Light to shine out of Darkness hath shined into our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the Glory of God in the Face of Jesus Christ to give that is to give it forth to others 2 Cor. 4.6 And again in 1 Cor. 2.12 13. Now we have received not the Spirit of the World but the Spirit which is of God that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God Which things also we speak not with the words which mans wisdom teacheth but which the Holy Ghost teacheth And besides this of internal and immediate Revelation there is no way imaginable for men to come to the knowledge of Christ as Mediator but by external and mediate Revelation So that by the process of this Discourse you are brought to this either to say that all men to whom the Gospel comes are enlightned by Christ with the knowledge of his being the Son of God the Christ of God and Saviour of the world by immediate and supernatural Revelation as the Apostles were or else to grant that some men in the world are not enlightened by Christ without being taught by outward means to know what they are bound to believe upon pain of Damnation For I have shewed before that all men and women to whom the Gospel is preached are bound to believe Jesus to be the Christ the Son of God upon pain of Damnation and that there is but these two ways imaginable by which they can come to know it that they might believe it immediate and mediate Revelation or Instruction If being reduced to this straight you shall be so absurd as to chuse to say that all those under the sound and outward teaching of the Gospel that shall be damned for not believing on Christ as the Son of God and for not obeying him had that knowledge of him by immediate and supernatural Revelation as the Apostles had for the sinning against which they shall be damned as knowing their Masters Will and not doing it yet the Scriptures as well as all Experience will detect your Folly in so saying For I have proved in my Propositiions to which I refer you that God's way method of proceeding with men in justifying or condemning them will be according to their Obedience to or Disobedience against that Doctrine of the Gospel which they had heard preached by men to them Go preach the Gospel to every Creature said our Saviour He that believeth not shall be damned that believeth not that Gospel so preached and made known to them by preaching Mat. 16.16 And the Apostle supposeth it impossible for the generality of men to believe that have not heard of Christ in the way of preaching the Gospel to them and concludes that those that do believe are brought to it by hearing it preached and that is not by way of immediate inward teaching of God's Spirit without the teaching by man Rom. 10.14 15 16 17. How shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard And how shall they hear without a Preacher saith St. Paul Yes might it have been said by immediate Revelation and inward teaching of God's Spirit or the Light within if that had been the common way of bringing men to believe the Gospel But you see Paul knew of no such way to propagate the Faith after it was once set on foot in an extraordinary way If he had he would not have put such Questions nor have made such a Conclusion as he doth in v. 17. So then Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God And do you know more and better than he did And for your selves it is not to be imagined that ever you could have known that ever there was such a one as Christ in the World any more than the poor Indians or Pagans that never heard of him had you not been beholding to the Scriptures or Oral Tradition for it as God's means for all your great talk of your Light within you If Christ Jesus then doth not savingly enlighten all those who yet are savingly illuminated neither by Natural Light nor by Supernatural Revelation in an immediate way then it follows that such are enlightened by Supernatural Revelation mediately or instrumentally by the Scriptures and Ministration of men unless there can be another way of saving Illumination assigned different from the three before mentioned which none pretend to do so far as I have heard These things are so plain and full of Evidence and so easie to be understood and in their Nature so apt to prevail with all such as do not deny but that the Scriptures are true that after you have considered them I cannot but think you will be convinced by them if there be that love to Truth in you which you pretend to that you have unawares all this while abused that first Chapter of John v. 9. and abused your selves and the world by a misrepresentation of it whereas Christ is the Light of the world divers ways and in several respects as by his Spirit by his Word and by his Works both Miraculous and Exemplary it cannot but be very great weakness or way wardness in you to limit his being so to one of these only § 14. Another Scripture which you alledge as favouring your foresaid Opinion is that Prophesie of Joel 2.28 29. Cited by St. Peter in Acts 2.17 Behold the days come saith the Lord that I will poure out my Spirit upon all Flesh and your Sons and your Daughters shall prophesie and your young men shall see Visions and your old men shall dream Dreams and on my Servants and on my Handmaids I will poure out of my Spirit in those days and they shall prophesie But that this Scripture also is impertinently alledged to prove that in the days of the Gospel every one is immediately directed and moved by the Spirit of God without outward teaching in what they are to believe and do will appear by two things The one from the Nature of the thing here predicted The other by the Application of this Prediction to the event 1. From the Nature of the Subject-Matter of this Prophesie It is not that the Spirit should be poured out upon all flesh so as to direct every one what to believe and do without outward teaching but to qualifie persons extraordinarily for outward teaching it is to enable them to prophesie for that is twice mentioned in the Prophesie fore-cited as the end for which the Spirit should be poured out upon all flesh And prophesying is for the instruction of others it is a means of conveying knowledge of the Divine Will from one man to another He that prophesieth edifieth the Church saith St. Paul 1 Cor. 14.4 This of Prophets was a Second Order in the Evangelical Ministry God hath set some in the Church first Apostles secondarily Prophets 1 Cor. 12. And although seeing Visions and dreaming Dreams be also mentioned as the effect of the pouring out of the Spirit yet
that refers but to the same thing the qualifying of persons to prophesie For the Prophets of old did usually receive the matter of Prophesie by Dreams or Visions Numb 12.6 If there be a Prophet among you I the Lord will make my self known unto him in a Vision and will speak unto him in a Dream Hos 12.10 And it was not unusual for Prophets then to fore-tell Evangelical Events in an Old-Testament Dialect And when 't is said the Spirit should be poured out upon all flesh it is not meant of all persons in the world without exception for it was never given unto all persons to prophesie taking all in so large a sence but to persons of all sorts both for Sex and Age Sons and Daughters old men and young yea Servants and Handmaids also as they are particularly exprest in the Text and these not of the Jews only but on the Gentiles also as the Event shews which was new to the world 2. The Application of this Prophesie to the Event plainly shews that the End for which a Promise of this pouring out of the Spirit was made was to enable some to teach others For the event of this Prophesie in which it received its completion was the pouring out of the Spirit in extraordinary and miraculous gifts upon the Apostles and Disciples on the day of Pentecost and for some time after This appears by St. Peter's application of that Prophesie to this very Event Act. 2.16 This is that saith he which was spoken by the Prophet Joel c. And that those miraculous Gifts were poured out on some to enable them to teach others will appear in these two things not to instance in more First the Gift of speaking divers Tongues which was one of them was to enable them to declare the things of the Gospel to people of all Nations Tongues and Languages in their own Mother-Tongue wherein they were born Upon the use of this gift those of every Nation under heaven then resident at Jerusalem said We do hear them speak in our Tongues the wonderful works of God Acts 2.11 By this Gift the Apostles were prepared to preach the Gospel to all Nations to every Creature as Christ afterwards commissioned them to do Secondly As by this Gift of Tongues they could and did propagate the Knowledge of the Gospel to them that never heard of it before so by this as by other miraculous Gifts of the Spirit was Belief of the Gospel procured from them to whom it was made known For hereby they knew or had reason to believe that persons thus qualified were sent of God and the Doctrine they brought was from God John 3.2 We know that thou art a Teacher come from God for no man can do these Miracles that thou dost except God be with him In which respect this and other miraculous Gifts were called signs and signs of what but that the persons so qualified and their Doctrine were of God Tongues saith St. Paul are for a sign to those that believe not 1 Cor. 14.22 They were teaching Signs they taught those to believe the Gospel who did not believe before Signs and Wonders done by the Apostles and others were those things by which God gave testimony to the Word of his Grace as it is Acts 14.3 These signs said our Saviour shall follow those that believe in my name in my name they shall cast out Devils they shall speak with new Tongues c. Mark 16.17 And in v 20. They the Apostles went forth and preached every