us that the things of the Spirit of God are and must, to the end of the world, be foolishness to the natural man; yet almost from one end of learned Christendom to the other, nothing is thought of, as the true and proper means of attaining divine knowledge, but that which every natural, selfish, 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. exercise his logic, rhetoric, and critical skill, in discanting upon them? This done, he is thought by himself, and often by 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?

How is it, that the logical, critical, learned deist, comes by his infidelity? Why just by the same help of the same good powers of the natural man, as many a learned Christian comes to know, embrace and contend for the faith of the gospel. For drop the power and reality of divine inspiration, and then all is dropt, that can set the believer above, or give him any godly difference from the infidel. For the Christian's faith has no goodness in it, but that it comes from above, is born of the Spirit; and the deist's infidelity has no badness in it, but because it comes from below, is born of the will of the flesh, and of the will of men, and rejects the necessity of being born again out of the corruption of fallen nature. The Christian therefore that rejects, reproaches, and writes against the necessity of immediate, divine inspiration, pleads the whole cause of infidelity; he confirms the ground on which it stands, and has nothing to prove the goodness of his own christianity, but that which equally proves to the deist the goodness of his infidelity. For without the new birth, or which is the same thing, without

immediate, continual, divine inspiration, the difference between the Christian and the Infidel is quite lost; and whether the uninspired, unregenerate son of Adam, be in the church or out of the church, he is still that child of this world, that fallen Adam, and mere natural man, to whom the things of the Spirit of God are and must be foolishness. For a full proof of this, no more need be seen, than that which you cannot help seeing, that the same shining virtues, and the same glaring vices, are common to them both. For the Christian, not made such by the Spirit of God continually inspiring and working in him, has only a Christianity of his own making, and can only have such appearances of virtues, and will have such reality of vices, as natural self wants to have. Let him therefore renounce what is called natural religion, as much as he will, yet unless he is a new-born, and divinely inspired Christian, he must live and die in all his natural corruption.

Through all scripture nothing else is aimed at, or intended for man as his christianity, but the divine life; nor any thing hinted at, as having the least power to raise or beget it, but the holy, life-giving Spirit of God. How gross therefore is that blindness, which reading the gospel, and the history of gospel Christians, cannot see these two fundamental truths, 1st. That nothing is divine knowledge in man, but the divine life:-2d. That the divine life is nothing else, but a birth of the divine nature within him?

But this truth being lost or given up, vain learning, and a worldly spirit, being in possession of the gospelbook, set up kingdoms of strife and division. For what end? Why that the unity of the church may not be lost. Multiply systems of empty notions and opinions: For what? Why that words and forms may do that for the church now, which to the first church, of Christ's own forming, could only be done by being born of the Spirit.

Hence it is, that the scripture-scholar is looked upon as having divine knowledge of its matters, when

he is as ready at chapter and verse, as the critic is at every page of Cicero. And nothing is looked upon as defective in divinity-knowledge, but such supposed mistakes of the genius of the Hebrew, or Greek letter, as the sublime students of the famed works of Milton, or a Shakespeare, charge as blunders upon one another.

Now to call such scripture skill, divine knowledge, is just as solid, and judicious, as if a man was said, or thought to know, that which St. John knew, because he could say his whole gospel and epistles by heart, without missing a word of them. For a literal knowledge of scripture, is but like having all scripture in the memory; and is so far from being a divine perception of the things spoken of, that the most vicious, wicked scholar in the world may attain to the highest perfection in it. But divine knowledge and wickedness of life, are so inconsistent, that they are mutual death and destruction to one another; where the one is alive, the other must be dead. Judas Iscariot knew Jesus Christ, and all that he said and did to his crucifixion; he knew what it was to be at the Lord's table, and to partake of his supper of bread and wine. But yet with much more truth it may be said, that he knew nothing essentially of all this, and had no better a knowledge of it than Pontius Pilate had. Now all knowledge of Christ, but that which is from divine inspiration, or the new birth, is but as poor and profitless, as Judas's knowledge was. It may say to Christ as he did, "Hail Master but no one 66 can call Jesus Lord, but by the Holy Spirit." This empty letter learned knowledge, which the natural man can as easily have of the sacred scripture, and religious matters, as of any other books, or human affairs; this being taken for divine knowledge, has spread such darkness and delusion all over Christendom, as may be reckoned no less than a general apostacy from the gospel state of divine illumination. For the gospel state is in its whole nature nothing else; it has but one Light, and that is the Lamb of God. It

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has but one Life, and that is by the Spirit of God. Whatever is not of, and from this Light, and governed by this Spirit, call it by what high name you will, is no more a part of the gospel state, nor will have a better end, than that which entereth into the mouth, and corrupteth in the belly.

That one Light and Spirit, which was only one from all eternity, before angels, or any heavenly beings were created, must to all eternity, be that one only Light and Spirit, by which angels or men can ever have any union or communion with God. Every other light is but the light whence beasts have their sense and subtilty; every other spirit is but that which gives to flesh and blood all its lusts and appetites. Nothing else but the departure from the one Light and Spirit of God, turned an order of angels into devils. Nothing else but the loss of that same Light and Spirit, took from the divine-Adam, his first crown of paradisical glory, stript him more naked than the beasts, and left him a prey to devils, and in the jaws of eternal death. What therefore can have the least share of power towards man's redemption, but the Light and Spirit of God, making again a birth of themselves in him, as they did in his first glorious creation? Or what can possibly begin, or bring forth this return of his first lost birth, but solely that which is done by this eternal Light and Spirit. Hence it is, that the gospel state is by our Lord affirmed to be a kingdom of heaven at hand, or come amongst men, because it has the nature of no worldly thing, or creaturely power, is to serve no worldly ends, can be helped by no worldly power, receives nothing from man, but man's full denial of himself, stands upon nothing that is finite or transitory, has no existence but in that working power of God, that created and upholds heaven and earth; and is a kingdom of God become man, and a kingdom of men united to God, through a continual, immediate, divine illumination. What scripture of the New Testament can you read, that does not prove this to be the gospel state, a king

dom of God, into which none can enter, but by being born of the Spirit; none can continue to be alive in it, but by being led by the Spirit, and in which not a thought, or desire, or action can be allowed to have any part in it, but as it is a fruit of the Spirit?

Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." What is God's kingdom in heaven, but the manifestation of what God is, and what he does in his heavenly creatures? How is his: will done there, but because his Holy Spirit is the life, the power, and mover of all that live in it? Many daily read this prayer, extol it under the name of the Lord's Prayer, and yet, for the sake of orthodoxy, preach and write against all that is prayed for. in it. For nothing but a continual, essential, immediate, divine illumination can do that, which we pray may be done.

For where can God's Kingdom be come, but where every other power but his, is at an end, and driven out of it? How can his will only be done, but where the Spirit that wills in God, wills in the creature?

What now have parts, and literature, and the natural abilities of man, that they can do here? Just as much as they can do at the resurrection of the dead; for all that is to be done here, is nothing else but resurrection and life. Therefore that which gave eyes to the blind, cleansed the lepers, cast out devils, and raised the dead; that alone can, and must do all that is to be done in this gospel kingdom of God. For every the smallest work or fruit of grace, must be as solely done by God, as the greatest miracle in nature; and the reason is, because every work of grace, is the same overcoming of nature, as when the dead are raised to life. Yet vain man would be thought to be something, to have great power and ability in this kingdom of grace, not because he happens to be born. of noble parents, is clothed in purple and fine linen, and fareth sumptuously every day; but because he has happened to be made a scholar, has run through all languages and histories, has been long exercised