No man therefore can love God, or have unison with him, but he who is inspired with the _same spirit of love_ with which God loved himself from all eternity, and before there was any creature.――Infinite hosts of new created heavenly beings, can begin no _new kind_ of love of God, nor have the least power of beginning to love him at all, but by his _own holy Spirit of love_. This love that was then in God alone, is the _only love_ that can draw creatures to God; they can have no power of cleaving to him, or adoring the divine nature, but by partaking of that _eternal Spirit_ of love; and therefore the continual, immediate inspiration, or operation of the Holy Spirit, is the only possible ground of our continually loving God.――As to the _pride_ charged upon this enthusiasm, so called; Christ saith, _without me ye can do nothing_, the same as if he had said, As to yourselves, ye are mere _helpless sin and misery_, and nothing that is good, can come from you, but by the _continual, immediate_ breathing and inspiration of another spirit, given by God, to overrule _your own_. Now is there any pride, in fully believing and acting in full conformity to it? If so, then he that confesses, he neither hath, nor can have a single farthing, but as it is freely given him from charity, thereby declares himself to be a purse-proud vain boaster of his own wealth. Such is the spiritual pride of him, who fully acknowledges, that he neither hath, nor can have the least spark of goodness, but what is freely breathed into him by the Spirit of God. Again, if it is _spiritual pride_, to believe, that nothing we think, or say, or do, can have any goodness in it, but that which is wrought immediately by the Spirit of God, then it must be said, that in order to have _humility_, we must take some share of our virtues to ourselves, and not allow (as Christ hath said) that _without him, we can do nothing_ that is good. Behold a pride, and an humility, the one as good as the other, and both logically descended from a wisdom, that confesses it cometh not from above. It is in vain to think, that there is a _middle way_, and that _rational divines_ have found it out, as Dr. _Warburton_ has done, who though denying _immediate, continual_ inspiration yet allows, that the Spirit’s “ordinary influence, occasionally assists the faithful.”¹ ¹ Sermon. Volume I.