the vine, so are its branches. And here let it be well noted, that if the branch does not have the life and goodness of the vine in it, it can only be, because it is broken off from the vine, and therefore is a withered branch, fit for the fire. But if the branches abide in the vine, then Christ says this glorious thing of them, "You shall ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you," John 15:7. The very same glorious thing, which He had before said of Himself, "Father, I thank you, that you have heard me," and "I knew that you hear me always," John 11:41. Now say that this new creature, who is in such union, communion, and power with God, because Christ is in him, and he in Christ, as really as the vine is in the branches, and the branches in the vine, say that he must be a servant of sin, as long as he lives in this world, and then your absurdity will be as great, as if you had said, that Christ in us must partake of our corruption.
What scripture ever spoke of, or required any perfect works from this old man
The sober Divine, who abhors the pride of enthusiasts, for the sake of humility, says of himself and all men, we are poor, blind, imperfect creatures; all our natural faculties are perverted, corrupted, and out of their right state; and therefore nothing that is perfect can come from us, or be done by us. Truth enough! And the very same truth, as when the apostle says, "The natural man knows not the things that be of God, he cannot know them, they are foolishness to him." This is the man that we all are by nature. But what scripture ever spoke of, or required any perfect works from this old man, any more than it requires the Ethiopian to change his skin? Or what an educated Divine must he be, who considers this old natural man as the Christian, and therefore rejects Christian perfection, because this old man cannot attain to it? What greater blindness, than to appeal to our fallen state, as a proof of a weakness and corruption which we must have, when we are redeemed from it? Is this any wiser, than saying, that sin and corruption must be there where Christ is, because it is there where He is not?
Our Lord has said this absolute truth, that unless we be born again from above, there is no possible entrance into the kingdom of God. What this new birth is in us, and what we get by it, is as expressly told us by his beloved apostle, saying, "That which is born of God does not sin." This is as true and unalterable, as to say, that which is born of the devil can do nothing else but add sin to sin. To what end do we pray, that "This day we may fall into no sin," If no such day can be had? But if sinning can be made to cease in us for one day, what can do this for us, but that which can do the same to-morrow? What benefit in praying, that "God's will may be done on earth, as it is in heaven," if the earth as long as it lasts must have as many sinners, as it has men upon it? How vainly does the church pray for the baptized person, "that he may have power and strength to have victory, and to triumph against the devil, the world, and the flesh," if this victorious triumph can never be obtained; if notwithstanding this baptism and prayer, he must continue committing sin, and so be a servant of sin, as long as he lives? What sense can there be in making a communion of saints to be an article of our creed, if at that same time we are to believe that Christians, as long as they live, must in some degree or other follow, and be led by the lusts of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life?
Where does all of this folly of doctrines come? It is because the church is no longer that Spiritual house of God, in which nothing is intended and sought after, but Spiritual power and Spiritual life, it has become a mere human building, made up of worldly power, worldly learning, and worldly prosperity in gospel matters. And therefore all the frailties, follies, and imperfections of human nature, must have as much life in the church, as in any other human society. And the best sons of such a church, must be forced to plead such imperfections in the members of it, as must be where the old fallen human nature is still alive. For nothing but a full birth, and continual breathing and inspiration of the Holy Spirit in the newborn creature, can be a deliverance from all that which is earthly, sensual, and devilish in our fallen nature. This new creature, born again in Christ, of that eternal Word which created all things in heaven and on earth, is both the rock and church, of which Christ says, "The gates of hell shall never prevail against it." For prevail they will, and must against everything, but the new creature. And every fallen man, who is yet in his fallen state, and his whole life is a mere Egyptian bondage, and Babylonian captivity, until the heavenly church, or the new birth from above, has taken him out of it.
And nothing but God can give death to self!
See how Paul sets forth the salvation-church, as being nothing else, and doing nothing else, but is the mother of this new birth. "Know you not," says he, "That so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into His death? Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life." Here we have the one true church, infallibly described, and yet no other church, but the new creature. He goes on, "For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection." Therefore to be in Christ, or in His church, belongs to no one, but he who has the old man put off, and the new creature risen in Christ, put on. The same thing is said again in these words, "Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin"; therefore the true church is nowhere but in the new creature, that from this time forth does not sin, nor is he any longer a servant to sin. Away then with all the tedious volumes of church unity, church power, and church salvation. Ask neither a council of Trent, nor a synod of Dort, nor an assembly of Divines, for a definition of the church. The apostle has given you, not a definition, but the unchangeable nature of it in these words. But now "Being made free from sin, and become servants of God, you have your fruits unto holiness, and the end everlasting life." Therefore to be in the true salvation-church, and to be in Christ that new creature which sins not, is strictly the same thing. What now is become of this true church, or where must the man go, who would be a living member of it? He need go nowhere; because wherever he is, that which is to save him, and that which he is to be saved from, is always with him. Self is all the evil that he has, and God is all the goodness that he can ever have; but self is always with him, and God is always with him. Death to self is his only entrance into the life of the church, AND NOTHING BUT GOD CAN GIVE DEATH TO SELF. Self is an inward life, and God is an inward Spirit of life; therefore nothing kills that which must be killed in us, or brings to life that which must come to life in us, but the inward work of God in the soul, and the inward work of the soul in God. This is that mystic religion, which, though it has nothing in it but that same Spirit, that same truth, and that same life, which always was, and always must be the religion of all of God's holy angels and saints in heaven, is by the wisdom of this world accounted to be madness. As wisely done, as to reckon him mad, who says, that the vanity of temporal things cannot give life to things that are eternal; or that the circumcision of the flesh is but as poor a thing, in comparison of that inward mystic circumcision of the heart, which can only be done by "That word of God, which is sharper than any two edged sword, and pierces to the dividing asunder of the soul and spirit," Heb. 4:1. Now fancy this, a rabbi-doctor, laughing at this circumcision of the two edged sword of God, as gospel madness, and then you see that very same Christian orthodoxy, which at this day condemns the inward working life of God in the soul, as mystic madness.
Look at all that which is outward, and all that you can see, it will have no more salvation in it, than the stars and elements. Look at all the good works you can think of, they have no goodness for you, but when the good Spirit of God is the doer of them in you. For all the outward works of religion may be done by the natural man, he can observe all church-duties, stick close to doctrines, and put on the semblance of every outward virtue; but, this is as high as he can go. No one is a Christian, until they are led and governed by the Spirit of God, no one can go any higher than this feigned, outward formality of the natural man; to which he can add nothing, but his own natural fleshly zeal in the defense of it. For all zeal must be of this kind, until it is the zeal of that which is born of God. "My little children," says Paul, "Of whom I travail again in birth, until Christ be formed in you." This is the whole labor of an apostle to the end of the world. He has nothing to preach to sinners, but the absolute necessity, the true way, and the certain means, of being born again from above. But if dropping this one thing that is necessary and available, he starts disputing about words and opinions, and helps professing Christians to be zealously separated from one another, for the sake of being saved by different notions of faith, works, justification, or election, etc., he has forgotten his errand, and is become a blind leader of all, who are blind enough to follow him. For all that is called faith, works, justification, sanctification, or election are only so many different expressions of that which the restored Divine life is, and does in us, and can have no existence anywhere, or in anything, but the new creature. And the reason why everything that is, or can be good in us, or to us, is nothing else but this Divine birth from above, is because the Divine nature dead in Adam, was his entire loss of every Divine virtue, and his fall under the power of this world, the flesh, and the devil; therefore the Divine nature brought again to life in man, is his faith, his hope, his prayer, his works, his justification, sanctification, election, or salvation. And that election, which systematical doctors have taken out of its place, and built into an absolute irreversible decree of God, has no other nature, no other effect, or power of salvation, but that which equally belongs to our faith, hope, prayer, love of God, and love of our neighbor; and just so far as these Divine virtues are in us, just so far are we the elect of God, which means nothing else but the beloved of God; and nothing makes us the beloved of God, but His own first image and likeness rising up again in us. Would you like to know what is meant by being elected of God, the same is meant, as when the scripture says, "God hears those only who call upon Him"; or that He can only be "Found by those who seek Him"; so He only elects those and that which elect Him. Again, "He that honors Me, him will I honor," says God: "He that loves Me," says Christ, "Shall be beloved of Me and my Father." This is the mystery of election, as it relates to salvation. At different times and in various manners, God may have, and has had His chosen vessels for particular offices, messages, and appointments; but as to salvation from our fallen state, every son of Adam is His chosen vessel, and this as certainly, as that every son of Adam has the seed of the woman, the incorruptible seed of the word born along with him; and this is God's unchangeable universal election, which chooses, or wills the salvation of all men. For the ground of all union, communion, or love between God and the creature, lies wholly in the Divine nature. That which is Divine in man tends towards God, elects God; and God only and solely elects His own birth, nature, and likeness in man. But seeing that His own birth, a seed of His own Divine nature is in every man, to suppose God by an arbitrary power, willing and decreeing its eternal happiness in some, and willing and decreeing its eternal misery in others, is a blasphemous absurdity, and supposes a greater injustice in God, than the wickedest creatures can possibly commit against one another. One scripture that proves this statement is found in 1 Timothy 2:3-4 "This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires ALL men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth."
And truth, to the eternal praise and glory of God, will eternally say, that His love is as universal and unchangeable as His being, that His mercy over all His works can no more cease, than His omnipotence can begin to grow weak. God's mark of an universal salvation set upon all mankind, was first given in these words, "The seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the serpent": therefore wherever the serpent is, there his head is to be bruised. This was God's infallible assurance, or omnipresent promise, that all that died in Adam, should have its first birth of glory again. The eternal son of God came into the world, only for the sake of this new birth, to give God the glory of restoring it to all the dead sons of fallen Adam. All the mysteries of this incarnate, suffering, dying son of God, all the price that He paid for our redemption, all the washings that we have from His all-cleansing blood poured out for us, all the life that we receive from eating His flesh, and drinking His blood, have their infinite value, their high glory, and amazing greatness in this, because nothing less than these supernatural mysteries of a God-man, could raise that new creature out of Adam's death, which could be again a living temple, and deified habitation of the Spirit of God.
That this new birth of the Spirit, or the Divine life in man, was the truth, the substance, and sole end of His miraculous mysteries, and was plainly told us by Christ Himself, who at the end of all His process on earth, tells His disciples, what was to be the blessed, and full effect of it, namely, that the Holy Spirit, the Comforter (being now fully purchased for them) should after His ascension, come instead of a Christ in the flesh. "If I go not away," says He, "The comforter will not come; but if I go away, I will send Him to you, and He shall guide you into all truth." Therefore all that Christ was, did, suffered, dying in the flesh, and ascending into heaven, was for this sole end, to purchase for all His followers a new birth, new life, and new light, in and by the Spirit of God restored to them, and living in them, as their support, comforter, and guide into all truth. And this was His, "lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world."
Finis.
We of the "Old Time Publishing Co." have put this book back in print because of the conviction that the world we live in, needs to hear this message, again! Bro. Law had an insight, rare in his day, and rarer still today. We have tried to bring William Law's writings into a colloquial tongue, so that you, the reader, can understand the message. When he wrote this book, it was "colloquial," over time the English language has changed so much that many people have difficulty understanding books and letters that were written in the seventeen hundreds. We have done our best to see that the message has not been changed, and we hope that his message will be "understandable" to you, the modern reader. The editor.
An Appeal to all who Doubt the Truths of the Gospel
By WILLIAM LAW
A Word To The Reader
I have nothing to say by way of preface or introduction. I only ask this favor of the reader, that he would not pass any censure upon this book, from only dipping into this, or that particular part of it, but give it one fair perusal in the order it is written, and then I shall have neither right, nor inclination to complain of any judgment he shall think fit to pass upon it.
Subjects Covered In Chapter 1
Of creation in general.
Of the origin of the soul.
Whence will and thought are in the creature.
Why the will is free.
The origin of evil solely from the creature.
This world not a first, immediate creation of god.
How the world came to be in its present state.
The first perfection of man.
Man has the triune nature of god in him.
Arianism and deism confuted by nature.
That life is uniform through all creatures.
That there is but one kind of death to be found in all nature.
The fallen soul has the nature of hell in it.
Regeneration is a birth of a divine life in the soul.
That there is but one salvation possible in nature.
This salvation is only to be had from Jesus Christ.
All the deist's faith and hope proved to be false.
Subjects Covered In Chapter 2
Of eternal and temporal nature.
How nature is from God, and the scene of his action.
How the creatures are out of it.
Temporal nature created out of that which is eternal.
The fallen angels brought the first disorders into nature.
This world created to repair those disorders.
Whence good and evil is in every thing of this world.
How heaven and hell make up the whole of this world.
How the fire of this world differs from eternal fire; and the
Matter of this world from the materiality of heaven.
Eternal nature is the kingdom of heaven, the beatific manifestation of the triune God.
God is love and goodness.
How wrath and anger come to be ascribed to him.
Of fire in general. Of the un-beginning fire.
Of the spirituality of fire.
How fire comes to be in material things.
Whence the possibility of kindling fire in the things of this world.
Every man is, and must be the igniter of his own eternal fire.
Chapter 3 Page 75
Subjects Covered In Chapter 3
The true ground of all the doctrines of the gospel discovered.
Why Adam could make no atonement for his sins.
Why, and how Jesus Christ alone could make this atonement.
Whence the shedding of blood for the remission of sins.
What wrath and anger it is, that is quenched and atoned by the blood of Christ.
Of the last sufferings of Christ.
Why, and how we must eat the flesh and drink the blood Of Jesus Christ.
Chapter 1
Of Creation in general.
It has been an opinion commonly received, though without any foundation in the light of nature, or scripture, that God created this whole visible world, and all things in it, out of nothing. No, that the souls of men, and the highest orders of beings, were created in the same manner. The scripture is very decisive against this origin of the souls of men. For Moses said, "God breathed into man (Spiraculum Vitarum) the breath of lives, and man became a living soul." Here the notion of a soul created out of nothing, is in the plainest, and strongest manner rejected, by the first book of the written Word of God; and no Jew or Christian can have the least excuse for falling into such an error; here the highest and most divine origin is not darkly, but openly, absolutely, and in the strongest form of expression ascribed to the soul; it came forth as a breath of life, or lives, from the very mouth of God, and therefore did not come out of the womb of nothing, but is what it is, and has what it has in itself, from, and out of the first and highest of all beings.
Of the Origin of the Soul.
For to say that God breathed forth into man the breath of lives, by which he became a living soul, is directly saying, that that which was life, light, and Spirit in the living God, was breathed forth from him to become the life, light and spirit of a creature. The soul therefore being declared to be an effluence from God, a breath of God, must have the nature and likeness of God in it, and is, and can be nothing else, but something, or so much of the divine nature, become creaturely existing, or breathed forth from God, to stand before him in the form of a creature
Where "Will" and "Thought" are in the Creature.
When the animals of this world were to be created, it was only said, Let the earth, the air, the water bring forth creatures after their kinds; but when man was to be brought forth, it was said, "Let us make man in our own image and likeness." Is not this directly saying, Let man have his beginning and being out of us, that he may be so related to us in his soul and spirit, as the animals of this world are related to the elements from which they are produced. Let him so come forth from us, be so breathed out of us, that our divine nature may be manifested in him, that he may stand before us as a creaturely image, likeness, and representative of that which we are in ourselves.
Why the Will is free
Now, from this original doctrine of the creation of man, known to all the first inhabitants of the world, and published in the front of the first written Word of God; these great truths have been more or less declared to all the nations of the world. First, that all mankind are the created offspring of the one God.
Secondly, that in all men there is a spirit or breath of lives, that did not begin to be out of nothing, or was created out of nothing; but came from the true God into man, as his own breath of life breathed into him.
Thirdly, that therefore there is in all men, wherever dispersed over the earth, a divine, immortal, never-ending spirit, that can have nothing of death in it, but must live for ever, because it is the breath of the ever living God.
Fourthly, that by this immortal breath, or Spirit of God in man, all mankind stand in the same nearness of relation to God, are all equally his children, are all under the same necessity of paying the same homage of love and obedience to him, all fitted to receive the same blessing and happiness from him, all created for the same eternal enjoyment of his love and presence with them, all equally called to worship and adore him in spirit and truth, all equally capable of seeking and finding him, of having a blessed union and communion with him. These great truths, the first pillars of all true and spiritual religion, on which the holy and divine lives of the ancient patriarchs was supported, by which they worshipped God in a true and right faith; these truths, I say, were most eminently and plainly declared in the express letter of the Mosaic writings, here quoted. And no writer, whether Jewish or Christian, has so plainly, so fully, so deeply laid open the true ground, and necessity of an eternal, never-ceasing relation between God, and in all of human nature; no one has so incontestably asserted the immortality of the soul, or spirit of man; or so deeply laid open, and proved the necessity of one religion, common to all human nature, as the legislator of the Jewish theocracy had done. Life and immortality are indeed justly said to be brought to light by the gospel; not only because they there stand in a new degree of light, largely explained, and much appealed to, and absolutely promised by the Son of God himself, but chiefly because the precious means and mysteries of obtaining a blessed life, and a blessed immortality, were only revealed, or brought to light by the gospel.
But the incontestable ground and reason of an immortal life, and eternal relation between God, and the whole human nature, and which lays all mankind under the same obligations to the same true worship of God, is most fully set forth by Moses, who alone tells us the true fact; how, and why man is immortal in his nature, i.e., because the beginning of his life was a breath, breathed into him from God; and for this end, that he might be a living image and likeness of God, created to partaker of the nature and immortality of God.
