* 9. Art thou acquainted with the _leading of his Spirit_, not by notion only, but by living experience? I fear very many of you talk of this, who do not so much as know what it means. How does the Spirit of God _lead_ his children, to this, or that particular action? Do you imagine, it is by _blind impulse_ only? By _moving_ you to do it, you know not why? Not so. He leads us by our _eye_, at least as much as by the _hand_; and by _light_ as well as by _heat_. He _shews_ us the way wherein we should go, as well as _incites_ us to walk therein. For example. Here is a man ready to perish with hunger. How am _I led by the Spirit_ to relieve him? First, by his _convincing_ me, it is the will of God I should, and secondly by his filling my heart with _love_ toward him. Both this _light_ and this _heat_ are the gift of God; are wrought in me by the same Spirit: who _leads_ me, by this _conviction_ as well as _love_, to go and feed that man. This is the plain, rational account of the _ordinary_ leading of the Spirit. But how far from that which some have given!
* Art _thou_ thus led by the Spirit to every good word and work? Till God ♦hath thereby made thy faith perfect? Dost thou know what _faith_ is? It is a loving, obedient sight of a present and reconciled God. Now where this is, there is no _dead form_; neither can be, so long as it continues. But all that is said or done is full of God, full of Spirit and life and power.
♦ “had” replaced with “hath” per Errata
10. But perhaps, as much as you talk of them, you do not know the difference between _form_ and _Spirit_; or between worshipping God in a _formal_ way, and worshipping him _in spirit and in truth_.
The Lord is that Spirit. The seeing and feeling and loving him is spiritual _life_. And whatever is said or done in the sight or love of God, that is full of _spirit and life_. All beside this is _form_, mere dead _form_; whether it be in our public addresses to God, or in our private; or in our worldly business, or in our daily conversation.
* But if so, how poor and mean and narrow have your views and conceptions been! You was afraid of _formality_ in _public worship_. And reason good. But was you afraid of it no where else? Did not you consider, that _formality_ in _common life_, is also an abomination to the Lord? And that it can have no place in any thing we say or do, but so far as we forget God? O watch against it in every place, every moment, that you may every moment see and love God: and consequently, at all times and in all places, worship him _in Spirit and in truth_.
My brethren, permit me to add a few words, in tender love to your souls. Do not you _lean_ too much on the spirit and power which you believe rested upon your _forefathers_? Suppose it did! Will that avail _you_, if you do not drink into the same spirit? And how evident is this! That whatever you once were, ye are now _shorn of your strength_. Ye are weak and become like other men. The Lord is well nigh departed from you. Where is now the spirit, the life, the power? Be not offended with my plain dealing, when I beseech _you_ who are able to weigh things calmly, to open your eyes and see multitudes even in the church, pursuing, yea and attaining the _substance_ of spiritual life, and leaving unto you the _shadow_. Nay a still greater evil is before you: for if ye find not some effectual means to prevent it, your rising generation will utterly cast off the _shadow_ as well as the _substance_.
11. There is an abundantly greater difference still, according to your own account, between us who profess ourselves members of the church of _England_, and you who are members of the church of _Rome_. But notwithstanding this, do you not agree with us in condemning the vices above recited? Prophaneness, drunkenness, whoredom, adultery, theft, disobedience to parents, and such like? And how unhappily do you agree with us in _practising_ the very vices which you _condemn_?
And yet you acknowledge (nay and frequently contend for this with a peculiar earnestness) that every Christian is called to be _zealous of good works_, as well as to _deny himself and take up his cross daily_. How then do you depart from your own principles, when you are gluttons, drunkards or epicures? When you live at your ease, in all the elegance and voluptuousness of a plentiful fortune! How will you reconcile the being adorned with gold, arrayed in purple and fine linen, and faring sumptuously every day, with the _denying yourself and taking up your cross daily_? Surely while you indulge the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eye, and the pride of life, the excellent rules of self-denial that abound in your own writers, leave you of all men most inexcusable.