A Treatise on the Religious Affections, TAPE 5 A spiritual application of an invitation or offer of the gospel consists in giving the soul a spiritual sense or relish of the holy and divine blessings offered, and also the sweet and wonderful grace of the offerer, and making so gracious an overture, and of his holy excellency and faithfulness to fulfill what he offers, and his glorious sufficiency for it, so leading and drawing forth the heart to embrace the offer. and thus giving the man evidence of his title to and personal interest in the thing offered. And so a spiritual application of the promises of Scripture for the comfort of the saints consists in enlightening their minds to see the holy excellency and sweetness of the blessings promised. also the holy excellency of the promisor, his faithfulness and sufficiency, thus drawing forth their hearts to embrace a promisor and thing promised, and by this means giving the sensible actings of grace, enabling them to see their grace and so their possessive title to the promised, an application not consisting in this divine sense and enlightening of the mind. But consisting only in the words being born into the thoughts as if immediately then spoken, so making persons believe, on no other foundation, that the promise is theirs, is a blind application, and belongs to the spirit of darkness and not of light. When persons have their affections raised after this manner, those affections are really not raised by the word of God. The scripture is not the foundation of them. It is not anything contained in those scriptures which comes to their mind that raise their affections, but truly that effect, the strange manner of the word being suggested to their minds, and a proposition from thence taken up by them, which indeed is not contained in that scripture, nor in any other, is that his sins are forgiven him, or that it is a father's good pleasure to give him in particular the kingdom, or the like. These are propositions to be found in the Bible declaring that persons of such and such qualifications are forgiven and beloved of God. But there are none declaring that such and such particular persons, independent on any previous knowledge of qualifications, are forgiven and beloved of God. Therefore, when any person is comforted and affected by any such proposition, it is by another word. a word newly coined, and not any word of God contained in the Bible. Some Christians have rested with a work without Christ, which is abominable. But after a man is in Christ, not to judge by the work is first not to judge from the word. For though there is a word which may give a man a dependence on Christ, without feeling any work, nay, when he feels none, is absolute promises yet no word given assurance but that which is made to some work he that believeth or is poor in spirit and so on until that work is seen has no assurance from that promising quote Shepard's parable and thus many persons are vainly affected and deluded again it plainly appears from what has been demonstrated that no revelation of secret facts by immediate suggestion Is anything spiritual and divine? In that sense wherein gracious effects and operations are so. By secret facts I mean things that have been done, or are come to pass, or shall hereafter come to pass, which do not appear to the senses, nor are known by any argumentation, nor any other way, but only by immediate suggestion of ideas to the mind. Thus, for instance, if it should be revealed to me that the next year this land would be invaded by a fleet from France, or that such and such persons would then be converted, or that I myself should then be converted, not by enabling me to argue these events from anything which now appears in Providence, but immediately suggesting in an extraordinary manner that these things would come to pass, Or if it should be revealed to me that this day there is a battle fought between the armies of such and such powers in Europe? Or that such a prince in Europe was this day converted? Or is now in a converted state? Or that one of my neighbors is converted? Or that I myself am converted? Not by having any other evidence of these facts, but immediate extraordinary suggestion or excitation of these ideas and a strong impression of them upon my mind. This is a revelation of secret facts by immediate suggestion, as much as if the facts were future, for the facts being past, present, or future, when not the case, as long as they are secret, hidden from my senses and reason, and not spoken of in Scripture, nor known by me any other way than by immediate suggestion. If I have it revealed to me that such a revolution has come to pass this day in the Ottoman Empire, It is the very same sort of revelation as if it were revealed to me that such a revelation would come to pass there this day come twelve months, because all one is present in the other future, yet both are equally hidden from me any other way than by immediate revelation. When Samuel told Saul that the asses which he went to seek were found, and that his father had left caring for the asses and sorrowed for him, This is by the same kind of revelation, is that by which he told Saul that in the plain of Tabor there should meet him three men going up to God to Bethel, 1 Samuel 10, 2 and 3, though one of these things was future and the other was not. So when Elisha told the king of Israel the words that the king Assyria spake in his bedchamber, it was by the same kind of revelation with that by which he foretold many things to come. It is evident that this revelation of secret facts by immediate suggestion has nothing of the nature of a spiritual and divine operation in the sense aforementioned. There is nothing at all in the nature of the ideas themselves excited in the mind that is divinely excellent. above the ideas of natural men, though the manner of exciting the ideas be extraordinary. In those things which your spiritual has been shown, not only the manner of producing the effect, but the effect wrought is divine, and so vastly above all that can be in an unsanctified mind. Now simply the having an idea of fact Setting aside the manner of producing these ideas is nothing beyond what the minds of wicked men are susceptible of, without any goodness in them, and they all either have or will have the knowledge of the greatest and most important facts that have been, are, or shall be. And as to the extraordinary manner of producing the perception of facts, even by immediate suggestion, there is nothing in it but what the minds of natural men are capable of. as is manifest in Balaam and others spoken of in the scripture. And therefore it appears that there is nothing appertaining to this immediate suggestion of secret facts that is spiritual, in the sense in which it has been proved that gracious operations are so. If there be nothing in the ideas themselves which is holy and divine, and so nothing but what may be in a mind not sanctified, then God can put them into the mind by immediate power without sanctifying it. And there is nothing in the idea of a rainbow of a holy and divine nature, so God, if he pleases and when he pleases, immediately, and in an extraordinary manner, may excite that idea in an unsanctified mind. So also, as there is nothing in the idea of knowledge that such particular persons are forgiven and accepted of God, and entitled to heaven, but what unsanctified minds may have, and will have, concerning many at the day of judgment, so God can, if he pleases, extraordinarily and immediately suggest this to and impress it upon an unsanctified mind now. There is no principle wanting in an unsanctified mind in order to make it capable of such an impression, nor is there anything in them necessarily to prevent such a suggestion. And if these suggestions of secret facts be attended with texts of Scripture, immediately and extraordinarily brought to mind, about other facts that seem in some respects similar, that does not make the operation to be of a spiritual and divine nature. For that suggestion of words of Scripture is no more divine than the suggestion of the facts themselves, as has been just now demonstrated. And two effects together, which are neither of them spiritual, cannot make up one complex effect spiritual. Hence it follows, from what has been already shown, that those affections which are properly founded on such immediate suggestions of secret facts are not gracious affections. Not but that it is possible that such suggestions may be the occasion or accidental cause of gracious affections, for so may a mistake and delusion, but it is never properly the foundation of gracious affections. For gracious affections, as has been shown, are all the effects of an influence, an operation, which is spiritual, supernatural, and divine. But there are many affections, and high affections, which have such revelations for their very foundation. They look upon these as spiritual discoveries, but they are a gross delusion, and this delusion is truly the spring whence their affections flow. Here it may be proper to observe, from what has been said, that what many persons call the witness of the Spirit, that they are the children of God, has nothing in it spiritual and divine, and consequently that the affections built upon it are vain and delusive. That which many call the witness of the Spirit is no other than an immediate suggestion and impression of that fact, otherwise secret, that they are made the children of God, and so that their sins are pardoned, and that God has given them a title to heaven. This kind of knowledge, knowing that a certain person is converted and delivered from hell and entitled to heaven, is no divine sort of knowledge in itself. This sort of fact requires no more divine