This is the great doctrine of the Jewish legislator, and which justly places him amongst the greatest preachers of true religion. St. Paul used a very powerful argument to persuade the Athenians to own the true God, and the true religion, when he told them, "that God made the world and all things therein; that he gives life and breath and all things; that He has made of one blood, all nations of men to dwell on the earth; that they should all seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after, and find him, seeing he is not far from any of us, because in him we live, move, and have our being." {Acts 17:24} And yet this doctrine, which St. Paul preaches to the Athenians, is nothing else, but that same divine and heavenly instruction, which he had learned from Moses, which Moses openly and plainly taught all the Jews. The Jewish theocracy therefore was by no means an intimation to that people, that they had no concern with the true God, but as children of this world, under his temporal protection or punishment; for their lawgiver left them no room for such a thought, because he had as plainly taught them their eternal nature and eternal relation, which they had to God in common with all mankind; as St. Paul did to the Athenians, who only set before them that very doctrine that Moses taught all the Jews. The great end of the Jewish theocracy was to show, both to Jew and gentile, the absolute, uncontrollable power of the one God, by such a covenanted interposition of his providence, that all the world might know, that the one God, from whom both Jew and gentile were fallen away, by depareing from the faith and religion of their first fathers, was the only God, from whom all mankind could receive either blessing or cursing.
This was the great thing intended to be proclaimed to all the world by this theocracy, i.e., that only the God of Israel had power to save or destroy, to punish or reward, according to his pleasure; and that therefore all the gods of the heathens, were mere vanity. If therefore any Jews, by reason of those extraordinary temporal blessings and cursing which they received under their theocracy, grew grossly ignorant, or dully senseless of their eternal nature, and eternal relation to God, and of that one true religion, which by nature they were obliged to observe in common with all mankind; if they took God only to be their local or tutelary deity, and themselves to be only animals of this world; such a grossness of belief was no more to be charged upon their great lawgiver, Moses, than if they had believed, that a golden calf was their true god. But to return to the creation. It is the same impossibility for a thing to be created out of nothing, as to be created by nothing. It is no more a pare, or prerogative of God's omnipotence to create a being out of nothing, than to make a thing to be, without any one quality of being in it; or to make, that there should be three, where there is neither two, nor one. Every creature is nothing else, but nature put into a certain form of existence; and therefore a creature not formed out of nature, is a contradiction. A circle, or a square cannot be made out of nothing, nor could any power bring them into existence, but because there is an extension in nature, that can be put into the form of a circle, or a square: but if dead figures cannot by any power be made out of nothing, who sees not the impossibility of making living creatures, angels, and the souls of men out of nothing?
Thinking and willing are eternal, they never began to be. Nothing can think, or will now, in which there was not will and thought from all eternity. For it is as possible for thought in general to begin to be, as for that which thinks in a particular creature to begin to be of a thinking nature: therefore the soul, which is a thinking, willing being is come forth, or created out of that which has willed and thought in God, from all eternity. The created soul is a creature of time, and had its beginning on the sixth day of the creation; but the essences of the soul, which were then formed into a creature, and into a state of distinction from God, had been in God from all eternity, or they could not have been breathed forth from God into the form of a living creature.
And herein lies the true ground and depth of the uncontrollable freedom of our will and thoughts: they must have a self-motion, and self-direction, because they came out of the self-existent God. They are eternal, divine powers, that never began to be, and therefore cannot begin to be in subjection to any thing. That which thinks and wills in the soul, is that very same un-beginning breath which thought and willed in God, before it was breathed into the form of an human soul; and therefore it is, that will and thought cannot be bounded or constrained.
Herein also appears the high dignity, and never-ceasing perpetuity of our nature. The essences of our souls can never cease to be, because they never began to be: and nothing can live eternally, but that which Has lived from all eternity. The essences of our soul were a breath in God before they became a living soul, they lived in God before they lived in the created soul, and therefore the soul is a partaker of the eternity of God, and can never cease to be. Here, O man, behold the great origin, and the high state of your birth; here let all that is within you praise your God, who has brought you into so high a state of being, who has given you powers as eternal and boundless as his own attributes, that there might be no end or limits of your happiness in him. You began as time began, but as time was in eternity before it became days and years, so you were in God before you were brought into the creation: and as time is neither a part of eternity, nor broken off from it, yet come out of it; so you are not a part of God, nor broken off from him, you were originally born out of him. You should only will that which God wills, only love that which he loves, cooperate, and unite with him in the whole form of your life; because all that you are, all that you have, is only a spark of his own life and Spirit derived into you. If you desire, and turn towards the sun, all the blessings of the Deity will spring up in you; Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, will make their abode with you. If you turn in towards yourself, to live to yourself, to be happy in the workings of your own will, to be rich in the sharpness and acuteness of your own reason, you choose to be a weed, and can only have such a life, spirit and blessing from God, as a thistle has from the sun. But to return. To suppose a willing, understanding being, created out of nothing, is a great absurdity. For as thinking and willing must have always been from all eternity, or they could never have been either in eternity, or time; so, wherever they are found in any particular, finite beings, they must of all necessity, be direct communications, or originating of that thinking and willing, which never could begin to be. The creation therefore of a soul, is not the creation of thinking and willing, or the making that to be, and to think, which before had nothing of being, or thought; but it is the bringing of the powers of thinking and willing out of their eternal state in the one God, into a beginning state of a self-conscious life, distinct from God. And this is God's omnipotent, creating ability, that he can make the powers of his own nature become living, personal images of what he is in himself, in a state of distinct personality from him: so that the creature is one, in its finite, limited state, as God is one, and yet has nothing in it, but that which was in God before it came into it: for the creature, be it what it will, high or low, can be nothing else, but a limited participation of the nature of the creator. Nothing can be in the creature, but what came from the creator, and the creator can give nothing to the creature, but that which He has in Himself to give. And if beings could be created out of nothing, the whole creation could be no more a proof of the being of God, than if it had sprung up of itself out of nothing: for if they are brought into being out of nothing, then they can have nothing of God in them; and so can bear no testimony of God; but are as good a proof, that there is no God, as that there is one. But if they have anything of God in them, then they cannot be said to be created out of nothing.
That the souls of men were not created out of nothing, but are born out of an eternal original, is plain from this; from the delight in, and desire of eternal existence, which is so strong and natural to the soul of man. For nothing can delight in, or desire eternity, or so much as form a notion of it, or think upon it, or in any way reach after it, but that alone which is generated from it, and came out of it. For it is a self-evident truth, that nothing can look higher, or further back, than into its own origin; and therefore, nothing can look or reach back into eternity, but that which came out of it. This is as certain, as that a line reaches, and can reach no further back, than to that point from where it began.
Our bodily eyes are born out of the firmamental light of this world, and therefore they can look no further than the firmament: but our thoughts know no bounds; therefore they are come out of that which is boundless. The eyes of our minds can look as easily backwards into that eternity which always Has been, as into that which ever shall be; and therefore it is plain, that that which thinks and wills in us, which so easily, so delightfully, so naturally penetrates into all eternity, has always had an eternal existence, and is only a ray or spark of the divine nature, brought out into the form of a creature, or a limited, personal existence, by the creating power of God.
Again. Every soul shrinks back, and is frightened at the very thought of falling into nothing. Now this undeniably proves, that the soul was not created out of nothing. For it is an eternal truth, spoken by all nature, that everything strongly aspires after, and cannot be easy, until it finds and enjoys that origin out of which it arose. If the soul therefore was brought forth out of nothing, all its being would be a burden to it; it would want to be dissolved, and to be delivered from every kind and degree of sensibility; and nothing could be so sweet and agreeable to it, as to think of falling back into that nothingness, out of which it was called forth by its creation. Thus is the eternal, immortal, divine nature of the soul, which the schools prove with so much difficulty one of the most obvious, self-evident truths in all nature. For nothing but that which is eternal in its own nature, can have the least thought about eternity.
If a beast had not the nature of the earth in it, nothing that is on the earth, or springs out of it, could be in the least degree agreeable to it, or desired by it. If the soul had not the nature of eternity in it, nothing that is eternal could give it the smallest pleasure, or be able to make any kind of impression upon it. For as nothing can taste, or relish, or enter into the agreeable sensations of this world, but that which Has the nature of this world in it; so nothing can taste, or relish, or look into eternity with any kind of pleasure, but that which has the nature of eternity in it.
If the soul was not born, or created out of God, it could have no happiness in God, no desire, nor any possibility of enjoying him. If it had nothing of God in it, it must stand in the utmost distance of contrariety to him, and be utterly incapable of living, moving, and having its being in God: for everything must have the nature of that, out of which it was created, and must live, and have its being in that root or ground from that which it sprung. If therefore there was nothing of God in the soul, nothing that is in God could do the soul any good, or have any kind of communication with it; but the gulf of separation between God and the soul, would be even greater than that which is between heaven and hell.
But let us rejoice, that our soul is a thinking, willing being, full of thoughts, cares, longings, and desires of eternity; for this is our full proof, that our descent is from God himself, that we are born out of him, breathed forth from him; that our soul is of an eternal nature, made a thinking, willing, understanding creature out of that which Has willed and thought in God from all eternity; and therefore must, for ever and ever, be a partaker of the eternity of God. And here you may behold the sure ground of the absolute impossibility of the annihilation of the soul. Its essences never began to be, and therefore can never cease to be; they had an eternal reality before they were in, or became a distinct soul, and therefore they must have the same eternal reality in it. It was the eternal breath of God before it came into man, and therefore the eternity of God must be inseparable from it. It is no more a property of the divine omnipotence to be able to annihilate a soul, than to be able to make an eternal truth become a fiction: and to think it a lessening of the power of God, to say, that he cannot annihilate the soul, is as absurd, as to say, that it is a lessening of the light of the sun, if it cannot destroy, or darken its own rays of light. O, dear reader, stay a while in this important place, and learn to know yourself: all your senses make you to know and feel, that you stand in the vanity of time; but every motion, stirring, imagination, and thought of your mind, whether in fancying, fearing, or loving everlasting life, is the same infallible proof, that you stand in the midst of eternity, are an offspring and inhabitant of it, and must be for ever inseparable from it. Ask when the first thought sprung up, find out the birthday of truth, and then you will have found out, when the essences of your soul first began to be. Were not the essences of your soul as old, as un-beginning, as unchangeable, as everlasting as truth itself, truth would be at the same distance from you, as absolutely unfit for you, as utterly unable to have any communion with you, as to be the food of a worm. The ox could not feed upon the grass, or receive any delight or nourishment from it, unless grass and the ox had one and the same earthly nature and original; your mind could receive no truth, feel no delight and satisfaction in the certainty, beauty, and harmony of it, unless truth and the mind stood both in the same place, had one and the same unchangeable nature, un-beginning origin. If there will come a time, when thought itself shall cease, when all the relations and connections of truth shall be untied; then, but not until then, shall the knot, or band of your soul's life be unloosed. It is a spark of the Deity, and therefore has the un-beginning, unending life of God in it. It knows nothing of youth, or age, because it is born eternal. It is a life that must burn for ever, either as a flame of light and love in the glory of the divine majesty, or as a miserable firebrand in that God, which is a consuming fire.
The Origin Of Evil Solely From The Creature.
It is impossible, that this world, in the state and condition it is now in, should have been an immediate and original creation of God: this is as impossible, as that God should create evil, either natural or moral. That this world Has evil in all its parts ; that its matter is in a corrupt, disordered state, full of grossness, disease, impurity, wrath, death and darkness, is as evident, as that there is light, beauty, order and harmony everywhere to be found in it. Therefore it is as impossible, that this outward state and condition of things, should be a first and immediate work of God, as that there should be good and evil in God himself. All storms and tempests, every fierceness of heat, every wrath of cold proves with the same certainty, that outward nature is not a first work of God, as the selfishness, envy, pride, wrath, and malice of devils, and men proves, that they are not in the first state of their creation. As no kind or degree of moral evil could possibly have its cause in, or from God, so there cannot be the least shadow of imperfection and disorder in outward nature, but what must have sprung up in the same manner, and from the same causes, as sickness and corrupt flesh is come into the human body, namely, from the sin of the creature. Storms, tempests, gravel, stone, sour and dead earth are the same things, the same diseases, the same effects of sin, produced in the same manner in the outward body of nature, as corrupt flesh, fevers, dropsy's, plagues, stones, and gout, are produced in the outward body of man. For that, and that only which produces stone in the body of man, did produce stone in the outward nature, as shall plainly appear by and by. For nature within, and without man, is one and the same, and has but one and the same way of working; a stone in the body, and a stone out of the body of man, proceeds from one and the same disorder of nature. When therefore you see a diseased, gouty, leprous, asthmatic, scorbutic man, you can with the utmost certainty say, this is not that human body which God first created in paradise; so, when you see the disorders of heat and cold, the poisonous earth, unfruitful seasons, and malignant qualities of outward nature, you can with the same certainty affirm, this state of nature is not a first creation of God, but that the same thing must have happened to it, which has happened to the body of man. For dark, sour, hard, dead earth, can no more be a first, immediate creation of God, than a wrathful devil, as such, can be created by him. For dark, sour, dead earth is as disordered in its kind, as the devils are, and has as certainly lost its first heavenly condition and nature, as the devils have lost theirs. But now, as in man, the little world, there is excellence and perfection enough to prove, that human nature is the work of an all-perfect being, yet, so much impurity and disease of corrupt flesh and blood, as undeniably shows, that sin has almost quite spoiled the work of God. So, in the great world, the footsteps of an infinite wisdom in the order and harmony of the whole, sufficiently appears; yet, the disorders, tumults, and evils of nature, plainly demonstrate, that the present condition of this world is only the remains or ruins, first, of a heaven spoiled by the fall of angels, and then of a paradise lost by the sin of man. So that man, and the world in which he lives, lie both in the same state of disorder and impurity, have both the same marks of life and death in them, both bring forth the same sort of evils, both need a redeemer, and have need of the same kind of death and resurrection, before they can come to their first state of purity and perfection.
This World Not A First, Immediate Creation Of God
That this outward world was not created out of nothing, is plainly taught by St. Paul, who declares, Rom.1:20, that the creation of the world is out of the invisible things of God; so that the outward condition and frame of invisible nature, is a plain manifestation of that spiritual world from which it is descended. For as every outside necessarily supposes an inside, and as temporal light and darkness must be the product of eternal light and darkness, so this outward, visible state of things necessarily supposes some inward, invisible state, from which it is come into this degree of out-wardness. Thus all that is on earth is only a change or alteration of something that was in heaven: and heaven itself is nothing else but the first glorious out-birth, the majestic manifestation, the adorable visibility of the one God. And thus we find out, how this temporal nature is related to God; it is only a gross out-birth of that which is an eternal nature, or a blessed heaven, and stands only in such a degree of distance from it, as water does to air; and this is the reason why the last fire will, and must turn this gross, temporal nature into its first, heavenly state. But to suppose the gross matter of this world to be made out of nothing, or compacted nothing, is more absurd, than to suppose ice that has been made from nothing, a yard that is not made up of inches, or a pound that is not the product of ounces.
How The World Comes To Be In Its Present State.
And indeed to suppose this, or any other material world to be made out of nothing, has all the same absurdities in it, as the supposing angels and spirits, to be created out of nothing. All the qualities of all beings are eternal; no real quality or power can appear in any creature, but what has its eternal root, or generating cause in the creator. If a quality could begin to be in a creature, which did not always exist in the creator, it would be no absurdity to say, that a thing might begin to be, without any cause either of its beginning, or being. All qualities, properties, or whatever can be affirmed of God, are self-existent, and necessary existent. Self and necessary existence is not a particular attribute of God, but is the general nature of everything that can be affirmed of God. All qualities and properties are self-existent in God: now, they cannot change their nature when they are derived, or formed into creatures, but must have the same self-birth, and necessary existence in the creature, which they had in the creator. The creature begins to be, when, and as it pleased God; but the qualities which are become creaturely, and which constitute the creature, are self-existent, just as the same qualities are in God. Thus, thinking, willing, and desire can have no outward maker, their maker is in themselves, they are self- existent powers wherever they are, whether in God, or in the creature, and as they form themselves in God, so they form themselves in the creature. But now, if no quality can begin to be, if all the qualities and powers of creatures must be eternal and necessary existent in God, before they can have any existence in any creature; then it undeniably follows, that every created thing must have its whole nature from, and out of the divine nature.
All qualities are not only good, but infinitely perfect, as they are in God; and it is absolutely impossible, that they should have any evil or defect in them, as they are in the one God, who is the great and universal all. Because, where all properties are, there must necessarily be an all possible perfection: and that which must always have all in itself, must, by an absolute necessity, be always all perfect. But the same qualities, thus infinitely good and perfect in God, may become imperfect and evil in the creature; because in the creature, being limited and finite, they may be divided and separated from one another by the creature itself. Thus strength and fire in the divine nature, are nothing else but the strength and flame of love, and never can be anything else; but in the creature, strength and fire may be separated from love, and then they are become an evil, they are wrath and darkness, and all mischief: and so that same strength and quality, which in creatures making a right use of their own will, or self-motion, becomes their goodness and perfection, does in creatures making a wrong use of their will, become their evil and mischievous nature; and it is a truth that deserves well to be considered, that there is no goodness in any creature, from the highest to the lowest, but in its continuing to be in such a union of qualities and powers, as God has brought together in its creation.
In the highest order of created beings, this is their standing in their first perfection, this is their fulfilling of the whole will or law of God, this is their piety, their song of praise, their eternal adoration of their great creator. On the other hand, there is no evil, no guilt, no deformity in any creature, but in its dividing and separating itself from something which God had given to be in union with it. This, and this alone, is the whole nature of all good, and all evil in the creature, both in the moral and natural world, in spiritual and material things. For instance, dark, fiery wrath in the soul, is not only very much like, but it is the self-same thing in the soul which poison is in the flesh. Now, the qualities of poison are in themselves, all of them good qualities, and necessary to every life; but they are become a poisonous evil, because they are separated from some other qualities. Thus also the qualities of fire and strength that constitute an evil wrath in the soul, are in themselves very good qualities, and necessary to every good life; but they are become an evil wrath, because separated from some other qualities with which they should be united.
The qualities of the devil and all fallen angels, are good qualities; they are the very same which they received from their infinitely perfect creator, the very same which are, and must be in all heavenly angels; but now they have become a hellish, abominable malignity, because they have, by their own self-motion, separated them from the light and love which should have kept them glorious angels.
