breath, holiness his health, and love his element. We read of his hunger and thirst, food and drink, garment and habitation, armour and conflicts, pain and pleafure, fainting and reviving, growing, walking, and working. All this fuppofes fenfes, and the more thefe fenfes are quickened by God, and exercifed by the new born foul, the clearer and ftronger is his perception of divine things.

On the other hand, in unbelievers, the inward man is deaf, blind, naked, afleep, paft feeling; yea, dead in trefpaffes and fins: and of courfe, as incapable of perceiving fpiritual things, as a perfon in a deep fleep, or a dead man of discovering outward objects. St. Paul's language to him is, "Awake, thou that Heepeft, arife from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." He calls him a natural man, one who hath no higher life than that his parents conveyed to him by natural generation-one who follows the dictates of his own fenfual foul, and is neither born of God, nor led by the Spirit of God. "The natural man," fays the Apoftle," receiveth not the things of the Spirit, for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them, because they are fpiritually dif cerned." He has no fenfe properly exercised for this kind of discernment, his "eye hath not feen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into his heart, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him."

The reverfe of the natural man is the fpiritual, fo called, because God hath revealed fpiritual things to him by his Spirit, who is now in him a principle of fpiritual and eternal life. "The fpiritual man," fays the Apoftle, "judgeth, i. e. difcerneth all things, yet he himfelf is difcerned of no one." The high ftate he is in can no more be difcerned by the natural man, than the condition of the natural man can be difcerned by a brute.*

St. Paul not only defcribes the fpiritual man, but fpeaks particularly of his internal moral fenfes.

1 Cor. ii. 10-15,

Chriftians, fays he, of full age, by reafon of use, have their fenfes exercised to difcern good and evil.* He prays, that the love of the Philippians may abound more and more in knowledge, and won senses in all fenfe or feeling." The fcriptures conftantly mention, or allude to one or other of thefe fpiritual fenfes :-Give me leave to produce fome inftances.

He

1. To begin with the SIGHT. St. Paul prays, that, the eyes of his converts being enlightened, they might know what is the hope of their calling. He reminds them, that Chrift had been evidently fet forth crucified before their eyes. He affures them, that the God of this world hath blinded the eyes of them that believe not the gofpel; and declares that his commiffion was to open the eyes of the Gentiles, and turn them from darkness to light. Abraham faw Chrift's day, and was glad. Mofes perfevered, as feeing him who is invifible. David prayed, Open my eyes that I may fee wonders out of thy Law. Our Lord complains, that the heart of unbelievers is waxed grofs, that their ears are duli of hearing, and that they have clofed their eyes, left they should fee with their eyes, understand with their hearts, and be converted. counfels the Laodiceans, to anoint their eyes with eyefalve, that they might fee. He declares, that the world cannot receive the Spirit of truth, because it sees him not; that the things which belong to the peace of obftinate unbelievers, are, at laft, judicially hid from their eyes; and that the pure in heart fhall fee God. St. John teftifies, that he who does evil, hath not seen God; and that darkness hath blinded the eyes of him, that loves not his brother. The Holy Ghost informs us, that believers look at the things which are not feen, and behold the glory of God, fhining in the face of Jefus Chrift. The fe are the eyes, with which belieyers fee the falvation of God. They are fo diftinct from thofe of the body, that when our Lord opened them in St. Paul's foul, he fuffered fcales to grow + Phil. i. 9.

* Heb. v. 14.

over his bodily eyes. And no doubt, when Chrift gave outward fight to the blind, it was chiefly to convince the world, that it is he who can fay to blind finners, Receive your fight; fee the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living; look unto me and be faved.

Ye

2. If you do not admit of a spiritual HEARING, what can you make of our Lord's repeated caution, He that hath an ear to hear, let him hear? And what can be the meaning of the following fcriptures-Hear, O foolish people, who have ears and hear not. Ye uncircumcifed in heart and ears. cannot hear my words ; ye are of your father the Devil. He that is of God heareth God's words; ye, therefore, hear them not, because ye are not of God? Can it be fuppofed, that our Lord fpake of outward hearing, when he faid, The hour cometh, and now is, that the dead fhall hear the voice of the Son of God and live. My fheep hear my voice. He that hath heard and learned of the Father, cometh unto me. Do not all finners ftand fpiritually in need of Christ's powerful Ephphatha, Be thou opened? Is that man truly converted, who cannot witness with Ifaiah, The Lord hath wakened my ear to hear as the learned; and with the Pfalmift, Mine ears haft thou opened? Had not the believers at Ephefus heard Chrift, and been taught of him? When St. Paul was caught up into the third heaven, did he not hear words unspeakable? And far from thinking fpiritual hearing abfurd, or impoffible, did he not queftion, whether he was not then out of the body? And does not St. John pofitively declare, that he was in the Spirit, when he heard Jefus fay, I am the firft and

the last?

