Spii'it, we expose men to be deceived by satanical delusions, [and] open a door to enthusiasms, directing them to the guidance of unaccountable impulses and reve- lations ; so making way unto all folly and villany. By what means this charge can be fixed on them who professedly avow that nothing is good, nothing duty unto us, nothing acceptable unto God, but what is warranted by the Scripture, directed unto thereby, and suited thereunto, which is the alone perfect rule of all that God requires of us in the way of obedience, but only [by] ungrounded clamours, hath not yet been attempted to be made manifest; for all things of this nature are not only condemned by them, but all things which they teach concerning the Holy Spirit of God are the pnncipal ways and means to secure us from the danger of them. It is true, there have been of old, and haply do still continue among some, satanical delusions, diabolical suggestions, and foul enthusiasms, which have been pretended to proceed from the Spirit of God, and to be of a divine original; for so it is plainly affirmed in the Scripture, both under the Old Testament and the New, directions being therein added for their discovery and disprovement. But if we must therefore reject the true and real opei'ations of the Spirit of God, the principal preservative against our being deceived by them, we may as well reject the owning of God himself, because the devil hath imposed himself on mankind as the object of then- worship. Wherefore, as to enthusiasms of any kind, which might possibly give countenance unto any diabolical suggestions, we are so far from affirming any operations of the Holy Gho-ft to consist in them, or in any thing like unto them, that we allow no pretence of them to be consistent therewithal. And we have a sure rule to try all these things by ; which as we are bound in all such cases precisely to attend unto, so hath God promised the assistance of his Spirit, that they be not deceived, unto them who do it in sincerity. What some men in- tend by impulses, I know not. If it be especial aids, assistances, and inclinations unto duties, acknowledged to be such, and the duties of persons so assisted and in- clined, and these peculiarly incumbent on them in their present circumstances, it requires no small caution that, under an invidious name, we reject not those sup- plies of grace which are promised unto us, and which we are bound to pray for ; but if irrational impressions, or violent inclinations unto things or actions which are not acknowledged duties in themselves, evidenced by the word of truth, and so unto the persons so affected in their present condition and circumstances, are thus expressed, as we utterly abandon them, so no pretence is given unto them from any thing which we believe concerning the Holy Spirit and his operations: for the whole work which we assign unto him is nothing but that whereby we are enabled to perform that obedience unto God which is required in the Scripture, in the way and manner wherein it is required ; and it is probably more out of enmity unto him than us where the contrary is pretended. The same may be said concerning revelations. They are of two sorts, — objective and subjective. Those of the former sort, whe.her they contain doctrines contrary unto that of the Scripture, or additional thereunto, or seemingly confirmatory thereof, they are all universally to be rejected, the former being absolutely false, the latter useless. Neither have any of the ope- rations of the Spirit pleaded for the least respect unto them ; for he having fiiiished the whole work of external revelation, and closed it in the Scripture, his whole internal spiritual work is suited and commensurate thereunto. By subjective reve- lations, nothing is intended but that work of spiritual illumination whereby we are enabled to discern and understand the mind of God in the Scripture; which the apostle prays for in the behalf of all believers, Eph. i. 16-19, and whose nature, God assisting, shall be fully explained hereafter. So httle pretence, there- fore, there is for this charge on them by whom the efficacious opei-ations of the Spirit of God are asserted, as that without them we have no absolute security that we shall be preserved from being imposed on by them or some of them.
It TO THE READERS.
But, it may be, it will be said at last that our whole labour, in declaring the work of the Spirit of God in us and towards us, as well as what we have now briefly spoken in the vindication of it from these or the like imputations, is altogether vain, seeing all we do or say herein is nothing but canting with unintelligible ex- pressions. So some affirm, indeed, before they have produced their charter wherein they are constituted the sole judges of what words, what expressions, what way of teaching, are proper in things of this nature. But, by any thing that yet appears, they seem to be as unmeet for the exercise of that dictatorship herein which they pretend unto, as any sort of men that ever undertook the declaration of things sacred and spiritual. Wherefore, unless they come with better authority than as yet they can pretend unto, and give a better example of their own way and manner of teaching such things than as yet they have clone, we shall continue to make Scripture phraseology our rule and pattern in the declaration of spiritual things, and endeavour an accommodation of all our expressions thereunto, whether to them intelligible or not, and that for reasons so easy to be conceived as that they need not here be pleaded.