In Defence of Experimental Religion.

IN DEFENCE OF EXPERIMENTAL RELIGION.F1

A Letter From The Rev. Mr. Fletcher, To The Rev. Mr. Prothero, MADELEY, July 25, 1761.

REV. SIR, - The elegant sermon you preached at the visitation, got you, no doubt, the thanks of your known hearers. Permit an unknown one to add his to theirs, and to pay to merit a just tribute. It gave me exceeding great satisfaction to see you stand up so boldly in defence of revealed religion against Deists and infidels, and, by ingenious observations and cogent arguments, force them out of their strong hold, a blind confidence in reason. I could not help wishing that they did every where meet with opponents so able to fight them with their own weapons. Were this the case, there would not be so much room to lament the overflowings of Deism among men of reason and learning.

The second part of your discourse, wherein you endeavoured to guard the truth from the other extreme, superstition and enthusiasm, deserves no less to be commended, on account of the goodness of your design. It is the duty of a preacher to keep the sacred truths committed to him, as well from being perverted by enthusiasts, as crushed by infidels. The rocks on which both split are equally dangerous, and we see daily that nothing exposes so much the mysteries of Christianity to the scorn of freethinkers, as the words and behaviour of those who suppose themselves under the inspiration of God’s Spirit, when, it appears, that they are led only by the weakness of their mind and nerves, by spiritual pride and the warmth of their imagination. Boasting of communion with God, and peculiar favours from heaven, is no less hurtful to the cause of Christ, when people’s lives show them to be actuated by a spirit of delusion; and setting up impulses in the room of repentance, faith, hope, charity, obedience, has done no small mischief in the Church of God.

These are the counterfeits and bane of inward religion: these the tares that the enemy sows in the night of ignorance and superstition; and, I repeat it again, you cannot be too much commended, sir, for endeavouring to detect and stop him in this work of darkness. But did you act with all the caution necessary in so important an undertaking, and, while you were pulling out the tares, did not you root up, unawares, some of the wheat also? I had some fear of it, sir, while I was hearing you; and I beg leave to lay before you the ground of this fear in the following observations, which I humbly entreat you to weigh in the balance of the sanctuary: - I. Is the representing, in general, virtue, benevolence, good nature, and morality, as the way to salvation, agreeable to either the word of God, or the doctrine of our Church? Both show us no other way but Christ alone, Christ “the way, the truth, and the life;” Christ the door, the only door to come to the Father, and receive grace and glory. “If justification comes by obeying the law,” says Paul, Galatians 2:21, “then Christ died in vain;” and to the Ephesians 2:8, he says, “By grace you are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not of works, lest any man should boast.”

The only means and instrument, on our part, required for salvation, (according so our Church, second sermon on the passion,) is faith, that is to say, a sure trust and confidence in the mercy of God, whereby we persuade ourselves that God both has forgiven and will forgive our sins; that he has taken us again into his favour; that he has released us from the bonds of damnation, and received us again into the number of his elect people, not for our merits and deserts, but only and solely for the merits of Christ’s death and passion.

This faith is so far from superseding morality and good works, that it works infallibly by love, and love infallibly by obedience, and consequently produces morality and good works, truly so called. “Do we make void the law through faith?” says Paul: “nay, we establish the law.” Nevertheless, faith unfeigned alone justifieth, if the word of God and the articles of our Church stand for any thing; the eleventh of which runs thus: “We are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, by faith, and not for our own works and deservings; wherefore, that we are justified by faith only, is a most wholesome doctrine, and very full of comfort, as is more largely expressed in the homily on justification:” to which I refer you, sir, or to the enclosed extract of our homilies on this point, if you please to peruse it. II. Does what you said, sir, of reason and free agency, in the second part of your discourse, perfectly agree with what you said in the first? You told us first, (if I understood you rightly,) that since the fall, man’s reason is so darkened, that the greatest philosophers staggered even at the fundamental truths of religion, the being of a God, the immortality of the soul, &c; that his passions are so disorderly and impetuous, as to hurry him down the paths of error and vice; that reason, so far from bringing him back, redoubles the cheat, and makes him ingenious to excuse and satisfy his unruly appetites; that St. Paul’s words painted his helplessness with true colours, “The good that I would I do not, and the evil I would not that I do,” &c.

This, sir, was a superstructure worthy of the foundation; this agreed with your text with the utmost exactness: “We are not sufficient of ourselves to think any thing, [truly good before God,] as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God.”

Who would have expected, after this, to hear you place again reason, and free will to good, upon the throne out of which you had but just forced them? I humbly presume, sir, that this candle of the Lord, shining in the breast of man, did not deserve to be set up quite so high again, since the light it gives can hardly hinder a philosopher, a man who makes it all his business to collect and follow that light, from stumbling at the being of a God.

As for free agency to good, you appealed to experience, sir, (if I am not mistaken,) whether a man has not the same power to enter the paths of virtue as to walk across a room: let then experience decide. The heathen says, Video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor. The prophet says, “Turn us, and so shall we be turned. Draw me, and I shall run after thee.” You say yourself, sir, “The good that I would I do not, and the evil I would not that I do.” Our Church says, (Colossians for Easter,) “We humbly beseech thee that, as by thy special grace preventing us, thou dost put into our minds good desires, so by thy continual help we may bring the same to good effect.” The Bible says, Philippians 2:13, “It is God that worketh in you both to will and to do” that which is truly good in his sight; and the tenth of those articles, which we solemnly took for the rule of our preaching, next to the word of God, says, “The condition of man, after the fall of Adam, is such that he cannot turn and prepare himself, by his own natural strength and good works, to faith and calling upon God; wherefore we have no power to do good works pleasant and acceptable to God, without the grace of God, by Christ, preventing us, that we may have a good will, and working with us when we have that good will.” “What! is man, then, a mere machine?” No, sir, he has a will, but it is contrary to the will of God; his carnal mind, his natural wisdom, “is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be,” says St. Paul: he is a free agent to do evil. Yet, when God prevents him with convictions of sin and good desires, as says our Church, which he always does sooner or later, he may, through the grace of God, yield to them, and enter into life, or through his stubbornness resist them, and remain in his fallen state. III. You objected, in your discourse, that “the insisting upon these, and the line doctrines, tended to breed disturbances, strife, and confusion.” This is accidentally true, sir; but what do you infer from thence? That the doctrines are false, or the preachers in the wrong, because offences arise? We cannot do this without giving up the Bible. What strife and confusion, yea, what jeering and cruel mockings, attended the ministry of the prophets among the Israel of God! Witness Micaiah, Elias, Jeremiah, &c. Yea, who was so great a disturber as that Jesus of Nazareth, of whom some of his friends said, “He is mad,” whom all Jerusalem, in uproar, brought to Pilate, and accused, saying, Luke 23:2, 5, “We found this fellow perverting the nation; for he stirreth up the people, teaching throughout all Jewry, beginning from Galilee to this place?” Or that Saul of Tarsus, who was well nigh torn in pieces by his offended hearers, yea, and by those that had never heard him, while the general cry was, “This is the pestilential fellow, who turneth the world upside down - brethren, help!”

