I would ask all _writers_ against _continual, immediate_ divine inspiration, how they could more effectually lead men, into an _habitual_ state of _sinning_ against the Holy Ghost, than by such doctrine? For how can we possibly avoid the sin of grieving, or quenching the Spirit, but by continually reverencing his holy presence in us; by continually waiting for, trusting, and attending to that, which the Spirit of God, _wills_, _works_, and _manifests_ within us? To turn men from this continual dependance upon the Holy Spirit, is turning them from all true knowledge of God. For without this, there is no possibility of any edifying, saving knowledge of God. For tho’ we have ever so many mathematical demonstrations of his _being_, we are without all real knowledge of him, till his own Spirit manifests him, as a power of life, light, and goodness, vitally felt, and adored in our souls. This is the one knowledge of God, which _is eternal life_; this is that knowledge of which Christ saith, no one _knoweth the Father but the Son, and he_ to _whomsoever the Son revealeth him_. And if none belong to God, but those who are _led by the spirit of God_, if we are reprobates unless the Spirit of Christ be living in us, who need be told, that all we have to trust to, as children of God, is the _continual_, _immediate guidance_, _unction_, and _teaching of his Holy Spirit_? Or how can we more _profanely_ sin against this Spirit, or more expressly call men from the power of God unto Satan, than by ridiculing a faith and hope, that look _wholly_ to his continual, immediate operations, for all that can be holy and good in us?
This is the end of all scripture; for all that is there said, however learnedly read, or studied by _Hebrew_ or _Greek_ skill, fails of its end, till it brings us to feel all that the scriptures speak of God and man, verified in our own souls. For all is within man, that can be either good or evil to him: God _within him_, is his divine life; Satan _within him_ is his life of _earthly wisdom_, of diabolical falseness, wrath, pride, and vanity of every kind. There is no middle-way, he that is not under the power of the one, is under the power of the other; so far therefore as man loses this life of God, so far he falls under the power of _Satan_ and _worldly wisdom_. When St. _Peter_, full of an _human_ love to Christ, advised him to avoid his sufferings, Christ rejected him with _Get thee behind me, Satan_; and only gave this reason for it, thou _savourest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men_. A plain proof that whatever is not from the Holy Spirit of God, however plausible it may seem to men, is yet in itself, nothing else but the power of Satan in us. *Christians, seeking any thing else, but to be inspired by the _Spirit_ of God, will bring forth a _Christendom_, that in the sight of God will have no other name, than a spiritual _Babylon_, a spiritual _Egypt_, a scarlet _whore_, a devouring _beast_, and _red dragon_. For all these names belong to all men, however learned, and to all churches, whether greater or less, in which the spirit of this world hath any share of power. This was the fall of the _whole church_, soon after the apostolic ages; and all _human reformations_, begun by ecclesiastical _learning_, and supported by civil power, will signify little or nothing, till all churches dying to their own will, wisdom, and own advancement, seek for no reforming power, but from that Spirit of God, which converted Sinners, Publicans, Harlots, Jews and Heathens, into an holy, apostolical church, a church, which knew they were of God, that they belonged to God, by that spirit which he had given them, and which worked in them.
*Time, and the things of time, will soon have an end; and he that trusts to any thing but the Spirit of God working in his heart, will be but ill fitted to enter into eternity; God must be all in all in us here, or we cannot be his hereafter. Time works only for eternity; and poverty eternal must as certainly follow him, who dies only stuffed with human learning, as he who dies only full of worldly riches. The folly of thinking to have any divine learning, but that which the Holy Spirit teaches, or to make ourselves rich in knowledge towards God, by heaps of common place learning, will leave us, as dreadfully cheated, as that rich builder of barns in the gospel, to whom it was said, _Thou fool, this night shall thy soul be required of thee; and then, whose shall all these things be_? Luke 12. So is every man that treasures up a religious learning, that comes not wholly from the Spirit of God.