Charity and Its Fruits (continued)
love of God on their being prophets, and having revelations; but on their being sincere saints. Thus it was with David (see Ps. xv. 1-5; xvii. 1-3; and cxix. throughout) and indeed the whole book of Psalms bears witness to this. So the apostle Paul, though he was so greatly privileged with the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit, was yet so far from marring these the evidences of his good estate, that he expressly declares, that without charity they are all nothing. And hence we may argue,
5. From the fruit and consequence of these two different things, that the one is infinitely more excellent than the other.—Eternal life is, by the promises of the gospel, constantly connected with the one, and never with the other. Salvation is promised to those who have the graces of the Spirit, but not to those who have merely the extraordinary gifts. Many may have these last, and yet go to hell. Judas Iscariot had them, and is gone to hell. And Christ tells us, that many who have had them, will, at the last day, be bid to depart, as workers of iniquity (Matt. vii. 22, 23). And therefore, when he promised his disciples these extraordinary gifts., he bade them rejoice, not because the devils were subject to them, but because their names were written in heaven; intimating that the one might be, and yet not the other (Luke x. 17, &c.) And this shews that the one is an infinitely greater blessing than the other, as it carries eternal life in it. For eternal life is a thing of infinite worth and value, and that must be an excellent blessing indeed that has this infallibly connected with it, and of infinitely more worth than any privilege whatsoever, which a man may possess, and yet after all go to hell.
6. Happiness itself does much more immediately and essentially consist in Christian grace, wrought by the ordinary nary influences of the Spirit, than in these extraordinary gifts.—Man's highest happiness consists in holiness, for it is by this that the reasonable creature is united to God, the fountain of all good. Happiness cloth so essentially consist in knowing, loving, and serving God, and having the holy and divine temper of soul, and the lively exercises of it, that these things will make a man l happy without anything else;