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  AN HUMBLE, EARNEST AND AFFECTIONATE ADDRESS TO THE CLERGY
  by William Law
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William Law's earnest exhortation to ministers of the gospel urging them toward
deeper spiritual devotion, genuine holiness, and a more faithful discharge of
their pastoral duties beyond mere outward formality.

  Chapters: 4

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS
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    0. An Humble, Earnest and Affectionate Address to the Clergy
    1. Part 1
    2. Part 2
    3. Part 3

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  CHAPTER 0: AN HUMBLE, EARNEST AND AFFECTIONATE ADDRESS TO THE CLERGY
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  CHAPTER 1: PART 1
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[Addr-1] The Reason of my humbly and affectionately addressing this Discourse to
the Clergy, is not because it treats of Things not of common concern to all
Christians, but chiefly to invite and induce 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 any Thing but the one Thing needful, the one Thing
essential and only available to our Rising out of our fallen State, and
becoming, as we were at our Creation, an holy Offspring of God, and real
Partakers of the Divine Nature.

[Addr-2] If it be 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 wanted by us, nothing
else intended for us, by the Law, the Prophets, and the Gospel. Nothing else is,
or can be effectual, to the making sinful man become again a godly Creature.

[Addr-3] Everything else, be it what it will, however glorious and Divine in
outward Appearance, every Thing that Angels, Men, Churches, or Reformations, can
do for us, is dead and helpless, but so far as it is the immediate work of the
Spirit of God breathing and living in it.

[Addr-4] All Scripture bears full witness to this Truth, and the End and Design
of all that is written, is only to call us back from the Spirit of Satan, the
Flesh, and the World, to be again under full Dependence upon, and Obedience to
the Spirit of God, who out of free Love and Thirst after 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 what Chapter, or Doctrine of Scripture you will,
be ever so delighted with it, it will leave you as poor, as empty and unreformed
as it found you, unless it be a Delight that proceeds from, and has turned you
wholly and solely to the Spirit of God, and strengthened your Union with and
Dependence upon Him. For Love and Delight in matters of Scriptures, whilst it is
only a Delight that is merely human, however Specious and Saintlike it may
appear, is but the Self-love of fallen Adam, and can have no better a Nature,
till it proceeds from the Inspiration of God, quickening his own Life and Nature
within us, which alone can have or give forth a godly Love. For if it be an
immutable Truth, that "no man can call Jesus, Lord, but by the Holy Ghost," it
must be a Truth equally immutable, that no one can have any one Christ-like
Temper or Power of Goodness but so far, and in such Degree, as he is immediately
led and governed by the Holy Spirit.

[Addr-5] The Grounds and Reasons of which are as follow.

[Addr-6] All possible Goodness that either can be named, or is nameless, 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.

[Addr-7] All that can be called Goodness, Holiness, Divine Tempers, heavenly
Affections, &c., 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.

[Addr-8] God could not make the Creature to be great and glorious in itself;
this is as impossible, as for God to create Beings into a State of Independence
on himself. "The Heavens," saith David, "declare the Glory of God"; and no
Creature, any more than the Heavens, can declare any other Glory but that of
God. And as well might it 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.

[Addr-9] But now, if 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, then
we may infallibly 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 all that which it is, and 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 but one and the same Relation to God,
so though ever so different in their several Births, States or Offices, they all
have but one and the same true Religion, or right Behavior towards God. Now the
one Relation, which is the Ground of all true Religion, and is one and the same
between God and all intelligent Creatures, is this, it is a total unalterable
Dependence upon God, an immediate 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 its own Powers, than the poorest Creature upon Earth.
Could the Angel 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. But 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 ravishing 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 ALL 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.

[Addr-10] 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 be 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,
Reasonings, or Workings of its own Natural Powers, as to create itself. For the
Creature, after its Creation, can no more take any Thing to itself that belongs
to God, than it could take it, before it was created. And if Truth forces us to
hold, that the Natural Powers of the Creature could only come from the one Power
of God, the same Truth should surely more 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 it.

[Addr-11] Now the Reason why no Work of Religion, but that which is begun,
continued, and carried on by the Living Operation of God in the creature, 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; like can only
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 begotten and
breathing forth in it all holy Tempers, Affections, and Adorations.

[Addr-12] 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 in
it, and it 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.

[Addr-13] Now as no Animal could begin to respire, 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, and 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.

[Addr-14] Take away Inspiration, or suppose it to cease, and then no Religious
acts or Affections can give forth any Thing 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 any Thing 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 has or partakes of the Divine
Nature dwelling and operating in it.

[Addr-15] A religious Faith that is uninspired, a Hope, or Love that proceeds
not from the immediate Working of the Divine Nature within us, can no more do
any Divine Good to our Souls, or unite them with the Goodness of God, 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 a Desire of Riches.— And the Reason is, 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 no more be better, or act above this Nature, than
the other. Neither can any Creature be in a better, or higher State than this,
till something Supernatural is found 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 least Power of
having more heavenly Desires in his Spirit, than he has in his Flesh.

[Addr-16] A Religion that is not wholly built upon this Supernatural Ground, but
solely stands upon the Powers, Reasonings, and Conclusions of the Natural
uninspired Man, has not so much as the 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
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.

[Addr-17] No Man therefore can reach God with his Love, or have Union with him
by it, but he who is inspired with that one same Spirit of Love, with which God
loved himself from all Eternity, and before there was any Creature. Infinite
Hosts of new created Heavenly Beings can begin no new Kind of Love of God, nor
have the least Power of beginning to Love him at all, but so far as his own Holy
Spirit of Love, wherewith he hath from all Eternity loved himself, 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 or Operation of the Holy Spirit, is the one only possible Ground of
our continually loving God. And of this inspired Love, and no other, it is that
St. John says, "He that dwelleth in Love, dwelleth 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.

[Addr-18] 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 thus 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, or ever have made mention
of his Inspiration in Man. 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 had ever been heard of, or any holy men speaking
as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. 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 and assured 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.

[Addr-19] Hence 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 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 God's
Dispensations have been, is that first Life of God which was essentially born in
the Soul of the first Man, Adam, and to 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 immediately
the Work of the Holy Spirit. For if Man could 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 in the 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 and by that Powerful
Root, or Spirit, which at first created, or redeemed it. Every Branch of the
Tree, though ever so richly brought forth, must wither and die, as soon as it
ceases to have continual Union with, and Virtue from that Root, which first
brought it forth. And to this Truth, as absolutely grounded in the Nature of the
Thing, 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, ye are the Branches, as the Branch cannot bear fruit of
itself, no more can ye, except ye abide in me. He that abideth in me, and I in
him, the same bringeth forth much Fruit. If a man abides not in me, he is cast
forth as a withered Branch; for without me, ye can do Nothing," John xv.

[Addr-20] Now from these Words let this conclusion be here drawn, viz. that
therefore to turn to Christ as a Light within us, to expect life from nothing
but his holy Birth raised within us, to give ourselves up wholly and solely to
the immediate continual Influx and Operation of his Holy Spirit, depending
wholly upon it for every Kind and Degree of Goodness and Holiness that we want,
or can receive, is and can be Nothing else, but proud, rank Enthusiasm.

