44. * Is it not now a flat denial of all this to say, as do some, that the establishment of the gospel in the world, together with the assistances of _human learning_, and _languages_, has been the occasion why the assistance of the Holy Ghost is abated? For if we consult either scripture or experience, must it not be said, that _worldly peace_ and _prosperity_ want _as much_ to be sanctified by the Holy Spirit, as _persecution_ and _distress_? That _human learning_ and _knowledge_ need as _high degrees_ of divine grace, as human ignorance? Is not the blindness and corruption of _men of letters_, as notorious as that of _unlearned_ men? Does an _editor of Terence, Horace_ or _Virgil_, receive such illumination from _plays_ and _poetry_? Do _cardinals_ and _pluralists_ receive so much _unction_ from human establishments, as to need less to be governed by the Holy Spirit of God? Or will we say, that a _critical study_ of divided languages, and a religion established in worldly ease and peace, are not only in themselves free from danger and corruption, but have so much of the nature of the Holy Spirit in them, that they can be to us in _his stead_, and make his sanctifying operations upon us needed in a _less degree_? 45. On the part of God, our _redemption_ in Jesus Christ, and our _sanctification_ by the Holy Ghost, stand always in the _same degree_ of _nearness_ and _fulness_ to all of us. There is hardly a chapter in the New Testament that can be understood, but upon the supposition of this great truth. If Christ is less formed in us than he was in the first saints of the church, if we come not to the _perfect man_, _to the measure of the stature_ of the _fulness of Christ_, it is not because Christ is now become only our Redeemer in an ordinary way; but it is because we have not so counted all things but _dung_, that we might win Christ, as the first saints did. If the Holy Spirit does not now in _such a degree_ renew, quicken, move, and sanctify our hearts, and fill us with _such degrees_ of divine light and love, as was done in the first age of the church, it is not because this sanctifying spirit has committed _some part_ of his work to _human learning_, and so is become only our sanctifier in a lesser and _ordinary degree_, but it is because we ourselves have _forsaken this fountain of living waters, and hewed out broken cisterns_ for ourselves; it is because we have grieved this Holy Spirit, _resisted_ his motions, and under an _outward profession_ of Christ have kept up that _old man, with his deeds_, which cannot be the habitation of the Holy Spirit.