How does the learned expert in the letter of Scripture doctrines view these words of Jesus: "I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes"? Why, he bends every effort to become as wise in worldly wisdom as human learning can make him, as though he were determined to be anything but that simple child of faith to whom the Father reveals the mysteries of the gospel. Thus, he shuts himself and others out of the heavenly kingdom, turning from the tree of life to feed on that tree of sin and death that was called in the garden, the tree of knowledge. ... He has sold his birthright in the gospel state of spiritual illumination for a name, to make a noise with the sounding brass and tinkling cymbals of the natural man.

Thousands stand ready to split doctrinal hairs and instruct others in the fine meaning of Scripture words - but there are so few through whom the Holy Spirit can work to bring men to new birth in the kingdom of God. (p. 47)

To know the truth of gospel salvation is to know that man's natural wisdom is to be equally sacrificed with man's natural folly. They are but one and the same thing, only called sometimes by one name, and sometimes by the other. For man's intellectual faculties are, by the fall, in a much worse state than his animal appetites, and require of him much greater self-denial. To believe this, no more need be known than these two things: 1) that our salvation consists wholly in being saved from ourselves, or that which we are by nature; and 2) that nothing could be our salvation but such a humility of God manifested in human nature as is beyond all expression except in the God-man Christ Jesus. (p. 49)

What a paradox to see the professed church of the Lamb filled with great numbers of champion disputants, who from age to age have been up in arms to support and defend a set of opinions, doctrines, and practices, all of which may be most cordially embraced without demanding the least degree of self-denial, and most firmly held fast without bestowing the least degree of humility!

What a gross ignorance, both of man's need and Christ's salvation, to run to Greek and Hebrew schools to learn how to put off Adam and to put on Christ! How absurd to seek to be wise in scholarship concerning the letter of Scripture in order to obey Christ's command that we must become like a little child to enter into His kingdom! (p. 51)

If Christians had desired no knowledge but that which comes alone from the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the Church had been a kingdom of God and communion of saints to this present day. Christians would have known no master but Christ, nor would anything else be considered possible to effect salvation except dying to self that the Christ of God might be formed in us, making children of God out of the fallen sons of Adam. But now corruption, sin, death, and every evil of the world have entered into the Church, the spouse of Christ, just as they entered into Eve, the spouse of Adam, in paradise. And in the very same way, knowledge other than that which comes from the inspiration of the Spirit of God alone. (p. 51)

Let no one here imagine that I am writing against all human literature, arts, and sciences, or that I wish the world to be without them. I am no more an enemy of them that of the common useful labors of life. It is the application to the things of the Spirit of God of the same methods of learning and wisdom used by worldly scholars in earthly pursuits that I charge with folly and mischief. And in this I have all learned Christendom, both popish and Protestant, on my side. For they both agree in charging each other with a bad and false gospel state, because of that which their great learning and logic has produced for them.

Is it not time to seek a better ground to stand upon than such scholarship as this? Consider first of all that true deliverance from sin is nowhere to be found for fallen man, but in these two points: 1) A total childlike faith in gospel salvation through the death and resurrection of Christ for man; and 2) A total resignation to, and sole dependence upon, the continual operation of the Holy Spirit in man. Through Him, Christ becomes our never ceasing Light, Teacher, Guide, and Living Power whereby we can walk in all the ways of virtue in which He Himself walked in the flesh.

Let the Christian world forget or depart from this true gospel salvation; let anything else be trusted but the cross of Christ and the Spirit of Christ; and then, though churches and preachers and prayers and sacraments are everywhere in plenty, nothing can come of them but a Christian kingdom of pagan vices, along with a mouth-professed belief in the Apostle's Creed and the communion of saints. ... What vanity, then, to count progress in terms of numbers of new and lofty cathedrals, chapels, sanctuaries, mission stations, and multiplied new membership lists, when there is no change in this undeniable departure of men's hearts from the living God. (pp. 55-56)

Could you therefore be content to be one of the primitive Christians, who lived before the writings throughout church history, and who were as good disciples of Christ as any that have been since. ... What project was it, to be grasping after the knowledge of all the opinions, doctrines, disputes, heresies, schisms, and decrees which seventeen hundred years had brought forth through all the extent of the Christian world! That project this, in order to learn the reality of the power of Christ as a deliverer from the evil and earthly flesh and blood, and death and hell, and to become a preacher of a new birth and life from above! For as this is the divine work of Christ, so he only is a true and able pastor who can bear a faithful testimony to this divine work of Christ in his own soul.

Books of divinity, indeed, I have not done with; but will esteem none to be such but those that make known to my heart the inward power and redemption of Jesus Christ, through the indwelling and working of the Holy Spirit. (p. 59)

In the present church, the tree of life is hissed at as the visionary food of extremists, and the tree of death, called the tree of knowledge, has the eyes and hearts of priests and people, and is thought to do as much good to Christians as it did evil to the first inhabitants of Paradise. The simplicity indeed both of the gospel doctrines and letter has acquired the shine of worldly wisdom and methods; for these latter are now thought as powerful a means of getting men of the world to turn to God as they were formerly proven to be the power of darkness that turned men from God to the world. And so it must sadly be said that the gospel which can give life only when ministered by the Spirit, has become the province of scholarship in the letter, which can only bring death. (p.60)