“The males pulled noses, and the females caps.”
A very small house, I am persuaded, would hold the really perfect upon earth; you might drive them all into a nut-shell. _Perfection_ and _sincerity_, as mentioned in Scripture, are synonimous terms, and being made sincere, may you go on to this perfection.
“And they shall teach my people the difference between the holy and the profane, and cause them to discern between the clean and the unclean; and in controversy they shall stand in judgment.”
Amongst the many painful lessons which the Lord teaches his children, perhaps there is none much more humiliating than the carnal enmity of the human heart; all sin in men, or devils, has an enmity in it to God; every man is by nature an enemy to God, to his holy law, to his holy gospel, and to his holy ways and people; and, dying in that state, it is impossible for him to be saved; for, “without holiness no man can see the Lord; but, blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God,” the great atonement brought nigh to us in the gospel, _applied_, _revealed_ and _manifested_ to the conscience, purifies the conscience; the love of God, shed abroad, purifies the affections; but the truth, as it is in Christ, purges the understanding and the judgment from _error_, which is spiritual uncleanness, and without being purged away, by the light of truth in the soul, a person is not fit for the kingdom of light, because he is not yet translated out of darkness; but, being in the dark about the way of salvation, he is also in a state of _enmity_. Many such are to be found in the church of God, whose proud hearts have never been humbled to submit to God’s truth; and being men of talent, have perverted, carnalized, and scoffed at the great leading doctrines of the gospel; yet mighty sticklers for holiness, love, charity and good works (falsely so called;) their conceptions of God are all carnal, dictated by the flesh, and are opposite to the revealed character of God. Hence the awful charge brought against them.—“Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself, but I will reprove thee.” I was very much astonished, in my younger days, at many persons, into whose company I fell, as they passed for very _holy good_ people, when some of the fundamental truths of God were spoken of, to see their very countenances redden, and their rage and enmity boil at the very mention of some of the most sweet and awful doctrines of the cross. With all their pretended, delusive, supposed _meekness_, they hissed like serpents, particularly at the very mention of the glorious doctrine of eternal election, and divine predestination to eternal life. Here they lost all patience, like their fathers of old, who listened, and wondered at the general discourse of our Lord; but when he began to talk about God’s sovereignty, they hurried him to the brow of the hill, with an intent to break his neck. _Luke_ 4. And so it is now. I observed one thing, namely, that I could see no difference between these great professors, who boasted they were convinced here, converted there, justified here, and sanctified there. I say I could see not the least difference between them, as it respects their religious sentiments or views of God’s word, than the most profane, wicked, worldling, or dead formalist. _This_ then, is an awful proof of their blindness and enmity. Situated as I was in the world, I had often opportunities of hearing carnal, wicked, worldlings talk about religion; and generally observed, that they _brought_ up, _censured_ and _ridiculed_ eternal election, and represented it as a most dreadful and arbitrary act; adding, that those who held this sentiment, also believed that God had, from eternity, reprobated and consigned over to hell, the greatest part of mankind; yea, infants who had never sinned, which (they argued) made out God to be a very unjust, and tyrannically wicked; being, yea, worse than Molech. All these sentiments and ideas we expect from an ungodly world; they know no better. God declares that they are blind, and enemies; yea, _enmity_ itself. Such we can pity. _But_, _judge my surprize_, when one of Mr. Wesley’s followers put a book into my hand, entitled “Hymns on God’s Everlasting Love:” finding it contained the very language that these profane and wicked worldlings had been constantly using; where then, exclaimed I, is the difference between the author, the admirers of this work, and the bitterest enemies of God: why, alas! in point of truth, or light, or love, _none at all_; they are all upon a footing; for, though they may differ in some things of an external nature, I found they all agreed to ridicule the truth of God’s most holy word.