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Dialogues, letters and essays on various subjects
Dialogues letters and essays on various subjects Author:Andrew Fuller Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: we possessed in the other. Now that which we had lost was the love of God and our neighbour. Love it the fulfilling of the law : love, therefore, comprehends the... more » whole of duty ; consequently the want, or the opposite of love, comprehends the whole of depravity. No, if it be said, the understanding is darkened—True, hut this is owing to the evil temper of the heart. (Eph. iv. 18.) There is no sin in being ignorant, as observed before, any further than that ignorance is voluntary, or owing to some evil bias. This we are sure is the case with wicked men, with respect to their not understanding the gospel. Why do ye not understand my speech ? said our Lord to the jews: The answer is, Because ye cannot hear my -word. His word did not suit the temper of their hearts; therefore they could not understand it. Prejudice blinded their eyes. Here then lies the. malady ; and if the remedy correspond with it, it must consist in being renewed in the spirit, or temper of our minds ; and not merely in 'having the intellectual faculty enlightened. It may be said, we cannot love that of which we have no idea; and therefore light in the understanding is necessary to the exercise of love in the heart. Be it so; it is no otherwise necessary than as it is necessary that I.should be a man in order to be a good man. There is no virtue or holiness in knowledge, further than as it arises from some virtuous propensity of the heart, any more than there is in our being possessed of human nature. This, therefore, canaot be the grand object communicated by the holy Spirit in regeneration. Should it be further objected, That those who plead for a new light in the understanding, mean by it more than mere speculative knowledge ; that they mean spiritual or holy light, such as conforms the heart, andlife—To th...« less