suggestion in order to impress it on the mind than what Balaam had impressed on his mind. It requires no higher sort of idea for a man to have the apprehension of his own conversion impressed upon him than to have the apprehension of his neighbor's conversion in like manner. God, if he please, might impress the knowledge of this fact that he had forgiven his neighbor's sins and given him a title to heaven, as well as any other fact, without any communication of his holiness. The excellency and importance of the fact does not at all hinder a natural man's mind being susceptible of an immediate suggestion and impression of it. Balaam had as important facts as this immediately impressed on his mind, without any gracious influence. particularly the coming of Christ, his setting up his glorious kingdom, the blessedness of the spiritual Israel in his peculiar favor, and their happiness living and dying. Yea, Abimelech, king of the Philistines, had God's special favor to Abraham revealed to him, Genesis 26 and 7. He revealed to Laban his special favor to Jacob, Genesis 31-24 and Psalm 105-15. And if a truly good man should have an immediate revelation from God in like manner concerning his favor to his neighbor or himself, would it be any higher kind of influence? Would it be any more than a common influence of God's Spirit as a gift of prophecy in all revelation by immediate suggestion is? And though it be true that a natural man cannot have an individual suggestion from the Spirit of God that he is converted, because it is not true, Yet that does not arise from the nature of the influences too high for him. The influence which immediately suggests this fact, when it is true, is of no different kind from that which immediately suggests other true facts. And so the kind and nature of the influence is not above what is common to natural men. But this is a mean ignoble notion of the witness of the Spirit of God given to His dear children to suppose that there is nothing in the nature of that influence but what is common to natural men, altogether unsanctified, and the children of hell, and that therefore the gift itself has nothing of the holy nature or vital communication of that Spirit. This notion greatly debases that most exalted kind of operation which there is in the true witness of the Spirit. The late Venerable Stoddard, in his younger time, falling in with the opinion of some others, received this notion of the witness of the Spirit by way of immediate suggestion. But in the latter part of his life, when he had more thoroughly weighed things and had more experience, he entirely rejected it, as appears by his treatise of the nature of saving conversion. The Spirit of God doth not testify to particular persons that they are godly. Some think that the Spirit of God doth testify it to some, and they ground it on Romans 8.16. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. They think the Spirit reveals it by giving an inward testimony to it, and some godly men think they have had experience of it. But they may easily mistake. When the Spirit of God doth imminently stir up a spirit of faith, and sheds abroad the love of God in the heart, it is easy to mistake it for a testimony. And that is not the meaning of Paul's words. The Spirit reveals things to us by opening our eyes to see what is revealed in the word. But the Spirit doth not reveal new truths not revealed in the word. The Spirit discovers the grace of God in Christ and thereby draws forth special actings of faith and love which are evidential, but it does not work in way of testimony. If God do but help us to receive the revelations in the Word, we shall have comfort enough without new revelations." Mr. Shepherd is abundant in militating against the notion of men's knowing their good estate by immediate witness of the Spirit without judging by any effect or work of the Spirit wrought on the heart as an evidence and proof that persons are the children of God. Again, in his sound believer, there is a long discourse of sanctification as the chief evidence of justification, from page 221 for many pages following. I shall transcribe but a very small part of it. Tell me how you will know that you are justified. You will say, by the testimony of the Spirit. And cannot the same Spirit shine upon your graces and witness that you are sanctified as well? 1 John 4, 13 and 24, 1 Corinthians 2. Can the Spirit make the one clear to you and not the other? O Beloved, it is a sad thing to hear such questions, and such cold answers also, that sanctification possibly may be in evidence. Maybe. Is it not certain?" Mr. Flavel also much opposes this notion of the witness of the Spirit by immediate revelation. In his sacramental meditation, speaking of the sealing of the spirit, he says, quote, In sealing the believer, he doth not make use of an audible voice, nor the ministry of angels, nor immediate and extraordinary revelations, but he makes use of his own graces implanted in our hearts and his own promises written in the scripture. And in this method, he usually brings the doubting, trembling heart of a believer to rest and comfort." And again, quote, "...assurance is produced in our souls by the reflective acts of faith. The Spirit helps us to reflect upon what hath been done by informally upon our hearts. Hereby we know that we know him." 1 John 2, 3. to know that we know it's a reflex act. Now it is impossible there should be a reflex before there has been a direct act. No man can have the evidence of his faith before the habit is infused and the vital act performed. The object manner to which the spirit seals is his own sanctifying operations." Afterwards he says, Immediate ways of the Spirit's sealing are ceased. No man may now expect by any new revelation or sign from heaven, by any voice or extraordinary inspiration, to have his salvation sealed, but must expect that mercy in God's ordinary way and method, searching the Scriptures, examining our own hearts, and waiting on the Lord in prayer. Mr. Learned Gerson gives an instance of one that had been a long time upon the borders of despair, and at last sweetly assured and settled, he answered, Not by any new revelation, but by subjecting my understanding to, and comparing my heart with, the written word. And Mr. Roberts, in his treatise of the Covenant, speaks of another that so vehemently panted after the ceilings, earnestly desired some voice from heaven. And sometimes walking in the solitary fields earnestly desired some miraculous voice from the trees or stones there. This was denied him, but in time a better was afforded in a scriptural way." And again, this method of sealing is beyond all other methods in the world. For in miraculous voices and inspirations, it is impossible there may be found some cheat or imposters of the devil, but the Spirit's witness in the heart, suitable to the revelation in the Scripture, cannot deceive us. Many mischiefs have arisen from that false and delusive notion of the witness of the Spirit that it is a kind of inward voice, suggestion, or declaration from God to a man that he is beloved, pardoned, elected, or the like, sometimes with and sometimes without a text of Scripture, for many have been the false and vain, though very high, affections that have arisen from hence. It is to be feared that multitudes of souls have been eternally undone by it. I have therefore insisted the longer on this head. But I proceed now to a second characteristic of gracious affections, Section 2. The first objective ground of gracious affections is the transcendently excellent and amiable nature of divine things as they are in themselves, and not any conceived relation they bear to self or self-interest. I say that the supremely excellent nature of divine things is the first or primary and original objective foundation of the spiritual affections of true saints. For I do not suppose that all relation which divine things bear to themselves in their own particular interest are wholly excluded from all influence in their gracious affections. For this we may have, and indeed has, a secondary and consequential influence in those affections that are truly holy and spiritual, as I shall show by and by. It was before observed that the affection of love is, as it were, the fountain of all affection, and particularly that Christian love is the fountain of all gracious affections. Now the divine excellency of God and of Jesus Christ, the word of God, his works, ways, and so on, is the primary reason why a true saint loves these things, and not any supposed interest that he has in them, or any conceived benefit that he has received or shall receive from them. Some say that all love arises from self-love. and that it is impossible in the nature of things for any man to love God, or any other being, but that love to himself must be the foundation of it. But I humbly suppose it is for want of consideration they say so. They argue that whoever loves God and so desires His glory or the enjoyment of Him, desires these things as his own happiness. The glory of God and the beholding and the enjoying of His perfections are considered as things agreeable to Him, tending to make Him happy. He places His happiness in them and desires them as objects which, if obtained, would fill Him with delight and joy and so make Him happy. And so they say it is from self-love, or a desire of his own happiness, that he desires God should be glorified, and desires to behold and enjoy his glorious perfections. But then they ought to consider a little further, and inquire how the man came to place his happiness in God's being glorified, and in contemplating and enjoying God's perfections. There is no doubt but that after God's glory and beholding His perfections are become