NINE
NEGATIVE SIGNS

1. The Very Unusual and Extraordinary Character of a Work

What the church has been used to is not a rule by which we are to judge

Nothing can be certainly concluded from a work being carried on in a very unusual and extraordinary way, provided the variety or difference is such as may still be included within the limits of scriptural rules. What the church has been used to is not a rule by which we are to judge, because there may be new and extraordinary works of God, and he has hitherto evidently worked in an extraordinary manner. He has brought to pass new things, strange works; and has worked in such a manner as to surprise both men and angels. And as God has done thus in times past, so we have no reason to think but that he will still do so. The prophecies of Scripture give us reason to think that God has things to accomplish which have never yet been seen. No deviation from what has hitherto been usual, let it be never so great, is an argument that a work is not from the Spirit of God, if it is no deviation from his prescribed rule. The Holy Spirit is sovereign in his operation; and we know that he uses a great variety; and we cannot tell how great a variety he may use, within the compass of the rules he himself has fixed. We ought not to limit God where he has not limited himself.

Therefore it is not reasonable to determine that a work is not from God’s Holy Spirit because of the extraordinary degree in which the minds of persons are influenced. If they seem to have an extraordinary conviction of the dreadful nature of sin, and a very uncommon sense of the misery of a Christless condition – or extraordinary views of the certainty and glory of divine things – and are proportionably moved with very extraordinary affections of fear and sorrow, desire, love, or joy; or if the apparent change is very sudden, and the work carried on with very unusual swiftness – and the persons affected are very numerous, and many of them are very young, with other unusual circumstances, not infringing upon scriptural marks of a work of the Spirit – these things are no argument that the work is not of the Spirit of God. The extraordinary and unusual degree of influence, and power of operation, if in its nature it fits the rules and marks given in Scripture, is rather an argument in its favor; for by how much higher the degree which in its nature is agreeable to the rule, so much the more is there of conformity to the rule; and so much the more evident that conformity. When things are in small degrees, though they may really follow the rule, it is not so easily seen whether their nature agrees with the rule.

People are very apt to have doubts about things that are strange

People are very apt to have doubts about things that are strange; especially elderly persons, who doubt that things are right which they have never been used to in their day, and have not heard of in the days of their fathers. But if it is a good argument that a work is not from the Spirit of God if it is very unusual, then it was so in the apostles’ days. The work of the Spirit then was carried on in a manner that, in very many respects, was altogether new – such as had never been seen or heard since the world stood. The work was then carried on with more visible and remarkable power than ever; nor had there been seen before such mighty and wonderful effects of the Spirit of God in sudden changes and such great engagedness and zeal in great multitudes – such a sudden alteration in towns, cities, and countries; such a swift progress, and vast extent of the work – and many other extraordinary circumstances might be mentioned. The great unusualness of the work surprised the Jews; they knew not what to make of it, but could not believe it to be the work of God; many looked upon the persons that were the subjects of it as bereft of reason; as you may see in Acts 2:13 and 26:24, and in 1 Corinthians 4:10.

And we have reason from Scripture prophecy to suppose that at the commencement of that last and greatest outpouring of the Spirit of God that is to come in the latter ages of the world, the manner of the work will be very extraordinary, and such as has never yet been seen; so that there shall be occasion to say, as in Isaiah 56:8, “Who hath heard such a thing? Who hath seen such things? Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day? Shall a nation be born at once? for as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children.” It may be reasonably expected that the extraordinary manner of the work then will bear some proportion to the very extraordinary events, and that glorious change in the state of the world, which God will bring to pass by it.

2. How the Body is Affected

A work is not to be judged by tears, trembling, groans, loud outcries, agonies of body, or the failing of bodily strength

The influence people are under is not to be judged of one way or the other by such effects on the body; and the reason is, because the Scripture nowhere gives us any such rule. We cannot conclude that people are under the influence of the Spirit because we see such effects upon their bodies, because this is not given as a mark of the true Spirit; nor on the other hand have we any reason to conclude from any such outward appearances that persons are not under the influence of the Spirit of God, because there is no rule of Scripture given us to judge of spirits by, that does either expressly or indirectly exclude such effects on the body, nor does reason exclude them.

