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tress and the ladies, Mr. Millard, Mr. Selby, he did not suffer at last, as he went off withGilbert, and myself. And, when that was out a groan, and has still a smile upon his over, he said, "Now I am blessed indeed!" | face, as if he was alive. He is to be buried All was peace and joy and comfort within. at Eltham. I can write no more, though I He blessed us all severally, and thanked us have more to say. Your good master may for all we had done. Had you seen him like to hear how he departed. I hope you bolstered up, blessing his children, and speak-will read this to him, though it is scarcely to ing comfort to his wife, in the hope and trust be understood. I cannot say more. of their meeting again, you would never Yours, affectionately have forgot it. I am sure I never shall; nor do I wish it. We have reason to think that

E. SALMON.

CAUTIONS TO THE READERS OF MR. LAW,

AND, WITH VERY FEW VARIATIONS, TO THE

READERS OF BARON SWEDENBORG.

[Referred to p. 42 and 68.]

FIRST. Either J. Behmen's scheme is a church. The formation is described step by new revelation, or an explanation of the old. step; but the creation, in Gen. i. verse 1. If the latter, why is it wrapt up in such mys- must relate to the production of, or giving tic jargon, never heard of in the Christian being to, the matter, in its dark and inform church before, and not given us in Scripture state. The consequence of Mr. Law's opinlanguage, which is the only explainer of ion must be, either that matter, though disitself? If the former, it is an imposture and tinct from, is co-eternal with God, which delusion; for extraordinary inspirations are cannot be; or else, that it is an emanation, not to be credited, unless vouched by mira-generated from his substance or essence, cles, which God always sent to attest his ex-which is the abomination of Platonism traordinary commissions: and if they are brought into Christianity. The confounding pretended to come from him, and do not, God and created nature together is the esthen it is a demonstration that they come sence of Paganism, and the foundation of all from the devil, "transformed into an angel the errors in the Heathen and Christian of light." To equal the imaginations of world. The Scriptures are constantly guardmen to the holy Scriptures of God, and thinking against it, and distinguishing Jehovah them as much the inspiration of God as what from what is only the work of his hands. was dictated as such to the holy prophets Eternal nature is a blasphemous contradicand apostles, is strictly and properly enthu- tion; for God only is eternal; he only has siasm. This Mr. Law has done; for he being in himself, and gives it to every thing says, he looks upon the writings of J. Beh- else. Nature may be a manifestation, or men to be no more human than St. John's representation of God, as a picture is of a Revelation. man; but has no more connection with his II. Mr. Law by creation will have nothing substance or essence, than that hath with its farther meant than the formation of the world original, or the painter that drew it. out of pre-existent matter; contrary to the III. Mr. Law denies the wrath of God sense always put upon it by the Christian against sin. Now, that wrath in God is the

same weak and infirm passion that is in man, | kissed each otner. The inward application nobody will suppose But that it produces of this satisfaction made outwardly by the effects, which the image of wrath executed blood of Christ shed upon the cross, to the by man is taken to give us an idea of, is a truth the Scriptures are full of from Genesis to Revelation. And it is described under all the images that are dreadful in nature; chiefly by that most dreadful of all, fire. "Our God is a consuming fire." No one will suppose from this text, that God is really material fire; but that his justice, vengeance, wrath, or whatever you please to call it, will have an effect upon sinners, that is pictured by the effects of fire upon natural bodies.

Nor can all the wit and invention of man get rid of those innumerable Scriptures that speak of the wrath of God to be executed upon a sinful world, under the lively figure and representation of it, fire; as any one may see, that will turn to the Concordance. Sure I am, that if these can be construed to mean, a dark, fiery, whirling anguish rising up and opening its birth in the inward depth and ground of the soul, there can be no certainty in words. The lake of fire, or hell, is not within but without the sinner; for he is to be cast into it. That inward remorse, anguish and despair make a part, there is no question, but they are not the whole.

IV. But there is a consequence that follows this notion of no wrath of God against sin, and strongly insisted upon by Mr. Law, which shakes the foundation of Christianity; viz. that Christ did not die to propitiate or appease that wrath; that he did not die as a sacrifice in our stead. This demolishes the doctrine of a vicarious satisfaction for sin, made outwardly upon the cross, by the blood of Him, who, being God, could give it infinite merit, to satisfy infinite justice; and, being man, could make the satisfaction in the same nature in which the sin that required it was committed.

