The pride of man, the disputer of this world, does not submit to this proposition and teaching; perhaps commonly regards them in the light of enthusiasm; he has no notion, that there are any secrets in religion, which his own skill and judgment are not sufficient to reveal; he disbelieves every thing, which he cannot comprehend or feel; and affects to throw a shade of discredit and contempt upon all those religious sentiments and affections, to which he is a stranger. There are not a few such persons in the christian world; who profess to believe all the doctrines of the Bible, and to know all that need or can be known, and yet never submit themselves to, scarcely can be said to pray for or desire, the aid and direction of Almighty God; who imagine, that their liberal education and their common sense entitle them to pass a full and adequate judgment upon all spiritual subjects; and to form a correct notion of all spiritual privileges and blessings.
This is a dangerous and fatal error; a most unfounded presumption; a gross ignorance of the very element and nature of evangelical truth: such persons only judge of the word of God, of the ordinances and benefits of religion, as they would judge of any mere human history; of any worldly occurrence or advantage: they take, what they are pleased to call, a rational view of Christianity; but the only view, which deserves the name of rational, is, not that which appeals to reason alone, but that which is according to truth; according to the acknowledged revelation of God’s sovereign will. Let us again hear the apostle: “Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth.—But 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.” { 334} The merely rational man, therefore, is a carnal man; not indeed an absolute stranger to the word of grace, but unenlightened by it; he has no true taste for holy and divine things; it is altogether impossible for him to appreciate their merits, or to know any thing of their practical effects.
A familiar instance or two may serve to illustrate this truth. How can any man, who neglects the worship of God, pretend to decide upon its importance and utility? How can he presume to deny its comfortable and salutary influence upon the soul, its powerful efficacy upon the character and life? It is a matter of experience; of which he therefore is unqualified to judge.—He that is a stranger to the grace of God in his heart, may despise those, that regard it and live by it, as fanatical persons, who are deluded by visionary ideas and groundless assurances: but he is only judging others by himself; and it would be marvellous indeed, if he, who is avowedly living without the influence of divine grace, should bear witness to the benefit and happiness which it confers.—What can the intemperate man know of the blessings of temperance? Nothing: except by the want of them.—What can the covetous man know of the pleasures of benevolence and liberality?—the licentious of the excellence of purity, or the ignorant of the treasures of wisdom?—Because the sinner, when overtaken by sickness or affliction, declares that he derives no comfort from religion, are we therefore to conclude, that religion has no comforts at all? Could we think it probable, that the promises of the gospel would afford consolation to him, in an evil hour, when he had all along been an alien to their nature, when they had been unheeded or despised?