It is easily accounted for from the consideration of the nature of divine and eternal things, and the nature of man, and the laws of the union between soul and body, how a right influence, a true and proper sense of things, should have such effects on the body, even those that are of the most extraordinary kind, such as taking away the bodily strength, or throwing the body into great agonies, and extorting loud outcries. None of us does not suppose that the misery of hell is doubtless so dreadful, and eternity so vast, that if a person should have a clear apprehension of that misery as it is, it would be more than his feeble frame could bear, and especially if at the same time he saw himself in great danger of it, and to be utterly uncertain whether he would be delivered from it, and have no security from it one day or hour. If we consider human nature, we must not wonder that when person have a great

The manifestation of God’s wrath overwhelms human strength

When people’s hearts are full of fear, in time of war, they are ready to tremble at the shaking of a leaf, and to expect the enemy every minute, and to say within themselves, “Now I shall be slain.” If we should suppose that a person saw himself hanging over a great pit, full of fierce and glowing flames, by a thread that he knew to be very weak, and not sufficient to bear his weight, and knew that multitudes had been in such circumstances before, and that most of them had fallen and perished, and saw nothing within reach that he could take hold of to save him, what distress would he be in! How ready to think that now the thread was breaking, that now, this minute, he would be swallowed up in those dreadful flames! And would he not be ready to cry out in such circumstances? How much more those that see themselves in this manner hanging over an infinitely more dreadful pit, or held over it in the hand of God, who at the same time they see to be exceedingly provoked! No wonder that the wrath of God, when manifested only a little to the soul, overbears human strength.

So it may easily be accounted for, that a true sense of the glorious excellence of the Lord Jesus Christ, and of his wonderful dying, love, and the exercise of a truly spiritual love and joy, should be such as very much to overcome the bodily strength. We are all ready to admit that no one can see God and live, and that it is only a very small part of that apprehension of the glory and love of Christ, which the saints enjoy in heaven, that our present frame can bear; therefore it is not at all strange that God should sometimes give his saints such foretastes of heaven as to diminish their bodily strength.

Some extraordinary things are not mentioned in the New Testament

Some people object against such extraordinary appearances, that we have no instances of them recorded in the New Testament, under the extraordinary effusions of the Spirit. Were this allowed, I can see no force in the objection, if neither reason nor any rule of Scripture exclude such things – especially considering what was observed under the last heading. I do not know that we have any express mention inn the New Testament of any person’s weeping, or groaning, or sighing through fear of hell, or a sense of God’s anger; but is there anybody so foolish as to argue from this, that anyone in whom these things appear is not being convicted by the Spirit of God? And the reason why we do not argue thus is because these are easily accounted for from what we know of the nature of man, and from what the Scripture informs us in general concerning the nature of eternal things, and the nature of the convictions of God’s Spirit; so that there is no need that anything should be said in particular concerning these external, circumstantial effects. Nobody supposes that there is any need of express scripture for every external, accidental manifestation of the inward motion of the mind: and though such circumstances are not particularly recorded in sacred history, there is a great deal of reason to think, from the general accounts we have, that it could not be otherwise than that such things must be in those days.

The jailer fell down and trembled

And there is also reason to think that such great outpouring of the Spirit was not wholly without those more extraordinary effects on people’s bodies. The jailer in particular seems to have been an instance of that nature, when he, in the utmost distress and amazement, came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas. His ). But his falling down seems to be from the same cause as his trembling.

The example of the Psalmist

The psalmist gives an account of his crying out aloud, and a great weakening of his body under convictions of s#conscience, and a sense of the guilt of sin: “When I kept silence my bones waxed old, through my roaring all the day long; for day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer” (Ps. 32:3–4). We may at least argue so much from it, that such an effect of conviction of sin may well in some cases be supposed; for the psalmist would not represent his case by what would be absurd, and to which no degree of that exercise of mind he spoke of would have any tendency.

The disciples cried out for fear

We read of the disciples that when they saw Christ coming to them in the storm, and took him for some terrible enemy, threatening their destruction in that storm, “they cried out for fear” (Matt. 14:26). Why then should it be thought strange that people should cry out for fear when God appears to them as a terrible enemy, and they see themselves in great danger of being swallowed up in the bottomless gulf of eternal misery?

The Song of Songs

The spouse, once and again, speaks of herself as overpowered with the love of Christ, so as to weaken her body, and make her faint: “Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples; for I am sick of love… . I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my Beloved, that ye tell him that I am sick of love” (S. of S. 2:5, 8). From this we may at least argue that such an effect may well be supposed to arise from such a cause in the saints in some cases, and that such an effect will sometimes be seen in the church of Christ.

It is a weak objection to say that the impressions of enthusiasts have a great effect on their bodies. That the Quakers used to tremble is no argument that Saul, afterwards called Paul, and the jailer did not tremble from real convictions of conscience. Indeed, all such objections from effects on the body, whether greater or less, seem to be exceedingly frivolous. Those who argue from them proceed in the dark – they do not know what ground they go upon, nor by what rule they judge. The root and course of things is to be looked at, and the nature of the operations and affections are to be inquired into, and examined by the rule of God’s word, and not the motions of the blood and animal spirits.