O vainest of all vain Projects! For what is Christianity, but that which Christ was while on Earth? What can it be, but that which it is, and has from him? He is a King, who has all Power in Heaven and on Earth, and his Kingdom, like himself, is not of this World. Away then with the Projects of popish Pomp, and pagan Literature to support it; they are as wise Contrivances, as a high Tower of Babel to defend it against the gates of Hell.

I come now to the Quotation from the pastoral Letter of Mr. S. . . "A judicious Writer," (says the Dissertation), "observes, that Sound Understanding and Reason are That on which, and by which, God principally operates when he finds it proper to assist our weakness by his Spirit."

I cannot more illustrate the Sense, or extol the Judgment, both of the Author, and Quoter of this Striking Passage, than by the following Words.

"A judicious Naturalist observes, that Sound and Strong Lungs are that on which, and by which, the Air or Spirit of this World principally operates, when he finds it proper to assist, the Weakness of our Lungs, by his Breathing into them."— Now if any right minded Man should happen to find his Heart edified, his Understanding enlightened, by the above Passage on Divine Inspiration, he will be much pleased at my assuring him, that the Pastoral Letter of Mr. S. . ., and the Dissertation on Enthusiasm by Mr. G . . ., are from the Beginning to the End full every bit as good, in every Respect, as that is. These two Instances are Proof enough, that as soon as any Man trusts to natural Abilities, Skill in Languages, and commonplace Learning, as the true Means of entering into the Kingdom of God, a Kingdom, which is Nothing else but Righteousness, Peace, and Joy in the Holy Ghost, he gives himself up to certain Delusion, and can escape no Error that is popular, or that suits his State and Situation in the learned, religious World.— He has sold his Birth-right in the Gospel State of Divine Illumination, to make a Figure and Noise with the Sounding Brass and Tinkling Cymbals of the natural Man.

From which source is it, that we see Genius and natural Abilities to be equally pleased with, and equally contending for the Errors and Absurdities of every System of Religion, under which they are educated? It is because Genius and Natural Abilities are just the same Things, and must have the same nature now, as they had in the ancient schools of the Peripatetic, Academic, Stoic, and Atheistical Philosophers.— "The Temptation of Honor, which the Academic Exercise of Wit" (as Dr. W. says) "was supposed to bring to its Professor," has still its Power among Church Disputants. It can not possibly ever be otherwise, till Parts and Genius, etc., do, as the Blind, the Deaf, the Dumb, and Lepers formerly did, go to be healed of their natural Disorders by the Inspiration of that Oracle, who said, "I am the Light of the World, He that follows me, walks not in Darkness."— "No Man comes unto the Father but by me."— Well therefore might St. Paul say, "I have determined to know Nothing among you, but Christ, and him crucified."— And had it not been for this Determination, he had never known, what he then knew, when he said, "The Life that I now live, is not mine, but Christ's that lives in me."— Now did the Apostle here over stretch the Matter? Was it a Spirit of Enthusiasm, and not of Christ living in him, that made this Declaration? Was He here making Way for Ignorance and Darkness to extinguish the Light that came down from Heaven, and was the Light of the World?— Did he here undermine the true Ground and Rock on which the Church of Christ was to stand, and prevail against the Gates of Hell?

Did he by setting up this Knowledge, as the best and only Knowledge that an apostle need to have, break down the Fences of Christ's Vineyard, rob the Church of all its strong Holds, leave it defenseless, without a Pale, and a ready Prey to Infidels?— Who can say this, but that "Spirit of Anti-Christ, that confesses not that Jesus Christ is come in the Flesh?" For, as Christ's intending Nothing, knowing Nothing, willing Nothing, but purely and solely the whole Course of his crucifying Process, was the whole Truth of his being come in the Flesh, was his doing the whole Will of him that sent him, was his overcoming the World, Death, and Hell, so He that embraces this Process, as Christ embraces it, who is wholly given up to it, as Christ was, He has the Will of Christ, and the Mind of Christ, and therefore may well desire to know Nothing else.— To this Man alone, is the World, Death, and Hell, known to be overcome in him, as they were in Christ; to him alone is Christ become the Resurrection and the Life; and he that knows this, he knows with St. Paul that all other Knowledge may, and will be cast away as Dung.— Now if St. Paul, having rejected all other Knowledge but that of a crucified Savior, which to the Jew was a Stumbling-Block, and to the Greek Foolishness, if he had afterwards wrote three such Legation-Volumes as the Doctor has done, for the Food and Nourishment of Christ's Sheep, who can have no Life in them but by eating the true Bread that came down from Heaven, must they not have been called Paul's full Recantation of all that he had taught of a Christ crucified?

