I shall first shortly state the reasons which induce me to take notice of, and comment on, the "Remarks" upon the sermon lately preached at St. Mary's. If the Regius Professor of Divinity had simply undertaken to refute the sermon preached at St. Mary's, to which his remarks apply, it might perhaps have been unbecoming, or at the least premature, for a third person to enter into the discussion, or do more than watch its progress. But this is expressly disclaimed, and a very different office is assumed. "I must now come," says the pamphlet referred to, "to the exposition of the gospel; and I trust that I shall not be thought unreasonable or presumptuous, if I say at once that I am not entering into controversy." It is true the author professes, at the close of the "Remarks," "I am not entering into controversy, but am merely stating facts." But for this purpose he has said a great deal too much. "When the doctrine of the Church is misrepresented," he continues, "and there is danger of young disciples being misled, I feel it my duty as a faithful soldier of Christ to stand between the dead and the living, and to stay the plague."
This itself were language a little strong for any supposed or real misrepresentation of the doctrines of the Church of England. But the author has indeed altogether said too much or too little. If he meant to confine himself to the vindication of the doctrines of the Church of England from misrepresentation, he has said too much. If he meant to tell us what was not or what was the gospel, he should have surely said a good deal more. But that I may not leave it uncertain how much these remarks call upon every one to satisfy themselves on the whole principles of their faith, I shall conclude the quotation already adverted to. "The sermon now before me professes to contain an exposition of that gospel which Jesus Christ delivered to His apostles; but in the name of Paul, of Cephas, and of Christ, I say that this is not the gospel." In saying this, the Regius Professor has laid the solemn responsibility upon every one concerned about his own soul of enquiring what his faith is; and whether it be founded in truth, if at all similar to what is thus authoritatively pronounced to be not the gospel; (for, what is the gospel? is a question of individual salvation, which men must judge of responsibly); and, I will add, responsibility to judge of that proposed to be substituted in its place, and to see what conclusions it will lead us.
+Oxford, 1831.
This is no vindication of the doctrines of the Church of England from misrepresentation, nor a mere statement of facts. It is, in good truth, a standing between the living and the dead, if the author be right. If the preacher be right, and I follow the author of the "Remarks," I am not, according to the former, in the way of salvation. If the author of the "Remarks" be right, in receiving the doctrine of the preacher I am departing from the gospel of Christ: I am not amongst the living but the dead. I am justified therefore in the fullest comment upon the evidence brought to sustain such a charge; and in enquiring what are the grounds on which I am here called upon to believe that this is a deadly contagion, in which the Church of England has no part; and how far the Regius Professor is warranted in bringing the views which he does in these "Remarks" bring forward in opposition to, and as contravening, what he says is not the gospel. I am not here concerned to defend the preacher: with him the author says he will not enter into controversy; and it is his part, if he see good, to defend himself. But the author of the "Remarks" has thrown the whole question open, and forced it upon the judgment of every one who is interested in what the gospel is; for he has raised a controversy for every soul. I shall leave therefore the sermon itself unnoticed, and discuss merely the statements made in the "Remarks," as bearing on the general subject.
I know not with what consistency with the injunctions contained in the preface to the Articles, I am led by Archbishop Lawrence and the Regius Professor of Divinity to travel into the mind of Cranmer, through the vacillating opinions of Melancthon. Those opinions we can judge of, according to the testimony of the author of the "Remarks" himself, only by the help of dates, and we must be certain of getting a right edition, before we can know what was that mind which he held, and which therefore Cranmer held, and which therefore the Articles are to be supposed to hold. I there read, that a person "shall not put his own sense or comment" on the Article, "but shall take it in the literal and grammatical sense." The authority of this document I do not pretend to state: whatever it be, of this I am sure, that Archbishop Lawrence's Bampton Lectures, especially the last two, are a very singular comment on it. For my own part, I soberly think Article XVII to be as wise, perhaps I might say the wisest and best condensed human statement of the views it contains that I am acquainted with. I am fully content to take it in its literal and grammatical sense. I believe that predestination to life is the eternal purpose of God, by which, before the foundations of the world were laid, He firmly decreed, by His counsel secret to us, to deliver from curse and destruction those whom He had chosen in Christ out of the human race, and to bring them, through Christ, as vessels made to honour, to eternal salvation. I believe therefore that those who are endued with so excellent a gift of God, are called according to His purpose working in due time; that they obey the calling through grace; that they are freely justified; that they are adopted to be children of God; that they are made conformed to the image of His only begotten Son Jesus Christ; that they do walk holily in good works; and that at length, through the mercy of God, they do attain to everlasting felicity. And, I might ask, does the author of the "Remarks" believe this? that is, believing as he does that the Church, that is, every baptized person, is predestinated and chosen, does he believe all this of every such person?
But as the historical enquiry has been started, I shall beg leave shortly to follow it, that we may, as far as a brief opportunity allows, investigate the grounds on which the author of the "Remarks" states, that the Lutheran Church was the source from which the Church of England derives her doctrine; and that Calvinism was "a contagion flowing from the close contact into which those who fled from the Marian persecution were brought with the Calvinistic doctrines." And here I must remark, that it appears to me that the Regius Professor of Divinity puts the Church of England into a very discreditable position. Choice between Lutheran and Calvinistic she may be allowed to make. That she drew her doctrines originally from Scripture; that her founders were themselves taught of God, so as to be able to teach others, or lay the basis of the Church they were about to rear or reform on the stable foundations of the word of God, is in no case suggested or supposed. In fact, when we would ascertain her thoughts and her foundation, -- we are directed to Melancthon. In the Bampton Lectures of Archbishop Lawrence, there is not an expression on which he remarks, of which he does not discover the words and the source in some German reformer. For my own part I cannot believe this: and it would seem to me an ill way of securing confidence in her doctrine, to lead the minds of students to so mazy and uncertain a path to discover her meaning and ascertain the foundations of her authority (however it may suit those who put their "comment on the Articles," instead of searching the authority of Scripture for their plain and grammatical meaning). But let us ascertain some of the facts. Peter Martyr and Bucer were Regius Professors of Divinity at Oxford and Cambridge respectively during the reign of Edward VI. "Bucer," the author of the "Remarks," states, "died in 1551, when Calvin had scarcely begun to propagate his peculiar opinions respecting predestination. His first public controversy was in that year, and his first publication on the subject in 1552." Let us now see what were the views of Bucer, the Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge. After stating some of the difficulties usually objected to what are called Calvinistic views, he thus writes:
"But those who wish simply to follow the word of God easily free themselves from these. For, first, they firmly rest in this: that God Himself testifies concerning Himself, that out of the race of man, ruined by its first parent, He chooses some to re-form them to a new and blessed life; and has, or esteems the rest as vessels of His wrath, in whom he should shew examples of His just vengeance; whereby He should commend to the elect His mercy, because He translates them, born to the same death, into the inheritance of the divine life. This judgment of the Lord concerning men, the Scripture everywhere preaches and inculcates; as well in the history of the Lord's acts, as in the oracles themselves; for Cain was rejected; Abel elected. In the time of Noah all were destroyed by the flood save eight men: and of the sons of Noah, blessing came upon two, a curse upon the third ... . And where do we not see, as in whole peoples, so in private men, and these otherwise most closely united, that some are taken, others rejected? From these examples, therefore, and oracles, witnessing clearly the same thing, of which Scripture is full (in which, namely, the difference which God puts between men is declared), the saints have the fullest persuasion, that, before the foundation of the world, some are elected to life, appointed also before their doing anything, to that to which God at length brings them, namely, that in them He should give an example of His wrath, and that in that way His name should be sanctified in them. And, when they see it thus to be pleasing in the sight of God, they render thanks with our Lord to God the Father for this very judgment, as well that He hides this mystery of salvation from the wise and prudent of this world, as that He reveals it to the elect little ones; however He may will that the revelation of the mystery should be equally offered to both. Thence, whereas God nevertheless commands the gospel to be preached to every creature, and to call them to the communion of the gospel, be they who they may; the saints do not dispute why it is God's command to call them, whom nevertheless He will not have to come, yea, whom He hardens lest they should come: but they thus judge; it is the Lord who commands, it is our part therefore to obey, and to account it sufficient that in the meanwhile we so far serve the Lord as to the reprobate, that every excuse of their wickedness should be taken away from them, and they should be obliged themselves to confess that God justly condemns them."
Again, "When we speak of God, we all understand the Author of every good; and he who affirms that any good is not effected by God, does not hesitate to deny that He is God. For if ever so little good be not from God, then is He not the effecter of every good; therefore neither is He God. But, when these preposterous patrons of divine justice say, that all men are alike called by the gospel, and that like grace is offered and bestowed upon all, that they may follow, God calling them, and that men's embracing this grace of God is in their power, we will ask them, Whence is it that some, making good use of their power, embrace the grace equally offered to all -- that some reject it, making bad use of their power? If they say, That is from man, not from God; now the chief good from which all the rest hang, the embracing the offered favour of God, is from man; and man has that which he has not received, nor is God now the effecter of every good; therefore neither is He God. This conflicts not only, as I have said, with Scripture, but also with common sense. But if it be from God that any one hears effectually and fallows God's calling, then in any case God does not give His grace to all equally. For to those who follow the call of the gospel He gives that very thing which He does not give to those who reject the gospel. It remains, therefore, as yet and always, that human reason is condemned in the judgment of God, if you permit it to judge about God, the judge of all. If therefore in practice it comes to this concerning the whole dispensation of our salvation, it is not wonderful if it happens, in that it so seemed good to God, that all mortals should be alike called by the gospel, although He may not wish that all should follow that calling: for many are called, few chosen.
"The saints therefore will ingenuously confess, yea and will preach, that God wills that the gospel indeed should be preached to all, and that thereby all mortals should be called to life; but that He does not will that all should believe the gospel, for neither does He bestow that on all, but hardens many, lest they should bear to hear it. It comes indeed, as He Himself says, to many unto judgment: and Paul teaches, that the gospel, which in itself is a power unto salvation unto all, is a savour of death unto death to them who perish. In that is fulfilled, that, 'Hearing, hear ye, and understand not; seeing, see ye, and perceive not.' When the blessed Paul preached Christ to all the elders of the Jews at Rome, undoubtedly he did it the Lord willing and commanding it: yet when many did not believe, he himself testified that the prophecy of Isaiah was fulfilled in them: 'Hearing, hear ye,' etc. God therefore willed that they should be called by the gospel, and yet should not come. So when Joab," etc.
He then enumerates other similar instances. "This, therefore is the method of God; thus it seems good to Himself, that all indeed should be called to Him by the eternal word, but not to draw all to Him by His Spirit; but howbeit that those who are not drawn cannot come to Him; nevertheless, whoever have been called, it is necessary that they should afterwards condemn themselves for despising the mercy of God."
"Philip Melancthon," he says, "is accustomed to say+ that man had a free will in the affairs of civil life, but not in the affairs of the life which God approves."
Again: "For it is certain that any one's obeying the call of God, which is the beginning of our whole salvation, is the gift and work of God, which God bestows on some, denies to others. For these He persuades that He may effectually influence, those not so; and these whom he effectually influences cannot but follow, and those cannot follow whom He does not effectually influence. He wills therefore altogether that some should hear, and hear effectually; some hear and despise. But why God so wills and does, blessed Augustine has only two things to answer: O the depth of the riches! and, Is there unrighteousness with God? adding, to whomsoever this answer is displeasing, let him seek more learned persons, but let him take care lest he find presumptuous ones: De Sp. et Lit. c. 34. Nor will those who are truly pious answer anything else." Bucer on Romans 9.
In the same commentary on the Romans, he confutes the presciential or Arminian notion of election, quoting Augustine writing against the Pelagians, against Origen and Ambrose: saying, You say, not of present but of future works -- that of future works Jacob was loved; but you contradict the apostle, saying, Not of works that it might be by grace, etc.; bringing also the evidence of an infant dying after baptism to shew that it could not be in prescience of future works.
On Romans 8. "For the apostle in this place is occupied with teaching, that God destined us to salvation before we were, not merely before we had done anything good: and from this he sets about to prove, that this will of God concerning our salvation was certain and unmoved, which no creature could turn aside: as that which God draws from Himself and His own goodness, which cannot be changed; and without any respect to our merit which varies so miserably ... . Therefore ... praefinition, which we commonly call predestination, is that designation of God, by which He marks out with Himself, and now singles out, and separates from the rest of men, those whom in their own time, brought into this life, He draws and grafts into our Lord Jesus; and thus drawn to and planted in Him, by Him begets again, and sanctifies according to His good pleasure." "But then," etc. He then states the appointment of everything by God to its own use.
+This, which was part of the Article on free will in 1553, was omitted in 1562.
"Hence also is the predestination of the bad. For, as God also forms these out of nothing, so He forms them to some certain end: for He does all things wisely, without any exception, even to the predetermined and good use of the evil. Also the impious are organs and instruments of God, as below, chapter 9. God made all things for Himself, the wicked also for the day of evil. But this theologians do not bear to call predestination, but they call it reprobation: but God does everything well and wisely. Therefore also everything has a determined end" (nihil non destinatum). After adducing instances he proceeds:
"But whereas God formed these and all other wicked men, who will deny, that He knew, before He formed them, to what He willed to use them; and that He then ordained and destined them to this? What therefore forbids us to say that there is a predestination of these also?"
"The term election is used in two ways: sometimes for election to some external office, as 'Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?' Judas the traitor was elected indeed to the apostleship; but to the inheritance of eternal life he was not elected. Again, election sometimes means a designation of some men, out of the common lost mass, to the knowledge of the will of God, and at length to eternal life, of the mere favour of God; and it is of that election the discourse here is, and of that Christ also speaks, 'I know whom I. have chosen.'
"On the whole, election is the mere gift of God, and therefore favour, and not reward. Read Augustine; he certainly has the clearest and most evident testimonies. Election, therefore, is the destination and certain commiseration from eternity, before the world was constituted, by which God separated, from the universal race of lost men, those whom He was pleased to pity, to eternal life, out of His purely free mercy, before they could do anything good or bad. It is certain, I say, and immutable, through Jesus Christ His only begotten Son, and our mediator," etc.
"And the words of the Holy Ghost are plain by which He ascribes the hardness of heart, the dullness of ears, the blindness of eyes, in Pharaoh, and therefore in all like him, not to the flesh, or the devil, but to God Himself, who owes no man anything, and does everything most justly. If, therefore, any one object, If nothing is done on the part of men, in what relates to election, which concurs with the divine work, God seems to be unjust, that He does not give the same reward to all: he is to be answered, There is nothing similar between God's thoughts and ours."
Hence we may estimate the value of the quotation of Dr. Lawrence+ from Bucer, appended to his own views of the subject. "He who doubts about this (namely, about predestination), cannot believe himself to be called and justified, that is, cannot be a Christian. It is to be assumed, therefore, as a first principle of faith, that we all are foreknown, foredetermined, and separated from the rest, and selected for this, that we should be eternally saved; and that this purpose of God cannot be changed."
I have now only an historical remark or two to make before I turn to Peter Martyr, the Oxford Divinity Professor in the days of the blessed Reformation.
This Bucer was a man highly esteemed for his moderation and powers, and, having long resided at Strasbourg, was therefore invited over to assist in settling the Reformation in England, and was accordingly appointed Professor of Divinity at Cambridge. He had a very important share in the settlement of the English Liturgy, which was translated into Latin on purpose that he might revise, give his opinion and corrections; and many and material alterations were made accordingly at his suggestion and by his advice. In fact, this may be said to have been the formation of the Liturgy, or Book of Common Prayer: and from its validity the whole validity of the English succession hangs. For King Edward's first book was in truth (what King James was pleased, while a Scotch king, to designate the present Liturgy++ itself) little more than "an ill said mass": but in this it assumed substantially its present form. There were alterations in Queen Elizabeth's book, as since also; of which some have approved, some thought that they were to conciliate the then Papists. But anyone who will take the trouble of comparing them, will see that the second book of King Edward may be considered substantially as the settling of the Liturgy. Moreover, all the first bishops of Queen Elizabeth were ordained according to this book; that is, on the principles of episcopal succession, in effect, all: and (some having called in question the validity of their ordination, it having been abolished by Queen Mary, and not legally revived) an act of parliament was passed against those who should dare to impugn the validity of what was done under that book.
+In the appendix to his Bampton Lectures, Dr. Lawrence gives this as a sort of conclusion to his view of election. Having seen what Bucer's own was, we shall see how suitable such a sentence was to Dr. Lawrence's. I give it as Dr. L.'s quotation, because I cannot lay my hand on it in Bucer; but I do not doubt his literal correctness.
++The alterations of 1662 were made subsequent to this, and some additions in King James's time; many were projected after the revolution.
One circumstance or two more may be mentioned to shew the estimation of Bucer, and, if need be, his intimate connection with Cranmer. It was by Cranmer he was invited into England: and, receiving triple the usual stipend during his life at Cambridge, he was buried in the University Church, the vice-chancellor ordering the members of all the colleges to attend his funeral.
A few more quotations from his commentaries on points directly before us shall close what relates peculiarly to him. On "Moreover whom he did predestinate," Romans 8: 30. "He repeats what he had said concerning the predestination of the children of God, and unfolds it more fully, using an elegant gradation. But what he wished to shew was, that they were already glorified with God: that is, whomsoever God had foreknown as of His own, and had already predestinated, they were certainly destined to the glory of the sons of God. For he calls them, and surely draws them unto the full faith of his Son: they are profited by that (that is, they certainly receive remission of their sins). But, their sins being pardoned, the glory of God is restored to them, of which but just now under sin they were destitute."
"By faith therefore alone this will be the portion of all, that they will enjoy the love of God, pardon of their sins being received, that is, being justified." ... "If therefore the chief and proper effects of justification come to us by faith, it is manifestly collected, that we receive justification itself by faith, and that all our salvation consists in this, that we embrace with living faith the mercy of God offered to us in the gospel, in our Lord Jesus Christ."
On "Called according to his purpose," Romans 8: 28.
"For that not only renders our confidence in God the fountain of all righteousness more complete, but will incite us also, freed from all solicitude for our salvation, that with the utmost endeavour we should endeavour with all our strength to answer to this so sure and blessed vocation."
"But the predestination of the saints of which the apostle treats here is the election and destination of the saints to eternal salvation."
"As to the question, In what respect are we to consider predestination? as to that Philip Melancthon teaches very religiously and diligently, for nothing else truly but that we should be more sure of our salvation, and more firmly rest in the promises of God."
"In that security therefore by good right are we concerning the eternal love of God towards us, that we may boast most confidently about it."
Here then closes what specially relates to Bucer, invited over by Cranmer to assist in settling the Reformation here. And having borne a very prominent part in the completion and settling of the Liturgy, he died, after exercising the office of Divinity Professor at Cambridge till his death; honoured in it as an eminent instrument in the establishment of the Church of England, when her faith was to be formed and her services arranged.
I shall now turn to Peter Martyr. The diffuseness of his style renders it difficult to quote from him; but the reader will, I dare say, be persuaded that the toil was at any rate more to the writer.
"We ought to know, that there are various elections of God: for some are to fulfil certain offices, as to a kingdom, or to the apostleship: but others are to eternal life. And these are sometimes distinguished ... sometimes however they are united."
Reasoning from Augustine, he says, "Neither is it any objection to preaching, that the number of the elect, as in truth it is, is certain and immovable. For what we do in preaching is not to transfer men from the book of the reprobate to the book of the elect, but in order that those who belong to the elect may be brought, by the ministry of the word, to the end destined for them; which same ministry, as it is useful to them, so it is destructive to -the others, and takes away all excuse from them."
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"These places, and very many other like ones, manifestly declare, that men are predestinated before they begin to be; which those who take from us, snatch from us along with it a great consolation, which we receive from this, that we know that we are predestinated by God to glory before all eternity."
After much reasoning and scholastic discussion, in which, as Bucer, he says, "But since God does all things with a destined purpose, nothing by chance or fortuitously, beyond doubt whatever He creates and makes, He destines to some end and use. In this respect neither the impious, nor the devil himself, nor sins, can be excluded from predestination." Then distinguishing, however, between the predestination of saints, as Bucer did, and what he says is more properly called reprobation, he thus defines them:
"I say, therefore, predestination is the most wise purpose of God, by which before all eternity He fixedly decreed, to call those whom He loved in Christ to the adoption of sons, to justification by faith, and at length to glory by good works, whereby they might be conformed to the image of the Son of God; and that in them might be declared the glory and mercy of the Creator." "Purpose," he says, includes "will." "But this will we ought to understand to be that efficacious will which they call of a consequence, i.e., producing a consequence: by which is caused that the predestination of God should not be frustrated." "By which He fixedly decreed." "By these words we are taught that the predestination of God is immutable. For Paul says, in 2 Timothy, "The foundation standeth sure; the Lord knows those who are His"; and he quotes from the well-known conclusion of Romans 8; James 1: 17; Isaiah, "I am God; I change not"; and Paul, "The gifts and calling of God are without repentance."
Again: "Let us define reprobation, the most wise purpose of God, by which, before all eternity, He fixedly decreed, without any injustice, not to pity those whom He did not love, but passed by; whereby in this just condemnation He might declare His anger against sin, and His glory."
After reasoning on the causes, saying, amongst other things, "Whereas predestination is the purpose or will of God, but that is the first cause of all things, ... it cannot be that there should be any cause of it," he says, "For men who are predestinated, and those things which God hath decreed to bestow on the elect by predestination, such are calling, justification, glorification, may be called the matter about which predestination is conversant."
Again: "There is ambiguity in that word for (Propter), how it is to be understood. For if good works are understood, as in truth they are, and are done because God predestinated us to this end, that we should live rightly (as the epistle to the Ephesians has it, to wit, that we are elect, that we should be holy, without blame before Him, and that God prepared good works that we should walk in them), as to this opinion, the proposition is to be affirmed. But if that word for, is to be referred to the efficient cause, as if good works, which God foresaw we were about to do, were as merits and causes which could move God that He should predestinate us, this sense we admit in no way ... . For vocation, which is the effect of predestination, is the cause why we should be justified: justification is the cause of good works: and good works, although they be not the cause, are yet the means by which God leads us to eternal life. But none of them is the cause or the means why we should be elected by God; as, on the other hand, sins are the cause indeed why we are damned, not however why we are reprobated by God. For if they were the causes of reprobation, no one could be elected; for the condition of all is alike, for we are all born in sin ... . These things being now thus settled, reasons are to be given, on account of which we deny that foreseen good works are the causes of our predestination."
He then argues, that justification would be of works if election depended on foreseen works; and that good works are the effect of predestination; and that if we were predestinated for foreseen works, Paul's exclamation about it would be nonsense. And he reasons, that foreseen works could be no such moving cause, from the cases of Tyre and Sidon, when God did foresee and did not spare. Then, again: "For it is useful for us, that our salvation should not hang from our works ... . But if we believe that our salvation remains fixed and certain in God on account of Christ, we cannot but be of good courage."
Both Peter Martyr and Bucer reason soundly and fully, that judgment is to be taken, not from the fathers, but from Scripture. I shall here just mention several heads of argument from Peter Martyr, drawn from several pages of his commentaries. He reasons on the words, "many called, but few chosen," to shew the distinction of the elect even in the called body. He reasons, that God could not have decreed what was not to have place; he distinguishes between His efficacious will, and His revealed will (voluntatem signi); and that Christ was the first effect of predestination.
He says, "We in no way say that grace is common to all, but that it is granted to some, and to others by the will of God it is not given": and he reasons, that it is theirs only that are drawn, and peculiar to them; and declares it absurd to reason that all are drawn, and some will not come," etc. That sufficient grace is not given to all -- that Tyre and Sidon had not what was sufficient -- that external vocation is common to predestinated and reprobate; and that thereby God does not mock them with general promises, but their damnation is rendered just. That all have not power to become the sons of God, but those who are born of the will of God, and that Christ is to be said to have died for all, "sufficiently, but not efficaciously." That the reprobate subserve the divine purpose, to illustrate and declare the power of His sincerity; that the reprobate can do many good works to a certain extent, and, on the other hand, the predestinate fall into the grossest sins; instincing Saul, Solomon (who he seems to think fell away, "lapsus est, imo defecit"), Ahab, Joash, and quoting Ezekiel; and, on the other hand, David, Moses, Aaron: and that good works "sometimes subserve predestination, sometimes reprobation. Predestination through them brings the elect to life; and as to reprobation, they are sometimes reasons why the fall is made more terrible." ... "Sins also tend as to reprobation, so to predestination. For those who are reprobate, by them are drawn to eternal ruin. Those who are predestinate, through them illustrate the glory of God, when they are snatched out of them."
As to perseverance, we may quote our author, on 1 Corinthians 1: 8: "When he preaches a faithful God, he shews that He can be rendered false by no fault of ours. Therefore if He have called us by a just and efficacious calling, there is no doubt that He will perfect the work which He has begun, that we should be preserved by Him blameless in the day of our Lord ( ... ): however often, which is our infirmity while we live here, we may have fallen.
"St. Paul seems to reason thus: Thou hast already obtained grace through Christ, and you have obtained many gifts through the same; that therefore which remains you will have, that you should be blameless in the day of the Lord. Nor does the same write otherwise in sense to the Romans: The gifts and calling of God are without repentance. Wherefore we also use this kind of argument, if at any time we may be (as is the case) of a dejected mind. We have been called to salvation, we have believed in Him that calls, we have obtained remission of sins, and have obtained gifts not common to all: we shall be saved therefore; nor will God cast away the work of His own hands. You may ask, as to calling, How can I determine whether it is effectual or otherwise? or concerning the faith with which I am endowed, whether it be temporary? I say that the Spirit of Christ bears testimony with our spirit, that we are the children of God: which St. Paul to the Romans has taught the Church to be a mark of the elect. In the second place, from the effects, and, as they say, à posteriori: good works make our calling and election certain. For Peter, in his latter epistle, chapter 1, when he had made copious mention of good works, adds, 'Wherefore, brethren, the rather give diligence, that ye make your calling and election sure.' But if, in the last place, you enquire, Whereas the spirit of one's neighbour by no means appears to us, shall we be able to judge of him in any other way than by works? Certainly Christ has left no other criterion by which we may judge concerning our neighbours, for He said, 'By their fruits ye shall know them,'" etc.
As to certainty of faith and hope, on Romans 5, "Hope maketh not ashamed," he says, "For Paul wished to intimate, that the pious could not be frustrated in their hope." There stating, that it could not depend on works, for they were uncertain, he says, "But that it is true and certain, Paul shews, not by one word only, but by three very significant ones; for, first, he uses the word, knowing (sciendi), which indicates a certain knowledge (cognitionem) of a thing. He makes mention also of making boast, which has no place with holy and prudent men, unless concerning those blessings which they certainly and firmly possess. Lastly, he adds, that hope maketh not ashamed; but, deservedly, he very often brings in the persuasion of that certainty, because hence especially consolation is to be sought in affliction."