The same causes will produce the same effects. The doctrines of the fall, the new birth, and free justification by faith alone; and their fruits in those that embrace them, godly sorrow, peace, righteousness, and joy in a believing heart, will stir up the hearers in proportion to the clearness, constancy, and power with which they are preached. And this will be the case in all ages, because in all ages men are born in sin, and children of wrath; yea, and in all places too: those that are born on the banks of the Thames, or Severn, are no better, by nature, than those that drink the water of Jordan or of the Ganges.

When a medicine operates by stirring up the peccant humours in order to evacuate them, is it a sign that it is not a good one? Not at all: it must work if it be good. I shall conclude this paragraph by a few words of him who had in his breast all the treasures of Divine wisdom and knowledge. John 7:7, “The world hateth me, because I testify of it that the works thereof are evil.” And “shall the servant be above his master?” “I am come to send fire upon the earth - to set [occasionally] a man at variance with his father,” &c. While the Gospel gives inward peace, even a peace that the world knoweth not, to those that really embrace it, it declares war, an eternal war, against sin, and must, of course, disturb the peace of the prince of this world and his subjects.

IV. It is agreeable enough to the doctrine of free agency to good, not to insist upon the necessity of being born again of the Spirit of God; but is the discountenancing of the preaching of it agreeable to the tenor of that revelation you did so well defend in the beginning of your discourse? If Ezekiel preached it, Ezekiel 11:19, and 18:31, and 36:26, if John speaks so often, as well as David and St. Paul, of being born of God, of being “quickened” by his word and Spirit, of the “new heart,” the “new creature,” the “renewing of the mind,” the “life of God,” the “eternal life,” the “life of Christ” in a believer, &c; if Jesus himself enforced this doctrine in the strongest manner to Nicodemus; if our Church (office for baptism and collect for Ash Wednesday) pleads for it as well as the word of God, can we supersede it in the pulpit as an unintelligible tenet, without wounding, unawares, Christ and his apostles, our Church and the compilers of her liturgy? See Revelation 22:19.

V. To set up impulses as the standard of our faith, or rule of our conduct; to take the thrilling of weak nerves, sinking of the animal spirits, or flights of a heated imagination, for the workings of God’s Spirit; to pretend to miraculous gifts, and those fruits of the Spirit which are not offered and promised to believers in all ages, or to boast of the graces which that Spirit produces in the heart of every child of God, when the fruits of the flesh appear in our life - this is downright enthusiasm: I detest it as well as you, sir, and I heartily wish you good luck whenever you shall attack such monstrous delusions.

But is it consistent with the doctrine of our Church to condemn and set aside all feelings in religion, and rank them with unaccountable impulses? Give me leave, sir, to tell you, that either you or the compilers of our liturgy, articles, and homilies, must be mistaken, if I did not mistake you. They teach us to beseech God to “deliver us from hardness of heart,” whereby I cannot conceive they mean any thing, if they mean not a heart past feeling. They bid us pray, (office for the sick,) that every sick person may know and feel that there is no saving name or power but that of Jesus Christ. In the seventeenth of our articles, they speak of godly persons, and such as feel in themselves the workings of God’s Spirit. And in the third part of the homily for Rogation Week, they declare that when after contrition we feel our consciences at peace with God through the remission of our sin, it is God that worketh this miracle in us. Compare this with Romans 5:1. They are so far, therefore, from attributing such feelings to the weakness of good people’s nerves, or to a spirit of pride and delusion, that they affirm it is God that worketh them in their hearts. Yea, they never suffer us to meet together for public worship without beseeching the God of all grace to give us such a “due sense of all his mercies, especially of his inestimable love in our redemption by Jesus Christ, as that our hearts may be unfeignedly thankful;” and if they would have us have a due sense of an inestimable love causing our hearts to be unfeignedly thankful, she is not against our feeling some thankfulness, for the word sense certainly conveys that idea, as well as the Latin word sentire, or the French sentir, whence it is derived, which cannot be Englished more literally than by the word to feel. Therefore the expression, “to feel thankfulness,” does not convey a stronger idea than the words of our Church, to be duly, sensibly, unfeignedly thankful in heart, which you daily use yourself, sir. In condemning feelings in general, lt would not then have been disagreeable at all to our liturgy to have allowed your hearers at least some feelings of thankfulness for the inestimable love of their dying Lord.

But to proceed: you seemed, sir, to discountenance feelings as not agreeable to sober, rational worship; but if I am not mistaken, reason by no means clashes with feelings of various sorts in religion. I am willing to let any man of reason judge whether feeling sorrow for sin, hunger and thirst after righteousness, peace of conscience, serenity of mind, consolation in prayer, thankfulness at the Lord’s table, hatred of sin, zeal for God, love to Jesus and all men, compassion for the distressed, &c; or feeling nothing at all of this, is matter of mere indifference: yea. sir, take for a judge a heathen poet, if you please, and you will hear him say, of a young man who, by his blushes, betrayed the shame he felt for having told an untruth, Erubuit - salva res est.