And here may be seen at once, in the clearest light, the true origin of all evil in the creation, without the least imputation upon the creator. God could not possibly create a creature to be an infinite all, like himself: God could not bring any creature into existence, but by deriving into it the self-existent, self-generating, self-moving qualities of his own nature: for the qualities must be in the creature, that which they were in the creator, only in a state of limitation; and therefore, every creature must be finite, and must have a self-motion, and so must be capable of moving right and wrong, of uniting or dividing from what it will, or of falling from that state in which it ought to stand: but as every quality, in every creature, both within and without itself is equally good, and equally necessary to the perfection of the creature, since there is nothing that is evil in it, nor can become evil to the creature, but from being separated from itself, with which it can, and ought to be united, it plainly follows, that evil can no more be charged upon God, than darkness can be charged upon the sun; because every quality is equally good, every quality of fire is as good as every quality of light, and only becomes an evil to that creature, who, by his own self-motion, has separated fire from the light in his own nature.
The First Perfection Of Man.
If a delicious, fragrant fruit had a power of separating itself from that rich spirit, fine taste, smell, and color which it receives from the virtue of the sun, and the spirit of the air; or if it could in the beginning of its growth, turn away from the sun, and receive no virtue from it, then it would stand in its own first birth of wrath, sourness, bitterness, and astringency, just as the devils do, who have turned back into their own dark root, and rejected the Light and Spirit of God: so that the hellish nature of a devil is nothing else, but its own first forms of life, withdrawn, or separated from the heavenly light and love; just as the sourness, astringency, and bitterness of a fruit, are nothing else but the first forms of its own vegetable life before it has reached the virtue of the sun, and the spirit of the air.
And as a fruit, if it had a sensibility of itself, would be full of torment, as soon as it was shut up in the first forms of its life, in its own astringency, sourness, and stinging bitterness: so the angels, when they turned back into these very same first forms of their own life, and broke off from the heavenly light and love of God, they became their own hell. No hell was made for them, no new qualities came into them, no vengeance or pains from the God of love fell upon them; they only stood in that state of division and separation from the Son, and Holy Spirit of God, which, by their own motion, they had made for themselves. They had nothing in them, but what they had from God, the first forms of an heavenly life, nothing but what the most heavenly beings have, and must have, to all eternity; but they had them in a state of self-torment, because they had separated them from that birth of light and love, which alone could make them glorious sons, and blessed images of the Holy Trinity.
The same strong desire, fiery wrath, and stinging motion is in holy angels, that is in devils, just as the same sourness, astringency, and biting bitterness is in a full ripened fruit, which was there before it received the riches of the light and spirit of the air. In a ripened fruit, its first sourness, astringency, and bitterness is not lost, nor destroyed, but becomes the real cause of all its rich spirit, fine taste, fragrant smell, and beautiful color; take away the working, contending nature of these first qualities, and you annihilate the spirit, taste, smell, and virtue of the fruit, and there would be nothing left for the sun and the spirit of the air to enrich.
Just in the same manner, that which in a devil is an evil selfishness, a wrathful fire, a stinging motion, is in an holy angel, the everlasting kindling of a divine life, the strong birth of an heavenly love, it is a real cause of an everlasting, ever-triumphing joyfulness, an ever-increasing sensibility of bliss.
Take away the working, contending nature of these first qualities, which in a devil, are only a serpentine selfishness, wrath, fire, and stinging motion; take away these, I say, from holy angels, and you leave them neither light, nor love, nor heavenly glory, nothing for the birth of the Son, Holy Spirit of God to rise up in.
So that here you may see this glorious truth, that the love and goodness of God is as plain and undeniable in having given to the fallen angels, those very qualities and powers which are now their hell, as in giving the first sourness, astringency and bitterness to fruits, which alone makes them capable of their delicious spirit, taste, color, and smell.
And so you see the uniform life of all the creatures of God; how they are all raised, enriched, and blessed by the same life of God, derived into different kingdoms of creatures. For the beginnings and progress of a perfect life in fruits, and the beginnings and progress of a perfect life in angels, are not only similar to one another, but are the very same thing, or the workings of the very same qualities, only in different kingdoms. Astringency in a fruit, is the very same quality, and does the same work in a fruit, that attracting desire does in a spiritual being; it is the same beginner, former, and supporter of a creaturely life in the one, as in the other. No creature in heaven, or earth, can begin to be, but by this astringency, or desire, being made the ground of it: and yet this astringency kept from the virtue of the sun, can only produce a poisonous fruit, and this astringent desire in an angel, turned from the light of God, can only make a devil. The biting, stinging bitterness of a fruit, if you could add thought to it, would be the very gnawing envy of the devil: and the envious motion in the devil's nature, would be nothing else but that stinging bitterness which is in a fruit, if you could take thought from the devil's motion.
From this attraction, astringency, or desire, which is one and the same quality in every individual thing, which is the first form of being and life, the very ground of every creature, from the highest angel to the lowest vegetable, we are led by an unerring thread to the first desire, or that desire which is in the divine nature. For as this attraction, or astringent desire is in spiritual and corporeal things, one and the same quality, working in the same manner, so is it one and the same quality with that first, un-beginning desire, which is in the divine nature. That there is an attracting desire in the divine nature, is undeniable, because attraction is essential to all bodies; and desire, which is the same quality, is absolutely inseparable from all intelligible beings; therefore, that which is necessarily existent in the creature, upon the supposition of its creation, must necessarily be in the creator; because no inherent, operative quality can be in the creature, unless the same kind of quality had always been in the creator: therefore, attraction or desire, which are inseparable from every created being and life, are only various participations of the divine nature; or emanations from it, formed into different kingdoms of creatures, and working in all of them according to their respective natures. In vegetables, it is that attraction, or desire, which brings every growing thing to its highest perfection: in angels, it is that blessed hunger, by which they are filled with the divine nature: in devils, it is turned into that serpentine selfishness, or crooked desire, which makes them a hell and torment to themselves.
On the other hand, as we prove a posteriori, from a view of the creature, that there must be an attracting desire in the divine nature; so we can prove a priority also, from a consideration of God, that there must be an attracting desire in everything that ever was, or can be created by God: for nothing can come into being, but because God wills and desires it; therefore the desire of God is the creator, the origin of everything. The creating will, or desire of God, is not a distant, or separate thing, as when a man wills or desires something to be done; but it is an omnipresent, working will and desire, which is itself, the beginning and forming of the thing desired. Our own will, and desirous imagination, when they work and create in us a settled aversion, or fixed love of anything, resemble in some degree, the creating power of God, which makes things out of itself, or its own working desire. And our will, and working imagination could not have the power that it has now even after the fall, but because it is a product, or spark of that first divine will or desire which is omnipotent.
Here therefore we have plainly found the true origin, or first source of all things. The desire of God is the first former, generator, and creator of all things; they are all the births of this omnipotent, working desire; for everything that comes into being, must have the nature of that power that formed it, and therefore the nature of every creature must stand in an attracting desire, that is, everything must be a created, attracting power; because it is the birth, or product of a desire, or attractive power, and could neither come into, nor continue in being, but because it was generated not only by, but out of an attracting desire. And herein lies the band, or knot of all created being and life.
Will or desire in the Deity, is justly considered as God the Father, who from eternity to eternity, wills or generates only the Son, from which eternal generating, the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds: and this is the infinite perfection or fullness of blessings of the life of the triune God. Now, as the un-beginning, eternal desire is in God, so is the created desire in the creature; it stands in the same tendency, Has the nature of the divine desire, because it is a branch out of it, or created from it. In the Deity, the eternal will or desire, is a desiring, or generating the Son, from where the Holy Spirit proceeds; the desire that is come out of God in the form of a creature, has the same tendency, it is a desire of the Son and Holy Spirit. And every created thing in heaven and earth attains its perfection, by its gaining in some degree, the birth of the Son and Holy Spirit of God in it: for all attraction and desire in the creature, generates in them as it did in God; and so the birth of the Son and Holy Spirit of God arises in some degree, or other, in all creatures that are in their proper state of perfection.
Man Has The Triune Nature Of God In Him.
And here lies the ground of that plain, and most fundamental doctrine of scripture, that the Father is the creator, the Son the regenerator, and the Holy Spirit the sanctifier. For what is this but saying in the plainest manner, that as there are three in God, so there must be three in the creature, that as the three stand related to one another in God, so must they stand in the same relation in the creature. For if a threefold life of God must have distinct shares in the creation, blessing, and perfection of man, is it not a demonstration, that the life of man must stand in the same threefold state, and have such a Trinity in it, as has its true likeness to that Trinity which is in God?
That which generates in God, must generate in the creature; and that which is generated in God, must be generated in the creature; and that which proceeds from this generation in the Deity, must proceed from this generation in the creature: and therefore, the same threefold life must be in the creature in the same manner as it is in God. For a creature that can only exist, and be blessed by the distinct operation of a Triune God upon it, must have the same Triune nature that is answerable to it. And herein lies our true, easy, sound, and edifying knowledge and belief of the mystery of a Trinity in Unity: and this is all that the scripture teaches us concerning it. It is not a doctrine that requires learned or nice speculations, in order to be rightly apprehended by us. But when with the scriptures, we believe the Father to be our creator, the Son our regenerator, and the Holy Spirit our sanctifier; then we are learned enough in this mystery, and begin to know the Triune God in the same manner in time, that we shall know him in eternity. And the reason why this great mystery of a Trinity in the Deity is revealed to us, and the necessity of a baptism in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, laid upon us, is this; it is to show us, that the divine, Triune life of God is lost in us, and that nothing less than a birth from the Son and Holy Spirit of God in us, can restore us to our first likeness to that Triune God, who at first created us. This I have fully shown in the little treatise upon regeneration.
When man was created in his original perfection, the Holy Trinity was his creator; the breath of lives, which became a living soul, was the breath of the Triune God: but when man began to will, and desire, that is, to generate contrary to the Deity, then the life of the Triune God extinguished in him.
The desire of man being turned from God, lost the birth of the Son, and the proceeding of the Holy Spirit; and so fell into, or under the light and spirit of this world: that is, of a paradisiacal man, enjoying union and communion with Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and living on earth in such enjoyment of God, as the angels live in heaven, he became an earthly creature, subject to the dominion of this outward world, capable of all its evil influences, subject to its vanity and mortality; and as to his outward life, stood only in the highest rank of animals. This and this alone, is the true nature and degree of the fall of man; it was neither more nor less than this. It was a falling out of one world, or kingdom, into another, it was changing the life, Light and Spirit of God, for the light and spirit of this world. Thus it was that Adam died the very day of his transgression, he died to all the influences and operations of the kingdom of God upon him, as we die to the influences of this world, when the soul leaves the body; and, on the other hand, all the influences, operations and powers of the elements of this life became opened in him, as they are in every animal at its birth into this world. All other accounts of that fall, which only suppose the loss of some moral perfection, or natural acuteness of his rational powers, are not only senseless fictions, but are an express denial of the Old and New Testament account of it; for the Old Testament expressly says, that Adam was to die the day of his transgression, and therefore it is certain, that he then did die, and that the fall was his losing his first life: and to say that he did not die to that first life in which he was created, is the same denial of scripture, as to say, that he did not eat of the forbidden tree. Again, the same scripture assures us, that after the fall, his eyes were opened; I suppose this is a proof, that before the fall, they were shut. And what is this, but saying in the plainest manner, that before the fall, the life, light and spirit of this world, were shut out of him? and that the opening of his eyes, was only another way of saying, that the life and light of this world were opened in him? If an angel, or any inhabitant of heaven, was to be sent of a message into this world, it must be supposed, that neither the darkness, nor light of this world, could act according to their nature upon him; and therefore, though he was here, he must be said not to have the opened eyes of this world: but if this heavenly messenger should be taken with our manner of life, should be in doubts about returning to heaven, and long to have such flesh and blood as ours is, as earnestly as Adam longed to eat of the earthly tree; and if by this longing, he should actually obtain that which he desired; must it not then be said of him, when he had got this new nature, his eyes were opened, to see light and darkness; and that only for this reason, because the heavenly life was despaired from him, and the earthly life of this world was opened in him? And so it was that Adam died, and his eyes were opened. Again, when his eyes were opened, or the light and life of this world opened in him, he was immediately ashamed and shocked at the sight of his own body, and wanted to hide it from himself, and from the sight of the sun. Now, how could this have happened to him, if his body had not undergone some very extraordinary change, from a state of glory and perfection, to a lamentable degree of vileness and impurity? All the terror at his fallen state, seems to arise from the sad condition, in which he saw and felt his outward body. This made him ashamed of himself; this made him tremble, at hearing the voice of God; this made him creep behind the trees, and endeavor to hide and cover his body with leaves. And is not this the same thing, as if Adam had said, "All my sin, my guilt, my misery, and shame, is published before heaven and earth, by this sad state and condition in which my body now appears." But now, what was this sad state and condition of his body? What did Adam see in the manner and form of it that filled him with such confusion? Why, he only saw that he was fallen from his paradisiacal glory, to have the same gross flesh and blood as the beasts and animals of this world have; which was, to bring forth an offspring in the same earthly manner, as they did. He could see, and be ashamed of no other deformity in his body, but that which he had in common with the animals of this world; and therefore there was nothing else in his outward form that he could be ashamed of; and yet it was his outward form that filled him with confusion. And is not this the greatest of all proofs, that before his fall, his body had not this nature and condition of the beasts in it? Is it not the same thing, as if he had said, "this body which now makes me ashamed, and which I want to hide, though it be only with thin leaves, because it brings me down amongst the animals of this world, is not that first body of glory into which God at first breathed the breath of lives, and in which I became a living soul." Again, if Adam's body had been of the same kind of flesh and blood as ours is now, only in a better state of health and vigor, how could he have been created immortal? If he was not created immortal, how can it be said, that sin alone brought mortality, or death into human nature? But if he had immortality in his first created state, then he must have such a body as none of the elements, or elementary things of this world could act upon; for there is no death in any creature of this world, but what is brought upon it by that strife and destruction which the four elements bring upon one another. But if sin alone gave the elements, and all elementary things their first power of acting upon the body of Adam; then it is plain, that before his sin, he had not, could not have a body of such flesh and blood as we now have, but that he stood, as to the state, nature, and condition of his outward body, at as great a distance and difference from the animals of this world, as heaven does from earth, and was created with flesh and blood as much exalted above, and superior to the nature and power of all the elements, as the beasts of this world are under them. And herein plainly appears the true sense of that saying, "God did not make death," that is, he did not make that which is mortal, or dying in the human nature, but sin alone formed and produced that in man, which could, and must die like the bodies of beasts. Death, and the grave, and the resurrection, are all standing proofs, that the body of bestial flesh and blood, which we now have, at the sight of which Adam was ashamed, which must die, which can rot in the grave, which must not be seen after the resurrection, was not that first body, in which Adam appeared before God in paradise: for it is an undeniable truth of scripture, that this flesh and blood cannot enter into the kingdom of God; it must be a truth of the same certainty, that this flesh and blood could not by God himself be brought into paradise; but that it must have the same original with every other polluted thing that is an abomination in his sight, or incapable of entering into the kingdom of God.
That the gospel also plainly shows, that man was created in the dignity and glorious enjoyment of the Triune life of God, that his fall was a falling into the earthly life of the light and spirit of this world, I have sufficiently proved from the greatest articles of the Christian faith, concerning the necessity, nature, and manner of our redemption, in the book of Christian Regeneration11. I have there shown, that baptism in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, signifies nothing but our being born again into this Triune life of God. That the necessity of being born again of the Word or Son of God, of being born of the Spirit, or receiving him as a sanctifier of our newly raised nature, plainly proves that what we lost by the fall, was this Triune life of God: he that denies this, denies the whole of the Christian redemption.
It has been already observed, that when man was created in his original perfection, the Holy Trinity was his creator; but when man was fallen, or had lost his first divine life, then there began a new language of a redeeming religion. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost were now to be considered, not as creating every man as they created the first, but as differently concerned in raising the fallen race of mankind, to that first likeness of the Holy Trinity in which their first father was created: hence it is, that the scriptures speak of the Father, as drawing, and calling men; because the desire which is from the Father's nature, must be the first mover, stirrer, and beginner. This desire must be moved and brought into an anguishing state, and have the agitation of a fire that is kindled; and then men are truly drawn by the Father. The Son of God is now considered as the regenerator or raiser of a new birth in us; because he enters a second time into the life of the soul, that his own nature and likeness may be again generated in it, and that he may be that to the soul in its state, which he is to the Father in the Deity. The Holy Ghost is represented as the sanctifier, or finisher of the divine life restored in us; because as in the Deity, the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son, as the amiable, blessed finisher of the Triune life of God; so the fallen nature of man cannot be raised out of its unholy state, cannot be blessed and sanctified with its true degree of the divine life, until the Holy Spirit arises up in it. Since then the Triune God, or the three persons in the one God, must have this difference of shares, must reach out this different help to the raising up of fallen man, it is undeniable, that the first created man stood in the image and real likeness of the one God, not only representing, but really having in his birth and life, the birth and life of the Holy Trinity. God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost had such a Unity in man, as they had in the Deity itself: how else could man be the image and likeness of the Holy Trinity, if it was not such a birth in man, as it was in itself? Or, how could the Holy Trinity dwell and operate in man, each person according to its respective nature, unless there was the same threefold life in man as there is in God? How could the Holy Trinity be an object of man's worship and adoration, if the Holy Trinity had not produced itself in man? The creature is only to own and worship its creator; therefore Father, Son, and Holy Ghost must have each of them their creaturely offspring, or product in man, if man is to worship Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. If therefore you deny angels, and the souls of perfect men to have the triune nature, of life of God in them: if you deny that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, have such union and relation in the soul, as they have out of it, you are guilty of as great heresy and apostasy from the gospel, as if you denied the Father to be the creator or him that calls and draws, the Son to be the redeemer, or him that regenerates, and the Holy Spirit to be him that sanctifies human nature.