where the Lord working with them and confirming the Word with Signs following And Heb. 2.4 God also bearing them witness with Signs and Wonders and divers Miracles and Gifts of the Holy Ghost according to his own will Truly saith St. Paul the Signs of an Apostle were wrought among you in Signs and Wonders and mighty Deeds 2 Cor. 12.12 These were teaching Signs by which the Apostles were known to be Apostles Messengers sent by God and their Word and Doctrine to be the Message which God sent by them These miraculous powers of the Spirit of God visible in the Apostles and those that received their Doctrine were that which procured such wonderful success to the preaching of the Gospel notwithstanding the fiercest opposition of Adversaries The very first day in which the Gospel set out armed and attended with these powers it brought in of Converts no less than 3000 Souls and so went forth conquering and to conquer from Jerusalem and throughout all Judea and Samaria and to the uttermost parts of the Earth I will not dare saith St. Paul to speak of any of those things which Christ hath not wrought by me to make the Gentiles obedient by word and deed by the word preached and the mighty deeds that did accompany it through mighty Signs and Wonders by the power of the Spirit of God so that from Jerusalem and round about to Illyricum I have fully preached the Gospel of Christ Rom. 15.18 19. That which made the Gospel the more credible as coming from God and the more successful in bringing in multitudes of new Converts and in confirming and establishing those who were already converted was in that the holy Spirit was shed abroad in those Miraculous Gifts not only upon the Apostles that preached that Doctrine but also upon those that received it and believed it afterwards as well as on the day of Pentecost And that the more credit might be thereby procured to the Apostles in their Message from God to men the holy Ghost in extraordinary gifts was given to the Disciples after they believed by the laying on of the Apostles hands Thus at Samaria the Believers converted by Philip received the holy Ghost not by the laying on of his hands but of the hands of Peter and John Acts 8.17 And that they received the holy Ghost in some visible effects appears in that it is said that when Simon saw that through the laying on of the Apostles hands the Holy Ghost was given he offered them Money for the like power What to confer inward spiritual Grace No that was not the thing which he saw or could see the Apostles do nor is it probable that he desired it Likewise those Believers at Ephesus when Paul had laid his hands on them the Holy Ghost came on them and they spake with tongues and prophesied Acts 19.6 Thus it is said of them that after they believed they were sealed with the Holy Spirit of Promise as the earnest of the future Inheritance and purchased possession they continuing in the belief and practice of that Gospel that came thus confirmed to them Eph. 1.13 14. At the very first indeed it should seem the Holy Ghost fell on the Believers thus without laying on of the Apostles hands as in Acts 2. 10.44 But afterwards we have seen how it was The Spirit in some extraordinary gifts was poured on some of the Prophets of old but we never read that it was in such
had observed to them in the 18. v. that even then there were many Antichrists And in ver 19. that they those many Antichrists went out from them And his scope in the rest of the Chap. is to fortify and antidote them against the poysonous pretensions of those Antichrists who as he describes them in ver 22 did deny that Jesus was the Christ That this was here his scope and design appears by ver 26. where he saith these things have I written unto you concerning those that seduce you Now the means he makes use of to preserve them under this danger and to establish them is by putting them in remembrance by what means they at the first came to be perswaded of the truth of that Doctrine by which they were taught that Jesus is the Christ and that was by pouring out the Holy-Ghost in visible effects upon the Apostles that taught it and upon those that believed it and consequently upon themselves by which the truth of it was abundantly confirmed to them as coming from God For that doubtless is meant by the anointing here spoken of Jesus Christ himself in respect of the Spirit of glory that appeared in him by his Doctrine and Miracles was said to be anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power Act 10.38 As it was foretold by Isaiah the Prophet saying the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the Poor Isa 61.1 Luke 4.18 and so in like manner the pouring out of the Holy Ghost in miraculous gifts both upon the Apostles and believers for the confirmation of the Doctrine the one preached and the other believed is elsewhere called their being anointed by God as here also it is called the Unction of the holy one which is the same thing 2 Cor. 1.21 22. Now he that establisheth us with you into Christ and hath anointed us is God who hath also sealed us and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts By this it appears that both Apostles and other believers were established into Christ by the anointing of God upon them which anointing was his pouring out of the holy Spirit Ye have an unction from the Holy one and ye know all things Not that by this Unction the common Christians were immediately inspired with the knowledge of all truths but that by it they were assured of the truth of all things which the Apostles had taught them and consequently must needs know thereby that Jesus was the Christ because that was one of the principal Doctrines which they taught and taught all they did teach in the name of him as such As they were induced at the first to believe the Doctrine to be from God because they perceived the anointing of God to be upon them that preached it so they were afterwards confirmed in the truth of it because upon their receiving of it they themselves also received of the same anointing It is not said that this anointing did teach them all things but that it did teach them of all things that is of or concerning the truth of all things to which it was a witness or evidence as I have shewed it was to the Apostles Doctrine from Heb. 2.4.5 Mar. 16.20 and other places When then this Apostle says ye have an Unction from the holy one and ye know all things he did not intend thereby to tell them that all things they were to beleive and do were revealed to them by it but that the Doctrine by which they were taught all things necessary to their salvation was thereby attested to be from God appears evidently by that which he perswades them to by it in v. 24. and that was that the Doctrine which they had heard from the beginning might therefore be retained and held fast by them that had been so ratified and confirmed to them by the Unction they had from the Holy one Let that therefore abide in you which you have heard from the beginning if that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you ye also shall continue in the Son and in the Father Agreeable to what he says also in his second Epistle verse 9. He that abideth in the Doctrine of Christ he hath both the Father and the Son And therefore when he says again ye need not that any man teach you but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things and is truth and is no lie he doth not thereby mean that they needed no farther teaching by man for their establishment and building up in the Faith for if he had he had contradicted himself in what he was now doing in this Chap. and all along in this Epistle And therefore his meaning must be that they needed not from him or any other man any teaching that could or could reasonably pretend to give them greater assurance of any thing than that anointing gave them of Jesus his being the Christ and of the truth of that Doctrine which they had heard from the beginning for that anointing saith he is truth and is no lie but such as could not deceive them it being God's witness from Heaven And from thence concludes saying that as it hath taught you ye shall abide in him As if he should have said as this anointing did at the first prevail with you to receive Jesus as the true Messias so for the same cause I am confi-you will as you have the greatest reason still abide in him notwithstanding all pretences of Seducers to take you off This then being the scope and drift of the Apostle in this place to which the several expressions here used are accommodated and by which they are to be interpreted and understood how I pray you will you find your opinion here of the Spirits inward teaching of all things without any outward teaching You are wont to say that the Scriptures are not to be understood but by the same Spirit that gave them forth And the Spirit doubtless is not wanting to assist the sincere endeavours of men in searching after the sence of the Scriptures in order to practice But truly if we should judge of mens having the Spirit by their understanding the Scriptures I think there would be as little reason to think you have the Spirit as any sort of men that have read the Scriptures for doubtless there are scarce any sort of men if any at all that do more grosly misunderstand and misapply and so abuse the Scriptures than you do and that under the greatest confidence too of being guided in your sence and notions of them by the Spirit of God You take the sound of words in Scripture which as you fancy comport with your notions and opinions and then apply them to your purpose and then are confident the Holy Spirit hath guided you therein When as alas you do not understand the intent or design of the Writer in the places where such expressions are no nor as is to be feared do you
