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
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
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
the Father and the Son And again 1 John 2.24 If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you ye also shall continue in the Son and in the Father § 12. 10. That in Christ Jesus neither Circumcision availeth any thing nor Uncircumcision but a new Creature is a most important Doctrine declared in writing by St. Paul Gal. 6.15 And when he saith in the next Verse As many as walk according to this Rule peace be on them it is most evident he was not of your mind and way who hold that the Holy Scriptures or Doctrine contained in them which is the same are not a Rule of Christian Faith and Practice This written Doctrine of the Gospel we see is a Rule for Christians to walk by as the written Law and Testimony was to the Jews and as it was said of those that walked not according to that Word or Rule that it was because there was no Light in them Isa 8.20 Even so and for the same reason it may now be said of you that if you walk not according to this Rule it is because in truth there is no Light in you how much soever you vainly boast of it and censure others for want of it that yet make it their daily care and endeavour to walk according to the Light and Guidance of that Rule that hath its seat in their Conscience And now Sirs by this time methinks you should not but perceive that I have given you proof in good measure heaped up shaken together pressed down and running over That Gods way and method of directing men what to believe and do as necessary to their Salvation and of perswading them to believe and do accordingly is and hath been by that teaching which comes from God into the Soul by outward means such as is his Word written or by mens teaching the same Doctrine which is contained in the Scriptures and if so then not by his immediate teaching and operation without such outward teaching which yet is that which you hold and teach in opposition to God's Method The Proof of this is so evident and convincing that if you will but give your minds and Consciences Liberty seriously to consider it I cannot imagine how you should possibly persist in your way without offering some violence to the reason of your Minds § 13. But since you have strengthened your selves in this your perswasion out of an Opinion you have that some Scriptures are on your side in it I shall yet add something farther to convince you of Error and Mistake therein You seem to ground your selves much upon John 1.9 Where it is said of Christ This is the true Light which lightneth every man that cometh into the world That Christ doth one way or other lighten every man that comes into the world is a great truth here declared But that which you are wont to alledge it for and which you are to prove hence if you would have it do your business is That Christ lighteneth every man that comes into the world with the knowledge of what he ought to believe and do in order to his salvation without learning it from or by any Outward Means That no such thing as that Christ so lightens all men without Outward Teaching can be proved either from this or any other Scripture I shall easily shew you Christ doth enlighten all whom he doth enlighten in one or more of these three ways either 1. By Natural Light Or 2. By Supernatural Revelation Or 3. By outward Teaching by Speech or Writing or Example in conjunction with the inward assistance of his Spirit 1. Christ indeed as God Creator as he is described in the beginning of that Chapter doth enlighten every man that comes into the world with the faculty of Reason and Understanding by which he may know that there is a God and that he is to be worshipped and that he is placable and the difference between moral good and evil in many things But however this may possibly be a Light sufficient to direct the Heathen to as much as God expects from them if they live up to it to whom he affords no other Light yet this Natural Light is not sufficient to direct those that live under the Gospel to believe and do what they are bound to believe and do upon pain of Damnation They that live under the Gospel are bound to believe Jesus to be Christ the Son of God and Saviour of the world and that upon pain of damnation If ye believe not that I am he ye shall die in your sins said our Saviour to them to whom the Gospel came Jo. 8.24 Every Spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God but is the Spirit of Antichrist 1 John 4.3 He that believeth not the Son of God shall not see Life but the wrath of God abideth on him Joh. 3.36 Now that no man can know Christ know him to be the Son of God and Saviour of the world by his Natural Light without Supernatural Revelation from God or Instruction from without derived from them that had such Revelation is most evident When Peter said to Christ Thou art Christ the Son of the Living God our Saviour told him Flesh and Bloud had not revealed that unto him but his Father Mat. 16.16 17. And the Natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned that is they are knowable only by means that are purely spiritual and supernatural as the revelation of the Gospel at first was And it may well be that in this respect 't is said that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the holy Ghost 1 Cor. 12.3 For no man could know that he was so but by that Revelation and discovery which the Holy Ghost several ways at the first made concerning him He shall glorifie me for he shall receive of mine and shall shew it unto you said Christ to his Apostles concerning the Holy Spirit John 16.14 And Christ is said to be justified in or by the Spirit to be what he himself said he was and his Apostles witnessed him to be 1 Tim. 3.16 All this shews that though Christ do enlighten all men with Natural Light yet this is not sufficient without somewhat else to enlighten all men particularly those that are under the Gospel with the knowledge of what is necessary for all such to know and believe in order to their Salvation For to whom much is given of him much shall be required Luke 18.48 Then secondly Another way by which Christ enlightens men with the knowledge of himself and of what is necessary for mens Salvation is by immediate and supernatural Revelation and thus he enlightened the Apostles that they might be able infallibly to teach the way of Salvation by Christ through Faith in him and Obedience to him For God saith one of them who commanded the
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