CAUTIONS

ΤΟ

THE READERS OF MR. LAW,

AND, WITH VERY FEW VARIATIONS, TO

THE READERS OF BARON SWEDENBORG.

[Referred to p. lx. and cix.]

FIRST. Either J. Behmen's scheme is a new revelation, or an explanation of the old. If the latter, why is it wrapt up in such mystic jargon, never heard of in the Christian church before, and not given us in Scripture language, which is the only explainer of itself?-If the former, it is an imposture and delusion; for extraordinary inspirations are not to be credited, unless vouched by miracles, which God always sent to attest his extraordinary commissions and if they are pretended to come from him, and do not, then it is a demonstration that they come from the devil, "transformed into an angel of light." To equal the imaginations of men to the Holy Scriptures of God, and think them as much the inspiration of God as what was dictated as such to the holy prophets and apostles, is strictly and properly enthusiasm. This Mr. Law has done; for he says, he looks upon the writings of J. Behmen to be no more human than St. John's Revelation.

II. Mr. Law, by creation, will have nothing farther meant than the formation of the world, out of pre-existent matter; contrary to the sense always put upon it by the Christian church. The formation is described step by step; but the creation, in Gen. i. verse 1, must relate to the production of, or giving being to, the matter, in its dark and inform state. The consequence of Mr. Law's opinion must be, either that matter, though distinct from, is co-eternal with God, which cannot be: or else, that it is an emanation, generated from his substance, or essence, which is the abomination of Platonism brought into Christianity. The confounding God and created nature to

gether is the essence of Paganism, and the foundation of all the errors in the Heathen and Christian world. The Scriptures are constantly guarding against it, and distinguishing Jehovah from what is only the work of his hands. Eternal nature is a blasphemous contradiction; for God only is eternal; he only has being in himself, and gives it to every thing else. Nature may be a manifestation, or representation, of God, as a picture is of a man: but has no more connexion with his substance or essence, than that hath with its original, or the painter that drew it.

III. Mr. Law denies the wrath of God against sin. Now, that wrath in God is the same weak and infirm passion that is in man, nobody will suppose. But that it produces effects, which the image of wrath executed by man is taken to give us an idea of, is a truth the Scriptures are full of from Genesis to Revelation. And it is described under all the images that are dreadful in nature: chiefly by that most dreadful of all, fire. "Our God is a consuming fire." No one will suppose from this text, that God is really material fire; but that his justice, vengeance, wrath, or whatever you please. to call it, will have an effect upon sinners, that is pictured by the effects of fire upon natural bodies.

Nor can all the wit and invention of man get rid of those innumerable Scriptures that speak of the wrath of God to be executed upon a sinful world, under the lively figure and representation of it, fire; as any one may see, that will turn to the Concordance. Sure I am, that if these can be construed to mean a dark, fiery, whirling anguish rising up and opening its birth in the inward depth and ground of the soul, there can be no certainty in words. The lake of fire, or hell, is not within but without the sinner; for he is to be cast into it. That inward remorse, anguish, and despair make a part, there is no question; but they are not the whole.

IV. But there is a consequence that follows this notion of no wrath of God against sin, and strongly insisted upon by Mr. Law, which shakes the foundation of Christianity: viz. that Christ did not die to appease that wrath; that he did not die as a sacrifice in our stead. This demolishes the doctrine of a vicarious satisfaction for sin, made outwardly upon the cross, by the blood of Him, who, being God, could give it infinite merit, to satisfy infinite justice: and, being man, could make the satisfaction in the same nature in which the sin that required it was committed.