the Kingdom of the Messias as Moses who also was a Mediator in that respect had delivered a standing Law to the Jews by which they were to govern themselves throughout their Generations and the Administration of the Mosaical Covenant By what hath been said touching the plentiful effusion of the Spirit upon the first setting out of the Gospel into the world you may see if Prejudice do not blindfold you that what was done in that kind is so far from giving any countenance to your Opinion of the Spirit 's being given to teach men immediately by internal Illmination and Operation without outward Ministry and Teaching that it is an evident proof of the quite contrary For the Spirit was thus given to the Apostles and others that they might propagate the Christian Faith in the world being enabled thereby to make it known to them of other Languages in their own Tongues and to embolden them to run all hazards in so doing for they being filled with the Holy Ghost spake the Word of God with all boldness Acts 4.31 And likewise to convince the World that Christ and his Apostles and their Doctrine were all from God All which was done by Vocal Teaching and Visible Signs not excluding the Inward Assistance of divine Grace All which would have been needless if God had chosen to teach men by the Light of Christ within only as you speak So that either your Enthusiastical Notion overthrows God's Method of proceeding to teach men the Christian Religion or else his Method overthrows your Notion for doubtless they are contrary one to another and whether it be better to follow God or man judge you § 15. Another place misunderstood and misapplied by you is John 16.13 When the Spirit of Truth is come he will guide you into all Truth Which is not a Promise of sending the Spirit to guide all Christians by its immediate motions but a Promise to his Apostles for they only were then present with Christ at the Passeover just before his Apprehension and Suffering And this and other like Promises of sending the Spirit were made to them to encourage them the better to bear his departure from them giving them to know thereby how they should be enabled when he should be taken from them to carry on the great work of Apostleship to which he had chosen them And this he did first by giving them to understand that this Spirit should bring all things to their remembrance which he had spoken unto them while he was yet with them 2. That this Spirit of his should teach them all things in which Christ himself had not instructed them while he was with them inasmuch as they were not then able to bear them 3. That this Spirit to wit in his miraculous Gifts should concur with them in testifying of Christ John 14.26 But the Comforter which is the Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my Name he shall bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you John 16.12 13. I have yet many things to say unto you but ye cannot bear them now Howbeit when he the Spirit of Truth is come he will guide you into all Truth and he will shew you things to come Chap. 14.26 He shall teach you all things Chap. 15.26 27. But when the Comforter is come whom I will send unto you from the Father he shall testifie of me and ye also shall bear witness because ye have been with me from the beginning This agrees exactly with what he said again to them after he was risen Acts 1.8 Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you and ye shall be Witnesses unto me c. And that these Predictions and Promises of sending the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles the better to qualifie them for their great Work and Office began to be made good to them in those extraordinary Gifts which were poured out on them on the day of Pentecost and that Christ's Prediction of the coming of the Holy Ghost did refer to that appears by what St. Peter said in his Sermon upon that occasion Acts 2.33 Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost he hath shed forth this which ye now see and hear the Spirit in its sensible effects Compare herewith Acts 1.4 5. Wait for the Promise of the Faoher which saith he Jesus which ye have heard of me ye shall he baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence The giving of the Spirit thus was purposely reserved for the honour and evidence of Christ's Exaltation in Glory but the Spirit to sanctifie was given before The Holy Ghost was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified John 7.39 But the sending of the Holy Ghost to these ends is greatly remote from the end you assign thereof as hath also been shewn before and which you may easily see by what hath been here represented to you if the Light which was once in you be not become Darkness Your applying Promises as if made to all Christians as Christians and to common and ordinary cases which were made to the Apostles only or to them and some others in extraordinary cases peculiar to persons extraordinarily qualified and extraordinarily sent hath led you and some others into very dangerous errors that have made very bad work in the Church of God § 16. Another Scripture which you are wont frequently to produce in defence of this Opinion of yours touching the Spirits inward Teaching without outward Teaching by man is 1 John 2.20 But ye have an Vnction from the Holy One and ye know all things And again ver 27. But the Anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you and ye need not that any man teach you but as the same Anointing teacheth you of all things and is Truth and is no Lie and even as it hath taught you ye shall abide in him Whatever the right sence of this Scripture is 't is certain your Notion of the Holy Spirit 's teaching men that live under the Gospel as those did to whom these words were written whatever they ought to believe and do without any outward Teaching by Speech or Writing cannot be the sence of it because such a sence of the place is inconsistent with what is manifestly proved in my Propositions before laid down and because it would render the design of St. John in this Epistle and other Writings of his needless in which he labours to settle and firmly establish the Christians in the Belief and Practice of what they had heard and by hearing had been taught from the beginning against all Temptations to Apostacy from or Loosness in the Profession of Christianity But if we consider upon what occasion these words are here brought in and compare them also with what we find in some other Scriptures it will be no hard matter to understand the Apostles scope in them He
make it your business to understand it but think your business is rather to sit still and to expect the immediate teachings of the Spirit and then conclude your conceptions which first offer themselves to you to be his teachings And on the other hand conclude all rational opposition that is made against you by such as have taken pains to consider the scope and coherence of Scripture to be the issues of fleshly wisdom and carnal reason So that I know not which is more to be pitied your ignorance or your confidence but certain it is that you are to be pittied for both It is observable that when Solomon a man wiser in his generation than any of you are in yours had a promise from God of being made wise above all that were before him did not therefore think himself unconcerned in labour and diligent search to attain it but said I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdome concerning all things that are done under heaven this sore travel saith he hath God given to the Sons of men to be exercised therewith Eccles 1.13 And as he saith the blessing of the Lord maketh rich in one place so he saith the diligent hand maketh rich in another from which may fairly be collected that the blessing of God in the diligent use of due means is the way to prosper in the world And it is as true in the course of attaining to spiritual riches in understanding and grace as it is in temporals And therefore he saith again in reference to that if thou cryest after knowledge and liftest up thy voice for understanding if thou seekest her as silver and searchest for her as for hid Treasures then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God for the Lord giveth wisdome out of his mouth proceedeth knowledge and understanding that is he gives such wisdome unto men usually upon those terms forementioned Prov. 2 3 4 5 6. But your rare notions like Jacobs Venison are usually too soon too easily come by tobe right § 17. But because I would not be too tedious I shall I think in reference to the business in hand consider but one or two places of Scripture more at which you stumble unless others fall in upon occasion of discussing those And one of them is Rom. 8.14 As many as are led by the Spirit of God they are the Sons of God And you suppose this comports with your wild notion of mens being guided by the internal teachings of the Spirit without outward teaching But why I pray you without outward teaching Do you not know that the whole Gospel preached by Christ and his Apostles and afterwards written is the Issue or product of the Spirit Is not all the Holy Scripture given by inspiration of God Did not the holy men of old the Prophets speak and write as they were moved by the Holy Ghost and do not you your selves say that the Scriptures cannot be understood but by the same Spirit that gave them forth by which you suppose and grant that they were given forth by the Spirit And for what end did the Holy Spirit inspire the Apostles first to preach and after that to write the Holy Doctrine of the Gospel but to teach men thereby what to beleive and how to live that they might be saved And if so are not all those who are led and guided by this Gospel which is the Doctrine of the Holy Spirit led by the Spirit of God There 's no doubt but that the Spirit by its inward