Again: consider this great truth, which will very much illustrate this matter; you can be an inhabitant of no world, or a partaker of its life, but by its being inwardly the birth of your own life, or by having the nature and condition of that world born in you. As such, hell must be inwardly born in the soul, it must arise up within it, as it does without it, before the soul can become an inhabitant of it. Again: that which is the life of this outward world, i.e., its fire, and light, and air, must have such a state and birth within you, as they have outside of you, before you can be an inhabitant or partaker of the life of this world; that is, fire must be in you, must be the same fire, have the same place and nature within you, have the same relation to the light and air that is within you, as it has without you, or else the fire of the outward world, cannot keep up, or have any communion with your own life. The light of this world can signify nothing to you, cannot reach or enrich you with its powers and virtues, if the same light is not arisen in the same manner in the kindling of your own life, as it arises in the outward world. The air also of this world can do you no good, can be no preserver of your life, but because it has the same birth in you, that it has in outward nature. And therefore it must be a truth of the greatest certainty, that so it must of all necessity be with respect to the kingdom of God, or that life which is to be had in the beatific12 presence of God; it must, by an absolute necessity, have the same birth within you, as it has without you, before you can enter into it, or become an inhabitant of it: if you are to live, and be eternally blessed in the triune life, or beatific presence of God, that triune life, must, of the utmost necessity, first make itself creaturely in you; it must be, and arise in you, as it does without you, before you can possibly enter into any communion with it. Now is there anything more plain and scriptural, more easy to be conceived, more pious to be believed, and more impossible to be denied, than all this? And yet this is all that I have said, in two propositions in the treatise upon Christian Regeneration: it is there said, "Man was created by God after his own image, and in his own likeness, a living mirror of the divine nature; where Father, Son, and Holy Ghost each brought forth their own nature in a creaturely manner." Now, what is this, but saying, that the Holy Trinity brought forth a creature in its own likeness, standing in a creaturely birth of the divine, triune life? If it did not stand thus, how could it have its form or creation from the Holy Trinity? Or how could it without this triune life in itself, enter into, or be a partaker of the triune life or presence of God? In the next proposition it is said; "In it, that is, in this created image of the Holy Trinity, the Father's nature generated the divine Word, or Son of God, and the Holy Ghost proceeded from them both as an amiable, moving life of both. This was the likeness or image of God, in which the first man was created, a true offspring of God, in whom the divine birth sprung up as in the Deity, where Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, saw themselves in a creaturely manner."
Now, what is this, but saying in the plainest manner, only that the triune, creaturely life stood in the same birth and generation of its threefold life, as the Deity does, whose image, likeness, and offspring it is? And can it possibly be otherwise; for if the creature comes from the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, as their created image and likeness, must not that which it has from the Father, be of the nature of the Father, that which it has from the Son, be of the nature of the Son, and that which it has from the Holy Ghost, be of the nature of the Holy Ghost? And must they not therefore stand in the creature in such a relation to one another, as they do in the creator? If it is the nature of the Father to generate, if it is the nature of the Son to be generated, if it is the nature of the Holy Ghost to proceed from both, must not that which you have from the Father generate in you, that which you have from the Son be generated in you, and that which you have from the Holy Ghost, proceed from both in you? All which is only saying this plain and obvious truth, that that being, or created life, which you have from Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, must stand in such a triune relation within you as it does outside you; that having this threefold likeness of God, you may be capable of entering into an enjoyment of his triune, beatific life or presence. For, consider again this instance, with regard to the life of this world. The fire, and light, and air, of outward nature, must become creaturely in you; that is, you must have a fire that is your own creaturely fire, you must have a light that is generated by, or from your own fire, a breath that proceeds from your own fire and light, as the air of outward nature proceeds from its fire and light: you must have all this nature and birth of fire, and light, and air in your own creaturely being, or you cannot possibly live in, or have a life from the fire, and light, and air of outward nature: no omnipotence can make you a partaker of the life of this outward world, without having the life of this outward world born in your own creaturely being. And therefore, no omnipotence can make you a partaker of the beatific life or presence of the Holy Trinity, unless that life stands in the same triune state within you, as it does outside of you. The nature of this world must become creatural in you, before you can live, or have a share in the life of this world; the triune nature of God must breathe forth itself to stand creaturely in you, before you can live, or have a share in the beatific life or presence of the triune God.
Now, is not all this strictly according to the very outward letter, and inward truth of the most important articles of the Christian religion? For what else can be meant by the necessity of our being born again of the Word, or Son of God, being born of the Spirit of God, in order to have our entrance into the kingdom of heaven? Is not this saying, that the triune life of God must first have its birth in us, before we can enter into the triune, beatific life, or presence of God? What else is taught us by that new birth sought for by a baptism, in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost? Does it not plainly tell us, that the triune nature of the Deity is that which wants to be born in us, and that our redemption consists in nothing else but in the bringing forth this new birth in us, and that, being thus born again in the likeness of the Holy Trinity, we may be capable of its threefold blessing and happiness? The New Testament tells us of the impossibility of our being made holy, but by the Holy Spirit of God: now, how could we need any distinct thing particularly from the Son of God, any distinct thing, particularly from the Holy Ghost, in order to raise and repair our fallen nature, how could this be absolutely necessary, but because the holy threefold life of the Deity must stand within us, in the birth of our own life, as it does without us, so that we may be capable of living in God, and God in us. Search to eternity, why no devil, or beast can possibly be a partaker of the kingdom of heaven, and there can only be this one reason found, because neither of them have the triune, holy life of God in them: for every created thing does, and must, and can only want, seek, unite with, and enjoy that outwardly, which is of the same nature with itself. Place a devil where you will, he is still in hell, and always at the same distance from heaven; he can touch, or taste, or reach nothing but what is in hell. Carry a beast where you please, either to court, or to church, he is yet at the same infinite distance from the joys and fears either of church, or court, as the beasts that never saw anything else but their own kind: and all this is grounded solely on this eternal truth; namely, that no being can rise higher than its own life reaches. The circle of the birth of life in every creature is its necessary circumference, and it cannot possibly reach any further; and therefore it is a joyful truth, that beings created to worship and adore the Holy Trinity, and to enter into the beatific life and presence of the triune God, must, of all necessity, have the same triune life in their own creaturely being. And now, what can be so glorious, so edifying, so ravishing, as this knowledge of God and ourselves? The very thought of our standing in this likeness and relation to the infinite creator and being of all beings, is enough to kindle the divine life within us, and melt us into a continual love and adoration: for how can we enough love and adore that Holy Trinity which has created us in its own likeness, that we might live in an eternal union and communion with Him? Will anyone call this an irreverent familiarity, or bold looking into the Holy Trinity, which is nothing else but a thankful adoration of it, as our glorious Father and creator? It is our best and only acknowledgement of the greatest truths of the holy scriptures; it is the scripture doctrine of the Trinity kept in its own simplicity, separated from scholastic speculations, where the three in God, are only distinguished by that threefold share that they have in the creation and redemption of man. When therefore we know the Trinity in ourselves, and adore its high origin in the Deity, we are possessed of a truth of the greatest degree, that enlightens the mind with the most solid and edifying knowledge, and opens to us the fullest understanding of all that concerns the creation, fall, and redemption of man.
Without this knowledge, all the scripture will be used as a dead letter, and formed only into a figurative, historical system of things, that has no ground in nature; and learned divines can only be learned in the explication of phrases, and verbal distinctions. The first chapters of Genesis will be a knot that cannot be untied; the mysteries of the gospel will only be called federal rites, and their inward ground reproached as enthusiastic dreams; but when it is known, that the triune nature of God was brought forth in the creation of man, that it was lost in his fall, that it is restored in his redemption, a never-failing light arises in all scripture, from Genesis to the Revelation. Everything that is said of God, as Father, regenerator, or sanctifier of man; everything that is said of Jesus Christ, as redeeming, being formed, dwelling in, and quickening; and of the Holy Spirit, as moving and sanctifying us: everything that is said of the Lord's supper and baptism, or promised in and by them, has its deep and inward ground fully discovered; and the whole Christian religion is built upon a rock, and God will appear to be doing every good to us, that the God of all nature can possibly do. The doctrine of the Holy Trinity is wholly practical; it is revealed to us, to discover our high origin, and the greatness of our fall, to show us the deep and profound operation of the triune God in the recovery of the divine life in our souls; that by the means of this mystery thus discovered, our piety may be rightly directed, our faith and prayer have their proper objects, that the workings and aspiring of our own hearts may cooperate, and correspond with that triune life in the Deity, which is always desiring to manifest itself in us; for as everything that is in us, whether it be heaven, or hell, rises up in us by a birth, and is generated in us by the will-spirit of our souls, which kindles itself either in heaven, or hell; so this mystery of a triune Deity manifesting itself, as a Father creating, as a Son, or Word, regenerating, as a Holy Spirit sanctifying us, is not to entertain our speculation with dry, metaphysical distinctions of the Deity, but to show us from what a height and depth we are fallen, and to excite such a prayer and faith, such a hungering and thirsting after this triune fountain of all good, as may help to generate and bring forth in us that first image of the Holy Trinity in which we were created, and which must be born in us before we can enter into the state of the blessed: here we may see the reason, why the learned world has had so many fruitless disputes about this mystery, and why it has been so often a stone of stumbling to philosophers and critics; it is because they began to reason about that, which never was proposed to their reason, and which no more belongs to human learning and philosophy, than light belongs to our ears, or sounds to our eyes. No person has any fitness, nor any pretense, nor any ground from scripture, to think, or say anything of God, until such time as he stands in the state of the penitent returning prodigal, weary of his own sinful, shameful nature; and desiring to renounce the world, the flesh, and the devil, and then is he first permitted to be baptized into the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost: this is the first time the gospel teaches, or calls anyone to the acknowledgement of the Holy Trinity. Now, as this knowledge is first given in and about baptism, and there only as a signification of a triune life of the Deity, which must be regenerated in the soul; so the scriptures say nothing afterwards to this baptized penitent concerning the Trinity, but only with regard to regeneration, everywhere only showing him how Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, all equally divine, must draw, awaken, quicken, enlighten, move, guide, cleanse, and sanctify the new-born Christian: is it not therefore undeniably plain, that all abstract speculations of this mystery, how it is in itself, how it is to be ideally conceived, or scholastically expressed by us, is a wandering away from that true light, in which the Trinity of God is set before us, which is only revealed as a key, or direction to the true depths of that regeneration, which is to be sought for from the Lord? But to go on in a further account of the creation.
Now, as all creatures, whether intellectual, animate, or inanimate, are products, or emanations of the divine desire, created out of the Father, who from eternity to eternity generates the Son, and from this the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds; so every intelligent, created being, not fallen from its state, stands in the same birth, or generating desire, it generates in its degree, as God the Father generates eternally the Son, and is blessed and perfected in the divine life, by having the Holy Spirit rise up in it. And so it is, that those angels which stood, and continued in the same will and desire in which they came out from God, willing and desiring as God from all eternity had willed and desired, were by the rising up of the Holy Spirit in them, confirmed and established in the divine life, and so became eternally and inseparably united with the ever-blessed triune Deity.
On the other hand, those angels which did not keep their will and desire in its first created tendency, but allowed their own will and desire to rise up, which own will and desire was their direct, full choosing and desiring to be, and do something which they could not be, and do in God, and is therefore properly called their aspiring to be above God, or to be independent from Him; these angels, by going backwards with their will and desire out of, or from God and divine truth, could only find, or generate that which had contrariety to God and the divine birth, and so became under a necessity of finding themselves in an eternal state, spirit and life that was directly contrary to all that is good, holy, amiable, blessed and divine. Now, the will and desire in every creature is generating, and effective, strictly according to the state and nature of that creature, therefore, eternal beings in an eternal state, must have an eternal power and effectiveness in the working of their wills and desires: when therefore those angels, with all the strength of their eternal desires, turned away from God and the divine birth, they could become nothing else, but beings eternally separated and broken off from all that was God and goodness: for eternal beings that stood only in an eternal state, acting with all their vigor, not doubting, but strong willed, could not do anything that had only a temporal nature and effect, because they stood not in such a nature or such a world, and therefore what they willed and generated with all their nature, (which was a contrariety to God) that became the eternal state of their nature. And this is the birth and origin of hellish beings. God had done all to them and for them, that he had done to and for the angels that stood; he had given them the same holy beginning of their lives, had brought them forth out of himself in the same tendency, that which was the nature of other angels, was theirs; he could not make any established, fixed, and unchangeable angels, because the life of everything must be a birth, and willing beings must have a birth of their wills; he could not make them fixed, because everything that comes from God, must so come from him, as it was in him, a self- existent and self-moving power, and therefore no goodness of God could hinder their having a self-motion, because they were, and could be nothing else but creatures brought forth by, and out of his own self- existent and self-moving nature. God is all good, and everything that comes out from him, as his creature, product, or offspring, must come forth in that state of goodness, which it had in him; and every creature, however high in its birth from God, must in the beginning of its life, have a power of joining with or depareing from God, because the beginning of its life is nothing else but the beginning of its own self-motion as a creature; and therefore no creature can have its state or condition fixed, until it gives itself up either wholly unto God, or turns wholly from him; for if it is an intelligent creature, it can only be so, by having the intelligent will of God derived into it; but the intelligent will brought into a creaturely form, must be that which it was in the creator, and therefore must be the same self-existent and self-moving power that it was before it became creaturely in any angel or spirit. And so you see the cause and origin of evil, wherever it is, it is absolutely and eternally separated from God.
Again: as all intelligent beings can in no way attain their happiness and perfection, but by standing with their will and desire united to God, in the same tendency in which the Father eternally generates the Son, from this and this alone, the Holy Spirit proceeds as the finisher of the triune, beatific life, so the same thing is manifestly proved to us by the lowest kind of beings that are in visible this world; for all vegetables, by their attraction or astringency, which is their desire, and is an out birth of the divine desire, reach their utmost perfection by the same progress, that is, by getting a birth of the light and spirit of this outward world into them, and so become infallible, though no life can be brought to its proper perfection in the creature, until the image of the triune life of God, is, according to the state and capacity of the creature, formed in it: look where you will, everything proclaims and proves this great truth. The Christian doctrine of the salvation of mankind by a birth of the Son, and Holy Spirit of God in them, is not only written in scripture, but in the whole state and frame of nature, and of every life in this world; for every perfect fruit openly declares, that it can have no goodness in it, until the light and spirit of this world has done that to it and in it, which the Light and Spirit of God must do to the soul of man, and therefore is a full proof, that it is absolutely necessary for every human creature to desire, believe, and receive the birth of the Son and Holy Spirit of God to save it from its own wrath and darkness, as it is necessary for every fruit of the earth to be raised and regenerated from its own bitterness and sourness, by receiving the light and spirit of this world into it.
Some learned men, willing to discover the image of the Holy Trinity in the creation, have observed three properties both in body and spirit, which they supposed to be a proper likeness of the Trinity. But all this is as nothing to the matter. For as the Holy Trinity is a threefold life in God, so the image of the Trinity is always found in a threefold life in the creature; for it is the whole birth, or generation of the thing itself, whether it be corporeal or spiritual, that stands in such a threefold state as the Holy Trinity does, that is the proper likeness or image of the Trinity. As there is one infinitely perfect Deity, because this one Deity is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, so every creature that is an original production of the Deity, or in its proper state of perfection, stands in its whole being, or generating as the Deity does, and neither has, nor ever can have any perfection, but because the triune nature of God is manifested and brought forth in it; for the perfection of life, is God, and a perfection of life derived from God, must stand in the same threefold state, and that which is a life from the Deity, must have a life of the Trinity in it.
Take away attraction, or desire from the creature of this world, and you annihilate the creature; for where there is no attraction or desire, there can be no nature or being; and therefore attraction or desire shows the work of the creator in everything, or what is meant by the divine fiat, or creating power. Now, what is it which this attraction or desire wants, hungers, draws and reaches after? Nothing else but the light and spirit of this world. What is the true, deep, and infallible ground of this? Why does this desire work in every life of this world? It is because the eternal will in the Deity, is a desiring or generating of the Son, from where the Holy Spirit of God proceeds: and therefore attraction, which is an out-birth of the divine desire, stands in a perpetual desiring of the light and spirit of this world, because they are the two out-births of the Light and Holy Spirit of God. What rational mind can help being charmed with this wonderful harmony and relation between God, nature, and creature?
And now, my dear reader, if you are either Arian, or Deist, be so no longer: the ground has been dug up from under you, and neither opinion has anything left to stand upon; you may wrangle and wrestle the doctrine of scripture, because it is only taught in words; but the veil is now taken off from nature, and every plant and fruit will teach you with the clearness of the noon-day sun, these two great truths; first, that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one being, one life, one God: secondly, that the soul, which is dead to the paradisiacal life, must be made alive again by the birth of the Son and Holy Spirit of God in it, in the same manner as a dead seed is, and only can be brought to life in this world, by the light and spirit of this world.
Arianism And Deism Confronted By Nature.
If you are an Arian, don't content yourself with the numbers that are with you, or with a learned name or two that happen to be on your side: Arianism has never yet been recommended by the genius and learning of a Baronious, or Bellarmin; and nothing but a poor, groping, purblind philosophy, that is not able to look either at God, nature, or creature, has ever led any man into it: for it is a truth proclaimed by all nature and creature, that there is a threefold life in God, and everything that is, whether it be happy, or miserable, perfect or imperfect, is only so, because it has, or has not the triune nature of God in it.
A beginning fruit is like a poison; a seed, for a while, it is shut up in a hard death. Why are they both at first in this state? It is because each of them stands as yet only in that first birth of nature, which is but a beginning manifestation of the Deity. Let the light of the sun, and the spirit of this world be born in them, and then the sour, astringent fruit, and the dead seed becomes a perfect, vegetable life, and is in its kind perfect, for this one and only reason, because the triune life of the Deity is truly manifested in it.
If you are a Deist, made so, either by the disorderly state of your own heart, or by prejudices taken from the corruptions and divisions of Christians, or from a dislike of the language of scripture, or from an opinion of the sufficiency of a religion of human reason, or from whatever else it may be, look well to yourself, Christianity is no fiction of enthusiasm, or invention of ministers or priests.
That Life Is Uniform Through All Creatures.