Does it seem contrary to reason that a spirit should be affected by spiritual objects? If heat and cold, sickness and health, so affect my body as to cause various feelings in it, why cannot fear and hope, love and hatred, joy and sorrow, sin and grace, remorse and peace, so affect my soul as to produce various feelings or sensations there? Can any thing be more absurd and contrary to nature than the apathy of Stoics? And what is banishing feelings out of religion, but pleading for religious apathy? If a man may feel sorrow when he sees himself stripped of all, and left naked upon a desert coast, why should not a penitent sinner, whom God has delivered from blindness of heart, be allowed to feel sorrow upon seeing himself robbed of his title to heaven, and left in the wilderness of this world destitute of original righteousness? Again: if it is not absurd to say that a rebel, condemned to death, feels joy upon his being reprieved and received into his prince’s favour, why should it be thought absurd to affirm that a Christian who, being justified by faith, has peace with God, and rejoices in hope of the glory to come, feels joy and happiness in his inmost soul on that account? On the contrary, sir, to affirm that such a one feels nothing, (if I am not mistaken,) is no less repugnant to reason than to religion.

But let us go to the law and the testimony, and let the point stand or fall by the oracles of God. Had Adam no feeling when, seeing his nakedness, he tried to hide himself from himself and from God? I believe, sir, he felt remorse, shame, and fear, to a very great degree; and should I be thought an enthusiast for it, I confess I have felt the same upon conviction of sin. It is probable enough, also, that Jacob felt religious awe and a holy dread when he said, “How dreadful is this place; this is none other than the gate of heaven!” And young King Josiah, contrition of heart, when, upon his hearing the word of the Lord, he rent his clothes and wept, 2 Kings 22:11. Nor did the Searcher of hearts say that he was indebted to his constitution, and the weakness of his nerves, for those feelings of sorrow. Just the reverse: “Because thine heart was tender, and thou hast humbled thyself and wept before me, I also have heard thee, says the Lord.” Was Job a low - spirited enthusiast, or did he feel something of the terrors of the Lord in reality, when he cried out, Job 6:4, “The arrows of the Almighty are within me; the poison thereof drinketh up my Spirits: the terrors of God do set themselves in array against me.”

But let us go to the Psalms, which, in all ages of the Church, have been looked upon as the standard of true devotion.

Can we, without uncharitableness, suppose that David had no feelings (or which comes to the same sense, no sensation) of joy and thankfulness in his heart, when he sung, Psalm 28:7, “The Lord is my strength and shield; my heart trusted in him, and I am helped; therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth?”

Was not he a great dissembler, if, feeling no godly sorrow, he said, Psalm 31:10, “My life is spent with grief, and my years with sighing; my strength faileth me because of mine iniquity, and my bones are consumed?”

Did he feel no happiness in God, taste nothing of the Lord’s goodness, when he said, Psalm 34:13, 18, “O taste and see that the Lord is good, he is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart?” No remorse, no fear of God’s wrath, when he cried out, Psalm 38:1, 3, 4, “O Lord, rebuke me not in thy wrath; there is no rest in my bones because of my sin: for mine iniquities are gone over my head as a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me to bear!”

Did he feel no fervour of devotion, no warmth of love, when he said, Psalm 39:3, “My heart was hot within me; while I was musing, the fire kindled, and I spake with my tongue?” No desire and thirst after God, when he sung, Psalm 42:1, “As the hart panteth after the waterbrook, so panteth my soul after thee, O God?” No dejection or trouble of mind, when he expostulated with himself, Psalm 42:11, “Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me?” Did he expect no feelings of joy, no sense of the peace of God, when he prayed, Psalm 51:8, “Make me to hear of joy and gladness, that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice? Restore unto me the joy of salvation!” “Let thy loving kindness comfort me: when wilt thou comfort me?” &c, Psalm 119:76, 82.

Had he no sense, no inward consciousness, that his affections were set on things above, when he said, “My heart is fixed; Any heart is fixed; I will sing and give praise?” Did he feel no stirrings of desire, no touches of joy, when he cried, Psalm 63:1, “My soul thirsteth after thee, my flesh longeth for thee as a dry and thirsty land, where no water is. Because thy loving kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee. Thus will I bless thee while l live; and my soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness?”

Had he no sense or feeling of the mercy of God, and of his justification, when he said, Psalm 66:16, “Come and hear, all ye that fear the Lord, and I will tell you what he has done for my soul?” Psalm 32:1, 5, “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, &c. I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin?” Psalm 103:1, “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me bless his holy name; who forgiveth all thy sin, and healeth all thy infirmity?” Did he feel no concern for God’s glory, when he said, Psalm 119:136, 139, “Rivers of water run down mine eyes, because men keep not thy law? My zeal hath even consumed me; because mine enemies have forgotten thy words?” In short, had he felt neither sorrow nor comfort, when he said. Psalm 94:19, “In the multitudes of the sorrows of my heart, thy comforts have refreshed my soul?” Or shall we suppose, that the man after God’s own heart, in his devotion, was only a well - meaning enthusiast, of a soft complexion, sometimes cast down by melancholy, at other times carried out by the warmth of his imagination, and often led by impulses into the wild presumption of Ranters? If you refuse (as I am sure you do) to pass such judgments on David, you cannot help, sir, allowing the reality and the usefulness of feelings in sober religion, in rational devotion. But let us leave the penitent king to his feelings, and consider what, we can make of the weeping prophet. Certainly, sir, we must say that Jeremiah was a melancholy enthusiast, almost falling into despair through the weakness of his nerves and lowness of his spirits, or allow that there is such a thing as feeling godly sorrow in religion, and thereby becoming entitled to the promise of our Lord, Matthew 5, “Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted;” unless we run to the other extreme, and account for his rivers of tears, by saying they were hypocritical tears, such as crocodiles are supposed to shed to bring men into their snare; and yet this must have been the case, if he felt no inward sorrow adequate to the outward demonstrations of his grief.