agreeable to Him, He will desire them as He desires His own happiness. But how came these things to be so agreeable to Him, that He esteems it His highest happiness to glorify God? Is not this the fruit of love? Must not a man first love God or have his heart united to Him before he will esteem God's good his own? and before he will desire the glorifying and enjoying of God as his happiness? It is not strong arguing, because after a man has his heart united to God in love, and is a fruit of this, he desires his glory and enjoyment as his own happiness, that therefore desire of this happiness must needs be the cause and foundation of his love. unless it be strong arguing, that because a father begat a son, therefore his son certainly begat him. If, after a man loves God, it will be a consequence and fruit of this, that even love to his happiness will cause him to desire the glorifying and enjoying of God, it will not thence follow that this very exercise of self-love went before his love to God, and that his love to God was a consequence and fruit of that. Something else entirely distinct from self-love might be the cause of this, a change made in the views of his mind and relish of his heart, whereby he apprehends a beauty, glory, and supreme good in God's nature as it is in itself. This may be the thing that first draws his heart to him and causes his heart to be united to him prior to all considerations of his own interest or happiness. Although after this, and as a fruit of it, he necessarily seeks his interest in happiness in God. There is a kind of love or affection towards persons or things which does properly arise from self-love. A preconceived relation to himself, or some respect already manifested by another to him, or some benefit already received or depended on, is truly the first foundation of his love. What precedes any relish of or delight in the nature and qualities inherent in the being beloved, is beautiful and amiable. When the first thing that draws a man's benevolence to another is a beholding of those qualifications and properties in him which appear to him lovely in themselves, love arises in a very different manner than when at first arises from some gift bestowed by another. as a judge loves and favors a man that has bribed him, or from the relation he supposes another has to him, as a man who loves his child. When love to another arises thus, it arises truly and properly from self-love. That kind of affection to God or Jesus Christ, which thus properly arises from self-love, cannot be a truly gracious and spiritual love as appears from what has been said already. For self-love is a principle entirely natural, and as much in the hearts of devils as angels, and therefore surely nothing that is a mere result of it can be supernatural and divine in the manner before described. Thomas Shepard writes, There is a natural love to Christ as to one that doth thee good, and for thine own ends, and spiritual for himself, whereby the Lord only is exalted." Christ plainly speaks of natural love as what is nothing beyond the love of wicked men, Luke 6.32. If you love them that love you, what thank have ye? For sinners also love those that love them. And the devil himself knew that a mercenary respect to God only for benefits received or depended on, which is all one, is worthless in the sight of God, Job. Does Job serve God for naught? Hast thou not made an hedge about him and about his house? And so on. God would never have implicitly allowed the objection to have been good, in case the accusation had been true, by allowing that manner to be tried, and Job to be so dealt with that it might appear in the event whether Job's respect to God was thus mercenary or not. whereas a proof of the goodness of his respect was put upon that issue. It is unreasonable to think otherwise than that the first foundation of a true love to God is that whereby he is in himself lovely or worthy to be loved, or the supreme loveliness of his nature. This is certainly what makes him chiefly amiable. What chiefly makes a man or any creature lovely is his excellency. And so what chiefly renders God lovely, and must undoubtedly be the chief grounds of true love, is his excellency. God's nature, or the divinity, is infinitely excellent. Yea, it is infinite beauty, brightness and glory itself. But how can that be true love of this excellent and lovely nature, which is not built on the foundation of its true loveliness? How can that be true love of beauty and brightness, which is not for beauty and brightness' sake? How can that be a true prizing of that which is in itself infinitely worthy and precious, which is not for the sake of its worthiness and preciousness? This infinite excellency of the divine nature, as it is in itself, is the true ground of all that is good in God in any respect. But how can a man truly love God without loving Him for that excellency, which is the foundation of all that is good or desirable in Him? They whose affection to God is founded first on His profitableness to them begin at the wrong end. They regard God only for the utmost limit of the stream of divine good, where it touches them and reaches their interest. They have no respect to that infinite glory of God's nature, which is the original good and the true fountain of all good, and of loveliness of every kind. A natural principle of self-love may be the foundation of great affections towards God and Christ. without seeing anything of the beauty and glory of the divine nature. There is a certain gratitude that is a mere natural thing. Gratitude is one of the natural affections, as well as anger. And there is a gratitude that arises from self-love, very much in the same manner that anger does. Anger in men is an affection excited against or in opposition to another for something in him that crosses self-love. Gratitude is an affection one has towards another, for loving or gratifying him, or for something in him that suits self-love. And there may be a kind of gratitude without any true or proper love, as there may be anger without hatred, as in parents towards their children, with whom they may be angry, and yet at the same time have a strong habitual love to them. Of this gratitude Christ declares, Luke 6, Sinners love those that love them, even the publicans who were some of the most carnal and profligate sort of men, Matthew 5.46. This is a principle wrought upon bribery and unjust judges, in which even the brute beasts exercise. A dog will love its master that is kind to him. And we see in innumerable instances that mere nature is sufficient to excite gratitude in men, or to affect their hearts with thankfulness to others for kindnesses received, and sometimes towards them against whom at the same time they have a habitual enmity. Thus Saul was once and again greatly affected and even dissolved with gratitude towards David for sparing his life, and yet remained an habitual enemy to him. And as men from mere nature may be thus affected towards men, so they may towards God. Nothing hinders but that the same self-love may work after the same manner towards God as towards men. And we have manifest instances of it in Scripture, as indeed the children of Israel, who sang God's praises at the Red Sea, but soon forgot his works. Naaman, the Syrian, was greatly affected with a miraculous cure of his leprosy. His heart was engaged thenceforward. to worship the God who had healed him, excepting it would expose him to be ruined in his temporal interest. So was Nebuchadnezzar greatly affected with God's goodness to him, and restoring him to his reason and kingdom after his dwelling with the beasts. Gratitude being thus a natural principle, ingratitude is so much the more vile and heinous, because it shows a dreadful prevalence of wickedness, when it even overbears and suppresses the better principles of human nature. It is mentioned as an evidence of the high degree of wickedness in many of the heathen, that they are without natural affection. But that the lack of gratitude or natural affection are evidences of a high degree of vice, is no argument that all gratitude and natural affection has a nature of virtue or saving grace. Self-love, through the exercise of a mere natural gratitude, may be the foundation of a sort of love to God in many ways. A kind of love may arise from a false notion of God that men have some way imbibed, as though He were the only goodness and mercy, and no revenging justice, or as though the exercise of His goodness were necessary and not free and sovereign, or as though His goodness were dependent on what is in them. and as it were constrained by them. Men on such grounds as these may love a God of their own forming in their imaginations, when they are far from loving such a God as reigns in the heaven. Again, self-love may be the foundation of an affection in men towards God through a great insensibility of their state with regard to God, and for lack of conviction of conscience, to make them sensible how dreadfully they have provoked Him to anger. They have no sense of the heinousness of sin, as against God, and of the infinite and terrible opposition of the holy nature of God against it. Having formed in their minds such a God as suits them, and thinking Him to be such in one as themselves, who favors and agrees with them, they may like Him very well, and feel a sort of love to Him, when they are far from loving the true God. And men's affections may be much moved towards God from self-love by some remarkable outward benefits received from Him, as it was with Naaman, Nebuchadnezzar, and the children of Israel at the Red Sea. Again, a very high affection towards God may and often does arise in men from an opinion of the favor and love of God to them, is