3. How void of meaning are the following paffages, if they do not allude to that SENSE, which is calculated for the reception of, what the barrenness of hu man language compels me to call fpiritual perfuires? The fiell of thy ointments is better than all fpices. The fmell of thy garments is like the fmell of Le

banon. All thy garmets fmell of myrrh, aloes, and caffia; and because of the favour of thy good eintments, thy name is as ointment poured forth.

4. If believers have not a spiritual faculty of TASTING divine things, what delufion must they be under, when they fay, Chrift's fruit is fweet to their taste; and cry out, How fweet are thy words to my taste ! they are sweeter than honey to my mouth? But how justly can they fpeak thus, if they have tafted the heavenly gift, and the good word of God, and, as new born babes, defire the fincere milk of it? Surely, if they eat the flesh of the Son of God, drink his blood and taste that the Lord is gracious, they have a right to testify, that his love is better than wine; and to invite thofe that hunger and thirst after righteoufhefs, to tafte that the Lord is good, that they also may be fatisfied with his goodness and mercy, as with marrow and fatnefs.

5. If we are not to be perfect ftoies in religion, if we should have one degree more of devotion, than the marble ftatutes, which adorn our churches, we fhould have, I think, fome FEELING of our unworthinefs, fome SENSE of God's majefty. Chrift's tender heart was pierced to atone for, and to remove the hardnefs of ours. God promises to take, from us the heart of ftone, and to give us an heart of flesh, a broken and contrite heart, the facrifice of which, he will not defpife. Good king Jofiah was praised, because his heart was tender. The converfion of the three thousand, on the day of pentecoft, began by their being pricked in their heart. We are directed to feel after God, if haply we might find him. Our Lord himself is not afhamed to be touched, in heaven, with a feeling of our infirmities. And St. Paul, intimates, that the highest degree of obduracy and apoftacy, is to be paft feeling, and to have our confcience feared as with a hot iron.

I hope, Sir, you will not attempt to fet afide fo many plain paffages, by saying, they are unfit to fupport a doctrine, as containing empty metaphors, which

amount just to nothing. This would be pouring the greateft contempt on the perfpicuity of the oracles of God, the integrity of the facred writers, and the wif dom of the Holy Ghoft, who infpired them. As certainly as there is a fpiritual life, there are fenfes calculated for the difplay and enjoyment of it; and these fenfes exift no more in metaphor, than the life that exerts itself by them. Our Lord fettled the point, when he declared to Nicodemus, that no man can fee the kingdom of God, the kingdom of grace here, and of glory hereafter, except he is first born of God, born of the Spirit; juft as no child can see this world, except he is firft born of a woman, born of the flefh. Hence it appears, that a regenerate foul hath his fpiritual fenfes opened, and made capable of dif cerning what belongs to the spiritual world, as a new born infant hath his natural fenfes unlocked, and begins to fee, hear, and taste, what belongs to the ma terial world into which he enters.

II. Thefe declarations of the Lord, his prophets, and apoftles, need no confirmation. Nevertheless, to fhew you, Sir, that I do not mistake their meaning, I shall add the testimony of our own excellent church. As fhe ftrictly agrees with the fcripture, fhe makes alfo frequent mention of fpiritual fenfations, and you know, Sir, that fenfations neceffarily fuppofe fenfes. She prays, that God would "give us a due fense of his ineftimable love in the redemption of the world, by our Lord Jefus Chrift."* She begs, that he would "make us know and feel there is no other name than that of Jefus, whereby we must be faved." She affirms, that true penitents feel "the burden of their fins intolerable;" that godly perfons "feel in themfelves the workings of Chrift's Spirit;" that "the Lord fpeaks prefenly to us in the fcriptures, to the great and endlefs comfort of all that have any feeling of God in them at all;" that "godly men felt, in wardly, the Holy Ghoft inflaming their hearts with the fear and love of God, and that they are miserable

Y

Thanksgiving, † Office for the fick. Communion. 17 Article.