Thus Doctor _Green_, wanting to write on _divine inspiration_, runs from book to book, from country to country, to _pick up reports_ wherever he could find them, concerning divine inspiration, from this and that _judicious_ author, that so he might be sure of compiling a _judicious_ dissertation on the subject. All which he might have known to be mere delusion, had he but remembered, or regarded any one single saying either of Christ or his apostles concerning the _Holy Spirit_, and _his operations_. For not a word is said by them, but fully shews that all knowledge of the Spirit, is only that which the Spirit manifests in man.
*But there is a degree of delusion still higher to be noted, in such writers, as Dr. _Green_; for his collection of ingenious, eminent, rational authors, of whom he asks counsel concerning the necessity, or certainty of the immediate inspiration of the Spirit, are such as deny it, and write against it. Therefore the proceeding is just as wise, as if a man was to consult some ingenious, and eminent _Atheists_, about the truth and certainty of God’s immediate, continual providence; or ask a few select _Deists_, how, or what he was to believe of the nature and power of gospel-faith. Now there are the Holy Spirit’s own operations, and there are reports about them. The only true reports are those that are made by inspired persons; and if there were no such persons, there could be no true reports of the matter. And therefore to consult uninspired persons, and such as deny, and reproach the pretence to inspiration, to be rightly instructed about the truth of immediate, continual divine inspiration, is a degree of blindness, greater than can be charged upon the old Jewish Scribes and Pharisees.
The reports, that are to be acknowledged as true, concerning the Holy Spirit, and his operations, are those that are recorded in scripture; that is, the scriptures are an infallible history, or relation of that which the Holy Spirit is, and does, and works in true believers; and also an infallible direction how we are to seek, and wait, and trust in his good power over us. But then the scriptures themselves, though thus true, and infallible in these reports about the Holy Spirit, yet can go no farther, than to be a true history; they cannot give the reader the possession and enjoyment of that which they relate. This is plain, not only from the nature of a written history, but from the express words of our Lord, _Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God_. Therefore, the new birth, is that alone, which gives true knowledge and perception of that which is the kingdom of God. The history may relate truths about it; but the kingdom of God, being nothing else, but the power and presence of God, dwelling and ruling in our souls, this can only manifest itself in man, by the new birth.
*Poor, miserable man! that strives with all the sophistry of human wit, to be delivered from the immediate, continual operation and government of the Spirit of God, not considering, that where God is not, there is the devil, and where the Spirit rules not, there all is the work of the flesh, tho’ nothing be talked of, but spiritual and Christian matters. I say talked of; for the best ability of the natural man, can go no farther than talk, and notions, and opinions about scripture words and facts; in these, he may be a great critic, an acute logician, a powerful orator, and know every thing of scripture, except the spirit and the truth.
How much then is it to be lamented, that though all scripture assures us, the things of the Spirit of God, must to the end of the world, be foolishness to the natural man; yet from one end of learned Christendom to the other, nothing is thought of, as the proper means of attaining divine knowledge, but that which every natural, proud, envious, false, vain-glorious, worldly man can do. Where is that divinity-student, who thinks, or was ever taught to think, of partaking of the light of the gospel any other way, than by doing with the scriptures, that which he does with Pagan writers, whether poets, orators, or comedians, viz. exercising his logic, rhetoric, and critical skill, in discanting upon them? This done, he is thought by himself, and others, to have a sufficiency of divine, apostolical knowledge. What wonder therefore if it should sometimes happen, that the very same vain, corrupt, puffing literature, that raises one man to be a poet-laureat, should set another in a divinity chair?