LETTER I. ***

God, for purposes worthy of his wisdom, manifests hiniself, sooner or later, to all his sincere followers, in a spiritual manner, which the world knows not

of.

SIR,

WHEN I had the pleasure of seeing you last, you seemed surprised to hear mer say, that the Son of God, for purposes worthy of his wisdom, manifests himself, sooner or later, to all his sincere followers, insa spiritual manner, which the world knows not of. The assertion appeared to you unscriptural, enthusiastical, and dangerous. What I then advanced to prove, that it was scriptural, rational, and of the greatest importance, made you desire I would write to you on the mysterious subject. I declined it, as being unequal to the task; but having since considered, that a mistake here may endanger your soul or mine, I sit down to comply with your request: And the end I propose by it is, either to give you a fair opportunity of pointing out my error, if I am wrong; or to engage you, if I am right, to seek what I esteem the most invaluable of all blessings,—

H

the revelations of Christ to your own soul, productive of the experimental knowledge of him, and the present enjoyment of his salvation.

As an architect cannot build a palace, unless he is allowed a proper spot to erect. it upon, so I shall not be able to establish the doctrine I maintain, unless you allow me the existence of the proper senses, to which our Lord manifests himself. The manifestation I contend for, being of a spiritual nature, must be made to spiritual senses; and that such senses exist, and are opened in, and exercised by regenerate souls, is what I design to prove in this letter, by the joint testimony of scripture, our church, and reason o

I. The scriptures inform us, that Adam lost the experimental knowledge of God by the fall. His foolish attempt to hide himself from his Creator, whose eyes are in every place, evidences the total blindness of his understanding. The same veil of unbelief, which hid God from his mind, was drawn over his heart and all his spiritual senses, He died the death, the moral, spiritual death, in consequence of which the corruptible body sinks into the grave, and the unregenerate soul into hell.

In this deplorable state Adam begat his

children. We, like him are not only void of the life of God, but alienated from it, through the ignorance that is in us. Hence it is, that though we are possessed of such an animal and rational life, as he retained after the commission of his sin, yet we are, by nature, utter strangers to the holiness and bliss he enjoyed in a state of innocence. Though we have, in common with beasts, bodily organs of sight, hearing, tasting, smelling, and feeling, adapted to outward objects; though we enjoy, in common with devils, the faculty of reasoning upon natural truths, and mathematical propositions, yet we do not understand supernatural and divine things. Notwithstanding all our speculations about them, we can neither see nor taste them truly, unless we are arisen with Christ, and taught of God. We may, indeed, speak and write about them, as the blind may speak of colours, and the deaf dispute of sounds, but it is all guess-work, hear-say, and mere conjecture. The things of the Spirit of God cannot be discovered, but by spiritual, internal senses, which are, with regard to the spiritual world, what our bodily, external senses are with regard to the material world. They are the only medium, by which an intercourse between Christ and our souls can be opened and maintained.

The exercise of these senses is peculiar to those who are born of God. They belong to what the Apostles call the new man, the inward man, the new creature, the hidden man of the heart. In believers, this hidden man is awakened and raised from the dead, by the power of Christ's resurrec tion. Christ is his life, the Spirit of God is his spirit, prayer or praise his breath, holiness his health, and love his element. We read of his hunger and thirst, food and drink, garment and habitation, armour and conflicts, pain and pleasure, fainting and reviving, growing, walking, and working. All this supposes senses, and the more these senses are quickened by God, and exercised by the new born soul, the clearer and stronger is his perception of divine things.

On the other hand, in unbelievers, the inward man is deaf, blind, naked, asleep; yea, dead in trespasses, and sins: and of course, as incapable of perceiving spirituál things, as a person in a deep sleep, or a dead man of discovering, outward objects. St. Paul's language to him is, "Awake, thou that sleepest, arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." He calls him a natural man, one who hath no higher life, than that his parents conveyed to him by

natural generation-one who follows the dictates of his own sensual soul, and is neither born of God, nor led by the spirit of God. "The natural man," says the Apostle, "receiveth not the things of the Spirit, for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." He has no sense properly exercised for this kind of discernment, his " eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into his heart, the things which God hath prepared for them that dove him."

The reverse of the natural man is the spiritual, so called, because God hath revealed spiritual things to him by his Spirit, who is now in him a principle of spiritual and eternal life. "The spiritual man,"says the Apostle, "judgeth, i. e. discerneth all things, yet he himself is discerned of no one. ." The high state he is in, can no more be discerned by the natural man, than the condition of the natural man can be discerned by a brutes*+

St. Paul not only describes the spiritual man, but speaks particularly of his internal moral senses. Christians, says he, of full age, by reason of use, have their senses exercised

1 Cor. ii. 10-15. To vain man

in this is a most humiliating doctrine.