After reasoning against its connection with works actual or prospective, he says, "But it is worth while to see how they get on when they say, on the one hand, that hope is a certain expectation; on the other, however, that it is a most firm dogma, that none can be certain of his salvation, unless it shall have been individually revealed to him by God. Here they feel themselves at a loss: they confess that it is difficult to see how that is certainty of hope. Here they miserably fret themselves, sweat, and use many glosses. First, they determine ... that certainty of hope which flows from certainty of faith ... . But they go farther, and say, that we by faith believe generally and absolutely that all the elect and predestinated will be saved, but that hope causes us to trust that we are of the number of the elect: as if hope had a particular knowledge subordinate to faith: that what had been generally comprehended through faith, should be separately applied to us through hope ... lastly, they conclude, that the certainty of hope is less than that of faith: we on the contrary make the certainty of both equal. As much faith as we have, so much also we have of hope, for neither does faith retain any certainty for itself which it does not transmit to hope ... . But they seem to me to do as those who, when they defend a city in a siege, diligently shut and fortify all the rest of the gates, but in the meanwhile leave one open, by which when the enemies enter and plunder everything, they may perceive that they have lost their labour; so they indeed labour extremely, lest there should seem to be any uncertainty arising from the goodness, power, and clemency of God, or the merit of Christ. Yet in the meanwhile they determine our will to be so liable to change, that no man can or ought to promise himself perseverance, even from the word of God: and so wholly take away all certainty, that the saying of Paul can have no place, 'Hope maketh not ashamed'; nor can the certainty, which they endeavour to establish, be of any profit. Indeed, if we consult the sacred scriptures, we shall understand that God is not only generally good and powerful, but also that He is good and propitious to our own, selves, and therefore will confirm our will that it should never fall away from Him; for, as we have mentioned a little before, He will not suffer us to be tempted above that we are able to bear, but will with the temptation make a way to escape; and (1 Corinthians 1) He will confirm you unto the end blameless unto the day of our Lord Jesus Christ; for God is faithful, through whom ye were called. There are, besides, very many other testimonies in the sacred scriptures, which promise to us both perseverance and confirmation of will through Christ. Wherefore we say that that certainty of hope is a firm adherence in the promises offered to us, and received by faith, that we shall not fail of obtaining our ultimate end. Of so great virtue is this hope, that, as Augustine says to Dardanus, and in very many other places, it calls that which is about to be, done already ... . That certainty arises chiefly from the worthy judgment which we are able to entertain by faith of the constancy of God, which no unworthiness of ours can cause to fail; which if we look at when drawing us away from this confidence, we ought against hope to believe in hope; and, however much that may oppose its voice, trust that we shall be saved by Christ: proposing to ourselves our father Abraham, to whose steps we ought to hold fast by faith. He, etc ... . so, although we be unworthy, and our faith and our sins hinder us, yet let us not distrust that we shall be saved by Christ, unless we wish to be subject to infidelity, which Abraham specially abhorred; for he did not doubt through infidelity, says the apostle: whence the uncertainty of our adversaries is wholly taken away from pious minds." ... "Wherefore," speaking of Job's expression, 'Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him,'" let us imitate him; and if we have fallen, and our unworthiness sets itself before our eyes, yet let us not distrust. Let us detect, meanwhile, our vices, and let us amend them as much as we can: but on account of them let us by no means fail in our hope of salvation. For if, when the promises of God are set before us, we will look at our own worthiness, we shall be led to despair rather than to any hope; for there is no one whose soul is not burdened with many and grievous sins. Besides, Paul teaches that we have peace towards God through Christ, and by faith which is in Him; which certainly is altogether done, or at any rate would be very turbulent, if we should perpetually doubt concerning His will towards us": and then he reasons on our calling Him Father in our prayers, and how unpleasing it must be to a father for a child to doubt his father's love. "Hope therefore is a faculty breathed in by the Holy Spirit, by which we expect, with a certain and even mind, that the salvation begun by Christ, and received by faith, will be in time accomplished in us, not by our merits but from the mercy of God." Then, after comparing the hope of present circumstances, as Paul's hope of escaping the persecution of Nero, etc., "That we may reply to this, we repeat what has been said before, that hope receives its certainty from faith: but faith has its certainty from the word of God; wherefore it is consistent, that both are as certain as the promises are which are set forth. But God promises us remission of sins and eternal life simply, and has commanded that we should believe and hope for these things without any doubt. In these things, therefore, neither faith nor hope can deceive us; but if at any time the minds of saints are disturbed, as if they should doubt concerning the promises of God or their own salvation, that does not happen through the fault of faith or hope; but that while we live here, we are not perfectly furnished. Therefore this doubt springs from the flesh and human prudence." And again: "These evils arise from our corruption"; and he then compares them to mathematics, of which ignorance may doubt the certainty, but it is to be attributed to ignorance alone.
Here I close my quotations from Peter Martyr, the Professor of Divinity at Oxford. I have but few remarks to make upon these men. That they were honoured and blessed in the churches, is beyond controversy with those who are acquainted with the history of the Reformation in Germany, where Bucer was greatly blessed and looked up to for his moderation and depth of scriptural knowledge: or with that of the Reformation in Italy, where Peter Martyr took an active and leading part -- we might almost say, save the preaching of Ochinus at Naples, the leading part; till the persecutions which hung over the Church drove him from Italy.+ Bucer, I may add, was converted by hearing Luther.
We have seen then the place they held in the Reformation: we have seen their doctrines. I have given them at the length I have, partly that it may be manifest that there is no forced interpretation of particular passages, but a regularly argued-out development of the principles they themselves sustained, and preached too; and partly, as affording matter bearing upon almost every point called into question by the author of the "Remarks." The attentive reader of the foregoing quotations t cannot but have taken notice of this -- taken notice, I mean, that the conclusions met in the "Remarks" are here stated as the just, blessed, triumphant, and love-inspired consequences of truths held by them to be the objects of certain faith, and therefore affording the equal certainty of sanctifying hope; "for he indeed that hath this hope in him," and he only, "purifieth himself as he is pure." He will see that they are equally and expressly opposed to the Arminian (so called, but properly Pelagian) notion of prospective works, or the (new and if you please Melancthonian) notion of church election, as contrasted with individual. I am not here arguing the point of the truth of these things; but arguing on the facts of the history of the times.
+Peter Martyr's leaving Italy was much called in question by many then as a desertion. However, it appears many of those who boasted most fell away in the time of trial.
And now, were these notions originated in the university by some unrecognized individual to which the Church is pot a party? They were the argued published opinions of the Professors of Divinity of both universities. But were they merely the particular opinions of these individuals there, as a particular pope may sometimes err, and not give the opinion of the Catholic body? No, they were called to the chairs of divinity, because they were what they were, and because they held these opinions. They were called by those who were the ordering instruments of the reformation of the Church of England, that, in constituting it as it stands now, they might form its opinions, and establish its principles: her formularies were submitted to their correction, and their advice taken upon them. If, certainly, the testimony of the Professor of Divinity of our university be competent to state and vindicate the doctrines of that university, and declare the opinions of the Church of England (and I am content to admit that he is), them am I fully warranted in taking the matured testimony of the Professors of both, as witness of the doctrines approved by both, and as a declaration of the doctrines of the then Church -- at least I will not say a vindication of them from misrepresentation: and all this, observe, when, according to the author of the "Remarks," "Calvin had scarcely begun to propagate his peculiar opinions concerning predestination."
There is one other person whom it may become us to take notice of, whose name is a host in the Church of England, and who was its pillar and defence, as far as man went, on its re-establishment; than whom no one could be mentioned as more a witness of its character and principles -- I mean Jewell. It is well known his Apology was quasi-symbolical.
On 2 Thessalonians 2: 13, 14, he writes (Works, 143, title, A View of, etc.), "God hath chosen you from the beginning; His election is sure for ever. The Lord knoweth who are His. You shall not be deceived with the power and subtilty of antichrist; you shall not fall from grace; you shall not perish. This is the comfort which abideth with the faithful when they behold the fall of the wicked; when they see them forsake the truth, and delight in fables; when they see them return to their vomit, and wallow again in their mire."
"When we see these things in others, we must say, Alas! they are examples for me, and they are lamentable examples. Let him that standeth take heed that he fall not. But God hath loved me, and chosen me to salvation. His mercy shall go before me, and His mercy shall follow in me; His mercy shall guide my feet, and stay me from falling. If I stay by myself, I stay by nothing, I must needs come to the ground. Although all the world should be drowned with the waves of ungodliness, yet will I hold by the boat of His mercy, which shall safely preserve me. If all the world be set on fire with the flame of wickedness, yet will I creep into the bosom of the protection of my Lord; so shall no flame hurt me. He hath loved me, He hath chosen me, He will keep me. Neither the example nor the company of others, nor the enticing of the devil, nor mine own sensual imaginations, nor sword, nor fire, is able to separate me from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. This is the comfort of the faithful; so shall they wash their hands in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore, saith Paul, you are my children, etc ... . Whatsoever falleth upon others, although others fall and perish, although they forsake Christ, and follow after antichrist, yet God hath loved you, and given His Son for you; He hath chosen you, and prepared you to salvation, and hath written your names in the book of life. But how may we know that God hath chosen us? how may we see this election? or how may we feel it? The apostle saith, Through sanctification and the faith of truth; these are tokens of God's election. Have you received the gospel? It is the light of the world; it teaches us to know that God is God, and that we are His people. The credit you give to the gospel is a witness of your election." Again, in his Defence of the Apology, Works, 67, Eng. fol. Lon. 1611: "Now concerning the assurance or certainty of salvation, the scriptures are full. St. Paul saith, There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. The Spirit of God beareth witness to our spirit that we are the children of God. I know that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor powers, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any creature else, shall be able to remove me from that love that God beareth towards me in Christ Jesus our Lord; Romans 8. But as these words perhaps have not the sense of the Church of Rome, without which," etc., and then he goes on to the Fathers.
Having quoted thus much, we may add that this Jewell was a great friend of, and during Mary's reign lived with, Peter Martyr abroad: and in a letter, dated the 5th November, 1559, he states that there was much talk that Martyr would again be invited over; but he feared that the Saxon or Lutheran influence would prevail. Peter Martyr died just after the Apology was printed.+ I am not able to verify the references to the letters.++
+[Jewell sent Peter Martyr a copy of his Apology on February 7th, 1562, just after it was published. Martyr died November 12th, of the same year, in his sixty-third year. -- Editor]
++[The following extracts (translated into English) from the Letters of Bishop Jewell in the fourth volume of his works published by the Parker Society supplies the needed reference, pages 1221 and 1222.] "As to what you write about religion and the theatrical habits, would that it could be accomplished! For our part we have not been wanting to the good cause. But those who are so mightily pleased with such things have followed, I believe, the ignorance of the clergy; and since they found them to be nothing but logs without ability, learning, and morality, they were willing that they should be made agreeable to the people by a comical dress ... . These are indeed, as you very well write, relics of the Amorites. Who can deny it? And would that some time or other they may be taken away and extirpated even to the lowest roots! ... The queen, however, diligently inquired of the messenger, what you were doing, where you lived, what your state of health and what your circumstances were, and whether your time of life would admit of your undertaking a journey: she altogether wished that you should by all means be invited to England; that, as you had tilled the university by your voice, so you might by the same voice water it in its present disordered and wretched condition. Since then, however, somehow the Saxon deliberations and the embassy from Smalcald have put an end to those counsels. Yet, whatever be the reasons, nothing is at this time more talked about than that Peter Martyr is invited and daily expected to come to England." From Strype's Annals (i, 382) it appears that Martyr was invited to England in 1561, but pleaded his obligations to Zurich as his excuse for declining the offer. -- Editor]
And as further evidence how little then the Lutheran church was taken as the standard, even by authority, Bishop Cheyney was held in disrepute on account of his Lutheran opinions. If Jewell's letters to Peter Martyr and others be consulted, it will sufficiently appear what feelings he had towards the maintainers of the Interim, that is, Melancthon's party in the Lutheran Church.+ It is said, I know not on what authority, that Jewell esteemed Calvin's Institutes so highly, that he learned the greater of them by heart: he was very famous for this gift of memory.
We may remark here, that, as the language of Article XVII may be traced through Bucer and Peter Martyr, even in the rapid translation I have here given, so it was not changed in the revision of 1562, save to omit the words, "Although the decrees of predestination are unknown to us, yet."++
But there were then those who, "in the name of Paul, and Cephas, and Christ," or however of Peter, and Paul, and of Christ, said that this was not the gospel; and came forward to stand between the dead and the living, to stop the contagion of this doctrine of assurance of salvation. The following is the decree of the council of Trent upon the subject:
"But although it be necessary to believe that sins neither are nor ever were forgiven, save freely by the divine mercy on account of Christ; yet to no one boasting his confidence and certainty of the remission of his sins, and resting in that alone, is it to be said that his sins are or have been forgiven: since amongst heretics and schismatics this vain confidence, far removed from all piety, may be, yea, in our time is, preached, and with great earnestness against the Catholic Church; but neither is that to be asserted, that those who are truly justified ought, without any doubt at all, to determine with themselves that they are justified, and that no one is absolved from his sins and justified, save he who certainly believes himself to be absolved and justified; and that by this faith alone absolution and justification is wrought, as if he who does not believe this, doubted concerning the promises of God, and concerning the efficacy of the death and resurrection of Christ. For, as no pious person ought to doubt concerning the mercy of God, concerning the merit of Christ, and concerning the virtue and efficacy of the sacraments, so every one, when he considers himself, and his own infirmity and indisposition, may tremble concerning his own grace, and fear, since none can know with the certainty of faith, in which fallacy cannot exist, that he has obtained the grace of God."
+[Thus in Jewell's letter to Peter Martyr, dated London, November 6th, 1559, he says: "Many of our chief men, and these not unknown to you, think of you and desire that you should be invited at the earliest opportunity also, spite of all the Smalcaldists." Again, in his letter to Peter Martyr dated Salisbury, February 7th, 1562, Jewell writes: "But as to what you write, that a sort of interim and farrago of religion is sought after by certain ones, may God avert it!" -- Editor]
++Perhaps "fervently" for "frequently" was a change, "vehementer," in 1562. See Bishop Sparrow's Collection, or Burnet.
I leave the contrast of these passages, with the question now passing before us, to the judgment of every right-ordered mind.
I add the following: "No one also, so long as he lives in this mortal life, ought so far to presume concerning the secret mystery of divine predestination, that he should certainly determine himself to be altogether in the number of the predestinated: as if it were true that, being justified, he could no more sin, or, if he sinned, he ought certainly to promise himself repentance; for, unless by special revelation, he cannot know whom God has chosen to Himself."+
The passages I have here quoted are very strong evidence of the opinions propagated generally at the Reformation. Of this they are direct evidence, viz., of the views of the Church of Rome; as Bucer and Peter Martyr are evidence of the opinions taught in the universities, and sanctioned by the English reformers, as those on which the Church of England was founded: and it is a very simple question, to which of the two are the doctrines here discussed on either side most like?
+The reader will find anathematising canons as to the connection of free-will with justification in Canon 3, and a following one of this Session, "De Justificatione," Sess. 7, I think.
But the author of the "Remarks" cannot but have been aware that the doctrine of assurance, as directly connected with consequentially, I will not say as being, as some hold, justifying faith, but that the doctrine of assurance in fact is taught, not only in the confession of the reformed churches in France, but also in that of Augsburg. I certainly should have stated the confession of the French churches to have been a much more formed and material document. This, however, of course, is matter of judgment. In this point the confession of Augsburg is as decided as possible; and this is material, as shewing, not merely the fact of its being taught in the church, but that it was one of the points on which, as essential to Christian truth, they separated from the apostate church of Rome: as if, as the council of Trent expresses it, "to doubt of it were to doubt of the promises of God, and the efficacy of Christ's death and resurrection." That the soul of a saint may be disturbed, as Peter Martyr says, we admit; but to make doubts which arise from the flesh and the corruption of our nature, the state in which a Christian ought to be, or the justifiable standard of the frame of his mind, is to make unbelief the rule of faith, to deny the power of Christ's atonement as received by faith, and to affirm the propriety of disbelief in its efficacy and in God's promises, or that being justified by faith we have peace with God. But we must not pass yet quite away from history. As to this appropriating character of faith, and consequently the connection of the sense of salvation with justification, we may quote what the author of the "Remarks" has already recognized as sound doctrine. He has commented much on, and indeed spoken of it as a leading error, the confounding of justification and salvation; but he is charging here not the preacher, but the reformers, nay, rather, the authorized formularies of the Church. "As is more fully declared in the homily of justification," is the language of the Articles. And where is this homily to be found? I suppose the author of the "Remarks" will not deny that it is the homily in three parts, entitled the homily of salvation. The homily of salvation is in fact a full treatise on justification: but I shall quote a passage from the third part, as evidence of their view, and also of the author of the "Remarks." "These articles of our faith the devils believe, and so they believe all things that be written in the New and Old Testament to be true: and yet for all this faith they be but devils, remaining still in their damnable estate, lacking the very true Christian faith. For the right and true Christian faith is, not only to believe that holy scripture and all the foresaid articles of our faith are true, but also to have a sure trust and confidence in God's merciful promises, to be saved from everlasting damnation by Christ; whereof doth follow a loving heart to obey His commandments."
And proving that profession with ungodliness cannot have this assurance, they reason: "For how can a man have this true faith, this sure trust and confidence in God, that by the merits of Christ his sins be forgiven, and he reconciled to the favour of God, and to be partaker of the kingdom of heaven by Christ, when he liveth ungodly?" Well, the author of the "Remarks" says now: "I dare not in this life count myself to have apprehended, or pronounce my sins to be forgiven."
But I quote it now as evidence of the way in which the homilies identify salvation with justification (for they use them as identical terms, or rather assume, that in proving justification they were proving salvation), and how a true faith is made by them to consist in the confidence in God's promises, that our sins are forgiven, and that we shall be partakers of the kingdom of heaven by Christ, and that both are at once concluded by faith.
Farther, as to the historic evidence of the alleged Lutheranism of the Church of England reformation, we may remark, that, when the persecuted English protestants fled to Germany on the accession of Mary, the Lutherans would not receive them into their cities at all; this was rather singular evidence of the Lutheran character of their views. It is evidence of this, that so far from the contagion being merely brought back, they were in the full Calvinistic disease before they left England. I am quite aware that the sacrament question was connected with this. But what other substantial difference was there? For example, what was the point on which the two parties of the Reformation finally split at the conferences at Marburg?
Farther, an evidence of the estimation in which the Lutherans held the English reformers, we may quote Melancthon, quoted in a note to Mosheim: "Some vociferate that the English martyrs are martyrs of the devil. I am unwilling thus to insult the Holy Spirit in Latimer, who has past his eightieth year, and in other holy men whom I knew." Note in Maclaine's Mosheim, vol. iv, page 383. [Cent. XVI, sec. iii, part ii, chapter 2, xvii.]
Melancthon, indeed, it is evident, did not agree with them in this opinion, that these Lutheran English were martyrs of the devil; but even his language is a little gentle if he was the author of all these opinions for which they were burnt.
But as the Lutheran Church has been referred to and as we have been told that "the Loci Theologici of Melancthon in any edition after 1545 may be taken as speaking the sentiments of all the Lutheran divines," and the Church of England views are attempted to be rested on this basis; it may be worth our while to advert to the history of the Lutheran Church briefly. It is not perhaps astonishing, though it might seem odd, that the author of the "Remarks" has never once adverted to Luther as having anything to say to the opinions of the Lutheran Church. It would indeed have destroyed all the groundwork upon which the argument that the Church of England was Lutheran rested, and its object too: still we must be allowed to refer to them in considering the Lutheran Church. It is well known that one of Luther's principal and most laboured works was on the bondage of the will -- its absolute and unqualified incapability of doing anything but sin. I shall confine myself to two quotations, exhibitory of his views: merely mentioning, that it is stated by historians, that declarations of Luther were extant, written many years after, in which he stated, that this and his catechism were the only things on review in which he could feel thoroughly satisfied. He thus writes: "It is a granted+ position that free-will in all, is alike defined to be, that which cannot will good." "And indeed if it were not so, God could not elect any one, nor would there be any place for election, but for free-will only, as choosing or refusing the long-suffering and anger of God. And if God be thus robbed of His power and wisdom to elect, what will there be remaining but that idol fortune, under the name of which all things take place at random? Nay, we shall at length come to this; that men may be saved and damned without God's knowing anything at all about it, as not having determined by certain election who should be saved or who should be damned; but having set before all men in general His pardoning goodness++ and long-suffering, and His mercy, shewing correction and punishment, and left them to choose for themselves whether they would be saved or damned; while He in the meantime should be gone, as Homer says, to an Ethiopian feast. It is just such a God as this that Aristotle points out to us," etc. Bondage of the Will, page 281 (of Coles's translation).
+That is, by the opposite party, as represented by Erasmus in his Diatribe.
++These expressions refer to some expressions of Erasmus, in which he speaks of God having used all goodness towards Pharaoh, etc.
Again, he says, quoted by Milner, IV, 461, "You undermine at once all the divine promises and threatenings; you destroy the faith and the fear of God; in fact, you deny the Deity Himself, unless you allow a necessary efficacy to His prescience."
I shall now give a quotation from Melancthon, from his Loci Theologici before 1545, when in the state in which Luther speaks of it so strongly in the opening of his "de servo arbitrio," as incomparable. I give the quotation from Milner, who says the book is rare. "The divine predestination takes away the liberty of man; for both the external actions and the internal thoughts of all created beings whatever, take place agreeably to the divine predestination. The judgment of a carnal mind resists this sentiment; but a man of a spiritual understanding approves it. Moreover, the mind which is deeply affected with a sense of the divine predeterminations will always have the profoundest reverence for God, as well as the most steady dependence on Him." (Philippians Melancthon's Loc; Theol. ap. Milner, V, page 300.)
I suppose only the author of the "Remarks" would appeal from Philip drunk to Philip sober. But we will have his thoughts after Calvin's views were presented to his mind. I quote from the same source, page 333.
Melancthon writes to Calvin. After stating his hypothesis on the subject, he says, "I do not write these things to you in a dictatorial spirit; it is not for me to dictate to so very learned a person, and so very well skilled in the exercises of piety; and indeed I am satisfied that these views of mine agree with yours, but they are stated in a ruder, less refined manner, and are adapted to use."
Do we say, then, that this steady basis of the Church of England doctrine did not change his opinion? Far from it. The above sentence disappeared from the Loci before 1545: but that all the Lutheran doctors followed his opinions, is one of the most monstrous statements that could be made. Did the author of the "Remarks" ever hear of the Interim? of the convocation at Torgaw? or the Form of Concord, which itself again divided the whole Lutheran Church? Why the university of Jena owes its origin to the resistance of the Lutheran doctors to the new opinions of Melancthon. Nor let it be said, this does not apply to the Loci Theologici; for at the conference at Torgaw, where Melancthon advocated submission to the Interim, the statement of these his later views gave occasion to the divisions of the Lutheran Church.
Mosheim (a man, I suppose, latitudinarian enough not to bear hard upon Melancthon) gives the following account of his changes: and if we are told he was as a Lutheran jealous for the credit of Luther, it does but further prove the point.
In the question of indifferent things, or, as it is called, the Adiaphoristic controversy, arising from the Interim, we have the following: "But in the class of matters indifferent, this great man and his associates placed many things which had appeared of the highest importance to Luther, and could not, of consequence, be considered as indifferent by his true disciples. For he regarded as such, the doctrine of justification by faith alone, the necessity of good works to salvation, the number of the sacraments, the jurisdiction claimed by the pope and the bishops, extreme unction, the observation of certain religious festivals and several superstitious rites and ceremonies." Mosheim, Cent. XVI, sec. iii, pt. ii, c. I, xxviii.
Is this the basis on which the Church of England is founded? For this is Melancthon after 1545.
Again: "The Synergists, whose doctrine was almost the same with that of the Semipelagians, denied that God was the only agent in the conversion of sinful men; and affirmed, that man co-operated with divine grace in the accomplishment of His salutary purpose. Here also Melancthon renounced the doctrine of Luther; at least the terms he employs in expressing his sentiments concerning this intricate subject are such as Luther would have rejected with horror; for, in the conference at Leipsic already mentioned, the former of these great men did not scruple to affirm, that God drew to Himself and converted adult persons in such a manner, that the powerful impression of His grace was accompanied with a certain correspondent action of their will, etc. But this representation of the matter was far from being agreeable to the rigid Lutherans. They looked upon it as subversive of the true and genuine doctrine of Luther, relating to the absolute servitude of the human will, etc., and hence they opposed the Synergists, or Semipelagians, with the utmost animosity and bitterness." Flacius was the leader of the other party. Such was the way in which Melancthon may be stated "as speaking the sentiments of all the Lutheran divines." The history of the Lutheran Church, after the death of Luther, is the history of its divisions and controversies, occasions by Melancthon's holding these very opinions in which he departed from Luther.
But there is one remarkable circumstance which I cannot refrain from noticing -- that the same opinions in Archbishop Lawrence produced the same result; and (not to refer to public acts, as they are not written) his published charge of his views as Archbishop was direction to his clergy to cultivate reciprocal feelings with the Roman Catholic priests, as there was no difference between the churches in any material point. He here at least was a genuine Melancthonian Adiaphorist.
I have now done with the historical part of this enquiry. If any one wishes to see a foreigner's view of the settlement of the English Church, he may consult Mosheim, Cent. XVI, sec. iii, pt. 2, c. 2, xvi. We have seen the doctrine of the professors of divinity in England who were called over at the Reformation. We have seen the views of Luther, and the real character of Melancthon and his views. I suppose we need not attempt to prove Calvin a Calvinist. That is, we have seen not merely the doctrines upon which the Church of England was founded, but we have seen the principles on which the Reformation itself was founded, and arose as the assertor of truth against the errors of the Church of Rome: and we have seen this confirmed by the Church of Rome's stepping out to meet them as a fundamental point of difference, as the primary turning point which upset their errors. And accordingly we have found, in more than one instance, that when these are departed from, acquiescence in the principles of the Church of Rome in material points has been held indifferent; or that there was no difference at all. Such is the state of things which history presents to us: and I think the attentive reader will have already found every point called in question by the author of the "Remarks" fully stated in the affirmative in the extracts from the Professors of Divinity at Oxford and Cambridge. As to justification in baptism, everybody knows that the Roman Catholics were baptized in all that the Church of England holds essential. If therefore the reformers held this to be justification, how they could have turned the world upside down by their arguments with the Church of Rome on the point, is hard to tell. Surely, if this had been their view, all their arguments, nay their lives, for the doctrine of justification by faith (the Articulus stantis or cadentis ecclesiae), would have been very little to the purpose.
For my own part, I cannot discern one single jot of difference on this head between the statement of the author of the "Remarks," and the doctrine of the Church of Rome. The Church of Rome held, that righteousness could not be imputed without faith, as well as the author of the "Remarks." The Church of Rome held, that "it were necessary to believe that no sins are, or ever were, remitted, save freely by the divine mercy on account of Christ," and that "no pious person ought to doubt of the merit of Christ's death," as well as the author of the "Remarks." The Church of Rome held, and does hold, that past sin is put away in baptism, only a little more clearly stated than by the author of the "Remarks," that is, original sin in infants, or actual also in adults: so that a person is therein called, pardoned, accepted in Christ; while subsequent evil was to be put away by subsequent repentance. They hold the necessity of good works, and the freedom of the will, as well as the author of the "Remarks." But what they did not hold, and what the author of the "Remarks" does not hold, was, such a reception of the value of Christ's death by faith as gives peace and assurance of conscience, so that "gloriemur confidentissime," as a former Professor of Divinity at Oxford expresses it: which the reformers did hold, did preach, and did profess; and that so universally as to be made a special matter of condemnation as their opinion at the council of Trent.
With some remarks on this point I shall close this tract, as it has extended to so great, but, I hope, not unprofitable, extent. And here I must remark, that while I have canvassed the facts, I have abstained from any observations on the spirit, manner, or expressions of the "Remarks" in question. I was not disposed, nor did I feel it my object, so to do, though I think there was ample opportunity. I do not think it the remark of a frank or honest-minded person to comment upon the expression "added another word," when the author must know, as every one else, that this was a mere question of the structure of language, and that the idea is as much added in the Greek word, as it is in the English word freely: I cannot think this worthy of a mind estimating things in the great purposes of God's glorious gospel.+ And here I feel myself at liberty. I cannot but feel it one of the singular evidences of the way in which our spiritual thoughts can be cramped by a system, that when the question is as to the whole plans and counsels of the invisible God, and our entrance into them by the glorious gospel of the blessed God, for we have the mind of Christ, and our reconciliation into His communion of love, so as to enjoy all His counsels and see them accomplished in Him who is the brightness of His Father's glory, and the express image of His Person; and be enabled to say in Him, "Grant thee thy hearts' desire, and fulfil all thy counsel": I should find myself brought down to the enquiry of what five or six men held -- saints indeed, from whom I should be willing to learn, but who, as individuals, were but the objects of the everlasting counsels and glory of Him, who hath gathered us also into the same inheritance. I traced this indeed, not as regards their individual opinions, but the great broad facts on which the work proceeded, for the sake of those who may be accustomed to walk in their steps, and to have assumed very different facts from those which are indeed true. But the truth of God receives no testimony from man, though He may give it to them and honour them thereby. May we in this day be honoured as faithful to that which is given us.
+The observation on the other word (received) I think just, as far as negativing any argument from it, as used in that text.
