17. Man's Two Enemies: Self and the World

Let every evil, whether inward, or outward, only teach you this truth, that man has infallibly lost his first divine life in God; and that no possible comfort, or deliverance is to be expected, but only in this one thing, that though man had lost his God, yet God is become man, that man may be again alive in God, as at the first. For all the misery and distress of human nature, whether of body or mind, is wholly owing to this one cause, that God is not in man, nor man in God, as the state of his nature requires; it is, because man has lost that first life of God in his soul, in and for which he was created. He lost this light, and Spirit, and life of God, by turning his will, imagination, and desire, into a tasting and sensibility of the good and evil of this earthly, bestial world.

Now here are two things raised up in man, instead of the life of God: first, self, or selfishness, brought forth by his choosing to have a wisdom of his own, contrary to the will and instruction of his Creator. Secondly, an earthly, bestial, mortal life and body, brought forth by his eating that fruit, which was poison to his paradisaical nature. Both these must therefore be removed; that is, a man must first totally die to self, and all earthly desires, views, and intentions, before he can be again in God, as his nature and first creation requires.

But now if this be a certain and immutable truth, that man, so long as he is a selfish, earthly-minded creature, must be deprived of his true life, the life of God, the Spirit of Heaven in his soul; then how is the face of things changed! For then, what life is so much to be dreaded, as a life of worldly ease and prosperity?

What a misery, nay what a curse, is there in everything that gratifies and nourishes our self-love, self-esteem, and self-seeking?

On the other hand, what happiness is there in all inward and outward troubles and vexations, when they force us to feel and know the hell that is hidden within us, and the vanity of everything without us, when they turn our self-love into self-abhorrence, and force us to call upon God to save us from ourselves, to give us a new life, new light, and new spirit in Christ Jesus.

LETTER XXV.

20. How Good and Evil are both from God.

Concerning the following texts, God hardened the heart of Pharaoh: "He hath mercy on whom He will have mercy, and whom He will He hardeneth;" "Good and evil are from the Lord;" "I create light, and I create darkness;" you ask, how these things can be consistently affirmed of a God, all love and goodness to His creatures?

All the difficulty of reconciling such contrary things as are said of God, that He willeth only life and good, and yet that evil and death, are said to come from Him, arises from our considering the operations of God in a creaturely manner, or as we should understand the same contrary things, if they were affirmed of any creature. Whereas the operation of God, in its whole kind and nature, is as different from anything that can be done by creatures, as the work and manner of creation, is different, in power, nature, and manner, from that which creatures can do to one another. For the operation of God is never in or with the creature in any other manner, or doing any other thing, but that which it was and did in the creation of them.

This, and this alone is the working of the Deity in heaven and on earth; nothing comes from Him, or is done by Him through all the eternity of His creatures, but that essential manifestation of Himself in them, which began the glory and perfection of their first existence. Now from this one, single, immutable operation of God, that He can be nothing else in, or towards the creature, but that same love and goodness, that He was to it, at its creation, it necessarily follows, that to the creature that turns from Him, God can be nothing else to it, but the cause of all its evil and miserable state. Hence is that of the apostle, that "Sin cometh by the law, because where there is no law, there is no transgression."

Now God, or the divine nature in man, is the one great law of God in man, from which, all that is good and all that is evil in him, hath its whole state and nature. His life can have no holiness or goodness in it, but as the divine nature within him, is the law by which he lives.

He can commit no other sin, nor feel any kind of hurt or evil from it, but what comes from resisting, or rebelling against that of God, which is in him; and therefore the good and evil of man, are equally from God. And yet this could not be, but because of this ground, namely, that God is unchangeable love and goodness, and has only one will and work of love and goodness towards the creature. Just as the law could not make sin, or evil, but because it has no sin or evil in itself, but is immutably righteous, holy, and good, and has only one will and one work towards man, whether he receives good or evil by it. Therefore the righteous, holy law, that is so, because it never changes its goodwill, and work towards man, can truly say of itself these two contrary things, I create good, and I create evil, without the least contradiction. In the like truth, and from the same ground, it must be said, that happiness and misery, life and death, tenderness and hardness of heart, are from God, or because God is that which He is, in and to the birth and life of man.