Were the saints of the New Testament more free from these inward feelings? Just the reverse! At least we ought to judge charitably enough of the Virgin Mary, to suppose that she felt some spiritual joy, when she said, “My soul rejoiceth in God my Saviour;” and of our Lord himself, to believe that he felt some trouble of mind, some deep concern, when he wept over Jerusalem, when he was troubled and wept at Lazarus’ grave, when he said, “My soul is troubled unto death;” and when, being in an agony, he offered up prayers with strong crying and tears, yea, with a bloody sweat: surely, sir, such scenes were transacted, not in his weak nerves, or frighted imagination, but in his inmost soul, and consequently we may conclude that he first felt them there.

If we read the Gospels and the Acts, we find frequent mention made of a peace, joy, and love, which people were strangers to, till they received the unction of the Holy One; and that not among apostles only, but among private Christians and illiterate women. The two disciples cried out, Luke 24., “How did our heart burn within us!” The twelve, whose hearts were filled with sorrow, John 16:6, return to Jerusalem with great joy, Luke 24.

At the day of Pentecost they were filled with power, boldness, and zeal, which are graces common to all believers, especially preachers: (for what have we to do with the miraculous gifts which it pleased God to confine to the apostolic age?) at least our Church declares, (homily for Whitsunday,) that the Spirit of God engendereth still a burning zeal toward God’s word, and giveth all men (not cloven tongues outwardly, but) a tongue, yea, a fiery tongue, so that they may boldly and cheerfully declare the truth in the face of all the world.

If we read on, we see three thousand people pricked to the heart by the word, (and consequently feeling the sword of the Spirit in their heart,) Ephesians 6., compared with Hebrews, and upon their crying for help, we find them so comforted upon believing the forgiveness of sins through Jesus, that they were enabled to praise God, continue instant in prayer and breaking of bread, and to eat their food with gladness and singleness of heart. And I presume, sir, they felt and enjoyed that gladness of heart: yea, not only believers at Jerusalem felt it, but those of Antioch also, who, Acts 13:52, were filled with joy and the Holy Ghost; and the Churches of Judea and Galilee, who walked in the fear of the Lord, and the comfort of the Holy Ghost, Acts 9:31.

Nor was that a privilege peculiar to the primitive Christians, as all those who have been at the pains of making their calling and election sure, experience daily: for the promise was not only to them, but to their children, and to us that are afar off: Had our Church been of another opinion, she would never have bidden us pray, as she does in the collect for Whitsunday, and the Sunday before: “Send us thine Holy Ghost to comfort us, and grant us, by thy Holy Spirit, to have a right judgment in all things, and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort;” and in that for St. Stephen’s day, “Grant that we, being filled with the Holy Ghost, may learn to love our enemies as thy first martyr;” much less would she have bid us ask for the inspiration of his Holy Spirit, and conclude all our morning and evening prayers by asking the fellowship of the Holy Ghost for ourselves and for all.

But it; because your text was taken out of St. Paul’s Epistle, you choose, sir, to let him decide whether feelings ought to have place in sound religion or not, I am willing to stand at the bar before so great a judge, and promise to find no fault with his sentence.

And first, not to mention the various scenes of terror, remorse, shame, desire, hope, joy, love, and admiration, he went through at his conversion, which he could not but feel in his soul; can we suppose, without rashness, that when he speaks of his fears within, the continual sorrow in his heart, the being in much trembling, the breaking of his heart, his preaching, praying, writing with many tears, his being “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing,” his longing to be dissolved, his being constrained by the love of Christ, his being refreshed in the Spirit, his bowels and the bowels of the saints being refreshed, his being comforted, yea, “exceeding full of comfort;” his “consolations abounding through Christ,” &c. Can we suppose, I say, he felt all along neither sorrow nor consolation, neither fear nor trembling, neither desire nor love? For my part, I believe he felt all this, and more than words can express: I dare no more place him among hypocrites than I dare rank him with enthusiasts.

But where does he exclaim against feeling the power of God, or the powerful operations of his Spirit on the heart? Is it where he says, that the kingdom of God is “not in word but in power;” that this kingdom within us, (if we are believers,) this true inward religion consists “in peace, righteousness, and joy in the Holy Ghost?” That Christians rejoice in tribulation, because the love of God is shed abroad in their hearts by the Holy Ghost given unto them? Is it where he says, he is “not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, because it is the power of God to the salvation of every one that believeth?” That he desired to “know nothing but Jesus and the power of his resurrection?” That his preaching was not with “enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,” that the faith of his hearers might not “stand in the wisdom of man, but in the power of God?” 2 Corinthians 2:24. Or, is it when he calls the exerting of this power in him, his life, saying, “I live not, but Christ lives in me; and the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me?”

Can we suppose that he discountenances feelings in religion when he prays that “the God of hope would fill the Romans 15:13, with all joy and peace in believing, that they might abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost?” When he says that “they had not received again the spirit of bondage to fear, but the Spirit of adoption, crying, Abba Father, and witnessing to their spirits that they were the children of God,” agreeable to that of St. John, “He that believeth, hath the witness in himself?” Or does he suppose feelings useless when he gives up a notorious sinner to Satan, for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit, being first troubled, might afterward be saved in the day of the Lord? And when, fearing the wound would be too deep, (for there is a danger in this also,) he desires the Corinthians “to comfort him, lest he should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow?” Does it not rather clearly appear, that deep sorrow is necessary to a great sinner, though he would not have him be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow?

Yea, he puts the question out of all doubt when he tells the Corinthians, second Epistle, 2 Corinthians 7:10, “that godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation, not to be repented of;” and praises them for “sorrowing after a godly sort, insomuch that when Titus came, they received him with fear and trembling, and refreshed his spirit by the demonstrations that they gave him of their sorrow, indignation, fear, zeal, and vehement desire.”

