SERMON XI.
THE WITNESS OF THE SPIRIT.
DISCOURSE II.
ROM. viii. 16.
The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.
I. 1. NONE who believes the scriptures to be the word of God, can doubt the importance of such a truth as this: a truth revealed therein, not once only, not obscurely, not incidentally; but frequently, and that in express terms; but solemnly and of set purpose, as denoting one of the peculiar privileges of the children of God.
2. And it is the more necessary to explain and defend this truth, because there is a danger on the right hand and on the left. If we deny it, there is a danger lest our religion degenerate into mere formality: lest having a form of godliness, we neglect, if not deny the power of it. If we allow it, but do not understand what we allow, we are liable to run into all the wildness of enthusiasm. It is therefore needful in the highest degree, to guard those who fear God fromboth these dangers, by a scriptural and rational illustration and confirmation of this momentous truth.
3. It may seem, something of this kind is the more needful, because so little has been wrote on the subject with any clearness: unless some discourses on the wrong side of the question, which explain it quite away. And it cannot be doubted, but these were occasioned, at least in great measure, by the crude, unscriptural, irrational explication of others, who knew not what they spake, nor whereof they affirmed.
4. It more nearly concerns the Methodists, so called, clearly to understand, explain and defend this doctrine, because it is one grand part of the testimony, which God has given them to bear to all mankind. It is by his peculiar blessing upon them in searching the scriptures, confirmed by the experience of his children, that this great evangelical truth has been recovered, which had been for many years well nigh lost and forgotten.
II. 1. But what is the witness of the Spirit? The original word μαρτυρία, may be rendered either, (as it is in several places,) the witness, or less ambiguously, the testimony or the record: so it is rendered in our translation, 1 John v. 11. This is the record (the testimony, the sum of what God testifies in all the inspired writings)that God hath given unto us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. The testimony now under consideration is given by the Spirit of God to and with our spirit. He is the person testifying. What he testifies to us is, that we are the children of God. The immediate result of this testimony, is the fruit of the Spirit; namely, love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness. And without these the testimony itself cannot continue. For it is inevitably destroyed, not only by the commission of any outward sin, or the omission of known duty, but by giving way to any inward sin: in a word, by whatever grieves the Holy Spirit of God.
2. I observed many years ago, “It is hard to find words in the language of men, to explain the deep things of God. Indeed there are none that will adequately express, what the Spirit of God works in his children. But perhaps one might say (desiring any who are taught of God, to correct, soften or strengthen the expression) By the testimony of the Spirit I mean, an inward impression of the soul, whereby the Spirit of God immediately and directly witnesses to my spirit, that I am a child of God, that Jesus Christ hath loved me, and given himself for me. That all my sins are blotted out, and I, even I am reconciled to God.”