heart of every believer, by the hand of faith, for its justification, with the sanctification that accompanies it, by the water flowing with the blood, to a new birth and life of righteousness from the death of sin, is doubtless the great end and intent of Christianity; as much as taking a medicine is the end and intent of its being given. But the Gospel preached and read, and the sacraments administered in the church, are the instruments appointed to work all this, by the power of the Spirit that goes with them, as channels into the heart of every believer. But if, before he has received the grace of Christ by these which are the only appointed means of receiving it; or if, instead of going on with humility and diligence in searching the Scriptures of God, a person is to shut himself up and search the inward depth and ground of his heart, what will he find there but the devil, ready to take advantage of his having left his only guide, and "transforming himself into an angel of light," under the disguise of great flights of devotion and illumination, to instill his diabolical suggestions, and lead the deluded soul, blindfold, and thinking herself safe in the hands of the Spirit of God, to deny and write against the satisfaction and atonement made for her sins by the blood of her Redeemer? For by these very means have we seen one of the brightest stars in the firmament of the church (oh! lamentable and heart-breaking sight!) falling from the heaven of Christianity into the sink and complication of Paganism, Quakerism, and Socinianism, mixed up with chemistry and astrology, by a possessed cobbler: and, alas! when a man comes to forsake the Bible, and write against its doctrines, what matters it whether it is done by the light of nature, the light within, or the inspoken word? "Believe not," therefore, good people, "every spirit," whispering to your soul in a fit of quietism, but "try the spirits," by the Bible, "whether they are of God." Keep to that, and let your faith, hope, love and devotion rise as high as they will. The higher the better.

Mr. Law says, God is love. True. But is he not justice and truth as well as love? Has not Truth said, "The soul that sinneth, it shall die?" And did not Justice require the execution of that sentence? God is not only just, but justice itself; and justice cannot remit the least farthing; else it were not justice. God's attributes must not fight with V. As to the angelical world, glassy sea, or conquer and subdue one another. On the &c., it is a mere romance, without the least contrary, they magnify and exalt one ano- countenance from holy Scripture; nor does ther. Thus his justice is magnified, in that he, I think, produce above a text or two, by it exacts full and adequate satisfaction; his way of proof. The holy Scriptures tell us, wisdom is magnified, in finding out such means to make it; his mercy and love, in affording those means, and fulfilling all his promises, in Him in whom mercy and truth thus met together, righteousness and peace

the world was good at the finishing of it, but by the devil came sin, the parent of all evil, natural and spiritual-that Christ came to redeem us from it all, to satisfy for our sins, to raise our souls to righteousness, by his spirit

here, and to glorify us, body and soul, here- | inspoken word, which is a Pope in every after. This scheme is complete, without man's heart. But if Christ left a church searching after the state of the chaos before upon earth, and ordered submission to the it was in being, or fancying this world,to be appointed governors of it, so far as a man the ruins of the angelical, as William Whis-resists or undervalues this ordinance of Christ, ton did it was the tail of a comet. The same so far he acts not like a Christian, let his inis to be said of the notion of Adam cased up ward light be what it will. In the same in spiritual materialities, one over another, manner, I think, he is injudicious in condemlike the coats of an onion. How many of ning all human writings, commentators, &c., these he had, Mr. Law does not seem sure, because people are divided through the mulgiving different accounts in different books. tiplicity of them. All human learning that Instead of inventing hypotheses concerning tends not to the knowledge of God, deserves the nature of paradise, let us study the way the censure he bestows in a very masterly that led the penitent thief into it, repentance manner. But how are we to understand the and faith in a Saviour on the cross, King of holy Scriptures, and be able to teach and exkings, and Lord of lords. plain them to others, without a knowledge VI. Mr. Law is very lax and latitudinarian of the languages in which they are written? with regard to the government and discipline And towards this, the labors of the faithful of the church; which, though, as he says, it servants of God who have gone before us, will not save a man, yet is absolutely neces- cannot but be of great service. And, theresary to preserve those doctrines that will. A fore, I see not why time is not as well spent hedge round a vineyard is, in itself, a poor in the writings of the noble army of saints, paltry thing; but break it down, and all they and martyrs, and confessors, as in those of J. that go by will pluck off her grapes. And Behmen, and much better than in searchno sin has been punished with heavier pun- ing for truth in the inward depth and ishments, for that reason, than throwing down ground of the heart, which is indeed, we see, fences and making it indifferent whether a" deceitful above all things. Christian be of any church or none, so he be but a Christian, and have the birth of the

know it?"

Who can

MADAM:

COPY OF A LETTER TO A LADY ON THE SUBJECT OF JACOB

BEHMEN'S WRITINGS.

[See p. 42.]

tions, easily obviated by as general answers; and, perhaps, after all, the real merits of the cause have not been brought in consideration.