We may then safely conclude, that Paul, in this and other places, is as far from superseding feelings of godly sorrow as feelings of godly joy, when he says to the Philippians, “Rejoice, rejoice in the Lord, and again I say rejoice;” or feelings of vehement desire, when he tells the Romans, that when the “Spirit helpeth our infirmities, he enables us to pray with groanings and desires that cannot be uttered.”

But to avoid transcribing the greatest part of the apostle’s epistles, let us see if he never spoke correctly to the point in question. Upon inquiry, I find him in our translation using thrice the word exclaimed against, and every time very much to the purpose, to show you were mistaken, sir, when you supposed that he discountenances feelings in your text.

The first is in Acts 17:27, where he is not ashamed to exhort the wise and learned Athenians “to seek after God, if haply they might feel after him and find him, as he is not far from every one of us.” It is true the word in the original means palpare, but it has still a near relation to feel, when it signifies sentire, as it would be absurd to feel after that which cannot be felt, perceived, and found.

A man may properly enough be said “to feel after God,” when he is enabled to obey the command of our Church, “Lift up your hearts unto the Lord,” and to “find him,” and get a sense of his glorious presence, when “the peace of God, passing all understanding, enters and keeps his heart in the knowledge and love of Christ,” for “God is love.” See 2 Corinthians 4:6.

The second place is Hebrews 4:15, where the apostle represents Jesus Christ himself at the right hand of God, as “touched with the feeling of our infirmity.” What, sir, shall we impute our Saviour’s being touched with such a feeling in heaven to the weakness of his nerves! Or shall we beg of God to give us hearts to love and dread him, such hearts as may be touched, first, with a feeling of our sins and miseries, and then with such a due sense of his inestimable love, as that they may be unfeignedly thankful? The third place is Ephesians 4:19, where, after having begun the picture of heathens by saying, that their “understanding was darkened, and that they were alienated from the life of God by the ignorance that was in them, because of the blindness of their hearts,” the apostle gives it the last stroke but one by adding they were past feeling.

Past feeling! What? Bodily pain and pleasure? No: for he says that they gave themselves to lasciviousness, the basest pleasure of sense. They were then past feeling in their hearts, (“the blindness of their hearts” being mentioned just before,) past feeling any shame or remorse past feeling any horror of sin, or dread of the Lord.

David means the same thing when, speaking of stout - hearted sinners, he says that he delights in the Lord, but that their heart is “fat as brawn.” According to St. Paul, the veil is still upon their heart, 2 Corinthians 3:17, “their heart was waxed gross,” Acts 28:27, yea, “after their hardness and impenitent heart, they heaped upon themselves wrath against the day of wrath,” Romans 2:5.

It is not, then, without reason that God sums up all inward religion in this glorious promise, Ezekiel 11:19, “I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh,” a feeling instead of a callous heart. And it is to be feared, that banishing feeling out of religion, in a zeal against enthusiasm, will not a little countenance people in the hardness of their heart. They feel little enough already, God knows: why then should they be encouraged from the pulpit to feel less still, when the horrible consequence is to become past feeling in the end, and then “work all manner of uncleanness with greediness,” as too many baptized heathen daily do, and glory to do?

To the above - mentioned passages, I may add a fourth one which is no less to the purpose. It is the last verse of the fifth chapter to the Hebrews, where strong believers are said to have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. From thence, it appears, that one that is born of God has spiritual senses, (aisqhthria,) just as the natural man has bodily senses. He is endued with spiritual sight and taste. “See and taste how good the Lord is. His love is better than wine, his word sweeter than the honey comb,” Yea, with a spiritual feeling, whereby, through the power of the Highest overshadowing him, he perceives the presence of him in whom he “lives, moves, and has his being;” and in particular feels “the love of God shed abroad in his heart through the Holy Ghost given unto him.” Yea, with spiritual hearing, so that he hears the voice of the good Shepherd, and hearing it to day, he “hardens not his heart.” The opening of these spiritual senses in a heart that was past feeling, blind, hard, and deaf before; or the faith, the living faith, whereby a man is born of God, born again of the Spirit, is one and the same thing: and the living by the faith of the just, is nothing else but the exercising continually some of these spiritual senses on their proper objects. If we deny this, what can we make of St. Paul’s definition of faith? It is, says he, “the substance of things hoped for, and the [demonstration (elegcov) the Divine] evidence of things not seen.” I say, the Divine evidence, because I speak not of a speculative, human, historical faith, but of the faith unfeigned, the saving, justifying faith, that “works by love;” even that faith which is “of the operation of God,” Colossians 2:12, whereby a man “passes from death unto life.”

To these passages of the apostle of the Gentiles, I beg leave to add one or two of the apostle of the Jews, 1 Peter 1:8, “Whom having not seen ye love, and in whom, though now you see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.” Now, sir, could such unspeakable joy be unfelt?

In the next chapter, verse 3, he charges Christians to desire the sincere milk of the word, if so be they had tasted that the Lord is gracious. Agreeable to which is the noted place, Hebrews 6:4, 5, where the apostle represents believers as people “enlightened, is not to know him at all. Heathens knew him to be the infallible author of geometrical truths, and supreme disposer of nature. The Jews knew him by his providential care of his worshippers, and temporal blessings, but Christians know God as a God of consolation and love, a God who possesses the hearts and souls of his servants, gives them an inward feeling of their own misery, and his infinite mercy, and unites himself to their spirits, replenishing them with humility and joy, with affiance and love.”

To the testimony of that Christian philosopher, I beg leave to add that of the celebrated divine, St. Chrysostom, (Hom. xxiii, on the Romans,) “How must he be ravished, (says he,) who truly loves God! The state of such a one is the happiness of paradise itself. We may study what terms w that taste the heavenly gift, are made partakers of the Holy Ghost, taste the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come.” If the inspired writers could without absurdity and enthusiasm say, that the faithful “taste that the Lord is gracious, taste the heavenly gift, taste the powers of the world to come,” why should it be thought irrational to declare, as our Church does, that the children of God feel in themselves the workings of the Holy Spirit, feel peace of conscience after pardon, know and feel the saving virtue of Jesus’ name?