This is the one true key to the state of man before his fall, to his state after his fall, and to the whole nature of his redemption. All which three states, are in a few words of our Saviour, set forth in the clearest and strongest degree of light. "I am the true vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in Me, and I in him, bringeth forth much fruit." This was man's first created state of glory and perfection, it was a living and abiding in God, such a birth and communion of life with Him, and from Him, as the branch hath in and from the vine.

The nature of man's fallen state, and whence he has all the evil that is in it, is set forth in the following words, "If a man abide not in Me" (the true vine) "he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered, and men gather them, and they are cast into the fire and burned."

This comprehends the whole of man's fallen state, namely, a being broken off from the life of God, and therefore become such a poor, withered, helpless creature, as may have all that done to him, as a firebrand of hell and devils, which men may do to a broken off, withered branch of the vine. And his state is as different from that of his creation, as a withered branch, smoking and burning in the fire, is different from its first state of life and growth in the rich spirit of the vine.

Again, the whole of man's redeemed state, is in the following words:"I am the bread of life, that came down from heaven; He that eateth this bread shall live for ever;—whoso eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood, hath eternal life, dwelleth in Me, and I in him."

This is our whole redemption, it consists in nothing else, but having the full life of God, or birth of Christ begotten, and born in us again.

And thus do these three states of man fully show, that our first perfection, our miserable fall, and blessed redemption, have all that they have in them, whether of glory, or misery, merely and solely because God alone is all that is good, and can be nothing else but good towards the creature; and that neither angel nor man can be happy or miserable, but because it either hath, or hath not, this one God of goodness essentially living and operating in it.

What a number of things called religion, are here cut off at once? since nothing is life, happiness, and glory, but the one essential operation of the triune God of love, and goodness within us; nothing is death, evil, or misery, but the departure, or turning from this essential God of our lives, to something that we would have from ourselves, or the creatures that are about us. And how greatly is he deluded, who living among the throng of religious schemes, thinks this, or that, or anything in nature, can be his atonement, his reconciliation, and union with God, but the Spirit, the body, and the blood of Christ forming themselves into a new creature within him. Then, and then only is he that first man that God created, in whom alone He can be well pleased. But till then, he is that man, whom the Cherub's two-edged flaming sword will not suffer to enter into Paradise.

21. How the Life of God is revealed in us

How is it now, that we are to regain that first birth of Christ? Why just in the same way, as Adam had it at first. What did he then do?

How did he help forward God's creating power? Now creating again, or restoring a first life in God, is just the same thing, and the same sole work of God, as creating us at first; and therefore we can have no more share of power in the one, than in the other. Nothing lies upon us as creatures fallen from God, or is required of us with regard to our growth in God, but not to resist that, which God is doing towards a new creation of us.

That which God is doing towards the new creation of us, had its beginning before the foundation of the world. "In Christ Jesus," saith St. Paul, "we were chosen before the foundation of the world;" the same as saying, that God out of His great mercy, had chosen to preserve a seed of the Word and Spirit of God in fallen man, which through the mediation of a God incarnate, should revive into that fullness of stature in Christ Jesus, in which Adam was at first created. And all this work of God towards a new creation, is by that same essential operation of God in us, which at first created us in His image and likeness. And therefore nothing belongs to man in it, but only to yield himself up to it, and not resist it.

Now who is it, that may be said to resist it? It is everyone who does not deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow Christ. For everything but this, is that flesh that warreth against the Spirit. The whole life of the natural man, resisteth all that essential operation of God, which would create us again in Christ Jesus.