The other Instance of Delusion from Book-learning, relates to Mr. G . . ., who wanting to write on Divine Inspiration, runs from Book to Book, from country to country, to pick up Reports wherever he could find them, concerning Divine Inspiration, from this and that judicious Author, that so he might be sure of compiling a Judicious Dissertation on the Subject. All which he might have known to be mere Delusion and lost Labor, had he but remembered, or regarded any one single Saying either of Christ or his Apostles concerning the holy Spirit and his Operations. For not a word is said by them, but fully shows that all Knowledge or Perception of the Spirit is nothing else but the Enjoyment of the Spirit, and that no Man can know more of him than that which the Spirit himself is, and does, and manifests of his Power in Man. "The things of God," says St. Paul, "knows no Man, but the Spirit of God." Is not this decisive upon the Matter?

Is not this Proof enough, that Nothing in Man but the Spirit of God in him, can know what the Spirit's work in Man is and does? The Fruits of the Spirit, so often mentioned in Scripture, are not Things different, or separate from the Spirit; and if the Spirit is not always working in us, his Fruits must be as absent from us as He is. St. John says, "Hereby we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us." A Demonstration, that the Spirit can no other way make himself known to us, but by his dwelling and working in us. St. James says, "Every good and perfect Gift comes from ABOVE": but now does not he in reality deny this, who seeks for the highest Gift of Knowledge from BELOW, from the poor Contrivance of a Common-Place Book? Again, "if any Man lack Wisdom, let him ask it of God"; St. James does not say, let him go ask Peter, or Paul, or John, because he knew that Divine Wisdom was Nothing else, but Divine Inspiration.

But Mr. G . . . has got together his ingenious, his eminent writers, his excellent, learned, judicious Authors, his cool, rational- morality Doctors (a Set of Men whose glorious Names we read no more of in the Gospel, than of the profound Aristotle, or the Divine Cicero) and these are to do that for him, which the whole College of Apostles could do for nobody.— Now this Doctrine, that Nothing but the Spirit can know the Things that be of God, and that the Enjoyment of the Spirit, is all the Knowledge that we can have of him, is a truth Taught us, not only by all Scripture, but by the whole Nature of Things. For every Thing that can be seen, known, heard, felt, etc., must be manifested by itself, and not by another. It is not possible for any Thing but Light to manifest Light, nor for any Thing but Darkness to make Darkness to be known.

Yet this is more possible, than for any Thing but Divine Inspiration to make Divine Inspiration to be known. Hence there is a Degree of Delusion still higher, to be noted in such Writers as Mr. G . . . ; for his Collection of ingenious, eminent, rational Authors, of whom he asks Counsel concerning the Necessity or Certainty of the immediate Inspiration of the Spirit, are such as deny it, and write against it. Therefore the Proceeding is just as wise, as if a Man was to consult some ingenious and eminent Atheists, about the truth and certainty of God's immediate continual Providence; or ask a few selected Deists, how, or what he was to believe of the Nature and Power of Gospel Faith.

Now there are the Holy Spirit's own Operations, and there are Reports about them. The only true Reports, are those that are made by inspired Persons; and if there were no such Persons, there could be no true Reports of the Matter. And therefore to consult uninspired Persons, and such as deny and reproach the Pretense to Inspiration, to be rightly instructed about the Truth of immediate continual Divine Inspiration, is a Degree of Blindness greater than can be charged upon the old Jewish Scribes and Pharisees.

The Reports that are to be acknowledged as true concerning the Holy Spirit and his Operations, are those that are recorded in Scripture; that is, the scriptures are an infallible History, or Relation of that which the Holy Spirit is, and does, and works in true Believers; and also an infallible Direction how we are to seek, and wait, and trust in his good Power over us. But then the Scriptures themselves, though thus true and infallible in these Reports and Instructions about the Holy Spirit, yet they can go no further than to be a true History; they cannot give to the Reader of them the Possession, the Sensibility, and Enjoyment of that which they relate.

This is plain, not only from the Nature of a written History or Instruction, but from the express Words of our Lord, saying, "Except a Man be born again of the Spirit, he cannot see or enter into the Kingdom of God." Therefore the new Birth from above, or of the Spirit, is that alone which gives true Knowledge and Perception of that which is the Kingdom of God. The History may relate Truths enough about it; but the Kingdom of God, being Nothing else but the Power and Presence of God, dwelling and ruling in our Souls, this can only manifest itself, and can manifest itself to Nothing in Man but to the New Birth.

For every Thing else in Man is deaf and dumb and blind to the Kingdom of God; but when that which died in Adam is made alive again by the quickening Spirit from above, this being the Birth which came at first from God, and a Partaker of the Divine Nature, this knows, and enjoys the Kingdom of God. "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life," says Christ: this Record of Scripture is true; but what a Delusion, for a Man to think that he knows and finds this to be true, and that Christ is all this Benefit and Blessing to him, because he assents, consents, and contends, it may be, for the Truth of those Words. This is impossible.

