Part 3
This will be more or less the case with all the salvationdoctrines of Christ, whilst 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 classic painters (as Dr. W calls them) to lavish out their colours on their own paper monuments of lifeless virtues.
How came the learned heathens by their pride and vanity, by their inability to come under the humility of the cross? It was because the
natural man shined in the false glory of his own cultivated abilities. Have wit and parts, an elegant taste, any more good or redeeming virtue in Christians, than they had in heathens? As well might it be said, that own will is good, and has a redeeming virtue in a Christian, but 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 what 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, "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 builders' eyes seem to hide its head in the clouds, but as to its reaching of heaven, it is no nearer to that, than the earth on which it stands. It is thus with all the buildings 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 to the reviving the lost life of God in his soul, than by a tower of brick and mortar to reach heaven.
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 the first father of pride, 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 would have selfabilities have 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 idolator. It is atheist, because it has rejected God; it is an idolator, 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 makes the unpassable gulf between heaven and
hell. No angels in heaven, but because humility is in all their breath; no devils in hell, but because the fire of pride is their whole fire of life.
What is then, or in what lies the great struggle for eternal life? It all lies in the strife between PRIDE and HUMILITY: all other things, be they what they will, 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, be he doing what he will, till a humility that comes solely from heaven has been his redeemer. Till then, all that he does will be only done by the right hand, that the left hand may know it. And he who thinks it possible for the natural man to get 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 most plain and capital 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 never any man, since the fall of Adam, had the least degree of but 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 who could take away the sins of the world. "All who came before me," says Christ, "were thieves and robbers": we are used to confine 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 godly virtue. And the reason is, because pride and self have the all of man, till 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 dragonenemy, 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 much sharp looking out, to see where and what antiChrist is, or by what marks he may be known. Some say he has been in the Christian world almost ever since the gospel times, nay, 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. Others will have it, that he has been here, and there, but driven from one place to another by several new risen Protestant sects.
But to know with certainty, where and what anti-Christ is, and who is with him, and who 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 selfability 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 and beaux, 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 skindeep follies of that pride which the fall of man has begotten and brought forth in him. Would you 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 which is the same thing self-exaltation became the strong man that kept possession of the house, till 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 pomps and vanities is set up in the heart of man, of which, all outward pomps and 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 upon the stretch 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.
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 riches of parts, the glitter of genius, the flights of imagination, the glory of learning, and the self-conceited strength of natural reason: these are the strongholds 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, and 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 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 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 of man which remains 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 parts, 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 buildings, rich settlements, acquired honours, 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 parts, 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 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, that 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 what 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, full fraught with pagan light and skill, comes forth to play the critic and orator with the simplicity of 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 the raising up of a dead Adam into a living Christ of God.
However, to make way for parts, criticism, and languagelearning, to have the full management of salvation doctrines, the wellread scholar gives out, that the ancient way of knowing the things of God, taught and practised by fishermenapostles, is obsolete. They indeed wanted to have divine knowledge from the immediate continual operation of the Holy Spirit, but this state was only for a time, till genius, and learning entered into the pale of the church. Behold, if ever, "the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place!" For as soon as the doctrine is set up, that man's natural parts 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 only 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 full as certain, that he has nowhere spoke one single word, or given the least power to logic, learning, or the natural powers of man, in his kingdom. He has never said to them, "Whatever you bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven"; never said to them, "go and teach all nations," no more than he has ever said to wolves, "go, and feed my sheep." Christ indeed said of himself, according to the flesh, it is expedient for you that I go away. But where has he said of himself according to the spirit, "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, consisted of carnal ordinances, and had only types, and figures, and shadows of a 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 was the kingdom of God come to them, the same kingdom of God in which Adam was born and begun his first glorious life, when the image and likeness of the Holy Trinity had an outward glory, like what 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 to them, for the Holy Ghost shall teach you in that same hour what you ought to say. For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you."