April 8th, 1758. THOUGH your letter did not give me all the satisfaction I had hoped for, yet I find in it several hints, for which you are much to be honored; and, to say the truth, I never met I am ready to join issue with you, that if with a person, who, after diving into those J. Behmen was not inspired, he must either matters with which you are at present en- have been a hypocrite or a madman; and gaged, did yet possess such a spirit of humility, that his writings are utterly to be rejected by and remain so open to conviction. Being every sober Christian. You have shown therefore persuaded you have no disposition your judgment, madam, in thus bringing the to reject the truth, provided I can make it whole matter to a single point; for now appear to you, and I have no temptation, God there is only one question to be settled: and, is my witness, to offer you anything else as you suspect me of taking up with false instead of it, I have resolved to address my-reports of your author, I shall not be content self more closely to the subject in question; with any report at all, but set down his own for, till we descend to particulars, but little words, or refer to their place where I have good can be expected from general objec- occasion to speak of his doctrines.

If we are desirous to know in what posture the Christian church should be toward the end of the world (in the sense in which we commonly understand that phrase,) that is, toward the second advent of Christ, we shall discover a face of things very different from what those words of the prophet Joel have described to us; for these days, madam, are not to be distinguished by the wisdom or holiness of those who live in them, but, on the contrary, by their abominable ignorance and wickedness. The light of God is to be almost extinguished, and his lamp going out in the temple at that midnight wherein the bridegroom cometh; and false delusive lights are to rise up instead of it. Why else is it said, 2 Thess. ii. 3. "That day shall not come, except there come a falling away first?" and again, that "when the Son of Man cometh, he should not find faith on earth;" for that

You argue of the probability of his inspiration from those words of St. Peter, Acts, ii. 17. which, if you examine the place, will appear to have been applied, not to any future inspirations at some distance of time, near to the dissolution of the world, but to the present event then brought to pass : "THESE," says he, "are not drunken, as ye suppose; but THIS is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel; it shall come to pass in the last days," &c., where it is plain St. Peter applies these words of the prophet to the miraculous gifts of the Spirit at the time then present. He does not indeed confine the gifts of the Spirit to that time and season only; yet his words give us no ground to expect any extraordinary effusions towards the conclusions of the world. How this affair is, and what we are really to look for, must be learnt from some other passages. The error, I presume, arises from a misun-"false Christs and false prophets," called in derstanding of that phrase, the last days, another place (1 Tim. iv. 1.) "seducing which are taken for these days and this age, spirits, speaking lies in hypocrisy," should when things are drawing apace to their latter end. But, madam, the Scripture has divided the ages of the world into three grand periods; the first of which is called the beginning, whose date begins at the creation, and takes in all the generations till the establishment of the law of Moses: as where Christ says, "From the beginning it was not Matt. xix. 8. Mark, x. 6. The second is called the old time, or the time of the law, when the people of God where under the elements of the world, and the oldness of the letter. The third and last period is the time of the Messiah, when the law was fulfilled, and "all things became new" and this period, from its first commencement to its conclusion, is meant by the latter days, the last time, &c.

so."

arise with such seeming pretensions as should be sufficient almost to "deceive the very elect ;" and that these deceivers should multiply so abundantly, that, for the sake of some few, God in mercy would cut short the days, lest a total corruption should take place?

Our blessed Saviour is particularly earnest with us on this subject, bidding us beware, for that he has " told us before," that some should be enticing us into the fields and deserts, others into the "secret chambers,” &c., so that ignorance cannot be our excuse if we are "led away with the error of the wicked, and fall from our own steadfastness."

So little encouragement is there to expect new lights and revelations in these times, that, on the contrary, if any man now pretend to be "some great one," sent from God to enlighten the world, we are to suspect him for one of these impostors; and as J. Behmen has assumed such a character, the probability lies strongly against him, even before we examine his credentials.

After this rule the blessed apostle thus expresseth himself, Heb. ix. 26. "But now once in the END of the world hath He (Christ) appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." If we should here attend only to the sound of an expression, without comparing the Scripture with itself to attain its sense, we might as well expect There is another thing you will readily that Christ should appear again in these days grant; that, supposing any such deceiver to put away sin, as to expect another miracu- should arise, with his books written at the lous effusion of the Spirit from those words instigation of Satan; I say supposing such a alleged by St. Peter, wherein the last days thing, there would be all the reason in the are spoken of; for, as it is here said, "In the world to expect a considerable mixture of end of the world he hath appeared," so is it sanctity, temperance, humility, abstraction in the other place-"He hath shed forth this from the world, and other the like virtues which ye see and hear." And this abun- his writings would else stand no chance to dantly confirms what I have advanced, that "deceive the elect;" who are not to be enthe words in question belonged to an event snared by open vice and bare-faced immoralnot now to be expected, but then accom-ity, but only with high pretences to the plished. contrary. Hence it is, that the ministers of