the first foundation of their love to Him. After awakenings and distress, through fears of hell, they may suddenly get a notion, through some impression on their imagination, or immediate suggestion with or without text of scripture, or by some other means that God loves them, has forgiven their sins and made them His children, and this is the first thing that causes their affections to flow towards God and Jesus Christ. And then upon this foundation many things in God may appear lovely to them, and Christ may seem excellent. And if such persons are asked whether God appears lovely and amiable in Himself, they would perhaps readily answer, Yes, when indeedeth a matter be strictly examined, this good opinion of God was purchased and paid for, and the distinguishing and infinite benefits they imagine they receive from God. They allow God to be lovely in Himself, no otherwise, than that He has forgiven and accepted them, loves them above most in the world, and has engaged to improve all His infinite power and wisdom in preferring, dignifying, and exalting them, and will do for them just as they would have Him. When once they are firm in this apprehension, It is easy to own God and Christ to be lovely and glorious, and to admire and extol them. It is easy for them to own Christ to be a lovely person, and the best in the world, when they are first firm in the notion that He, the Lord of the universe, is captivated with love to them, has His heart swallowed up in them, prizes them far beyond most of their neighbors, has loved them from eternity, and died for them. and will make them reign in eternal glory with him in heaven. When this is the case with carnal men, their very lusts will make them seem lovely. Pride itself will prejudice them in favor of that which they call Christ. Selfish, proud men naturally call that lovely, which greatly contributes to his interest and gratifies his ambition. And as this sort of person begins, so they go on. Their affections are raised from time to time primarily on this foundation of self-love, and a conceit of God's love to them. Many have a false notion of communion with God, as though it were carried on by impulses and whispers and external representations immediately made to their imagination, the things they take to be manifestations of God's great love to them. and evidences of their high exaltation above others, and so their affections are often renewedly set a-going. Whereas the exercises of true and holy love in the saints arise in another way, they do not first see that God loves them, and then see that He is lovely, but they first see that God is lovely and that Christ is excellent and glorious their hearts are first captivated with this view and the exercises of their love are want from time to time to begin here and to arise primarily from these views and then consequentially they see God's love and great favor to them quote there is a scene of Christ after a man believes which is Christ in his love and so on But I speak of that first side of him that precedes the second act of faith, and it is an intuitive or real side of him as he is in its glory." The saints' affections begin with God, and self-love has a hand in these affections consequentially and secondarily only. On the contrary, false affections begin with self, and an acknowledgment of an excellency in God, and an effectedness with it, is only consequential and dependent. In the love of the true saint, God is the lowest foundation. The love of the excellency of his nature is the foundation of all the affections which come afterwards, wherein self-love is concerned as a handmaid. On the contrary, the hypocrite lays himself at the bottom of all, as the first foundation, and lays on God as a superstructure, and even his acknowledgement of God's glory itself depends on his regard to his private interest. Self-love may not only influence men so as to cause them to be affected with God's kindness to them separately, but also with God's kindness to them as parts of a community. A natural principle of self-love, without any other, may be sufficient to make a man concerned for the interest of the nation to which he belongs. As, for instance, in the present war, self-love may make natural men rejoice at the successes of our nation, and sorry for their disadvantages, they being concerned as members of the body. The same natural principles may extend even to the world of mankind, and might be affected with the benefits the inhabitants of the earth have, beyond those of the inhabitants of other planets, if we knew that such there were, and knew how it was with them. So this principle may cause men to be affected with the benefits mankind have received beyond the fallen angels, with the wonderful goodness of God, and given his son to die for fallen men. with the marvelous love of Christ in suffering great things for us, and with the great glory they hear that God has provided in heaven for us. Looking on themselves as persons concerned, interested, and so highly favored, the same principle of natural gratitude may influence men here as in the case of personal benefits. But these things by no means imply that all gratitude to God is a mere natural thing, that there is no such thing as a spiritual gratitude which is a holy and divine affection. They imply no more than that there is a gratitude which is merely natural, and that when persons have affections towards God only, or primarily for benefits received, their affection is only the exercise of natural gratitude. There is doubtless such a thing as a gracious gratitude which greatly differs from all that gratitude which natural men experience. It differs in the following respects. Number one, true gratitude or thankfulness to God for his kindness to us arises from a foundation laid before of love to God for what he is in himself. Whereas a natural gratitude has no such antecedent foundation. The gracious stirrings of grateful affection to God for kindness received always are from a stock of love already in the heart, established in the first place on other grounds, God's own excellency, and hence the affections are disposed to flow out on occasions of God's kindness. The saint, having seen the glory of God and his heart overcome by it, and captivated into a supreme love to him on that account, His heart hereby becomes tender and easily affected with kindness received. If a man has no love to another, yet gratitude may be moved by some extraordinary kindness as in Saul towards David, But this is not the same in kind, as a man's gratitude to a dear friend, for whom his heart had before a high esteem and love. Self-love is not excluded from a gracious gratitude. The saints love God for his kindness to them. Psalm 116 1 I love the Lord, because he has heard the voice of my supplications. But something else is included. Another love prepares a way, and lays a foundation for these grateful affections. Number two, in a gracious gratitude, men are affected with the attribute of God's goodness and free grace not only as they are concerned in it, or as it affects their interest, but as a part of the glory and beauty of God's nature. That wonderful and unparalleled grace of God, which is manifested in the work of redemption and shines forth in the face of Jesus Christ, is infinitely glory in itself, and appears so to the angels. It is a great part of the moral perfection and beauty of God's nature. This would be glorious whether it were exercised towards us or not. And the saint who exercises a gracious thankfulness for it, sees it to be so, and delights in it as such. Yea, his concern in it serves the more to engage his mind, and raises attention and affection. Self-love here assists us in handmade being subservient to higher principles, to lead forth the mind to contemplation and to heightened joy and love. God's kindness to them is a glass set before them, wherein to behold the beautiful attribute of God's goodness. The exercises and displays of this attribute, by this means, are brought near to them and set right before them. So that in a holy thankfulness to God, the concern our interest has in God's goodness is not the first foundation of our being affected with it, that was laid in the heart before. In love to God for His excellency in Himself, that makes the heart tender and susceptive of such impressions from His goodness to us. Nor is our own interest or the benefits we have received, the only or the chief objective ground of the present exercises of the affection, but rather God's goodness is part of the beauty of His nature. The manifestations of that lovely attribute, however set immediately before our eyes, in the exercise of it for us, are a special occasion of the mind's attention to that beauty at that time, and this may serve to heighten the affection. Some may perhaps be ready to object against the whole that has been said by that text in 1 John 4.19. we love him because he first loved us. As though this implied that God's love to the true saints were the first foundation of their love to him. In answer to this, I would observe that the apostles' drift in these words is to magnify the love of God to us from hence that he loved us while we had no love to him, as will be manifest to anyone who compares this verse and the two following with the ninth, tenth, and eleventh verses. and that God loved us when we had no love to him. The apostle proves by this argument that God's love to the elect is the ground of their love to him. It is so in three ways. One, the saints' love to God is a fruit of God's love to them, as it is a gift of that love. God gave them a spirit of love to him because he loved them from eternity. His love to his elect is a foundation of their regeneration and the whole of their redemption. Please turn your cassette to side two at this time. Number two. The exercises and discoveries God has made of his wonderful love to sinful men by Jesus Christ in the work of redemption are among the chief manifestations of his glorious moral perfections to both angels and men. And so is one main objective ground of the love of both to God and a good conscience with what was said before. 