Chapter 3 | Table of Contents | Chapter 5

He can easily and learnedly talk, write, criticize and determine upon all scripture words and facts. He looks at all this as a full proof of his own religious wisdom, power and goodness, and calls immediate inspiration, fanaticism. He does not consider that all the woes denounced by Christ against scribes, Pharisees and hypocrites apply today. They still until in this day denounce against every outward appearance and show of religion that the natural man can practice.

It is well to be noted that everyone, however high in human literature, is only this very natural man and can only have the goodness of a carnal secular religion until he becomes as empty of all as a new born child. The Spirit of God must get a full birth in him and become the inspirer and doer of all that he wills, does, and aims at in his whole course of religion.

Our divine Master compares the religion of the learned Pharisees "to whitened sepulchers, outwardly beautiful, but inwardly full of rottenness, stench and dead men's bones." Now why was a religion so serious in its restraints, so beautiful in its outward form and practices, and commanding such reverence from all that beheld it, charged by Truth itself with having inwardly such an abominable nature? It was only for this one reason, because it was a religion of self. Therefore from the beginning to the end of the world it must be true that where self is kept alive, has power and keeps up its own interests, whether in speaking, writing, teaching, or defending the most specious number of scripture doctrines and religious forms, there that very old Pharisee that Christ with so much severity of language constantly condemned is still alive. And the reason for such heavy condemnation is because self is the only root and the sum total of all sin; every sin that can be named is centered in it and the creature can sin no higher than to live to self. For self is the fullness of atheism and idolatry. It is nothing else but the creature broken off from God and Christ; it is the power of Satan living and working in us and the sad continuance of that first turning from God that was the whole fall and death from our first Father.

As sad and Satanical as this self is, what is so much cherished and nourished with our daily love, fears and cares about it? How much worldly wisdom, how much laborious learning, how many subtleties of contrivance and how many flattering applications and submissions are made to the world, that this apostate self may have its fullness both of inward joys and outward glory?

It must be added that a religion of self, of worldly glory and prosperity carried on under the gospel state, has more of a diabolical nature than that of the Jewish Pharisees. This is the highest and last working of the mystery of iniquity because it lives to self, Satan and the world in and by a daily profession of denying and dying to self, of being crucified with Christ, of being led by His Spirit, of being risen from the world and set with Him in heavenly places.

Let then the writers against continual immediate divine inspiration take this for a certain truth: that by so doing they do all they can to draw man from the very truth and perfection of the gospel state and are, and can be, no better than pitiable advocates for a religion of self more blamable and abominable now than what was condemned by Christ. For whatever is pretended to be done in gospel religion by any other spirit or power but that of the Holy Spirit bringing it forth, whether it be praying, preaching or practicing any duties, is only the religion of self and can be nothing else. For everything that is born of the flesh is flesh and nothing is spiritual except what has its whole birth from the Spirit. But man not ruled and governed by the Spirit has only the nature of corrupt flesh. It is under the full power and guidance of fallen nature and is that very natural man to whom the things of God are foolishness. But man, boldly rejecting and preaching against a continual immediate divine inspiration, is an anti-apostle. He lays another foundation than what Christ has laid. He teaches that Christ needs not and must not be all in all in us and is a preacher of the folly of fearing to grieve, quench and resist the Holy Spirit. For when, where or how could everyone of us be in danger of grieving, quenching or resisting the Spirit unless His holy breathings and inspirations were always within us? Or how could the sin against the Holy Spirit have a more dreadful nature than that against the Father and the Son, but because the continual immediate guidance and operation of the Spirit is the last and highest manifestation of the Holy Trinity in the fallen soul of man? It is not because the Holy Spirit is more worthy or higher in nature than the Father and the Son, but because Father and Son come forth in their own highest power of redeeming love through the covenant of a continual immediate inspiration of the Spirit to be always dwelling and working in the soul.

Many weak things have been conjectured and published to the world about the sin against the Holy Spirit; whereas the whole nature of it lies in this: it is a sinning or standing out against the last and highest dispensation of God for the full redemption of man. Christ says, "If I had not come they had not had sin," that is, they had not had such a weight of guilt upon them. Therefore, the sinning against Christ come into the flesh was of a more unpardonable nature than sinning against the Father under the Law. Likewise sinning against the Holy Spirit is of a more unpardonable nature than sinning against the Father under the Law or against the Son as come in the flesh, because these two preceding dispensations were but preparatory to the coming or full ministration of the Spirit. When Father and Son were come in the power and manifestation of the Spirit then whoever refuses or resists this ministration of the Spirit, resists all that the Holy Trinity can do to restore and revive the first life of God in the soul. So it is in this that he commits the unpardonable sin. It is unpardonable because there remains no further or higher power to remove it out of the soul. No sin is unpardonable because of its own nature, or what is in itself, but because there is something to come that can remove it out of the soul. Sin becomes unpardonable when it has withstood or turned from the last and highest remedy for the removal of it.

Hence it is that grieving, quenching or resisting the Spirit is the sin of all sins that most of all stops the work of redemption and in the highest degree separates man from all union with God. There could be no such sin as long as the Holy Spirit is always breathing, willing and working within us. For what spirit can be grieved by us, but what has its will within us, as it is disobeyed? What spirit can be quenched by us, but what is and ever would be a holy fire of life within us? What spirit can be resisted by us, but what is and has its working within us? A spirit on the outside of us cannot be the Spirit of God nor could such a spirit be any more quenched or hindered by our spirit than a man by indignation at a storm could stop its rage. Now, as dreadful as the above mentioned sin is, I would ask all the writers against continual, immediate, divine inspiration, how they could more effectually lead men into a habitual state of sinning against the Holy Spirit than by such doctrine? For how can we possibly avoid the sin of grieving, quenching, etc., the Spirit, but by continually reverencing His holy presence within us by continually waiting for, trusting and solely attending to what the Spirit of God wills works and manifests within us? To turn men from this continual dependence upon the Holy Spirit is turning them from all true knowledge of God. For without this there is no possibility of any edifying, saving knowledge of God.

For though we have ever so many mathematical demonstrations of His being, we are without all real knowledge of Him until His own quickening Spirit within us manifests Him as a power of life, light, love and goodness essentially found, vitally felt and adored in our souls. This is the one knowledge of God that is eternal life because it is the life of God manifested in the soul. It is that knowledge of which Christ says, "No one knows the Father but the Son and he to whomsoever the Son reveals Him." Therefore this knowledge is only possible to be found in Him who is in Christ a new creature, because Christ reveals the Father. But if none belong to God except those who are led by the Spirit of God, we are reprobates unless the Spirit of Christ is living in us. We need be told that all that we have to trust to or depend upon as children of God and Christ is the continual immediate guidance, unction and teaching of this Holy Spirit within us. How can we more profanely sin against this Spirit and power of God within us or more expressly call men from the power of God to Satan than by ridiculing a faith and hope that looks wholly and solely to His continual immediate breathings and operations for all that can be holy and good in us?

"When I am lifted up from the earth," says Christ, "I will draw all men to me." Therefore the one great power of Christ in and over the souls of men is after he is in heaven; then begins the true full power of His drawing, because it is by His Spirit in man that he draws. But who can more resist this drawing or defeat its operation in us than he that preaches against and condemns the belief of a continual and immediate inspiration of the Spirit, when Christ's drawing can be in nothing else nor be powerful any other way?