Further, every religious man resisteth it, in and by and through the whole course of his religion, who takes anything to be the truth of piety, the truth of devotion, the truth of religious worship, but faith, and hope, and trust, and dependence upon that alone, which the all-creating Word and all-sanctifying Spirit of God, inwardly, essentially, and vitally worketh in his soul.

Would you know, how you are to understand this essential operation of the triune Holy Deity in our souls, and why nothing else is, or can be that grace or help of God, which bringeth salvation, take this earthly similitude of the matter. The light and air of this world, are universal powers, that are essential to the life of all the creatures of this world. They are essential, because nothing sees, till the light has brought forth a birth of itself in the essence of the creature, which birth of light can last no longer, than it is essentially united with the operation of that universal light which brought it forth.

Air is also essential to the life of the creature, because nothing lives, till a birth of the air is born in it, nor any longer, than its own inborn air, is in essential union with that universal air, and operation of air, that first brought it forth. Now from this essential, unalterable relation between light and air, and seeing, living creatures, it plainly follows, that darkness and death, may be ascribed to them, as well as seeing and life.

Thus, if light and air could say anything of themselves in outward words, of that which they are, and do to all animals; if the light was to say, It is I that make seeing and blind eyes; if the air was to say, I create life, and I create death; could there be any difficulty of understanding, or allowing the truth of these words? Or could they be true in any other sense, but because where light is not, there is the cause of darkness, and where air is not, there is the cause of death. And so in the strictest truth of the words, seeing and blind eyes are from the light; living and dead bodies are from the air. Because darkness could not be, but because light does not shine in it, nor the body be dead, but because the breathing of the air is not in it. It is thus, with the essential operation of the triune Holy God, in the life of all divine and godly creatures, whether men or angels. The light and Holy Spirit of God, are universal powers, and essential to the birth of a godly life in the creature; which creaturely birth of a divine life, can begin no sooner, than the Word and Spirit of God bring forth a birth of themselves in the creature, nor subsist any longer, than it is united with, and under the continual operation of that Word and Spirit, which brought it forth. Hence it is truly said, that spiritual life, and spiritual death, spiritual good and spiritual evil, happiness and misery are from God, and that for this one reason, because there is no good, but in God, nor any other operation of God in, and to the creature, but that of heavenly life, light, love, and goodness.

When man, created in the image and likeness of God, to be an habitation and manifestation of the triune God of goodness, had by the perverseness of a false will, turned from his holy state of life in God, and so was dead to the blessed union, and essential operation of God in his soul, yet the goodness of God towards man, altered not, but stood in the same goodwill towards man as at the first, and willed, and could will nothing else towards the whole human nature, but that every individual of it, might be saved from that state of death and misery in an earthly nature, into which they were fallen. Hence, that is, from this unchangeable love of God towards man, which could no more cease, than God could cease, came forth that wonderful scene of providence, of such a variety of means, and dispensations, of visions, voices, and messages from heaven, of law, of prophecies, of promises and threatenings, all adapted to the different states, conditions, and ages of the fallen world, for no other end, but by every art of divine wisdom, and contrivance of love, to break off man from his earthly delusion, and beget in him a sense of his lost glory, and so make him capable of finding again that blessed essential operation of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in his soul, which was the essential glory of his first creation.

Now, as in this scene of a divine and redeeming providence, God had to do with a poor, blind, earthly creature, that had lost all sense of heavenly things, as they are in themselves, so the wisdom of God, must often, as it were humanize itself, and condescend to speak of Himself after the manner of men. He must speak of His eyes, His ears, His hands, His nose, etc., because the earthly creature, the mere natural man, could no otherwise be brought into any sense of that, which God was to him. But now, all this process of divine providence, was only for the sake of something higher; the mystery of God in man, and man in God, still lay hid, and was no more opened, than the mystery of a redeeming Christ, was opened in the type of a Paschal lamb.