[Addr-21] Now as infinitely absurd as this conclusion is, no one that condemns
continual immediate Inspiration as gross Enthusiasm, can possibly do it with
less absurdity, or show himself a Wiser Man, or better Reasoner, than he that
concludes, that Because without Christ we can do Nothing, therefore we ought not
to believe, expect, wait for, and depend upon his continual immediate operation
in every Thing that we do, or would do well.— As to the Pride charged upon this
pretended Enthusiasm, it is the same absurdity. Christ says, "without me ye can
do Nothing," the same as if he had said, As to yourselves, and all that can be
called your own, you are mere helpless 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 another Spirit, given by God to over-rule your own, to save and
deliver you from all your own Goodness, your own Wisdom, and Learning which
always were, and always will be, as corrupt and impure, as earthly and sensual,
as your own Flesh and Blood. Now is there any selfish Creaturely Pride, in fully
believing this to be true, and in acting in full Conformity to it? If so, then
he that confesses he neither has, nor ever can have a single Farthing, but as it
is freely given him from Charity, thereby declares himself to be a Purse-proud
vain 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
after Goodness, but what is freely kindled, or breathed into him by the Spirit
of God. Again, if it is Spiritual Pride to believe, that Nothing that we ever
think, or say, or do, either in the Church, or our 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 hath said) that without Him we can do Nothing that is good.
It must also be said, that St. Paul took too much upon him when he said, "the
Life that I now live, is not mine, but Christ's that liveth in me."

[Addr-22] Behold a Pride, and a Humility, the one as good as the other, and both
logically descended from a Wisdom, that confesses it comes not from above.

[Addr-23] 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
whilst they are immediately and continually under the working Power of that Root
or Source, from which they Sprung. Thus it is with the Divine Life in Man, it
can never be in him, but as a Growth of Life in and from God.— Hence 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 to the Devil, the
World, and the Flesh. And Nothing but Obedience to the Spirit, trusting to the
Spirit, walking in the Spirit, praying with and for its continual Inspiration,
can possibly keep either Men, or Churches, from being Sinners, or Idolators, in
all that they do. For everything in the Life, or Religion of Man, that has not
the Spirit of God for its Mover, Director, and End, be it what it will, is but
earthly, sensual, or devilish.— The Truth and Perfection of the Gospel State
could not show itself, till it became solely a Ministration of the Spirit, or a
Kingdom in which the Holy Spirit of God had the doing of all that was done in
it.— The Apostles, whilst Christ was with them in the Flesh, were instructed in
heavenly Truths from his Mouth, and enabled to work Miracles in his Name, yet
not 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; nay though he breathed on them, and said,
"receive ye the Holy Ghost," &c., 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, 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 effected from 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, till 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, should 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 whilst he was
with them in the Flesh.— All this is expressly declared by Christ himself,
saying unto them, "I tell you the truth, it is expedient for you that I go
away"; therefore Christ taught them to believe the Want, 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,
till something more was done to them, and they were brought into a higher State
than they could be by his verbal Instruction of them. "But if I go away," says
he, "I will send him unto 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 unto you: I said of mine, because all Things that the
Father hath are mine," John xvi.

[Addr-24] Now when Christ had told them of the Necessity of an higher State than
that they were in, and the Necessity of such a comforting illuminating Guide, as
they could not have till his outward Teaching in human Language was changed into
the Inspiration, and Operation of his Spirit in their Souls, He commands them,
not to begin to bear Witness of him to the World, from what they did and could
in an human Way know of him, his Birth his Life, Doctrines, Death, Sufferings,
Resurrection, &c., but to tarry at Jerusalem, till they were endued with Power
from on high; saying unto them, "Ye shall receive Power, after that the Holy
Ghost is come upon you. And then shall ye bear witness unto me, both in
Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and unto the utmost Part of the Earth."

[Addr-25] Here are two most important and fundamental Truths fully demonstrated,
First, that the Truth and Perfection of the Gospel State could not take place,
till Christ was glorified, and his Kingdom among Men made wholly and solely a
continual immediate Ministration of the Spirit: Every Thing 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 till it has found the Beginning; that is,
the last dispensation of God to fallen Man cannot be come, till putting an end
to the "Bondage of weak and beggarly Elements," Gal. iv.9, it brings Man to that
dwelling in God, and God in him, which he had at the Beginning.

[Addr-26] Secondly, that as the Apostles could not, so no man, from their Time
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 them to the World, but solely by that Same Divine
Spirit opening all the Mysteries of a Redeeming Christ in their inward Parts, as
it did in the Apostles, Evangelists, and first Ministers of the Gospel.

[Addr-27] For why could not the Apostles, who had been Eye-Witnesses to all the
whole Process of Christ, why could they not with their human Apprehension
declare and testify the Truth of such Things, till 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
as of any other Tale he has been told, till 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, and a new Spiritual Life, it must be
true, that no one can know or believe the Mysteries of Christ's redeeming Power,
by historically knowing, or rationally consenting to That which is said of him
and them in Written or Spoken Words, but only and Solely by an inward
experimental finding, and feeling 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,
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 Breathing 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 as solely belongs to God alone, as his creating Power. For
Nothing can redeem, 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 St. Paul affirmed of his highest State, "yet
not I, but Christ that liveth in me."

[Addr-28] 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) rank Enthusiasm, then He is the only sober orthodox
Christian, who of many a good Thought and Action that proceeds from him, frankly
says, in order to avoid Enthusiasm, 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 myself. It is in vain to
think, that there is a middle Way, and that rational Divines have found it out,
as Dr. Warburton has done, who though denying immediate continual Inspiration,
yet allows that the Spirit's "ordinary Influence occasionally assists the
faithful." {Sermons, vol. i.}

[Addr-29] 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 doing us no good at all,
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 any Thing 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 the one Goodness of
the Divine Nature, living, working, manifesting itself in them, as its created
Instruments, then good Creatures, both in Heaven and on Earth, would have
something else to adore, besides, or along with God. For Goodness, be it where
it will, 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, be proud rank Enthusiasm, then it must be the same Enthusiasm to
own but 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 him, but the one Goodness of
God, manifesting itself in him, and through him, owns more goodness than one.
But if it be true, that God and Goodness cannot be divided, then it must be a
Truth for ever and ever, that so much of Good, so much of God, must be in the
Creature.

[Addr-30] And here lies the true unchangeable Distinction between God, and
Nature, 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, for ever singing Praises to the
Divine Nature by That which they partake of it. This is the Religion of Divine
Inspiration, which being interpreted, is Immanuel or God within us. Every Thing
short of this, is short of that Religion which worships God in Spirit and in
Truth. And every religious Trust or Confidence in any Thing, but the Divine
Operation within us, is but a sort of Image-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 Points, in particular
Doctrines and Opinions, that must be held about the scripture Words 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.

[Addr-31] This must be the Case of all fallen Christendom, as well Popish as
Protestant, till single Men, and Churches, know, confess, and firmly adhere to
this one Scripture Truth, which the blessed Behmen prefixed as a Motto to most
of his epistles, viz., "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.— Every
Thing besides this, or 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 no where be a Savior to him, but as 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
become essentially living in us. Read all our Savior's Divine Sermon from the
Mount, consent to the Goodness of every Part of it, yet the Time of practicing
it will never come, till you have a new Nature from Christ, and are as vitally
in him, and he in you, as the Vine in the Branch, and the Branch 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 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 who should be the greatest." And how
much soever 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
Sect, 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, 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 National Christianity any Thing else is
meant or sought after, by the Profession of the Gospel, but 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 Satanic and worldly Subtlety, will be
Church and Priest, and supreme Power, in all that is called Religion.

