its own carnal and corrupted reason-a principle, founded in doubt, and always concluding according to animal sense, and therefore in divine things, which are naturally too sublime for its reach, concluding falsely. The spirit, that is, the renewed mind, is first enabled to cast down reasonings, or carnal apprehensions intruding into things not seen by them, and then by faith, a principle wrought by the operation of God, to embrace truth upon divine authority, and to live in humble resignation for the knowledge and enjoyment of it, through the ways and means of his appointment. Owing to the difference of these two principles, God's. holy religion, as professed by one or other of them, appears a very different thing, though it be not so in itself, and is employed to very different ends. Religion, held by the flesh, shall puff a man up, and incline him to think, that he is not as other men are. It shall appear in the fleshly mind under all the horrid circumstances of furious bigotry and intolerant zeal, inducing persecution, violence, contentions, hatred, and murder. Of this complexion were the high priest and his associates, who condemned the first martyr under the gospel, our brother Stephen; and when he faithfully charged them, in those memorable words; Ye stiff-necked, and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye; which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them who showed before of the coming of the JUST ONE, of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers;—they ful Λογισμός. 2 Cor. x. 5. filled filled the whole, by murdering him also. And yet, át the same time, this outrageous spirit, masked by the profession of the true religion, added weight and splendor to their character in the eyes of the world, and seemed to increase the size of their holiness and devotion. Thief. I now comprehend all this; though, in the days of my flesh, I should no more have understood it than the pharisees themselves. And I plainly perceive what our Lord meant by saying to his disciples, that if their righteousness did not exceed the righteousness of the scribes, great as it was in the eyes of men, they should in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven. But, pray go on with your discourse, which is to me very interesting and important. Paul.-When a man takes up with religion in the flesh, he is induced to do so, not out of real love to the things of God, or to God himself; but either from education, or the fear of hell, or the love of fame among decent people, or the care of temporal interest, or from the wish to stand high in his own importance and esteem. For some or other of these purposes, he will be very strict in all outward shows and ceremonies of religion, and will even go on to fancy, that a fondness for these, and a zealous occupation in them, are the very essence of religion itself. He will perhaps fast, and pray, and give alms; and with more noise and clatter too than twenty real Christians. He will talk much of holiness and strictness of life, of rigid attention to the law of God, of charity to men, and of being ready to every good word and work; all of which are just, beautiful, and indispensable in their proper place and order, but by him ignorantly ignorantly intended for the subversion of more sublime and momentous truths, or for substitution in their stead; and therefore are and can be by him only talked of, but never rightly and holily performed. He is dextrous in turning law into gospel, and gospel into law, or making an incoherent mixture of both, through his ignorance and inexperience of either. Such an one also is ever discoursing on the reasonableness of religion, which though it certainly cannot be irrational as flowing only from God's eternal wisdom; yet its reasonableness is not the ground of faith, but the divine testimony, which cannot be wrong, whether men comprehend it or not. Nor do believers receive it in the way of reason as curious or inquisitive speculatists, but by earnest and humble recumbence as perishing, helpless, sinners. The carnalist, because he is a carnalist, supposes on the contrary, that religion is to be primarily apprehended by the force of his own reason; 'that dark, corrupt, and fallen principle, which naturally opposes itself to the mind of God: and because he understands not the difference between those two very different principles, faith and reason, he ignorantly presumes, in direct opposition to the testimony of God, that there is no specific difference at all. Nay, a man of this kind will insist upon it, that faith is not opposite to reason, and that faith is nothing else but a peculiar exercise of reason; thereby confounding with a witness the mind of the flesh and the mind. of the Spirit, which the Holy Ghost led me, when I wrote my epistles, carefully to state and distinguish. Such people (as my brother Luther hath since observed) "cannot possibly have faith, when they cannot tell what it it is, and much less can they teach it to others and as for that which they seem to have, it is nothing else but a very dream, an opinion; and natural reason, but not faith." Hence, as they proceed in their own spirit (for the Spirit of God always taught and teaches a different lesson,) they grow confident and puffed up in their own righteousness, wisdom, and strength; and when they are thus "at their best, then are they worst of all." The world adds oil to the flame:"O these holy men, learned and devout: if these are not right, who are? if these cannot be saved, who shall?" And if some of the great men of my time, who vastly exceeded in holy ap pearance all the modern pharisees, could now appear in the world below; how uncharitable should I, and even my Master himself, be thought, if we should call them (as he did) serpents, hypocrites, generation of vipers, who could not escape (at least in that state which appears so fair to men) the very damnation of hell ?" Thief.-God indeed seeth not as man seeth: and how widely different do we ourselves view things, after we are brought out of the darkness of nature into the light of grace? Witness myself, who, in one hour, reviled my dear Redeemer, not knowing his person, and that he was dying for my sins; and, in another, saw him to be the Lord of life and glory, by whom alone I could be admitted into the kingdom of heaven.-And yet (0 marvellous grace!) I, even I, came hither without one spot of sin; or, indeed, I could never have appeared in this pure region at all! How fully have I proved the efficacy of that divine blood, which could purge out * On Gal, ii. 4, 5. iniquity iniquity like mine, and render my once dark and dismal soul whiter than snow! How can I testify enough of the sufficiency of that righteousness, by which I am not only brought into a pardoned state, but rendered immaculately holy, and perfectly like to my adorable Lord!-But proceed, my dear brother, in your discourse, which I am delighted to hear, as it illustrates the truth and manner of our Lord's salvation. Paul.-The men, I have been speaking of, do not consider, that THEY WHO ARE IN THE FLESH, and under the life, wisdom, righteousness, as well as unrighteous ness of it, CANNOT PLEASE God.* Of course, they make nothing of that new birth,† which our Lord himself declared to be indispensably necessary, and imagine it to be little more than a change of sentiment, a conviction of reason upon the obvious evidences of the gospel, or at most some little additional light, which men receive, and by which they have it now in their power, to ask for grace, and then to render themselves (perhaps with a little help) acceptable to God by their own diligence and activity. Now, all this proceeds from the flesh: and you may be assured, that, when a man talks at this rate, the law of God, in its spirituality and holiness, hath never been applied by the divine Spirit to his conscience. He hath not duly felt the bitterness of sin, the deep depravity of his fallen nature, the plague of his own heart, the vile opposition of his own spirit to the ways and truth of God; nor yet, on the other hand, that weakness to do good, that aversion to will good, that inaptitude to think good, Rom, viii, 8, ↑ John iii, S. see ver 6. CC which |