If you can show, that the gospel proposes to bring men into the kingdom of heaven by any other method, than that, which nature requires to make any creature a living member of this world, then I will acknowledge the gospel not to be founded in nature. But if what the gospel said of the absolute necessity, that the fallen soul be born again of the Son and Holy Spirit of God, this is the very same which all temporal nature has said of everything that is to enter into the life of this world, i.e., that it cannot partaker of the life of this world, until the light and spirit of this world is born in it; then does not all nature in this world, and every life in it, declare, that the Christian method of salvation is as necessary to raise fallen man, as the sun and spirit of this world is, to bring a creature alive into it? Now, as there is but one God, so there is but one nature, as unalterable as that God from whom it arises, and whose manifestation it is; so also there is but one religion founded in nature, and but one salvation possible in nature. Revealed religion is nothing else but a revelation of the mysteries of nature, for God cannot reveal, or require anything by a spoken or written word, but only that which he reveals and requires by nature; for nature is his great book of revelation, and he that can only read its letters, will have found so many demonstrations of the truth of the written revelation of God. But to show, that there is but one salvation possible in nature, and that possibility solely contained in the Christian method: look from the top to the bottom of all creatures, from the highest to the lowest beings, and you will find, that death has but one nature in all worlds, and in all creatures: look at life in an angel, and life in a vegetable, and you will find, that life has but one and the same form, one and the same ground in the whole scale of beings: no omnipotence of God can make that to be life, which is not life, or that to be death, which is not death, according to nature; and the reason is, because nature is nothing else but God's own outward manifestation of what he inwardly is, and can do; and therefore no revelation from God can teach, or require anything but that which is taught and required by God in, and through nature. The mysteries of religion therefore, are no higher, nor deeper than the mysteries of nature, and all the rites, laws, ceremonies, types, institutions and ordinances given by God from Adam to the apostles, are only typical of something that is to be done, or instrumental to the doing of that, which the unchangeable working of nature requires to be done. As sure therefore as there is but one death thing, and life is the same thing throughout all nature, whether temporal or eternal, so sure is it, that there is but one way to life or salvation for fallen man. And this way, let it be what it will, must and only can be that, which has its reason and foundation in that one universal nature, which is the one unchangeable manifestation of the Deity. For if there is but one thing that is life, and one thing that is death throughout all nature, from the highest angel to the hardest flint upon earth, then it must be plain, that the life which is to be raised or restored by religion, must, and can only be restored according to nature: and therefore, true religion can only be the religion of nature, and divine revelation can do nothing else, but reveal and manifest the demands and workings of nature.
That There Is But One Kind Of Death To Be Found In All Nature.
Now, the one great doctrine of the Christian religion which includes all the rest, is this, that Adam, by his sin, died to the kingdom of heaven, or that the divine life was extinguished within him; that he cannot be redeemed, or restored to this first divine life, but by having it regenerated in him by the Son and Holy Spirit of God: now, that which is here called death, his losing the Light and Spirit of the kingdom of heaven, and that which is here made necessary to make him alive again to the kingdom of heaven, is that very same which is called, and is death and life throughout all nature, both temporal and eternal: and therefore, the Christian religion requiring this method of raising a man to a divine life, has its infallible proof from all nature. Consider death, or the deadness that is in a hard piece of flint, and you will see the nature of the eternal death of a fallen angel: the flint is dead, or in a state of death, because its fire is bound, compacted, shut up, and imprisoned; this is its chains and bands of death: a steel struck against a flint will show you, that every particles of the flint consists of this compacted fire. Now, a fallen angel is in no other state of death, knows no other death than this: it is in its whole spiritual, intelligent being, nothing else, but that very same which the flint is, in its insensible materiality, i.e., an imprisoned compacted, darkened fire-spirit, shut up, and tied in its own chains of darkness, as the fire of the flint; and you shall see, that the flint is changed from its first state into its present hardness of death, in the same manner, and by the same means, as the heavenly angel is become a fiery serpent in the state of eternal death. Now, look at every death that can be found between that of a fallen angel, and that of a hard flint, and you will find that death enters nowhere, into no kind of vegetable, plant, or animal, but as it has entered into the angel, and the flint, and stands in the same manner in everything wherever it is. Now, that a fallen angel, is nothing else but a fire-spirit imprisoned in the same manner as a flint is an imprisoned fire, is plain from the scripture account of them; not only because all the wrathful properties of a fire without light, are ascribed to them as their essential qualities, but because the place of their habitation, or the state of their life, is a fire of hell. For how could it be possible, that a hellish fire should be the eternal state of their life, unless their nature was such a fire? Must not their painful condition arise from their nature, and their misery be only a sensibility of themselves, of that which they have made themselves to be? Therefore, if fire shut up in darkness, is the nature of hell, it can only be so, because such a darkened fire is the very nature of a fallen angel. Or how again could the human soul, which has withstood its salvation in this life, be said to fall into eternal death, or the fire of hell, if the soul itself did not become that fire of hell? For when you say the soul enters into hell, you say neither more nor less, than if you had said, that hell enters into the soul; therefore, the state of hell, and the state of the soul in hell, is one and the same thing. If therefore hell is a state of fire shut up, and imprisoned from all communion with light, then the same dark, imprisoned fire must be the nature of the fallen angel and lost soul; and what your eyes see to be the death or deadness of a flint, is that same thing, or that same state of the thing, which the scripture assures you, to be the eternal death of a fallen angel, and a lost soul. Here also you may see a plain proof of what I have elsewhere declared in it, or the in-spoken Word of life given to Adam at his fall, it is in itself, as a fallen soul, the same dark, fiery spirit, as the devils are; and the reason why men are wholly given up to wickedness, who have suppressed the redeeming power of God in their souls, and the reason that they do not become fully sensible of this state of their souls, is this, because the soul, while it is in this flesh and blood, is capable of being softened, and comforted in some degree or other, by the influences of the sun and spirit of this world, as all other creatures and beings are. And if it was not, how could it be a plain, constant doctrine of scripture, that when the unredeemed soul despairs this life, it is incapable of anything but hell? Is not this directly saying, that hell, or the sensibility of hell was only hid and suppressed in such a soul, by the life and light of this world shining upon it. Now what I have said of the sad condition of the soul at the fall, that it lost the divine life, or the birth of the Son and Holy Spirit of God in it, and so became the same dark, fiery nature, as the devils, is not possible to be denied, without denying the most universally received doctrine of scripture. Is it not a fundamental doctrine of scripture, that Adam and all his posterity had been left in a state of eternal death, or damnation, unless Jesus Christ had become their redeemer, and taken them out of their natural state? But how can you believe that they had been left in this state, without believing that they were in it? Or, how can you with the scripture believe, that by the fall they became heirs of eternal death and damnation with the devils, unless you believe and affirm, that by the fall they became of a hellish, diabolical nature? Or how can you hold, that by the fall they needed to be delivered from the state of the devils, and yet not allow, that by the fall, they received the nature of the devils? Can anything be more absurd and inconsistent? Is it not the same thing as saying, that God made them heirs of eternal death and hell, before they were by nature fit for it, or before they had extinguished in themselves the divine life which was at first brought forth in them. Again: it is a scripture doctrine of the utmost certainty and importance, that those souls which have totally resisted and withstood all that God has done in them and for them by his Son Jesus Christ, will, at their departure from the body, be incapable of anything but eternal death, or a hellish condition. Now, how can you possibly hold this doctrine of scripture, without holding at the same time, that the soul was in that state by the fall, before it had received its redeemer, as it is then in, when it has refused to receive him; for all that you can say of a lost soul is only this, that it has lost its redeemer, and therefore is only in the condition of that soul which has not received him: and therefore, if a lost soul is only an unredeemed soul, it must be plain, that the soul, before it had received its redeemer, was in a miserable condition, and had the miserable nature of a lost soul; and therefore, the only difference between the fallen soul, and the lost soul is this, they are both in the same need of a savior, both have the same miserable nature, because they have him not; but the one has the offer of him, and the other has refused to accept of him: but this final refusal of him, has only left him in possession of that fallen state of a hellish condition, which it had before a savior was given to it; and therefore, it is a truth of the utmost certainty, that Adam, by his fall, died to the divine life, and that by this death, his soul became of the same nature and condition as that of the fallen angels; and that therefore the new birth or regeneration, which he is to obtain by his redeemer Jesus Christ, is nothing else but the bringing back of his soul into the kingdom of heaven, by a birth of the Son and the Holy Spirit of God brought forth in it, so that the life of the triune God may be in him again, as it was at his creation, when his soul was first breathed forth from the triune God. Is there anything greater, more glorious, or more consistent than these truths? Or is there any possibility of denying any part of them, without giving up all of them? Or is there any reason, why a Christian should be reluctant to believe this, and this alone, to be the true state of that regeneration which is so absolutely required by the gospel? Is it an unreasonable or an uncomfortable thing to be told, that our regeneration is a true and real regaining of that heavenly, divine, immortal life which at first came forth from God, and which alone can enter into the kingdom of heaven? Say that Adam did not die a real death at his transgression, that he did not lose a divine, immortal life, light and spirit, that he did not then first become a mere earthly, mortal, diabolical animal in the true and proper sense of the words, but that these things could only be affirmed of him in a figurative form of speech; say this, and then tell me what reality you have left in any article of our salvation? But if all these things must be said of fallen man according to the strictest truth of the expression, then the gospel regeneration, by a birth of the Son and Holy Spirit of God, arising a second time, in the soul of man, must mean such a real birth of a new heavenly life, as the proper sense of the words denote.
But to return now to my argumentation with the Deist, I have plainly shown you, that there is, and can be but one kind of death through all nature, whether temporal or eternal; and this I have done, by showing that eternal death in an angel, is the same thing, and has the same nature, as the hard death that is in a senseless flint. But if it is a certain truth, that death has but one way of entering into, or possessing any being from the highest of spiritual to the lowest of material creatures, then, though nothing else could be offered, it must be an infallible consequence, that life has but one way of being kindled throughout all nature, and that therefore there can be but one true religion, and that only can be it, which has the one and only way of kindling the heavenly life in the soul. Now, look where you will, the birth or kindling of life through all nature shows you, that the way of gospel regeneration, or raising the divine life again in the fallen soul, is that one and the same way, by which every kind of life is, and must be raised, wherever it is found. The gospel said, unless the fallen soul be born again from above, be born again of the Word, or Son, and the Spirit of God, it cannot see, or enter into the kingdom of heaven: now here it says a truth, as much confirmed and ratified by all nature, as when it is said, except a creature has the light and spirit of this world born in it, it cannot become a living animal of this world: or, except a seed have the light and spirit of this world incorporated in it, it cannot become a vegetable of this world, either as plant, fruit, or flower. Ask now wherein lies the absolute impossibility, that the fallen soul should be raised to its divine life, without a birth of the Son and Holy Spirit of God in it, and the true ground of this impossibility is only this, because a seed shut up in its own cold hardness, cannot possibly be raised into its highest vegetable life, but by a birth of the light and spirit of this world rising up in it. On the other hand, ask why a seed cannot possibly become a vegetable life, until the light and spirit of this world has been incorporated, or generated in it; and the only true ground of it is, because a fallen soul can only be raised to a divine life, or become a plant of the kingdom of heaven, by receiving the birth of the Light and Spirit of God into it. For the true reason, why life is in such a form, and rises in such a manner in the lowest creature living, is because it does, and must arise in the same manner, and stand in the same form in the highest of living creatures: for nature does, and must always act and generate in one and the same unchangeable manner, because it is nothing else but the manifestation of one unchangeable God. It is one and the same operation of light and spirit, that turns fire into every degree and kind of life that can be found either in temporal or eternal nature: it is one and the same operation of light and spirit, that upon one state of fire, raises an animal life, upon another state of fire, raises an intellectual and angelical life. There is no state or form of death in any creature, but where some kind of fire is shut up from light and spirit, nor is there any kind of life but that which is kindled by the same operation of light and spirit upon some sort of fire. A fruit must first stand in a poisonous, sour, astringent, bitter, and fiery agitation of all its parts , before the light and spirit of this world can be generated in it. And so light and spirit operate upon one sort of fire in the production of a vegetable life. An animal must be conceived in the same manner, it must begin in the same poison, and when nature is in its fiery strife, the light and spirit of this world kindles up the true animal life. There is but one kind, or state of death that can fall upon any creature, which is nothing else, but its losing the birth of light and spirit in itself, by which it becomes an imprisoned, dark fire. In an animal, vegetable, or mere matter, it is a senseless state of imprisoned fire; in an angel, or intellectual being, as the soul of man, it is a self-tormenting, self-generating, fiery worm, that cannot lose its sensibility, but is in a state of eternal death, because it is separated eternally from that light and spirit, which alone can raise a divine life in any intellectual creature. And so it is plain, beyond all possibility of doubt, that there is neither life nor death to be found in any part of the creation but that sets its infallible seal to this gospel truth, that fallen man cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven any other way, than by being born again of the Son and Holy Spirit of God.
And here, my friend, you may with certainty see what a poor, groundless fiction, your religion of human reason is; its insignificancy and emptiness is shown you by everything you can look upon. Salvation is a birth of life, but reason can no more bring forth this birth, than it can bring forth life in a plant, or animal: you might as well write the word "flame," upon the outside of a flint, and then expect that its imprisoned fire should be kindled by it, as to imagine, that any images, or ideal speculations of reason painted in your brain, should raise your soul out of its state of death, and kindle the divine life in it. No: would you have fire from a flint; its house of death must be shaken, and its chains of darkness broken off by the strokes of a steel upon it. This must of all necessity be done to your soul, its imprisoned fire must be awakened by the sharp strokes of steel, or no true light of life can arise in it: all nature and creature tells you, that the heavenly life must begin in you from the same causes, and the same operation as every earthly life, whether vegetable, or animal. Now, look where you will, all life must be generated in this manner: first, an attraction, or an astringent desire, must work itself into an anguishing agitation, or painful strife; this attraction become restless, and highly agitated, it is that first poison, or strife of the properties of nature, which is and must be the beginning of every vegetable or animal life; it is by this strife, or inward agitation, that it reaches and gets a birth of the light and spirit of this world into it, and so becomes a living member, either of the animal or vegetable world. Now, this must be your process, a desire brought into an anguishing state; the bitter sorrows and fiery agitations of repentance, must be the beginning of a divine life in your soul; it is by this awakened fire, or inward agitation, that it becomes capable of being regenerated, or turned into an heavenly life, by the Light and Holy Spirit of God. Nothing is, or can possibly be salvation, but this regenerated life of the soul: how vain and absurd would it be, to talk of a creature's being made a member of a vegetable or animal kingdom, through an outward grace or favor? or by any outward thing of any kind? For does not sense, reason, and all nature force you to confess, that it is absolutely impossible for anything to become a living member of the animal or vegetable kingdom, but by having the animal or vegetable life raised or brought forth in it? Therefore, does not sense and reason, and all nature join with the gospel in affirming, that no man can enter into the kingdom of heaven, until the heavenly life, or that which is the life in heaven, be born in him? The gospel says to the fallen, earthly man, that he must be born again from above, before he can see, enter into, or become a living member of the kingdom that is above. Now, he that understands this to be a figurative saying, that requires no real birth of a real life that is only above, but that an earthly man may enter into the life of heaven, by only carrying this figurative saying along with him, is as absurd, as ignorant, and offends as much against sense, reason, and all nature, as he who holds, that it is a figurative expression, when we say that nothing can enter into the vegetable kingdom, until it has the vegetable life in it, or be a member of the animal kingdom, until it has the animal life born in it. And if some learned men will say, that it is religious enthusiasm to place our salvation, or capacity for the kingdom of heaven in the inward life or birth of heaven derived into our souls, they are only as learned as those who should call it philosophical enthusiasm to place the true nature of a vegetable, or animal, in its getting the inward, real birth of a vegetable and animal life. But to return to the Deist. You act as if God was a being that had an arbitrary, discretionary will, or wisdom, like that of a great prince over his subjects, who will reward mankind according as their services appeared to him. And so you fancy, that your religion of reason may appear as valuable as a religion that consists of forms, and modes, ordinances, and doctrines of revelation; but your idea of the last judgment is a fiction of reason that knows nothing rightly of God. God's last rewarding, is only his last separating everything into its own eternal place; it is only putting an end to all temporary nature, to the mixture of good and evil that is in time and leaving everything to be that in eternity, which it has made itself to be in time. Consequently, it is that our works follow us, and so God rewards every man according to his deeds. During the time of this world, God may be considered as the good husbandman; he sows the seed, the end of the world is the harvest, the angels are the reapers; if you are wheat, you are to be gathered into the barn, if you are tares, it signifies nothing, where, or how, or by what means you are become so; tares are to be rejected, because they are tares, and wheat is to be gathered by the angels, because it is wheat: this is the mercy, and goodness, and discretionary justice of God that you are to expect at the last day. If you are not wheat, that is, if the heavenly life, or the kingdom of God, is not grown up in you it signifies nothing, but what you have chosen in the instead of it, or why you have chosen it. God wants no services of men to reward, he only wants to have such a life quickened and raised up in you, as may make it possible for you to enter into, and live in heaven. He has created you out of his own eternal nature, and therefore you must have either an eternal life, or eternal death according to it. If eternal nature stands in you, as it does without you, then you are born again to the kingdom of heaven; but if nature works contrary in you to what it does in heaven, then you are in eternal death: and here lies the necessity of our being born again of the Word and Spirit of God, in order to enter the kingdom of heaven. It is because we are created out of that eternal nature which is the kingdom of heaven; it is because we are fallen out of it into a life of temporal nature, and therefore must have the life of eternal nature re-kindled, born afresh in us, before we can possibly enter into the kingdom of heaven: therefore, look where you will, or at what you will, there is only one thing to be done, we want nothing else, but to have the life of eternal nature kindled again in our souls, that this life, and light, and spirit may be that in our souls, which they are in eternal nature13, out of which our souls were created; that so we may be heavenly plants growing up in the kingdom of heaven. You deceive yourself with fancied notions of the goodness of God; you imagine, that so perfect a being cannot damn you for so small a matter, as choosing a religion according to your own notions, or for not joining yourself with this, or that religious society. But all this is a great ignorance of God, and nature, and religion. God has appointed a religion, by which salvation is to be had according to the possibility of nature, where no creature will be saved, or lost, but as it works with, or contrary to this nature. For as the God of nature cannot Himself act contrary to nature, because nature is the manifestation of Himself, so every creature having its life in, and from nature, can have only such a life, or such a death as is according to the possibility of nature: and therefore, no creature will be saved, by an arbitrary goodness of God, but because of its conformity to nature, nor any creature lost by a want of compassion in God, but because of its salvation being impossible, according to the whole state of nature. It is not for notional, or speculative mistakes, that man will be rejected by God at the last day, or for any crimes that God could overlook, if he was so pleased; but because man has continued in his unregenerate state, and has resisted and suppressed that birth of life, by which alone he could become a member of the kingdom of heaven. The goodness and love of God have no limits or bounds, but such as His omnipotence has: and everything that has a possibility of partaking of the kingdom of heaven, will infallibly find a place in it. God comes not to judgment to display any wrath of his own, or to inflict any punishment as from himself upon man: he only comes to declare, that all temporary nature is at an end, and that therefore, all things must be, and must stand in their own places in eternal nature: his sentence of condemnation, is only leaving them that are lost, in such a misery of their own nature, and this is the final rejecting of all that was possible to relieve it. You fancy that God will not reject you at the last day, for having not received this, or that mode, or kind of religion: but here all is mistake again. You might as well imagine, that no particular kind of element was necessary to extinguish fire, or that water can supply the place of air in stopping it, as suppose that no particular kind of religion is absolutely necessary to raise up such a divine life in the soul as can only be its salvation; for nature is the ground of all creatures, it is God's manifestation of Himself, it is his instrument in, and by which he acts in the production and government of every life; and therefore a life that is to belong to this world, must be raised according to temporal nature, and a life that is to live in the next world, must be raised according to eternal nature. Therefore, all the particular doctrines, institutions, mysteries, and ordinances of a revealed religion that comes from the God of nature, must have their reason, foundation, and necessity in nature; and then your renouncing such a revealed religion, is renouncing all that the God of nature can do to save you. When I speak of nature as the true ground and foundation of religion, I mean nothing like that which you call the religion of human reason, or nature; for I speak here of eternal nature, which is the nature of the kingdom of heaven, or that eternal state, where all redeemed souls must have their eternal life, and live in eternal nature by a life derived from it, as men and animals live in temporal nature, by a life derived from it; for, seeing man stands with his soul in eternal nature, as certainly as he lives outwardly in temporal nature, and seeing man can have nothing in this world, neither happiness, nor misery from it, but what is according to the eternal nature of that world; and therefore, it is an infallible truth, that that particular religion can alone do us any good, or help us to the happiness of the next world, which works with, and according to eternal nature, and is able to generate that eternal life in us. But your notion of a goodness of God that may be expected at the last day, is as groundless, as if you imagined, that God would then stand over his creatures in a compassionate kind of weighing or considering who should be saved, and who damned, because a good-natured prince might do so towards variety of offenders. But hear how the God of nature himself speaks of this matter: Behold, I have set before you, life and death, fire and water. choose which you will. Here lies the whole of the divine mercy; it is all on this side of the day of judgment: until the end of time, God is compassionate and long-suffering, and continues to every creature a power of choosing life or death, water or fire; but when the end of time is come, there is an end of choice, and the last judgment is only a putting everyone into the full and sole possession of that which he has chosen. But your notion of a goodness of God at the last day supposes, that if a man has erroneously chosen death instead of life, fire instead of water, that God will not suffer such a creature to be deprived of salvation through a mistaken choice; but that in such a creature, he will make death to be life, and fire to be water. But you might as well expect that God should make a thing to be, and not to be at the same time; for this is as possible as to make hell to be heaven, or death to be life: for darkness can no more be light, death can no more be life, fire can no more be water in any being through a compassion of God towards it, than a circle could be a square, a falsehood a truth, or two to be three, by God's looking upon them.