[Addr-32] 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, and write, criticize and determine upon all
Scripture Words and Facts, looks at all this as a full Proof of his own
religious Wisdom, Power and Goodness, and calls immediate Inspiration
Enthusiasm, 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
practise.

[Addr-33] 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, till as empty of all, as a new born Child, the Spirit
of God gets a full Birth in him, and becomes the Inspirer and Doer of all that
he wills, does, and aims at, in his whole Course of Religion.

[Addr-34] Our Divine Master compares the Religion of the learned Pharisees "to
whited sepulchers, outwardly beautiful, but inwardly full of Rottenness, stench,
and dead Men's bones."

[Addr-35] Now whence 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, 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 only Root, or
rather the Sum total of all Sin; every Sin that can be named is centered in it,
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.

[Addr-36] 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?

[Addr-37] 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, in and by 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.

[Addr-38] 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 practising any Duties, is all of it 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, or where, or how could
everyone 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 Holy
Trinity 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; whereas the whole
Nature of it lies in this, that it is a Sinning, or Standing out against the
last and highest Dispensation of God for the full Redemption of Man. Christ
says, "If I had not come, they had not had Sin," that is, they had not 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 holy Trinity can
do to restore and revive the first Life of God in the Soul, and so commits the
unpardonable sin, and 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 was the
last and highest Remedy for the Removal of it.

[Addr-39] Hence 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 indignation at a Storm could stop its Rage. Now,
dreadful as the above mentioned Sin is, I would ask all the Writers against
continual immediate Divine Inspiration, how they could more effectually lead men
into an habitual State of Sinning against the Holy Ghost, than by such Doctrine?
For how can we possibly avoid the Sin of grieving, quenching, &c., 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 mathematical Demonstrations of his Being,
&c., we are without all real Knowledge of Him, till his own quickening Spirit
within us manifests Him, 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
manifested in the Soul, that Knowledge of which Christ says, No one knoweth the
Father but the Son, and He to whomsoever the Son revealeth 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 revealeth the Father. But if none belong to God, but
those who are led by the Spirit of God, if we are Reprobates unless the Spirit
of Christ be living in us, who need 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 this 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 from the Power of God to Satan, than by ridiculing a Faith
and Hope that look wholly and solely to his continual immediate Breathings and
Operations, for all that can be holy and good in us?

[Addr-40] "When I am lifted up from the Earth," says Christ, "I will draw all
Men to me." Therefore the one great Power of Christ in and over the Souls of Men
is 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?

[Addr-41] Now That which we are here taught, is the whole End of all Scripture;
for all that is there said, however learnedly read, or studied by Hebrew or
Greek Skill, fails of its only End, till it leads and brings us to an Essential
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, 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, of Satan, and Worldly Wisdom. When St.
Peter, full of an human good 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 thou savourest not the Things that be 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 St. Paul said truly of himself, "By the Grace of God I
am what I am"; so every Wise, every Scribe, every Disputer of this World, every
Truster to the Strength of his own rational Learning, everyone that is under the
Power of his own fallen Nature, never free from Desires of Honours and
Preferments, 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 St. Paul, "God forbid
that I should glory in any Thing 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 St. Paul found, when he said, "I can do all Things through
Christ that strengtheneth 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 Honour
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, nay often make things
worse, till all Churches, dying to all own Will, all own Wisdom, all 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.

[Addr-42] "Ye 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
dwelleth in you"; surely he means, if so be ye 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
hath not 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 thus declares, "God
hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your Hearts, crying, Abba, Father."
Gal. iv.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.

[Addr-43] "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; not
inwardly, says many a learned Doctor, because a Christ within us is as gross
Enthusiasm, or Quakerism, as the Light within us.—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 Remembrance and Belief, that Christ is in him, and
with him, as the Vine is with and in the Branch. Christ says, "Without me ye can
do Nothing"; and also, "If any man loves me, my Father will Love him, and we
will come unto 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, 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 died?

[Addr-44] Again, Christ, after his Glorification in Heaven, says, "Behold I
STAND at the DOOR and KNOCK." He does not say, Behold ye 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 hears, but by the hearing of the Heart,
or 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 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 Enthusiasm to say, that this
supping of the Soul with this glorified Christ within it, must mean something
more heavenly transacted in the Soul than that last Supper which he celebrated
with his Disciples, whilst He was with them in Flesh. For that Supper of Bread
and Wine was such, as a Judas could partake of, and could only be an outward
Type or Signification of that inward and blessed Nourishment, with which the
Believing Soul should be feasted, when the glorified Son of God should as a
Creating Spirit enter into us, quickening, 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 any Thing 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 Despite to this Presence and
Power of Christ in his own Soul, or more effectually lead others into it, than
that Ecclesiastic, who makes a Mock at the Light within, a Christ 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 any Thing but the Spirit and Power of God working in his
Heart, will be ill fitted to enter into Eternity; God must be all in all in us
here, or we cannot be his hereafter. Time works only for Eternity; and Poverty
eternal 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, but that which the Holy Spirit teaches, or to make
ourselves rich in Knowledge towards God, by Heaps of Common-Place Learning
crowded into our Minds, will leave us as dreadfully cheated, as that rich
Builder of Barns in the Gospel, to whom it was said, "Thou fool, this Night,
shall thy Soul be required of Thee. And then, whose shall all these Things be?"
Luke xii. So is every Man that treasures up a Religious Learning that comes not
wholly from the Spirit of God.— But to return. To this inward continual
Attention to the continual working of the holy Spirit within us, the Apostle
calls us in these Words, "See that ye refuse not him that speaketh; for if they
escaped not, who refused him that spoke on Earth, much more shall not we escape,
if we turn from Him, that speaketh from Heaven," Heb. xii.25. Now what is this
Speaking from Heaven, which it 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? St. James saith, "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. Or what 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 call us from 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 being only a Spiritual Good, and the Devil our Spiritual
Evil, neither the 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. St. 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, 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 Partakers of the Divine Nature. Further, what a Blindness
is it in the forementioned Writers, to charge private Persons with the
Enthusiasm of holding the Necessity, and Certainty of continual immediate
Inspiration, and to attack them as Enemies to the Established Church, when every
Body's Eyes see, that Collect after Collect, in the Established Liturgy, teaches
and requires them 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 Thee we are not able to please Thee,
mercifully Grant that thy 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, that is, can have any Union with him?

[Addr-45] 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 affects not 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 Collect as well as Christ and his
Apostles oblige us in like manner to hold, 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, The Liturgy prays thus, "O God, from whom all
good Things do come, grant that by thy holy Inspiration we may think those
Things that be good, and by thy merciful Guiding may perform the Same."— 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


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  CHAPTER 2: PART 2
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[Addr-71] 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, viz., 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 till a higher
Power than was in them gave Life and Growth to that which they planted and
watered.

[Addr-72] 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, a St. John Baptist, or a Paul whom they knew
to be immediately sent from Heaven with God's Message to them.— I reverence them
as a literal Truth of and 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.

[Addr-73] But now, if this is not thought 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, whilst He was alive, was
indeed only bare Planting and Watering, but the same Epistles, being published
after his Death, got another Nature, became full of Divine and living Power,
such a one has no Right to laugh (as the Doctor does) at the silly Mahometan,
who believes the Alcoran to be uncreated. For wherever there is Divine Efficacy,
there, there must be an uncreated power. And if, as the Doctor says, the
Scriptures of the New Testament are the only constant Abode and Supreme
Illumination of the Spirit of God with us, all that is said of the Eternal
Spirit of God, of the uncreated Light, might and ought to be said of them; that
they are the WORD that was God, was with God, and are our true Immanuel, or God
within us.