Pentecost alone was that, which took away all veils, and showed the kingdom of God, as it was in itself, and set man again under the immediate, essential operation of God, which first gave birth to a holy Adam in Paradise. Types and shadows ended, because the substance of them was found. The cloven tongues of fire had put an end to them, by opening the divine eyes, which Adam had closed up, unstopping the spiritual ears, that he had filled with clay, and making his dumb sons to speak with new tongues.

And what did they say? They said all old things were gone, that a new heaven and a new earth were coming forth, that God Himself was manifested in the flesh of men, who were now all taught of God. And what were they taught? That same which Adam was taught by his first created life in God, namely, that the immediate, essential operation of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, was henceforth the birthright of all that were become true disciples of Christ. Thus ended the old creation, and the fall of man, in a God manifested in the flesh, dying in and for the world, and coming again in Spirit, to be the life and light of all the sons of Adam.

32. The Kingdom of God is only where the Light and Spirit of God dwell and rule

That one Light and Spirit, which was only one from all eternity, before angels or any heavenly beings were created, must to all eternity be that one only Light and Spirit, by which angels or men can ever have any union or communion with God. Every other light is but the light whence beasts have their sense and 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 paradisaical 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?

33. Trust in the Wisdom of Men the cause of the Fall of the Church from its first state

What now have parts, and literature, and the natural abilities of man, that they can do here? Just as much as they can do at the resurrection of the dead; for all that is to be done here is nothing else but resurrection and life. Therefore, that which gave eyes to the blind, cleansed the lepers, cast out devils, and raised the dead, that alone can and must do all that is to be done in this gospel kingdom of God. For every the smallest work or fruit of grace must be as solely done by God, as the greatest miracle in nature; and the reason is, because every work of grace is the same overcoming of nature, as when the dead are raised to life. Yet vain man would be thought to be something, to have great power and ability in this kingdom of grace, not because he happens to be born of noble parents, is clothed in purple and fine linen, and 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 paradisaical 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 midday glory of learning, you may light a candle, as the philosopher did in the midday sun, to find an honest man.

34. Of Self. The Denial of our own Wisdom the chief part of Self-denial

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-letters, they will just as much help poor fallen man to be likeminded 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 saviour to us, but such an humility of God manifested in human nature, as is beyond all expression. Hence, the first unalterable term of this Saviour 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 Saviour 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 saviour. 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 learned, 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 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 Saviour, 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? Instead 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 sublime of a Milton, flying thither on the unfeathered wings of high sounding words.

This will be more or less the case with all the salvation doctrines of Christ, whilst under classical acquisition and administration. Those divine truths, which are no further good and redeeming, but as they are spirit and life in us, which can have no entrance, or birth, but in the death of self, in a broken and contrite heart, will serve only to help classic painters to lavish out their colours on their own paper monuments of lifeless virtues.

How came the learned heathens by their pride and vanity, by their inability to come under the humility of the Cross? It was because the natural man shined in the false glory of his own cultivated abilities. Have wit and parts, an elegant taste, any more good or redeeming virtue in Christians, than they had in heathens? As well might it be said, that own will is good, and has a redeeming virtue in a Christian, but bad and destructive in a heathen. I said a redeeming virtue in it; because nothing is or can be a religious good to fallen man, but that which has a redeeming virtue in it, or is, so far as it goes, a true renewal of the divine life in the soul. Therefore, said our only Redeemer, "Without me, ye can do nothing." Whatever is not his immediate work in us is at best but a mere nothing with respect to the good of our redemption. A Tower of Babel may to its builders' eyes seem to hide its head in the clouds, but as to its reaching of heaven, it is no nearer to that, than the earth on which it stands. It is thus with all the buildings of man's wisdom and natural abilities in the things of salvation; he may take the logic of Aristotle, add to that the rhetoric of Tully, and then ascend as high as he can on the ladder of poetic imagination, yet no more is done to the reviving the lost life of God in his soul, than by a tower of brick and mortar to reach heaven.