Our salvation is an entrance into the kingdom of heaven: now, the life, Light and Spirit of heaven must as necessarily be in a creature before it can live in heaven, as the life, light and spirit of this world must be in a creature before it can live in this world: therefore the one only religion that can save any son of fallen Adam, must be that which can raise, or regenerate the life, Light and Spirit of heaven in his soul, so that when the light and spirit of this world leaves him, he may not find himself in eternal death and darkness. Now if this Light and Spirit of heaven is generated in your soul as it is generated in heaven, if it arises up in your nature within you, as it does in eternal nature without you, (which is the Christian new birth, or regeneration) then you are become capable of the kingdom of heaven, and nothing can keep you out of it; but if you die without this birth of the eternal Light and Spirit of God, then your soul stands at the same distance from, and contrariety to the kingdom of heaven, as hell does: if you die in this unregenerate state, it signifies nothing of how you have lived, or what religion you have owned, all is left undone that was to have saved you: it matters not what form of life you have appeared in, what a number of decent, engaging or glorious exploits you have done either as a scholar, a statesman, or a philosopher; if they have proceeded only from the light and spirit of this world, they must die with it, and leave your soul in that eternal darkness, which it must have, so long as the Light and Spirit of eternity is not generated in it. And this is the true ground and reason, why an outward morality, a decency and beauty of life and conduct with respect to this world, arising only from a worldly spirit, has nothing of salvation in it: he that has his virtue only from this world, is only a trader of this world, and can only have a worldly benefit from it. For it is an undoubted truth, that everything is necessarily bounded by, or kept within the sphere of its own activity; and therefore, to expect heavenly effects from a worldly spirit, is nonsense: as water cannot rise higher in its streams, than the spring from where it comes, so no actions can ascend further in their effectiveness, or rise higher in their value, than the spirit from which they proceed. The spirit that comes from heaven is always in heaven, and whatsoever it does, tends to, and reaches heaven: the spirit that arises from this world, is always in it; it is as worldly when it give alms, or prays in the church, as when it makes bargains in the market. When therefore the gospel said, he that gives alms to be seen of men, has his reward; it is grounded on this general truth, that everything, every shape, or kind or degree of virtue that arises from the spirit of this world, has nothing to expect but that which it can receive from this world: for every action must have its nature, and effectiveness according to the spirit from which it proceeds. He that loves to see a worthless image, solely from this principle, because from his heart he embraces Christ as his suffering Lord and pattern, does an action poor, and needless in itself, which yet by the spirit from which it proceeds, reaches heaven, and helps to kindle the heavenly life in the soul. On the other hand, he that from a selfish heart, a worldly spirit, a love of esteem, distinguishes himself by the most rational virtues of an exemplary life, has only a piety that may be reckoned amongst the perishable things of this world.
You (the Deist) think it unworthy of God, when you hear that the salvation of mankind is attributed and appropriated to faith and prayer in the name of Jesus Christ. It must be answered, first, that there is no partiality of any kind in God; everything is accepted by him according to its own nature, and receives all the good from him that it can possibly receive: secondly, that a morality of life, not arising from the power and Spirit of Jesus Christ, but brought forth by the spirit of this world, is the same thing, has the same nature and effectiveness in a heathen, as a Christian, does only the same worldly good to the one, as it does to the other; therefore, there is not the least partiality in God, with respect to the moral works of mankind, considered as arising from, and directed by the spirit of this world. Now, if these were the only works that man could do, if he could only act from the spirit of this world, no flesh could be saved, that is, no earthly creature, such as man is, could possibly begin to be of a heavenly nature, or have a heavenly life brought forth in him; so it is only a Spirit from Heaven derived into the fallen nature, that makes any beginning of a heavenly life in it, that can lay the possibility of its having the least ability, tendency, and disposition towards the kingdom of heaven. This Spirit derived from heaven, is the birth of the Son of God, given to the soul as its savior, regenerator, or beginner of its return to heaven; it is that Word of life, or bruiser of the serpent, that was in-spoken into the first fallen father of men; it is this alone that gives to all the race of Adam their capacity for salvation, their power of choice of being again sons of God; and therefore, faith and prayer in the Name of Jesus Christ, or works done in the Spirit and power of Jesus Christ can alone save the soul, because the soul can have no relation to heaven, no communion with it, no beginning or power of growth in the heavenly life, but solely by the nature and name of Jesus Christ derived into it. God's redemption of mankind is as universal as the fall: it was the one father of all men that fell, therefore, all his children were born into his fallen state: it was the one father of all men that was redeemed by the unspoken Word of life into him; therefore, all his children are born into his state of redemption, and have as certainly the same bruiser of the serpent in the birth of their life from him, as they have from him a serpentine nature that is to be bruised. For this reason it was, that this bruiser of the serpent, when born of a virgin, and come to die for the world, said of himself, "I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man comes unto the Father but by me." Hence also the apostle said, "There is no other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved," because he is that same saving Name, or power of salvation which from the beginning was given to Adam, as an in-spoken Word of life, or bruiser of the serpent: and therefore, as sure as Adam had any power of salvation derived into him from Jesus Christ, so sure was it, that the apostle must tell both Jews and heathens, that there was no salvation in any other. Therefore, though Jesus Christ is the one and only savior of all that can anywhere, or at any time be saved, yet there is no partiality in God, because, this same Jesus Christ, who came in human flesh to the Jews in a certain age, was that same savior who was given to Adam, when all mankind were in his loins; and who, through all ages, and in all countries, from the first patriarchs to the end of the world, is the common savior, as he is the common light that lights every man that comes into the world, and that principle of life both in Jews and heathens, by which they had any relation to God, or any power, right, or ability to call him Father. When therefore you look upon the gospel as narrowing the way of salvation, or limiting it to those, who only know and believe in Jesus Christ, since His appearance in the flesh, you mistake the whole nature of the Christian redemption. And when you reject this Savior that then appeared, and died as a sacrifice upon the cross, you don't renounce a particular kind of religion, that was given only at a certain time to one part of the world, but you renounce the one source and foundation of all the grace and mercy that God can bestow upon mankind, you renounce your share of that first covenant which God made with all men in Adam, you go back into his first fallen state, and so put yourself into that condition of eternal death, from which there is no possibility of deliverance, but by that one savior whom you have renounced. And now, my dear friend, beware of prejudice, or hardness of heart: one careless, or one relenting thought upon all that is here laid before you, may either quite shut out, or quite open an entrance for true conviction. I have shown you what is meant by Christian redemption, and the absolute necessity of a new and heavenly birth, in order to obtain your share of a heavenly life in the next world: I have confirmed the truths of the gospel, by proofs taken from what is undeniable in nature: and I readily grant you that nothing can be true in revealed religion, but that which has its foundation in nature; because a religion coming from the God of nature, can have no other end but to reform, and set right the failings, transgressions, and violations of nature. When the gospel said that man fallen from the state of his creation, and become an earthly animal of this temporal world, must be born again of the Son and Holy Spirit of God, in order to be a heavenly creature; it is because all nature said, that an immortal, eternal soul, must have an immortal, eternal Light and Spirit, to make it live in eternal nature, as every animal must have a temporal light and spirit, in order to live in temporary nature. Must you not therefore either deny the immortality of the soul, or acknowledge the necessity of its having an eternal Light and Spirit? When the gospel said, that nothing can kindle or generate the heavenly life, but the operation of the Light and Spirit of heaven, it is because all nature said, that no temporal life can be raised but in the same manner in temporary nature. Must you not therefore be forced to confess, that nature and the gospel both preach the same truths. Light and spirit must be wherever there are living beings: and there must be the same difference between the light and spirit of different worlds, as there is between the worlds themselves. Hell must have its light, or it could have no living inhabitants, but its light is not so refreshing, not so gentle, not so delightful, not so comfortable as flashing points of fire in the thickest darkness of night; and therefore their light is called an eternal darkness, because it can never disperse, but only horribly discover darkness: hell also must have its spirit; but it is only an incessant insensibility of wrathful agitations, of which the thunder and rage of a tempest is but a low, shadowy resemblance, as being only a little outward eruption of that wrath, which is the inward, restless essence of the spirit of hell; and therefore that life, though it be a living spirit, is justly called an eternal death. The Light and Spirit of God admits of no delineation or comparison, they are only so far known to anyone, as they are brought into the soul by a birth of themselves in it. Now consider, I pray you: the light and spirit of this world can no more be the light and spirit of immortal souls, than grass and hay can be the food of angels; but is as different from the Light and Spirit of heaven, as an angel is different from a beast of the field. When therefore the soul of a man despairs from his body, and is eternally cut off from all temporal light and spirit, what is it that can keep such a soul from falling into eternal darkness, unless it have in itself, that Light and Spirit, which is of the same nature with the Light and Spirit of eternity, so that it may be in the light of heaven or eternal nature, as it was in the light of this world in temporary nature. Light and spirit there must be in everything that lives, but the death of the body takes away the light and spirit of this world; if therefore the Light and Spirit of heaven is not born in the soul when it loses the body, it can only have that light and spirit, which is the very death and darkness of hell. When man lost the Light and Spirit of his creation, he lost it by turning the will and desire of his soul into an earthly life; this was his desire of knowing good and evil in this world. His fall therefore consisted in this, his soul lost its first innate, inbreathed Light and Spirit of heaven, and instead of it, had only the light and spirit of temporary nature, to keep up for a time such a life in him from this world, as the proper creatures of this world have: and this is the reason, why man, the noblest creature that is in this world, has yet various circumstances of necessity, poverty, distress and shame, that are not common to other animals of this world. it is because the creatures of this life are here at home, are the proper inhabitants of this world, and therefore that womb out of which they are born, has provided them with all that they want; but man being only fallen into it, and as a transgressor, must in many respects find himself in such wants as other creatures have not. Transitory time has brought them forth, and therefore they can have no pain, nor concern, nor danger in passing away; because it is the very form of their nature, to begin, and to have an end: and therefore the God of nature has no outward laws, or directions for the creatures of this world. But the soul of man being not born of the light and spirit of this transitory world, but only standing a while as a stranger upon earth, and being under a necessity of having either the nature of an angel, or a devil, when it leaves this world, is met by the mercy and goodness of the God of nature, is inwardly and outwardly called, warned, directed, and assisted how to regain that Light and Spirit of heaven which it lost, when it fell under the temporary light and spirit of this world. And this is the whole ground and end of revealed religion, i.e., to kindle such a beginning or birth of the divine Light and Spirit in the soul, that when man must take an eternal leave of the light and spirit of this world, he may not be in a state of eternal death and darkness. Now, seeing the Light and Spirit of heaven or eternal nature, is as different from the light and spirit of this world, as an angel is from an animal of the field, if you have lived here only to the spirit and temper of this world, governed by its goods and evils, and only wise according to its wisdom, you must die as destitute of the Light and Spirit of heaven, as the beasts that perish. You have now an aversion and dislike, or at least, a disbelief of the doctrines of Christian regeneration, you struggle against this kind of redemption, you would have no salvation from the Light and Spirit of eternity regenerated in your soul; where then must you be, when the light and spirit of this world leaves you? Do you think that the Light and Spirit of God will then seize upon you, shine up in you by an outward force, though they never could be born in you? Or do you think, that the Light and Spirit of God can now be generating themselves in you, and ready to appear, as soon as you have ended a life, that has continually resisted them, and would have nothing to do with a new birth from them? Or that God, by a compassionate goodness, will not suffer you to be in that condition, into which your own will has brought you? No, my friend, the will that is in you, must do that for you, which the will that was in angels did for those that stood, and for those that fell. God's goodness or compassion is always in the same infinite state, always flowing forth, in and through all nature in the same infinite manner, and nothing wants it, but that which cannot receive it: while the angels stood, they stood encompassed with the infinite source of all goodness and compassion, God was communicated to them in as high a degree as their nature could receive; and they fell, not because he ceased to be an infinite, open fountain of all good to them, but because they had a will which must direct itself. For the will, at its first arising in the creature, can be subject to no outward power, because it has no outward maker; as it stands in a creaturely form, God is its true creator; but as a will, it has no outward maker, but is a ray, or spark, derived from the un-beginning will of the creator, and is of the same nature in the creature, as it was in the creator, self-existent, self-generating, self-moving, and uncontrollable from without; and there could not possibly be a free will in the creature, but by its being directly derived, or propagated from the same will in the creator, for nothing can be free now, but that which always was so. But if the free will of God, which is above and superior to nature, be communicated to the creature, then the creature's free will must have the same power over its one nature, that the will of God has over that eternal nature, which is his own manifestation: and therefore, every free creature must have, and find its own nature in this, or that state, as a birth from the free working of its own will. And here appears the true reason, why no creatures of this world can commit sin; it is because they have no will that is superior to nature: their will in every one of them, is only the will of nature; and therefore let them do what they will, they are always doing that which is natural, and consequently, not sinful. But the will of angels and men being an offspring, or ray, derived from the will of God, which is superior to nature, stands chargeable with the state and condition of their nature; and therefore it is, that the nature of the devil, and the nature of fallen man is ascribed to both of them, as their sin, which could not be, but because their will was uncontrollable, and gave birth and being to that state and condition of nature, which is called, and is their sin. Therefore, O man! look well to yourself, and see what birth you are bringing forth, what nature is growing up in you, and be assured, that stand you must, in that state of nature, which the working of your own will has brought forth in you, whether it be happy or miserable. Expect no arbitrary goodness, of God towards you, when you leave this world; for that must grow for ever which has grown here. God Has created you in nature, his mercy Has shown you all the laws and necessities of nature, his mercy Has shown you all the laws and necessities of nature, and how you may rise from your corruption, according to the possibilities of nature, and he can only save you by your conforming to the demands of nature: the greatness of the divine mercy and favor towards all men appears in this, that when all nature had failed, and mankind could from nature have nothing but eternal death, that God brought such a second Adam into the world, as being God and man, could make nature begin its work again, where it failed in the first Adam.
And now for Calvinism . . . .
