William Law · 9 of 44

An Address to the Clergy · Part 5

‘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 Government 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 apostolical 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 Flesh and of 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 a 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 his 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 entereth into the Mouth, and corrupteth 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 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?

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 Lustre, 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 beastial 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 honourable 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 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 learnt 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 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? 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* *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 (as Dr. W. calls them) 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.

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 Work-men; 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 any Thing 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 a 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 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 any Thing 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.