3. God's love to a particular elect person discovered by his conversion is a great manifestation of God's moral perfection and glory to him, and thus is a proper occasion of exciting holy gratitude agreeable to what was said before. and that the saints in these respects love God because He first loved them, fully answers the design of the apostles' argument in that place, so that no good argument can be drawn from, hence, against a spiritual and gracious love in the saints arising primarily from the excellency of divine things as they are in themselves, and not from any conceived relation they bear to their interest. And as it is with the love of the saints, so it is with their joy and spiritual delight. The first foundation of it is not any consideration of their interest in divine things, but it primarily consists in the sweet entertainment their minds have in the contemplation of the divine and holy beauty of these things as they are in themselves. And this is indeed the very main difference between the joy of the hypocrite and the joy of the true saint. The former rejoices in himself. Self is the first foundation of his joy. The latter rejoices in God. The hypocrite has his mind pleased and delighted in the first place with his own privilege and happiness, to which he supposes he has attained or shall attain. True saints have their minds, in the first place, inexpressibly pleased and delighted with the sweet ideas of the glorious and amiable nature of the things of God. This is the spring of all their delights. and the cream of all their pleasures. It is the joy of their joy. The sweet and ravishing entertainment they have in viewing the beautiful and delightful nature of divine things is the foundation of the joy they have afterward in the consideration of their being theirs. But the dependence of the affections of hypocrites is in a contrary order. They first rejoice and are elevated that they are favorites of God, and then on that ground He seems an assort lovely to them. The affections of hypocrites are very often after this manner. They are first much affected with some impression on their imagination or some impulse which they take to be an immediate suggestion or testimony from God of His love and their happiness. They fancy a high privilege in some respect, either with or without a text of Scripture. They are mightily taken with this as a great discovery, and hence arise high affections. When their affections are raised, they view those high affections and call them great and wonderful experiences, and they have a notion that God is greatly pleased with those affections. This affects them still more, and so they are affected with their affections. Thus their affections rise higher and higher until they sometimes are perfectly swallowed up. Also self-conceit and a fierce zeal arises, and all is built, like a castle in the air, on nothing but imagination, self-love, and pride. And as the thoughts of such persons, so is their talk, for out of the abundance of their heart their mouth speaketh. As in their high affections they keep their eye upon the beauty of their experiences and greatness of their attainments, so they are great talkers about themselves. The true saint, when under great spiritual affections from the fullness of his heart, is ready to speak much of God, his glorious perfections and works, the beauty and amiableness of Christ, and the glorious things of the gospel. But hypocrites in their high affections talk more of the discovery than of the thing discovered. They are full of talk about the wonderful discoveries they have had, how sure they are of the love of God to them. how safe their condition is, how they know they shall go to heaven, and so on. As the love and joy of hypocrites are all from the source of self-love, so it is with their other affections, their sorrow for sin, their humiliation and submission, their religious desires and zeal. Everything is, as it were, paid for beforehand, and God's highly gratifying their self-love by making so much of them and exalting them so highly as things are in their imagination. It is easy for nature, corrupt as it is, under a notion of being already some of the highest favorites of heaven, and having a God who so protects and favors them in their sins, to love this imaginary God that suits them so well, and equally easy to exalt and to be fierce and zealous for Him. The high affections of many are all built on the supposition of their being eminent If that opinion which they have of themselves were taken away, if they thought they were some of the lower form of saints, though they should yet suppose themselves to be real saints, their high affections would fall to the ground. If only they saw a little of the sinfulness and vileness of their own hearts, and their deformity in the midst of their best duties. and their best affections, it would destroy their affections, because they are built upon self. Self-knowledge would destroy them. But as to truly gracious affections, they have their foundation in God and Jesus Christ, and therefore a discovery of themselves, of their own deformity, and the meanness of their experiences, though it will purify their affections, yet it will not destroy them, but in some respect sweeten and heighten them. Section 4 Gracious affections arise from the mind being enlightened rightly and spiritually to apprehend divine things. Holy affections are not heat without light, but evermore arise from some information of the understanding, some spiritual instruction that the mind receives, some light or actual knowledge The child of God is graciously affected because he sees and understands something more of divine things than he did before, more of God or Christ, and of the glorious things exhibited in the gospel. He has a clearer and better view than he had before when he was not affected. Either he receives some new understanding of divine things or has his former knowledge renewed after the view was decayed. First John 4 7. Everyone that loveth knoweth God. Philippians 1.9 I pray that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and in all judgment. Romans 10.2 They have the zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. Colossians 3.10 The new man which is renewed in knowledge. Psalm 43.3-4 O send out thy light and thy truth, let them lead me, let them bring me unto thy holy hill. John 6 45 It is written in the prophets, and they shall all be taught of God. Every man, therefore, that has heard and learned of the Father cometh unto me. Knowledge is the key that first opens a hard heart, enlarges the affections, and opens a way for men into the kingdom of heaven. Luke 1152, you've taken away the key of knowledge. Now there are many affections which do not arise from any light in the understanding, which is a sure evidence that these affections are not spiritual. Let them be ever so high. Thomas Shepard writes, quote, many that have had mighty strong affections at first conversion afterwards become dry and wither, and consume and pine and die away. And now their hypocrisy is manifest, if not to all the world by open profaneness, yet to the discerning eye of living Christians by a formal, barren, unsavory, unfruitful heart in course, because they never had light to conviction enough as yet. It is strange to see some people carried with mighty affection against sin and hell and after Christ. And what is the hell you fear? A dreadful place? What is Christ? They scarce know so much as devils do. But that is all. Oh, trust him not. Many have and these will fall away to some lust or opinion or pride or world. And the reason is they never had light enough, John 5.35. John was a burning and shining light, and they did joy in him for a season. Yet glorious as it was, they saw not Christ by it, especially not with divine light. It is rare to see Christians full both of light and affection, and therefore consider of this. Many a man has been well brought up, and is of a sweet, loving nature. mild and gentle and harmless, likes and loves the best things, and his meaning and mind and heart is good, and has more in heart than in soul, and so hopes all shall go well with him. I say there may lie greatest hypocrisy under greatest affections, especially if they lack light. You shall be hardened in your hypocrisy by them. I never liked violent affections and pains. but only such as were dropped in by light, because those come from an external principle and last not, but these last. Men are not affrighted by the light of the sun, though clearer than the lightning." Indeed, they have some new apprehensions which they had not before, such as the nature of man that it is impossible his mind should be affected unless it be by something that he apprehends or that his mind conceives. But in many persons, those apprehensions or conceptions wherewith they are affected have nothing of the nature of knowledge or instruction in them. For instance, when a person is affected with a lively idea, suddenly excited in his mind, of some shape or beautiful pleasant form of countenance, a shining light, or other glorious outward appearance, here is something conceived by the mind but nothing of the nature of instruction. Persons become never the wiser by such things, more knowing about God, a mediator between God and man, the way of salvation by Christ, or anything contained in the