Self is the root, the tree, and the branches of all the evils of our fallen state. We are without God, because we are in the life of self. Self-love, self-esteem, and self-seeking, are the very essence, and life of pride; and the devil the first father of pride, is never absent from them, nor without power in them. To die to these essential properties of self, is to make the devil depart from us. But as soon as we would have self-abilities have a share in our good works, the satanic spirit of pride is in union with us, and we are working for the maintenance of self-love, self-esteem, and self-seeking.

All the vices of fallen angels and men have their birth and power in the pride of self, or I may better say, in the atheism and idolatry of self; for self is both atheist and idolater. It is atheist, because it has rejected God; it is an idolater, because it is its own idol. On the other hand, all the virtues of the heavenly life are the virtues of humility. Not a joy, or glory, or praise in heaven, but is what it is through humility. It is humility alone that makes the unpassable gulf between heaven and hell. No angels in heaven, but because humility is in all their breath; no devils in hell, but because the fire of pride is their whole fire of life.

35. Of Pride and Humility, and the reason why the need of Self-denial is so absolute

What is then, or in what lies the great struggle for eternal life? It all lies in the strife between pride and humility: all other things, be they what they will, are but as under workmen; pride and humility are the two master powers, the two kingdoms in strife for the eternal possession of man.

And here it is to be observed, that every son of Adam is in the service of pride and self, be he doing what he will, till a humility that comes solely from heaven has been his redeemer. Till then, all that he doth will be only done by the right hand, that the left hand may know it. And he that thinks it possible for the natural man to get a better humility than this from his own right reason (as it is often miscalled) refined by education, shows himself quite ignorant of this one most plain and capital truth of the gospel, namely, that there never was, nor ever will be, but one humility in the whole world, and that is the one humility of Christ, which never any man, since the fall of Adam, had the least degree of but from Christ.

Humility is one, in the same sense and truth, as Christ is one, the Mediator is one, redemption is one. There are not two Lambs of God that take away the sins of the world. But if there was any humility besides that of Christ, there would be something else besides him that could take away the sins of the world. "All that came before Me, says Christ, "were thieves and robbers:" we are used to confine this to persons; but the same is as true of every virtue, whether it has the name of humility, charity, piety, or anything else; if it comes before Christ, however good it may pretend to be, it is but a cheat,a thief, and a robber, under the name of godly virtue. And the reason is, because pride and self have the all of man, till man has his all from Christ. He therefore only fights the good fight, whose strife is, that the self-idolatrous nature which he hath from Adam may be brought to death, by the supernatural humility of Christ brought to life in him.

The enemies to man's rising out of the fall of Adam, through the Spirit and power of Christ, are many. But the one great dragon enemy, called antichrist, is self-exaltation. This is his birth, his pomp, his power, and his throne; when self-exaltation ceases, the last enemy is destroyed, and all that came from the pride and death of Adam is swallowed up in victory. There has been much sharp looking out, to see where and what antichrist is, or by what marks he may be known. Some say he has been in the Christian world almost ever since the gospel times, nay, that he was even then beginning to appear and show himself. Others say he came in with this or that pope; others that he is not yet come, but near at hand. Others will have it, that he has been here, and there, but driven from one place to another by several new risen Protestant sects. But to know with certainty, where and what antichrist is, and who is with him, and who against him, you need only read this short description which Christ gives of Himself. "(1) I can do nothing of Myself. (2) I came not to do My own will. (3) I seek not My own glory. (4) I am meek and lowly of heart." Now if this is Christ, then self-ability or self-exaltation, being the highest and fullest contrariety to all this, must be alone the one great antichrist, that opposes and withstands the whole nature and Spirit of Christ.

