Images de page
PDF
ePub

it: its own restless desires are its tormenting hunger, and fin is its food. Selfish and sensual, it seeketh only its own. Death is its true nature; darkness its place of abode. Mistake not the matter, then, I beseech you. When you feel the workings of this evil nature; when you feel pride, envy, covetoufness and wrath; know and be assured, that none of these can come from GOD: they are all " conceived, and brought " forth, and finished," by the bestial or diabolical passions within you. Nothing but what is good, comes from GOD: every thing that is good and perfect is his gift. Nature is darkness and want; God alone, is light and fullness. He ever was, and is, and will be, the same Unchangeable Light, and Life, and Love! Ascribe, therefore, to nature, the things that belong to nature; but, to God, the things that be God's. The fun of this temporary system ceaseth not to shine, though the earth daily turns fome part or other of its furface from

i

1

i

his beams: the SUN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS ceaseth not to shine, though, among the myriads of intelligences that are visited by his Ray, there should be some, who perversely turn away their eyes and hearts, and chuse to abide in their own darkness. Depend upon it, then, that every good thought, defire, and inclination, that rises in your breasts, every inward opposition to evil, every inward hunger after something good, something superior to the gross gratification of your earthly part, depend upon it, that all this is from GodIt is not your own-it is a Ray of his ever-shining Light, darting into your benighted foul: it is "a Good and Perfect Gift" freely given by him, to which you would do well to take heed, and to receive with grateful eagerness, that so " the " day may begin to dawn, and the Day"Star to rise in your hearts."

As a full confirmation of his affer

tion, that evil is from ourselves, and that

F3

;

claration, call, or promise in Scripture, but what every man in the world is in fome measure concerned in.

"Of his Own Will begat he us--" surely, then, we must be his Offspring! and that we are his Redeemed Offspring, appears from hence, that "he " begat us with the WORD OF TRUTH." What is this "WORD OF TRUTH?" Is it the outward letter of Scripture, as some have vainly imagined, and ignorantly afferted, making the principal feat and fource of Divine Illumination, and of the Residence of the HOLY SPIRIT, to be in the paper and ink of their Bibles ? No- "THE WORD "OF TRUTH," spoken of in this and other passages of Scripture, is the ETERNAL Logos, that "WORD, that was " in the beginning; that was with God; "that was God; by whom all things "were created; even JESUS CHRIST "himself the only begotten of the FA"THER,

i

"THER, the Brightness of his Glory, " and the Express Image of his Person."

By this WORD, who calls himself "the Way, the Truth, and the Life," was man originally created. By this WORD inspoken into his fallen nature, man was put into a capacity of being redeemed: he was "begotten again of "the will of the FATHER by the WORD "OF TRUTH;" and for this glorious purpose, adds the Apostle, " that we "should be a kind of first-fruits of his "creatures."

The first-fruits under the law, were offered up to GOD. They were sanctified, set apart as holy. In like manner, the Heaven-born Nature, Seed or Principle, which is the Gift of God through CHRIST, is imparted to us as the means of redeeming and purifying our evil nature, and thus sanctifying the whole man in body, foul, and spirit. This

is,

is, therefore, justly called the " first"fruits," which being in itself holy, is to become an Holy, Heavenly Life and Tincture, whereby the evils introduced by the fall are to be completely removed, and the creature restored to its first purity and glory.

Having thus pointed out this great and universal truth, that man hath within him a Threefold Life, viz. a bestial, a diabolical, and an heavenly life, known, and to be easily diftinguished by their respective sensibilities; the two first defiring, hungering, feeding upon nothing but what is evil; the last defiring, hungering, feeding only upon what is good; the former properly our own, into which we entered by the fall, and in which we naturally defire to continue; the latter, the Free Gift of God, proceeding folely from him, and fed and nourished by his Grace in CHRIST

JESUS;

« PrécédentContinuer »