I shall close by very freely discussing the principles advanced by the author of the "Remarks," as principles in which the peace of God's children is concerned. Because the statement amounts to this: that a justified person, justified by true faith (for I suppose the author will not say that hypocritical faith justifies, in the teeth of James, and indeed, in the plain sense of his own statement), may be damned. Observe, that a person justified by true faith, may yet be damned. It is not that a man may be deceived by a false faith, etc., but that a man whom God has justified by a true faith may yet be damned: nay, as we know that the world around us are nominally Christians, and actually baptized, and yet that it is a strait gate and a narrow way that leads to life, and few there be that find it; that most of those whom God has justified will be damned: and this is the doctrine they would give us as comfortable. This is the point which men are anxious to prove -- this strange fatuity of self-will by which men will claim the title, after God has actually taken them in hand, yea justified them by the power of His grace in Christ, though they were ruined sinners, to damn themselves. Strange comfort! Whether the statements of page 19 are consistent with the views of the English and German reformers, they will judge who have read the extracts already given. But I must remark, that I am not here arguing the question of election. The author has brought it to a much nearer and closer personal point. How and in what is a man justified? and what is this justification worth to him? As to justification by baptism, I find nothing in the Articles about it. It is not mentioned in the Article on justification; and in the Article of baptism, justification is not mentioned; it is called a sign of regeneration. But let us see first the consistency of these views.
God will not impute righteousness to any one who has not faith;
But God imputes righteousness to every baptized person;
Therefore every baptized person has faith.
Again:
Every baptized person has faith;
But every infant in the Church of England is baptized;
Therefore every infant in the Church of England has faith.
But this faith is manifestly genuine faith, or else a man may be justified by virtue of being a hypocrite; therefore we may say,
Every infant in the Church of England has genuine faith;
But he who has genuine faith works in love;
Therefore every infant in the Church of England works in love.
Such is the genuine and necessary consequence of the proposition of the "Remarks": and let not this be thought idle. Two things essentially distinct being declared identical, one may, nay must, affirm of one, what is true of the other: but in doing this the absurdity of the identification is shewn, and in truth nothing but pure Antinomianism can result from making baptism justification, if justification have anything to do with faith; because then justifying faith may be without any fruits at all. In truth these views are the height of Antinomianism: or anything which justifies, or puts a man actually and efficiently amongst the children of God, without any reference to a total change in the principle of his will. What a child's past sins are which are blotted out, I know not; save that this idea was necessary to the notion of justification; but what the author means when he says, figuratively, i.e., spiritually rises again, it would be hard to tell.
But let us see the consistency of fact in which it results. "Every baptized person feels," observe, not ought to feel, or is in fact, but feels, "assured that he is called, pardoned, chosen, and accepted in Christ." This I can call nothing but a funny assertion. Did the author ever meet with a poor broken-spirited Roman Catholic? I mention them, because anyone conversant with them knows their principles to be identical with the author's, as here expressed, save that a priest lets the Roman Catholic, and a Protestant quietly lets himself off. But will the author walk through the streets of Oxford and ask any of the inhabitants of it, except those who hold the principles which the author condemns, Do you feel assured that you are called, pardoned, chosen, and accepted in Christ? But these things are trifling with religion. Peace is something real; to be chosen and accepted, ay and pardoned too in Christ, is something real; and to feel it is something real; and it is adding mockery to misery to tell a man that he feels pardoned and accepted, when he neither knows nor cares one farthing about the matter, or perhaps is groaning under a sense of sin which he knows not how to get rid of.
But the inconsistency of those who speak of these things from theory, without any acquaintance with men's conscience (though it is there generally that the utter folly of their notions comes out to light), was never more glaringly manifested than in these "Remarks." We are told in one page, that every baptized person feels assured that he is pardoned; but in the next, the author says, "I dare not say my sins are forgiven." I suppose the author is not a baptized person; or if he tells me, Yes, but I may have committed sins since I was baptized, then I suppose he felt assured he was pardoned when he was an infant, and felt nothing at all; or at any rate it results, that every baptized persons' feeling assured that he is pardoned comes to this, that nobody does in point of fact. There was peace preached by Jesus Christ, and the atonement of Christ was not only for original but for the actual sins of men: there can be no application of this in faith when all are baptized in their infancy, save that in which I can say, My sins are forgiven. Theory, the theory of a Roman Catholic, can apply it to original, and therefore there every unbeliever rests.
But sin is a thing which affects the conscience when a man thinks: and it is only the direct exercise of faith in the blood of the atonement, which can give knowledge of actual forgiveness, which purges the conscience from dead works to serve the living God. And here consequently is the association of salvation with it; because the redeeming love of God is personally known, the Spirit witnessing with our spirit that we are the children of God. And hence persons holding these general views can go along with the world as others, because they have never personally come to God. And, I add, its thoroughly Antinomian tendency cannot be too strongly pressed; because what is it that is to be got over in man? The enmity of his heart against God; the carnal mind, which is enmity with God; and the friendship of the world, which is enmity with God. But how is the enmity of the natural heart to be got over but by bringing in love? And how? By knowing that "he loved us." And how shall we know this? but "hereby know we love, because he laid down his life for us." For observe now, the enmity is a real thing, and the love must be a real thing: as Paul expresses it, "by whom we have now received the reconciliation" (or, if you please, "atonement"): and to be produced it must be by practically knowing "he first loved us," which is known by the value of Christ's death received by faith, and the Father's love as manifested in it. If I rest in a pardon received in baptism, I can feel assured that I am pardoned without ever personally coming to God in my conscience, which is the root and essence of Antinomianism; whereas if it hang on the exercise of personal faith in Him, this brings me directly into His presence and subjection. But if I now exercise faith in Christ's death as an atonement and reconciliation, now that I am writing this; I must believe that my sins are everlastingly forgiven and rejoice in the Father's favour, or I do not believe in the efficacy of Christ's death, or the Father's manifested love therein.
I say, that not to see it is neither more nor less than unbelief. A man may be brought afterwards to believe, but at present he is not properly a believer in the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. If I can see that he really believes in His Person, but Satan is clouding his mind, then I may feel a good assurance that he is a forgiven sinner, though he cannot. But I am not to sanction his unbelief, but minister the sure mercies which I may be given to know myself. But if I am told, True, if it be so with you, you are very happy; but how do you know you will continue to believe? This is still unbelief. I may wait on a person's weakness of faith, but cannot preach it: it is simply getting back into distrust of God, which is the devil's greatest triumph. "I knew thee (said the unprofitable servant) that thou wast an austere man." "I heard thy voice in the garden," said Adam, when the devil had effected his first self-ruining purpose, "and I was afraid, and went and hid myself." The doctrine of the perseverance of the saints is not of their perseverance, but of God's faithfulness. Their confidence is, not that they would not fail, but God; it is a trust in His promises, as the opposite is unbelief. "They have known and believed," as John expresses it, "the love that God hath to them": and they rest and hang upon this as a child upon a parent, yea, much more. Nor is this present enjoyment, or confidence in the favour and known love of the everlasting God (how better known than in the gift of His only and glorious Son?) merely stayed by the witness in their own hearts, but it hath also the stable foundation of testimony which they dare not disbelieve, yea, which it is sin not to believe, and a great dishonour to God. They believe that God did not shew them this love in the gift of Christ, and the earnest of the Spirit, to leave them as uncertain, as they were before of their estate. They read, "who also shall confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of the Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom ye were called into the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ." And they believe it; and bless God that to such poor and mere sinners He could have destined such things and shewn such love. They believe that, if any man sin, they have an advocate with the Father; and that He is the propitiation for their sins; and they do therefore believe that if they should fall, through mercy they will rise again.
They reason, with wondering faith, "If, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life." If "God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us; much more, then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God, by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life." Observe here the singular and marked contrast between the argument of natural unbelief, and of that holy faith which believes in God. It is plain, says the author of the "Remarks," from this passage, that salvation and justification are distinct things; and therefore, though we be justified, we are not made thereby sure of salvation; I suppose, because of our own weakness and sinfulness and infirmity. But faith is that which sees the intervention of God's power, and leans on it; it knows that it has been justified, and from its justification concludes infallibly its salvation: one indeed has taken place, says unbelief, which it cannot help ascribing to God, but that is no proof that he shall obtain the other. God reconciled when we were enemies argues faith: certainly, having reconciled us, He will now save us from wrath; and again, if we were reconciled by His-death, surely His life shall save us. Thus, while unbelief sees nothing but that they are distinct things (and they are distinct only because we are in the body, and therefore the latter is matter of faith and not of sight), faith sees yet the certainty of one from the other, as proving God's love with an even stronger argument, and the certainty yet again of the same from the power of the Instrument now exalted in life, who reconciled us by death. The sinner doubts no more about his falling than his standing: he knows certainly that he would fall instantly if in himself; but he knows that God has promised, and that God will perform, and that He cannot fail; and that none, not Satan himself, can pluck him out of His hands; nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor life, nor death, nor any other creature, can separate him from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus his Lord.
The comparison of the argument of Paul, and of the author of the "Remarks" gives the key to the whole of the sentiments expressed, be they in whom they may. The saint is persuaded, "that he who hath begun a good work in him, will perfect it unto the day of Jesus Christ." Unbelief is not so persuaded. The scripture hath said, "Faithful is he which hath called you, who also will do it"; and the saint believes it. Nay, but I cannot be sure of it because of my infirmity! That is, you do not believe the word of the testimony of God: you are making your weakness a greater evidence of the result than the power of God! Such precisely is unbelief. But a justification without the exercise of a personal faith in Christ, the sent of God, the Saviour, cannot possibly be accompanied with any knowledge of salvation, nor can it either be accompanied with any renewal of heart, for the heart is purified by faith. But the love of God, and God who is loved, are known by faith; and therefore we can say, "who hath saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began." But indeed it were endless to quote passages, for this simple reason, that this is the gospel. The Jew could be circumcised and brought into the covenant of God; nay, the Jew could, if so given of God, walk uprightly. But the Jew could not know, what in faith he might hope for and trust in, what is the essential distinction of the Christian -- the finished work of the atonement, and the earnest of the Spirit shed abroad till the redemption of the promised possession. This is Christianity, and received into the heart by faith; and this therefore unbelief can never know anything about. "Blessed is the man whose unrighteousness is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth no sin, and in whose spirit there is no guile." There is not a man in the world that is not a hypocrite, that has not guile in his heart, till his conscience is washed in the blood of the Lamb. But what blessedness, what reconciliation, what purging of guile, if the forgiveness of sins be not known?
But the author of the "Remarks" says, "I bless Him, that He has taught me, not to trust in my own works, but in the assistance of His Holy Spirit." What will the Holy Spirit assist him to do, according to this view of the case, except to work? So that he trusts in his works after all, and the Holy Spirit is a mere assister or helper of him in this. But He never taught him to put his trust here; but they shall be to the praise of the glory of His grace, who have trusted in Christ. And they who have so trusted have ever, according to His promise, been sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of their inheritance. There is not such a thing in Scripture, as trusting in the assistance of the Spirit, contrasted with trusting in works; nor in common sense either. And Christianity is a fable if it does not enable one who believes in the atonement to pronounce his sins forgiven. I do not say but there may be doubting souls under gracious influences; but I say as to this, It is unbelief.
Let us put the case of the jailer at Philippi: "What must I do to be saved?" What would the author of the "Remarks" answer? Why, as to being justified, if you are baptized you will be justified; but perhaps you will not be saved at all; nor can I give you any assurance of this, nor indeed will you be able to pronounce at any given time subsequent whether your sins are forgiven or not: the former will depend on how you receive the Spirit; as to the latter, nobody knows on what; in short, I dare not pronounce as to myself. Was this the answer of the blessed and believing apostle? No: "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." Well then, supposing God gave him to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, would the man be warranted or not in saying in his heart, I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and shall be saved. People became Christians because they believed that it was the salvation of God, and that they had there what they had not elsewhere, namely, salvation. Again, what is the testimony of Peter? "We believe, that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they." So in Peter's account of the message to Cornelius, Acts 11, "Who shall tell thee words whereby thou and all thy house shall be saved."
But there is one idea which runs in the strongest way through the writings of the Reformation, and is one great hinge of this matter -- the acceptance of the person. "By the which will we are sanctified," says the apostle, "through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." And what then? Why, that, "by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified." As to our salvation depending on the manner in which we receive the Spirit, though the sentence be sufficiently obscure, as the person is supposed to be justified already, if it mean anything it is Pelagianism, or at least Semipelagianism; for the manner of my receiving the Spirit must depend on my will previous to the Spirit's influence, if it has any meaning, which is just Semipelagianism.
This part of my subject I feel fully to be most feebly treated: I know that none but believers can feel assurance; but I know that it is the direction of the apostle to "draw near with full assurance of faith." I know that believers will supply infinitely more than any pen could write, or tongue of men or angels could tell: if it be made the instrument of strengthening any soul or convincing it there is such a thing as peace (a peace which, having received forgiveness, is able to rest with undoubting assurance on the promises of the God who gave it, when its possessor was in his sins), I shall be satisfied, yea, abundantly thankful. The hope of the Christian is, not of forgiveness, which the hope of one who cannot pronounce his sins forgiven must be, unless he be a madman; but because he can, of glory. "Beloved," he says, "now are we the sons of God." For, "behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us: and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know, that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. And he that hath this hope in him," not a vague estimate of the portion of somebody or other, "purifieth himself, as he is pure." He who throws down the assurance of salvation, throws down all Christian progress; for I affirm, that there is not one atom of Christian holiness in the person who has it not, nor any purification which is truly of the sanctuary. "He that believeth in the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not hath made God a liar, because he hath not believed the witness which God hath given concerning his Son. And this is the witness, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life." Well, but after all, though he have this life, he may lose it and perish. "My sheep hear my voice, and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any one pluck them out of my hand." "He that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me, ... shall not come into condemnation,+ but is passed from death unto life."
+In full truth, judgment. Our Lord is contrasting His two characters of life and judgment; He exercises His power towards the saints in giving life.[John 5: 24]
There are two points fully stated here, and on which we have seen Paul exercising faith, of which Christ, given, dead, and risen, is witness to us by the Spirit. First, inasmuch as we are justified by it, no condemnation. Secondly, that we have eternal life, and so, further, that we joy in God. How a man can do that who dare not say that his sins are forgiven, I know not. But there is this ignorance, further, of the very place of the Church; namely, that they are redeemed and risen in spirit, and are thus, their bodies being not redeemed, a witness of God's power in the midst of and over sin, to the praise of the glory of His grace; whereby, according to His counsels, the glory of the Son, and the power of the Spirit are displayed, till the redemption in those who are kept by the power of God until salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time.
I have stated many texts. The question is, does the author of the "Remarks" believe in them? For example, does he believe that the sheep of Christ shall never perish and that no one can pluck them out of His hand? If he say, I feel so the strength of my flesh warring against me, that I cannot believe this, then I say, It is indeed unbelief; but it is unbelief through which many a child of God has passed, and here are the promises which apply against it. But if he deny and reason and preach against them, and the faith of God's children in them; then I say, however softly expressed, or guarded by gentleness of manner, It is impiety and presumption. He must deny God's willingness or power; for it is in that they trust: and he must deny God's testimony and word; for on that they rely, upon the carnal suggestions of nature. He must preach the power of sin and Satan, against the power of God, in spite of the testimony of God's word, which, because the children were under those, has declared this; and bears witness to the deliverance by Christ. For the testimony of this is the gospel. And, to conclude, God hath predestinated us to be conformed to the image of His Son: but "whom he predestinated, them he also called; and whom he called, them he also justified; and whom he justified, them he also glorified. What shall we say then to these things?" It is simple question of the power of God; we know through faith in Christ that God is for us: if God be for us, who can be against us? "He that spared not his own Son but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him freely give us all things? Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth: who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather that is risen again: who shall separate us from the love of Christ? For I am persuaded," etc. Who is he that condemneth? why not reckon upon salvation as to this? If the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead dwell in us, God shall also quicken our mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in us: why not reckon on salvation as to this? In a word, we know that we are alive in our souls and spirits; we know that there is no condemnation for us; and we know that our mortal bodies will be quickened; what are we to doubt of? It is a poor office to make God a liar in the assurance of His grace towards His children.
But there is one other sentence to which (as exhibiting the inconsistency of these views in the light of the Scripture, and how little they flow from this as opened to us by the Spirit of God) I must advert: "It is a mistake to say, that a free gift excludes conditions; on the contrary, the very nature of a covenant implies conditions." If one merely had to cavil in argument, one might reason on this as as extraordinary a sentence as could be written; but I must go a little deeper. Take it on the surface, and the argument is simply nothing, and the expression "on the contrary" makes it almost ridiculous. But if we are to assume that there is a latent idea which takes away the absurdity, namely, that the free gift of the gospel is a covenant; then I say, that the argument flows from a direct contravention or ignorance of the whole statement of Scripture on the subject. In the first place, the argument proceeds on there being a covenant with man. There is no such thing in Scripture. You may call the law on Adam one, if you please, by which he fell (though I think incorrectly). And the covenant which God made with Abraham, and confirmed to Christ, has no conditions: and the difference of this as a pure promise is at length argued by the apostle on this very ground, to wit, that there was no second party but as a receiver, as contrasted with the one at Sinai; and therefore simply received by faith, which believes in a thing done by someone else.
Thus in Genesis 15: the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, etc., and Abram said, What wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless? etc. Then the Lord promised him his seed should be as the stars; and he believed the Lord, etc. And he said, Lord God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it? Then God directed him to take the pieces of the heifer, etc., and divide the birds: and when the sun went down and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between these pieces. In the same day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, etc. Now here we have a covenant of gift, where the only party was simply God; who condescendingly entered into it, that man might know the solemnity and immutability of His promise. And here, accordingly, Paul contrasts the difference of the law, and the gift of the inheritance. For if the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise; but God gave it to Abraham by promise, which the law could not disannul. The law was conditional, and therefore was forfeited (yea, before its conditions were declared) by the making of the golden calf, and was temporary: but the inheritance was of promise, and therefore secure. Why? Because it rested upon the unity of God. When a second came in, it was not merely of promise; and of this the mediator was evidence, shewing that it was not of one. But the inheritance is simply of the promise of God, and therefore of gift: and His covenant was a solemn pledge merely, as connected with the promise, of the security of the gift, and not including two parties at all; save as a Giver securing the faith of the receiver by His solemn engagement of mere mercy to assure, which none could claim; and the receiver of the thing promised waited for by faith upon the assurance of the promise and covenant. To pursue this subject into all its branches would carry us too far here; but the simple perusal of Genesis 15 (if the reader find difficulty in following the argument of Paul in the Galatians) will amply demonstrate the point in question. I shall close the subject by two passages from Melancthon,+ as he has been so much insisted on. From the Confession of Augsburg 5. [A.D. MDXL. -- Editor]
+The fact is, Luther composed the Confession at a previous meeting of the confederates, by desire of the elector: Melancthon dressed them up for the diet.
"They are condemned who teach nothing concerning this faith by which remission of sins is received, but command consciences to doubt whether they obtained forgiveness; and add that this doubt is not a sin."
I do not give the reasoning on this subject, it would be to transcribe pages, merely their opinion. The following is from the Saxon Confession (a document prepared for the council of Trent). It may be seen in the Sylloge Confess., or in Op. Mel., 123, on "Credo remissionem peccatorum." "Here many and great corruptions are brought in by the adversaries: I believe, that is I doubt, they say: also, Then I will believe when I have sufficient merits: also they do not say, I believe the remission of sins to be certainly freely given on account of the Son of God."
Again: "As therefore from what has been now said, it is manifest, what the word faith means in this proposition, we are justified by faith; hence it may be understood, that the monks err perniciously, and others whom, converted to God, they command to doubt whether they are acceptable to God. Lastly, the error concerning doubting is altogether a heathenish imagination, and abolishes the gospel, and [on the other hand] takes away true consolation from those who feel the anger of God."
That no notice is taken of the prospect before the Church, I am not surprised. One would think that the progress of infidelity, and everything which might obliterate the peace of mankind, and separate him from God, were calculated to awaken even the unbeliever: not one nation scarcely in Europe not in a state of insurrection, though all are trying to keep peace; while even at home every opinion that could agitate the state is forcing itself into notice, however men may wish for rest. But there was one sign yet wanting to complete the picture to the believer, the unbelief of the body; and that also stares them in the face. The Lord deliver many souls, yea, He will deliver every one of His sheep, before the time of helpless judgment leave no room for repentance, and the Lord awake, as it were, out of sleep to the judgment that He hath commanded, to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity, when the Lord shall make it empty, and turn it upside down, and it shall reel to and fro like a drunkard. "Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and so ye perish from the way, if his wrath be kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him."
The covenant is a word common in the language of a large class of Christian professors, and also of many true Christians; but in its development and detail, as to its unfolded principles, much obscurity appears to me to have arisen from a want of simple attention to Scripture.
The giving of the Church to Christ before the worlds, and the consequent giving to us of the blessings therein involved, seem to me indeed to be most clearly declared in Scripture, as in 2 Timothy 1: 9, 10. But little heed seems to have been given to that which is really contained in this covenant, as administered in dispensation, in its connection with the character and hope of the Church. Without weakening, then, the foundation whereon all rests, or pulling stones out of it to polish or carve for less needful and appropriate uses, while that whereon they should rest is gone, let us see the plain revelation afforded by the blessed word, on what, in their great branches, the covenants are founded.
The mystery of God's will, according to His good pleasure, which He hath purposed in Himself, He hath made known unto us; even that He should gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in Him. This (however consistent everything was with it, or even typical of it) was hidden from ages and from generations. In fact, however progressive the intimations might be (better hopes sustaining believers in greater darkness, as was the case in prophecy), the limits of the actual dealings of God, as to dispensation, were narrowed, and the terms of them lowered with the falling condition of man and that growing darkness.
The promise that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head, had a wider scope and was a more comprehensive promise, than was any subsequent revelation of resulting details, in the sphere subject to his power; it took the character of the work higher up. "For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil." The call and the promise to Abram again had a wider and a fuller meaning and purpose than any dealings with the Jews, not only at Mount Sinai, but even the previous deliverances which constituted them a nation -- a people marked by God as the favoured subjects of His strong hand and mighty arm, however more immediate and manifest the hand of God might be. It had therefore a more immediate and determinate object; not the out-reaching prospect of faith, but the visible actings towards the subjects of present deliverance. The law, given from Mount Sinai, took entirely another ground; and whatever was contained in it (as a figure for the time then present) was based upon the obedience of man, as to its terms of promise and blessing, and not in the supremacy of God, however flowing from it.
If we turn to the song of Moses, and the song of the Lamb, we shall see at once the characteristic difference (even in the subjects of praise) in the dispensations. The whole song of Moses, most beautiful as it is, is about the hand and power of God doing wonders. "Thy right hand, O Lord, is become glorious in power." So in Revelation 15, "Great and marvellous are thy works, O Lord God Almighty." The song of the Lamb is, "Just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints."+ We have the mind of Christ; and as Christ is the wisdom of God, and the power of God, so is made known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God; and so in the resurrection, when the Lord returns, shall in the Church also be manifested the power of God in Christ, "according to the working of his mighty power, whereby he is able to subdue even all things unto himself." And then, in fact (as now known by faith) being indeed quickened, shall be manifested "the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe; according to the working of his mighty power which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in heavenly places."
But now let the Church learn, and let the saint learn that, if it looks with marvel and admiration at the deliverance wrought by the right hand of the Lord at the Red Sea, it too shall ere long sing even in higher and more blessed strains; but now it has a more intimate and distinct lesson to learn -- a peculiar, a privileged lesson -- the ways of God, the mind of God; and therefore it must be content to suffer. It is not the time, properly speaking, for power to be exercised in its behalf, but for "being renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him." Now in this there is often found in us that which savours not of the wisdom of the holy and graceful ways of God; there must be suffering; this must be wrought out in the understanding of His mind. Often we have so to learn it. For the rest, the sufferings are the occasions of the perfect display of this grace in a spirit and character altogether beyond the wisdom of man. He, who through death destroyed him that had the power of death, is the pattern of the wisdom in which the Church is led forth into beauty. So we find in Psalm 139, in which the wisdom and knowledge of God, shewn in power manifested in weakness, is illustrated in the fashioning of the members of Christ++ out of the lower parts of the earth, and in "awaking still with thee": the wicked are afterward to perish. Hence, in leading forth the people which He had redeemed, He led them not in the triumph of power, altogether above the circumstances through which they passed, as was the case in the deliverance from Egypt (even the present destruction of their enemies by power entirely above them, which they knew only in effect); but, "when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them and they follow him." "It became him for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings; for both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one; for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee." I mean our fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus, having the quickening of that eternal life which was with the Father; a place, not merely of effects in deliverance, but fellowship with Him who so delivers. Hence, I say, Jesus having led the way in grace, and the grace being thus fully manifested, let us not shrink from the sufferings in which we are formed inwardly; for it is communion with, and being conformed to, the image of the Son.
+[It is well known that for "saints" the best authorities read "nations," though some have "ages." -- Ed.]
++[Striking as this analogy of the language may be, it is certain that neither type nor prophecy revealed the mystery of Christ and the Church. This I add to cut off any wrong use of these words. -- Editor]
But in looking at the Church's introduction into the knowledge of this image, and fellowship with it, I have, perhaps, wandered too far from the simple question of the covenants. Now I say that this fellowship with the Head triumphant formed no part of the revelation of the covenants, though clearly purposed and formed before the world was, before the ages or dispensations which came in meanwhile, but was reserved for the revelation of the Holy Ghost, sent down upon the exaltation of the Head into the place, according to the character and glory of which the fellowship itself was to be. And this was manifestly necessary; for until the glorification of the suffering Man, there was not that to which the Spirit could testify as existent; nor that accomplished by reason of which the sinner could righteously apprehend fellowship with the glory of the holiest. Indeed this glory was consequent upon the wages of sin, as it was acquired by the exceeding excellency of that by which sin was put away. It was not the perfecting of the creature, but his change into that which by nature he could not inherit, for flesh and blood could not inherit the kingdom of God. It was not the fashioning of creature glory, but the result through death of redemption and higher glory. It was not blessings of creature things conferred on the creature, but the communion of the creature with the Creator: a new and clearly an infinite truth; not casual, nor medial, but infinite and supreme; the knowledge of which is the Church's present portion by the Holy Ghost; known in Jesus, known in communion with Him; the highest link of the supreme glory; a new, a very glorious truth, in which God is revealed (as not otherwise), manifest in the flesh, revealed without in personality.
Now I would enquire in how far the covenants unfold these things. The Abrahamic covenants (though wider in the scope and testimony, as we have seen, than the local blessings and promises to Israel, as the apostle also so fully argues) contained none of these things. They proposed the person of the Redeemer, the promised Seed; they proposed the blessing of all nations, but they went not beyond Abraham's being the heir of the world. This may disclose brighter things now that the veil is rent; but in the promises and covenants given to Abraham, he did not outstep as yet in expression the limits of what belonged to the first Adam, because the second Adam (who was also the Lord from heaven) was not revealed, and was simply testified of as the seed of Abraham in whom this blessing should come, whatever it was.
These promises and covenants are in Genesis 12 and 15, and confirmed in chapters 17 and 22. The first promise runs thus: "And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing; and I will bless him that blesseth thee, and curse him that curseth thee; and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed." Afterward the Lord appeared unto Abram and said, "To thy seed will I give this land": here we have nothing beyond the earth and the families by whom it has been divided.
In chapter 15 we have the promise of a seed, numerous as the stars of heaven, and (after stating the circumstances in which they would be intermediately placed) the giving of the land to them, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, confirmed by the covenant of the Lord passing between the pieces of the victims.
In chapter 17 this is established as an everlasting covenant with Abraham (his name being changed), and with his seed after him, throughout their generations -- that God would be a God to him, and to his seed after him; and that He would give to him, and to his seed after him, all the land wherein he was a stranger, for an everlasting possession; and that He would be their God. And circumcision was given to Abraham as a seal.
In chapter 22 we have the confirmation of the promise to the seed. "In blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven and as the sand which is by the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." In the latter part of this promise we have the confirmation of the blessing of the families of the earth to the seed, that is Christ; which was (in chapter 12) made originally to Abram. Still (whatever be the manner of its accomplishment), it reaches not beyond the original promise to the families of the earth; nor is He, in whom it was to be fulfilled, revealed otherwise than as the seed of Abraham. The other promises, and the formal covenant, are all of the land, and of a seed numerous and prosperous, who should inherit it, and be a blessing. In all this (however unconditionally it establishes that) we have nothing beyond that which is earthly. The promises and covenants in Abraham are established upon grounds which cannot be shaken -- not the stability of a professed obedience, but the stability of the declared promise of God -- two immutable things in which it was impossible for God to lie, His promise, and His oath. Whatever intimations of circumstances or gathering of hope there might be, the covenants themselves expressed no more. They were confirmed to Isaac, chapter 26, and to Jacob, chapter 28; but no particular remark is called for as to the terms of the covenants in them.