The free grace and mercy by which we are said in the scripture to be saved, is not an arbitrary good will in God, which saves whom he pleases; as a prince may forgive some, and not forgive others, merely through his own sovereign grace and favor: nothing of this kind has any place in God, or in the mystery of our redemption; but the mercy and grace, by which we are saved, is therefore free, because God Has freely, and from his own goodness, put us into a state and possibility of salvation, by freely giving us Jesus Christ, (the divine and human nature united in one person) as the only means of regenerating that first divine and human life, which the whole race of mankind had lost. In this sense alone it is, that all our salvation is wholly owing to the free grace of God, that is, our state, and possibility, and means of attaining salvation is wholly owing to his free grace in giving us Jesus Christ; but our salvation, considered as a finished thing, is not, cannot be found by any act of God's free grace towards us, but because all that is done, altered, removed, suppressed, quickened, and recovered by us in the state of our nature, which the free grace of God had furnished us with the possibility and means of doing. If nature and creature had no share in working out our salvation; if it was all free grace, effected against, and without the powers of nature, why is it, that the fallen angels are not to be redeemed as well as man? Must we say that God is less good to them than he is to us? Or if they are not redeemed, can there be any other reason for it, but because it is an impossibility in nature? Must not an infinite good do all the good that is needed, and is possible to be done? If free grace can do what it pleases, if it wants no concurrence of nature and creature, how can any being, whether man or angel, be eternally miserable, but through an eternal defect in the goodness of God towards it? Shall we call that infinite goodness, which sets bounds and limits to itself, and which could do more good, but will not? The truth of the matter is this, God is as infinite and boundless in love and goodness, as he is in power, but his omnipotence can only do that which is possible, and nothing is possible but that which Has its possibility in nature; because nature is God's first power, his great, universal manifestation of his Deity, in and through, and by which all his infinite attributes break forth, and display themselves: so that to expect, that God should do anything that is above, or contrary to this nature, is as absurd as to expect that God should act above, or contrary to himself: as God can only make a creature to be in, and through, and by nature; so the reason why he cannot make a creature to be, and not to be at the same time, is only this, because it is contrary to nature. Let no man therefore trust to be saved at the last day, by any arbitrary goodness, or free grace of God; for salvation is, and can be nothing else, but having put off all that is damnable and hellish in our nature, which salvation can be found by no creature but by its own full conforming to, and concurring with those mysterious means, which the free grace of God Has afforded for the recovery of our first, perfect, glorious state in nature.
Chapter 2
Were there no nature, there could be no creature, because the life of every creature is, and can be nothing else, but the life of that nature out of which it was created, and in which it has its being. Eternal beings must have their qualities, nature, form and manner of existence out of eternal nature, and temporal beings out of temporary nature: were there no eternity, there could be no time, were there nothing infinite, there could be nothing finite; therefore we have here two great fundamental truths that cannot be shaken; first, that there is, and must be, an eternal nature; because there is a nature that is temporary, and that it must be that to eternal creatures, which temporal nature is to temporal creatures: secondly, that everywhere, and in all worlds, nature must stand between God and the creature, as the foundation of all mutual communication; God can transact nothing with the creature, nor the creature have any communion with God, but in, and by that nature, in which it stands. I hope no one will ask me for scripture proofs of this, or call these truths nostrums, because they are not to be found in the same form of expression in some particular text of scripture. Where do the holy writings tell us, that a thing cannot be, and can be at the same time? Or that every consequence must arise from premises? And yet the scripture is continually supposing both these truths, and there could be no truth in the scripture, or anywhere else, if these things were not undeniable. There is nothing said of man throughout all scripture, but what supposes him to stand in nature, under a necessity of choosing something that is natural, either life or death, fire or water. There is nothing said of God with relation to creatures, but what supposes him to be the God of nature, manifesting himself in and through nature, calling, assisting and directing everything to its highest natural state. Nature is the scene of his providence, and all the variety of his governing attributes display themselves by his various operations in and through nature: therefore it is equally certain, that what God does to any creature, must be done through the medium of nature, and also what the creature does toward God, must be done in and through the powers of that nature in which it stands. No temporary creature can turn to God, or reach after him, or have any communication with him, but in, and according to that relation which temporary nature bears to God; nor can any eternal beings draw near to, or unite with God in any other manner, than that in which eternal nature is united with him. Would you know, why no omnipotence of God can create temporal animals except out of temporary nature, nor eternal animals except out of eternal nature; it is because no omnipotence of God can produce a visible triangle, but out of, and by three visible lines; for, as lines must be before there can be any lineal figures, so nature must be before there can be natural creatures.
Everything that is in being, is either God, or nature, or creature; and everything that is not God, is only a manifestation of God; for as there is nothing, neither nature, nor creature, but what must have its being in, and from God, so everything is, and must be according to its nature, more or less a manifestation of God. Everything therefore, by its form and condition, speaks so much of God, and God in everything, speaks and manifests so much of himself. Temporary nature is this beginning, created system of sun, stars, and elements; it is temporary nature, because it had a beginning and has an end, and therefore is only a temporary manifestation of God, or God manifested according to transitory things.
Properly and strictly speaking, nothing can begin to be: the beginning of everything is nothing more, than its beginning to be in a new state. Thus time itself does not begin to be, but duration, which always was, began to be measured by the earth's turning round, or the rising and setting of the sun, and that is called the beginning of time, which is, properly speaking, only the beginning of the measure of duration: thus it is with all temporal nature, and all the qualities and powers of temporal beings that live in it: no quality or power of nature then began to be, but such qualities and powers as had been from all eternity, began then to be in a new state. Ask what time is, it is nothing else but something of eternal duration become finite, measurable, and transitory? Ask what fire, light, darkness, air, water, and earth are; they are, and can be nothing else, but some eternal things become gross, finite, measurable, divisible, and transitory? For if there could be a temporal fire that did not spring out of eternal fire, then there might be time that did not come out of eternity. it is so with every temporary thing, and the qualities of it; it is the beginning of nothing, but only of a new state of something that existed before: therefore all temporary nature is a product, offspring, or out-birth of eternal nature, and is nothing else but so much of eternal nature changed from its eternal to a temporal condition. Fire did not begin to be, darkness did not begin to be, light did not begin to be, water and earth did not begin to be, when this temporary world first appeared, but all these things came out of their eternal state, into a lower, divided, compacted, created and transitory state. Hearing, seeing, tasting, smelling, feeling, did not then begin to be, when God first created the creatures of this world, they only came to be qualities and powers of a lower, and more imperfect order of beings than they had been before. Figures, and their relations, did not then begin to be, when material circles and squares, etc., were first made, but these figures and relations began then to appear in a lower state than they had done before: and so it must be said of all temporal nature, and everything in it. It is only something of eternal nature separated, changed, or created into a new, temporary state and condition.
Now it may be asked, why was eternal nature degraded like this, debased, and changed from its eternal state of perfection? Will anyone say, that God of his own free will changed eternal nature, which is the glorious manifestation of his power and godhead, the seat of his holy residence, his majestic kingdom of heaven, into this poor, miserable mixture of good and evil, into this impure state of division, grossness, death, and darkness? No. It is the highest of all absurdities, to say so. Now, we sufficiently know from scripture, that a whole hierarchy, or host of angels, renounced their heavenly life, and thereby raised up a kingdom that was not heavenly. Could they not have inflamed and disordered outward nature in which they lived, they could not have destroyed the heavenly nature in themselves: for everything must be according to the state of that world in which it lives; and therefore, the state of outward nature, and the state of inward nature in the angels must stand and fall together; and as sure as a whole kingdom of angels lost their heavenly life, so sure it is, that their whole kingdom lost its heavenly state and condition: and therefore, it is an undeniable truth, founded on scripture evidence, that same part of eternal nature was changed from its first state of glory and perfection, before the creation of temporary nature; therefore, in the creation of this poor, gross, disordered, perishable, material world, one of these two things was done, either God took the spoiled part of heaven or eternal nature, and created it into this temporary state of good and evil; or he degraded, and brought down some part of the kingdom of heaven from its glory and perfection, into this mixture of good and evil, order and disorder in which the world stands. He could not do this latter, without bringing evil into nature, as the devil had done, and therefore we may be sure he did not do it; but if he did the former, then the creation of this lower world, was a glorious act, and worthy of the infinite goodness of God, it was putting an end to the devil's working evil in nature, and it was putting the evil that was brought into nature, in a way of being finally overcome, and turned into good again. Will anyone now call these things whimsical speculations? Can anything be thought of more worthy of God, more conformable to nature, or more consonant to all revealed religion? But perhaps you will say, how could the angels spoil or destroy that glorious kingdom of eternal nature in which they dwelt. It may be answered, how could it possibly be otherwise? How could they live in eternal nature, unless nature without them, and nature within them, mutually mixed and agreed with each other? Would you have such mighty spirits, with their eternal energies, have less power in that nature, or kingdom in which they dwelt, than a kindled piece of coal has in this world? For every piece of coal set on fire, adds so much heat to outward nature, and so far alters and changes the state of it.
Now, let it be supposed, not only that a piece of coal, but that the whole of everything in this world, that could either give or receive fire was made to burn, what effect would it have upon the whole frame of nature? Would not the whole state of things, the regions, places, and divisions of the elements, and all the order of temporal nature be quite destroyed? When therefore every angelical life kindled itself in wrath, and became thereby divided, darkened, and separated from God, the same kindling, darkening, dividing, and confusion must be brought forth in their natural kingdom, because they lived in nature, and could have neither love, nor wrath, but such as they could exert in and by the powers of nature. Now, all fire, wherever it is, is either a fire of wrath, or a fire of love: fire not overcome or governed by light, is the fire of wrath, which only tears in pieces, consumes and devours all that it can lay hold of, and it wills to do nothing else: but light is the fire of love, it is meek, amiable, full of kind embraces, lovingly spreading itself, and giving itself with all its riches into everything that can receive it. These are the two fires of eternal nature, which were but one in heaven, and can be only one wherever heaven is; and it was the separation of these two fires that changed the angels into devils, and made their kingdom a beginning of hell. Now, either of these two fires, wherever it is kindled in animate or lifeless things, communicates its own kind of heat in some degree to outward nature, and so far alters and changes the state of it: the wrath of a man, and the wrath of a tempest do one and the same thing to outward nature, alter its state in the same manner, and only differ in their degree of doing it. Fire kindled in a material thing, can only communicate with the materiality of nature; but the fire of a wrathfully-inflamed man, being a fire both of body and soul, communicates a twofold heat, it stirs up the fire of outward nature, as fire does in a coal, and it stirs up the wrath of hell as the devils do. The fire of love kindled by the Light and Spirit of God in a truly regenerated man, communicates a twofold blessing, it outwardly joins with the meek light of the sun, and helps to overcome the wrath of outward nature; it inwardly cooperates with the power of God's angels, in resisting the wrath and darkness of hell: and it would be no folly to suppose, that if all human breath was become a mere, unmixed wrath, that all the fire in outward nature would immediately break forth, and bring that dissolution upon outward nature, which will arise from the last fire. Therefore it is necessary, that a whole kingdom of angels should kindle the same wrath and disorder in outward nature that was in themselves; for being in eternal nature, and communicating with it, as temporal beings do in temporal nature, what they did in themselves, must be done in that nature or kingdom in which they lived, and moved, and had their being. What a powerful fire there is in the wrath of a spirit, may be seen by the effects of human wrath; one sudden thought shall in a moment discolor, poison, inflame, swell, distort and agitate the whole body of a man. You can see, that a diseased body infects (germs) the air, or that malignant air (germs) infects a healthy body? Is it not because there is, and must be an inseparable qualifying, mixing and uniting between nature and those creatures that live in it? Now, all diseases and malignity's, whether in nature or creature, all proceed from the sinful motions of the will and desires of the creature. This is as certain, as that death and all that leads to it, is the sole product of sin; therefore it is a certain truth, that all the disorder that ever was, or can be in nature, arises from that power which the creature has in and upon nature; and therefore, as sure as a whole host of heavenly beings, raised up a fiery, wrathful, dark nature in themselves, so sure is it, that the same wrathful, fiery, dark disorder was raised up in that kingdom, or nature, in which they had their being.
Now the scriptures nowhere say in express words, that the place of this world was the place of the angels that fell, and that their fallen, spoiled and disordered kingdom, was by the power of God, changed or created into this temporary state of things in which we live; this is not expressly said, because it is plainly implied and fully signified to us by the most general doctrines of scripture; for if we know, both from nature and scripture, that this world is a mixture of good and evil, do not we enough know, that it could only be created out of that which was good and evil? And if we know that evil cannot come from God, if we know that the devil had actually brought it forth before the creation of this world; are we not enough told, that the evil which is in this world, is the evil that was brought forth into nature by the devil? And that therefore the matter of this world, is that very materiality which was spoiled by the fallen angels? How can we need a particular text of scripture to tell us, that the place of this world was the place of the angels before their fall, when the whole tenor of scripture tells us, that it is the place of their habitation now? For how could they have, or find darkness, but in that very place, where they had extinguished the light? What could they have to do with us, or we with them, but that we are entered into their possessions, and have their kingdom made over to us? How could they go about amongst us as roaring lions, seeking whom they may devour, but that our creation has brought us amongst them? They cannot possibly be anywhere, but where they fell, because they can live nowhere but in the evil which they have brought forth; they can have no wrath and darkness but where they broke off from light and love; they can communicate with no outward nature but that which fell with them, and underwent the same change as they did: therefore, though St. Jude said with great truth, that they left their own habitations, yet, it is only as they left their own angelical nature, not departed from it into a distant place, but deformed and changed it; so that the heaven that was within them, and without them, is equally left, because both within them, and without them, they have no habitation but a fiery darkness broken off from the light of God. And therefore, as man by his creation is brought into a power of commerce with those fallen angels, who must live, and could only act in that part of nature which they had deformed, it is plain, that this creation placed him in that system of things, which was formed and created out of their fallen kingdom, because they can act, or be acted upon nowhere else.
And this is the one true, and only reason, why there is good and evil throughout all temporal nature and creature; it is because all this temporary nature is a creation out of that strife of evil against good which the fallen angels had brought into their kingdom. No subtle, evil serpent could have been generated, no tree of knowledge of good and evil could have been sprung out of the earth, but because nature in this world was that part of eternal nature which the fallen angels had corrupted; and therefore, a life made up of good and evil could be brought forth by it. Evil and good was in the angelical kingdom as soon as they set their wills and desires contrary to God, and the divine life. Had God permitted them to go on, their whole kingdom would have been like themselves, all over, one unmixed evil, and so would have been incapable of being created into a redeemable state: but God put a stop to the progress of evil in their kingdom, he came upon it while it was in strife, and compacted or created it all into a new, temporary, material state and condition; from which these two things followed: first, that the fallen angels lost their power over it, and could no further kindle their own fire in it, but were as chained prisoners, in an extent of darkness which they could neither get out of, nor extend any further: secondly, this new creation being created out of this new begun strife, stood as yet in the birth of life, and so became capable of being assisted and blessed by God; and finally, at the end of time, restored to its first heavenly state. Now, the good and evil that is in this world is that same good and evil, and in the same strife that it was in the kingdom of fallen angels, only with this happy difference, there it was under the devil's power, and in a way to be wholly evil; here it is in a new compacted, or created state under the providence and blessing of God, appointed to bring forth a new kind of life, and display the wonders of divine love, until such time as a new race of angelical creatures born in this mixture of good and evil, shall be fit to receive the kingdom of Lucifer, restored to its first glory. Is there any part of the Christian religion that does not either suppose or speak this great truth, any part of outward nature that does not confirm it? Is there any part of the Christian religion that is not made more intelligible, more beautiful and edifying by it? Is there any difficulty of outward nature that is not totally removed and satisfied by it? How was the philosophy of the ancient sages perplexed with the state of nature? They knew God to be all goodness, love, and perfection, and so did not understand the misery of human life, and the disorders of outward nature, because they did not know how this nature came into its present state, or from where it was descended. But had they known, that temporal nature, all that we see in this whole frame of things, was only the sickly, defiled state of eternal things put into a temporary state of recovery, that time and all transitory things were only in this war and strife, to be finally delivered from all the evil that was brought into eternal nature, their hearts must have praised God for this creation of things as those morning stars did, that shouted for joy when it was first brought forth.
To be swelled with pride, to be fattened with sensuality, to grow great through craft, and load ourselves with earthly goods, is only living the life of beasts, that we may die the death of devils.
From this true knowledge of the state, and nature, and place of this creation, what a reasonableness, wisdom, and necessity does there appear in the hardest sayings, precepts and doctrines of the gospel? He that understands what this world is, has great reason to be glad that he is born into it, and yet still greater reason to rejoice, in being called out of it, preserved from it, and shown how to escape with the preservation of his soul. The evils that are in this world, are the evils of hell, that tend to be nothing else but hell; they are the remains of the sin and poison of the fallen angels: the good that is in this world are the sparks of life that are to generate heaven, and gain the restoration of the first kingdom of Lucifer. Who therefore would think of anything, desire anything, endeavor anything, but to resist evil in every kind, under every shape and color? Who would have any views, desires and prayers after anything, but that the life and light of heaven may rise up in himself, and that God's kingdom may come, and his will be done in all nature and creature? Darkness, light, fire and air, water and earth, stand in their temporary, created distinction and strife, for no other end, with no other view, but that they may obtain the one thing needful, their first condition in heaven: and shall man that is born into time for no other end, on no other errand, but that he may be an angel in eternity, think it hard to live as if there were but one thing needful for him? What was the poor politics, the earthly wisdom, the ease, sensuality, and advancements of this world for us, but such fruits as must be eaten in hell? To be swelled with pride, to be fattened with sensuality, to grow great through craft, and load ourselves with earthly goods, is only living the life of beasts, that we may die the death of devils. On the other hand, to go starved out of this world, rich in nothing but heavenly tempers and desires, is taking from time all that we came for, and all that can go with us into eternity.