doctrines of the gospel. Persons by these external ideas have no further acquaintance with God as to any of the attributes or perfections of His nature. nor have they any further understanding of His Word, His ways, or works. Truly spiritual and gracious affections are not raised after this manner. They arise from the enlightening of the understanding, to understand the things taught of God and Christ in a new manner. There is a new understanding of the excellent nature of God and His wonderful perfections, some new view of Christ and His spiritual excellencies and fullness. or things are opened to him in a new manner whereby he now understands those divine and spiritual doctrines which were once foolishness to him. Such enlightenings of the understanding as these are entirely different in their nature from strong ideas of shapes and colors, outward brightness and glory, or sound and voices. That all gracious affections arise from some instruction or enlightening of is therefore a further proof that affections which arise from such an impression on the imagination are not gracious. Hence also it appears that affections arising from texts of scripture come into the mind or vein when no instruction received in the understanding from those texts or anything taught in those texts is the ground of the affection. but the manner of their coming to the mind. When Christ makes a scripture a means of the hearts burning with gracious affection, it is by opening the scriptures to their understandings. Luke 24, 32. Did not our heart burn within us while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures? It appears also that the affection which is occasioned by the coming of a text of scripture must be vain, when the affection is founded on something that is supposed to be taught by it, which really is not contained in it, nor any other scripture, because such supposed instruction is not real instruction, but a mistake and misapprehension of the mind. As, for instance, when persons suppose that they are expressly taught by some scripture coming to their minds, that they in particular are beloved of God, or that their sins are forgiven, that God is their Father and the like. This is a mistake or misapprehension, for the Scripture nowhere reveals the individual persons who are beloved expressly, but only by consequence, by revealing the qualifications of persons that are beloved of God, and therefore this matter is not to be learned from Scripture any other way than by consequence. and from these qualifications, for things are not to be learned from the Scripture any other way than they are taught in the Scripture. Affections really arise from ignorance rather than instruction, and these instances which have been mentioned, as likewise in some others that might be mentioned. As some, when they find themselves free of speech and prayer, call it God's being with them. This affects them more, and so their affections are set a-going and increased. when they look not into the cause of this freedom of speech, which may arise many other ways besides God's spiritual presence. So some are much affected with some apt thoughts that come into their minds about the Scripture and call it the Spirit of God teaching them. So they ascribe many of the workings of their own minds, which they have a high opinion of, and are pleased and taken with, to the special immediate influences of God's Spirit, and so are mightily affected with their privilege. And there are some instances of persons in whom it seems manifested that the first round of their affection is some bodily sensation. The animal spirits, by some cause, and probably sometimes by the devil, are suddenly and unaccountably put into a very agreeable motion. causing persons to feel pleasantly in their bodies. The animal spirits are put into such a motion as is wont to be connected with the exhilaration of the mind and the soul by the laws of the union of soul and body, hence feels pleasure. The motion of the animal spirits does not first arise from any affection or apprehension of the mind whatsoever, but the very first thing that is felt is an exhilaration of the animal spirits and a pleasant external sensation, it may be, in their breaths. Hence, through ignorance, a person being surprised begins to think, surely this is the Holy Ghost coming into him, and then the mind begins to be affected and raised. There is first great joy, and then many other affections, in a very tumultuous manner, putting all nature, both body and mind, into a mighty ruffle. For though, as I observed before, it is only the soul that is the seed of the affections, yet this hinders not but that bodily sensations may in this manner be an occasion of affections in the mind. And though men's religious affections truly arise from some instruction or light in the understanding, Yet the affection is not gracious unless the light which is the ground of it be spiritual. Affections may be excited by that understanding of things which they obtain merrily by human teaching, with the common improvement of the faculties of the mind. Men may be much affected by knowledge of things of religion that they obtain this way, if some philosophers have been mightily affected, and almost carried beyond themselves, by the discoveries they have made in mathematics and natural philosophy. So men may be much affected from common illuminations of the Spirit of God, in which God assists men's faculties to a greater degree of that kind of understanding of religious matters, which they have in some degree by only the ordinary exercise and improvement of their own faculties. Such illuminations may much affect the mind, as in many whom we read of in Scripture that were once enlightened. But these affections are not spiritual. There is such a thing, if the Scriptures are of any use to teach us anything, as a spiritual, supernatural understanding of divine things that is peculiar to the saints. in which those who are not saints have nothing of. It is this kind of understanding, apprehending, or discerning of divine things that natural men have nothing of, as the Apostle speaks 1 Corinthians 2.14. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him. Neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. It is certainly a kind of seeing, or discerning spiritual things peculiar to the saints, which is spoken of in 1 John 3 verse 6. Whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him. In 3 John 11, he that doeth evil hath not seen God. In John 6.40, this is the will of Him that sent me, that everyone that seeth the Son and believeth on Him may have everlasting life. In chapter 14.19, the world seeth me no more, but ye see me. In chapter 17.3, this is eternal life, that they might know thee, the only true God in Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. Matthew 11.27, No man knoweth the Son, but the Father. Neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him. John 17 45 He that seeth me, seeth him that sent me. Psalm 9 10 They that know thy name will put their trust in thee. Philippians 3 8 I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. in verse 10, that I may know him. And in innumerable other places there are, all over the Bible, which show the same. And that there is such a thing as an understanding of divine things, which in its nature and kind is wholly different from all knowledge that natural men have, is evident from this, that there is an understanding of divine things which the scripture calls spiritual understanding, Colossians 1.9. We do not cease to pray for you and to desire that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will and all wisdom and spiritual understanding. It has been already showed that that which is spiritual in an ordinary use of that word in the New Testament is entirely different to nature and kind from all which natural men are or can be the subjects of. From hence it may be surely inferred wherein spiritual understanding consists. For if there be in the saints a kind of apprehension or perception which is in its nature perfectly diverse from all that natural men have, or that it is possible they should have until they have a new nature, It must consist in their having a certain kind of ideas or sensations of mind, which are simply diverse from all that is or can be in the minds of natural men. That is the same thing as to say that it consists in the sensations of a new spiritual sense, which the souls of natural men have not. as is evident by what has been repeatedly observed. Spiritual understanding consists primarily in a cordial sense, or a sense of heart, of that spiritual beauty. I say a sense of heart, for it is not speculation merely that is concerned in this kind of understanding, nor can there be a clear distinction made between the two faculties of understanding and will as acting distinctly and separately in this manner. When the mind is sensible of the sweet beauty and amiableness of a thing, that implies a sensibleness of sweetness and delight in the presence of the idea of it, and this sensibleness of the amiableness or delightfulness of beauty carries, in the very nature of it, the sense of the heart. There is a distinction to be made between a mere notional understanding wherein the mind only beholds things in the exercise of a speculative faculty, and the sense of the heart, wherein the mind does not only speculate and behold, but relishes and feels. That sort of knowledge by which a man has a sensible perception of amiableness and loathsomeness, or a sweetness and nauseousness, is not just the same sort of knowledge with that by which he knows what a triangle is and what a square is. The one is mere speculative knowledge, the other sensible knowledge in which more than the mere intellect is concerned, the heart is a proper subject of it, or the soul as a being that not only beholds, but has inclination, and is pleased or displeased. And yet there is a nature of instruction in it. as he that has perceived the sweet taste of honey knows much more about it than he who has only looked upon and felt it. The Apostle seems to make a distinction between mere speculative knowledge of the things of religion and spiritual knowledge. The former he terms a form of knowledge and of the truth, Romans 2.20, which has the form of knowledge and of the truth in the law. The latter is often represented by relishing, smelling, or tasting 2 Corinthians 2.14. Now thanks be to God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place. Matthew 16.23 Thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. 