We then come to Mount Sinai -- the first covenant made with Israel as a nation. And here, as the covenant was of course confined to the nation or literal seed recently delivered, so the subject matter of the promises was honour and blessing before that God whose all the earth was. This was the old covenant, as we afterwards read of the new covenant, which latter implies (as expressed in its terms) that it was made with the same people: both (whatever their character) dealing with them as a people -- i.e., in reference to earth, although putting them as on earth into relationship to God. The new covenant (however its terms then might introduce new principles applicable to strangers) could not be said to be "not according to the covenant I made with their fathers, in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt," were it not a covenant made with Israel -- the same people with whom the former covenant was made at Mount Sinai. Whoever will but examine Jeremiah 31, from which this very important testimony is quoted, will at once see that the new covenant is to, and with, Israel; as moreover it is not quoted by the apostle in any epistle except that to the Hebrews.
The first covenant, then, was a covenant made with Israel; the second covenant is a covenant made with Israel, but not yet accomplished in its effects. The use which the apostle makes of it is to shew that the old covenant was faulty, and they should not rest in it -- that it was ready to vanish away, thus leading them on to the Mediator of the new, in the manner which I shall now just attempt to set forth; but without in any way speaking of the covenant, as made with the nation, being brought in as to the effect therein described, or that they had come under it, although God's part in it was sealed.
We have, then (passing by, at present, the wider Abrahamic covenants) two covenants with the house of Israel on distinct and different terms: the first, at Mount Sinai; the second, with Christ as its Mediator and its seal.
Now, as to the covenant made with Israel on Mount Sinai, its terms were these: the people undertook to obey all that the Lord should command. "Now, therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine; and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and an holy nation ... . And all the people answered together, and said, All that the Lord hath spoken we will do. And Moses returned the words of the people unto the Lord." Nothing could be more distinct and express than was this condition, "If ye will obey my voice, and keep my covenant, ye shall be," etc.; and the people undertook the terms explicitly. Now it is remarkable that the previous condition of the people had been unfolded as resting entirely upon grace. As such it was manifested in their deliverance from the power and prince of this world; in the healing of the water which they had to drink; in the giving of the sabbath in which the manna would be an abiding portion -- bread given daily otherwise, the needful and surely apportioned supply of grace; in the waters given in the time of their need, though they murmured and tempted the Lord, yet freely given to them from the stony rock; in the power of mediatorial intercession against their enemies, with their discomfiture, the Lord being their banner, and Joshua their leader; in the ordering of needful government in the household of God, though this was not of principle but from a stranger.
But though the real ground on which they were the people of God, and were known and shewn to be such, was thus of grace before the terms of Mount Sinai and its covenants came in at all, yet for God's sure and wise purposes, and the sure (I do not say the whole) wisdom of which we can see in the exhibition of man's failure and the progressive unfolding of dispensation -- in this wisdom the conditional obedience is proposed to Israel; and on that stipulation they take all the promises. How long it lasted was displayed by the noise of those who sang. The first principle and foundation of the whole system was broken and laid low before the mediator returned with the order of that obedience which was pledged in it. The covenant was gone. So much for the covenant of works of man's undertaken obedience. "These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt." But the Lord was not only shewing the failure of man in obedience, and the characteristics of the perfection required under the law, but there was also, however narrowed the scene in which they were displayed, the progress therein of unfolding dispensations. The first covenant had ordinances of divine service, a holy order. It is remarkable to observe here that, coincident with the failure of man under natural principles, there arose the testimony of another foundation, and other and gracious ordinances of divine life. When I say coincident with the failure, I mean rather with the exhibition and evidence of the failure; and then is seen the evidence of the scheme of grace. Progressively had the character of the connection between God and man lowered, and progressively had man sunk to the hopeless state of having a broken law, a rejected God of glory, whose hand had been itself shewn in their favour as a covenant God. But as the natural portion of man was thus evidenced to be hopeless, the dawn immediately arose with coincident and answering clearness of that work and order of grace on which the divine purpose and mercy could stand.
The covenant of Israel at Mount Sinai at once contained the proof that the obedience of man was a hopeless ground, under any circumstances, for relationship with God to rest upon; and it also contained the complete typical development of that on which it surely would and could rest -- on which comfort and peace and divine blessing could refresh the heart of man, weary with his own way; and this is the use which the apostle makes of it. It is not, Behold here the effects of the new covenant on earth; but the old covenant is a defective, faulty covenant. But the foundation of the new has been laid in the blood of the Mediator. It is not to us that the terms of the covenant, quoted from Jeremiah by the apostle, have been fulfilled, or that we are Israel and Judah; but that while the covenant is founded, not upon the obedience of a living people (to whom the blessing thereupon was to come, and the blood of a victim shed by a living mediator) but upon the obedience unto death of the Mediator Himself, on which (as its secure, unalterable foundation of grace) the covenant is founded.
But, as we have seen, in the very act of forming the covenant, that the obedience of sinful man as its foundation was evinced to come to failure, and that therefore it carried with it, in the good mercy of our God, the testimony of another and a stable foundation; so did it also of the place into which we were to be brought by it. The holy order which accompanied the covenant (or which the covenant had) was the type of heavenly things. It was not "the days come in the which I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and Judah"; but a hope which entereth into that within the veil; and to this, I repeat, the apostle immediately turns. I am not, of course, denying that practical righteousness will accompany this through the love of it in the heart: surely it will; but the manner in which we are associated with the bringing in of the new covenant is the revelation of that of which its holy order was the pattern and type. That is just this -- we have seen the covenant sealed in the death of the Mediator, and therefore the end to us now of all hope from any earthly association with Him, or any blessing on earth; the Mediator's own death to this world being the foundation of our entrance into, or portion in, the place we hold with God. On this, in Hebrews 9, the apostle laboriously insists, and it is indeed a distinctive characteristic of the dispensation. Then, if we turn from the Mediator, as the foundation in giving or sealing the covenant to us, to consider Him as maintaining it for us toward God, we shall again find in the pattern of the heavenlies (introduced in connection with the old covenant) the place belonging to us by virtue of our connection with the Mediator. The high priest enters, by virtue of the blood of the mediatorial victim (which in accomplishment we know to be Himself), into the holiest of all; hence, in the antitype, necessarily in resurrection and ascension life. This is His special place of high priesthood, that in which He exercised it as distinctively such, where Christ is now entered for us, even into heaven itself.
This, then, is our portion in the new covenant, so far as we have any ordered interest in its being sealed in the blood of the Mediator. That Mediator, being gone into the heavens, into the holiest of all, has not accomplished the actual new covenant formally with Israel and Judah, as it shall surely be fully and distinctly accomplished. But as the patterns of the things in the heavens were given when the old covenant, dependent on their own obedience, was given from Mount Sinai; so now, when the new covenant has been founded in the blood of the Mediator (not yet accepted or owned in grace by the nation), the heavenly things themselves are disclosed to faith by the entering in of the Mediator into the holiest through resurrection. The veil being rent in His flesh, and the Mediator Himself dying (the exercise of His priesthood, and the offering of His blood in the holiest, by which we have access there, being necessarily a resurrection and ascension work), we have boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way through the veil (that is to say His flesh). During the first, this way was not yet made manifest; nor, moreover, was the conscience so purged once for all as to have a portion there. Both these blessings are now the portion of the children of God; and the whole of our portion now is not in the formal accomplishment of the new covenant with Israel and Judah, but entirely in the heavenlies with Christ, according to the pattern of the then tabernacle, with this only added -- that the veil is rent from the top to the bottom.
It is, then, the annexed circumstances of the covenant with which we have to do, not the formal blessings which in terms have taken the place of the conditions of the old, though some of them may, in a sense, be accomplished in us. Thus the heavenly and distinct character of the dispensation is most plainly brought out; and we find that our place is to be identified with the Mediator, as gone within the veil, not in the blessings which result to Israel in consequence of His title and power to bless in grace therefrom resulting. It is generally stated that the high priest came forth and blessed the people on the day of atonement, when he came out of the most holy place; but there is nothing of the kind in the account of it in Scripture; and to me it seems rather to involve mistake, for his place on that day formed no part of his kingly office; but on that day it was either humiliation or ascension to glory, or offices purely priestly -- death, confession, intercession, and the like.
There is a passage in Leviticus 9, which (being of a more comprehensive character) seems to embrace this part of the subject more distinctly. This chapter embraces the offerings of the high priest on entering on his office. Then Aaron offers his offerings, and, having gone through each several kind, he blesses, and then comes down. This was a priestly blessing after the offering, but before he came down from the offering; and then Moses and Aaron (who shew forth the union of the kingly and priestly office) went into the tabernacle of the congregation (not necessarily implying the holiest of all, but the house, including the holy place and holiest), and came out and blessed the people; and then the glory of the Lord appeared unto all the people; and then was the complete and public witness of the complete acceptance of the burnt sacrifice by the Lord. This, as it is a more general statement of all connected with the institution of the priesthood, seems more definitely to set before us both the priestly blessings from the offered sacrifice; and then (after the return from that) the royal and priestly blessing of the people; whereupon the full glory came in public witness. This, however, I remark by the way, for, though to me it is a deeply interesting type of the order of these things, that which I now desire to rest on, and to present in its brief heads for the consideration of others, is that the place into which the founding of the new covenant in the blood of Christ has brought us is, not that of the terms of; the covenant made with Israel and Judah, nor yet of the covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, for that the sphere of their ministration was the earth; but it is into the revelation consequent upon the death of the Mediator, and His assumption of the high priesthood in resurrection and ascension glory -- a heavenly state of things, a place in the heavenlies, in which we have fellowship with Him gone within the veil, previously unrevealed, though founded in the death of Him that was promised and typified by the ordinances given with the old covenant as to the constitution of the tabernacle of the congregation -- the veil only being as yet unrent, and the way into the holiest not yet made manifest, nor the communion of a purged conscience with it established (the identity of the body of Christ with their Head, and their privilege there to sit, as now represented in their Head, being as yet unknown); thus confirming in the distinctest way, in the ordering of dispensations, many principles often alluded to in previous papers. There are many subjects and principles of the deepest importance connected with the covenants, which are here barely or not at all alluded to (such as the difference of the very nature and terms of the two, whatever their application, on which in fact all our practical peace rests; the unconditional character of those made with Abraham, as the ground of the infallible warrant of Jewish hopes, not dependent on that in which to their own present sorrow and the instruction of mankind they have so entirely failed). All this, though I would not pass it without allusion thereto, I do not lengthen this paper by entering into substantively, having very briefly, and I fear superficially, endeavoured to touch upon those heads which bring out the covenants into their proper place, and which shew our position as connected with them.
There is one passage connected with this subject which I have omitted, to which I would allude. In the statement of restored blessings to Israel, in Ezekiel 36 the detail of earthly things is most distinct; it is, all of it, restored Israelitish blessing. Amongst them, however, we find a work to be done in them to qualify them for the holding and enjoying of those blessings before God. "I will bring you into your own land. Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments and do them. And ye shall dwell in the land which I gave to your fathers, and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God."
This is not expressly the new covenant, but it is in fact a more explicit statement of the manner of the blessings contained in it, and connected with it. Hence the reproach of Nicodemus by the Lord, when (stating in terms tantamount to these, what was needful for a man to see, to enter into, the kingdom of God) He was met by the uninstructed question "How can these things be?" The Lord indeed shews the universal character of the operation: "So is every one that is born of the Spirit." But its application in the conversation is Jewish; it was that which was necessary for the enjoyment of the earthly things of the kingdom of God, of which the promises and the covenants with Israel and their forefathers were the pledges and assurance from God. Hence does our Lord add the observation, "If I have told you earthly things and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I tell you of heavenly things?" -- even of these other and higher things, which belong to the kingdom entered into by the new and living way: and hence our Lord, though not then revealing these things at once, introduces His death -- the death of the Mediator, the Son of man, in whom the earthly things were expected, which was the door that opened the way into any heavenly things whatever (as yet undisclosed), and ordered by the rejection of the Son of man (then beginning to shew itself) by those to whom He came in present earthly blessing: "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up"; but founding every hope of eternal life then on this lifting up, and its opening to the world. For as sent on an errand of mercy had He come; and thus was the distinction between the earthlies and the heavenlies.
I scarcely feel it necessary to add that I take the whole of Hebrews 9 as having one uniform subject, the covenant; and that the terms testament and testator are but accommodations to the English reader which obscure or destroy the sense.+
+[This is true of all the epistle, and indeed of the New Testament as a whole, save in the parenthesis of Hebrews 9: 16, 17, where "testament" and "testator" appear to be called for, and naturally flow out of the last clause of the preceding verse (that is to say, "the promise of eternal inheritance"). One insuperable objection to taking these two verses as maintaining, like the rest, the reference to "covenant" is that the Greek work cannot mean covenanting victim, but one who disposed things (i.e. a "testator"). The death of the covenanter is in no way an axiomatic necessity; whereas the condition of men being dead is essential to bring a testament into operation. Such, too, is the judgment of the author in his German, French, and English versions of the New Testament, as well as in the "Synopsis of the Books of the Bible" (in loc.). -- Editor]
Allow me to say a few words on a very simple principle, connected with the exercise of men's hearts before the Lord, and with questions which are now occupying the thoughts and anxieties of a body of persons, who must at present be the object of the deepest interest to any real Christian, even if not within the reach of those kindly affections by which so many are united to them. It does not appear to me that, in the agitation which the introduction of long neglected truths has produced among them, any body of Christians has presented an adequate or satisfactory exhibition of Christian truth and practice; nor has anything more struck me as to the extreme defectiveness of the views of the most noted Christian teachers at present before the world, than this manifest failure.
I am not about to enter into diffuse reasonings, but present a few considerations for their thoughts and consciences.
The first in importance is the light in every man.
A little simple attention to Scripture I think will make this very plain. It has been confused, it seems to me, by systems of doctrine current previously in the mind. As to mere argumentative refutation, Wardlaw has, with the ability of mind with which God has endowed him, plainly shewn the inconsistency of their doctrines in their most favourable point of view, and, I think, however courteous and polite in his statements, plainly shewn Joseph John Gurney to be by far the most inconsistent of all. For in Mr. Gurney's system, while he holds justification in an evangelical point of view, he still makes the mediation of Christ to be the procuring cause of that light from which accountability springs -- that is, that the mediation of Christ created the guilt which it put away; and, consequently, that there was no guilt in man previous to the mediation of Christ. This is clearly an untenable position, and I cannot help feeling that the position held by Mr. Gurney is the most inconsistent and unsatisfactory of any engaged in the anxieties which press upon Friends.
+These remarks have chiefly reference to Dr. Wardlaw's Friendly Letters to the Society of Friends.
But, while Dr. Wardlaw has refuted very ably in many respects the views he opposes, it does not appear to me that he has given anything on the other hand, upon which a sincerely anxious soul could rest; and it also appears to me, that his view of "Christ in us" -- "Christ's dwelling in our hearts" is as objectionable as that of the Friends itself; and that in his anxiety to avoid mysticism, he has destroyed in statement the living power of Christianity itself as a present thing. His view of the law written in the heart, his substitute for this inward light, I believe to be most unsatisfactory, almost as unsatisfactory as the inward light itself. For if the law (of which he, with many others, speaks) be so written, it is not merely a knowledge of the divine will without, but that which in some instances at least (for of such the apostle is writing) produces the effects of the law done; and moreover, it is spoken of (I take their use of the sentence) not as a law known externally, which is their ground of defence, but written in the very language, we may say, of the power of the new covenant. It appears to me, then, I confess, that this law written on the heart of unbelieving Gentiles, is, at the least, as objectionable, if not more so, than the inward light of Friends, and as untenable from Scripture.
As regards the passage in John 1: 9, I cannot but think that a calm attention to its statements, and inquiry into its import, will shew to any mind taught of God that, while the divine perfectness was there as the Light, our Lord is spoken of as a Person coming into the world, One to whom John the Baptist bore witness. This was surely Jesus Christ come in flesh -- the expected Messiah of the Jews, of whom there is this double testimony -- that "he was in the world" (for the testimony was not confined to the Jews, nor was He merely their Messiah, but an universal object of faith -- "he was in the world)"; and, further, that He surely was Jesus, the Messiah, "come to his own [the Jews], and his own received him not." How could it be said that any inward light came to His own and His own received Him not, and that, as distinct from, and additional to, His being in the world, and the world not knowing Him? If this were the inward light, would it not prove that this light was in the world, and men completely unconscious of it? which would refute itself. Both are simply and plainly true, and the whole passage most intelligible and to the purpose, as relating to the incarnate Son of God, who was intrinsically light, and as living, as a man, a light to man, and was both in the world and made the world, and the world knew Him not, and came specially to the Jews, and the Jews received Him not; though to as many as did receive Him He gave authority to be sons of God, not servants as they were (even though godly) under the law; and to whom John bare witness, as sent before Him. As the Lord Himself elsewhere designates Himself, "While ye have the light, walk in the light. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world."
Further, as to the law written upon the heart, perhaps I shall startle some in saying that the scripture never speaks of "a law written on the heart." God puts His laws into the heart in the new covenant, but this is another and a distinct thing. Nor is sin ever said to be "the transgression of the law," but the contrary. I am aware that expressions in the English scriptures may carry such a force; but it has no such force in the original scripture.
The passage on which accountability is made to rest on a law know, which is after all inward light, is 1 John 3: 4: "Sin is the transgression of the law." Then it is argued further, "Where no law is, there is no transgression"; still, "until the law, sin was in the world": therefore, as there was no outward law, there must have been an inward law, as elsewhere, "These, having not the law, are a law unto themselves, and shew the work of the law written upon their hearts." To follow this reasoning in Scripture --
First: "Sin is the transgression of the law."
The law is not mentioned in the passage. It is a reciprocal proposition. Sin is lawlessness. Sin is equivalent to the spirit of selfwill and unrestrainedness. This may be, and was, whether there was a law asserting restraint on this will or not. When there was, its acts were actual transgressions; but without this, sin was there, though there were no such actual transgressions till "law entered." And sin was not imputed where law was not. Not that God will not judge the secrets of men's hearts in that day, according to the gospel; but that the times of this ignorance God winked at, passed by, in His dealings of retributive justice, not having a law by Him revealed to their consciences, on which He could deal with their conscience. On the contrary, He gave them up to a reprobate mind. They did not discern to retain Him in their knowledge, but set idol-creature gods (all the argument is of the world after the flood); and therefore God gave them up to an undiscerning mind, as to that which related to lower things of good and evil in themselves, and towards others. It is astonishing, in the face of this positive testimony, to hear the abstract reasonings of men.
On the other hand, as to this imputation of offences, we have the prophet's witness: "You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities," Amos 3: 2.
Now He calls all persons everywhere to repent, seeing "He hath appointed a day in which he will judge this habitable earth in righteousness, by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead," Acts 17.
In the day when God judges the secrets of men's hearts, they that have sinned without law, shall perish without law: and they that have sinned under the law, shall be judged by the law; Romans 2.
This general review of the passages may clear the point as to the fact of the first text quoted not being the transgression of the law. I insert the Greek: "he hamartia estin he anomia." Sin and lawlessness may be reciprocally affirmed one of another. Next, I state that the law is not said to be written on men's hearts. Were it so, I do not see that we are a step removed from the inward light, save downwards -- that is, we have the law written upon the heart instead of Christ there. But as to the fact, there is no such sentence as "the law written in the heart."
The apostle states, that in these particular instances, in which the Gentiles did the things contained in the law, they shew the work of the law written in their hearts. The law is not said to be written there, but that particular act which the law required was shewn to be upon their conscience. For when the Gentiles who have not law (it is not the law at all) do by nature+ the things of the law, these, not having law, are a law to themselves, which shew the work of the law written in their hearts. Written agreeing with work, not with law at all. These are the only words in which the law is said to be written on the heart, an expression which ought in itself to have awakened suspicion in one acquainted with the truth. The expression, "law written on the heart by nature," is surely one which should startle anyone who knew the truth of God. Dr. Wardlaw gets out of this difficulty by saying nature does not exclude grace, and that the law could be known responsibly without any subjection or conformity to it. It is a laborious effort for which the statement gives no occasion. The force of the sentence is, that there was something written proved by the deed done.
+Nature is opposed to law and dispensation simply, abstract from all question as to grace or power.
Next, as to the assertion of the contrary. It is stated, Where no law is, no transgression is: but the apostle is there shewing that sin and transgression of law are different things, but that there was no present imputation of it where there was not the latter.
Between Adam and Moses death reigned over those who had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression; for Adam was disobedient to an express and positive command, and there was present imputation and punishment, besides the effect upon his soul. Sin was in the world, and death reigned by sin until the law, thus expressly distinguishing sin from the law and transgression; sin being there when the law was not, and when consequently transgression was not, and giving afterwards the respective consequences of sin when there was and was not law. Sin is anomia but it is not transgression of law, although that is the character of sin when the law comes in, and it becomes then an imputable transgression.
Where then is the universal accountability of man which Christ met as light and life, and the way of peace by atonement in contrast with their state?
It is most strange to me how the students of the scripture should have passed over this plain and all-important statement, to look for confused and reasoned notions of a law in the heart, or a light in the heart, which amounts to pretty much the same thing.
"The man (the Adam, the race man) is become as one of us, knowing good and evil." This is God's account of fallen man. Satan never deceives by a mere abstract lie; he tells much attractive truth, but never leads to obedience by it. What he gave as a promise to man, God pronounced to be true, but he had it by disobedience. He knew evil in guilt, he knew it in disobedience, he knew it in the admitted power of sin over his soul, he knew it as a creature over whom it had power, he knew it by and with a bad conscience. God knows good and evil, but He knows it by the infinite and intrinsic possession of good, and Himself being good, and therefore knows evil as that which is infinitely repudiated by Him; and in this, therefore, His holiness is infinitely seen. A creature knows not so, as a mere creature, for he is not supreme. Evil known to a mere creature is known in conscience; he is subject to judgment in the knowledge of it, and hates the judgment and the Judge; because selfishness cannot like its own condemnation, nor can it like to be subject to any, and cannot therefore please God. This knowledge of good and evil may be darkened in its judgment, because a false rule or guide may be introduced; God may give up to a reprobate mind, or Satan introduce a law of darkness, having power to deceive and blind, which is not God's, and which may be made its estimate of right; but the knowledge of good and evil is inherent in fallen human nature. Man unfallen was not, properly speaking, holy:+ he was innocent, he knew not evil, but only beneficent good. Fallen man knows evil, with a conscience subject to judgment, and hating God. Here then is the revealed accountability and condition of man as man. There may be a false standard. The law of God is the true one, evil having come in. Paul thought he ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth, and the time was to come when those that killed the disciples would think they did God service. However wretchedly and inexcusably false the standard assumed from men, there was the sense of good and evil, and of obligation thereupon. It was still lawlessness to God, and sin. Subjection to God is now shewn in obedience to Christ, and honouring Him in everything.
+Holiness is separation from that which is evil; but from what could Adam separate, where all was very good?
The law of God given, which surely is perfect for its purpose, could not have been the law to Adam; for it is conversant about evil, and implies the knowledge of it. Adam had a law, which he broke, which implied no knowledge of evil -- "Thou shalt not eat of such a tree" -- a command which He who knew all things gave him. Adam fell with the knowledge of good and evil, for he got it in disobedience; but he had that knowledge then, to which the law, when it came in, applied the standard and prohibitory restraints, though it gave no new life so that righteousness could be by it. In the meanwhile, sin reigned by death, with the knowledge of good and evil and a guilty conscience, however Satan and man's lusts might darker and debase it. But none of these things gave life, nor was it their object; the fall certainly did not, yet in this came the knowledge of good and evil, conscience, so as that God said, "The man is become as one of us," i.e. as to this. Yet death came in with this. The law, which gave a standard of actual accountability to this, did not give life, nor pretend to it; on the contrary, wrought wrath, entered that the offence might abound, was a ministration of death, of condemnation, and the strength of sin; not through any fault of the law, but the contrary, being just, and true, and good, if it did not give life, sin by it only became exceeding sinful.
But under all and any of these circumstances, God, who is the author of life, could and did give life; and Abel, and Enoch, and Noah, and Abraham, and Eli, and Samuel, and David, and Hezekiah, and Anna, and Simeon, and others whom we cannot number, but who are written before and live unto God as from Him, all in various circumstances are witnesses to His quickening and justifying power. They have "obtained a good report through faith." I do not enter here into the power of darkness, which is most important in connection with this subject, and the active instrumentality of him who rules the darkness of this world, because I desire to confine myself to the points under consideration; but in any general view of the state of man it is most important, all-important, to be taken into the account: indeed without it our general estimate must be false: just as three sums, however correct, will not make a right result if there be a fourth left out. From the beginning, till peace and glory be brought in, this the power and deceit of the adversary has been, as still is the case, the leading source of evil and alienation from God, however man's estate may help him and his efforts to dishonour the Lord.
I would present then this sentence, "The man is become as one of us, to know good and evil," as a very simple and easy solution of many difficulties most elaborately constructed by man's wit and reasoning, and draw attention to what the law really is, as presented to us in Scripture in the passages referred to, and its connection with the accountability of man. It never gave life -- God alone could do that: and I do entreat those who teach, who have the knowledge of the original, to weigh the force of the passages on which they rest so large and important a system. I would also urge upon them the difference of sin and sins -- two things never, I believe, confounded in the Holy Scriptures.
As to the rule of faith, primary and secondary, the Spirit and the Scriptures, this question has really also been raised, though under different apparent circumstances, by the Roman Catholics; and it has appeared to me always in that controversy, that there was a sophism scarcely ever noticed, which was at the root of all the difficulty; and that is, confounding a rule, or standard, with the means of communicating, or power that communicates, anything to our minds: the tacit assumption that one was equivalent to another. All Milner's "End of Controversy" hangs upon a statement concealing this false assumption. "The rule of faith, or means of communicating Christ's religion," he says, "must be such, or such"; which he then shews Scripture not to be, having identified these two ideas. Admit their identity, and no one can answer him; separate them, and his argument comes simply to nothing.
The Friends, it appears to me, have made the same mistake. The Scriptures are the only rule or standard of faith and practice; but the power that applies them to our minds is the Spirit, and the instruments may be many. To make a rule, or standard, we must have the whole thing fully out and expressed. A parent, a teacher, a friend, may communicate truth, but none are a standard.
My use of the standard may be ignorant or imperfect; still it is a perfect standard in itself. I, as a teacher, may have stated perfect truth, but it is no standard. The whole truth having been communicated: no fresh revelation to an individual soul of part of the same truth is a standard. The Bible may be the means of communicating truth; but its great value is, that it is the standard as well as the depository of all truth. A truth may be most perfectly communicated to me, as a measure of corn may be most accurately weighed; for the ascertainment that it is so, a standard is required. The Spirit of God may enable me to use the standard of the word, but this does not make the Spirit of God the standard, any more than the perfect skill of the weighmaster or measurer makes his hand or mind the standard.
I may have spiritually learned truth, and may, as far as known, use this known truth as a test to all presented to me, and so far the intelligence of the Spirit may be a guide. But a standard must be a standard of everything, and for this it must be the whole record of truth, and the perfect record of truth. Moreover, there are principles of universal application implanted in every regenerate mind: God is righteous; holiness is the thing which characterizes God and the saint in communion. But what righteousness is, how sinful man is placed and led in it practically, and what is holy in conduct, is another thing. And if this be not in the mind of man naturally, it must be revealed; and if revealed to be a standard, it must be revealed with authority for all, or it is not a rule or standard which every one must be responsible to; and individual responsibility, and mutual sense of righteousness, is destroyed, and manifest fruits of righteousness cease to be of avail as a test of conduct and fellowship, because there is no standard, or common subject of reference, to which they are to be brought. For to be a standard by which man can act before God, it must be perfect, common to all, perfect with God's perfectness; the necessary consequence otherwise will be the destruction of individual responsibility, and the setting up of authority without any perfect rule.