operations upon the minds of men doth concur with that teaching of his which is from without by the Scriptures and by men from the Scriptures But methinks it 's wonderful I mean wonderfully absurd that you should divide the Spirits teaching and leading and oppose his inward to his outward teaching Whereas the Lord hath declared expresly that his word outwardly and Spirit shall be so conjoyned in carrying on his design of grace towards the world under the Gospel as that they shall never be separated Isa 59.21 As for me this is my Covenant with them saith the Lord my Spirit that is upon thee and my words which I have put in thy mouth shall not depart out of thy mouth nor out of the mouth of thy Seed nor out of the of mouth thy Seeds Seed saith the Lord from hence forth and for ever Prov. 123. By which and by other Scriptures I know assuredly that whatever inward teaching by the Spirit you pretend to yet the Holy Spirit never taught you to believe or to say that the Spirits inward teaching only without any outward teaching by the Scriptures or by men is the rule of Faith and Practice whatever other Spirit it is that taught it you the which it concerns you more than me to examine For the Spirit having said thus much by this holy man of God in this Place for he as all other Prophets spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost I am sure he hath said nothing to the contrary in any other for the word that proceeds from the Spirit of truth is not yea and nay When St. Paul said Gal. 5.18 if ye are led by the Spirit ye are not under the Law he did not mean if they were led by the inward guidance of the Spirit without the outward conduct of the Gospel but under the word Spirit here he opposeth the Gospel to the Law And his meaning was that if they gave up themselves to the conduct of the Spirit by the Gospel they should not need to make conscience still of the Ceremonies of Moses's Law as Circumcision or the like as some among them did from which he had been dehorttng them in the begining of this Chapter This Gospel is called the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus which frees those that walk after it and not after the Flesh from the Law of Sin and Death Rom. 8.1 2. And where this Gospel is received into the heart so as that it is predominant there there Christ dwells and the Spirit dwells by that word of the Gospel And thus Christ is in men the hope of Glory and thus Christ dwells in the heart by Faith by Faith in his word and those live and walk in the Light that live and walk according to this word and thus they abide in Christ that have his word abiding in them and those that abide in the Doctrine of Christ have both the Father and the Son and they are spiritually minded whose minds are powerfully influenced by the Gospel and they resist the Holy Ghost who resist that word which hath been declared by motion and inspiration from him So inseparable are the Word and Spirit in the conduct of Christians to happiness St. Paul exhorted the Ephesians to be filled with the Spirit in order to their speaking to themselves in Psalms and Hymnes and Spiritual Songs Eph. 5.18 19. and the Colossians that they
some points of Doctrine about which you and others differ And truly in vain do you boast of the Light within you if you have not so much left as to discern this behaviour altogether unbecoming not only a man of Note among Christians nor only of any worthy the Name of a Christian how weak soever but even of any that is worthy but of the Name of a man and not a And yet how are those Works in which these things are found applauded as the Works of a Prophet of the Lord by several men of great Note among you such as George Fox George Whitehead Francis Howgil and Josiah Coale who adjoin their several Testimonials to them And wherfore do I lay these things before you but to give you occasion to reflect upon your selves and your way with a jealous eye and to convince you that ye know not of what Spirit ye are of but that while ye have thought ye have been walking in the Light ye have been walking in Darkness and that whilst ye have fancied your selves the most spiritual among Christians ye have discovered your selves to be but carnal If any man among you seemeth to be Religious and bridleth not his Tongue but deceiveth his own heart that man's Religion is vain Jam. 1.26 If there be bitter Zeal glory not and lie not against the Truth for that wisdom is not from above as you are apt to boast it to be but from beneath and is Earthly Sensual and Devilish Jam. 3.15 But it is not strange if men be left first or last to fall into unchristian practices who out of affectation of Novelty and Singularity in Doctrine and a desire to appear more sublime in their Notions than all that went before them have left the old beaten path of Christian Doctrine in which the several Generations of holy men have lived and walked from the Apostles time downwards For when men wax spiritually proud and wanton in rejecting the plain way and method which God hath chosen to bring men to saving Faith Repentance and a holy Life and to continue them in it and invent and chuse another in its stead and call it by the name of his and preach to and press it upon the people in his Name he takes no pleasure in their so doing nor doth he delight to vouchsafe his concurrent Grace and blessing therewith which he doth with his own way and method by which it becomes effectual to make men good and to keep them so And therefore as I said 't is no marvel if men by degrees lose in the goodness of their Frame and Temper which sometimes they had attained while they kept close to God's way and method in which he bestows it and degenerate into men of quite another Spirit and Temper when they forsake that and run into another of their own invention and choice The disobedient Jews who had declined from the better way of their Ancestors and grew into a worse spirit and temper they had a zeal of God still but not according to knowledge They did will and run for Justification and Life they followed after Righteousness and yet attained not to the Law of Righteousness and wherefore but because they sought it not by Faith which was the method of God's chusing but as it were by the works of the Law which was a method of their own chusing in opposition to God's Rom. 9.31 32. § 2. And whether you are not guilty of rejecting God's way and method of converting men to and keeping them in the way of saving Faith Repentance and Evangelical Obedience and of inventing and chusing one of your own different from that comes now to to be considered I shall state your way in this by what you have published to the world in your own Books and for Brevity sake shall instance but in two Authors Ed. Burrough formerly and Mr. Pen of late who speak for you that which is otherwise well enough known to be your common Opinion In the Works of Ed. Burrough whom you are pleased to stile that true Prophet in the Title-Page which are published by you there are these Sayings In Page 252 thus His pure Spirit is put into the inward parts to be the Rule and Guide of Life in all things And again Only by the teaching of the Eternal Spirit is the Living God known in the Creature Again p. 408 It is promised saith he that the Spirit shall lead into all Truth and such do own the Scriptures but not as their Teacher for the Anointing dwells in them and they need no man to teach them but as that Anointing teacheth all things and they have no need of the Scripture to teach them for all the Children of God are taught of God and need not any other Teacher nor need not to say one to another Know the Lord. And yet all such do own the Scriptures to be the Testimony of that which they believe and have received And again in p. 834 The only perfect Rule of Conscience in the exercise to God is the Spirit of Christ and not any other thing And because something besides the Spirit of God exercises the Conscience therefore it is that here are so many Ways and Sects of Religion and kinds of Worship in Christendom and among Christians while the Spirit of Christ only is not the Rule of Judgment and exercise of Conscience to God and man Again pag. 861. The judgment in that matter Heresie must be just equal Holy and only by the Spirit of Christ which is infallible and gives infallibility of judgment and discerning into all Cases and Things Mr. Pen spends the Fourth Chapter of his late Book Entituled Reason against Railing to prove that the Light within and not the Scriptures is the Rule of Faith and Practice In p. 47. he saith We dare boldly affirm in the Name of the Lord that the great reason of our Belief concerning them the Scriptures is not any outward thing but that inward Testimony Record and heavenly Amen that we have frequently received from the Holy Light within us to the Truth and Faithfulness of those Sayings Again p. 48. Wherefore the Scriptures are so far from being the great Rule of Faith and Practice that the Light of Christ within us is both our Warrant and Rule for Faith in and Obedience to them Again p. 114. Let it be remembred saith he that Christ promised to send the Spirit of Truth to lead into all Truth as much as to say none are led into the Truth nor in the Truth but by the Holy Spirit of Truth or that their practice is a Lie or they are led into a Lie who are not led by the Spirit of Truth that alone leads into all the ways of Truth Where by Truth is not meant the meer Letter of the Scripture which notwithstanding is true but the living powerful Truth Christ the Way the Truth and the Life of which the Scripture is but a Record or Declaration And