What therefore has everyone so much to fear, to renounce and abhor, as every inward sensibility of self-exaltation, and every outward work that proceeds from it. But now, at what things shall a man look, to see that working of self which raises pride to its strongest life, and most of all hinders the birth of the humble Jesus in his soul? Shall he call the pomps and vanities of the world the highest works of self-adoration? Shall he look at the fops and beaux, and painted ladies, to see the pride that has the most of antichrist in it? No, by no means. These are indeed marks, shameful enough, of the vain, foolish heart of man, but yet, comparatively speaking, they are but the skin-deep follies of that pride which the fall of man has begotten and brought forth in him. Would you see the deepest root, and iron-strength of pride and self-adoration, you must enter into the dark chamber of man’s fiery soul, where the light of God (which alone gives humility and meek submission to all created spirits) being extinguished by the death which Adam died, Satan, or which is the same thing self-exaltation became the strong man that kept possession of the house, till a stronger than he should come upon him. In this secret source of an eternal fiery soul, glorying in the astral light of this world, a swelling kingdom of pomps and vanities is set up in the heart of man, of which, all outward pomps and vanities are but its childish transitory playthings. The inward strong man of pride, the diabolical self, has his higher works within; he dwells in the strength of the heart, and has every power and faculty of the soul offering continual incense to him. His memory, his will, his understanding, his imagination, are always at work for him, and for no one else. His memory is the faithful repository of all the fine things that self has ever done; and lest anything of them should be lost or forgotten, she is continually setting them before his eyes. His will, though it has all the world before it, yet goes after nothing, but as self sends it. His understanding is ever upon the stretch for new projects to enlarge the dominions of self; and if this fails, imagination comes in, as the last and truest support of self, she makes him a king and mighty lord of castles in the air.

This is that full-born natural self, that must be pulled out of the heart, and totally denied, or there can be no disciple of Christ; which is only saying this plain truth, that the apostate self-idolatrous nature of the old man must be put off, or there can be no new creature in Christ.

36. Natural Reason and the Glory of Learning the great Stronghold of Self and Pride

Now what is it in the human soul that most of all hinders the death of this old man? What is it that above all other things strengthens and exalts the life of self and makes it the master and governor of all the powers of the heart and soul? It is the fancied riches of parts, the glitter of genius, the flights of imagination, the glory of learning, and the self-conceited strength of natural reason; these are the strongholds of fallen nature, the master-builders of pride's temple in the heart of man, and which, as so many priests, keep up the daily worship of idol self.

And here let it be well, and well observed, that all these magnified talents of the natural man are started up through his miserable fall from the life of God in his soul. Wit, genius, learning, and natural reason, would never have had any more a name among men, than blindness, ignorance, and sickness, had man continued, as at first, an holy image of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Everything then that dwelt in him, or came from him, would have only said so much of God, and nothing of himself, have manifested nothing to him but the heavenly powers of the triune life of God dwelling in him.

He would have had no more sense or consciousness of his own wit, or natural reason, or any power of goodness in all that he was, and did, than of his own creating power, at beholding the created heavens and earth. It is his dreadful fall from the life of God in his soul, that has furnished him with these high intellectual riches, just as it has furnished him with the substantial riches of his bestial appetites and lusts. And when the lusts of the flesh have spent out their life, when the dark thick body of earthly flesh and blood shall be forced to let the soul go loose, all these bright talents will end with that system of fleshly lusts, in which they begun; and that of man which remains will have nothing of its own, nothing that can say, I do this, or I do that; but all that it has or does, will be either the glory of God manifested in it, or the power of hell in full possession of it. The time of man's playing with parts, wit, and abilities, and of fancying himself to be something great and considerable in the intellectual world, may be much shorter, but can be no longer, than he can eat and drink with the animals of this world.