I have spoken of these things merely to illustrate the difference between a rule or standard, and the power which perceives, uses, or may have learned or appropriated part, but which part, though useful to communicate, cannot be a standard to another; or authority abstractedly is set up, and we lean upon man as infallible at once. No man, or any but God, is infallible -- no apostle, no prophet: he may be absolutely right at any given time, but not infallible, for that is the impossibility of being wrong. To receive what a man says without a standard must be to suppose him incapable of being wrong. And the question therefore really is, whether there is a standard at all, not what it is. Because a standard is a complete communication of divine truth, by which everything can be tried; and therefore every and all truth necessary for the guidance of those to whom it is proposed as a standard must be there, or it could not be such a standard.
Any subsequent communication of divine truth has nothing to do with being a standard, as is evident, however certain the perception of it in the Spirit; and though truths may be impressed upon the soul of any man, and as an instrument at any given time for the communication of them, this has nothing to do with being a standard.
If it be contended that the Spirit in each man is the rule or standard on every particular occasion, and consequently must perpetually communicate the way of truth and the truth itself, then it is an assertion that everybody is infallible, and that there is no standard at all -- that men are not responsible, but automatons. If I am told that the Spirit always does suggest, and is always right (and this would apply to practice alone, for truth must be expressed to be a standard), but that men do not always listen to it, then I say, How is this to be known? Where is the ground of judgment? What is the rule or standard of this? Or, is each man the warrant of all possible conduct? or, are others the irresponsible judges of him? The question still evidently is, Is there a standard, a perfect revelation of God's will at all -- in a word, a complete revelation? If there be, let us humbly admit, that the Spirit, in its active divine operations, takes any scope you please, our judgment of which must be subject to this same word of revelation; but we have to acknowledge that it has given us a perfect rule by which we judge of the pretensions to its operations, and any alleged truth in, or proposed by, any. If there be any such revealed authenticated standard, it is manifest that the written word of God is that standard.
I would make a few remarks as to the communication of it. How was it to be judged of, or how was the communication of it authenticated, if any operation of the divine Spirit in an individual be not such standard? It will be still remarked that this is a question whether there be any standard at all. But I say, in reply, that God having been pleased to communicate any revelation authentically, as the communication of Moses as having His authority, whatever should afterwards be revealed is always triable by consistency with this. It might be revealed with equal authority, and would be necessarily, as from God, consistent therewith; no apparent authentication would be sufficient to excuse the reception of anything inconsistent with the original revelation. Though God might afford and did afford some superior authentication, as in the case of our blessed Lord, He always took care to validate a previous revelation by that, and appeal to it, as Christ, though perfectly competent to reveal, ever appealed to the word (so the apostles), and thus there was mutual authentication. Nor would a prophet have been to be received, had he spoken anything contrary to the law and the testimony; he acted in solemn warnings as to present conduct, but always applied to conduct upon the ground of the existing law and testimony. Then Messiah coming, authenticated and sealed the authority of predictions, by sealing the prophecy, whether all the particulars were fulfilled or not; and with the words of the apostles+ and companions of the Lord, the Church was left to the written testimony as the law and standard. In a word, faith recognizes that the Lord has provided in His great mercy a perfect and common standard of His mind and will in the revelation of His word. And there cannot be a greater or more signal mercy, nor one more worthy of a beneficent God; an imperfect one would be but a mockery, and throwing them into the hands of designing men, and necessarily destroy responsibility to it or any standard at all, or make it an unholy and blind responsibility to man.
+The apostles were the authorised orderers of the Church: and in the Gospels we have the Lord's own ways, if they be admitted to be authentic. And my controversy is not here with infidels, or those who question the genuineness and authenticity of the New Testament. If men wish to do this, let them avow it, and it may be reasoned on its own grounds.
The communication, the apprehension, the application of truth -- of all contained in the word of this whole of truth -- is by the constant living operation of the Spirit of God. It appears to me there is a vast difference between the revealing operations of the Spirit of God and the communicative operations -- that the one are to conscience when they are more than external testimony; the other, not. A revelation may be by an ungodly unconverted man; and when by a saint, as usually, though by his understanding, they are not to his conscience, there is nothing personal in them; he may afterwards, as we read in Peter, search and inquire into their application, and who is interested in them, like any other person, and find it not to himself at all. This is not the case in any internal operations of the divine Spirit for our good and personal guidance; immediate responsibility arises therefrom. On the other hand, when the Spirit of God is pleased to use us as a means of communicating truth, it does not necessarily act on our conscience at all; it may not be applicable to my conscience in its present state at all; nay I might preach to others all truth, and be a castaway; I might say, "I shall see him, but not now; I shall behold him, but not nigh." "How goodly are thy tabernacles, O Israel!" And this shews a distinctive difference in the operation even when the Spirit does operate. When a revelation, it is not as such a communication or operation on the conscience or will of the instrument at all. There is an operation of the Spirit by truth on both, which may be of the same truths as have been long revealed, and are no proper subject therefore of revelation at all, though they may be new to him in whom the Spirit works. I put no limit then to the Spirit's operations. But I say He has Himself given a standard, a rule, by which we can judge all pretensions to them, being ourselves spiritual.
There is a point yet unnoticed, in which Dr. Wardlaw's statements seem to me most ruinous of the real living power of Christianity. He states that Christ in us is equivalent to Christ dwelling in our hearts by faith -- that is, having Christ as the object of our heart's affections, as the apostle says, "Inasmuch as ye are in my heart," etc. I confess this seems to me most pernicious, and that the Church has lost the indwelling of the Spirit, as a truth, most sadly.
The life which we have of and from Christ is a life of union with Him. "He that is joined to the Lord is one Spirit." Faith is the mean or instrument whereby these things are wrought, because it is by the word He begets us; but there is a life: "that which is born of the Spirit is spirit," as much and as truly as "that which is born of the flesh is flesh." And to assert that Christ by the Spirit dwells really in no man, is quite as great an error as to assert that He dwells in every man and the word of truth refutes both. "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his"; and "if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, and the Spirit is life because of righteousness." To see how the word of God teaches us in this, that we are born, quickened of God by the Spirit, is recognized by all, we may say, who hold the truth: but I fear confusedly by some, being looked at as a mere operation on the understanding and will, and not the communication of divine life, born really of God. As we have seen, that which is born of the Spirit is spirit, the seed of the divine life which thereon abideth in the soul. While this is of the operation of the Holy Ghost and is of God, it is not the Holy Ghost nor God, as needs scarcely be said. It enjoys, apprehends, is cognizant of, has a taste for, divine things, as being of God; but it knows and has the revelation of these things only by a superior power, which guides into truth, shews things to come, and takes of the things of Christ and shews them to us. Besides this there is a partaking of the Holy Ghost.
The Holy Ghost cannot dwell in a defiled uncleaned place. He could dwell with Jesus, speaking of Him as an anointed Man, because He was intrinsically pure, perfect, and spotless.+ How then with us? The scripture says, "we are quickened together with Christ" -- that is, as out His grave, "wherein also ye are risen together with him, through faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead." Christ, having borne our sins, met Satan, and undergone death, His resurrection is a power of life, clear from, and paramount to, beyond, and having left behind all these -- beyond the reach of all these. But we are risen with Him: that is, the life which we have of God, as quickened of the Holy Ghost, is as the life of Christ after the sins are completely put away. It is communicated to us consequent upon His having borne and put away the sins, yea, is the witness of His having put them all away (as he says, therefore, "hath quickened us together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses"); for His resurrection is the witness that they are gone. Now, the blood being the life, which He gave for them, and shed, having given His natural life in the energy and perfectness of the divine life in obedience, the shedding of the blood is the characteristic term and expression of this; and we, as washed in His blood, are cleansed from all sin. Our quickening, then, by the Holy Ghost being then our quickening together with Him, implies our absolute justification thereby -- that is, by what He has wrought. Hence the Holy Ghost not only quickens, but can take up His abode in and with us, because He views us according to His value of the blood of Jesus (that is, infinite or perfect cleansing). Thus the high priest was anointed without a sacrifice, the sons of Aaron after and upon the blood of the sacrifices, typifying the same truth.
The Holy Ghost, then, consequent upon faith wrought in our souls by His divine and quickening operation, dwells in us, as consequent upon, and witness of, the blood-shedding of Jesus; by virtue of whose resurrection, as having borne our sins, we are quickened. And here and hence is assurance; nor is it till we thus see clearly the power of the resurrection that we have this assurance. The resurrection is the triumph over all the results of sin, and him who had the power of it.
Thus, consequently, the Scriptures speak of the indwelling of the Holy Ghost: "Know ye not that your bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost, which we have of God?" "Grieve not the Holy Spirit of promise, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption; in whom, after that ye believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession."
+The difference of the Holy Ghost in fulness in His nature, and the anointing, was typified in the pure flour mingled with oil, and the unleavened wafer anointed with oil, in the meat offering, which was the type of the human nature and faculties of Christ the Lord.
And that we might not think this to be merely what are called miraculous gifts, we are told how "He which stablisheth us with you in Christ, is God; who also hath sealed and given us the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts"; and therefore we are told that "the Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God; and if children, then heirs" (for it is "the earnest of our inheritance"), and afterwards "helps also our infirmities," as in trial here, "making intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered."
So in Galatians 3. "Ye are all the children of God, through faith in Christ Jesus"; and then in chapter 4, "Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father," etc.
How the Holy Ghost manifests itself, whether in connection with the life of Christ, as risen, or with the ascension of Christ as glorified, is another thing very important and valuable, but not my subject here, but the actual presence of that other "Comforter, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him; but ye know him, for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you"; and He was to "abide for ever." I now speak of it as connected with the life of Christ, as belonging to the sons, the earnest of the inheritance, a well of water in us springing up into everlasting life. He who weakens this, weakens, I believe, the great stay and blessing of the gospel. If I dwell in love, God dwelleth in me, and I in God. If I confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in me, and I in God. And if it be disconnected with the sacrifice of Christ, and faith in Him, in those quickened by His Spirit, it is but an ignis fatuus, leading into misery and confusion. To deprive those of it who have been given this living faith, is to deprive them of the living power and blessing of both the sufferings of Christ and the glory that is to follow. The possession of the Holy Ghost is the distinguishing characteristic of the believer, of the Church of the living God. The love of God is shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost given unto him. Nor do I know anything which has reduced and degraded the Church into the world, or given occasion and opportunity to delusion and spiritual pretensions, so much as the neglect of the plain scriptural truth given us on these subjects. If a man did not believe in the truth of the Holy Ghost's dwelling in him, as an additional privilege and blessing to being born again, and his, because he was so connected with the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, the Scriptures are so full of passages speaking of it, that he might easily be thrown into the hands of designing or misguided men, who could use all these passages which had no force in his mind to mislead or bewilder.
The uniform effort of those who make pretensions to gifts now, for example, is to deny the power of the child of God as individually having the Spirit to judge of and understand the word of God, and know its force, and so judge them. So precisely does a Roman Catholic priest; so would any carnal man.
Let us then thankfully receive the word of God as an infallible standard by which to judge, and know that the power and capacity by which we can do it is the Spirit of God dwelling in us, revealing these things to our new man, so as to act on our conscience, and guide our feet into the way of peace, and to reveal to us the glory of that fulness which makes us abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.
Let us know that the knowledge of good and evil is our ruin, taken by itself: for we are guilty, and must dread therein and dislike our Judge. Then the law cannot help us, because it does not give life, and therefore only further works wrath.
But being quickened, we are quickened with Him who, as rising from the grave, hath put for ever away all our sins -- if not all, none; and are made partakers therefore of the Spirit, a witness to us of the efficacy of this work, and earnest of the inheritance before us, a revealer too of it to our souls, taking of the things of Christ (even all the Father's things, for He is heir of all things as Son), and shewing them to us, and guiding us in the way, guiding our hearts and feet; for as many as are led of the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.
And let us adore Him who hath done these great things for us, and be thankful and humble under such great and exceeding mercies, in which our God is glorified. To Him be the glory, by Christ Jesus our Lord, for ever. Amen.
The full doctrine of the Holy Spirit, though the principle of it has been stated, has by no means been entered upon here. If the Lord permit, I may go into it more fully when He gives occasion.
To avoid ambiguity, I would say, that the graces of the Spirit seem connected with Christ risen (His life in us, as the fulness and headship, being in Him); and the gifts bestowed, in whatever measure or way they may be manifested, with Christ ascended and glorified.
I would desire to say a few words on the operations of the Spirit of God -- the connection of His working in us with Christ; and the separateness too of the operation of the Spirit in us, from the work of Christ as wrought and perfected for us already.
I do not assume, by any means, to give a full or adequate view of the operations of the Spirit -- "Who is sufficient for these things?" I see enough, indeed, to see the paucity and dimness of what has appeared to my mind, compared with the glory of what is still shewn to be onward. Blessed that it is so -- most blessed -- eternal blessings! Still I would speak of that which the scripture seems to make clear. If others have learned more, they can be led forth to communicate it; if less, they will not begrudge what I do: what I hope is, that it may lead into more searching and attainment of the power of these things.
Christians, and real ones, are too apt (though this may seem a strange assertion) to separate, and too apt to confound, Christ and the Spirit. That is, they separate Christ and the Spirit in operation in us too much; and they confound the work of Christ for us too much with the Spirit. The consequence of both is, uncertainty, meagreness of judgment, and doubt.
The work of the Spirit of God in me, in the power of life, produces conflict, labour, discoveries of sin, and need of mortifying my members which are on the earth; and the more what "Christ is" is revealed in my soul, in the comparison with the discovery of what I am, the more do I find cause of humiliation -- the more do I find, by the contrast of Christ looked at as in the flesh here sinless, God condemning this evil root of sin in the flesh in me. And much more, by the discovery of what my blessed Lord is, as glorified, do I see through the Spirit, how short I am of "attaining," though I may be still changed into the same likeness, from glory to glory. Hence, though at peace, hope, perhaps animating hope, and joy betimes filling the soul, yet there will be exercised self-judgment and sorrow of heart at the discovery of how every feeling we have towards God, and every object spiritually known, is short of the just effects they should produce and call out; and hence, too, in case of any allowance or indulgence of evil, deep self-abasement and utter abhorrence. Hence, when the fulness and finishedness of our acceptance in Christ is not known, anxiety and spiritual despondency arise, and doubt, sometimes issuing in a very mistaken and evil reference to the law -- a sort of consecrating the principle of unbelief, putting the soul (on the discovery, by the Spirit, of sin working in it) under the law and its condemnation; and not "in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free."+
+The sabbath (i.e., the rest of God) was connected with the manna (Christ) sent down (see John 6); conflict, with Amalek at the waters of Rephidim. Every Christian will more or less painfully have to learn his own heart; for that is the separating, sanctifying process. The great object is to separate this from our justification; and that it should be a matter of judging ourselves, not of expecting God's judgment on us. When this discovery of sin in us is made previous to any clear knowledge of the work of Christ, it is habitually accompanied with terror or despair -- a very intelligible effect; when after that knowledge, the sin is perhaps more deeply abhorred, but it is not with terror as to our condemnation, but characterised by a loathing condemnation of the sin itself.
We hear of God hiding His face from us, and the like language, which faith never could use; for faith knows that God ever looks on His Anointed, never hides His face. And if we have such thoughts, they are to be treated as pure unbelief, and dealt with accordingly. Every believer must acknowledge that it is not true, if he believe the full and perfect acceptance of the saints in Christ; and therefore to account it true is the lie of his own heart, and unbelief.
The Spirit of God judges sin in me; but it makes me know that I am not judged for it, because Christ has borne that judgment for me. This is no cloak of licentiousness: the flesh would indeed always turn it to this, it would pervert everything. But the truth is, that same Spirit which reveals the Lord who bore my sins, as having purged them, at the right hand of God, and which therefore gives me perfect assurance of their being put away, and the infiniteness of my acceptance in Him -- that same Spirit, I say, judges the sin by virtue of its character as seen in the light of that very glory; and when this is not done, the Father (into whose hands the Son has committed those whom the Father has given Him to keep) as a Holy Father chastises and corrects, and purges, as a husbandman, the branches. Here, moreover, the discipline of the Church of God, as having the Spirit, comes in, the disuse and neglect of which has much ministered to the distrust of the full and happy assurance of the believer. For the body of the Church, as such, ought necessarily to assume itself (for such is the portion of the Church according to the word) as a sacred people -- a manifested sacred people; and then, through the Spirit dwelling in it, to exercise all godly and gracious discipline for the maintenance of the manifested holiness of that sacred people. The Church is the dwelling-place of the Spirit. The Spirit reveals the condition of the Church in Christ, and of the individuals who compose it ("In that day ye shall know that I am in the Father, and ye in me, and I in you"), and effects, maintains, and guards the character of Christ in the Church in grace and holiness: "Ye are the epistle of Christ written by the Spirit of the living God."
If my soul rests entirely on the work of Christ and His acceptance, as the One who appears in the presence of God for me, that is a finished work, and a perfect infinite acceptance -- "as He is, so are we in this world": so that "herein is love made perfect with us, that we should have boldness in the day of judgment." Now, what men substitute for this is, the examination of the effects of the Spirit in me: the effects of regeneration are put as the ground of rest, in lieu of redemption; whence I sometimes hope when I see those effects, sometimes despond when I see the flesh working; and having put the work of the Spirit in place of the work of Christ, the confidence I am commanded to hold fast never exists, and I doubt whether I am in the faith at all. All this results from substituting the work of the Spirit of God in me, for the work, victory, resurrection, and ascension of Christ actually accomplished -- the sure (because finished) resting-place of faith, which never alters, never varies, and is always the same before God. If it be said, "Yes, but I cannot see it as plain, because of the flesh and unbelief," this does not alter the truth. And to whatever extent this dimness proceeds, treat it as unbelief and sin, not the state of a Christian, or as God hiding His face. The discovery of sin in you, hateful and detestable as it is, is no ground for doubting, because it was by reason of this, to atone for this, because you were this, that Christ died; and Christ is risen, and there is an end of that question.
But it will be said, 'I fully believe that Christ is the very true Son of God, one with the Father, and all His work and grace, but I do not know that I have an interest in Him this is the question, and this is quite a different question.' Not so; but the subtlety of Satan, and bad teaching, which would still throw you back off Christ. God, for our comfort, has identified the two things, by stating "that by him all that believe are justified from all things." In a word, to say, "I believe, but I do not know whether I have an interest," is a delusion of the devil; for God says, it is those who believe who have the interest -- that is His way of dealing. I have no more right to believe that I am a sinner, as God views it, in myself, than that I am righteous in Christ. The same testimony declares that none is righteous, and that believers are justified.
I may have a natural consciousness of sin, and a Spirit-taught consciousness of sin, and what it is. If I rest in this, I cannot have peace: in Christ's work about it, I have perfect peace. But am I not desired to examine myself, whether I am in the faith? No. What then says 2 Corinthians 13: 5: "Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith?" etc. Why, that if they sought a proof of Christ speaking in Paul, they were to examine themselves, and by the certainty of their own Christianity, which they did not doubt, be assured of his apostleship. The apostle's argument was of no value whatever, but on the ground of the sanctioned certainty that they were Christians. But I have dwelt longer on this than I had any purpose; but the comfort of souls may justify it. It is connected with man's seeking, from the work of the Spirit of God in him, that which is to be looked for only from the work of Christ.
If my assurance and comfort or hope be drawn from the experience of what passes within me, though it may be verified against cavils thereby, as in the first epistle of John, then it is not the righteousness of God by faith; for the experience of what passes in my soul is not faith. I repeat, that by looking to the work of Christ the standard of holiness is exalted; because, instead of looking into the muddied image of Christ in my soul, I view Him in the Spirit, in the perfectness of that glory into the fellowship of which I am called; and therefore, to walk worthy+ of God, who hath called me to His own kingdom and glory. I forget the things behind, and press towards the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus; and my self-examination becomes, not an unhappy inquiry whether or not I am in the faith, never honouring God in confidence after all that He has done, but whether my walk is worthy of one who is called into His kingdom and glory. But the disconnection of Christ from the operations of the Spirit is an evil, and tends to the same point, though the application be not so immediate.
+Whenever this is not the case, our standard is apt to be -- as little of the fruits of the Spirit as we can ascertain ourselves to be Christians by: and then to go on, after the examination, as we went on before, being satisfied with ascertaining that.
In the teaching of ordinary evangelicalism, a man is said to be "born of the Spirit," its need perhaps shewn from what we are, and its fruit shewn, and the inquiry stated -- Are you this? for then you will go to heaven. These things have a measure of truth in them. But are they thus presented in Scripture? There I find these things continually and fully connected with Christ, and involving our being in that blessed One, and He in us; and consequently not merely an evidence by fruits that I am born of the Spirit of God, but a participation in all of which He is the Heir, as the risen man (in the sure title of His own sonship), as quickened together with Him -- a union of life and inheritance, of which the Holy Ghost is the power and witness.
It is thus expressed in the epistle to the Ephesians: "And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places. And you hath he quickened ... even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ." So in Colossians 2: 13: "And you hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses." "If ye then be risen with Christ."
The operation of the Spirit of God, while acting in divine power, is to bring us into living association with Christ. His operation in us is to make good in us, to connect us with, to reveal to us, and to bring us into the power of, all that is verified in Christ, as the second Adam, the risen Man, in life, office, and glory -- "he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit." We are "heirs together," "suffering together that we may be glorified together," and thus finally "con-formed+ to the image" of God's Son, in that God "hath quickened us together," and "hath raised us up together, and made us sit together," etc. (Ephesians 2: 5, 6). And the Spirit of God works in us thus in life, and in service, and suffering, and lastly in glory, in the resurrection of our bodies also.
+The word 'together' is found here also in the structure of the Greek word.
I would trace, briefly, the testimony of this through Scripture. It may be seen there, both individually, and besides that, also corporately, as in the Church. The Spirit is spoken of first, as quickening; and secondly, as indwelling. We are born of the Spirit. As regards individuals so quickened, as indwelling, it associates them with the glory of Christ, as it sheds abroad also God's love in the heart, and with the power of Christ's life, as having eternal life -- life in Himself as Son of God; and it also reveals and makes them, according to His good pleasure, instruments of the revelation of His glory as Son of man: this consequent upon ascension, as the former is declared and witnessed in resurrection. The special subject of which He is witness in the Church corporately, constituting the Church the present faithful witness, is, that Jesus Christ is Lord, which is immediately connected with the glory, "to the glory of God the Father."
John 3 first brings the subject of the operations of the Spirit before us at large. "A man must be born again," born of water and of the Spirit. But while this is generally taken simply that he must be regenerate to be saved, the passage states much more. He cannot see nor enter into the kingdom of God, a kingdom composed of earthly things and heavenly things, of which a Jew must be born again to be a partaker (however much he fancied himself a child of the kingdom) even in its earthly things, which Nicodemus, as a teacher of Israel, ought to have known, as from Ezekiel 36: 21-38; and to the heavenly things of which the Lord could not direct them then, save as shewing the door, even the cross, a door which opened into better and higher things: wherein (as, in the Spirit's work, being prerogative power, "so was every one that was born of the Spirit," and Gentiles therefore might be partakers of it; for it made, not found, men what it would have them) the Lord declared that God loved not the Jew only, but the world. In this passage itself, then, we have not merely the individual renewed, and fit for heaven, but the estimate of the Jew, a kingdom revealed, embracing earthly and heavenly things, which the regenerate alone saw, and into which they entered -- to the heavenly things, of which the cross, as yet as unintelligible as the heavenly things themselves, formed the only door wherein was exhibited the Son of man lifted up, and the Son of God given in God's love to the world. "In the regeneration," of which the Spirit's quickening operation in the heart was the first-fruits as His presence was the earnest of the heavenly part, "this Son of man would sit on the throne of his glory."
The principle, then, on which men dwell, is true; but the revelation of this chapter is much wider and more definite than they suppose. It is not merely that the man is changed or saved; but he sees and enters a kingdom the world knows nothing of, till it comes in power; and, moreover, that such a one receives a life as true and real, and much more important and blessed, than any natural life in the flesh. It is not merely changing a man by acting on his faculties, but the giving a life which may act indeed now, through these faculties, on objects far beyond them (as the old and depraved life on objects within its or their reach), but in which he is made partaker of the divine nature, in which not merely the faculties of his soul have new objects, but as in this he was partner with the first Adam, the living soul, so in that with the second Adam, the quickening Spirit. And we must add, that the Church, in order to its assimilation with Him in it, is made partaker of this, consequent upon His resurrection, and therefore is made partaker of the life according to the power of it thus exhibited, and has its existence consequent upon (yea, as the witness of) the passing away (blessed be God!) of all the judgment of its sins; for it has its life from, and consequent upon, the resurrection of Christ out of that grave in which, so to speak, He buried them all. It exists, and has not its existence but consequent upon the absolute accomplishment and passing away of its judgment.
This, then, is the real character of our regeneration into the kingdom, where the charge of sin is not, nor can be, upon us, being introduced there by the power of that in which all is put away. The life of the Church is identified with the resurrection of Christ, and therefore the unqualified forgiveness of all its flesh could do, for it was borne, and borne away. The justification of the Church is identified with living grace; for it has it, because quickened together with Him, as out of the grave, where He buried all its sins. Thus are necessarily connected regeneration and justification; and the operation of the Spirit is not a mere acting on the faculties, a work quite separate from Christ, and to be known by its fruits, while the death of Christ is something left to reason about; but it is a quickening together with Christ out of my trespasses and sins, in which I find myself indeed morally dead, but Him judicially dead for me, and therefore forgiven and justified necessarily, as so quickened. The resurrection of Christ proves that there will be a judgment, says the Apostle (Acts 17). It proves that there will be none for me, says the Spirit by the same blessed apostle; for He was raised for my justification. He was dead under my sins; God has raised Him, and where are they? The Church is quickened out of Jesus's grave, where the sins were left.
Then, as to the power of this life and the other operations of the Spirit, I find, in the Lord's account of his own testimony, the statement of communion and displayed glory. "We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen." He testified that which He knew in oneness with the Father, which He had seen in the glory which He had with the Father before the world was.
The operations of the Spirit, in giving us life in the Son, and revealing the glory (ours therefore withal) into which He has brought His manhood, and which consequently is revealed in it, answer just to this statement of the Lord concerning Himself. Our communion -- living communion with Him and the Father -- and our apprehension and expression of the glory which is His; of these two John 4 and 7 speak. In these chapters and elsewhere we have to remark, that we are taught, not of the Spirit's operating on, but dwelling in us. The Spirit of God does operate on (whether in mere testimony, for the reception of which we are responsible, as in the case of the rulers of the Jews and Stephen -- "Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye"; of which I do not speak now at large or efficiently), in convincing, renewing, and quickening us. This being done by the word, it is by faith wherein (that is, in the reception of the word) we are quickened (that is, the revelation of Christ). "We are all the children of God by faith in Jesus Christ." "Of his own will begat he us by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of first-fruits of his creatures." These are sufficient to shew the manner of the operation: how, being a testimony, the natural man rejects it, though guilty for so doing, for it is God's testimony; and how it is effectual, in the quickening power of the Spirit, but is by faith in consequence of the instrument employed. The power of it I have already spoken of; whence we see, while they that believe not make God a liar, they that believe have the witness in themselves; for they are made livingly partakers, in communion, of what they believe.
But the work (in virtue of which they are thus made partakers of life and fellowship with God) being a perfect work, the Spirit, who takes up His abode in the believer, is a spirit of peace and joy, a spirit of witness of all that Christ is and has done, and, we must add, of the Father's perfect acceptance of both.
That the natural man rejects these things and receives them not, we shall see; but the conscience being awakened, and peace made, the Spirit is witness to the renewed soul of them.
Now, in John 5 we have the Spirit's operation, wherein, as to the manner, the dead hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear live; and though, by the Spirit, it is still the Son speaking from heaven (as before on earth, i.e. on Mount Sinai, which was by angels, as far as mediately, not by the Spirit). As to the manner and character of the testimony, I would speak more when I come to John 7, where it is the witness of the glory of the Son of man, as thus given and present among believers.