The new Birth is here again the Only Power of Entrance; every Thing else knocks at the Door in vain: "I know you not," says Christ to every Thing, but the New Birth.— "I am the way, the Truth and the Life"; this tells us neither more nor less, than if Christ had said, I am the Kingdom of God, into which Nothing can enter, but that which is born of the Spirit.

Here again may be seen, in the highest Degree of certainty, the absolute Necessity of immediate Divine Inspiration through every Part of the Christian Life. For if a Birth of the Spirit is that alone that can enter into, or receive the Kingdom of God come amongst Men, that alone which can find Christ to be the Way, the Truth and the Life, then a Continual Life or Breathing of the Spirit in us, must be as Necessary as the first Birth of the Spirit. For a Birth of the Spirit is only to make a Beginning of a Life of the Spirit: Birth is only in order to Life; if therefore the Life of the Spirit continues not, the Birth is lost, and the Cessation of its Breathing in us is nothing else but Death again to the Kingdom of God, that is, to every Thing that is or can be Godly. Therefore the immediate continual Inspiration of the Spirit, as the only possible Power and Preservation of a Godly Life, stands upon the same Ground, and is as absolutely necessary to Salvation, as the new Birth.

Take away this Power and working Life of the Spirit from being the one Life of all that is done in the Church, and then, though it be ever so outwardly glorious in its Extent, or ever so full of learned Members, it can be Nothing else in the sight of God but the wise Greeks and the carnal Jews become a Body of water-baptized Christians. For no one can be in a better State than this, the Wisdom of the Greek, the Carnality of the Jew, must have the whole Government of him, till he is born of and led by the Spirit of God; this alone is the Kingdom of God, and every Thing else is the Kingdom of this World, in which Satan is declared to be the Prince.

Poor, miserable Man! that strives, with all the Sophistry of human Wit, to be delivered from the immediate continual Operation and Governance of the Spirit of God, not considering, that where God is not, there is the devil, and where the Spirit rules not, there all is the Work of the Flesh, though nothing be talked of but Spiritual and Christian matters. I say talked of; for the best Ability of the natural Man can go no further than Talk, and Notions, and Opinions about Scripture Words and Facts; in these, he may be a great Critic, an acute Logician, a powerful Orator, and know everything of Scripture, except the Spirit and the Truth.

How much then is it to be lamented, as well as impossible to be denied, that though all Scripture assures 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 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 descanting upon them? This done, he is thought by himself, and often by others, to have a sufficiency of Divine apostolic 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-Laureate, 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 dropped 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 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 have only 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, (1) "That Nothing is Divine Knowledge in Man, but the Divine Life": (2) "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 Gospel-Book, 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 immortal Words of a 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 of all this, and had no better 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’ Knowledge was. It may say to Christ, as he did, Hail Master; but no one 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 Apostasy 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 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 enters into the Mouth, and corrupts 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 from where Beasts have their Sense and Subtlety; every other Spirit, is but that which gives to Flesh and Blood all its Lusts and Appetites. Nothing else but the Loss of 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 paradisiacal Glory, stripped 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 among 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 Kingdom 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.— We daily read this Prayer, we 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 even 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 fares sumptuously every Day, but because he has happened to be made a Scholar, has run through all Languages and Histories, has been long exercised in Conjectures and Criticisms, and has his Head as full of all Notions, theological, poetical, and philosophical, as a Dictionary is full of all Sorts of Words.

Now let this simple Question decide the whole Matter here: has this great Scholar any more Power of saying to this Mountain, "Be thou removed hence, and cast into the Sea," than the illiterate Christian has? If not, he is just as weak, as powerless, and little in the Kingdom of God as he is. But if the illiterate Man's Faith should happen to be nearer to the Bulk of a Grain of Mustard-Seed, than that of the prodigious Scholar, the illiterate Christian stands much above him in the Kingdom of God.

Look now at the present State of Christendom, glorying in the Light of Greek and Roman Learning (which an Age or two ago broke forth) as a Light that has helped the Gospel to shine with a Luster, that it scarce ever had before. Look at this, and you will see the Fall of the present Church from its first Gospel State, to have much likeness to the Fall of the first Divine Man from the Glory of paradisiacal Innocence and heavenly Purity into an earthly State, and bestial Life of worldly Craft and serpentine Subtlety.

