16 GENERAL PRIN tertainment in the world upon his first effusion, Acts ii. 13. Many pretences I know will be pleaded to give countenance unto this abomination. For first, They will say, it is not the Spirit of God himself and his works, but the pretence of others unto him and them, which they so reproach and scorn. I fear this plea or excuse, will prove too short and narrow, to make a co- vering unto their profaneness. It is dangerous ventur- ing with rudeness and petulancy upon holy things, and then framing of excuses. But in reproaches of the Lord Christ and his Spirit, men will not want their pretences, John x. 32. And the thingsof the Spirit of God which they thus reproach and scorn in any, are either such as are truly and really ascribed unto him, and wrought by him in the disciples of Jesus Christ, or they are not: if they are such as indeed are no effects of the Spirit of grace, such as he is not promised for, nor attested to work in them that do believe, as vain enthusiasms, extatical raptures, and revelations, cer- tainly it more became Christians, men professing or at least pretending a reverence unto God, his Spirit, and his word, to manifest and convince those of whom they treat, that such things are not fruits of the Spirit, but imaginations of their own; than to deride them under the name of the Spirit or his gifts and operations. Do men consider with whom and what they make bold in these things? But if they be things that are real effects of the Spirit of Christ in them that believe, or such as are undeniably assigned unto him in the scripture, which they despise; what remains to give Çountenance unto this daring profaneness? Yea, but they say, se- condly; it is not the real true operations of the Spirit, themselves, but the false pretensions of others unto them, which they traduce and expose. But will this warrant the course which it is manifest they steer in matter and manner? The same persons pretend to be- lieve in Christ and the gospel, and to be made partakers of the benefits of his mediation. And yet if they have not the Spirit of Christ, they haveno saving interest in these things; for if anyman have not'theSpirit ofChrist, he is none ofhis. If it be then only their false pretend- ing unto the Spirit of God and his works, which these persons so revile and scorn, why do they not deal with them in like manner with respect unto Christ and the profession of the gospel? Why do they not say unto them, you believe in Christ, you believe in the gospel; CIPLES CONCERNING -------- and thereon expose them to derision? So plainly dealt the Jews with our Lord Jesus Christ; Psal. xxii. 7, 3, Matth. 29, 43. It is therefore the things them- selves, and not the pretences pretended, that are the objects of this contempt and reproach. Besides; sup- pose those, whom at present, on other occasions, they hate or despise, are not partakers of the Spirit of God, but are really strangers unto the things which hypocri tically they profess? Will they grant and allow that any other Christians in the world do so really partake of him, as to be led,, guided, directed, by him, to be quickened, sanctified, purified by him, to be enabled unto communion with God, and all duties of holy obe- dience by him, with those other effects and operations for which he is promised by Jesus Christ unto his dis- ciples? If they will grant these things to be really ef- fected and accomplished in any, let them not be offend- ed with them who desire that they should be so in them- selves, and declare themselves to that pupose, and men would have more charity for them under their petulant scoffing, than otherwise they are able to exercise. It will, thirdly, yet be pleaded, that they grant as fully, as any, the beingof the Holy Ghost, the promise of him and his real operations, only they differ from others as to the sense and exposition of those phrases and ex- pressions that are used concerning these things in the scripture, which those others abuse in an unintelligible manner, as making them proper, which indeed are me- taphorical. But is this the way which they like and choose to express their notions and apprehensions; namely, openly to revile and scorn time very naming and asserting the work of the Spirit of God, in the words which himselfbath taught? A boldness this is, which, as whereof the former ages have not given us a prece- dent, so we hope the future will not afford an instance of any to follow the example: for their sense and appre- hension of these things they shall afterward be examin- ed, so far as they have dared to discover them. Ìn the mean tithe, we know that the Socinians acknow- ledge a Trinity, the sacrifice of Christ, the expiationof sin made thereby; and yet we have some differences with them about these things. And so we have with these men about the Spirit of God and his dispensation under the gospel; though, like them, they wouldgrant the things spokenof them to be true, asmetaphorically to be interpreted. But of these things we must treat . more fully hereafter. _----_ =--
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