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which when kept over night, ſtank and bred worm: however diſtinctly we apprehend evangelical truths, yet if they are unmixed with faith, and indigeſted by practice, they will breed the noxious humours and crudities of pride, ſelf conceit, hypocriſy and profaneneſs.
Real religion, my brethren, does by no means conſiſt in the merely ſpeculative knowledge of its truths; otherwiſe, the devils themſelves would have more religion than the beſt of us, for albeit they have loſt their purity and holineſs, we have no ground to think they have loſt their knowledge and ſagacity. The ſcripture ſaith, "They believe and tremble (d)[1]," which implies their knowledge. As for carnal unregenerate men, what ever are their abilities natural or acquired, they know Chriſtianity only in a book; whereas real Chriſtians have felt the exceeding greatneſs of its power; they have ſuch ideas and ſuch impreſſions of ſpiritual things made upon their minds by the Holy Ghoſt, as the natural man knows no at all.
Suppose the picture of a man drawn as lively, and as near to the original as poſſible; yet they who have ſeen the man himſelf, and converſed with him, will have another ſort of idea of him than thoſe poſſibly can have, who never ſaw him but in the picture. A man who has read Geography, may deſcribe the complexion, religion, laws, cuſtoms, commodities, and curioſities of different countries which he never dwelt in, nor travelled through: but the man who has lived in thoſe countries, and ſeen all theſe things with his eyes, and often converſed with the inhabitants, muſt have an idea and an impreſſion of them, which the man who has only read or heard of them knows nothing about.
How neceſſary then is the experimental knowledge of Chriſt to miniſters of the goſpel? Let them have the richeſt cargo of gifts and learning you can ſuppoſe, yet, without this, they are but very poorly furniſhed for their office, and the diſcharge of it is more likely to be the drudgery of their lives, than the delight of their ſouls.
- ↑ (d) James ii. 29.