To conclude, sir, if we are to insist upon rational goodness, benevolence, &c, exclusive of feelings in the heart, what shall we make of those scriptures which our Church places at the head of all our public worship: “Rend your heart and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord;” a troubled spirit, yea, a “broken and contrite heart,” is the first sacrifice he does not despise.

Upon the scheme that excludes feelings, a man may say, that “the remembrance of his sins is grievous unto him, the burden of them intolerable,” and have been all his life as great a stranger to godly sorrow, as if he had not been conceived in iniquity. Upon the Gospel plan, such a one is whole, he has no need of a physician, he draws near to God with his lips, while his heart is far from him: he is an abomination to the Lord, though as sincere in his blind worship as Paul before his conversion. Upon this scheme, a man may be a believer if he give a rational assent to the doctrines of Christ, and has “a form of godliness,” though he never felt the power of it in his heart. But upon the Gospel scheme, he is to “believe with the heart unto righteousness,” before he can make confession with the mouth unto salvation; and he is to turn away from such as “have a form of godliness, but deny the power thereof.”

Upon this scheme, again, it is possible for a man to be a true Christian, a penitent restored to God’s favour, without ever going through the least trouble of mind for sin; whereas, upon the Scripture plan, Christ saves none but the lost, heals none, as says our Church, (homily on man’s misery,) but those who have need of his salve for their sore; invites none to the living water, but the thirsty, offers refreshment and rest to none but those “that travail and are heavy laden;” which, I suppose, they are allowed to perceive, it being absurd to call those people heavy laden, who never felt the least load.

Upon this new scheme, the Pharisee, who had a rational conviction that he was not as other men, but benevolent, courteous, just, and chaste, must have gone to his house justified, as well as the publican who felt so much remorse, that he smote upon his breast; so much holy shame, that he durst neither draw near, nor look up to heaven. But upon the scheme of Jesus Christ, this man, who appeared to the composed Pharisee such a low - spirited, silly wretch, that he thanked God, too, he was not such an enthusiast; this man, I say, went to his house justified rather than the other; for, says the Lord, Isaiah 66:2, “To this man will I look, even to him that is poor in spirit, and trembleth at my word.”

Agreeably to this easy scheme, a man may have the peace that the world knoweth not, the peace of God passing all understanding, and the love of God shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Ghost, without ever feeling any thing of either; whereas, this is impossible, according to the testimony of some of the best and wisest of men.

Pascal, the strength of whose reason was so much celebrated in the last age, thought that peace and love, unfelt, and consequently unenjoyed, were of as little service to him as a painted sun to a plant under snow, or the description of some beautiful fruits to a man starved with hunger. Take one of his thoughts: -

“To know God speculativelyplease; we shall never be able to represent the happiness of that love. Experience only can give us a just sense of it. Let us, then, taste and see how good the Lord is, and we shall anticipate the life of heaven, and live on earth in the fruition of what the angels enjoy in heaven.

But why should we go into distant countries, when this island has produced such clouds of witnesses of God’s power, sensibly exerted in the souls of his children? Out of a thousand, take the famous Bradford, one of the brightest lights of our Church, who confirmed the truth he had preached, by laying down his life in the flames: (Mirror of Martyrs, page 276,)

“He preached twice a day. In the midst of his repast he used often to muse, having his hat over his eyes, from whence commonly trickled plenty of tears, dropping on his trencher. Such continual exercises of soul he had in private prayer, that he did not count himself to have prayed to his satisfaction, unless in it he felt inwardly some smiting of heart for sin, and some healing of that wound by faith; feeling the saving health of Christ, with some change of mind, detestation of sin, and love to God.”

I shall close these testimonies by transcribing part of the xxth article of the famous Confession of Augsburg, drawn up and signed by Luther, and all the German reformers.

“Faith,” says St. Augustine, “is not a bare knowledge that may be common to us and wicked men, but it is a sure confidence that lifts up those that are cast down, and fills with consolation those that are troubled in mind. By this faith we obtain remission of our sins, the Holy Ghost is given unto us, our hearts are renewed,” &c. All this doctrine belongs to the light of a conscience awakened and galled with sin, without which also it cannot be understood, which is the reason why it is rejected of the ignorant and profane people, who suppose that “Christian righteousness is only civil righteousness,” lifeless morality. Now, sir, I leave you to judge whether a man may have this faith, this sure confidence, that fills a troubled mind with Divine consolation, and never be sensible of it.

Nor did the other reformers hold any other opinion, as you may see sir, by the following lines, Englished from articles 20 and 22 of the Confession of Faith drawn up by Calvin, Beza, &c, and still subscribed to by all the Protestant clergy in France and Holland: -

“We believe that by faith alone we are born again, and made partakers of salvation, being enabled thereby to receive the promises of life made to us in Jesus Christ. We make them our own, and apply them by faith, insomuch that we feel the effect of them.”

This is still more clearly expressed in the fourteenth section of their Article of Faith, printed with their liturgy, part of which runs thus: - “As the blood of Christ is to purify us, so the Holy Ghost besprinkles our consciences therewith, that they may be effectually purified; for, dwelling in our hearts, he makes us feel the power of our Lord Jesus Christ; he enlightens us, he seals and impresses his graces in our hearts, regenerates, and makes us new creatures,’’ &c.

I own, sir, that after these great divines, I am no more ashamed to enforce faith in the Holy Ghost, the Author and Giver of life, and to say to my flock that he is to make them feel the power of Jesus Christ and the virtue of his blood in their hearts, than I would be ashamed, were I a physician for the body, to tell them they must take a medicine inwardly, if the applying it outwardly would not do; and that would cause them some pain at the first operation, but only in order to cure them more radically. Thus, sir, I have endeavoured to prove, from the doctrine of our Church, from reason and Scripture, from the testimony of the best men, and of all the Reformed Churches, not only that feeling and rational Christianity are not incompatible, especially the feeling godly sorrow or trouble of mind, antecedent to justifying faith, and the feeling the comforts of the Holy Ghost, even peace, love, and joy, in believing; but also that such feelings, so far from deserving to be called madness and enthusiasm, are nothing short of the actings of spiritual life, or, to speak Scripturally, “the power of God to every one that believeth,” Romans 1.