[Addr-74] 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 thus grossly
Mistaking the Spirit of the Gospel, as well as the Law of Moses.— St. 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,
(N.B.) all which he proudly sacrificed to the Glory of the everlasting gospel."
{Sermons, vol i., page 229.}

[Addr-75] Now if the Doctor did that, though it was only from Humility, which he
says the Apostle did proudly, such Humility might be as great a Good to him, as
that Pride was to the Apostle.— And indeed, one would have thought, that as soon
as the Doctor had discovered these Writers to be only great Masters in moral
Painting, it should have had the same effect upon him, as if he had found them
great Masters in Delusion. For where there is Moral Painting, there, there is
moral Delusion. And the Spirit, the Life, the Purity, and Divine Simplicity of
Gospel Truth, is more eluded, lost, and destroyed by moral Paintings, whether in
Books or Pulpits, than by any material Colorings put upon Images of Wood or
Clay, to excite Spiritual Devotion in Churches.— Again, if the everlasting
Gospel is now as glorious a Thing, as it was in St. Paul's Days; if the highest,
most accomplished classic Knowledge is so unsuitable to the Light and Spirit of
the Gospel, that it is fit for Nothing but to be cast away, or as the Doctor
says, "to be all sacrificed to the Glory of the Gospel," how wonderful is it,
that this should never come into his head from the Beginning to the End of his
three long Legation-volumes, or that he should come piping hot with fresh and
fresh classic Beauties found out by himself in a Shakespeare, a Pope, &c., to
preach from the Pulpit the Divine Wisdom of a Paul, in renouncing all his great
Classic Attainments, as mere loss and Dung, that by so doing he might win
Christ, and be found in him!

[Addr-76] Let it be supposed, that our Lord was to come again for a while in the
Flesh, and that his coming was for this end, to do that for the Christian world
cumbered with much Learning, which he did to poor Martha, only cumbered with
much Serving, who thereby neglected that Good Part which Mary had chosen; must
we suppose that the Doctor would hasten to meet him with his Sacred Alliances,
his Bundles of Pagan Trash, and hieroglyphic Profundities, as his full Proof
that Mary's good Part, which shall never be taken from her, had been chosen for
himself and all his Readers? As well might it be thought, that the Pope would
come richly laden with his blessed Images, his heavenly Decrees, his divine
Bulls, as infallible Proofs of his being born again from above, and solely
devoted to the one Thing Needful.

[Addr-77] Let the Doctor figure to himself the gaudy Pageantry of a Divine high
Mass in a Romish Cathedral; let him wonder at that flagrant daring Contrariety
that it hath to that first Gospel-Church of Christ, viz., "where two or three
are gathered together in my Name, there am I in the midst of them"; would he not
be still fuller of Wonder, if he should hear the Pope declaring that all this
heathenish show of invented Fopperies was his projected Defence of that first
Church of Christ?— But if the Doctor would see a Protestant Wonder full as
great, he need only look at his own theatrical parading Show of heathen
Mysteries, and heathenish Learning, set forth in highest Pomp. To what End? Why
to bring forth, what he calls (as the Pope above) his projected Defence of
Christianity.

[Addr-78] 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.

[Addr-79] I come now to the Quotation from the pastoral Letter of Mr. Stinstra.
"A judicious Writer," (says the Dissertation), "observes, that Sound
Understanding and Reason are That on which, and by which, God principally
operates (N.B.) when he finds it proper to assist (N.B.) our weakness by his
Spirit." {Dissertation, page 73.}

[Addr-80] I cannot more illustrate the Sense, or extol the Judgment, both of the
Author, and Quoter of this Striking Passage, than by the following Words.

[Addr-81] "A judicious Naturalist observes, that Sound and Strong Lungs are that
on which, and by which, the Air or Spirit of this World principally operates,
when (N.B.) he finds it proper to assist, (N.B.) the Weakness of our Lungs, by
his Breathing into them."— Now if any right minded Man should happen to find his
Heart edified, his Understanding enlightened, by the above Passage on Divine
Inspiration, he will be much pleased at my assuring him, that the Pastoral
Letter of Mr. Stinstra, and the Dissertation on Enthusiasm by Mr. Green, are
from the Beginning to the End full as good, in every Respect, as that is.

[Addr-82] These two Instances are 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 Birth-right in the
Gospel State of Divine Illumination, to make a Figure and Noise with the
Sounding Brass and Tinkling Cymbals of the natural Man.

[Addr-83] Whence 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 Honour, which the Academic
Exercise of Wit" (as Dr. W. says) "was supposed to bring to its Professor,"
{Divine Legation of Moses, Book I., page 33.} has still its Power among Church
Disputants. Nor can it possibly ever be otherwise, till Parts and Genius, &c.,
do, as the Blind, the Deaf, the Dumb, and Lepers formerly did, 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 followeth me, walketh not in Darkness."— "No Man
cometh unto the Father but by me."— Well therefore might St. Paul say, "I have
determined to know Nothing among you, but Christ, and him crucified."— And had
it not been for this Determination, he had never known, what he then knew, when
he said, "The Life that I now live, is not mine, but Christ's that liveth in
me."— Now did the Apostle here overstretch the Matter? Was it a Spirit of
Enthusiasm, 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 strong Holds, leave it defenceless, without
a Pale, and a ready Prey to Infidels?— Who can say this, but that "Spirit of
Anti-Christ, that confesseth not 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 is Christ become the Resurrection and
the Life; and he that knows this, he knows with St. Paul that all other
Knowledge may, and will be cast away as Dung.— Now if St. Paul, having rejected
all other Knowledge but that of a crucified Saviour, which to the Jew was a
Stumbling-Block, and to the Greek Foolishness, if he had afterwards wrote three
such Legation-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 Christ crucified?

[Addr-84] 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 could find them, concerning
Divine Inspiration, from this and that judicious Author, that so he might be
sure of compiling a Judicious Dissertation on the Subject. All which he might
have known to be mere Delusion and lost Labour, 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 fully shows
that 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.

[Addr-85] "The things of God," says St. Paul, "knoweth 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 Fruits of the Spirit, so often mentioned in Scripture, are
not Things different, 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. St. John
says, "Hereby we know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given
us." A Demonstration, that the Spirit can no other way make himself known to us,
but by his dwelling and working in us. St. James says, "Every good and perfect
Gift cometh from ABOVE": but now does not he 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 lacketh Wisdom, let him ask it of God";
St. 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
got together his ingenious, his eminent writers, his excellent, learned,
judicious Authors, his 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, which the whole College
of Apostles could do for nobody.— 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 every Thing that can be seen,
known, heard, felt, &c., must be manifested by itself, and not by another. It is
not possible for any Thing but Light to manifest Light, nor for any Thing but
Darkness to make Darkness to be known. Yet this is more possible, than for any
Thing 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, how, or 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, and such as 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
can be charged upon the old Jewish Scribes and Pharisees.

[Addr-86] 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 how we are to seek, and wait, and trust in his good Power over us. But
then the Scriptures themselves, though thus 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 may relate Truths enough about it; but the
Kingdom of God, being 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 every Thing else in Man is deaf and
dumb and blind to the Kingdom of God; but when that which died in Adam is made
alive again by the quickening Spirit from above, this being the Birth which came
at first from God, and a Partaker of the Divine Nature, this knows, and enjoys
the Kingdom of God.