Mr. Law says, God is love. True. But is he not justice and truth as well as love? Has not truth said, "The soul that sinneth,

CAUTIONS TO THE READERS OF MR. LAW. CXXXV

it shall die?" And did not Justice require the execution of that sentence? God is not only just, but justice itself; and justice cannot remit the least farthing; else it were not justice. God's attributes must not fight with or conquer and subdue one another. On the contrary, they magnify and exalt one another. Thus his justice is magnified, in that it exacts full and adequate satisfaction; his wisdom is magnified, in finding out such means to make it; his mercy and love, in affording those means, and fulfilling all his promises, in Him in whom mercy and truth thus met together, righteousness and peace kissed each other. The inward application of this satisfaction made outwardly by the blood of Christ shed upon the cross, to the heart of every believer, by the hand of faith, for its justification, with the sanctification that accompanies it, by the water flowing with the blood, to a new birth and life of righteousness from the death of sin, is doubtless the great end and intent of Christianity; as much as taking a medicine is the end and intent of its being given. But the Gospel preached and read, and the sacraments administered in the church, are the instruments appointed to work all this, by the power of the Spirit that goes with them, as channels into the heart of every believer. But if, before he has received the grace of Christ by these, which are the only appointed means of receiving it; or if, instead of going on with humility and diligence in searching the Scriptures of God, a person is to shut himself up and search the inward depth and ground of his heart; what will he find there but the devil, ready to take advantage of his having left his only guide, and "transforming himself into an angel of light," under the disguise of great flights of devotion and illumination, to instil his diabolical suggestions, and lead the deluded soul, blindfold, and thinking herself safe in the hands of the Spirit of God, to deny and write against the satisfaction and atonement made for her sins by the blood of her Redeemer? For by these very means have we seen one of the brightest stars in the firmament of the church (oh ! lamentable and heart-breaking sight!) falling from the heaven of Christianity into the sink and complication of Paganism, Quakerism, and Socinianism, mixed up with chemistry and astrology, by a possessed cobbler; and, alas! when a man comes to forsake the Bible, and write against its doctrines, what matters it whether it is done by the light of nature, the light within, or the inspoken word? "Believe not," therefore, good people, "every spirit," whispering to your soul in a fit of quietism; but "try the spirits," by the Bible," whether they are of God." Keep to that; and let your

faith, hope, love, and devotion rise as high as they will. The higher the better.

V. As to the angelical world, glassy sea, &c. it is a mere romance, without the least countenance from Holy Scripture; nor does he, I think, produce above a text or two, by way of proof. The Holy Scriptures tell us, the world was good at the finishing of it, but by the devil came sin, the parent of all evil, natural and spiritualthat Christ came to redeem us from it all, to satisfy for our sins, to raise our souls to righteousness, by his Spirit here, and to glorify us, body and soul, hereafter. This scheme is complete, without searching after the state of the chaos before it was in being, or fancying this world to be the ruins of the angelical, as William Whiston did it was the tail of a comet. The same is to be said of the notion of Adam cased up in spiritual materialities, one over another like the coats of an onion. How many of these he had, Mr. Law does not seem sure, giving different accounts in different books. Instead of inventing hypotheses concerning the nature of paradise, let us study the way that led the penitent thief into it, repentance and faith in a Saviour on the cross, King of kings, and Lord of lords.

VI. Mr. Law is very lax and latitudinarian with regard to the government and discipline of the church: which, though, as he says, it will not save a man, yet, is absolutely necessary to preserve those doctrines that will. A hedge round a vineyard is, in itself, a poor paltry thing; but break it down, and all they that go by will pluck off her grapes. And no sin has been punished with heavier punishments, for that reason, than throwing down fences, and making it indifferent whether a Christian be of any church or none, so he be but a Christian, and have the birth of the inspoken word, which is a Pope in every man's heart. But if Christ left a church upon earth, and ordered submission to the appointed governors of it, so far as a man resists or undervalues this ordinance of Christ, so far he acts not like a Christian, let his inward light be what it will. In the same manner, I think, he is injudicious in condemning all human writings, commentators, &c. because people are divided through the multiplicity of them. All human learning that tends not to the knowledge of God, deserves the censure he bestows in a very masterly manner. But how are we to understand the Holy Scriptures, and be able to teach and explain them to others, without a knowledge of the languages in which they are written? And towards this, the labours of the faithful servants of God, who have gone