One more argument on this subject, and I shall conclude the whole. If good nature, affability, and morality with a round of outward duties, will fit a man for heaven, without any feeling of the workings of the Spirit of God in the heart, or without peace, righteousness, and joy in the Holy Ghost; if such a professor of godliness is really in that narrow way to the kingdom which few people find; why did our Lord puzzle honest Nicodemus with the strange doctrine of a new birth? Why was he so uncharitable as to declare, with the utmost solemnity, that he could not see the kingdom of God if he was not born again of the Spirit? Why did he trouble the religious centurion with sending for Peter, that the Holy Ghost might fall upon him, and all that heard the word, while the apostle preached to them remission of sins, through faith in Jesus, a heart - purifying faith? See Acts 15:8, 9.

But, above all, if inward feelings are nothing in sound religion; if they rather border upon enthusiasm; why did not our Lord caution the woman who came behind him in Simon’s house, who wept at his feet, and kissed and wiped them with her hair? Why did he not take this opportunity to preach her and us a lecture on enthusiasm? Why did not he advise her to take something to help the weakness of her nerves, and prevent the ferment of her spirits? Why did not he tell her she went too far, she would run mad in the end? Why did not he bid her (as people do in our days) go into company a little, and divert her melancholy? Nay, more; why did he prefer her, with all her behaviour, to good natured virtuous, religious, undisturbed Simon? Why did he send her away with his peace, and the assurance of the forgiveness of her sins, while he did not vouchsafe to say to the composed Pharisee, “This day salvation is come to thy house?”

May I be allowed to tell the reason? Christ came not to “call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” If a man, therefore, is full of confidence in his own powers and righteousness; if he supposes he is, or can make himself, good enough outwardly, without those enthusiastic feelings of godly sorrow, pardon, peace, and love in his heart; Jesus must leave him to his self conceit and virtuous pride; for “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble.”

However, do not mistake me, sir; I am far from supposing that the sincerity of people’s devotion must be judged of by the emotion they feel in their bodies; for the grace of God generally brings a great calm, and such a heavenly serenity into the soul, that it may even keep the body composed in a sudden danger. But as I read that God will have the heart or nothing, so I know that when he has the heart, he has the affections of course. Fear and hope, sorrow and joy, desire and love, act upon their proper objects, God’s attributes. They often launch out, and, as it were, lose themselves in his immensity, and, at times, several of these passions acting together in the soul, the noble disorder they cause there cannot but affect the animal spirits, and communicate itself more or less to the body. Hence came the floods of tears shed by David, Jeremiah, Mary, Peter, Paul, &c: hence came the sighs, tears, strong cries, and groans unutterable, of our Saviour himself.

But, after all, sir, if you exclaim only against bodily feelings and emotions, when the soul itself is past feeling, you cannot do it too much; it is either weakness, or hypocrisy intolerable; it must be thundered against. Therefore a just distinction is to be made between feelings excited in the body alone by self - exertion or mere natural pathos, and those bodily emotions that are necessary and involuntary consequences of the powerful workings of God’s Spirit on the soul. The one are “sparks of our own kindling,” which give neither heat nor light, and vanish as soon as perceived; the other are the natural effect of grace, which the soul cannot contain; and they are to grace, and the fire of Divine love, what smoke is to culinary fire: it proceeds from it, but adds nothing to it; yea, if a man lay any stress thereon, it will darken, and perhaps put out the flame.

You see, sir, by this observation, that though I plead for spiritual feelings in devotion, and would not have even all bodily feelings resulting therefrom branded with the name of enthusiasm, yet I am as far as yourself from laying any stress upon bodily frames, merely as such; and I would as soon judge of the heat of a fire by the smoke that comes out of the chimney, as judge of grace by bodily emotions, conscious that there may be more of the one when there is less of the other; yea, that grace, peace, and love often overflow the soul within, when the animal spirits are most composed, and the nerves least at work without.

Upon the whole, sir, I humbly presume that I may conclude from what I have taken the liberty to lay before you, that true Christians, as free from enthusiasm as Paul or David, may experience, at times, emotions in their animal spirits, attended with tears and sighs, especially, when the cup of blessing or sorrow runs over with desire and love, or with fear and trouble; and, if they walk in the light of God’s countenance, must enjoy, and consequently be sensible of, or feel, in their inmost souls, through believing, “a peace that passes all understanding,” such as the world knoweth not, “a joy,” at times, “unspeakable,” such as a stranger intermeddles not with.

This, and this alone, makes the service of God “perfect freedom;” this takes away the guilt and the power of sin, disarms death of its sting, and the grave of its horrors.

This is the first fruit of that “faith working by love,” which gives confessors victory over the world, and martyrs power to clap their hands for joy on the racks, and in the flames. It is the “Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father,” the earnest of the Spirit; the earnest of our inheritance above.

If we take this inward principle from the heart of a believer, we take away the ingrafted word, the incorruptible seed, the kingdom within, the bread and water of life, the little leaven, the pearl of great price, the hidden treasure, the wedding garment, the oil of the virgins, the hidden manna, the power of God to him that believes, the power of Christ’s resurrection, the new creature, the new name which no one knoweth but he that receiveth it, the new birth, the wisdom from above, the blood of sprinklings the life of God, &c; we take away, in short, “the faith of the operation of God;” and, in a blind zeal for formal religion, we cry out against Jesus coming in the Spirit, as the Jews, in their blind zeal for the law, cried out against Jesus coming in the flesh, “Crucify him, crucify him,” and effectually, though ignorantly, crucify “Christ in us the hope,” the living hope “of glory.” Thus Christianity degenerates into mere heathenish morality and good nature, dressed up with Christian rites. All that is spiritual and experimental in our Bible and liturgy must be, of course, enthusiastic stuff, or, at best, words without meaning. So that, after all, the only essential difference that will be found between us and just, sober, chaste, benevolent Deists, will consist in repeating speculatively some creeds they do not assent to, in speaking for a book they run down, in using some religious ceremonies they think useless, and entertaining dry notions of one Jesus and his Spirit, whom they despise and reject; when, at the same time, we shall be equally strangers to that Gospel “which is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth,” to “the exceeding greatness of God’s power toward those that believe, according to the working of his mighty power,” Ephesians 1:19.