[Addr-87] "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 assents, consents, and contends, it may be, for the Truth of those
Words. This is impossible. The new Birth is here again the Only Power of
Entrance; every Thing 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.

[Addr-88] 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 that can enter into,
or receive the Kingdom of God come amongst Men, that alone 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 is only to make a Beginning of a Life of the Spirit: Birth is only
in order to Life; if therefore the Life of the Spirit continues not, 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 every Thing 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.

[Addr-89] 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 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 of
him, till he is born of and led by the Spirit of God; this alone is the Kingdom
of God, and every Thing else is the Kingdom of this World, in which Satan is
declared to be the Prince.— Poor, miserable Man! that strives, with all the
Sophistry 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,
there is the devil, and where the Spirit rules not, there all is the Work of the
Flesh, though nothing be talked of but Spiritual and Christian matters. 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.

[Addr-90] 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, vain-glorious, 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, viz., exercise his Logic, Rhetoric, and critical Skill, in descanting
upon them? This done, he is thought by himself, and often by others, to have a
sufficiency of Divine apostolical Knowledge. What Wonder therefore, if it should
sometimes happen, that the very same vain, corrupt, puffing Literature, that
raises one Man to be a Poet-Laureate, should set another in a Divinity Chair?

[Addr-91] How is it that the logical, critical, learned Deist comes by 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 the
Faith of the Gospel. For, drop the Power and Reality of Divine Inspiration, and
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 it comes from above, 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 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, or which is the same Thing, without immediate continual Divine
Inspiration, the Difference between the Christian and the Infidel is quite lost;
and whether the uninspired unregenerate Son of Adam be 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 need 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 such Appearances of Virtues, and will have such
Reality 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.

[Addr-92] Through all Scripture nothing else is aimed at or intended for Man, as
his Christianity, but the Divine Life, nor any Thing hinted at, as having the
least Power to raise or beget it, but the holy Life-giving Spirit of God. How
gross therefore is that Blindness, which 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"?

[Addr-93] But this Truth being lost or given up, vain Learning and a worldly
Spirit, being in Possession of the Gospel-Book, set up Kingdoms of Strife and
Division.— For what End? 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.

[Addr-94] Hence 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.

[Addr-95] Now to call such Scripture Skill Divine Knowledge, is just as solid
and judicious, as if a Man was said, or thought to know, that which St. John
knew, because he could say 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 to 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 all this, and had
no 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’ 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 or human Affairs, this
being taken for Divine Knowledge, has spread such Darkness and Delusion all over
Christendom, as 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 high Name you will, is no more a
Part of the Gospel State, nor will have a better End, than that which entereth
into the Mouth, and corrupteth in the Belly.

[Addr-96] 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 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 whence Beasts have their
Sense and 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, stripped him more naked than the Beasts, and 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 making
again a Birth of themselves in Him, as they did in his first glorious Creation?
Or what can possibly begin, or bring forth this Return of his first lost Birth,
but solely that which is done by this eternal Light and Spirit.— Hence 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 has the Nature of no worldly Thing or creaturely
Power, is to serve 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, and is a Kingdom of God become Man, and 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, none can continue to be alive in it but by being led by the
Spirit, and 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?

[Addr-97] "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, but because his Holy
Spirit is the Life, the Power, and Mover of all that live in it.— We daily 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.

[Addr-98] For where can God's Kingdom be 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?

[Addr-99] What now have Parts, and Literature, and the natural Abilities of Man,
that they can do here? Just 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,
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 all Notions, theological, poetical, and
philosophical, as a Dictionary is full of all Sorts of Words.

[Addr-100] 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 hence,
and cast into the Sea," than the illiterate Christian has? If not, he 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 Bulk of a Grain of
Mustard-Seed, than that of the prodigious Scholar, the illiterate Christian
stands much above him in the Kingdom of God.

[Addr-101] 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 Lustre, 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 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.

[Addr-102] 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 Enthusiasts; and the tree of Death, called the Tree of Knowledge of Good
and Evil, has the Eyes and Hearts of 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 first, is now
called a Tree of Light, and is Day and Night well watered with every corrupt
Stream, however distant, or muddy with Earth, that can be drawn to it.

[Addr-103] 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.

[Addr-104] 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 ever they were in old Pagan Greece or Rome.—
Would you find a Gospel-Christian in all this Mid-day Glory of Learning, you may
light a Candle, as the Philosopher did in the Mid-day Sun, to find an honest
Man.

[Addr-105] 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,
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 Lent-Penitence 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 genuine Helps? 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 one and the same Thing, only
called sometimes by one Name, and sometimes by the other.

[Addr-106] His intellectual Faculties are, by the Fall, in a much worse State
than his natural animal Appetites, and want a much greater Self-denial. And when
own Will, own Understanding, and own Imagination have their natural strength
indulged and gratified, and are made seemingly rich and honorable with the
Treasures acquired from a Study of the Belles Lettres, they will just as much
help poor fallen Man to be like-minded with Christ, as the Art of Cookery, well
and daily studied, will help a Professor of the Gospel to the Spirit and
Practice of Christian Abstinence.— To know all this to be strictly the Truth, no
more need 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 Saviour to
us, but such an Humility of God manifested in human Nature, as is beyond all
Expression.— Hence, the first unalterable Term of this Saviour to fallen Man, is
this, "Except a Man denies himself, forsakes all that he has, yea and his own
Life, he cannot be my Disciple." And to show, that this is but the Beginning, or
Ground of Man's Salvation, the Saviour adds, "Learn of me, for I am meek, and
lowly of Heart." What a Light is here, for those that can bear, or love the
Light! Self is the whole Evil of fallen Nature; Self-denial is our Capacity of
being saved; Humility is our Saviour. 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 finished Education. Then old Adam with all his Ignorance is cast out
of him; and when Christ's Humility is learnt, then he has the very Mind of
Christ, and that which brings him forth a Son of God.

[Addr-107] Who then can enough wonder at that Bulk of Libraries, which has taken
the Place of this short Lesson of the Gospel, or at that 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 fast,
without getting the least degree of Humility by it?

[Addr-108] What a Grossness of Ignorance, both of Man and his Saviour, 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 is already too much come, a Ciceronian-Gospeller, in Stead of a
Gospel-Penitent? In Stead 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 {See Milton's Enormous Bliss.} Sublime of a Milton, flying thither
on the unfeathered Wings of high sounding Words.

[Addr-109] This will be more or less the Case with all the Salvation-Doctrines
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.
{As this Address was wrote some time ago, in which are certain Strictures upon
Dr. Warburton's Writings, who has lately been consecrated a Right Reverend Lord
Bishop; I thought it more candid not to alter my Style, than to take the
Advantage of charging such gross Errors on a Bishop of Gloucester, which I only
found in a Mr. and Dr. Warburton.} calls them) to lavish out their Colours on
their own Paper Monuments of Lifeless Virtues.

[Addr-110] 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 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,
"Without me, ye 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.

[Addr-111] 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 Self-Abilities 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.

[Addr-112] 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.

[Addr-113] 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.

[Addr-114] 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 doth will be
only done by the right Hand, that the left Hand may know it. And he that 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 that
could take away the Sins of the World.— "All that 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 any Thing 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 hath from Adam may be brought to death, by the
supernatural Humility of Christ brought to Life in him.

[Addr-115] 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
Antichrist, 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.

[Addr-116] 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.

[Addr-117] But to know with certainty, where and what Antichrist 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 Self-Ability or Self-Exaltation, being the highest
and fullest Contrariety to all this, must be alone the one great Antichrist,
that opposes and withstands the whole Nature and Spirit of Christ.

