|
An Humble,
Earnest, And Affectionate Address to the Clergy |
By William Law
The Immediate, Continual Inspiration Of The Spirit
This book was originally published in 1761, just after William Law went
to be with the Lord. The book was originally called “An Humble, Earnest, And
Affectionate Address to the Clergy. “ 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 living relationship with our
heavenly Father.
We have renamed
the book for the modern reader, “The Immediate, Continual Inspiration Of The
Spirit”
After reading the book I believe you will understand the reason for
this new title.
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
Immediate, Continual Inspiration Of The Spirit
Or using the original title,
An
Humble, Earnest, And Affectionate Address to the Clergy
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[1]
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[2],
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[3],
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[4]
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 in 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 Mennonists 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[5]
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, or ground 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 fops[6],
and 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 playthings. 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 efficacy[7]? 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 “orthodoxly” 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.
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 mammon[8] 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 swear[9].
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, immutable[10],
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.
For a printed
copy of this book please write to,
Old Time Publishing
Co.
38 Borck Lane
Lebanon, Tn 37090
[1] Unchallengeable
[2] Because modern usage of some words has changed, we have substituted the word “fanaticism” for the original word used which was “enthusiasm.”.
[3] Started
[4] A minister who was a contemporary of William Law
[5] To add a decorative accompaniment, (often improvised) above the basic thought.
[6] A man that is much concerned with his dress and appearance.
[7] Effectiveness
[8] Riches
[9] Editor’s note. This was especially true in England during the 1700’s
[10] Absolute, unchallengeable