p. 115. Many may run into the practice of several outward things mentioned in the Scriptures to have been the practice of Saints in former Ages and yet not be led into the Truth for all that is but Will-Worship Imitation and Vnwarrantable Your Notion concerning your Way then thus represented is this or to this effect That God Christ the holy Spirit do by immediate Illumination of your minds and without external teaching by the Scriptures or by men shew you or reveal to you what you ought to believe and do and by their immediate motion or operation draw or perswade you to believe and practise accordingly Which Illumination or Operation you call The Light within or the Holy Anointing which teacheth all things This I take to be your sence when you say you own Scripture but not as your Teacher and that such have no need of the Scripture to teach them and that all the Children of God are taught of God and need not any other Teacher And again that God's pure Spirit is put into the inward parts to be the Rule and Guide of Life in all things and that the only perfect Rule of Conscience in the exercise to God is the Spirit of Christ and not any other thing That the Scriptures are so far from being the Rule of Faith and Practice as that the Light within is both your Warrant and Rule That the Spirit of Truth alone leads into all Truth And that the infallible Spirit of Christ gives Infallibility of judgment and discerning into all Cases and Things This then is your Method and Way Now I will shew you what is God's Method and Way which is quite different from yours The Gospel plainly declares That there shall be a Resurrection of all men after Death and a State of everlasting weal or wo in another world and that as many as believe Christ to be the Son of God and Saviour of the world and repent them of the evil they have done and sincerely obey his Laws shall by his Death which he suffered for sin receive Remission of sin and Eternal Life but that those that do not shall be punished with everlasting Destruction This Gospel this Doctrine being not knowable by men by any Natural Light in them without Divine Revelation from God Jesus Christ who came from the Bosom of the Father he revealed it himself to his Apostles and others by his Doctrine and after his Ascension into Heaven he by sending them the Holy Spirit immediately inspired them with a clear knowledge and understanding of it and so by the gift of speaking divers Languages accompanied with boldness and utterance enabled them to reveal and publish it to the world and to procure Credit to it by many Signs and Wonders which were done by them And ever since that God's way and method of bringing men to Salvation that live where the Gospel comes hath been by making known this Gospel to them by word or writing and so by the mighty Motives contained in it such as the Manifestation of God's Love in the Gift of Christ the Hopes of Eternal Life and the Fears of Eternal Death in concurrence with the Operation of his Grace and good Spirit together with the rational Evidence of the Truth of it to perswade men to believe and embrace it and to live according to it So that according to this Representation compared with that made of your Way God's Way and Method and yours greatly differ You holding that the Holy Spirit directs and perswades men what to believe and do by his own immediate working without outward teaching whereas as we say he doth it by outward teaching It is God Christ the Holy Spirit that works the saving change in men but he doth it still by the Word of the Gospel as communicated to mens minds by the Scriptures or by mens teaching the same Doctrine which is contained in the Scriptures and it is this Doctrine that is the Rule of Faith and Practice And this I doubt not to make very plain to you in opposition to your way if you will not shut your eyes And this I shall endeavour gradually step by step in certain Propositions § 3. First In the Apostles days in which there was the greatest effusion of the Holy Spirit on them and other Christians that ever hath been yet even then God's way of bringing men to believe the Gospel and to live according to it was by publishing it to men by men either by Word or Writing and evidencing it to be from God The Apostles indeed had the Gospel from Christ himself immediately as he himself had it from the Father who gave him Commandment what he should say and what he should speak It at the first began to be spoken by the Lord himself and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him as 't is said Heb. 2.4 But after Christ's Ascension others at the first received the Knowledge and Faith of the Gospel by the Ministry of the Apostles who were his Ambassadors to the world by them he made known his Salvation to the Ends of the Earth When our Saviour prayed for all other good Christians that should be in the World besides his Apostles he describes them thus viz. Such as should believe through their Word John 17.20 Neither pray I for these alone but for them also which shall believe on me through their Word And it pleased God by the foolishness of Preaching to save them that believe 1 Cor. 1.21 And so Faith cometh by Hearing saith he Rom. 10.17 By hearing of what and of whom Why by hearing the Gospel preached by such whom God sent to preach it of which mention is made in the precedent Verses The Doctrine which the Apostles preached which is the Gospel is said to be the Power of God to Salvation Rom. 1.16 And the Reason is given in ver 17 18. Because thereby the Righteousness of God is revealed from Faith to Faith That is God's method of justifying men upon condition of their believing and obeying of it and because thereby the eternal Wrath of God from Heaven is revealed against all Ungodliness and Unrighteousness of men This Revelation being from God and the things the Motives revealed being powerful Arguments to prevail with men to receive and obey the Gospel upon their doing of which they shall be saved thence it is that 't is called The Power of God to Salvation not excluding the concurrent Operation of God's Spirit upon the heart by it This being so your Leaders manifest a strange degree of Vnlearnedness in the things of the Gospel when they deny saving Grace to be wrought by the outward Administration of the Word or Teaching by man as they do when they attribute it to God alone as his immediate Work and all because the Scripture attributes it to God to Christ to the Holy Spirit Whereas nothing is more common than to attribute the same Effect sometimes to one Cause sometimes to another when there is
sort poured out on them that believed their Prophesie likewise as now it was upon those that received the Apostles Doctrine And therefore such a thing as this was foretold by the Prophets as peculiar to the coming of the Messias and as that by which he might be known to be come when the event of such Predictions took place even as it came to pass here The Prediction Joel 2.28 was that in the last days the Spirit should be poured out upon all flesh in the last days that is in the last days of the Jewish State or Common-wealth as may be evinced by the Context in which Christ came as was foretold by his Prophets in which time also the Spirit was poured out in miraculous gifts and operations as a testimony that the Messias was come The Holy Spirit in the effects of it in these extraordinary gifts and operations is called the testifying of Christ or the witness which he bore touching his being the true Messiah and Saviour of the world John 15.26 27. But when he the Comforter is come even the Spirit of Truth he shall testifie of me and ye also Apostles shall bear witness because ye ye have been with me from the beginning And again 1 John 5.6 This is he that came by water and blood and it is the Spirit that beareth witness because the Spirit is truth John 16.8 And when he the Comforter is come he will convince the world of sin because they believe not on me saith Christ of Righteousness because I go to my Father was taken up into heaven and of Judgment because the Prince of this world is judged the Devil dethroned and cast down as he was when the Mouths of his Oracles were stopped and the Idol-Temples shut up and his Kingdom and Rule demolished by the preaching of the Gospel among the Heathen accompanied with these Miraculous Effects of the Spirit which bore down all before it as it were and therefore this is called the Demonstration of the Spirit and Power as opposed to Humane Oratory among Heathen Philosophers and the way of Humane Demonstration 1 Cor. 2.4 This wonderful effusion of the Spirit in miraculous Gifts was that Baptism of the Spirit we read of which you with some others have in these days vainly pretended to under another Notion of being baptized with the Spirit But if you will but compare Mat. 3.11 and Acts 1.5 with Act. 2.3 4. and 11.15 16. you may easily discern your Error in applying it to any thing but to that extraordinary and miraculous effusion of the Spirit By all this you may see how one Scripture falls in with and explains another if you will but take hold of a right Notion of the end for which the plentiful effusion of the Spirit was foretold and promised Which was not to guide all Christians by its inward motions without outward teaching but to enable some to teach the right Faith and Life to others even to those of other Tongues in their own Language and to confirm their Doctrine thereby and by other operations of the Spirit to be from God And these extraordidary effects of the Spirit were greatly necessary to accompany the first promulgation and planting of the Gospel in the world to procure credit to it belief of it from the Jews who otherwise would not have been taken off from their old way of Levitical Ceremonial worship which they had received from God and from the Gentile-Nations who otherwise would not have been taken off from their Idolatrous and Superstitious way of Worship in which they had been deeply rooted by long and ancient Tradition received from their Forefathers