“Let us consult our observation as to the gradual progress of a religious life. At first, men are solicited with strong convictions of conscience: the pain of these and the sensible pleasure they feel as rewarding their acts of duty, are their bias to religion; while an overwhelming admiration of divine things, and a view to the issues of eternity, check their natural boldness and levity; at once abase and enlarge the understanding; and, from the anguish of hope and fear, produce zeal. Then, having reformed all crying disorders, and being prompt and expert in exercises of devotion, there is less matter for vehement remorse or fear; and the peace and congratulation of conscience hereupon being comfort sufficient, the more transporting flashes of joy are withdrawn; and thus, the man, having no religious passions, and being in war with corrupt passions, acquaints himself with the measures, motives, and fitness of virtues, and acts them in the strength of rational consideration.
“Here he labours long, and seems perhaps to have overcome all his vicious inclinations; (unless some one may show itself, more to his secret confusion and pain, than guilt,) being always in a posture of religious care, severity of thought, and habitual regularity of life. But then he complains of a general lukewarmness,—his intercourse with God is not enlivened with any particular successes, tender affections, or noble discoveries. For this he is much afflicted; yet, in the multitude of his thoughts within him, there is a good hope towards God at the bottom, which becomes more explicit by listening to the gospel. The redemption through Christ drops like balm into his soul, and he scruples not now to confess that his religious actions were but formal and worthless; yet, through gratitude to his Saviour and joy in Him, he is more ready than ever to continue the practice of them.
“Yet, he frequently falls into faintings and desolations. He is chiefly troubled at the opposition which self-love and pride make to the spirit of Christ within him. These make him unfaithful in the happy moments of grace, and infest him continually in his weaker intervals. Yea, he can trace them through every action of his life, and begin to see the depth and extent of his depravity. Hereupon, he keeps himself in constant recollection, to watch and resist it. He rejoices that, upon applying to God, a temptation vanishes; yet, very often it dwells so obstinately upon his mind, that his thoughts are shut up within the circle of their own folly and baseness, and he can only send groanings that cannot be uttered after the divine gift he once enjoyed. That gift, however, returns, and sometimes so long together, that he is able to form some idea of a spiritual life,—of the purity and long-suffering, the humility and charity, the magnanimity and singleness of heart, that are suitable for one in whom the Holy Spirit dwells. His desire insensibly sets him on work to procure those dispositions, which follow upon his wish; for the soul no sooner conceives the temper it would be in, but the body (being taught that obsequiousness by the strong recollection lately used, which suspends, clarifies, and determines the animal spirit) immediately furnishes the sensation, air, and whole energy of that temper.
“These smooth and ready emotions of virtue, which seem to give a man a more real and genuine possession of it than ever, do also encourage the mind to launch out in sublime theories; wherein it is much assisted by the repose and security it enjoys towards God, and by the delicate philosophic joy overflowing all the faculties, which raises the imagination to greater magnificence and sagacity. Here the grand system of Providence and all its various dispensations; the correspondencies of heaven and earth, of time and eternity; the gaiety and mournings of nature, and the greatness and abjectness of man; the saving mystery of human life, and the saving mystery of Christianity inserted into it;—all these are inquired into, not out of vain curiosity, but at the instigation of love, to salute the divine goodness in all its works. This is the meridian of the religious man. His notions and his virtues are at the height, in their full clearness and fervour. The love of holiness shines through him, and unites under it all the movements of nature. It commands and pierces all that converse with him. All, after this, is, to the eye of man, a decline and a fall; but a decline by a regular appointed path, and a fall into the arms of secret and infinite mercy. I need not explain to you what I mean; so I will shut up the description.
“Now, where in all these stages shall we place our regeneration? And what shall we say it is? There is reason to think, that, we have no more real goodness (except experience) in one of these states than another,—in the last than the first; we only fill our minds with new sets of ideas, and, by a temporary force, drive our constitution into something that seems answerable to them. Let this force cease, and we are the same as before; when we are in the most plausible posture of virtue, let us but sleep upon it, or otherwise remit the contention of the mind, and ’tis no more; affectation gives place to nature.
“But, you will say, the operation of grace is a real thing. It is so; but, for all the indications we commonly go by to prove the peculiar presence of it, it may be nowhere or everywhere to be found. Most people measure it by the relish they have for some particular schemes and draughts of religion. Little do they think, that, the persons whom they most condemn as unspiritual and deluded, abating for what is merely accidental, are in the same state of heart as themselves. It may be the same complexional turn of the soul, (God also speaking peace to it, and to every man in his own language,) that makes the mystic happy in his prayer and quietness, the solifidian in his imputed righteousness, and the moral man in a good conscience. Nay, perhaps, what many a man calls divine love and joy in the Holy Ghost, has nothing in it, beyond the alacrity of youth or good blood in other people, but a set of phrases and notions from the last book he read; which has given a determination to that natural vigour and sweetness of temper, that were indifferent to any other issue or exercise.
“I do not doubt but there is goodness in mankind, and a goodness of God’s inspiring too; but, I believe it more evenly distributed among them, and less annexed to particular ways of thinking and behaviour. Nay, that it is not so annexed even to Christianity, (though it does essentially depend on Christ, the universal Redeemer,) but, that, as it was in being before this particular institution, so it might be obtained if the initiating rite should happen to be wanting. Yet, this rite must always be used, for the same reason as it was at first appointed, to be memorial to mankind of what is continually done for them in their hearts. Therefore, it was attended with such extraordinary effects at first, that, by these manifestations of the divine life, the reality of it might be firmly believed and depended on in succeeding times, as well as sacramentally acknowledged. The same would still continue, if we had more faith in, and zeal for, the Christian institution; for, according as men believe and expect, God does unto them. But, at present, He seems to have let the Church drop into the world, and does not so much distinguish some from the rest, in righteousness and salvation.
“Whether this be a right state of things, I cannot tell; but it seems unavoidable when every one that is born, is, of course, a member of the Church. If the safety and tolerable piety of whole nations is thereby better provided for, the exemplariness and instruction of an elect city set upon a hill cease. It seems to be the order of Providence now, that none should have much holiness, that all may have a little.
“Dear sir, I have given no particular answer to your questions; but I have said something hastily, perhaps very wrong; but I know to whom Miss Wesley[125] gives her love, and would have written, but she is somewhat indisposed.