I turn now to the instruction which chapter 4 supplies, where it is compared to the living water; and we see at once the stupidity and incapability of the flesh to receive the things of the Spirit in the repeated replies of the woman to the statements of the Lord, which, one would have supposed, must have awakened her to something beyond her ordinary thoughts. It is not the capacity of the flesh to receive it, but the revelation of the Lord concerning it, that I now refer to. It is not as a quickening agent He now speaks of it, but as a gift -- that which was given by Him. Here, we must remark, Christ is the giver, not the gift. "He that drinketh of the water that I shall give him" (it is spoken of as indwelling), "it shall be in him a well of water." Given as the energy of indwelling life, divinely given -- the gift of God (as afterwards) that I shall give him -- it springs up into everlasting life. It is divine life from the Son, enjoyed by the power of the Holy Ghost dwelling in us; not as the Spirit of God revealing His glory; but the power of life, having its communion and result in the eternal source from which it flows. Whether Jesus were in humiliation, or whether Jesus were glorified, this power was in Him; and though the expression of the power may be different, still it was the same power. He had life in Himself, as the Son of God. He might raise to natural life, or He might raise in resurrection life, and hence the difference; for now it is in the latter, being, in ultimate purpose, that in which power conforming to Himself is, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. It is life more abundantly, even if they were alive before.
With this new life withal, specially the Spirit dwells and bears witness. He might communicate the life then 7 but it could not be in the revelation or character which belonged to Christ as risen, or as the Head of the body. It was this great truth that was breaking through the clouds all through the Lord's discourse to His disciples; while He was affording to the nation to which He came, not only this, but the most ample evidence of every prophecy fulfilled, and power exercised, which left them without excuse as to His actual reception, whether we regard His character or Person. Through this operation of the Spirit, so indwelling, with our new man, it is that God is specially known and enjoyed; but being the Spirit of the Son, in that we are quickened of the Son, God specially enjoyed and worshipped as the Father. This is the great result of the revelation of the Son, and our life in and by Him. And herein is eternal life; John 17: 2. God was known in a measure to a godly Jew; but if He were sought in an especial manner of relationship, it was as Jehovah. To us the special manner of relationship is, "My Father and your Father, my God and your God."
We know Him as sons; but it is God who is known and enjoyed. This we find hinted at in this fourth chapter of John: "God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship in spirit and in truth": but it is said just before, "shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him." This communion with and knowledge of God is matter of exceeding joy -- I mean, knowing Him and enjoying Him as God. There is a depth in it which, in that we do it in the peace and communion which is the result of all question of sin being laid aside, is, perhaps (it is hard to compare things in these subjects), beyond all other of our thoughts, and lasts through and beyond the actual covenant blessings which are our portion to enjoy as children. These chastenings may remove for our need: "If needs be, we may be in heaviness through manifold temptations." But though the joy may be weakened, the spring of righteous confidence in God is there; and, indeed, we are thrown more abstractedly and essentially upon God. We should joy in God at all times; but we are apt to turn to the blessings conferred, and in a measure to forget the Blesser. See Psalm 63. Hence the deprivation, that we may remember Him. But properly, this well of water springing up into everlasting life is that partaking of the divine nature in which ("having escaped") we joy in God, repose in Him, delight in Him, are filled into His fulness, know Him indeed in the blessedness of actual revelation; but still in the name of God, as such, the power of this communion is conveyed, being rooted and grounded in love, knowing God, and known of Him, it supposes all the rest of truth, and it is found in Christ. "He hath given us an understanding that we should know him that is true; and we are in him that is true, that is, in his Son Jesus Christ: he is the true God and eternal life." Of this we have the perfect exhibition in Jesus, in spite of all trial; for how should the Spirit, which dwelt in all fulness in Him, even as a man, be grieved with divine perfectness? "Our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son, Jesus Christ." "That the love [says the Lord, speaking of the converse, and therefore the power of this] wherewith thou hast loved me, may be in them, and I in them"; and so, as to the form of it, as it were with us: "In that day, ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you." But now we speak of it as specially knowing God. I think, if the Psalms be studied, what Christ's Spirit passed through and teaches us will be deeply learnt in this -- there, of course, among Jews it is Jehovah, when He speaks of covenant-blessings, as we have more specially to say, "Father." But not resting here on this distinction, if the Psalms, and parts of Psalms, in which Jehovah is used, and in which God is used, be referred to and compared and studied, the deepest practical instruction will be derived as to this power of communion from the Spirit of Christ itself. Only we must remember that, for us it is founded on an accomplished work, and that which He passed through, as accomplishing it, is to us the fellowship of His sufferings, or loving chastisement. We may look to Psalms 42, 43, as an example of this. But, further, if we turn to our Lord's personal history, and note the difference between that word, "Father, let this cup pass from me, but not my will, but thine be done," and "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" we shall see the deepening entrance into another character of communion, in which the whole power and character of God were called out, borne indeed by Jesus our most glorious and blessed Head; that to us in that day, that power and character might become infinite and eternal joy; and is now to us all as sons, through the consequent gift of God by virtue of His resurrection; for such is the power of eternal life to us consequent on Christ's death.
O that the Church more entered into these things -- walked more in the power of unseen communion with God! I say not this, as though I did; but I say it only as so knowing the blessedness of it in Him, as to pray and desire it for the Church, in the sense of the lack of it often.
Hitherto I have spoken, either of the quickening power of the Spirit of God, as introducing us into the kingdom; or, as dwelling in the individual, as the power of eternal life, through which his communion with God is carried on: this there must be where there is life according to Christ Jesus. There remains a wide field to treat of, on which I feel almost deterred from entering; not because I fear there is not boundless joy in passing over, and learning it in one's own soul, entering into it; but because it is boundless, and that I feel deeply my inadequacy to do so properly, even to satisfy my own mind: and I will add, especially when one considers the responsibility of being a communicator, and, as it were, teacher of these things to others. The deep interest and importance of the subject is my excuse: I would not have done it if it had not been pressed on my own mind. It is the largeness of the subject which deters me.
There is one thing I feel it important to notice ere I pass on: though the Spirit is life, and he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit, and Christ as quickening Spirit is our life, yet the Holy Ghost is also spoken of as personally acting in power on our souls -- acting in blessing; for He is God; and while we are made partakers of the divine nature, and have this life of God in us as born of Him, yet this is not the Holy Ghost; for the Holy Ghost is God. Therefore we read, "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirits that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs"; and therefore, the scripture speaks of the inner spiritual man being strengthened, renewed, as "strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man." Though our outward man perish, our "inner man is renewed day by day"; so "the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour."
The next point, before I pass on to its character and operation, is to advert to the fact of the special indwelling of the Holy Ghost: I mean in individual believers. I do not speak of this as if it were new to many who read this paper, but because I daily find it is new to many who inquire: and it puts the subject in entirely a different light. We shall see that it is connected with, and consequent upon, the ascension and glorifying of Christ; but we must remember that, while the coming down of the Holy Ghost is witness of ascension-glory and divine righteousness, and that our association in it was consequent (in the necessary course of the divine ministrations) upon Christ's entering into the glory, yet was it withal the power to us of all that whence it came, and into which, and association with which, it brings us; and so we shall see in the texts to which I shall refer, closing with the one which more especially introduces me into my present subject; "In whom" (we read in Ephesians), "after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession." I know that this has been referred to gifts merely. To these I hope to refer before I finish this subject: but that it is not confined to these is manifest, however these may display it, because, in that case, where there were no gifts, there would be no earnest of the inheritance: but the Comforter Himself was to abide for ever. Besides, gifts are not spoken of here, but the Holy Spirit itself as the earnest; but to confound them, is to confound the Giver and the gift; for the Spirit distributes of these to every man severally as He will, and they are only the manifestation of the Spirit given for profit; and confounding them (unconsciously perhaps) undermines the personality and deity of the Holy Ghost, and confounds the power of witnessing to others (which may be with no vital or sanctifying power) with the blessed and sanctifying communion with, and anticipation of, things hoped for and treasured up in Christ as ours, and to be displayed in that day. In a word, the Spirit which distributes the gift is not the gift He distributes, though He be displayed in the gift; nor are the things in which the given power is displayed necessarily any earnest of the inheritance at all; as in the gift of prophecy, as in Balaam's case, and as Paul states the possibility that a man might preach to others, and he himself be a castaway. And though their characters in some instances are indicative of the dispensation, and their number and circumstances may be different, yet the existence of extraordinary powers and acts in themselves were not characteristic of this indwelling and earnest of the Spirit. Many and remarkable miracles were wrought, and great power exhibited in service, before this came, before the Son of man was glorified. But these did not constitute the indwelling of the Spirit in the Church, for there was none such; nor in the individual as an earnest of the inheritance, for they might be there, as in the case of Balaam, already adverted to, and the individual not be an heir. The Spirit in them might search, and find the things they administered were not unto themselves. I propose to return a little to this, and would now pursue my more immediate subject.
In the Galatians we find -- having shewn that they were sons through faith in Christ Jesus, not servants -- "And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father"; clearly distinguishing between the regenerating power and indwelling of the Holy Ghost, and speaking of one as a consequence of the other -- that it dwelt in an individual who was (and because he was) a son of God. We also see its distinction from a gift, for it is put in the heart to cry, Abba, Father. Further, we see that, as in such sort, there, it is proper to, and characteristic of, the dispensation. For it is not the portion of the heir when an infant, and as a servant, under tutors and governors, which they, even if heirs, were previously, not in immediate communion with the Father personally. They had not the mind needful for it, not having the Holy Ghost thus. But it is their portion when they take properly the place of sons, which they do in this dispensation; and though they do not as yet enter upon the inheritance, yet are they to have the mind renewed in knowledge concerning it, and enter into the full interests of the Father's house.
Again, says Peter, "We are witnesses of these things, and so is also the Holy Ghost, which is given to them that believe." We find it in similar language in Ephesians, and Romans 8: "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his; and if Christ be in you," etc.; and in Ephesians: "That ye may be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith." These are connected with communion, and mark it as an individual thing in which the heart has its portion by faith.
Again, where the connection of things hoped for, and the power of communion in which they are enjoyed in the certainty of God's love, are brought together, "hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost given unto us." Again, in 2 Corinthians 1, "For all the promises of God in him are Yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us. Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God; who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts" -- a very full and blessed passage: God, the great Author of it all and power by which it is wrought, establishing us in Christ, our glorious and blessed Head, in the communion of all like glory with Him; in the communion of that in which, by the fulfilment of all the promises in their amazing blessedness in Christ Himself, God is glorified: and this, while we are assumed in grace into a portion with Him, we being the very subjects of the blessing, not merely in consequence but in association, and therefore having all the consequences. It is ours, the promises being in Christ, to the glory of God by us. Now God stablishes us in this portion: how do we know it? How is it marked? How enjoyed, and the earnest possessed, while we have it not, when the glory is not yet come? God hath established us in it: that is the assurance and security. He hath anointed us with that unction from Himself -- the Holy One -- whereby we know all things (compare the whole of 2 Corinthians 1: 7 to the end, where this is fully explained); but then the having the Spirit is the seal or mark whereby we are significantly denoted as belonging to God, as His heirs: "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his"; but being given us to dwell in us, in that we are heirs, we have it as an earnest in our hearts; abounding in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost; knowing that we are sons, and delighting in the thought of the inheritance, and of being like Him who is "the firstborn among many brethren"; and in this joy of the Holy Ghost, filled (it may be in the midst of much affliction) with all joy and peace in believing, the soul entering, as associated with Christ (and in this lies much, and that of the very kernel of the joy, though not all), into all the glory in which the promises of God are fulfilled in Him. I say, not all the joy; because it is not only (with what riches are we endowed, yea, beyond all thought!) "As my Father hath loved me, so have I loved you": a blessing known, had communion with by the Spirit, as our portion, of which the glory is the display, as enjoyed along with Him; but "that the world may know that thou hast loved them as thou hast loved me"; and therefore they are not only companions with the Son of man in the glory, but in adoption sons of God, as brethren, being brought into this joy, as in the Father's kingdom, more properly the Father's house, where the place is prepared for us by the great Firstborn. Thus the Son's rich and unjealous love (for it is divine), in giving us the glory which was given to Him, displays us in the glory, which approves before the world that the Father has loved us as He loved Him. Was ever anything like this in love? Does it not, in its very conception, prove it altogether divine? None could deal, act, or know in such sort but God; and the very possession of these things in our hearts is the witness that God is there, if they be known in love, holy love; for "he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him." And these things we have now, not in possession indeed, but in (the earnest of the) Spirit; as the same Spirit by the apostle speaks: "These things write we unto you, that your joy may be full," "that ye also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ." This is a very holy place to dwell in, one that becometh saints -- one that nothing but the blood of Jesus could purchase -- none but God by His wondrous work in Christ present us faultless in the presence of. Yet, blessed be His grace (and the more blessed because it is holy and enjoyed), in that we have the Holy Spirit revealing it, giving us a divine spiritual communion with it, sealing us as heirs of all of it and the power of our joy in it; -this is our place, our portion: O my soul, dwell there in joy -- joy with Christ. You will note, He says, "His Son Jesus Christ"; which is not only the expression of faith, but presenting our blessed Lord in that character -- the Saviour, the anointed Man -- in which He has brought us into fellowship, and associated us with Him in this sonship, and given us fellowship moreover with the Father as sons; ourselves sons, though in Him. And the converse of this is met in that expression, "I say not that I will pray the Father for you [as if the Father did not Himself love you]; for the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God." This they had believed, but knew not yet in its fulness, known thus by the Holy Ghost (the Spirit of sonship given), namely, that He came forth from the Father. In this they were dull: it is the life of the saints. And this it is that makes the notion of sonship in Christ only when incarnate so destructive to the very elementary joy of the Church, and abhorrent to those who have communion by the Spirit in the truth.
But the joy and blessedness of which I speak leads me at once to the statement? "He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." Here again, you will remark, it is an individual matter -- the believer's portion, however it may be ministered. "This spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive; for the Holy Ghost was not yet [given], because that Jesus was not yet glorified." Now this statement (as I think we shall see) is one of extreme importance, and connected with the whole character and state of the dispensation, as being that of God's blessings, which are beyond all dispensation, except the fact of giving the Spirit as the power of divine life and worship, inasmuch as they lead into communion with Himself.
John 4, of which I have already spoken, though it involves, does not rest on dispensation; but that, on the passing away of "this mountain," or even of that on which Jerusalem stood, the living power of communion with the Father everywhere, even with God as a Spirit, should take place. Hence it was a quickening power, shewn in humiliation, as well as in glory; yea, according to love in gift proved in humiliation: and the hour then was, as well as was coming. Not so, though they may include these things, chapters 3, 7. Chapter 3, as we have seen, contains the kingdom, and shews what must belong to a Jew to enter into its earthly portion, the quickening which alone could bring even the nominal children into the kingdom, because it was God's kingdom.
But here, in chapter 7, we have the gift of the Spirit consequent upon the ascension-glory -- on the glorifying of Jesus. His brethren, representing in their unbelief the Jews, had proposed at the feast of tabernacles that Jesus should shew Himself to the world. Jesus' reply was, their time was always ready, His time was not yet come. On the eighth day of that feast, and peculiar to it (the day of resurrection, the feast of the new week, the beginning of a new scene), the great day of it, Jesus stood and cried. And as the water out of the rock (and that rock was Christ) followed and supplied the children of Israel through the wilderness, they came to keep the feast of tabernacles as at rest in the land; so Jesus, His people being united to Him their glorified Head, would so fill them with the Spirit, that out of them should flow -- not merely out of Him to them, but out of them should flow -- rivers of living water, even of the Spirit which believers should receive. But it is said, "out of his belly." Now this is to me a blessed expression: the use of it for the thoughts, feelings, condition, of the inner man, is familiar in Scripture. On this the peculiar blessing all rests; and herein the essential difference of the Spirit, the Holy Ghost as now, and when operating on prophets before. The possession of the Holy Ghost rested now on union, and consequently was a constant thing, and an earnest to the person in whom it dwelt of his own interest in the things it communicated. He was brought into communion, as united to the Head, in all the things in which that Head was revealed; and he had the Spirit by virtue of his being so united -- the necessary witness therefore of his interest in them. And as this union was connected with a divine nature communicated, the mind, thoughts, feelings, joys, sorrows, interests, consolations, fears, hopes, and streams of love which that nature entered into, were now the portion of the saint, and that, withal, according to the power of the energy of the Spirit, which, though indwelling, still acted independently (i.e., as regards us), though, according to the order and revelations of the dispensation of which He was the power, speaking what He heard. I am not now speaking of the conflict still, and therefore, existing with the flesh (and, I must add, with the world, for both are the consequence of this very thing), but of the thing itself. This earnest of the Spirit is in connection with the glory of Jesus, therefore full of victory and full of hope. And yet (as it was the glory of the man witnessed, and the Holy Ghost dwelling in those not yet glorified, though sanctified to God) it became, on the one hand, the complete witness of the highest possible assurance of understanding, because Jesus was on the throne who had entered into the whole conflict, and of the Father's acceptance of Him in divine righteousness: yet withal, on the other hand, it entered into all the circumstances through which that righteous Man did pass; so giving the pattern and formation of knowledge, the tongue of the learned, in all the trial through which the saints as led of the Spirit had to (and must) pass -- their portion -- and therefore a Spirit of perfect sympathy, the sympathy of the Spirit of Christ, as knowing the glory, and therefore sensible, according to God, of the extreme misery, and sorrow, and degradation, into which, as to circumstance, those in whom (as the witness of Jesus) He dwelt were plunged; and what their trial on the way to that glory and the path of patience towards it. Also was it witness of the Father's love as shewn in the glory; and hence it passed, as the river of that divine refreshment in the wilderness, through them, as flowing in their hearts, for they were united to Jesus, to refresh all to whom its heavenly and blessed streams came; that drinking in this as the parched ground, a desert land, they might spring forth in green and refreshing fruits, which the great Head of the Church might find delight and joy in; while their joy was full in communion with that from which it flowed. For wherever the river is received, it is the river still.
Doubtless, not shewing Himself as amongst the Jews, His natural brethren, to the world, any individual amongst them, believing then, took the place of substituted and anticipative blessing then proposed; but, being a matter of faith, it is, if "any man thirst" -- and thus it is the portion to any man of faith. Then we have to enquire, on what this depended, whence this flowing stream came. It was sent from the Father by Jesus glorified, and becomes the witness of all the acceptance, which the glorifying of Jesus, the great responsible Man under our sins, declares; and of all the glory to which He is entitled, and all that is displayed in His Person, as there sat down (which is our hope, for we shall see Him as He is, and be like Him); and, moreover, of communion with Him, not according to that glory in which He will appear to earth (for I know not that that will need the Holy Ghost, though communion vitally with Him in any way does and will, but of this in the previous chapter); but according to the glory in which He sits on the Father's throne, in which we who are sons shall know Him in that day, and the Church knows Him now as sitting on the Father's throne. There is a glory which He will take -- His own glory as visible Lord and Son of man, in which every eye shall see Him: but there is a glory in which the Spirit now reveals Him, in which the Church knows Him, in which, though Son of man, He is one with the Father; a glory which He has taken as man, a glory with the Father (John 17: 5), and which in itself He had with the Father before the world was, but which He has now taken as man, and which the Spirit communicates to us who are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones, and gives us communion with Him; and which forms the power and object of hope to our minds. As it is written, "We through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness through faith." That righteousness is established for us in Christ upon the throne; for He who bore our sins is gone to the Father in glory. The reward and end of that righteousness is this glory. Hence we see that this is our portion in hope, for the righteousness is ours. And as in Christ, the glory is ours too, although the oneness with the Father (which gives Him the place in which the glory is now) is His only, yet is not this without its blessing, for the Church knows it in Him; and the full divine source of the glory is manifested. As now Christ is in the Father, and we in Him, and He in us; so, in the day of His appearing, shall it be Christ in us, and the Father in Him, that we may be made perfect in one.
But this is not all of these streams of living water, though it may be the great source and fountain, the glory of the Man on the Father's throne. For, as the feast of tabernacles was on the accomplishment of the promises held in the land, and as Solomon spoke of it on the great typical celebration of it, "The Lord hath performed with his hand all that he spake to David my father with his mouth"; so to Christ Himself all the promises are made, as Heir of all things, as Son of God, as Son of man, and Son of David. As many as are the promises of God, in Him are they Yea, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God by us. Now as that which we have spoken of is for the glory of God manifested in Him, so, as it is by us, He takes the promises as man, that, having purged and sanctified the children by His blood, He might introduce them in witness of the Father's love as co-heirs. Hence as to them also, that which He is heir of as the glorified man (in title as Son of God) is, in knowledge and communion by the Spirit, part of these living streams. Therefore it is there added, "Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ is God, who hath anointed us, and hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts." It not only then reveals the glory of Jesus as now on the throne of God as man, but also that which He takes when He appears in glory, when all shall be blessing, we being called to inherit a blessing; and therefore the moment the earth comes into blessing, it becomes a portion of our inheritance in Christ. "The Lord shall hear the heavens," etc. Whatever there is promised to Christ as the seed and great purpose of God (see Galatians 3); whatever things there are in which the glory of God is displayed, and is the furniture, and reflection, and exhibition of that glory by Christ (and all things are for Him); is to that glory by us. Of this -- in its wide and fullest blessedness as second Adam, Lord from heaven withal, the witness in blessing, evil being conquered, of all the Father's love unfolded in and on the creature taken into the inheritance -- of this, I say, the Spirit is the joy to us in hope. And, as the promises are to us in Christ, and we see Christ, though all things be not yet put under Him, crowned with the glory and honour, in which He is the securer of them all (sustaining all things), the firstborn of every creature, as well as Firstborn from the dead, and Head of the Church -- we, being in Christ and partakers of the Spirit, have all these as abounding in hope; for they are witness of the Father's love and blessing, contributing to these rivers of living waters (that is, the knowledge of the glory of Christ as in them), enjoyed within by the Spirit; and, where so enjoyed, flowing over; for no human heart ever, when so enjoyed, could contain them.
And this surely is a joyous thought -- for now we must take the promises in the widest sense -- all things in heaven and in earth, all are Christ's as heir; for indeed He made them all, and all are to be reconciled in Him; and if reconciled to God, how full the blessing! Well may the streams flow through the desert when Israel is there passing, for desert it shall be no longer when Israel is owned: the streams were not indeed thence, but they were there for the firstborn when the firstborn were there. A most blessed picture this of divine favour and exalting hope! The wilderness shall flourish and blossom as the rose, when in divine favour Israel obtains its inheritance: so, when Israel passes through it, for Israel (though the wilderness be unchanged by it) the streams which would renew and gladden it flow -- refresh Israel blessedly through it. Thus beautifully does the song of Moses, when he would as his God prepare Him a habitation, and as his father's God exalt Him, declare, on his emergence from the Red Sea, "Thou in thy mercy hast led forth the people which thou hast redeemed; thou hast guided them in thy strength unto thy holy habitation." To God they were already brought, so we. Afterwards: "Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance, in the place which thou hast made for thee to dwell in, in the sanctuary, O Lord, which thy hands have established. The Lord shall reign for ever and ever." The place of Israel, as the redeemed tribes in hope, was Canaan, and Canaan strictly within Jordan -- so that Moses chode with the two and a half tribes when proposing to stay without; and the rest only are then called the children of Israel. So of the Church. But the promises to Abraham were all from the river of Egypt to the great river; and there was a day coming when the wilderness and the solitary place would be glad for them, and the desert would rejoice and blossom as the rose, and see the glory of the Lord and the excellency of their God; yet still the sanctuary which God had prepared for Himself to dwell in was the place where they were to be brought in. Blessed portion! So with the saints now: they have their place in heaven, and they know it now in spirit and in hope; know it as theirs, though evil spirits may yet for a very little season be to be resisted there, and have their hold till the great conflict comes which shall exclude them for ever. Thus they have their place, their seat in the heavenlies beyond Jordan; blessed inheritance, where to them Christ has set the glory -- the glory of the Father, and His own!
Yet though it be thus, the world and all things are theirs, though it be a wilderness and they strangers in it. The moment they are redeemed, though they be not in the rest of Egypt, nor have the leeks and cucumbers, and the onions, and the bondage; and though the world be a wilderness to them, a dry and barren land where no water is, they are called out into it as theirs -- theirs, yet only as a wilderness -- but called out to hold a feast to the Lord there. And be it so, that they have holden a feast to the golden calf, while Moses is in the mount to receive the given law, it does not alter what it is to the heart of faith. They have been led forth, and not only do they know in spirit that they have been brought to God (so in spirit to be in the heavenlies), but they find, and it is because they find, Jesus there; and finding Him they find all things theirs, even where they are; and they can be fed only from heaven, guided only by what is heavenly, drink only thus from the rock, or rather have the river of God flowing in themselves; but in Jesus they know their inheritance. "All things are theirs, and they are Christ's, and Christ is God's." The wilderness is now only to pass through; there is nothing in it for them, yet all is theirs. But when Israel is in the wilderness, when the Church is thus passing through the world, which is its inheritance, the river is there, yea, it is in their hearts; and they sing (for the redemption-work is complete in title, though not accomplished as to the creature in power), "But you hath he redeemed ... reconciled"; "Thou in thy mercy hast led forth the people which thou hast redeemed: thou hast guided them in thy strength to thy holy habitation." When the water revives the wilderness itself, when the Son of man actually takes the world as His inheritance, and the Spirit is poured out, shall it not then be glad, and rejoice and blossom? Well, it fills the heart of God's people, of him that believeth in Jesus now, and does so because he is in the wilderness: and shall he not rejoice and blossom? Yea, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water; and though often the heartless sand may drink it in and give no return, but be parched, and arid, and fruitless as before, yet wherever the earth of God's hand and the seeds of God's planting are, there shall they also be refreshed and spring up through it.
I feel it very important to remark here the individual character noticed before, because it is the saving principle in the midst of desolations and evil, whatever common good it may produce. It is not, They shall drink of the river from the rock, or drink of some common river, but, "Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water"; it is the personal possession and indwelling of the Holy Ghost. So the gospel of John (which gives what is essential and uniting, and not consequences) continually treats of it.
There is another point of view in which this indwelling of the Spirit has its peculiar feature and character in this dispensation. It results from the exaltation of Christ. The position in which He is the witness of all things being accomplished; and He Himself is personally in possession of the result of that accomplishment, and we united to Him in it, He being there continually. Consequently, it is as different as possible from any previous testimony of what was to be, let it be ever so blessed; as indeed the mystery was not fully revealed, nor (as I have already remarked as to the fact) had the testimony they had any necessary connection with enjoyment of the things witnessed, no, not even where the witnesses were saints, as 1 Peter 1 shews. It was as different also as possible from any operation of the Spirit producing fruits, even as the living Spirit of Christ (though this was ever surely saving), because it never witnessed, and never could witness, a living Christ and glorified Man in the heavens, with whom they were one, who had accomplished all the things they were to enjoy, and which gave the title to, and ground of, their enjoyment of them. This could only exist when Jesus had accomplished them, was in the glory, and thence sent down the Holy Ghost, the power of communion to those united to Him. The thing itself did not exist, the work was not accomplished, and Jesus, as a man, was not in the glory. Therefore we read, "The Holy Ghost was not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified." The fact is, the union of the Church with Him as one body was not yet even revealed, but was a mystery hid in God (as Christ now is), known therefore and enjoyed only by the Holy Ghost given to them which believe. It was not, of course, that there was any different work by which man could be saved (a believer knows this is impossible), nor another Spirit, for there is but one. But that Spirit could not then testify that the believer (to whom He witnessed and whom He influenced) was then in union with the risen Jesus, with the Man who was actually glorified as a present thing, as He does now to a believer's soul; for the thing did not exist to be testified of. If it be said, It was true to faith; I answer, It was not as true to faith that they were in union then, and knew Jesus as now glorified; for Jesus was not glorified, and therefore the Holy Ghost had not, on the footing of this union, taken up His abode in a believer's heart -- "was not yet," in the sense of dwelling as the witness of the glorified Man, in those who were united to Him. This made all the difference between being free, and hoping to be free on the certainty of a faithful man's word, who never lied, and was able to perform. Both were certain; but they were not the same thing. "If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." This was the better thing reserved for us, that they without us should not be made perfect. This is that which made the least in the kingdom of heaven greater than the greatest born of woman -- this presence of the Holy Ghost with and in believers, as the result of the accomplishment of Christ's work and the witness of their union with Him. This, too, I apprehend, is the difference between the general assembly and church of the firstborn whose names are written in heaven, and the spirits of just men made perfect. The children of Israel might have believed the Lord's promise, and did, as Jacob shewed -- as Joseph shewed, when he gave commandment concerning his bones (Genesis 50: 24): but, however surely this faith was exercised, they could not say, "Thou, Lord, in thy mercy hast led forth the people which thou hast redeemed: thou hast guided them in thy strength to thy holy habitation"; for the work of their redemption was not accomplished. They could sing that when they were brought out of Egypt through the Red Sea, though they were only brought into the wilderness where there was no way, nor food, nor water; for they were redeemed. I now take in the whole course, not any particular type.