I have found it hard, sir, to submit my carnal reason to the force of these and the like observations. I know, by experiences that “the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” I can therefore truly sympathize with those that stagger yet at the hard saying of St. Paul, 1 Corinthians 3:18, “Let no man deceive himself: if any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool that he may be wise, for the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. Where is the wise, where the scholar, where the disputer of this world? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For, when the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God, by the foolishness of preaching, to save them that believe” - that believe so as to be born of God, John 5:1; that believe so as to be “filled with peace, hope, joy, and love, through the power of the Holy Ghost,” Romans 15:13. Let us then often meditate, sir, upon such scriptures; they will, by the blessing of God, bring our hearts low, and make them willing, in spite of our reasonings, to submit to that faith which is the gift of God to a soul distressed for sin, and to reap and enjoy its fruits, a solid peace, a living hope, a burning love, and an unwearied obedience. For till we are stripped of our fig leaves, till we have done boasting of our own powers, and the glorious remains of God’s image, and trusting to self and reason, to Pharisaical righteousness and forms of godliness, we cannot truly seek the power of it; and we must stumble at a thousand scriptures, as well as that famous saying of Luther, “Sicut sola fide in Christum veran justitiam ad salutem consequimur; ita nihil difficilius, quam hoc, hominibus persuadetur; nihil Satan (praesertim candidus ille Satan) aegue oppugnat.”

Thus have I, sir, laid down with all plainness the observations I made upon your elegant discourse, as I understood it; I submit them to your candid judgment, and to your second thoughts, as well as to the word of God and the articles of our Church. Should I have mistaken your meaning, sir, in any part of these sheets, (which may easily have been the case,) I shall be exceeding glad to acknowledge it, and ask your pardon.

Should you have been mistaken, yourself, sir, in some parts of your discourse, I beg you would not take amiss the liberty I have taken to lay before you the grounds of my fears on that account. I have not done it (God knows) out of desire to set myself up as a judge of any one of my brethren and fathers in the Church; but I found myself in some measure forced to it by the following observations of some of my parishioners that were at Wenlock to hear you, sir, beside the officers: -

“If that gentleman is right,” they concluded, “our minister must be quite wrong: he is always telling us of the darkness and blindness of our understandings in Divine things, the hardness of our hearts which we cannot force to repent and love, the unruliness of our will, which we cannot turn to true obedience: he concludes there is an absolute necessity for us to be born again, renewed in those faculties by the Spirit of God given unto us. But this gentleman talks of precious remains of God’s image in our souls, and seems to be against this new birth. The one tells us, we are fallen, that God has concluded all under sin, that there is none good, no not one, that without Christ we can do nothing right, that there is no health in us; yea, he goes so far as to declare that ‘of ourselves and by ourselves we have no goodness, help, or salvation; but contrariwise sin, damnation, and death everlasting.’ (Homily of the Misery of Man, 2d part.) The other affirms that we are fallen, yet we can help and raise ourselves: we have a free will, and we may use it to do good works; and if, after all, we fall short in some things, the Spirit of Christ is to help our infirmity. Yea, we are not so blind and dark as some suppose, for we have the candle of the Lord shining in our breast, and that is, (not ‘Christ, the light of the world,’ or the word of God, that shines as a lamp in a dark place,) but reason. “The one tells us, that all the world being wrapped up in sin, by breaking the law, no man, by his own acts, words, and deeds, seem they never so good, can be justified before God, and saved. (Hom. of Salvation.) He says that all our moral righteousness and our forms of godliness are but fig leaves, with which we cover the desperate pride and wickedness of our hearts, if, trusting to them for justification, in whole or in part, we do not flee as naked, poor, miserable, and blind sinners, to Jesus alone, put off, by repentance, the filthy rags of our own righteousness, and put on, by faith, the robe of our Saviour’s merits.

“But the other recommends, in general, virtue, benevolence, relative duties, &c, and gives us to understand, that this is by far the plainest and most rational way of salvation.

“The one tells us, that if we never felt godly sorrow for sin, we never truly repented; that if we never enjoyed, and consequently were sensible of, or felt, the peace and love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, we have great reason to examine whether we be really in the faith - whether Christ be in us of a truth, Romans 5:1 - 5; 2 Corinthians 13:5.

“But the other discountenances such doctrines as leading to despair and enthusiasm; he represents feelings without distinction, as the consequences of people’s constitutions, as owing to the weakness of their nerves, the lowness or height of their animal spirits; and he is so far from wishing to have us be uneasy, if we feel neither the burden of our sins nor the refreshment which Christ offers to those that are heavy laden, neither peace nor joy in the Holy Ghost; that he thinks our good nature, benevolence, diligence in business, &c, exclusive of those feelings, are the most rational way to happiness and heaven.”

I find myself, then, under a necessity, sir, as I value the souls of my parishioners, and regard the success of my ministry among them, to lay before those, who asked me what I had to say to your discourse, the reflections contained in these sheets; but would not do it before I had laid them at your feet, in hopes that if I have mistaken your meaning, you will be so kind as to acquaint me with it; or that, if I am in the wrong myself, by preaching such doctrines, you will condescend to convince me of my errors, and by that means stop the mischief I might do in propagating them. With an entire readiness to lie at your feet for instructions or reproofs, agreeable to the word of God, and the doctrine of our Church, I am, reverend sir, yours, &c,

J. FLETCHER.