When the time comes, that fine buildings, rich settlements, acquired honors, and Rabbi, Rabbi, must take their leave of him, all the stately structures, which genius, learning, and flights of imagination, have painted inwardly on his brain and outwardly on paper, must bear full witness to Solomon's vanity of vanities. Let then the high accomplished scholar reflect, that he comes by his wit, and parts, and acute abilities just as the serpent came by his subtlety; let him reflect, that he might as well dream of acquiring angelic purity to his animal nature by multiplying new invented delights for his earthly passions and tempers, as of raising his soul into divine knowledge through the well-exercised powers of his natural reason and imagination. The finest intellectual power, and that which has the best help in it towards bringing man again into the region of divine light, is that poor despised thing called simplicity. This is that which stops the workings of the fallen life of nature, and leaves room for God to work again in the soul according to the good pleasure of His holy will. It stands in such a waiting posture before God, and in such readiness for the divine birth, as the plants of the earth wait for the inflowing riches of the light and air. But the self-assuming workings of man's natural powers shut him up in himself, closely barred up against the inflowing riches of the Light and Spirit of God.

Yet so it is, in this fallen state of the Gospel-Church, that with these proud endowments of fallen nature, the classic scholar, full fraught with pagan light and skill, comes forth to play the critic and orator with the simplicity of salvation mysteries; mysteries which mean nothing else but the inward work of the triune God in the soul of man, nor any other work there, but the raising up of a dead Adam into a living Christ of God.

However, to make way for parts, criticism, and language-learning, to have the full management of salvation doctrines, the well-read scholar gives out that the ancient way of knowing the things of God, taught and practiced by fishermen apostles, is obsolete. They indeed wanted to have divine knowledge from the immediate continual operation of the Holy Spirit, but this state was only for a time, till genius, and learning entered into the pale of the Church.

Behold, if ever, "the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place!" For as soon as the doctrine is set up, that man's natural parts and acquired learning have full right and power to sit in the divinity chair, and to guide men into that truth which was once the only office and power of the Holy Spirit, as soon as this is done, and so far as it is received, it may with the greatest truth be said, that the kingdom of God is entirely shut up, and only a kingdom of scribes, Pharisees, and hypocrites, can come instead of it. For by this doctrine the whole nature and power of gospel religion is much more denied, than by setting up the infallibility of the pope; for though his claim to infallibility is false, yet he claims it from and under the Holy Spirit; but the Protestant scholar has his divinity knowledge, his power in the kingdom of truth, from himself, his own logic, and learned reason. Christ has nowhere instituted an infallible pope; and it is full as certain, that He has nowhere spoke one single word, or given the least power to logic, learning, or the natural powers of man, in His kingdom. He has never said to them, "Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth, shall be bound in Heaven;" never said to them, "go ye and teach all nations," no more than He has ever said to wolves, "Go ye, and feed my sheep." Christ indeed said of Himself, according to the flesh, "It is expedient for you that I go away." But where has He said of Himself according to the Spirit, "It is also expedient for you that I go away, that your own natural abilities and learned reason may have the guidance of you into all truth?" This is nowhere said, unless logic can prove it from these words, "Without me ye can do nothing," and, "Lo, I am with you to the end of the world."

37. The true nature of the Kingdom of Heaven

The first and main doctrine of Christ and His apostles was, to tell the Jews, "that the kingdom of God was at hand," or was come to them. Proof enough surely, that their Church was not that kingdom of God, though by God's appointment, and under laws of His own commanding.

But why not, when it was thus set up by God? It was because it had human and worldly things in it, consisted of carnal ordinances, and had only types, and figures, and shadows of a kingdom of God that was to come. Of this kingdom, Christ says, "My kingdom is not of this world;" and as a proof of it, He adds, "if it was of this world, then would my servants fight for Me;" which was saying, that it was so different in kind, and so superior in nature to this world, that no sort of worldly power could either help, or hinder it. But of this world, into which the kingdom of God was come, the Holy One of God says, "In the world ye shall have tribulation; but be of good comfort, I have overcome the world." Now how was it that Christ's victory was their victory? It was, because He was in them, and they in Him, "Because I live, ye shall live also; in that day ye shall know that I am in the Father, and you in Me, and I in you."