And therefore St. Paul saith as was observed before that Tongues that is the gift of speaking divers Tongues on a sudden are a sign not to them that believe but to them that believe not 1 Cor. 14.22 As the giving of the Law by Moses was accompanied with Signs and Wonders which were wrought by Moses both before and after the first promulgation of it to procure belief from the Jews that he was sent of God and that the Law given by him was from God So it was as necessary that the first promulgation of the Gospel by the Son of God himself and by those that were immediately sent by him should be for the same reason accompanied with more and greater Miracles and Wonders than those wrought by Moses were as Christ himself was greater than Moses and as the abrogation of the Old and the giving of the New Law was more than the giving of the Law only when there was no promulgate Law before in being And therefore our Saviour said of the Jews that would not receive his Doctrine but still stuck to the Letter of the Law of Moses If I had not done among them the works which none other man hath done they had not had sin John 15.24 And as it was not necessary to continue those or the like Miracles and Wonders in the Jewish Church after the Law had been well established by them but that the Law being once committed to writing might be as it was their standing Rule of Worship and Conversation Even so after the Gospel had received a sufficient attestation to be from God by the continuance of those miraculous Gifts of the Holy Ghost in the Church for some time till the Doctrine and History of the Gospel were committed to writing and those Writings owned as Authentick Records every where by the Church in all known parts of the world it was then no more necessary as the event shews to perpetuate Miracles in the Christian Church for the confirmation of the Gospel than it was to perpetuate them in the Jewish for the ratification of the Law but that the Doctrine and History of the Gospel in Books of the New Testament should be of like use to Christians as the Law and Prophets in Books was to the Jews of old The Prophets of old who though they were extraordinarily inspired did all along in their time call the Jews to obedience to the written Law of Moses and to Repentance for transgressing that And when prophesying in this sence was to cease from among them for several Ages God by Malachy the last of those Prophets gave it in charge to that People to remember the written Law of Moses as that by which they were to govern themselves Remember saith he the Law of Moses my Servant which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel with the Statutes and Judgments Mal. 4.4 And it was foretold by Moses concerning Christ that a Prophet should be raised up by God like unto him Deut. 18.15 18. And although Christ that Prophet was unlike unto Moses in many other things wherein our Lord excelled him yet he was truly like unto him in this viz. in that he as Mediator gave forth the Evangelical Law at his Appearance in the world as that which was to be the standing Rule unto Christians throughout the whole duration of
own hearts in this business you would find that the meaning of your crying down all other Teachers is that yours alone might be exalted But if your Teachers or any among you do see and know the inconsistency of these your Pretences and Practices and yet use the Pretences for a blinde to hide the designe from the people it is then a perfect peice of There is another thing like unto this you say those that are taught of God need not that the Scripture should teach them and that all men are taught of God by his Light within them and yet it seems you think that men have need to be taught by your Books though they have no need to be taught by the Scriptures else why is the World troubled with so many of them The Pharisees made void the Commandments of God that they might establish their own Traditions and it looks but untowardly that while you represent the Holy Scripture as such a needless thing that you at the same time have sent out such a croud of your own Books as you have done And if you would have the people believe that they proceed from the same teaching of the Spirit as the Books of the Holy Scriptures do what shall the people then do when they find them to contradict one another as they may easily do if they will but do as the noble Bereans did who searched the Scriptures daily whether those things were so which were preached to them in the Name of the Lord. As in the present case before us the Scripture plainly teacheth one method of bringing men to Salvation and your books another Ed. Burrough in his book teacheth that that is not the body of Christ which was not with the Father before the World began p. 465. But the Scripture teacheth that in the fulness of time God sent forth hi Son made of a Woman Gal. 4.4 Which of these two now must the people believe or which of these must be the rule to try the other by your Books or the Holy Scriptures I pray you speak out and tell the people plainly For if the Scriptures be true as you dare not deny but they are than your Books in such things as contradict them must be false and consequently not the Issue of the infallible Spirit as you would have the world believe they are But though we or an Angel from Heaven Preach any other Gospel unto you than that which we have Preached unto you let him be accursed said St. Paul Gal. 1.8 I have been the longer upon the Point of your Enthusiasm by which you have set up a new method of your own in opposition to God's method of bringing men to the Christian belief and Life because I deem it a Mother and a Master-Error to many others which you hold And therefore have good hopes that if you could but be cured of this you would be in a hopeful way of being cured of the rest which depend on it with less difficulty Having therefore been so long upon this beyond what I first intended I shall draw towards a conclusion of this address to you not engageing in particular with the rest of your mistakes But before I make an end I would caution you touching two or three things which among others may probably have had a large share in introducing you into this strange mistake § 20. The one is an opinion or conceit that the Gospel is a more mysterious thing than indeed it is It is true there are things in the Gospel called a Mystery the Mysterie of God's will the Mystery of Christ the Mystery of Faith the Mystery of Godliness and to you saith Christ to the Disciples 't is given to know the Myeries of the Kingdom of God and the like Upon occasion of all which and the like expressions in Scripture Some people have fancied that there is something else necessary to make a man a true Christian indeed than what is obvious to vulgar apprehensions and easie to be understood as other matters are And therefore they have been wont to esteem a plain and familiar way of teaching the Doctrine of repentance and the necessity of obedience to the Law of God together with a belief that Christ dyed for our sins and rose again according to the Scriptures to be but a dry and legal way of Preaching And those that have vented high Speculations and almost or altogether unintelligible notions and new coined Phrases and expressions concerning the work of God in the Soul and of Union with Christ and Communion with God of living by faith and walking in the Spirit these they have accounted Evangelical Preachers and such preaching and discourses in conference to be truly Spiritual and those to be Spiritual Christians that are of this make And because this way obtained a great reputation among a great many of Christian Professors many persons have been tempted hereby to proceed so far from one thing to another in this way both allegorizing Scriptures of plain import and turning plain points of Doctrine and of great concern into Mystical speculations until they have made another thing of the plain Doctrine of the Gospel than Christ made it And this seems to be directly your Case who in this way are come at last to turn the plain and intelligible method of God's proceeding with men to bring them to the Christian belief and Life and so to salvation into Enthusiastical Fancies Airy Notions and speculations Such is your conceited Mistery of of the inward Flesh of Christ in contradistinction to the Flesh of the Veil as you phrase it as if Christ had two kinds of Flesh one hid under another by which you trouble yea utterly confound the true Notion of Christ's humane Nature and the great effects which the Scripture attributes to the Flesh or humane Nature of Christ those you attribute to a meer fiction which you call the inward Flesh a thing altogether forraign to the Scripture an error doubtless of a very high nature Such also is your spiritualizing Baptism and the Lords Supper to the exclusion of their literal use and to the disparagement of his wisdome and goodness that ordained them as well as to the contempt of his Authority which hath enjoined the use of them for the ends for which they were first instituted Such likewise is your invented Mistery of the Redemption of the Seed â—in men for the Scripture speaks of no such thing but of the Redemption of men themselves This mistake about the Mysteriousness of the Christian Religion hath I fear had a bad influence upon and produced ill effects in some others as well as your selves who perhaps have not been yet carried so far out of the way by it as you have been Whereas those things that are absolutely necessary for men of all capacities to know believe and do in order to their Salvation are delivered in the Gospel with great plainness and easiness to be understood even of those of meanest
