*Christ also saith, if _any man love me, my Father will love him, and we will come unto him and make our abode with him_: that is, according to the Doctor’s theology, certain books of scripture will come to him, and make their abode with him; for he expressly confineth the _constant abode_, and _supreme illumination_ of God, to the holy scriptures. Therefore (horrible to say) God’s inward presence, his operating power of life and light in our souls, his dwelling in us, and we in him, is something of a lower nature, that only may occasionally happen, and has less of God in it, than the dead letter of scripture, which alone is his constant abode and supreme illumination――Miserable fruits of a paradoxical genius!
_Rabbi_, saith Nicodemus to Christ, _we know that thou art a teacher come from God_: now this must be said of the scripture likewise; it is a _teacher from God_, and therefore fully to be believed, highly reverenced, and strictly followed. But as Christ’s teaching in the flesh was only preparatory to his vital teaching by the Spirit; so the teaching of scripture by words written with ink and paper, is only preparatory to the teaching of God, by his Spirit within us. Every other opinion of the holy scripture, but that of an _outward teacher_ and guide to God’s _inward teaching_, is but making an idol-god of it: I say an idol-god; for to those who rest in it as the _constant abode and supreme illumination_ of _God with them_, it can be nothing else. For, if nothing of divine _faith_, _love_, or _goodness_, can have place in us, but by _divine inspiration_, they who think these virtues may be sufficiently raised in us by the letter of scripture, do in truth make the letter of scripture their _inspiring God_.
The apostles preached, and wrote to the people by _divine inspiration_. But what do they say of their _inspired doctrine_, and teachings? What virtue was there in them? Do they say that their words, and teachings, was the very _promised Comforter_, the _Spirit_ of _truth_, the _true abode_, and _supreme illumination_ of God in the souls of men? So far from such a blasphemous thought, that they affirm the direct contrary, and compare all their _inspired_ teachings to the _dead works_ of bare _planting_ and _watering_, and which must continue dead, till _life_ come into them from much higher power. _I have planted_, saith St. Paul, Apollos _hath watered_, but _God gave the increase_. And then further to shew, that this planting and watering, which was the _highest work_ that an _inspired_ apostle could do, was yet, in itself, to be considered, as a lifeless, powerless thing; he adds, _So then_, neither _is he that planteth_ any _thing_; nor he that _watereth_; but _God that giveth the increase_.
But if this must be said of all that, which the _inspired apostles_ taught in outward words, that it was nothing in itself, was without power, without life, and only such a _preparation_ towards life, as is that of planting and watering; must not the same be said of their _inspired teachings_, when left behind them in writing? For what else are the apostolical scriptures, but those very instructions put into writing, which they affirmed to be bare planting and watering, quite powerless in themselves, till the living Spirit of God worked with them? Or will any one say, that what _Paul_, _Peter_, and _John_, spoke by inspiration from their own mouths, was indeed but bare planting and watering, in order to be capable of receiving life from God: but when these apostolical instructions, were written on paper, they were raised out of their first inability, got the _nature_ of God himself, became _spirit_ and _life_, and might be called the _great quickening_ power of God, or, as the Doctor says, the _constant abode_, and _supreme illumination of his Spirit with us_?
I exceedingly love and highly reverence the sacred writings of the apostles and evangelists, and would gladly persuade every one to pay as profound a regard to them, as they would to an _Elijah_, a _John Baptist_, or a _Paul_, whom they knew to be immediately sent from heaven with God’s message to them.――I reverence them, as fitted to do all that good amongst Christians _now_, which the apostles did in their day, and as of the same benefit to the church of every age, as their _planting_ and _watering_ was to the first.