But to return to the further consideration of nature. As all temporary nature is nothing else but eternal nature brought out of its kindled, disordered strife, into a created or compacted distinction of its several parts , so it is plain, that the whole of this world, in all its working powers, is nothing else but a mixture of heaven and hell. There cannot be the smallest thing, or the smallest quality of anything in this world, but what is a quality of heaven or hell, discovered under a temporal form: everything that is disagreeable to the taste, to the sight, to our hearing, smelling or feeling, has its root and ground, and cause, in and from hell, and is as surely in its degree the working or manifestation of hell in this world, as the most diabolical malice and wickedness is: the stink of weeds, of mire, of all poisonous, corrupted things, shrieks, horrible sounds, wrathful fire, rage of tempests, and thick darkness, are all of them things that had no possibility of existence, until the fallen angels disordered the state of their kingdom; therefore, everything that is disagreeable and horrible in this life, everything that can afflict and terrify our senses, all the kinds of natural and moral evil, are only so much of the nature, effects, and manifestations of hell: for hell and evil are only two words for one and the same thing: the extent of one is the extent of the other, and all that can be ascribed to the one, must be ascribed to the other. On the other hand, all that is sweet, delightful and amiable in this world, in the serenity of the air, the fineness of the seasons, the joy of light, the melody of sounds, the beauty of colors, the fragrance of smells, the splendor of precious stones, is nothing else but heaven breaking through the veil of this world, manifesting itself in such a degree, and daring forth in such variety so much of its own nature. So that heaven and hell are not only as near you, as constantly showing and proving themselves to all your senses, as day and night, but night itself is nothing else but hell breaking forth in such a degree, and the day is nothing else but a certain opening of heaven, to save us from the darkness that arises from hell. O man! consider yourself, here you stand in the earnest, perpetual strife of good and evil, all nature is continually at work to bring about the great redemption; the whole creation is travailing in pain, and laborious working, to be delivered from the vanity of time, and will you be asleep? Everything you hear, or see, says nothing, shows nothing to you, but what either eternal light, or eternal darkness has brought forth; for as day and night divide the whole of our time, so heaven and hell divide the whole of our thoughts, words and actions. Stir which way you will, do, or design what you will, you must be an representative of one or with the other. You can not stand still, because you live in the perpetual workings of temporal and eternal nature; if you work not with the good, the evil that is in nature carries you along with it: you have the height and depth of eternity in you, and therefore no matter what you do, in the closet, the field, the shop, or the church, you are sowing that which grows, and must be reaped in eternity. Nothing of yours can vanish away, but every thought, motion, and desire of your heart, has its effect either in the height of heaven, or the depth of hell: and as time is flying by to put an end to the strife of good and evil, and bring about the last great separation of all things into their eternal state, with such speed are you making haste either to be wholly an angel, or wholly a devil: Therefore awake, watch and pray, join with all your force with that goodness of God, which has created time and all things in it, to have a happy end in eternity.
Temporal nature opened to us by the Spirit of God becomes a volume of holy instruction to us, and leads us into all the mysteries and secrets of eternity: for as everything in temporal nature is descended out of that which is eternal, and stands as a palpable, visible out-birth of it; so when we know how to separate the grossness, death, and darkness of time from it, we find what it is in its eternal state. Fire, and light, and air in this world are not only a true resemblance of the Holy Trinity in Unity, but are the Trinity itself in its most outward, lowest kind of existence or manifestation; for there could be no fire, fire could not generate light, air could not proceed from both, these three could not be united like this, and so divided, but because they have their root and original in the Trinity of the Deity. Fire compacted, created, separated from light and air, is the elemental fire of this world: fire uncreated, un-compacted, un-separated from light and air, is the heavenly fire of eternity: fire kindled in any material thing is only fire breaking out of its created, compacted state; it is nothing else but the awakening of the spiritual properties of that thing, which being thus stirred up, strive to get rid of that material creation under which they are imprisoned: consequently every kindled fire, with all its rage and fierceness, tears and divides, scatters and consumes that materiality under which it is imprisoned; and were not these spiritual properties imprisoned in matter, no material thing could be made to burn. And this is another proof, that the materiality of this world is come out of a higher, and spiritual state, because every matter upon earth can be made to discover spiritual properties concealed in it, and is indeed a compaction of nothing else. Fire is not, nor cannot be a material thing, it only makes itself visible and sensible by the destruction of matter; matter is its death and imprisonment, and it comes to life but by being able to agitate, divide, shake off, and consume that matter which held it in death and bondage; so that every time you see a fire kindled, you see nature striving in a low degree to get rid of the grossness of this material creation, and to do that which can alone be done by the last fire, when all the inward, spiritual properties hid in everything, in rocks, and stones, and earth, in sun, and stars, and elements, shall by the last trumpet be awakened and called forth: and this is a certain truth, that fire could not be kindled in any material thing, but for this reason, because all material nature was created to be restored, and stands by divine appointment in a fitness and tendency to have its deliverance from this created state, by fire; so that every time you see a piece of matter dissolved by fire, you have a full proof, that all the materiality of this world is appointed to a dissolution by fire; and that then, (O glorious day!) sun and stars, and all the elements will be delivered from vanity, will be again that one eternal, harmonious, glorious thing which they were, before they were compacted into material distinctions and separations.
The elements of this world stand in great strife and contrariety, and yet in great desire of mixing and uniting with each other; and so arises both the life and death of all temporal things; and hereby we plainly know that the elements of this world were once one undivided thing; for union can nowhere be desired, but where there has first been a separation; as sure therefore as the elements desire each other, so sure is it, that they have been separated from each other, and are only parts of some one thing that has been divided. When the elements come to such a degree of union, a life is produced; but because they have still a contrariety to each other, they soon destroy again that same life which they had built, and therefore every life made up of the four elements is short and transitory. Now, from this undeniable state of nature, we are told these following great truths:
That the four elements are only four parts of that, which before the creation of the world, was only a one element, or one undivided power of life. That the mortality of this life is wholly and solely owing to the divided state of the elements. That the true, immortal life of nature, is only there to be found, where the four elements are only one thing, mere unity and harmony; where fire and air, water and earth, have a much more glorious union than they have in diamonds and precious stones: for in the brightest diamonds the four elements still partake of their divided state, though to our eye they appear as only one glorious thing; but the beauty of the diamond is but a shadow, a low specimen of that glory which will shine through all nature, when fire and air, water and earth shall be again that one thing which they were, before the fall of angels and the creation of this world.
That the body of Adam (being formed for immortality) could not possibly have the nature, or be made out of the divided state of the elements. The letter of scripture absolutely demonstrates; for if sickness, sorrow, and pain, the trouble of heat and cold, all so many forerunners of death, can only be where the elements are in division and contrariety; and if, according to scripture, these calamities did not, could not possibly touch Adam until he fell, then it is plain from scripture, that before his fall, the division and contrariety of the elements was not in him: and that was his paradisiacal nature, in and by which he stood in a state of superiority over all the elements of this world.
That the body Adam lost was one elementary glory and immortality, and then first became gross, dark, heavy flesh and blood, under the power of the four elements, when he lusted to eat, and actually did eat of that tree, which had its good and evil from the divided state of the elements.
For this reason we also know, with the greatest certainty, the mystery of the resurrection of the body, that it consists wholly and solely in reducing the body made up of the four elements of this world, to its first, one elementary state, and then everyone has that same body raised again that died, and all that Adam lost is restored. For if the body is mortal, and dies because it is become a body of the four elements, it can only be raised immortal, by having its four elements reduced again into one: and here lies the true sameness of the body that died, and that which rises again. But to proceed: As all the four elements, by their desiring, and wanting to be united together, prove that they are only four grossly divided out-births of that which before was only one heavenly, harmonious element, so every single element fully demonstrates the same thing; for every single element, though standing in its created contrariety to every other, has yet in its own divided state, all of the four elements in itself: thus the air has everything in it that is in the earth, and the earth has in itself everything that is in fire, water and air, only in a different mixture and compaction; were it not so, had not every element in some degree the whole nature of them all, they could not possibly mix, and qualify with one another; and this may well pass for a demonstration, that that out of which the four elements are descended, was one harmonious union of them all, because every one of the four, has now, and must have in its undivided state, all the four in itself, though not in equality; for if the four must be together, though unequally lodged in every single element, it is plain, the four must have been one harmonious thing, before they were brought into four unequal separations: and therefore, as sure as there are four warring, disagreeing elements in time, so sure is it, that that which is now in this fourfold division, was and is in eternity, one, in an heavenly, harmonious union, keeping up an eternal, joyful, glorious life in eternal nature, as its four broken parts bring forth a poor, miserable, transitory life in temporal nature.
All matter in this world is only the materiality of heaven thus altered. The difference between matter in this world and matter in the other world, lies wholly and solely in this; in the one it is dead, in the other it is a living materiality. It is dead materiality in this world, because it is gross, dark, hard, heavy, divisible. It is in this state of death, because it is separated, or broken off from the eternal light, which is the true life, or the power of life in everything. In eternal nature or the kingdom of heaven, materiality stands in life and light; it is the light's glorious body, or that garment wherewith light is clothed, and therefore has all the properties of light in it, and only differs from light, as to its brightness and beauty, as the holder and displayer of all its colors, powers and virtues. But the same materiality in this world, being created or compacted into a separation from fire united with light, is become the body of death and darkness, and is therefore gross, thick, dark, heavy, divisible, for death is nothing else but the shutting up, or shutting out the united power of fire and light: this is the only death that ever did, or can happen to anything, whether earthly or heavenly. Therefore, every degree of hardness, sickness, stiffness, is a degree of death; and herein consists the deadness of the materiality of this world. When it shall be raised to life, that is, when the united power of fire and light shall kindle itself through all temporal nature, then hardness, darkness, divisibility, will be all extinguished together. That the deadness of the earth may, and certainly will be brought to life by the united power of fire and light, is sufficiently shown us by the nature and office of the sun. The sun is the united power of fire and light, and therefore the sun is the raiser of life out of the deadness of the earth; but because fire and light as united in the sun, is only the virtue of temporary fire and light, so it can only raise a short and fading, transitory life. But as sure as you see, that fire and light united in the sun, can change the deadness of the earth, into such a beautiful variety of a vegetable life, so sure are you, that this dark, gross earth, is in its state of death and darkness, only for this reason, because it is broken off from the united power of fire and light: for as sure as the outward operation of the fire and light of the sun can change the deadness of the earth into a degree of life, so sure is it, that the earth lies in its present deadness, because it is separated from its own eternal fire and light: and as sure as you see, that the fire and light of the sun can raise a temporal life out of the earth, so sure is it, that the united power of eternal fire and light can, and will turn all that is earthly, into its first state of life and beauty. For the sun of this world, as it is the union of temporal fire and light, has no power, but as it is the outward agent, or temporary representative of eternal fire and light, and therefore it can only do that in part, and imperfectly in time, which by the eternal fire and light will be wholly and perfectly done in eternity. And therefore every vegetable life, every beauty, power, and virtue which the sun calls forth out of the earth, tells us, with a divine certainty, that there will come a time, when all that is hid in the deadness, grossness, and darkness of the earth, will be again called up to a perfection of life and glory of beauty.
How has the philosophy of the schools been puzzled with the divisibility of matter! It is because human reason, the mistress of the schools, partakes of the deadness of the earth; and the soul of man must first have the light of eternal life rise up in him, before he can see or find out the truths of nature. Human reason knew nothing of the death of the matter, or the nature and reason of its temporary creation, and so thought death and divisibility to be essential to matter; but the light of God tells every man this infallible truth, that God did not make death in anything, that he is a God of life, and therefore, everything that comes from him, comes into a state of life. Matter is thick, hard, heavy, divisible, only for a time, because it is compacted or created into thickness, hardness, and divisibility only for a time: these are only the properties of its temporal, created state, and therefore are no more essential to it than the hardness of ice is essential to water. Now, that the creation of the matter of this world is nothing else but a compaction, that all the elements are separated compactions of that which before was free from such a compaction, is plain from scripture. For we are told, that all the material things and elements of this world, are to have their created state and nature taken from them, by being dissolved or melted: but if this be a scripture truth, then it is equally true from scripture, that their creation was only a compaction; and a compaction of something that stood before according to its own nature, absolutely free from it. Mortality, corruptibility, and divisibility, are not essential properties, but temporary accidents, they are in things, as diseases and sickness are, and are as separable from them; and that is the true reason, why this mortal can put on immortality, this corruptible can put on incorruptibility, and this divisible can put on indivisibility: for when the four elements are dissolved and loosed from their separate compaction from one another, when fire and air, water and earth, shall be much more a glorious and harmonious thing than they are now in the brightest diamond, then the divisibility of this redeemed materiality will be more impossible to be conceived, than the distance between fire and water in a diamond.
The reason why all inanimate things of this world tend towards their utmost perfection in their kind, lies wholly and solely in this ground; it is because the four elements of this world were once the one element of the kingdom of the fallen angels; and therefore, nature in this world is always laboring after its first perfection of life, or as the scripture speaks, the "whole creation travails in pain, and groans to be delivered from its present vanity": and therefore it is, that all vegetables and fruits naturally grasp after every kind and degree of perfection they can take in; endeavoring with all their power, after that first perfection of life which was before the fall of the angels. Every taste and color, and power and virtue, would be what it was before Lucifer kindled his dark, fiery, wrathful kingdom; but as this cannot be, so when every fruit and flower has worked itself as far towards a heavenly perfection as it can, it is forced to wither and rot, and become a witness to this truth, that neither flesh nor blood, nor fruit, nor flower, can reach the kingdom of God.
The Fallen Soul Has The Nature Of Hell In It.
All the misery and imperfection that is in temporary nature, arises from the divided state of the elements: their division is that which brings all kinds and degrees of death and hell into this world, and yet their being in a certain degree related to one another, and always endeavoring after their first union, is proof of the nature and perfection of heaven still in them. The death that is in this world, consists in the grossness, hardness and darkness of its materiality. The wrath that is in this world consists in the kindled division of its qualities, from where there arises a contrary motion and fermentation in all its parts, in which consists both the life and death of all its creatures. This death and this wrath is the nature of hell in this world, and is the manifestation of the disorders which the fallen angels have occasioned in nature. The heaven in this world began when God said, Let there be light, for so far as light is in anything, so much it has of heaven in it, and of the beginning of a heavenly life: this shows itself in all things of this world, chiefly in the life-giving power of the sun, in the sweetness and meekness of qualities and tempers, in the softness of sounds, the beauty of colors, the fragrance of smells, and richness of tastes and the like; so far as anything is tinctured with light, so far it shows its descent from heaven, and its partaking of something heavenly and paradisiacal. Again, love or desire of union, is the other part of heaven that is visible in this world. In things without life, it is a senseless desire, a friendly mixing and uniting of their qualities, whereby they strive to be again in that first state of unity and harmony in which they existed, before they were kindled into division by Lucifer. In rational creatures, it is meekness, benevolence, kindness and friendship amongst one another: and so far as they have heaven and the Spirit of God in them, each in their sphere, being and doing that to one another, which the divine love is and does to all. Again, the reason why man is naturally taken with beautiful objects, why he admires and rejoices at the sight of lucid and transparent bodies, and the splendor of precious stones, why he is delighted with the beauty of his own person, and is fond of his features when adorned with fine colors, has this only true ground, it is because he was created in the greatest perfection of beauty, to live amongst all the beauties of a glorious paradise: and therefore man, though fallen, has this strong sensibility and reaching desire after all the beauties, that can be picked up in fallen nature. Had not this been his case, had not beauty, and light, and the glory of brightness been his first state by creation, he would now no more want the beauty of objects, than the ox wants to have his pasture enclosed with beautiful walls, and painted gates. Every vanity of fallen man shows our first dignity, and the vanity of our desires are so many proofs of the reality of that which we are fallen from. Man wants to see himself in riches, greatness and power, because human nature came first into the world in that state; and therefore, what he had in reality in paradise, is that which he vainly seeks for, even though he is only a poor prisoner in the valley and shadow of death.
All beings that are purely of this world, have their existence in and dependence upon temporal nature. God is no maker, creator or governor of any being or creature of this world, immediately, or by himself, but he creates, upholds and governs all things of this world, by, and through, and with temporal nature: as temporary nature is nothing else but eternal nature separated, divided, compacted, made visible and changeable for a time, so heaven is nothing else but the beatific14 visibility, the majestic presence of the abysmal, un-searchable, triune God: it is that light with which the scripture said, God is decked as with a garment, and by which he is manifested and made visible to heavenly eyes and beings; for Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, as they are the triune God, deeper than the kingdom of heaven or eternal nature, are invisible to all created eyes; but that beatific visibility and outward glory which is called the kingdom of heaven, is the manifestation of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in, and by, and through the glorious union of eternal fire, and light, and spirit. In the kingdom of heaven, these are three and one, because their original, the Holy Trinity, is so, and we must call them by the names of fire, and light, and spirit; because all that we have of fire, and light, and spirit in this world, has its whole nature directly from them, and is indeed nothing else but the fire, light, and spirit of eternity, brought into a separated, compacted, temporal state. So that to speak of a heavenly fire, has no more grossness and offense in it, than when we speak of a heavenly life, a heavenly light, or heavenly spirit; for if there is a heavenly light and spirit, there must of all necessity be a heavenly fire; and if these things were not in heaven in a glorious state of union, they never could have been here in this gross state of a temporal compaction and division: so that as sure as there are fire, and light, and air in this world, in a divided, compacted, imperfect state, in which consists the life of temporary nature and creatures, so sure is it, that fire, and light, and spirit are in the kingdom of heaven, united in one perfection of glory, in which consists the beatific visibility of God, the divine nature, as communicable to heavenly beings.
The kingdom of heaven stands in this threefold life, where three are one, because it is a manifestation of the Deity, which is three and one; the Father has his distinct manifestation in the fire, which is always generating the light; the Son has his distinct manifestation of the light, which is always generated from the fire; the Holy Ghost has his manifestation in the spirit, that always proceeds from both, and is always united with them. It is this eternal un-beginning Trinity in Unity of fire, light, and spirit, that constitutes eternal nature, the kingdom of heaven, the heavenly Jerusalem, the divine life, the beatific visibility, the majestic glory and presence of God. Through this kingdom of heaven, or eternal nature, is the invisible God, the incomprehensible Trinity eternally breaking forth, and manifesting itself in a boundless height and depth of blissful wonders, opening and displaying itself to all its creatures as in an infinite variation and endless multiplicity of its powers, beauties, joys and glories.