go by but are continually liable to most horrible mistakes and to think that to be a teaching or command from God which is indeed a delusion from the Devil Nor without this Rule in Scripture which lies open to all have you any way to satisfy others that what you say or do is from God You have no miracles amongst you by which God was wont to bear witness to his servants when he sent them on messages new to the World And have you indeed such an opinion of your selves as to think men ought to believe only because you say it Our Saviour said if I bear witness of my self my witness is not true John 5.31 and is your credit better than his And I pray you what have you to bear witness for you in what you say if the Scriptures cannot To the Law then and to the Testimony of Christ in the Doctrine of the Scriptures if you speak not according to this Word it is because there is no Light in you § 21. There is one thing more which I would admonish you to beware of and that is a high opinion of your selves and a low and despicable opinion of all others that differ from you a thing which I fear hath betrayed you into that desperate error which I have been detecting together with many others For when men by reason of their New Mystical notions of plain Scriptures and familiar points of Doctrine and of their new-minted phrases answerable thereto do fancy themselves to be spiritual and all the rest that still stick to the plainness and simplicity of the Gospel to be but carnal and formal professors though in their tempers and lives better than themselves they then begin to think that they are nearer and dearer to God than they and consequently that God will reveal himself after a more intimate way and manner to themselves than he doth to such And when they are intoxicated and grown giddy with such conceits then they are drawn by degrees to imagine themselves to be brought into some kind of equality with the Apostles themselves that now they do not need to be taught by such whom they esteem so much below themselves but that they shall be now taught of God immediately And when they are thus transported and exaltted with these dreams fancies and high conceits then they conclude that all those Scriptures which speak of mens being taught of God led by the Spirit and anointed with the Unction of the Holy One that teacheth all things and the like do speak directly to their case and represent the happy state and condition into which they are now brought And now they look down upon all others with a kind of compassionating contempt as men in the dark sticking in the form and imitation and the Letter and guided by carnal reason and fleshly Wisdome to whom the things of the Kingdome of God are altogether a Mystery And by this time they fancy themselves to be in the Resurrection to have attained to the perfect state and are came so for as to be in the judgment and to sit in judgment upon the World And thus through the abundance of revelations not which they have had but which they fancy to have had they are exalted above measure And doth not your Conscience witness that this comes home to you and represents your Case or the Case of many of you I confess Pride especially Pride of this kind is not so easily discerned by them that are infected with it as it is by by-standers as a Feaver when come to its height sometimes is not by them that are in it And no doubt but you rather fancy your selves to be the humblest and most self-denying people of all others nay to be the only humble people for you have thrown off and cryed down the bravery and Pride of the World which others retain But do you not know that a voluntary humility and a being vainly puft up with a fleshly mind do often keep company If you do not then read Col. 2.18 And do you not remember that false Prophets are wont to come in sheeps clothing and to wear a rough Garment to deceive who yet inwardly are ravening Wolves not sparing the Flock but preying upon them Zach. 13.4 Be perswaded then to enter into a serious and impartial examination of your selves and of your own hearts and feel the Pulse of your Spirits and try whether things have not been so and so with you as I have said And remember what our Saviour said to those Disciples who were ambitious of being greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven and of sitting the one at his right hand and the other at his left except ye be converted said he to them and become as little Children ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven Mat. 18. Remember who hath said if any man think that he knoweth any thing he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know 1 Cor. 8.2 Remember again that if he which is but a Novice come to be lifted up with Pride it s many to one that he falls into the condemnation of the Devil 1. Tim. 3.6 for God resisteth the proud and knoweth them afar off He is far enough from being familiar with them or communicating his mind and Counsels to them in any extraordinary way it is the humble he will teach and the meek he will guide in judgment Psalm 25. Therefore take the Apostles Counsel who said see that no man among you think of himself more highly than he ought to think but to think soberly according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of Faith Rom. 12.3 Learn rather to esteem others better than your selves as knowing your own weakness better than you do theirs and not to lift up your selves in your own conceits above all others that are not of your way how worthy soever they are as your manner hath been remembering who hath said he that exalteth himself shall be brought low Do not flatter your selves with an opinion that you are nearer and dearer to God than all others or that he hath anointed you with the oyl of gladness above your fellows or that he will teach you more immediately himself than he hath taught others before you Think it not below you to be taught by the Scripture or by the ministry of man no though you were indeed so highly in God's favour as you suppose your selves to be The Churches of Smirna and Philadelphia were much favoured and highly commended and applauded by Christ when the rest of the Churches in Asia were rebuked and yet when he would make his mind known to them and the rest of the seven Churches he doth not do it immediately by himself but first acquaints an Angel with it and by that Angel makes it known to John and by John to the Churches and yet not by him in person neither but by his writings Rev. 1. Christ could have taught Paul himself when he appeared to
him as well as to have sent him to Ananias to be told what he should do He could have told Cornelius by himself or by the Angel that he sent to him those words by which he and his house should be saved as well as to direct him to Peter to learn them of him God could have revealed the same things to the World by immediate inspiration of his Spirit which he made known to it by Prophets by Christ himself by Apostles Evangelists Pastors and Teachers but he chose rather at sundry times and in divers manners to speak unto the Fathers by the Prophets and at last by his own Son which he sent into the World in our nature to teach the way of Salvation And when he left the World again and ascended up on high he gave some Apostles and some Prophets and some Evangelists and some Pastors and Teachers for the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministry for the edifying of the Body of Christ These things are so plain that it is a matter of great astonishment that ever Christians that have read these things and that have not a design to undermine the Gospel and to Paganize the World again as I hope you have not should be ever tempted to think much more that ever you should be brought to believe it your selves and teach it others That the Light within without being taught by man or by the Scripture is the Rule of Faith and Practice But doubtless the inward Pride the over-valuing of your selves which I have been admonishing you of hath had a great hand in bringing you to it And if ever you be recovered from this snare of the Devil it must be by being brought to a sight and sence of your own injudiciousness and ignorance and altogether groundless confidence And if you were but well awakened out of that Spirit of Slumber into which your intoxication hath cast you and out of that pleasant Dream in it which hath so tickled your fancy you would be ashamed and confounded before God and Men that ever you should be so strangely deluded and prevailed upon as you have been to trouble the World with your whimsies and fancies and thereby to bring a scandal upon the Christian Religion and make sport for them that have no mind seriously to consider the things of the Gospel and to encourage Romish Agents in their design against the Reformation Be perswaded then by the Reason of the matter it self to become modest and humble and sober-minded and he not only content to receive your teaching from God by the Doctrine of the Holy Scriptures as all good Christians do and ever since the Primitive times have done but count it also as a high favour from him that he hath given us the Scriptures and sent the Gospel among us when so great a part of the World are at this day without it Remember how the Psalmist when he was therein assisted by the Spirit of God was affected with a less favour than that which you make little of when he said he sheweth his Word unto Jacob his Statutes and his Judgments unto Israel he hath not dealt so with any Nation and as for his judgments they have not known them Praise ye the Lord Psalm 147.19 20. And if it be so great a favour to us that have the Scriptures above what is vouchsafed to the Infidel and Pagan World which have them not then you cannot but be guilty of high ingratitude to God whilest you give the Precedency to that Light within which you say every man coming into the World hath and so the Pagans themselves and speak of