I dwell thus much upon this, because many find it very difficult to understand how, if the way of being saved is the same, the state of those that are so can be different; whereas "the heir, so long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all; but is under tutors and governors," having no free and immediate intercourse with the father's mind, nor understanding of the father's interests.
Known sonship with the Father, and union with Christ, seeing what Christ's title is, are primary characteristics of this indwelling of the Spirit; and though we see not yet all things put under Christ, yet we see Him crowned with the glory and honour, so that we rejoice in the prospective title, knowing that "He is not ashamed to call us brethren."
Thus, in Romans 8, where this presence of the Spirit as the very character of this dispensation is much brought out, after shewing His moral operations (i.e., as life in the soul), and the quickening of the body, then spoken of as personally dwelling in present witness with us, He bears witness that we are children, therefore heirs, "heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ, if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be glorified together." Now, in this we have the whole case -- children, the assembly of the firstborn, put, as Israel, was in the wilderness. Israel is My firstborn. Next, Canaan before us, heirs of God; for that was His land, and His title in Israel reached from river to river -- Canaan and the wilderness, heaven and earth; "joint-heirs with Christ," as they of Immanuel's land; and "if so be that we suffer," they must pass through this world as a wilderness simply. Now the Holy Ghost takes up all this, and in its two great characters -- the glory and the suffering; the glory belonging to us as children and co-heirs; and this we have in hope. When our prospect is dimmed, we become careless about it, and profane in our minds; when bright, we need nought but manna, and the water, and patience for the wilderness, longing for the rest, submitting to the will of God concerning it. And when our souls are really dwelling as in the glory, when the grapes of Eshcol really fill our souls, there is deadness to all, save the savour and brightness of the hope: what is heavenly is heavenly to us, for we are heavenly minded, we see the glory of the Lord, and it is in a place where His eyes are continually -- a land not watered by the foot, but by rivers that run among hills and valleys, the very dwelling-place of the Father's kingdom. The Spirit in the revelation of God (for it is God) causes us thus to dwell in the fulness of God; and from hence we estimate the inheritance, the fellowship with Christ in it, and the glory. We dwell in it in the sweet savour of divine delight in Jesus, who fills all things, and will in very deed do so, and is now revealed so to us by the Spirit. His presence, as actually taking it, shall fill and gladden heaven and earth, banishing evil. But then, now it is, "if so be we suffer"; for the very dwelling in this glory, and seeing in spirit the whole creation reconciled, brought into the liberty of the glory of the children of God (it cannot be of their grace), waiting for the manifestation of these sons, make us the more and distinctly sensible how it groans and travails together in bondage until now; and our body too being part of this, it becomes sensitive and sympathetic groaning. Now we know this groaning of the creation by our dwelling in the glory, but it becomes sympathetic because we are connected with it in our body, and that as unredeemed. But then it is not merely the selfish feeling of evil. The intercession of the Spirit in us is according to God. The Spirit, as dwelling in us, estimates the evil not according to mere human pain in it, but in the divine estimate of it, as interested in and dwelling in them who are in the midst of the evil, and partakers of it as to their bodies; and all their groans, which take up the known groanings of the creation (for it is as to the body which is of it), are not from selfish pain, but the Spirit's sense of the evil as dwelling in us; and though we, as to the mind and intelligence, cannot tell what to ask for, yet He that searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit who dwells there is; for He makes intercession according to God. Thus the Spirit, that other Comforter, in and through our hearts, feeling in the nonadoption of the body that it dwells in a world groaning under the bondage of corruption, not only teaches from the glory, so that we say, "We know," but expresses (in sense of it all, yet according to God) the need according to God, to be met in the saints now by more enlarged and deeper communion, and that glory in hope which shall put it all away.
As regards our own exercise on these things, I would say a very few words. As in the Spirit, our joy is full, the savour of heavenly things is fresh, our path easy. "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty," there is communion which makes all light, and we walking and dwelling in it, and everything shines in it. The Holy Ghost is the communicating power of all fulness. But when we come to the wilderness, there is exercise, difficulty; the heart is proved; all is opposite; it is a wilderness; and rest in a wilderness only keeps us in a wilderness still, and indeed will be found going back soon in heart after Egypt. For rest we shall find it a wilderness, and bring the chastenings of the Lord of faithfulness upon us. Now even where trouble is, if the heart be right in the sight of God, God is known through it all; it is not that the trouble will not be felt -- far from it; the more perfect the faith, the more it will be felt: the more I know, the more my heart and thought is in Canaan, the more I shall understand what the wilderness is: yea, the very worship of God, blessed as it may be, will be and savour of the wilderness; my mercies are mercies of the wilderness; my food, food for the wilderness; the cloud may guide me to Canaan, but in Canaan I shall need no cloud for the way -- still, where the spirit is bright through grace, though it feels all this, it has rich and deep experience of God, which works hope that maketh not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost given unto us. In that patience of spirit which is learnt only in the wilderness (what patience shall we need in Canaan?) the deeper parts of God's character are learned. If faith had to bear six hundred thousand rebellious ones, as if it had begotten them, how would it learn, through cultivated communion, the depth of God's patience, the wisdom of His purposes, the extreme perfectness of His love, uncaused by anything it found, bent upon blessing! How He knew the end from the beginning, and while we were travailing in heart about present circumstances, God was using them for bringing forth to that heart the certainty of future hopes, or forming it for the enjoyment of them! And how in us would the moulding of heart in this intimacy of God's ways intrinsically form us for the estimate of the glory in breaking the links (which seemed strange to those occupied with present things) which tied us to those things, that the life in us might grow up into unhindered association with whatever was heavenly! It requires the wilderness (not to give a title which would bring us to God, but) practically to put God instead of Egypt within us; I do not say it ought, and that we ought not to be as Caleb and Joshua ready at once to go up, and the grapes of Eshcol be our encouragement in going onward, rather than the sons of Anak our fear; for they bear the stamp of the beneficence and power of Him who called us there -- they were the grapes of His land, and this Lord was well able to bring us in. But it is God's way habitually with us. But when our faith tastes those grapes, when our hearts are thus, we can rise over trouble, however felt; and when we are spiritual, all trouble is the instrument of the blessed experience of God.
God's purposes are not ours, and He always works for His own, which are our perfect blessing, the making of us conformed to the image of His Son, co-heirs, "the glory of God by us." Now in our blessed Master, as learning obedience by the things which He suffered, we see this path in the wilderness in perfectness, feeling as none else felt, but seeing (even then in perfect submission) the divine perfectness of the Father's ways, and the end too they led to -- His glory -- enjoyed as joy set before Him, as a river of sure and blessed water too thus to give rest and refreshment. "Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they repented not." Here was true grief, and thoroughly felt as grief. There is no true grief but where there is no resource around; and around Jesus had none. "Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted because they were not" -- the word to her was, "There is hope in thine end."
But let us look to Jesus. "In the same hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes; even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight." "All things are delivered unto me of my Father; and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him." "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls." How did the rivers of water flow forth here from this heart-smitten rock! There was none indeed without: but how did they flow from the revealed depths within! The waters gushed forth, His own soul full, "All things are delivered" -- I can reveal the Father -- "Come to me." How did His pent soul burst forth from the "Then have I laboured in vain, and spent my strength for nought!" and in vain, as to present circumstances, to spread these living streams in the wilderness, which have, blessed Lord Jesus! refreshed the Church, and shall refresh it through the wilderness, till it need nothing but Thyself in Canaan. And are we not sons? poor indeed, but still, in exaltation of His fulness, "he that believeth on me, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." And where the Spirit of God really is, there is no breaking, no smiting, no operation of patience through the word, but brings forth more of them; for we are associated with infinite fulness now in Jesus. Because all perfectness was there, it all burst forth at once, and "I thank thee" was in one hour with "Woe unto thee."
In us often, that these streams may flow and flow pure, there is much process; and when the flesh is at work, and our will is at work, then, till laid low, there is no perception of the brightness and fulness before us, yea, with which we are in communion (for the flesh hath no communion with it, the will no part or portion in it): until we are brought to say, "I thank thee," "I glory in my tribulations," there is no "All things are delivered," as they are ours in Jesus -- no real "Come to me," though in our mere judgment we may say, There is the place where it is to be found. And this is deep work; but it is God's work. Thus much for the flowing of these living streams in us: they are all heavenly; and only as we are simply heavenly will they run. Wretched me, that we should need so much to make God's blessed refreshing streams flow! Wondrous love, that He should patiently do so much! May we be enabled to say always, though not callous, "I thank thee!" Still, in all this bondage of corruption though the will by which it came in was in man, not in the creature without (therefore Jesus's was pure sorrow, because it was all according to God -- ours not), though this will yet working in us must be subdued; yet, where the Spirit is, God, seeing it in love (i.e., towards us), and putting in action the special process in love, that this will may be broken, every groan which does come (when we know not what to ask for, nor how) is the perfect intercession of the Spirit, whose mind is known to Him who searcheth the hearts, so that we may be comforted; and resting in God, God will shew us the brightness beyond. A true groan to God, however deep the misery, however prostrate the spirit, however unconscious that we are heard, is always received above as the intercession of the Spirit, and answered according to the perfectness of God's purpose concerning us in Christ. Therefore the charge is, "Ye have not cried unto me, when ye have howled upon your beds": and there is no consequence of sin which is beyond the reach of this groaning to God, nothing indeed but the self-will which will not groan to Him at all. This is a blessed thought! such is our intercourse with God in joy and in sorrow; and I doubt not that in us poor, but blessed creatures, the truest, the most blessed (what will shine most when all things shine before God), are these groans to Him: they cannot, indeed, be in their fulness but where the knowledge of the glory of blessing is. I can see them precede the greatest works and words of Jesus. The sense of the wilderness, taken into His heart, made but the streams which could refresh it flow forth in the sympathy of the Spirit which it called forth; and now the Spirit is in us. I believe I must for the present close these thoughts. This has touched but upon one point (and, oh! how narrowly and poorly! what muddy water!) -- the presence of the blessed and heavenly Spirit in the desert, as in our hearts, with joy for the things He gives in union with our Head, and refreshing for the scene He passes through, where God's poor pilgrims are; the Messenger of all their sorrow according to His estimate of it, who knows, loves, and effects the blessing of the portion of Christ in His people, as dwelling in them -- their blessed Paraclete. "Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity."
Hitherto we have seen the blessed Spirit generally, in His characteristic living operations, and not so much ecclesiastically, if I may so speak. The third, fourth, and seventh chapters of John's gospel have given us clear instruction in this:
Firstly, as quickening or giving life.
Secondly, as given; and thus a well of water in us springing up into everlasting life -- thus, too, as manifesting, or connected with the riches of grace, making us know the Father as seeking such to worship the God of love, and enabling us to worship Him in spirit and in truth, as thus known in the grace that has sought us -- brought in by faith to fellowship with Him, fellowship with the Father and the Son, out of every nation: in a word, the dispensation of the manifested Son, manifested to faith as One with whom we are in union through the Spirit -- this by the gift of grace.
Thirdly, as flowing forth from us, a river of refreshings, and this in connection with the glory of the Son of man; and therefore not so much the power of worship as the earnest of glory, and the power of refreshing, and glorious testimony that man in Him prevails and has the glory; though yet he must wait for it till He be manifested to the world set right indeed by His presence in that great feast of tabernacles.
The first of these chapters (John 3) closed proper Jewish intercourse, shewing that they must be born again to enter into the kingdom of God: and so was every one that was born of the Spirit (the cross, or the lifting up of the Son of man, closing all present earthly associations, and introducing heavenly things as yet unknown). In the second (John 4), the Lord, having thereon left Judea, going into Galilee passes through Samaria, and there, with one of the most worthless of that reprobate race, shews the gift of God, and the consequence of the humiliation of the Son of God, thereon introducing the Father's name and spiritual worship by grace. Thus the gospel dispensation is introduced by it, and its worship, sonship, and joy. In the third (John 7) we find it flowing forth from filled affections to the world, the witness, though not the accomplishment, of that day when Jesus shall appear in the glory witnessed of, and it shall be as life from the dead: and that, indeed, through His then unbelieving brethren here below. Chapter 4 (that is, the second of those alluded to) is more large and general, as the power of all living communion with God, and thus is specially the saints' place. It identifies itself more especially with the present prayer of Ephesians 3, founded on the title, "Father of our Lord Jesus Christ," though that goes farther. Chapter 7 (or the third here alluded to) identifies itself more especially with the former part of the prayer of Ephesians 1, the portion of the Church also, it is true, but more its hope than its communion, and founded on the title, "God of our Lord Jesus Christ"; looking thus at the Lord as the Head of the body -- the Firstborn among many brethren, the Firstborn from the dead, the Head of the body the Church, as is plainly seen in the testimony of the apostle which follows -- not in the nearness of the divine nature as Son, but in appointed, though righteous, headship as man, the appointed Heir of all things: both indeed hanging on His being the Son, but one connected with His nearness to God, even the Father, which is indeed oneness; the other His manifestation in glory according to divine counsel, when He takes His place with the Church toward the world; though, of course (and necessarily), the Head of it -- she the body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all.
That I may not omit the intervening chapters of John, but that we may see what a summary of divine theology it is, as a testimony to the Person of the Lord Jesus in its height above all dispensation, I would here observe, that chapter 5 contrasts the entire incompetency of any restorative power connected with the law (because it required strength in the patient, which was just what the disease of sin had destroyed, as well as his righteousness which would not have needed it), in a word, the entire futility of all remedial processes, with the absolute life-giving power of the Son of God in union with the Father; and shews, in addition, on His rejection (the rejection of His word, for so that power wrought), the judicial power put entirely into His hands as Son of man to execute judgment on all that rejected Him, that all men might honour the Son, even as they honoured the Father.
Chapter 6 shews what was proper to Him -- His place and that of His disciples -- as rejected. First, it shewed Him (who fulfilled that word, Psalm 132: 13-15, "He shall satisfy her poor with bread" -- the Jehovah of Israel's blessing in the latter days, when Zion shall be His "rest for ever") as prophet, refusing to be king, and thereon going up to exercise His priesthood of intercession apart on high. In the meanwhile, the disciples were toiling alone on the sea, and the wind contrary, aiming but not attaining. Immediately on Jesus (who could walk on all the difficulties) rejoining them, they were at the land whither they went. This blessed little picture of the order and circumstances of the dispensation having been given, the humiliation of Jesus, as the portion of the Church during His priesthood, is then shewn as affording its food and strength of life. First, His coming down and incarnation -- the manna, the true bread that came down from heaven; next, as sacrificed, and giving the life He had thus taken as man -- believers thereon eating His flesh and drinking His blood, thus living by Him; then, closing by the question, "What and if ye shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before?" This, as we have seen, is followed by the instruction of chapter 7, where the time for the manifestation of the Son of man to the world was not yet come, and the gift of the Holy Ghost as the intermediate witness of His glory as Son of man is spoken of. This point has been spoken of in the former part of these remarks; I revert to it now, merely as shewing the beautiful order of the instruction of the Spirit in the gospel of John.
There is another point connected with the operations of the Spirit of our God, which remains to be touched upon -- His corporate operations, or His operations as acting in connection with the body of Christ, both as maintaining, and the very centre of, its unity; and also as ministering in the diversity of His gifts; and also the distinction between this and His individual presence in the believer.
This last difference will be found to be important, and to flow from, and be connected with, the whole order of the economy of grace, of which the Spirit of God is the great agent in us, and though not received there, still in a certain sense in testimony in the world.
This difference depends on the relative character which Christ stands in: first, with the Father, as Son, and us by adoption made sons with Him: and, secondly, with God, as the Head of the body, which is His fulness the Church. We shall find the Scriptures speak definitely of both, and distinctly: in one, the Lord Jesus holds a more properly divine relationship with the Father, and introduces us by adoption into something of the enjoyment of that nearness; in the other, a relationship (though all be divine) yet more connected with His human nature and His offices in that, and therefore God is spoken of as His God. The distinction and reality of these two things are expressed by the blessed Lord going away. Having accomplished the redemption, which enabled Him to present His brethren along with Himself as sons to the Father, in His (the Father's) house, spotless, and sons by adoption, and to assume His place as the Head of the body, the Church, He did not yet allow Himself to be touched and worshipped as in bodily presence in His earthly kingdom; for He was not yet ascended to His Father, so that He could bring forth the fulness of His glory, and that that kingdom should be manifestly of the Father, and have its root and source in that higher glory; but putting His friends, and that for the first time, into the place of sons and brethren, He says to them (thus setting the saints, and Himself for them, in their place), "Go, tell my brethren, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, to my God and your God"; thus establishing these two relationships, and His disciples along with Himself in them.
Then the Lord ascended up on high for the accomplishment in power of what He now spoke of, in the truth and efficacy of the work which He had accomplished, and the value of His presented Person before the Father, as well as the blood by which sin was put away.
On this statement in John hangs in fact the distinction to which I have alluded, followed up in Scripture by many other passages. It is the definite revelation of the characters in which Jesus Christ was going away, and which He was to sustain in our behalf on high, placing us in fellowship with God and the Father in them. There was another point, however, connected with this, involved in the position which Christ assumed: He is the displayer of the divine glory, His Father's glory. "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." He shall appear in the Father's glory. He was on earth "God manifest in the flesh," seen too of angels: again, "the brightness of God's glory, the express image of his person." His glory too was sonship, as of the only begotten of the Father, as again, "the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him." In Him all the fulness was pleased to dwell; and, as afterwards stated, in fact, as in good pleasure, "In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." Thus we see the Person of the Lord Jesus, the place in which divine glory is in every sense manifested. But He is now hid in God: that is the position which He has now taken. And thereon the Holy Ghost is sent down into the world to maintain the witness and manifestation of His glory (not brought out yet visibly on earth, but personally accomplished on high, "crowned with glory and honour"), and to be the earnest and testimony of His title to the earth. The Church on earth is the place and depositary of this. "He shall receive of mine and shall shew it unto you. All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you."
Now, the Holy Ghost, as thus sent down from heaven, is the witness of what Christ is there for us towards the Father; and what His title is as of God towards the world and specially therein what the power of the hope of the calling and inheritance of God in the saints is. The enjoyment and testimony of these things may be much blended in the operations of the present Spirit; but they are distinct. As for example, the display of my portion in Christ as the Son before the Father may fill my heart and make me a witness and a testimony of it, to the blessing and comfort of the Church, if the Lord accompany it with the suitable gift of communication; and the power of it in my soul in joy is intimately blended with the thing to be expressed; because so the Holy Ghost acts in this work. It is therefore said, "Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." Still they are quite distinct: for a man may have these things shewn to his soul, and enjoy them, and yet not have the gift to communicate them to others; though they be the deep (possibly, I suppose, the deeper) joy of his own: so that, though connected when both are there, they are distinct things. I suppose that those who have gift of testimony have often found as much (or more) joy in hearing the blessed things of Christ, as in uttering them; though the sense and joy of the blessed things may have ministered to their capacity of utterance. I would speak then distinctively of these two points, though their blending, if the Lord will, may be noticed.
In the earlier passages in John, and the remarks which were made upon them, the Holy Ghost who is sent was spoken of as the power of life, the power of communion, the power of communication. In the latter part of John and other places the sending of the Spirit is specially spoken of, because the absence and going away of Christ were brought before their minds as a present fact; and hence the Spirit is shewn as the sustainer of the relationships induced by the mystery of Christ being thus hid in God, and another Comforter sent. Life communion with God the Father and the Son, communications concerning the glory of the Son of man, were all distinct and blessed things; but they were not the revelation of the dispensation in which they were ordered, nor the display of the relationships which those dispensations brought to light, though to the instructed soul they might imply them. This is taken up first in the close of John's gospel. We shall also find it brought out on other ground later in the close of Luke.
It is introduced in John by the statement made to His disciples, "As I said unto the Jews, so now I say unto you, Whither I go, ye cannot come." In the earlier part of the subsequent chapter the Lord introduces their comfort -- that He was to be the object of faith as God was; that He was not going to be alone in blessedness, and leave them here to themselves in misery, but going to prepare a place for them; and that He would come again and receive them to Himself; that where He was they might be -- a far better thing than His being with them in the condition they were in. But meanwhile they knew where He was going, and the way. This resulted, as He explained to them, from their knowing the Father (to whom He was going), in knowing Him; for He was in the Father and the Father in Him. Thus, the great scene into which they were brought in the knowledge of the Person of the Lord Jesus, and His oneness with the Father -- He in the Father and the Father in Him -- was introduced; the scene of associated blessedness, into which the disciples were brought by the living knowledge which they had of Jesus, was declared; but the power in which it was known and enjoyed was not yet. But the knowledge of the Father through the Son, as the object of faith, was now declared, and the subsequent display of His glory in the world by reason of the exaltation of the Lord Jesus spoken of. The Lord, then, urging obedience to Him as the way of receiving blessing, takes the place of Mediator to obtain the Comforter for them -- another Comforter, who should not leave them as He was doing, but was to abide with them for ever. This it was that was the power of their association with that of which they had heard before -- the fellowship of the Father and the Son: first, of the Father with the Son, and the Son with the Father; and then of them with both, in that it was by the Holy Ghost dwelling in them, the Comforter now sent. Thus, though they could not come there, they saw Jesus, and He came to them, and with the Father made His mansion with them, till He came and took them into the mansions of His Father's house.
This chapter 14, then, gives us the blessedness -- the knowledge of the Father and the Son, by the Son; the order of it, obedience to the Son; the power of it, the presence of the Comforter obtained through the mediation of Christ; but thereon (consequent on this presence) their knowledge that He was in the Father, they in Him and He in them -- a blessing far beyond mere mediation, but consequent on the presence of the Spirit obtained by mediation. This also is added as a consequence: that the Father and the Son would come and make their abode with them. Still, in this chapter, whatever the effect of the mediation in their knowledge was, Christ does not go beyond the place of Mediator here, and therefore He tells them that the Father will send the Spirit in His name, and He (the Spirit) would recall all the Lord's words and instruction to them.
This chapter+ settles the ground of our present blessing on its basis, as to the place of the great objects of it -- Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. It is quite distinct from the subsequent chapters. The Person of the Lord as the object of faith, and His mediation, are spoken of in it. In chapter 15, we see that, even here below, Israel was not the true vine, but Christ. Of His life below they were to be the personal witnesses, for they had seen it: of His exaltation as Head on high, the Holy Ghost, sent down, thereon, by Him.++
+In fact, in chapter 14, Christ speaks much more as on earth (see verse 25), though on the ground of His going away, and shews them they should have known His Person (in the power of which He speaks; as, "I will do it") there, and thus have known where He was going, and the way. After verse 16 He speaks more of their position on His going away, and its consequences, still as being yet there. Hence the word is (they being looked at in this character, and the Father on high), "I will pray the Father, and he will give." In chapter 16, where union has been treated of, and they as it were placed in Him before the Father, it is, "I say not that I will pray the Father for you"; and they ask in His name; for they were so placed before the Father. And in the end of chapter 15 it is, "whom I will send." "Arise, let us go hence" closes the mere individual earthly place. Chapter 15 does not declare the exaltation of Christ as the Head on high, but (Israel, the nominal vine, being rejected) His being the true vine Himself, even here below, and fruit bearing to be the test of abiding in it. We know that it is in exalted headship in heaven at God's right hand, that He is now thus the living source of fruit bearing; but this is no part of the statement in chapter 15; but the testimony of the Holy Ghost is direct evidence that He was gone up there, accepted and glorified of the Father. Remarking this much elucidates John 15. It is the then connection of the disciples with Him, and fruit, but not exaltation to heaven.
++Herein is a distinctive difference of the apostle Paul's ministry. He could not have the second part of the witness mentioned in the chapter. He had not been with Jesus from the beginning. When he saw Jesus, he saw Him only in the glory of His heavenly Lordship, of which the Holy Ghost testified to. This made his testimony a more purely heavenly testimony; as he says, "Yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more." Peter, in testimony, would hardly have said this, though preaching the same truths; he says, "A witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed."
Hence, in this passage, it is not the Father who is spoken of as sending the Holy Ghost in the Mediator's name, but the Lord Jesus who sends the Comforter from the Father, in connection with His glory, to testify of His glory, proceeding from the Father. It is to be remarked here, that while much of this latter part connects itself very closely in detail with the operations of the Holy Ghost, given in connection with the Lord Jesus, as calling God His God as well as ours; as the Man who, through grace, places Himself in association with us in deed as in glory, yet He never, in this part of scripture, puts Himself out of the place of the Son paramount to all dispensation. Though He may take the lowest place in service and obedience, still it is on a principle paramount to all dispensation; or though the acts alluded to may have their place in connection with dispensed power (as the testimony of the Spirit will be found to have), yet still Christ holds the place here, in which He sends Him for that purpose, as paramount to the associations revealed by the Spirit, so sent, in those acts. He testifies that all that the Father has are His, as Son (though the acts by which He may do it may be the witness and consequence of a union with Christ), putting, by grace, ourselves and Him, not merely as sons before the Father individually, but as a body with its head before God.
This distinction will be found to be important; because the exercise of the dispensed power may depend on the condition of the body through which it is dispensed, the testimony of the sent Spirit to the glory of the Head who sent it never can.
And this is what is peculiar in the state of the Church. Its standing in Christ is above all dispensation; it is as sons along with the Father. Its manifestation in time may be by dispensed service; and here it partakes of all the responsibility of a dispensation on earth, as of deeds done in the body. Thus this gospel begins anterior to Genesis, which recounts the creation of the scene on which dispensations have been displayed: there, "In the beginning God created"; here, "In the beginning was the Word," by whom all things were created. And the Church derives its existence and heavenly fulness from this sovereign source, the purpose of it being effectuated consequent on the rejection of the Son of man, who would have been the righteous crown of all natural dispensation, but who, as risen, associates the redeemed Church with Himself, in a position paramount to it all, even His own association of sonship with the Father, in the privilege of the same love. And the Holy Ghost is here sent down of Him, the witness and power of this, and therefore in His own action paramount to all dispensation, but this only in the fact of His testimony to Him as so exalted; and this is the point John here takes up. Now the manifestation of His (Christ's) corporate headship to the Church (in which He says in our behalf, "My God," as He had said so in blessed title of righteousness when the Pattern of our place below) depends (and hence the present manifestation of the Church's glory as united to Him) on the obedience of the Church, and its suitableness to be made an instrument of display here -- quite a distinct thing from the certainty of its union to, and the known and infallible glory of, its Head on high. This is a permanent revelation, not a responsible manifestation which partakes of the nature of a dispensation on earth, though the glory testified in it may be above all mere dispensation, for its Head and for itself. The joy, moreover, and sense of glory, may also depend on obedience and consistency, not the permanent fact that the Spirit testifies of His glory in the Church. Thus in John 15 it is written, "If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love." There could clearly be no doubt of the Son's continuing in the Father's love; but the dispensation of this on earth hung on the obedience on earth -- in Him, infallibly perfect, and therefore so its consequences -- in us continual failure and its consequences also.
We have seen that the testimony of the Spirit is to the glory of Jesus Christ. Sent by the Father in the Son's name, He is the power of union and communion with both, associating the disciples in the fulness of blessing with both, and the presence of both manifested thereby to the believer. Sent by the Son -- the exalted man -- from the Father, He is the witness of His glory, and that all that the Father has is that holy but rejected One's also.