No higher, or other thing is here said, 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 to you." This is the truth of the kingdom of God, come to men, and this is the birth-right privilege of all who 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 not this kingdom 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? Had it not been as well, nay 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 left to the jarring interests of the wisdom of the Greek, and the carnality of the Jew, 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 appealed to than all the libraries and churches
of Christendom for many ages to this day.
What is the difference between man's own righteousness and man's own light in religion? They are strictly the same thing, do one and the same work, namely, keep up and strengthen every evil, vanity, and corruption of fallen nature. Nothing saves a man from his own righteousness, but what saves and delivers him from his own light. The Jew who was most of all set against the gospel, and unable to receive it was he who 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, who trusts in his own light, is the very Jew who trusted in his own righteousness; and all that he gets by the gospel, is only what the Pharisee got by the Law, namely, to be further from entering into the kingdom of God than publicans and harlots. How comes it, that a beast, a scarlet whore, a horned dragon, and other the most horrible descriptions of diabolical power, have been by the Spirit of God made descriptions of the Christian church? How comes 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 private Christian, and public church, till, dead to all that is self, they turn to God; not to a God who they have only heard of with their ears, and their fathers have told them, 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, "Your kingdom come," nothing can say of Christ, "My Lord, and my God," but what is born of God, and is the divine nature itself become creaturely in us. Nothing but God in man can be a godly life in man. Hence is that of the apostle, "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 it. 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 thus used, then of necessity it kills, because it keeps from what 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 to me, all you who labour and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you"; just the same, as when it is said, "Jesus Christ, who is of God made to 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, by faith you are saved," says neither more nor less than this, "He who 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 the apostle says, "Yet not I, but Christ who lives in me"; the same as "Christ in us the hope of glory; if Christ be not in you, you are reprobates." 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 only thing taught and meant by all that is so variously said in the scriptures of the merits and benefits of Christ to us. 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 one thing said, and meant by that new birth, of which Christ says, "Unless 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 wants only one thing, and that one thing is a real birth of the divine nature made living again in him, as at the first; 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 thus understood, 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 kills not, but as a sure guide leads 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 wrangle, hatred, and contention, about the meaning of them.
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 here or there found among Christians, who think that more must be known of God, of Christ, and the powers of the world to come, than every scholar can know by reading the letter of scripture, immediately the cry of enthusiasm, whether they be priests, or people, 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 saviour, "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 want, 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 here said, is the same that is said in these other words of Christ, "Unless 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 thus it is with all scripture, the letter can only direct to the doing of what 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, the generality of 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 what 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 what 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 has alone knowledge of God, what he is, and does, and works in the creature.
Again, another, forming 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 have done 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 save," 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 (to say no worse of it) is that learning, 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? If not, then faith and its works, which are nothing else but Christ in us, can have no separation from, or excellency above one another, but are as strictly one, as Christ is one, and no more two things, than our saviour 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 a redeeming Christ, working within us; so that to divide faith from its works is as absurd, as to divide a thing from its self, 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 jargon, 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.
Hence it is, that from a religion of heavenly love, built upon the redeeming life and doctrine of a Son of God dying to save the whole world, division, bitterness, envy, pride, strife, hatred, and persecution, nay every outrage of war and bloodshed, breathe and break forth with more strength in learned Christendom, than ever they did from a religion of pagan idolatry, set up by satan.