the Scriptures as if they were but a Declaration of that which was in you and which you knew without them and which you might have known if you had never heard of them By all which you teach them that have so little Wit or Grace as to believe you to have a low esteem of the Scriptures and to think that men may as well be saved without them as with them And how then can you possibly free your selves from that horrid guilt which God charged upon the Jews of old saying I have written to him Ephraim the great things of my Law and they were esteemed as a strange thing Hos 8.12 You have no doubt thought your selves more sublime and spiritual than others upon account of your new Notions and new affected Modes and Phrases And not only so but there is great reason to think that an affectation of being esteemed so did insensibly lead you or at least the Leaders among you from one novel conceit to another until you have exceeded all bounds of Sobriety of mind and become perfectly Drunk though not with Wine as the Prophet speaks Whereas alas the Spirituality of Christians doth not lye in high-flown Notions and Speculations nor in uncouth Phrases and expressions different from what are common among Men but in the inward frame and temper of their Spirits and conversations when these are conformable to the Doctrine of the Gospel which is of and from the Holy Spirit and thereby become partakers of the spiritual and Divine nature or likeness to Christ Jesus in purity in lowliness humility and meekness and in love to God and Charity to Men in patience and gentleness in contempt of the World in contentation and self-resignation to God in Zeal to honour God and to do all the good we can in the World Upon account of which Spiritual qualifications Christians are said to be one Spirit with Christ and by this Spirit and temper when given us we know that we dwell in him and he in us and if any Man have not the Spirit of Christ in some measure he is none of his Such as in whom are found the fruits of the Spirit they are the spiritual Christians such as is Love Joy Peace Long-suffering Gentleness Goodness Faith Meekness Temperance as they are enumerated by St. Paul in Gal. 5.22 23. And as these do more or less abound in Christians in the degree and measure of them so they are more or less Spiritual And who-ever they be that do estimate themselves to be Spiritual Christians upon account of any sublime Notions or Speculations or affected Phrases or by their being for or against any form way or party or which is more by their being in the constant use and exercise of God's own Ordinances farther than they are bettered in the frame and temper of their Spirits thereby and made more like Christ Jesus they take wrong measures of their Spirituality And if there were nothing else to make us suspect your new-taken-up way to be not Spiritual but carnal this would do it in that it hath according to common observation made you since you came into it or were looking towards it more self-conceited proud and disdainful slighting and setting at naught all others that differ from you and more desperately censorious and more bold and confident in reviling than you were
before which are no signes of Spirituality I am sure But if there were more of that Spiritual qualification in you forementioned by which Christians are denominated Spiritual indeed it would take down your high conceits of your high attainments and rather make you say inwardly to your selves and to your own Souls I am less than the least of all Saints and make you afraid to think or speak ill of others lest in doing so you should judge your selves being perhaps not comparable to them in true worth But if you would become spiritual Christians indeed and not in fancy and conceit only Then let it be your care to observe and do these things First converse constantly and intimately in your thoughts with the Laws of Christ in their Spirituality as reaching to the Government of the thoughts and motions of the mind and affections of the Soul in reference to their various objects as God his Word Worship and Works Man as diversly related to us the things of this World and pertaining to this present life and the things of the World which is to come And in doing this compare the bent disposition and operation of your Souls in reference to these Objects with those Laws of Christ thereby to discover not so much how far you have attained as to know and discern what is wanting and how far you fall short of coming up close to your Rule Christs precepts and imitable example And if this were well done it would make you little in your own eyes and to say with Paul not as though I had attained or were already perfect Then next in the sence of your defects be diligent and constant in the use of God's appointed means for Spiritual growth such as is the hearing and reading of Christ's Holy Doctrine in the Scriptures touching the great motives as well as directions to obedience accompanied with frequent meditation and serious consideration of it and of your own concern therein And then still have in your eye the end for which these and other means are or ought to be used by you and that is for the bettering the frame and temper of your Spirits Spirits the moral habit and constitution of your Souls and never divide the means from the end in your intention nor satisfie your selves in the use of the means but in reference to the end and in all the means be still sincerely endeavouring to mend that which is amiss and to fill up and supply what is lacking in the degrees of Grace and all divine Vertue And then in and together with all this do you in a due sence of your own weakness and insufficiency and of the great need you have of the constant assistance of God's Holy Spirit in all make instant and importunate supplication to God for it And then without all doubt you shall be assisted and enabled by that Spirit of his in the use of the foresaid means by degrees to become Spiritual Christians indeed For our faithful Lord Jesus hath assured us that our Heavenly Father will give the Holy Spirit to those that out of a sence of its value and worth and of their own want of it do importunately ask it of him Luke 11.13 § 22. I might yet farther shew you that in all probability your great uncharitableness towards other good men against whom you had taken up undue prejudices had also a great hand in bringing you into this Wilderness of odd conceits wherein you have so wonderfully lost your selves For prejudice against and uncharitableness towards men is a great temptation upon them in whom it is to differ and depart from them in opinion as well as in affection and to study opposition against things they hold in an uncharitable opposition to those that hold them And so truth no doubt hath many times suffered for the sake of those that have held it After you had entertained undue prejudices against the Ministers of the Gospel upon one account or other whom in derision and contempt you are wont to call the Priests you were then soon induced to think it meet to differ from them in your Notions about Religion lest otherwise you should not seem more Spiritual than those whom you thus despised And by this doubtless among other things were you led into your gross errors under the Notion of higher attainments and more Spirituality in the Christian profession For such and so great was your prejudice against the Ministers and those that adhered to them that you disliked almost every thing they did and the Notions they had of Evangelical Truths and points of Doctrine And therefore lest you should be thought too like them you fell to differencing your selves from them in Habit in modes of Speech and in your Notions of the parts of revealed and instituted Religion And thereupon applyed your selves to spiritualizing your Notions of Gospel-Truths in your way of Spiritualizing till you had made them or many of them quite other things than in Truth and reality they are or were ever made by the Author of them And if ever you recover your selves it must be by coming to have better thoughts of others and meaner of your selves a thing greatly necessary to mens keeping in the way of Truth For he that loveth his Brother abideth in the Light and there is no occasion of stumbling in him But he that doth not is in darkness and walketh in darkness and knows not whither he goes because darkness hath blinded his eyes 1 Joh. 2.10 11. Besides uncharitableness being a sin so contrary to God's dealing with us in the New-Covenant and so contrary to the great and affecting example of Christ's Love to us and so contrary to the scope and design of the Gospel for the end of the Commandment is Charity that it is a great and sore provocation to God to give up uncharitable men to an injudious mind and ridiculous conceits and such as shall render them ridiculous among all sober and wise men Which is matter of good caution to men to take heed how they take up uncharitable prejudices against good men upon account of their holding or doing such things which they dislike but not understanding or not fairly weighing the grounds on which they hold and do them But I have already so far exceeded the intended bounds of an Epistle that I shall not farther enlarge upon this but shall draw towards a conclusion with a word of advice to such as have already seen their error and are come off from you and to others that shall follow them therein § 23. I know 't is a very hard thing for such to get quite rid of all their confused and Enthusiastical Thoughts Notions and Phrases but that some reliques of their old Disease will still hang on them and cleave to them and so encumber them that they can very hardly come quickly to any clear and distinct apprehensions of Evangelical Verities To such I would give this short advice that laying aside