Part 151

“BUT now,” (a dreadful _but_ it is!) “the profession of christianity is attended with ease and honour;” and we are now, it seems, so far from being “rude and uninformed, and utterly averse to the dictates of the everlasting gospel, that whatever there may be of prejudice, it draws another way. Consequently, a rule of faith being now established, the conviction which the weight of human testimony, and the conclusions of human reason afford us of its truth, are abundantly sufficient to support us in our religious perseverance; and therefore it must certainly be a great mark of fanaticism, to expect such divine communications, as though no such rule of faith was established; and also as highly presumptuous or fanatical to imagine, that rule to be so obscure, as to need the further assistance of the Holy Spirit to explain his own meaning.” Pages 85, 86, 87, 88. This, you will say, my dear friend, is going pretty far; and indeed, supposing matters to be as this writer represents them, I do not see what great need we have of any established rule at all, at least in respect to practice, since corrupt nature is abundantly sufficient of itself, to help us to persevere in a religion attended with ease and honour. And I verily believe, that the Deists throw aside this rule of faith entirely, not barely on account of a deficiency in argument to support its authenticity, but because, they daily see so many who profess to hold this established, self-denying rule of faith with their lips, persevering all their lives long in nothing else but an endless and insatiable pursuit after worldly ease and honour. But what a total ignorance of human nature, and of the true unalterable genius of the everlasting gospel, doth our Author’s arguing discover? For supposing, my dear friend, that this or any other writer should undertake to prove, that the ancient _Greeks_ and _Romans_ were born with sickly, disordered, and crazy bodies, but that we, in modern days, being made of a firmer mould, and being blessed with the established rules of _Galen_ and _Hippocrates_, need now no further assistance from any present physician, either to explain or apply those rules to our present ails and corporeal distresses; though we could not, without the help of some linguist superior to ourselves, so much as understand the language in which those authors wrote. Supposing, I say, any one was to take it into his head to write in this manner, would he not be justly deemed a dreaming enthusiast or real fanatic? And yet this would be just as rational as to insinuate, with our Author, that we who are born in these last days, have less depravity in our natures, less enmity to, and less prejudice against the LORD JESUS CHRIST, and less need of the divine teachings of the Blessed Spirit to help us to understand the true spiritual meaning of the holy scriptures, than those who were born in the first ages of the gospel. For as it was formerly, so it is now, the natural man discerneth not the things of the Spirit: and why? “Because they can only be spiritually discerned.” But when is it that we must believe this Author? For, page 73. he talks of “some of the first christians, who were in the happy circumstance of being found innocent, when they were led into the practice of all virtue by the Holy Spirit.” And what occasion for that, if found innocent? But how innocent did the Holy Spirit find them? Doubtless, just as innocent as it finds us, “Conceived and born in sin.” Having in our flesh, our depraved nature, no good thing; bringing into the world with us a corruption, which renders us liable to GOD’s wrath and eternal damnation; with a carnal mind, which is enmity against GOD, and a heart, the thoughts and imaginations of which, are declared to be only evil, and that continually; and whose native and habitual language, though born and educated under a christian dispensation, is identically the same as that of the _Jews_, “We will not have the LORD JESUS to reign over us.” This, and this alone, my dear friend, is all the innocence that every man, naturally the offspring of _Adam_, whether born in the antideluvian, patriarchal, mosaic, apostolic, or present age, can boast of. And if this be matter of fact, (and who that knows himself can deny it?) it is so far from being superstitious or fanatical to assert the absolute necessity of a divine influence, or a power superior to that of humanity; that it is a most irrefragable argument for its continuance without the least abatement, or withdrawing whatsoever. Daily experience proves, that without such a power, our understandings cannot be enlightened, our wills subdued, our prejudices and enmity overcome, our affections turned into a proper channel, or, in short, any one individual of the apostate fallen race of _Adam_ be saved. And if so, what becomes of our Author’s arguments, to shew the fitness of an abatement or total withdrawing of divine influence in these gospel days? Might he not with as great consistency, have undertaken to shew, the fitness of an abatement or total withdrawing of the irradiating light and genial warmth of the natural sun? For, as the earth on which we tread, stands as much in need now of the abiding influence of the genial rays of that great luminary, in order to produce, keep up, and complete the vegetative life in grass, fruits, plants, and flowers, as it did in any preceding age of the world; so our earthly hearts do now, and always will stand in as much need of the quickening, enlivening, transforming influences of the Spirit of JESUS CHRIST, that glorious sun of righteousness, as the hearts of the first apostles: if not to make us preachers, yet to make us christians, by beginning, carrying on, and compleating that holiness in the heart and life of every believer in every age, without which no man living shall see the LORD. And the scriptures are so far from encouraging us to plead for a diminution of divine influence in these last days of the gospel, because an _external rule of faith_ is thereby established, that on the contrary, we are encouraged by this very established rule to expect, hope, long, and pray for larger and more extensive showers of divine influence than any former age hath ever yet experienced. For, are we not therein taught to pray, “That we may be filled with all the fulness of GOD,” and to wait for a glorious epocha, “When the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the seas?” Do not all the saints on earth, and all the spirits of just men made perfect in heaven; nay, all the angels and archangels about the throne of the Most High GOD, night and day, join in this united cry, LORD JESUS, thus let thy kingdom come!