it was "given by inspiration of God." Whatever, therefore, is false, this must be true; so true, that it is the test and standard of all truth upon earth. Every thing that opposes this word of truth must be a lie; and he that delivers it a liar. If he pretend to have received it of God, it is so much the worse; for then it is not only a lie, but a blasphemy; and he himself is a blasphemer, because he makes the Spirit of truth the author of his lies. What J. B. has written must be judged of by this rule, and received or rejected as it shall be found to agree with it.

Satan never appear with their proper colors, any purpose, which is this: there is a word but "transformed as the ministers of RIGHTE- of revelation before us, and we all agree that OUSNESS," (2 Cor. xi. 15.) even as their master himself was into an "angel of light;" and in this shape, as a great and good man has observed, the "devil is most a devil, because he can most deceive." The fact has always been as I am representing it; for, if any heretic started up in the primitive church, it was ever with some pretences to superior holiness, mortification, giftedness, spirituality, &c., that his personal character might raise the admiration of unwary men, and so make way for the most pernicious and diabolical errors in point of faith. The Scriptures give us some instances, such as "abstaining from meats," and "forbidding to And, first, let us take a view of his style marry;" to which others might be added and method in general, which is not at all from ecclesiastical history. The impostor is like that of the Scripture, but the reverse of never content either with the ordinary know-it; for the Scripture is clear and uniform in ledge, or the ordinary fruits of the Gospel; its language, as coming all of it from the but would far exceed them, and outstrip the practical attainments of all other Christians; the best of whom he will condemn as Sodomites, fatted swine, shepherds of Babel, mouth apes, which, with innumerable others of the same cast, are the lamb-like phrases of Jacob Behmen. So that if you should find a contempt for the vanity of the world, humility, charity, and other great and shining virtues strongly recommended, this is by no means to be allowed as a test either of the divinity of his commission, or the truth of his preaching. For these are the "feigned words," (2 Pet. ii. 3.) with which he makes merchandise of unstable souls, turning their ears from the truth, that they may be turned unto fables and if many were led away with such devices, even in those early days, when the love of Christians did even astonish infidels, when a spirit of martyrdom flourished, and the preaching of the apostles yet sounded in the church; what wonder is it if many should be ensnared by them in these dregs of time, when the love of many is waxed cold, and the truth of God is in general "evil spoken of" throughout the world.

These reflections I have set down as preliminaries; they are intended as a sprinkling of water to lay any little dust that may have been raised for the deceiving your eye-sight; and they are offered to a person whose good sense and discernment will immediately see, and, I have reason to think, as readily acknowledge, the truth of them.

The probability then, it seems, as to the affair of inspiration, is against the writings of J. B. Such things are not now to be expected, but the contrary. How the fact is in itself, we are in the next place to consider; and there is but one method of doing it to

same author, and addressing itself to the ca-
pacity of all mankind. Even where it is
most obscure, as in the visions of Ezekiel,
and the Revelation of St. John, it borrows
ideas from the things that are before us, and
takes the visible objects of the natural crea-
tion to express and delineate what is un-
known or invisible; so that if you have ob-
tained its meaning in one case, you will be
able to unriddle it in every other case of the
same sort: whence arises the great usefulness
and necessity of" comparing spiritual things
with spiritual," that is, the Bible with itself,
in order to comprehend them. But how dif-
ferent from all this is the style of J. B.!
His ideas are rarely taken from nature, but
in general from the dark science of Alchy-
my, in which he had dabbled till his brain
was turned: hence it is that we find so much
about ether, spirit, matrix, genitrix, essence,
quintessence, essence of essences, tinctures, ex-
tracts, harshness, sourness, bitterness, attrac-
tion, firebreaths, sugar of hell, salt, sulphur,
mercury, and others of the like sort, so abhor-
rent from the Scripture, that the very sound
of them is sufficient to frighten any man but
a blacksmith out of his senses.
If I guess
right, Paracelsus was the father of this jar-
gon: he held it no crime to deal with the
devil for the advancement of medicine and
chemistry; and the chemical writers of suc-
ceeding times, after his example, have inter-
mixed with their writings some of the high-
est mysteries of the Christian faith, veiled
under the occult terms of their own wonder-
ful science, to be understood only by adepts,
(such as Jacob calls the children of the lily,)
who, they pretended, were to be holy and
pure from all spot of iniquity so that your
author, madam, with all his mysteries, is

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