[Addr-118] 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 Antichrist 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 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 any
Thing 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.

[Addr-119] 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.

[Addr-120] 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 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, 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.—Every Thing 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 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.

[Addr-121] 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.

[Addr-122] 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.

[Addr-123] 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.

[Addr-124] However, to make way for Parts, Criticism, and Language-Learning, to
have the full Management of Salvation Doctrines, the well-read Scholar gives
out, that the ancient Way of knowing the Things of God, taught and practiced by
Fishermen-Apostles, 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, "Whatsoever ye
shall bind on Earth, shall be bound in Heaven"; never said to them, "go ye and
teach all Nations," no more than he has ever said to Wolves, "go ye, 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 ye can
do nothing," and, "Lo, I am with you to the end of the World."

[Addr-125] 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 ye 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, ye shall live also; in that Day ye shall know that I am in the
Father, and you in me, and I in you."

[Addr-126] 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 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 ye shall answer, or what ye shall say unto them, for the
Holy Ghost shall teach you in that same Hour what ye ought to say. For it is not
ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you."

[Addr-127] No higher, or other Thing is here said, than in these other Words,
"Take no Thought, what ye shall Eat, or Drink, or wherewithal ye 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 worketh
in them.

[Addr-128] 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 every Thing 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 any Thing 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.

[Addr-129] 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 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 the very Jew that trusted in his own
Righteousness; and all that he gets by the Gospel, is only that which 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 that 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, "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 become creaturely in us. Nothing but God in Man can be a Godly
Life in Man.— Hence is that of the Apostle, "The Letter killeth, but the Spirit
giveth 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 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 ye that labor and are heavy laden, and
I will refresh you"; 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 ye are washed, but ye are cleansed in the
Name of our Lord Jesus"; just the same as when it is said, "Except ye abide in
me, and I in you, ye have no Life in you." Again, "By Grace ye are saved, by
Faith ye are saved," says neither more nor less than this, "He that eateth my
Flesh, and drinketh my Blood, hath eternal Life"; the same as when Christ says,
"Without me ye can do nothing"; the same as the Apostle says, "Yet not I, but
Christ that liveth in me"; the same as "Christ in us the Hope of Glory; if
Christ be not in you, ye 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, "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 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.

[Addr-130] 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 killeth, but the Letter giveth
Life.

[Addr-131] 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, "Except a Man denies himself and forsakes
all that he hath, 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 Enjoymen


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 3: PART 3
========================================================================

[Addr-161] 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 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 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.

[Addr-162] Let then the eager Searcher into Words for Wisdom, the Book-Devourer,
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 thy 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 that
which is itself Dead, or praying to him for Bread who has nothing but stones to
give.

[Addr-163] Now strange as all this may seem to the labor-learned Possessor of
far-fetched Book-Riches, yet it is saying no more, nor any Thing else, but that
which Christ said in these Words, "Except ye be converted, and become as little
Children, ye 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 that 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 that has left all to follow Christ, the very Man that
"labors not for the Meat that perishes."

[Addr-164] 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 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 fulfilleth 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 every Thing 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.

[Addr-165] 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 that which their Learning,
Logic, and Criticism do for them. Say not then, that it is only the iliterate
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 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.

[Addr-166] 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' 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 (N.B.) he who holds Christ to be the
one, 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
brain-sick Enthusiast.— Is it not then high Time to look out for some better
Ground to stand upon, than such Learning as this? Now look where you will,
through all the whole 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 entire 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 in
the Flesh.— All besides this, call it by what Name you will, is but dead Work, a
vain Labor of the old Man, to new create himself. And here let it be well
observed, that in these two Points consists the whole of that mystic Divinity,
to which a 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 or
Cross of Christ) that a new Creature (called Christ in us, or Christ come in the
Spirit) may be begotten 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
Catholic Church, and Communion of Saints.— To this melancholy Truth, all
Christendom both at home and abroad bears full Witness. Who need be told, that
there is not a Corruption or Depravity of human Nature, no Kinds of Pride,
Wrath, Envy, Malice, and Self-love; no sorts of Hypocrisy, Falseness, Cursing,
Swearing, Perjury, and Cheating; no Wantonness of Lust in every Kind of
Debauchery, but are as common all over Christendom, as Towns and Villages?— But
to pass these by, I shall only instance in two or three Particulars, which
though little observed, and less condemned, yet fully show that the Beast, the
Whore, and the fiery Dragon, are in Possession of Protestant as well as Popish
Churches.

[Addr-167] And First, can it be said that Mammon is less served by Christians,
than by Jews and Infidels? Or can there be a fuller Proof that Christians, Jews,
and Infidels, are equally fallen from God and all 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 Moment, as if it had been said, Ye 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
Idolator for being called a Christian, a Jew, or an Infidel? Look now at all
those Particulars which Christ charged upon the Jewish Priests, Scribes, and
Pharisees, and you will see them all 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. viii.4. For though figured 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, 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 to tingle, when he told them that they "had made his Father's House a Den
of Thieves"; because Sheep and Oxen were sold, and Money-Changers 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, &c., and our Money-Changers, our Buyers, and Sellers, are
chiefly consecrated Persons.

[Addr-168] Look at Things spiritual, and Things temporal, and say if you can,
that the same Arts, 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, "Labour to be Rich;—Make full Provision for the Flesh;—Be
conformed to the World;—Court the Favour and Interest of great Men.— Clothe
yourselves with all the worldly Honours, Distinctions, and Powers you can get";
I appeal to every Man, whether Popish and Protestant Churches need do any Thing
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?

[Addr-169] Again, Secondly, "Ye have heard," says our Lord, "that it hath been
said by them of Old; thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the
Lord thine Oaths."— The Jews practised promissory Oaths, and thought all was
well, when there was a Performance of them.—But this, with Numbers of other
Jewish Practices, was not to be allowed in this Kingdom of God, that was then
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 YEA,
YEA, and NAY, NAY, for (N.B.) Whatsoever is more than this, cometh 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 the 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 YEA and NAY 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
become Saints; for whatsoever is less than this, cometh of Evil.—Had this been
Christ's new Commandment, all the Churches of Christendom, as well Popish as
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, Office-Oaths, Trade-Oaths,
Qualification-Oaths, Simony-Oaths, Bribery-Oaths, Election-Oaths, &c., &c., &c.,
there is more Swearing and Forswearing, than all History Reports of any
Idol-worshipping Nations.— It was said of Old, "Because of Swearing, the Land
mourneth"; it is full as true to say now, Because of Swearing, the Land
rejoiceth 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 Pot-companions swallow
down their Liquor.

[Addr-170] "He that despiseth me," says Christ, "despiseth 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
Yea and Nay, which He has commanded to be sufficient; and what is still more
wonderful, compels all Orders of Christians to swear by that very Book, which
says to all, whether high or low, Prince, Priest, or People, SWEAR NOT AT ALL?

[Addr-171] If the Swearing Law was to order, that instead of kissing the
Gospel-Book, the Swearer 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? But the Contempt of both is as truly
there, when the Gospel-Book is kissed by the Swearer; 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 and his HOLY GOSPEL, it might
have been much better, if every Swearing Law through all Christendom had obliged
every Swearer to finish his Oath with these Words, Let God and his holy Gospel
PARDON ME IN THIS ONE THING.