This was the kingdom of God come to them, the same kingdom of God in which Adam was born and begun his first glorious life, when the image and likeness of the Holy Trinity had an outward glory, like that which broke through the body of Christ, when on Mount Tabor "His face did shine as the sun, and His raiment was white as the light." To the children of this kingdom, says its Almighty King, "When they bring you before magistrates and powers, take no thought how or what ye shall answer, or what ye shall say unto them, for the Holy Ghost shall teach you in that same hour what ye ought to say. For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you."

No higher, or other thing is here said, than in these other words, "Take no thought what ye shall eat or drink, or wherewithal ye shall be clothed, but seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." This is the truth of the kingdom of God, come unto men, and this is the birthright privilege of all that are living members of it, to be delivered from their own natural spirit which they had from Adam, from the spirit and wisdom of this world, and through the whole course of their lives only to say, and do, and be that, which the Spirit of their Father worketh in them.

But now, is not this kingdom gone away from us, are we not left comfortless, if instead of this Spirit of our Father speaking, doing, and working everything in us and for us, we are left again to our own natural powers, to run to every Lo here and Lo there to find a share in that kingdom of God, which once was, and never can be anything else but God, the wisdom and power of God manifested in our flesh? Had it not been as well, nay better for us, to have been still under types and figures, sacrificing bulls and goats by divine appointment, than to be brought under a religion that must be spirit and life and then left to the jarring interests of the wisdom of the Greek, and the carnality of the Jew how to be living members of it? For where the Spirit of God is not the continual immediate governor of spiritual things, nothing better can come of it. For the truth and full proof of this, no more need be appealed to than all the libraries and churches of Christendom for many ages to this day.

38. Man needs to be Saved from his own Wisdom as much as from his own Righteousness

What is the difference between man's own righteousness and man's own light in religion? They are strictly the same thing, do one and the same work, namely, keep up and strengthen every evil, vanity, and corruption of fallen nature. Nothing saves a man from his own righteousness, but that which saves and delivers him from his own light. The Jew that was most of all set against the gospel, and unable to receive it, was he that trusted in his own righteousness; this was the rich man, to whom it was as hard to enter into the kingdom of heaven as for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.

But the Christian, that trusts in his own light, is the very Jew that trusted in his own righteousness; and all that he gets by the gospel, is only that which the Pharisee got by the Law, namely, to be further from entering into the kingdom of God than publicans and harlots. How comes it, that a beast, a scarlet whore, a horned dragon, and other the most horrible descriptions of diabolical power, have been by the Spirit of God made descriptions of the Christian Church?

How comes it, that the Spirit describes the Gospel-Church as driven into a wilderness; the two faithful witnesses, Moses and Jesus, as prophesying so many ages in sackcloth, and slain in the streets of spiritual Sodom and Egypt? It is because man's own natural light, man's own conceited righteousness, his serpentine subtlety, his self-love, his sensual spirit and worldly power, have seized the mysteries of salvation that came down from heaven, and built them up into a kingdom of envious strife and contention, for learned glory, spiritual merchandise, and worldly power. This is the beast, the whore, and dragon, that has governed, and will govern in every private Christian, and public Church, till, dead to all that is self, they turn to God; not to a God that they have only heard of with their ears, and their fathers have told them, but to a God of life, light, and power, found living and working within them, as the essential life, light, and power of their own lives.

For God is only our God, by a birth of His own divine nature within us. This, and nothing but this, is our whole relation to, our only fellowship with Him, our whole knowledge of Him, our whole power of having any part in the mysteries of gospel-salvation. Nothing can seek the kingdom of God, or hunger and thirst after his righteousness, nothing can cry, "Abba Father," nothing can pray, "Thy kingdom come," nothing can say of Christ, "My Lord, and my God," but that which is born of God, and is the divine nature itself become creaturely in us. Nothing but God in man can be a godly life in man.