It may perhaps be here said, Must there then be no learning or scholarship, no recondite erudition in the Christian church? Must there be nothing thought of, or got by the gospel, but mere salvation? Must its ministers know nothing, teach nothing, 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 pomps and vanities of the world, a full dependence upon our heavenly Father; no joy or rejoicing but in the Holy Ghost; no wisdom but what God gives; no walking but as Christ walked; no reward or glory for their labours 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 weddinggarment 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, thrice happy are they, who are only the thus learned preachers of the gospel, 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 came down from heaven, owning no master but Christ, no teacher but his Holy Spirit; as unable to join with the diggers in pagan pits of learning, as with those who "labour for the wind, and give their money for what 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 one of the first-rate scholars in the world. But now, who is he, who 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 neighbour as himself." This is the man who is all wisdom, all light, and let 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 wanting, and a diabolical self sits in its place, there may be great wits, shining critics, orators, poets, &c., as easily as there may be a profound Machiavelil, 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 from, are influenced by, and depend upon the things and powers of eternity, there is but one only key of entrance; nothing can open the vision, but seeing with the eyes of that same love, which begun 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, stay till this fire of divine love has had its perfect work in you. For till 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, be as learned and polite as you will, your heart is but the dark heart of fallen Adam, and your knowledge of the kingdom of God will be only like what murdering Cain had. For everything is murder, except what 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 labour, your allowance and consent, you are broken off from the works of God, you have felt his creation, you are without God, and your name, and nature, and works, can have no other name, or nature, but what is called pride, wrath, envy, hypocrisy, hatred, revenge, and selfexaltation, 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 what love has made. But now, since divine love can have no beginning, but from a birth of the divine nature in us, therefore says St. 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 what can worship God in spirit, so his love must of all necessity be a gift to us, or 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 who loves, is born of God."
Let this be my excuse to the learned world, for owning no school of wisdom, but where the one only lesson is divine love; and the one 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 no God but one. 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, till he is born again of divine love and the Spirit of God. For thus to be born, is as much the one sole happiness, joy, and glory of men, both now and ever, as it is the sole joy and glory of angels eternally in the heavens. Believe me then, you great scholar, that all that you have got 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 heavenly comfort at the hour of death, as all the long dreams, which night after night, you have ever had in your sleep. And till 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, let me first go and bury my father"; the answer was, "Let the dead bury their dead, follow me." Another said to him, "Let me first go bid them farewell, who 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 deeplearned books at home, written by the greatest masters of grammar, logic and eloquence, let me first 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 teach 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 requester here said?
The holy Jesus said, "I am the light of the world, he who 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 only light both of men and angels. Fallen nature, the selfish will, proud tempers, the highest abilities, the natural sagacity, 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 more reject this divine light, 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, sceptics, 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 seek to pagans for skill to work in Christ's vineyard who from long labours 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 savouring the things that are of God, than Peter gave, when his master said to him, "Get behind me, satan." A grave ecclesiastic, bringing forth out of his closet skilful meditations on the commentaries of 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 Elias who was to come. "I indeed," says he, "baptise you with water, but he who comes after me, whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy to unloose, he shall baptise you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire." Now if this which 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 will, we have no better a faith, or higher wisdom, than those blind rabbis who received not 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 baptised 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)l 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 baptised with the spirit of those, to whom our Lord said, "Woe to you scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, for you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, neither do you allow those who are entering to go in."
For what is, or can be the fall of a divine 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. Say now, that he had not 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, and then you have a religion as divine as that of the old Sadducees, 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 sounds 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, and if all that is more than this, is but the fiction and dream of a distempered brain? Tell me, why that burning and shining light, that man who was more than a prophet, should come with his water, and the Son of God, God of God, should come with his firebaptism, if man neither wanted, nor could receive a higher water, and fire of life, than what he has in common with the beasts of the field? Why is there all this stir about religions, expiations and atonements, why all these priestly ordinations, consecrations, churches, sacraments, and prayers? For if the fire and spirit of this world is the one life, and highest life, both of man and beasts, we have it unasked for, 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 us, to be children of an 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 whence 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 meanest 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, who 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 type and pledge of that inward celestial fire, which Christ would kindle into a never ceasing burning, in the living temples of his new born children from above.
Complain then no more of atheists, infidels, and such like open enemies to the gospel kingdom of God; for whilst you call heavenly fire and Spirit, kindled into the same essential life in us as they are in holy angels, downright frenzy, and mystic madness, you do all that infidel work 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 the face, 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 till 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 can it be else? 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
who is dead; but no man is dead, but because the kingdom of this world, with all its powers of fire, light, and spirit, stands only outwardly about him, but has lost its life and powers within him.
Say now, out of reverence to sound literature, and abhorrence of enthusiasm, 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 sobriety 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, "Unless a man is 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 a heavenly Father, but from the nature and Spirit of his 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 but fallen Adam, a birth of sin, the 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 enthusiasm 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 establishment among us?
