Anne Dutton's Letters on Spiritual Subjects
My Dear Brother in the Lord,
A spiritual appetite, to relish spiritual things, is a distinguishing favor bestowed upon none but those who are Christ's own. "The natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God—for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." And spiritual men, who have an appetite, a capacity to relish spiritual things, can have no actual relish thereof, without the immediate influences of the Holy Spirit. It is He who takes of the things of Christ, and of the Father, and shows them unto us.It is the spirit of truth, in His special operations as the Comforter, who guides His people into all truth. It is He who, enlightening our minds, guides us into the doctrinal knowledge of every truth, and enkindling our souls with the truths known, that gives us heart fellowship therewith. Without the actual presence of the Holy Spirit giving us insight, not the least spiritual truth can we know, nor the least degree of spiritual knowledge thereof can we attain. Oh, it is the actual presence of the Holy Spirit as our Comforter that, by His light and heat, irradiates our mind, and inflames our souls with the knowledge of divine truth. Let the truth shine ever so brightly or warmly round about us, unless the Holy Spirit shines into our minds, unto the knowledge of the truth in its glory and efficacy, we neither see its light, nor feel its heat.
How much are we debtors to Him, as our Guide into all truth, for every degree of our spiritual knowledge. Oh, the infinite grace of the Holy Spirit!
It is a great thing to be thoroughly sensible of the nothingness of the creature, both with respect to ourselves and others; that the creature is nothing, less than nothing, and vanity, and the Lord all, and in all; that all the excellency, comfort, and usefulness of the creature, is wholly derived from, and dependent upon, its Creator.
I shall be glad to know the frame of your soul, to hear from you when you have leisure, and to have an interest in your prayers.
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