Pretence Of Resorting To Immediate Revelations, Subversive Of Every
Principle Of Piety.
Persons who, abandoning the Scripture, imagine to themselves some other
way of approaching to God, must be considered as not so much misled by
error as actuated by frenzy. For there have lately arisen some unsteady
men, who, haughtily pretending to be taught by the Spirit, reject all
reading themselves, and deride the simplicity of those who still attend to
(what they style) the dead and killing letter. But I would ask them, what
spirit that is, by whose inspiration they are elevated to such a
sublimity, as to dare to despise the doctrine of the Scripture, as puerile
and mean. For, if they answer that it is the Spirit of Christ, how
ridiculous is such an assurance! for that the apostles of Christ, and
other believers in the primitive Church, were illuminated by no other
Spirit, I think they will concede. But not one of them learned, from his
teaching, to contemn the Divine word; they were rather filled with higher
reverence for it, as their writings abundantly testify. This had been
predicted by the mouth of Isaiah. For where he says, “My Spirit that is
upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart
out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, for ever,”(145) he
does not confine people under the old dispensation to the external letter,
as though they were children learning to read, but declares, that it will
be the true and complete felicity of the new Church, under the reign of
Christ, to be governed by the word of God, as well as by his Spirit.
Whence we infer, that these persons are guilty of detestable sacrilege, in
disjoining these two things, which the prophet has connected in an
inviolable union. Again; Paul, after he had been caught up into the third
heaven, did not cease to study the doctrine of the law and the prophets;
as he also exhorted Timothy, a teacher of more than common excellence, to
“give attendance to reading.”(146) And worthy of remembrance is his
eulogium on the Scripture, that it “is profitable for doctrine, for
reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness; that the man of
God may be perfect.”(147) How diabolical, then, is that madness which
pretends that the use of the Scripture is only transient and temporary,
which guides the sons of God to the highest point of perfection! I would
also ask them another question—whether they have imbibed a different
spirit from that which the Lord promised to his disciples? Great as their
infatuation is, I do not think them fanatical enough to hazard such an
avowal. But what kind of Spirit did he promise? One, truly, who should
“not speak of himself,”(148) but suggest and instil into their minds those
things which he had orally delivered. The office of the Spirit, then,
which is promised to us, is not to feign new and unheard of revelations,
or to coin a new system of doctrine, which would seduce us from the
received doctrine of the Gospel, but to seal to our minds the same
doctrine which the Gospel delivers.
II. Hence we readily understand that it is incumbent on us diligently to
read and attend to the Scripture, if we would receive any advantage or
satisfaction from the Spirit of God; (thus also Peter(149) commends those
who studiously attended to the doctrine of the prophets, which yet might
be supposed to have retired after the light of the Gospel was risen;) but,
on the contrary, that if any spirit, neglecting the wisdom of the word of
God, obtrude on us another doctrine, he ought justly to be suspected of
vanity and falsehood. For, as Satan transforms himself into an angel of
light, what authority will the Spirit have with us, unless we can
distinguish him by the most certain criterion? We find him clearly
designated, indeed, in the word of the Lord; but these unhappy men are
fondly bent on delusion, even to their own destruction, seeking a spirit
rather from themselves than from him. But they plead, that it is unworthy
of the Spirit of God, to whom all things ought to be subject, to be made
subject to the Scripture; as though it were ignominious to the Holy Spirit
to be every where equal and uniform, in all things invariably consistent
with himself. If he were to be conformed to the rules of men, or of
angels, or of any other beings, I grant he might then be considered as
degraded, or even reduced to a state of servitude; but while he is
compared with himself, and considered in himself, who will assert that he
is thereby injured? This is bringing him to the test of examination. I
confess it is. But it is the way which he has chosen for the confirmation
of his majesty among us. We ought to be satisfied, as soon as he
communicates himself to us. But, lest the spirit of Satan should insinuate
himself under his name, he chooses to be recognized by us from his image,
which he hath impressed in the Scriptures. He is the author of the
Scriptures: he cannot be mutable and inconsistent with himself. He must
therefore perpetually remain such as he has there discovered himself to
be. This is not disgraceful to him; unless we esteem it honourable for him
to alter and degenerate from himself.
III. But their cavilling objection, that we depend on “the letter that
killeth,” shows, that they have not escaped the punishment due to the
despisers of the Scripture. For it is sufficiently evident, that Paul is
there contending against the false apostles,(150) who, recommending the
law to the exclusion of Christ, were seducing the people from the
blessings of the New Covenant, in which the Lord engages to engrave his
law in the minds of believers, and to inscribe it on their hearts. The
letter therefore is dead, and the law of the Lord slays the readers of it,
where it is separated from the grace of Christ, and only sounds in the
ears, without affecting the heart. But if it be efficaciously impressed on
our hearts by the Spirit,—if it exhibit Christ,—it is the word of life,
“converting the soul, making wise the simple,” &c.(151) But in the same
place the Apostle also calls his preaching “the ministration of the
Spirit;”(152) doubtless intending, that the Holy Spirit so adheres to his
own truth, which he hath expressed in the Scriptures, that he only
displays and exerts his power where the word is received with due
reverence and honour. Nor is this repugnant to what I before asserted,
that the word itself has not much certainty with us, unless when confirmed
by the testimony of the Spirit. For the Lord hath established a kind of
mutual connection between the certainty of his word and of his Spirit; so
that our minds are filled with a solid reverence for the word, when by the
light of the Spirit we are enabled therein to behold the Divine
countenance; and, on the other hand, without the least fear of mistake, we
gladly receive the Spirit, when we recognize him in his image, that is, in
the word. This is the true state of the case. God did not publish his word
to mankind for the sake of momentary ostentation, with a design to destroy
or annul it immediately on the advent of the Spirit; but he afterwards
sent the same Spirit, by whose agency he had dispensed his word, to
complete his work by an efficacious confirmation of that word. In this
manner Christ opened the understanding of his two disciples;(153) not
that, rejecting the Scriptures, they might be wise enough of themselves,
but that they might understand the Scriptures. So when Paul exhorts the
Thessalonians to “quench not the Spirit,”(154) he does not lead them to
empty speculations independent of the word; for he immediately adds,
“despise not prophesyings;” clearly intimating, that the light of the
Spirit is extinguished when prophecies fall into contempt. What answer can
be given to these things, by those proud fanatics, who think themselves
possessed of the only valuable illumination, when, securely neglecting and
forsaking the Divine word, they, with equal confidence and temerity,
greedily embrace every reverie which their distempered imaginations may
have conceived? A very different sobriety becomes the children of God;
who, while they are sensible that, exclusively of the Spirit of God, they
are utterly destitute of the light of truth, yet are not ignorant that the
word is the instrument, by which the Lord dispenses to believers the
illumination of his Spirit. For they know no other Spirit than that who
dwelt in and spake by the apostles; by whose oracles they are continually
called to the hearing of the word.