What wonder, if sacraments, church-prayers, and preachings, leave high and low, learned and unlearned, men and women, priests and
people, as unaltered in all their aged vices, as they leave children unchanged in their childish follies? For where the one only fountain of life and goodness is forsaken, where the seed of the divine birth is not alive, and going forwards in the birth, all the difference between man and man is as nothing with respect to the kingdom of God. It matters not what name is given to the old earthly man of Adam's bestial flesh and blood, whether he be 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 what time, and place, education, complexion, hypocrisy, and worldly wisdom, happen to make in 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 the keeper, just as the old man, a 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, who will not shut his eyes against it. 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 fulfilling of all that was outwardly taught, and prescribed in their Law and prophets.
But is it not as easy to see, that the whole Christian church are 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 only power, life, and fulfilling of all that was outwardly taught, and prescribed by the gospel. For the Holy Spirit to come was just the same ALL, and FULFILLING of the whole gospel, as a Christ to come was the all, and 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 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's being the life and power of them, so all that is written in the gospel is
but dead letter, unless the Holy Spirit in man be the living reader, the living rememberer, and the living doer of them. Therefore, where the Holy Spirit is not thus owned and received, as the whole power and life of the gospel state, it is no marvel, that Christians have no more of gospel virtues, 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 not ending in the coming of the Holy Spirit, with 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 what I first said was the one thing absolutely essential, and only available to 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 betwixt 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 what we want is at the end of it. Whilst God calls us by various outward dispensations, by creaturely things, figurative institutions, &c., 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, sacrifices, and sacraments, 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. What the learned Jews did with the outward letter of their Law, 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 saviour, 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 saviour as this, was such enthusiastic jargon to their ears, as forced 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 be less blasphemed, less crucified, by that Christian theology which rejects an inward Christ, a saviour 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 what rejects all this as mystic madness be not that very same old Jewish wisdom 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 St. Paul fell into, when he enthusiastically said, "Yet not I, but Christ who 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, St. Paul's words are remarkably verified, viz., "Wherein you judge another, you condemn yourself, for you who judge do the same thing." For, take away all that from Christ which Christian doctors call enthusiasm, 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 marrow of modern divinity) and then you have that very outward Christ, and that very 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 risen Jew in the Christian church. If it now be asked, whence, or from what, comes all this spiritual blindness, which from age to age thus 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 what came from God, paradise had been the habitation of her and all her offspring. If after paradise lost, Jews and Christians had desired no knowledge but what came from God, the Law and prophets had kept the Jew close to the first tree of life, and the Christian church had 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 entered into Eve, the spouse of Adam in paradise, in the same way, and from the same cause, viz., a desire of more, or other knowledge, than what 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 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 knowledgehunger brought forth.
Let then the eager searcher into words for wisdom, the bookdevourer, the opinion-broker, the exalter of human reason, and every projecting 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 them, 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 heareth, is the one 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 what 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 labour-learned possessor of far-fetched bookriches, yet it is saying no more, nor anything else, but what Christ said in these words, "Unless you are converted, and become as little children, you cannot enter into the kingdom of God." For, if classic gospellers, linguist critics, scripture-logicians, salvation orators, able dealers in the grammatic powers of Hebrew, Greek, and Roman phrases, idioms, tropes, figures, &c., &c., can show, that by raising themselves high in these attainments, they are the very men who are sunk down from themselves into Christ's little children of the kingdom of God, then it may be also said, that he who is labouring, scheming, and fighting for all the riches he can get from both the Indies, is the very man who has left all to follow Christ, the very man who "labours 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 neighbour 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 paradisaical wisdom and goodness are come to life. Not a single precept in the gospel, but is the precept 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 fulfils 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, 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 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 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 labours 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 what their learning, logic, and criticism do for them. Say not then, that it is only the illiterate enthusiast who 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 great 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 enthusiasm, that he is led by all the church-learning that is in the world.