1 Peter 2, 2 and 3. As newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the Word, that ye may grow thereby, if so be ye of taste that the Lord is gracious. Canticles 1, 3. Because of the savour of thy good ointments, thy name is as ointment poured forth. Therefore do the virgins love thee. Compared with 1 John 2.20, but ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things. Spiritual understanding primarily consists in this sense or taste of the moral beauty of divine things, so that no knowledge can be called spiritual any further than it arises from this and has this in it. But secondarily, it includes all that discerning and knowledge of things of religion which depends upon and flows from such a sense. When the true beauty and amiableness of the holiness or true moral good that is in divine things is discovered to the soul, it, as it were, opens a new world to its view. This shows the glory of all the perfections of God and of everything appertaining to the divine being. For as was observed before, the beauty of all arises from God's moral perfection. This shows the glory of all God's works, both of creation and providence. For it is the special glory of them that God's holiness, righteousness, faithfulness, and goodness are so manifested in them, and without these moral perfections there would be no glory of that power and skill with which they are wrought. The glorifying of God's moral perfections is the special end of all the works of God's hands. by this sense of the moral beauty of divine things is understood the sufficiency of Christ as a mediator. For it is only by the discovery of the beauty of the moral perfection of Christ that the believer is let into the knowledge of the excellency of his person, so as to know anything more of it than the devils do. And it is only by the knowledge of the excellency of Christ's person that any know his sufficiency as a mediator, for the latter depends upon and arises from the former. It is by seeing the excellency of Christ's person that the saints are made sensible of the preciousness of his blood and his sufficiency to atone for sin. For therein consists the preciousness of Christ's blood, that it is the blood of so excellent and amiable a person, and on this depends the meritoriousness of his obedience, and the sufficiency and prevalence of his intercession. By this sight of the moral beauty of divine things is seen the beauty of the way of salvation by Christ. For that consists in the beauty of the moral perfections of God, which wonderfully shines forth in every step of this method of salvation from beginning to end. By this is seen the fitness and suitableness of this way. For this holy consists in its tendency to deliver us from sin and hell, and to bring us to the happiness which consists in the possession and enjoyment of moral good in a way sweetly agreeing with God's moral perfections. and in the way being contrived so as to attain these ends, consists in the excellent wisdom of that way. By this is seen the excellency of the word of God. Take away all the moral beauty and sweetness in the word, and the Bible is left wholly a dead letter, a dry, lifeless, tasteless thing. By this is seen the true foundation of our duty, the worthiness of God to be so esteemed, honored, loved, submitted to, and served, as He requires of us, and the amiableness of the duties themselves that are required of us. And by this is seen the true evil of sin, for he who sees the beauty of holiness must necessarily see the hatefulness of sin as contrary. By this men understand the true glory of heaven, which consists in the beauty and happiness that is in holiness. By this is seen the amiableness and happiness of both saints and angels. He that sees the beauty of holiness, or true moral good, sees the greatest and most important thing in the world, which is the fullness of all things, without which all the world is empty, no better than nothing, yea, worse than nothing. Unless this is seen, nothing is seen that is worth the seeing, for there is no other true excellency or beauty. Unless this be understood, nothing is understood that is worthy of the exercise of the noble faculty of the understanding. This is the beauty of the Godhead and the divinity of divinity, if I may so speak. The good of the infinite fountain of good, without which God Himself, if that were possible, would be an infinite evil, without which we ourselves had better never have been, and without which there had better have been no being. He therefore, in effect, knows nothing that knows not this. His knowledge is but the shadow of knowledge, or the form of knowledge, as the Apostle calls it. Well, therefore, may the Scriptures represent those who are destitute of that spiritual sense by which is perceived the beauty of holiness as totally blind, deaf, and senseless, yea, dead. And well may regeneration in which this divine sense is given to the soul by its Creator be represented as opening the blind eyes, and raising the dead, and bringing a person into a new world. For if what has been said be considered, it will be manifest, that when a person has this sense and knowledge given him, he will view nothing as he did before, though before he knew all things, after the flesh. Yet henceforth he will know them so no more, and he is become a new creature. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new. Agreeable to 2 Corinthians 5, 16 and 17. And besides the things that have been already mentioned, there arises from this sense of spiritual beauty all true experimental knowledge of religion, which is of itself, as it were, a new world of knowledge. He that sees not the beauty of holiness knows not what one of the graces of God's Spirit is. He is destitute of any idea or conception of all gracious exercises of the soul, and all holy comforts and delights, and all effects of the saving influences of the Spirit of God on the heart, and so is ignorant of the greatest works of God, the most important and glorious effects of His power upon the creature, and also is wholly ignorant of the saints as saints. He knows not what they are, and in effect is ignorant of the whole spiritual world. Things being thus, it plainly appears that God's implanting of that spiritual supernatural sense which has been spoken of makes a great change in a man. And were it not for the very imperfect degree in which this sense is commonly given at first, or the small degree of this glorious light that first dawns upon the soul, the change made by the spiritual opening of the eyes in conversion would be much greater and more remarkable every way, than if a man who had been born blind, and with only the other four senses, should continue so long a time, and then at once should have the sense of seeing imparted to him in the midst of the clear light of the sun, discovering a world of visible objects. For though sight be more noble than any of the other external senses, yet the spiritual sense is infinitely more noble than that, or any other principle of discerning that a man naturally has, and the object of this sense infinitely greater and more important. The sort of understanding is, that knowledge of divine things from whence all truly gracious affections proceed, but which therefore all affections are to be tried. Those affections that arise wholly from any other kind of knowledge, or result from any other kind of apprehensions of mind, are vain. From what has been said may be learned wherein the most essential difference lies between that light or understanding which is given by the common influences of the Spirit of God on the hearts of natural men, and that saving instruction which is given to the saints. The latter primarily, and most essentially, lies in beholding the holy beauty that is in divine things, which is the only true moral good, and which the soul of fallen man is by nature totally blind to. The former consists only in a further understanding, through the assistance of natural principles, of those things which men may know in some measure by the alone ordinary exercise of their faculties. And this knowledge consists only in the knowledge of those things pertaining to religion which are natural. Thus, for instance, in those awakenings of the conscience that natural men are often subject to, the Spirit of God gives no knowledge of the true moral beauty which is in divine things, but only assist the mind to a clearer idea of the guilt of sin, or its relation to punishment, and its connection with the evil of suffering, without any sight of its true moral evil or odiousness as sin, and a clearer idea of the natural perfections of God, wherein consists not only His holy beauty and glory, but His awful and terrible greatness. It is a clear sight of this that will fully awaken the consciences of wicked men at the day of judgment without any spiritual light. And it is a lesser degree of the same that awakens the consciences of natural men without