I am not mad, most noble Feftus; but speak the words of truth and fobernefs. A&ts xxvi. 25.

Wisdom is justified of her children. Mat. xi. 19.

1

SIR,

FIRST LETTER.

WHEN
WHEN I had the pleasure of feeing

you laft, you seemed furprized to hear me fay, that the Son of God, for purposes worthy of his wisdom, manifefts himself, fooner or later, to all his fincere followers, in a spiritual manner, which the world knows not of. The affertion appeared to you unfcriptural, enthusiaftical, and dangerous. What I then advanced to prove, that it was fcriptural, rational, and of the greatest importance, made you defire I would write to you on the myfterious fubject. I declined it, as being unequal to the task; but having fince confidered, that a mistake here may endanger your foul or mine, I fit down to comply with your requeft: And the end I propofe by it, is, either to give you a fair opportunity of pointing out my error, if I am wrong; or to engage you, if I am right, to seek what I esteem the most invaluable of all bleffings,-revelations of Chrift to your own foul, productive of the experimental knowledge of him, and the prefent enjoyment of his falvation.

As an architect cannot build a palace, unless he is allowed a proper fpot to erect it upon, fo I fhall not be able to establish the doctrine I maintain, unless you allow me the existence of the proper fenfes, to which our Lord manifefts himself. The manifeftation I contend for, being of a spiritual nature, must be made to fpiri

tual

tual fenfes; and that fuch fenfes exift, and are opened in, and exercised by regenerate fouls, is what I defign to prove in this letter, by the joint teftimony of Scripture, our Church, and Reafon.

I. The Scriptures inform us, that Adam loft the experimental knowledge of God by the fall. His foolish attempt to hide himfelf from his Creator, whofe eyes are in every place, evidences the total blindnefs of his underftanding. The fame veil of unbelief, which hid God from his mind, was drawn over his heart and all his fpiritual fenfes. He died the death, the moral, fpiritual death, in confequence of which the corruptible body finks into the grave, and the unregenerate foul into hell.

In this deplorable ftate Adam begat his children. We, like him, are not only void of the life of God, but alienated from it, through the ignorance that is in us. Hence it is, that though we are poffeffed of fuch an animal and rational life, as he retained after the commiffion of his fin, yet we are, by nature, utter ftrangers to the holiness and blifs he enjoyed in a state of innocence. Though we have, in common with beafts, bodily organs of fight, hearing, tafting, fmelling, and feeling, adapted to outward objects; though we enjoy, in common with devils, the faculty of realoning upon natural truths, and mathematical propofitions, yet we do not underftand fupernatural and divine things. Notwithstanding all our fpeculations about them, we can neither fee, nor tafte them truly, unless we are rifen with Chrift, and taught of God. We may, indeed, fpeak and write about them, as

the

the blind may fpeak of colours, and the deaf dif pute of founds, but it is all guess-work, hearfay, and mere conjecture. The things of the Spirit of God cannot be difcovered, but by fpiritual, internal fenfes, which are, with regard to the fpiritual world, what our bodily, external fenfes are with regard to the material world. They are the only medium, by which an intercourfe between Chrift and our fouls can be opened and maintained.

The exercise of these senses is peculiar to thofe, who are born of God. They belong to what the Apostles call the new man, the inward man, the new creature, the hidden man of the heart. In believers, this hidden man is awakened and raifed from the dead, by the power of Chrift's refurrection. Chrift is his life, the Spirit of God is his fpirit, prayer or praise his breath, holinefs his health, and love his element. We read of his hunger and thirft, food and drink, garment and haibtation, armour and conflicts, pain and pleafure, fainting and reviving, growing, walking, and working. All this fuppofes fenfes, and the more these fenfes are quickened by God, and exercised by the new born foul, the clearer and ftronger is his perception of divine things.

On the other hand, in unbelievers, the inward man is deaf, blind, naked, afleep, paft feeling; yea, dead in trefpaffes and fins; and of course, as incapable of perceiving fpiritual things, as a perfon in a deep fleep, or a dead man of discovering outward objects. St. Paul's language to him is, "Awake thou that fleepeft, arife from the dead, and Chrift fhall give thee light." He calls him a natural man, one who hath no higher life than

that