In the first Gospel Church, heathen Light had no other Name than heathen Darkness; and the Wisdom of Words was no more sought after, than that Friendship of the World which is Enmity with God. In that new born Church, the Tree of Life, which grew in the Midst of Paradise, took Root and grew up again.— In the present Church, the Tree of Life is hissed at, as the visionary Food of deluded Enthusiasts; and the tree of Death, called the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, has the Eyes and Hearts of Priest and People, and is thought to do as much Good to Christians, as it did Evil to the first Inhabitants of Paradise.— This Tree, that brought Death and Corruption into human Nature at first, is now called a Tree of Light, and is Day and Night well watered with every corrupt Stream, however distant, or muddy with Earth, that can be drawn to it.

The Simplicity indeed, both of the Gospel Letter and Doctrine, has the Shine and Polish of classic Literature laid thick upon it.— Cicero is in the Pulpit, Aristotle writes Christian Ethics, Euclid demonstrates Infidelity and Absurdity to be the same Thing.— Greece had but one Longinus, Rome had but one Quintilian; but in our present Church, they are as common as Patriots in the State.

But now, what follows from this new risen Light? Why Aristotle's Atheism, Cicero's Height of Pride and Depth of Dissimulation, and every refined or gross Species of Greek and Roman Vices, are as glaring in this new enlightened Christian Church, as ever they were in old Pagan Greece or Rome.— Would you find a Gospel-Christian in all this Mid-day Glory of Learning, you may light a Candle, as the Philosopher did in the Mid-day Sun, to find an honest Man.

And indeed, if we consider the Nature of our Salvation, either with Respect to That which alone can save us, or That from which we are to be saved, it will be plain, that the Wit and Elegance of classic Literature, brought into a Christian Church to make the Doctrines of the Cross have a better Salvation-Effect upon fallen Man, is but like calling in the Assistance of Balls and Masquerades, to make the Lent-Penitence go deeper into the Heart, and more effectually drive all Levity and Impurity out of it.

How poorly was the Gospel at first preached, if the Wisdom of Words, and the Gifts of natural Wit and Imagination had been its genuine Helps? But alas, they stand in the same Contrariety to one another, as Self-denial and Self-gratification. To know the Truth of Gospel Salvation, is to know that Man's natural Wisdom is to be equally sacrificed with his natural Folly; for they are but one and the same Thing, only called sometimes by one Name, and sometimes by the other.

His intellectual Faculties are, by the Fall, in a much worse State than his natural animal Appetites, and want a much greater Self-denial. And when own Will, own Understanding, and own Imagination have their natural strength indulged and gratified, and are made seemingly rich and honorable with the Treasures acquired from a Study of the Belles Lettres, they will just as much help poor fallen Man to be like-minded with Christ, as the Art of Cookery, well and daily studied, will help a Professor of the Gospel to the Spirit and Practice of Christian Abstinence.

To know all this to be strictly the Truth, no more need be known, than these two Things: (1) That our Salvation consists wholly in being saved from ourselves, or that which we are by Nature; (2) That in the whole Nature of Things, nothing could be this Salvation, or Savior to us, but such an Humility of God manifested in human Nature, as is beyond all Expression.— Hence, the first unalterable Term of this Savior to fallen Man, is this, "Except a Man denies himself, forsakes all that he has, yea and his own Life, he cannot be my Disciple." And to show, that this is but the Beginning, or Ground of Man's Salvation, the Savior adds, "Learn of me, for I am meek, and lowly of Heart."

What a Light is here, for those that can bear, or love the Light! Self is the whole Evil of fallen Nature; Self-denial is our Capacity of being saved; Humility is our Savior. This is every Man's short Lesson of Life; and he that has well learned it, is Scholar enough, and has had all the Benefit of a most finished Education. Then old Adam with all his Ignorance is cast out of him; and when Christ's Humility is learnt, then he has the very Mind of Christ, and that which brings him forth a Son of God.

Who then can enough wonder at that Bulk of Libraries, which has taken the Place of this short Lesson of the Gospel, or at that Number of Champion Disputants, who from Age to Age, have been all in Arms to support and defend a Set of Opinions, Doctrines, and Practices, all which may be most cordially embraced, without the least degree of Self-denial, and most firmly held fast, without getting the least degree of Humility by it?

What a Grossness of Ignorance, both of Man and his Savior, to run to Greek and Roman Schools to learn how to put off Adam, and to put on Christ? To drink at the Fountains of Pagan Poets and Orators, in order more Divinely to drink of the Cup that Christ drank of?— What can come of all this, but that which is already too much come, a Ciceronian-Gospeller, in Stead of a Gospel-Penitent? In Stead of the Depth, the Truth and Spirit of the humble Publican, seeking to regain Paradise, only by a broken Heart, crying, "God, be merciful to me a Sinner," the high-bred Classic will live in daily Transports at the enormous {See Milton's Enormous Bliss.} Sublime of a Milton, flying thither on the unfeathered Wings of high sounding Words.