spiritual light in this world. The same discoveries are, in some measure, given in the conscience of an awakened sinner in this world, which will be given more fully in the consciences of sinners at the day of judgment. The same kind of sight or apprehension of God in a lesser degree makes awakened sinners in this world sensible of the dreadful guilt of sin against so great and terrible a God, and sensible of its amazing punishment, and fills them with fearful apprehensions of divine wrath. This will thoroughly convince all wicked men of the infinitely dreadful nature and guilt of sin, and astonish them with apprehensions of wrath, when Christ shall come in the glory of His power and majesty, and every eye shall see Him, and all the kindreds of the earth shall wail before Him. And in those common illuminations which are sometimes given to natural men, exciting in them some kind of religious desire, love, and joy, the mind is only assisted to a clearer apprehension of the natural good that is in divine things. Thus, sometimes under common illuminations, men are raised with the ideas of the natural good that is in heaven, as its outward glory, its ease, its honor and advancement, all persons there being the objects of the high favor of God. So there are many things exhibited in the gospel concerning God and Christ in the way of salvation that have a natural good in them, which suits the natural principle of self-love. Thus, in the great goodness of God to sinners and the wonderful dying love of Christ, there is a natural good which all men love as they love themselves, as well as a spiritual and holy beauty which is seen only by the regenerate. Therefore, there are many things appertaining to the word of God's grace delivered in the gospel, which may cause natural men, when they hear it, anon with joy to receive it. All that love which natural men have to God and Christ, and to Christian virtues and good men, is not from any side of the amiableness of the holiness. or true moral excellency of these things, but only for the sake of the natural good there is in them. All natural men's hatred of sin is as much from principles of nature as a man's hatred of a tiger for his viciousness. Or their aversion to a serpent for his poison and hurtfulness, and all their love of Christian virtue, is from no higher principle than their love of a man's good nature, which appears amiable to natural men, but no otherwise in silver and gold appear amiable in the eyes of a merchant. Or than the blackness of the soil is beautiful in the eyes of the farmer. From what has been said of the nature of spiritual understanding, it appears that spiritual understanding does not consist in any new doctrinal knowledge, or in having suggested to the mind any new proposition not before read or heard of, for it is plain that this suggesting of new propositions is a thing entirely diverse from giving the mind a new state or relish of beauty and sweetness. Calvin in his Institute says, quote, The office of the Spirit promised us is not to make new and unheard of revelations or to coin some new kind of doctrine by which we may be led away from the received doctrine of the gospel. but to seal and confirm to us that very doctrine which is by the gospel. And in the same place he speaks of some that in those days maintained a contrary notion, pretending to be immediately led by the Spirit, as persons that were governed by a most haughty self-conceit, and not so properly to be looked upon as only laboring under a mistake, but as driven by a sort of raving madness. It is also evident the spiritual knowledge does not consist in any new doctrinal explanation of any part of the scripture. For still, this is but doctrinal knowledge or the knowledge of propositions. The doctrinal explaining of any part of scripture is only giving us to understand what are the propositions contained or taught in that part of scripture. Hence it appears that the spiritual understanding of the Scripture does not consist in opening to the mind the mystical meaning of the Scripture in its parables, types, and allegories, for this is only a doctrinal explication of the Scripture. He that explains what is meant by the stony ground and the seeds springing up suddenly and quickly withering away only explains what propositions or doctrines are taught in it. so that he explains what is typified by Jacob's ladder and the angels of God ascending and descending on it, or what was typified by Joshua's leading Israel through Jordan, only shows what propositions are hid in these passages. And many men can explain these types who have no spiritual knowledge. It is possible that a man might know how to interpret all the types, parables, enigmas, and allegories in the Bible and not have one beam of spiritual light in his mind, because he may not have the least degree of that spiritual sense of the holy beauty of divine things which has been spoken of, and may see nothing of this kind of glory in anything contained in any of these mysteries or any other part of the Scripture. It is plain by what the Apostle says that a man might understand all such mysteries and have no saving grace, 1 Corinthians 13 2. And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and have not charity, It profiteth me nothing. They therefore are very foolish, who are exalted in an opinion of their own spiritual attainments from notions that come into their minds of the mystical meaning of these and those passages of Scripture, as though it was a spiritual understanding of these passages, immediately given them by the Spirit of God. Their affections may be highly raised, but what has been said shows a vanity of such affections. From what has been said, it is also evident that it is not spiritual knowledge for persons to be informed of their duty by having it immediately suggested to their minds that such and such outward actions or deeds are the will of God. If we suppose that it is truly God's manner thus to signify His will to His people by immediate inward suggestions, such suggestions have nothing of the nature of spiritual light. Such kind of knowledge would only be one kind of doctrinal knowledge. A proposition concerning the will of God is as properly a doctrine of religion as a proposition concerning the nature of God or a work of God. And a having either of these kinds of propositions, or any other proposition, declared to a man, either by speech or inward suggestion, differs vastly from a having the holy beauty of divine things manifested to the soul wherein spiritual knowledge does most essentially consist. Thus, there was no spiritual light in Balaam, Though he have the will of God immediately suggested to him by the Spirit of God from time to time concerning the way that he should go and what he should do and say. It is manifest, therefore, that a being led and directed in this manner is not that holy and spiritual leading of the Spirit of God which is peculiar to the saints and a distinguishing mark of the sons of God spoken of in Romans 8.14. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. Galatians 5.18. But if you be led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. And if persons have the will of God concerning their actions suggested to them by some text of Scripture, suddenly and extraordinarily brought to their minds, which text, as the words lay in the Bible before they came to their minds, related to the action and behavior of some other person, but they suppose as God sent the words to them, He intended something further by them, and meant some particular action of theirs, I say, if persons should have the will of God thus suggested to them with texts of Scripture, it alters not the case that the suggestion is accompanied with an apt text of Scripture does not give it the nature of spiritual instruction. As, for instance, if a person in New England or on some occasion were at a loss to know whether it was his duty to go into some pulpit or heathenish land, where he was like to be exposed to many difficulties and dangers, and should pray to God that he would show him the way of his duty, and after earnest prayer should have those words which God spake to Jacob suddenly and extraordinarily brought to his mind, as if they were spoken to him, Fear not to go down into Egypt, for I will go with thee, and I also will bring thee up again. in which words, though as they lay in the Bible before they came to his mind, they related only to Jacob and his behavior, yet he supposes that God has a further meaning, as they were brought and applied to him, that thus they are to be understood in a new sense, that by Egypt is to be understood the particular country he has in his mind, and that the action intended is only going there, and that the meaning of the promise is that God would bring him back into New England again. There is nothing of the nature of a spiritual or gracious leading of the Spirit in this, for there is nothing of the nature of spiritual understanding in it. Thus to understand texts of Scripture is not to have a spiritual understanding of them. Spiritually to understand the Scripture is rightly to understand what is in the Scripture, and what was in it before it was understood. It is to understand rightly what used to be contained in the meaning of it, and not the making of a new meaning. When the mind is enlightened spiritually and rightly to understand the scripture, it is enabled to see that in the scripture which before was not seen by reason of blindness. But if it was by reason of blindness, that is an evidence that the same meaning was in it before. Otherwise it would have been no blindness not to see it. It is no blindness not to see a meaning which is not there. Please go to cassette number six at this time.