[Addr-172] 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 not so.— But my Answer is, that as the Jews were of old carried
captive into Babylon, so as real a Captivity, and full 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 Want 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 Want of Gospel Purity, in the
Yea and Nay of private Christians, which their Captivity under a fallen State of
Christian Government suffers them not 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.

[Addr-173] 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 and much the greatest Part of Swearing
Christians have lost all pious Fear of Oaths and Swearing, it is because the
Necessity of Swearing meets every Man, in almost every Thing, at the Peril of
losing all that he has, or can have, unless he will Swear.

[Addr-174] 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 Yea and Nay, it is plain from Christ's
Words, that the Evil is only in That, and There, from whence the Oath comes.

[Addr-175] When a Person swears of his own Accord, or wantonly, then the Oath
comes of, or 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 Yea or Nay, 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 Kirk, a Church, an Assembly of Divines, or
a Nebuchadnezzar.— All this, I say, is plain from Christ's own Words.— "Let your
Yea be Yea, and your Nay Nay." But why so? It is because whatsoever is more than
this cometh 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 Saviour calls the Evil of it but the Oath comes from
that which causes it, therefore, that which causes Swearing, is by our Saviour's
Words charged with all the Evil of the Oath. But (N.B.) 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
Yea or Nay of Christ might justly affirm, or deny.

[Addr-176] 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
Antichristian, as the Pope's Supremacy.

[Addr-177] 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 ANTICHRIST.

[Addr-178] But to proceed now to a third and last Instance, which I shall
mention, of the full Power of Antichrist in and through every Part of governing
Christendom.

[Addr-179] 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 an holy War, because it was fighting for the holy Land;
they were called also a Croisade, because Crosses and Crucifixes made the
greatest Glitter among the sharpened Instruments of human Murder— Thus under the
Banner of the Cross went forth an Army of Church Wolves, to destroy the Lives of
those, whom the Lamb of God died on the Cross to save.

[Addr-180] The Light which broke out at the Reformation, abhorred the bloody
superstitious Zeal of these Catholic Heroes.— But (N.B.) what followed from this
new risen, reforming Light, what came forth instead of these holy Croisades? 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.

[Addr-181] Now who can help seeing, that Satan, the Prince of the Powers of
Darkness, had here a much greater Triumph over Christendom, than in all the holy
Wars and Croisades 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 taketh 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 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 hath not, or is
not led by the Spirit of Christ, is none of his.

[Addr-182] 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
St. Paul going forth with a Squadron of Fire and Brimstone, to make more Havoc
in human Lives than a devouring Earthquake.

[Addr-183] But if this be 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."

[Addr-184] 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 under their Feet.

[Addr-185] 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 like to 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.

[Addr-186] 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 goeth 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 unto
you, that ye love one another.— By this shall all Men know that ye are my
Disciples, if ye love one another as I have loved you."

[Addr-187] Can the Duelist, who had 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 his 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 the Difference that is between the Murder of one Man, and the
Murder of an hundred thousand.

[Addr-188] Now imagine the Duelist fasting and confessing his Sins to God to
Day, because he is engaged to fight his Brother To-morrow; fancy again the
Conqueror got 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 Picture in Little of the great Piety, that begins and ends the Wars all over
heavenly Christendom.

[Addr-189] 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, Rapine, Resentment, Revenge, Hatred, Mischief, and Murder, are
only the Works of the Devil, whilst they are committed by private or single Men;
but when carried on by all the Strength and Authority, 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 holy Matter of Church
Thanksgivings, and the sacred Oratory of Pulpits.

[Addr-190] 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 first murdering
Sword at Work.— What is it, that fallen Man wants 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 Angels, 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 not fallen into this Self or
Satan, and then there could be no more War or fighting in him, than there was in
the WORD made Man in our Flesh. Or suppose him redeemed from his fallen Nature,
by a new Birth of the Lamb of God born in his Soul, and then he can no more be
hired to kill Men gloriously in the Field, than to carry a dark Lanthorn by
Night to a Powder-Plot.

[Addr-191] Love, Goodness, and Communication of Good, is the immutable 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, changes not through the Fall of its Creatures, but is continually at
work, to bring back all fallen Nature and Creature to their first State of
Goodness. All that passes for a Time between God and his fallen Creature, is but
one and the same Thing, working for one and the same 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, till 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, 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 (N.B.) every number of destroyed Sinners, whether thrown
by Noah's flood, or Sodom's Brimstone, into the terrible Furnace of a Life,
insensible of any Thing but new Forms of raging Misery till Judgment's Day, must
through the all-working, all-redeeming Love of God, which never ceases, come at
last to know that they had lost, and have found again such a God of Love as
this.

[Addr-192] And if long and 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 till 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, till 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 Sins, which Days and Nights might have done
for a most hardened Pharaoh, or a most wicked Nero, whilst in the Body, it is
because, whilst 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 Darkness of a fiery Wrath, that burns in them and their
Kingdom.

[Addr-193] O poor Sinner, whoever thou art, repent and turn to God, whilst thou
hast Adam's Flesh upon Thee; for as long as that lasts, the Kingdom of God is
nigh at hand; but if thou diest without Adam's Repentance, black Lakes,
bottomless Pits, Ages of a gnawing Worm, and Fire that never ceases to burn,
will stand between Thee and a Kingdom of Heaven afar off.

[Addr-194] To prevent all this, and make Thee 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 taketh away the Sins of the
World.

[Addr-195] 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 full delivered from all that
Hurt, Mischief, and Destruction, which in full Opposition to their God and
Creator, they had 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?

[Addr-196] 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 Drum and Trumpet plunders the
innocent of all that they have? And if themselves are left alive with all their
Limbs, or their Daughters unravished, they have many Times only the Ashes of
their consumed Houses to lie down upon.— What Honour has War not gotten from its
Tens and Tens of Hundreds or Thousands of Men Slaughtered on Heaps, with as
little Regret or Concern, as at 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"?

[Addr-197] But there is still an Evil of War much greater, though less
regarded.— Who reflects, how many Hundreds of Thousands, nay 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 nameless 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 suffered to stay in this World, till 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, 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 Tiger
kills Tiger for the sake of his Prey?

[Addr-198] 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, 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.

[Addr-199] Among unfallen 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 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,
till 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 several Mansions in their Heavenly Father's House.

[Addr-200] Sing, O ye Heavens, and shout all ye lower Parts of the Earth, this
is OUR GOD that varies not, whose first creating Love knows no Change, but into
a redeeming Pity towards all his fallen Creatures.

[Addr-201] 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 suffered to repent? And if they who have
"converted many to Righteousness, shall Shine as the Stars in the Firmament for
ever," what Chorazin's Woe may they not justly 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 wanted, for the Salvation of their immortal
Souls.

[Addr-202] 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!

[Addr-203] 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 camest 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 thy tender Hand of Love and Mercy
direct their Balls to more Heads and Hearts of thine own redeemed Creatures,
than the poor Skill of Man is able of itself to do": Had not such Prayers had
more of the Man of the Earth, more of the Son of Perdition in them, than the
Most Christian King's glorying in his Arms?

[Addr-204] 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 both the Indies. What natural Right of Man, what supernatural
Virtue which Christ brought down from Heaven, was not here trodden under Foot?
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.