From the remarks I have already made, it will be seen that in John 16 the Spirit and His testimony, as there presented to us, are the indefeasible portion of the saints, the necessary testimony of the glory of Christ. It forms and sustains the Church, instead of depending on the Church's obedience, although the extent of the Church's enjoyment of the blessing may hang upon that obedience. He is the witness of the acceptance by the Father of the obedience of Christ, the perfect Son of God, and of the glory of His Person: thus establishing our present standing with God and our Father, and the place of the Church, owning this by His operation through grace, in contrast with the world which rejected Jesus as the Son of God.+ Hence, although the obedient disciples of the Lord Jesus were the instruments of the testimony, yet these are dropped as regards the testimony in the first instance; and the subject spoken of is the Comforter's testimony in a conviction of the world. He is present as the witness of the glory of Christ. That is, as the abiding power of the dispensation, the necessary character of the testimony of His very presence in the world was this -- that He was come into condemnation of the whole world before God; for it had rejected the Son whom the Father had sent in love to it. He had said, "I have yet one Son"; and they had cast Him out. Not merely Jews were in question, the world had done it: "He was despised and rejected of men." Every grace of God, every righteousness of man, had been shewn in the Son of God: they had seen no beauty in Him that they should desire Him. Nay more, as the Lord had distinctly shewn of the world, they had both seen and hated both Him and the Father -- hated Him, blessed and perfect in His ways, without a cause.
+As it is the direct testimony of the presence of the Holy Ghost, convicting the world of sin in its rejection of Jesus, and of the Father's reception and owning of Him as His Son, and consequent judgment, the disciples (not yet properly the Church) are entirely omitted; but as regards them in detail, the great principle of obedience being the ground of blessing is preserved in chapter 14, where this point is spoken of: "If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, who shall abide with you for ever."
It is on this solemn ground the Lord appeals to His Father in chapter 17. For the children, He had called for the holy Father's care. As to the world, He appeals to His righteous Father's judgment. He and the world now were entirely contrary, the one and the other. "O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me." The presence of the Holy Ghost, sent down on the departure of the blessed Son of God, proved the world to be in irreparable sin in not having believed on Him. Nothing else was seen in the world. It lay in wickedness. Righteousness there was none. The only righteous One had been rejected and cast out and slain. God had not interfered to prevent it, nor Jesus resisted it; for deeper purposes were in accomplishment. But the evidence of sin was complete, irrefutable, and in itself in the world irreparable, in the accomplishment of its highest act -- an act shewing hatred to the gracious presence of the Lord as well as contradictory of the righteousness of man before Him. Righteousness thereon was not looked for on earth in man; for sin had been proved. It was found only in the reception of the righteous Man, the Son of God, on the throne of God on high, and the condemnation of the world in seeing Him no more as so come. This also was testified by the presence of the Holy Ghost sent down as a consequence of Jesus being there. The judgment (not now executed) was proved as against the world; because he who, in leading them against Christ, had been now demonstrated by the world to be its prince, was judged: the rest would follow in its day. Thus the presence of the Holy Ghost, convicting the world in these things, formed the testimony to Christ's glory here -- His witness against the rejecting world.
To the disciples He was in blessing: in leading them into all truth -- truth which they were unable to bear till He came -- truth connected with Christ's glory, and the consequent breaking down of all they then knew and clung to; and not only leading them into all actual truth, but shewing them things to come -- the portion of the Church -- their portion, and God's future dealings with the world too. In this He would glorify Christ, taking of His and shewing it to them; and all that the Father had was His. This then the Holy Ghost did, as against the world and with the disciples, in the testimony of Christ's glory. If by grace a man received the testimony as against the world, and was subdued by it, and gave up the world and followed Christ with His disciples, he became the happy subject of that further service of the Holy Ghost, guiding, shewing, and glorifying Christ as the possessor of all the Father's. This is the office and service of the ever abiding Comforter (in whatever degree enjoyed) for the need of Christ's glory, till the Church be caught up to enjoy it there, and the world be actually judged; so that there shall be no need of testimony to either on these points, though the Holy Ghost may be to the Church the perpetual power of enjoyment in them and God's glory by them.
The presence of the Holy Ghost implies and involves this -- the need, before God, of Christ's glory. In this He acts as a servant, as it were, not speaking of Himself, but what He hears, that speaking. Whatever the means instrumentally used, this is the subject and the power. The Holy Ghost is faithful in this service. He must be so; for Christ is to be glorified. And this secures the witness of Christ's glory, in whatever measure, according to its faithfulness; this is the Church's delight.
In all this the Holy Ghost is spoken of as being on earth, and being sent in lieu of Christ, who is gone on high, in distinctness of Person. And the glory of the Person of Christ, the great subject of the gospel, is still treated of in its aspect to the world which rejected Him, and the disciples who by grace received Him.
It appears to me that the communication of the Holy Ghost, as noticed in chapter 20 of this gospel, is (as to the place it holds there) of the character already spoken of. The whole of that chapter is a sort of picture of the dispensation in brief. It is not the Head and the body, but Christ in His personal title to send, as the Father sent Him; and giving them, in His risen power capacity to execute the mission, the abiding essential service of those now called to it, whatever measure of power it might be executed in. But Christ has not only gone to the Father, and been seated in the glory which He had with Him before the world was, and sent the Comforter, the witness of that glory, and the assurance to the saints of their sonship and fellowship with Him in it -- 'His Father and their Father'; but He takes a place as Head of the body (is its Lord indeed and source of supply, but also its Head), and to receive for it that which He sends forth and ministers to it. Christ has a double character in this -- Lord, and Head of His body united to Himself. But the Holy Ghost is, in all operations from creation downwards, the proper and immediate agent.
As Head of the body, the Lord Jesus displays the Church with Himself in a common glory; but in all this He is spoken of as the subject of God's power (see Ephesians 1: 19-23), and even where spoken of as Lord, still as a recipient, and as made so: though while this is true (because He humbled Himself and became a man, so that God also has highly exalted Him, that He should have a name which is above every name), every believer finds the very basis of His faith in that He is the true God and eternal life.
Philippians 2 is the full statement of this great truth -- this blessed truth (having all its value from His being truly and essentially God), that He humbled Himself, that, as a man for our sakes, and as obedient to death, He might, as man, be exalted to the place of Lord, due to Him in glory. As my subject is the presence of the Holy Ghost, I do not remark farther on this passage, than that it seems to me a special contrast with the first Adam, who, being man, sought to exalt himself, and became disobedient unto death, or under death by disobedience: whereas the history of the Second Man is, that He made Himself of no reputation in becoming a man; and death to Him was the highest, fullest act of obedience and confidence then, as man, in His Father. And therefore God highly exalted Him; as sinful man was by his disobedience cast down, who sought to exalt himself and to be as Elohim. In this, then, we have the great doctrine of the exaltation of Jesus as the new man, the Second Adam, the Head of a new race -- the depositary of power; in whom man was, according to Psalm 8, "set over all things."
The divine power in which He could sustain it, and the title of sonship in which He held it (for, indeed, He was the Creator), is not now my immediate subject. This point may be seen in Colossians 1, and the double headship resting on it, of creation and of the Church. At present it is the connection of this gift of the Holy Ghost that we have to speak of. It is not, perhaps I need hardly say, as if there were two Holy Ghosts, or the Holy Ghost given were not so given at once, whatever the results, but that the place and power of the Spirit, so given, are distinct. In the one He is the pledge and power of Sonship with the Father; in the other the effectuator of the Lordship of Christ, and the animating energy of every member according to the measure of the gift of Christ, and the power of unity to the whole body. We do, however, see that Christ risen, but not yet glorified, could communicate the Holy Spirit to them, though, till glorified, He could not send it down as witness of His Lordship. We have seen, that while (as individually blessing us) He fits the soul for the exercise of whatever gift is bestowed, He may bless in fulness of communion when no gift is in exercise -- so that they are distinct; the former point, its connection with the apprehensions and enjoyment of the soul, being the difference of habitual Christian gift from the previous workings of the Holy Ghost: that, before it was put, "Thus saith the Lord," and individually the prophet might find he ministered to another. In the exercise of it by a real Christian (though he might minister it without actually realizing it in communion at the moment), he ministers the things which are his own, and known as such through the earnest of the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven.
I would now trace some of the scriptures connected with this point. In this the Holy Ghost is a Spirit of power, not a Spirit of sonship (though it may be, the sons, having the Holy Ghost, have the power according to His will, by His presence working in them). This presence of the Holy Ghost is withal corporate presence, that is, His operation; though, as the body, it works by individuals, of course, but by them properly as members of the body, working in power, not in communion. Consequently, we see, if the gift was not available for the body (where the edification of the body was the intent of the gift), it was to be suppressed in its exercise, even though confessedly the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the particular gift of the Spirit was to be subjected to the title and rule of the Holy Ghost in the whole (as the member to the mind of the whole body), for the glory of Christ (though power was entrusted to the individual for that use of the whole body, for that glory), and the glory of the body with Him; for no power was rightly used out of the objects of the grace that gave it.
This train I have been led into by the first scripture I would refer to -- Luke 24. There Christ is looked at as exalted in glory, and the world and all flesh alike here below. It is not there, "Go ... disciple all the Gentiles," as in Matthew; but repentance and remission of sins to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem -- merely the first place here below amongst them. This commission Peter was accomplishing in his early sermons in Acts, though Paul carried it out farther, as regards the Gentiles, not beginning however at Jerusalem. The word of the Lord in Luke was, first, "Ye are witnesses of these things"; then, "And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you; but tarry ye in Jerusalem, till ye be endued with power from on high." And afterwards He was parted from them and carried up into heaven.
In the first sermon of Peter we have precisely this: "This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. Therefore, being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear." He then quotes the testimony of Psalm 110, and says, "Therefore, let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ." The rejection of this testimony set aside the form of the commission in Matthew, in which Jerusalem was made the formal centre of organized evangelization according to her ancient standing, the Gentiles being treated as Gentiles.+
But the character in which the gift of the Spirit is here presented, as given to believers and forming the Church, is very distinct. Jesus sends the promise of the Father. It is the same great common truth. But in what character is it sent? It is to endue with power from on high. It displays itself in exhibition in the first instance to the world, not in communion of sons with the Father, though, of course, the very same and only Holy Ghost which was the power of this. Its primary testimony is to the Lordship of Christ.
We have seen the identity of the expressions in Luke and Acts (see Luke 24: 48, 49; Acts 2: 32-36): let us observe the terms in which the Spirit, by the apostle, bears witness to Jesus.
"Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by Him ... . This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. Therefore, being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear ... . Therefore, let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ."
+It was only in grace she could have so stood; but grace had not put her out of this place till she rejected it for herself. I do not know but this point has been noticed in the "Christian Witness" by a brother already; but, because it unfolds the present subject, I do not pass it by.
Now, in the whole of this passage, it is clear that our blessed and adorable Lord, who had humbled Himself to become so, as we have seen from Philippians, is spoken of as man. As man He is made Lord and Christ. This we shall see to be directly connected with consequent operation and power of the Spirit, but yet not the whole of the principles connected with it. The corporate character of the scene of its operations was not yet developed. We have already, then, this first point distinctly brought out: the testimony through the medium of the disciples, as the Spirit gave them utterance, to the Lordship of Christ as man before the world. But whatever the rumour occasioned by the facts, the word of preaching to the Jews is all of which the effect is related. They were to be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus for the remission of sins, and they would receive the gift of the Holy Ghost: for the promise was to them and their children, and to all afar off, even as many as the Lord their God should call. Whoever, then, received the word gladly was baptized, and there were added about three thousand souls. The assembly was now formed, and the Lord added to it daily such as should be saved.
The testimony had been given to the world, beginning at Jerusalem, by these witnesses chosen of God, to the Lordship of the man Christ Jesus. The Church had been formed by it, and then the Lord added to the Church such as should be saved -- the remnant of Israel.
In this we see the operation of the Spirit, founded on the exaltation and Lordship of Christ, by chosen witnesses; but antecedent to the Church, and forming it. Of this character is all preaching.
When the assembly is gathered, then the Lord adds to it daily such as should be saved. The highest privileges of the believer are then known, in the revealed portion of the believer brought home to his new man by the Spirit of adoption -- the Holy Ghost given to him, the seal of the faith wrought in his heart by God.
The work of the Holy Ghost is then pursued in abundant testimony of Christ's power, proposing (Acts 3) the return of Jesus and the times of refreshing on the repentance of Israel, the opposition and rejection of the testimony by the rulers, the disciples' confidence -- His power, and blessing, and judgment within the Church -- the determined opposition and rejection of the resurrection and exaltation of Jesus, and constant testimony thereto of the apostles as His witnesses; as is also, say they, the Holy Ghost which is given to them that obey Him. We have then (Acts 6), the exhibition of the energy of the Holy Ghost providing for the circumstances even of partial failure in the Church. Then, on the renewed testimony, in His own prerogative power in Stephen "full of the Holy Ghost," the judgment of the Jews' rejection (nationally) of the Spirit is pronounced, and the Jewish history closed with that which introduced the Church (as so witnessing) into heaven, on its rejection, as full of the Spirit, in Jerusalem the centre of God's earthly system; and actually the spirit of the saint in the intermediate state there. "They stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit"; and with intercession for the unhappy people, as Jesus on His rejection, "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge." Thus the Spirit, so acting, recognized the Lord Jesus; as Jesus, as the Son, had commended Himself -- His spirit -- on His rejection, to the Father.
This broke up, as has been frequently observed by those familiar with these truths, the earthly scheme and centre of the Church. Matthew's commission, as has been remarked, in its original form dropped; for the Jewish people, by their rulers, having nationally rejected the testimony by the Spirit to the exaltation of Christ, as they had rejected the Son of God in His humiliation come amongst them as Messiah, Jerusalem ceased to be the centre from which the gathering power thereto was to flow.
Thereupon accordingly, the Church was scattered, except the apostles. I would remark, in passing, on the very distinct manner in which the personal presence of the Holy Ghost is presented to us in all this history. Ananias lies to the Holy Ghost -- tempts the Spirit. The apostles were witnesses of the resurrection and exaltation of Christ, and so also was the Holy Ghost which was given to them that obey Him. "Filled with the Holy Ghost," as the Lord had promised, was the power and source of their speech, as we see on every occasion. Thus the Holy Ghost, as that other Comforter present with them personally, was clearly before their minds. As the Son had been with them once, so, according to promise, the Holy Ghost was with them now. The Son had brought the love of the Father (now indeed yet more clearly apprehended by the Holy Ghost as the Spirit of adoption), and the Spirit now fully revealed to them the Lordship of the man, Jesus, who had been slain and rejected by the world.
But another great framework and form of the dispensation was now to be introduced. Saul, through the instrumentality of a simple disciple, Ananias, receives the Holy Ghost on his conversion, and begins to testify of Christ at Damascus. The Gentiles then receive the Holy Ghost, and are admitted through the instrumentality of Peter. Acts 11, 12, and 13 will distinctly shew what prominency this presence and power of the Holy Ghost held. There is, in addition, the service of angels, in the apostle of the circumcision; but the gift of the Holy Ghost is just the sign of acceptance.
But in the calling and conversion of Saul a new and blessed principle was presented, as identified with that to his mind: "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" In a word, the unity and identity of the Church with Christ, of which the apostle thus called -- irregularly called, as one born out of due time -- became the eminent witness and teacher. Indeed, though there may be kindred truths in the other epistolary writings, we never definitely read of "his body, the Church," save in those of Paul. He seems specially to call it his gospel. In this (the power, in whatever form, of the glory of Christ, the knowledge of, or unity with, Him) the Holy Ghost is found to operate and unfold itself. Not clearly quitting the ground of the Lordship of Christ, but withal working as the power of unity in the whole body and diversity of operation in the particular members. In each, at the same time (for this highest and most blessed character of it, I need hardly say, was not lost), "the Spirit of adoption crying, Abba, Father"; but this was a distinct individual operation, though of the same Spirit -- a joy true to the individual saint, were there but one, though enhanced doubtless by communion, and which contemplated our joy with the Father, as sons along with the blessed Son of God, Jesus, the Firstborn among many brethren.
The corporate witness of His Lordship and glory, and of the union of the Church with Him as Head over all things, is a distinct subject. The ground of this in union, as well as the Church's blessing and portion by virtue of that union, is specially found in the Ephesians, and is there therefore looked at as regards the blessing and profit of the Church. Its administration, and, therefore, the general order of it in its principles and exhibition before the world, is found in Corinthians, the epistle which affords the apostolic directions for the management of the Church in its internal economy here below.
But before I enter on the formal economy of the Spirit, as presented in these chapters, I would turn to the doctrine of the word relating to it, as the ordinary portion of the Church in general, as there are one or two passages of scripture which speak definitely of it in this light. The resurrection had marked out Jesus to be the Son of God, according to the Spirit of holiness. He might be of the seed of David according to the flesh, but He was the Son of God according to entirely another life, spirit, and energy. Of this His resurrection was at once the proof and the glorious character; for it was triumph over death, of which, according to that life and holiness which was in Him, it was not possible (though He might imputatively take sin) that He could be holden. In this resurrection and power of accomplished and triumphant liberty -- liberty of perfectness and sanctification of man to God in a new state of life, in which man had never been -- He became the Head of a new family, the Firstborn from the dead, the Head of the body, the Church, having in all things the pre-eminence, and the Son, taking His place now, as such, in resurrection. Thus our justification became in fact identified with our position as sons, and as risen (i.e., with holiness, according to its character in resurrection) before God as children. Therefore it was that, if the apostle had known Christ Jesus after the flesh, henceforth he knew Him no more; for he now knew Him in this character of resurrection, the Head of the new creation -- the new family of God -- the Second Man, and so to us the quickening Spirit, when our living souls had spiritually died in the first Adam in sin -- the head of a new family of men, with whom, in the close, the tabernacle of God should be.
The justification of the Church having been first reasoned out by the Spirit, the apostle turns to this: first, as regards death and resurrection, in Romans 6; then, as regards the law, chapter 7; i.e., first, "nature" or "the flesh" in se, then the operation of the law on the question into which spiritual understanding and a new will brought the conscience; and in chapter 8 he takes up the presence of the Spirit in moral operation and witness. Having stated the source of this mighty change and holy liberty, in "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus" (the breath of life to our souls being the very same power in which Christ was raised from the dead, and our partaking in all the consequences of that resurrection; God having done what the law could not do, i.e., condemned sin in the flesh, and that in atonement, in grace to us), the apostle proceeds to instruct us what the power and the character of the Spirit in this new nature is.
It is the Spirit of God, as contrasted with man in the flesh. It is the Spirit of Christ, in respect of the form and character of this new man. It is the Spirit of Him that raised up Christ from the dead, according to the power and energy in which it works full deliverance in result. Thus its moral character and operation were unfolded, as a Spirit of power and deliverance and character in us, in answer to the question, Who shall deliver us from the body of this death?
But there was also the doctrine of the relationship which we have in the new man, as well as moral character and power. As many as are led of it are sons; sons, and therefore "heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together." And here the groaning is not the question of what we are as to God's judgment of evil in us, a spirit of bondage to fear; but our own judgment of it in its effects because we are sons, and are certain that we are, and know that we are heirs. We take up the groaning of the whole creation, of which we are part, as in the body, and express it to God in sympathy, in the sense of the blessedness of the glorious inheritance when the creation shall be delivered; suffering with Christ in the present sorrow by His Spirit, and express it in the Spirit of God, even though we have no intelligence to ask for any actual remedy. In this, then, the Spirit has a double office: the witness with us, for joy, that we are sons and heirs, and helping us in the infirmities lying on creation and on us in the body; and when He, thus acting in us in sympathy, thus groans in us expressive of the sorrow, He who searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because He maketh intercession for us according to God.
The epistle to the Galatians with less fulness teaches us the same truth, securing the foundation on which it rests. But we see, thus far, the sons joint-heirs -- joint-heirs with Christ, and the Spirit at once the seal of the redemption which is accomplished, by which they have it; the witness of sonship in them, and the earnest of the inheritance which they have with Christ: known by the revelation of the glory of Christ and the things to come connected with His Person. Thus we have it expressed in Ephesians 1: 2-14.
There is another very interesting passage as instruction upon this point (2 Corinthians 1: 20, 22), "All the promises" belonging to Christ as heir. "All God's promises are in Christ yea, and in Christ Amen, unto the glory of God by us." The promises are of God, and in Christ. God then establishes us in Christ, and then, for our knowledge and assurance and enjoyment, we are anointed, sealed, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts; knowing it by the anointing, as in 1 John 2: 29; sealed, as in Ephesians 1; and having the earnest in the heart so as to anticipatively enjoy the blessing known, and for which we are sealed.
Having spoken on this passage in a previous paper, I do not enlarge on it. But there is another collateral passage which I would not pass by, relative to the knowledge, communication, and reception of the revelations of the Spirit; shewing our entire dependence on that blessed Comforter and power of God for all knowledge of these things (1 Corinthians 2): "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him; but God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit." Man's heart never conceived them, but God revealed them to His saints by His Spirit. They had received the Spirit which was of God, that they might know. They spoke by words which the Holy Ghost taught, communicating, as I should translate it, spiritual things by a spiritual medium; and they were, moreover, spiritually discerned: they were known, communicated, and received by the Spirit.
Having noticed these collateral passages, I pass on to the point of corporate operation of the Holy Ghost in the union of the body. The testimony to the Lordship of Christ, and that character of His exaltation, we have already seen in the addresses of Peter to Israel. This, of course, is never lost: but we have seen the additional truth of the identity of Christ and the Church -- the very basis of Paul's special ministry, brought out in the question to the apostle, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" Just as the sin of the first Adam was brought out by the terrible question, "Where art thou?" It is upon this that the grace of the ministration of the Spirit now was to have its course. The Spirit had borne witness by certain disciples; and the Church thereby had been gathered. The Church now was to be the vehicle for the testimony and witness of the Spirit corporately. The distinct revelation of this position of the Church, and its establishment in it, in the intelligence and actuality of its standing, began by the scattering of the assembly at Jerusalem, and by the apostle (having been called and enabled by the Lord, and having preached at once, and thus laid by in a measure for a time) recommencing the work from Antioch as a centre, whence he was separated to the work to which Christ had called him, not by the appointment of Jesus after the flesh, but by the authoritative direction of the Holy Ghost in the disciples. Paul had no part in the testimony mentioned in John 15: 27. It was only the Holy Ghost's testimony, and seeing the glory of Christ, and hearing the words of His mouth. Hence it was not a testimony to the exaltation and Lordship of Him whose companions they had been on earth (that God had exalted Him to be Lord and Christ there); but starting from the point of His Lordship seen in glory, that He was the Son of God, and a testimony, and of course owning it, to the union of the whole body, Jew and Gentile, with Him so exalted to God's right hand. Hence the operations of the Holy Ghost -- always following the testimony concerning Christ, while still declaring and subservient to His Lordship -- wrought in the unity of the whole body according to the operations of God.
Hence we read in 1 Corinthians 12, "Concerning spiritual things, brethren, I would not have you ignorant. Ye know that ye were Gentiles, carried away unto these dumb idols, even as ye were led. Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and that no man can say, Lord Jesus (or, call Jesus Lord) but by the Holy Ghost." That is, whoever does so (i.e., in Spirit) does so by the Holy Ghost; for it was the Holy Spirit that testified that Jesus was Lord, not an evil one.
There were, along with this testimony, "diversities of gifts," yet not many spirits, "but the same Spirit. And there were differences of administrations [ministries], but the same Lord [not 'lords many' -- Jesus was Lord]; and diversities of operations, but the same God [for the operations were truly divine] that worketh all in all"; there were not "gods many": all were the operation of the one true God.
It is not the Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Ghost) which is here presented to us, though from other scriptures we may know its connection with it, but God, the Lord, and the Spirit, working in the Church upon earth; though, lest we should suppose He was not God, it is afterwards said, "All these worketh that one and the self-same Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will. For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit."
We have here, then, these two points: the Lordship of Christ, and that taking its place as to the services of which the gifts were the power; and the unity of the whole body, in which, as by its members, the Spirit wrought according to their diverse appropriate functions. The operation being all the while God's operation, but ordered according to the functions of the body, and the purport of the whole; for the members' service was for the good of the whole body.
From this, I think, we distinctly learn the order of the ministration of the Holy Ghost, as thus presented to us. What additional instruction the word may give us, we shall afterwards see.
First, there was the primary testimony that Christ was Lord -- more correctly, that Jesus was Lord. That formed the great basic truth. All was subservient to this. The Holy Ghost as in operation, though supreme to distribute, was subservient to this. This was the great testimony He blessedly rendered. It is this, and not as touching the question of His divinity, makes the apostle say, "To us there is but one God the Father, and one Lord Jesus Christ."
He bore it in gracious faithfulness now, as hereafter every tongue shall be obliged to confess, that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Upon this hangs consequently the responsibility of every gift. We are servants by them to the Lord Christ. "Ye serve the Lord Christ." "Such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own bellies." "Paul the servant of Jesus Christ" is the well known glory and faithfulness of the apostle. It was to "the Lord, the righteous Judge," he looked. Thrice he besought "the Lord" that his thorn in the flesh might be removed. "He that is called, being free, is Christ's servant."
These gifts of the Spirit, then, set them in ministries to the Lord, in which they were individually responsible for their exercise to Christ -- talents with which they were to trade; but then they were responsible to exercise them within the body, according to the order in which they were set in the body, and in subjection to the mind of the Lord the Head of the body. This preserved entire the full personal responsibility and liberty; for no one was Lord but one, not even an apostle, and yet mutual dependence, healthful for all, even for an apostle; for the Lord's authority was as great over the foot or over the hand, and as exclusive, as over the apostle himself. Nor would an apostle, having still the flesh to contend with, keep his place unless this were carefully held. Though by pre-eminence of gift he might guide, lead, direct, and, by revelation from the Lord, give a commandment to the Church, he could not in the smallest degree or tittle touch the direct responsibility of the least member to Christ the Lord Himself; he would have been setting up himself as the Vine, as lord over God's heritage, had he done so. The apostles were alone as helpers of joy, and that by authority entrusted for edification, but never as lords over their faith. Authority, however, as gift from the Lord, increased responsibility; but of this more hereafter. If he, the apostle, counselled any member by the Spirit, woe be to that member if his counsel be despised. Of course, if he revealed a commandment of the Lord, the believer became directly responsible to the Lord for obedience to that commandment. And though he specially, and the whole Church, might judge by the Spirit, still it was always with this remembrance -- "another man's servant."
But, it must be distinctly remembered, this was not for private right or title in an individual. I recognise no such thing as right in an individual. Right, in the human sense of it, is some title to exercise his own will in man, unimpeded by the interference of another. Now Christianity entirely sets this aside. It may be very speciously maintained by dwelling only on the latter half of the definition, because grace does give a title against the interference of another; but that title is in and by virtue of responsibility to God. No man has a right to interfere with anything in which I am responsible to God. But the light which Christianity sheds on this is, not my meddling with the will of that other, but my obligation to do the will of God at all cost: "We ought to obey God rather than man." And having first done the will of God, then to suffer for it; for it is better, if the will of God be so, to suffer for well-doing than for evildoing, for Christ, in the best sense, has once suffered for sins. If we do well, suffer for it, and take it patiently, this is acceptable with God. But this right in the individual, in the human and common force of it, Christianity cuts up by the root, because it pronounces the human will to be all wrong, and the assertion of its exercise to be the principle of sin; so that we "are sanctified unto obedience," as unto "the blood of sprinkling." Thus the idea of all having a right to speak in the Church could never enter into the Christian mind. It has no place in the scheme of Christianity, which begins its moral existence by the breaking down the human will as evil. The Holy Spirit has the right, which He exercises sovereignly, of distributing "to every man severally as he will"; and hence responsibility subject to the purpose of the Holy Ghost in all. For the manifestation of the Spirit (which gifts are -- they are not the Holy Spirit itself) is given to every man to profit withal. There is purpose in it, to which the power of the Holy Ghost is to direct the use of these gifts for the good of all, as this epistle clearly shews us. The gifts to men or in man (both are used; one refers to Christ, the other to those to whom Christ gives them) are not the Holy Ghost, though they be by the Holy Ghost, and hence are guided by the mind of Christ, for the accomplishment of which they are given. Thus, to display the gift of tongues, or to use it where there were none to whom they applied, is described by the apostle to be the folly of childhood: they were given to profit withal. So also the spirits of the prophets -- the highest desirable gift -- were subject to the prophets. The not seeing this, and confounding these gifts of the Spirit in man with the Holy Ghost Himself, has led to much and mischievous confusion. And it has been thought impossible that they should ever be restrained, or subjected to even apostolic rule, turning, as every departure from scripture does, to the licence of the flesh and human will, or the even worse delusion of the enemy.THE COVENANTS
REMARKS ON LIGHT AND CONSCIENCE+
OPERATIONS OF THE SPIRIT OF GOD