[Addr-205] Here now, let the Wisdom of this World be as Wise as ever it will,
and from its learned Throne condemn all this as Enthusiasm; it need be no
Trouble to 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, nay 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 (N.B.) with Respect to Conscience, this is the chief Office of
Worldly Wisdom; it is to keep all Things quiet in the Old Man, 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, or from above, he cannot enter into
the Kingdom of God."— For this Wisdom, come to its highest perfection, is a
Classic Moral Painter, which though it cannot alter the Nature, yet can change
the Colours of every Thing; 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, so he
can dispose them on whom, and on what he will; not only as outward interesting
Occasions call for them, but also as the inward Necessities, the Ups and Downs
of his own poor Self want them. For Self, however willing to be always strong,
has its weak Hours, and would be ever tottering, unless this Elbow-Orator kept
him every Day (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 Sinner Publican.

[Addr-206] "Demas," says St. Paul, "hath 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, that same unavoidably 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 to forsake Paul.

[Addr-207] This Wisdom has asked me, how it is possible for Christian Kingdoms
in the Neighbourhood 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.

[Addr-208] This Question is so far from needing to be answered by me, that it is
wholly on my Side; 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
neighbouring Christian Kingdoms, but by its Weapons of War, are not all
Christian Kingdoms equally in the same unchristian State, as two neighbouring
bloody Knaves, who cannot be safe from one another, but as each other's
murdering Arms preserve and protect them? This Plea therefore for Christendom's
Wars, proves nothing else but the want of Christianity all over the Christian
World, and stands upon no better a Foundation of Righteousness and Goodness,
than when one Murdering Knave kills another that would have killed him.

[Addr-209] But to know whether Christianity wants, or admits of War,
Christianity is to be considered as in its right State.— 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.— "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," Isaiah ii.2.

[Addr-210] 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, (N.B.) neither shall they
learn War any more."— 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 ye are my Disciples, if ye Love one another as I have
loved you."— Christ's kingdom of God is nowhere 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 and all 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 is, and has in this fallen World.

[Addr-211] Would you see when and where the Kingdoms of this fallen World are
become a Kingdom of God, the Gospel Prophet tells you, that it is then and there
where all Enmity ceases.— "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, (N.B.) "they
shall not HURT or DESTROY in all my holy Mountain," that is, through all holy
Christendom. Isaiah xi.6.

[Addr-212] See here a Kingdom of God on the Earth; it is nothing else but a
Kingdom of mere 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, whence 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 full of the Knowledge of
the Lord, as the Waters cover the Sea."— Therefore, O Christendom, thy Wars are
thy certain Proofs, that thou art all over as full of an Ignorance of God, as
the Waters cover the Sea.

[Addr-213] 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
any Thing 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.

[Addr-214] 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
Wills, 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, as well
Popish as Protestant, are at one and the same Distance from the Spirit of their
Lord and Saviour the Lamb of God, and therefore all want one and the same entire
Reformation.

[Addr-215] 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 one and the same
Mother, so many lesser Babels come out of Babylon the great.— For among all the
Reformers, the one 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.

[Addr-216] 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 has
had its whole Birth and Growth from worldly Wisdom.

[Addr-217] 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 St.
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.

[Addr-218] St. 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 be 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 been kept out of the Church, the Church had
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 Defence of it, and condemn every Man as Heretical, who dares speak a
Word against this Glorious Image of a Church, which the Wisdom of this World has
set up.

[Addr-219] This is the great Antichrist, which is neither better nor worse, nor
any Thing else, but the Spirit of Satan working against Christ, in the Strength
and Subtlety of earthly Wisdom.

[Addr-220] If therefore you take any Thing to be Church-Reformation, but a full
Departure from the Wisdom of this World, or any Thing to be your Entrance into a
Salvation-Church, but the Nature, Spirit, and Works of Christ, become living in
you, then, whether Papist or Protestant, Reformation or no Reformation, all will
be just as much Good to you, as when a Sadducee turns Publican, or from 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, 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
every Thing but the new Creature, Christ says, "I know you not"; and to every
virtue that worldly Wisdom puts on, "Get thee behind me, Satan, for thou
savourest not the Things that be of God." And the Reason why it must be thus,
why Worldly Wisdom, though under a religious Form, is and can be nothing else,
but that which is called Satan, or Antichrist, 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 is it, that a total Departure from every Subtlety and
Prosperity of worldly Wisdom, is absolutely necessary to change an evil Son of
Adam into a 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
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 Colours can change the Night into Day. For, (N.B.) That which cannot help
you to all Goodness, cannot help you to any Goodness, nor can that take away any
Sin but that which can take away all Sin.

[Addr-221] On this Ground it is, that the Apostle said, "Circumcision is
nothing, and Uncircumcision 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 the Apostle's 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, or Brain-Fancy, that on
such an Hour, on such a Day, or in such a Place, you felt and knew assuredly
that all your Sins were forgiven you: by such a Forgiveness of Sins, That which
made you a Sinner is not destroyed, but you will have every Day the same
Necessity of confessing yourself a miserable Sinner, as you had that Morning,
when your Sins were not forgiven you till the Afternoon.— The true Forgiveness
of Sins is only then, when That which Sinned in us is done away, or become
Powerless in us; but nothing can do this, but That Power by which we became Sons
of God.— A blind Man has then only a Deliverance from his Blindness, when he is
put in full Possession of seeing Eyes; this is the only doing away of his
Darkness.— Just so, and no otherwise, are our Sins forgiven us, or done away,
when the Power by which we become Sons of God, or the New Creature, is so given
to us, so possessed by us, as seeing Eyes are given to and possessed by the Man,
who before that was all Blindness.—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 unsinning
Nature, or a Birth of God that Sinneth not, is come to be the ruling Life in us.

[Addr-222] 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 committeth 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 as
real a Power of Satan still dwelling in him.— "If the Son," says Christ, "shall
make you free, then ye shall be free indeed." What is this, but saying, if
Christ be 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 have done Sinning as long as he lives.— Well therefore may Christendom
Sleep 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 not being Pure, as he who has called them is Pure, or Walking
as he Walked.

[Addr-223] The scripture knows no Christians but Saints, who in all Things Act
as becometh Saints. But now if the Scripture Saint did not mean a Man that
escheweth 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 from
another.— Preachers and Writers comfort the half Christians with telling them,
that God requires not a perfect, sinless Obedience, but accepts the Sincerity of
our weak Endeavors instead of it.— Here, if ever, the Blind lead the Blind.— For
St. Paul, comparing the Way of Salvation to a Race, says, "In a Race all run,
but ONE obtaineth the Prize: so run that ye may obtain."— Now if Paul had seeing
Eyes, must not they be Blind who teach, that God accepts of all that run in the
religious Race, and requires not that any should 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 a great Distance
from, they are, or may be making 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.

[Addr-224] 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, whence comes this? It
is because Christ himself is the one Door into Life.— Here the Strivers
mentioned by Christ, and those which St. 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 one only 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.

[Addr-225] 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 (N.B.) to cleanse us from all Unrighteousness."

[Addr-226] 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 cured 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 any Thing else but Sinners, therefore he
must of all Necessity leave us to be Sinners.

[Addr-227] Of Christ it only can 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 has not the Life and Goodness of the Vine in it, it
can only be, because it is broken off from the Vine, and therefore a withered
Branch, fit for the Fire.— But if the Branches abide in the Vine, then Christ
says this glorious Thing of them, "Ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be
done unto you," John xv.7. The very same glorious Thing, which he had before
said of himself, "Father, I thank Thee, that Thou hast heard me," and (N.B.) "I
knew that thou hearest me always," John xi.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.

[Addr-228] 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 kno


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Source: https://sermonindex.net/books/an-humble-earnest-and-affectionate-address-to-the-clergy/
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